s this of Taormina? Turned to
the south, hollowed from the crest of a promontory 1000 feet above
the sea, it faces Etna with its crown of snow: below, the coast
sweeps onward to Catania and the distant headland of Syracuse. From
the back the shore of Sicily curves with delicately indented bays
towards Messina: then come the straits, and the blunt mass of the
Calabrian mountains terminating Italy at Spartivento. Every spot on
which the eye can rest is rife with reminiscences. It was there, we
say, looking northward to the straits, that Ulysses tossed between
Scylla and Charybdis; there, turning towards the flank of Etna, that
he met with Polyphemus and defied the giant from his galley. From
yonder snow-capped eyrie, [Greek: Aitnas skopia], the rocks were
hurled on Acis. And all along that shore, after Persephone was lost,
went Demeter, torch in hand, wailing for the daughter she could no
more find among Sicilian villages. Then, leaving myths for history,
we remember how the ships of Nikias set sail from Reggio, and
coasted the forelands at our feet, past Naxos, on their way to
Catania and Syracuse. Gylippus afterwards in his swift galley took
the same course: and Dion, when he came to destroy his nephew's
empire. Here too Timoleon landed, resolute in his firm will to purge
the isle of tyrants.

What scenes, more spirit-shaking than any tragic shows--pageants of
fire and smoke, and mountains in commotion--are witnessed from these
grassy benches, when the earth rocks, and the sea is troubled, and
the side of Etna flows with flame, and night grows horrible with
bellowings that forebode changes in empires!--

Quoties Cyclopum effervere in agros
Vidimus undantem ruptis fornacibus AEtnam,
Flammarumque globos liquefactaque volvere saxa.

The stage of these tremendous pomps is very calm and peaceful now.
Lying among acanthus leaves and asphodels, bound together by wreaths
of white and pink convolvulus, we only feel that this is the
loveliest landscape on which our eyes have ever rested or can rest.
The whole scene is a symphony of blues--gemlike lapis-lazuli in the
sea, aerial azure in the distant headlands, light-irradiated
sapphire in the sky, and impalpable vapour-mantled purple upon Etna.
The grey tones of the neighbouring cliffs, and the glowing brickwork
of the ruined theatre, through the arches of which shine sea and
hillside, enhance by contrast these modulations of the one
prevailing hue. Etna is the