As the breadth across this celebrated strait has been so often disputed, I particularly state, that the Faro Tower is exactly six thousand and forty-seven English yards from that classical bugbear, the Rock of Scylla, which, by poetical fiction, has been depicted in such terrific colours, and to describe the horrors of which, Phalerion, a painter, celebrated for his nervous representation of the awful and the tremendous, exerted his whole talent. But the flights of poetry can seldom bear to be shackled by homely truth, and if we are to receive the fine imagery, that places the summit of this rock in clouds brooding eternal mists and tempests—that represents it as inaccessible, even to a man provided with twenty hands and twenty feet, and immerses its base among ravenous sea-dogs;—why not also receive the whole circle of mythological dogmas of Homer, who, though so frequently dragged forth as an authority in history, theology, surgery, and geography, ought in justice to be read only as a poet. In the writings of so exquisite a bard, we must not expect to find all his representations strictly confined to a mere accurate narration of facts. Moderns of intelligence, in visiting this spot, have gratified their imaginations, already heated by such descriptions as the escape of the Argonauts, and the disasters of Ulysses, with fancying it the scourge of seamen, and that in a gale its caverns ‘roar like dogs;’ but I, as a sailor, never perceived any difference between the effect of the surges here, and on any other coast, yet I have frequently watched it closely in bad weather. It is now, as I presume it ever was, a common rock, of bold approach, a little worn at its base, and surmounted by a castle, with a sandy bay on each side. The one on the south side is memorable for the disaster that happened there during the dreadful earthquake of 1783, when an overwhelming wave (supposed to have been occasioned by the fall of part of a promontory into the sea) rushed up the beach, and, in its retreat, bore away with it upwards of two thousand people.
Charybdis.
Outside the tongue of land, or Braccio di St. Rainiere, that forms the harbour of Messina, lies the Galofaro, or celebrated vortex of Charybdis, which has, with more reason than Scylla, been clothed with terrors by the writers of antiquity. To the undecked boats of the Rhegians, Locrians, Zancleans, and Greeks, it must have been formidable; for, even in the present day, small craft are sometimes endangered by it, and I have seen several men-of-war, and even a seventy four gun ship, whirled round on its surface; but, by using due caution, there is generally very little danger or inconvenience to be apprehended. It appears to be an agitated water, of from seventy to ninety fathoms in depth, circling in quick eddies. It is owing probably to the meeting of the harbour and lateral currents with the main one, the latter being forced over in this direction by the opposite point of Pezzo. This agrees in some measure with the relation of Thucydides, who calls it a violent reciprocation of the Tyrrhene and Sicilian seas; and he is the only writer of remote antiquity I remember to have read, who has assigned this danger its true situation, and not exaggerated its effects. Many wonderful stories are told respecting this vortex, particularly some said to have been related by the celebrated diver, Colas, who lost his life here. I have never found reason, however, during my examination of this spot, to believe one of them.
[187] Bourn’s Gazetteer.
For the Table Book.
A FRAGMENT.
From Cornelius May’s “Journey To The Greate Markett at Olympus”—“Seven Starrs of Witte.”
One daye when tired with worldly toil,
Upp to the Olympian mounte
I sped, as from soul-cankering care,
Had ever been my wonte;
And there the gods assembled alle
I founde, O strange to tell!
Chaffering, like chapmen, and around
The wares they had to sell.
Eache god had sample of his goodes,
Which he displaied on high;
And cried, “How lack ye?” “What’s y’re neede?”
To every passer by.
Quoth I, “What have you here to sell?
To purchase being inclined;”
Said one, “We’ve art and science here,
And every gifte of minde.”
“What coin is current here?” I asked,
Spoke Hermes in a trice,
“Industrie, perseverence, toile,
And life the highest price.”
I saw Apollo, and went on,
Liking his wares of olde;
“Come buy,” said he, “this lyre of mine,
I’ll pledge it sterling golde;
This is the sample of its worthe,
’Tis cheape at life, come buy!”
So saying, he drew olde Homer forth,
And placed him ’neath my eye.
I turn’d aside, where in a row
Smalle bales high piled up stood;
Tyed rounde with golden threades of life.
And eache inscribed with blood,
“Travell to far and foreign landes;”
“The knowledge of the sea;”
“Alle beastes, and birdes, and creeping thinges,
And heaven’s immensity;”
“Unshaken faithe when alle men change,”
“The patriot’s holy heart;”
“The might of woman’s love to stay
When alle besides departe.”
I next saw things soe strange of forme,
Their names I mighte not knowe,
Unlike aught either in heaven or earthe,
Or in the deeps below;
Then Hermes to my thoughte replied,
“Strange as these thinges appeare,
Gigantic power, the mighte of arte
And science are laide here;
Yeare after yeare of toile and thoughte
Can buy these stores alone;
Yet boughte, how neare the gods is man,
What knowledge is made known!
The power and nature of all thinges,
Fire, aire, and earthe, and flood.
Known and made subject to man’s will
For evill or for good.”
Next look’d I in a darksome den,
Webbed o’er with spider’s thread,
Where bookes were piled, and on eache booke
I “metaphysics” read;
Spoke Hermes, “Friend, the price of these
Is puzzling of the brain,
A gulf of words which, who gets in,
Can ne’er get oute again.”
I then saw “law,” piled up alofte,
And asked its price to know;
“Its price is, conscience and good name,”
Said Hermes, whispering low.
Nexte, “Physic and divinity,”
I stood as I was loth,
To take or leave, with curling lip,
Said Hermes, “Quackery, both!”
“Now, friend,” said I, “since of your wares
You no good thing can telle,
You are the honestest chapman
That e’er had wares to selle.”