F. Muenter--one of a band of travellers who explored these regions after
the earthquake of 1783--also gave voice to his fears that Messina had
not yet experienced the full measure of her calamities. . . .

I remember a night in September of 1908, a Sunday night, fragrant with
the odours of withered rosemary and cistus and fennel that streamed in
aromatic showers from the scorched heights overhead--a starlit night,
tranquil and calm. Never had Messina appeared so attractive to me.
Arriving there generally in the daytime and from larger and sprightlier
centres of civilization, one is prone to notice only its defects. But
night, especially a southern night, has a wizard touch. It transforms
into objects of mysterious beauty all unsightly things, or hides them
clean away; while the nobler works of man, those facades and cornices
and full-bellied balconies of cunningly wrought iron rise up, under its
enchantment, ethereal as the palace of fairies. And coming, as I then
did, from the sun-baked river-beds of Calabria, this place, with its
broad and well-paved streets, its glittering cafes and demure throng of
evening idlers, seemed a veritable metropolis, a world-city.

With deliberate slowness, _ritardando con molto sentimento,_ I worked my
way to the familiar restaurant.

At last! At last, after an interminable diet of hard bread, onions and
goat's cheese, I was to enjoy the complicated menu mapped out weeks
beforehand, after elaborate consideration and balancing of merits; so
complicated, that its details have long ago lapsed from my memory. I
recollect only the sword-fish, a local speciality, and (as crowning
glory) the _cassata alla siciliana,_ a glacial symphony, a multicoloured
ice of commingling flavours, which requires far more time to describe
than to devour. Under the influence of this Sybaritic fare, helped down