TAORMINA-JOURNEY ΤΟ MESSINA.

"The heights of Mola, city-crowned,

Look on Taormina's classic steep,

Beneath, the sapphire deep

Rolls on through its accustomed bound;

And, far above the ocean foam,

Like eaglets perched on eyrie home

The rock-built cities rise!"

No sooner had the first beams of day spread themselves over the blue waters, than aroused by my civil landlord I hastened to ascend the mountain of Taurominium ; and bidding adieu to the snug little village of Giardini, my guide and myself remounted our mules, and slowly wound our way up the steep sides of the hill. The situation of Taormina is most singular and picturesque. It is beautifully placed on the summit of wild and lofty rocks, in a salubrious air, and immediately overlooking Giardini, from which it is about two miles' walk, though the real distance is a mere gunshot, and the merry shouts of the children from above are clearly heard in the village beneath. This now inconsiderable place was once the splendid and magnificent city of Taurominium, built by the Zancleans and Hybleans, in the time of Dionysius the First. It still contains several valuable and interesting remains of antiquity, amongst which the theatre is by far the most perfect.

We arrived at the summit of the hill without meeting with any accident, though some tourists have not been so fortunate, as I found from an inscription in my old host's book at Giardini, in which a gentleman who with his guide visited Taormina on asses, writes thus:-"The donkeys here are shocking. I would also advise people to beware of a young lad who pretends to act as a guide to Taormina, for he is a very great rogue. I have been thrown head over heels three times, and if my skull had not proved uncommonly thick, I should certainly have been killed!" Such are the miseries of most persons who ride on asses, from the cockney who falls gracefully on the green turf at Hampstead or Blackheath, to the more perilous adventurer along the mule paths of