MOUNT ETNA. tends through an ascent of from 12 to 18 miles. We present our readers in this number two The city of Catania and several villages are engravings of Mount Etna, which are rendered situated in the first zone, which abounds in pasparticularly interesting at the present moment, tures, orchards, and various kinds of fruit-trees. as from the latest accounts from Sicily we learn Its great fertility is ascribed chiefly to the dethat the mountain was again vomiting forth its composition of lava; it is perhaps owing, in part, volcanic flames. A letter from a gentleman in this region, are reckoned the finest in Sicily. to cultivation. The figs and fruits in general, near the spot states, that three new craters have The lava here flows from a number of small been formed, one of which vomits lava, the se-mountains, which are dispersed over the imcond stones and sand, and the third only smoke. The stream of lava was at the time of writing temperate zone, extends from 8 to 10 miles in a mense declivity of Etna. The woody region, or more than a mile in breadth, and about eighteen direct line towards the top of the mountain; it miles in extent. The loss of property is of course immense, many vallies being filled, fruit comprehends a surface of about 40 or 45 square trees and vineyards destroyed, &c., while the in-leagues, and forms a zone of the brightest green cessant earthquakes have demolished several villages. The lava moving slowly, the inhabitants have generally escaped. Ten thousand strangers and others who came to visit the mountain were living in tents. Bronte, Lord Nelson's village, was likely soon to be overwhelmed, the lava being but a few miles from it.

The following account of this wonderful mountain is full of interest, and having been compiled from various sources, forms a suitable accompaniment to the plate.

all round the mountain, exhibiting a pleasing contrast to its white and hoary head. It is called beeches and firs. The soil is similar to that of la regione selvosa, because it abounds in oaks, the lower region. The air here is cool and refreshing, and every breeze is loaded with a thousand perfumes, the whole ground being covered with the richest aromatic plants. Many parts of this region are the most delightful spots upon earth, and have inspired ancient and modern poets with images of beauty and loveliness. The animal kingdom of these two regions is not equal ETNA, (in Italian, monte Gibello,) the famous in point of richness to the vegetable. The upper volcanic mountain on the eastern coast of Sici- or barren region is marked out by a circle of ly, not far from the Catania. This mountain snow and ice. Its surface is, for the most part, rises more than 10,000 feet above the surface of flat, and the approach to it is indicated by the the sea; Buffon thinks, 2000 fathoms; Saussure decline of vegetation, by uncovered rocks of gives 10,963 feet, Spallanzani 11,400, and Sir G. lava and heaps of sand, by near views of the exShuckburgh 10,954. Its circumference at the panse of snow and ice, and of torrents of smoke base is 180 miles. On its sides are 77 cities, issuing from the crater of the mountain, also by towns and villages, containing about 115,000 in- the difficulty and danger of advancing amidst habitants. From Catania (T.) to the summit the streams of melted snow, sheets of ice, and gusts distance is 30 miles, and the traveller must pass of chilling winds. The curious traveller, howthrough three distinct climates-the hot, the tem- ever, thinks himself amply rewarded, upon gain. perate and the frigid. Accordingly, the whole ing the summit, for the peril which he has enmountain is divided into three distinct regions, countered. The number of stars seems increased, called the fertile region (regione culta), the and their light appears brighter than usual; the woody region (regione selvosa), and the barren lustre of the milky way is like a pure flame that region (regione deserta). The lowest region ex-1 shoots across the heavens; and with the 1 aked

The next day it moved towards a tract of country called Mel Passo, inhabited by about 800 people, which, in the space of twenty hours, was entirely depopulated and laid waste; the lava then changed its direction, and destroyed some other villages. Monpellieri and its inhabitants were also destroyed." On the 23d of March, the stream of lava was in some places two miles broad, and extended itself to the village of Mezzalucia. On this day a new gulf was opened, from which were discharged sand and ashes, which formed a hill with two summits, two miles in circumference, and 150 paces high; these consisted of stones of different colors.

eye we may observe clusters of stars totally invisible in the lower regions. The scoria, of which the mountain is composed, have the same kind of base, containing schorl and feldspar. The first eruption of which we have any authentic account, is mentioned by Diodorus Siculus. The last eruption took place in 1819. It appears very probable that mount Etna is exhausting its volcanic powers, as the eruptions of modern times are by no means so frequent as in former ages, nor are they so tremendous in their extent and effects. Before the Christian era, there were 9 eruptions, of which those in 477 and 121 B. C. are the most important: after Christ, the most important are those in 1160, 1169, 1329, 1536, 1537, 1669, 1693, 1763, 1787, 1792, 1802, 1809, of this mountain with torches, but could not M. Houel went down into one of the openings 1811, 1819. Mount Etna supplies Sicily and a reach the bottom, and was obliged soon to relarge part of Italy, and even Malta, with the turn on account of the extreme cold. The craluxury of snow and ice. The trade in these ar-ter is of an oval form, and the opening through ticles belongs to the bishop of Catania, who, as which he descended was in one extremity; but it is stated, makes from 3000 to 4000 dollars per he inclined to think that the crater which rises annum by it. The vegetation of the woody re- above it had been formed of matter discharged gion is exceedingly luxuriant. There is one by another mouth; or perhaps it might have had chestnut tree, under which 100 horses may be a more centrical opening, through which the sheltered against the sun. charged. This mountain is one of the mouths of stones, sand, &c. that form the crater, were disEtna, through which it discharges, from time to time, great quantities of lava, sand, ashes, &c, The sides of the craters are not all of the same height; those to the east and west are considerably higher than the intermediate summits, bely from east to west, and fell upon these sides in cause the currents of the ashes passed alternategreater quantities than upon the others; which circumstance has given to this volcano the appearance of two summits.

The first station in the ascent of the mountain is Nicolosi, plate 1, let. H, which is about 12 miles up the mountain, and 2496 feet above the level of the sea. The road from Catania to this station lies over old lavas and the mouths of extinguished volcanoes, which are now converted into cornfields, vineyards and orchards.The figs of this region, and the fruits in general, are reckoned the finest in Sicily. Not far from Nicolosa is monte Rosso, which was formerly a plain; but in 1669 a new crater was opened in it, and discharged a dreadful torrent of lava, which Bowed into the sea and formed a kind of promontary, (sce Y). It is surrounded, to the extent of of two miles, with a black sand, which was thrown out in that eruption, and which then covered an extent of 15 miles, to such a depth as to bury the vines and shrubs that were scattered over the soil. Some of the liner particles of it were wafted by the wind as far as Calabria.

this mountain, is an agreeable resting-place for St. Niccolo dell'Arena, in the neighborhood of travellers who visit Etna. This is an ancient edifice, founded on the lava, and was formerly the habitation of a number of Benedictine monks, who, about 200 years ago, were obliged, on account of the devastations occased by the lava, to abandon it, and retire to Catania. Here earthquakes, torrents of lava, and showers of are many inscriptions which record the ruinous sand and ashes by which it has been damaged, and even destroyed, together with the dates of their different repairs. The black sand, thrown up in 1669, is more easily changed into vegetable earth than the lava; and has for many years been planted with extensive vineyards: whilst there are many beds of ancient lava that remain in an unproductive state, and destitute of every kind of vegetable.

The old crater on the summit of Etna raged for two or three months before this event, in an unusual manner: and this was also the case with Volcano and Stromboli, two burning islands to the west of it. In the evening of the 11th of March, at the distance of about twenty miles from the old mouth, and ten miles from Catania, a chasm was opened in the east side of the mountain, which is said to have been several miles (Borelli says twelve) in length, and five or six feet wide. This was not far from the place where monte Rosso afterwards rose, and extended in called Montpelieri, or Monpileri, (see letter G). At a small distance there is another mountain, the direction of the grand crater of Etna. See This is of a spherical form, and its perpendicupl. i. V. V. V. On the night following, in the lar height does not exceed 300 feet, and its cirplace where this mountain now stands, another cuit is about a mile. It is perfectly regular on large cleft opened, and several other chasms every side, and richly overspread with fruits and were formed in different parts of the mountain; flowers. Its crater is large in proportion to the and there issued from all of them huge volumes of mountain itself, and is as exactly hollowed out smoke, accompanied with the usual phænomena as the best made bowl. This mountain was of thunder and earthquake. From the principal formed by the first eruption that destroyed the chasm there issued the same night a stream of ancient HYBLA, which was celebrated for its lava, which directed its course to a lake called fertility, and particularly for its honey, and la Hardia, about six miles from Monpellieri, thence called Mel Passi; thus, in consequence and in its way destroyed many dwelling-houses, of being reduced by several eruptions, and more and other buildings in the adjacent villages. particularly by that of 1669, to a state of wretch

LOVE AND GLORY-THE PARTING HOUR-FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.

Written for the Casket.

Preparatory Remarks to the

MORAVIAN INDIANS:

A TALE.

reader with personal detail, I can assert that, though very young, I cannot be mistaken in the latter date.

In page two hundred and eighty, when speaking of the second party sent out the same sum

Williamson, Mr. Heckewelder states, after giving some previous movements, they then shaped their course towards the hostile Indian villages, where being, contrary to their expectations, furiously attacked, Williamson and his band took the advantage of a dark night and ran off, and the whole party escaped except one Col. Crawford and another, who being taken by the Indians, were carried in triumph to their villages, &c.This account is exceedingly incorrect. There were several other persons taken with Colonel Crawford and tortured to death. Two very re

The murder of the Moravian, or Christian In-mer, 1782, but commanded by Crawford and dians on the Tuscarawas, in 1782, was amongst those acts which make a nation blush; but like all other acts of man it has been discolored. The name of Col. David Williamson, who was the nominal commander of the party who were the perpetrators, has been held up to infamy as a monster. This preface, and the Tale which follows, were neither of them written to excuse the deed of horror, nor have I ever heard a single voice raised in its justification, though I was bred from a child to mature years near Washington, Pennsylvania, and of course in the very section of country from whence the actors proceeded.markable escapes were made; one by a man of The Christian Indians were placed in the very most dangerous position that was possible, not, as commonly supposed, on the Muskingum, but Tuscarawas, directly between the warlike tribes and the equally warlike frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania; and as a natural and inevitable consequence, exposed to the suspicions of both parties.

the name of Stover, and the other, Dr. Knight.— The adventures of these two men would figure in romance, with all the interest of truth. Stover was well acquainted with the country, and reached the Ohio on the fifth day. Dr. Knight was about twenty-two or twenty-three days exposed to every hardship and danger.

So far again was the party from escaping with the exceptions given above, to say nothing of others, there were three men out of the near neighborhood where I lived who were never again heard of-of course perished; their names were William Nimmons, William Johnson, and William Houston.

In the work published in 1819, in Philadelphia, by the A. P. S., and written by Mr. Heckewelder, formerly a Moravian Missionary among the Indians, we are made to believe, as far as the context can influence our opinions, that the Christian Indians on the Tuscarawas, were safe except on the part of the whites. This was far These historical facts are given to serve as data indeed from being the true state in which these to explain the natural causes of a deplorable people were placed. The Simon Girty mention-event. In the Tale my object has been to paint ed by Mr. Heckewelder, was then a renegado the times, and give the feelings of men as they amongst the hostile Mingoes and Shawnees, and were then agitated. Those feelings had their in deeds of blood suffered no man to be his supe-play in my presence at an age when impressions are not simply deep, but indelible. I can at this

rior.

mily.

The almost universal opinion on the frontiers moment, when upwards of fifty years have passof Virginia and Pennsylvania, from about 1778, ed, see the faces of my mother and another wowas, that the chieftain and peaceable Indians man who came running to where my mother. or Tuscarawas ought to be removed. The law-stood, crying-" James Workman is killed! Oh, less hands on both sides were dreaded, and the James Workman is killed!" Mr. Workman considerate and hunane part of the whites, an was not, however, killed-he returned to his faimmense majority of the whole, in foreseeing, most anxiously desired to avert a catastrophe.— With many of the actors I was personally acquainted, and must say, that the result of the expedition could never have been premeditated, except by a few if by any single person. The act was loudly, and I may say almost universally condemned in the settlements, not simply from dread of revenge, but from genuine feelings of humanity.

Beside giving a coloring too strong on one side, Mr. Heckewelder has made some material errors in facts and dates. In page sixty-four this author quotes part of a speech made by an Indian, at which he says he was present, April, 1787; and in the next page states that " Eleven months after this speech was delivered, ninety-six of the same Christian Indians, about sixty of them women and children, were murdered, &c." It may be rationally conjectured,that the two last figures ought to be transposed, and make the date 1778; but even then the date of the massacre would fall in March, 1779, whilst it really took place in the summer of 1782. Without troubling the

THE MORAVIAN INDIANS.

I cannot weep, yet I can feel

The pangs that rend a parent's breast:
But ah, what sighs or tears can heal

Thy griefs, and wake the slumberer's rest?
McDIAVMID:

"If ever the view of any one picture of human improvement was more than all others, cal culated to inspire sentiments of the most sublime enthusiasm, it is that of the "Great West," that immense region around us, and from which issue the thousand and ten thousand fountains, mingling their tribute to form the mighty Mississippi; but to feel the entire beauties of this canvas in their full harmony, they might have been seen as I have seen, when the first outlines of civilization were sketched; and now, when are presented in continual succession, farms, towns and cities, connected by rivers, roads and canals, with all the busy hum of commercial life. They must have been seen whilst the howl of the savage was

still heard in the dark wild-when barbarism is | the prophetic eye would have wept tears of bitreplaced by all the allurements of cultivated so- terness. In many of my hunting excursions (for ciety. Yes; at the extremes of sixty years have then we were all hunters), I strayed to the creeks I traversed these banks," said old Kingsley Hale, of Tuscarawas; and many is the night my wearaising his voice, while his still expressive eye ry limbs found rest at Schoenbrun. But those glanced down the tranquil Ohio, and with his days of peace were to be succeeded by a storm hand stretched towards the rising city of Wheel--a sweeping destruction, the American Revolutionary War. That great period gave a republic to the earth, and humbled the proud oppressor. Such benefits were purchased with blood, and not in every case sustained with blood.

ing.

"If a few native Indians planted the olive, the much greater number cherished the laurel, and remained ready to dig up the tomahawk, or hatchet of war. With an improvidence, which has cost our lengthened 1 ontier so much of blood and misery, these warriors were left to our enemy. Every art was used to excite them against us.

My young friends, let any one of you imagine himself encamped on this spot alone and with an unbroken forest around him, crouched under a fallen tree with his rifle, his only friend, clasped to his breast. It is night, stillness and darkness reign over the waste. You are fallen into a slumber, from which you are roused by a sound, long and piercing; it comes from beyond that river. Is it the Cougar's scream? no. It is a thousand times more terrible-it is the yell of the Indian. This sound ceases, stillness again reigns; fatigue wraps your senses in sleep, from "Slow and constant was the stream of white which the burning rays of a summer sun recall emigration; and with superior arms and other you to waking recollection; you grasp your faith-means, every rising young man became a natu ful rifle and rise with caution; you dare not stir ral enemy to the Indians, and the Indians felt that a leaf, but what do you see? One wide sweep of their inheritance was passing to the white race. cultivation. The forest is broken, fields stretch Between these warlike bodies stood the three beyond fields, and of the primeval woods, what defenceless villages of Gnadenhutten, Schoenremain, serves to form a part only of the enchant- brun and Salem. Threats from the east, at first ing landscape. A city, with all the attributes of slight, but yearly becoming more fierce and loud, wealth and human enjoyment, occupies the fore-reached the Moravian Indians on Tuscarawas, ground. What would be your astonishment at in accents of death. The sounds from the west such a change? you could not believe it other were not less appalling; the Christian Indians than an illusion, for such a change have I seen, stood between two hostile nations, suspected by, and from this very spot. Along this bank I was and exposed to the vengeance of both-no goone of four, the remnant of forty, who escaped the vernment to offer an arm to these unprotected savages. On yonder bank, and under that im- and unsuspecting people; and the whirlwind of mense hotel, slumber the dust of my fallen destruction reached their dwellings. They pefriends." rished, but not alone.

"Grand-papa," interrupted a lovely girl, "you have put us all into such a melancholy kind ofjoy; such a-oh! I don't know what to call it; but you promised us the the tale of Schoenbrun." My little Ellen," said the old warrior, placing his hand on her head, "the tale of Schoenbrun will indeed give melancholy joy-it will excite regret for the past, and gladness that those days of blood are long gone into years of past time.

"In Europe, my young friends-my children, amongst many other societies of christians, arose one, the United Brothers." Some of these men came to America, not to bring a sword, but the glad tidings of peace. Their persuasive voice reached into the deepest recesses of these woods of which I have spoken, and entered the hearts of many natives who embraced, not in name, but reality, the doctrines of Christ. Of these red men and their families, many settled on the Muskingum. The messengers of christianity were Germans, and in memory of their native places, German names were given to three villages, Salem, Gnadenhutten, and Schoenbrun. During the twelve or thirteen years which passed between the Old French War,' to the beginning of that of the Revolution, peace reigned over these solitary settlements; they were spots, and pleasing ones, on the beautiful Tuscarawas, where the children of nature learned to lisp the name of Him whose power brought them into existence. They were spots on which the eye of benevolence delighted to dwell, but over which

"Let us return some years and fix our eyes upon the early settlements along the Mouongahela. Even before the ill-directed and ill-fated expedition of British and provincials, under Gen. Braddock, some few habitations of whites had begun to appear along our streams; and in one of those rude cabins appeared and smiled Ellen Aylworth. Like a rose in the desert did I see this beauteous flower bloom. At that early time what little of society was to be seen, presented with much of kindness, a stern inflexibility of purpose, and with that tenacity, a promptness of action, which crowded events upon events. As the thunders of the Revolutionary War began to be hoarsely heard beyond our mountains, Ellen rose to womanhood, but with her rose anotherSaul Garvin. This young man was light of form and fleet as the deer on the hills. In person and in natural manners, never have I since beheld the equal to Saul Garvin. Eilen Aylworth was life and beauty personified-Garvin personated the times; he was serious but his heart was warm. In other regions and stations Ellen would have shone amongst the gay, the gifted, and the great. They were two whom nature placed together and forced to love, yet their hearts were not alike moulded-they were not destined to tread happi· ly over the rough paths before them.

"It always makes me smile when I hear the pride of wealth named, for never have I seen any rank-for 1 have seen all ranks-where this spirit was not equally active; and Saul and Ellen felt its malign influence. Saul was under the