In 1882 I went by Austrian mail-steamer from Corfu to Trieste, 28 April to 1 May. She came from Alexandria, and was late in reaching Corfu; and it was midnight when I went on board. She was lying in the roadstead, and everything was silent then; but, as soon as she got out to sea and rolled, there were unexpected and alarming sounds. I discovered in the morning that she had a large consignment of wild beasts on board. They were confined in crates that looked very much too small and not nearly strong enough; but I was told that, if beasts were cooped up tight, they could not use their strength. An old lady remarked to me that she thought it very dangerous to have so many lions on board, and she took the precaution of locking her cabin door at night. I admit I had a pretty bad nightmare of an unknown animal, with a neck like a giraffe’s, standing on deck with his neck down the companion-ladder, the neck growing longer and longer till it nearly reached my cabin door. I once spent a night on the summit of Mount Etna, 22-23 September 1883, and I have never seen anything more uncanny than the cone of that volcano, gleaming like metal in the moonlight, and sending up vast clouds of steam. It stands about 10,700 feet above Catania; and I made the ascent in about eleven hours from there, going by carriage to Nicolosi, and then by mule to the hut at the foot of the cone.--This hut was on the site of the new observatory.--The cone was troublesome, as my feet sank in at every step, and brought out puffs of sulphur: looking back, I could see all my footsteps smoking, and likewise those of my two guides. The crater was full of this sulphureous steam, and there was no view down into it, nor into the Valle del Bove, as the wind drove the steam down there. Apart from this, the view was clear. I saw the sun set from the summit of the cone, came down to the hut for shelter in the night, and saw the sun rise from the Torre del Filosofo, not far from the hut and nearly level with it.--The philosopher was Empedocles, but the tower is Roman, and may have been built for Hadrian, when he went up to see the sun rise. There is not so wide a view from any of the summits in a chain of mountains like the Alps, nor do you seem to be at such a height as on this isolated mountain, although the height may really be much greater. The world seemed like a map spread out below me; and I saw the Shadow. As the sun rose, I began to see another great mountain standing in the middle of Sicily; and then the mountain faded, being only Etna’s shadow on the haze. It is the same thing as the Spectre of the Brocken. I have been up the Brocken also, 14 August 1874, but have not seen the Spectre.