horses, at two dollars each, to convey myself and my luggage to Catania.
My landlord told me that it was an excellent road, perfectly
_carozzabile_, but I suppose by a carriage, he must have meant a
_lettica_, which is a sedan-chair, carried by mules, for certainly a
wheel-carriage could not get along; yet the prince of Biscari praises it
as an excellent road. We had hardly proceeded two miles when the
baggage-horse, with the muleteer upon him, slipt and fell, and after two
or three miles more, mine came down suddenly. After a little while my
horse fell a second time, and I was bruised by the fall. This made the
rest of my ride very painful: I obliged the guide to change horses, and
to say the truth, felt it rather as an insult to my horsemanship, that
he arrived at Catania without any farther accident. Between Syracuse and
Agusta are the remains of a monument, supposed to have been a pyramid,
or an acute cone, but it appears to me to have been a column: the
purpose of its erection is unknown. At about eighteen miles from
Syracuse we left the limestone beds, and came to a country probably
volcanic. At twenty-four miles, we stopt at a little house near the
sea-shore, where nothing was to be had but bad wine. However, I had
taken the precaution to carry with me some bread, and a cold roast duck.
The remaining eighteen miles are along a sandy district near the shore,
the road probably never being a mile from the sea; for the whole
forty-two miles we pass neither town nor village, and a great portion of
the land is uncultivated. It wants water perhaps, but that seems to be
attainable. The first part of the ride was the most beautiful, but the
whole wanted an ornament it would have had in clearer weather. Ætna
would, in that case, have been a conspicuous object. As it was I only
obscurely traced his base, and the summit was always hid in the clouds.
Catania has lately suffered from an earthquake, which did not absolutely
throw down many houses, but it injured them so much that numbers are
incapable of being repaired; others less damaged, are propped up till
the owners can restore them, and the principal street exhibits almost a
continued range of these temporary supports. Nothing can look more
forlorn, and even the width of the street contributes to its desolate
appearance. Half the houses seem to have been in an unfinished state
before the earthquake, but not uninhabited; a roof has been applied to
the ground-floor or first story, and in that condition they remain, and
are likely to remain, unless a fresh catastrophe should level them with
the ground. In a town so subject to earthquakes, the usual Italian style
of architecture, consisting of many lofty stories one over the other,
should be abandoned, and low houses of one principal story, little or
not at all elevated, and at most of only one small story above, ought to
be adopted. A city so built may be very beautiful, especially if
intermixed with groves and gardens, though its character of beauty will
be perfectly distinct from that produced by narrow streets and lofty
palaces. Here the principal streets are too wide, and the want of shade
is a sensible inconvenience.
On the 25th I visited the museum of the prince of Biscari, which, if not
like those of Rome, is very interesting from the number of Sicilian
antiquities it contains. The department of natural history is poor, and
the whole is neglected, as the present prince does not partake of the
taste of his illustrious ancestor. I afterwards went to the baths, to
two theatres, and an amphitheatre, which are all under the care of an
old servant of the prince. He seems a good sort of man, but the waiter
of the inn demands half of all that he receives from travellers; a truth
which I suspected from the first, but which I ascertained afterwards on
visiting the principal theatre a second time without him. This waiter,
who is called Don Mario, is the most impudent and shameless knave I ever
met with, and the landlord of the house being lately dead, the widow
commits everything to his care, which makes the residence at the Leon
d’oro very disagreeable.
The Baths are in the neighbourhood of the cathedral, and I believe
partly under it; what remains is altogether subterraneous, they consist
of a very irregular collection of vaulted rooms, none of them very
large, but we distinguish the place of the hypocaust, and some other of
the little arrangements which must have been necessary in such an
establishment. There are also other baths which we know from
inscriptions were termed _Achillei_, and that is just all we know about
them. Of the Theatres one is small. It was probably covered, and is
supposed to have been an odeum, or musical theatre. The taste of the
Sicilians must have been different then from what it is now, since in
modern times they would probably have built a large theatre for music,
and a small one for theatrical representations. The other is large, and
was uncovered, and the descent into the present ruins by a large flight
of steps, is picturesque. They are both clogged up with modern houses,
and also, particularly the larger one, with the earth and rubbish which
has filled up the lower part. They are therefore understood with
difficulty, and did not present to me features sufficiently interesting
to make me wish to enter minutely into the details. They are both of
Roman, not of Greek architecture. The remains of the amphitheatre are
still less considerable, but the construction of these edifices is so
simple and uniform, that a very small portion enables us to comprehend
the arrangement of the whole. Some of the arches have been filled with
lava, which must have entered in a fluid state, since it fits closely to
all the parts of the artificial structure. I was also conducted to a
place where some remains of the ancient walls have been surmounted by
the lava. They are on the lower side of the town, and not, as might be
expected, in the part opposed to the mountain. As the lava gets cool, it
probably accumulates more rapidly. Besides these there is a circular
domed room of Roman times, which is perhaps the most perfect antiquity
remaining here. It is remarkable that a town, so repeatedly destroyed by
earthquakes and torrents of lava, should exhibit so many remains of
antiquity; and I think we may derive from them this important lesson,
that circular forms offer the best resistance to these causes of
destruction.
In spite of the many calamities the place has suffered, a portion of the
ancient cathedral, built by Roger, the first Norman king of Sicily,
still remains. The chief part of the present edifice is modern, and the
interior is a fine room. The piers consist of double pilasters, and
between the arches there is much ornament; but as the architecture is
not interrupted by it, the exuberance does not displease. The choir
exhibits the pointed arch. I will not undertake to say that this was of
the time of Roger, but it is not improbable. He did not die till 1154,
and there are other pointed arches of as early a date.
On the 26th I visited the noble collection of the Cavalier Gioeni,
consisting chiefly of products of the volcano, whose overwhelming
interest seems to have prevented naturalists from attending to any other
part of the island. Although I had no introduction, the cavalier
received me with the greatest politeness, and attended me himself: he
thinks the ancient serpentine (which is a green porphyry, though not the
stone known in Italy under that name,) to be a Sicilian stone. It is
found in rounded masses on the shore, and at the back of Ætna, but not
_in sitû_. Amber he considers a hardened bitumen which issues from the
rocks as a clear fluid, but though found on the shores and rivers of
Sicily in its complete state, the intermediate progress has never been
detected.
There are two other fine museums in Catania, one belonging to the
Benedictine convent, and the other to the baron Ricupero. At the latter
also, the master was so obliging as to exhibit everything himself, and
he showed himself to be thoroughly versed in coins and in Etruscan
vases. The large glass cases of the Benedictines are dark and dirty. I
was rather after the appointed time, of which the librarian did not fail
to remind me, and when I began to apologize, begged me not to mention
it, as it was his duty to wait for me. I have met with a similar answer
where I was persuaded it was rather meant as a compliment than an
incivility, and perhaps that was the case in this instance, but I
confess it considerably shortened my examination.
I rambled one evening over a wide tract of lava which the prince of
Biscari has endeavoured to reclaim. There are a few fig-trees in the
hollows, and some caper plants scattered about the rocks. The Indian fig
seems to do as well, or perhaps better than anything else, but all these
are occupants merely of a few crevices, into which perhaps, the rain may
have washed a little soil, or in some instances they may open a
communication with the old surface below. The rock itself supports
nothing but crustaceous lichens, and that very partially; yet the lava
is, I believe, one hundred and twenty years old.
From Catania I determined to visit the summit of Ætna, and therefore
took a horse to Nicolosi, about twelve miles distant. The road is very
rough, among rocks of lava, but the country in general is extremely
fertile: we have nothing here but the opposite extremes, either
exuberant fertility, or utter barrenness. From this place I ascended on
foot, in the hope of finding a great variety of natural productions, and
examining them and the scenery at leisure; the first four miles from
Nicolosi are on a bed of cinders, but mixed in the latter part of the
way with small rocks of lava; then we pass about four miles of the woody
region, and near the extremity of this division of the ascent is the
Spelonca del Capriole, where we stopt to eat and to rest. Though we
arrived there about one o’clock, my guide was very desirous of staying
till midnight, and ascending the remaining part of the mountain in the
dark, I preferred walking while I could see the objects about me, but
found much less to interest me than I had expected. Ætna boasts that it
stands single and alone, but this very circumstance robs it of great
part of its beauty. Already, at Nicolosi, we were too much above other
objects to enjoy much pleasure from them, and higher up we are
continually sensible of this defect. The little conical hills scattered
abundantly over the lower slopes, afford indeed some relief to the eye,
but they are too small and too similar to satisfy it, or to excite the
imagination. Each of these is generally divided into two summits by a
hollow or groove passing through them from the west of north to the east
of south. The woody region is on this route less extensive than I had
anticipated; and though the trees are of a good size, there is nothing
remarkable about them. They are mostly a variety of _Quercus Robur_,
with a downy leaf, but beech and ilex are intermixed. No fern, except
_Pteris aquilina_, and no rare mosses. Here are no bold crags, no wild
and deep ravines, no foaming torrents, not even a moist rock, or a wet
piece of ground, or a little spring or rill, except just below the
patches of snow; and these, after a course of a few yards, unaccompanied
by any trace of vegetation, disappear. The moisture of the atmosphere
supports a few scattered plants in the loose soil. Everywhere cinders,
and nothing but cinders. Ætna is a mountain of dust and ashes. The beds
of lava are equally cinders in appearance. If we consider one of these
as a fluid, moving mass, half a mile wide, and 20 or 30 feet thick, it
is a sublime and terrible object, but the rough, naked plain which
remains, is merely ugly; and the bare, rocky bank, not presenting any
unbroken mass even in proportion to its trifling elevation, is hardly of
sufficient consequence to form a feature in the landscape. Ætna is a
volcano, and it has no interest but what it derives from this character.
We continued traversing its heavy heaps of dark sand till a little
before sunset, when we arrived at the Casa Inglese. During the night
lightning was frequent, but the mountain made no noise and exhibited no
light. I could hardly fancy myself so close to the most celebrated
burning mountain in Europe.
About half an hour before sunrise my guide called me up and we began to
ascend the cone. We first passed over a rough bed of lava, afterwards we
mounted a slope of snow, which crackled under the feet as if fresh
frozen. The snow, however, by no means forms a continued cap to the
mountain, but is found merely in patches and hollows, and it can hardly
be said that the mountain enters the snow-line, unless we suppose a
considerable space at the summit to be warmed by the transmission of
heated vapour. At the same time it is difficult to say exactly what the
snow-line is. We might probably fix it where the mean temperature of
summer, _i. e._ of the two hottest months of the year, does not exceed
32°, but this is in some degree both vague and arbitrary, and not easily
determined. The ascent of the cone of loose cinders is very fatiguing,
as they slide back at almost every step. In many places there are little
spiracles of what I supposed at first to be smoke, but they proved to be
steam, with but a slightly sulphureous smell. I was delighted when, by
my guide’s motions, I perceived that he had arrived at the edge of the
crater, but the pleasure was soon changed into disappointment. The sun
was rising amongst clouds. A dense, white vapour, greatly below me,
covered almost all Sicily, and the crater itself was so full of steam
that I could see nothing. This steam however, partially cleared away at
intervals, and by watching my opportunity, I was able to form a pretty
distinct idea of the great crater. The edges are steep and rugged, and
smoke, or rather steam, was rising almost everywhere; within, there were
three little volcanoes, _i. e._ small, conical hills, each with its
crater. The largest of these was quiet; the other two sent out smoke or
steam; but no flames, or ignited matter, have been seen here for six
years.
In descending, we passed by the Philosopher’s tower, reduced to a small
fragment of rubble-work, and curious only from its situation. At a
little distance from this we reached the edge of a wide valley, or
hollow, which I think interested me more than anything else. It appears
at some time to have been the ancient crater, before the present upper
cone was raised, and a tremendous one it must have been. It is now a
vast basin of I suppose full two miles in diameter, surrounded by
broken, craggy precipices. On the slopes there is here and there some
appearance of vegetation, but it is exceedingly trifling, and the bottom
is all black and bare. About eight years ago a crater was formed within
the basin, and a stream of lava issued from it a quarter of a mile in
length, but not passing the bounds of this valley of desolation. Smoke
was still issuing from its summit. I regretted much that I had not
followed a plan I once conceived of descending to Taormina, which would
have carried me through much more interesting scenes than the ascent
from Catania, and I should have seen the famous chesnut-tree; but it was
too late, for we had no provisions, and none were to be had in that
direction. I therefore returned to Nicolosi, which we reached a little
after noon, and there hired a mule to convey me back to Catania.
LETTER LIV.
TAORMINA—MESSINA—PALERMO.
_Palermo, 15th August, 1818._
I LEFT Catania on the first of August. The views of Ætna suffer as much
as the views from it, by its perfect unity. In ascending other mountains
we maintain a sort of contest with the inferior hills, and are pleased
to see them, one after the other, confess our superiority and lose their
consequence. The same hills in looking at a mountain, form a sort of
scale, which assists in our estimate of its magnitude. Some huge mass
perhaps, at no great distance, impresses us with its magnitude, while
yet the trees and buildings upon it enable us to measure its size. As we
recede, other eminences bright with the hues of heaven, rise in rich
succession, behind that which at first we had thought so immense; and
beyond the rest the lofty summit, whose colour almost mixes with the
sky, rises in supreme majesty. The mind measures the more distant by the
nearer object, and the powers of the imagination are excited to the
utmost. From the want of all these accessories, Ætna does not look so
high as Parnassus, which yet I apprehend it considerably exceeds. The
snow had diminished greatly since I first saw it on my way to Malta, yet
the patches were considerable, even on its southern face, a circumstance
the more remarkable in a mountain where there are few considerable
hollows. Perhaps however, the cinders, in spite of their black colour,
are very bad conductors of heat, for dry as was the absolute surface on
Ætna, the mule in most parts, exposed a degree of moisture at every
footstep; and this surprised me very much, when connected with the
general nakedness and barrenness of the mountain.
Though the clouds hung low, and I was rather out of humour from being
cheated at Catania, and from finding myself mounted on a bad horse, yet
I found the scenery along the base of Ætna very delightful. The country
is inhabited and cultivated, with abundance of olives and other trees,
and beautiful little eminences rise gently between the road and the
shore; and though this richness and fertility is occasionally
interrupted by beds of lava, yet these are but slight blemishes, and
perhaps contributed by contrast to enhance the pleasure. On approaching
Taormina it became still finer. Some bold, advancing summits appeared
dimly through the clouds, with deep, woody valleys between them, and
farther off the rugged mountains of Taormina, ridgy and interrupted, and
contrasting strongly in their broken, irregular forms, with Ætna and its
dependent cones. The road is execrable. The waiter at Catania assured me
that an excellent road had been made by the English all the way to
Messina, but this was a lie invented to put me in a good humour, that I
might bleed more freely. A tax indeed was laid on for the purpose of
forming such a work, but the money has never reached its object. I
procured some macaroni and love apples at a village called Le Giarre,
and about an hour before sunset climbed the steep hill of Taormina, in
company with the innkeeper, whom we found on the shore, and who
conducted me to his house. I hastily walked to some of the principal
objects. The town occupies a lofty situation, but on one side are two
rocks, rising considerably higher; and the ancient theatre occupies the
hollow between them. On the other side of the town there is a still
loftier eminence, crowned with a castle; a second fortress, called Mola,
is some hundred feet higher than the first, and beyond this the ground
rises interruptedly to Monte Venere, which, if my landlord may be
trusted, is nearly equal to Ætna, but whose elevation I should not
estimate at much more than 3,000 feet; perhaps however, I did not see
the loftiest summit. I returned to the theatre on the following morning.
It is a fine, and very interesting relick, but my eye was diverted from
nearer objects by the magnificent view spreading full in front of the
_koilon_. It is here that Ætna appears in all his majesty. The long,
descending line seems almost interminable, and hence too we distinguish
the vast hollow which I had looked into from the summit, and which forms
a grand feature in the scene; though I suspect that my knowledge of what
they indicated, rendered its outlines much more impressive to me, than
they would have been to a stranger.
The ruins of the Theatre are very considerable, and highly interesting
from the preservation of the proscenium. It is of brick, but appears to
have been adorned with marble columns and entablatures, and was perhaps
cased with marble; circumstances which rather indicate a Roman than a
Greek construction. A range of arches crowns the slope of the Sedili,
running in part, along the very ridge of the hill.
On returning to dinner from the theatre, a guide came to offer me his
services to point out the antiquities of the place. Two had applied the
evening before. The first had attended kings and princes, and written
sonnets in their praise, which he did me the honour to repeat to me. The
other was a painter, an architect, and a poet, and had a son who was
quite a prodigy; he also favoured me with some of his verses, but as I
was neither king, prince, nor even a nobleman, I did not accept the
services of either. These antiquities, besides the theatre, consist of
part of the city walls, aqueducts, reservoirs, and tombs, and what is
called a _naumachia_, which is a large, oblong court, sunk in the earth,
and surrounded with niches. The wall, and these niches are built of
brick, and there is a vault behind one part of them; but for the most
part they seem to be against the earth.
The tombs are successions of vaulted chambers, partly built of brick,
partly cut in the rock, and frequently placed over one another, in two,
three, or even four stories. A wall seems to have been uniformly erected
in front, in which a small square opening was left to each vault. There
is a fragment of Greek building in the church of San Pancrazio, but the
lower part has suffered, because the stone is reputed a remedy for
fevers: we may observe some other remains of little consequence, but
probably Roman, in the same neighbourhood. There are also some specimens
of early Gothic in Taormina, in which the doorways are of a singular,
but by no means unpleasing style. The opening is square, with a small
console within each upper angle; and round it is a wide face, perfectly
plain; beyond this are clustered shafts, and the abacus of the capital
is continued over the doorway; over this is a pointed arch, with the
same peculiarity of a broad flat member between the opening and the
mouldings.
[Illustration: Illustration of doorway]
The rocks about the theatre, and I believe in general, those on which
Taormina is placed, are calcareous. It seems, by what I could
distinguish of it, to be a gray, hard limestone, not at all crystalline,
with white veins, but in the hills behind, and in a ravine which I
passed after leaving the place, I observed also an argillaceous rock
with a shining surface, somewhat unctuous to the touch. The inhabitants
say that there are mines of copper and lead in the neighbourhood, but
not now worked.
I had bargained for two dollars per horse from Catania to Taormina, and
there I agreed with the vetturino, that if he would stay one day at his
own expense, I would give him two dollars per horse more to Messina.
This you see is four dollars per horse for three days, or one and
one-third dollar per day, which I apprehend is about the fair value of
the service; but of course a long journey for a single day deserves
higher pay.
On the 3rd of August we left Taormina. After descending the hill, the
road lies principally along the shore; except that at Alessio we have to
climb over a rocky point of red and gray limestone with white veins; and
towards Messina, a plain of some extent intervenes between us and the
sea. The beach is composed of sand and small stones, except at the
openings of the ravines, where the torrents have brought down large,
rounded fragments, among which the horses pick their way as well as they
can; the magnificent royal road not being discernible. These blocks
consist of masses of a grit stone, passing into breccia; of clay-slate,
of mica-slate, and of granitic stones, the latter frequently in great
quantity, but I saw neither this, nor mica-slate, _in sitû_. There are
also blocks of decomposing granite, lying on the limestone, on the north
side of the promontory at Alessio. The hills to the left are frequently
broken into pyramidal buttresses.