90 HAECKEL 



not understand how it was that I brought him 

 to the highest pitch of gaiety, whereas on all his 

 earlier travels, especially when botany was still 

 his favourite science, he would, after the common 

 meal, withdraw quietly with his books and plants 

 to the solitude of his own room. Yet he could 

 be the gayest of all. In fact, his hearty and 

 wonderful laugh, in all notes up to the very 

 highest, rings over and over again in the memory 

 of any man who has once heard it ; it is the frank 

 laughter of a glad human heart. And whoever has 

 seen the deep earnestness with which the great 

 scientist threw himself into the study of the 

 most arduous problems would be astounded to 

 hear it." 



The Strait of Messina is the pearl of Italy. In 

 my opinion it is finer than Naples. The huge 

 volcano and the deep blue strip of water, that 

 seems to be confined between the white coasts like 

 some fabulous giant-stream, give a feeling of 

 sublimity beside which the Bay of Naples seems 

 but an idyll in the memory. The colours are 

 more vivid ; you think you would catch hold of the 

 blue bodily if you put your hand in the water. 

 It is a land of ancient myths. The Cyclops 

 hammer their work in Etna. Scylla and Charybdis 

 lurk in the Strait. Once, in the days of Homer, 

 when the sun of civilisation still lay on a corner of 

 Asia, a dim Miinchhausen-world was lived here, 

 such as we find to-day in the heart of Africa or 

 New Guinea. But times changed. Zoologists 



