The Italians appear, however, to choose the streets as places of rendezvous, in preference to enclosures of this kind; for every where I noticed that the garden-walks were empty, and the streets full.

But on the whole there is not nearly so much life here as at Catanea.

In order to obtain a view of the whole of Messina and its environs I ascended a hill near the town, surmounted by a Capuchin convent; here I enjoyed a prospect which I have seldom seen equalled.

As I gazed upon it I could easily imagine that an inhabitant of Messina can find no place in the world so beautiful as his native town.
The promontory against which the town leans is clothed with a carpet of the brightest green, planted with fruit-trees of all kinds, and enlivened with scattered towns, villages, and country seats.
Beautiful roads, appearing like white bands, intersect the mountains on every side in the direction of the town.

The background is closed by high mountains, sometimes wooded, sometimes bare, now rising in the form of alps, now in the shape of rocky masses.