You scoffed at me when I said I should like to go up Mount Etna, and now here you are, dragging me along this cliff, just to look at some rocks of no possible interest to any one." "That is the point to be inquired into, Matteo.

I think it's possible they may prove very interesting." Matteo shrugged his shoulders, as he often did when he felt too lazy to combat the eccentric ideas of his English friend.
"There we are," Francis said at last, standing on the edge of the cliff and looking down.

"Nothing could be better." "I am glad you think so, Francisco," Matteo said, seating himself on the grass.

"I hope you intend to stay some little time to admire them, for I own that I should like a rest before I go back." Francis stood looking at the rocks.

The bay was a shallow one, and was but five or six hundred yards from point to point, the rocks rising nearly in a line between the points, and showing for about two hundred yards above water, and at about the same distance from the cliffs behind them.
"What height do you think those rocks are above the water, Giuseppi ?" "It is difficult to judge, signor, we are so high above them; but I should think in the middle they must be ten or twelve feet." "I should think it likely they were more than double that, Giuseppi; but we shall see better when we get down to the bottom.