opposite direction. We also carried a
light--the acetylene lamp off Ninu's bicycle, and it functioned as
inefficiently as the bull's-eye lantern which Mr. Pickwick took with him
on his nocturnal expedition at Clifton. The road was broad enough, but
strewn with big lumps of lava lying half-hidden in lava sand. I stumbled
frequently, but I never fell, because one of my friends was always at my
elbow and caught me; either it was the brave brigadier or Alessandro or
Joe or the other Peppino or that great hulking Ninu with his operatic
smile lighted up by his fitful lamp. They took care of me all the way
until, after about an hour, we turned into a vineyard, called the
Contrada Fra Diavolo, and our progress was stopped by a sloping
embankment over twenty feet high.

This was the broad nose of the stream of lava. It was coming towards us
at about eighty feet an hour, but its velocity varies according to the
slope of the ground and the cooling and consistency of the material. The
course of the stream described a curve from the mouth to the place where
we stood, and the width of it gradually increased until opposite us it
was about a quarter of a mile broad. There was plenty of smoke, fiery
with the light reflected from the glowing stream, and especially thick in
the direction of the mouth. The lava was sluggish, viscous, heavy stuff,
full of bubbles, pushing itself along and kneading itself like dough.
Red-hot boulders and shapeless lumps of all manner of sizes were
continually losing their balance and rolling lazily down the slope
towards us; as they rolled they disengaged little avalanches of rapid
sparks, and when they reached the ground they sometimes fell against a
vine stump and set it in a blaze for a moment. They said that this is
Etna's cunning way of taking a glass of wine; he opens a mouth and
consumes a vineyard. All the time there was a roaring noise like coals
being thrown on the fire, only much louder, and the great sloping wall
glowed in the places where open crevasses left by the crumbling blocks
had stirred it. It was too hot for us to go very near, nevertheless, my
companions were not content to leave without bringing some pieces of lava
away. They went towards it with canes which the vines will not want this
year, unless the stream stops before it has broadened over the contrada,
and with much difficulty and scorching, manipulated bits of red-hot lava
until they had got them far enough away to de