Blind and raging, crossed for the second time in his blighted life by puny beings he could crush with one hand, Polyphemus tore off the top of a small hill and threw it, missing the Greeks by a hair, but raising such a wave that their boat was almost washed ashore. Again Ulysses cried out upon him, and again the giant threw. And to this day the rocks tower out of the sea, one of them over two hundred feet above water and a couple of thousand feet in girth. Out of this giant’s missile the Italian authorities have made them a geodetic survey and hydrographic station. What would Homer—or Ulysses!—think if he could see the rocks to-day? Curiously enough, though the Odyssey particularizes regarding these two of the Scogli, or Rocks, it says nothing whatever as to the other five of the group.
Right here another picturesque legend dealing with Polyphemus develops. For miles along this shore, town after town has Aci prefixed to its name, as a reminder of the story of Galatea and Acis. Polyphemus—huge, gross, uncouth monster—had no attraction for the dainty nymph, but as so often happens in even the prosaic days of fact, his bulk did not keep him from loving Galatea passionately. So when—if one may be irreverently colloquial—the shepherd boy Acis “cut him out,” Polyphemus crushed him to death with stones in Galatea’s bower. Olympus heard her piteous mourning, and from the lifeblood of Acis sprang a crystal stream which imparted its life to the fields of Catania until jealous Ætna drank it up. But Acis lives in spite of the giant. Acireale, Acicastello, Aci San Antonio—how quaintly pagan and Christian myths mingle in the Latin countries!—and many another Aci perpetuate him.
Acireale, about ten miles from Catania on the main line of the railroad to Taormina, is a pleasant place to make a stay. Its mineral springs, the delightful views by sea and shore, the walks and drives in every direction through surroundings of the keenest interest and beauty, and, for those who are fond of the water, the little boat trips in the vicinity, make it a most agreeable spot in which to idle during the soft Sicilian Spring.
XII
TAORMINA
SICILIAN railroad trains have the very amiable—or would some people spell that word exasperating?—habit of never running according to schedule. One is tempted at times to wonder why they have a time-table at all! Express or local, the train is always either too late or too early. You may take your choice of reaching the station well ahead of the “due” time, and vegetating until the little locomotive sniffles shamefacedly in, away late, or going on time and finding the carriage doors locked, the train ready to leave, and the guards very much disinclined to open for you. A jingling of one’s pocket usually unlocks the doors in such circumstances, however.
Did I say, “express or local”? Which it is is a puzzle, since it is all one. The “local” part of the train has to rush madly by stations whenever the “express” part does; and the “express” half is obliged to halt whenever the “local” end comes to a station it especially likes. Which train you ride in depends entirely on the label that happens to be on your car! But even with these vagaries, the railways are good, the employés courteous, usually amenable to jingling reason, and the service unusually safe. A railroad inspector I talked with explained this safety tersely. “Italians or Sicilians would not matter. But, per Baccho, to smash up foreigners—we can’t afford it!” As to that, their private reasons are none of our affair. That we can feel safe, and be safe, is the main thing.
The day we came to Taormina we reached the station too early, and a miracle occurred. The train was early, too—fifteen minutes too early!—and we secured an excellent compartment and waited. That was decidedly too early to go ahead with safety, so engineer and conductor strolled about town making friendly calls, a trainman had an apéritif at a nearby caffé, and we started at last in leisurely fashion—five minutes behind time.
The station is Giardini-Taormina, at the sea level; and Giardini, though theoretically Taormina’s “harbor,” is only a little fishing village. Yet here twenty-five centuries ago the first of Sicily’s deliverers, the noble Timoleon of Corinth, landed to begin the work that built him such fame and gave Sicily such liberty. And in 1860 the second Deliverer, Giuseppe Garibaldi, after completing his work in Sicily, embarked here for Reggio di Calabria to continue his campaign of liberation on the Italian mainland. Nowadays nobody stops to look at Giardini twice, since far above, on the great cliffs against which it nestles, lies the favorite beauty spot of Sicily, the haunt of artist and traveler the year around.
If you so much as look doubtfully at the rickety old landaus that meet the train, a driver will pile your luggage into one, almost push you in after it, and cracking his whip, start slowly up the road, a long, gentle ascent built in great sweeping curves. Splendid views unveil themselves at every foot of the way. Below lies the sea, ranging from transparent, broken-edged emerald at the beach, to fathomless azure in the depths, and a dull, dusty, almost colorless void at the horizon. It is streaked with wind-paths, flecked with tiny whitecaps, dotted with fishing boats flitting about like white bats, while far up the Strait where Italy seems to reach over and embrace its lovely sister, it is easy to imagine Scylla and Charybdis reaching out hungry, gleaming hands for the hapless voyagers rashly passing between. It is hard to think of anything else than the Argonauts, even amid the beauty of wild and cultivated flowers, vegetation clinging tenaciously to the face of the cliffs, or growing in luxuriance upon terraces in lovely banked and esplanaded gardens. Picturesque villas of every type range all the way from the usual bare, square, white hut-style to artists’ abominations in all manner of castellated, battlemented, machicolated forms.
A turn in the road opens a matchless vista of Ætna; another,—and squarely in front glimmers the red and tan ruin of the Greek Theater, perched high upon the jutting crest of a mound from which the spectators of the play had magnificent views to amuse them in case they tired of the work of the chorus. Standing on tiptoe at the very edges of precipitous acclivities big, pleasant looking hotels peer down with staring window-eyes, very attractive, but a trifle suggestive of what might happen should the edge of some particular precipice crumble off.