“Even now at times the sea rises and closes the orifice, so that those who have entered cannot escape.  In which case they must wait till the wind, which had suddenly shifted to the east or west, returns to the north or south; and it has happened that visitors who came to spend twenty minutes in the azure grotto, have remained there two, three, and even four days.  To provide against such an emergency, the boatmen always bring with them a certain quantity of biscuit to feed the prisoners, and as the rock affords fresh water in several places, there is no fear of thirst.  It was not till we had been in the grotto some time that our boatmen communicated this piece of information; we were disposed to reproach them for this delay, but they answered with the utmost simplicity, that if they told this at first to travellers, half of them would decline coming, and this would injure the boatmen.

“I confess that this little piece of information raised a certain disquietude, and I found the azure grotto infinitely less agreeable to the imagination....  We again laid ourselves down at the bottom of our respective canoes, and issued forth with the same precautions, and the same good fortune, with which we had entered.  But we were some minutes before we could open our eyes; the burning sun upon the glittering ocean absolutely blinded us.  We had not gone many yards, however, before the eye recovered itself, and all that we had seen in the azure grotto had the consistency of a dream.”

From Capri our travellers proceed to Sicily.  We have a long story and a violent storm upon the passage, and are landed at Messina.  Here M. Dumas enlarges his experience by an acquaintance with the Sirocco.  His companion, M. Jadin, had been taken ill, and a physician had been called in.

“The doctor had ordered that the patient (who was suffering under a fever) should be exposed to all the air possible, that doors and windows should be opened, and he should be placed in the current.  This was done; but on the present evening, to my astonishment, instead of the fresh breeze of the night—­which was wont to blow the fresher from our neighbourhood to the sea—­there entered at the open window a dry hot wind like the air from a furnace.  I waited for the morning, but the morning brought no change in the state of the atmosphere.

“My patient had suffered greatly through the night.  I rang the bell for some lemonade, the only drink the doctor had recommended; but no one answered the summons.  I rang again, and a third time:  still no one came; at length seeing that the mountain would not come to me, I went to the mountain.  I wandered through the corridor, and entered apartment after apartment, and found no one to address.  It was nine o’clock in the morning, yet the master and mistress of the house had not left their room, and not a domestic was at his post.  It was quite incomprehensible.

    “I descended to the portico; I found him lying on an old sofa
    all in tatters, the principal ornament of his room, and asked
    him why the house was thus deserted.