Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/331

Rh and from the edge of a vertical cliff you will see a view to be remembered,—a tumbled mass of hill and rock, flecked with bright yellow patches of sulphur, the output of the mines which form the trade of the place, and in the distance the great shoulders and white peak of Etna; seawards, the deep blue Mediterranean, a little white surf breaking on the yellow sands, and the old harbour of Empedocle, still used for craft which carry sulphur, once the naval base of a Greek fleet. Then go down to the Temples. Spend several afternoons there. Not so large as those at Paestum, but more beautiful, six in number. They have stood there for twenty-five centuries, in spite of all that Romans, Early Christian fanatics, Saracens and Normans, to say nothing of old Time, could do to destroy them.

Sicily is richer in colour than Italy. Sitting there, with luncheon, cold chicken, cheese, figs, and red wine, we listened to a small goatherd who came to keep us company, piping on his rustic instrument shaped out of a hollow reed, whilst his goats skipped from stone to stone, and came to him to eat the succulent cactus leaves he had gathered for their meal. Just such a scene as Theocritus sings of in his Idylls of Sicily. We rewarded him with the relics of our luncheon. One's eyes roamed over a carpet of crocus, lily, asphodel, scarlet poppies, here and there dotted with olive and almond trees. A great silence broods over the land. Difficult to realize in the quiet peace of a golden afternoon, the old city of 550 B.C., a population of half a million; citizens of princely wealth; one of the temples, now destroyed, rivalling that of Diana of Ephesus,―with a trade that exceeded even that of Carthage.