Catania, according to Mr Swinburne's account, is reviving with great splendour. "It has already (he says) much more the features of a metropolis and royal residence than Palermo: the principal streets are wide, straight, and well paved with lava. An obelisk of red granite, placed on the back of an antique elephant of touchstone, stands in the centre of the great square, which is formed by the townhall, seminary, and cathedral. The cathedral erected by the abbot Angerius in the year 1094, was endowed by Earl Roger with the territories of Catania and Ætna, for the small acknowledgement of a glass of wine and a loaf of bread offered once a-year. It has suffered so much by earthquakes, that little of the original structure remains, and the modern parts have hardly anything except their materials to recommend them. The other religious edifices of the city are profusely ornamented, but in a bad taste. The spirit of building seems to have seized upon the people, and the prince of Biscari's example adds fresh vigour. It were natural to suppose men would be backward in erecting new habitations, especially with any degree of luxury, on ground so often shaken to its centre, and so often buried under the ashes of a volcano; but such is their attachment to their native soil, and their contempt of dangers they are habituated to, that they rebuild their houses on the warm cinders of Vesuvius, the quaking plains of Calabria, and the black mountains of sciarra at Catania; it is however surprising to see such embellishments lavished in so dangerous a situation. There is a great deal of activity in the disposition of this people: they know by tradition that their ancestors carried on a flourishing commerce; and that before the fiery river filled it up, they had a spacious convenient harbour, where they now have scarce a creek for a felucca: they therefore wish to restore those advantages to Catania, and have often applied to government for assistance towards forming a mole and port, an undertaking their strength alone is unequal to; but whether the refusal originates in the deficiencies of the public treasury or the jealousy of the other cities, all the projects have ended in fruitless applications. The number of inhabitants dwelling in Catania amounts to 30,000; the Catanians make it double: A considerable portion of this number pertains to the universitary, the only one in the island, and the nurseries of all the lawyers." E. Long. 15. 19. N. Lat. 37. 30.