As we lay at anchor at _Messina_, we were presented with a delightful landskip, which the narrow winding of the _Faro_, the verdure of the opposite shores, the wall, the citadel, and town itself afforded. The front of the whole city is one continued pile of buildings, extending three quarters of a mile in length, from the Viceroy’s house to that called the _French bastion_. It intirely consists of free stone, being raised four story high, adorned with carved windows, balconies, battlements, and other ornaments, all answering to each other with an exact regularity. No house has any doors to the sea, but the entrance is at large gates, which front so many streets of the city, placed at equal distances, and each of them inscribed with some religious device. This range is contrived, as for ornament, so likewise for defence; it being at the bottom of a prodigious thickness, so as to withstand a siege, and decreasing proportionably towards the top. The whole running in a bend, which is every where equidistant from the sea, represents a curvilineal amphitheatre. The inner part of the city does not answer to this magnificence of the front; tho there often occur many single pieces of great art and curiosity. Such as the _King’s statue_ on horseback, exactly resembling that of our late King _Charles_ at _Windsor_. The _Statue_ of _Don John of Austria_, in memory of the victory obtained by him at _Lepanto_ in 1571. The beautiful structure of a public _fountain_, adorned at the bottom with four large and masterly figures, representing _Nilus_, _Iberus_, _Tiber_, and _Euripus_. But more curious than the rest is a figure of _Neptune_ on the mole, cast in solid brass, and attended on each side with two very natural representations of the monsters _Scylla_ and _Charybdis_. But it was not so entertaining to observe these, as deplorable to see, what St. _Paul_ bewailed at _Athens_, a city wholly given to idolatry and superstition. It affords a melancholy consideration to any serious spectator, to be witness to so many vain and hypocritical addresses made to the images and altars, which abound in this deluded place. For this brings the like scandal upon Christianity, as was so offensive under the ranked heathenism, and too truly exposes the subjects of it to that derision of _Lucretius_: _Nec pietas ulla est velatum saepe videri_ _Vertier ad lapidem, et quascunque accedere ad aras_[148].