At the time of the earthquake, the Messinians had scarce recovered from the ravages of the plague of 1743. This second blow has completely broken their spirit, and obliged them to relinquish the hope of ever seeing their city rebuilt; the King of Naples having ordered that none of the houses in the Crescent shall be roofed, until they are raised to their former height. The inhabitants have remonstrated, by saying, that they cannot bear the expence; but his Majesty is unwilling that they should lose so beautiful an ornament. Even Scylla and Charybdis have been almost subdued by the repeated convulsions of this part of the earth, and by the violence of the current, which is continually increasing the breadth of the Straits. If proper allowance be made for these circumstances, we shall acquit the ancients of any exaggeration, notwithstanding the very dreadful colours in which they have painted this passage. It is formed by a low peninsula, called Cape Pelorus, stretching to the eastward on the Sicilian side, immediately within which lies the famous whirlpool of Charybdis, and by the Rocks of Scylla, which a few miles below on the Calabrian shore, project towards the west. The current runs with surprising force from one to the other alternately in the direction of the tide, and the tides themselves are very irregular. Thus, vessels by shunning the one were in the utmost danger of being swallowed up by the other. At present, in moderate weather, when the tide is either at ebb or flood, boats pass all over the whirlpool, but, in general, it is like the meeting of two contending currents, with a number of eddies all around. And, even now, there is scarcely a winter in which there are not some wrecks. At the time we passed the strait, the weather was as favourable as we could wish, and yet, in spite of a strong breeze and the current, which hurried us on with surprising velocity, the ship's head was suddenly whirled round near three points; but the wind blowing fresh, in a few seconds she dashed through the eddy that had caught her--for, to avoid Scylla, and secure Messina, we had kept pretty close to Charybdis. The entrance of these straits is, I am convinced, not less than three miles wide, but I have never heard it allowed to be so much. After passing Charybdis, the sea immediately widens, but Cape Pelorus and Scylla in a manner crossing each other, the passage cannot be perceived until you are on the point of entering it, which gave rise to a tradition, that Hannibal, fancying himself betrayed and land-locked, put his Pilot Pelorus to death; but that, as an atonement, he afterwards erected a statue to his memory, from which the Cape took its name. This action, however, is so contradictory to the history, experience, and disposition of Hannibal, that nobody could ever have raised such a story, but one who had never read the life of this magnanimous hero.