e Messina, Island of Sicily, Sept 6. 1859
Tuesday.
My dear Fanny, I am again upon the Mediterranean, I
parted with my friend and late traveling companion yesterday
at Naples and took a last and longing look at the
beautiful town, its ancient amphitheater, its dominating
castle and palaces, the grave yards of Herculaneum
and Pompeii and Baiae, the beautiful islands
and head lands, the lakes and groves where
a religion was born that lighted with its dim torch
lights the feet of mankind for a thousand years – and
above all Vesuvius that green giantlike here that
I studied it near to its crater or far off from sea
or promontory: My steamer as before is a French one.
the passengers strange and unnatural to me. Some French
one or two Englishmen, myself from America. Many Italians
some Greeks, some Turks and some Africans. Among
them monks and sisters of Charity of the Roman
Church and some of the Eastern or Greek Church.
Before night we passed Amalfi a declining town of
great fame – it was the port for the gathering of the
Crusaders, and it has a little claim there among
other Europeans as to the invention of the Mariners Com-
pass. At night we were on the broad sea – and
as the East wind blew it into waves, I noticed that

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it was even nearer blue than ever before.
I will not disturb your dream of ^the delights^ summer voyaging on
the Mediterranean by telling you how hot is my state
room and how sleepless are my nights
But I forgot all that this morning when I
passed the seven streams on the Coast of Calabria
in which Orestes washed out the crime of parricide
and reconciled him in that way to the Gods.
A gale with thunder lightening and deluging
rain came down upon us just as we were passing
the dreadful rock of Scylla and the channel
between that promontory and Charybdis which with
its whirlpool, the terror of the ancients, a terror
which their literature had made a part of our
education. But alas for the truth of poetry
Scylla is a harmless hill, and as for Charyb-
dis and its whirl pool it can no longer be
found. We entered Messina the chief town and port
on the Eastern shore of the Island of City and here
we lie from 10 in the morning until 5. I have
spent three hours on shore with our Consul and
his wife in examining the monuments and the
orange groves. The people are a mixture of Natives
and Greeks, the atmosphere delicious, the Coast

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is rugged but the mountains are covered with olives
and figs and mulberries and grapes almost to
their mount. The Cathedral is a mixture of
Gothic superinduced upon the Grecian order – very
singular, and yet quite effective. It has a double
row, of columns through its center from and to and
but no two are alike, all having been taken
from some ancient church or temple or palace
destroyed. Messina lies perhaps thirty forty or
fifty miles from Mount Etna and the neighbor-
hood is by no means pleasant. In 1793 an
earthquake destroyed 30,000 one third of its
inhabitants. The island of Sicily belongs as you
know to Naples. The name of the Kingdom is the
Two Sicilies. Manners Customs and costumes have
hardly changed here since the Romans conquered
the Island and the proconsuls filled the the
beautiful places world with ^the noise of^ these exertions
and licentiousness. I shall read Ciceros life
and Orations and Letters with renewed satisfaction
when I reach home after having seen the scene of
the crimes he describes. Our anchor is weighed
and we are once more on the waves. I go on deck
to catch if possible the view of Mount Etna
with the declining of the race of the Sun, If I

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fail in that I shall still have the glory of a mount
and the beauties of moonlight playing on the
Mediterranean waters.