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.