I had several times passed the Straits, each time with renewed pleasure and admiration. It would be difficult to imagine a scene more wild and peculiar. After rounding the huge rock of Tavolara--apparently a promontory running boldly out into the sea, but in reality an island, we are at once at the mouth of the Straits. The mountains of Corsica, generally enveloped in clouds, rise above the horizon ahead, and near at hand a thousand rocks and islands of various dimensions appear to choke up the passage. The narrow southern channel, always selected by day, is intricate, and would be dangerous to strangers; and indeed the whole of the Straits are considered so difficult, that the fact of Nelson, without previous experience, having taken his fleet through, is cited even by French sailors as a prodigy. On one of the rocky points of the Sardinian coast, I observed the ruins of a building, but so deceptive is distance, I could not at first determine whether it had been a fortress or a cottage. I asked one of the officers for his telescope; and being still in doubt, questioned him as I returned it. He smiled and said: 'For the last five or six years, I have never passed through the Straits by day without having had to relate the story connected with that ruin. It has become a habit with me to do so; and if you had not spoken, I should have been compelled, under penalty of passing a restless night, to have let out my narrative at dinner. You will go down to your berth presently; for see how the smoke is weighed down by the heavy atmosphere upon the deck, and how it rolls like a snake along the waters! What you fancy to be merely a local head-wind blowing through the Straits, is a mistral tormenting the whole Gulf of Lions. We shall be tossing about presently in a manner unpleasant to landsmen; and when you are safely housed, I will come and beguile a little time by relating a true story of a Corsican Vendetta.' The prophecy was correct. In less than a quarter of an hour, _Le Caire_ was pitching through the last narrows against as violent a gale as I ever felt. It was like a wall of moving air. The shores, rocks, and islands were now concealed by driving mist; and as the sea widened before us, it was covered with white-crested waves. Before I went below, a cluster of sails ahead was pointed out as the English fleet; and it was surmised that it would be compelled to repeat Nelson's manoeuvre, as Sardinia and Corsica form a dangerous lee-shore. However, the atmosphere thickened rapidly; and we soon lost sight of all objects but the waves amidst which we rolled, and the phantom-like shores of Corsica.