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Updated: July 2, 2025
The miracles effected by the saint are numberless, and her power is especially efficacious in preventing earthquakes and eruptions of Mount Etna. Nevertheless, Catania has suffered more from these causes than any other town in Sicily. But I would that all saints had as good a claim to canonization as St. Agatha.
"We reached the lava at a picturesque cypress-planted cemetery on the northern boundary of Torre Annunziata. It was as if the dead had effectually cried out to arrest the crushing river of flames which pitilessly engulfed the statue of St. Anne with which the people of Bosco Reale tried to stay it, as at Catania the veil of St. Agathe is said to have stayed a similar stream from Mount Etna.
I must further observe, that M. Bonpland and I, going from Guayaquil to the coast of Mexico, crossed latitudes in the Pacific, where the crew of our ship were dismayed by a hollow sound coming from the depth of the ocean, and transmitted by the waters. At that time a new eruption of Cotopaxi took place, but we were as far distant from the volcano, as Etna from the city of Naples.
Perhaps a thousand yards below, a much stronger column of mingled black and white smoke gushed up, in regular beats or pants, from a depression in the mountain side, between two small, extinct cones. All this part of Etna was scarred with deep chasms, and in the bottoms of those nearest the opening, I could see the red gleam of fire.
But the beacon of Messina was not to be discerned; no trace, indeed, survived of any portion of Sicily; the very peak of Etna, 11,000 feet as it had reared itself above the level of the sea, had vanished utterly.
The pyramid of Etna, bluer even than the sky, dominated the western horizon long after the heel of Italy had faded, then melted in its turn into the haze of cloud and distance. No other sails were visible.
Peace lay over its dark homes and within its ancient walls. I had seen Etna, Vesuvius and Stromboli, but had never yet climbed any volcano until I stood upon the summit of the Peak of Teneriffe, Pico de Teyde, home of the gods and devils as well as of the aboriginal Guanches of the Canary Islands.
So the girls sat on the terrace overlooking the sea and Etna, and breathed the sweet air and enjoyed the caressing sunshine, until they noticed the portiere coming hastily toward them. "Pardon, signorini," he said, breathlessly, "but it will be to oblige me greatly if you will tell me where Signor Ferralti is."
They were a merry party when they boarded the train for Syracuse, and Uncle John arranged with the guard to secure two adjoining compartments all to themselves, that they might have plenty of room. "Where did you put the money, Uncle John?" Beth whispered, when at last they were whirling along and skirting the base of Mt. Etna toward the Catania side.
I thought of this story, standing there, and nothing else in the castle's filled with bloom; then the infinite beauty, slowly fading, withdrew the scene, and sweetly it parted from my eyes. Yet once more I step out upon the terrace into the night. I hear the long roar of the breakers; I see the flickering fishers' lights, and Etna pale under the stars. The place is full of ghosts.
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