known through the Odyssey when larger kingdoms are forgotten, and Chiarenza on the mainland, which gives title to our dukes of Clarence. Once a principality of Greece, it came by marriage to the house of Hainault, and devolved to the English crown by the marriage of our Edward III. with queen Philippa, who was of that family. To-day we have "been driven up and down in Adria," with no object but a billowy sea and an angry sky to be seen. The historian Josephus was wrecked in this sea, and saved himself by swimming for his life, and his far more illustrious countryman St. Paul, also after being tossed up and down in it, was shipwrecked at Malta.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5.

THE wind which had tossed us about yesterday evening and last night, freshened nearly to a gale this morning, and blowing right in our teeth, considerably retarded our progress. At night when it had somewhat moderated, and the vessel had ceased to reel so much, I went to bed and fell asleep. But my berth which was in the weather bow of the vessel had a window in it which looked like her

VOL. II.

I

eye, and after I had been asleep a short time and was dreaming pleasantly, the wind got up again, when the sea began to beat violently against the ship, and awakened me. Again however I fell asleep, but no sooner was I asleep than I was awakened again, for surge after surge struck the vessel on her bow, with such force that I expected every minute to see her weather eye either knocked out or knocked in, either of which would have been attended with similar consequences to me. Again I tried to catch sleep and for a minute I again succeeded, but presently a louder thump at my window, and a heavier lurch awakened me, until at length my slumbers became like that of the self denying philosopher who never slept without his arm extended and his hand grasping a metal ball over a brazen vessel at his side. The moment sleep relaxed his grasp the ball fell into the vessel and awakened him with its noise. This kind of rest or unrest neither sleeping nor awaking but something between both, and not as good as either, had disagreeable visions, of evil genii who were lifting up the ship out of the water, turning it bodily over, keel upwards, or taking it up into the air by its masts and letting it drop plump down, as the eagle in the fable let the tortoise fall from a height. Daylight brought no alleviation of the weather, but I found that the

deck passengers had had worse discomforts to endure than even mine, for every disappointed billow that had struck and been repulsed from my window, had taken its revenge by flying over the ship's side, and drenching the tenants of the deck with its spray.

At two o'clock an accident, occasioned by the rough weather, befel our machinery, and the ship lay like a wounded sea bird upon the water for an hour, until it was repaired. Fortunately the wind moderating at this juncture we afterwards made fair progress, and at night, with the moon shining upon the snowy top of Etna, we entered the straits which separate Sicily from Calabria, and soon afterwards cast anchor in the harbour of Messina.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6.

AT Messina there are lighthouses to guide the mariner into the harbour at night. These shields against the dangers of darkness the sign and symbol of commercial and maritime comity, are never seen in Turkey. They had occurred for the first time on my homeward voyage at the Piræus, and I had then congratulated myself, as I again did here on having

arrived in regions more civilized and enlightened than the East. The harbour of Messina shaped like an overlapping ring, which leaves a narrow opening where it overlaps, affords shelter from every wind that blows. It was moonlight when I came on deck this morning, but the pale queen of heaven gave unusual brightness to every object on shore, and they could hardly have been more distinct in the most brilliant sunlight. The city stretching round the bay with its more distant portions climbing as it were to some height up the bold serrated ridge of mountains behind it, and its clear white buildings many of them with just pretensions to architecture, showed to great advantage in contrast with the sombre livery of their mountain background. But while I watched, the mountain tips caught a rosy hue, which, as the sun arose, descended lower and lower by degrees, and at length clothed both city and mountains in hues of glory. The prospect was beautiful, and I was the more tantalized to find that here also the demon quarantine stood sentinel to prevent our going on shore. The straits of Messina are here not more than two miles broad, and I could see Rhegium, at which St. Paul touched on the opposite coast of Calabria, with the hills at its back cultivated to their very summits.

In the evening we weighed anchor and leaving the

harbour steamed on our way. In half an hour we passed safe between the whirlpool of Charybdis on the Sicilian and the rock of Scylla on the Italian shore. Both these dangers of the old mariners have lost their terrors, and I saw nothing more fearful about them than their name. Both of them were probably more dangerous to mariners whose vessels were small and whose practice it was to hug the shore. But Mr. Seymour will have it that the scene of the 10th, 11th and 12th books of the Odyssey, which up to our day were supposed to be on the shores of Italy and Sicily were really in the Black Sea.* Just when darkness had set in we were in sight of Stromboli, a real wonder in these seas. As we passed to-night, it shot up a sullen flame like a giant holding aloft a mighty torch, and threw a glare over the sea for miles on every side. The ruddy flame not being continuous but fitful, reminded me of some great furnace, which smoulders and burns heavily, except when it is blown to a redder heat by the blast, or of a natural lighthouse which shows and intermits its light at intervals. This is the country of Volcanoes. Besides Etna and Vesuvius, and Stromboli, Vulcan has many minor establishments here, some of which, not being found to answer, are closed again almost as soon as they Russia and the Black Sea, p. 185.