En flânant de Messine à Cadix by Eugène Montfort
"In peril on the sea" by Montague T. Hainsselin is a travel narrative written in the early 20th century. It follows a cultivated wanderer and his companion on a Mediterranean journey from Naples through Sicily toward Spain, blending eyewitness reportage with lyrical impressions. The likely focus is coastal ports, seaborne passages, and the human and urban landscape reshaped by disaster—especially around Reggio and Messina—before turning toward North Africa and Andalusia. The opening
of the work finds the narrator in Naples hunting passage to Spain, daydreaming of exotic encounters aboard a German liner, then deciding first to cross into Sicily by land to see Calabria. As the train skirts the coast, hints of the recent earthquake sharpen into fields of rubble and a chastened, half-camped Reggio, where the travelers lodge in wooden barracks, wander stunned among ruins at dusk, and sense fear and distrust after dark. At dawn they cross the strait: from afar Messina looks serene, but up close it is a vast carcass of fallen palaces, gutted streets, and silent interiors, with a few eerie survivals—the theater intact, a statue untouched, a lone reinforced house now serving meals. Amid this devastation, a provisional city of shops and barracks hums to life, while water is drawn from hacked pipes and clearance seems impossibly slow. The section closes with a ride to Taormina and a hotelier’s harrowing testimony of the first days—panic, looting, scattered families, and frayed nerves—prompting the narrator’s sober reflection on how survival itself has morally unbalanced the living. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Montfort, Eugène, 1877-1936 |
|---|---|
| Title | En flânant de Messine à Cadix |
| Original Publication | Paris: Arthème Fayard, 1911. |
| Contents | Le Départ de Naples -- Voyage à Reggio de Calabre et à Messine -- Palerme -- A Capri -- Tanger -- Gibraltar -- En Andalousie: Ronda, Malaga, Grenade. Cordoue, Séville, Cadix -- Naples la Belle et les Napolitains: Antiquité de Naples. Curiosités dans les rues. Le caractère napolitain. Naples nouvelle -- Le Retour en France. |
| Credits | Véronique Le Bris, Laurent Vogel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica)) |
| Language | French |
| LoC Class | PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese |
| Subject | Europe -- Description and travel -- 20th century |
| Subject | Montfort, Eugène, 1877-1936 -- Travel |
| Subject | Travel writing |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 77275 |
| Release Date | Nov 20, 2025 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 155 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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