Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1876-06-10
THE GULF OF FIRE.

"You are wrong, captain, wrong
Old women yonder," and as the crone
spoke, casting out her wrinkled fore,
finger, in token of disdain, toward the
lowland country at the base of the great
spurs of Etna, she looked weird and
wild enough, with her ragged gray hair
and fiery eyes, for the Sibyl of Cuma-
"old women yonder, say, may not be
worth listening to. But l was Graded
up here in the very lap of fire"
"Well, well, mother" I answered,
soothingly; "I am far from doubling
your skill. In the three months of my
stay have learned something of the un-
certain humors of the burning noun
tain, and, trust me, I'll not venture too
far from the safe track"
"Ah, Inglese! You are just like tho
rest Of the young men," said old AS
sunta with somewhat of rude pity in
her tone "won't be warned Had l
not three bold sons2 Two were coral
fishers. One followed Garibaldi to
Naples and Gaeta. He, at any rate, is
laid in dry earth-not like Beppo and
Totti. Have care lest your grave be
not hot onel" And with nod of her
head and wave of her hand she was
gone.
The old woman's words made an i'm
preston on me which [ vainly tried to
shake off. Let me explain how matters
stood. In the first place it was only
under the pressure of misfortune that 1,
George Clements, lately second officer of
a tirst-rate clipper ship, had become q
sub inspector, or more correctly, an act
ing inspector, in the sulphur works
on Mount Etna. My i'll luck had
brought me there. In an evil hour 1
had been talked into investing my
savings-some two hundred pounds
in becoming part owner of Maltese
cJastiDS vessel, ON board of which was
mate, the skipper being Maltese named
Antonia, worthy old fellow in his way,
but obstinate as mule and niggardly
to a degree.
So long as we met with average
weather our voyages were prosperous
and we netted dollars. But three days
storm, rarity in the Mediterranean,
sent us staggering, dismasted, leaky,
and with a frightened crew, under the
Gifts of Sicily. I was the one English
man on board, and it was only by the
utmost exertiOns that could force the
olive skinned southerners to leave off
telling their beads and invoking the
saints, and keep the pumps going. As
it was, the schooner laid her bones on
the beach near Catania, and though no
lives were lost the wreck of property was
complete. The skipper had relations in
Malta who would take him in, but 1, the
English mate, who now owned nothing
but the sailors suit I came ashore in,
might have starved, had not the vice
consul kindly recommended me for the
petty post I now filed, and which in
sured me q bare subsistence, and no
more.
These sulphur mines, whence comes
by far the greater proportion of the raw
sulphur OF commerce., have always been
government monopoly. Indeed 1
have heard that King Bomba, at criti-
cal point of the Crimean war, had
thoughts of prohibiting the export of
the Sicilian sulphur, without which the
powder mills of England could not
furnish ammunition, and the present
rulers of the island could not neglect
such source of revenue. The collec-
tion of the sulphur naturally deposited
by the volcanic forces, ever restless be-
meath the soil, does not require much
skill, but the occupation is toilsome
and unhealthy one, poorly remunerated,
and not always exempt from peril.
Sulphur gatherers are not, as rule,
native Sicilians. The majority were, at
the time of my sub-inspectorship, immi-
grants from the mainland, whose ante
cedents it was perhaps quite as well not
to pry into. A fierce looking set of sal
low, ragged ruffians they were, with
unkempt hair and boards, and haggard
faces innocent of the touch of soap and
water, always gambling, now with pack
of greasy cards, now, in Neapolitan
fashion, with dirty fingers uplifted, and
quarreling as savagely over infnitesimal
stakes as though fortune had been in
jeopardy. AS for old Assunta, she was
the widow of charcoal burner, and
still, with the help of her grandchildren,
managed to sell few loads of fuel in
the city below. The family, however,
bore an i'll repute for poaching, pilfer,
tu6j ohN', bO1iONOS SOlCOIJ, duu l. dlu
afraid that Assunta herself encouraged
this last report as a source of profit.
Her regard for me was merely due tc
the fact that l had prevented some OF
our rough workmen, who insisted that
she was witch and had the evil eye,
from finging her, body and bones, into
the wintry torrent that rushed roaring
past our huts, and ever since that day
she had been patronizingly polite to /
Captain, as she called me.
Mine was not, as sub-inspector, yer,
desirable position. The inspector, say,
on pay day, did not often show himself
and when he did visit the scene of hi
nominal duties, would have been power
less to enforce any sort of discipline
amongst our black sheep, but for me
BY the combined effects of coaxing
good-humored banter, and the occasiona
argument OF knock-down blow, ha,
contrived to establish some ascendanc
over the wild spirits around nae, an