The semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1882-1886, 1883-05-23

Mosaics representing scenes of the
Old and New Testament, and COM
prising the greatest example of this
work extant except the Mosque OF
St. Sophia at Constantinople.
| A very strange sight and entirely
unique, to be had only at Palermo,
are the tombs at the Convent of the
Capuchins. Here for generations,
and until two years since when it
was prohibited oy the city, were
placed the bodies Of the rich only in
a great crypt underground, after a
species of embalming operation, after
which the body was dressed and laid
away on a shelf or placed in coffin
or square box with or without q glass
cover or tied up on the wall in per-
pendicular position, one above an
other, carefully labelled with name
and date of demise. You descend
into this most unearthly region by q
flight of stone steps, and are at once
confronted with the CHASTITY dead.
This mortuary palace is regularly
laid out like the streets of city, and
he who has no apprehension Of dis
turbed slumbers or visions of skele-
tons dancing around his bed may
walk for an hour and hold silent
converse with the Palermifes of two
hundred years ago, for here they are
by thousands, apparently awaiting
with becoming content the sound of
Gabriel's trumpet. Each alley exca-
waited in this subterranean city is
shelved up on either side about
twelve feet high like grocery store,
and completely filled with bodies,
besides those posed perpendicularly
or suspended from the roof, aud they
are also placed in boxes about three
deep in the ground, leaving passage
of only a few feet in the centre. Lit
tie children lie there under glass COW
ers, their mummy-like bodies dressed
in their gayest clothes with shoes and
hat and feathers all arranged as they
wore them when living. One old
lady held fan in her bony fingers.
She might have had forebedings of q
climate warmer than that of Sicily.
Once year, le jour des morris, the in
habitants come here in great crowds
to visit their friends, but to us the
pleasure they derive from thus seeing
them is incomprehensible.
Through the kindness of Sicilian
gentleman and resident of Palermo
we had an invitation to attend an en-
tertainment given by the first club of
the city when we had an opportuni-
ty to see, in their evening toilettes,
la ,o5lesse of Palermo. First con-
cert was given in very classical mu-
sic, after which tea, chocolate and
sweetmeats were served in an adjoin-
ing apartment and couple of hours
devoted to dancing. These ladies
are very graceful and their black
eyes are ravishingly beautiful. Near
the south coast of Sicily on an undu-
lating plain now planted with al
mond tree and vine or green with
fields of wheat that will soon lie
ready for the harvest, and which
slopes from Gergentum down a few
miles to the shore of the African Sea
stood, two thousand four hundred
years ago, Acragas, a city of the
Greeks, whose population was esti-
mated at 100000 souls. Here the
Grecian colony lived in princely
magnificence and erected the most
imposing temples. During the Punic
wars their city was pillaged first by
the Carthagenians and then by the
Romans, when the sun of its pros
perity began to set. The walls of
the old city have tumbled down and
most of the temples are in ruins.
One of these, called the temple of Ju-
piter, was only partially completed
and acres of huge blocks of stone lie
near by as they came from the quar-
ry. Next to that of Diana at Ephe-
sus it was intended to be the largest
eyer built. Those of Juno and the
Concord stand few hundred feet
apart on a bold rocky escarpment,
the latter particularly well preserved:
AS we look down over these quiet
fields and out upon the ocean where
not a sail is visible, we can scarcely
realize that this was once the theatre
of so much activity and strife. Five
hours from Gergenti on the railway
brought us to Catania on the sea at
the very foot Of Etna. The line of
the road lies on high ground COM
mandine extensive views for a long
distance and then follows the de-
scent of a stream until it emerges in
the plain of Catania. The view Of
the noble mountain, entirely isolated
from here, is superb. / have never
seen any thing like it. Its base has
circumference of one hundred and
twenty miles and its snow mantled
summit rises to the height of eleven
thousand feet whence issues, in sea-
sons of tranquility, column of whit
ish vapor as gently as from a CHM
ney top.
Catapia is bright, clean and well
built city with about hundred
thousand inhabitants. It has been
several times destroyed by earth
uuakes and once was partially over
whelmed with a stream OF lava
which lies there yet grim and black
several feet high, a tunnel having
been cut long way through it for
the railway. The stream was fifteen
miles long and seven miles wide and
flowed from Monti Rossi on the side
of Etna in the year 1869. Twenty
four wears later another eruption and
earthquake occurred which destroyed
forty Villages and one hundred thous-
and lives. The last important one
took place in 1879. In all, history
records eighty eruptions from this,
Vulcan's great workshop but they
come from craters not on the top but
on the sides of Aetna and even to the
distance of ten miles downward from
the summit at each new eruption a
new mouth is opened and new cone
several hundred feet high
is formed with the crater
in the top scooped out like an
inverted cone. There is a belt of
these craters, which extends entirely
around the mountain, comprising
three hundred and sixty in number,
aud they are called by the natives
the .'sons of Etna." We made a
VOYAGE up among these flood gates of
fire to within eight miles of the sum-
nit, which is now inaccessible on
account of the great depth OF snow.
and made the ascent of the highest
and most famous cone, called Monti
Rossi, or red mountain, from the
color of the lava and cinders of which
it is composed. The first part of the
route, twelve miles up from Catania
to little village, Nicolosi. may be