Among the antiquities of Catania which I have visited, are the Amphitheatre, capable of holding 15,000 persons, the old Greek Theatre, the same 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 (except in the Bains Chinois of Paris) 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 building and gardens 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 monks of San Nicola are all chosen from the Sicilian nobility, and live a comfortable life of luxury and vice.  Each one has his own carriage, horses, and servants, and each his private chambers outside of the convent walls and his kept concubines.  These facts are known and acknowledged by the Catanians, to whom they are a lasting scandal.

It is past midnight, and I must close.  Caesar started this afternoon, alone, for the ascent of Etna.  I would have accompanied him, but my only chance of reaching Messina in time for the next steamer to Naples is the diligence which leaves here to-morrow.  The mountain has been covered with clouds for the last two days, and I have had no view at all comparable to that of the morning of my arrival.  To-morrow the grand procession of the Body of St. Agatha takes place, but I am quite satisfied with three days of processions and horse races, and three nights of illuminations.

I leave in the morning, with a Sicilian passport, my own availing me nothing, after landing.

Chapter XXXI.

The Eruption of Mount Etna.

  The Mountain Threatens—­The Signs Increase—­We Leave Catania—­Gardens
  Among the Lava—­Etna Labors—­Aci Reale—­The Groans of Etna—­The
  Eruption—­Gigantic Tree of Smoke—­Formation of the New Crater—­We Lose
  Sight of the Mountain—­Arrival at Messina—­Etna is Obscured—­Departure.

-------“the shattered side
Of thundering AEtna, whose combustible
And fuel’d entrails thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singed bottom.”  Milton.

Messina, Sicily, Monday, August 23, 1852.