and detached musical performances. The classical facade of the Marina,
through whose nineteen archways and upper parallelograms you catch a
vista of dark narrow wynd, contrasts curiously with Catania: the former
is a 'dicky,' a front hiding something unclean; while the latter is laid
out in Eastern style, where, for the best of reasons, the marble palace
hides behind a wall of mud. The only new features I noted were a metal
fish-market, engineer art which contrasts marvellously with the Ionic
pilasters and the solid ashlar of the 'dicky;' and, at the root of the
sickle, a new custom-house of six detached boxes, reddest-roofed and
whitest-walled, built to copy children's toy cottages. Croatian Fiume
would blush to own them. Of the general impurity of the town and of the
_bouquet de Messine_ the less said the better.

As we made fast to the Marina our tobacco was temporarily sealed after
the usual mean Italian fashion. Next morning an absurd old person, in a
broad red baldrick, came on board and counted noses, to ascertain that
we had not brought the dreaded small-pox from the Ionian Islands. After
being graciously and liberally allowed to land, we were visited by the
local chapmen, whose goods appeared rather mixed--polished cowhorns and
mildewed figs, dolls in costume and corrosive oranges; by the normal
musical barber, who imitates at a humble distance bird and beast; and by
the vendor of binoculars, who asks forty francs and who takes ten. The
captain noted his protest at the Consulate, and claimed by way of
_sauvetage 200l_. The owners offered 200 lire--punds Scots. Briefly,
noon had struck before we passed out of the noise and the smells of
Messina.

Our good deed had cost us dear. A wet scirocco had replaced the bright
norther and saddened all the view. Passing the tide-rip Charybdis, a
meeting of currents, which called only for another hand at the wheel;