IxXXViii AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 



wished for an opportunity to see Scylla and 

 Charybdis ; the first, so notorious formerly for 

 the howling of her dogs under water, — 



" Scylla rapax canibus, Siculo latrare profundo ; " 



the second, terrible for its hostility to ships, — 



" Ratibusque inimica Charybdis.'* 



Stromboli's smoking crater, not unknown at 

 Guildhall in the affair of Captain Booty > was 

 seen in the distance, as we were advancing to 

 these famous straits. But I was sadly disap- 

 pointed with their appearance, for they showed 

 nothing of that tremendous agitation so forcibly 

 described by the ancients. I concluded at last, 

 that either the poets had availed themselves of 

 the licence which has always been accorded to 

 those who drink the waters of Helicon, or that 

 these two ferocious whirlpool genii had left 

 their favourite residence and gone elsewhere. 

 Indeed, I soon found to my cost that they had 

 settled in the passport offices of Sicily, for I was 

 all but worried alive there. The hungry inmates 

 had found a flaw in my Neapolitan passport. It 

 consisted merely of the omission of the word 

 " return." This was a windfall for their insatiate 

 cravings ; and I had either to administer to their 



