Taormina, Monday, May 7, 1787.
Sicily—Taormina.
God be thanked that all that we have here seen this day has been already amply described—but still more, that Kniep has resolved to spend the whole of to-morrow in the open air, taking sketches. When you have ascended to the top of the wall of rocks, which rise precipitously at no great distance from the sea, you find two peaks, connected by a semi-circle. Whatever shape this may have had originally from Nature has been helped by the hand of man, which has formed out of it an amphitheatre for spectators. Walls and other buildings have furnished the necessary passages and rooms. Right across, at the foot of the semicircular range of seats, the scene was built, and by this means the two rocks were joined together, and a most enormous work of nature and art combined.
Now, sitting down at the spot where formerly sat the uppermost spectators, you confess at once that never did any audience, in any theatre, have before it such a spectacle as you there behold. On the right, and on high rocks at the side, castles tower in the air-farther on the city lies below you; and although its buildings are all of modern date, still similar ones, no doubt, stood of old on the same site. After this the eye falls on the whole of the long ridge of Ætna, then on the left it catches a view of the sea-shore, as far as Catania, and even Syracuse, and then the wide and extensive view is closed by the immense smoking volcano, but not horribly, for the atmosphere, with its softening effect, makes it look more distant, and milder than it really is.
If now you turn from this view towards the passage running at the back of the spectators, you have on the left the whole wall of the rocks between which and the sea runs the road to Messina. And then again you behold vast groups of rocky ridges in the sea itself, with the coast of Calabria in the far distance, which only a fixed and attentive gaze can distinguish from the clouds which rise rapidly from it.
We descended towards the theatre, and tarried awhile among its ruins, on which an accomplished architect would do well to employ, at least on paper, his talent of restoration. After this I attempted to make a way for myself through the gardens to the city. But I soon learnt by experience what an impenetrable bulwark is formed by a hedge of agaves planted close together. You can see through their interlacing leaves, and you think, therefore, it will be easy to force a way through them; but the prickles on their leaves are very sensible obstacles. If you step on these colossal leaves, in the hope that they will bear you, they break off suddenly; and so, instead of getting out, you fall into the arms of the next plant. When, however, at last we had wound our way out of the labyrinth, we found but little to enjoy in the city; though from the neighbouring country we felt it impossible to part before sunset. Infinitely beautiful was it to observe this region, of which every point had its interest, gradually enveloped in darkness.
Below Taormina: on the Sea-shore,
Tuesday, May 8, 1787.
Kniep, whom, by good luck, I brought with me hither, cannot be praised enough for relieving me of a burden which would have been intolerable to me, and which goes directly counter to my nature. He has gone to sketch in detail the objects which yesterday he took a general survey of. He will have to point his pencil many a time, and I know not when he will have finished, I shall have it in my power to see all these sights again. At first I wished to ascend the height with him; but then, again, I was tempted to remain here; I sought a corner like the bird about to build its nest. In a sorry and neglected peasant's garden I have seated myself, on the trunk of an orange-tree, and lost myself in reveries. Orange-branches, on which a traveller can sit, sounds rather strangely; but seems quite natural when one knows that the orange-tree, left to nature, sends out at a little distance from the root, twigs, which, in time, become decided branches.