Opposite rose the fair and fruitful coast of Sicily, the spires of Messina, and the green ridge of the Neptunian hills; behind which sank the setting sun, whose last rays changed the hue of the ocean from blue to purple: the Straits were studded with craft of every description, from the stately British line-of-battle ship, to the little scampavia, with its red and yellow latteen sail. As we pulled up our horses beside Monte Jaci, to view the splendid prospect, the old tradition came to my remembrance:— "The Italian shore And fair Sicilia’s coast were _one_, before An earthquake caused the flaw: the roaring tides The passage broke, that land from land divides; And, where the lands retired, the rushing ocean rides." _Æneas_, iii. The roaring of the sea in the cavern of Dragara caused our horses to snort and rear; and the sound was not unlike the cry of some "tremendous pest," or monster, such as Scylla was fabled by the poets of old. But, enough; or the reader will suspect me of that "dull pedantry which finds everything ancient necessarily sublime." The whole coast bore traces of that dreadful visitation, the earthquake of 1783; when vast masses of the shore fell into the sea, burying gardens, fields, dwellings: at the base of Monte Jaci lay a mighty piece of rock, which had been hurled from its summit to the margin of the Mediterranean. "On that night of horrors," said Castelermo, "when all Calabria was trembling with the internal convulsions of the world; when the sea exhaled brimstone, and the whole face of the land became changed; when rivers were choked up by the fall of the mountains, or rolled back upon their source; when cities, engulfed in yawning earth, were lost for ever; when hills became lakes, and the last day of dread and judgment seemed at hand;—the ocean heaved up its waters to the height of twenty feet; and, rushing on the coast for the distance of three miles, swept back into the abyss two thousand four hundred and seventy human beings, who had fled to the shore for safety from the crumbling cliffs and falling mountains. The heavens seemed all in flames, and the ocean rolled on, wearing the red tint which the light reflected on it; the promontory of Campala fell into the waves, and not a fragment of it remained: Scylla was split to its foundations, and the solid towers of its castle flung from the rock upon the town below. The eagles screamed and grovelled panting on the ground; whilst the wolves howled with affright in the recesses of the woods. All nature seemed convulsed, paralyzed, and trembling on the brink of destruction."