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Cast your eyes a little farther, and you embrace the whole island, and see all its cities, rivers and mountains, delineated in the great chart of Nature: all the adjacent islands, the whole coast of Italy, as far as your eye can reach; for it is no where bounded, but every where lost in space. On the sun's first rising, the shadow of the mountain extends across the whole island, and makes a large track visible even in the sea and in the air. By degrees this is shortened, and in a little time is confined only to the neighborhood of Etna.

We had now time to examine a fourth region of that wonderful mountain, very different, indeed, from the others, and productive of very different sensations: but which has undoubtedly given being to all the rest; I mean the region of fire.

The present crater of this immense volcano is a circle of about three miles and a half in circumference. It goes shelving down on each side, and forms a regular hollow like a vast amphitheatre. From many places of this space issue volumes of sulphureous smoke, which being much heavier than the circumambient air, instead of rising in it, as smoke generally does, immediately on its getting out of the crater, rolls down the side of the mountain like a torrent till coming to that part of the atmosphere of the same specific gravity with itself, it shoots off horizontally, and forms a large track in the air, according to the direction of the wind, which, happily for us, carried it exactly to the side opposite to that where we were placed. The crater is so hot that it is very dangerous, if not impossible to go down into it; besides, the smoke is very incommodious, and, in many places, the surface is so soft, there have been instances of people sinking into it, and paying for their temerity with their lives. Near the centre of the crater is the great mouth of the volcano ;-that tremendous gulf so celebrated in all ages, and looked upon as the terror and scourge both of this and another life. We beheld it with awe and with horror, and were not surprised that it had been considered as the place of eternal punish

depth, the vast cells and caverns whence so many lavas have issued; the force of its internal fire, to raise up those lavas to so vast a height, to support as it were in the air, and even to force them over the very summit of the crater, with all the dreadful accompaniments; the boiling of the matter, the shaking of the mountain, the explosion of flaming rocks, &c.; we must allow that the most enthusiastic imagination, in the midst of all its terrors, hardly ever formed an idea of a hell more dreadful.

SNOWDON.

Few persons mount a towering eminence, but feel their souls elevated: the whole frame acquires unwonted elasticity; and the spirits flow, as it were, in one aspiring stream of satisfaction and delight. For what can be more animating than, from one spot, to behold the pomp of man, and the pride of nature, lying at our feet? Who can refrain from being charmed, when, observing those innumerable sections, which divide a long extent of country into mountains and vales; and which, in their turn, subdivide into fields, glens, and dingles; containing trees of every height; cottages of the humble; and mansions of the rich; here groups of cattle, there shepherds tending their flocks: and, at intervals, viewing, with admiration, a broad expansive river, sweeping its course along an extended vale: now encircling a mountain, and now overflowing a valley; here gliding beneath large boughs of trees; there rolling over rough ledges of rocks; in one place concealing itself in the heart of a forest under huge massy cliffs, which impend over it; and in another washing the walls of some ivied ruin, bosomed in wood! "Behold the Eternal," is written on every object; and in every view we are ready to exclaim with the poet of the East, “If there be a paradise upon earth, it is this, it is this." Never can I cease to be grateful for the satisfaction I experienced, on the summit of immortal Snowdon! After

1

Cast your eyes a little farther, and you embrace the whole island, and see all its cities, rivers and mountains, delineated in the great chart of Nature: all the adjacent islands, the whole coast of Italy, as far as your eye can reach; for it is no where bounded, but every where lost in space. On the sun's first rising, the shadow of the mountain extends across the whole island, and makes a large track visible even in the sea and in the air. By degrees this is shortened, and in a little time is confined only to the neighborhood of Etna.

We had now time to examine a fourth region of that wonderful mountain, very different, indeed, from the others, and productive of very different sensations: but which has undoubtedly given being to all the rest; I mean the region of fire.

The present crater of this immense volcano is a circle of about three miles and a half in circumference. It goes shelving down on each side, and forms a regular hollow like a vast amphitheatre. From many places of this space issue volumes of sulphureous smoke, which being much heavier than the circumambient air, instead of rising in it, as smoke generally does, immediately on its getting out of the crater, rolls down the side of the mountain like a torrent till coming to that part of the atmosphere of the same specific gravity with itself, it shoots off horizontally, and forms a large track in the air, according to the direction of the wind, which, happily for us, carried it exactly to the side opposite to that where we were placed. The crater is so hot that it is very dangerous, if not impossible to go down into it; besides, the smoke is very incommodious, and, in many places, the surface is so soft, there have been instances of people sinking into it, and paying for their temerity with their lives. Near the centre of the crater is the great mouth of the volcano ;-that tremendous gulf so celebrated in all ages, and looked upon as the terror and scourge both of this and another life. We beheld it with awe and with horror, and were not surprised that it had been considered as the place of eternal punish

1

depth, the vast cells and caverns whence so many lavas have issued; the force of its internal fire, to raise up those lavas to so vast a height, to support as it were in the air, and even to force them over the very summit of the crater, with all the dreadful accompaniments; the boiling of the matter, the shaking of the mountain, the explosion of flaming rocks, &c.; we must allow that the most enthusiastic imagination, in the midst of all its terrors, hardly, ever formed an idea of a hell more dreadful.

SNOWDON.

Few persons mount a towering eminence, but feel their souls elevated: the whole frame acquires unwonted elasticity; and the spirits flow, as it were, in one aspiring stream of satisfaction and delight. For what can be more animating than, from one spot, to behold the pomp of man, and the pride of nature, lying at our feet? Who can refrain from being charmed, when, observing those innumerable sections, which divide a long extent of country into mountains and vales; and which, in their turn, subdivide into fields, glens, and dingles; containing trees of every height; cottages of the humble; and mansions of the rich; here groups of cattle, there shepherds tending their flocks: and, at intervals, viewing, with admiration, a broad expansive river, sweeping its course along an extended vale: now encircling a mountain, and now overflowing a valley; here gliding beneath large boughs of trees; there rolling over rough ledges of rocks; in one place concealing itself in the heart of a forest under huge massy cliffs, which impend over it; and in another washing the walls of some ivied ruin, bosomed in wood! "Behold the Eternal," is written on every object; and in every view we are ready to exclaim with the poet of the East, "If there be a paradise upon earth, it is this, it is this." Never can I cease to be grateful for the satisfaction I experienced, on the summit of immortal Snowdon! After

1

Cast your eyes a little farther, and you embrace the whole island, and see all its cities, rivers and mountains, delineated in the great chart of Nature: all the adjacent islands, the whole coast of Italy, as far as your eye can reach; for it is no where bounded, but every where lost in space. On the sun's first rising, the shadow of the mountain extends across the whole island, and makes a large track visible even in the sea and in the air. By degrees this is shortened, and in a little time is confined only to the neighborhood of Ætna.

We had now time to examine a fourth region of that wonderful mountain, very different, indeed, from the others, and productive of very different sensations: but which has undoubtedly given being to all the rest; I mean the region of fire.

The present crater of this immense volcano is a circle of about three miles and a half in circumference. It goes shelving down on each side, and forms a regular hollow like a vast amphitheatre. From many places of this space issue volumes of sulphureous smoke, which being much heavier than the circumambient air, instead of rising in it, as smoke generally does, immediately on its getting out of the crater, rolls down the side of the mountain like a torrent till coming to that part of the atmosphere of the same specific gravity with itself, it shoots off horizontally, and forms a large track in the air, according to the direction of the wind, which, happily for us, carried it exactly to the side opposite to that where we were placed. The crater is so hot that it is very dangerous, if not impossible to go down into it; besides, the smoke is very incommodious, and, in many places, the surface is so soft, there have been instances of people sinking into it, and paying for their temerity with their lives. Near the centre of the crater is the great mouth of the volcano ;-that tremendous gulf so celebrated in all ages, and looked upon as the terror and scourge both of this and another life. We beheld it with awe and with horror, and were not surprised that it had been considered as the place of eternal punish

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