This convent was situated on a hill above a small village in the cultivated district, gay with flowers and dotted with country houses, which lies at the foot of Ætna. The building was sheltered by the great trunks of venerable trees, and the garden, exposed to the African sun, commanded a magnificent view bounded by the sea. This romantic spot, strewn with formidable masses of lava, bore two names which had been given it in turn, and which, in view of the uncertainty as to which it was more likely to retain, were bestowed upon it indifferently at the time of which we write. The location being superb, the soil fertile, and the climate mild and agreeable, it had been called on general principles _Bel Passo_. Then had come the terrible eruptions of Ætna and Monte-Rosso, which had overwhelmed and ruined it; whereupon it had been christened _Mal Passo_. Then, as time passed on, the village and convent were rebuilt, the lava broken up, cultivation resumed, and they gradually reverted to the original complimentary name. But these two contrasting designations were still confused in the memories and the customs of the people. The old men, who had seen their country in its primitive splendor, said _Bel Passo_, as did the children, who had seen it only after it had emerged from chaos, and had been restored to life, as it were. But the men who had seen the spectacle of the catastrophe and experienced its disastrous results in their early years--who had had no other cradle than toil and terror, and were just beginning to obtain some result from their labors--called it _Mal Passo_ more frequently than _Bel Passo_. For a very long time that gorge had changed its name thus, twice or thrice in a century, according to circumstances; an example of the heedless courage of the human race, which builds its nest beside the broken branch, and continues to love and beautify and sing the praises of the domain which it has with difficulty reconquered from the tempests of yesterday. However, this spot afforded equal justification for both of the names which disputed possession of it. It was an epitome of all the horrors and all the charms of nature. Where the river of fire had poured its destructive waves, the ridges of lava, the gray wastes of slag, the ruins of the former soil, upturned, flooded or baked, recalled the evil days, when the population was reduced to begging, and wives and mothers were in mourning; Niobe changed to stone at the sight of her murdered children. But near at hand old fig-trees, reanimated by the passage of the flame, had put forth new branches, and strewed with their succulent fruit the new grass and the worn-out soil, newly steeped in the most generous juices.