of lights glancing along the seaside at Palermo, the solemn old palaces seen from the eminence around us, and the noble pile through whose low windows we strolled out upon the terrace, the music and the excitement, all blended a scene that is drawn

with bright and living lines in my memory. We parted unwillingly, and reaching Palermo about midnight, pulled off to the frigates, and were under way at daylight for Messina.

This is the poetry of sailing. The long, low frigate glides on through the water with no more motion than is felt in a diningroom on shore. The sea changes only from a glossy calm to a feathery ripple, the sky is always serene, the merchant sail appears and disappears on the horizon edge, the island rises on the bow, creeps along the quarter, is examined by the glasses of the idlers on deck and sinks gradually astern, the sun-fish whirls in the eddy of the wake, the tortoise plunges and breathes about us, and the delightful temperature of the sea, even and invigorating, keeps both mind and body in an undisturbed equilibrium of enjoyment. For me it is a paradise. I am glad to escape from the contact, the dust, the trials of temper, the noon-day sultriness, and the midnight chill, the fatigue, and privation, and vexation, which beset the traveller on shore. I shall return to it no doubt willingly after a while, but for the present, it is rest, it is relief, refreshment, to be at sea. There is no swell in the Mediterranean during the summer months, and this gliding about sleeping or reading, as if at home, from one port to another, seems to me just now the Utopia of enjoyment.

We have been all day among the Lipari islands. It is pleas

ant to look up at the shaded and peaceful huts on their mountainous sides, as we creep along under them, or to watch the fisherman's children with a glass, as they run out from their huts on the sea-shore to gaze at the uncommon apparition of a ship-ofwar. They seem seats of solitude and retirement. I have just dropped the glass, which I had raised to look at what I took to be a large ship in full sail rounding the point of Felicudi. It is a tall, pyramidal rock, rising right from the sea, and resembling exactly a ship with studding-sails set, coming down before the wind. The band is playing on the deck; and a fisherman's boat with twenty of the islanders resting on their oars and listening in wondering admiration, lies just under our quarter. It will form a tale for the evening meal, to which they were hastening home.

a strong current. The "

We run between Scylla and Charybdis, with a fresh wind and The "dogs" were silent, and the "whirlpool" Scylla is quite a town, and the tall

is a bubble to Hurl-gate.

rock at the entrance of the strait is crowned with a large build

ing, which seems part of a fortification.

The passage through Messina lies in a curve

the Faro is lonely-quite like a river. ⚫f the western shore, at the base of a hill; and, opposite, a Staceful slope covered with vineyards, swells up to a broad table plain on the mountain, which looked like the home of peace and fertility.

We rounded to, off the town, to send in for letters, and I went ashore in the boat. Two American friends, whom I had as little expectation of meeting as if I had dropped upon Jerusalem, hailed me from the grating of the health-office, before we reached

the land, and having exhibited our bill of health, I had half an hour for a call upon an old friend, resident at Messina, and we were off again to the ship. The sails filled, and we shot away on a strong breeze down the straits. Rhegium lay on our left, a large cluster of old-looking houses on the edge of the sea. It was at this town of Calabria that St. Paul landed on his journey to Rome. We sped on without much time to look at it, even with a glass, and were soon rounding the toe of "the boot," the southern point of Italy. We are heading at this moment for the gulf of Tarento, and hope to be in Venice by the fourth of July.

LETTER X.

The Adriatic-Albania-Gay Costumes and Beauty of the Albanese-Capo d'IstriaTrieste resembles an American Town-Visit to the Austrian Authorities of the Province -Curiosity of the Inhabitants-Gentlemanly Reception by the Military Commandant-Visit to Vienna-Singular Notions of the Austrians respecting the Americans-Similarity of the Scenery to that of New England-Meeting with German Students-Frequent Sight of Soldiers and Military Preparation-Picturesque Scenery of Styria.

It is the

THE Doge of Venice has a fair bride in the Adriatic. fourth of July, and with the Italian Cape Colonna on our left, and the long, low coast of Albania shading the horizon on the east, we are gazing upon her from the deck of the first American frigate that has floated upon her bosom. We head for Venice, and there is a stir of anticipation on board, felt even through the hilarity of our cherished anniversary. I am the only one in the ward-room to whom that wonderful city is familiar, and I feel as if I had forestalled my own happiness-the first impression of it is so enviable.

It is difficult to conceive the gay costumes and handsome features of the Albanese, existing in these barren mountains that bind the Adriatic. It has been but a continued undulation of rock and sand, for three days past; and the closer we hug to the

SUMMER CRUISE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.

101.

shore, the more we look at the broad canvass above us, and pray for wind. We make Capo d'Istria now, a small town nestled in a curve of the sea, and an hour or two more will bring us to Trieste, where we drop anchor, we hope, for many an hour of novelty and pleasure.

Trieste lies sixty or eighty miles from Venice, across the head of the gulf. The shore between is piled up to the sky with the "blue Friuli mountains ;" and from the town of Trieste, the low coast of Istria breaks away at a right angle to the south, forming the eastern boud of the Adriatic. As we ran into the harbor on our last tack, we passed close under the garden walls of the villa of the ex-queen of Naples, a lovely spot just in the suburbs. The palace of Jerome Bonaparte was also pointed out to us by the pilot on the hill just above. They have both removed since to Florence, and their palaces are occupied by English. We dropped anchor within a half mile of the pier, and the flags of a dozen American vessels were soon distinguishable among the various colors of the shipping in the port.

I accompanied Commodore Patterson to-day on a visit of ceremony to the Austrian authorities of the province. We made our way with difficulty through the people, crowding in hundreds to the water-side, and following us with the rude freedom of a showman's audience. The vice-governor, a polite but Frenchified German count, received us with every profession of kindness. His Parisian gestures sat ill enough upon his national high cheek