DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11789#0054
44
MESSINA.
pearance of a mightier monster (our steamer), or
from some other cause, both she and her sea-pup-
pies were very meek and quiet during our passage.
Messina is a beautiful place to those approaching
it from the sea, but it is not at all interesting or
agreeable after you are once in the 'town. The
streets are neither wide nor clean, and there are
but few fine-looking buildings, except those stand-
ing on the wharf. The weather, while we were
there, was also very cold and disagreeable, and
they have no other method of heating their houses,
than by placing a brazier of coals in the middle of
the room.* We therefore gladly took our passage
in the excellent French steamer Teldmaque, turn-
ing our backs on the hills and orange groves of Sicily,
and our faces towards the valley of the "sevenfold
Nile." As we again passed Mount Etna, on our way
southward, we could distinctly see the smoke rising
from some of Vulcan's yet unextinguished forges.
At Malta (which is the great centre at which all
the Mediterranean steamers stop), we left the T416-
maque, and took passage in the Nile, in which
* This practice is less dangerous in Sicily than it would
be'with us ; because there the rooms have, generally speak-
ing, much higher ceilings than ours, and are not built with
a view to exclude as much as possible every breath of air.
MESSINA.
pearance of a mightier monster (our steamer), or
from some other cause, both she and her sea-pup-
pies were very meek and quiet during our passage.
Messina is a beautiful place to those approaching
it from the sea, but it is not at all interesting or
agreeable after you are once in the 'town. The
streets are neither wide nor clean, and there are
but few fine-looking buildings, except those stand-
ing on the wharf. The weather, while we were
there, was also very cold and disagreeable, and
they have no other method of heating their houses,
than by placing a brazier of coals in the middle of
the room.* We therefore gladly took our passage
in the excellent French steamer Teldmaque, turn-
ing our backs on the hills and orange groves of Sicily,
and our faces towards the valley of the "sevenfold
Nile." As we again passed Mount Etna, on our way
southward, we could distinctly see the smoke rising
from some of Vulcan's yet unextinguished forges.
At Malta (which is the great centre at which all
the Mediterranean steamers stop), we left the T416-
maque, and took passage in the Nile, in which
* This practice is less dangerous in Sicily than it would
be'with us ; because there the rooms have, generally speak-
ing, much higher ceilings than ours, and are not built with
a view to exclude as much as possible every breath of air.