ari is a benign, courtly old man, and greatly
esteemed here. His son is at present in exile, on account of the part he
took in the late revolution. During the sack of the city under Filangieri,
the palace was plundered of property to the amount of ten thousand
dollars. The museum of Greek and Roman antiquities attached to it, and
which the house of Biscari has been collecting for many years, is probably
the finest in Sicily. The state apartments were thrown open this evening,
and when I left, an hour ago, the greater portion of the guests were going
through mazy quadrilles on the mosaic pavements.

Among the antiquities of Catania which I have visited, are the
Amphitheatre, capable of holding 15,000 persons, the old Greek Theatre,
the same in which Alcibiades made his noted harangue to the Catanians, the
Odeon, and the ancient Baths. The theatre, which is in tolerable
preservation, is built of lava, like many of the modern edifices in the
city. The Baths proved to me, what I had supposed, that the Oriental Bath
of the present day is identical with that of the Ancients. Why so
admirable an institution has never been introduced into Europe (except in
the _Bains Chinois_ of Paris) is more than I can tell. From the pavement
of these baths, which is nearly twenty feet below the surface of the
earth, the lava of later eruptions has burst up, in places, in hard black
jets. The most wonderful token of that flood which whelmed Catania two
hundred years ago, is to be seen at the Grand Benedictine Convent of San
Nicola, in the upper part of the city. Here the stream of lava divides
itself just before the Convent, and flows past on both sides, leaving the
building and gardens untouched. The marble courts, the fountains, the
splendid galleries, and the gardens of richest southern bloom and
fragrance, stand like an epicurean island in the midst of the terrible
stony waves, whose edges bristle with the thorny aloe and cactus. The
monks of San Nicola are all chosen from the Sicilian nobility, and live a
comfortable life of luxury and vice. Each one has his own carriage,
horses, and servants, and each his private chambers outside of the convent
walls and his kept concubines. These facts are known and acknowledged by
the Catanians, to whom they are a lasting scandal.

It is past midnight, and I must close. Caesar started this afternoon,
alone, for the ascent of Etna. I would have accompanied him, but my only
chance of reaching Messina in