of which were threaded
by their experienced guide with as much facility as if it had been
noonday instead of dark night, Herrera and Torres paused at sunrise upon
the crest of a small eminence, whence they commanded a view of an
extensive plain. On their right front, and at the distance of a mile,
lay a town, composed of dark buildings of quaint and ancient
architecture, surrounded by walls and a moat, and on the battlements of
which sentries were stationed; whilst from the church tower the Spanish
colours, the gaudy red and gold, flaunted their folds in the morning
breeze.

"What place is that?" said Torres to the guide.

"It is the Christino town of Salvatierra," replied the gipsy, turning
into a path that led directly to the gate of the fortress.

SICILIAN SKETCHES.

SYRACUSIANA.

FOUNTAIN OF ARETHUSA.

After three hours' steaming from Catania, we were in the harbour of
Syracuse; but it was at two in the morning, and we could not go ashore.
A little scuttling takes place overhead while the Mongibello litters her
two hundred and forty horses for the night; and, when this is
accomplished, all is silent, and we sleep in the moonlit mirror. In two
hours more the last star had dropped out of its place; and in another,
rosy morn found us all in activity, and on deck, examining a most
unprepossessing _paysage_, and contemplating, for many a league, the
wretched coast road which must have been our doom if we had _not_ come
by sea--so, for once, we had chosen well! Our alternative would have
consisted in two days' swinging in a _lettiga_, in facing malaria in the
fields, with nothing but famine and fever-stricken hamlets to halt at,
and even these at long intervals. There were, to be sure, places enough
of ancient _name_, in D'Anville's Geography, along the coast, but
nothing _beyond_ the name itself. This is so exactly the case, that even
with the beautiful and authentic money of _Leontium_ before us, we did
not land at _Lentini_! There is nothing so utterly confounding as the
contemplation of _money_, every piece of which is a _gem_, on spots
where no imagination can conceive the city that coined it. We are not
long before we begin to cater for new disappointment, in the desire to
be conducted without delay to the fountain of _Arethusa_. Accordingly, a
quarter of a mile's distance from our locanda, under the rampart of the
old _Ortygia_, and in the most uncleanly suburb of modern Syracuse, the
far-famed spri