Part 4

_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.

I was astonished at the grandeur of design and costly style of building.

The principal street, of vast width, seems to have one extremity in the ocean, and the other lost in the ascent of the stupendous mountain, whose fiery summit it seems to approach with an avenue of temples and palaces.

What an effect have place and scene upon the sensitive spirits of youth! At Taormina I felt abandoned and cast out from the beauties of the civilised world, whereas here in beautiful Catania I felt as if everything were my own, and that the sky was bright, the sea blue, the mountain awful, and the city splendid--all for me; and in good and grateful part did I accept of it.

No king could be happier than I, when, having seen my horse comfortably served, I ascended into the best parlour of the Golden Lion, and with my eyes upon the noble buildings of the square, sat down to a well-cooked dinner and a flask of the rich white wine of Etna. After dinner, leaving this fair city with regret, I pursued my journey towards Augusta. On this side the mountain throws a mantle of sloping woods, and becomes more and more level and in the nature of open pasture as it approaches the deep and rapid Giarreta, which we pass in a ferry, and over which few Sicilians would believe it possible to construct a bridge.[4]

Augusta enjoys the advantages of Mediterranean sea and sky, but, _au reste_, not Hartlepool nor Skegness are less indebted to soil or surface. The town, though regular, is meanly built, and occupies a peninsula fortified towards the land.

The bay, however, is of noble extent, and by its firm anchorage and easy access affords a fine rendezvous for large fleets employed in these seas. Here Lord Nelson watered previous to the battle of the Nile. I slept in the large convent of the Augustines, close to the seaside, where the prior and monks assured me it was their greatest pride to have entertained the great Nelson within their walls, of whose glory they were perfectly enamoured.

The cheerful urbanity and comforting welcome of these good Augustines made me forget the Capuchins of Taormina, and I must say in all the many convents in which I have taken up my quarters I never experienced but that one unpleasant reception.

The Governor of Augusta, on whom I necessarily waited with my credentials, was very polite, spoke of Captain Lefebure in the style sublime, and finding I must start in the morning for Syracuse, insisted that I should come that evening to his conversazione.

A good many people of both sexes and the higher officers of his garrison were assembled to stare at the Giovane Inglese, and for an hour or two it answered my purpose very well. I had no objection to be looked at, but liked looking at others still better, always taking a greater interest in people than in lifeless things.

I slept comfortably at the convent, and was on horseback early in the morning.

The ride to Syracuse is not particularly interesting along the shores of the Bay of Augusta, and after ascending the promontory which bounds the bay to the south, the road no longer finds accommodation by the seaside, but makes its way more deviously over hill and dell until it approaches the obverse side of that dilated rock which shelters Syracuse and its harbour from the blustering north. Upon an extended table of this ridge lie the ruins of the ancient city of Syracuse, and as the road ascends, the naked rock is tracked in deep ruts by the carriages which trafficked with the ancient Syracusans, just as ruts are deeply worn in the more frequented streets of Pompeii.

The present town and harbour of Syracuse, with its lovely vale stretching far into the west, are finely seen from the heights over which you approach it.

The peninsula on which the town stands divides the harbour into two compartments.

The grand harbour to the south and west is one of the most beautiful in the world. The other is of little importance except in a military point of view.

The fortifications, houses, and churches of Syracuse are all formed of the beautiful stone[5] of which its great northern screen consists, and in consequence of these vast quarries and excavations, ancient and modern, nothing can be more abruptly broken and scarped than the environs of this fortress.

The land front is finely and elaborately executed with magnificent gateways; the town is dense and unequal; the cathedral an ancient temple (I believe of Minerva), whose Christian front acts as a garish mask to its ancient heathen sides.

I presently found my friend Lefebure, who received me with joy, and after giving me some account of his proceedings, took me to the good old Governor. “I know not whom this Governor takes me for,” said Lefebure, “but he really overwhelms me with honours; his coach is always dodging me wherever I go, and when I consent to take a little tour into the country, he mounts upon the box, with all the decorations of his rank and symbols of his power, and drives me himself. I am half dead with the variety and quantity he makes me eat, and bewildered with the daily company of barons and princes, baronesses and princesses, with their dark eyes and soft accents, so articulate and intelligible, and yet to which I dare hardly attempt to reply.”

“Well,” I replied, “this does not sound to me so distressing as you represent. I am glad I am come to your relief. This noble governor shall stuff _me_ now with good things and drive _me_ in his coach, and _I_ will now listen to the soft accents of the dark-eyed Principessas, and expose myself to their smiles at my blundering answers. So _have_ with you, Lefebure; take me to the Governor; we shall be in time for his dinner.”

“Oh,” he rejoined, “don’t distress yourself. We are both engaged already to dine with him to meet a hundred people. But it will be taken well if I present you to him first.” So away we went. The Governor, a good, solicitous old soul, was of course charmed with the Bravo Giovinetto, and offered everything within and without his power both to me and to Lefebure.

The number of the people at dinner could only, I think, be exceeded by the number of the dishes, and when I found the order of proceeding, I no longer wondered at the surfeit complained of by the temperate Lefebure, for the Governor, having relaxed his girdle and tied a napkin under his chin, surrounded by laughing beauties ready to applaud every word he spoke and every morsel he distributed, sent in succession for every dish, and having divided it absolutely and unsparingly into portions, it was carried round, and if any one failed to taste, the wail and lament of apprehended sickness was raised around him, and some sweet princess with bewitching eyes loaded his plate with her own fair hands.

I am not aware that English people can quite realise the ease and good-humour and incessant but not unpolished mirth with which this great dinner from beginning to end was accomplished. And but for that, I hardly believe the economy of man would be able to dispose of such sudden and copious supplies as were then thrown into his system.

Well it was the Governor, after dinner, took us in his carriage to show us his points of vantage without the town, for to walk would have been very inconvenient!

The worthy Governor of Syracuse was not the only person prodigal of attention and kindness to the two English officers.

There then lived upon a beautiful farm in the midst of the vale an English gentleman of considerable genius and learning, whose energy of character and acuteness of judgment, and the application of English skill to a Sicilian soil, had given him a very powerful ascendency over the population within his reach. Equally a master of the language, from the Tuscan tongue to the dissonant jargon of the Sicilian peasant, his tall, athletic, but not ungraceful figure, and his intelligent and finely-featured head made him no ill representative, among foreigners, of the personal predominance of an Englishman.

I had met him at Valetta, where he had opened an acquaintance with me by accusing me of some resemblance to Lady Hamilton. He immediately remembered the circumstance, and perhaps even so slight a thread acted as a bond of old acquaintance. Yet there is a stronger bond than that which draws one to a countryman in a foreign land.

My Anglo-Sicilian friend showed Lefebure and me how truly he felt this by the unbounded kindness and grateful hospitality he extended to us, and his handsome, noble-hearted wife received us with a smile of welcome that was redolent of home.

Our fare was studiously English, and to our delighted eyes appeared the effect of magic.

There was the burnished brown of the small fillet of veal, the small smoked ham, cauliflower, potatoes, and melted butter; the household loaf of barm-raised bread as white as snow; the ample slice of fresh-churned butter, not lard of goat’s milk, but yellow butter, from the breathy cow. And then the bubbling and loud-hissing urn, the presiding lady, plates of real bread-and-butter, and genuine tea, attempered with thick cream!

No one untried in travel can imagine with how keen a zest a robust English appetite returns to these wholesome and ordinary provisions of his country in lands where he has no hope of meeting with them.

On our return to Messina we simply retraced our steps, and met with nothing remarkable, so I give no account of our journey of 120 miles.

* * * * *

It was about the second week in May when Lefebure and I arrived at Messina, and on the 25th of that month our force received a valuable acquisition by the arrival of the 78th Regiment of Highlanders, a beautiful regiment, 900 strong, whose picturesque national dress made a great impression upon the Sicilians, though the women, indeed, seemed to think it due to modesty to say the dress was very ugly. “La Baronessa” also maintained “It was an ugly dress, and a very curious dress, and a very curious thing that such a dress should be approved of in England, which she thought was a cold country.” The arrival of this regiment gave us the more satisfaction, as rumours were afloat that Sir John Stuart would take advantage of his interregnum to do some dashing thing.

A great sensation was created by the resolute defence which the old Prince of Hesse Philipstahl continued to make at Gaeta.

Our Gilespie had been sent to his assistance, and was well qualified by his knowledge of the language, his military science, and his daring constancy of character both to assist the brave Prince in his defence, and to give true information and sagacious comments to the British general.

Sir Sidney Smith, the naval Commander-in-Chief, came to Messina immediately from the scene of action. He had brought with him a plan of Gaeta and of the French approaches, which he wished to have copied, and being well acquainted with the commanding engineer, requested his assistance for that purpose. Our Commandant brought the plan to me to copy, and said, “When you’ve finished the plan, Boothby, you will like an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the hero of Acre. You will admire him of all things, but be sure when you see him, he will take you to Acre.”