earthquake. It has a curious pagoda-shaped
roof, surmounted with a globe resting on the
cross-keys of St. Peter. Here is said to have
been preserved a lock of the Virgin's hair,
with an autograph letter to the Messinians,
assuring them of her especial protection.
Studded over the town also is many a tower
and belfry, faded by time, and deserted palace,
where grandeur is crumbling into ruin. Here
and there, too, are traces of the mad work
of the misguided enthusiasts of eighteen
hundred and forty-eight. As we stood thinking,
our rickety guide pointed out the rugged
mountains and deep dark valleys, the bold
headlands and haunted creeks of desolate
Calabria. To the left of us, the classical,
dangers of Scylla and Charybdis lay bathed
in the sunshine of that bright Sicilian morning,
and light feluccas with spread sails
skimmed swiftly over the perils which
dismayed mariners of the ancient world and
taught a proverb to its sages.

An ass, pannier-laden, was tethered to the
rails of a convent hard by; we were made
aware of his presence through a smug sigh,
occasioned evidently by the tranquil labours
of digestion. He looked very plump and
contented, and had a demure sort of
waggishness about him, such as may decorously
beseem the donkey of a pious sisterhood: for
there is no more worshipful and reputable
beast than an ass. I was glad to have been
admitted to the honour of an interview with
his excellency, though he eyed me somewhat
askant, and I am afraid my pencil and notebook
rather shocked his aristocratic ideas of
propriety.

We went for breakfast to the Hotel
Victoria. The waiter, a plausible little German
of gracious and patronising manners,
welcomed us with flattering cordiality, and after
a short delay, procured us some small fish of
exquisite delicacy; some tough chops, watery
potatoes stuck together with parsley, wet
salt, and coarse black pepper; some boiled
chesnuts, very good red-wine called Capri-
Basso, brackish water, and gritty coffee;
some damp bread, pale doubtful butter, and
such other things as go to make up the
unsavoury ingredients of a Sicilian meal.

I was glad to escape from it, and go out
into the sunlit fantastic streets. It was
such an agreeable pastime to stroll
negligently along the smooth broad pavement of
cool flagstones, watching the life and bustle,
the jaunty do-nothing hubbub of an Italian
city. It was quite a study to look into the
open shops, with their shady recesses, and
groups of women gossiping at needlework.
Who can wonder at the spell of Italian pictures,
when they are copies from such an ardent and
expressive nature! I saw three tailoresses
sewing away at somebody's old garment,
who might each have inspired a Madonna.

The different costumes of the various orders
of priests are very striking. The cross-looking
mendicant friar, with his wallet and staff;
the sleek abbot with his rosary and white
hands, his smooth face and purple beard; his
deep-set scrutinising eyes. Then there are
the quick ragged children, ready to go to
Jericho for a carline. The smart vetturino,
with a flower in his hat, and all the professional
dash and swagger of a horseman. The
women, with their clear olive complexions,
and dark passionate glance; the French-
dressed soldiers, very odd; the trim fussy
merchants, glossy and amazing swells, with
startling fashions in whiskers. The carts with
foundered oxen—the fat beeves of Sicily
rumbling about everywhere; the sailor with
his ringlets and ear-rings, and the love-gift
near his heart. The merry little horses, so
astonishingly overloaded, yet jingling the
bells on their gay peaked collars, and capering
along as if they made nothing of it. The
importunate beggar with his hideous sores and
poetical phrases, wistfully eyeing the fagots
of wood, cut short in readiness for cold nights.
The cook carrying cauliflowers, and stopping
to chatter by the way. The mongrel dog
of many races visiting his acquaintance like
a man of fashion. The elderly ladies of no
repute—duennas to idle maidens—lingering
about the ruddy-faced passengers from an
English steamboat. The luxury of oranges
in heaps of thousands. The red anchor and
the rusty cable, mending at the smith's; the
white sails hanging loosely to dry on the
yards of tall ships. The government police-
order, and the theatre-bill side by side, with
the slovenly print smudged and damp, fresh
stuck upon the walls. The spirit-shops—dark
little holes like cellars—the abodes of vice and
pestilence, the haunts of sailors of the worst
class. Then there is the cathedral, which we
saw from the heights of St. Giorgio, a noble
edifice in the centre of the town. It is
remarkable for a gateway adorned with marble
carvings, and for some immense columns of
Egyptian granite, taken from an ancient
temple of Neptune. But not even the dim
religious light of the aisles, or the conversation
of a noble gentleman whom we suppose
to be the beadle, can detain us from the
healthy wooing of the westerly wind, and the
fascinating attractions without.

I love the jolly poverty, the graceful
picturesque buffooneries, the pleasant rogueries
of Italian street-life. Who can help being
amused at that itinerant auctioneer
impudently vaunting his wares? His stock is
composed chiefly of printed cottons for
sailors' wives—and a throng of those
vivacious ladies cluster round him, wrangling
joyously. A withered retired official passes
by the while. He has a young wife on one
arm, and that unequivocal proof of respectability,
an extremely baggy umbrella, on the
other. He looks sourly at the boisterous
crowd.

I follow an individual in a grand cavalry
cloak; he turns out to be a fiddler, and
stopping before the door of a shop he has