I cannot tell what the affairs of the continent tend to. We get no
news, as the French detain the good, and the Neapolitans the bad.
It was verging towards winter before Sir James Craig’s expedition
actually embarked. I had permission to dine and sleep ashore the day
of embarkation. In the night I was seized with cholera--often in that
country so fatal. No assistance and no remedy of any kind was to hand.
It took its course, and in the morning I felt weak and languid, but,
thanks to youth and great strength of constitution, I was well.
At daylight I went on board with a feeling of exhaustion, but no
remains of disease.
In a few hours afterwards the fleet set sail, and the weather became
almost immediately murky and unpropitious. We made our course round the
western point of the island of Sicily without any precise knowledge of
our destination. For three weeks in that Cerulean sea did we struggle
with weather as moist and murky and with an atmosphere as thick as
ever shrouded the chops of the British Channel. But at length the
wind moderated and inclined abaft the beam, the sky and sea resumed
their blue, and the classic shores of Italy beautified by degrees the
farthest horizon. Soon, as evening fell, we were gliding between the
fairy isles of Ischia and Capri with a smooth and steady course into
the Bay of Naples.
How we watched, how we strained our eyes and wearied our arms with
poising the telescope to pry into the beauteous recesses of those
approaching shores! But now the night had fallen, and a dark and
spangled curtain threw its veil over the beauties we were gazing at,
and when we came to an anchor it was too profoundly dark for even the
imagination to take hints from surrounding forms. So we went to bed and
wished for day--for a day without clouds.
The next morning our dreams were realised. Vesuvius stood close before
us, solemnly breathing upwards his pillar of smoke.
Woods, with young plantations and viny hillocks, spread widely round
him. To the right a fair town stood on the brink of the sea, while
immediately behind it the steep mountains pushed their wooded peaks
into the sky. Far to the left, and out of sight, or indistinctly
discerned, lay Naples.
Soon a great number of Neapolitan boats came to the fleet to sell such
things as they who have been cooped up at sea buy greedily--bread,
fruit, game, and fish. Perhaps the parley thus obtained with these
interesting foreigners, and the opportunity to take small flights
in our grammar Italian, and to observe their dress, language, and
grotesque extravagance of sound and gesticulation, were more acceptable
to our curiosity than those dainties to our animal appetites.
We saw distinctly some parts of the great road to Naples, and it was
quite a natural pantomime to witness a conversation between parties
on the shore, perhaps discussing the object of our appearance and the
probability of our movements--far too distant to overhear any sound,
or see any minor hints of countenance or gesture. English folks,
so seen at a distance, might have hardly been distinguished from
statues or from trees. But the Italian’s body is a telegraph to the
distant observer while his tongue and countenance are reasoning with
his neighbour; now the orator, approaching his friend closely, with
face and hands concentering towards his breast, seizes his collar or
buttons, and shakes his arguments into his ears and mind with a gentle
tremulation, as one coaxes gooseberries into a bottle, and again, all
of a sudden, retrogrades from him, with head and hands and arms thrown
back to mark the irreconcilable extremity of his contradiction.
The day following, one of my brother officers repaired to our chief’s
ship, and they went on shore together.
On his return in the evening he excited our utmost envy, wonder, and
curiosity by giving us an account of his adventures.
In exploring the country they had come to a vine-clad hill, whose
farthest side ended in a precipitous bank scarped away by the hand of
labour; and spread out below, proceeding out of the bowels of the hill
on which they stood, they discovered an ancient Roman town in all its
unruined dimensions of streets and squares, theatres and barracks,
not gray with the hoar of antiquity, but with all its plastering and
painting fresh from the hands of the workmen. The painted borders of
the dwelling-rooms, the appropriate pictures of the ladies’ bath, the
soldiers’ names engraven rudely on the walls of their barracks, the
ruts worn by the Roman wheels, were all fresh despatched to us from
former ages.
Of this inestimable present Pliny had described the packing up, by an
eruption of Vesuvius, to which he was witness. It was only now half
unpacked, and we might yet be at the unpacking of the remainder.
I was ready to jump out of the ship to see with my own eyes these
incredible wonders, and when I could go, when I stood in these streets
and called, without knocking, upon one ancient Roman after another
(though it seemed hardly delicate to explore unbidden the private
chambers, whose painting and fresh preservation seemed to infer an
occupancy so recent) anticipation was beggared by the trance which that
reality imposed.
They show one such things in the Museum of Portici, that the idea of
imposture steals involuntarily upon the mind, but yet imposture is out
of the question. The king is the showman, and asks nothing for his
pains, nor is there any temptation to fabricate the commonest articles
of every-day use into the semblance of antiquity in the midst of such
a crowd of self-evident realities. Else, when I was shown an egg
with a part of the yolk oozing from the crack, looking exactly as if
boiled and cracked yesterday, a loaf of bread burnt to a cinder, and a
quantity of grain in the same condition, and was told that these things
had been baked by the hot ashes of Vesuvius and buried under them for
1700 years, my belief, I must confess, was a little shy. Yet I know not
that it is more wonderful with respect to an egg, a loaf, and a heap
of corn than with respect to the innumerable rolls of burnt manuscript
which we found Mr. Hayter so busy in unrolling with infinite patience
and ingenuity, the characters upon the charred papyrus being still
perfectly legible.
With respect to other things, vast quantities of tools and kitchen
utensils of every description, fit enough for modern use, also very
well wrought golden ornaments and elegant glass vessels of all
shapes--in these the interest was equally great, and the belief more
easy.
To me Herculaneum, the Museum of Portici, and above all Pompeii, were
objects of renewed visitation and inexhaustible interest; but far
beyond all these artificial curiosities my mind was absorbed by that
unutterable wonder of Nature whose irresistible devastations covered
and formed the country all around. Indeed the recent destructive
torrent yet bore upon its surface the shells of houses and habitations
whose inhabitants had been expelled or destroyed.
It seems strange that after all the ruin which this terrible mountain
has wrought with subterraneous thunder and ejected fire, the monuments
of which endure through ages to tell the people what he has done, yet
that all should be insufficient to frighten them away from his foot,
while with smoke and fire and inward groans he threatens them daily
with still further destruction. Nevertheless they hew the black vomit
of his entrails into building stones, and over the spot where the house
and its master were buried in a grave of fire do they build another
dwelling for another inhabitant.
A curiosity, partaking of religious awe, led me to its summit. I
had expected a peep into the mouth of the Inferno, a visible shaft,
plumb down into the fiery bowels of the earth, but no mysterious,
unfathomable gulf or chimney of the infernal foundry was to be seen.
Cracks, indeed, red and white with fire, burnt a good pair of Hoby’s
boots off my feet, as they crossed the region of the crater in every
direction, and with their sulphurous vapour nearly stifled us all.
_November 20._--At this time there was in the environs of Naples a
corps of Russians, understood to be 18,000 strong, but what the allies
might have hoped to achieve by uniting an Anglo-Russian force of 25,000
or 30,000 men with the native Neapolitan forces, which altogether might
pass perhaps in round numbers for an army of 50,000 or 60,000, it is
no part of my present object to retrace. The rapid progress of French
victory on the Continent would naturally make the hopes under which
the expedition left England perfectly inapplicable to the present
period. We had intended to assume grand operations in upper Italy in
conjunction with the main armies of Austria and Russia. But now it
seemed to be the general opinion that if the Anglo-Russian corps could
enable the Neapolitan army to protect the frontier of its Sovereign’s
dimensions, more could not be expected.
On the 30th November (and let it be remembered that this was two days
only before the overwhelming blow of the battle of Austerlitz) His
Neapolitan Majesty reviewed the British forces on a plain between
Castel-à-Mare and Naples. Many Russian officers were also on the
ground. The King, the Hereditary Prince, and Prince Leopold (then
about ten years old) arrived on horseback, the Queen in her carriage,
bringing with her old Cardinal Ruffo, who, presently descending, showed
us his red stockings. Old Ferdinand appeared in great glee, dressed in
a white uniform, with a large cocked hat, and his hair tied in a thick
queue. “Avançons, avançons, mon Général,” he said to Sir John Stuart,
who was leading him down the line. “Your troops are magnificent! your
Army is as fine as your Navy! Body of Bacchus, what an imposing front!”
cried the old monarch as he rode up to the Queen.
That elegant ruin, standing up in her carriage and addressing Sir John
Stuart, cried, “C’est superbe! magnifique! mon Général. Ce sont des
soldats dignes des Anglais, dignes de nos dieux tutélaires.”
She was now old and hazed, but her figure was erect and her mien
princely and graceful. Her form had not yet lost all its original
brightness, nor appeared less than a queen in ruins.
The line now broke into column, and passed the King and Queen in
reviewing order. All on the ground, even the Russian officers,
were loud in praise of the appearance of our troops, and certainly
3000 soldiers never formed a more complete and warlike line. I was
much amused with the juvenile Prince Leopold, who, dressed like a
little field-marshal, and mounted on a superb little charger, richly
caparisoned, as often as the officers saluted his Royal parent, lifted
the cocked hat from his flaxen head (displaying a queue thicker than
his father’s) with a grace the most measured and majestic. Before the
Royal party left the ground the wintry sun approached the western wave
and blazed upon the brass plates and steely muskets of the soldiers,
which Coleridge, who dined with us afterwards, called “a beautiful
accident,” and clothed in poetic phrase.
We were a good deal struck with the Royal equipage. It was an old
shabby carriage drawn by six miserable horses, tied together with
ropes, very ill representing, to our English eyes, the eight proud
cream-coloured Hanoverians and the gilded trappings which attach them
to the splendid vehicle of our own Sovereign.
_December 10._--Early in December the restriction which kept us from
visiting the capital was removed. Whether the motive had been to
prevent our collision with our Russian confederates quartered in its
environs, or whether French employees were still to be temporised
with, I neither knew nor inquired. The army began its march to the
frontier, and we who had duties still to perform in the neighbourhood
of Naples freely satisfied our curiosity by frequent excursions to that
interesting place.
Many paternal admonitions did we younger ones receive from the
well-versed poet Coleridge to beware of the temptations of Naples, to
beware the
Nods and becks and wreathed smiles,
Quips and pranks and wanton wiles,
which would beckon us in every street, and chiefly to beware of the
duchesses and princesses, for, said he, “The higher the rank the
greater the danger.” But I think a youth who has learned to pass
unharmed through the streets of London may be trusted in any town in
Europe, for all the world is honest to the honest.
One day I went to the Theatre of St. Carlos, and while yet in the
lobby my ears were imprisoned by a strain that seemed vocal indeed, but
like no human voice which I had ever heard, too potent for woman, too
clear and silvery for man.
On coming in sight of the stage the appearance of the divine songster
corresponded to the perplexity of his voice--most fair and graceful
to behold, but yet neither manly nor effeminate. This was that very
Velluti, amongst the triumphs of whose unequalled talents it is not the
least that they have prevailed upon the rugged Londoners to acknowledge
the wondrous beauty of his celestial melody.
Before leaving Naples I saw there a great many of the things which
ought to be seen, and can say truly that _I saw them_, and to be able
to say this, is, I believe, the commonest reason for going to see them.
_December 22._--We were now on the march to Sepia, whither the army
had gone to assume a defensive position. I had procured a handsome and
excellent horse at Naples, whose round and well-fed back exactly fitted
my English caparisons, and which soon acquired the name of Napolitanno;
never man had a gentler or a better steed, and it redoubled the
animation with which I looked to be immediately committed in actual
service with the enemy to find myself mounted on so comely and spirited
an animal.
Active service, however, for the present was not to be our lot, for
before our duties near Naples permitted us to reach the army on march
to the frontier, our commanding officer[2] rejoined us in haste, and
set all hands at work to delineate the position of Castel-à-Mare, and
to produce so exact a military plan of that bold promontory as would
enable him to show fully to the Commander-in-Chief in what way it might
be best occupied to cover the embarkation of the troops in presence of
an enemy.
As one of the first objects of Napoleon after the battle of Austerlitz
was the extinction of the Bourbon Crown of Naples and the occupation of
the kingdom, no doubt it was become necessary for a British commander,
committed upon the soil of that kingdom, to secure a position behind
him, under cover of which he might in any event command his embarkation.
Sir James Craig, however, subsequently resolved (and indeed the
well-known state of the Continent left him no alternative) not to wait
till his little army came in contact with the overwhelming legions of
France, but to embark without delay.
The Royal family also resolved not to trust themselves too near to an
irritated foe, but to transfer the Court of Ferdinand to Palermo.
The great and ready skill therefore with which the wild and noble
features of Castel-à-Mare had been applied to the purposes of military
defence, and the zealous and unwearied pains with which we had
portrayed and mapped out the fastnesses of these rugged mountains, were
of no avail beyond that of scientific practice, as the Anglo-Russian
army, long before the proximity of the enemy could communicate any
hurry to its operations, quietly embarked where it had landed, and
sailed for Sicily.
_December 30._--A great many horses which had been purchased for the
field equipage of the army were left at Castel-à-Mare for want of
means of transport, and for lack of some better arrangement they were
successively turned loose into a large enclosure belonging to the
dockyard. A scene took place among them very painful to witness, but
yet highly picturesque. They were of both sexes, and consequently the
most fierce and disastrous contests began amongst the males, whilst
their iron heels armed them against each other with more than natural
power, and soon these noble animals were disfigured by painful wounds,
disabled limbs, and blood.
To have shot them as was done at Corunna would have been much more
humane.
_December 31._--It was evening at the very close of the year 1805 when
we set sail, and night when we beheld the volcanic blaze of Stromboli
flash across the dark sea and disclose by fits the isles of Lipari.
Morning unveiled to us the features of those neighbouring shores, now
narrowing more and more the gulf into which we were sailing, until they
form that narrow and rapid sea that parts Calabria from the Trinacrian
coast.
The view of Sicily apparent at this time, though not without beauty, is
kept in complete subjection to the rich and lofty magnificence of the
Italian shore, whose mountains, topped with cliff and clothed with wood
and vine, come steep from sky to sea, with nought between but a border
of golden sand, interrupted here and there by peaks and masses of rock
for ever washed by the sapphire sea.
On one of these sandy bays, and quite at the foot of these rich and
lofty mountains, lies the little town of Scylla and its boat-covered
beach, then the main promontory flings a longer slope towards the
sea, terminating the beach of Scylla and suddenly forming itself into
the abrupt, naked, and primeval rock on which the castle of Scylla is
erected.
This is the Scylla on which ships might run that would too anxiously
avoid the whirlpool of Charybdis.
After passing the Faro of Messina, whereof Scylla forms one of the
confines, the Sicilian shore assumes a bolder and richer form, till
at length the romantic seat of Messina itself rivals the grandeur of
the opposite scenery, and grafts upon the beauties of Nature somewhat
of the proud aspect of metropolitan magnificence. I say this while
surveying Messina from the azure bosom of her river-like sea, for her
real magnificence has passed away, and her streets of palaces stand
in ruins to this hour. But for the painter’s object no harm is done.
The rich façades of elaborate architecture are standing entire, and
their want of substance on the other side is concealed by the dense
town behind, and the castle-crowned heights above, tier above tier of
church or convent, each showing its firm footing upon the natural and
luxuriant earth; the whole background is finished and filled up by
mountains richly clothed with the verdure of dwarf wood and perennial
flowers, the heavenly atmosphere ever glistening above and over all
things. Nothing on this earth, I should say, can exceed the outward
beauty of Messina.
1806.--It must have been about the middle of January when we entered
the harbour, an immense round basin, enclosed by a curved tongue of
level land jutting out from the line of coast like the blade of a
sickle, from which it is said the town derives its name; the point of
the sickle, terminating when at a short distance from the main shore,
leaves only a narrow entrance into the harbour, which is defended by a
fort established on the sickle point.
From every wind and every sea this harbour is perfectly sheltered
and secure, but as the narrowness of its entrance makes it sometimes
operose for vessels to go in and out, the ships of war and those which
expect to be soon for sea anchor in the road outside.
The transports were moored close to each other, the ships of war
anchored in the roadstead. The troops were kept on board, but the
officers after a time were allowed to go on shore and look about them.
A few days afterwards the troops were disembarked, and we were soon
established in the Convent of St. Francisco di Paolo.
[Illustration]
The legend which conveys the tradition of this convent’s foundation is
in various situations rudely represented on the walls, and consists
of a man sailing across a narrow sea, with no other vessel, sail, or
mast than such as his capôte and walking-staff would furnish. This was
St. Francisco di Paolo, who in that miraculous manner is said to have
passed over from Scylla to the spot whereon this convent was erected.
Our accommodations here were not splendid, but such as we could enjoy
after the confinement of shipboard. The monks were civil and obliging
though poor, and the abbot presented us with some rich Calabrian wine
that might have passed for cherry brandy.
It was now immediately the business of our Commandant[3] to place
the city of Messina in a respectable state of defence, for as it was
certain that the other side of the Straits would soon be occupied by
the legions of Napoleon, Messina, which was to be the grand depot
and headquarters of the British army, must be placed beyond the
apprehension of surprise.
The military position of Messina is by nature extremely defective, and
though the existing defences were not in all points the most judicious
that could have been devised, yet were they of sufficient importance
to incline our Chief to adopt the principle of improving what already
existed, rather than that of substituting new ones. These works at
Messina, extending to forts occupying the heights adjacent to the town,
and overlooking the eddies of Charybdis and the castle and rock of
Scylla, tended to bring me again and again, and for hours and hours,
in contact with the lovely environs of Messina, whose charms are more
indelibly imprinted on my memory than those of any other place in the
world. We soon moved from the convent into the town, where we occupied
a good house opposite to the quarters of the Commander-in-Chief.
_March._--This change of quarters gave me a commodious opportunity of
seeing the reception of old King Ferdinand by his Messinese subjects.
He had come from Palermo to Melazzo by sea, and from Melazzo (by advice
of his Minister) had made his progress on horseback, so that he arrived
at Messina miserably fatigued and covered with the dust and soil of
travel. Yet the reception he met with from these loyal Sicilians was
enough to revive him. In the mid-tide of the dense flood of bareheaded
people, he and his horse were borne along down the principal street;
on one side was Sir James Craig bowing in his balcony, and under the
windows the vast crowd concentered their faces towards the King, so
that in front of him they moved backwards and behind him they moved
forwards, facing him on either side. And never in all my life of twenty
years did I behold so touching an exhibition of the passion of loyalty.
The good-natured and kindly-mannered but wearied and worn old man, in
the midst of his thanks and nods and brief salutations, was begging in
some degree for quarter as they thronged about him, and while anxious
to gratify their desire of touching him by extending his hands and
suffering their pressure on his legs and knees, kept begging they would
let him move on, that he might come to a place of rest.
Meantime they rent the air with their “Vivas,” and ever as he passed,
a new concourse of knees was seen to bend, and picturesque and eager
heads were bowed around him, pressing devout and reverent kisses on his
legs or hands, the skirts of his coat, or the housings of his charger.
Never shall I forget the scene. In vain they might have talked to me of
the weakness and tyranny of his reign, or of his misrule and neglect of
these very subjects. He was their old and lawful king, now seen for the
first time in the pressure of misfortune and in the weariness of that
journey he had made to inquire of their disposition towards him. And
this was their beautiful answer. They received him with embraces, with
loud benedictions, with kisses and genuflexions, which plainly told
him they remembered nothing but the sacred bond between him and them,
endeared to them the more by his age and evil fortune and his struggle
for independence.
At length, though to all appearance (and as I was afterwards credibly
informed) deeply touched by this perhaps unexpected scene, he was glad
enough to be got into his quarters, opposite to which a magnificent
façade of a triumphal temple had been erected for the scaffolding of
fireworks to be displayed before him.
At night forth he came bareheaded into the balcony which fronted the
street, and after saluting the immense concourse of his shouting
subjects, he discharged a rocket, which was guided by a wire-conductor
into the centre of that gorgeous temple, and immediately it was living
all about with quivering fire. No description can paint the succession
of glorious shapes which, amid the clear darkness of an Italian night,
animated that palace of fire, and at length, like the finale of grand
concerts, every part became such a volcano of fiery gems, and fountains
of burning spray, and whirlpools of dazzling stars, that I could not
refrain from joining in the shouts of ecstasy.
In honour also of the King’s arrival, the most celebrated and costly
of all their religious processions was anticipated. This was the
procession of the Anima (or soul, as I understood) of the Virgin Mary;
but as I know nothing of its origin and but little of its symbolical
intention, I will not attempt any description.
_April 1806._--In this climate it is essential to the expeditious
progress of works to take the earliest advantage of daylight, while
the air is for several hours cool and the sun still low and feeble.
Accordingly we had to be up and dressed before five o’clock.
It happened one morning about this time, when I was buckling on my
sword and about to sally forth, that the floor began to shake under
my feet. A violent rattling of doors and windows was heard all over
the house, and bits of plaister began to shower from the ceiling.
I was presently sensible that we were experiencing the shock of
an earthquake; and as it seemed to increase in violence and to be
accompanied by violent cries of human distress, I opened my door
in some haste, and immediately beheld some Sicilian inmates of the
house, just as they had sprung from their slumbers, scouring along the
passages and making for the stairs. I followed, and beheld the issuing
from every room of persons of every age and sex, who were racing down
the stairs, with no thought but of present danger, and seemingly
unconscious of the exposure of themselves and of each other.
Signor Scamporaccio, the Padrone di Casa, partaking at first of the
general terror, and having sprung downstairs like a wild cat and
secured himself under a strong archway that issued into the street,
of which shelter he urged me to partake, then began to grin at the
preposterous figures of his descending lodgers, and especially pointed
my attention to the unadorned dismay of a fat old lady, a relation
of his wife, whom he sportively called “La Baronessa.” She was of
immense breadth and weight, and yet came howling downstairs full trot.
On looking into the street, the general terror was too real and too
energetic to be ludicrous. The people fell upon their knees wherever
they happened to be, some prostrate and laying their foreheads in the
dust, some, with frantic hands and uplifted voices, addressing heaven
with the frenzied cry of hasty deprecation.
From that posture and from that earnest importunity no creature rose or
desisted until the earth had ceased to shake and her houses to rend and
groan.
So violent a shock had not been felt for years. The upper part of the
spire of the Madre Chiesa was thrown down, and some other buildings
materially injured. Every ship at anchor, and some sailing in the mid
strait, felt the violence of the shock, but happily there was no injury
to human life.
A slighter shock in the course of the day frightened the soldiers from
their work on the heights, and still more some Sicilian overseers from
the duties of superintendence.
Looking at the ruins with which Messina is surrounded, and knowing
them to be the fruits of a dreadful earthquake that caused the loss
of thousands of lives, it is impossible not to sympathise with the
undissembled terror of these poor Sicilians whenever the tremulous
earth reminds them of her instability, for they conceive it to be
the angry hand of God shaking over them with menaces of vengeance,
and their cries are no less vehement and abrupt than the cries and
entreaties of a child at the uplifted rod of a parent.
_April 1806._--Sir James Craig now published a farewell order to the
army. The new Minister of War (of Mr. Fox’s Administration) had written
most flatteringly to him, assuring him that all had been in perfect
accordance with their views, and now that the army was in security and
comfort, he could resign the command with less regret.
He had long borne up against the pressure of severe disease, in the
honourable hope of directing the courage of his men and witnessing
their victories, but now he was sensible that he owed it to them to
make way for a commander whose zeal might be equal to his own, and
whose activity sickness had not impaired. He gave much praise to
the quality of the troops, whose discipline had certainly been much
advanced by his personal exertions.
The necessity of this resignation had long been painfully obvious to
the army, not by any faults of discipline, but by the ghastly and
suffering appearance of our revered commander, who was much respected
and regretted by every branch of the army.
Towards the end of April our Commandant was sent to ascertain the
strength of the places on this side of the island, giving particular
attention to Augusta and Syracuse, and about four days afterwards I was
ordered to follow him.
One of my brother-officers good-naturedly lent me a beautiful donkey he
had brought from Valetta to carry my servant and _malle_.
My pride at starting, mounted on the sleek and spirited Napolitanno,
and preceding Il Bruto Domenico and the ass, was somewhat quenched by
the drenching rain in which we set forward, and soon received another
fall in the person of Domenico, seen sprawling in the mire, and the
donkey at large.
The ass, however, was of infinitely more importance to me than his
rider, so I left Domenico and pursued the animal myself.
After this little _fracas_ the long-eared rebel was more amenable,
and Domenico dare only curse him under his breath, for fear he
should repeat the somersault, so that my meditations were no longer
interrupted either by the pranks of the four-legged or the deep
execrations of the two-legged brute. Furthermore, the day cleared, and
the sea and sky and fertile land were lighted up, and reawakened the
sanguine glance of youthful expectation which the rain had in some
degree depressed. The road is impassable for wheels; its situation is
invariably by the seaside, with mountains on the other hand, which
sometimes barely leave room for the road. In other places the wintry
torrents have formed, as it were, the opening jaws of a deep and rugged
ravine, called in this country _Fiumara_.
Again the bold heights approach the very border of the ocean, and
sometimes a rocky promontory obstructs the level beach, and plants
a firm broad foot in the midst of the waves. In this case it has
been necessary to pass over or to cut through the obstruction. The
rocky point of Scaletta traverses the beach as with a wall, and the
road ascends into the gorge of the natural rock, which rises like a
watch-tower on either side, affording such a post of observance and
defence as, if properly used, might check a mighty army.
I proposed halting for the night at Taormina, thirty or forty miles
from Messina, and soon viewed it in the distance, seated in the clouds
on the table of a lofty mountain between two enormous peaks of rock, on
the highest of which is a dark old castle.
On arriving at the foot of this mountain, a sentinel stopped me where
the gate of the town is constructed, and on finding I was an English
officer on duty, directed me to the convent of the Capuchins.
I had permitted Domenico to take up his quarters at a miserable hut
on the beach, where he was fortunate enough to find provender, partly
to spare the donkey the pain of carrying him and my portmanteau up so
toilsome an ascent, and also in the hope that my baggage might gain
a little advance in the morning’s march, and thus I began to ascend
into the clouds alone, worn with heat and travel, and oppressed with a
growing and, I fear, somewhat puerile sadness.
After a long and wearisome ascent, I had left the brightness and
interest of the world behind me, and had entered an atmosphere which
enveloped every object in a thick gray mist.
On reaching the convent of Capuchins, a dead man might have given
me a more cheering welcome than I received from the spiritless and
hair-clothed superior.
One of his bleak eyes looked full upon me and into me, while the other
seemed employed in looking round me and beyond me.
On learning my object he assented with a slow scowl of sullen
indifference, and without any pause or gesture indicating the smallest
courtesy, he briefly told one of his subordinates to show me a vacant
cell. I believe the rules of this order bind them to wretchedness,
and they extend them to the stranger that is within their gates, for
they offered me no refreshment, and mentioned no refectory. The cell
appointed me was naked, windowless, bedless, a bedding of straw being
all it afforded.
Never before or since have I felt the heart within me oppressed and
borne down by so dense and palpable a gloom--unmanly, to be sure,
I felt it to be. “What ails me?” said I; “what is the grievance?
Shelter is here to-night, to-morrow there lies the way, and food can
be procured. ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou
disquieted within me?’”
No answer could be given, but the questions were not asked in vain. I
began to turn my displeasure from the monks to myself, and presently
recovered a more hardy tone of mind. I left the convent and went into
the little square of the town. The mountain cloud had dispersed, and
a party of Sicilian loungers attracted me to the shop of a little
fruiterer, where I bespoke some dinner, and learned with joy they could
accommodate me with a bed, which I greatly preferred to returning to
the convent.
Whilst dinner was getting ready I walked out to look about me and to
summon a cicerone to my aid, that I might see the remarkable Roman
antiquities for which this place is famous. I then, though very tired,
placed myself in the hands of the voluble cicerone, who took me to the
large ancient theatre, finely situated in a basin or natural crater
formed in the summit of the mountain.
A hasty view would at that moment have satisfied me, for I was weary
and wanted food, but when I would have gone away the cicerone forcibly
detained me, and placing me in the remotest ring of the vast auditory,
proceeded leisurely to the stage and began a long oration, ridiculous
in itself, but illustrating how well the situation was calculated to
carry the voice of the actor to the remotest spectator. Reluctant as I
was to interrupt so remarkable and novel an exhibition as a Sicilian
peasant spouting to my solitary self in the midst of the lonely
mountains from the ruins of a Roman stage, it lasted so long that I was
compelled to cut it short, telling him I could have fancied him a shade
of the Roman Roscius, a name he appeared well acquainted with, and with
a low bow attributed the comparison to my excellency’s goodness.
On returning to my little hotel I found dinner ready, after which I
went to the convent stables to see to my horse; and the bed that I made
for him not a little astonished the friar who admitted me, and from
curiosity, I suppose, observed, and to a certain extent assisted, my
operations. “Such a bed,” he informed me, “was something too luxurious
even for a good Christian.” He said no more, but his look added, what
must it be for a heretic’s horse.
Napolitanno, however, who was grinding his provender with great
animation, and making his eloquent ears thank me for my present
attention to his couch, seemed to have no fault to find with my
handiwork, and to promise me a fresh horse for to-morrow.
My bed also was clean and comfortable, and I slept intensely, rose
early, and mounting the gay and gentle Napolitanno, descended slowly
towards the sea, through the hanging orchards and gardens of Taormina,
my mind and body equally refreshed, and forgetful of yesterday’s
depression.
On morning wings how active springs the mind,
And leaves the load of yesterday behind.
Soon after traversing the beach which extends from the foot of
Taormina, the road has to make its way (and badly enough it makes it)
over the rugged skirts of Mount Etna, or as the natives call it, more
euphoniously, Monzebello.
These extreme skirts of the mountain consist of various eddies and
whirlpools of different dates of lava, whose black, rough substance is
scantily covered by the slowly accumulating soil, seldom sufficient to
ensure a clothing of vegetation, the black and naked rock forming a
vivid contrast to the brightest verdure.
The pretty town of Jaci, by its elegant and regular structure and air
of opulence, takes the traveller by surprise after the unpromising
waste he has traversed. It seems built almost entirely of the dark and
durable material which the mountain furnishes as a poor compensation
for his wide wasting destruction.
And now after a long and weary ride the clustering domes and spires
of Catania rise upon our track, with a promise of splendour and
magnificence for which the pretty and prosperous Jaci was but little
preparation.