PANTELLARIA.
Pantellaria rises in the very centre of the strait which unites the Western Mediterranean with the Eastern. The island is of volcanic origin, abounds in thermal springs, and, above all, in steam jets. Placed on a great line of navigation, Pantellaria might have become of importance if it had possessed a good harbour like Malta. To judge from certain ruins, the population was more considerable {335} formerly than it is now. There exist about a thousand odd edifices, called sesi by the inhabitants, which are supposed to be ancient dwellings. Like the nuraghi of Sardinia, they have the shape of hives, and are built of huge blocks of rock without mortar. Some of them are twenty-five feet high and forty-five feet wide; and Rossi, the archæologist, thinks that they date back to the stone age, for pieces of worked obsidian have been found in them.
From the top of Pantellaria we are able to distinguish the promontories on the Tunisian coast, but, though it is nearer to Africa than to Europe, the island nevertheless belongs to the latter continent, as is proved by the configuration of the sea-bottom. This cannot be said of Linosa, an island with four volcanic peaks to the west of Malta, and still less of the Pelagian Islands. The latter, consisting of Lampedusa and a satellite rock called Lampion, owe their name (Lamp-bearer and Lamp) to the light which, legend tells us, was kept burning by a hermit or angel for the benefit of mariners. In our own days this legendary lamp has been superseded by a small lighthouse marking the entrance to the port of Lampedusa, where vessels of three or four hundred tons find a safe shelter.
About the close of the eighteenth century the Russians proposed to establish a military station on Lampedusa to rival that of Malta, but this project was never carried out, and has not been taken up by the Italian Government. The population consists of soldiers, political exiles, criminals, and a few settlers, who speak Maltese.114
