rbor of
Messina to Capo Faro, and the distant islands of the Tyrrhene Sea.

* * * * *

I leave this afternoon for Naples and Leghorn. I have lost already so much
time between Constantinople and this place, that I cannot give up ten
days more to Etna. Besides, I am so thoroughly satisfied with what I have
seen, that I fear no second view of the eruption could equal it. Etna
cannot be seen from here, nor from a nearer point than a mountain six or
eight miles distant. I tried last evening to get a horse and ride out to
it, in order to see the appearance of the eruption by night; but every
horse, mule and donkey in the place was engaged, except a miserable lame
mule, for which five dollars was demanded. However, the night happened to
be cloudy so that I could have seen nothing.

My passport is finally _en regle_. It has cost the labors of myself and an
able-bodied valet-de-place since yesterday morning, and the expenditure of
five dollars and a half, to accomplish this great work. I have just been
righteously abusing the Neapolitan Government to a native merchant whom,
from his name, I took to be a Frenchman, but as I am off in an hour or
two, hope to escape arrest. Perdition to all Tyranny!

Chapter XXXII.

Gibraltar.

Unwritten Links of Travel--Departure from Southampton--The Bay of
Biscay--Cintra--Trafalgar--Gibraltar at Midnight--Landing--Search for a
Palm-Tree--A Brilliant Morning--The Convexity of the
Earth--Sun-Worship--The Rock.

------"to the north-west, Cape St. Vincent died away,
Sunset ran, a burning blood-red, blushing into Cadiz Bay.
In the dimmest north-east distance dawned Gibraltar, grand and gray."

Browning.

Gibraltar, _Saturday, November_ 6, 1852.

I leave unrecorded the links of travel which connected Messina and
Gibraltar. They were over the well-trodden fields of Europe, where little
ground is left that is not familiar. In leaving Sicily I lost the
Saracenic trail, which I had been following through the East, and first
find it again here, on the rock of Calpe, whose name, _Djebel el-Tarik_
(the Mountain of Tarik), still speaks of the fiery race whose rule
extended from the unknown ocean of the West to "Ganges and Hydaspes,
Indian streams." In Malta and Sicily, I saw their decaying watch-towers,
and recognized their sign-manual in the deep, guttural, masculine words
and expressions which they have left behind them. I now design fol