Under England's flag

by Charles Boothby

From Journal Notes

Began to blow hard as we made the Scilly Isles, chops of Channel so rough, landsmen on beam ends. In Bay of Biscay, increased to squally gale. One entire day in cabin. Great confusion from violence of motion. Every day afterwards on deck.

April 26, 1805.—Delightful starlight night. Fleet in compact body with lights astern; silence only broken by mellowed sea noises. So happy a time for the feast of thought, that I could not leave deck till after midnight.

April 27.—Voyage ten days old. Wrote to my father.

Off the Coast of Spain,
Between Cape Finisterre and Ortegal,
Sunday, April 27, 1805.
Calm air, bright sun, and a cheerful prospect of land.

With much satisfaction, my ever dearest Father, I sit in the boat astern and turn my pen to a usual and most comfortable employment.

I have been so very ill in that Stygian boiling Bay of Biscay, that I would willingly have given something to boot with my commission for a “Burgamy pear” or a “Brown Burer.” Nature, I thought, could not stand it! I knew there was nothing in me to comply with those violent requisitions! It began to blow hard just as we made the Scilly Isles, and the winds and waves overcame me in the murky chops of the Channel. But I will not keep you or myself longer upon these disagreeable topics, and so will quit them.

I do not suppose that I shall be able to send you this until we arrive at Gibraltar, but I will add to it from time to time.

Oh, how I long to be roving over those Spanish mountains, and to be relieved from this constant see-saw.

The coast which we see is very romantic. We are about eighteen miles from it, and are under strict orders not to land at any port we may put into, without express permission. So I think it most likely that officers will not be allowed to go on shore at Gibraltar.

* * * * *

Tuesday, April 30.
Land thirty miles distant.

Since I last sat down we have made about 100 miles. On Sunday we were hailed by the Prince, the ship in which are our other three comrades—Captain Lefebure (our commandant), Nicholas, and Hoste. They told us on board the Prince that the Toulon fleet was out, and being too strong for Sir John Orde, he had put in to Gibraltar, and that they expected we should put in to Lisbon—a slender protection!!

We were more than half inclined to credit this, as we believe that Sir John Orde has not more than five sail, and the French might be reinforced from Ferrol.

Our convoy is, we think, very inadequate, because the loss of this little army would be a sad damper to England, particularly from the nature and quantity of stores, and the six Royal Engineers attached to it!!!—only the “Queen,” the “Dragon,” and a “Bomb.”

A breeze springing up last night had been preceded by the appearance of a shoal of porpoises, which took a westerly direction, and whose novel gambols and beastly black appearances amused us much.

The Queen made signal to bring up and lay to, which we did all the night. We supposed that she was waiting for the Dragon, who had left us at mid-day to reconnoitre, and we began to consider how we should like a French prison.

This morning the Dragon returned, and we suppose all clear, as we are now on our voyage with a smart breeze.

We see the coast of Portugal very plain, and can distinguish with the naked eye the buildings immediately on the beach, and with a glass we discover further into the country, which appears beautiful.

We have met shoals of Portuguese fishing boats, and to-day we have been much amused with the sight of a sea-monster of immense size. He frequently gave us very good views of his grand tail, and he was attended by a foreign suite, inhabitants of the surmounting element. His tail was forked, and on one side he displayed a jetty brightness, and on the other a dazzling white. He gave us glimpses of other parts of his body, which increased our respect for him. He was, I should think, two miles distant, and yet we saw him perfectly distinct.

* * * * *

Off Lisbon Rock, May 5, 1805.

We have had blowing weather from the south, but I stood it seaman-like this time. The weather now quite calm. The Ordnance agent is on board. He confirms late reports of the Toulon fleet of twenty-one sail being out, and that Lord Nelson is after them, but not, as we thought, off Cadiz, in which case we expected to put into Lisbon. What they may do I fear! Lord Nelson has but ten. Is he to strive with impossibilities and get the better of them?

The Admiral sending despatches to England, I seize the opportunity.

God for ever with his blessings surround us in one happy circle.... Adieu. We soon shall meet again.

Charles Boothby.

May 7.—Put in to the port of Lisbon.

The orders issued to the troops are to be ready to land at a moment’s notice with artillery and every preparation of war in case of emergency, but no one allowed to go on shore on any account whatever.

Hence we conceive that some attempt from the French fleet (said to be at Cadiz) is thought possible; and should it approach the Tagus, the Commander-in-Chief had determined to land his forces and seize the batteries commanding the river, and this, we conceived, would be excellent fun. Meantime, however the orange groves might tempt us with their fragrance and their verdure, no one was allowed to land. The Portuguese boats, though, brought us off plenty of oranges still attached to their green branches, which tickled the imagination to heighten their zest, and to quench our salt-sea thirst after fruit and freshness.

The Orpheus frigate (it is said) sends intelligence into the Tagus that Lord Nelson blockades Cadiz with such a force as the combined fleet dare not encounter. Whatever the intelligence was, however, it produced orders to sail.

We hear that General Junot blustered a good deal at a British armament entering the Tagus, and declared that the first man that set foot on shore should be the signal for his departure. He was spared the trouble, however, for this afternoon we set sail, having received orders to be on the alert to repel any attack from gunboats as we approached the gut of Gibraltar. Good amusement in drilling all hands on board to the service of the great guns and small arms.

May 12.—A beautiful breeze brought us off Cadiz, where we passed through great Nelson’s fleet, lying to, and, as we imagined, blockading the combined fleet, who had by this time got to the West Indies. We were now at the point where precaution was necessary.

As junior I took the first watch. A most beautiful moonlight night showed to admiration the coast of Barbary, terminated by Ape’s Hill, and on the other hand the not less sublime outline of the Spanish land.

The moon with her immeasurable column on the waters, silvering the prominent points in the dark grandeur of these newly seen and far-famed shores, while the fleets in quiet approached it with swift wings, and the keel-ploughed deep seemed kindling with diamonds and with fire—a sight never, never to be forgotten! Nor do I know the price that (after experience of its sublimity) could have bought this watch from me.

I felt sure that if any attempt were made on us, we should distinguish ourselves, but the blessed wind was too fair and strong, and the whole fleet glided along in silent and unspeakable triumph, the elements that had opposed now inviting to accelerate our speed, the sparkling waves pursuing but to push us forward, and the winds never drawing breath from our full canvas, transparent with the peerless moon. Lewis took the second watch, and in four hours I was again to relieve him, but before they had elapsed he came into the cabin and told me I need not disturb myself, as we were close under the Rock. But we had scarcely composed ourselves before a desperate cannonading began. Up we both jumped, and being nearly dressed, ran on deck cursing the gunboats. But it was only the Spanish batteries saluting the dawn of the birthday of the Prince of Peace!!!

However, the wonderful and beautiful Rock would not let us leave the deck until broad daylight had unfolded all its features. To be so first seen, uprising like the very wall of heaven, and tracing its giant outline upon the dark blue of night, while mortals in their little ships are bounding upon the liquid diamond that bathes its foot, was fortunate, for of all the shows and sights I have ever seen, none so transfixed me with delight and splendid novelty as this glorious Pinnacle of Rock. Close to it we seemed, its peopled and fortified steep rising above us high up into heaven, light above light moving upon the rich darkness of his umbered face, so that to see where his long uneven ridge ended in the sky, the spectator’s head must hang back between the shoulder-blades. After a short sleep, curiosity called us early on deck, and it is impossible to conceive a scene more busy, beautiful, and variously attractive to an inexperienced eye than the Bay of Gibraltar at this time presented. In the first place, even to the most sedate mind, there is a sort of magnificent personality in the form and situation of the Rock fortress itself, difficult indeed to describe, but impossible not irresistibly to feel. There he rears himself proudly out of the blue water into the blue sky, while all around within the sweep of his thunder lies in uniform subjection. Vast mountains and bold shores shut in the horizon, but they approach not him; in the heart of a great kingdom, in the midst of enemies, within his own circuit he is unapproachably supreme. The moment friendly ships come within his shadow, the foe ceases to pursue, and retires in acknowledgment of his power.

On the other side of the Bay, the Spanish port and depot of Algeciras, about seven miles distant, furnishes, in time of war, objects of continual interest. Swarms of gunboats are assembled there, as well as in the African fortress of Ceuta, fifteen miles distant (other side of Gut), and in unfavourable winds infest, damage, and sometimes carry off the merchant vessels as their prey in the very sight of the impregnable fortress, whose garrison, from their parades and quarters, can quietly behold every vicissitude of their running contests, exhibited on a scene beautiful beyond all description. The two fortresses, as daylight ceases and again returns, hear each other’s warning gun, and know that either keeps its watch, while vessels constantly approaching from east and west bring produce and intelligence from every part of the world, and every ship that arrives or passes through the Straits is subject to the inspection of every individual. No need to look into the arrivals—all passes under review, and each inhabitant has a place on that high theatre from which to contemplate the spectacle at his own pleasure.

Thus when our friends informed us when the combined fleet had gone up or down, and how long after Lord Nelson had followed (viz. a month), they told us not what they had heard, but what each officer had seen for himself, and had counted as the number of each fleet.

Gibraltar—North View

A sketch from Drinkwater’s “Gibraltar” (1785).

In good time some very old and early friends come off to invite us to the shore, and, to our inexpressible joy, leave is given us to land. We are not, however, to sleep on shore, and receive the most exact caution to be ready at a moment’s notice, as the greatest expedition will be made to proceed. My excellent little friend Archer, with whom I had been educated, was one of those who came alongside our ship to welcome his old friend and playfellow and to do the honours of Gibraltar.

It was now we were made acquainted with every point and chronicle of the Rock—where formerly endangered, where subsequently strengthened, whence terribly remembered by the enemy. These were subjects involved in a labyrinth which the practised eye of our Commandant could unravel at a glance, and in two days he knew more thoroughly the strength and power of this fortress than many a brave officer resident upon it for half his life.

Some fear subsists that we shall be detained some time at Gibraltar. We are still obliged to sleep on board, and to use precautions in case of attack from the gunboats. If the expedition is broken up, some of us may be ordered to remain. Should I like it or no?

It is a great local confinement, and often entails spare sea diet, but there are garrison amusements, balls, private theatricals, and the most delectable library I ever saw for a not learned man; the apartment splendid, the prospect beautiful, the arrangement admirable, the decorous stillness of those who enter most auspicious, and the terms very easy and encouraging—a trifling half-yearly contribution and entrance of three days’ pay conferring a perpetual share. Bathing in extreme luxury. Also the corps to which I belong have a most gentlemanlike and well-regulated mess, and handsome quarters most enviably situated. So that however disappointed I should be in ulterior views, I determined to think I might be worse pleased than by being ordered to remain here. Yet I learn from friends at headquarters that Sir James Craig by no means expects that his army will be dispersed or its ulterior object changed.

June 15.—In statu quo, thoroughly tired of the place by this time, and most anxious for despatches to send us on our way.

From this day till June 17th an alarm of preparations amongst the gunboats of Algeciras obliges us to remain on board, and this day it seems we are about to sail. Exceedingly rejoiced at those symptoms of departure, and hoping that the fine western breeze is to take us swiftly up the Mediterranean. No such thing. We beat about, now the African and now the European coast, in delicious weather, and the going quite close in to these bold shores, so as to contemplate their picturesque beauty, takes off much of the tedium of shipboard. The African side in point of beauty is not comparable to the Spanish—few tracts of coast, indeed, could rival, none exceed it, or the happy, brilliant accidents of night or day, of dawn or sunset, in which we were perpetually viewing it. The object of this cruise was to elude a meditated attack from Algeciras, as so large and spread-out a fleet of ships (not of war) were particularly liable to surprise, damage, and disablement where the enemy is always so near, the night so dark and starlight clear, and weather so serene for sudden operations.

June 25.—The fleet now commences its voyage, and we observe the Lively Frigate, having Sir James Craig on board, make all sail, and soon she vanishes from our view.

The voyage is only memorable to me from the unspeakable splendour of the sun’s setting and rising, which I chanced often to contemplate transfixed with wonder.

Towards the end of three weeks a good breeze, which had brought us off the island of Gozo, fell from us, and left us nearly becalmed about twenty miles from the harbour of Valetta, giving us full leisure to view the nature of the coast and the face of the country.

Great was our curiosity to see the mode of living on that brown island,[1] of which fame had spoken so much.

When in England we get into a chaise to be driven to some place of note not seen before, we all know there is a sort of interest and stretching of necks as we come near to form some notion of what it will be like. But how much greater the interest when we get into a ship, spread our sails to the wind and our keel to the dark blue water, and set forth to visit some far-famed island long heard and read of as a far-distant thing, and now find ourselves skirting along swiftly by the very shore that girdles in its cities and its wonders; and the more barren, rocky, unadorned, and forbidding the first range of the shore we approached, the more we thirsted to see the high bastion of the capital frowning over the bright blue deep.

July 18.—A light air rose with the morning and wafted us into the harbour of Valetta. Here, as at Gibraltar, some of our comrades come off to welcome us, and though unknown at present, the strong bond of belonging to the same service, wearing the same coat, and hatched, as one might say, in the same military shell, induces them to hold out to us the ready hand of brotherhood and friendship.

Impatient as we were to get on shore and satisfy our curiosity, we had for the present enough to do in remarking the grandeur of the buildings, the spaciousness, security, and many branches of the harbour, and, above all, the stupendous character of the fortifications.

Valetta altogether appeared to me the most magnificent city I had ever beheld. Everything contributed to imbue the scene with traits fit for some splendid picture of growing Carthage; nothing mean or sullied, nothing to stain the clear clean hue of every colour; the sea, the sky, the transparent air, the chiselled stone, the native rock—all seemed as stainless, bright, and soignée as a Venetian painting, while the masses of shipping of every description, whose decks displayed a masquerade of divers costumes, brought the image of all nations before us, the gondolas and open boats, with gentlemen dressed as if for Court, with powdered heads uncovered, under umbrellas of every colour, and wearing silk coats, looking so enviably cool as they touched from ship to ship. All was so curious, so undeniably abroad, that we loved to realise all the anticipations of imagination, and might, I doubt not, have been amused during a much longer confinement than it was our lot to encounter.

July 19.—One day was all the trial our patience underwent, as on the 19th we were permitted to land and regale ourselves, like children, with touching and turning over the forms we had been viewing at a distance. From the point at which we landed, to which the fine streets of the city themselves descend, the ascent to the heart of the city is gained by stairs of vast width and breadth, but each giving a small and imperceptible rise. The whole street, indeed, is a grand escalier, of which the continuous houses of rich merchandise on either hand form the banisters. These stairs appear to be carved out of the native rock, and look as if a carriage and horses might safely descend, though I do not remember that they do.

We were now on shore, mixed up in the quarters of our brother officers, previously established here, and began a very pleasant kind of life, in despite of nightly mosquitoes and daily heat intense, reflected and reproduced from the glaring rock on which it everywhere smote; and this memorandum of the heat remains fixed in my memory—the noble streets of Valetta are extremely regular, and run in broad parallels at right angles with each other—when the sun, therefore, begins to decline, the streets which lie north and south are divided by broad lines of shade and sunshine—down the broad shade then the different parties walk and talk and lounge, with sauntering pace and head uncovered; but when one of the broad crossings must be passed, exposed to the sun’s fierce ray, you see every man put on his hat and dart swiftly across the bright space, as if escaping through a fire. Various commanders and married officers helped to furnish our society. Our new-found brethren put all their resources at our command, and mounting us on the beautiful barb or Arabian horses, or the scarce less beautiful ass of Malta, “showed us all the qualities o’ the isle.”

Stationed at Gozo was Edward Ker, one of my boyish friends, and one of our excursions was to visit him. We were delighted to meet, and though baked and broiled by sea and land in exploring curiosities, whatever we saw seemed to compensate our labour.

What pleased me most was a large steep rock, called the Fungus Rock, because it produces a fungus famous for its styptic power, and which the Grand Master (of the Knights of St. John) formerly distributed to the potentates of Europe. Though not for the fungus did I admire the rock, but for its stupendous eminence over a blue deep bay that lies still and unfathomable below. You pass from one rock to another at a terrific height in a basket sliding on a rope; and as I hung in the air and eyed the sapphire mirror below, I conceived an eager thirst to plunge into the cooling water; my companions consented to wait until I had descended and gratified my desire. When sporting about in this delicious bath, a good swimmer cannot conceive how people can sink in that salt sea, for the water seems so solid and buoyant it requires a great effort to keep below.

These rocks form almost such a cave as Virgil describes with such a thrilling stillness of words:—

Est in secessu longo locus: insula portum

Efficit objectu laterum; quibus omnis ab alto

Frangitur, inque sinus scindit sese unda reductos;

Hinc atque hinc vastae rupes, geminique minantur

In caelum scopuli: quorum sub vertice late

Aequora tuta silent.—Aen. i. 163.

It was like the place—nay, perhaps it was the place—whose inviolable stillness and stupendous barriers Virgil so divinely describes; and whenever those still words, “Aequora tuta silent” recur to my memory, so does this scene.

This is “secessu longo locus.”

* * * * *

A fleet from England declared to be in the offing was a subject of great interest at Malta. We used to repair immediately to the leads of the Palace, whose great height, carrying the sight clear over every obstruction of tower, church, and fortress, displayed the wide ocean to our view, covered with the expected ships, their swelling sails as white as wool, and the sea and sky more blue and bright than all comparisons.

Pleasant and full of expectation it was to watch them successively steering into the narrow port; some stately and huge, plumed with the pennant of command, displayed the broad and checkered sides of battle; others more humble, but innumerable; all in gallant trim and guided seamanlike.

Then eager for the mail! the image of home imprisons the truant soul, and brings it back to its first tenderness; the sight of the well-known but long-suspended hand, the endearing accents which distance has made so infrequent; that day, at least, is sacred to home; and if the tidings have been cheering, though the eye may glisten and the cheek of the young soldier may flush with unwonted tenderness, yet is his heart neither solitary nor sad; his friends partake of some reflection of the kindness that his soul is inwardly pouring out to his parents and his brothers.

It is time to close the chapter on Malta, but before leaving I wrote home to my mother.

La Valetta, Malta, August 15, 1805.

Dearest Dona Rafela—I believe this will be brought to England by an officer who has obtained leave. I do not know him. Nothing at all remarkable has happened since I wrote last. We made an excursion to the island of Gozo, which is much better-looking than that of Malta. There is more green and romanticity, but all prospect here is in the sublime, for you see grateful coincidence of rock, sea, and sky, which can stretch the mind to great capacity. But where, my dear mother, are the flowery meads, the green pastures, the murmuring streams that may soothe the mind into content with itself and charity to all around? Hot stone houses, hot brown ground—hot, hot, all hot.

“England, with all thy sullen skies, I love thee still, my country!” Dear, dear England, dearest Edwinstowe! What is objected to it? The cold? Why the cold produces that very thing which gives to England the greatest superiority over other countries—a fireside!

Now stir the fire and close the shutters fast,

And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn

Upsends a steaming column, etc., etc.

Wretched people under a burning sun, what do you know of this? or of

The important budget ushered in,

With such heart-shaking musick, etc. etc.

I often think of my dearest father sitting in his little summer-house by the river, and wish myself beside him.

We have no sight of futurity—Russia, Naples; beat the French; a wound, a medal, and arm in a sling.

My health is uniform, and so are my spirits; only sometimes I sigh for England, for Edwinstowe, and for you. God bless you, my dearest mother.—With great love, your most affectionate and dutiful son,

Charles Boothby.

I cannot tell what the affairs of the continent tend to. We get no news, as the French detain the good, and the Neapolitans the bad. It was verging towards winter before Sir James Craig’s expedition actually embarked. I had permission to dine and sleep ashore the day of embarkation. In the night I was seized with cholera—often in that country so fatal. No assistance and no remedy of any kind was to hand. It took its course, and in the morning I felt weak and languid, but, thanks to youth and great strength of constitution, I was well.

At daylight I went on board with a feeling of exhaustion, but no remains of disease.

In a few hours afterwards the fleet set sail, and the weather became almost immediately murky and unpropitious. We made our course round the western point of the island of Sicily without any precise knowledge of our destination. For three weeks in that Cerulean sea did we struggle with weather as moist and murky and with an atmosphere as thick as ever shrouded the chops of the British Channel. But at length the wind moderated and inclined abaft the beam, the sky and sea resumed their blue, and the classic shores of Italy beautified by degrees the farthest horizon. Soon, as evening fell, we were gliding between the fairy isles of Ischia and Capri with a smooth and steady course into the Bay of Naples.

How we watched, how we strained our eyes and wearied our arms with poising the telescope to pry into the beauteous recesses of those approaching shores! But now the night had fallen, and a dark and spangled curtain threw its veil over the beauties we were gazing at, and when we came to an anchor it was too profoundly dark for even the imagination to take hints from surrounding forms. So we went to bed and wished for day—for a day without clouds.

The next morning our dreams were realised. Vesuvius stood close before us, solemnly breathing upwards his pillar of smoke.

Woods, with young plantations and viny hillocks, spread widely round him. To the right a fair town stood on the brink of the sea, while immediately behind it the steep mountains pushed their wooded peaks into the sky. Far to the left, and out of sight, or indistinctly discerned, lay Naples.

Soon a great number of Neapolitan boats came to the fleet to sell such things as they who have been cooped up at sea buy greedily—bread, fruit, game, and fish. Perhaps the parley thus obtained with these interesting foreigners, and the opportunity to take small flights in our grammar Italian, and to observe their dress, language, and grotesque extravagance of sound and gesticulation, were more acceptable to our curiosity than those dainties to our animal appetites.

We saw distinctly some parts of the great road to Naples, and it was quite a natural pantomime to witness a conversation between parties on the shore, perhaps discussing the object of our appearance and the probability of our movements—far too distant to overhear any sound, or see any minor hints of countenance or gesture. English folks, so seen at a distance, might have hardly been distinguished from statues or from trees. But the Italian’s body is a telegraph to the distant observer while his tongue and countenance are reasoning with his neighbour; now the orator, approaching his friend closely, with face and hands concentering towards his breast, seizes his collar or buttons, and shakes his arguments into his ears and mind with a gentle tremulation, as one coaxes gooseberries into a bottle, and again, all of a sudden, retrogrades from him, with head and hands and arms thrown back to mark the irreconcilable extremity of his contradiction.

The day following, one of my brother officers repaired to our chief’s ship, and they went on shore together.

On his return in the evening he excited our utmost envy, wonder, and curiosity by giving us an account of his adventures.

In exploring the country they had come to a vine-clad hill, whose farthest side ended in a precipitous bank scarped away by the hand of labour; and spread out below, proceeding out of the bowels of the hill on which they stood, they discovered an ancient Roman town in all its unruined dimensions of streets and squares, theatres and barracks, not gray with the hoar of antiquity, but with all its plastering and painting fresh from the hands of the workmen. The painted borders of the dwelling-rooms, the appropriate pictures of the ladies’ bath, the soldiers’ names engraven rudely on the walls of their barracks, the ruts worn by the Roman wheels, were all fresh despatched to us from former ages.

Of this inestimable present Pliny had described the packing up, by an eruption of Vesuvius, to which he was witness. It was only now half unpacked, and we might yet be at the unpacking of the remainder.

I was ready to jump out of the ship to see with my own eyes these incredible wonders, and when I could go, when I stood in these streets and called, without knocking, upon one ancient Roman after another (though it seemed hardly delicate to explore unbidden the private chambers, whose painting and fresh preservation seemed to infer an occupancy so recent) anticipation was beggared by the trance which that reality imposed.

They show one such things in the Museum of Portici, that the idea of imposture steals involuntarily upon the mind, but yet imposture is out of the question. The king is the showman, and asks nothing for his pains, nor is there any temptation to fabricate the commonest articles of every-day use into the semblance of antiquity in the midst of such a crowd of self-evident realities. Else, when I was shown an egg with a part of the yolk oozing from the crack, looking exactly as if boiled and cracked yesterday, a loaf of bread burnt to a cinder, and a quantity of grain in the same condition, and was told that these things had been baked by the hot ashes of Vesuvius and buried under them for 1700 years, my belief, I must confess, was a little shy. Yet I know not that it is more wonderful with respect to an egg, a loaf, and a heap of corn than with respect to the innumerable rolls of burnt manuscript which we found Mr. Hayter so busy in unrolling with infinite patience and ingenuity, the characters upon the charred papyrus being still perfectly legible.

With respect to other things, vast quantities of tools and kitchen utensils of every description, fit enough for modern use, also very well wrought golden ornaments and elegant glass vessels of all shapes—in these the interest was equally great, and the belief more easy.

To me Herculaneum, the Museum of Portici, and above all Pompeii, were objects of renewed visitation and inexhaustible interest; but far beyond all these artificial curiosities my mind was absorbed by that unutterable wonder of Nature whose irresistible devastations covered and formed the country all around. Indeed the recent destructive torrent yet bore upon its surface the shells of houses and habitations whose inhabitants had been expelled or destroyed.

It seems strange that after all the ruin which this terrible mountain has wrought with subterraneous thunder and ejected fire, the monuments of which endure through ages to tell the people what he has done, yet that all should be insufficient to frighten them away from his foot, while with smoke and fire and inward groans he threatens them daily with still further destruction. Nevertheless they hew the black vomit of his entrails into building stones, and over the spot where the house and its master were buried in a grave of fire do they build another dwelling for another inhabitant.

A curiosity, partaking of religious awe, led me to its summit. I had expected a peep into the mouth of the Inferno, a visible shaft, plumb down into the fiery bowels of the earth, but no mysterious, unfathomable gulf or chimney of the infernal foundry was to be seen. Cracks, indeed, red and white with fire, burnt a good pair of Hoby’s boots off my feet, as they crossed the region of the crater in every direction, and with their sulphurous vapour nearly stifled us all.

November 20.—At this time there was in the environs of Naples a corps of Russians, understood to be 18,000 strong, but what the allies might have hoped to achieve by uniting an Anglo-Russian force of 25,000 or 30,000 men with the native Neapolitan forces, which altogether might pass perhaps in round numbers for an army of 50,000 or 60,000, it is no part of my present object to retrace. The rapid progress of French victory on the Continent would naturally make the hopes under which the expedition left England perfectly inapplicable to the present period. We had intended to assume grand operations in upper Italy in conjunction with the main armies of Austria and Russia. But now it seemed to be the general opinion that if the Anglo-Russian corps could enable the Neapolitan army to protect the frontier of its Sovereign’s dimensions, more could not be expected.

On the 30th November (and let it be remembered that this was two days only before the overwhelming blow of the battle of Austerlitz) His Neapolitan Majesty reviewed the British forces on a plain between Castel-à-Mare and Naples. Many Russian officers were also on the ground. The King, the Hereditary Prince, and Prince Leopold (then about ten years old) arrived on horseback, the Queen in her carriage, bringing with her old Cardinal Ruffo, who, presently descending, showed us his red stockings. Old Ferdinand appeared in great glee, dressed in a white uniform, with a large cocked hat, and his hair tied in a thick queue. “Avançons, avançons, mon Général,” he said to Sir John Stuart, who was leading him down the line. “Your troops are magnificent! your Army is as fine as your Navy! Body of Bacchus, what an imposing front!” cried the old monarch as he rode up to the Queen.

That elegant ruin, standing up in her carriage and addressing Sir John Stuart, cried, “C’est superbe! magnifique! mon Général. Ce sont des soldats dignes des Anglais, dignes de nos dieux tutélaires.”

She was now old and hazed, but her figure was erect and her mien princely and graceful. Her form had not yet lost all its original brightness, nor appeared less than a queen in ruins.

The line now broke into column, and passed the King and Queen in reviewing order. All on the ground, even the Russian officers, were loud in praise of the appearance of our troops, and certainly 3000 soldiers never formed a more complete and warlike line. I was much amused with the juvenile Prince Leopold, who, dressed like a little field-marshal, and mounted on a superb little charger, richly caparisoned, as often as the officers saluted his Royal parent, lifted the cocked hat from his flaxen head (displaying a queue thicker than his father’s) with a grace the most measured and majestic. Before the Royal party left the ground the wintry sun approached the western wave and blazed upon the brass plates and steely muskets of the soldiers, which Coleridge, who dined with us afterwards, called “a beautiful accident,” and clothed in poetic phrase.

We were a good deal struck with the Royal equipage. It was an old shabby carriage drawn by six miserable horses, tied together with ropes, very ill representing, to our English eyes, the eight proud cream-coloured Hanoverians and the gilded trappings which attach them to the splendid vehicle of our own Sovereign.

December 10.—Early in December the restriction which kept us from visiting the capital was removed. Whether the motive had been to prevent our collision with our Russian confederates quartered in its environs, or whether French employees were still to be temporised with, I neither knew nor inquired. The army began its march to the frontier, and we who had duties still to perform in the neighbourhood of Naples freely satisfied our curiosity by frequent excursions to that interesting place.

Many paternal admonitions did we younger ones receive from the well-versed poet Coleridge to beware of the temptations of Naples, to beware the

Nods and becks and wreathed smiles,

Quips and pranks and wanton wiles,

which would beckon us in every street, and chiefly to beware of the duchesses and princesses, for, said he, “The higher the rank the greater the danger.” But I think a youth who has learned to pass unharmed through the streets of London may be trusted in any town in Europe, for all the world is honest to the honest.

One day I went to the Theatre of St. Carlos, and while yet in the lobby my ears were imprisoned by a strain that seemed vocal indeed, but like no human voice which I had ever heard, too potent for woman, too clear and silvery for man.

On coming in sight of the stage the appearance of the divine songster corresponded to the perplexity of his voice—most fair and graceful to behold, but yet neither manly nor effeminate. This was that very Velluti, amongst the triumphs of whose unequalled talents it is not the least that they have prevailed upon the rugged Londoners to acknowledge the wondrous beauty of his celestial melody.

Before leaving Naples I saw there a great many of the things which ought to be seen, and can say truly that I saw them, and to be able to say this, is, I believe, the commonest reason for going to see them.

December 22.—We were now on the march to Sepia, whither the army had gone to assume a defensive position. I had procured a handsome and excellent horse at Naples, whose round and well-fed back exactly fitted my English caparisons, and which soon acquired the name of Napolitanno; never man had a gentler or a better steed, and it redoubled the animation with which I looked to be immediately committed in actual service with the enemy to find myself mounted on so comely and spirited an animal.

Active service, however, for the present was not to be our lot, for before our duties near Naples permitted us to reach the army on march to the frontier, our commanding officer[2] rejoined us in haste, and set all hands at work to delineate the position of Castel-à-Mare, and to produce so exact a military plan of that bold promontory as would enable him to show fully to the Commander-in-Chief in what way it might be best occupied to cover the embarkation of the troops in presence of an enemy.

As one of the first objects of Napoleon after the battle of Austerlitz was the extinction of the Bourbon Crown of Naples and the occupation of the kingdom, no doubt it was become necessary for a British commander, committed upon the soil of that kingdom, to secure a position behind him, under cover of which he might in any event command his embarkation.

Sir James Craig, however, subsequently resolved (and indeed the well-known state of the Continent left him no alternative) not to wait till his little army came in contact with the overwhelming legions of France, but to embark without delay.

The Royal family also resolved not to trust themselves too near to an irritated foe, but to transfer the Court of Ferdinand to Palermo.

The great and ready skill therefore with which the wild and noble features of Castel-à-Mare had been applied to the purposes of military defence, and the zealous and unwearied pains with which we had portrayed and mapped out the fastnesses of these rugged mountains, were of no avail beyond that of scientific practice, as the Anglo-Russian army, long before the proximity of the enemy could communicate any hurry to its operations, quietly embarked where it had landed, and sailed for Sicily.

December 30.—A great many horses which had been purchased for the field equipage of the army were left at Castel-à-Mare for want of means of transport, and for lack of some better arrangement they were successively turned loose into a large enclosure belonging to the dockyard. A scene took place among them very painful to witness, but yet highly picturesque. They were of both sexes, and consequently the most fierce and disastrous contests began amongst the males, whilst their iron heels armed them against each other with more than natural power, and soon these noble animals were disfigured by painful wounds, disabled limbs, and blood.

To have shot them as was done at Corunna would have been much more humane.

December 31.—It was evening at the very close of the year 1805 when we set sail, and night when we beheld the volcanic blaze of Stromboli flash across the dark sea and disclose by fits the isles of Lipari.

Morning unveiled to us the features of those neighbouring shores, now narrowing more and more the gulf into which we were sailing, until they form that narrow and rapid sea that parts Calabria from the Trinacrian coast.

The view of Sicily apparent at this time, though not without beauty, is kept in complete subjection to the rich and lofty magnificence of the Italian shore, whose mountains, topped with cliff and clothed with wood and vine, come steep from sky to sea, with nought between but a border of golden sand, interrupted here and there by peaks and masses of rock for ever washed by the sapphire sea.

On one of these sandy bays, and quite at the foot of these rich and lofty mountains, lies the little town of Scylla and its boat-covered beach, then the main promontory flings a longer slope towards the sea, terminating the beach of Scylla and suddenly forming itself into the abrupt, naked, and primeval rock on which the castle of Scylla is erected.

This is the Scylla on which ships might run that would too anxiously avoid the whirlpool of Charybdis.

After passing the Faro of Messina, whereof Scylla forms one of the confines, the Sicilian shore assumes a bolder and richer form, till at length the romantic seat of Messina itself rivals the grandeur of the opposite scenery, and grafts upon the beauties of Nature somewhat of the proud aspect of metropolitan magnificence. I say this while surveying Messina from the azure bosom of her river-like sea, for her real magnificence has passed away, and her streets of palaces stand in ruins to this hour. But for the painter’s object no harm is done. The rich façades of elaborate architecture are standing entire, and their want of substance on the other side is concealed by the dense town behind, and the castle-crowned heights above, tier above tier of church or convent, each showing its firm footing upon the natural and luxuriant earth; the whole background is finished and filled up by mountains richly clothed with the verdure of dwarf wood and perennial flowers, the heavenly atmosphere ever glistening above and over all things. Nothing on this earth, I should say, can exceed the outward beauty of Messina.

1806.—It must have been about the middle of January when we entered the harbour, an immense round basin, enclosed by a curved tongue of level land jutting out from the line of coast like the blade of a sickle, from which it is said the town derives its name; the point of the sickle, terminating when at a short distance from the main shore, leaves only a narrow entrance into the harbour, which is defended by a fort established on the sickle point.

From every wind and every sea this harbour is perfectly sheltered and secure, but as the narrowness of its entrance makes it sometimes operose for vessels to go in and out, the ships of war and those which expect to be soon for sea anchor in the road outside.

The transports were moored close to each other, the ships of war anchored in the roadstead. The troops were kept on board, but the officers after a time were allowed to go on shore and look about them.

A few days afterwards the troops were disembarked, and we were soon established in the Convent of St. Francisco di Paolo.

The legend which conveys the tradition of this convent’s foundation is in various situations rudely represented on the walls, and consists of a man sailing across a narrow sea, with no other vessel, sail, or mast than such as his capôte and walking-staff would furnish. This was St. Francisco di Paolo, who in that miraculous manner is said to have passed over from Scylla to the spot whereon this convent was erected. Our accommodations here were not splendid, but such as we could enjoy after the confinement of shipboard. The monks were civil and obliging though poor, and the abbot presented us with some rich Calabrian wine that might have passed for cherry brandy.

It was now immediately the business of our Commandant[3] to place the city of Messina in a respectable state of defence, for as it was certain that the other side of the Straits would soon be occupied by the legions of Napoleon, Messina, which was to be the grand depot and headquarters of the British army, must be placed beyond the apprehension of surprise.

The military position of Messina is by nature extremely defective, and though the existing defences were not in all points the most judicious that could have been devised, yet were they of sufficient importance to incline our Chief to adopt the principle of improving what already existed, rather than that of substituting new ones. These works at Messina, extending to forts occupying the heights adjacent to the town, and overlooking the eddies of Charybdis and the castle and rock of Scylla, tended to bring me again and again, and for hours and hours, in contact with the lovely environs of Messina, whose charms are more indelibly imprinted on my memory than those of any other place in the world. We soon moved from the convent into the town, where we occupied a good house opposite to the quarters of the Commander-in-Chief.

March.—This change of quarters gave me a commodious opportunity of seeing the reception of old King Ferdinand by his Messinese subjects. He had come from Palermo to Melazzo by sea, and from Melazzo (by advice of his Minister) had made his progress on horseback, so that he arrived at Messina miserably fatigued and covered with the dust and soil of travel. Yet the reception he met with from these loyal Sicilians was enough to revive him. In the mid-tide of the dense flood of bareheaded people, he and his horse were borne along down the principal street; on one side was Sir James Craig bowing in his balcony, and under the windows the vast crowd concentered their faces towards the King, so that in front of him they moved backwards and behind him they moved forwards, facing him on either side. And never in all my life of twenty years did I behold so touching an exhibition of the passion of loyalty.

The good-natured and kindly-mannered but wearied and worn old man, in the midst of his thanks and nods and brief salutations, was begging in some degree for quarter as they thronged about him, and while anxious to gratify their desire of touching him by extending his hands and suffering their pressure on his legs and knees, kept begging they would let him move on, that he might come to a place of rest.

Meantime they rent the air with their “Vivas,” and ever as he passed, a new concourse of knees was seen to bend, and picturesque and eager heads were bowed around him, pressing devout and reverent kisses on his legs or hands, the skirts of his coat, or the housings of his charger.

Never shall I forget the scene. In vain they might have talked to me of the weakness and tyranny of his reign, or of his misrule and neglect of these very subjects. He was their old and lawful king, now seen for the first time in the pressure of misfortune and in the weariness of that journey he had made to inquire of their disposition towards him. And this was their beautiful answer. They received him with embraces, with loud benedictions, with kisses and genuflexions, which plainly told him they remembered nothing but the sacred bond between him and them, endeared to them the more by his age and evil fortune and his struggle for independence.

At length, though to all appearance (and as I was afterwards credibly informed) deeply touched by this perhaps unexpected scene, he was glad enough to be got into his quarters, opposite to which a magnificent façade of a triumphal temple had been erected for the scaffolding of fireworks to be displayed before him.

At night forth he came bareheaded into the balcony which fronted the street, and after saluting the immense concourse of his shouting subjects, he discharged a rocket, which was guided by a wire-conductor into the centre of that gorgeous temple, and immediately it was living all about with quivering fire. No description can paint the succession of glorious shapes which, amid the clear darkness of an Italian night, animated that palace of fire, and at length, like the finale of grand concerts, every part became such a volcano of fiery gems, and fountains of burning spray, and whirlpools of dazzling stars, that I could not refrain from joining in the shouts of ecstasy.

In honour also of the King’s arrival, the most celebrated and costly of all their religious processions was anticipated. This was the procession of the Anima (or soul, as I understood) of the Virgin Mary; but as I know nothing of its origin and but little of its symbolical intention, I will not attempt any description.

April 1806.—In this climate it is essential to the expeditious progress of works to take the earliest advantage of daylight, while the air is for several hours cool and the sun still low and feeble. Accordingly we had to be up and dressed before five o’clock.

It happened one morning about this time, when I was buckling on my sword and about to sally forth, that the floor began to shake under my feet. A violent rattling of doors and windows was heard all over the house, and bits of plaister began to shower from the ceiling. I was presently sensible that we were experiencing the shock of an earthquake; and as it seemed to increase in violence and to be accompanied by violent cries of human distress, I opened my door in some haste, and immediately beheld some Sicilian inmates of the house, just as they had sprung from their slumbers, scouring along the passages and making for the stairs. I followed, and beheld the issuing from every room of persons of every age and sex, who were racing down the stairs, with no thought but of present danger, and seemingly unconscious of the exposure of themselves and of each other.

Signor Scamporaccio, the Padrone di Casa, partaking at first of the general terror, and having sprung downstairs like a wild cat and secured himself under a strong archway that issued into the street, of which shelter he urged me to partake, then began to grin at the preposterous figures of his descending lodgers, and especially pointed my attention to the unadorned dismay of a fat old lady, a relation of his wife, whom he sportively called “La Baronessa.” She was of immense breadth and weight, and yet came howling downstairs full trot. On looking into the street, the general terror was too real and too energetic to be ludicrous. The people fell upon their knees wherever they happened to be, some prostrate and laying their foreheads in the dust, some, with frantic hands and uplifted voices, addressing heaven with the frenzied cry of hasty deprecation.

From that posture and from that earnest importunity no creature rose or desisted until the earth had ceased to shake and her houses to rend and groan.

So violent a shock had not been felt for years. The upper part of the spire of the Madre Chiesa was thrown down, and some other buildings materially injured. Every ship at anchor, and some sailing in the mid strait, felt the violence of the shock, but happily there was no injury to human life.

A slighter shock in the course of the day frightened the soldiers from their work on the heights, and still more some Sicilian overseers from the duties of superintendence.

Looking at the ruins with which Messina is surrounded, and knowing them to be the fruits of a dreadful earthquake that caused the loss of thousands of lives, it is impossible not to sympathise with the undissembled terror of these poor Sicilians whenever the tremulous earth reminds them of her instability, for they conceive it to be the angry hand of God shaking over them with menaces of vengeance, and their cries are no less vehement and abrupt than the cries and entreaties of a child at the uplifted rod of a parent.

April 1806.—Sir James Craig now published a farewell order to the army. The new Minister of War (of Mr. Fox’s Administration) had written most flatteringly to him, assuring him that all had been in perfect accordance with their views, and now that the army was in security and comfort, he could resign the command with less regret.

He had long borne up against the pressure of severe disease, in the honourable hope of directing the courage of his men and witnessing their victories, but now he was sensible that he owed it to them to make way for a commander whose zeal might be equal to his own, and whose activity sickness had not impaired. He gave much praise to the quality of the troops, whose discipline had certainly been much advanced by his personal exertions.

The necessity of this resignation had long been painfully obvious to the army, not by any faults of discipline, but by the ghastly and suffering appearance of our revered commander, who was much respected and regretted by every branch of the army.

Towards the end of April our Commandant was sent to ascertain the strength of the places on this side of the island, giving particular attention to Augusta and Syracuse, and about four days afterwards I was ordered to follow him.

One of my brother-officers good-naturedly lent me a beautiful donkey he had brought from Valetta to carry my servant and malle.

My pride at starting, mounted on the sleek and spirited Napolitanno, and preceding Il Bruto Domenico and the ass, was somewhat quenched by the drenching rain in which we set forward, and soon received another fall in the person of Domenico, seen sprawling in the mire, and the donkey at large.

The ass, however, was of infinitely more importance to me than his rider, so I left Domenico and pursued the animal myself.

After this little fracas the long-eared rebel was more amenable, and Domenico dare only curse him under his breath, for fear he should repeat the somersault, so that my meditations were no longer interrupted either by the pranks of the four-legged or the deep execrations of the two-legged brute. Furthermore, the day cleared, and the sea and sky and fertile land were lighted up, and reawakened the sanguine glance of youthful expectation which the rain had in some degree depressed. The road is impassable for wheels; its situation is invariably by the seaside, with mountains on the other hand, which sometimes barely leave room for the road. In other places the wintry torrents have formed, as it were, the opening jaws of a deep and rugged ravine, called in this country Fiumara.

Again the bold heights approach the very border of the ocean, and sometimes a rocky promontory obstructs the level beach, and plants a firm broad foot in the midst of the waves. In this case it has been necessary to pass over or to cut through the obstruction. The rocky point of Scaletta traverses the beach as with a wall, and the road ascends into the gorge of the natural rock, which rises like a watch-tower on either side, affording such a post of observance and defence as, if properly used, might check a mighty army.

I proposed halting for the night at Taormina, thirty or forty miles from Messina, and soon viewed it in the distance, seated in the clouds on the table of a lofty mountain between two enormous peaks of rock, on the highest of which is a dark old castle.

On arriving at the foot of this mountain, a sentinel stopped me where the gate of the town is constructed, and on finding I was an English officer on duty, directed me to the convent of the Capuchins.

I had permitted Domenico to take up his quarters at a miserable hut on the beach, where he was fortunate enough to find provender, partly to spare the donkey the pain of carrying him and my portmanteau up so toilsome an ascent, and also in the hope that my baggage might gain a little advance in the morning’s march, and thus I began to ascend into the clouds alone, worn with heat and travel, and oppressed with a growing and, I fear, somewhat puerile sadness.

After a long and wearisome ascent, I had left the brightness and interest of the world behind me, and had entered an atmosphere which enveloped every object in a thick gray mist.

On reaching the convent of Capuchins, a dead man might have given me a more cheering welcome than I received from the spiritless and hair-clothed superior.

One of his bleak eyes looked full upon me and into me, while the other seemed employed in looking round me and beyond me.

On learning my object he assented with a slow scowl of sullen indifference, and without any pause or gesture indicating the smallest courtesy, he briefly told one of his subordinates to show me a vacant cell. I believe the rules of this order bind them to wretchedness, and they extend them to the stranger that is within their gates, for they offered me no refreshment, and mentioned no refectory. The cell appointed me was naked, windowless, bedless, a bedding of straw being all it afforded.

Never before or since have I felt the heart within me oppressed and borne down by so dense and palpable a gloom—unmanly, to be sure, I felt it to be. “What ails me?” said I; “what is the grievance? Shelter is here to-night, to-morrow there lies the way, and food can be procured. ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me?’”

No answer could be given, but the questions were not asked in vain. I began to turn my displeasure from the monks to myself, and presently recovered a more hardy tone of mind. I left the convent and went into the little square of the town. The mountain cloud had dispersed, and a party of Sicilian loungers attracted me to the shop of a little fruiterer, where I bespoke some dinner, and learned with joy they could accommodate me with a bed, which I greatly preferred to returning to the convent.

Whilst dinner was getting ready I walked out to look about me and to summon a cicerone to my aid, that I might see the remarkable Roman antiquities for which this place is famous. I then, though very tired, placed myself in the hands of the voluble cicerone, who took me to the large ancient theatre, finely situated in a basin or natural crater formed in the summit of the mountain.

A hasty view would at that moment have satisfied me, for I was weary and wanted food, but when I would have gone away the cicerone forcibly detained me, and placing me in the remotest ring of the vast auditory, proceeded leisurely to the stage and began a long oration, ridiculous in itself, but illustrating how well the situation was calculated to carry the voice of the actor to the remotest spectator. Reluctant as I was to interrupt so remarkable and novel an exhibition as a Sicilian peasant spouting to my solitary self in the midst of the lonely mountains from the ruins of a Roman stage, it lasted so long that I was compelled to cut it short, telling him I could have fancied him a shade of the Roman Roscius, a name he appeared well acquainted with, and with a low bow attributed the comparison to my excellency’s goodness.

On returning to my little hotel I found dinner ready, after which I went to the convent stables to see to my horse; and the bed that I made for him not a little astonished the friar who admitted me, and from curiosity, I suppose, observed, and to a certain extent assisted, my operations. “Such a bed,” he informed me, “was something too luxurious even for a good Christian.” He said no more, but his look added, what must it be for a heretic’s horse.

Napolitanno, however, who was grinding his provender with great animation, and making his eloquent ears thank me for my present attention to his couch, seemed to have no fault to find with my handiwork, and to promise me a fresh horse for to-morrow.

My bed also was clean and comfortable, and I slept intensely, rose early, and mounting the gay and gentle Napolitanno, descended slowly towards the sea, through the hanging orchards and gardens of Taormina, my mind and body equally refreshed, and forgetful of yesterday’s depression.

On morning wings how active springs the mind,

And leaves the load of yesterday behind.

Soon after traversing the beach which extends from the foot of Taormina, the road has to make its way (and badly enough it makes it) over the rugged skirts of Mount Etna, or as the natives call it, more euphoniously, Monzebello.

These extreme skirts of the mountain consist of various eddies and whirlpools of different dates of lava, whose black, rough substance is scantily covered by the slowly accumulating soil, seldom sufficient to ensure a clothing of vegetation, the black and naked rock forming a vivid contrast to the brightest verdure.

The pretty town of Jaci, by its elegant and regular structure and air of opulence, takes the traveller by surprise after the unpromising waste he has traversed. It seems built almost entirely of the dark and durable material which the mountain furnishes as a poor compensation for his wide wasting destruction.

And now after a long and weary ride the clustering domes and spires of Catania rise upon our track, with a promise of splendour and magnificence for which the pretty and prosperous Jaci was but little preparation.

I was astonished at the grandeur of design and costly style of building.

The principal street, of vast width, seems to have one extremity in the ocean, and the other lost in the ascent of the stupendous mountain, whose fiery summit it seems to approach with an avenue of temples and palaces.

What an effect have place and scene upon the sensitive spirits of youth! At Taormina I felt abandoned and cast out from the beauties of the civilised world, whereas here in beautiful Catania I felt as if everything were my own, and that the sky was bright, the sea blue, the mountain awful, and the city splendid—all for me; and in good and grateful part did I accept of it.

No king could be happier than I, when, having seen my horse comfortably served, I ascended into the best parlour of the Golden Lion, and with my eyes upon the noble buildings of the square, sat down to a well-cooked dinner and a flask of the rich white wine of Etna. After dinner, leaving this fair city with regret, I pursued my journey towards Augusta. On this side the mountain throws a mantle of sloping woods, and becomes more and more level and in the nature of open pasture as it approaches the deep and rapid Giarreta, which we pass in a ferry, and over which few Sicilians would believe it possible to construct a bridge.[4]

Augusta enjoys the advantages of Mediterranean sea and sky, but, au reste, not Hartlepool nor Skegness are less indebted to soil or surface. The town, though regular, is meanly built, and occupies a peninsula fortified towards the land.

The bay, however, is of noble extent, and by its firm anchorage and easy access affords a fine rendezvous for large fleets employed in these seas. Here Lord Nelson watered previous to the battle of the Nile. I slept in the large convent of the Augustines, close to the seaside, where the prior and monks assured me it was their greatest pride to have entertained the great Nelson within their walls, of whose glory they were perfectly enamoured.

The cheerful urbanity and comforting welcome of these good Augustines made me forget the Capuchins of Taormina, and I must say in all the many convents in which I have taken up my quarters I never experienced but that one unpleasant reception.

The Governor of Augusta, on whom I necessarily waited with my credentials, was very polite, spoke of Captain Lefebure in the style sublime, and finding I must start in the morning for Syracuse, insisted that I should come that evening to his conversazione.

A good many people of both sexes and the higher officers of his garrison were assembled to stare at the Giovane Inglese, and for an hour or two it answered my purpose very well. I had no objection to be looked at, but liked looking at others still better, always taking a greater interest in people than in lifeless things.

I slept comfortably at the convent, and was on horseback early in the morning.

The ride to Syracuse is not particularly interesting along the shores of the Bay of Augusta, and after ascending the promontory which bounds the bay to the south, the road no longer finds accommodation by the seaside, but makes its way more deviously over hill and dell until it approaches the obverse side of that dilated rock which shelters Syracuse and its harbour from the blustering north. Upon an extended table of this ridge lie the ruins of the ancient city of Syracuse, and as the road ascends, the naked rock is tracked in deep ruts by the carriages which trafficked with the ancient Syracusans, just as ruts are deeply worn in the more frequented streets of Pompeii.

The present town and harbour of Syracuse, with its lovely vale stretching far into the west, are finely seen from the heights over which you approach it.

The peninsula on which the town stands divides the harbour into two compartments.

The grand harbour to the south and west is one of the most beautiful in the world. The other is of little importance except in a military point of view.

The fortifications, houses, and churches of Syracuse are all formed of the beautiful stone[5] of which its great northern screen consists, and in consequence of these vast quarries and excavations, ancient and modern, nothing can be more abruptly broken and scarped than the environs of this fortress.

The land front is finely and elaborately executed with magnificent gateways; the town is dense and unequal; the cathedral an ancient temple (I believe of Minerva), whose Christian front acts as a garish mask to its ancient heathen sides.

I presently found my friend Lefebure, who received me with joy, and after giving me some account of his proceedings, took me to the good old Governor. “I know not whom this Governor takes me for,” said Lefebure, “but he really overwhelms me with honours; his coach is always dodging me wherever I go, and when I consent to take a little tour into the country, he mounts upon the box, with all the decorations of his rank and symbols of his power, and drives me himself. I am half dead with the variety and quantity he makes me eat, and bewildered with the daily company of barons and princes, baronesses and princesses, with their dark eyes and soft accents, so articulate and intelligible, and yet to which I dare hardly attempt to reply.”

“Well,” I replied, “this does not sound to me so distressing as you represent. I am glad I am come to your relief. This noble governor shall stuff me now with good things and drive me in his coach, and I will now listen to the soft accents of the dark-eyed Principessas, and expose myself to their smiles at my blundering answers. So have with you, Lefebure; take me to the Governor; we shall be in time for his dinner.”

“Oh,” he rejoined, “don’t distress yourself. We are both engaged already to dine with him to meet a hundred people. But it will be taken well if I present you to him first.” So away we went. The Governor, a good, solicitous old soul, was of course charmed with the Bravo Giovinetto, and offered everything within and without his power both to me and to Lefebure.

The number of the people at dinner could only, I think, be exceeded by the number of the dishes, and when I found the order of proceeding, I no longer wondered at the surfeit complained of by the temperate Lefebure, for the Governor, having relaxed his girdle and tied a napkin under his chin, surrounded by laughing beauties ready to applaud every word he spoke and every morsel he distributed, sent in succession for every dish, and having divided it absolutely and unsparingly into portions, it was carried round, and if any one failed to taste, the wail and lament of apprehended sickness was raised around him, and some sweet princess with bewitching eyes loaded his plate with her own fair hands.

I am not aware that English people can quite realise the ease and good-humour and incessant but not unpolished mirth with which this great dinner from beginning to end was accomplished. And but for that, I hardly believe the economy of man would be able to dispose of such sudden and copious supplies as were then thrown into his system.

Well it was the Governor, after dinner, took us in his carriage to show us his points of vantage without the town, for to walk would have been very inconvenient!

The worthy Governor of Syracuse was not the only person prodigal of attention and kindness to the two English officers.

There then lived upon a beautiful farm in the midst of the vale an English gentleman of considerable genius and learning, whose energy of character and acuteness of judgment, and the application of English skill to a Sicilian soil, had given him a very powerful ascendency over the population within his reach. Equally a master of the language, from the Tuscan tongue to the dissonant jargon of the Sicilian peasant, his tall, athletic, but not ungraceful figure, and his intelligent and finely-featured head made him no ill representative, among foreigners, of the personal predominance of an Englishman.

I had met him at Valetta, where he had opened an acquaintance with me by accusing me of some resemblance to Lady Hamilton. He immediately remembered the circumstance, and perhaps even so slight a thread acted as a bond of old acquaintance. Yet there is a stronger bond than that which draws one to a countryman in a foreign land.

My Anglo-Sicilian friend showed Lefebure and me how truly he felt this by the unbounded kindness and grateful hospitality he extended to us, and his handsome, noble-hearted wife received us with a smile of welcome that was redolent of home.

Our fare was studiously English, and to our delighted eyes appeared the effect of magic.

There was the burnished brown of the small fillet of veal, the small smoked ham, cauliflower, potatoes, and melted butter; the household loaf of barm-raised bread as white as snow; the ample slice of fresh-churned butter, not lard of goat’s milk, but yellow butter, from the breathy cow. And then the bubbling and loud-hissing urn, the presiding lady, plates of real bread-and-butter, and genuine tea, attempered with thick cream!

No one untried in travel can imagine with how keen a zest a robust English appetite returns to these wholesome and ordinary provisions of his country in lands where he has no hope of meeting with them.

On our return to Messina we simply retraced our steps, and met with nothing remarkable, so I give no account of our journey of 120 miles.

* * * * *

It was about the second week in May when Lefebure and I arrived at Messina, and on the 25th of that month our force received a valuable acquisition by the arrival of the 78th Regiment of Highlanders, a beautiful regiment, 900 strong, whose picturesque national dress made a great impression upon the Sicilians, though the women, indeed, seemed to think it due to modesty to say the dress was very ugly. “La Baronessa” also maintained “It was an ugly dress, and a very curious dress, and a very curious thing that such a dress should be approved of in England, which she thought was a cold country.” The arrival of this regiment gave us the more satisfaction, as rumours were afloat that Sir John Stuart would take advantage of his interregnum to do some dashing thing.

A great sensation was created by the resolute defence which the old Prince of Hesse Philipstahl continued to make at Gaeta.

Our Gilespie had been sent to his assistance, and was well qualified by his knowledge of the language, his military science, and his daring constancy of character both to assist the brave Prince in his defence, and to give true information and sagacious comments to the British general.

Sir Sidney Smith, the naval Commander-in-Chief, came to Messina immediately from the scene of action. He had brought with him a plan of Gaeta and of the French approaches, which he wished to have copied, and being well acquainted with the commanding engineer, requested his assistance for that purpose. Our Commandant brought the plan to me to copy, and said, “When you’ve finished the plan, Boothby, you will like an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the hero of Acre. You will admire him of all things, but be sure when you see him, he will take you to Acre.”

Accordingly I copied the plan with my best skill and despatch, and then carried it on board. I had to wait a considerable time. At length I was summoned into the Admiral’s presence. He held the plan in his hand, and good-humouredly said, “So, sir, you are the young officer who has had the goodness to copy this for me. Well now, sir, just look here. They pretend to tell me that this place is indefensible—me, who know pretty well what determined hearts can do behind very simple barriers—who have seen a handful of men behind the angle of a wall bid defiance to the bravest troops led on by the first general in the world—I mean Mr. Bonaparte at Acre. Tally-ho! said I.”

I was really in pain lest a smile should be detected on my features, which would have seemed to belie my sincere admiration for the gallant spirit in whose presence I stood, and that anxiety gave me an air of deeper attention to the inferences of strength and capability of Gaeta which he drew from the defence of Acre.

And it is well known that the brave old Prince of Hesse fully justified these inferences by the spirit and duration of his resistance.

The gallant Sir Sidney then repaired to the Court of Palermo, into which the defence of Gaeta and the mountain spirit of the Calabrese were infusing vain hopes, vain aims, and inordinate desires.

Old Ferdinand, who had entrusted Sir John Stuart with the defence of the east coast of Sicily from Milazzo to Cape Passaro, now invested Sir Sidney Smith with viceregal power by land and sea in the territory of Naples, and the whole persuasive power of the Court, and I suppose of the chivalrous viceroy, was then addressed to excite the British general to hazardous enterprise, but probably the natural ambition of his own brave breast was the strongest advocate.

The floating viceroy adroitly disarmed any jealousy which his powers might have excited in the breast of the land commander by saying, “This appointment would have been more suitable for you, but I made no difficulty about it, thinking it a great object that one of us should have it, and the whole powers of the commission are quite as much at your disposal as if your name had been placed in it instead of mine.”

The phrase ran, “How nicely Sir Sidney had got himself made viceroy,” but I can easily believe, remembering their worship of Nelson, that it was a much easier thing for the King and Queen to give such a commission to a renowned naval officer, whom they might view as Nelson’s successor, than to a British general.

Sir John Stuart, however, had too much sense to care a straw about it. He saw here an opportunity of glory, and however circumstances might fail of their promise, he saw at all events a justification of the hazard, and he was no more to be daunted by the sense of responsibility than of danger.

I was in great terror lest I should not be included in this heart-stirring expedition, but I was soon put out of suspense.

All the arrangements being complete and the fleet ready to sail, Sir John Stuart, in order to gain the advance of it, drove with one A.D.C. in his barouche to the point of Faro, and then embarked in a ship of war on the evening of the 30th of June 1806. We were watching him from our quarters opposite when he stepped into his barouche. Never man, I thought, seemed better pleased with what he was about, or looked more to personate the spirit of enterprise. A nice military figure, he jumped gaily into his carriage, laughing with his aide-de-camp, and nodding kindly, drolly, and significantly to the vivaing Messinese, who, notwithstanding the profoundest secrecy, had a pretty good guess what he was after, drove rapidly off.

June 30.—We then embarked when the fleet was already getting under way.

No happiness is greater to a young soldier than the high expectation attending an expedition of this kind. The great things he looks forward to are close at hand; there is no prospect of protracted toil and uncertain pursuit, but in the full vigour and freshness of his strength he moves quietly and swiftly to his object on the silent waters, expecting every moment to fall like a thunderbolt on the astonished foe. Several hours during this interesting night, big with expectation and imagining the eventful future, did I walk the deck, contrasting the present fair heaven, refreshing sea, and noiseless vessels with the dire principles of destruction and slaughter within them. Wistfully I looked toward the bold outline of the Italian shore, on which the condensing fleet was bearing with unflagging wing, and wondered how soon the hour of action and of glory could begin.

About midnight on the 30th June we came to an anchor in the Bay of St. Eufemia, and an order was immediately passed through the fleet that the troops should land at two in the morning.

A heavy surf upon an open beach made this operation difficult, but it was effected without loss and without opposition. A vast plain with much cover of brushwood extended from the beach to the receding mountains.

It began to be believed that no enemy was near, but upon the Light Infantry running forward a firing commenced, which continued in a sort of bush-fight the greater part of the morning. The enemy consisted of about 300 Polish sharpshooters scattered about in a very thick brushwood. They did their duty well, retiring as we advanced. No fox-hunters after a long frost could appear to enjoy their sport more keenly than our soldiers as they ran at the enemy with shouts and cries of delight. The event of the day was some 20 of the enemy wounded, 2 officers and 100 men taken prisoners. We had only one man wounded.

The army now took up a position on the high ground in advance of the place of landing, one flank upon the town of Nicastro, the other below the village of St. Eufemia, whilst at the same time it was thought prudent to throw up an entrenchment on the beach, under cover of which an embarkation might be effected, should the pressure of superior numbers or unforeseen disasters render a retreat to our ships desirable. Sir John Stuart expressed surprise at the celerity with which this service was performed.

During the whole of this long day, and part of the next, the reports concerning the enemy were various. One prisoner (a Gascon) answered gaily to the question of number, “Oh, a trifle; some 27,000 or 30,000.” But towards evening on the 2nd of July it was discovered that an enemy’s force had occupied the heights overlooking the plains of Maida. The lights of the enemy exhibited at night extended along a considerable front, and a rumour prevailed that he intended battle.

On the 3rd some information was obtained of the strength of the enemy, and it was rated so low as between 2000 and 3000. At night the order of march was given to commence at two o’clock, our General being probably anxious to come to blows before the enemy should have collected his full strength; but whilst the order of march was forming, an important reinforcement of several thousand (as we have since learned) arrived in the enemy’s lines.

If this reinforcement had not arrived, the opposing forces would have been nearly equal. As it was, Sir John Stuart, at daybreak on the 4th of July, with about 4000 men, found himself in presence of 7500 of the best troops of France.

To my eternal regret, I was not present at the battle. My mind was in a state of curiosity and high expectation, and when I received the order to remain behind, though aware of its necessity and justice, my disappointment was childish and excessive.

An entrenchment which we had thrown up on the beach required still to be completed, and our Chief was very anxious to strengthen it by an inundation, for which the mouth of a small rivulet offered great facilities. He felt it necessary to entrust an officer with the execution of his intentions, and as junior officer (in that spirit of perfect fairness with which he always treats us) he selected me, and sent me strict orders not to leave the spot until duly relieved. There was a high square tower at a short distance from our entrenchment, which was occupied by four companies of Watteville’s regiment under Major Fischer, who had remained to protect the point of debarkation.

By the time some sound of cannon announced the approaching conflict of the two armies, my inundation wanted little of completion, and my men were well under the observance of this tower.

From hence, therefore, with the veteran Major Fischer, I saw the general movements of the battle, near enough to be filled with the most terrible interest, to see the masses descend from the heights, tracked by smoke and fire, to see opposing bodies approaching to collision, and by the rapidity of motion to distinguish horse from foot, and where approaching columns had been lost to sight, to recognise their conflict from the sudden smoke of the volleys. But though near enough for this, I was too distant to pretend to give the description of an eye-witness, not indeed being able to distinguish one regiment from another, or indeed the enemy from ourselves, except from the direction in which each was moving.

What anxious moments did we pass, near enough to see where the battle raged, but not in what way it was decided. However, it was more like victory than defeat, we thought, as no runaways came to spread bad tidings, and the whole system of sights and sounds seemed rather more distant than more near.

At length I descried a brother-officer riding alone towards us. I flew to meet him.

“Well, Theso, you have been fighting all morning. What have you done? We are half dead with anxiety.”

“Oh,” said the good-natured fellow, “would you had been with us! Never was anything more complete. They are all but destroyed.”

“Now, God be praised!” said I, running to seize Theso’s hand. “God Almighty be praised! This is grand news indeed.”

“I came to tell you,” said he, “that you need stay no longer here. We don’t think of entrenchments now.”

“Then I may ride to the field, where I can better understand all you have been doing.”

So saying I mounted my horse, Theso giving some directions as to the right track, and away I cantered.

This might have been a scene harrowing to the last degree, for I might have found it full of suffering I had no power to mitigate, and have paid dearly in agony of mind for the gratification of a natural and overwhelming curiosity. But the noble compassion and prompt activity of the victors, aided by our generous sailors, had already removed from the field, without distinction of friend or foe, all who stood in need of the offices of humanity.

Still it was a field of battle smoking with recent carnage, peopled with prostrate warriors distorted with the death agony, harnessed for battle in gay colours, feathers, and gold, but stained and bathed in their own life-blood, having on that gory bed suddenly closed all the sanguine, joyous hopes of life.

A sight so disfigured, what heart of rock could long dry-eyed behold!

The events of the battle were in some sort told by the mute and motionless, but sad and appalling forms with which the ground was covered; all indeed were still and silent, but all bore the attitude of struggle, of fearful flight, or eager chase.

A picture of a battle represents but one instant; no figure can move, yet all seems stirring and tumultuous.

So, in some sort, is the actual field of glory. The chieftain’s hand is lifted to strike; his lips have not closed since the shout of victory or mandate of battle has passed through them. The passions, too, in the midst of death remain strongly impressed upon each warrior’s features. The daring courage, the bitterness of anger or revenge, and the thrilling agony of mortal pain—all speak distinctly in the countenance of the dead.

The route of the flying enemy was thickly tracked through the straggling course of the shallow Amato and up the heights beyond by slaughtered bodies of the 1st Regiment of French Light Infantry, which had ventured to charge ours with the bayonet. All lay in one direction, in the attitude of headlong desperate flight.

I forget the number of this regiment buried on the field, but a skeleton of it only could have escaped.

Amid all the disfigurements of wounds and scenes of human agony, nothing so powerfully inclined my heart to pity and compassion as the letters which lay near each unburied soldier, representing the last remains of the affections and softer feelings, as the body represented his warlike powers. Many of these, in female characters, were expressed with all the tender beauties of the French tongue, and, with an absence of reserve taught by the Revolution, showed by their intenseness of feeling how bitterly living hearts were to be grieved with the tidings of the scene before me.

No one can tell from description how wretched is the feeling, when standing over the body of a youthful soldier, to read in a fair female hand such expressions as these:—

“Oh, preserve thy life! Venture not too much for the sake of thy poor Adèle, who has never ceased to deplore thy absence, but who will think the first moment of thy return an ample compensation for all her sufferings.”

Return! shall that prostrate blood-stained figure ever return to the poor Adèle? The beauty of youth indeed has not yet left him, but by to-morrow the form even of humanity will be gone! Many of the letters were from all degrees of kindred—mother, wife, sister, daughter. It was impossible to read unmoved.

Poor Harry Paulet was dreadfully wounded in the thigh, and our Commandant had a beautiful horse killed under him.

* * * * *

Having been unable to be actually present at the battle of Maida, I write the following account from subsequent observation and inquiry, by which I satisfied my natural thirst to know all the events of this memorable day.