Seeking a thick and gloomy dingle, I flung myself under its shadow to rest; breathless with my recent exertion, the long day’s march, and the excitement of the last hour. My plan was soon decided: to approach Scylla, from which I was then nearly thirty miles distant, was my principal object; but many dangerous obstacles were to be encountered and overcome, before I stood in the hall of Ruffo Sciglio. The snow melting among the Apennines had swollen the Metramo and other rivers which I had to pass; the towns, villages, and all the level country swarmed with French troops and Buonapartist sbirri or gendarmes, all closing up towards the point of attack; while the woods and mountains were infested by banditti, the most ferocious and lawless in Europe. To lie concealed in thickets by day and to travel by night, was the plan I proposed adopting; and anxious to find myself as far as possible from the place of my imprisonment, after a brief rest I set forward on my dubious and difficult journey; thinking more of the joy of embracing Bianca, than the triumph of meeting Regnier in the breach. Many of the mountains being yet capped with snow rendered the air cold and chilly; my head was without covering, and I was destitute of every means of defence against either robbers or wolves: the last were numerous in these wilds, and I often heard their cries rising up from the depths of the moonlit forest, through which I toiled southward. So wearying, difficult and uncertain was the path, that I had only proceeded seven or eight miles when day broke, and found me in an open and desert place near Nicotera. The appearance of a body of the enemy marching down the hills was sufficient to scare me, and seeking shelter in an orange wood, I lay concealed in it for hours; not daring to venture forth, although I felt the effects of an appetite sharpened by the keen mountain air. I had heard much of the manna said to be found in the morning on the leaves of the mulberry and other trees in Calabria; but not a drop was to be seen, although I searched anxiously enough. The day seemed interminably long, and joyfully I hailed eve closing as the sun sank once more behind Sicily, and the long shadows of Nicotera fell across the plain. Armed with a stout club, torn from a tree, I once more set forward, favoured by the dusk and refreshed by my long halt, though hungry as a hawk.