[Footnote: It may be inferred from the character of the writing,
which is in the style of the note in facsimile Vol. I, p. 297, that
this passage was written between 1470 and 1480. As the figure 6 at
the end of the text indicates, it was continued on another page, but
I have searched in vain for it. The reverse of this leaf is coloured
red for drawing in silver point, but has not been used for that
purpose but for writing on, and at about the same date. The passages
are given as Nos. 1217, 1218, 1219, 1162 and No. 994 (see note page
218). The text given above is obviously not a fragment of a letter,
but a record of some personal experience. No. 1379 also seems to
refer to Leonardo's journeys in Southern Italy.]

Like a whirling wind which rushes down a sandy and hollow valley,
and which, in its hasty course, drives to its centre every thing
that opposes its furious course ...

No otherwise does the Northern blast whirl round in its tempestuous
progress ...

Nor does the tempestuous sea bellow so loud, when the Northern blast
dashes it, with its foaming waves between Scylla and Charybdis; nor
Stromboli, nor Mount Etna, when their sulphurous flames, having been
forcibly confined, rend, and burst open the mountain, fulminating
stones and earth through the air together with the flames they
vomit.

Nor when the inflamed caverns of Mount Etna [Footnote 13: Mongibello
is a name commonly given in Sicily to Mount Etna (from Djebel,
Arab.=mountain). Fr. FERRARA, _Descrizione dell' Etna con la storia
delle eruzioni_ (Palermo, 1818, p. 88) tells us, on the authority of
the _Cronaca del Monastero Benedettino di Licordia_ of an eruption
of the Volcano with a great flow of lava on Sept. 21, 1447. The next
records of the mountain are from the years 1533 and 1536. A. Percy
neither does mention any eruptions of Etna during the years to which
this note must probably refer _Memoire des tremblements de terre de
la peninsule italique, Vol. XXII des Memoires couronnees et Memoires
des savants etrangers. Academie Royal de Belgique_).

A literal interpretation of the passage would not, however, indicate
an allusion to any great eruption; particularly in the connection
with Stromboli, where the periodical outbreaks in very short
intervals are very striking to any observer, especially at night
time, when passing the island on the way from Naples to Messina.],
rejecting the ill-restained element vomit it forth, back to its own
region, driving furiously before it every obstacle that comes in the
way of its impetuous rage ...

Unable to resist my eager desire and wanting to see the great ... of
the various and strange shapes made by formative nature, and having
wandered some distance among gloomy rocks, I came to the entrance of
a great cavern, in front of which I stood some time, astonished and
unaware of such a thing. Bending my back into an arch I rested my
left hand on my knee and held my right hand over my down-cast and
contracted eye brows: often bending first one way and then the
other, to see whether I could discover anything inside, and this
being forbidden by the deep darkness within, and after having
remained there some time, two contrary emotions arose in me, fear
and desire--fear of the threatening dark cavern, desire to see
whether there were any marvellous thing within it ...

Drafts of Letters to Lodovico il Moro (1340-1345).