“I should like to try,” Matteo said.  “What a grand view there would be from the top!

“Is the port we are going to try first, captain, anywhere near the foot of the mountain?”

“No, I am going round the southern part of the island.  On this side the ground is less fertile, and we should have difficulty in obtaining a cargo.  But even were we to put into a port on this side, you would not be able to climb Mount Etna.

“Sicily has been an unfortunate country.  Its great natural wealth has rendered it an object of desire, to all its neighbours.  It was the battleground of the Romans and Carthaginians.  Pisa, Genoa, and Naples have all contended for its possession; and the Moors frequently make descents upon its coasts.  It has seldom enjoyed a peaceful and settled government.  The consequence is that general lawlessness prevails in the districts remote from the towns; while in the forests that clothe the side of Mount Etna, there are numerous hordes of bandits who set the authorities at defiance, levy blackmail throughout the surrounding villages, and carry off wealthy inhabitants, and put them to ransom.  No one in his senses would think of ascending that mountain, unless he had something like an army with him.”

“I should like to try it, all the same,” Matteo asserted.  “If there are woods all over it, it is not likely one would happen to meet with any of these people.  I should like, above all things, to get to the top of that hill.”

“It would be harder work than you think, young sir,” the captain said.  “You have no idea from this distance what the height is, or what a long journey it is to ascend to the top.  I have been told that it is a hundred and twenty miles round its foot.”

“I don’t think you would like it, Matteo, if you were to try it,” Francis said laughing.  “You know you are as lazy as you can be, and hate exerting yourself.  I am sure that, before you got a quarter the distance up that mountain, you would have only one wish, and that would be to be at the bottom again.”

“I don’t know,” Matteo said.  “I hate exerting myself uselessly—­wasting my strength, as you do, in rowing at an oar, or anything of that sort; but to do anything great, I would not mind exertion, and would go on until I dropped.”

“That is all very well, Matteo; but to do anything great, you have got to do small things first.  You could never wield a sword for five minutes unless you had practised with it; and you will never succeed in accomplishing any feats requiring great strength and endurance, if you do not practise your muscles on every occasion.  You used to grumble at the height when you came up to my room in the old house, and I suppose Etna is something like two hundred times as high.”

“That does sound a serious undertaking,” Matteo said, laughing; “and I am afraid that I shall never see the view from the top of Etna.  Certainly I shall not, if it will be necessary beforehand to be always exercising my muscles by running up the stairs of high houses.”