Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/453

Rh. Having entered first, I had seated myself on the left-hand side. As he ascended, he begged of me to move, and to take the right-hand seat. I begged him not to stand on such ceremony. "Pardon me," he replied, "and let us sit as I propose; for, if I take my place on your right, everybody will believe that I am taking a ride with you; but if I sit on your left it is thereby indicated that you are riding with me,—that is, with him who has, in the prince's name, to show you the city." To this nothing could, of course, be objected; and he was settled accordingly.

We drove up the streets where the lava, which in 1699 destroyed a great part of this city, remains visible to this day. The solid lava had been worked like any other rock: streets had even been marked out on its surface, and partly built. I placed under the seat of our carriage an undoubted specimen of the molten rock, remembering that just before my departure from Germany the dispute had arisen about the volcanic origin of basalt. And I did so in many other places, in order to have several varieties.

However, if natives had not proved themselves the friends of their own land,—had they not even laboured, either for the sake of profit or of science, to bring together whatever is remarkable in this neighbourhood,—the traveller would have had to trouble himself long and to little purpose. In Naples I had received much information from the lava dealer, but still more information got I here from the Chevalier Gioeni. In his rich and excellently arranged museum I learned more or less correctly to recognise the various phenomena of the lava of Ætna: the basalt at its foot, stones in a changed state,—everything, in fact, was pointed out to me in the most friendly manner. What I saw to be wondered at most were some zeolites from the rugged rocks which rise out of the sea below Jaci.

As we inquired of the chevalier which was the best