Our wretched journey made the first morning at Messina quite enchanting, as we climbed the heights, looking down upon the straits and to the purple peaks of Italy, their tips glistening with snow. Nespoli, daturas, and camellias grew as trees in full bloom; the gardens were a mass of salvias, trumpet-flower, and roses; heliotrope in full blossom hung over the high walls, and quantities of scarlet geraniums grew wild upon the beach.
More lovely still was Taormina, hanging like an eagle’s nest on the ledge of the mountain, and looking down into the blue sea, which breaks into emerald near the snowy line of breakers. On one side is Etna, quite gigantic, with pathless fields of snow even upon the lower heights; on the other are the grand ruins of the Theatre, from which, above the broken arches and pillars, the queen of fire and snow looms unspeakably sublime. Our pleasant primitive inn was in a quiet street, where all the daily incidents were lovely—the goats coming in the early morning to be milked: the peasants riding in upon their asses: the convent bells jangling: the women returning from the fountain with vases of old Greek forms upon their heads, burnished yellow, green, or red: the singing at Ave Maria and Benediction. We spent several days at Taormina, drawing quietly in the mornings amongst the rocky beds of pinks, and snapdragon, and silene: reading aloud in the evenings—Thucydides, Gregorovius, and then a novel for relaxation: the four ladies and their maid occasionally singing in parts as in Norway.
We were sorry to go on to Syracuse, for though many had told us of its intense interest and curiosity, no one had spoken of its extreme loveliness. Of its five towns, only the island-town of Ortygia remains. Acradina, Neapolis, Tycho, and Epipolae are desolate hillsides covered with pink-grey limestone, overgrown with wild figs, olives, prickly pears, and ten thousand lovely flowers; and from their sunny slopes you look to the blue mountains of Hybla and the rose-coloured rocks of Megara. Here and there, in the most exquisite situations, are Roman, and still more beautiful Greek ruins, which seem to have grown into the scenery and become part of it, gilded by lichen, fringed with flowers.
