Greatest wonders of the world, as seen and described by famous writers

by Unknown

It must be understood beforehand that Etna regards itself too far above ordinary volcanos to proceed in their fashion: Vesuvius, Stromboli, and even Hekla pour the lava over their craters, just as wine spills over a too-full glass; Etna does not give itself this trouble. Its crater is only a crater for show, which is content to play cup and ball with incandescent rocks large as ordinary houses, which one follows in their aërial ascension as one would follow a bomb issuing from a mortar; but, during this time the force of the eruption is really felt elsewhere. In reality, when Etna is at work, it throws up very simply upon its shoulders, at one place or another, a kind of boil about the size of Montmartre; then this boil breaks, and out of it streams a river of lava which follows the slope, descends, burning, or overturning everything that it finds before it, and ends by extinguishing itself in the sea. This method of procedure is the cause of Etna’s being covered with a number of little craters which are formed like immense hay-mows; each of these secondary volcanos has its date and its own name, and all have occasioned in their time, more or less noise and more or less ravage.

We got astride of our mounts and started on our way upon a night that seemed to us of terrible darkness as we issued from a well-lighted room; but, by degrees, we began to distinguish the landscape, thanks to the light of the myriads of stars that sprinkled the sky. It seemed from the way in which our mules sank beneath us that we were crossing sand. Soon we entered the second region, or the forest region, that is if the few scattered, poor, and crooked trees merit the name of forest. We marched about two hours, confidently following the road our guide took us, or rather our mules, a road which, moreover, to judge by the eternal declivities and ascents, seemed terribly uneven. Already, we realized the wisdom of Signor Gemellaro’s provisions against the cold, and we wrapped ourselves in our hooded great-coats a full hour before we arrived at a kind of roofless hovel where our mules stopped of themselves. We were at the Casa del Bosco or della Neve, that is to say, the Forest or the Snow, names which it merits in either summer or winter. Our guide told us this was our halting-place. Upon his invitation, we alighted and entered. We were half-way on the road to the Casa Inglese.

ETNA.

During our halt the sky was enriched by a crescent, which, although slender, gave us a little light. We continued to march a quarter of an hour longer between trees which became scarcer every twenty feet and finally disappeared altogether. We were about to enter the third region of Etna, and we knew from the steps of the mules when they were passing over lava, crossing ashes, or when they trampled a kind of moss, the only vegetation that creeps up to this point. As for our eyes, they were of very little use, the sheen appearing to us more or less coloured, and that was all, for we could not distinguish a single detail in the midst of this darkness.

However, in proportion as we ascended, the cold became more intense, and, notwithstanding our cloaks, we were freezing. This change of temperature had checked conversation, and each of us, occupied in trying to keep himself warm, advanced in silence. I led the way, and if I could not see the ground on which we advanced, I could distinguish perfectly on our right the gigantic escarpments and the immense peaks, that reared themselves like giants, and whose black silhouettes stood out boldly upon the deep blue of the sky. The further we advanced, the stranger and more fantastic shapes did these apparitions assume; we well understood that Nature had not originally made these mountains as they are and that it was a long contest that had ravaged them. We were upon the battle-field of the Titans; we clambered over Pelion piled upon Ossa.

All this was terrible, sombre, and majestic; I saw and I felt thoroughly the poetry of this nocturnal trip, and meanwhile I was so cold that I had not the courage to exchange a word with Jadin to ask him if all these visions were not the result of the weakness that I experienced, and if I were not dreaming. From time to time strange and unfamiliar noises, that did not resemble in the slightest degree any noises that one is accustomed to hear, started from the bowels of the earth, and seemed to moan and wail like a living being. These noises had something so unexpectedly lugubrious and solemn about them that they made your blood run cold.... We walked about three-quarters of an hour upon the steep and rough road, then we found ourselves upon a slightly inclined slope where every now and then we crossed large patches of snow and in which I was plunged up to my knees, and these finally became continuous. At length the dark vault of the sky began to pale and a feeble twilight illumined the ground upon which we walked, bringing with it air even more icy than we had heretofore breathed. In this wan and uncertain light we perceived before us something resembling a house; we approached it, Jadin trotting upon his mule, and I coming as fast as possible. The guide pushed open the door and we found ourselves in the Casa Inglese, built at the foot of the cone, for the great relief of travellers.

It was half-past three o’clock in the morning; our guide reminded us that we had still three-quarters of an hour’s climb at least, and, if we wished to reach the top of the cone before sunrise, we had not a moment to lose.

We left the Casa Inglese. We began to distinguish objects: all around us extended a vast field of snow, in the centre of which, making an angle of about forty-five degrees, the cone of Etna rose. Above us all was in darkness; towards the east only a light tint of opal coloured the sky on which the mountains of Calabria were vigorously outlined.

At a hundred feet from the Casa Inglese we encountered the first waves of the lava plateau whose black hue did not accord with the snow, in the midst of which it rose like a sombre island. We had to mount these solid waves, jumping from one to another, as I had done at Chamouni and the Mer de Glace, with this difference, that the sharp edges tore the leather of our shoes and cut our feet. This passage, which lasted a quarter of an hour, was one of the most trying of the route.