forts and beautiful background of mountains, above which (though at fifty miles' distance) Etna towers with its snow-capped peak. The Faro Point stretches so far eastward as apparently to meet the opposite coast, while the long range of Apennines, with their bare and arid sides, give a picturesque character to the otherwise uninteresting Calabrian shores.

Leaving the servants to prepare their breakfast in the somewhat noisy hotel, our party went directly on landing to the cathedral. It is one of the few buildings which have escaped the terrible earthquakes which have desolated and overthrown the greater part of this ancient town. In truth, the position of the city, between Etna on the one hand and Stromboli and Vesuvius on the other, renders it peculiarly liable to these convulsions. The Messi nians say that the cathedral was saved by the direct interposition of the Blessed Virgin, whose miraculous picture by St. Luke hangs over the gorgeous high altar, which is a masterpiece of inlaid work, and one of the finest known specimens of Florentine mosaic. At the back of the altar-screen is the famous letter, supposed to have been written by the Virgin herself to the Messinese after they had been converted by the preaching of St. Paul, assuring them of her favor and protection. The cathedral was built by the good Count Roger, and though much injured by subsequent restorations, still retains some interesting portions of the original work. Such are the vault of the tribune and of the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, rich with mosaics, as at Monreale; the fine old granite pillars in the nave; the ancient font in white marble, surrounded by a broad band of mosaics; the lectern, resting on four lions; and a handsome jasper paschal candlestick.

The facade is in some respects like that of the cathedral of Siena, hav

ing broad bands of red and white marble, with mosaics between; and the Norman doors are singularly rich in carving and decoration. There is a beautiful bénitier, leading to the door of the sacristy, of early Norman date, resting on an inverted marble column, with pagan Greek inscriptions. The sagrario is rich in cinquecento church plate and relics. There are some very fine monuments, especially one to an old Greek Bishop, and another of a Spanish Archbishop of Cordova. Beneath the cathedral is the Norman crypt, with its low marble columns, Byzantine pictures, and groined roof. One of the ladies went behind the high altar to see if she could find the niche of the monk mentioned in the famous Messinian ghost story; but the carved woodwork of the choir has effectually covered up the supposed site of the apparition. To those of our readers who may not have known this legend it is here reproduced.

In the year 1784 there was a terrible earthquake at Messina. Houses were thrown down, many lives were lost, the very graves were opened. The only thing which escaped was the cathedral, and the people attributed its safety to a miracle. A few years after this event, the Chevalier

a man of noble French family, one of whose brothers was a distinguished general officer and the other a minister at Berlin, visited Messina for the purpose of seeing the scene of devastation, and of making researches among the monuments and ruins. He was of the Order of the Knights of Malta, and a priest; a man of high character, of cultivated intellect, and of great physical courage. He arrived at Messina on a summer day, and getting the key of the cathedral from the custode-for it was after Vespers commenced copying the inscriptions and examining the building. His researches occupied him so long that he did not see that the day was waning; and when he turned round to go out by the

door through which he had come in, he found it locked. He tried the other doors, but all were equally closed. The custode, having let him in some hours before, and concluding he had long since gone away, had locked up the building and gone home. The Chevalier shouted in vain; the earthquake had destroyed all the houses in the neighborhood, and there was no one to hear his cries. He had therefore no alternative but to submit to his fate, and to make up his mind to spend the night in the cathedral. He looked round for some place to establish himself. Everything was of marble except the confessionals, and in one of these he ensconced himself in a tolerably comfortable chair, and tried to go to sleep. Sleep, however, was not so easy. The strangeness of the situation, the increasing darkness, and the religious awe which the strongest mind might be supposed to feel under the circumstances, effectually banished any feeling of drowsiness. There was a large clock in the tower of the cathedral, of which the tones sounded more nearly and solemnly within the building than without. The Chevalier, with the intensity of hearing which sleeplessness gives, listened to every stroke of the clock. First ten, then the quarters; then eleven, then the quarters again; then twelve o'clock. As the last stroke of midnight died away, he perceived suddenly a light appearing at the high altar. The altar candles seemed suddenly to be lighted, and a figure in a monk's dress and cowl walked out from a niche at the back of the altar. Turning when he reached the front of the altar, the figure exclaimed in a deep and solemn voice, "Is there any priest here who will say a Mass for the repose of my soul ?" No answer followed; and the monk slowly walked down the church, passing by the confessional where the Chevalier was sitting. As he passed, his eyes being naturally riveted on the figure, the Chevalier saw that the face under

the cowl was that of a dead man. Entire darkness followed; but when the clock struck the half-hour, the same events occurred; the same light appeared, and the same figure; the same question was asked, and no answer returned; and the same monk, illuminated by the same unearthly light, walked slowly down the church.

Now the Chevalier was a bold man; and he resolved, if the same thing occurred again, that he would answer the question and say the Mass. As the clock struck one, the altar was again lighted, the monk again appeared, and when he once more exclaimed, "Is there any Christian priest here who would say a Mass for the repose of my soul?" the Chevalier boldly stepped out of the confessional, and replied in a firm voice, "I will!" He then walked up to the altar, where he found everything prepared for the celebration, and summoning up all his courage, celebrated the sacred rite. At its conclusion, the monk spoke as follows: "For one hundred and forty years every night I have asked this question, and, until to-night, in vain. You have conferred upon me an inestimable benefit. There is nothing I would not do if I could for you in return; but there is only one thing in my power, and that is to give you notice when the hour of your own death approaches."

The Chevalier heard no more. He fell down in a swoon, and was found the next morning by the custode, very early, at the foot of the altar. After a time he recoverd and went away. He returned to Venice, where he was then living, and wrote down the circumstances above related, which he also told to several of his intimate friends. He steadily asserted and maintained that he was never wider awake, or more completely in possession of his reasoning faculties, than he was that night, until the moment when the monk had done speaking.

Three years afterwards he called

his friends together and took leave of them. They asked him if he was going on a journey. He said, "Yes; and one from which there was no return." He then told them that the night before, the monk of Messina had appeared to him, and told him that he was to die in three days. His friends laughed at him, and told him, which was true, that he seemed perfectly well. But he persisted in his statements, made every preparation, and the third day was found dead in his bed. This story was well known to all his friends and contemporaries. Curiously enough, on the cathedral of Messina being restored a few years after, the skeleton of a monk was found, walled up, in his monk's dress and cowl, and in the very place which the Chevalier had always described as the one from which the spectre had emerged. Returning to their hotel, our travellers found the kind and obliging prefect, Count Z―, in waiting to show them the Marina, and its beautiful promenade, fine fountain, and gay groups of fishermen, and afterwards the church of St. Gregorio, on a rising ground above the town, from whence the view over the straits, city, and port is quite magnificent.

Its

The Sisters of Charity have the care of the military hospital here, as at Palermo, and gave our travellers a beautiful Benediction service. To the children of St. Francis a very interesting little church in Messina is the Oratory of the Merchante, built in the sixteenth century. walls are covered with frescoes and paintings, illustrative of the saint's life; the large altarpiece, which represents his death, being looked upon as the chef-d'œuvre of Schidoni. The churches and university teem with pictures of the Messinese school, but they are rarely of any great merit.

The following day saw our party en route for Catania. They had determined to have a long morning at

Taormina, and so started directly after the six o'clock Mass.

At Messina, as in Spain, it is the custom of all women to go veiled, and in black, to church. One of the English ladies, approaching the altar that morning in a bonnet, was gently told that she could not communicate without being in what was there considered the only suitable dress; which, luckily, she was able at once to adopt.

Passing through the Porta Ciera, and on through mulberry and vinetrellised slopes leading down to the beach, they came to Cape Scaletta, with its ruined watch-tower and picturesque rocks. The fine Benedictine monastery of St. Placido, built in the Italian style, is perched in a glen of the mountains above. From La Scaletta, crossing a ravine spanned by a picturesque bridge, the road winds round another headland, called Capo Grasso, marking, with the cape on the opposite coast, the entrance to the Straits of Messina. The whole scenery reminded the travellers strongly of the Corniche. Here lies the village of Ali, noted for its mineral baths, the resort of so many Sicilians during the summer months. Our party had two very light carriages, with four horses in each, so that they bowled rapidly along the beautiful road, and in a very short time found themselves at Cape St. Andrea, where a road branches off to the left, and winds up to Taormina. At the point of the headland they looked down on two romantic little bays, shut in by bold rocks of marble, which project into the sea, and are hollowed into large caverns, full of sea-birds, reminding them a little of Handa Island. From every available niche and cranny of the fine cliffs of mica slate and marble which overhung the road, sprouted forth cactus and aloes and carouba, and a multitude of flowering plants. Leaving the main road, and following the steep path up the hillside, the party, hot and breathless, arrived at

last at the little church of St. Pancrazio, built on the ruins of a Greek temple, just outside the gate leading into the town. Taormina itself is a poor and dirty little place, but is perched in a glorious situation, on a rocky ledge overlooking the valleys below, surrounded by a Saracenic wall, with square towers at intervals, said to have been repaired by Charles V. There are still some very curious and interesting remains of the old Sicilio-Gothic palaces. Leaving their carriages at the miserable Locanda, which is the only attempt yet made to accommodate the many visitors to this beautiful spot, our travellers again pushed on, in spite of the burning sun, and toiling up a steep and rugged path, fringed with wild sweet roses and prickly pear, reached at last the famous theatre. It rests against the sides of a hill, the seats being hewn out of the rock, and is in perfect preservation. But its glory consists in the view, which exceeds anything in Europe; looking on the one hand on the beautiful line of coast and bright blue sea, and on the other on the mountain range, above which towers Etna, at that moment sending forth jets of fire and smoke, which towards evening shed a crimson glow over the whole surrounding country; while in the middle distance are gardens and orange-groves, and stone pines and cypresses, and picturesque villages, and convents and churches, and a luxuriance of vegetation, and a brightness of coloring, and a clearness of atmosphere, which drive a painter to positive despair, from the sheer impossibility of reproducing, even in a faint degree, the intense beauty of the original. Well may Faber exclaim: Sometimes in a beautiful climate we come upon a scene which, by its surpasssng beauty, so satisfies mind, heart, and senses, that we sit entranced, taking it in without understanding it, and resting in the simple enjoyment of the sight. Thus, for awhile a man may sit

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amid the folds of Etna, or on the marvellous mountain-shelf of Taormina, and look out upon the scene. Everything that wood and water, rock and mountain, dazzling sky and translucent air can do, with the grand spirit of old history brooding over all, is there. It cannot be analyzed or explained. We are taken in the nets of a beauty which masters us, and the sheer thought of it is a joy without thought for hours."

Our party spread their luncheon in the shade of some of the broken columns, and one of them tried to sketch, but threw away the result of the attempt in despair. They then visited the so-called Naumachia, of which only the Roman wall remains; and then with reluctance retraced their steps towards the old town. The cathedral has a fine Sicilio-Gothic doorway, with shafts of white marble and black lava, and fine dog-tooth mouldings. In the midst of the town rises an old Saracenic castle, with a chapel on the summit called La Madonna della Rocca. At the back of the castle rock is a picturesque old abbey, the windows of which are still filled with exquisite tracery. Determined to leave no part unseen, the more enterprising of the party resolved, in spite of the heat, to toil up to the little village of Mola, which is situated on a lofty peak overhanging the town. It was by this very track that Dionysius of Syracuse climbed up one winter night, when the snow lay thick on the ground, and surprised the garrison. From the portal of the old church of Mola, with its red marble pillars and round arches, the magnificent view fully repaid our travellers for the toil of the ascent.

Leaving Taormina, and descending once more to the highroad, they came upon Capo Schiso and the village of Naxos, the first Greek settlement in Sicily. Here the inhabitants, as in the village called Del Greco, near Palermo, still wear the Greek dress on high days and holidays, and speak the Greek tongue.