It is melancholy to see this fine country so neglected and deserted. We hardly saw a human being upon the road, or houses anywhere; for miles beyond Syracuse, the ground was strewed with ruins, all overgrown with grass, weeds, and prickly pears. Here and there we saw a vineyard, but this was not the season for grapes; the vines were bare, and propped up with cane-poles. A few olive-trees were scattered about: these trees are about the size of a willow, and their leaves are green all the year round. The olives were now nearly full-grown. About ten o’clock in the forenoon, we saw a little town called Melilla on the side of a mountain, about six miles off, but we passed by without entering it; and met with no inhabitants, except a peasant riding on an ass. Melilla produces the finest honey in the world, and this gave the town its name. All along the road in this neighborhood, we saw great abundance of wild thyme and other fragrant flowers, which furnish the busy bees with rich materials for their labors. In a wild part of the road further onward, we met a company of half a dozen men with guns advancing toward us. I asked the muleteers if they were not robbers, and was told that they were _gens d’armes_, whose business it was to guard the road from robbers. Travelling in Sicily was formerly very dangerous, but it is less so at present. By-and-by we came to a very rocky place, where I saw a deep gully passing right across the road. I was about to dismount and lead my mule over it, not imagining he would think of passing it with a rider on his back,--when he gave a sudden leap and bounded over the chasm in an instant, alighting on his fore feet with such a shock that he pitched me completely over his head. Luckily one of my feet caught in the stirrup, and this hindered me from being thrown straight forward and dashed head first upon the rock, which would have killed me in an instant. But the catching of the stirrup gave me a whirl to the left, so that I fell against the low branches of a wild fig-tree, and escaped with only a slight bruise. The men behind jumped off their beasts and ran to pick me up, judging me to be dead, or my limbs broken at least; but I was on my feet before they had time to help me. On learning the cause of the accident, they advised me, in future, always to keep my seat, however difficult the road might appear, for they assured me a mule knew much more than a man about these matters. I ran after my beast, which, I found, had not gone far; he was standing stock-still, waiting for me, and doubtless understanding the whole affair perfectly well. I could not help thinking that he gave a roguish twinkle of the eye as I got on his back again; but this might be fancy.