he delicious shade
of some trees, I discovered a spring of fresh water, in which we
voluptuously laved our faces, hands, and feet.

While we were all giving way to the delights of new-found pleasures, a
little child appeared between two tufted olive trees.

"Ah," cried I, "an inhabitant of this happy country."

The little fellow was poorly dressed, weak, and suffering, and appeared
terribly alarmed at our appearance. Half-naked, with tangled, matted and
ragged beards, we did look supremely ill-favored; and unless the country
was a bandit land, we were not likely to alarm the inhabitants!

Just as the boy was about to take to his heels, Hans ran after him, and
brought him back, despite his cries and kicks.

My uncle tried to look as gentle as possible, and then spoke in German.

"What is the name of this mountain, my friend?"

The child made no reply.

"Good," said my uncle, with a very positive air of conviction, "we are
not in Germany."

He then made the same demand in English, of which language he was an
excellent scholar.

The child shook its head and made no reply. I began to be considerably
puzzled.

"Is he dumb?" cried the Professor, who was rather proud of his polyglot
knowledge of languages, and made the same demand in French.

The boy only stared in his face.

"I must perforce try him in Italian," said my uncle, with a shrug.

"<i>Dove noi siamo</i>?"

"Yes, tell me where we are?" I added impatiently and eagerly.

Again the boy remained silent.

"My fine fellow, do you or do you not mean to speak?" cried my uncle,
who began to get angry. He shook him, and spoke another dialect of the
Italian language.

"<i>Come si noma questa isola</i>?"--"What is the name of this island?"

"Stromboli," replied the rickety little shepherd, dashing away from Hans
and disappearing in the olive groves.

We thought little enough about him.

Stromboli! What effect on the imagination did these few words produce!
We were in the centre of the Mediterranean, amidst the eastern
archipelago of mythological memory, in the ancient Strongylos, where
AEolus kept the wind and the tempest chained up. And those blue
mountains, which rose towards the rising sun, were the mountains of
Calabria.

And that mighty volcano which rose on the southern horizon was Etna, the
fierce and celebrated Etna!

"Stromboli! Stromboli!" I repeated to myself.

My uncle played a regular accompaniment to my gestures and words. We
were s