CHAPTER XXX.
THE FESTIVAL OF ST. AGATHA.
Departure from Malta — The Speronara — Our Fellow — Passengers — The First Night on Board — Sicily — Scarcity of Provisions — Beating in the Calabrian Channel — The Fourth Morning — The Gulf of Catania — A Sicilian Landscape — The Anchorage — The Suspected List — The Streets of Catania — Biography of St. Agatha — The Illuminations — The Procession of the Veil — The Biscari Palace — The Antiquities of Catania — The Convent of St. Nicola.
"The morn is full of holiday, loud bells
With rival clamors ring from every spire;
Cunningly-stationed music dies and swells
In echoing places; when the winds respire,
Light flags stream out like gauzy tongues of fire."
— Keats.
Catania, Sicily, Friday, August 20, 1852.
I went on board the speronara in the harbor of La Valetta at the appointed hour (5 p. m.), and found the remaining sixteen passengers already embarked. The captain made his appearance an hour later, with our bill of health and passports, and as the sun went down behind the brown hills of the island, we passed the wave-worn rocks of the promontory, dividing the two harbors, and slowly moved off towards Sicily.
The Maltese speronara resembles the ancient Roman galley more than any modern craft. It has the same high, curved poop and stern, the same short masts and broad, square sails. The hull is too broad for speed, but this adds to the security
