On leaving Bronte the road conducted us past several high hills of sandstone and quartzite near Monte Rivoglia; then we passed near Maletto, and, leaving the malarious lake Gurrita on our left, we soon after arrived at Randazzo. Near Maletto the road reaches it highest point--3,852 feet. The town of Randazzo was founded by the Lombards in the 10th century; during the Middle Ages it appears to have been a prosperous, populous, place; at present it possesses more than 8,000 inhabitants. The Emperor Frederick II. created his son Duke of Randazzo, and added to the name of the town, _Etnea_. It contains several very interesting architectural remains; a church of the 13th century, a mediæval palace--the Palazzo Finochiaro,--and a ducal palace now used as a prison. The houses are for the most part built of lava, and some of the shops have massive lava counters extending half across their open front, while the door occupies the remainder, as at Pompeii. The view from Randazzo is very fine in every direction; the crater of Etna appears near, and Monte Spagnuolo--many hours distant--just outside the town. The town is 2,718 feet above the sea, just above the Valley of the Alcantara--of which it commands a fine view, and also of the limestone hills on the other side. We were obliged to pass the night in the town, in an inn scarcely superior to that of Aderno, but distinctly better than the miserable Albergo Collegio at Bronte. At least the people were civil, and did their best. The one room of the inn had a bed in each corner, and a deal table in the middle. Three of the beds were occupied by engineers who were surveying in connection with a new line of railway; the fourth was made over to the courier. I slept in a small kind of ante-room on a bed chiefly composed of deal boards placed on tressels. Here again the courier was invaluable, in fact it would be simply impossible to make the circuit of Etna without a courier. He procured some eggs, macaroni, fruit, snow, tomatoes, and even meat, and cooked everything well, without a trace of garlic. He also took care that the linen was clean, and the general arrangements as comfortable as they could be under the circumstances. Let us also admit that neither at Aderno, Bronte, nor Randazzo were we troubled with musquitoes or any worse species of insect. These, we were assured, would appear in full force in the following month (September). Our only inconvenience of this nature arose from swarms of flies. The inns of these out-of-the-way towns probably receive scarcely a dozen travellers in the year, and these are Sicilians, who are not used to better accommodation. Evidently a _forestiare_ is quite a novelty: the people of these small towns used to look at us with great curiosity, and crowded round the carriage when we started. At Bronte we had a good example of this curiosity: owing to the hardness of the lava of 1832 the head had come off the handle of our