Morning journal and courier., 1890-04-26

OFT up the mountain side in most irregular fashion. Close to it, and frowning above 1t, is huge almost perpendicular mass ot lava: Etna boiled over one day and the liquid mush of fire came slowly down, as you have seen molten lead run-a river half mile wide and at times one hundred feet deep at its puffy, oozy, breaking front. It came all most straight forward towards Bronte, and the people 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 8 great wall and cooled of. Between the city and this preci- pice are now the finest vineyards and olive groves in Sicily. Opposite the city, to the west, magnificent mountains lift their heads above the valley; and within the purple of their upper valleys can be seen the convent of Msniace, the cathedral of Traina and the convent of St. Elias of Ambula, all founded by great Roger the Norman; while towards the huge cone of Etna can be seen rising above each other the lesser craters of Minar-
 
 Bronte also gave to Lord Nelson a duke dom. The king of Naples, who conferred it, complimented Nelson with no empty ti- tle It's net revenues are still fifteen thou sand dollars yearly. Leaving the city in the direction of Aderno, the road is cut through tremendous beds of lava; and we climbed one of the walls to trace the deep black sur- face of the furrow along the valley to the west, and opposite, to the very cone of Et- na, which the eye could follow in it's narrow ing, sinuous line. The entire way to Ader- no, ciroling the western mountain base, is skirted by the Simeto river, which is never out of sight, and, dashing tumultuously to- wards the sea, forms the western boundary of the volcanic region. On the one hand was Esna with its score of lesser craters and unspeakably hideous barrens, with here and there bit of dirty heath and stunted pine. On the other, as far as the eye could reach, vation, covered with fields of cereals and cotton, beautiful on the mountain slopes with vineyards and olive groves, and, near every hut, hamlet, villa and every manner of enclosure, glorious with vines and flowers. But where we rode no living thing grew save withered heath. No, stream coursed across our way; no fountain mu1mured by the roadside. The radiation of the sun from the lava road gave heat intense and suffoca-
 
 rise. at times seemed almost intolerable. Nearing Aderno rich masses of Indian fig and olive began shutting out the hideous lava beds, and the immediate surroundings of the weird old place are as luxuriant as can be found on the southern slopes of Cuba. One can hardly discover another queer old spot like this in all Europe. It Is simply 8 solid mass of convents and nunneries on the site of the ancient Sikelian city of Hadran- um, the religious houses, founded seven hundred and forty years ago by Roger l., being supported by immense landed estates. Over one-half of the fourteen thousand souls are inmates of, or are in some way at taehed to, these institutions; while ali the remainder, excepting the nobility and few comfortable merchants, are mere dependents. Tremendous 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 it's streets. The place choked me. I could not remain within it. And so, as we had now reached the old Roman road lead ing from Catania to Palermo, battled with Balbino 30 valorously that at last we get forth late at night, with vicious, jeering rabble at our heels, which followed us until we had passed the gates; and some time af- ter midnight, being halted by the govern ment guards stationed at the western ap- proach to the bridge across the Simeto riv- CT to intercept mountaineer brigands, by the good tethering and grazing for our jaded an- imals and excellent shelter in some spare hunks belonging to the carboneers them- selves.
 The distance from the Simeto river to Pa | 1ermo is about one hundred and twenty | miles. We travelled this on our excellent l donkeys in four days, with time to spare for l brief excursions from the main highway to l 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 exceedingly fertile, seem uninhabited and as if deserted by some for mer people who might have possessed them ages ago. Italy and Sicily are ''sunny" enough; cereals, fruits and flowers are all | most tropically luxuriant; but how can the | humane traveller rave over the glories of pa gan ruins, the massiveness of medieval l monuments, monasteries, csthedrals and | fortresses, or the dazzling palaces of the | nobility of today, when almost the entire | people of land are the serfs of @ few; when the lowly comprise all but the nobility, the governing classes and ecclesiastics; and ! ly's ?, 584 099 inhabitants are as ambition less, ignorant and sodden as swine. An in- finite compassion fires one's heart for the hopelessnsss of such people; and when in- terest in tremendous natural phenomena, classic regions and old age remains, lessens, the pitiable and pathetic side of life in such | land begins to possess and hurt you. Any 1. | lation masters of the soil they till, without | fairly contented peasantry possessing se | cure and we'll defined rights in their hold | ipgs, is doomed to assertion and decay.
 piled Balbino with ali manner of ques 1 tioning as to where were the farm houses the peasantrys cabins, even the cottiers l huts, of Sicily. The little old innkeeper of l Catania seemed almost unable to compre' bend my meaning. In all the distance from | Etna to Palermo, and to the right and Jeff as far as the eye could reach, but seven l "farm houses" had been seen. These were not farm houses as we know them. Eaet was desolate stone structure, inhabited by the family of some soprantendente or over- | seer, where tools are stored, and in the bnsi- | est seasons of labor gang of wolhsh faced 1 men and women are fed on slops, and herdeo at night on stone benches for sleep. The l montanaro or mountaineer, the atore ol ploughman, the peeorajo or shepherd, the vignajo or vine dresser, the vendemmiatore l or grape gaeherer, the miltere or reaper, and every manner of human animal that labsrs with focks or in vineyard or field, is in fact a oontadino or villager, living in low and poisonous novels in cities or hamlets, from out of which, as we saw on several occa' sions, the hollow eyed crowds pour before daylight, munching their food as the, l dragged themselves to their focks in thu | mountains or their toll in the vineyards anC fields. It is very picturesque and poetic, n' doubt. But some of the scales are dropping from my own eyes regarding these Mediter
 ranean countries. The poet that can siui
 here to-day save against the curse of powe
 and human enslavement, has ooward'
 heart and sycophant's tongue; and thos
 echoes of the stately classics soundin
 through the centuries in the ears of one be
 fore whose tear stained eyes these nineteentl
 century serf chattels pass and repass il
 vilest bondage, become the loathsome an
 hateful mcckeries of wroDged and out
 ragged race.
 It is no wonder that brigandsge still HouI | ishas in such 1auda and that tha lowlv wh