Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

"Have down, have down my merry men all--
Have down unto the plain;
We'll let the Scottish lion loose
Within the fields of Spain!"--

"Now welcome to me, noble lord,
Thou and thy stalwart power;
Dear is the sight of a Christian knight
Who comes in such an hour!

"Is it for bond or faith ye come,
Or yet for golden fee?
Or bring ye France's lilies here,
Or the flower of Burgundie?'

"God greet thee well, thou valiant King,
Thee and thy belted peers--
Sir James of Douglas am I call'd,
And these are Scottish spears.

"We do not fight for bond or plight,
Nor yet for golden fee;
But for the sake of our blessed Lord,
That died Upon the tree.

"We bring our great King Robert's heart
Across the weltering wave,
To lay it in the holy soil
Hard by the Saviour's grave.

"True pilgrims we, by land or sea,
Where danger bars the way;
And therefore are we here, Lord King,
To ride with thee this day!"

The King has bent his stately head,
And the tears were in his eyne--
"God's blessing on thee, noble knight,
For this brave thought of thine!

"I know thy name full well, Lord James,
And honour'd may I be,
That those who fought beside the Bruce
Should fight this day for me!

"Take thou the leading of the van,
And charge the Moors amain;
There is not such a lance as thine
In all the host of Spain!"

The Douglas turned towards us then,
Oh, but his glance was high!--
"There is not one of all my men
But is as bold as I.

"There is not one of all my knights
But bears as true a spear--
Then onwards! Scottish gentlemen,
And think--King Robert's here!"

The trumpets blew, the cross-bolts flew,
The arrows flash'd like flame,
As spur in side, and spear in rest,
Against the foe we came.

And many a bearded Saracen
Went down, both horse and man;
For through their ranks we rode like corn,
So furiously we ran!

But in behind our path they closed,
Though fain to let us through,
For they were forty thousand men,
And we were wondrous few.

We might not see a lance's length,
So dense was their array,
But the long fell sweep of the Scottish blade
Still held them hard at bay.

"Make in! make in!" Lord Douglas cried,
"Make in, my brethren dear!
Sir William of St Clair is down,
We may not leave him here!"

But thicker, thicker, grew the swarm,
And sharper shot the rain,
And the horses rear'd amid the press,
But they would not charge again.

"Now Jesu help thee," said Lord James,
"Thou kind and true St Clair!
An' if I may not bring thee off,
I'll die beside thee there!"

Then in his stirrups up he stood,
So lionlike and bold,
And held the precious heart aloft
All in its case of gold.

He flung it from him, far ahead,
And never spake he more,
But--"Pass thee first, thou dauntless heart,
As thou were wont of yore!"

The roar of fight rose fiercer yet,
And heavier still the stour,
Till the spears of Spain came shivering in
And swept away the Moor.

"Now praised be God, the day is won!
They fly o'er flood and fell--
Why dost thou draw the rein so hard,
Good knight, that fought so well?"

"Oh, ride ye on, Lord King!" he said,
"And leave the dead to me,
For I must keep the dreariest watch
That ever I shall dree!

"There lies beside his master's heart
The Douglas, stark and grim;
And woe is me I should be here,
Not side by side with him!

"The world grows cold, my arm is old,
And thin my lyart hair,
And all that I loved best on earth
Is stretch'd before me there.

"O Bothwell banks! that bloom so bright,
Beneath the sun of May,
The heaviest cloud that ever blew
Is bound for you this day.

"And, Scotland, thou may'st veil thy head
In sorrow and in pain;
The sorest stroke upon thy brow
Hath fallen this day in Spain!

"We'll bear them back into our ship,
We'll bear them o'er the sea,
And lay them in the hallow'd earth,
Within our own countrie.

"And be thou strong of heart, Lord King,
For this I tell thee sure,
The sod that drank the Douglas' blood
Shall never bear the Moor!"

The King he lighted from his horse,
He flung his brand away,
And took the Douglas by the hand,
So stately as he lay.

"God give thee rest, thou valiant soul,
That fought so well for Spain;
I'd rather half my land were gone,
So thou wert here again!"

We bore the good Lord James away,
And the priceless heart he bore,
And heavily we steer'd our ship
Towards the Scottish shore.

No welcome greeted our return,
Nor clang of martial tread,
But all were dumb and hush'd as death
Before the mighty dead.

We laid the Earl in Douglas Kirk,
The heart in fair Melrose;
And woful men were we that day--
God grant their souls repose!
W.E.A.

MEMORANDUMS OF A MONTH'S TOUR IN SICILY.

THE MUSEUM OF PALERMO.

The museum of Palermo is a small but very interesting collection of statues and other sculpture, gathered chiefly, they say, from the ancient temples of Sicily, with a few objects bestowed out of the superfluities of Pompeii. In the lower room are some good bas-reliefs, to which a story is attached. They were discovered fifteen years ago at _Selinuntium_ by some young Englishmen, the reward of four months' labour. Our guide, who had been also theirs, had warned them not to stay after the month of June, when malaria begins. They did stay. All (four) took the fever; one died of it in Palermo, and the survivors were deprived by the government--that is, by the king--of the spoils for which they had suffered so much and worked so hard. No one is permitted to excavate without royal license; _excavation_ is, like _Domitian's fish, res fisci_. Even Mr Fagan, who was consul at Palermo, having made some interesting underground discoveries, was deprived of them. We saw here a fine Esculapius, in countenance and expression exceedingly like the _Ecce Homo_ of Leonardo da Vinci, with all that god-like compassion which the great painter had imparted without any sacrifice of dignity. He holds a poppy-head, which we do not recollect on his statue or gems, and the Epidaurian snake is at his side. Up-stairs we saw specimens of fruits from Pompeii, barley, beans, the carob pod, pine kernels, as well as bread, sponge, linen: and the sponge was obviously such, and so was the linen. A bronze Hercules treading on the back of a stag, which he has overtaken and subdued, is justly considered as one of the most perfect bronzes discovered at Pompeii. A head of our Saviour, by Corregio, is exquisite in conception, and such as none but a person long familiar with the physiognomy of suffering could have accomplished. These are exceptions rather than specimens. The pictures, in general, are poor in interest; and a long gallery of _casts_ of the _chef-d'oeuvres_ of antiquity possessed by the capitals of Italy, Germany, England, and France, looks oddly here, and shows the poverty of a country which had been to the predatory proconsuls of Rome an inexhaustible repertory of the highest treasures of art. A VERRES REDIVIVUS would now find little to carry off but toys made of amber, lava snuff-boxes, and WODEHOUSE'S MARSALA--one of which he certainly would not guess the _age_ of, and the other of which he would not _drink_.

LUNATIC ASYLUM.

We saw nothing in this house or its arrangements to make us think it superior, or very different from others we had visited elsewhere. The making a lunatic asylum a show-place for strangers is to be censured; indeed, we heard Esquirol observe, that nothing was so bad as the admission of many persons to see the patients at all; for that, although some few were better for the visits of friends, it was injurious as a general rule to give even friends admittance, and that it ought to be left discretionary with the physician, _when_ to admit, and _whom_. Cleanliness, good fare, a garden, and the suppression of all violence--these have become immutable canons for the conduct of such institutions, and fortunately demand little more than ordinary good feeling and intelligence in the superintendent. But we could not fail to observe a sad want of suitable inducement to _occupation_, which was apparent throughout this asylum. That not above one in ten could read, may perhaps be thought a light matter, for few can be the resources of insanity in books; yet we saw at _Genoa_ a case where it had taken that turn, and as it is occupation to read, with how much profit it matters not. Not one woman in four, as usually occurs in insanity, could be induced to _dress according to her sex_; they figured away in men's coats and hats! The dining-room was hung with portraits of some merit, by one of the lunatics; and we noticed that every face, if indeed all are _portraits_, had some insanity in it. They have a dance every Sunday evening. What an exhibition it must be!

MISCELLANEA

That the vegetation of Palermo excels that of Naples, partly depends on the superior intelligence of the agriculturist, and partly upon soil and climate: the fruits here are not only more advanced, but finer in quality. We left a very meagre dessert of cherries beginning to ripen at Naples; the very next day, a superabundance of very fine and mature ones were to be had on all the stalls of Palermo. This must be the result of industry and care in a great measure; for on leaving that city, after a _séjour_ of three weeks, for Messina, Catania, and Syracuse, although summer was much further advanced, we relapsed into miserably meagre supplies of what we had eaten in perfection in the capital; yet Syracuse and Catania are much warmer than Palermo.

The vegetables here are of immense growth. The fennel root (and there is no better test of your whereabouts in Italy) is nearly twice as large as at Naples, and weighs, accordingly, nearly double. The cauliflowers are quite colossal; and they have a blue cabbage so big that your arms will scarcely embrace it. We question, however, whether this hypertrophy of fruit or vegetables improves their flavour; give us _English vegetables_--ay, and _English fruit_. Though Smyrna's _fig_ is eaten throughout Europe, and Roman _brocoli_ be without a rival; though the _cherry_ and the Japan _medlar_ flourish only at Palermo, and the _cactus_ of Catania can be eaten nowhere else; what country town in England is not better off on the whole, if quality alone be considered? But we have one terrible drawback; for _whom_ are these fruits of the earth produced? Our _prices_ are enormous, and our supply scanty; could we _forget this_, and the artichoke, the asparagus, the peas and beans of London and Paris, are rarely elsewhere so fine. To our palates the _gooseberry_ and the _black currant_ are a sufficient indemnity to Britain for the _grape_, merely regarded as a fruit to _eat. Pine-apples_, those "illustrious foreigners," are so successfully _petted_ at home, that they will scarcely condescend now to flourish out of England. _Nectarines_ refuse to ripen, and _apricots_ to have any taste elsewhere. Our _pears_ and _apples_ are better, and of more various excellence, than any in the world. And we really prefer our very figs, grown on a fine _prebendal_ wall in the close of _Winchester_, or under _Pococke's_ window in a canon's garden at _chilly Oxford_. Thus has the kitchen-garden refreshed our patriotism, and made us half ashamed of our long forgetfulness of home. But there are good things abroad too for poor men; the rich may live any where. An enormous salad, crisp, cold, white, and of delicious flavour, for a halfpenny; olive oil, for fourpence a pound, to dress it with; and wine for fourpence a gallon to make it disagree with you;[15] fuel for almost nothing, and bread for little, are not small advantages to frugal housekeepers; but, when dispensed by a despotic government, where one must read those revolting words _motu proprio_ at the head of every edict, let us go back to our carrots and potatoes, our Peels and our income-tax, our fogs and our frost. The country mouse came to a right conclusion, and did not like the fragments of the feast with the cat in the cupboard--

Give me again my hollow tree,
My crust of bread, and liberty."

[Footnote 15:

----_Lactuca_ innatat acri
Post vinum stomacho.--HOR.]

Fish, though plentiful and various, is not fine in any part of the _Mediterranean_; and as to _thunny_, one surfeit would put it out of the bill of fare for life. On the whole, though at Palermo and Naples the pauper starves not in the streets, the gourmand would be sadly at a loss in his requisition of delicacies and variety. Inferior bread, at a penny a pound, is here considered palatable by the sprinkling over of the crust with a small rich seed (_jugulena_) which has a flavour like the almond; it is also strewn, like our caraway seeds in biscuits, _into_ the paste, and is largely cultivated for that single use. The _capsici_, somewhat similar in flavour to the pea, are detached from the radicles of a plant with a flower strikingly like the potatoe, and is used for a similar purpose to the jugulena.

This island was the granary of Athens before it nourished Rome; and wheat appears to have been first raised in Europe on the plains of eastern Sicily. In Cicero's time it returned eightfold; and to this day one grain yields its eightfold of increase; which, however, is by a small fraction less than our own, as given by M'Culloch in his "Dictionary of Commerce." We plucked some _siligo_, or bearded wheat, near Palermo, the beard of which was eight inches long, the ear contained sixty grains, eight being also in this instance the average increase; how many grains, then, must perish in the ground!

In Palermo, English gunpowder is sold by British sailors at the high price of from five to seven shillings per English pound; the "Polvere _nostrale_" of the Sicilians only fetches 1s. 8d.; yet such is the superiority of English gunpowder, that every one who has a passion for popping at sparrows, and other _Italian sports_, (complimented by the title of _La caccia_,) prefers the dear article. When they have killed off all the robins, and there is not a twitter in _the whole country_, they go to the river side and shoot _gudgeons_.

The Palermo donkey is the most obliging animal that ever wore long ears, and will carry you cheerfully four or five miles an hour without whip or other _encouragement_. The oxen, no longer white or cream-coloured, as in Tuscany, were originally importations from Barbary, (to which country the Sicilians are likewise indebted for the _mulberry_ and _silk-worm_.) Their colour is brown. They rival the Umbrian breed in the herculean symmetry of their form, and in the possession of horns of more than Umbrian dimensions, rising more perpendicularly over the forehead than in that ancient race. The lizards here are such beautiful creatures, that it is worth while to bring one away, and, to _pervert_ a quotation, "UNIUS _Dominum sese fecisse_ LACERTAE." Some are all green, some mottled like a mosaic floor, others green and black on the upper side, and orange-coloured or red underneath. Of snakes, there is a _Coluber niger_ from four to five feet in length, with a shining coat, and an eye not pleasant to watch even through glass; yet the peasants here put them into their Phrygian bonnets, and handle them with as much _sang-froid_ as one would a walking-stick.

The coarse earthen vessels, pitchers, urns, &c., used by the peasants, are of the most beautiful shapes, often that of the ancient _amphora_; and at every cottage door by the road-side you meet with this vestige of the ancient arts of the country.

The plague which visited Palermo in 1624 swept away 20,000 inhabitants; Messina, in 1743, lost 40,000. The cholera, in 1837, destroyed 69,253 persons. The present population of the whole island is 1,950,000; the female exceeds the male by about three per cent, which is contrary to the general rule. It is said that nearly one-half the children received into the foundling hospital of Palermo die within the first year.

Formerly the barons of Sicily were rich and independent, like our English gentlemen; but they say that, since 1812, the king's whole pleasure and business, as before our _Magna Charta_ times, have been to lower their importance. In that year a revolt was the consequence of an income-tax even of two per cent, for they were yet unbroken to the yoke; but now that he has saddled property with a deduction, _said_ to be eventually equal to fifteen per cent, if not more; now that he doubles the impost on the native sulphur, which is therefore checked in its sale; now that he keeps an army of 80,000 men to play at soldiers with; now that he constitutes himself the only referee even in questions of commercial expediency, and _a fortiori_ in all other cases, which he settles _arbitrarily_, or does not settle at all; now that he sees so little the signs of the times, that he will not let a professor go to a science-congress at Florence or Bologna without an express permission, and so ignorant as to have _refused_ that permission for fear of a political bias; now that he diverts a nation's wealth from works of charity or usefulness, to keep a set of foreigners in his pay--they no doubt here remember in their prayers, with becoming gratitude, "the holy alliance," or, as we would call it, the _mutual insurance company of the kings of Europe_, of which Castlereagh and Metternich were the honorary secretaries.

In the midst of all the gloomy despotism, beautiful even as imagination can paint it, is Palermo beautiful! One eminent advantage it possesses over Naples itself--its vicinity presents more "drives;" and all the drives here might contest the name given to one of them, which is called "_Giro delle Grazie_," (the Ring or Mall of the Graces.) It has a _Marina_ of unrivaled beauty, to which the noblesse and the citizens repair and form a promenade of elegant equipages. A fine pavement for foot passengers is considerately raised three or four feet above the carriage road; so that the walking population have nothing to annoy them. The sea is immediately below both, and you see the little rock-encircled bays animated with groups of those sturdy fishermen with bare legs; which you admire in Claude and Salvator, throwing before them, with admirable precision, their _épervier_ net, whose fine wrought meshes sometimes hang, veil-like, between you and the ruddy sunset, or plashing, as they fall nightly into the smooth sea, contribute the pleasure of an agreeable sound to the magic of the scenery. Some take the air on donkeys, which go at a great rate; some are mounted on Spanish mules, all mixed together freely amidst handsome and numerous equipages; and the whole is backed by a fine row of houses opposite the sea, built after the fashion of our terraces and crescents at watering-places. And finally, that blue _æquor_, as it now deserves to be termed, studded over with thunny boats and coasting craft with the haze latine sail, that we should be sorry to trust in British hands, is walled in by cliffs so bold, so rugged, and standing out so beautifully in relief, that for a moment we cannot choose but envy the citizen of _Panormus_. But we may not tarry even here; _we have more things_ to see, and every day is getting hotter than the last.

JOURNEY TO SEGESTE.

Leaving Palermo early, we pass _Monreale_ in our way to the Doric columns of _Segeste_, and find ourselves, before the heat of day has reached its greatest intensity, at a considerable elevation above the plain on which the capital stands, amidst mountains which, except in the difference of their vegetation, remind us not a little of the configuration of certain wild parts of the Highlands, where Ben Croachin flings his dark shadow across Loch Awe. Indeed, we were thinking of this old and favourite fishing haunt with much complacency, when two men suddenly came forth from behind the bristly aloes and the impenetrable cactus--ill-looking fellows were they; but, moved by the kindest intentions for our safety, they offer to conduct us through the remainder of the defile. This service our hired attendant from Palermo declined, and we push on unmolested to Partenico, our halting-place during the heat of the day. It is a town of some extent, large enough to afford two fountains of a certain pretension, but execrably dirty within. Twelve thousand inhabitants has Partenico, and five churches. Out of its five locandas, who shall declare the worst? Of that in which we had first taken refuge, (as, in a snow-storm on the Alps, any _roof_ is Paradise,) we were obliged to quit the shelter, and walk at _noon_, at _midsummer_, and in _Sicily_, a good mile _up_ a main street, which, beginning in habitations of the dimensions of our almshouses, ends in a few huts intolerably revolting, about which troops of naked children defy vermin, and encrust themselves in filth. At one door we could not help observing that worst form of _scabies_, the _gale à grosses bulles;_ so we had got, it appeared, from _Scylla_ into _Charybdis_, and were in the very preserves of Sicilian _itch_, and we prognosticate it will spread before the month expires wherever human skin is to be found for its entertainment. Partenico lies in a scorching plain full of malaria. Having passed the three stifling hours of the day here, we proceed on our journey to _Alcamo_, a town of considerable size, which looks remarkably well from the plain at the distance of four miles--an impression immediately removed on passing its high rampart gate. Glad to escape the miseries with which it threatens the _détenu_, we pass out at the other end, and zigzag down a hill of great beauty, and commanding such views of sea and land as it would be quite absurd to write about. Already a double row of aloë, planted at intervals, marks what is to be your course afar off, and is a faithful guide till it lands you in a Sicilian plain. This is the highest epithet with which any plain can be qualified. This is indeed the month for Sicily. The goddess of flowers now wears a morning dress of the newest spring fashion; beautifully _made up_ is that dress, nor has she worn it long enough for it to be sullied ever so little, or to require the washing of a shower. A delicate pink and a rich red are the colours which prevail in the tasteful pattern of her voluminous drapery; and as she _advances_ on you with a light and noiseless step, over a carpet which all the looms of Paris or of Persia could not imitate, scattering bouquets of colours the most happily contrasted, and impregnating the air with the most grateful fragrance, we at once acknowledge her beautiful impersonation in that "_monument of Grecian art_," the _Farnese Flora_, of which we have brought the fresh recollection from the museum of Naples.

The _Erba Bianca_ is a plant like southernwood, presenting a curious hoar-frosted appearance as its leaves are stirred by the wind. The _Rozzolo a vento_ is an ambitious plant, which grows beyond its strength, snaps short upon its overburdened stalk, and is borne away by any zephyr, however light. Large crops of _oats_ are already cut; and oxen of the Barbary breed, brown and coal-black, are already dragging the simple aboriginal plough over the land. Some of these fine cattle (to whom we are strangers, as they are to us) stood gazing at us in the plain, their white horns glancing in the sun; others, recumbent and ruminating, exhibit antlers which, as we have said before, surpass the Umbrian cattle in their elk-like length and imposing majesty. Arrived at the bottom of our long hill, we pass a beautiful stream called _Fiume freddo_, whose source we track across the plain by banks crowned with _Cactus_ and _Tamarisk_. Looking back with regret towards _Alcamo_, we see trains of mules, which still transact the internal commerce of the country, with large packsaddles on their backs; and when a halt takes place, these animals during their drivers' dinner obtain their own ready-found meal, and browse away on three courses of vegetables and a dessert.

SICILIAN INNS.

"A beautiful place this _Segeste_ must be! One could undergo any thing to see it!" Such would be the probable exclamation of more than one reader looking over some _landscape annual_, embellished with perhaps _a view_ of the celebrated temple and its surrounding scenery; but find yourself at any of the inexpressibly horrid inns of _Alcamo_ or _Calatafrini_, (and these are the two principal stations between Palermo and Segeste--one with its 12,000, the other with its 18,000 inhabitants;) let us walk you down the main street of either, and if you don't wish yourself at Cheltenham, or some other unclassical place which never had a Latin name, we are much mistaken! The "_Relievo dei Cavalli_" at Alcamo offers no _relief_ for you! The _Magpie_ may prate on her sign-post about _clean_ beds, for magpies can be made to say any thing; but pray do not construe the "_Canova Divina_" Divine Canova! _He_ never executed any thing for the _Red Lion_ of Calatafrini, whose "Canova" is a low wine-shop, full of wrangling Sicilian boors. Or will you place yourself under the _Eagle's_ wing, seduced by its _nuovi mobili e buon servizio_? Oh, we obtest those broken window-panes whether it be not _cruel_ to expose _new furniture_ to such perils! For us we put up at the "_Temple of Segeste_," attracted rather by its name than by any promise or decoy it offers. Crabbe has given to the inns at Aldborough each its character: here all are equal in immundicity, and all equally without provisions. Some yellow beans lie soaking to soften them. There is salt-cod from the north, moist and putrid. There is no milk; eggs are few. The ham at the Pizzicarolo's is always bad, and the garlicked sausage repulsive. Nothing is painted or white-washed, let alone dusted, swept, or scoured. The walls have the appearance of having been _pawed_ over by new relays of dirty fingers daily for ten years. This is a very peculiar appearance at many nasty places _out_ of Sicily, and we really do not know its _pathology_. You tread loathingly an indescribable earthen floor, and your eye, on entering the apartment, is arrested by a nameless production of the fictile art, certainly not of _Etruscan_ form, which is invariably placed on the _bolster_ of the truck-bed destined presently for your devoted head. Oh! to do justice to a Sicilian _locanda_ is plainly out of question, and the rest of our task may as well be sung as said, verse and prose being alike incapable of the hopeless reality:--

"Lodged for the night, O Muse! begin
To sing the true Sicilian inn,
Where the sad choice of six foul cells
The least exacting traveller quells
(Though crawling things, not yet in sight,
Are waiting for the shadowy night,
To issue forth when all is quiet,
And on your feverish pulses riot;)
Where one wood shutter scrapes the ground,
By crusts, stale-bones, and garbage bound;
Where unmolested spiders toil
Behind the mirror's mildew'd foil;
Where the cheap crucifix of lead
Hangs o'er the iron tressel'd bed;
Where the huge bolt will scarcely keep
Its promise to confiding sleep,
Till you have forced it to its goal
In the bored brick-work's crumbling hole;
Where, in loose flakes, the white-wash peeling
From the bare joints of rotten ceiling,
Give token sure of vermin's bower,
And swarms of bugs that bide their hour!
Though bands of fierce musquittos boom
Their threatening bugles round the room,
To bed! Ere wingless creatures crawl
Across your path from yonder wall,
And slipper'd feet unheeding tread
We know not what! To bed! to bed!
What can those horrid sounds portend?
Some waylaid traveller near his end,
From ghastly gash in mortal strife,
Or blow of bandit's blood-stained knife?
No! no! They're bawling to the _Virgin_,
Like victim under hands of surgeon!
From lamp-lit _daub_, proceeds the cry
Of that unearthly litany!
And now a train of mules goes by!

"One wretch comes whooping up the street
For whooping's sake! And now they beat
Drum after drum for market mass,
Each day's transactions on the _place!_
All things that go, or stay, or come,
They herald forth by tuck of drum.
Day dawns! a tinkling tuneless bell,
Whate'er it be, has news to tell.
Then twenty more begin to strike
In noisy discord, all alike;--
Convents and churches, chapels, shrines,
In quick succession break the lines.
Till every gong in town, at last
Its tongue hath loos'd, and sleep is past.
So much for nights! New days begin,
Which land you in another Inn.
O! he that means to see _Girgenti_
Or _Syracuse!_--needs patience plenty!"

Crossing a rustic bridge, we pass through a garden (for it is no less, though man has had no spade in it) of pinks, marigolds, cyclamens, and heart's-ease, &c. &c.; the moist meadow land below is a perfect jungle of lofty grasses, all fragrant and in flower, gemmed with the unevaporated morning dew, and colonized with the _Aphides, Alticæ_, and swarms of the most beautiful butterflies clinging to their stalks. _Gramina læta_ after Virgil's own heart, were these. Their elegance and unusual variety were sufficient to throw a botanist into a perfect HAY fever, and our own first paroxysm only went off, when, after an hour's hard collecting, we came to a place which demanded _another_ sort of enthusiasm; for THERE stood without a veil the _Temple of Segeste_, with one or two glimpses of which we had been already astonished at a distance, in all its Dorian majesty! This almost unmutilated and glorious memorial of past ages here reigns alone--the only building far or near visible in the whole horizon; and what a position has its architect secured! In the midst of hills on a bit of table-land, apparently made such by smoothing down the summit of one of them, with a greensward in front, and set off behind by a mountain background, stands this eternal monument of the noblest of arts amidst the finest dispositions of nature. There is another antiquity of the place also to be visited at Segeste--its _theatre_; but we are too immediately below it to know any thing about it at present, and must leave it in a parenthesis. To our left, at the distance of eight miles, this hill country of harmonious and graceful undulation ends in beetling cliffs, beneath which the sea, now full in view, lies sparkling in the morning sunshine. We shall never, never forget the impressions made upon us on first getting sight of Segeste! _Pæstum_ we had seen, and thought that it exhausted all that was possible to a temple, or the site of a temple. Awe-stricken had we surveyed those monuments of "immemorial antiquity" in that baleful region of wild-eyed buffaloes and birds of prey--temples to death in the midst of his undisputed domains! We had fully adopted Forsyth's sentiment, and held Pæstum to be probably the most impressive monument on earth; but here at Segeste a nature less austere, and more RIANTE in its wildness, lent a quite different charm to a scene which could scarcely be represented by art, and for which a reader could certainly not be _prepared_ by description. We gave an antiquarian's devoutest worship to this venerable survivor of 2000 years, and of many empires--we _felt_ the vast masses of its time-tried Doric, and even the wild flowers within its precincts, its pink valerians; its _erba di vento_, its scented wallflower. The whole scene kept our admiration long tasked, but untired. A smart shower compelled us to seek shelter under the shoulder of one of the grey entablatures: it soon passed away, leaving us a legacy of the richest fragrance, while a number of wild birds of the hawk kind, called "chaoli" from their shrill note, issued from their hiding-places, and gave us wild music as they scudded by!

A few bits of wall scattered over the corn-fields are all that now remains of the dwellings of the men who built this temple for their city, and who, by its splendour, deluded the Athenians into a belief of greater wealth than they possessed.

Our ascent to the theatre, the day after, proved to be a very steep one, of half an hour on mule-back; in making which, we scared two of those prodigious birds, the _ospreys_, who, having reconnoitred us, forthwith began to wheel in larger and larger sweeps, and at last made off for the sea. We found the interior of the theatre occupied by an audience ready for our arrival; it consisted of innummerable _hawks_, the chaoli just mentioned, which began to scream at our intrusion. The ospreys soon returned, and were plainly only waiting our departure to subside upon their solitary domain. We would not be a soft-billed bird for something in this neighbourhood; no song would save them from the hawks' supper. Having luxuriated on the 24th of May for full four hours in this enchanting neighbourhood, we were sorry to return to our inn--and such an inn! We departed abruptly, and probably never to return; but we shall think of Segeste in Hyde Park, or as we pass the candlestick Corinthians of Whitehall. Thucydides[16] relates that a prevailing notion in his time was, that the _Trojans_ after losing _Troy_ went first to _Sicily_, and founded there Egesta and Eryx. Now, as on the same authority the first _Greek_ colony was _Naxos_, also in Sicily, Greeks and Trojans (strange coincidence!) must have _met again_ on new ground after the _Iliad_ was all acted and done with, like a tale that is told.

[Footnote 16: _Vide_ THUCYDIDES, Book iv. chap. 15.]

On our return towards Palermo, one of our party having a touch of ague, we crossed the street to the apothecary, (at Calatafrini, our night's halt,) and smelling about his musty galenicals, amidst a large supply of _malvas_ which were drying on his counter, the only wholesome-looking thing amidst his stores, we asked if he had any _quinine_. "_Sicuro!_" and he presented us with a white powder having a slightly bitter taste, which, together with an ounce of green tea, to be dispensed in pinches of five grains on extraordinary occasions, comes, he says, from the East. On our observing that the quinine, if such at all, was adulterated, and that this was too bad in a country of malaria, where it was the poor man's only protection, he looked angry; but we rose in the esteem of peasants in the shop, who said to each other--"Ed ha ragione il Signor." Wanting a little _soda_, we were presented with sub-carbonate of potash as the nearest approach to it--a substitution which suggested to us a classical recollection from Theocritus; namely, that in this same Sicily, 2000 years ago, a Syracusan husband is rated by his dame for sending her _soda_ for her washing in place of potash, the very converse of what our old drug-vender intended to have washed our inside withal.

The Roman Catholic religion patronises painting oddly here; not a cart but is adorned with some sacred subject. Every wretched vehicle that totters under an unmerciful load, with one poor donkey to draw six men, has its picture of _Souls in Purgatory_, who seem putting their hands and heads out of the flames, and vainly calling on the ruffians inside to _stop_. We read _Viva la Divina Providenza_, in flaming characters on the front board of a carriole, while the whip is goading the poor starved brute who drags it; for these barbarians in the rear of European civilization, plainly are of opinion that a cart with a sacred device shall not _break down_, though its owner commit every species of cruelty.

The next day found us again installed at our old quarters in Palermo, where, during our brief remaining stay, we visit a conchologist, before which event we had no notion that Sicily was so rich in shells. Two sides of a moderately large room are entirely devoted to his collection. Here we saw a piece of wood nearly destroyed by the _Teredo navalis_, or sailor's bore, who seems more active and industrious here than elsewhere, and seldom allows himself to be taken whole. Out of hundreds of specimens, three or four perfect ones were all that this collector could ever manage to extract, the molluscous wood-destroyer being very soft and fragile. His length is about three inches, his thickness that of a small quill; he lodges in a shell of extreme tenuity, and the secretion which he ejects is, it seems, the agent which destroys the wood, and pushes on bit by bit the winding tunnel. But his doings are nothing to the working of another wafer-shelled bivalve, whose tiny habitations are so thickly imbedded in the body of a nodule of _flint_ as to render its exterior like a sieve, _diducit scopulos aceto_. What solvent can the chemist prepare in his laboratory comparable to one which, while it dissolves silex, neither harms the insect nor injures its shell. Amongst the _fossils_ we notice cockles as big as ostrich eggs, clam-shells twice the size of the largest of our Sussex coast, and those of oysters which rival soup-plates. We had indeed once before met with them of equal size in the lime-beds at _Corneto_. Judging by the _oysters_, there must indeed have been _giants_ in those days. But this collection was chiefly remarkable for its curious fossil remains of _animals_ from _Monte Grifone_. In this same Monte Grifone, which we went to visit, is one of the largest of the caves of bones of which so many have been discovered--bones of various kinds, some of small, some of very large animals, mixed together pell-mell, and constituting a fossil paste of scarcely any thing besides. None of the geologists, in attempting to explain these deposits, sufficiently enter into the question of the origin of the enormous _quantity_, and _close juxtaposition_, of such heterogeneous specimens.

By eight o'clock we are on board the _Palermo_ steamer, which is to convey us hence to _Messina_. The baked deck, which has been saturated with the sun's heat all day, is now cooling to a more moderate warmth, and soothing would be the scene but for the noise of women and children. Large liquid stars twinkle here and there, like so many moons on a reduced scale, over the sea, and the night is wholly delightful! A bell rings, which diminishes our numbers, and somewhat clears our deck. The boats which carry off the last loiterers are gone, shaking phosphorus from their gills, and leaving a train of it in their tails; and the many-windowed Pharos of the harbour has all its panes lit up, and twinkles after its own fashion. Round the bay an interrupted crescent of flickering light is reflected in the water, strongest in the middle, where the town is thickest, and runs back; and far behind all lights comes the clear outline of the darkly defined mountain rising over the city. Our own lantern also is up, the authorities have disappeared, Monte Pelegrino begins to change its position, we are in motion, and a mighty light we are making under us, as our leviathan, turning round her head and _snuffing_ the sea, begins to wind out of the harbour. A few minutes more, and the luminous tracery of the receding town becomes more and more indistinct; but the sky is _all stars_, and the water, save where we break its smoothness, a perfect mirror. Wherever the paddles play, there the sea foams up into yellow light and _gerbes_ of amber-coloured fireballs, caught up by the wheels, and flung off in our track, to float past with incredible rapidity. Men are talking the language of Babel in the cabin; there is amateur singing and a guitar on deck--_Orion_ is on his dolphin--adieu, Palermo!

APPROACH TO MESSINA.

The Italian morning presents a beautiful sight on deck to eyes weary and sore with night, as night passes on board steamers. We pass along a coast obviously of singular conformation, and to a geologist, we suppose, full of interest. We encounter a herd of classical dolphins out a-pleasuring. We ask about a pretty little town perched just above the sea, and called _Giocosa_. By its side lies _Tyndaris_--classical enough if we spell it right. The snow on Etna is as good as an inscription, and to be read at any distance; but what a deception! they tell us it is thirty miles off, and it seems to rise immediately from behind a ridge of hills close to the shore. The snow cone rises in the midst of other cones, which would appear equally high but for the difference of colour. _Patti_ is a picturesque little _borgo_, on the hillside, celebrated in Sicily for its manufacture of hardware. In the bay of _Melazzo_ are taken by far the largest supplies of thunny in the whole Mediterranean. From the embayed town so named you have the choice of a cross-road to Messina, (twenty-four miles;) but who would abridge distance and miss the celebrated straits towards which we are rapidly approaching, or lose one hour on land and miss the novelties of volcanic islands, and the first view of Scylla and Charybdis? It is but eight o'clock, but the awning has been stretched over our heads an hour ago. As to breakfast--the meal which is associated with that particular hour of the four-and-twenty to all well regulated _minds_ and _stomachs_--it consists here of thin _veneers_ of old mahogany-coloured thunny, varnished with oil, and relieved by an incongruous abomination of capers and olives. The cold fowls are infamous. The wine were a disgrace to the sorriest tapster between this and the Alps, and also fiery, like every thing else in this district. Drink it, and doubt not the old result--_de conviva Corybanta videbis_. (Oh, for muffins and dry toast!) Never mind, we shall soon be at Messina. And now we approach a point from which the lofty Calabrian coast opposite, and the flinty wall of the formidable Scylla, first present themselves, but still as distant objects. In another half hour we are just opposite the redoubtable rock; and here we turn abruptly at right angles to our hitherto course, and find ourselves _within_ the straits, from either side of which the English and the French so often tried the effect of cannon upon each other. It is now what it used to be--fishing ground. The Romans got their finest muræna from the whirlpools of _Charybdis_.[17] The shark (_cane di mare_) abounding here, would make bathing dangerous were the water smooth; but the rapid whirlpools through which our steam-boat dashes on disdainfully, would, at the same time, make it impossible to any thing but a fish. A passenger assured us he had once seen a man lost in the Vistula, who, from being a great swimmer, trusted imprudently to his strength, and was sucked down by a vortex of far less impetuosity, he thought, than this through which we were moving. From this point till we arrived at Messina, as every body was ripe for bathing, the whole conversation turned naturally on the Messina shark, and his trick of snapping at people's legs carelessly left by the owners dangling over the boat's side. We steam up the straits to our anchorage in about three-fourths of an hour. The approach is fine, very fine. A certain Greek, (count, he called himself,) a great traveller, and we afterwards found not a small adventurer, increases the interest of the approach, by telling us that the hills before us, bubbling up like blisters on chalcedony, have a considerable resemblance, though inferior in character, to those which embellish the Bosphorus and the first view of Constantinople. Inferior, no doubt, in the imposing accessories of mosque and minaret, and of cypresses as big as obelisks, which, rising thickly on the heights, give to the city of Constantinople an altogether peculiar and inimitable charm. Messina is beautifully land-locked. The only possible winds that can affect its port are the north-west and south-east. In summer it is said to enjoy more sea breeze than any other place on the Mediterranean. Our Greek friend, however, says that Constantinople is in this respect not only superior to Messina, but to any other place in the seas of Europe. Pity that the fellows are Turks! We did not find much to interest us within the walls of Messina. There was, to be sure, a fine collection of Sicilian birds, amongst which we were surprised to see several of very exotic shape and plumage. One long-legged fellow, dressed in a dirty white Austrian uniform, with large web-feet, on which he seemed to rest with great complacency, particularly arrested our attention. He stood as high as the _Venus di Medici_, but by no means so gracefully, and thrust his thick carved beak unceremoniously in your face. His card of address was _Phoenicopterus antiquorum_. The ancients ate him, and he looked as if he would break your nose if you disputed with him. A very large finch, which we have seen for sale about the streets here and elsewhere in Sicily, rejoices in the imposing name of _Fringilla cocco thraustis_. He wears his black cravat like a bird of pretension, as he evidently is. The puffin (_Puffinus Anglorum_) also frequents these rocks, though a very long way from the Isle of Wight. No! Messina, though very fine, is not equal to _Palermo_, with its unrivaled _Marina_, compared to which Messina is poorly off indeed, in her straggling dirty commerce-doing quay. We went out to see a little garden, which contains half a dozen zare-trees and as many beautiful birds in cages. We are disappointed at the poverty of our dessert in this region of fruitfulness--a few bad oranges, some miserable cherries, and that abomination the green almond. We observe, for the first time, to-day folks eating in the streets the crude contents of a little oval pod, which contains one or two very large peas, twice the size of any others. These are the true _cicer_, the proper Italian pea. Little bundles of them are tied up for sale at all the fruit stalls, and men are seen all the day long eating these raw peas, and offering them to each other as sugar-plums.

[Footnote 17: "Virroni muræna datur, quo maxima venit Gurgite de Siculo: nam dum se continet Auster, Contemnunt mediam tem eraria lina Charybdim." JUVENAL, _Sat._ v. 99.]

In the Corso we see a kind of temporary theatre, the deal sides of which are gaudily lined with Catania silk, and on its stage a whole _dramatis personæ_ of sacred puppets. It is lighted by tapers of very taper dimensions, and its _stalle_ are to be let for a humble consideration to the faithful or the curious. It turns out to be a religious spectacle, supported on the voluntary system--but there is something for your money. A vast quantity of light framework, to which fireworks, chiefly of the detonating kind, are attached, are already going off, and folk are watching till it be completed. Then the evening's entertainment will begin, and a miser indeed must he be, or beyond measure resourceless, who refuses halfpence for such choice festivities. Desirous to make out the particular representation, we get over the fence in order to examine the figures of the drama on a nearer view. A smartly dressed saint in a court suit, but whom mitre and crosier determine to be a bishop, kneels to a figure in spangles, a virgin as fond of fine clothes as the Greek Panageia; while on the other side, with one or two priests in his train, is seen a crowd in civil costume. A paper cloud above, surrounded by glories of glass and tinsel, is supported by two solid cherubs equal to the occasion, and presents to the intelligent a representation of--we know not what! Fire-works here divide the public with the drum--to one or other all advertisement in Sicily is committed. A sale of fish and flesh, theatric entertainments, processions, and church invitations, are all by tuck of drum, or by squib and cracker. How did they get on before the invention of gunpowder? If a new coffeehouse is established, a couple of drums start it advantageously, and beat like a recruiting party up and down the street, to the dismay of all _Forestieri_. The drum tells you when the thunny is at a discount, and _fire-works_ are let off at _fish stalls_ when customers are slack.

An old tower, five miles off, is called the telegraph. People go there for the panorama at the expense of three horses and two hours; but you are repaid by two sea views, either of which had been sufficient. Messina, its harbour, the straits, the opposite coast of Calabria, Scylla, and _Rhegium_, (famed for its bergamot,) are on the immediate shore, and a most striking chain of hills for the background, which, at a greater distance, have for their background the imposing range of the _Abruzzi_. The Æolian islands rise out of the sea in the happiest positions for effect. _Stromboli_ on the extreme right detaches his grey wreath of smoke, which seems as if it proceeded out of the water, (for Stromboli is very low,) staining for a moment the clear firmament, which rivals it in depth of colour. Some of the volcanic group are so nearly on a level with the water, that they look like the backs of so many leviathans at a halt. The sea itself lies, a waveless mirror, smooth, shining, slippery, and treacherous as a serpent's back--"miseri quibus intentata _nites_," say we.

JOURNEY TO TAORMINA.