man who had been to Palestine, that the Arabs were a little jealous of the Yankees. They feared the Yankees were going to "annex" the Holy Land. And certainly the reasons they give for it are ostensible, if not solid. They say that America has been sending a national expedition (Lieut. Lynch's) to survey the Dead Sea-that we follow up our government project, with droves of our countrymen, each one of which is as curious and inquiring after every thing, as if it were already his own. Well; who knows what our destiny may be? Palestine may in the course of time have its representative in the Congress of the United States of America and Asia; for

"Westward the star of empire takes its way."

And if that star will not set, but keep moving, I do not see that we can help taking China, and so on.

Oh! for a month's annexation of Naples to our Union, that we might strike off the fetters from the thousands of Republican prisoners, who are enslaved in sight of their beautiful city, and that we might purge this Paradise of its serpents in human form, which have preyed long enough upon the anguish of the noble and patriotic.

As I write, the sound of military music mingles with the soft rolling of the waters; while every now and then a discharge of musketry announces that some procession and celebration is going on. We observe upon the piazza, and now entering the promenade, a long congregation of white priests, carrying something aloft, the host perhaps, while the people are kneeling around. What strange devotion we meet with here. We were shown in the Cathedral, forty silver images of the saints, large as life, to say nothing of mines of silver in shrines, flowers and sacred instruments. The churches do not equal those of Genoa, much less those of Rome. There is not the same Art displayed.

A week has flown here, in this other Eden, upon golden wing. It seems but a day or so, since we landed upon this shore of love and beauty. Within that time how many images

of rare and exquisite form,-aye, and of rare and exquisite horror, have been painted on the memory! Some of these have been transcribed. Yet the prospect still enchants, and here I would fain linger and write about each novel phase of beauty, which is revealed under this kindlier sky and around this bay of loveliness. Here is the perfection of external Nature, where the sun, which is the glorious source of all our joys,-warms the soil into the most fragrant and richly-colored flowers and delicious fruits, and developes a landscape that is only equalled by the water scene which goldenly glows under the "blazing Deity." The very silence is enamored of the soft plash upon the shore, as it now invades so sweetly the ear, and locks in her cell, her own " spirit ditties of no-tone." The isles of the bay loom up amidst the sea, like isles of the blest. Every thing seems to exist, to ornament a temple of Love and Purity. Surely we can exclaim with the simple-hearted Miranda in the Tempest,

“There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple.
If the ill spirit have so fair an house,
Good things will strive to dwell in it."

But look at the dwellers here-the miserable, swart, ragged,
haggard lazzaroni; look at the spectacle of soldiers all about;
see that great fort surrounded by a deep moat in the midst of
the city, for the sovereign to protect himself from his own peo-
ple;
and above all, look, as I have, deep down in the great abyss
of Vesuvius, walk over its smoking ashes and burning marl,
inhale its sulphur breath, and tremble amid its horror; and
you will find that Providence has "mingled the cup." The gold
is not without alloy, the sun has its spots, the luscious fruitage
hath a canker at the heart;-in fine, Naples, the home of the
Homerian Siren, the seat of ancient Roman luxury, the resort
of the gay and pleasure-loving from every clime, the spot chosen
by Virgil for his repose; the land favored by the presence and
described by the pen of Lamartine,-Naples-has its Vesuvius,
its Herculaneum buried beneath the indurated lava, and its

desolated Pompeii under volcanic ashes, partly laid bare în its garments of woe!

All these spots we have visited, alternating from paradisiacal beauty to unutterable terror. We have seen the exhumed relics of these cities in the great Museum, studied their domestic history in the familiar household utensils and personal ornaments, their pictures and statues. And, as if in mockery of these warnings, we have listened to the sweet voices of the "children of this azure sheen" swelling in mellow music and falling in tremulous cadence, in the opera; have seen them decked for the gala day, with their altars and fountains decorated as none but the Neapolitans can ornament them, and mingled with them in their joy under the very shadow of that fearful mountain, and over the very lava, under which lies stiff, and rock-bound, the city of Herculaneum.

"In

Of all the places I have yet seen, upon which Nature has been lavish to prodigality, Naples seems the primal one. The sense aches with the continual beauty of all around. sweet madness" the mind is robbed of itself, and in still ecstasy it delights in the ineffable grace, music and loveliness which curls, sings and moves in the water, and is reflected in the bending blue above and the leafy landscape around.

XIII.

Sicily and Malta.

"He pushed his quarrels to the death, yet prayed
The saints as fervently on bended knees

As ever shaven cenobite."

Bryant.

FROM

ROM the sunny land of the military priesthood of St. John, my present greeting hails. Its unique and peculiar history lends a charm which would not otherwise belong to these dazzling streets and motley palaces.

We left Naples on Monday, the 23d of June, and were a long time in losing sight of the bay of Beauty. All that is magical in the combination of light and shade has been daguerreotyped by the mild sunshine upon our memory-fadelessly there pictured. We took our passage upon a French man-of-war. All went below to sleep; I alone remained above to obtain a nearer view of the Isle of Caprae, which, from Naples had slept so tremulously lovely amid her sheen of cerulean setting. We passed between the isle and Point Campanelli, leaving Sorrenta and Castel a Mare behind. The top of Vesuvius, with her flag of smoke, darted behind the point. The farewell view of evanishing Naples, becomes more and more enchanting by distance, which robes its sky and water in azure hue. Caprae looked bleak and rocky. On the seaward side, I saw an arch formed by rocks in the sea, under which undulations of light and water flashed in rivalry of beauty. The Apennines range closely to the shore-indeed, their rocky barriers here shut in the sea. Huge palisades rising 3000 feet or more, broken into promontory, gorge, bay and inlet, guard the coast. The rocks were mantled

with a sort of yellow lichen. Here and there smiled spots of cultivation. We gradually diverged from these shores, leaving the Gulf of Salerno behind us, until we passed Point Palinurus, whereabouts we watched a round and golden sun roll down his disk into the waves. The waves were lit into blazing splendor by his fire. A long line of dazzling, flashing radiance, swam upon the horizon, under a canopy of cloud impurpled and red with long illumined cords and tassels dripping with sunlight down to the water's edge. The spray made by the steamer was as royally purple as the stole of the imperial Cæsar. Soon the last tint of gold was softened into a rich mellow lustre of orange. Evening sobered down gradually into night. The flickering shadows of the air played between the eye and the distant horizon. A sunset upon the Mediterranean—is it not an object to be seen with rapture? What pen can distil its beauty into expression, or enthrall, by words, the tranquil spirit of the scene?

Yesterday morn I hurried on deck to see Stromboli with his column of fire, and Ætna with his pillar of smoke and his top of snow. The last was just observable above the highlands of the northeast part of Sicily. We had passed the gulfs which form the instep of the boot of Italy, in the night, and were now in the gulf of Gioja, approaching the veritable Scylla and the undoubted Charybdis! The land and water, too, of classic memories, begin to appear as we draw near to Hellas and her Ionian isles. Scylla is a high rock, twelve miles from Massena. Here the dogs of Homer and Virgil barked in the caverns where the waves rolled around the fabulous monster. We did not, owing to the state of the tide, see any peculiar commotion, nor hear any peculiar sounds. The waves glistened blue and bright as ever they did to the eye of Æneas. The sailors had just washed the decks, and were busy burnishing the metallic portions. The whistle of the boatswain and the bustle of the sailors, the cries of the officers to the pilots, and the additional man at the wheel, betokened that more than ordinary precaution is still necessary, even with steam, to pass this point of classic terror.

Our boat