1828.] [ 235 J 
MINE HOST’S SEGOND STORY. 
« You have been at Messina, Sir?” said old Carmelo to me, one fine 
summer evening, whilst I was forgetting the effects of a late sirocco in a 
comfortable goblet of dimonata gelata—< You have been at Messina? 
Well, then, you will remember that dark, precipitous hill, that lies just 
at the back of the city, and almost seems to overhang it ; they call it 
the Antenna Mare,—I know not why. ’Tis an admired object, and you 
travellers are fond of getting up to the guard-house for the sake of the 
fine prospect. Aye! itis a glorious and a cheerful sight! Milazzo, 
pushing far out into the sea ;—the curving coast, and its proud succes- 
sion of cities—Catania, Augusta, and Syracuse ;—Castro Giovanni, lifted 
up like a giant in the clouds ;—and above this, and the whole Pelorian 
range, /tna, wreathed in its eternal snows. *Tis a glorious scene! but 
it is years since I have endured to gaze upon it from that point. I 
shudder when I reflect upon the last visit, and the occasion on which I 
made it to that solitary height. If you are disposed, Sir, I will relate 
to you the circumstances as they occurred.” 
Mine host was clearly in one of his most talkative and entertaining 
moods ; and I had too often known the value of his conversation to 
bridle it at present by any unreadiness to become a listener. The old 
man threw up his eyes for a moment, and patted his brow, as one search- 
ing for and reclaiming the scattered recollections of the period ; and little 
need had he for more artful conjuration, as the fidelity of his narrative 
abandantly proved. After this short pause, he proceeded. 
* It was during a very different season to this blessed time of autumn 
that I was summoned to grace the marriage-ceremony of a fair young 
relation in the city of Messina—I think in December of the year 1811. 
The piercing cold that seems almost reflected from the icy tops of the 
neighbouring hills, was at this period particularly felt in that part of the 
island. It was a severe winter, and, as you say, the Sicilian temper is 
if] accommodated to the privations and gloom of such a climate. We are 
naturally as gay in feeling, though not in show, as our transmarine kin- 
dred of Calabria. But though the outward chill strikes as deep into the 
recesses of our spirits, we are yet content with our happy homes, and can 
find a substitute in the warm looks of our kinsmen. Can our Neapolitan 
cousins say as much, master traveller ? 
« Never did I see this truth more completely verified than ever at the 
nuptials of my young niece, Rosalia. She was a pet of the whole family 
—a wicked little thing, with a quick eye, that seemed to fasten itself 
good-humouredly on every thing around her that could by possibility 
give reason for a smile ;—alternately the plague and the comfort of her 
mother, whose steadier age was sometimes unequal to keep pace with the 
merry essays of roguery and playfulness of her little darling, but who 
treasured her through it all, perhaps, with a firmer love for those very 
chasms and breaks, during which she had a clear ground to measure her 
own maternal feelings, and the general attractions of the object that 
excited them. With a full and almost sorrowful heart, she affianced her 
child.—Oh, Sir! that must be an hour the most painful of any that occurs 
in the long and difficult administration of a mother’s duties! Then, when: 
the young creature has just attained its capacity to be a source of com- 
fort and support ;—when its perilous age has passed by, and it becomes in 
F 2H 2 
