52 tRAYELS IN UPPER 



was merely a crazy plaything to the winds and 

 the foaming billows ! We lost an amiable society, 

 and I felt a very sensible regret in reflecting that 

 our separation made me lose the opportunity of 

 landing at Syracuse, and of viewing Etna, which 

 Nature seems to have placed in Sicily to exhibit 

 there, at once, an example of her power in her 

 beneficence as in her wrath. 



At some distance from port we lay becalmed till 

 next day at noon. We had around the vessel a 

 multitude of small boats employed in the coral- 

 fishery ; we saw a great sea-tortoise, and several 

 of the fishes which the Mediterranean seamen call 

 mo'mes * (monks), and which are a species of sea- 

 dog. Four soldiers of the garrison of Palermo made 

 their escape on board, in a boat which they had 

 carried off; we received them, and sent back the 

 boat by a fisherman. Two of those soldiers were 

 French deserters. About two o'clock in the after- 

 noon, a Sicilian officer came off to reclaim them 

 in the name of the viceroy. They were under the 

 protection of the French flag; we refused to give 

 them up, and the officer returned on shore very 

 much out of humour at the bad success of his 

 mission. We had, on our part, lost at Palermo 



. * They are likewise denominated angel Jis/iet, or simply angel. 

 Squalus squatina. Lin. S) st. Nat. Squalus pinna ant carens, ore in 

 ajiice capitis. Artedi, Gen. Pise. p. 507. 



4 two 



