394 CAULFIELD. tary to Sir John Sinclair, the British plenipotentiary at the Sardinian court From Turin he proceeded on the 27th of October, 1748, (cia Bologna) on his way to Rome, and spent the winter between that capital and Naples. In the following April, he sailed froin Leghorn with his precep tor Mr. Murphy, Mr. Dalton his draftsman, and two other Irish gentlemen, on a voyage to Constabtinople. On the 6th of May, 1749, having passed the poetic danger of Scylla and Charybdis, as they approached the entranc of the beautiful bay of Messina, their vessel was visited by the officers of health, who warned them not to approach the city without due examination, for that populous an beautiful capital, the pride of Sicily, had been recently wasted with a dreadful plague, which destroyed the greater part of its inhabitants,. The infection had been brough thither by a Genoese Tartan, laden with wool, bale goods and corn, and she had entered the port under Neapolita colours, but had come direct from the Morea, where the plague had been raging for some time. Her captair pretended he had come from Brindisi, and producee counterfeit bills of health as from that port. But bis ow death in the Lazaretto, gave the first alarm of that pestilence which afterwards produced such horrors. Lord Charlemon and his party were, however, permitted to land at some distance on the beach, and after a tedious ordeal of pre cautionary measures, they were allowed to enter the city lately one of the finest in the world, and a scene of gran deur and gaiety; but now reduced to the most lamentable contrast of its former state. The streets nearly depopulated the few straggling passengers now visible were squali from disease, famine, and despair; the shops every where closed; the pavemeuts overgrown with grass, and a death like silence reigned throughout, interrupted only at inter vals by the plaints of wretchedness. Such were the conse quences of a pestilence, equal perhaps in its horrors to that at Athens, described by Thucydides, or that of Florence related by Boccacio. From Messina the travellers sailed to Maltá, where they
