th passages through them, and strong towers at each angle
with which they communicated. So numerous and intricate were the
passages, and so dark and dangerous, from their ruined condition, that
even I, a son of the house, had never entirely explored them.

"Inland of the castle was an extensive and now highly-cultivated plain,
the property of my father, who could thus from the summit of his tower
survey the greater portion of his estates. Beyond the plain rose range
above range of lofty and almost inaccessible mountains which gave a
character of peculiar wildness to the scenery. Indeed, during the
winter, I have never seen a spot partaking more of savage grandeur than
my paternal castle; with the stormy ocean roaring on one side, and the
cloud-capped Appenines towering to the skies on the other.

"It was my delight as a boy, with my gun in my hand, to hunt the wild
chamois among the remote recesses and rugged precipices of the one, or
to bound in my light boat over the dancing waves of the other.

"Among such scenes was I born, and I believe they gave a tone to my
mind, which subsequent intercourse with the world did not altogether
wear out; and such as may be supposed had a still more powerful effect
on the mind of my sisters, who enjoyed less means of having their effect
counteracted.

"One night during the middle of winter, when all the members of the
family were assembled in the great hall, sitting round the large dish of
burning embers, to keep ourselves warm, chilled as we should otherwise
have been from the effects of a furious gale, which blew across the
Adriatic from the snowy mountains of Albania, a report was brought in by
one of the farm servants, that a vessel was driving towards a dangerous
reef of rocks, which ran out to sea, at a short distance from the
southward of the castle. My brother and I seized our hats and cloaks,
and bidding the rest of the family not to be alarmed for our safety, we
rushed out to see what assistance we might render to the hapless crew of
the vessel, should any of them escape alive. She was still at some
little distance, and apparently not aware of the imminence of her
danger, for she was firing guns of distress to call those on the shore
to her assistance, as if, in the situation she was placed, any human aid
could be afforded her. The sea was running to a prodigious height, and
dashing with the wildest fury on the rocky shore, and not a boat we had
ever seen could hav