ua.
They politely took us into the sacristy, and exhibited with much pride
some graven images of rather coarse workmanship, which were covered with
gilding and bright coloured paint. Near Nicolosi stands the convent of
S. Nicola dell' Arena, once inhabited by Benedictine monks, who however
were compelled to abandon it in consequence of the destruction produced
by successive shocks of earthquake. Nicolosi itself has been more than
once shaken to the ground. We dined pretty comfortably, thanks to the
courier who acted as cook, in the one public room of the one primitive
inn of the town; starting for the Casa Inglesi at 6 o'clock. The good
people of the inn surrounded us at our departure and with much warmth
wished us a safe and successful journey.

For a short distance above Nicolosi, stunted vines are seen growing in
black cinders, but these soon give place to a large tract covered with
lava and ashes, with here and there patches of broom. There was no
visible path, but the mules seemed to know the way perfectly, and they
continued to ascend with the same easy even pace without any guidance,
even after the sun had disappeared behind the western flank of the
mountain. In fact, you trust yourself absolutely to your mule, which
picks his way over the roughest ground, and rarely stumbles or changes
his even step. I found it quite easy to write notes while ascending, and
even to use a pocket spectroscope at the time of the setting sun.
Subsequently we saw a man extended at full length, and fast asleep upon
a mule, which was leisurely plodding along the highway. The same
confidence must not however be extended to the donkeys of Etna, as I
found to my cost a few days later at Taormina. Here the only animal to
be procured to carry me down to the sea-shore, 800 feet below, was a
donkey. It was during the hottest part of the day, and it was necessary
to carry an umbrella in one hand, and comfortable to wear a kind of
turban of many folds of thin muslin round one's cap. The donkey after
carefully selecting the roughest and most precipitous part of the road,
promptly fell down, leaving me extended at full length on the road, with
the open umbrella a few yards off. At the same time the turban came
unfolded, and stretched itself for many a foot upon the ground.
Altogether it was a most comical sight, and it reminded me forcibly, and
at the instant, of a picture which I once saw over the altar of a
church in Pisa, and which represented