We continued our course through this wild region for an hour or two longer, when we came to a pretty high ridge of hills. We clambered slowly up the ascent, and on reaching the top, a most magnificent view burst upon my sight. A wide bay stretched out its blue waters before us, beyond which rose, sublimely, the huge bulk of Mount Ætna, its towering summit clad in a sheet of snow, which glistened like silver in the bright sun. At the foot of the mountain I could just discern a cluster of white spots at the edge of the shore, which they informed me was the city of Catania. It was about twenty miles distant. The lower part of Ætna was almost black, but I could see no smoke rising from the crater; it was too far off for this, the distance being nearly fifty miles. Further off, over the sea, we saw the mountains of Calabria, capped with snow, and half hidden by the clouds. As we descended the hills and approached the sea-shore, the road grew worse and worse. We climbed over broken rocks, gullies, and the beds of mountain torrents, and through wild thickets of bushes, where we could hardly squeeze our way. After a while, we came to a field where laborers were ploughing: this was the first instance of agricultural labor I had yet seen on the journey. The oxen were fine stout animals, with immensely long horns; the plough was of wood, and the clumsiest machine of the kind I ever saw. The rough, rocky chain of hills now sloped away into a fine champaign country, where the soil appeared very rich. As we proceeded, the color of Mount Ætna gradually changed; its black sides were now spotted with dark red patches, which proved to be small mountains that had burst out of the great one, in fiery eruptions. Presently, we could distinguish the smoke proceeding from the crater at the top; it streamed off like a white cloud horizontally, but with so slow a movement that it gave me some idea of its immense distance. It was one of the grandest sights I ever beheld.