Under England's flag

by Charles Boothby

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.