moves on; but no opening appears. All is rock-bound, save a sand bank, near a fort. This soon opens and displays the channel of Massena, which divides the toe of Italy's boot from the northeast of Sicily. It seems as if some convulsion of nature had torn this channel from the rocky range of the Apennines, leaving the twin of horrors on either side to guard the shores. Massena is in sight, and Charybdis with her slight whirl of waters, some 600 feet from Massena, on the Sicilian side, attracts the eye. It is not a very great thing, although it plays such a "bloody bones" part in the hexameter. Hell-gate, at Long Island, is altogether more horrific. Indeed, since the Genoese sailor struck out into the vexed Atlantic, putting to shame the Argonautic and the Ulyssean expeditions, these old haunts of monsters look like foolishness, especially from a steam boat.

The head point of Sicily is a sandy beach, upon which are windowless houses, in a deserted fishing town. Massena is quite a pretty place, half hid under the shade of the rough, uneven mountains, orange-covered, yet bleak-looking, overtopping and surrounding the city.

We pass under the guns of the fort, and are surrounded with a motley crew in boats. Degenerate Sicilians! Ye who were once giants, and with your tread shook this volcanic (?) isle; ye who were once Cyclops, and with single eye glared, and with heavy arm forged Jove's thunderbolts in the depths of the fires of Etna, Oh! how have your glories been dimmed, since they shone in the imagination of the bard of Scio!

At breakfast we were desserted with green almonds, yellow apricots, cherries, ripe pears and fresh figs. The latter had a mawkish sweet taste, a little like our paw-paws, which they resemble in form and color. We begin to feel in the South. Indeed, we are in Homer's "isle of the sun."

What vicissitudes, physical and historical, has not Sicily underwent! Her first inhabitants were from Spain. She was subsequently held by Saracens, Turks, Spaniards, Austrians and French. The Bourbon house was replaced upon the throne in

1820. The Revolution of 1848 extended here. The marks of it, in the ruined forts, are still visible. Successful for some months, and separated from Naples, she was again, however, reduced to the vassalage of Ferdinand II., the prince who now adorns the throne of Naples.

After breakfast, we went on deck, when, looking astern, I observed our steamer on fire! The sails were ablaze! I hardly knew, in my excitement, what to halloo, so I told an English friend near, whose ready French proved very serviceable. The sailors soon leaped amidst the rigging, tore the sails, and with water quenched the fire. This little incident leads me to remark upon the extraordinary safety of the boats here, compared with those at home. Human life is valued here much more than human liberty. Why cannot America at least learn a lesson in this regard from Europe?

In some respects we could well interchange some of our own manners and institutions for such knowledge. Let me exemplify. Our bankers at Naples, correspondents of Barings, overpaid us $160 in gold, while paying £125! Such a mistake at home would soon dismiss the officer. But the truth is, the Italians are utterly unfit for business. Two hours will hardly answer for them to do what our brokers would do in ten minutes. Their bank at Naples was away up in the steeple of a church, not so high, quite, as Vesuvius. It was a trial to wait upon such business men. They are so absorbed by pleasure in the luxurious now, that providence seems wholly severed from their habits. Irresponsible, and careless even of their souls' salvation, they yield themselves to the gayety of the day, and commit their future, here and hereafter, into the hands of chance, or what is worse, of the priests, whose ready absolution is a perfect salve for every wound. The genius of the West, and of the rugged North, seems to them a wild Quixotic adventure, to end in pain and trouble. "Heart within," they have not, only as it vibrates to the music of the festival, and the garlanding of flow

ers.

"God o'er head," what or where is He, save that He is

enshrined in the visible images which are borne in the joyous procession? He breathes not in the beauteous landscape, nor liquid depths, for them. His name, is but a name—to be repeated in the prayer, and to be pulselessly dead at the heart.

Before we leave Italy, let me generalize yet further. How pparent to a student of the elder civilization does it differ from our own civilization! The old wholly absorbed the individual in the State. The new releases the individual from the State, in every country, except Italy, where the State is so intimately inwoven with religion. There, religion enmeshes the individual, and binds his energies. It absorbs the most sturdy and active in its priesthood, and hands them over to the State as curious specimens of free agents, to be again restricted and bound. The old civilization withdrew men from the home-influence to the temple, the forum, and the camp. The very construction of the domestic residences in Pompeii demonstrates how weak was the domestic tie. No such words as comfort or home are known in the Grecian or Roman Lexicon. The opposite is the case with most countries at the present day. The domestic influence in Germany, England and America, has informed the soul of the State. But in Italy the same out-door tendency pours its feeble rays of happiness, and sheds its glitter of gala pleasure. The priest stands between husband and wife, parent and child; the little orifice of the confessional becomes the medium of confidence; and even that confidence hangs by as brittle a thread as did the sword of Damocles. The State, assisted by the Church, yet binds down the energies of the mass of Italy. The artists of Naples are honored by the King, for representing by the pencil and chisel, Religion shielding and supporting Ferdinand, while Justice smiles serenely upon the royal miscreant, who is represented as triumphantly trampling Constitutionalism under his feet. May we not hope that the people will yet burst irrepressibly their iron encasement, and stand forth throbbing in the liberty of individual independence !

Naples is yet hopelessly bound. The King has his moat

surrounded forts, his trained bands, and his kind Austrian friends. These seem to be invincible; but another Massaniella may arise even from the humble fishermen who drag the beautiful bay, and with a surer stroke decapitate the head of kingcraft in Naples. The government encourages pleasure and priestly rule; and thus renders the popular mind oblivious of all inherent dignity and right.

We passed to-day some spots sacred to the memory of the early Christians. "Paul after having been shipwrecked" in the ship from Alexandria (see Acts, chapter 28), upon the shore of Miletus, the present Malta, landed at Syracuse, and "tarried there three days," and from thence "he fetched a compass, and came to Rhegium," which place we passed to-day. It was along these blue waves, and under the same warm sunlight, that the great Apostle followed his noble appeal unto Cæsar, even to the eternal city itself! But more thrilling still, I now write to you from the very isle of his shipwreck, and the very place where his eloquent tongue bade the inhuman sailors stay their hands: "Except these men abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved!" and he thus protected the four prisoners from death at the hands of their custodians; the very spot where the viper fell innocuous into the fire, and where the simple barbariaus proclaimed him in very deed a Deity!

Some doubts have arisen as to the identity of Malta with the Miletus of the Acts; but the place where "the two seas come together," can be no other. Controversy has settled upon Malta.

Before we left Sicily, the sun went down over distant Etna. Cape Mirro de Porci was left behind in a haze of splendor. Shakspeare has given to Syracuse, which floats in yonder dim light, a local habitation for his muse, and mathematicians hail it as the home of Archimedes.

This morning we woke up in the rock-ribbed, trebly fortified harbor of Malta. The English flag-a relief to one's eyesfloated above us. The land of the Hospitaller and the Grand

Master was around us. This island was given to the Knights by Charles V. after they had been driven out of Palestine. From the fifteenth century to the time of Napoleon, the Grand Masters ruled here, midway between the Christian and Moslem world. We have spent the day partly in looking at the strange tombs of the Knights of St. John and the Cathedral of that name. Yesterday was his festal day. The Cathedral was carpeted over with the orange leaves which hid the rich Mosaics. The great tapestries in which shines the life of the Saint, hung splendidly from the frescoed arches. We passed into the Armory, all around which the old knights, devoid of their bodies, stiff in their armor, seem to keep guard. Curious relics were thereflags and trophies won from Saracen by Knight, and ordnance of antique mould. The keys of Jerusalem hung rusty by the side of those of Acre and Rhodes.

This city was taken by Napoleon on his route to Egypt, and the reign of the Grand Masters ceased. By voluntary annexation (a precedent for Texas) the isle was placed under British sway. But the quaint influence of the priestly soldier yet clings to each palace and church, giving strange and attractive features to each object around us. The order of the Knights was composed of persons from different European nations, distributed according to language. Their portraits in the Armory denote decision and devotion; and their arms and armor bespeak, by dents and weight, a stalwart and doughty Knighthood. Here the last rays of the orb of chivalry lingered about the gown of the churchman, long after that orb had disappeared from the horizon. Here the hardest siege of modern history was sustained by the French, who in 1799, after two years' resistance, capitulated to Lord Nelson.

The isle is barren and dry, occasionally siroccoed by southwest winds. Every class and every nation is here to be found; a varied assemblage;

"Long-haired Sclavonian skipper with the red

And scanty cap which ill protects his head;