[What shall we say of Catania? It has not dwelt at the foot of Mount Etna with impunity, but has been more than once destroyed. During the week of Mr. Taylor’s visit the centennial festival of St. Agatha, the miracles of whose martyrdom had here their scene, took place. This saint still performs miracles, “and her power is equally efficacious in preventing earthquakes and eruptions of Mount Etna.” The festival was brilliant in illuminations and pyrotechnic displays.]
Truly, except the illumination of the Golden Horn on the Night of Predestination, I have seen nothing equal to the spectacle presented by Catania during the past three nights. The city, which has been built up from her ruins more stately than ever, was in a blaze of light, all her domes, towers, and the long lines of her beautiful palaces revealed in the varying red and golden flames of a hundred thousand lamps and torches. Pyramids of fire, transparencies, and illuminated triumphal arches filled the four principal streets, and the fountain in the cathedral square gleamed like a jet of molten silver, spinning up from one of the pores of Etna. At ten o’clock a gorgeous display of fireworks closed the day’s festivities, but the lamps remained burning nearly all night.
On the second night the grand Procession of the Veil took place. I witnessed the imposing spectacle from the balcony of Prince Gessina’s palace. Long lines of waxen torches led the way, followed by a military band, and then a company of the highest prelates in their most brilliant costumes, surrounding the bishop, who walked under a canopy of silk and gold, bearing the miraculous veil of St. Agatha. I was blessed with a distant view of it, but could see no traces of the rosy hue left upon it by the flames of the saint’s martyrdom....
To-night Signor Scava, the American vice-consul, took me to the palace of Prince Biscari, overlooking the harbor, in order to behold the grand display of fireworks from the end of the mole. The showers of rockets and colored stars, and the temples of blue and silver fire, were repeated in the dark, quiet bosom of the sea, producing the most dazzling and startling effects....
Among the antiquities of Catania which I have visited are the Amphitheatre, capable of holding fifteen thousand persons, the old Greek Theatre, in which Alcibiades made his noted harangue to the Catanians, the Odeon, and the ancient baths. The theatre, which is in tolerable preservation, is built of lava, like many of the modern edifices in the city. The baths proved to me, what I had supposed, that the Oriental bath of the present day is identical with that of the ancients. Why so admirable an institution has never been introduced into Europe is more than I can tell. From the pavement of these baths, which is nearly twenty feet below the surface of the earth, the lava of later eruptions has burst up, in places, in hard black jets. The most wonderful token of that flood which whelmed Catania two hundred years ago is to be seen at the grand Benedictine convent of San Nicola, in the upper part of the city. Here the stream of lava divides itself just before the convent, and flows past on both sides, leaving the buildings and garden untouched. The marble courts, the fountains, the splendid galleries, and the gardens of richest Southern bloom and fragrance stand like an epicurean island in the midst of the terrible stony waves, whose edges bristle with the thorny aloe and cactus....
The noises of the festival had not ceased when I closed my eyes at midnight. I slept soundly through the night, but was awakened before sunrise by my Sicilian landlord. “Oh, Excellenza! have you heard the Mountain? He is going to break out again; may the holy St. Agatha protect us!”
It is rather ill-timed on the part of the Mountain, was my involuntary first thought, that he should choose for a new eruption precisely the centennial festival of the only saint who is supposed to have any power over him. It shows a disregard of female influence not at all suited to the present day, and I scarcely believe that he seriously means it. Next comes along the jabbering landlady: “I don’t like his looks. It was just so the last time. Come, Excellenza, you can see him from the back terrace.”
The sun was not yet risen, but the east was bright with his coming, and there was not a cloud in the sky. All the features of Etna were sharply sculptured in the clear air. From the topmost cone a thick stream of white smoke was slowly puffed out at short intervals, and rolled lazily down the eastern side. It had a heavy, languid character, and I should have thought nothing of the appearance but for the alarm of my hosts. It was like the slow fire of earth’s incense burning on that grand mountain altar.
I hurried off to the post-office to await the arrival of the diligence from Palermo. The office is in the Strada Etnea, the main street of Catania, which runs straight through the city from the sea to the base of the mountain whose peak closes the long vista. The diligence was an hour later than usual, and I passed the time in watching the smoke, which continued to increase in volume, and was mingled, from time to time, with jets of inky blackness. The postilion said he had seen fires and heard loud noises during the night. According to his account, the disturbances commenced about midnight.