Breasting the current to do His will. 
  The little bird on the topmost bough
  Merrily pipes to the Poet below,
  Asking an answer as gay, I trow! 
  But he hears the surging waves without,—­
  The atheist’s scoff and the infidel’s doubt,
  The Pharisee’s cant and the sweet saint’s prayer,
  And the piercing cry for rest from care;
  And tears of pity and tears of pain
  Ebb and flow in every strain,
  As he praises God with singing.

A JOURNEY IN SICILY.

CHAPTER I.

PALERMO.

In the latter part of April, 1856, four travellers, one of whom was the present writer, left the Vittoria Hotel at Naples, and at two, P.M., embarked on board the Calabrese steamer, pledged to leave for Palermo precisely at that hour.  As, however, our faith in the company’s protestations was by no means so implicit as had been our obedience to their orders, it was with no feeling of surprise that we discovered by many infallible signs that the hour of departure was yet far off.  True, the funnel sent up its thick cloud; the steward in dirty shirt-sleeves stood firm in the gangway, energetically demanding from the baggage-laden traveller the company’s voucher for the fare, without which he may vainly hope to leave the gangway ladder; the decks were crowded in every part with lumber, live and dead.  But all these symptoms had to be increased many fold in their intensity before we could hope to get under way; and a single glance at the listless countenances of the bare-legged, bare-armed, red-capped crowd who adhered like polypi to the rough foundation-stones of the mole sufficed to show that the performance they had come to witness would not soon commence.  Our berths once visited, we cast about for some quiet position wherein to while away the intervening time.  The top of the deck-house offered as pleasant a prospect as could be hoped for, and thither we mounted.

The whole available portion of the deck, poop included, was in possession of a crowd of youngsters, many mere boys, from the Abruzzi, destined to exchange their rags and emptiness for the gay uniform and good rations of King Ferdinand’s soldiery.  In point of physical comfort, their gain must be immense; and very bad must be that government which, despite of these advantages, has forced upon the soldier’s mind discontent and disaffection.  No doubt, the spectacle of the Swiss regiments doubly paid, and (on Sundays at least) trebly intoxicated, has something to do with this ill feeling.  The raggedness of this troop could be paralleled only by that of the immortal regiment with whom their leader declined to march through Coventry, and was probably even more quaint and fantastic in its character.  Chief in singularity were their hats, if hat be the proper designation of the volcanic-looking gray cone which adhered to the head by some inscrutable dynamic law, and seemed rather fitted for carrying out the stratagem