SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS.

9

the shore, and at length reaches the Calofaro. This delay sometimes continues two hours; sometimes it falls immediately into the Calofaro, and then experience has taught that it is a certain token of bad weather."

We have crossed the straits in somewhat stormy weather, and can bear witness to the violence of the currents, we gazed with interest on the scene now before the reader, and recollected at a critical moment the well-known proverb, " Incidit in Scyllam, qui vult vitare Charybdim." He strikes against Scylla who wishes to avoid Charybdis. The whirlpool, if it still exist, we had no opportunity of observing, and it has doubtless lost much of its terror, even in the susceptible minds of the native boatmen. Probably some physical change may have contributed to produce this effect; for, from the following statement of a British officer, its danger to the small craft of the coast was by no means unreal.

The flights of poetry can seldom bear to be shackled by homely truth, and if we are to receive the fine imagery that places the summit of Scylla, in clouds, brooding eternal mists and tempests, that represents it as inaccessible even to a man provided with twenty hands and twenty feet, and immerses its base among ravenous sea-dogs, why not also receive the whole circle of mythological dogmas of Homer? In the writings of so exquisite a bard, we must not expect to find all his representations strictly confined to a mere accurate narration of facts. Moderns of intelligence, in visiting this spot, have gratified their heated imaginations by fancying it the scourge of seamen, and that, in a gale, its caverns "roar like dogs," but I, as a sailor, never perceived any difference between the effects of these surges here and on any other coast; yet I have frequently watched it closely in bad weather. It is now, as I presume it ever was, a common rock, of bold approach, a little worn at its base, and surmounted by a castle, with a sandy bay on each side. The one on the south side is memorable for the disaster that happened there during the dreadful earthquake of 1783, when an overwhelming wave (supposed to have been occasioned by the fall of part of a promontory into the sea) rushed up the beach, and, in its retreat, bore away with it upwards of two thousand people. Outside the tongue of land, or Braccio di San Rainiere, that forms the harbour of Messina, lies the Calofaro, or celebrated vortex of Charybdis, which has, with more reason than Scylla, been clothed with terrors by the writers of antiquity. To the undecked boats of the Rhegians, Locrians, Zancleans, and Greeks, it must have been formidable; for, even in the present day, small craft are sometimes endangered by it; and I have seen several men-of-war, and even a seventy-four gun-ship, whirled round on its surfrce; but, by using due caution, there is generally very little danger or inconvenience to be apprehended. It appears to be an agitated water, of from seventy to ninety fathoms in depth, circling in quick eddies. It is owing,

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D

probably, to the meeting of the harbour, and lateral currents, with the main one, the latter being forced over, in this direction, by the opposite point of Pezzo. This agrees in some measure with the relation of Thucydides, who calls it a violent reciprocation of the Tyrrhene and Sicilian seas; and he is the only writer of remote antiquity, I remember to have read, who has assigned this danger its true situation, and not exaggerated its effect.

GOLD WASHING IN BRAZIL.

THE extensive and fertile region known under the general name of Brazil, is bounded on the north by English and French Guiana, Venezuela, and Ecuador; on the west, by Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay; on the south, by Monte Video. The real limits of this country have, however, been so little ascertained by actual measurement, that it is almost impossible to give an accurate and authentic statement of its extent. Brazil may be considered as consisting of three distinct regions; viz. a level coastland of generally inconsiderable breadth; an interior table land, the average height of which is estimated at two thousand five hundred feet, and which is surmounted by numerous chains of mountains; lastly, of a large and but slightly inclined plane, watered by the Amazon, or Parañon river, and in which hills of inconsiderable elevation rise but in one part. The strip of plane on the coast is extremely fertile, and, in the uncultivated parts, is covered with forests yet undisturbed by the hand of man. This strip is separated from the highlands by the coast chain of mountains; Serra do Mar, the mean height of which is three thousand feet. Parallel to this, that is, from south to north, are numerous other chains, of which the Serra di Mantiqueira is the highest. None of these, however, rise to any very great height, for even the highest mountain in Brazil, the Itaco-lumi, five thousand seven hundred feet high, is far below the snow-line. It was formerly supposed that these chains, which run parallel to the Andes, belonged to this mountain-system, and formed its spurs; but this opinion is manifestly incorrect, for the Brazilian highlands lower considerably to the west, and are separated from the Andes by extensive plains. These mountains are frequently connected with each other by transverse branches, and inclose very numerous valleys and variously formed vertical depressions. One consequence of this formation of the surface is the extremely lengthened course of the rivers, which, although rising at no great