Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/457

 —When I went on deck this morning, several of the passengers were ahead of me, gazing at mountains off to the right: Italy. By 9 o'clock we were close to the shore, and with a glass could see many villages still in ruins from the earthquake of five years ago. The sides of the mountains were terraced, and used as vineyards. In one place, in a canyon far up the mountain, we saw a village which seemed to have been built around an old castle. We were approaching the Strait of Messina, and ships were as numerous as they were in the narrowest part of the Red Sea; at one time, seven sailing-ships were in sight, and several steamers. Presently, on the left, Sicily appeared, and we gazed at Sicily awhile, and then went over to the other deck and looked at Italy, unable to decide which was the more interesting. Both are very mountainous, and much alike. Villages are thick, not only along the shore, but the sides of the mountain are spotted with them, and in both Italy and Sicily we saw many curious old castles and monasteries. On both sides, also, we saw many ruins from the earthquake, although they seemed to be rather more numerous in Sicily than in Italy Just before entering the Strait at the narrowest part, where it is only two miles wide, we saw the town of Messina, which was almost completely destroyed by the earthquake of 1908. Hundreds of the wrecked houses seem never to have been rebuilt, and they present a scene of desolation, but around them many new houses have been built. This is also true on the Italian coast. Many of these new houses were sent from America, ready to set up. Messina had a population of eighty