Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-04-26

| ings piled along up the mouutainside in a
most irregular fashion. Close to it, and
| frowning above it, is a huge almost per-
| pendicular mass of lava Etna boiled
! over one day and the liquid mush of fire
came slowly down as you haye seen
molten lead run-a river half mile wide
| and at times 100 feet deep at its puffy +,
oozy. breaking front. 1t came almost
straight towards Bronte, and the peo-
pie scampered across the valley to see
their city spunged out. But just before
this could happen Etna had got through
boiling. The lava stood there in q great
wall and cooled off. Between the city
and this preolpice are now the finest
vineyards and olive groves in Sicily.
Opposite the city, TO the west, magnifi-
cent mountains lift their heads above the
valley, and within the purple of their
upper valleys can be seen the convent of
MANAGE, the cathedral Of Traina and the
convent OF ST. Elias of Ambula, ali
founded by great Roger tbs Norman,
while toward the huge cone of Etna can
be seen rising above each other the lesser
craters Of Minardo, Rovolo and the
Monti Lipre.
Bronte also gave to Lord Nelson
dukedom. The king of Naples, who
conferred it, oomplimented Nelson with
no empty title. Its net revenues are
still SIS, 900 yearly. Leaving the city in
the direction of AdeIno, the road is cut
through tremendous beds of lava; and
we climbed one of the walls to trace the
deep black surface of the furrow along
the valley TO the west, and opposite, 10
the very cone of Etna, which the eye
could follow in its narrowing, sinu-
GUS line. The entire way to Aderno,
circling the western mountain base, is
skirted by the Someto river, which is
never out of sight, and, dashing tumul-
tuously towards the sea, forms the west
ern boundary of
THE VOLCANIC REGION.
On the one hand was Etna with its
score OF lesser orators and unspeakably
hideous barrens, with here and there
bit of dirty heath ana stunted pine.
On the other, as far as the eye
could reach, were mountains and
valleys, rich with cultivation, Gov
cred with fields of cereals and cot
ton, beautiful on the mountain slopes
with vineyards and olive groves, and,
near every hut, hamlet, villa, and every
msuner of enclosure, glorious with vines
ana flowers. But where we rode no living
thing grew save withered heath. No
stream cOursed across our way; no fOun-
tain murmured by the roadside. The
radiation of the sun from the lava road
gave a heat intense and suffooating;
while the dust from the powdered scori3
at times seemed almost intoleTable.
Nearing AdernO rich masses of
Indian fig and olive began
shutting out the hideous lava
beds, and the Immediate sur
roundings of the weird old place are as
luxuriant as can be found on the south
ern slopes of Cuba. One can hardly dis
cover another queer old spot like this IN
all Europe. t is simply solid mass of
converts and nunneries, on the site OF
the ancient SikeliaD city of Hadranum,
the religious houses, founded 740 years
ago by Roger l., being supported by i'm
mense landed estates. Over one-half of
the IA 900 souls are inmates Of 9, or are in
some way attached to, these institutions:
while all the remainder, excepting
the nobility and a few comfortable
merchants, are mere dependents. Ire
mendous grated structures rise terrace
like above each other; and with prisons
and old Norman keeps, comprise all
there is OF the city save the huts of the
loWly clustered beneath their walls, and
the burrows of the laZzaroni reeking
with filth and disease. There is not an
inn IN the place an average American
would utilize as pig-sty. Foul vapors
hang like fetid whispers of death within
its streets. The place chOked me-
could not remain within it. And so, as
we had now reached the old Roman road
leading from Catania to Palermo l battled
with Balbino so vigorously that at last we
set forth late at night, with a vicious,
jeering rabble at our heels, which fol-
lowed US until we had passed the gates;
and sometime after midnight, being
halted by the government guards sta
toned at the western approach of the
bridge across the Simeto river to inter-
cept mountaineer brigands, by the proper
application of SIcilian com, secured good
lettering and grazing for our jaded ami
mails and excellent shelter in some spare
hunks belonging to
THE CARBINEERs THEMSELVES.
The distance from the Slmeto river to
Palermo is about 120 miles. We Travelled
this on our excellent donkeys in four
days, with time to spare for brief excur-
sions from the nam highway to objects
of special interest. The face of the
country Is mountainous, save where
now and then infrequent level PLAINS
intervene. The mountainous districts
recall some of the sterile and forbidding
heights of Spain. The plains, though ex-
ceedlngly fertile. seen uninhabited and
as if deserted by some former people who
might have possessed them ages ago.
Italy and Sicily are ''sunny'' enough;
cereals: fruits and flowers are almost
tropioally luxuriant; but how can the
humane traveller rave over the gIories of
pagan ruins, the massIveness of medieval
monasteries, cathedrals and
fortressss, or the dazzling palaces of the
nobility of to-day, when almost the en-
tire people of q land are the serfs of
a few; when the loWly comprise all
but the nobility, the governing
classes and ecclesiastics; and when,
doubtless, 2 500 900 souls out
of Sicily's 2 1884 ,O99 inhabitants are as
Igornant and sodden as
SWINE. An infinite compassion fires
ones heart for the hopelessnsss of such |
a people, and when interest in tremend- |
Gus natural phenomena, classic regions
and old age remains, lessons the pitiable |