This was the broad nose of the stream of lava. It was coming towards us at about eighty feet an hour, but its velocity varies according to the slope of the ground and the cooling and consistency of the material. The course of the stream described a curve from the mouth to the place where we stood, and the width of it gradually increased until opposite us it was about a quarter of a mile broad. There was plenty of smoke, fiery with the light reflected from the glowing stream, and especially thick in the direction of the mouth. The lava was sluggish, viscous, heavy stuff, full of bubbles, pushing itself along and kneading itself like dough. Red-hot boulders and shapeless lumps
of all manner of sizes were continually losing their balance and rolling lazily down the slope towards us; as they rolled they disengaged little avalanches of rapid sparks, and when they reached the ground they sometimes fell against a vine stump and set it in a blaze for a moment. They said that this is Etna’s cunning way of taking a glass of wine; he opens a mouth and consumes a vineyard. All the time there was a roaring noise like coals being thrown on the fire, only much louder, and the great sloping wall glowed in the places where open crevasses left by the crumbling blocks had stirred it. It was too hot for us to go very near, nevertheless, my companions were not content to leave without bringing some pieces of lava away. They went towards it with canes which the vines will not want this year, unless the stream stops before it has broadened over the contrada, and with much difficulty and scorching, manipulated bits of red-hot lava until they had got them far enough away to deal with them, and then, balancing them on the end of two canes, they brought them to where I was resting near a doomed hut.
After spending an hour, fascinated by the spectacle, we returned by the sandy, rocky road to Nicolosi. While the carriage was being got ready, I said to Joe:
“You know, if I lived on the Slopes of Etna, close to such a sight as we have been contemplating, I think I should believe in the evil eye and S. Alfio and everything else.”
He assured me that it would not have any such effect unless, perhaps, during the periods of actual eruption—as soon as the eruption was over I should forget all about it.
“Do we not all live on the slopes of volcanoes?” asked Joe. “An eruption cannot do more than ruin you or kill you. And without coming to live on the Slopes of Etna you might be ruined or die at any moment. How do you know that you have not now in you the seeds of some fatal disease that will declare itself before you return home? Or you may be run over in the street or killed in a railway
accident any day. And as for ruin, next time you look into an English newspaper you may see that all your investments have left off paying dividends and have gone down to an unsaleable price. Perhaps at this moment, in some Foreign Office, a despatch is being drafted that will lead to a declaration of war and the ruin of England and you with it. And yet you never worry about all this.”
“Then perhaps I had better begin to believe in S. Alfio at once?”
“Especially if you are threatened with hernia.”
“You said something about hernia before. What has hernia to do with it?” I inquired.