l this, news was brought that a large
band of robbers had taken advantage of the general distress, and were
robbing right and left, and murdering the people: whereupon a troop of
Spanish horse was sent out to protect the city and country, three pair
of gallows were set up, and such as were found robbing were executed
without trial by martial law.

[19] "A true and exact relation of the late prodigious earthquake and
eruption of Mount AEtna or Monte Gibello; as it came in a letter written
to his Majesty from Naples by the Rt. Honble. the Earl of Winchelsea
late Ambassadour at Constantinople, who in his return from thence
visiting Catania in the Island of Sicily, was an eye-witness of that
dreadful spectacle." Published by Authority. Printed by T. Newcomb in
the Savoy. 1669.

As the lava streams approached the city, the Senate, accompanied by the
Bishop and all the clergy, secular and regular, went in procession out
of the city to Monte di S. Sofia with all their relics, etc. There they
erected an altar in view of the burning mountain, and celebrated mass,
"and used the exorcismes accustomed upon such extraordinary occasions,
all which time the mountain ceased not as before with excessive roaring
to throw up its smoak and flames with extraordinary violence, and
abundance of great stones, which were carried through the air."

42. For a few years after this terrible eruption Etna was quiescent, but
in 1682 a new mouth opened on the east side of the mountain, a little
below the summit, and above the Val del Bove. Lava issued from it, and
rushed down the precipices of the Val del Bove as far as the rock of
Musarra.

43. Six years later a torrent of lava burst from an opening in the great
cone, and flowed into the Val del Bove for a distance of three miles.

44. In the following year lava was emitted from a mouth in the Val del
Bove, and it descended for about ten miles, destroying everything in its
course, until it reached a little valley near Macchia.

45. Early in January 1693, clouds of black smoke were poured from the
great crater, and loud noises resembling the discharge of artillery were
heard. A violent earthquake succeeded, and Catania was shaken to the
ground, burying 18,000 of its inhabitants in the ruins. It is said that
in all fifty towns were destroyed in Sicily, together with from 60,000
to 100,000 inhabitants. Lava was emitted from the crater, which was
lowered by the eruption.

46. In the following yea