ch carry off the last
loiterers are gone, shaking phosphorus from their gills, and leaving
a train of it in their tails; and the many-windowed Pharos of the
harbour has all its panes lit up, and twinkles after its own fashion.
Round the bay an interrupted crescent of flickering light is
reflected in the water, strongest in the middle, where the town is
thickest, and runs back; and far behind all lights comes the clear
outline of the darkly defined mountain rising over the city. Our own
lantern also is up, the authorities have disappeared, Monte Pelegrino
begins to change its position, we are in motion, and a mighty light
we are making under us, as our leviathan, turning round her head and
_snuffing_ the sea, begins to wind out of the harbour. A few minutes
more, and the luminous tracery of the receding town becomes more and
more indistinct; but the sky is _all stars_, and the water, save
where we break its smoothness, a perfect mirror. Wherever the paddles
play, there the sea foams up into yellow light and _gerbes_ of
amber-coloured fireballs, caught up by the wheels, and flung off in
our track, to float past with incredible rapidity. Men are talking
the language of Babel in the cabin; there is amateur singing and a
guitar on deck--_Orion_ is on his dolphin--adieu, Palermo!

APPROACH TO MESSINA.

The Italian morning presents a beautiful sight on deck to eyes weary
and sore with night, as night passes on board steamers. We pass along
a coast obviously of singular conformation, and to a geologist, we
suppose, full of interest. We encounter a herd of classical dolphins
out a-pleasuring. We ask about a pretty little town perched just
above the sea, and called _Giocosa_. By its side lies
_Tyndaris_--classical enough if we spell it right. The snow on Etna
is as good as an inscription, and to be read at any distance; but
what a deception! they tell us it is thirty miles off, and it seems
to rise immediately from behind a ridge of hills close to the shore.
The snow cone rises in the midst of other cones, which would appear
equally high but for the difference of colour. _Patti_ is a
picturesque little _borgo_, on the hillside, celebrated in Sicily for
its manufacture of hardware. In the bay of _Melazzo_ are taken by far
the largest supplies of thunny in the whole Mediterranean. From the
embayed town so named you have the choice of a cross-road to Messina,
(twenty-four miles;) but who would abridge distance and miss the
cele