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.