infrequently employed in nephritic complaints; the _Ferula_, sighing for occupation all along the sea-shore, and shaking its scourge as the wind blows; the _Rhododendron_, in full blossom, planted amongst the shingles; the _Thapsia gargarica_, with its silver umbel, looking at a short distance like mica, (an appearance caused by the shining white fringe of the capsule encasing its seed,) and many other strange and beautiful things, were the constant attendants of our march. We counted six or seven varieties of the spurge, (_Euphorbium_,) each on its milky stem, and in passing through the villages had _Carnations_ as large as _Dahlias_ flung at us by sunburnt urchins posted at their several doors. The sandy shore for many miles is beautifully notched in upon by tiny bays like basins, on which boats lie motionless and baking in the sun, or oscillate under a picturesque rock, immersed up to its shoulders in a green _hyaloid_, which reflects their forms from a depth of many fathoms. On more open stretches of the shore, long-drawn ripples of waves of tiny dimension are overrunning and treading on one another's heels for miles a-head, and tapping the anchored boat "with gentle blow." The long-horned oxen already spoken of, toil along the seaside road like the horses on our canal banks, and tug the heavy felucca towards Messina--a service, however, sometimes executed by men harnessed to the towing-cord, who, as they go, offend the Sicilian muses by sounds and by words that have little indeed of the [Greek: Dôriz aoida]. The gable ends of cottages often exhibit a very primitive windmill for sawing wood within doors. It is a large wheel, to the spokes of which flappers are adjusted, made of coarse matting, and so placed as to profit by the ordinary sea breeze; and, while the _wind_ is thus _sawing_ his planks for him, the carpenter, at his door, carries on his craft. We pass below not a few fortresses abutting over the sea, or perched on the mountain tops. Many of these are of English construction, and date from the occupation of the island during the French war: in a word, the whole of this Sicilian road is so variously lovely, that if we did not know the _cornice_ between _Nice_ and _Genoa_, we should say it was quite unrivaled, being at once in lavish possession of all the grand, and most of the milder elements of landscape composition. It is long since it became no wonder to us that the greatest and in fact the only, real pastoral poet should have been a Sicilian; but it is a marvel indeed, that, having forgotten to bring his _Eclogues_ with us, we cannot, through the whole of Sicily, find a copy of Theocitus for sale, though there is a _Sicilian_ translation of him to be had at Palermo. As he progresses thus delightfully, a long-wished for moment awaits the traveller approaching towards _Giardini_--turning round a far projecting neck of land, _Etna_ is at last before him! A disappointment, however, on the whole is Etna himself, thus introduced.