wild Maltese songs. At length, the promontory was gained, and
the restless current, rolling down from Scylla and Charybdis, tossed our
little bark from wave to wave with a recklessness that would have made any
one nervous but an old sailor like myself.

"To-morrow morning," said the Captain, "we shall sail into Catania;" but
after a third night on the planks, which were now a little softer, we rose
to find ourselves abreast of Syracuse, with Etna as distant as ever. The
wind was light, and what little we made by tacking was swept away by the
current, so that, after wasting the whole forenoon, we kept a straight
course across the mouth of the channel, and at sunset saw the Calabrian
Mountains. This move only lost us more ground, as it happened. Caesar and I
mournfully and silently consumed our last fragment of beef, with the
remaining dry crusts of bread, and then sat down doggedly to smoke and see
whether the captain would discover our situation. But no; while we were
supplied, the whole vessel was at our Lordships' command, and now that we
were destitute, he took care to make no rash offers. Caesar, at last, with
an imperial dignity becoming his name, commanded dinner. It came, and the
pork and maccaroni, moistened with red Sicilian wine, gave us patience for
another day.

The fourth morning dawned, and--Great Neptune be praised!--we were
actually within the Gulf of Catania. Etna loomed up in all his sublime
bulk, unobscured by cloud or mist, while a slender jet of smoke, rising
from his crater, was slowly curling its wreaths in the clear air, as if
happy to receive the first beam of the sun. The towers of Syracuse, which
had mocked us all the preceding day, were no longer visible; the
land-locked little port of Augusta lay behind us; and, as the wind
continued favorable, ere long we saw a faint white mark at the foot of the
mountain. This was Catania. The shores of the bay were enlivened with
olive-groves and the gleam of the villages, while here and there a single
palm dreamed of its brothers across the sea. Etna, of course, had the
monarch's place in the landscape, but even his large, magnificent outlines
could not usurp all my feeling. The purple peaks to the westward and
farther inland, had a beauty of their own, and in the gentle curves with
which they leaned towards each other, there was a promise of the flowery
meadows of Enna. The smooth blue water was speckled with fishing-boats. We
hailed one, inquiring whe