surface of the snow sunk a little, we had tolerable good footing; but as it soon began to grow steeper, we found our labour greatly increased; however, we determined to persevere, calling to mind that the emperor Adrian, and the philosopher Plato, had undergone the same; and from a like motive, too, to see the rising sun from the top of Ætna.

From this spot it was only about three hundred yards to the summit, where we arrived in full time to see the most wonderful and sublime sight in nature.

But here description must ever fall short; for no imagination has dared to form an idea of so glorious and so magnificent a scene.-Neither is there on the surface of this globe, any one point that unites so many awful and sublime objects. The immense elevation from the surface of the earth, drawn as it were to a single point, without any neighboring mountain for the senses and imagination to rest upon, and recover from their astonishment in their way down to the world. This point or pinnacle, raised on the brink of a bottomless gulf, as old as the world, often discharging rivers of fire, and throwing out burning rocks, with a noise that shakes the whole island. Add to this, the unbounded extent of the prospect, comprehending the greatest diversity and the most beautiful scenery in nature; with the rising sun, advancing in the east, to illuminate the wondrous scene.

The whole atmosphere by degrees kindled up, and showed dimly and faintly the boundless prospect around. Both sea and land looked dark and confused, as if only emerging from their original chaos, and light and darkness seemed still undivided; till the morning, by degrees advancing, completed the separation. The stars are extinguished, and the shades disappear. The forests, which but now seemed black and bottomless gulfs, from which no ray was reflected to show their form or colours, appear a new creation rising to the sight;

catching life and beauty from every increasing beam. The scene still enlarges, and the horizon seems to widen and expand itself on all sides, till the sun, like the great Creator, appears in the east, and with his plastic ray completes the mighty scene. All appears enchantment; and it is with difficulty we can believe we are still on earth.-The senses, unaccustomed to the sublimity of such a scene, are bewildered and confounded; and it is not till after some time, that they are capable of separating and judging of the objects that compose it. The body of the sun is seen rising from the ocean, immense tracts both of sea and land intervening; the islands of Lipari, Panari, Alicudi, Strombolo, and Volcano, with their smoking summits, appear under your feet; and you look down on the whole of Sicily as on a map; and can trace every river through all its windings, from its source to its mouth. The view is absolutely boundless on every side; nor is there any one object, within the circle of vision, to interrupt it; so that the sight is every where lost in the immensity: and I am persuaded it is only from the imperfection of our organs that the coasts of Africa, and even of Greece, are not discovered, as they are certainly above the horizon. The circumference of the visible horizon on the top of Etna cannot be less than two thousand miles.

But the most beautiful part of the scene is certainly the mountain itself; the island of Sicily and the numerous islands lying round it. All these, by a kind of magic in vision, that I am at a loss to account for, seem as if they were brought close round the skirts of Ætna · the distances appearing reduced to nothing.

The Regione Deserta, or the frigid zone of Etna, is the first object that calls your attention. It is marked out by a circle of snow and ice, which extends on all

sides to the distance of about eight miles. In the centre of this circle, the great crater of the mountain rears its burning head; and the regions of intense cold and of intense heat seem for ever to be united in the same point.

The Regione Deserta is immediately succeeded by the Sylvosa, or the woody region, which forms a circle or girdle of the most beautiful green, which surrounds the mountain on all sides, and is certainly one of the most delightful spots on earth. This presents a remarkable contrast with the desert region. It is not smooth and even like the greatest part of the latter; but is finely variegated by an infinite number of those beautiful little mountains that have been formed by the different eruptions of Etna. All these have now acquired a wonderful degree of fertility, except a very few that are but newly formed; that is, within these five or six hundred years; for it certainly requires some thousands to bring them to their greatest degree of perfection. We looked down into the craters of these, and attempted, but in vain, to number them.

The circumference of this zone or great circle on Ætna, is not less than seventy or eighty miles. It is every where succeeded by the vineyards, orchards and corn fields that compose the Regione Culta, or the fertile region. This last zone is much broader than the others, and extends on all sides to the foot of the moun tain. Its whole circumference, according to Recupero, is 183 miles. It is likewise covered with a number of little conical and spherical mountains, and exhibits a wonderful variety of forms and colors, and makes a delightful contrast with the other two regions. It is bounded by the sea to the south and south-east, and on all its other sides by the rivers Simethus & Alcantara, which run almost round it. The whole course of these rivers is seen at once, and all their beautiful windings through these fertile valleys, looked upon as the favorite possession of Ceres herself.

Cast your eyes a little farther, and you embrace the whole island, and see all its cities, rivers and mountains, delineated in the great chart of Nature: all the adjacent islands, the whole coast of Italy, as far as your eye can reach; for it is no where bounded, but every where lost in space. On the sun's first rising, the shadow of the mountain extends across the whole island, and makes a large track visible even in the sea and in the air. By degrees this is shortened, and in a little time is confined only to the neighborhood of Ætna.

We had now time to examine a fourth region of that wonderful mountain, very different, indeed, from the others, and productive of very different sensations: but which has undoubtedly given being to all the rest; 1 mean the region of fire.

The present crater of this immense volcano is a circle of about three miles and a half in circumference. It goes shelving down on each side, and forms a regular hollow like a vast amphitheatre. From many places of this space issue volumes of sulphureous smoke, which being much heavier than the circumambient-air, instead of rising in it, as smoke generally does, immediately on its getting out of the crater, rolls down the side of the mountain like a torrent till coming to that part of the atmosphere of the same specific gravity with itself, it shoots off horizontally, and forms a large track in the air, according to the direction of the wind, which, happily for us, carried it exactly to the side opposite to that where we were placed. The crater is so hot that it is very dangerous, if not impossible to go down into it; besides, the smoke is very incommodious, and, in many places, the surface is so soft, there have been instances of people sinking into it, and paying for their temerity with their lives. Near the centre of the crater is the great mouth of the volcano;-that tremendous gulf so celebrated in all ages, and looked upon as the terror and scourge both of this and another life. We beheld it with awe and with horror, and were not surprised that it had been considered as the place of eternal punishment. When we reflect upon the immensity of its

depth, the vast cells and caverns whence so many lavas have issued; the force of its internal fire, to raise up those lavas to so vast a height, to support as it were in the air, and even to force them over the very summit of the crater, with all the dreadful accompaniments; the boiling of the matter, the shaking of the mountain, the explosion of flaming rocks, &c.; we must allow that the most enthusiastic imagination, in the midst of all its terrors, hardly ever formed an idea of a hell more dreadful.

SNOWDON.

Few persons mount a towering eminence, but feel their souls elevated: the whole frame acquires unwonted elasticity; and the spirits flow, as it were, in one aspiring stream of satisfaction and delight. For what can be more animating than, from one spot, to behold the pomp of man, and the pride of nature, lying at our feet? Who can refrain from being charmed, when, observing those innumerable sections, which divide a long extent of country into mountains and vales; and which, in their turn, subdivide into fields, glens, and dingles; containing trees of every height; cottages of the humble; and mansions of the rich; here groups of cattle, there shepherds tending their flocks: and, at intervals, viewing, with admiration, a broad expansive river, sweeping its course along an extended vale: now encircling a mountain, and now overflowing a valley; here gliding beneath large boughs of trees; there rolling over rough ledges of rocks; in one place concealing itself in the heart of a forest under huge massy cliffs. which impend over it; and in another washing the walls of some ivied ruin, bosomed in wood! "Behold the Eternal," is written on every object; and in every view we are ready to exclaim with the poet of the East, "If there be a paradise upon earth, it is this, it is this." Never can I cease to be grateful for the satisfaction I experienced, on the summit of immortal Snowdon! After