After a brief, but pleasant, interview with this gentleman, we climb to the Castle of Sant' Elmo, built on a high eminence commanding the town, and with its guns mounted, not so as to defend it against an invading enemy, but to hurl destruction on the devoted subjects of the Bourbon. We are told that the people Lad set their hearts on seeing this fortress, which they look upon as a standing menace, razed to the ground, and its site covered with peaceful dwellings. And it is not without regret that we have since learned that Victor Emmanuel has thought it inexpedient to comply with this wish. Nor, in our ignorance, can we divest ourselves entirely of the belief that it would have been a wise as well as conciliatory policy to do so. We are politely shown over the castle by one of the National Guard, who hold it in charge, and see lounging upon one of its terraces, carefully guarded, but kindly allowed all practicable liberty, several officers of the late power, prisoners where they had formerly held despotic sway. We descend into the now empty dungeons, dark and noisome as they have been described, where victims of political accusation or suspicion have pined for years in dreary solitude. It produces a marked sensation in the minds of our Italian companions in this sad tour of inspection, when we tell them, through our guide Antonio, that these cells are the counterpart of the dungeons of the condemned in the prison of the Doges of Venice, as we had seen them a few days before,--save that the latter were better, in their day, in so far as in them the cold stone was originally lined and concealed by wooden casings, while in those before us the helpless prisoner in his gropings could touch only the hard rock, significant of the relentless despotism which enchained him. The walls are covered with the inscriptions of former tenants. In One place we discover a long line of marks in groups of fives,--like the tallies of our boyish sports,--but here used for how different a purpose! Were these the records of days, or weeks, or months? The only furniture of the cells is a raised platform of wood, the sole bed of the miserable inmate. The Italian visitors, before leaving, childishly vent their useless rage at the sight of these places of confinement, by breaking to pieces the windows and shutters, and scattering their fragments on the floor.