It is melancholy to see this fine country so neglected and deserted. We hardly saw a human being upon the road, or houses anywhere; for miles beyond Syracuse, the ground was strewed with ruins, all overgrown with grass, weeds, and prickly pears. Here and there we saw a vineyard, but this was not the season for grapes; the vines were bare, and propped up with cane-poles. A few olive-trees were scattered about: these trees are about the size of a willow, and their leaves are green all the year round. The olives were now nearly full-grown. About ten o’clock in the forenoon, we saw a little town called Melilla on the side of a mountain, about six miles off, but we passed by without entering it; and met with no inhabitants, except a peasant riding on an ass. Melilla produces the finest honey in the world, and this gave the town its name. All along the road in this neighborhood, we saw great abundance of wild thyme and other fragrant flowers, which furnish the busy bees with rich materials for their labors. In a wild part of the road further onward, we met a company of half a dozen men with guns advancing toward us. I asked the muleteers if they were not robbers, and was told that they were gens d’armes, whose business it was to guard the road from robbers. Travelling in Sicily was formerly very dangerous, but it is less so at present.
By-and-by we came to a very rocky place, where I saw a deep gully passing right across the road. I was about to dismount and lead my mule over it, not imagining he would think of passing it with a rider on his back,—when he gave a sudden leap and bounded over the chasm in an instant, alighting on his fore feet with such a shock that he pitched me completely over his head. Luckily one of my feet caught in the stirrup, and this hindered me from being thrown straight forward and dashed head first upon the rock, which would have killed me in an instant. But the catching of the stirrup gave me a whirl to the left, so that I fell against the low branches of a wild fig-tree, and escaped with only a slight bruise. The men behind jumped off their beasts and ran to pick me up, judging me to be dead, or my limbs broken at least; but I was on my feet before they had time to help me. On learning the cause of the accident, they advised me, in future, always to keep my seat, however difficult the road might appear, for they assured me a mule knew much more than a man about these matters. I ran after my beast, which, I found, had not gone far; he was standing stock-still, waiting for me, and doubtless understanding the whole affair perfectly well. I could not help thinking that he gave a roguish twinkle of the eye as I got on his back again; but this might be fancy.
We continued our course through this wild region for an hour or two longer, when we came to a pretty high ridge of hills. We clambered slowly up the ascent, and on reaching the top, a most magnificent view burst upon my sight. A wide bay stretched out its blue waters before us, beyond which rose, sublimely, the huge bulk of Mount Ætna, its towering summit clad in a sheet of snow, which glistened like silver in the bright sun. At the foot of the mountain I could just discern a cluster of white spots at the edge of the shore, which they informed me was the city of Catania. It was about twenty miles distant. The lower part of Ætna was almost black, but I could see no smoke rising from the crater; it was too far off for this, the distance being nearly fifty miles. Further off, over the sea, we saw the mountains of Calabria, capped with snow, and half hidden by the clouds.
As we descended the hills and approached the sea-shore, the road grew worse and worse. We climbed over broken rocks, gullies, and the beds of mountain torrents, and through wild thickets of bushes, where we could hardly squeeze our way. After a while, we came to a field where laborers were ploughing: this was the first instance of agricultural labor I had yet seen on the journey. The oxen were fine stout animals, with immensely long horns; the plough was of wood, and the clumsiest machine of the kind I ever saw. The rough, rocky chain of hills now sloped away into a fine champaign country, where the soil appeared very rich. As we proceeded, the color of Mount Ætna gradually changed; its black sides were now spotted with dark red patches, which proved to be small mountains that had burst out of the great one, in fiery eruptions. Presently, we could distinguish the smoke proceeding from the crater at the top; it streamed off like a white cloud horizontally, but with so slow a movement that it gave me some idea of its immense distance. It was one of the grandest sights I ever beheld.
About one o’clock the road wound through a thick wood of olive-trees, upon an eminence. Going down this steep descent, we found at the foot a little hamlet, consisting of four or five houses and an oil-mill. We stopped here to rest our mules, and I strolled round the place. The mill was a tall, square tower of stone; great numbers of oil-jars lay scattered about upon the ground: the sight of them made me think of the Forty Thieves. In one part of the mill, I found a large quantity of oranges packed in boxes for shipping; very probably they found their way to Boston in the course of the spring. The houses were rude stone edifices, of one story. I went into one of them for curiosity: the door stood wide open. In the kitchen, I found a great clumsy fireplace like a blacksmith’s forge, and two or three awkward wooden stools, but nothing like a table, except a sort of dresser, on which stood an earthen dish or two, and a few cups. Heaps of straw were lying about, and a few trumpery things, all at sixes and sevens. Pigeons were roosting overhead and flying about the room. It was the oddest looking kitchen I was ever in. Another room had a bed and a chair; and these were all the articles of furniture which the house contained.—Such is the description of an ordinary country-house in this part of the world. Could one of these Sicilian peasants be put in possession of the house of a New England farmer, and behold his chairs and tables, his silver spoons and crockery, his desks and bureaus, and other comfortable and ornamental furniture, he would think himself a rich man. But the Sicilian, although he dwells upon a soil three times as fertile as that of New England, and which is never encumbered with ice or snow, remains poor amidst all the bountiful gifts of nature. A mild climate makes him indolent, and he uses just strength enough to scratch the ground and throw the seed into it; the fertility of the soil does all the rest; and the most of his time is spent in doing nothing, or in unproductive amusement.
Two or three cows stood chewing their cud by the road; half a dozen ragged peasants lay on the ground, lazily basking in the sun, and two or three others were watching their donkeys, who were drinking out of a stone trough. A few half naked children were playing about the house; and everything presented a picture of shiftless poverty and indolent neglect. It struck me as very remarkable, that Providence should so impartially balance the good and evil distributed throughout this world. To one people are given a delicious climate, fertile soil, and the richest productions of nature; while they are denied the gifts of industry, enterprise, and perseverance, which are equally productive sources of wealth. To another people are given an unfriendly climate and hard soil; but these very things force them to labor and exert their faculties, causing in the end industrious and persevering habits, ingenuity and skill, which are more valuable than mines of gold. It is only by travelling and seeing other countries, that we can learn to be contented with our own.
CHAPTER VII.
Perilous adventure in crossing a river.—A Sicilian ferry-boat.—Enormous size of Ætna.—Inhabitants of the mountain.—Another accident with the mules.—Arrival at Catania.
Having rested our mules and munched a bit of dinner, we set out again, meaning to arrive at Catania before night. We passed by some beautiful green fields and groves of olives, but a short time afterward the track led us toward the sea, and we came to a bare, sandy plain. Here was a river in our way, with a wretched straw hut on the bank, inhabited by a man who kept a ferry-boat. We dismounted and crossed in the boat, but the mules were led up the stream to go over a ford at some distance. After passing this stream, we found the country wilder than ever: it consisted of sand-hills, overgrown here and there with low bushes and coarse grass, like the land at Cape Cod. Presently we came to another river, where there was no boat, nor house, nor human being, to be seen. One of the muleteers approached the stream with a long pole, to sound the depth of the water. It was not very deep, but the bottom was a quicksand, and the sounding-pole sunk into it till he found there was no firm bottom. He went up and down the bank, trying other places, but could not find a spot that was passable.