I perceived that it
consisted of two jets, issuing from different mouths. A broad stream of
very dense white smoke still flowed over the lip of the topmost crater and
down the eastern side. As its breadth did not vary, and the edges were
distinctly defined, it was no doubt the sulphureous vapor rising from a
river of molten lava. Perhaps a thousand yards below, a much stronger
column of mingled black and white smoke gushed up, in regular beats or
pants, from a depression in the mountain side, between two small, extinct
cones. All this part of Etna was scarred with deep chasms, and in the
bottoms of those nearest the opening, I could see the red gleam of fire.
The air was perfectly still, and as yet there was no cloud in the sky.

When we stopped to change horses at the town of Aci Reale, I first felt
the violence of the tremor and the awful sternness of the sound. The smoke
by this time seemed to be gathering on the side towards Catania, and hung
in a dark mass about half-way down the mountain. Groups of the villagers
were gathered in the streets which looked upwards to Etna, and discussing
the chances of an eruption. "Ah," said an old peasant, "the Mountain knows
how to make himself respected. When he talks, everybody listens." The
sound was the most awful that ever met my ears. It was a hard, painful
moan, now and then fluttering like a suppressed sob, and had, at the same
time, an expression of threatening and of agony. It did not come from Etna
alone. It had no fixed location; it pervaded all space. It was in the air,
in the depths of the sea, in the earth under my feet--everywhere, in fact;
and as it continued to increase in violence, I experienced a sensation of
positive pain. The people looked anxious and alarmed, although they said
it was a good thing for all Sicily; that last year they had been in
constant fear from earthquakes, and that an eruption invariably left the
island quiet for several years. It is true that, during the past year,
parts of Sicily and Calabria have been visited with severe shocks,
occasioning much damage to property. A merchant of this city informed me
yesterday that his whole family had slept for two months in the vaults of
his warehouse, fearing that their residence might be shaken down in the
night.

As we rode along from Aci Reale to Taormina, all the rattling of the
diligence over the rough road could not drown the awful noise. There was a
strong smell of sulphur in the air, and the