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oe sk hy Pye Be Hae aesLIBRARY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

IN MEMORY OF
KINGSLAND SPENCER

PRESENTED BY HIS DAUGHTER

MRS. JOHN V. COCKCROFTed
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NEW YORK
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rdCHAPTER

II
III
DV

VI
Vil
VIIl
IX

XI
XII
XITI
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

DIscovERY

PALERMO

A Niaeut or DIssIPATION
CATHEDRALS

PALACES AND PEOPLE .
Tue PuarIn oF PANORMOS .
AROUND THE ISLAND

Tue Roap To SYRACUSE
Tue Harsor AND THE ANAPO
SyrRACUSE THE PENTAPOLIS
CATANIA AND Mr. AZETNA
TAORMINA

Some MountTAIN VIsTAs
LigHTs AND SHADES

Tue Crry tHat Was

Tue NortTHERN SHORE
Tue WESTERN SHORE
Addio, Sicilia! .

INDEX

PAGE

° i-xiv

17
30

74:

87
107
123
133
152
167
178
192
207
215
233
249
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Tue WonDERFUL SicILIAn CarT . Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

PALERMO, FROM THE Porta NuovA . . . . 12
Mtr. PELLEGRINO AND THE V1A BorGo .. . 13
True Musicat WaTER-SELLER . . .- -« « -« 28
Part oF THE City STREET-CLEANING DEPARTMENT 29
A Piece Birren Our or Coney Istanp . . . 44,
AN) “ECONOMICAL KITCHEN . + =. « + 45
Tue Friep-Entraits Man chu 2 Beet a yee leeks AS
Tue Hoty BAMBINO OF THE ONIONS. .. . 60
Tue GARIBALDI THEATRE 61
Tur Patermo CaTHEDRAL’S FACADE 76
Kine Roager’s SARCOPHAGUS. 77
hoe MONREALE, CATHEDRAT 3 96 so) 04 a) 92
Tue CreaTION oF Eve, MonrEeEALE CATHEDRAL . 93
INTERIOR OF THE CAPELLA PALATINA . . . . 108
Tan “<CHURCH OF THE VESPERS! | 5:90 5 2 | LOD
Tue “Poor Man’s PRroMENADE’ .. . . . 124
Tue Tempie or Concorp, GiRGENTI. . . . 126
SYRACUSE, FROM THE GREEK THEATRE . . . 140

Queen, Euivistis; COINS ©.) 68 2) see eeSetatahenieh pce ee a

DHE TEEUSTRA TIONS

FACING PAGE

AETNA, THE GREEK THEATRE, AND TAORMINA . 164
AGLAORMINA VWATER-GIRT 5 5 5 4. « « . AGE
TAORMINA KNITTING-ScHooL Pupms . . . . 180
rm MOUAPEIGSHG te ee yy cs LS se a BI
BGOATSIGGOATSINGOATSI@ 4 ££ . « « «© « 196
WHE PPUROUBADOURS f) <9 4 6 A es ey 6~CO
Messina— THe Crry TuHat Was” we ieee oe
CEFALU,VACROSS THE FIELDS 7. 5 . 5 .«. =. aks
Tue CreraLtu CaTHEDRAL’s FacapE oe ee, 225
Sorous, THE City of THE Rock . . . « . 229
“Five Minutes FoR REFRESHMENTS . . . . 244
DAN TAMIVOSALIAYS’ GROTTO? 5 5 5 6 « «© «© 245

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aa aadINTRODUCTION

Sicily is the rarest flower of the great midland
sea. Built up on the North in a series of beetling
cliffs, the island slopes gently down through moun-
tain chains and undulating plains to the golden
Southern shore. An enormous triangle it is, spiny
with lofty peaks— Aitna towers more than ten
thousand feet in the air —spangled with flowering
meads and dells where Nature loads the air with fra-
grance; pierced with infernal caverns, whence chok-
ing workers extract a large part of the world’s
sulphur from the palaces of the former gods of the
nether world; and fringéd about on every side with
the lace-like foam of opal waves. It is rich in beauty
and desolation, rich in song and story, rich in archi-
tecture, splendid and varied.

To understand the beauty and charm of Sicily,
however, it is essential to know something of the
island’s picturesque and vivid story. We Americans
are rarely familiar with it. Strange as it may seem,
considering Sicily’s importance through many cen-
turies, its consecutive history still remains to be
written. Books there are, to be sure, but none at-
tempts to cover more than a portion of one of the
most intense chronicles in the world. Thucydides, in
his “ Peloponessian War,” tells in glowing phrases

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VISTAS IN SICILY

of the débacle that wiped out the Attic forces and
left Sicily supreme. Later still, in the ante-Chris-
tian era Diodorus, a native of the island, prepared a
flowing story of the Sicily he knew. It has been one
of our chief sources of information ever since. In
modern times the historians Grote and Curtius have
included in their histories of Greece such parts of the
Sicilian narrative as are germane to their work; and
the English historian Freeman, in a monumental
unfinished work, has left us a minutely detailed ac-
count of Sicily from prehistoric times to the reign
of Agathocles. The Italian Amari, to go yet
farther, handles the Saracen period with care and
skill, and Gally Knight tells briefly of the dashing
Normans and their fanciful architecture. But of
the later periods almost nothing of lasting value has
been written. Moreover, the books of travel deal-
ing with Sicily are few in comparison with those
which tell of other lands, and not many Americans
discover, unaided, the paradise they omit from their
itineraries.

The most usual mistake made regarding Sicily is
that it is a little island, vaguely located in imagina-
tion somewhere near Italy and peopled by Italians
— its inhabitants, Black Handers, organ-grinders,
scissors-men, ditch-diggers and the rest, mala gente
all. Sicily is near Italy — two miles away, in fact
— and it is full of Italians, in the sense that they

are Italian subjects. But by heredity, by instinct,
[ ii]INTRODUCTION

by everything that pertains to racial culture and de-
velopment, they are far from being Italians yet.
The explanation is a simple one. By consulting the
map you see that the triangle — with an area of
some ten thousand square miles — is not only in the
center of the Mediterranean from East to West, but
that it is also a great stepping-stone between Europe
and Africa. In ancient days, when all the civilized
world bordered the Mediterranean, the geographical
position of Sicily gave the island an especial po-
litical character and importance. And naturally,
while it remained the very center of the civilized
world, it was a rich prize to be fought for by each
Nation which rose to power.

Tradition — as usual — peoples the land first with
gods, both beneficent and malign, and then with
giants to whom Homer refers in the Odyssey:
Laistrygones, Cyclops, Lotophagi. After these
* came the Sikans, Sikels and

** poetic monsters
Elymians, genuine peoples, who may be called the
prehistoric natives as distinguished from the historic
foreigners. Of the three the Sikels, undoubtedly
blood-brothers to the pioneers of Rome and Tuscany,
are the most interesting; and a legend has it that
they drifted on rafts from the Italian mainland
across the channel now called the Strait of Messina,
about 1100 B. C. They were permanent and impor-
tant enough to give the island the name Sikelia,
which is still current in our modified form, Sicily.

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VISTAS IN SICILY

The first of the historic foreigners to enter were
the Phoenicians, the Canaanites of the Old Testa-
ment, who lived in Tyre and Sidon and the other
cities that lay in the narrow strip of lowland be-
tween Mt. Lebanon and the Mediterranean. They
spoke Hebrew, as the Israelites did, but their wor-
ship was the foul and bloody service of Baal and
Ashtaroth. They were the boldest seafaring men
in the world; the most cunning traders,— who came
to barter the Tyrian purple, the glass, the gold
jewelry, and the little images of their own manu-
facture with the rude and primitive peoples already
in possession. ‘The Mediterranean had no terrors
for their little barques, and they established trading
posts and even actual colonies all along its coasts;
one even, Gades of Tarshish — the present Cadiz —
faced the ocean itself, beyond the strait now called
Gibraltar, where the Pillars of Hercules guard the
entrance to the Mediterranean. Pheenicia has left
us no means of dating her settlements in Sicily, but
we know that they were founded sometime between
the coming of the Sikels in the twelfth century and
the coming of the Greeks in the eighth.

The Greeks called these only rivals of theirs “ bar-
barians,” a name they applied to all who did not
speak Greek. Yet this proved nothing as to their
civilization, for at this early date the Pheenicians
were far advanced in the material arts over all
Europeans, including the Greeks themselves, who

[ iv ]INTRODUCTION

learned of them. The most precious acquisition of
all was the alphabet, from which every one of the
forms of written speech now used in Europe has
evolved. The Phenicians may not have invented it;
they may merely have taken it from farther East
along with their other material arts. But they were
the distributors, the teachers, the popularizers, and
as such we owe them an unpayable debt.

The real history of Sicily, as a land playing a
considerable part in the affairs of the world, begins
with this coming of the Greek, and it is to his pres-
ence that the story owes its peculiar and immutable
charm. As early as the times of the Odyssey the
Greeks had some vague notion of Sicily. Everyone
who has read that marvelous poem remembers that
the suitors of Penelope threatened to sell the dis-
guised Odysseus to the Sikels; and old Laertes had a
Sikelian slave woman. But no doubt the wily Phe-
nician traders told stories calculated to frighten
away adventurous explorers; so it was quite by ac-
cident that the news which brought about the initial
settlement reached Greece.

Driven by storms upon Sicilian shores Theocles,
an Jonian Greek, found himself late in the eighth
century gazing from the deck of his tiny craft upon
a strange land. ‘This he explored a little before re-
turning home and there reported it as a good coun-
try, with inhabitants it would be easy to conquer.

The prospect tempted his fellow-countrymen. They
[v]VISTAS IN SICILY

were colonizers, not traders, and in the next hun-
dred and forty years they occupied most of the coast
of Sicily — Trinakria, Three Promontories, they
called it—making of the island a second Greek
world. Indeed, the city of Syracuse, founded in
134 B.C. by Dorians from Corinth, eventually be-
came the rival and peer of Athens in wisdom, beauty
and strength.

Though the various independent cities of Sicily
fought bitterly and continuously, their strife seemed
only to develop genius and bring forth wonders in
architecture, art and letters. The lofty purity of
Greek civilization found its highest expression in
magnificent temples which for grandeur and sim-
plicity have never been excelled. To-day there are
ruins of no less than twenty of these imposing houses
of worship in Sicily, all of them of the same style,
and many of colossal proportions. The arts of the
sculptor and of the numismatist are represented
in the museums by metopes which tell graphically of
the evolution of the Greek ideal in temple decora-
tion, and by coins which for pure beauty and deli-
cacy have no equals in even Greece itself.

A record of the illustrious Greek litterateurs who
came to Sicily as visitors, or to spend the rest of
their lives, is a list of immortals: Simonides, Sap-
pho, whom an enthusiastic contemporary called the
“ violet-crowned, pure, sweetly smiling Sappho”;
Pindar, whose quaint lyrics give us much of our

[ vi |INTRODUCTION

early Sicilian history ; and Aischylus, immortal poet
and playwright. Small wonder if with such inspir-
ing examples in their midst native geniuses should
have risen to great heights. Tisias of Himera is
said to have set in order the lyric chorus, and so to
have gained his name of Stesichorus. Epicharmus
was the inventor of comedy, at least of the special
Sicilian type. Some of his plays deal with my-
thology, many with cookery, and his comedy, “ The
Wedding of Hebe,” furnishes epicures with a list of
the Sicilian dainties of his day. Empedocles of
Akragas, the most distinguished of Sicilian think-
ers, became prominent as a physician and poet.
Philistus, and the later Diodorus of Agyrium, were
historians of the first rank. The fame of Archi-
medes the mathematician is imperishable; and
Theocritus, also of Syracuse, gave to the world the
first bucolics and pastorals ever written — strains
so sweet that the very ditties the wandering shep-
herds on the hills to this day pipe to their flocks
are but parodies of the lilting songs he made
centuries ago.

The commercially minded Pheenicians gave the
Greek colonists little trouble, but when Pheenicia’s
mighty African daughter — Carthage — grew up,
she struggled long and hard for a permanent foot-
hold upon the coveted isle. The crafty Carthagin-
ians chose as the moment for their great effort the
time when Xerxes the Persian, with forty-six Na-

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tions, was marching against Greece the mother-
country, and Sicily could expect no assistance. But
“Zeus was too strong for Baal,” and both barbarian
hosts went down to crushing defeat — some say on
the same day—the Carthaginians at Sicilian
Himera, the Persians at Salamis. Had it been
otherwise, the very civilization of Europe would have
been overthrown. The Carthaginians, though de-
feated, were not beaten. They kept coming; and
two hundred years later King Pyrrhus of Epirus
had to come over from Greece to rescue Greek Sicily.
As he left the island he remarked prophetically :
“What a wrestling ground I leave for Rome and
Carthage! ”

Pyrrhus was right — the wrestling soon began in
the first of the great Punic Wars, which ended with
the utter defeat of Carthage. But while she was
driven out, Rome came in to stay, and by 214 B.C.
had swallowed up the whole island. Sicily was made
the first Roman province, and experienced all the
misfortunes of a “carpet-bag government.” For
centuries the peace made stable by Rome prevailed
throughout the island, and the cities could no longer
fly at each other’s throats. But as the price of this
enforced tranquillity, former great ruling centers
hike Arkagas and Syracuse began to dry up into al-
most nothing as _ provincial towns, intellectual
advancement ceased, and during the whole thou-

sand years of Roman administration, Sicily kept
[ viii ]INTRODUCTION

the downward path in every field of endeavor.

In this relaxed and enervated condition, the island
fell an easy prey to the marauding Saracens; the
condition of the Sicilians, worn down by oppression,
explains their feeble resistance. Nothing could
kindle a National feeling, and the conquest was
marked by only a desultory struggle, in which the
fervor of a few Christian devotees dared oppose the
Muslim spirit of proselytism. In 965 it was all
over. The Saracen had driven out the decadent
Roman in the names of Allah and the Prophet, and
established his own brilliant exotic civilization. In-
tellectual activity and agricultural development
were fostered, and the Muslim régime, though it
was not to have any such permanence as the Roman
it displaced, nevertheless developed with a splendor
and rapidity that shamed the backward Christians.

Last of all the great molders of Sicily came the
Normans, knights who with their keen blades carved
a slice out of the Byzantine Empire on the Italian
mainland and, conquering the Sicilian Muslims,
built up a kingdom for themselves. Sicily’s period
of greatest glory dawned with their conquest. They
developed a splendid fabric of feudalism; and all the
arts as well as the more usual graces of civilization
stamped the new kingdom for their own. ‘The very
Italian language, as Dante himself acknowledges,
had its feeble beginnings in the court of the Em-

peror Frederick II at Palermo. The power of Fred-
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VISTAS IN SICILY

erick, who was Emperor of Germany as well as King
of Sicily, was a thorn in the sides of the Popes, who
at this period claimed the right to dispose of all the
crowns of earth. So after Frederick’s death the
Pope gave away the Sicilian crown to his own trusty
defender, Count Charles of Anjou; and he, captur-
ing the island from Frederick’s son, Manfred, turned
it over to the shameful misrule of his lieutenants.
Sixteen years later, in 1282, the French paid dearly
for their oppression in the terrible massacre of the
Sicilian Vespers, when they were exterminated
throughout the island.

Then the Sicilians invited Don Pedro de Aragon,
the son-in-law of Manfred, their last Norman king,
to rule them; and the Aragonese dynasty, with vary-
ing fortunes, lasted until 1409, when it became ex-
tinct, and Sicily was attached to Spain and gov-
erned by Spanish viceroys. Never did a govern-
ment care less for its subjects; and when the Span-
iards evacuated at the beginning of the eighteenth
century, they left the unhappy island almost desti-
tute.

Sicily had long since ceased to be the center of the
civilized world; and now, a mere appendage, she was
tossed relentlessly from one sovereignty to another
in the bitter struggle to maintain the balance of
power. From this time onward her story is a com-
plicated record in which France, Spain, Savoy, Aus-
fria, and even England herself are almost inextric-

[x]INTRODUCTION

ably tangled. All this time, too, the common people,
the backbone and life of the island, groaned under
well nigh intolerable conditions. Gladstone, writ-
ing in 1851 of the Bourbon government, then ruling
Sicily as a part of the Kingdom of Naples, said that
its conduct was “‘ an outrage upon religion, upon hu-
manity, upon civilization and upon decency.”

But in this, her darkest hour, Sicily was not for-
gotten. Her insistent appeals for help, and the
blood she had poured out in continual protest
against the vicious Bourbons, were too loud a cry
for the liberty-loving and adventurous spirit of
Giuseppe Garibaldi to ignore. With his immortal
“Thousand ” he answered, and became not merely
the liberator of Sicily, but the hammer under whose
forging blows the discordant states of the Italian
peninsula were welded together into the new and
coherent Italy. Thus at last a single man put the
period to the island’s troubled history, ended defi-
nitely her ambitions for individual greatness and
made her an important part of a greater and more
powerful whole.

So it is clear that there has never been a Sicilian
nation, nor has there ever been even a Sicilian lan-
guage; but every great race that dwells about the
Mediterranean at some time has had a part in Sicily’s
story, and each race in its turn has left an indelible
imprint upon language and customs, upon archi-
tecture and people. Here one sees a pure Greek

[ xi ]VISTAS IN SICILY

face of classic beauty ; there a Saracen gazes calmly
upon us out of features which could come only from
the burning desert and the infinite starry night in
the open; and yonder, a Roman, proud and silent,
bends to toil the Romans of old never knew. On
many a hill rises the matchless, mellow ruin of a
Greek temple, lovely as anything Greece itself can
show; and in the cities the architectonic genius and
spirit of the races blend in structures dignified and
massive, or light and airy almost to the point of
being fantastic.

This is Sicily to-day, the home of all beauty, the
abiding place of a people as picturesque in character
as they are in face and costume; and the sympathetic
traveler, living the joy of the moment, as do the
Sicilians themselves, comes into possession of much
of the unforgettable charm and perfume of this
island of delights.INTRODUCTION TO REVISED EDITION

In the twelve years that have elapsed since the
foregoing paragraphs were written, the world has
been shaken by the most gigantic and hideous war
in history. Never before was there such wholesale
slaughter, such world-wide annihilation of both na-
tional wealth and international security. But Sicily,
notwithstanding her position in the centre of the
great Midland Sea, escaped without scathe. Where
once she was the focal point of all civilization’s
marches and countermarches, the years have made
her politically and strategically an island apart, as
aloof from the great main currents of ambition as
the Iberian Peninsula itself.

Hence it was that Sicily’s part in the World War
was purely incidental. Only the backwash of con-
flict touched her shores. Her seaports gave aid and
shelter to the fleets of Italy when necessary. Her
subtropical climate made ideal the convalescence of
such of Italy’s wounded as could be transported
thither from the cold and congestion of the northern
hospitals and camps. Her fruits and flowers, her
invaluable sulphur and wheat, her fisheries and other
industries entered into the balance with all they had
to help Italy — and so the Allied Armies — to win.

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Yet from 1914 to 1918 Sicily, because of that very
geographical location which centuries ago made her
the core of hostilities, took no vital part, and the war
could have been won had she been at the bottom of
the sea. In world politics, therefore, Sicily has
ceased to be.

In a colonial sense, however, she has reassumed
much of the value she possessed of old. When Italy
in 1911-1912 wrested from the Turk a huge slice of
northern Africa, called it Tripolitania, and estab-
lished herself there with — all things considered —
very little serious friction, Sicily became the natural
entrépot for colonial products and intercourse. As a
result, far-reaching expansion and development are
still being made throughout the island. The Sicilian
ports are being deepened and made more commodious,
the Sicilian railways extended and improved, commer-
cial warehouses of vast capacity and whole districts
devoted to handling the mounting export and import
trade are being added as rapidly as possible to the
existing facilities. In a word, Italy’s colonial expan-
sion and the new American laws governing the
restriction of immigration here from Sicily, have
combined to force the beginning of an economic re-
naissance for the island whose importance no man
can yet gauge accurately and whose end is invisible
in a glowing future.

[ xiv ]VISTAS
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DISCOVERY

ICILY in spring appeared to us like water in
the desert. That we knew nothing of the
island was a misfortune we shared in common

with most Americans. Such vague ideas as we had
were derived mainly from long-past schooldays of
wearisome geography, and from newspaper ac-
counts of the Mafia, whose members seemed always
to be Sicilians. But when, after a stormy fort-
night among the volcanic dust-clouds of a great
Vesuvian eruption, we determined to escape that
choking atmosphere, the royal Road to Rome chosen
by the tourists — terrified by the belchings of the
voleano— did not appeal to us. Instead, with
some trepidation, as explorers entering a wild and
dangerous unknown land, we decided upon Sicily.
Our baggage packed and in the hallway, we came
out to Gregorio, the cabman we had patronized
through many a day of work and danger around
Vesuvius.

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VISTAS IN SICILY

“Where now, milords? ” he smiled at us cheerily,
noting the hand baggage.

“To the steamer, Gregorio — to Sicily.”

“To Sicily!” he exclaimed, dropping his whip in
sheer amazement. “Santo Dio!— why?”

The haze of volcanic cinders still hanging thickly
over Naples was answer enough, with the added ex-
planation: ‘We must breathe; we must rest.”

“Yes, but —” His emotions choked him. Here
was Naples deserted by the thousands of foreigners
whom a few days of Vesuvian bellowings had fright-
ened into abject panic. Cabs rusted at the street
corners by scores; and now he, too, was to be idle.
It was too much! Not even the promise of engage-
ment upon our return could dispel the gloom that
had wiped away his smile.

“Gia!” he grunted darkly, shaking his head.
“If the Signort ever return. Who knows, per
Bacco! Sicilians are mala gente, brigands, mur-
derers—”

It was too late to withdraw, notwithstanding
Gregorio’s cheerful prophecy, and he drove us to the
wharf, a mournful figure drooping upon his box —
and we sailed on Friday the 13th, at thirteen min-
utes past six! But whether it was because of lack
of respect for either fateful numbers or hoary nau-
tical superstition, or because of skill upon the
bridge, the swift and trim little Galileo Galilei
brought us pleasantly in the glorious dawn to Sic-
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ily, and an hour later Palermo—the capital —
shimmered through the smoky mists veiling its
Golden Shell.

It was an easy and a delightful voyage, the
steamer clean, the sea smooth. But if one is sea-
fearing instead of sea-faring, he may go comfort-
ably from Naples by train, via Reggio and the
Strait of Messina, only two miles across by ferry.
Or, if he be a sea-roving globe-trotter, he may take
one of the numerous Mediterranean liners leaving
New York the year round, and make the trip with-
out a single change all the way to Palermo; and
these vessels are so large and so steady that the trip
is robbed of half its terrors to the most timid soul.

But if money is an object, it is better to go by
way of Italy, where little commutation books for
Sicilian travel, called tessere, are to be obtained.
Each tessera is a small pocket coupon-book sold in
every large city, from Rome southward, from Feb-
ruary to June. The books contain detachable cou-
pons which entitle the holder to a discount ranging
all the way from ten to seventy-five per cent in the
cost of transportation, food, lodging, merchandise
and amusements in the theaters. They cost ten lire
(two dollars) apiece; and it is necessary only to fill
out a given leaf with the date, the names of the
stations to and from which the holder wishes to
travel, and to present it at the station to obtain
the discount on accommodations in any class desired

[4]DISCOVERY

on railway trains and steamers. A saving so large
may be effected by its use that the transportation
cost of the trip melts almost into insignificance.

It seems too good to be true, but there is a rea-
son for it. Count Florio, of the Florio-Rubattino
Steamship Company, one of the most public-spirited
men in Sicily, to popularize the island as a place of
resort, to stimulate local travel in the best months
of the year, and so to augment the revenues of both
people and island, persuaded the Government to
grant special rates on its railways by giving a sixty
per cent discount on his own private steamers. Va-
rious large stores, theaters, cafés and hotels per-
ceived the reason in his argument, and quickly fol-
lowed his example. Moreover, as the Annual Sport-
ing Reunion is held in Palermo during the late
winter, it was felt——as proved to be the case —
that inducements in the way of discounts on the cost
of everything would considerably increase the pat-
ronage and make the annual games and races much
more a feature of the island than ever before.

Curiously enough, for a people so fond of red
tape, the Sicilians have not smothered the tessere
with senseless regulations. The concierge of your
hotel can fill out and present the book for you when
you wish to leave a city; the railroad ticket agent
is not concerned with anything but your signature;
and there are no difficulties about photographs as
identification. But woe to the person who gives

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his tessera to a careless concierge! Half a dozen
others may have done the same thing at the same
time, and the tessere have become mixed. Unless
one wishes to forge the usually almost indecipher-
able Italian name on the little green leaves, no ticket
is forthcoming, no matter how fluent the explana-
tion given; and a new book becomes a necessity.

These winter and spring months are ideal for
travel in this Mediterranean isle. In every age
Sicily’s climate has been sung as halcyone, and in
the days when Cicero was questor under the Roman
rule, he did not exaggerate greatly when he said
that there is never a day when the sun does not
smile at least once. Not even Mentone or the
other resorts along the Riviera can boast of a
warmer or more sensuous charm than Sicily. Jan-
uary, which is the worst and rainiest month of the
Sicilian winter, is very like the first two weeks of
May in the northern part of Europe; and a short
time later, when travel begins to waken the island,
the sun shines clear and hot, an overcoat is wholly
unnecessary except in the evening.

Ripe and green fruit and blossoms are to be seen
at the same time on the orange and lemon trees,
and by April the scraggy old olive trees bend be-
neath the weight of their dull green fruit, just be-
ginning to blush with purple. The air is full of the
scent of myriad flowers, and the railway tracks,
sometimes for miles, run between hedges of ge-

[6]DISCOVERY

raniums — six to eight feet high — whose pungent
fragrance fills the flying trains. The summer cli-
mate is as mild and salubrious as that of the winter,
for even in July and August the average is not
more than seventy-seven or seventy-eight degrees
Fahrenheit; about the same as in our own Atlantic
States. Occasionally, during one of the African
siroccos that sometimes sweep across the island, the
mercury rises to an hundred or so; but the sirocco
is a rare occurrence, fully as apt to occur in mid-
winter as in summer.

In a climate of this sort the jaded city-dweller,
searching for health and rest, finds an ideal environ-
ment, and while the hotels are not the equals of the
fashionable New York and London hostelries, they
are comfortable and moderate in price; and many of
them have splendid gardens attached, where one
may have tea, or rest and wander at will among the
scented bowers. One boasts a considerable aviary,
and another, perched at the very edge of a precip-
itous crag, serves refreshments upon a stone prom-
enade with the blue African Mediterranean right be-
low, and the peaks of the Dark Continent faintly
suggesting themselves through the mists of the
horizon. Many of the best-known of these hos-
telries are located at historic spots, where history
and imagination can conjure xp the past vividly —
aided, perhaps, by a too generous dinner. More

than one traveler has fought the siege of Taormin=
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VISTAS IN SICILY

all over again in his post-prandial dreams, and gone
tumbling down the nine-hundred-foot slopes with
the Greek tyrant, to wake up on the stony floor of
his own bedroom!

Notwithstanding, the food is good, except in the
more remote districts, where goat’s flesh is usually
the literal piéce de résistance. In many of the hill
centers the wine of the country, the vin ordinaire,
as the French put it, is remarkably pure and good,
while for general attractiveness and cleanly condi-
tion, the hotels as a class rank very well indeed.
Not so much can be said for the servants, for the
Sicilian accepts dirt as a thing given of God and
therefore not to be too severely quarreled with under
any circumstances; yet he does his best to live up to
the finicky notions of the foreigner who, to his
unprejudiced eye, is so jaundiced. And the Si-
cilian’s best, in his efforts to please the stranger, is
a very warm-hearted and genial best indeed, full of
cheery smiles, of the utmost willingness to fetch and
carry, of entire devotion, sometimes to the point of
doing actual violence for his patron.

It is characteristic of the people, indeed, that,
having so long served for nothing, they should wel-
come the chance to serve for their own profit and
pleasure combined; and the service is as pleasant to
reward as it is to receive. Furthermore, the reward
need not by any means always take the form of cash.
In Italy everywhere one goes it is always tip! tip!

[8 ]DISCOVERY

tip! But in Sicily it is a delight to learn that one
often secures as much for a smile and a gracious
word of thanks as for a cash gratuity. In fact,
tips are not infrequently refused. I shall never
forget the expression that crossed the face of a
schoolboy to whom I once offered half a lira, ten
cents, for some trifling service. There was hurt
pride in the rich brown eyes upturned to mine as
the dirty little paw waved away the coin without a
word. Another time, in the course of a detailed
exploration of a prominent agricultural school in
Palermo, the young priest in charge remonstrated
with me, half in amusement, half in indignation, be-
cause “you offered my mama money!” To the
apologetic remark that it is very hard to know when
not to offer money, since everyone elsewhere in Italy
expects it, the young philosopher, as cordial and
proud as he was abjectly poor, helped himself to
one of my cigarettes with a neat word of thanks and
replied: ‘‘ Ah, but here it is different! We are a
simple, kindly folk in Sicily, always ready to do
whatever we can for the well mannered foreigner.
And, friend, when you go out, do not try to corrupt
my boys with money,” was his parting admonition
regarding tips for any of his pupils.

This picturesqueness of character extends to face
and costume as well, and in the remoter places the
dress and faces of the ancients may be observed,
striking a curious note of contrast with the ex-

[9]VISTAS IN SICILY

ceedingly modern and well appareled folk of the
larger centers. Only fifteen miles by carriage from
Palermo, back in the mountains at Piana dei Greci —
an Albanian colony founded during the latter part of
the fifteenth century —the peasants still hold dur-
ing festival time to their rich and exceedingly beau-
tiful costumes of embroidered silken gowns and
breeches heavily picked out with gold. And a cos-
tume wedding can usually be arranged for the bene-
fit of the interested visitor, who is expected to pay
the officiating priest and make a modest gift to the
newly married young couple.

But ancient or modern though the costume be, the
demeanor of the wearer is almost invariably the
same, courteous and respectful— one might even
say eager—to give nothing but pleasure to the
stranger. And this is true even of the cab-drivers.
We had come to Sicily weary to exasperation of the
importunities and rascality of the Neapolitan jehus
— Gregorio was a smiling exception. ‘To our de-
light we found ourselves able to take a ride in Pal-
ermo, of half a mile or more, in a clean, well-kept
barouche, drawn by a well-fed little Arab stallion,
for ten cents— and no tip necessary or expected.

The prices for longer excursions were on the same
basis, and for weeks we had the services of a cab, a
magnificent horse, and the peerless Gualterio, for
about two dollars a day, including what to the Si-

cilian mind was a generous gratuity. And the
Frq]

Fg a - — a, r , oe OA veDISCOVERY

riage “ran sweetly,” as Gualterio assured us it
would; nor was it—vin his own words — “ dirty,
like some!”? Of course, the Sicilian cabman, for all
his courtly manners and engaging smile, his soft
voice and his continual appeal to the ladies, with
the set phrase “La Signora vuol’ andare — The
Lady would like to ride?” (as she usually did, to
the enrichment of the cabby) is not much more to be
relied upon for facts, or as a guide, than his breth-
ren in Naples or anywhere else in the world. The
first time we saw one of the numberless slender stone
towers that dot Palermo from end to end, rising to
a height of about twenty feet, covered with fine vines
and dripping countless tiny streams of water,
Gualterio smiled angelically when asked what it was.

“‘It is very simple, Signore,” he replied instantly.
“Tt is one of the watch towers, built to enable the
guards of the royal Chateau of La Favorita to keep
watch over the entire estate at once.” It seemed a
curious thing that royal guards should combine duty
with the pleasures of a cooling showerbath; but
when I appeared to doubt it, Gualterio simply
pointed at the iron ladder leading from top to bot-
tom outside. ‘“* Behold,” he said. ‘“ Are not the
ladders still there by which the guards climbed up
and down?” Later we found the structures to be
irrigating towers, as useful as they are picturesque,
which is saying a good deal. How to make a cab-
driver truthful is a recipe one seldom or neve*

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learns. Perhaps there is a way, but his fictions are
so harmless and amiable, so entirely diverting and in-
genuous, that it seems a pity to spoil a child of Na-
ture with ironclad rules for veracity.

Nor is the cabman the only Sicilian given to hyper-
bole or metaphor. The tendency is marked in all
primitive peoples — a large part of the Sicilians are
still primitive —to tell an inquirer the thing they
suppose he most wishes to know; and the Saracenic
blood in the Sicilian has doubtless left him a certain
heritage of poetic imagination and exaggeration for
the most utter commonplaces of life. At any
rate, this inclination is found throughout the island,
and it does not, except to the flustered tourist-in-a-
hurry, seem a peculiar drawback or fault. Indeed,
it rather adds to the fascination of the people, who
appear to fit perfectly into their environs. Wild
looking young girls, cherry-and-olive of skin, gossip-
ing about the central fountains of their home
towns, bear huge replicas of red Greek amphorai
upon their well poised heads with all the grace of
Greek maidens. Sprightly little goatherds, whose
heads are the heads of fauns, and whose half naked
and ruddy bodies are often clad in skins, ramble over
the precipitous hills with nimble herds able to crop
a living from mere stone-piles; and the fauns, Pan-
like, pipe to their goats strains Theocritus might
have loved. Swart mountaineers dress like their
own rough hills in shaggy clothes topped off by

[12]9

alermo, “the Panormos of old... looks straight out toward the rising sun.—

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Monte Pellegrino looms square and massive at one tip of Palermo’s crescent harbor.DISCOVERY

—

big rough shawls; and seamen clump about, afloat
and ashore, in boots and “oilers,” or barelegged.
The city folk are equally artless, with their tiny
marionette theaters, their homeless meals in the open
air markets, their goat-blessings, their imnumerable
other feste.

And the Sicilians are not the only entertaining
characters one meets. Sometimes our own country-
men — more often countrywomen ! — are not far be-
hind them. At a little mountain hotel, one evening
at dinner a vivacious, black-haired, sloe-eyed, young
woman with the air of one who comes, sees and con-
quers, told me in a breath her name, place of resi-
dence, father’s occupation, and asked for my cre-
dentials. I was rather stunned, but one of her com-
panions — there were five of them in all — reassur-
ing me by “ Oh, don’t mind Dulcie! She’s all right,”
I admitted my identity.

With characteristic American energy the trippers
‘“¢ did” the town in one day, and long before we were
ready for breakfast the next morning, drove away
in an ancient barouche crammed to the guards with
luggage, and drawn by three horses so rickety we
wondered at the daring of the five women in accept-
ing it. Dulcinea—have I her name right? —
perched beside the grinning driver, her agile hands
full of guidebooks, umbrellas and so on, gesturing
with the fluency of Sicilian temperament itself, took
in everything with a last comprehensive glance, and

[13]

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VISTAS IN SICILY

commanded the triumphal equipage to move. The
hotel manager stood by the door blinking and dazed.
Drawing a hand across his brow as the chatter died
away in the distance, his lips moved in something
that doubtless was a tribute to the ‘* wonderful
Americans! ”

In another dining room a weighty German, seat-
ing himself ponderously, drew from his pocket a sort
of dog-chain which he carefully threw around his
neck and attached by a spring clasp at either end
to his napkin, spread carefully under his expansive
chin. By the way, many Germans travel in Sicily;
they seem especially interested in its classical his-
tory. The caretaker in one of the latomie in Syra-
cuse complained: ‘‘ Most of the people who have
been here this year were Germans. Me, I do not like
the Germans. They have no pockets! Now Amer-
icans are grand. ‘They are all pockets.” After we
left he may have concluded that some Americans are
very German. There are many English, too, for
they are everywhere; sometimes interesting, some-
times not.

Besides these folk of to-day, legend and fable have
peopled the island with myriad nymphs and god-
desses, gods and demons and heroes, equally inter-
esting. Here in the smoldering caverns of Atna
dwell the grim Sikel gods of fire. There in the
lofty central plateau is the very pool beside which
Proserpina was weaving her daisy chain when

[14]DISCOVERY

stolen by Pluto and carried away to be queen of the
nether world. High on the peak of an ancient west-
ern hill is the dueling ground where Hercules
wrestled with King Eryx. And off the eastern
shore are the very rocks the Cyclops Polyphemus
hurled in his impotent rage at the escaping Odys-
seus.

But song and story are not necessary to invest
the natural scenery with its full share of beauty and
importance. The Sicilian Apennines, like forked
lightning, zig-zag sharply down from the northeast
corner to the central southern shore — the rugged,
cloud-piercing backbone of the island. Greek
temples, great golden honeycombs of myth and his-
tory, tower up from hilltop and swale of emerald
spangled with the gold of spurge and buttercup,
splashed with the impish fiery tongues of countless
poppies ; bright groves of orange, lemon, citron, alm-
ond and carob trees in both fruit and flower scent
the air with almost overpowering sweetness; broad
brown fields bear acres of the dull green prickly
pears; an occasional huge plot of ground newly
plowed, with moist red furrows, waits open-lipped,
to receive seed or shoot; and everywhere, acre upon
acre, extend the vineyards, low-trellised and green,
till from a height the country that the gods loved
looks like a huge crazy quilt, folded and rumpled
and vivid, dropped from the finisher’s hand and left
lying where it fell.

[15]VISTAS IN SICILY

Picturesque towns on the very tips of inaccessible
crags, walled about and defended by Nature, give
perfect pictures of isolation. Other towns, white
cities springing up from the golden sands of the Af-
rican sea, coquette with the emerald waves that lap
hungrily at their very doors. And the dashing
tunny-fisheries off-shore—the brilliant sunshine
glinting on the flapping white sails —the water
boiling about the frantic monsters as they plunge
and struggle to escape the stabbing gaffs of their
captors; the water red and green and black at last,
and the long line of huge, gleaming bodies — like
titanic Spanish mackerel varnished an opalescent
black — strewn upon the white and sparkling beach!
What more could man wish to see?II

PALERMO

OST of the passenger steamers come into
M Palermo shortly after dawn, and in the

pleasant, vernal weather of late winter,
or in the real spring, the great bay is a waveless
sheet of gilded beryl, dotted here and there with small
boats so still they seem sculptured, in strong relief
against the purple outlines of the cliffs at either
horn of the bay. On the right, Monte Pellegrino
looms square and massive; on the other horn’s tip
Monte Zaffarano peers through the vapors, and the
bay between their rugged shoulders is pent off from
the sea by the slender arms of moles springing out-
ward from the shore. Inside these breakwaters,
solemn, black trans-Atlantic liners await their
passengers, and flocks of rakish small boats, with
queer, high, projecting cutwaters and painted in
every dazzling, garish color that fancy can suggest,
hop about like so many water-beetles. Prosaic fish-
ing smacks full of rich, soft colors and melting lines
idle along to lazily lifted sweeps, or linger beside the
mole. And rusty little “cargo-boats that ’aven’t
any ’ome” contrast sharply with the trim white
Florio-Rubattino liners.

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VISTAS IN SICILY

Early as the hour is, half of male Palermo seems
to come to the dock to shout a cheery welcome as the
boat comes in. Throngs of hotel runners and por-
ters crowd the wharves, all clamoring for recogni-
tion, each trying to drown out his neighbor’s voice;
their queer, staccato cries, combative and challeng-
ing, sound as if projected from a huge phonograph
to float loosely upon the jangling air. Yet for all
this eagerness it is hard to find a man not too busy
shouting to attend to the baggage. When one is
secured, however, he vanishes like a gnome, to return
a few moments later with the pleasing intelligence
that he has smuggled your trunk through the cus-
toms guards, and is ready to perform prodigies with
your handbags.

Palermo’s modern commercial port is distinct
from the ancient harbor of La Cala, now devoted
almost exclusively to small fishing craft and row-
boats because of its shallowness. Between the two
basins projects a blunted little promontory, the re-
minder of that ancient tongue of land which di-
vided the bay of Panormos of old. On that pro-
jecting finger of ground the Pheenicians built their
mighty city, which looked straight out toward the
rising sun. Yet no one knows what its ancient
name was, nor what the citizens called themselves;
we know it only by its Greek name of Panormos,
All-Haven. And though the Pheenicians have

passed completely from the entire earth, and the
[18]PALERMO

Greeks remain a great Nation, this city which the
Phenicians founded is still Sicily’s most beautiful
and prosperous center, while the wonderful Greek
metropoli of Akragas and Syracuse have dried up
like mummies within the battered outlines of their
once splendid shells.

Palermo has long and deservedly borne the name
of La Felice, The Happy. It is a white city with
houses of pearl and roofs of carnelian, shimmering
with golden sunlight against the dark background
of vine-clad hills on the horizon and the rich green
of the most fertile plain in the island, that sweeps,
a vast natural amphitheater, from the edge of the
sea up to the seats of the white gods on the cloud-
veiled crags. Splendidly set is the city in the warm
lap of its Conca d’ Oro, the Golden Shell that blooms
with countless orange and lemon trees whose golden
fruits flash amid the glossy green of the foliage and
give the rolling plain its name. Pink and white alm-
onds, citron, palms, ilex and pomegranate make it
a great botanical garden, perfumed with the jasmine
of Araby, the geranium, the pallid lily and the
rose. The system of irrigation introduced cen-
turies ago by the Saracens still obtains throughout
this favored plain, increasing its productiveness
twenty-fold. Fringing the city, splendid villas and
great beautiful gardens bring a blush to the emerald
cheek of the rolling environs. One feature of parks

and gardens throughout Sicily that no American
[19]VISTAS IN SICILY

—

can fail to notice is the lack of prohibitory signs,
such as “ Keep off the grass.” ‘Do not pick
flowers.” ‘* No trespassing under penalty of the
law.” Royal, noble or ordinary, these grand floral
and arboreal displays are open to the public prac-
tically all the time, yet no one is ever offended by
débris left by picknickers, by broken-off twigs or
blossoms. ‘The Sicilian knows that an infraction of
the rights of the owners would result immediately in
the closure of these parks and gardens, and he re-
spects his privilege of entry.

Many who come to Palermo do so expecting to
find a typical south-Italian seaport, indescribably
filthy, and teeming with guides and beggars — as
determined as their native fleas to make a living
from the visitor. To all such the reality comes as
thrice welcome. They find a city beautiful, teeming
with life and color, brilliant and irresistible, its
citizens well dressed, orderly and courteous, at least
so far as the traveler sees them. They congest the
narrow sidewalks in an easy-going, gossiping, arm-
in-arm throng never in a hurry and never to be
stirred to haste by the polite “ Permesso, Signori! ”
of the foreigner. Rather when urged to speed do
they stop short to stare in amazement at such a
phenomenon as anyone pressed for time.

Handsome shops with alluring window displays
line the principal thoroughfares, which run through
the city in a huge cross. Clean, convenient trolley

[ 20 ]PALERMO

systems vein the capital’s face with crows’-feet in
thin gray lines; enticingly black and narrow little
vicoli thread devious ways among the houses, where
the curious may wander unafraid, and unashamed of
his curiosity and interest. And every alley, every
byway and passage is spotlessly clean; while the
gardens of the city, scattered with prodigal lavish-
ness throughout even the business section, are beauti-
ful beyond description. At first the senses refuse
to take in anything more than a strange, exotic,
gorgeous medley of light, color, sounds; an unfath-
omable jumble of men and animals, of quaint build-
ings and strange vehicles, of street cries weird but
melodious, of the faintly scented brilliant atmos-
of the half-revealed, half-guessed-at Soul of

phere
the City.

Perhaps the two main streets constitute the best
monument the Spaniards have left behind them.
They may not have cared for Sicily; but for them-
selves and their convenience and comfort they cared
much. So the Spanish viceroy, Don Pedro de To-
ledo, ran a fine broad street straight from the smil-
ing sea through the middle of the town, and called
it for himself, the Toledo. It is now the Corso Vit-
torio Emmanuele — practically every city of any
importance in Italy has testified in this same way to
its love for the united country’s first king. Cross-
ing this ancient Toledo is the other highway, the
Via Maqueda, laid out by another viceroy, the

[ 21 ]ee oa ee ate eee car

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VISTAS IN SICILY

Duque de Maqueda, a short time later. The curious
square —it is an octagon, by the way — where
these two streets intersect at right angles, is called
by the whimsical Sicilians the Quattro Canti, or
Four Corners. The facades of the abutting build-
ings are concave, and each affords lodgment for
statues of a Season, a Spanish King and a female
saint — who might be in a deal better company !

Our first morning on the Corso we were halted
by a terrific outburst of sound from the very heart
of the throng.

“What’s that?” I exclaimed, swinging my
camera into position. ‘“ A fight; somebody being
murdered? ”

But La Signora was not minded to be left a widow
in a strange land for the sake of a putative photo-
graph, and halted me. The cry stopped: as we lis-
tened it began again. Angry and defiant, bellicose
even, it rose clear and strong above the noise of the
street, held a moment, faded in slow diminuendo into
the beautifully clear note of a great and playful
animal baying for sheer joy of his own strength.
The sauntering crowds paid not the slightest atten-
tion to the amazing volcanic outburst of vocal fire-
works; not one of the alluring shops beside us was
emptied of its customers; the tiny Sardinian donkeys
in the shafts of the gayly painted little carts did not
even lift an ear, but pattered gravely onward; and
we, moving with the crowd, looked sheepishly at one

[ 22 ]PALERMO

another when we reached the corner. Standing in
an angle of two house walls was a little seller of
sweetened water, holding his big red amphora by
one ear, his gaudy little yellow-red-blue stand
bright with clinking bottles and glasses. As we
stopped, he stunned us again with his musical bellow,
and knowing we would not buy his “ Aaaaacquuuu-
aaaa! Aaaaacquaaaaaaaa d-o-l-c’!”’ struck a pic-
turesque attitude and posed for us instead. He is
there yet — or another water-man is, for it is a fine
corner for business.

Along the Via Maqueda and its continuations, the
Ruggiero VII and the Avvenida della Liberta, the
fashionable corso, or afternoon driving promenade
of all classes, takes place. ‘The handsome street
is an endless chain of moving vehicles of every de-
scription. Here a spanking team of blooded bays
with silver-mounted harness draws the smart London
trap of a young Florio; there a rickety old barouche,
guiltless of varnish for many a long year, so
crowded with a stout family party of six that its
rheumatic springs creak, and the wind-broken old
hack who pulls it feels his waning powers severely
taxed. A splendid young Arab, full of blood and
pride, pulling a new victoria, follows a ducal cart
and precedes another overflow meeting, this time a
stag party. Flashily dressed young gallants with
cigarettes and straw hats a l’Anglais, loll back in
decent traps and carts, making sheep’s eyes at the

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VISTAS IN SICILY

demure young girls who ride in maiden reserve be-
side their silent mothers.

Every Palermitan who can, rides in this social
promenade. What matter if his vehicle be but a
cheap hired victoria; what if he go to bed supper-
less; has he not had the supreme delight of playing
milord in elegant leisure among the nobility and the
rich forestieri (tourists) who take the air on the
city’s stateliest avenue?

It not infrequently transpires that one carriage,
one horse and one coachman are owned — and alter-
nately used — by two or three families. The coach-
man in all probability not having been paid for a
year or two, cannot afford to run away; the emaci-
ated steed, not having had a really square feed of
good sweet oats for an equally distressing period,
could not run away if he would; and if both horse
and driver should by fell conspiracy bolt, the faith-
ful old carriage would quickly fall to pieces rather
than have any part in the undoing of its worthy
owners,

Those of the nobles too poor to own a carriage
alone, and far too proud to appear in hired ones,
are not too proud to adopt the tactics of their
humbler brethren, and go shares in an outfit with
other nobles of equal pretensions and as poor as
themselves. Only one extravagance marks the com-
mon ownership of what might be called these “ party
rigs.” Each count or baron or prince naturally

[ 24 ]PALERMO

boasts “arms” as the the insignia of his rank;
and these symbols must of necessity embellish his
carriage doors, that he who walks may know at a
glance the name and fame of him who rides. From
this dilemma the Sicilian has contrived an ingenious
escape. Each noble has his own set of emblazoned
doors. So when the tired horse brings his High-
ness the Prince back to his “ palace,” presto! off
come the princely doors, on go the ducal or baronial
ones, and his Grace the Duke or the Baron rides
serenely off in his own private equipage!

Of all the vehicles in the world, there is nothing,
however, to equal the Sicilian cart, carved, yellow,
paneled with lurid paintings that run the gamut of
myth and history. One we saw had upon its panels
scenes representing Columbus sailing from Palos and
discovering America; a bloody fight around the cit-
adel of Acre; the hermitage of Santa Rosalia ; and
on its tailboard a vivid presentation of the massacre
of the Vespers. These carts are never very large,
as carts go; but they are so marvelously wrought,
they ought surely to come under the provisions of
the law which forbids the exportation of any works
of art. Wheels, shafts, axles, the edges of sides and
posts and tailboards are all worked into neat geo-
metrical designs, and on the axle is a carving built
up clear to the bottom of the cart, a mass of intri-
cate scroll-work and gingerbread, in the middle of
which sits the patron saint of the fortunate owner.

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“If you expect a cart-driver to tell you the
truth, make him swear by the saint sitting upon his
axle,” is almost a proverb in Palermo. Would there
were saints on the cabs, too!

Often the horses’s decorations are equally fan-
tastic, with a three-foot cock feather rising between
his ears, an apoplectic purple bouquet of yarn upon
the saddle, and plenty of shrill little bells at jingly
intervals all over. These gorgeous outfits are used
for ordinary delivery work, and after working hours
the family put chairs in and go for a ride in state.
The bit is as queer as the harness: it isn’t a bit at
all, but a plate of spring-steel strapped loosely
over the horse’s nose, an horizontal prong project-
ing on either side. Attached to the prongs, the
reins give the driver complete control over his an-
imal, since by pulling them he gently but effectively
cuts off the beast’s breath. This makes runaways
impossible, and besides, is much more humane than a
bit of the usual sort.

The city’s street cleaning department is not
such a joke as it appears. Looks are not its strong
point — keeping the town immaculate jis. The
carts are simply scaly old specimens of these bril-
liant equipages; and the animals are tiny Sardinian
donkeys, as pretty and gentle as any pet lamb, and
scarcely bigger. One velvety little g-ay beauty
we saw on the Via Maqueda was undoubtedly heart-

broken at having such disagreeable work to da, We
[ 26 ]PALERMO

talked to him and petted him, but to all our caresses
he made not the slightest response, merely hanging
his head and suffering his fate silently, like the brave
little beast that he was.

Perhaps it is the cleanliness of these streets that
makes the people use them as drying-rooms. In
Naples they wash in the streets, and hang the clothes
from window to window in narrow alleys. But in
Palermo the people go much farther —they cover
the facades of their very finest houses with linen
which flaps in plain sight even during the fashion-
able corso on the broad avenue.

On this same Via Maqueda are the two large thea-
ters. The Massimo, or Largest Theater, is a
splendid structure, well named, for it is the largest
theater not only in Italy but in all Europe, a digni-
fied adaptation of ancient Greek ideals to present
day needs. A block farther on is the Politeama
Garibaldi, with a Roman triumphal arch entrance,
and a two-storied Greek colonnade encircling fres-
coed walls whose polychromatic decorations are so
exceedingly Pompeiian they suggest that Palermo
may be the birthplace of a new renaissance in Italian
art.

The Sicilian of any class is always picturesque,
always individual. He could scarcely be anything
else if he tried, and the life of the masses in the
city is like a show at the theater — a shcw, at that,
in which even the supernumeraries are ever imbued

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VISTAS IN SICILY

with due regard for the proper setting and action
of the piece. There is no more typical specimen of
this condensed picturesqueness than the water-seller,
whose bellow has musical quality and charm, as you
discover after your first shock. He calls up Egypt
and the streets of Cairo. Really, he is the survival
of an ancient Arab custom. You find him every-
where, especially among the lanes of the Fiera di
Pascua, the Easter Fair, a piece bitten right out of
the heart of Coney Island. The Easter season, by
the way, is an exceedingly fortunate time to spend
in Sicily, because of the multitudinous festivities
going on.

For the Fair, great bare sheds spring up over-
night in the square beside the Massimo, mushroom-
like —a sunstruck Babel of crazily built and deco-
rated shops and stalls and booths where everything
imaginable is to be bought, from tinware and toys
to rosaries and vegetables. About the booths ed-
dies a jovial mob, pushing, chattering, playing
practical jokes on one another, eating candy and
the dubious Sicilian equivalents for frankfurters and
kraut. Bands blare out fitful, horrible music from
the roofs or windows of small sheds curiously
mounted with painted legends or astonishing pic-
tures in which the lack of perspective is the most
prominent feature, unless it is the artist’s entire
disregard for the principles of anatomy. “ Bar-
kers ” in plate armor manufactured out of ancient

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kerosene tins from which the odor has by no means
departed, vie with ridiculous clowns and short skirted
dancers in proclaiming the attractions of their rival
marionette and “ minstrel” shows. And everybody
wants to pose. Indeed, the Sicilians have a good
humored mania for getting in the way of the
camera, even when they know they are not wanted
there and will never see a single copy of the picture.

I leveled my camera at one queer stall, and in-
stantly the people sprang together solidly, com-
pletely obscuring the booth, each man crying to his
neighbor: “ Aspett’! Aspett’! Il fotografo!”’ In
vain I pleaded. In vain Gualterio shouted and
threatened and argued. The merrymakers laughed,
and nodded, and stood like statues. In the confu-
sion an important policeman stepped up, saluted
respectfully, and said: ‘ Excellency will be kind
enough to move out into the street again. He is at-
tracting citizens, and blocking the entire square.”

Then he began unhurriedly turning over the
human kaleidoscope.

[ 29 ]

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ALERMO is chimneyless. Hovels and _ pal-
P aces alike have no fires, except for cooking,

and among the poorer classes very little of
that is done at home, the people being steady pa-
trons of the cucine economice, or “ economical
kitchens,” especially of those in the vicinity of the
great public markets.

Anxious to see these typical aspects of city life in
tabloid form, we had our own dinner early one even-
ing, and told Gualterio to take us through the
poorer quarters, to show us the people getting their
suppers, both at home and in the old market. Obey-
ing literally, he drove us through countless piccolié
vicolt or narrow alleys, dark little canyon-like slits
between the houses.

Strange shadowy forms flitted about under our
horse’s very feet; black doorways gave yawning
glimpses of deeper gloom beyond, lighted only by a
tiny candle; here and there we passed vague sil-
houettes — a hungry man standing, hat on, before
a table or sideboard gulping down his meager din-
ner, or a woman, Rembrandt-like, knitting, mending,
reading, or amusing a child, in soft relief against

[ 30 ]A NIGHT OF DISSIPATION

the murk of the interior. Sharp cries from the
driver warned away the children sitting in the
street, so narrow that the wheels of our carriage
scraped the house walls on both sides while going
through; women knitting slipped their chairs
momentarily back into the doorways in order to let
us pass. Street lamps at long intervals twinkled
feebly, and after six or eight such streets were tray-
ersed we emerged into the glare and brilliance of
the slightly depressed Piazza Caraccioli, home of the
Fiera Vecchia or Old Market.

Halting the victoria on one side of the square, we
wandered about on foot among a bedlam more pic-
turesque than, and fully as noisy as, the Easter
Market. To describe the scene adequately is im-
possible —no one who has not seen it can gather
more than the vaguest idea from any printed de-
scription of this vivid cross-section of lower class
Sicilian customs.

Dazzling light and pitchy darkness alternate
sharply, with no intermediate nuances of softer
shadow, and the hurrying people rush hither and
yon like so many busy ants. Adding to the con-
fusion of the scene, the peddler and vendor shout
out their wares: ‘“ Water!” “Olives!” “ Arti-
chokes!” “ Fish!” A chorus of lesser cries swell
into diapason invitations to buy all manner of
things one does not wish and can not possibly use,
and there is much good natured chaff for the fore-

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VISTAS IN SICILY

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stiert. Men, women and children by the score are
everywhere, some eating where they stand, some
carrying food home.

Small pails of gleaming charcoal bear upon their
heads great kettles of boiling artichokes. Steam
and aroma from the cooking meats and vegetables ;
the smoke of lamps, candles and torches and burn-
ing fat and grease in the frying pans; escaping
gases from the ranges in the “ economical kitchens,”
from the charcoal fires, and from the coal stoves;
the innumerable smells of fresh vegetables, meat,
fish, both salt and fresh, cut flowers and goats, with
an additional tang of cheap wine, gushing from big
casks into pails and bottles in the open shops,
mingle in a composite odor by no means as un-
pleasant as might be thought.

The whole scene is a delight to the eye. Here is
a good sized wine shop, its front entirely open,
showing two rows of casks and an imposing array
of copper bright as the sun; yonder a vegetable
store completely covered with onions suspended
in long strings, bunches and wreaths, decorated
fancifully with green leaves and little rosettes which
afford a background of decidedly striking type for
an image of the Holy Bambino, itself of onion color,
and barely discernible among the rustling strings
of bulbs over the door.

Beside us a tiny restaurant, its front all gas-
range, yawns enticingly, while opposite glows the

[ 32 ]A NIGHT OF DISSIPATION

fiery eye of an artichokeman’s tiny charcoal fire.
Vendors of fried entrails and stomachs squat beside
their frying pans and baskets, perforated ladles in
their hands, exactly like our frankfurter men; while
water-men with their highly colored stands full of
clinking glasses swing along, bellowing cheerfully.

Great gaudy signs in blue, red and yellow pro-
claim the prices of empty eggs, strung on threads,
or impaled upon wooden spearlets, and stuck up
over the front of a shop. Evidently the Palermitan
distinguishes as we do between “eggs,” ‘“ fresh
eggs” and “strictly fresh eggs,’ for the price
varies considerably. However, the careful buyer we
watched trusted not in signs or portents, but weigh-
ing each egg carefully as he bought, placed a dozen
or more of the fragile things in his coat pockets de-
spite the throng. Why a purchaser never comes
home with an omelet in his clothes is a mystery, for
we found it exceedingly difficult to work our way
through the crowd. Yet, when I questioned the
egg-seller he declared that no one ever broke an egg.

A man with a pretentious stand like the American
quick lunch counters stood behind a narrow smoking
counter full of hidden fire, bearing a frying pan on
top. On his left a bowl of strong shredded cheese
faced other dishes of butter and rolls. He was a
very popular caterer, too, for while we stood watch-
ing him a number of customers came up, giving an
order in the peasant dialect which we could not

[33]VISTAS IN SICILY

understand, and the proprietor with a deft turn of
his hand split a roll, covered it liberally with a rich
thick layer of shredded cheese looking lke tooth-
picks, placed upon that a few scraps of the meat
he was cooking below, and deluging the whole with
a spoonful or two of boiling grease, served up the
tit-bit to his eager customer. In Sicily the butchers
sell the offal and entrails of slaughtered animals,
which in America are turned over to the soap manu-
facturers or thrown away. ‘The kitchen-man who
buys them cuts up the stuff, boils it in its own fat,
and sells it in the reeking buns at a penny apiece.
The sturdy Sicilian seems to enjoy and thrive on this
horrible mess, and even the children come toddling
up to clamor for their share.

Macaroni of all sorts, curled, fluted, twisted,
frilled, chopped into squares and lead pencil lengths,
woven, braided into shapes numberless, decorates sev-
eral of the stalls. Other booths sell candles; others,
shoes ; still others, nothing but cheese. Cobblers are
everywhere, although it seems impossible — in a
town where so many people go barefoot — that one-
tenth of the shoemakers, who work from six o’clock
in the morning until nearly midnight, can find any-
thing to do. Notwithstanding this external pov-
erty, however, there are in the houses of the very
poorest in practically every section of the town
sewing-machines, whose tireless treadles throb and
pulse by day and far into the night, the seamstress

[ 34]A NIGHT OF DISSIPATION

bending over her work lighted only by the spasmodic
flickerings of a little candle.

Tiring after an hour or so of the bustle and con-
fusion and glare, we set off again. In and out we
wound, as in a dream, peopling the streets with
imaginary rascals ready to rob or kidnap, until at
last in a small open square we came to the brilliantly
lighted wineshop and café of Sainte Rosalie, whose
proprietor, himself partly French, thus Gallicizes
the name of the town’s patron saint, and at the same
time adds distinction to his café in the eyes of lower
class Palermo. We stopped curiously, and the pro-
prietor, immediately forgetting his patrons, invited
us to get out and inspect the place.

Filling almost one entire side of the large front
room is a huge stove built of mortar-covered brick-
work, upon which bubbled a couple of cauldrons, one
full of goats’ stomach, the other containing scraps
of something or other. Both smelled good — but
how they looked! Opposite the stove hung meat
which had been fresh that morning; piles of vege-
tables completely filled up the counter and various
tables. All the coppers and cooking utensils were
spotless, and marvelous to relate, there is a real
chimney, and running water, both hot and cold.
Sometimes you see a house which has a genuine iron
cooking stove — but it stands in the parlor and the
stovepipe is thrust conveniently out into the street
above the closed lower half of the front door.

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The café is divided into two parts by an arch,
and no curtains being hung, the diners can see per-
fectly how their food is being cooked. Leading us
through into the Sala di pranzo, the proprietor, with
a sweeping bow, waved us into two chairs at a table
beside two native couples who were taking their be-
lated suppers. The peasants greeted us frankly
and pleasantly, the women smiling, and the men
doffing their caps with a hearty “ Buona sera, st-
gnori! ”

Not knowing exactly what was expected of us,
we ordered vino e pasta, supposing we would receive
some sour, fiery fluid, and the bad Sicilian bread.
Instead there was set before us a large flagon of
reddish-brown, rather heavy dessert wine, a little
too sweet to be palatable to Americans, but never-
theless delicious. Clean though coarse napkins and
glasses accompanied it, and delicious almond sweet-
cakes in far greater quantity than we could eat.
The price of this refreshment was so ridiculously
small that we wondered at first whether Boniface had
not made a mistake.

Our trip through the market and the piccoli vicolt
thus pleasantly finished, I told Gualterio to take us
to the theater.

That anyone would be willing to miss a minute
of pleasure he must pay for was incomprehensible
to his simple mind. Draining his beaker at a gulp,

he nearly dropped the glass in astonishment.
36)A NIGHT OF DISSIPATION

“ Ma— signore! E troppo tard’! Ora si finisc’
ul prim’ atto!” he exclaimed. “It is too late! The
first act is surely over! ”

“Oh, I did not mean the fine theaters where the
rich people go, but a little theater, a theater of the
people — where you go when you have an evening to
yourself.”

A curious expression came over his face, but mak-
ing sure that we knew what we were talking about,
he drove rapidly to the door of a dirty and dilapi-
dated looking house in a small side court. Though
we did not expect marionette shows to be given ina
very splendid auditorium, we were scarcely prepared
for this, rather hesitating to enter.

The door was divided, the lower half closed, the
upper open. Inside hung a short, flapping black
curtain, while about the door loitered a little group
of street urchins who dodged up when the door-
keeper’s back was turned, to peep eagerly into the
slit of brilliance that revealed the stage between
the upper edge of the half-door and the bottom of
the curtain.

As we, too, peeped, Gualterio whispered that here
was a theater whose audience numbered the very
poorest and the humblest in the city, adding apolo-
getically: “ Perhaps it is too poor for Excellency.
I have been here and enjoyed the performance, but
Excellency is accustomed to the fine theaters, and
the Signora may not like this very well.”

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On the contrary, that was exactly the sort of
theater we did wish to see. The glimpse we got
through the open door of the auditorium however,
was not reassuring; and furthermore there was not
a woman present. I knew all about the custom of
the Sicilian theaters, which announce two different
sorts of plays —‘“‘ To-night for men;” “This is a
play for ladies.” Naturally, seeing no sign of the
more particular sex, I jumped at the conclusion that
this must be a man’s night. But disturbed by our
conversation outside, the doorkeeper-proprietor and
at least half of the audience politely arose and in-
sisted that we should enter. With some misgivings
we did so, paying two cents apiece for seats. After-
ward I learned that the impresario had charged us
exactly double what anyone else paid.

The seats consisted of a few hard wooden benches
without any backs, and the one reserved place in the
entire theater — which was a room perhaps thirty
feet square with two galleries some five feet above
the floor on both sides — was a single broken-backed
kitchen chair perched upon one of the benches in
the middle of the house. The only well dressed
man in the room, who occupied it, gallantly
sprang down at once, and with a delightfully courtly
bow and smile assisted the protesting Signora to
his place. The audience numbered about forty or
fifty fisherman, peddlers, a cabman or two and a mis-

cellaneous collection of as jovial looking pirates as
[ 38 ]A NIGHT OF DISSIPATION

ever scuttled a ship or slit a throat. But for all
their appearance, they behaved exactly like Amer-
ican opera-goers, and the stir that our entrance
made set every tongue chattering at a lively pace.

The stage stretched across the end of the pit at a
height of perhaps three or four feet above the
floor, and on a rack of some kind at the left of the
place where the footlights should have been, was
a quantity of wilted green vegetables. Thinking of
what happens to inferior actors in the rural districts
here, I inquired with some anxiety if the vegetables
had been laid aside for that purpose. But the
man to whom I spoke, missing the joke entirely, re-
plied with the utmost simplicity: ‘‘ Oh, no, Gius-
eppe laid his pack there because it was too big to
place between the seats.”

How homelike it would seem to the weary street
hawker in New York, could he but stop at the
theater on his way home, and occasion no remark by
leaving his left-over stock in trade at the feet of the
actors for the time being.

As soon as La Signora was ensconced upon her
uncertain “ reserved seat,’? the men who sat beside
me on either hand began to explain the play in what
they probably considered words of one syllable.
The fancily dressed young man at my right seemed
impatient at the remarks of my white-haired left-
hand neighbor, who smelled strongly of tar, and
whose sixty years and showerbath dialect made him

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both attractive and unintelligible to me. Both men
talked at once and at high speed. In the meantime
everyone else all over the house was talking cheer-
fully; and the play was proceeding as calmly as
though there were no interruption. Between the
two explanations, neither of which I could under-
stand, I had considerable difficulty in catching the
words of the play, which was being read by a gentle-
man whose lungs must have been rubber and whose
throat brass. He stood back of the proscenium
somewhere and bellowed or whispered in fine frenzy
at every dramatic point, as the marionettes per-
formed their astonishing evolutions.

The puppets were handsome armored figures
about three feet high, clothed in glittering plate and
chain armor, accoutered cap-a-pie, their shields
properly blazoned and their surcoats faithful models
of the garments worn by the ancient knights.
Marching, filing and counter-filing, they made ad-
dresses to the accompaniment of stiff, clattering
gestures, fought duels of deadly outcome with clash-
ing weapons and rasping wires in the glare of half
a dozen smoky oil lamps, and moved about easily,
manipulated by the expert hands of operators who
were standing in the wings. Every little while a
human hand would burst into view, grotesquely gi-
gantic compared with the puppet whose fate was
in its keeping.

The play was one of the familiar favorites, repre-

[ 40 ]A NIGHT OF DISSIPATION

senting the endeavors of invading Moors to convert
Christian Sicilians to Mohammedanism, but the
author was somewhat mixed in his history. Beside
the Sicilians and Moors he worked in Frenchmen,
and before the play was over, the story was that of
a struggle between the two Christian nations, the
Mohammedans obviously forgotten. The wicked,
wicked Frenchmen were, of course, defeated, and
their bloody schemes met with the noisy condemna-
tion of the little crowd, while their opponents, the
ancestors of these same street boys and hucksters
and fishermen, won as hearty approval.

In the interval between the fourth and the last
acts I had a chance to inquire of my neighbors why
there were no women present. Both men regarded
me with astonishment, and the younger answered
first.

“Women? Women in the theater? Why, the
theater is not good for them. I never bring my
woman! ”

Evidently a foreign woman was different, and
none of the audience seemed to regard it as strange
that one should be among them. As we came out
into the fresh night air, Gualterio was apologetically
solicitous, a little nervous as to the success of his
experiment in bringing us to this particular theater.
But our manifest satisfaction with our night of dis-
sipation speedily reassured him, and all the way
back to the hotel he sang canzone to his chunky lit-

tle Arab out of pure joy and thankfulness.
[42]Neen a a ee ee ee ee ae ee ee

CATHEDRBEALS

season is an especially good time to be in
Palermo. On Easter morning the great Court
of the Lord before the Cathedral is a surprising pic-
ture. Upon the heavy stone balustrade enclosing
it sixteen massive saints meditate benignly in the
scented air. ‘The great gray cement yard, flowers
all colors of the rainbow, marble Santa Rosalia —
patroness of Palermo — the huge church itself: all
are bathed in the most brilliant sunshine imaginable.
Words and pictures alike fail to give any adequate
expression of it. The noise and unrest of the busy
Corso are forgotten in this magic precinct; smiling,
happy men, women and children stream through the
yard, picturesque in their holiday attire; while from
the windows drones the chant of the Mass, like the
buzzing of a swarm of kindly bees hovering over the
flowers. The white glare of the Egyptian desert is
never more blinding than a Silician spring morning
radiance.
Though the service calls, religion in Sicily takes
small heed of the antics of foreigners, and if one

[42]

T has already been pointed out that the EasterCATHEDRALS

chooses to stay outside in the courtyard and take
photographs, it causes not the slighest comment.
The main charm of the Cathedral lies in the curious
blending of its different forms of architecture —
Arabic, Norman, Gothic; which produces a dashing
and almost whimsical effect in its fine arcades, its
rich friezes and battlements, its interlacing arches,
and its airy turrets outlined against the blue sky.
Two graceful flying arches connect the Cathedral
with the campanile or belfry which, as is often the
case, is separated from the Cathedral proper —
in this instance across the street. The vast struc-
ture as a whole is the very epitome of Sicily’s many
sided culture and art during her high tide of glory,
the Norman period. A witty Englishman has fitly
remarked that the badly restored and whitewashed
interior, however, is of the “ railroad station type.”

In the south aisle chapels, though, are the ex-
cellent tombs of the kings, the grim and silent last
homes of the marvelous Frederick, that * Wonder of
the World,” of Henry VI, The Butcher, of Con-
stance the Broken-Hearted, and of others. A great
crimson porphyry sarcophagus holds the dust of
King Roger, of whom it has been well said indeed
that he was “ one of the wisest, most renowned, most
worthy, and most fortunate princes of his time”
(Freeman). Kneeling Norman nobles carved in
white marble upbear the simple, boxlike mass of

porphyry upon their armored shoulders. What an
[43]

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VISTAS IN SICILY

eR ee er Te fet

expression of the homage of the people! The simple
inscription, in Latin, reads:

IN QUIET AND PEACE, ROGER, STRENUOUS
DUKE AND OF SICILY FIRST KING,
IS DEAD IN PANORMOS, THE MONTH OF FEB-
RUARY IN THE YEAR 1154.

So it would seem that we are not the first people to
discover ‘‘ the strenuous life! ”

And King Roger’s life was certainly strenuous.
But it was nothing at all compared to the career
of his father, who landed stealthily in Sicily by night
with a handful of trusty knights and men-at-arms,
captured Messina before breakfast, and stormed on
through the island, felling the Saracens like so many
saplings. ‘The Norman conquest was distinguished
throughout by the most impossible feats of both per-
sonal valor and consideration; the island was ready
for Roger to knit together and administer when he
succeeded his father, and played the role of law-
giver and organizer to his fiery parent’s conquests.
And young Roger rose even higher than his father.
Where he had been Count, Roger made himself not
only King of Sicily, but ruler of a considerable part
of Southern Italy as well. What manner of man
he was is shown by an ancient mosaic still on the
wall of the church of the Martorana, a remarkable
example in itself of Norman-Sicilian art. Notwith-

[ 44 Jin the Easter Fair, a piece bitten right

out of Coney Island.”

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“Vendors of fried entrails . . . squat beside their

“The people

are

“ewer

baskets.”

steady patrons of the Economical
Kitchens.”CATHEDRALS

standing the tremendous temporal power of the
Popes in those days, this descendant of the vikings
refused to be crowned by the papal legate, and the
mosaic represents him placing the diadem upon his
head with his own hands.

The Martorana church was built by the King’s
High Admiral, Giorgios Antiochenos, a versatile
gentleman indeed, who amused himself while on
shore leave or duty by building bridges and
churches, importing silk weavers and generally play-
ing the constructive and highly intelligent official,
whose good works have long outlived himself.

Throughout the island it is eminently proper to
keep the key of a building as far away from its
door as possible— it is the custode of La Mar-
torana who gives open sesame to the Sclaéfani Pal-
ace. As you drive over, he ticks off its history on
his bony fingers with the precious key: Built in
1330; afterward a grand hospital; to-day a barrack
for the Bersaglieri or mountain riflemen. Prac-
tically the only remaining evidence of its former
grandeur is a tremendous fresco attributed to a
long-forgotten Flemish painter, on one of the walls
of the courtyard. The fresco, measuring some
eighteen feet in height by about twenty-two in
length, is called Il Trionfo della Morte, The Tri-
umph of Death, and its name is fully borne out by
its grisly realism, as the white horse and his ruth-
less skeleton rider trample down those who wish to

[45]VISTAS IN SICILY

live, and ignore the wretched who plead in vain for
release from their misery. With the latter group
stands the painter himself, palette and mahlstick in
hand; it is said he was taken ill while a guest in
the palace. Perhaps the painting commemorates
his feelings during that unfortunate experience,

It is frankly ugly — there is no other word to ex-
press it — yet it still clings to the white wall and
produces an astonishing effect, especially when one
remembers that it is a faithful expression of the re-
ligious feeling of the epoch it stands for. While
we were studying it, a well-fed American-in-a-hurry,
evidently a person of importance Baedekering
through Sicily, rushed into the court, asked abruptly
if that were the great picture, thrust both hands
into his pockets and, with feet wide apart, appraised
it a few moments in patent disgust. It costs about
a lira and a half — something like thirty cents of
our money — to see the fresco. Pulling out a hand-
ful of loose change to pay the custodian, the
stranger glanced first at his hand, then back at the
painting.

“Thirty cents! Thirty cents — that’s exactly
what it looks like!” he exploded, and was off before
we could get our breaths.

That Palermo had queer taste in the old days is
indicated by the Scléfani fresco; and further evi-
dence is not lacking in the crypts of a Capuchin
monastery, a short distance outside the Porta Nuova.

[46]CATHEDRALS

——— —

The vaults, long ago used as a burial place by the
wealthier families of the city, contain at present
some eight thousand embalmed bodies. This sub-
way full of mummies is divided into several sec-
tions, the men and women segregated from each
other and from the monks and priests, who have a
gallery apart. Some of the bodies are in coffins
or caskets of various sorts, but many have been
hung up by the neck in cords like hangman’s
nooses. Some skulls are entirely fleshless, while
others are partially covered. Hands whose fingers
have shrunk to black bits of petrifaction hang
loosely from rotting gloves which now appear sev-
eral sizes too large. Heads have slipped back to
stare up at the cobwebbed ceiling, turned sidewise
with most diabolical leers, moved forward as though
to combat the visitor. Not a single skull is ex-
pressionless, even if devoid of flesh. Some are
jocose, some piously sad, some morose, some menac-
ing and grim.

Within the artillery barrack a little farther out,
is a ragged tower some thirty feet high that repre-
sents the ancient villa of La Cuba. An Arabic
frieze about the bare exterior suggests the residence
of some haughty old Emir of Palermo. The
iconoclastic archeologists, however, have shattered
the popular belief by deciphering the inscription to
prove that no Saracen ever lived there, but that
the mansion was erected in 1183 by the grandson

[47]tetientn ein nie dein nah oe A eel ee aaeetiot tated ee eee ee ste S oe OR Te

ee eens

VISTAS IN SICILY

of Roger, King William II, “ The Good,” of whose
reign one chronicler of the period wrote: ‘ There
was more security then, in the thickets of Sicily
than in the cities of other kingdoms.” Modesty,
though, could scarcely have been the most conspic-
uous of that monarch’s many virtues, for the in-
scription reads: “In the Name of God, clement,
merciful, give heed. Here halt and admire. Be-
hold the illustrious dwelling of the most illustrious
of the kings of the earth, William II.”

Tired out one night after a long day following
the hounds through the forests outside Palermo, this
same King William II, “The Good,” lay down to
sleep on a hill overlooking the city. And in his
sleep, he dreamed: Out of the glades floated the
shining figure of the Virgin, mysterious and inspir-
ing, telling the awestruck monarch that the church
he had sworn to build for her must be erected on
that very spot. Slowly the dazzling vision faded,
and when he awoke William named the hill Mon
Reale — Royal Mount — at once beginning to pre-
pare for the most splendid church in Sicily, a house
of prayer worthy of both its divine patroness and its
royal founder.

In 1174 the actual construction began, and
eight years later, thanks to the pious aid of the
King’s mother, Margaret of Aragon, the Duomo of
Monreale was solemnly consecrated. It was, how-
ever, unfinished outside, and to this day its barren

[ 48 ]CATHEDRALS

exterior hints nothing of its interior magnificence.

Around the Cathedral sprang up a populous lit-
tle city of jammed-together houses along constricted,
hilly streets, and eight centuries have not changed
the town appreciably. It is possible to ascend by
tram this crested slope upon whose brow the Middle
Ages still reign. Unfortunately, the cars are not
personally conducted to stop at the best viewpoints,
so it is better, though more expensive, to take a cab.

Once in a while in Europe the recognition of class
distinction grips an American with a strangle-hold.
That day in the Monreale tram it seized me, when
a fat, overdressed middle-class woman of forty or
so began to give herself more airs than a duchess.
With her little son, she was taking up room enough
for four ordinary people, when a spotlessly neat old
peasant woman, with a decent murmur of apology,
sat down in the half-vacant space alongside. The
bourgeoise flared like a Sans Géne, jabbed at her
parcels brusquely, and told her loudly not to intrude
upon her betters. It was then that I wished for a
second-class car, to save the old woman from such
gratuitous effrontery.

The Cathedral rises like a fortress before the
town; its main doors — between two massive square
towers, giving upon a dusty little square — are rich
bronze leaves full of low-reliefs from Old Testament
history. The first impression on entering is of a
dazzling blaze of golden light, beating upon and

[49 ]

Ce el

“ ee. Se ee

—_

pete

eedas

i all at a a da Dei aa ee ee ee ee ee ae ee aon

VISTAS IN SICILY

beaten back from golden walls with stunning effect,
in which the details of design and ornamentation,
for all their clarity and importance, are so marvel-
ously subordinated that they but add to the glowing
display. Though the superb glass mosaics cover an
area which Baedeker — with ‘‘ Made-in-Germany ”
accuracy — declares to be 70,400 square feet, the
lower walls are all pure white marble, with an upper
border and slender bright-colored bands which run
perpendicularly through the spotless white like the
embroidery upon a holy robe. The vast nave and
aisles are light and airy. There is complete ab-
sence of any artificial decoration—no tawdry,
meaningless images, no hideous ex-votos to distract
the eye. Harmony is the keynote of every inch
of the decorations; from pave to rooftree there is
not one inconsistent or jarring note.

The great dome of the main apse is completely
filled by a bust of the Christ in the same glittering,
marvelous, indescribably mellow glass mosaic that
covers thousands of square feet upon the walls. It
is the face of the man traditional, the visage of one
whose appearance has been handed down from father
to son since the beginning, the likeness of a founder,
a prophet. And the still, solemn wonder of it fills
one like the recurrent chords of a great and stately
harmony. It is the one feature that stands out
high above the blinding golden haze.

“Not a jarring note”— and yet, who that has

[50]CATHEDRALS

seen those forty Old Testament mosaic tableaux on
the upper walls can help recalling his first start of
amazement at their literalness. They speak a dia-
lect of art; they translate the Bible stories that the
uneducated medieval mind could not read, into
something that everybody could understand. A
snow-white Eve worming her way out of an equally
pallid dreamer’s side, and afterward decorously in-
troduced by God Himself to Adam, is startling
enough. But how about Noah, draped by a modest
son, while in the vinous slumber brought about
through a too generous testing of the liquid sun-
shine of his own vines? No details of these ancient
histories was too insignificant or too broad for the
artificers to weave lovingly into their master-work ;
and nothing could better illustrate the pure sim-
plicity of the medieval mind to which anything
Biblical was holy, and fit for presentation to all the
world.

One of the most noticeable features of the Duomo
is the clearness and delicacy of every detail. In
St. Mark’s in Venice, time has blurred and defaced
almost everything and the better part of the mosaics
is crumbling into soft decay; but here in Monreale
the delineation is so vivid and sharp, each color so
soft and pure in tone, it seems as though the master
workman had laid down his tools but yesterday to
pronounce his chef d’euvre complete.

We are apt to think of cloisters as gloomy, for-

[51]ee e+ et te

ee ee

it aa!

nee iy ie Ra AE oy

VISTAS IN SICILY

bidding places, where half frozen monks with blue
lips and hair shirts shiver about their religious
tasks and wish—if they are human!—they had
never been born. Of course, there are such cloisters
— but not here in Monreale, where the glorious sun-
shine bathes all that is left of the monastery King
William erected for his Benedictine monks beside the
Cathedral. Pleasant cloisters these, warm and
blooming and fragrant with ozone and the perfume
of the flowers. And very pleasant, indeed, very much
worth while, must have been the lives of the jovial
Benedictine brothers during the high and mighty
reign of William the Good! Even after seven hun-
dred years the silent arcades are lovely, filled yet
with slender columns about which climb ribbons of
mosaic and garlands of living vines to set off the
different capitals —the finest examples of twelfth
century carving in the world. Every capital is
different, and almost every one tells a story. The
visitor can unravel for himself ancient legend or
Bible story, picking out old familiar figures here
and there in the mellow marble; or if he chooses, he
can meditate upon the curious fact that the Normans
were producing this glorious work in the island of
the sun long before Giotto was born.

Monreale’s streets are rugged and steep, but very
clean and decent. The Monrealese, instead of
naming their Corso for Italy’s first king, have named
it for the town’s most famous son, the seventeenth

[52]CATHEDRALS

century painter Pietro Novelli, whose studies of the
monks are moving figures, clearly establishing him
as the foremost materialist Sicily ever produced.
On the Corso is Grado Salvatore’s three-boy-power
macaroni factory, a queer, rambling, black sort of a
cavern, lighted only by the front door. A maca-
roni-machine looking for all the world like Benjamin
Franklin’s old hand printing press occupies the front
on one side; and Salvatore himself sits in the little
blue and white tiled sink before it, fanning and
snipping the wriggly paste as the boys twist the
screw and force it out in long strings. On the
other side of the partition is a cluttered-up sales-
room where every imaginable shape of macaroni and
spaghetti decorates the shelves. Behind all is the
mixing-room, joyously dark; and you may handle
the doughcakes to make sure they are pure and
clean! No matter if your hands are very dirty,
after your sightseeing; the good folk of Monreale
will take no particular harm after what they have
doubtless experienced at other hands. None the
less, as a general thing the interior of a Sicilian
paste shop compares favorably with that of an
American bakery, and the workers themselves are
quite immaculate, with soft, clean, pink hands like
a woman’s.

After it comes from the press, the macaroni is
cut into six-foot lengths and hung up outside the
shop to dry in the sunshine. By the time it has

[53]

seo Ra

aati is

etienen tie

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~-_ma RNS or g++ Ae ee ee

ee ee ee

VISTAS IN SICILY

ee ee i I ee er ne 4 ee ey

heeten deci ce ete aad tare niet aries fant cei oar re ee ee

" ee

collected sufficient dust and germs to make it stiff
— two or three days are usually long enough — it
is cut into package lengths and sold. In Southern
Italy it often occupies a good part of a roadway,
or even hangs over a busy coalyard; but in Sicily
both its manufacture and sale are cleaner and more
wholesome; and the macaroni made in Termini is
famous for its quality. Whether it is something in
its manufacture, or some subtle quality of the flour
from which it is made, the Sicilian pasta seems gen-
erally to have a flavor and a delicacy lacking in the
Italian variety.

The three juvenile assistants — boys who had the
haunting native eyes of soft yet gleaming brown
dusk, lustrous as old Marsala wine full of the sun —
did not seem in the least to mind the drudgery of
turning their endless screw. But while we were
handling doughcakes in the black backroom with
genial Salvatore, they stopped “ twisting the twist ”
and somehow managed to spread the news through-
out the entire village that there were strangers
within their gates; and a crowd of small boys, beg-
gars, and others who seemed to have no occupation
gathered at the front door, demanding vociferously
that they be photographed, chaffing each other and
us, and arranging themselves according to their
own ideas of a picturesque group.

While there was no stately ceremony to welcome
us, the freedom of the town was clearly ours after

[54]CATHEDRALS

that picture taking. Nobody asked for so much as
a copper penny, and gruff, cheery voices called after
us heartily: ‘‘ Buon viaggio! A rivederci, signori!
Good-by! Come back again!” And Monreale has

been branded as a town $
199

‘whose beggars are very
importunate

Bad as the Sicilian beggars are supposed to be,
we experienced less annoyance from them through-
out the island than from their pertinacious brethren
of Naples and the mainland generally.

At the brow of the hill is a terrace garden, the
‘“ Eden Restaurant ”— where-by all means you must
take tea. The little establishment amuses rather
than disappoints; and though it scarcely justifies
its grandiose title, it commands a view that no doubt
suggested the name to its proprietor. Falling away
from its feet, the hill cascades down in great billows
to the cool green and orange sea of the Conca d’Oro.
And when the trolley car turns the shoulder of the
hill, in Palermo — misty and dun in the gathering
dark — lights like jewels flash out in scintillating
ripples that spread and widen and sparkle as you
race down the dusty mountain road, leaving medieval
Monreale silent and spectral behind.

[55]eet re ee geen

ee et eo

tia nD a ce ee ee ee

cteetini iene etme tte ocean he ee

PALACES AND PEOPLE

| (gees * in Italian is a flexible and

generic term, and the examples of

“palaces” one sees in Sicily give an
entirely new sense of the elasticity of the Italian
language, and the freedom with which the people
use it. Palazzo means really any building or struc-
ture of any sort where wealthy, a noble, or a royal
family lives now, or ever has lived; and some of these
structures are as remarkable for their disreputable
appearance as others are for their beauty and rich-
ness, resembling nothing in the world so much as
American tenement houses. One such is unforget-
table — a dingy white, square, four-storied building
with green shutters and a large central doorway,
owned and occupied by a titled and wealthy family
whose members move in the highest society through-
out the island. The ground floor is taken up en-
tirely by stables, the servants, and rats as large as
kittens. The mezzanine floor above is given over to
two insurance companies, whose signs cover a consid-
erable part of their story. Above, the really noble
family lives in stately fashion.

It was when idling up the Nile that we first met
[56]PALACES AND PEOPLE

the older son of the family. Becoming friendly on
desert and river, the Sicilian confided in me his de-
sire for a northern alliance, readily admitting the
difficulty of reconciling his fiery temper with that of
any wife he might choose among his own people.

“Td like an American,” he declared, shrugging,
“but if I can’t get her, Dll take an English girl.
With cool northern blood in their veins, my children
might well show the virtue and strength which has
made you Anglo-Saxons what you are. You see,
here in Palermo I am a wealthy man. I am ‘ Your
Grace,’ ‘Your Highness.” But in New York or
London or Paris I am only one of ‘those poor
Sicilians.” I should like to marry a wife whose in-
come, together with mine, would enable us to live as
becomes the nobility in those cities.”

I made as diplomatic a reply as possible, but I
am very much afraid that the gentleman left me
feeling that Americans are after all a cold and un-
appreciative people, though he did express a desire
to continue the acquaintance in Palermo. When we
reached that city, we learned from various sources
of the aggravating inhospitality of the romancing
nobility, one of whose favorite pleasantries consists
of ardent solicitations to foreigners to call, and the
presenting of cards which, upon scrutiny, are found
to bear either no address or only the Italian legend
for “ General Delivery.”

Nevertheless, to our surprise, he called on us the

[57]

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ehttieatiathth pateeneee Ue tet 2 een de ee ee ee

Sater” en ee et

—

VISTAS IN SICILY

morning after his return from an extended trip
through the Holy Land, and learning that we in-
tended to leave the next day, insisted that we drive
out with him that afternoon. About three o’clock
we were informed with great éclat that “ His Ex-
cellency the Egregious Lord X —” did us the honor
to await us. Ready at the door to bow us out to
the emblazoned barouche with its black-liveried
coachman and lackey hovered an unsuspected con-
gregation of obsequious hotel employés. Many of
them we had never before seen; none of them had
hitherto deigned to notice our daily peregrinations
in Gualterio’s coach of state. But now that one of
the dear nobility they reverence almost as much as
in medieval times recognized us socially, we were
quite plainly persons of consideration. Our splen-
dor, however, was short-lived. We had time only
for a swift visit to a handsome club with extensive
grounds, to the Caffé Massimo for a taste of its
famous green-almond ices, and to the Giardino In-
glese for a glimpse at its botanic charms, for we
had an engagement for tea at the American Consu-
late.

It had not taken us long to arrive at the conclu-
sion that Consul Bishop was a very Bishop of Con-
suls, and it was due to his kindly interest and hints
that we enjoyed considerable intimacy with the life
of the people, and also had a good opportunity to
see under actual conditions not only the delights of

[58 ]PALACES AND PEOPLE

being a foreign representative of the United States,
but also the drawbacks of such a position. Inci-
dentally, it is, generally speaking, both wise and
pleasant to introduce one’s self at the Consulate im-
mediately on arriving in a foreign city where a stay
of any length is comtemplated. In case any un-
toward incident should arise later, such acquaintance
with the consul would prove of inestimable advan-
tage, and would save unpleasant and wearisome in-
vestigations of one’s right to American citizenship
and his character. And if the consul prove, as is
now generally the case, a man of parts and charm,
the result will prove most happy for the visitor
who desires to see and know the best the city can
afford.

The royal residence in Palermo, rising from the
Piazza Vittoria, the highest point in the city, is
scarcely more remarkable than many of the private
palazzt. Ordinary as Palace and Piazza are now,
in medieval times this was the fortified citadel: a
place of arms and chivalry, of turrets and bastions,
of fortresslike buildings forming the defensive key
to the city. But little have Time and the barbarous
restorer left. First comes an arcaded court, then
two flights of marble stairs, and then room after
room, tastelessly over-decorated. One marvels at the
dullness of royalties who could so slavishly consent
to the stuffy vulgarity of these apartments, when
before them was a model in the room declared to

[59]VISTAS IN SICILY

have been King Roger’s own. Its mosaics have
faded not a whit in the long centuries; design and
color hold soft and true to the walls, and this
kingly chamber in its dignity and splendor shames
the tawdry display of the monarchs who came after.
Time spent in such rooms is wasted.

The Cappella Palatina, or royal chapel, is a tiny
temple richly embellished with marvelous mosaics, but
so smothered by the encroachments of the formless
Palace that half its beauty is lost for lack of light.
It is not even a structure by itself, but a part of the
main building, which King Roger added about 1132
in honor of Saint Peter, to whom he dedicated it.
Perhaps, because of its position, or perhaps by de-
sign, the nave and aisles were left almost unlighted ;
but seventy-five feet above, the architect pierced the
dome with eight apertures, to flood apse and chancel
with a glorious nimbus of sunshine, which finds a fit
mirror in gleaming walls inlaid with golden glass.

The illumination is, however, confined entirely to
the choir save for an hour or so in the morning,
when the sidewalks glow with the genius of their
artist creators— and fade as one watches into
shadowy old tapestry. At first it is a darkly mys-
terious place, indistinctly peopled by spectral fig-
ures on every side. Then slowly, as the eyes hab-
ituate themselves to the gloom, out from the mellow
background lean strong, stern figures. Saints and
angels pray, plead, wing their way across the walls;

[ 60 |3

barely discernible among the rustling strings

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The Politeama Garibaldi, one of Palermo’s two greatest theaters.PALACES AND PEOPLE

patriarchs and prophets act out the stirring chroni-
cles of the Old Testament and New. High above the
choir and tribune, halved by the circumambient light,
a majestic, supramundane figure, cross-crowned with
the diadem of supreme sacrifice, holds forth the Book
upon whose snowy page blazes the royal message
in golden letters that need no flame of fire to bid
them shine — ’Eyw elut To 6Gc ToU Kécuou: “Iamthe
Light of the World.”

The single-mindedness of medieval artists is al-
ways astonishing. Anything from the Bible was
apparently meet for the walls of this sumptuous
house of prayer, which, instead of being a mere bit
of florid decorative architecture belonging to the
King, is a vivid pictorial history. Very realistic
is the scene at Lazarus’ tomb, where a man, with
head turned away, holds his nose with one hand as
he tilts the tightly swaddled body to an upright
position. A little farther along, on the same wall,
the artist represented Jesus being baptized by John
the Baptist in a dark stream which flows past in
snow white ripples. John is sheltered by a section
of bright olive-green wall, and at their feet cherub
heads peep through the wavelets. All the figures,
though very stiff and formal, as might be expected
of work in such intractable material, are admirably
done, and the faces in particular are expressively
stern and reposeful.

Restoration has not harmed the chapel, and both

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it and its decorations and furniture remain intact —
the magnificent mosaic pulpit, in the Lombard style;
the giant candelabrum beside it, about fifteen feet
high, a superb piece of pure Byzantine sculpture
with a wealth of mythological details, which strikes
a strange pagan note in this Christian church; and
the stalactite ceiling, carved wood of the best period
of Saracenic workmanship, much after the style of
the ceilings of the Alhambra at Granada. The
Saracen glorified it with magnificent star-shaped cof-
fers, geometrical designs, Cufic lettering — his reli-
gion allowed him no image of anything in heaven
above or the earth beneath — and the less prescribed
Norman placed his saints and virgins in the divisions
of the stars. Yet the work was done with such rare
skill — so thoroughly were the Saracens artists first
and Mohammedans afterward—that nowhere is
there a clash of motive or execution. It fills one
with the delight of the East, the subtle perception of
masses of color shaded and mellowed by time.

That, unfortunately, cannot be said of Palermo’s
other royal residence, the little Summer palace of
La Favorita, built by the Bourbon King Ferdinand
IV under the shoulder of Monte Pellegrino, and evi-
dently his conception of a Chinese nobleman’s resi-
dence. Striking a jangling note of color in the
landscape, it stands boldly forth a great rubricated
initial upon the green and gold of the smiling Conca
d’Oro. Surely there never was such another freak

[ 62 ]PALACES AND PEOPLE

of royal fancy! In their search for the bizarre,
King Ferdinand’s architects and decorators suc-
ceeded in cramming into one architectural night-
mare the styles of a dozen realms and epochs; and
the result is a queer hodge-podge of no artistic value,
but of mirth-provoking interest to the traveler.
Only Mr. Kipling’s famous phrase can describe it —
““A sort of a giddy harumfrodite! ”

In the King’s suite, Japanese artisans may have
decorated the bedchamber, some forgotten artist
from hundred-gated Thebes the ceiling of the ante-
room, and then with supreme disregard for these
exotic effects, the royal humorist — if he were such!
—must have turned over the beautifying of his
dressing room to a commonplace decorator of
modern times, and permitted him to do _ his
worst.

The dining table, a huge circular affair, is the
piéce de résistance of the whole palace. Nothing
queerer — or more entirely up-to-date and practical
— has ever made its appearance in the most recently
constructed American houses. Standing upon a
massive cylindrical shaft that runs straight through
to the kitchen in the basement, the table is a sort of
combination dumbwaiter-quicklunch counter. At
each place a silver tray, imbedded in a small shaft,
connects below with the main trunk, and these trays,
operated automatically with the larger central
charger, answer djinn-like by serving a whole course

[ 63 ]

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SpeVISTAS IN SICILY

at once, smoking hot, when the royal host rubs the
button at his place. Slow eaters might find it some-
what disconcerting to turn from conversation back
to——an empty black hole before them! But per-
haps King Ferdinand was not a joker.

Every room has some freakish combination pe-
culiarly its own, some in Turkish, Arabic or Pom-
peiian motives, and one huge reception salon in hand-
painted silk with Chinese mandarins in full cere-
monial costume upon the walls. Above all are the
luxurious smoking and lounging rooms, and of
course, a wide, tiled veranda on each floor affording
sweeping views on either hand.

To the Sicilian in his blissful ignorance, La Fayo-
rita appears a masterpiece, the people generally re-
garding the chdéteauw with the reverence of simplicity.
Indeed, poverty and ignorance are the mainsprings
of life for a majority of the people. Nor is igno-
rance confined to the masses. A Sicilian doctor in
Palermo, himself graduated from one of our greatest
universities and therefore an exception to the rule,
told me in all seriousness that a majority of the “ so-
ciety people ” of the capital could read nothing more
difficult than the daily papers. ‘‘ They often forget
how to spell their own names ”— you don’t wonder
much at that when you see some of the names! —
‘and their notions of first aid in sickness or injury
are barbarous and medieval. When my wife and I

first began to practise in Palermo, we tried to help
[64]PALACES AND PEOPLE

the people with clubs and societies of a semi-educa-
tional nature. But we had to drop it all. You
can’t begin education with the adults.”

This was recognized a century ago by one of the
foremost patriots of Sicily, the Prince of Castle-
nuovo, who was one of the prime movers in lifting
his island out of the medievalism of Ferdinand’s
régime. Out in this region of the suburbs — known
as I Colli (The Tops), and dotted with splendid

and not far distant from Ferdinand’s

villas
Favorita, the Prince established a model farm,
kitchen garden and dairy where the boys of both
rich and poor families are taught by experts how
to get the most out of the ground without having
recourse to the antiquated methods of their fore-
fathers. And if one may judge from the attitude
of the young students and the eagerness with which
they display their knowledge, the big Institute is
still proving most successful.

The boy who showed us about said proudly that
when he finished his schooling he was to be overseer
of a big plantation up country, much like the one
spreading around us. America had no attractions
for him. In his own words: “My father has
taught me to love Sicily very much, s¢gnore. He
makes much money in his business in N’ova York.
But I will be patriot. I stay here. I study. By
and by I can help my poor country to grow rich!”

Gardens and boys are interesting, but the stock-

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VISTAS IN SICILY

yards of the school are a revelation. Goats and
kids, sheep and lambs, magnificent bulls and kine
and soft-eyed, frisky little calves have each their
separate yards, all immaculate; and in the neat brick
addition to the cow-stables is a model piggery com-
fortably full of grunters, who seem to appreciate
quarters where a fresh handkerchief dropped in an
occupied pen can be recovered quite unsoiled. The
school dairy is as complete as it is wholesome and
clean; but you are not likely to go far outside until
another phase of the milk industry appears —a
donkey carrying large jute panniers full of goats’-
milk potcheese, or ricotta fresca. The whey oozing
from the bags and the donkey’s sweat gather a crust
of dust over all. Don’t manifest a talkative interest
—unless you wish to have the peasant merchant
urge you to try “just a taste, signori! ”

Among the splendid estates of I Colli, the Villa
Sofia is one of the finest, and the genius of its crea-
tor, a wealthy Briton named Whitaker, shows what
may be accomplished by perfect taste when man and
Nature work together harmoniously to draw the
most and best from the breast of the warm and gen-
erous earth. Villa, by the way, is almost as flexible
a term in Italian as palace. It means not merely
a house for summering, but grounds as well as man-
sion; and many of the houses quite equal the so-
called palaces. Another estate worthy a visit is the

Villa of the late Count Tasca —this is out Mon-
[ 66 ]PALACES AND PEOPLE

——

reale way — who laid out the grounds as an experi-
mental agricultural station, and who was one of the
first men in Sicily to farm on a scientific basis. But
he dearly loved royalty, too. On the “basement ”
door of the house a bronze tablet impressively re-
cords with a wealth of adjectives the fact that
Queen (Dowager) Margharita once took luncheon
here with the delighted owner, and that ever since
the premises have had an added value and charm
because of her Majesty’s visit.

Occupying the monastery of the suppressed and
exiled Filippini monks, the Palermo Museum — a
vivid epitomization of all Sicily’s various periods
and renascences of art and culture — is given a dis-
tinct character of its own by the crumbling though
palatial home housing it, worthier far to be called
a palace than many of the palazzi of the nobility.
You are apt to be disappointed on entering, however,
when the courteous guardian of the gate informs you
that you will be “ permitted ” to leave your cameras
with the incumbrance clerk across the entrance hall.
In vain you plead, catching sight of some of the
untrammeled beauties of the first courtyard just
beyond. But the guard is uncompromisingly hon-
est; you enter in without so much as the moral sup-
port of a sunshade,

The little court is a veritable wild Eden. Flower-
ing vines drip down over the edges of the walls and
twist about the pillars; a single prickly pear rears

[ 67 ]‘
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VISTAS IN SICILY

its fat donkey-cars above the cornice and glories in
the sunshine; great bursts of foliage clothe in green
the joints of the corners. In the center of the court-
yard a low stone fountain basin full of brillant
plants affords a picturesque foothold for a sixteenth
century Triton drinking deep from a conch. And
over on the left, just beyond the archway that gives
an entrancing vista of the second court beyond, a
tender vine wreathes completely about the tragic
column topped with a cross of iron from the Piazza
dei Vespri, in which it once stood to mark the spot
where some of the French who fell in the massacre
were buried.

Sidewalks and columns, cornice and roof are a
museum in themselves, decorated with quaint bits of
ancient and medieval architecture, some actually
built in as parts of the cloister, others arranged in
artistic abandon about the shade-dappled walks.
But why puzzle out ancient inscriptions on crum-
bling marbles when the second court beckons, like a
coquettish woman, from the stern lines of the arch-
way? Shake off the persistent employé who offers
to be your mentor, and pass through into a tropical
palm garden where the luxuriance of the foliage al-
most hides the antiquities. No attempt has been
made to curb the riotous propensities of the plants.
Palm tree and shrub, flowers in beds and rows, vines
and creepers give the brilliant court the air of a
Spanish patio. But you have really come to see

[ 68 ]PALACES AND PEOPLE

the antiquities, and gradually getting back your
sense of proportion, you look about.

Directly before you is a queer, somewhat battered
thing of dark stone, looking more like a bathtub
than anything else. It proves to be a sarcophagus;
one of the rare prehistoric Sikel monuments, of in-
estimable value in studying the customs and culture
of the vanished people, whom the Greeks so effec-
tually absorbed that the only trace we have of their
mode of life is in a few such scattered pieces as this
from the tombs, though even these are often of
doubtful authenticity.

Papyrus reeds, descendants of the paper-plants
imported into Sicily long centuries ago by some for-
gotten Arab, rear their puffball heads from the
fountain, a little grove of living feather dusters.
Who knows but that the thrifty Saracen caretaker
may have used them to dust out his immaculate
mosques and public baths?

So varied and comprehensive a collection as the
Museum contains has required consummate skill and
taste to arrange coherently, and throughout the
entire building the director, Professor Salinas, has
done his work so admirably that each group’s sig-
nificance is fully apparent. In the various halls are
quaint old pictures and triptyches so ugly that their
very repulsiveness spells the perfect expression of the
art of their time, marvelous coins which gave Sicily
the reputation of leading the world in numismatics

[ 69 ]

a MOTs nen ataies - SlaneVISTAS IN SICILY

during the Greek era, and most important of all,
the metopes.

Carven slabs from the temple friezes— what a
story they tell of the primitive and ardent culture of
the early Greeks perched upon their twin hills at
Selinus, beside the sounding deep! One whole hall
is lined with them, arranged symmetrically in series,
speaking even to-day with the voice of that mystic
lore which, to understand, reveals ancient Sicily.
And though individual carvings excel them in pre-
cision and beauty, as a series denoting the exact
progress of Greek Sicilian art from its crudest to its
most perfected form, the metopes are unsurpassed.

Moreover, these metopes from the temples of
Selinus recall a story so tragic, so amazing, that
comparisons fail and mere words avail little to pic-
ture its horror. Selinus was still young, and
the wealthy and expanding Selinuntines were
still engaged in building their tremendous
temples in 409 B.C. when Hannibal Gisgon
with his Carthaginians fell upon the city with
a ferocity that is even yet appalling in its details,
butchering the inhabitants ruthlessly, and expun-
ging the city from the book of the living. But Han-
nibal was in a hurry. He had no time to spare to
destroy structures of such problematical value as
unfinished temples, since he purposed to avenge the
defeat and death of his grandfather, Hamilcar, at
Himera on the north shore of the island. Giving

[ 70 ]PALACES AND PEOPLE

the temples and the desolate city over to the owl
and the locust, he hurried northward, flushed and
confident. So it was that the partially completed
homes of the bright gods remained until the shock
of earthquake hurled them crashing down into chaos.

Centuries elapsed in the silence of desolation be-
fore the metopes, which Freeman so aptly calls “ the
choicest offerings Selinuntine piety could offer the
immortal gods,” were picked carefully by the
archeologists from the ruins and ranged upon the
plaster walls of the Museum, showing the evolution
of the art from the weird, uncouth shapes of the
earlier metopes to the finished later shapes of gods
and heroes and men. Yet so rapid was the develop-
ment of the sculptors that within a century the first
metopes had become curiosities, and the later work
so superior it is hard to realize it was produced in
the same age. And one cannot but wonder what
might have been the fullest flower of this strong,
budding genius at Selinus, had not the insatiable
African smitten it with his blighting breath of war.

One palace that has fallen upon evil days, after
as picturesque a past as any building in the island
can boast, is the lofty home of the Barons of the
Chiaramonte. In the fourteenth century, during the
Aragonese period, these and other nobles became so
powerful that no systematic administration of Sicily
by the government was possible, and the palace —
usually called Lo Steri—is an excellent manifesta-

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VISTAS IN SICILY

tion of the Chiaramonte power. Grim and stiff out-
side, it still preserves within something of the mag-
nificence of the days when knights in armor clanked
through its lofty halls and ladies in quaint head-
dresses and billowing skirts peeped through the
folds of the arras and tapestries to watch the wheels
of intrigue and government go round. Many a
dark tale could these old halls tell. Andrew
Chiaramonte, the last of his line to rule, was dragged
hence to the block in 1392, and the palace became
the court, with justice taking the place of chicanery.
Later on the Spanish viceroys made it their official
residence, and in 1600 it became the seat of the
dreaded Spanish Inquisition. In the inner court-
yard is the private chapel, where no doubt many of
the Inquisition’s bitter and fruitless tragedies had
their inception. The whole structure smells of
blood. ‘To-day, as the Dogana, or Custom House,
it is as useful as ever —and for the Sicilian 1m-
porter no doubt still a palace of most unpleasant in-
quisition.

King William the Bad, King Roger’s son, and
father of William II, the Good— who built the
Cathedral of Monreale — called his favorite palace
in Arabic La Zisa, the Beloved or the Splendid. It
is of distinctly Moorish character — bare walls un-
relieved by projecting decorations of any sort, with
Oriental doorways, pointed-arch windows, and a
heavy battlemented frieze. In King William I's
[72]PALACES AND PEOPLE

time the palace eunuchs were almost as powerful
as they were at Constantinople, and most of the
palace officials were Saracens, which is perhaps one
reason for the architecture of the structure. Wil-
iam himself lived the idle, sensual life of a volup-
tuary, and toward the end of his reign, with Oriental
indifference, shut himself up in his splendid house
and refused any bad news.

It is not hard to see in the mutilated grandeur of
the main hall why he fell a victim to the insidious
charm of the East, for more than any other place in
Palermo this chamber breathes of “ Araby the
blest.” The ceiling is a great stalactite vault: a
little fountain still bubbles down over steps of mo-
saic; and it runs across the floor through square
pools exactly as do those other similar fountains in
the Alhambra at Granada. Only the frescoes on
the walls are modern, replacing ancient panels of
marble which once embellished the villa. No — there
was one other modern touch: a flock of tiny
white wax ducks, belonging to the caretaker’s little
daughter, bobbing serenely about in the rippled
pool!

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THE PLAIN OF PANOBMOS

SHORT distance outside the Porta Sant’
A Agata — one of the southern gates — on

the edge of the rolling Conca d’Oro, is the
Campo di Santo Spirito or cemetery, a lovely green-
sward full of curious tombs and graves and vaults.
Its chapel is old and bare, a relic of the Cistercian
monastery established on the same spot in 1173 by
Archbishop Walter of the Mill, the English mentor
of King William the Good. Doubtless the Arch-
bishop had much to do with the King’s goodness,
since his father was William the Bad.. When the °
church was restored in 1882, the greatest care was
taken to preserve at least the spirit of the prelate’s
design, with the result that among these Sicilian
graves under the matchless blue of the Sicilian sky
there stands an English church of the Middle Ages.
Close beside it on the 31st of March, 1282, just at
the tap of the bell for evening prayer, began the ter-
rible massacre of the Sicilian Vespers, while in the
city near by the great bell of San Giovanni boomed
out the knell of all the Frenchmen in the island and
the downfall of the heartless House of Anjou.
[74]THE PLAIN OF PANORMOS

Many of the French who perished in that orgy of
slaughter have been buried here.

This massacre has often been declared a premedi-
tated rising, but it was really a popular spontaneous
outbreak which began at the vesper hour on Easter
Tuesday. The church of the Santo Spirito was then
a favorite place for worship, and the people on this
occasion were moving quietly between it and the city
when some two hundred Frenchmen appeared among
them, and alarmed the natives greatly by their more
than usually offensive remarks and bearing. In the
throng was an attractive young Sicilian woman with
her lover. Unprovoked, a French soldier addressed
an insulting remark to her. MHer escort naturally
resented this, and instantly all the bitter ignominy
and the wrongs the patient islanders had endured at
the hands of their French oppressors boiled over.
Though practically unarmed, the Sicilians attacked
the French so fearlessly that of the two hundred
present, not a single one escaped. The church bells
sounded a wild alarm, and yelling “ Morte a fran-
cesi! Death to the French!” the blood-maddened
mob streamed back into town, killing on sight, storm-
ing palaces and houses, and dispatching even those
Sicilians known or suspected to have friendly rela-
tions with the Angevins. Brief as the struggle in
Palermo was, no less than two thousand French per-
ished; and the brand the Palermitans had kindled
swept its fiery way through the island until every

[75]

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VISTAS IN SICILY

Frenchman was either dead or a fugitive. And
though the War of the Vespers that followed this
summary vengeance lasted for years, the rule of the
House of Anjou was over so far as Sicily was con-
cerned.

Farther out from the city the beautiful precincts
of the old Minorite monastery and church of Santa
Maria di Gest ramble along the steep side of one of
those emerald hills that bound the Conca d’ Oro.
Long pebbled paths lead up from the gate through
cool green vistas dotted with stately trees and head-
stones; and, with a pride which is the more curious
in a Minorite — whose pledges are of humility and
poverty — the monk who lets one in explains that
this cemetery has never been used by any except the
wealthiest of Palermo’s noble families. Many of the
graves are decorated with huge wreaths of artificial
flowers in dishpan-like tin cases, glass-covered and
frequently containing faded photographs of the de-
ceased, the men appearing very stiff and uncomfort-
able in their best clothes, tall collars, and derby hats.
Some of the “ pans ” are a yard in diameter by about
eight inches deep, the wreaths draped with plentiful
streamers of black upon which are stamped in gold
letters suitable inscriptions and the names of the
departed.

The monks were chanting sleepily in a choir gal-
lery as we entered the sacristy of the little church,
to examine some interesting unfinished cartoons upon

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of ‘Roger, Strenuous Duke.’”THE PLAIN OF PANORMOS

the walls for frescoes never executed —our guide
an amazing friendly young brother whose face was
a replica of Giotto’s unforgettable fresco of Dante
in the Florence Bargello. Fra Giacomo, he called
himself ; and his interest in the world generally, his
simple attitude of dangerous curiosity in everything
not connected with the cloistered life, made us think
of Hichens’ sorry hero —if hero he could be called!
—in the “Garden of Allah.” Neither he, nor any
of the other monks with whom we came into contact
anywhere in either Sicily or Italy, had the spiritual
austerity that is so marked a characteristic of the
Spanish monk; nothing at all of the bearing or at-
mosphere that instantly stamps a man as either
genuinely consecrated or fanatic — according to the
eye with which he is seen.

This lack of spirituality came out strongly when,
wholly ignoring the service going on, Fra Giacomo
dragged a confessional with a dreadful clatter across
the tiled floor to serve as a camera-stand from which
he insisted that I photograph the poor, bare little
altar with its tawdry image beneath in a glass case.
At each outburst of the rasping din, the monks aloft
—seemingly quite undismayed by the sacrilege
kindly sang with greater zeal that they might not
hear our profane noises.

From the monastery a zig-zag path leads to the
very top of the hill, where two once highly venerated
female saints had an altar and a hermitage on a

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VISTAS IN SICILY

fine bit of bluff overlooking the Conca d’Oro. Here
the country unfolds below like a huge military map,
the roads written with white ink, the sea in sapphire,
the Conca d’Oro in emerald and topaz, and the city
in agate. Far in the distance, beyond Palermo,
Monte Pellegrino looms soft and vague, its square
shoulders half hidden in bluish haze, with the sea
fading so delicately into the sky that often the hori-
zon line is lost. Nestling among the lemons in the
foreground are large chimneys, the sign visible of
an irrigation system nearly a thousand years old, of
Saracenic origin. Hills and plain alike murmur
with flowing water, for wherever the Arab went he
turned barrens into gardens, planted and tended and
improved, and devised irrigation systems so complete
and permanent that — considering his resources and
the times — our own watering schemes in the West
seem puerile and scattering. ‘To-day in the Conca
d’Oro about an hundred steam engines pump up
water from artesian wells and subterranean rivers,
while conduits and water-wheels utilize every drop
that issues from the springs. So fertile is the soil
that this irrigation has increased the yield from
seven to one hundred and fifty dollars an acre.
There seems to be something in the atmosphere
of the Gest, some subtle ether of sympathy, per-
haps, that makes the visitor’s presence on the hill
known to all the children round. At any rate,

they pop out of the earth, and as you come
[ 78 JTHE PLAIN OF PANORMOS

down from the hermitage at the very top of the
steep to the main buildings, you are pretty certain
to hear a scratching noise on the low stone wall at
one side of the road. Naturally you look over. At
the cleft upper end of a long pole a spray of lemon
blossoms scrapes along the rough wall; at the lower
end, some twenty-five feet below in a grove, an at-
tractive child clamors to you for “Due soldi
mangiare —'T'wo cents, to eat!”

As we were leaving the monastery, “ Dante’s ”
interest in worldly affairs came out strongly once
more. Pointing to my camera, he asked plaintively:
** Have you a plate left for me? ”

I let him choose his own pose and his own back-
ground. With the skill of an artist he selected a
stone step flanked by lofty cypresses, and taking out
his breviary immediately lost himself in meditation
which required some imagination to consider holy.
The photograph made, he spoke again, his wistful
expression intensified.

“Now will you please register the package?
Many tourists haye been here and taken pictures,
several of myself. They all promised to send me
copies. I know they did so,” he sighed regretfully,
with a charity which would have been ludicrous had
it not been so childishly unaffected and sincere, “ but
I never got a single one. Oh, but the mails are bad
here! ”

Genial Gualterio, for all his eagerness to serve ug

[79]VISTAS IN SICILY

to our best advantage, could not forget his own ad-
vantage once in a while, and cheerily singing on his
box, drove us far out of our way, at last drawing
rein before the mouth of a large cavern which ap-
peared to be full of very dirty children whose hands
were full of very dirty bones. On the other side of
the road lay a pool covered with green slime. I was
getting out with my camera when Gualterio stopped
me abruptly. “Oh, no, stgnore, there is nothing
worth examining; but I thought you might lke to
see the Giants’ Cave, which is full of old fossils, and
the Mar’ Dolc’!”

No visitor is likely to be thirsty enough to drink
of the “sweet water ” that reminds him of Gunga
Din and his goatskin bag. It is to be hoped, more-
over, that the slimy pool is only the overflow of the
Mare Dolce (Sweet Water), most famous of the
Conca d’Oro’s innumerable springs. Neither is one
likely to speculate in bones of doubtful authenticity.
So the only thing to do under the circumstances is
to be just as cheerful as the cabman, and drive back
to the ruins of the old Saracen-Norman stronghold
of La Favara, whose splendor was famous during
the Middle Ages, for there Frederick II, greatest of
all kings of Sicily, held royal court. The brilliant
court has vanished, and the castle itself is a crum-
bling wreck, a mere dank stable and storehouse,
dark and ill smelling. Yet merely to see it recalls

Frederick’s striking personality and character. And
[ 80 ]THE PLAIN OF PANORMOS

it is to be remembered that he was not merely Em-
peror of Germany and King of Sicily, but King of
Italy, Sardinia, Apulia, Bareande and for a while
of Jerusalem. His connection with that city and
with the Sixth Crusade forms one of the most pic-
turesque and pleasant incidents of that fierce and
warlike age. Speaking Arabic fluently — besides
several other languages—he was able, through
sheer force of character and winning personality, to
negotiate treaty after treaty with the Saracens
peacefully, winning the Holy City itself without
striking a blow, and remaining its king for a decade
during which peace instead i bloodshed was the
rule. His army even contained a picked body of
Saracen troops which he made his personal body-
guard. There was nothing, in fact, in either the
intellectual or the political life of his age which this
man, described by the Latin chroniclers as stupor
mundi, “wonder of the world,” failed to grasp and
and master thoroughly. And in all the whirl of his
incessant activities at home and abroad he found
time to be a poet and scholar, to encourage learning
in all its branches, and, most important of all, to
articulate and reduce to written form the crude Ital-
ian speech of the day.

If you care for an experience out of the usual i
this smiling island, stop on the Bagheria road a
the church of San Giovanni dei Lebrosi or, aS some
Americans call it, “The Leprosy,” in the midst of

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VISTAS IN SICILY

a settlement of tanners. Here you are attended by
three women, each flourishing a large key, all dirty
and unkempt, and a barking, snapping, currish
crowd of begging children. One of the three women
unlocks the door of the alley at whose inner end
the church stands. The stench is almost stupefy-
ing, the air thick with vapors. The second woman
opens the door of the church, one of the oldest Nor-
man structures in the island, now painfully restored
with obtrusive brick and whitewash, and the third
proves to be the keeper of the sacristy. Still an-
other huge key now appears—this time in the
hands of a surly man, who insists on showing you
out another way, through an orange grove, though
your carriage is in plain sight at the foot of the
lane. These evil-looking children and caretakers
are the most pertinacious and insolent you will en-
counter anywhere in the island. Has the fetid at-
mosphere anything to do with their crabbed humor?

In this plain of ancient Panormos, as both city
and district were once known, there comes vividly
to mind a curious battle scene. To-day we experi-
ment with automobiles and aeroplanes as instru-
ments of war: more than two thousand years ago
disaster overtook the arms of Carthage because
General Asdrubal placed his reliance in the then
new-fangled elephant auxiliaries. Rome, for all she
was conquering the world, trembled before these
“reat gray oxen,” as the legionaries called them.

[ 82 ]THE PLAIN OF PANORMOS

However, the Consul Metellus, who commanded in-
side the city, directed his attention effectually first
of all to these splendid targets moving ponderously
and disdainfully up against him. Pain-maddened
by a ceaseless shower of darts and arrows, the great
beasts shook off their helpless drivers and charged
furiously to and fro, trumpeting, goring, trampling,
wild engines of destruction which did more mischief
to the Carthaginians than to Rome: and before night
fell over the field of slaughter, the Romans led cap-
tive more than half of the hundred and twenty once
dreaded Titans that had been Asdrubal’s reliance,
but which had cost him the battle.

Continuing toward the city along the road called
the Corso dei Mille, over which Garibaldi and his im-
mortal Thousand marched to victory, we pass close
beside the old Ponte d’Ammiraglio, built some eight
hundred years ago by King Roger’s Grand Admiral
Giorgios Antiochenos. In those days it spanned
the swift Fiume Oreto, but now the fickle water has
chosen another bed, leaving the massive stone bridge
high and dry, and looking very useless and absurd
in an open field.

Entering the town by the Garibaldi Gate — the
liberator is even more frequently honored than the
first King — we follow Garibaldi Street to the Pi-
azza della Rivoluzione, in which a queer, old, bent,
apparently half-intoxicated figure of the crowned
Genius of Palermo marks the spot where the first

[ 83 ]VISTAS IN SICILY

revolutionists gathered twelve years before the
Thousand captured the city. Near by in the Piazza
della Croce dei Vespri is the monument in memory
of the French massacred in 1282, and buried here
beneath a single marble column surmounted by a
cross and surrounded by a railing of lances and
halberds. At the corner of the square, built in a
housewall, is a single fifteenth century column, mark-
ing the site of the palace in which Governor St.
Remy, who was the lieutenant of Charles of Anjou
at the time of the massacre, lived and is said to have
been besieged.

From the railroad station a broad street, the Via
Lincoln, leads to the bay. Gualterio volunteered
the information that the street, “la Via Lin-col-ni,”
was named for a “ great Sicilian patriot who was
shot long before we were born!” It would have
been a pity to disillusion him and rob Sicily of so
great a figure, so we kept a smiling silence.

Beside the bay is an exquisite little park with
broad lawns, splendid trees and paths laid out like
the spokes of a huge floral wheel; one of the most
perfect gardens in Sicily. It is called Villa Giulia,
in honor of Donna Giulia Guevara, wife of the vice-
roy, Marcantonio Colonna, who founded it in 1777.
The gardener’s little boy, a cherub of soft black
eyes and winsome smile, afforded another striking
proof of the beneficent effects of education upon the
children. Announcing proudly that he was learn-

[ 84 ]THE PLAIN OF PANORMOS

ing to be a gardener himself, he flitted from flower
to flower like an amorous bee, fondling, smelling,
praising each burgeon in turn, and naming the
plants with a perfect flood of Latin botanical ter-
minology.

It was in this lovely park that Goethe spent a
great deal of time during a Sicilian sojourn in 1789,
reading Homer and seeing the Villa’s beauties with
so sympathetic an eye, he wrote of it that it looked
like fairyland and transported him into ancient
times. His Italienische Reise is particularly en-
thusiastic on Sicily, and he sums up the island’s im-
portance with a glowing tribute: “Italy without
Sicily leaves no image in the soul — Sicily is the
key to all.”

In clear weather a large raised terrace at the
southeast corner of the Villa affords a peep at dis-
tant Aftna’s hoary crown. But if the weather be
too hazy to see the Titan, the nearer view compen-
sates in great measure for the invisible volcano.
To the southeast the “poor man’s promenade”
stretches away in a misty vista toward Monte Zaf-
farano. The fishing boats tie up here, and the fish-
ermen and their families make merry over their early
suppers at open-air tables in the dusty, unpaved
square that extends inland from the broad and level
beach. In the other direction the broad Foro Ital-
ico or Marina, a handsome, tree-lined esplanade cir-

cumscribing the edge of the bay, with Monte Pel-
[85]

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VISTAS IN SICILY

legrino rising massive and dominant at the other end
of the town, miles away, affords a striking contrast.
This is the “rich man’s promenade,” and here, in
summer, Fashion makes its evening corso. Half
Palermo sits in its iron-bottomed chairs sipping at
the ices and cool drinks for which the cafés are
noted, and smoking countless sigaretti, while the
other half rolls lazily by in its carriages of state.
From the Villa Giulia a line of old palaces marks
the landward side of the Marina all the way down
to the foot of the Corso, at its other extremity.
Many of them belong to nobles whose names are
woven deep into some of Sicily’s most important his-
tory. Down near the Porta Felice— the Happy
Gate — a little wooden pavilion juts boldly out into
the sea, a combination library and tearoom, whose
presiding genius is an English gentlewoman, charm-
ing of speech and manners. No pleasanter way of
resting after a hard day’s work sightseeing can be
found than to sit here over cups of steaming Cey-
lon, while the sea shimmers an iridescent opal, ruf-
fled with streaky little ripples of protest for the ap-
proaching night. And afterward what more fitting
than to reénter Eden by the Happy Gate— the
Porta Felice — named as a memorial of the Lady
Felice Orsini, wife of the Viceroy who built it.
Happy Lady Felice, to have such a monument — and
porta felice in truth, looking one way out over the

sparkling sea and the other upon the city beautiful.
[ 86 ]ViT
AROUND THE ISLAND

ASCINATION and Palermo are synonymous;
the subtle charm of the city works into
one’s very blood. Day after day and week

after week roll by, until with a start of sur-
prise that is akin to consternation one realizes that
unless he has a year to devote to the island he must
seek fresh vistas soon or leave Sicily, having seen
nothing but the capital. Regretting is as vain as
it is foolish. The only thing to do is to go!

Until you do, you have no idea of what the tes-
sere — those amazing little bargain books — do for
the Sicilians. Not only do they bring foreigners
with money to spend, but natives of every class and
station, unable to travel at other seasons of the
year, flock to the ticket window with the tessere in
their hands; and many of them who ordinarily
would travel third class make a festa of their trips
by buying first-class accommodations with the aid
of the rebate.

There is no Pullman system in Sicily. The first
arrivals at the station take the best seats, and hold

them against all comers. If you do not like cheap
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VISTAS IN SICILY

tobacco, and do like air, it is a good plan to reach
the station early. All this we learned by experi-
ence; so we were ready to leave Palermo some time
before the train was, and secured a little stateroom
called a berlina, in the front of the car, whence an
unobstructed view on both sides is to be had.

Scarcely is the capital left behind than it is com-
pletely forgotten in the astonishing floral display
that flashes past — an unending motion-picture in
vivid colors. For miles the track runs close beside
the sea between deep floral hedges. Crimson ge-
raniums from five to eight feet in height blazing
with color, pink wild roses, sweet-scented white lo-
cust blossoms, spiky prickly pear, the yellow striped
spears of the agave, and pink and lavender morning
glories vining among and over them all give one the
impression of being hurled through a giant hot-
house. But here is no cultivation. Sicilian Na-
ture, with prodigal lavishness, is alone responsible
for the brilliant pageant. At the feet of the taller
plants burgeon scarlet poppies, low, earth-nestling
lavender cactus blossoms, and legions of dazzling
buttercups. More poppies among the grass and
grain contrast with whole acres of heavy-headed
deep crimson clover, in which the hungry cattle wade
to their knees.

On the landward side of the railroad undulate
the hills in soft nuances of green, speckled and
flecked with ever-changing light and shade. Farm-

[ 88 ]AROUND THE ISLAND

houses massively built of rough unshaped stone,
because the stone is there and mortar is cheap and
the labor costs nothing, stand at long intervals
among the golden grain square and squat, each
with a heavy Normanesque battlemented tower.
The poorer houses barely show their roofs or towers
above the dense groves of lemon or orange. Some-
times part of a white wall appears through the bushy
tree foliage, which is varied by occasional wide
stretches of vines on low, far-reaching trellises, over
which stands a slim-bodied palm, an alert, lonely
sentinel.

The sea shimmers like glass in the gay sunlight,
and even from the rapidly moving train the bot-
tom is visible, sometimes ten or fifteen feet below the
surface. White stones and deep purple patches of
weed lie like pearls and amethysts imbedded in the
heart of the cool emerald. Tiny reefs, far from
their islets, and big, jagged rocks show their teeth
at the ragged coast line through fringes of snowy
foam. Ever shifting car-window prospects float by
on the wing, and before you can fairly appreciate
one, you pass another,

Around a curve, the train dashes into a big fish-
ing village, a sturdy hamlet of nets and boats, of
men in bare legs and knitted caps with tassels, of
houses packed together on the side of a steep hill,
struggling upward like lame sheep; a town of tiles
and whitewash huddled together under the protec-

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VISTAS IN SICILY

tion of a dozen stalwart-steepled belfries — Ter-
mini Imerese, busiest of Sicily’s provincial towns,
famous for its macaroni. Here were the celebrated
hot springs of Himera, where, legend says, Hercu-
les bathed after his great wrestling match with King
Eryx. It is said that the water from these springs
gives the macaroni its characteristic flavor. And
here Agathocles, the Peter the Cruel of Greek Sicily,
was born.

A few miles east of Termini the railroad leaves
the shore, and turning southward enters the valley
of the Torto, to begin climbing the rugged back-
bone of Sicily; the watershed between the ancient
African and Tyrrhenian Seas. We might be in
another country and clime, so different is the scen-
ery as we puff on southward, the way bordered on
either hand by the ruins of medieval castles and
by little mountain towns still living in the Bronze
Age. Near Lercara, forty-eight miles from Pal-
ermo, the sulphur mining district begins, where the
mephitic gases from the smelting furnaces have poi-
soned and stunted vegetation and herbage, giving
everything a ghastly mummified look, besides pol-
luting the keen mountain air with an unmistakable
brimstone flavor.

At Aragona-Caldare Girgenti first appears, seven
miles away, surely ‘‘a city set upon a hill that can-
not be hid.” Yet to-day it is no more like the an-

cient Greek Akragas, founded twenty-five centuries
[ 90 ]AROUND THE ISLAND

ago, than the dried sponge is like the live one. All
that is left of this richest and most splendid of Si-
cilian metropoli is huddled within the confines of its
former acropolis, high on the top of the hill. The
greater city, which spread clear down to the tem-
ples that fringe the abrupt southern edge of the
plateau, has vanished completely, and the bright
homes of the gods, crumbled into mellow ruin, stand
alone beside the shattered wall, in the midst of the
everlasting beauty of hill and plain.

In its palmy days — which began after the bat-
tle of Himera and lasted until the Carthaginian
siege — Akragas was so wealthy and so filled with
splendor that the record is almost incredible. ‘The
Akragantines’ flasks and body-scrapers, for use
in the baths, were of gold and silver, their beds of
ivory, their feasts and celebrations magnificent.
At the wedding of the daughter of Antisthenes, one
of the two leading citizens, there were eight hun-
dred chariots in the wedding procession, every sin-
gle citizen was feasted, and the whole city seemed
ablaze from the smoke and flame of the innumerable
bonfires. Even more noted was the hospitality of
Gellias. His slaves stood always at every gate of
the city, to bid all who came thither wel-
come as his guests. Once, indeed, he even en-
tertained — clothed, lodged and fed — five hundred
cavalrymen and their horses. And, as Freeman
says, these men, Antisthenes and Gellias alike, were

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VISTAS IN SICILY

neither tyrants nor lords nor oligarchs, but simple
citizens of the democracy.

The main source of the city’s wealth was her
trade with Carthage, especially in the grape and
the olive, neither of which grew in Africa at that
time. Evidently, though, the grapes were not all
sent to Carthage, for Timeus tells us that a house
in the city was nicknamed the “ Trireme” because
some young men of fashion got very drunk there one
night, and imagining they were in a reeling, roll-
ing ship at sea, began throwing the furniture over-
board to lighten the laboring craft. When the
generals of the Commonwealth came rushing in to
quiet things down, the drunken boys mistook them
for gods of the raging sea, and prayed them to calm
the storm!

Empedocles, one of Akragas’s most famous sons,
laments that his fellow townsmen “ gave themselves
to delights as if they would die to-morrow, while
they built their houses as if they were going to live
forever.” Little did these luxury-loving folk think
that the very barbarians whose trade was so en-
riching them would at last grow envious and snatch
back by force the wealth they had built up for
their neighbors. Empedocles, by the way, is one
of the most picturesque characters in the whole
story of Sicily. A political leader and an engineer
who did wonders for the sanitation of the city, he
refused supreme control when he might have had it,

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“A snow-white Eve worming her way out of an equally
pallid dreamer’s side is startling.AROUND THE ISLAND

and proclaimed himself a sort of primitive socialist
early in his career. But later in life he seems en-
tirely to have forgotten his previous socialistic
theories. Dressed in a purple robe with a golden
girdle, brazen shoes, and a Delphic wreath for his
thick hair, he wandered from city to city proclaim-
ing himself, in the words of one of his own poems,
the Katharmoi, “ An immortal god, and no longer
a mortal man.”

Nearly a sixth of Sicily’s sulphur is exported
from Porto Empedocle, Girgenti’s ancient haven,
six miles distant. From the station platform one
sees all around reddish-yellow and gray hills cov-
ered with small dumps and pierced with scores of
drives, dotted with little shanties and pricklied over
with chimneys where the miners are delving and
smelting. On the sidings near the depot scores of
flat cars are heaped high with huge pressed cakes
of the sickly greenish-yellow sulphur, while the
roadway leading to the freight-house is fulvid with
powdered brimstone, and the atmosphere faintly
suggests things infernal. In the city museum the
antiquarian may study the tile stamps of the
Roman period — Girgenti was Agrigentum then —
for impressing the sulphur cakes before they solidi-
fied.

Outside the station every train draws a barking
crowd of facchini (porters) and hotel-runners, from
whom you escape into an hotel omnibus. We chose

[93]

7VISTAS IN SICILY

a tiny, rickety, low-roofed vehicle, which had devel-
oped rheumatism and gout in every complaining
spring and joint. Delighted to secure the only first
class passengers who had come on that express, the
driver whipped up his three emaciated nags and
we started on the long, circuitous, heart-breaking
climb up the steep hills to the citadel above.

The bus was scarcely moving when a face ap-
peared at the rear door, not of the usual hotel por-
ter who rides behind, but of a Murillo cherub, brown-
eyed and dark, with a lurking smile so ingenuous
and charming that one must have been stony-hearted
indeed not to succumb to the spell of his innocent
sorcery.

The hotel on the Via Atenea — the only street in
Girgenti worthy the name of a thoroughfare —
proved a seedy, disreputable looking establishment,
giving upon the narrow way in a black hole into
which we plunged, to find a pair of winding, cold
stone stairs in the rear up which we stumbled to the
second story office. But the drawbacks of this inn
—and there are better ones in town — were for-
tunately most of them on the outside. Our room
was really comfortable, and the luncheon consider-
ably better than we dared expect, though the des-
sert, in a dirty glass cake-dish, consisted of oranges,
nespoli, or Japanese medlars, large raw broad-beans,
and something that looked like celery but proved to
be finocchi, or fennel, one of the staple foods of the
[94]AROUND THE ISLAND

——-

people, apparently a natural source of concentrated
paregoric.

When the porter announced that our landau was
waiting after luncheon, we questioned the ability of
the three mangy, half-starved horses —the same
team which had brought us from the railway sta-
tion — to drive all the afternoon over the amazingly
steep and hilly roads; but assured that these very
animals had been doing the same work for “ twenty
years or more” we started off congratulating our-
selves on escaping the guides, unnecessary nuisances.

As we stepped out at the little antique Gothic
church of San Niccola, the cherub suddenly appeared
before us.

“ Hello! Where did you come from? ” I inquired.

The lad only shook his head, but the coachman,
whose face was all one broad grin, waved his whip
at the rear of the carriage. “‘ 4 dietro—On be-
hind! ”

It was true. For miles that child had clung to
the rear axle in the choking dust for the sake of a
ttle silver. With an air of modest assurance he
introduced himself — Alfonso Caratozzo, signore.
I am just twelve years old. For six years I have
been the best guide in Girgenti, and all the grand
foreign gentlemen are much pleased with me. I can
show you everything.”

Alfonso’s large claim was fully justified by his
conduct of our affairs, his poetic appreciation not

[95]

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VISTAS IN SICILY

only of the beauties of the scenery but of his own
dignity and importance as counselor and pilot of the
forestiert americant— and no one who wishes a
guide can do better than to inquire for Alfonso the
Wise!

Never was the mixed civilization and pagan an-
cestry of the Sicilians of to-day brought more viv-
idly to our attention than in this little church of
San Niccola. The attractive girl custodian was a
perfect young Saracen Sicilian, black-eyed and raven
haired, with big gold and coral earrings. Beside
her Alfonso, as purely Greek as she was Moorish,
looked every inch a faun. The girl knew what
stories she had to tell very well. Alfonso, how-
ever, evidently bored by the history of ancient Ak-
ragas from the day of its founding, whispered:
“Pay no attention to her, stgnore. She tells this
to everybody!”

Shades of Diodorus — what should she tell!

Near by stands a little Roman building dating
from the second century B. C. Somehow it got the
name of Oratory of Phalaris, though it certainly was
not in existance in Phalaris’s time. How strange
that such a building and such an idea should be as-
sociated with this most widely advertised of Greek
tyrants! Of all the disputed stories told of him,
that of the brazen bull is most widely known; and
without his bull, Phalaris would be no more than an

hundred obscure tyrants in other Greek cities. The
[96]AROUND THE ISLAND

legend declares that an artist named Perillos made
a monstrous hollow brazen bull in whose shoulder
was a door through which the victim could be thrust.
When the fire underneath heated the diabolical in-
vention, the cries of the sufferer, issuing through
the nostrils, sounded like the roarings of the en-
raged animal. The tyrant, with a proper sense of
humor, immediately tested the efficiency of the
image upon its luckless inventor Perillos. In later
times apologists denied these stories; but Pindar,
writing within a century after the death of Phalaris,
summed up Sicilian public opinion of that day very
tersely in the lines:

“ Phalaris, mith blood defiled,
His brazen bull, his torturing flame,
Hand o’er alike to evil fame
In every clime!”

Very different indeed are his praises of Theron of
Akragas, one of the greatest and best of the Greek
tyrants, with whom he was contemporary. The
Second Olympian Ode is perhaps the most fulsome.
Cary rendered it:

“ Theron for his conquering car
Shall spread a shout of triumph far and nide;
True to his friends, the people’s pride;
Stay of Akragas and flower
Of many a noble ancestor;

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VISTAS IN SICILY

They, long toils and perils past,

By the rivers built at last

Their sacred bower, and were an eye

To light the land of Sicily.

And I mill swear

That city none, though she enroll

A century past her radiant scroll,
Hath brought a mortal man to light
Whose heart with love more genial glows,
Whose hand with larger bounty flows,
Than Theron’s.”

It was during the reign of Theron that the city,
approaching the height of its prosperity and pride,
joined forces with Gelon and the Syracusans in
defeating Hamilcar’s Carthaginians in a tremendous
battle at Himera. The victors took an immense
number of the defeated soldiers captive, and Theron
began to rush forward epoch making municipal im-
provements. The slaves, being only human, could
not last forever, and they were worked hard while
their strength endured, toiling in the stone quarries,
building the city wall, excavating a huge fishpond,
and commencing the construction of the magnificent
temples along the southern rampart.

“Tyrant,” by the way, in that age of civilization,
did not necessarily mean a brutal, oppressive or fire-
breathing monster. Indeed, some of the tyrants
were among the best rulers Greek Sicily ever had.
As Freeman says, “tyrant” meant a forceful

[ 98 ]AROUND THE ISLAND

usurper, a man who raised himself to the supreme
authority when kings and kingship were not only un-
lawful but were not even the fashion.

Of the six glorious temples — among the most
brilliant achievements of the most brilliant period
of Greek freedom in Sicily —only two remain

standing, at the verge of the hill, limned
in all their marvelous Greek severity and simplicity
against the tender landscape. Overhead burns the
cobalt sky of Sicily; around them burgeon crimson
poppies, delicate buttercups and spurge, and other
flowers innumerable. Flute-voiced birds swing and
sing in among the olives, in air languid with the
perfume of the almond in bloom.— And in the clear
sunlight of the South, the temples themselves glow
with a golden radiance that must surely be a faint
reflection of the fires of the immortal gods.

Models of Doric simplicity, these temples consisted
only of a windowless shrine for the god, surrounded
by an open colonnade, the whole covered by a gabled
roof. Their design was at once the result of the cli-
mate and of Greek civilization. The religion was
intimately connected with devotion to the State:
hence the homes of the gods, who were both the
patrons and companions of the people, were public
buildings, their porticoes open to the daily life and
commerce, the intercourse of the citizens.

The Greek religion was beautiful, rarely beautiful.
But exclusive, mysterious? No! Its rites were

[99 ]

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VISTAS IN SICILY

simple — choral hymns, rhythmic dances, cere-
monies executed by the citizens themselves. And
the priests guarded no occult sciences, as did the
Egyptians; kept to themselves no written hieroglyph
unintelligible except to the initiate. They were lay-
men, married men with families, soldiers, merchants,
men engaged in every walk of life.

Marvelous architects, those old fifth century
Greeks! To give their low and heavy buildings
greater charm than was possible with mere straight
lines, they made their columns gently swelling;
smaller at the top than at the bottom. At the cor-
ners of the edifice they even sloped them slightly
inward. They bent the foundation upward a little
in the middle, and did the same thing with the long
line of the entablature above. Yet it would seem
that they were given to gilding the lily. They
coyered the rich golden travertine of which the edi-
fices were built with a thin coat of white stucco or
mortar, upon which were painted striking ornaments
in many brilliant colors. It is hard to believe that
the temples when painted could have been as mag-
nificent as they are to-day; yet they must have been
—who are we to impugn Greek taste!

The Temple of Concord, because of its use in the
Middle Ages as the church of Saint Gregory of the
Turnips, is one of the best preserved pagan build-
ings in existence, all of its thirty-four giant columns

still standing. It makes a picture of beautiful and
[100]AROUND THE ISLAND

serene old age that loses nothing by comparison with
the eternal youth of its surroundings. House of
peace it has been called, and house of peace it still
is, after the storms and wars of more than fourteen
centuries have ebbed and flowed about its massive
base.

The custode, a garrulous old soldier, insists on
your instantly taking the view from the architrave
above the cella, which really is magnificent. But
you are not ready for that just yet. Why must
these caretakers always tease you to do something
When you don’t want to! Glimpsing the fat little
red book in your pocket, he smiles sardonically.
“Ha! You wish to be let alone?” he exclaims.
“Ha! You believe the book of a German, not the
word of a Sicilian. But does the book tell you the
Christians who turned this temple into a church were
the first Sicilians to embrace the Faith? No, sig-
nore —but you believe your German book. Very
good, believe it!” and he stalks away, secure in his
precious tradition.

From the Temple of Concord the road ascends
gently, parallel to the ancient wall, until it reaches
the southeastern angle of the precipitous plateau,
occupied by the so-called Temple of Juno. Below
it on the east flows the San Biagio, zigzagging in
a southwesterly direction to join the Drago torrent,
with which it enters the Mediterranean at the old

harbor of Emporio. Perched upon this lofty cliff.
[ror]er

Te ke ee a ee

a ee ee ne oe ee

VISTAS IN SICILY

nearly four hundred feet above the sea, the temple
commands a wonderful view.

This structure is in far less perfect condition than
the Temple of Concord, only twenty-five whole col-
umns standing, while everywhere the mellow golden
stonework is marked with peculiar dull, bloody stains
supposed to be traces of the fire set by the Carth-
aginians in 406 B. C., in their endeavor to burn the
city. The tradition seems to have little foundation
in fact, for on other ruins, parts of the old Greek
wall, and even on some of the rocks of the vicinity,
the same strange stains are frequently visible, and
appear to be a natural property of the stone, pos-
sibly due to its exposure to the weather.

Here I sent Alfonso away on an errand, and an-
other small boy guide hung about us until we en-
tered the holy of holies. Springing upon a shat-
tered block of marble which he said had been the
altar where the huge statue of Juno had once stood,
he took an absurdly constrained position, and cried:
“Look, stgnore—Juno stood here — just like
me! ”’

One of the most alluring ruins is the fragment,
called for want of a better name presumably, the
Temple of Castor and Pollux. Embayed in a grove
of olive and almond, resting upon a veritable carpet
of flowers among which climb tangled vines, rise
four stately columns, silhouetted sharply against
the dazzling sky, and supporting a honey-colored

[102]AROUND THE ISLAND

fragment of entablature. And though the archeol-
ogists declare the columns to have been taken from
two different edifices and arbitrarily joined, this de-
tracts not a whit from the grace and beauty of the
restoration and its surroundings.

Olympian Jupiter it was who had —as befitted
the king of the gods — the largest temple. Indeed,
after the vast temple of Diana at Ephesus, this was
the largest Greek shrine ever built. Now all there
is to be seen is a vast formless heap of cut stones

in a living sea of brilliant yellow bloom. Unafraid,
these star-eyed flowerets lovingly enfold shattered
column and pediment, creep up into the sacred close
of the cella or sanctuary, and kiss the huge prone
figure of one of the thirty-eight titanic Atlantides
or caryatides, about twenty-five feet in height,
which are believed to have supported the entabla-
ture. The colossal edifice measured about three
hundred and seventy-two feet long, at least one hun-
dred and eight-two wide, and probably about one
hundred twenty high.

And these are not all, by any means. There are
more ruins of temples, within and without the walls,
more interesting to explore than to read about;
there are Christian catacombs and tombs; the mega-
lithic wall, and the Porta Aurea, the Golden Gate
that looks straight out over the golden southern
sea. And there are also some very interesting an-
tiquities on view in the Museum — but beware the

[103]p

ee eT anges en

ee ee

ree eel one la ee ae

ete:

ote ta ee ne ee ee

VISTAS IN SICILY

specious vendors of relics who hang around the
temples and the hotels. The Greeks of twenty cen-
turies ago did not stamp their products, “ Made in

Germany! ”

All along the way are vast numbers of peculiar
white lumps on grass and leaves and walls, clinging
like burrs to even the fruit and treetrunks.

* They are snails, Excellency,” explained Alfonso,
“and very good to eat. After it rains they grow
big and fat. Then they are very sweet.”

Springing down from the box, the child tore a fat
snail from the wall, and hopping up again, cracked
it open skillfully with his teeth, drew out and ate
the quivering mollusc. Waving his hand toward
some more large specimens on the wall, he asked:
** Excellency would like some too? ”

“ Excellency has just had his luncheon,” oppor-
tunely interposed the driver. “ Snails are not good
for dessert.”

Within the acropolis again, we dismissed the
landau out of pity for the wretched horses, and
rambled about on foot. Before reaching the Cathe-
dral we passed Alfonso’s home, where he introduced
us to his family with all the éclat of a noble pre-
senting friends at court; and poor as these Sicilians
were, we found among them all — father, mother,
aunt, cousin, three sisters and a brother — no lack
of that inborn courtesy which distinguishes the Latin
peasant.

[104]AROUND THE ISLAND

Collectively the family showed us the church of
Santa Maria dei Greci, in which are supposed to be
incorporated the scanty remains of the principal
sanctuary of either Zeus Atabyrius or Minerva,
while some urchin, locked out and so deprived of all
opportunity for tips, playfully stoned the church
door. The Cathedral is more interesting, though
the apse is over richly stuccoed, covered with scrolls
and cherubs in gold and white. One of its chief
treasures is a madonna, painted by Guido Reni,
though not comparable to his best work. In the
sacristy 1s a really fine old white marble sarcoph-
agus of the Roman period, bearing reliefs of the
myth of Hippolytus and Phedra.

But nothing within is comparable to the view from
one of the windows at the sunset hour. It recalls
the Biblical prophecies of Canaan with the chalky
roads for the milk, and the gold of the daisies, mus-
tard and marigolds for the honey of this Promised
Land. The chief charm of the scene as the hills
he weltering under the fading glory of the sinking
sun are these same milky roads, flowing through the
verdant swards and vales. In the background the
ugly, prosaic sulphur pits, dumps and chimneys
make splashes of harsh modern color in this world-
old landscape. It is a scene unforgettable. Slowly,
gently, the soft rosy-bluish evening haze creeps up
the hillside; bit by bit the purple shadows deepen,
the soft harmonies of tender green melt into the

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VISTAS IN SICILY

—_

blur of the background, and only the creamy high-
ways stand out distinct.

Not so very many years ago this entire region
was unsafe because of the brigands. Now one may
go anywhere about Girgenti with perfect security.
Nevertheless, a pair of Carabinieri — they always
travel in pairs, by the way — gorgeous in all their
glory of black and scarlet, with cockaded cocked
hats, were always somewhere within range when we
were outside the city proper. They seemed to take
as keen an interest in the ruins as we did, though
temples must have been an old story to them.

Alfonso spoke to one of these kindly familiars
whom we passed, struggling to make his greeting as
careless as the familiar “ Hello!” of the American
streets. Good humoredly the Carabiniero answered
him, and as we went on, the boy remarked with in-
nocent egotism: ‘“* You saw him, signore? He is
my friend. You are with me, and he would let
nothing happen to you. It is good to know the
police — as I do!”

To-day brigandage is less rife in interior Sicily
than highway robbery is in the main thoroughfares
of New York City. Most of the “brigands” are rural
hotel-keepers, livery-stable proprietors and their ilk,
but a word to the officials of the omnipresent Carabi-
nieri in any town will bring the unruly ones to terms
instantly.

{ 106 ]Vill
THE ROAD TO SYRACUSE

O the northwest of Girgenti the country is
honeycombed with sulphur pits and it is
not very hard to credit the ancient myth

that the gates of Hades opened here. After the
train leaves the trunkline of the railway at Ara-
gona-Caldare, tunnels and sulphur mines make up
most of the scenery. This entire district has a
smitten look, and on the bleak rolling plains and
rugged hills are dreary towns whose chief charm,
as they flit past in a continuous gray motion pic-
ture, les in their historical suggestions. The most
important and flourishing city we pass is Calta-
nisetta, the center of the sulphur industry, which
produces more than half a million tons annually.
The mines are most of them primitive in the extreme,
and machinery is practically unknown, while in many
of them fuel is so scarce and costly that the oper-
ators burn the raw sulphur itself in their calcaront
or smelters.

Shortly before reaching Santa Catarina Xirbi, the
junction town where the tracks join the Palermo
line, we have our first glimpse of Mt. A tna, its
snowy cap hanging in the distance like a low white

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VISDAS TEN SICILY

cloud. Small gorges and tunnels follow in rapid
succession, and the train pants upward in tortuous
curves through the barren valleys, until we look up
at Castrogiovanni, the Enna of the ancients. It
hes in an almost perfect horseshoe on a precipitous
rock, and so surrounded by nearly perpendicular
approaches, so walled in by Nature with beetling
crags, that none of its innumerable ancient besiegers
was ever able to storm it. Treachery — and once
starvation — did for it what armed assault never
could. Livy rightly called it “a city inexpugna-
ble,” and it probably is so yet, for it has recently
been strongly fortified after the most approved mod-
ern style. The ascent is by a road which —
well, try it for yourself. But the town, once
reached, pays for the climb in its magnificent views.
It is the navel (umbilicus Sicilie@) of Sicily, and
from the loftiest tower of the former citadel there
sweeps away a mountain cyclorama such as not even
Switzerland can excel — Aftna, peaks without num-
ber, range on range and tier on tier, melting into
the haze of heaven. ‘Towns, thousands of feet in
the air, cling desperately to the steep, unfriendly
sides, or perch precariously on the tops of needle-
pointed mountains. And on the South, beyond hills
and plain, dimples the ultramarine of the African
sea.

For centuries before the adventurous Greeks col-

onized the hill, Enna was the principal home of a
[108]Be Ce aE ee
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“The Cappella Palatina . ..a tiny temple richly em-
bellished with marvelous mosaics.”eee ee

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woe o a

The bells of the church of the Holy Spirit boomed the knell of the

lian Vespers.

ici

French in the §THE ROAD TO SYRACUSE

Sicilian goddess, the patron of natural fertility and
of the harvest, whom the Greeks identified with their
own Demeter, and the later Romans with Ceres.
Not a stone of her temple is left, and we can do
little more than speculate upon its site, said to have
been where the old citadel now stands. About two
hours to the south by carriage is that once lovely
little lake of Pergusa, where Pluto met and straight-
way stole the lovely Proserpina to be the queen of
his dark realm. It was then a district so fair that
Diodorus said the hounds often lost the scent of
their quarry, so rich was the fragrance of the
flowers. But alas! the spot is blasted now. Gone
are the splendid shade trees in whose branches the
singing messengers of spring carolled; gone all the
beauty of Pergusa,.now but a dirty little pond,
where peasants steep their flax. But at least we
can think of it still in Ovid’s words: ‘‘ A spot at
the bottom of a shady vale, watered by the plen-
teous spray of a stream that falls from wooded
heights; where Nature decks herself in all her varied
hues, where the ground is beauteous, carpeted with
flowers of many tints.”

Aftna appears again soon after the entrance to
the valley of the Dittaino is passed, and beckons
with such insistence that the train hesitates only a

moment — at the station for Valguarnera Assoro
—right before the railway restaurant. It is a
tumbledown little shack with a big sign: Mistor-

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!
,
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VISTAS IN SICILY

ante G. Galliano. If you are on good enough terms
with the Signor Conductor, he may wait long
enough for you to have a sip of the excellent coun-
try wine and a taste of the “beautiful goat” the
redoubtable Galliano purveys to such as can pay
his very modest price. A few miles farther on is
the station for Agira, which occupies the site of
one of the very oldest Sikelian cities, lying back from
the railroad, up in the hills. Later it was the birth-
place of the historian Diodorus, who gives a pic-
turesque account of his native village.

Half an hour later the railway emerges from the
hills upon the plain of Catania — so productive of
grain that from the very beginnings of local history
it has been known as the granary of Sicily — and
leaving the main line at Bicocca, puts Catania and
the great volcano behind, heading southward for
Syracuse. Fine crops appear around the famous
Lake Lentini, Sicily’s largest inland body of water,
varying from about nine to twelve miles in circum-
ference, according to the season. It is a dreary
tarn, looking so like a big mud puddle or a meadow
overflowed by stagnant salt water that it is easy
to credit the tales of the mephitic vapors and ex-
halations and fevers which have made it the scourge
of the neighborhood.

Evidently the Sicilian railroads provide no drink-
ing water for the employés in wayside stations, for
as we stopped the combination telegraph operator,

[x10]THE ROAD TO SYRACUSE

baggage smasher, ticket agent and general utility
man ran out to the locomotive and tapped the brass
faucet in the tender for a drink. There is a big
water-wheel a few miles farther on, arranged ex-
actly like an Egyptian sakiyeh, and no doubt a sur-
vival of the Moorish wheel installed in that very
well centuries ago. The apparatus is very simple.
A horizontal wheel is geared loosely into a vertical
one by big, clumsy wooden teeth. Over it projects
an arm to which some patient draft animal is hitched.
A long grass rope carrying an endless series of pot-
tery jars or buckets completes the outfit by running
over the vertical wheel, and all the water that does
not splash back into the well flows into an irrigating
pool and the ditches. The mule who worked this
particular wheel acted as if he too were a Moorish
survival, unaccustomed to modern inventions. Any-
way, he tried to bolt when the engine shrieked.
His plunging blindfold gallop sent the water flying
in all directions, giving his peasant master a much-
needed bath and earning the poor beast a beating,
the blows of which could be distinctly heard as the
train sped on. Around a curve Mt. Aitna appears
again in all its majesty, filling up the entire back-
ground, looming more than twice as large as familiar
Vesuvius. Its lower slopes are green and the upper
reaches snow covered, split like a sore lip, with
dark curves, queer bumps and sharp little corners of

uplifted skin. Above them poises the soft black,
[rrr]Se ee ee a

ope tee ee =

Oe ee aes

ae ne a ee

ee ee

ae ee

nen pan

VISTAS IN SICILY

slightly indented cone, canopied by a ridiculous tuft
of cottony smoke no bigger than a handful at such
a distance.

Agnone is a hedge of yellow daisies, a deep pas-
ture full of reddish brown kine, a farmhouse of stone
with thatched shelters for the animals in the midst
of rich cultivated lands. A mile away gleams the
sea, a dull turquoise green flecked with windy rip-
ples and dotted here and yon with white —‘ Silver
sails come out of the west.’? The tall timothy on
both sides of the track, and other fields planted
with oats and spiky cactus, seem mere picturesque
settings for countless fiery poppies. Sheep by the
hundred bolt in terror from the wild shrieks of the
locomotive, preferring to run straight ahead on the
track as long as they can possibly keep out of the
way of the engine. Bold headlands here and there
lower their stubborn crests for a few yards to give
the flying train instantaneous vistas of wet sand
gleaming far below, like blades of golden sickles
edged with silver filigree.

In rapid succession these rugged scenes slip be-
hind, and we run along the shore past salt farms
and their windmills; then a boldly jutting island,
brave with forts and churches, rising out of the sea
like Venice — Augusta the picturesque, modern sur-
vivor of Xiphonia, scene of many a fierce battle and
bloody conquest.

Augusta was founded in a most picturesque way

[x12]THE ROAD TO SYRACUSE

by Emperor Frederick II. The town of Centuripe
up in the hills, having roused the imperial ire by its
sedition, was effectually razed. Then Frederick
punished its people still further by driving them all
into this spot and commanding them to stay there
and be good. Perhaps its stormy birth in a meas-
ure accounts for Augusta’s stormy history. The
most spectacular affair it ever witnessed was the
tremendous naval duel between the fleets of France
and Holland in 1676, when Admiral Duquesne de-
feated the Dutch Admiral De Ruyter, who after-
ward died of his wounds in nearby Syracuse. Fol-
lowing the coast closely, we flit swiftly past the
Hyblean Hills, eager to stop for some of their his-
toric honey, but relentlessly carried onward by the
insensate iron horse, that knows not nor cares for
the sweets that rival the product of Hymettus.

All the way from Augusta the track borders the
shore of the Bay of Megara, where anchored Nicias,
Alcibiades and Lamachus, the Athenian generals
who came to attack Syracuse in 415 B. C. with a
fleet so vast that men paled merely to see it whiten
the horizon. But to-day, instead of the tents and
sails of invading hosts, you see evaporating-tanks
and windmills, and snowy piles of salt dotting the
rugged shore in serried ranks. Rushing across the
neck of the promontory of Thapsus — now called
Magnisi— we skirt Trogilus Bay, where the con-
quering fleet of Marcellus the Roman lay two cen-

[113]——

VISTAS IN SICILY

turies after the Athenian débdcle, cross the old
Dionysian wall, sweep around the bold headland,
and stop at Syracuse.

Don’t be disappointed in Syracuse by what you
see of the dirty little provincial town that yawns
sleepily at you between the railroad station and
your hotel. Suspend judgment until you reach the
Greek Theater, and from the top row of seats carven
into the eternal rock, look out over the gracious
panorama below. Beyond the sparsely settled vine-
yards and groves covering what was once the
Greater Syracuse, lies the city of to-day on Ortygia,
an oyster-shell full-heaped with pearls, in a sapphire
setting of twin harbors and glittering sands. The
alchemy of golden sunshine transmutes whitewashed
tenements into Greek palaces, fishing luggers into
stately galleys of war, and prosaic modern peasants
into the soldiers and citizens of a happier and
more stirring day. And as you stand breathless
with the wonder of it, history unfolds itself in
memory, with something at every step to drive that
history home, be it Sikel, Greek, Roman, Saracen or
Norman. ‘The ruins of the mighty fortress atop
the inland hill breathe of the Age of Tyrants, and
to follow the herculean walls of Dionysius around
the deserted plateau fills one with awe and wonder
anew, for the work seemingly has been performed
by a race of giants. Below, yawning in the sea-
coast of Achradina, dim caverns invite the ex-
[114]THE ROAD TO SYRACUSE

a |

plorer’s rowboat. There are the Street of Tombs
to search for relics — though most likely you will
find only a few scattered bones; the Castello Mapr-
iaces on the tip of Ortygia, full of Byzantine mem-
ories; charming walks to and through the quarries,
the famous Latomie; the astonishing catacombs and
the Anapo trip. A score of other delightful ex-
cursions the visitor can take, providing he is not
driven forward by the exigencies of a cut-and-
dried itinerary, that wickedest and most specious
of all excuses for not seeing enough of a country
really to enjoy it!

The mother colony was founded in 734 B. C. on
the little island of Ortygia, named for the quail the
Greeks found there in great coveys. From its very
beginning the benignant gods smiled upon Syracuse,
and it prospered so rapidly that within seventy
years it was founding colonies of its own. Under
the tyrant Gelon, son-in-law of the great and good
Theron of Akragas, and later practically co-ruler
with him of all Greek Sicily, the era of Hellenic
supremacy began, with Syracuse in the van of prog-
ress. Indeed, Syracuse was of such paramount im-
portance that sometimes its history is mistaken for
the history of Sicily. Tyrants good and bad rose
and fell; democracy overthrew tyranny, and tyranny
overthrew democracy. Demagogues—the word
means literally ‘‘ popular leaders ”— rose to stir
the people to action against the government or the

[115]ee et eet a ee

ee ee

a os

os
_

Af ter =~ eed mle em AI tt et

i a he ee re tae ee a eS ee

VISTAS IN SICILY

tyrant — and sometimes threatened to become ty-
rants themselves. Seeing how easy it was to sway
the rabble with hot words, men of every class began
te practice public speaking; no young man’s educa-
tion was complete without it; and oratory first be-
came an art in Sicily.

From the island of Ortygia the city spread up the
hilly mainland in four new boroughs — Achradina,
Tyche, Neapolis and Epipolai— making a mighty
pentapolis; a community which was not only the
foremost of all the Greek cities in the island, but
much the greatest in physical extent of all the
Greek cities in the world, and for a time the great-
est city of Europe as well as of Greece. This
naturally made Athens jealous, and in 415 B. C. the
pent up force of Attic wrath loosed itself in a tre-
mendous blast against Syracuse. But Athens’ tra-
ditional enemy, Sparta, sent the island city help,
and the Athenian arms went down in one of the
most appalling defeats of all history. After this
vivid chapter, governments and tyrants rose and fell
again as before, deliverers came and conquered in
the name of the people, and passed, and at last the
young giant Rome stepped in with brazen legion-
aries and put a period to the brilliant story.

To-day, as in the beginning, the city is on Orty-
gia, the houses crowding together behind the old
walls like birds on a roost, and you wonder why,
when there was such ample space on the shore,

[x16]THE ROAD TO SYRACUSE

the people huddled together so. The streets, more-
over, are amazingly shifty. On foot you set out to
explore the town and encircle it by keeping as close
to the walls as possible—a matter of a mere hour
and a half, with plenty of time to idle by the way.
According to the maps this should be no great feat,
but try as you may, it seems impossible to lay a true
course, and becoming discouraged after slipping off
one street four or five times, you abandon yourself
to the vagaries of these astonishing high and by-
ways — they fade into one another without sign or
signal, they vanish on front doorsteps, end after
half a block in blind alleys, terminate in bastions
which lead one to suppose that the sea must be below
on the other side, only to turn up somewhere else
in most mysterious fashion, and not always running

in the same direction as their beginning.

There is little that is up-to-date about Syra-
cuse. ‘T'o a great extent it lives in medieval seclu-
sion and its people are simple, genial folk so wholly
out of touch with the world that whatever is es-
sential for comfort or convenience is proper in pub-
lic. On one street, for instance, I saw the econ-
omical wife of a small shopkeeper wash her baby’s
only frock —a slim little red calico — and button
it to dry over the bulgy part of a lamppost, which
looked choked and uneasy as the tiny slip fluttered
in the wind. Meantime the piccola signorina dis-
ported herself amiably in the street — and all her

[117]ian maida natieecadiite a ee ee ee a es

beneath earn ee en pee he ee ee

VISTAS IN SICILY

frolicknmg in the dust could not hurt what she
wore.

Near the center of the city stands the Cathedral,
a queer combination of battlemented Moorish castle,
ancient Greek temple and modern Christian struc-
ture. Nearly thirteen centuries ago Bishop Zos-
imus of Syracuse began the work of turning the
ruined temple — built early in the sixth century B.
C.— into a Christian church, filling in the peristyle
with a solid wall in which some of the Doric columns
are still visible. The Saracen invaders turned it
into a mosque in the year 878, and for two centuries
muezzins chanted the names of Allah and Muham-
mad from its walls. With the Norman conquest in
the eleventh century the building again became a
Christian house of worship, and though the earth-
quake of 1693 destroyed a part of it, the damage
was soon repaired and it has ever since remained the
diocesan church of Syracuse. Like many of the
often restored cathedrals of Meridional Italy, its
interior is barren and uninteresting, but its ex-
terior, with Greek entablature and columns, Sar-
acenic frieze and battlements, and hideous Renais-
sance facade and portico is unique among Christian
churches.

There seems some doubt among the archeologists
as to the deity worshiped here in pagan days.
It was formerly ascribed to Diana, but the authori-
ties now generally believe it was the shrine of Min-

[118]THE ROAD TO SYRACUSE

erva, though Cicero’s glowing description of the
Temple of Minerva (Athena) places that structure
in a location apparently different from the site of
the present Duomo. The orator says he saw a
temple on whose apex was “. . . a great brazen
shield overlaid with gold, which served as a landmark
to sailors on entering the port. The folding doors of
ivory and gold were also adorned with a marvelous
golden head of Medusa.” Most of these magnifi-
cent treasures were stolen. The Roman pretor
Gaius Verres, a gentleman with a highly cultivated
taste in works of art, stripped Syracuse — and all
Sicily, in fact — absolutely bare of everything the
Roman armies had overlooked. And when at last
he was brought to book for his crimes, he fled into
voluntary exile with his plunder rather than face

the scathing invective of Cicero.

The archeologists’ dubiety regarding the name of
the temple has no room in the minds of the street
arabs, however, who vociferously proclaim it the
“Tempio di Diana,” and will not suffer you to leave
until you have paid for this volunteered informa-
tion.

Diagonally across the Piazza Duomo is the
externally unimposing Museum. Its collection, how-
ever, is both interesting and intelligently arranged.
It covers the civilization of Sicily from the bone and
flint implements of the extinct prehistoric Sikels,
through the transitional Greek period of the

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VISTAS IN SICILY

metopes from Selinus, to the splendid coins and vases
of the city’s supremacy as an Hellenic center of
culture and art. In fact, the profile of Arethusa,
on coins signed by Evanetus and Kimon, is consid-
ered the most exquisite Greek head known to us. In
those days coin-makers were artists of the foremost
rank, accustomed to signing their work, like painters
and sculptors, and these two, Evanetus and Kimon,
have left us a noble set of coins in which the Greek
conception of divinity appears at its best. The
most beautiful marble is a Venus Anadyomene, dis-
covered in 1804, and preserved almost intact save
for the head and one arm.

Not very far away there are ruins of another
and very remarkable Greek temple, formerly called
for Diana, but now generally considered to have
been dedicated to Apollo — the archeologists seem
to have a grudge against the virgin huntress!
There is not much else that is Greek, but as you
wander through the narrow streets, scattered bits of
medieval architecture appear in the most unex-
pected places, like the splendid Sicilian-Gothic and
Saracenic windows of the Montalto and Lanza pal-
aces, all the richer and more wonderful because of
the surroundings from which they look down upon
the squalid streets and out-at-heel people. The
later Palazzo Municipale, or City Hall, is a fine ex-
ample of the architectural spirit of the seventeenth
century, its type that of a private palace, a baronial

[120]THE ROAD TO SYRACUSE

mansion rather than a public building. During this
period great attention was paid to ornamental
ironwork for decorative purposes upon the facades
of buildings; and all about us are delicate and sat-
isfying window balconies, some of which plainly
testify to their Spanish origin.

The first of the Greek settlers brought their home
legends with them to Sicily, where they found a
friendly soil, attaining their fullest perfection in
the sympathetic hands of the Latin poets. Some
of the most beautiful weave through the story of
Syracuse, and the most delightful walk in the city
—one you will want to take often—leads you
straight along the edge of the Great Harbor, on a
wide, tamarind-bordered esplanade, with the town
wall rising behind, to the picturesque, papyrus-
fringed little pool accounted for by one especially
gracious tale, and called the Fountain of Arethusa.

Long centuries ago—so runs this immemorial
fable — there bubbled up out of the beach of the
Great Harbor a crystal spring. And close by, in
the briny waters themselves, another little fount
gushed forth, pure and sweet. The airy Greek
fancy could not pass by so remarkable a coincidence,
and the Syracusans quickly came to believe that
the twin springs were the gentle nymph Arethusa,
the well-beloved of Artemis (Diana), and her river-
god lover Alpheus; that Arethusa, too impetuously

wooed by Alpheus on the island of Ortygia in Old
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VISTAS IN SICILY

Greece, had been graciously changed by Artemis
into a spring, and taking the long, dark journey
under the Ionian Sea, had escaped to the sunlight
again in the newer Ortygia in Sicily; that Alpheus,
not faint-hearted, had changed himself to her own
watery shape, and following hard and fast, had
missed her by the merest trifle only, bubbling up in
a second spring in the waters of the harbor close
beside his beloved. But Poseidon of the sea was
mightier than nymph or river-god. Shaking his
mighty bed one day, he burst open the wall about
fair Arethusa.— To-day her water is salt, not
sweet, and no more does her lover Alpheus bubble
up beside her in the Bay.

[122]IX
THE HARBOR AND THE ANAPO

NOTHER of the beautiful legends with

which the history of Syracuse is deeply in-

terwoven is the story of Kyana— Cyane
—and Aidoneus or Pluto. To run it to earth
take a stout green and blue rowboat across the
Porto Grande, about two kilometers wide, to the
river Anapo. The snapping breeze blows briskly,
and the boat tumbles about in lively fashion upon
the sparkling sapphire, past the big motionless
yachts at anchor and the slow-curtseying sailing
craft coming into the docks from the saline or salt-
works in the marsh below the river.

What a contrast between the harbor of to-day
and that of twenty-three or four centuries ago,
when not another city in the world could boast so
great a port, so populous a harbor! Here swam the
merchant fleets of all Sicily, of Greece, of Pheenicia,
the navy of haughty Syracuse, the innumerable
small boats that darted about between ship and
shore — and remember, too, that these were sailing
craft,— every one. sea spiders with oars for legs
in windless weather. Around the curving line of the

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VISTAS IN SICILY

shore for three miles the ships docked, from island
tip to rivermouth. Fringing the bay were sloping
beaches where they careened and calked and tarred
their galleys with slave labor. Shipyards, arsenals,
and merchants’ warehouses lined its shores. All
the activities of a great maritime people hummed
about this bay with its margin of city. And all
the city’s splendor, all her power, sprang from the
harbor, and from her control of the waters, ex-
actly as England, two thousand years later, began
to rise to her present eminence by virtue of her
position and her skill in deep waters.

Only a little imagination is required to picture
the salt-boats of the twentieth century as the short,
clumsy triremes which on that memorable September
1, 413 B. C., brought about the dramatic climax
of the war between Athens and Syracuse. The
Athenians’ fleet bottled up in the Great Harbor by
a line of chained-together galleys and merchant
hulks anchored from the tip of Ortygia to the
promontory of Plemmyrion a mile south, prepared
to force its way out.

All Syracuse and both armies lined the shores,
stood up on the seats of the distant Theater, crowded
the housetops to encourage the fighters with their
cheering and shouts. The rival commanders made
their usual orations, exhorting the crews to acquit
themselves as men and patriots. Out into the Bay
rowed the fleets— Grote tells the story vividly:
[124]“The ‘Poor Man’s Promenade’ stretches away toward Mte Zaffarano,

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the Middle Ages as the Church of St. Gregory

of the Turnips.”

The Temple of Concord “was usedTHE HARBOR AND THE ANAPO

“Inside this narrow basin, rather more than five
English miles in circuit, one hundred and eighty-six
ships of war, each manned by more than two hun-
dred men, were about to join battle —in the pres-
ence of countless masses around, near enough both
to see and to hear; the most picturesque battle prob-
ably in history, without smoke or other impediments
to vision, and in the clear atmosphere of Sicily.”

At the first onset the impetuous Athenian attack,
headed for the barrier, broke through the Syracusan
defense, and the Athenians were shouting with
triumph as they began to cut the hawsers fastening
together the blockading hulks, when the Syracusan
triremes closed in on them from all sides, and the
action at once became general and desperate. Ship
crashed against ship, and vessels once lashed to-
gether rarely separated. Though Syracuse could
throw only seventy-six triremes of the line against
the hundred and ten heavy Athenians, she reinforced
her vessels with a perfect cloud of mosquito craft
that hovered, stinging and galling, about the
equal antagonists. In a measure the action demon-
strated the efficiency and value of the small, swift
cruiser or torpedoboat of later times, to which the
light craft may be considered analogous, never dar-
ing to do more than shoot and run, and shoot and
run again.

Thucydides makes the peaceful harbor ring and
echo again with the surging of the dramatic chorus

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of citizens and armies urging on the fight:
“ And the great noises of many triremes fallen
foul of one another both amazed the seamen and
prevented them from hearing what their leaders di-
rected; for they directed thick and loud on both
sides, not only as naval art required, but also from
sheer eagerness, the Athenians crying out to their
fleet to force the passage . . . and the Syra-
cusans to theirs how honorable a thing it would be to
hinder their escape, and by this victory to improve
every man the honor of his country.
While the conflict raged on the water, the land forces
had a struggle and sided with them in their affec-
tions. . . . For the fight being near, and not
all of them looking upon one and the same part, he
that saw his own side prevail took heart and fell to
calling upon the gods that they deprive them not
of safety; and they that saw their friends have the
worse, not only lamented but shrieked outright.
And one might hear in one and the same
army, as long as the fight upon the water was
doubtful, at one and the same time, lamentations,
shouts that they won, that they lost, and whatever
else a people in great danger is forced differently
to utter.”
Every one of the Athenian fleet and twenty-six
Syracusans had gone ashore or foundered, only fifty
vessels being left afloat, when the fight ended.

Vainly did the Athenian generals plead with their
[126]THE HARBOR AND THE ANAPO

men to fight again next day with those ships which
could be hauled off the beach and made seaworthy ;
but so terrific had been the chaos, so utterly broken
was the spirit of the Attic fleet, that the men refused
to go aboard again, and the retreat was soon be-
gun,

Forty thousand men, “like the emigrant popula-
tion of a city, wandered laden with their baggage
away from the coast into a country hostile to them,
without any definite goal for the journey, without
sufficient supplies of food, without confidence in
their ultimate preservation, tortured by fear, lost
in speechless or stolid despair, or raging in savage
fury against men and gods; . . . but most ter-
rible of all was it to leave on the desolate shore the
many wounded and sick, who raised their voices in
loud Jamentation as their relatives and tent-fellows
departed, or clung to the skirts of their garments,
and let themselves be dragged along for a brief dis-
tance, till they sank prostrate to the ground.” *

For days they struggled on, followed, harassed
and headed off by the victorious Syracusans and
their Lacedemonian allies, at last surrendering from
sheer mental and physical exhaustion, though they
knew full well the inevitable resule—“clavery for
every soldier, an ignominious death for every gen-

eral, the ruin of their country as a world power of
the first rank.

“History of Greece, iii, 402; Dr. Ernst Curtius.
[127]b
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VISTAS IN SICILY

Something of all this runs through one’s mind
as the rowboat approaches the low, glistening line
of shore, with the wide, clean mouth of the Anapo
in its center. For some distance before we actually
enter the river, its pale green current cuts a fur-
row sharply through the heavier salt brine of the
Bay. And it is fresh, not salt, long after it leaves
the protection of its native banks. Into its brawl-
ing current pull the boatmen, expatiating volubly,
not upon the scenery as one would naturally expect,
but upon the virtues of their particular craft and
the value of their time!

No doubt these boatmen are fair types of the
rugged island sailors who so nobly acquitted them-
selves twenty-three hundred years ago on the spar-
kling bay. Their deep, expressive eyes, and finely
chiseled faces, full of Greek lines, amply confirm
the historians’ story of their descent. Indeed, a
majority of the Syracusans are of the classic Greek
type, with little or nothing about them to sug-
gest the later influence of alien races.

Perhaps an hundred yards inside the mouth of
the stream, beside a bridge, always stands a bevy
of laundresses, stout-hearted, thick-thighed women
with massive shoulders and muscular waists, their
skirts carefully tucked up above their knees.
Around their bare legs the icy water swirls in smart
ripples, yet they toil there for hours together,

seeming not to mind the cold in the slightest, though
[128],THE HARBOR AND THE ANAPO

a few old crones on the bank testify mutely in their
deformed hands and rheumatic feet to the power of
the river gods who thus repay the profanation of
their pellucid stream.

Piled in baskets upon the shore and lying in
bluish wet lumps upon black rocks are the clothes;
and the linen is stout indeed that resists the batter-

ing those furious workers give it—a heavy club,

a powerful right arm, a rough bare stone in running
water which contains not a little sand and never a
trace of soap. Indeed, the more pieces one’s linen
comes home in, the more certain he may be that he
has a good laundress!

From the time a boat comes within hail until it
disappears under the bridge beyond there is little
washing done, the amiable amphibians evidently pre-
ferring to watch than to wash. Indeed, the only
way to get a picture of them in action, is to threaten
to pass by without paying toll unless they work.
And then what washing it is! Not far beyond the
Jaundresses is the open plain on the left of the
stream, where two mutilated pillars, some ten min-
utes’ or so walk back from the bank, are all that is
left of the temple of Zeus Olympius. The temple
was built about the beginning of the sixth century,
and King Gelon covered the statue of Zeus in it
with a robe of pure gold which he made of the
precious metal taken from the defeated Cartha-
ginians at Himera; but about a century later Dionys-

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ius [ took away the robe to convert it to his own
purposes, telling the people, with grim humor, that
it was *‘ too cold in winter and too heavy for sum-
mer.”

In the Cyane brook the men work slowly along,
poling, pulling by the grasses, halting in little nooks
in the banks to let down-coming boats slip by,
rowing when they can. The limpid stream twists
hither and yon through soft tinted fields alive with
brilhant flowers. Here and there weeping willows,
splendid old hairy trees, lean over the water and
trail their long green tresses upon its quivering
mirror. Exquisite papyrus plants, sylphlike shoots,
top-heavy with the weight of their huge feather-
dustery plumes, in places line both banks thickly for
yards, or stand isolated in stately clumps ten,
fifteen, eighteen feet high. Their presence is ac-
counted for by two distinct traditions — one that
they were brought in the ninth century by the in-
vading Arabs. This is probably true, but there is
no poetry about it. The other and prettier story
tells of a gracious Pharaoh a thousand years earlier
who, charmed by the reports of King Hieron’s lovely
and gentle queen, Philistis, sent her as his choicest
gift the loveliest thing dark Egypt could produce.
Whichever story suits your fancy best — believe it!

Whether they have lived in Sicily for ten cen-
turies or twenty, the reeds still spring in slender,
graceful stalks of tender green, without leaf or

[130]THE HARBOR AND THE ANAPO

gnarl, from the moist earth, nodding their powder-
puff heads lazily over the sparkling water and
dreaming —if plants ever dream —of their sun-
steeped home of eld beside placid Father Nile.
Nowhere else in the world to-day does this paper-
reed of the ancient Pharaohs grow wild; and here
it strikes a strange exotic note among the har-
monies of European flower and field.

Clear as crystal and blue as the heavens js the
circular pool from which the brook springs.
Through its cold, pellucid azure splendid gray mul-
Jet and other fish — guardians of the sacred spring,
perchance — dart or idle about among mimosa-like
aquatic plants plainly visible twenty or thirty feet
below. It is poetic water, full of shifting lights
and nuances of color—now a silvery, glancing
mirror, now soft gray and translucent, now pure
azure and thin as rain-washed air; but always beau-
tiful, always dimpling to the sun. And what more
poetic than its story?

When Pluto — again to give the Greek legend in
the Latinized form preferred by the present day
Sicilians — carried off Proserpina from the shores
of Lake Pergusa, one of her attendant nymphs, Cy-
ane, followed weeping after the black chariot until,
in this mead of Syracuse, the King of Darkness
turned, passed his scepter before her face, and the
poor nymph dissolved into a pool of tears, the Pool

of Cyane. But so potent was her grief that her
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VISTAS IN SICILY

tears, through all the centuries since, have contin-
ued to flow; and they still bubble up, a living spring
beneath the limpid waters of the little blue mere,
** To witness if I lie.”

Going back down-stream, the boatmen give an
astonishing exhibition of how to “ protect”? Gov-
ernment property. So jealously does the Italian
Government guard its precious papyrus plants that
each boat must stop at a station where customs
guards keep watch to see that no visitor carries
away more than one single stalk. The boatmen
know this perfectly, yet when a fine clump of the
reeds provokes the passengers to ecstasy they amia-
bly stop and cut as many as they have passengers
—and some for good measure — without a word
about the regulations. When nearing the guard-
float, however, they throw all the extra stalks over-
board, explaining the rules to the bewilderment of
the incensed or amused travelers. The absurdity
of “ protecting ” the papyrus from destruction by
throwing it away strikes an American sense of hu-
mor very hard. Perhaps a little stiff fining of the
boatmen for cutting too many pieces would have a
more salutary effect! But the “ height of the ridic-
ulous ” is reached by the guards themselves. Look-
ing us gravely over, they inquired if La Signora
and I were sposati. I admitted it, and they shook
their heads.

“Throw away your stalk,” they said together to
me. ‘A married couple is only one!”

[132]xX

SYRACUSE, THE PENTAPOLIS

EVER make the blunder of trying to study
the Greater City when any of the big “ tour-

ist yachts” are in port. You will know
soon enough when they are —cloop! cloop! cloop!
go the hoofs under your windows long before you
have thought of breakfast. An endless string of
carriages plods out of the island full of gesticulat-
ing, noisy, Baedekering enthusiasts who make up
in cheery adjectives what they lack in knowledge.
When they are back at evening, white with dust
and happily weary, and the launches have taken
them all on board the white floating palaces, Syra-
cuse sighs and sleeps again. Once more it is safe
to venture out. Once more cabs can be had at de-
cent rates. And once more the timid ghosts of
Greek and Roman days come to the gentle call.
Ortygia, the island, was once connected with the
mainland by a mole of cut stone, and afterward
separated and attached and separated again as the
whims and dangers of the different periods dictated.
Now it is both connected and detached. Between
island and shore is the citadel, separated from both
[133]VISTAS IN SICILY

by little canals crossed by stout bridges, and capa-
ble of defense in time of necessity. All the dust
of a whole rainless season seems to concentrate upon
the dusty road leading from the island across the
bridges, by the citadel, past the rows of shipping
that fill the docks on either side of the mole, and
so on through the deserted square which was once
the Agora of Syracuse.

Every Greek city had its agora, or marketplace,
as every Roman city had its forum. Besides being
the market, where food and commodities of every
other sort were sold the agora was the assembling
place of the city, the central exchange for news
and views. You must use your imagination to-
day to reconstruct the agora, to people it again
with the dark faces and flowing robes of the Greeks
of old, to hear the clank of weapons and armor as
a Tyrant’s bodyguard passes through the unsmil-
ing crowd: for the agora, now, is only a bare, open
square, through the middle of which a naked red
column thrusts upward. A kindlier fate has over-
taken the Roman Palestra near by—a gymnasium
and auditorium where the youth of Latinized Syra-
cuse used to polish their muscles and wits alike.
One exquisite bit of it remains —the little semi-
circular lecture hall, in which clear water covers the
pit, and mirrors back the delicate maidenhair peep-
ing from the cracks and joints between the marble
seats in its gleaming horseshoe. What schoolboy

[134]SYRACUSE, THE PENTAPOLIS

debating societies met here, and who were the “ ex-
change professors” who held forth in this choice
hall where now waterbugs and tiny lizards alone
give sign of life?

Not far from town the road runs into pleasant
farming country, followed by orchards of almonds,
lemons, and citrons. Farther up the slopes of Ne-
apolis and Epipolai straggle great rocky groves of
uncanny, fantastically shaped old olives, the most
disreputable-looking tenants of the soil imaginable.
They are whorled like an oak, knobbed like an apple
tree, split full of holes, leaning at all angles; and,
most curious of all, some appear to be nothing but
half-shells of bark, only half of each half-shell hav-
ing any visible contact with the roots. How they
live and bear fruit at all in such astonishingly
rocky fields is a mystery, yet they are proverbially
prolific. They seem ghosts of dead Syracuse,
phantoms of the citizens who once, in the pride of
their strength and glory, trod the streets of the
great pentapolis of Epipolai, Neapolis, Tyche, Ach-
radina and Ortygia — Syracuse all.

Fewer than thirty-two thousand inhabitants ex-
ist now in the city, where more than half a million
once looked down upon the great argosies afloat in
their twin harbors. And the hills where Gelon and
the Hierons, Agathocles and Timoleon flourished,
where Theocritus and Archimedes were born and
toiled, lie apart, dotted with scattered limestone

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VISTAS IN SICILY

ruins where hawk and bat, tourist and guide are the
only living things to disturb this city of silence.

About the Outer City, as the four mainland bor-
oughs were called, Dionysius I —a brilliant soldier
who by treachery and intrigue succeeded in raising
himself to the tyranny early in the fifth century
spent seventeen years in constructing an enormous
wall. Sixty thousand workmen with six thousand
yoke of oxen constructed nearly three and a half
miles in twenty days, a task whose herculean labor
cannot be appreciated until the enormous blocks
and the dffiicult formation of the country have been
studied. Of the sixteen miles originally built,
rather more than ten are still standing to testify
to the solidity of the tyrant’s work.

On the westernmost point of Epipolai, the high-
est part of the city, Dionysius built his great fort
of Euryelus, now completely ruined. Words can-
not make clear the fort’s size and strength. It is
only at Syracuse, standing among the crumbling
piles, that one can grasp the value and vastness of
Dionysius’s greatest work. Its five massive towers
and deep moats, carved out of the living rock, make
it hard to understand how it was ever captured.
Nevertheless, two hundred years later the Romans
under Marcellus did it, though not so much by
storm as by treason. This siege was the work of
an army, the brilliant defense of the city the tri-

umph of a single engineer — brave old Archimedes,
[136]SYRACUSE, THE PENTAPOLIS

who worked such marvels that not a man could be
seen upon the walls. Away back in the good old
King Hieron’s time, he had pierced them for both

near and distant shooting, and brought to perfec-

g,
tion every imaginable weapon and military engine.
Plutarch says he had huge claws with which he
picked up galleys bodily and smashed them like eggs
against the walls; ballistas and catapults and cross-
bows for heavy and light artillery; hooks like
cranes’ bills; and certain devices for picking up
ships and whirling them around in the air like
huge pinwheels till their crews were all spilled out
or dead. So greatly did the Romans come to dread
his uncanny machines that they finally refused to
approach those silent, apparently unoccupied walls
at all, and the city had to be taken some other way
than by storm.

At last, after a year’s siege, on the night of the
Feast of Artemis, a party of Romans scaled the
northern walls without resistance from the drunken
guards, opened the gate, and the whole army
marched in upon Epipolai. With the day, Marcel-
lus stood there upon the heights and looked down
over the fair city he had come so far to win. Stern
man and able soldier though he was, this Roman
had the soul of a poet, and as he looked, and mused
upon all Syracuse had gone through before, all she
would probably endure before he gained the inner
city, he wept.

[137]VISTAS IN SICILY

However, he did not have to fight his way — Or-
tygia was betrayed by a Spanish mercenary officer.
The most tragic of the events that followed was
the death of the greatest genius ever given to im-
mortality by Sicily. The accounts differ in details.
But it seems certain that Marcellus sent a soldier
to summon Archimedes. The legionary found the
aged scholar at work upon a mathematical problem,
and when he asked for time to finish his demonstra-
tion, the blunderer misunderstood and killed him.
Whether this be the exact truth or not, we know
that Marcellus sincerely mourned his dead adver-
sary.

In spite of the Roman commander’s tears over
the sufferings of Syracuse, when first he saw it, he
did not scruple to take away all he could of its pic-
tures and statues and other works of art to adorn
his triumphal procession at home, while the public
funds he seized for Rome. This plundering of un-
fortunate Syracuse did not by any means stop with
Marcellus, but went on through centuries, the worst
offender being Verres of infamous fame.

From the shattered walls of Fort Euryelus
spreads a magnificent view, bounded only by the
mists in the distance. North and south run the
scalloped shores, fading into the dancing blue of
the Mediterranean; south and eastward lies Orty-
gia, the sun sparkling upon its thousand facets of
white walls and tiled roofs, while in the opposite di-

[138]SYRACUSE, THE PENTAPOLIS

rection, when the clouds lift, stands majestic Avtna,
still wearing his winter nightcap of snow.
Straight west tower the hills, peak on peak, and the
littoral blossoms with every scented fruit of the field.

Not far from the Fort is a little cottage marked
Caffe, where the improvident, or those who have
perfect digestions, may buy luncheon. But for the
average person it is a good deal better to take
along the sightseer’s snack the hotel puts up with-
out extra cost——if you are living en pension —
and eat it on the back porch. The Caffé serves
“tea,” if you foolishly ask for it; but ink made
from dried willow leaves is even less refreshing than
the thin red country wine. Tea making is a fine
art Sicily has yet to learn. However, the view from
the rear veranda down the steep slope to the Bay
of Trogilus more than compensates for the trivial
discomforts of poor tea and iron chairs. Evidently
the host is determined that his furniture shall not
be numbered among the spoils of Sicily by the sou-
venir-hunting visitor.

How those ancient Greeks did build for futurity !
Deep down under the rocky plateau, at the cost of
no one knows how many lives or what money,
they carved two enormous aqueducts that gave
old Syracuse to drink from distant mountain
streams. No dynamite helped them tear out the
adamantine channel; no greasy rock-drills worked
by steam chattered and thumped down there in the

[139]N8 oe ree tet y

ee ee

ere

et ee tee eel

See ee

ss ieieiaeaindes oni ee ee

~~ ewes

ee ee en

—

VISTAS IN SICILY

dark where now one hears without seeing it, the
water which still gurgles contentedly on its way to
the sea. It is all hand work, and one is filled with
admiration akin to awe as the eye follows the low,
Square limestone copings that mark the course of
one of them across hill and vale and field, over the
heights of the Epipolai down toward the harbor.

Though Rome has left us comparatively few
monuments in Sicily, they show clearly the difference
between Greek and Roman ideals, in life as well as
in art. The Greeks reared matchless temples and
theaters never equaled for their purity and sim-
plicity ; the Romans, baths and amphitheaters whose
floridness suggested display and luxury. The am-
phitheater of Syracuse is like all Roman amphi-
theaters, a vast elliptical arena —it measures two
hundred and thirty-one feet long by one hundred
and thirty-two wide — with an enormous cistern in
the middle, to provide for flooding the ellipse for
naval spectacles. The arena wall forms the side of
a vaulted corridor with eight gates to give entrance
and exit for fighters and beasts. Above all rise
the seats in tiers, and in the arena you can pick
out, upon shattered blocks of marble, several names
of patricians who were “ box-holders ” in the grand
tier.

Its very size bears witness to the degradation of
Syracuse under the Roman rule, when the citizens,
no longer satisfied with “ stage deaths ” in the thea-
[140]“From the top row of seats in the Greek Theater look out over the gracious

panorama below”—Syracuse.

—

eee ee

ode be pede FS

ia eee ei

than bane Salient

a ae

a ad—_

ee ee

phates

H
;
1
;
i

SE ae nlite ee

Sp Se eter.

_—~

ee en

“In those days coin-makers were artists of the fore-
most rank, and signed their works,”SYRACUSE, THE PENTAPOLIS

ter, or with the splendid comedies of Aristophanes,
demanded actual death and real blood here in the
larger arena, where to-day the peaceful grasses and
wild flowers innumerable spread their cloth of green
and gold and crimson in a winding sheet of eternal
beauty about the sanguinary old ruin. Here we
met a young countryman of ours who promptly an-
nounced that he was abroad studying languages,
and that, since paterfamilias “had a pull,’ he was
going to be a consul-general as soon as he finished
his linguistic labors and decided to which country
he wished to go.

A short distance beyond the amphitheater is the
biggest altar in the world —six hundred and six
feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and six feet high.
King Hieron built it so that Syracuse might be
able to celebrate its Independence Day properly —
its Fourth of July, if you choose. When the last
usurper had been gotten rid of, in what the histo-
rians call the First Age of Tyrants, the festival of
the Eleutheria was instituted in honor of Zeus Eleu-
therios, the god of liberty; and it is rather remark-
able that Syracuse kept right on celebrating after
the democracy had ceased and the meaning of the
festival had vanished. On Hieron’s altar was made
a sacrifice every year as big as the altar itself.
Think of butchering and partly burning up four
hundred and fifty oxen at once to make a holiday!
But then, in those old days they were open-handed

[141]

sien RC ea ee cc

ell ee

1
|

aaa ee

. ee a eS ee———

VISTAS IN SICILY

devotees of their gods, and the whole city had a
glorious spree on such a gala occasion as the Eleu-
therian Feasts.

Across the road is the Latomia del Paradiso, one
of the vast quarries from which the stone that built
Syracuse was hewn. Carved out of the solid rock
to a depth of perhaps an hundred and twenty-five
feet, the dripping, barren stonepit has mellowed
with time; and Sicilian Nature, with her usual
prodigality, has transformed it into a riot of warm
wild color. Tradition makes Dionysius a suspicious
monarch who constructed cavern-prisons to find out
what was going on among his political prisoners.
In the western wall of the Latomia is an S-shaped
grotto which has been capriciously chosen as one of
these strange houses of detention, and called the
Ear of Dionysius. Whether it was really part of
the tyrant’s original plan or an accident in the
quarrying, the fact remains that a person at the up-
per end can hear even whispers from below.

Alongside the Paradiso is another quarry, the
Latomia di Santa Venera, a cultivated garden filled
with even more profuse and brilliantly colored vege-
tation than its beautiful neighbor. All through
the quarries are great columns, ledges, pinnacles
and turrets, evidently harder portions of the rock
left by the quarrymen when they were taking out
the stone.

Immediately to the west of the quarries is the
[142]SYRACUSE, THE PENTAPOLIS

Greek Theater, a vast open playhouse, the largest
in existence after those at Miletus and Megalopolis.
Though the superstructure of fifteen tiers of seats
and the stage have vanished, the auditorium is in
very fair condition despite its age, about twenty-
four hundred years. In the greatest days of Greece
relatively little care was bestowed upon the design
and decoration of private dwellings, and not a sign
remains of most of them. But the theaters, the
social centers of Greek-Sicilian life, remain: in part
because they were hewn out of the everlasting rock
of the hills, and partly because the Romans kept
them in use and repair.

Here in the Syracusan Theater it was that the
illustrious Pindar, laureate of princes, sang his most
fulsome odes to the glory of that cruel and sus-
picious tyrant, the first Hieron, who is supposed to
have founded it. We wonder at the poet’s mood.
Was it simply a question of so much flattery for so
much patronage, or what — ? ‘Two hundred years
later the second Hieron, the good king, restored and
embellished the theater; and upon fragments of the
marble plating which covered the royal seats, we find
his name with the names of his wife, the Queen
Philistis, and Nereis, his daughter-in-law.

Philistis, with whom Hieron fell in love when he
was only a rising young army officer, has left us
her portrait upon striking coins. And certainly,
if she was as sweet-faced and gentle as the artists

[143]ee

<* Weta

ss thane ete ttn ae Coa ee

scored belie tebeibetiain patna et ote eee ek ee ee

: ne
-——

VISTAS IN SICILY

have pictured her in precious metal, we cannot won-
der that her royal lover-husband wished to perpetu-
ate her beauty forever. Like the tyrant Hieron,
the King was a patron of the arts, and in his day
Theocritus invented and developed his pastoral odes
and bucolics, which marked the period in an artistic
sense as clearly as Pindar’s poems marked the ear-
her régime.

The theater saw more than one drama not of the
pure stage, for here eager multitudes watched the
glorious combat in the Great Harbor, and here later
the “purest hero in the whole tale of Sicily ” ap-
peared before his adopted countrymen. Noble by
birth and nobler by deed, Timoleon of Corinth, sent
in 344 8. c. with an army in response to the plea
of Syracuse for aid against tyrants at home and
barbarians from abroad, reéstablished the republic,
sent for his wife and children, and retiring from
public life, settled down to enjoy his later years
near the people he had liberated. But though sud-
den blindness smote the grand old soldier-statesman,
his faculties were unclouded to the last. When-
ever Syracuse had need of the cunning of his brain,
the citizens brought him in state, in a carriage, and
led him to the stage of the theater, where out of
the fullness of his experience he advised them for
the welfare of Syracuse. Eight years only elapsed
from his coming to his silent departure across the
Styx; and *‘ So died and so was honored,” Freeman
[144]SYRACUSE, THE PENTAPOLIS

———

—_—

Se ee

tells us, “‘the man of the worthiest fame in the
whole story of Sicily, the man who thought it
enough to deliver others and who sought nothing for
himself.”

And Timoleon was not only great — he was for-
tunate! To deliver a whole people quickly and
well, to be smitten with the black affliction of blind-
ness while still in the very zenith of his popularity
and so to add the people’s pity and love to their
admiration — and then soon to die a beloved hero |
before the fickle public mind could forget him and 1
the fickle public tongue learn to slander and to curse

~~ - me

ta
ee
pe ue a ean etna

i.
a

a
EE

— though in all probability Timoleon himself never
realized how kind the gods were to him!
From the upper level of the Theater the most
desolate street of Syracuse climbs up the hill — the ,
Street of Tombs, its burial vaults and niches yawn-
ing and yearning for the bodies they once sheltered.
For centuries it has been the amiable custom, when-
ever the tomb of a great man is lost, to ascribe to
him the finest mausoleum in the vicinity. We know
positively that Timoleon was buried either in or

his name, was the highest fortune man could wish |
4 5S | :

very near the agora of Syracuse. We know also

that when Cicero was the questor of Sicily he dis-

covered the tomb of Archimedes outside the city, and

identified it by the geometrical diagram carved upon

it to illustrate the master’s favorite demonstration

that the solid content of a sphere is equal to two-
[145]Cie et imme ea ek nee ee ne ee ee ee ee

a ee

ee ee

VISTAS IN SICILY

thirds that of its circumscribing cylinder. Both
mausolea have disappeared, and two fine Roman-
Doric tombs beside the road to Catania have been
arbitrarily identified with Timoleon and Archimedes,
regardless of the rights of their original occupants.

Amusing incidents often transpire from the fact
that the Sicilian is quite as eager to practice his
halting English as we are to struggle with Italian.
An ancient long-beareded monk in a very dirty robe
opened the door of the church of San Giovanni
Evangelista to us, and asked quickly: “‘ T'edesco? ”

66 No.”

** Ah — Russky? ”

66 No.”

“Hmph. Inglese? ”

66 No.”

“ Diavolo! But you speak a little English, don’t
your ”

“A little,” I replied —in Italian.

The monk stared at me in disgust. “If you can,
why don’t you? I speak it whenever I get the
chance.”

This exceedingly interesting church dates from
the latter part of the twelfth century, and its rose-
window is a splendid example of the glass-staining
and composition of that time. According to a popu-
lar legend, the Apostle Paul preached in the crypt-
like chapel when he was in town — “ And landing in
Syracuse, we tarried there three days” (Acts,
[146]SYRACUSE, THE PENTAPOLIS

xxvui:12) — and the monk shows the altar where he
‘celebrated the Mass.” Unfortunately for the il-
lusion, the original San Giovanni was a fourth cen-
tury structure, so St. Paul could not have seen it on
his way to Rome or at any other time. The monk
also points out a granite column at which he says
St. Marcian was scourged to death, becoming the
first martyr in Syracuse, and his seat and vaulted
altar-tomb.

St. Marcian’s column stands close to the entrance
to the catacombs, which underlie much of the Achra-
dina quarter, and are not only far larger than those
at Rome, but are among the most imposing subter-
ranean cemeteries in the world. The main gallery,
ten feet wide and eight feet high, runs through the
solid limestone for more than a hundred yards. Peo-
ple of distinction were usually buried in the rotundas,
large circular chambers or chapels; and here, when
the churches above ground were destroyed, or open
services interdicted, the hunted faithful worshiped
in secret. Here and there, now carved over a door,
now rudely daubed in red upon the side of some
grave-niche, is the likeness of a palm branch, dumb
witness that here lay one who valued faith more
than life, and died a martyr

Even in these dank and gloomy caverns brave
souls made art of a crude sort possible. Upon the
walls, in the lunettes and above the chapel altars are
rough frescoes, poor things in color and design,

[147]ee eee

See a ne ee a ee ane

ee ee

SS a

setiienattiteeliemaeed neat eect et

—,

- + ewes

VISTAS IN SICILY

but breathing the civilizing message of that Divine
love which nothing can conquer. Walls and ceilings
and doorways of this miniature city of perpetual
night are sooty and black with the fumes of the
lamps the Christians used. There is little doubt
that large numbers of them took refuge in the cata-
combs during the early persecutions. We to-day
cannot conceive of the horror of living in clammy
darkness lighted only by the feeble, guttering flames
of little bronze lamps. But we can admire the stern
fortitude of men and women who could endure all
things, and gladly weave into the handles of those
poor lamps the words “ Deo gratias — Thanks to
God!” Unfortunately, not a tomb has been left
undisturbed, and the only relics now visible are an
occasional small pile of bones and smashed pottery ;
the few sarcophagi which were found having been
removed to the Museum where, out of place, they
possess little or no significance.

In the same vicinity is the Latomia dei Cappuc-
cini, the largest and by far the most impressive of
the quarries, a huge, irregularly shaped gulf whose
sides are precipices, honeycombed with small pits,
all carved out of honey, or, it might be, from dull
clouded amber, and whose uneven floor here and there
springs into the air in enormous fantastic columns
of golden-gray stone. Both walls and columns riot
in luxuriant verdure and flowers — silver vermouth,

yellow spurge, glorious crimson roses against green
[148]SYRACUSE, THE PENTAPOLIS

cataracts of glossy ivy and myrtle, honeysuckle and
clematis. In the heart of this vast floral labyrinth
lofty pines reach vainly upward toward the world
from still depths where no breeze ever scatters the
leaves, no gales lash denuded branches; and sun-
warmed and dew-bathed, little groves of silvery-gray
olives flourish beside prickly pear, sulphur colored
lemons, yellow nespoli, golden oranges, almond blos-
soms all a mass of pallor or blushes in the tender
warmth of early Spring. Throughout this smiling
beauty, shadows dapple rock and foliage, like somber
memories of the tragic Greek days, when the cap-
tured Athenians were thrust into the inhospitable
quarry, then no such glowing garden as it is to-
day.

** At first the sun by day was both scorching and
suffocating,” says Thucydides, “for they had no
roof over their heads, while the Autumn nights were
cold, and the extremes of temperature engendered
violent disorders. . . . The corpses of those
who died from their wounds, from exposure to the
weather, and the like, lay heaped one upon another.
The stench was intolerable, and they were at the
same time afflicted by hunger and thirst. . . .
Every kind of misery which could befall men in
such a place befell them. This was the condition of
the captives for about ten weeks. . . . The
whole number of the prisoners is not accurately
known, but they were not less than seven thousand.”

[149]as id ameecienl iecaiinatien ear er ee a ee

adn dipceuate mes oe cama sete er he ee ee

VISTAS IN SICILY

At the end of the ten weeks many of them were
sold. Thucydides does not explain the fate of those
not disposed of in the great auction, but Grote says:
“The dramas of Euripides were so peculiarly pop-
ular throughout all Sicily, that those Athenian pris-
oners who knew by heart considerable portions of
them, won the affections of their masters. Some
even of the stragglers from the army are affirmed to
have procured for themselves, by the same attrac-
tion, shelter and hospitality during their flight.
Euripides, we are informed, lived to receive the
thanks of several among these unhappy sufferers,
after their return to Athens.”*

Others beside the Athenians have found their last
beds here. In a gloomy little side cave, cut in the
wall a foot or two above the floor, is a niche sealed
with a marble slab —

Sacred to the memory of
Richard Reynall, Esq., British Vice Consul To Syracuse
He departed this life Sept. 16
AS Ds 1838:
He was killed in a duel by an expert with weapons he
did not know.

What a vista that opens up! Who was the brag-
gart who forced the quarrel, what were the weapons,
what the circumstances of the quarrel, the condi-

* History of Greece.
[150]SYRACUSE, THE PENTAPOLIS

tions under which the courageous Englishman went
consciously to his fate? And how sad the legend
inscribed to our own young countryman upon a
lonely niche in the soft tufa a little farther along —

~ William Nicholson, Midshipman in the Navy of the
United States of America, who was cut off from Society
in the bloom of life and health on the 18th day of
September, 104, A. D., et anno etatis 18,”

Just above this latomia, among the olive groves
and flowers, surrounded by fine gardens, is a charm-
ingly situated hotel, whence one can look down into
this sunken stone quarry-garden if he chooses, and
dream of swart laborers hewing out the stones that
reared Syracuse a city of cities, of the physical
agonies and homesickness of the grave Athenian
slaves, or simply of the graciousness of Demeter in
clothing the ragged stones as not Solomon in all his
glory was arrayed. But for me the hotel by the
Bay, the outlook over sparkling, living water, the
music of it ever in my ears. And to think of Syra-
cuse is to think of the Promenade of Arethusa, with
its musical speech, its Greek faces all about, its
maidens and their lovers who need but the touch of
sympathetic imagination to be transformed into the

nymphs and fauns of Greek days!

[151]XI

CATANIA AND MOUNT ATNA

ATANIA is the second city of the island in
importance, and has a far reaching trade in
oil and wine, sulphur and grain and alm-

onds, and the other products of the rich and fer-
tile plain at whose edge it stands guard. It is a
city of humdrum, a town which, like Milan, reminds
one strongly of some American manufacturing cen-
ter with a large foreign population, and surely noth-
ing could be further from presenting an historic
visage at first sight. Yet its history is a pictur-
esque and vivid tapestry of which the main threads
have always been the heroic spirit and enterprise of
its people.

Settled in 729 B. C.— when the city by the Tiber
was only a quarter of a century old — Kataneion or
Katane in the sixth century became famous for a
reformer and lawgiver named Charondas, some of
whose enactments were decidedly original. Divorce
he made simple. . . . E/nther husband or wife
could put away the other for sufficient cause; but
neither could remarry with anyone younger than the
person divorced! And Charondas died by one of his

[152]CATANIA AND MOUNT AETINA

own laws, which forbade men to come armed into the
General Assembly. ‘The story goes that he had been
out in the hills hunting robbers: when he came back
the Assembly was in an uproar, and he hurried in to
quiet things. Instantly a member saw his sword,
and cried: ‘“‘Charondas, you break your own
law!”

“By Zeus!” he replied, “I will not set aside my
Jaw —I will confirm it!” and he plunged the sword
into his breast.

Long afterward, in B. C., 476, the emulous Ty-
rant Hieron juggled with the city’s name and its
people, depopulating it and then recolonizing it with
new settlers and giving it another name. Are the
sober Catanians who pass us to-day descended from
the old citizens who came back into their own when
the Tyrant died? Or are this trolley-car conductor,
this gayly uniformed hall-porter, sons of the Hier-
onic colonists? And this very street on which we
study the Catanians of to-day — was it the ancient
way leading toward tna, for whom the city was

renamed ?

The chief reason for Catania’s modern appearance
is —it is modern! Destroyed so many times, now
in part, again entirely, by Aitna, it is more or less
new, a veritable phcenix of Sicilian cities. Sus-
pended from the ceiling of our room in the hotel was
the very newest thing, a huge chandelier garnished
with exceedingly new and shiny electric light fix-

[153] .cane ieeie bate imeee ae eae ee ee a ee

is eA Fee

ene eee ADs ,
on a ee ee ee ee

VISTAS IN SICILY

tures. But alas! when we attempted to illuminate,
we found the chandelier a hollow delusion. When
the porter came, he smiled with the indulgence of
superior knowledge.

“The chandelier is not intended for lighting.
That would be extra—electricity is very ex-
pensive!”? So we had to be content with the feeble
gleam of one honest tallow dip in a room almost as
big as a whole floor in a New York mansion.

As to antiquities, Catania has its share —a
Greek Theater, a Roman amphitheater, a forum,
baths, a nympheum, and aqueduct, and so on.
Most of them, thanks to Avtna’s past activity, are
now subterranean and but partly excavated — in-
deed, almost forgotten. But Catania does better by
her celebrities. Tisias of Himera, locally nicknamed
Stesichorus because of his genius in perfecting the
lyric chorus of the Greek drama presented in the
Theater some fourteen hundred years ago, has had a
large and handsome square named in his honor, as
well as the street leading straight from the heart of
the town toward the mountain.

In the Piazza Stesicoro stands a monument to Ca-
tania’s favorite son, Bellini the composer, born here
in 1802 and brought back in 1867 from Paris, where
he died. A more effective monument is the Villa
Bellini, the city’s handsome, hilly public park. Myr-
iad steep paths of clean yellow and white pebbles
carefully set on edge in mortar, picked out in black
[154]CATANIA AND MOUNT AETNA

and white scrollwork, and edged with solid walls of
variegated flowers, lead up to two fine knolls, on
one of which is a trim little belvedere flanked by flow-
erbeds. On the other is a large bandstand.
Between the two AXtna hangs motionless on the hori-
zon, more like the mirrored reflection of a volcano
than a real mountain, his feet clothed in the foliage
of vineyard and forest, his head capped with snows
that almost never melt, gleaming in the sunshine like
a giant’s silvery hair.

Another charming little park is the Flora della
Marina, a narrow strip of garden and greensward
along the Bay. As you come through an arch of
the railway viaduct, it bursts upon you with the
same effect that a strip of brilliant Persian em-
broidery would have upon a somber coat, and you
exclaim with pleasure at the inviting lawns and
starry beds of bright colored flowers. Here and
there idles an immaculate and lynx-eyed customs
guard in sailor’s uniform. From the ship’s mast in
the center floats the gaudy Italian tricolor; and in
the background is a sailors’ home from which tarry
old shellbacks stump out to sit dreaming on the
benches that give upon the Bay.

King Roger’s eleventh century Cathedral has been
so restored, because of the earthquakes that have
wrecked it time after time, that it is simply a huge,
composite modern structure. It contains the tombs
of various members of the royal house of Aragén,

[155]~

peng Phe e-9x4.2 «pre Nenteen + perendé Mies + Prien

iahiaedadiedetana rato me seen

VISTAS IN SICILY

who generally resided here while the powerful baro-
nial families were really ruling in Palermo the capi-
tal. In 1445 King Alphonso the Generous founded
the first Sicilian university here, and for a long
time Catania was the literary center of the island.
The handsome new university building, however,
dates back only to 1818.

Sicily has always been rather finicky about its
saints, and Agatha of Catania, Lucy of Syracuse
and Rosalie of Palermo are only three among many
venerated virgin patronesses. Saint Agatha was
executed by the Roman pretor Quintianus, and has
a chapel in the Cathedral containing relics and
jewels and a gilded silver statue said to contain her
head. In any event, the figure is highly revered,
and every year, in February, is carried in procession
from church to church throughout the city. Image
and pedestal weigh several tons, and about three
hundred men robed in white, sturdy fellows all, have
to shoulder the fifty-foot beams to lft it. Even
with so many bearers, the procession moves forward
only a few feet at a time, and it takes two or three
days to complete the ceremony.

Holy day spells holiday to the Latin, and his re-
ligious ecstasy finds outlet in blazing fireworks,
whoops of joyous enthusiasm, streets jammed to suf-
focation. Windows and housetops as well as the
streets are packed with an eager, childish throng

bubbling over with mercurial spirits. One of the
[156]CATANIA AND MOUNT AETNA

queerest features of this celebration, which goes
back to time immemorial, is a privilege allowed the
usually demure and sedate women. A young Ca-
tanian told me with great relish that on festival
nights the women veil heavily, completely hiding
their faces with the exception of the left eye. With
that they may work such havoc as they can. Even
the bearers of the sacred image return the sly winks
and coquettish glances of the flirts whose identity is
so perfectly concealed.

In the Piazza Duomo before the Cathedral, is
a queer old lava elephant, mounted upon a florid
pedestal, bearing upon his saddle an Egyptian
obelisk. He looks down upon the noisy trolley cars
circling about his feet with an amused expression,
as if ridiculing such foolish modern means of con-
veyance. So old is he that no one knows when he
was made, nor why, though legend says the artist
was the necromancer Heliodorus — surely a man tal-
ented enough to fly through the air from Constan-
tinople to Catania to escape his persecutors, was cap-
able of executing even this weird beast!

Amber of a most unusual quality is a feature of
Catania. Nearly every store has some of it, in the
rough, and made up into beautiful beads, brooches,
smokers’ articles, combs and ornaments of various
sorts, though it is not nearly so plentiful to-day as
it was twenty years or so ago. The merchants
shake their heads over the future of this now high

[157]ee eee

Te ee

:
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i
:
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!
!

VISTAS IN SICILY

priced commodity, for the best beds have been com-
pletely exhausted, and the divers have greater diffi-
culty every year in finding enough. Deeper in color
than the usual clear or clouded variety, this amber
is a rich marmalade color, with hues ranging from
black and dark brown in the cheaper grades through
all the ochres and umbers to pure yellow of dif-
ferent tones. The choicest pieces look as if the
clear amber had been dipped in oil or vaseline, giv-
ing it a distinct bluish tint, observable, the dealers
claim, in no other amber in the world— the same
tinge that is to be seen upon water when oil is
spilled upon it; and the amount of blue, and its bril-
liancy, determine the value of the product.

In some of the pieces are perfectly preserved
mosquitoes, looking exactly like bottled specimens
in the museums.

“ How old are they?” I asked one dealer.

The Catanian shrugged his despair of figures.
“Oh! They were old already when Homer sailed
his ship in here on the way back to Troy. They
must be five hundred years old at least, Signore!”

After all, it is neither history, modern character,
nor amber that makes Catania, but Attna. The
finest view of him to be had from the city is from
the suppressesd Benedictine monastery of San Nic-
cold, or San Benedetto, on the western edge of the
town. Its church, the largest in Sicily and interest-

ing in itself, contains one of the finest pipe organs
[158]CATANIA AND MOUNT AETNA

on the island, an immense instrument with five key-
boards. When we asked how soon the next service
would be held —I consulted my watch as I spoke —
the custodian smiled. ‘‘ Gia! You will have a long
time to wait for the next service. It is played once
a year, Signore. No more. A very fine organist,
the best in Italy, comes down from Naples and plays.
He has just been here!”

Since 1866 the monastery has been used as a bar-
rack and school, museum and library. On the roof
rises the large dome of the Observatory. Con-
nected with it, and really of much greater practical
importance, is an underground laboratory and ex-
periment station full of seismographs and other in-
struments of the finest precision for the study and
recording of earthquakes. To anyone interested in
vulcanological phenomena, this deepset cavern and
its curious apparatus make one of the most fascinat-
ing objects of interest in Sicily — yes, in the world.

From the dome of the church of San Niccolo you
see not only Attna, but the whole horizon. On all
sides stretch the reddish-brown tiles of the city,
the flat evenness and monotony broken here and
there as spire or dome thrusts up through the red
crust. Off to one side a prosperous little street
ends abruptly in a ragged edged wall of lava some
thirty or forty feet high, testifying mutely to the
terrific activity that has characterized Attna at in-
tervals for hundreds of years. A little farther

[159]as

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VISTAS IN SICILY

along desolation begins, and nothing is visible in
that direction but a long brown spoor leading up the
giant’s side —a cold stone river to-day, rough and
scaly as an armadillo’s back, but once a fiery ser-
pent whose glowing jaws opened to engulf at least
part of the metropolis. On either side beyond the
confines of the rebuilt town are vineyards and silver-
gray olive groves, vegetable gardens and glowing
plantations, full of warmth and color and contrast,
and above all the hard china blue of the hot Sicilian
sky.

Above everything towers the tremendous bulk of
AKtna — Mongibello — standing superbly alone, lord
of all this eastern section of Sicily, rising from the
sea without foothills or approach. To-day the
Titan sleeps, but in the eighty major awakenings
recorded in historic times, he has wrought incalcul-
able destruction. Lava has poured from those black
lips in hissing floods, one of which covered forty
square miles; earthquakes which have laid fifty cities

in ruins at once have accompanied the fiery retchings
of the monster; ashes and sulphur and stones by mil-
lions of tons have rained destruction upon the
fertile countryside for miles around. Yet though
he has wrought misery and death ruthlessly, Aitna
is also a benefactor, for the soil he has made and
fertilized bears crops of marvelous richness and
abundance. Tradition from the beginning has made
the crater the prison of a cyclops, whose struggles

[160]CATANIA AND MOUNT AETNA

to free himself have caused the eruptions. Virgil
sang of him; Empedocles; many another. Sicily
to them was preéminently the home of the nether
gods, and Attna their most striking manifestation,
a peak of mingled fire and snow. Indeed, it was
not until Dante came that men were willing to be-
lieve anything less of AUtna than the supernatural.

The area of Sicily is some ten thousand square
miles, and this greatest of European volcanoes oc-
cupies almost one-twentieth of it. It is nearly 11,-
000 feet high—the ascent is practicable only in
Summer — and covered with more than two hundred
smaller volcanoes or cones, huge safety-valves for
the big boiler, through which the continual ebullition
of the slumbering hell within finds exit in steam and

vapors.
Having experienced the doubtful delights of climb-
ing smaller Vesuvius —it is less than half Attna’s

height — we decided that Attna was to be ours from
a distance only, much as we regretted not to see the
indescribably magnificent effect of sunrise from its
peak. Many visitors are satisfied to make the
shorter, easier trip up the Monti Rossi, “The
Brothers,” two of the minor craters thrown up in
1669 on the side of the main peak. They rise to
the not inconsiderable height of three thousand feet
themselves, and the views from them are very fine.
It is possible, moreover, to encircle the mountain by
railway, and so to enjoy very satisfactory vistas of

[161]

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VISTAS IN SICILY

both volcano and countryside — vast ragged plains
of lava like petrified sponges of red and black and
gray, the dark, fertile soil the lava makes, rich
with vineyards and fruit plantations, small “ safety-
valve” craters, often hissing threats, and farm-
houses among the trees in this, the most thickly
populated agricultural district in creation. A brief
stop over at one or more of the towns along the line
affords still further opportunity to see the Titan
and his works.

All these towns are rich in history, and the most
surprising and impossible echoes come ringing out
of the past at the touch of a modern foot. For
instance, Adernd, a comfortable town with a big,
dilapidated Norman castle in it, stands on the spot
where Dionysius I founded his city of Hadranum
twenty-three hundred years ago. Near it once
stood the Sikel temple of Hadranos. Instead of
human guardians, more than a thousand great dogs
protected this shrine of the fire god, and their
fame spread all over the world. Fragments of this
structure are still to be found in a private garden
near the town.

The railroad — it is called Circumetnéa — not
only encircles the mountain, as its title indicates,
but also climbs up along the slopes, reaching an alti-
tude at one point 3,195 feet above the sea. This
gives the traveler an opportunity to see two of the

different zones or belts of vegetation on the vol-
[162]Lol, ee

CATANIA AND MOUNT AETNA

cano. Lowest of all is the cultivated zone, in which
deciduous growths and the grapes of Attna play a
prominent part. Just above the tracks begins the
second belt, known as the Regione Boscosa, or for-
est region, which reaches up nearly four thousand
feet higher. This consists mainly of evergreen
pines, of birches in its upper section, and of a few
insignificant groves of oak. The third and topmost
division, extending to the black lipped silent crater
itself, is the sterile Deserta, where only the most
stunted vegetation exists.

In 1040 that Byzantine would-be deliverer of
Sicily, Giorgios Maniakes, attacked the Saracens
outside Maletto. The Norwegian Prince — after-
rard King—Harald Haardraade, and a considerable
body of his berserkers formed part of the Byzan-
tine army; and the allied forces scored a decisive

victory. A century and a quarter later a monas-
tery was founded there, and in 1799, during the
Bourbon period, Ferdinand IV gave the whole estate
to Lord Nelson, creating him Duke of Bronte, a
nearby town whose name means thunder. The Villa,
as it is now called, is still the property of an Eng-
lishman, the Viscount Bridport, who also retains
his local title.

The most picturesque of these AUtnean towns is
Randazzo, an interesting place where the women
throw voluminous white shawls over their heads

when they go to mass. Although Randazzo is
[163]—

—

VISTAS IN SICILY

closer to the crater than any other town, it has al-
ways escaped destruction, and so is full of exceed-
ingly interesting medieval remains — houses, a pal-
ace with an inscription in Latin so poor that a
schoolboy might have written it, and a ducal castle
now used as a prison. What an untoward fate for
a noble structure from whose walls project the sharp
iron spikes where the ancient Dukes impaled the
heads of criminals they executed! During July and
August Attna may be ascended from Randazzo.
The trip takes only about six hours, and the hotel
proprietor will provide guides, mules and food for
about seven dollars (American), for each climber.

Another echo of ancient days is the little Byzan-
tine church at Malvagna, the only one of its kind in
the island, by the way, that survived the Saracen in-
vasion and conquest.

A delightful little excursion may be made from
Catania by carriage and boat along the coast to the
Scogli de’ Ciclopi. To the prosy geologists, who
mess about with their little hammers, these tremen-
dous boulders are no doubt merely evidences of ti-
tanic natural convulsions. But to the rest of man-
kind, with a love for blind old Homer, they are the
stones poor clumsy Polyphemus hurled at escaping
Ulysses and his intrepid companions. The stately
hexameters of the Odyssey give the story a noble
swing —the brawny Greek hero burning out the

drunken giant’s eye with the blazing end of a pole;
[164]“The red and tan ruin of the Greek Theater .. . But it is Aetna that makes Taormina.”

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the escape in the chilly dawn clinging to the bellies
of the cyclop’s sheep while he ran his huge hands
over their backs; the launching of the little boat,
and the daring mockery of the bewildered giant.

Blind and raging, crossed for the second time in
his blighted life by puny beings he could crush with
one hand, Polyphemus tore off the top of a small
hill and threw it, missing the Greeks by a hair, but
raising such a wave that their boat was almost
washed ashore. Again Ulysses cried out upon him,
and again the giant threw. And to this day the
rocks tower out of the sea, one of them over two
hundred feet above water and a couple of thousand
feet in girth. Out of this giant’s missile the Italian
authorities have made them a geodetic survey and
hydrographic station. What would Homer — or
Ulysses!— think if he could see the rocks to-day?
Curiously enough, though the Odyssey particular-
izes regarding these two of the Scogli, or Rocks, it
says nothing whatever as to the other five of the
group.

Right here another picturesque legend dealing
with Polyphemus develops. For miles along this
shore, town after town has Ac? prefixed to its name,
as a reminder of the story of Galatea and Acis.
Polyphemus — huge, gross, uncouth monster — had
no attraction for the dainty nymph, but as so often
happens in even the prosaic days of fact, his bulk
did not keep him from loving Galatea passionately.

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VISTAS IN SICILY

So when —if one may be irreverently colloquial —
the shepherd boy Acis “cut him out,” Polyphemus
crushed him to death with stones in Galatea’s bower.
Olympus heard her piteous mourning, and from the
lifeblood of Acis sprang a crystal stream which im-
parted its life to the fields of Catania until jealous
Aftna drank it up. But Acis lives in spite of the
giant. Acireale, Acicastello, Aci San Antonio —
how quaintly pagan and Christian myths mingle in
the Latin countries! and many another Aci per-
petuate him.

Acireale, about ten miles from Catania on the
main line of the railroad to Taormina, is a pleasant
place to make a stay. Its mineral springs, the de-
lightful views by sea and shore, the walks and drives
in every direction through surroundings of the keen-
est interest and beauty, and, for those who are fond
of the water, the little boat trips in the vicinity,
make it a most agreeable spot in which to idle dur-
ing the soft Sicilian Spring.XII
TAORMINA

ICILIAN railroad trains have the very amia-

ble—or would some people spell that word

exasperating? — habit of never running ac-
cording to schedule. One is tempted at times to
wonder why they have a time-table at all! Express
or local, the train is always either too late or too
early. Won may take your choice of reaching the
station well ahead of the “ due” time, and vege-
tating until the little locomotive sniffles shamefacedly
in, away late, or going on time and finding the car-
riage doors ipeked! the train ready to leave, and
the guards very much disinclined to open for you.
A jingling of one’s pocket usually unlocks the doors
in such Soe es: however.

Did I say, “ express or local”? Which it is is a
puzzle, since it is all one. The “local” part of the
train has to rush madly by stations whenever the
“express” part docs; and the “express” half is
obliged to halt whenever the “local”? end comes
to a station it especially likes. Which train you
ride in depends entirely on the label that happens

to be on your car! But even with these vagaries,
[167]VISTAS IN SICILY

the railways are good, the employés courteous, usu-
ally amenable to jingling reason, and the service
unusually safe. A railroad inspector I talked with
explained this safety tersely. “Italians or Sicilians
would not matter. But, per Baccho, to smash up
foreigners — we can’t afford it!” As to that, their
private reasons are none of our affair. That we
can feel safe, and be safe, is the main thing.

The day we came to Taormina we reached the
station too early, and a miracle occurred. The
train was early, too — fifteen minutes too early !—
and we secured an excellent compartment and
waited. That was decidedly too early to go ahead
with safety, so engineer and conductor strolled about
town making friendly calls, a trainman had an
apéritif at a nearby caffé, and we started at last in
leisurely fashion — five minutes behind time.

The station is Giardini-Taormina, at the sea
level; and Giardini, though theoretically Taormina’s
“harbor,” is only a little fishing village. Yet here
twenty-five centuries ago the first of Sicily’s de-
liverers, the noble Timoleon of Corinth, landed to
begin the work that built him such fame and gave
Sicily such liberty. And in 1860 the second De-
liverer, Giuseppe Garibaldi, after completing his
work in Sicily, embarked here for Reggio di Calabria
to continue his campaign of liberation on the Italian
mainland. Nowadays nobody stops to look at Giar-
dini twice, since far above, on the great cliffs against
[168]TAORMINA

which it nestles, lies the favorite beauty spot of
Sicily, the haunt of artist and traveler the year
around.

If you so much as look doubtfully at the rickety
old landaus that meet the train, a driver will pile
your luggage into one, almost push you in after it,
and cracking his whip, start slowly up the road, a
long, gentle ascent built in great sweeping curves.
Splendid views unveil themselves at every foot of
the way. Below hes the sea, ranging from trans-
parent, broken-edged emerald at the beach, to fath-
omless azure in the depths, and a dull, dusty, al-
most colorless void at the horizon. It is streaked
with wind-paths, flecked with tiny whitecaps, dotted
with fishing boats flitting about like white bats,
while far up the Strait where Italy seems to reach
over and embrace its lovely sister, it is easy to
imagine Scylla and Charybdis reaching out hungry,
gleaming hands for the hapless voyagers rashly
passing between. It is hard to think of anything
else than the Argonauts, even amid the beauty of
wild and cultivated flowers, vegetation clinging
tenaciously to the face of the cliffs, or growing in
luxuriance upon terraces in lovely banked and
esplanaded gardens. Picturesque villas of every
type range all the way from the usual bare, square,
white hut-style to artists’ abominations in all manner
of castellated, battlemented, machicolated forms.

A turn in the road opens a matchless vista of
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VISTAS IN SICILY

Aftna; another,— and squarely in front glimmers
the red and tan ruin of the Greek Theater, perched
high upon the jutting crest of a mound from which
the spectators of the play had magnificent views to
amuse them in case they tired of the work of the
chorus. Standing on tiptoe at the very edges of
precipitous acclivities big, pleasant looking hotels
peer down with staring window-eyes, very attractive,
but a trifle suggestive of what might happen should
the edge of some particular precipice crumble off.

If you have been staying all along the way at the
usual Swiss hotels with their familiar Franco-Ger-
man cooking, why not try a genuinely Sicilian hos-
telry for once! Such quarters are to be found on
the main street, in a hotel which wanders up and
down the hillside in an ungainly series of overlap-
ping stories and queer detached turrets and belve-
deres. From the street, the entrance looks very
much like a black hole in the wall. It is exactly
the same as the door of a little carpenter shop
alongside, with the single exception of an inscription
in faded paint: Ristorante.

The greatest charm of the place is a garden,
which rambles about partly on the level, partly down
steep little banks, and then, in the rear, rolls up to
a stone wall beyond which is one of the milky white
roads of the country. It is crammed with the wild-
est sort of tangled climbing roses, tiny things the
rich color of a Maréchal Niel but no bigger than a
[170]TAORMINA

ten-cent piece; large red, yellow, pink and white
roses; splendid geraniums, orange trees, lemons,
medlars, almonds, stubby agaves, prickly pear, pink-
flowered climbing cactus, and wonder of wonders,
even a pair of apple trees! Ivy, numerous other
vines and brilliant convolvulus riot about them all,
while down the center runs a path under lemon-
arches half smothered in rose bloom.

Beside this walk is a trellis bower covered with
thousands of the tiny yellow roses, and furnished
with a marble-topped table and an iron chair —
an ideal literary workshop. But alas! the village
tinsmith evidently shared my prejudice in its favor.
When I came out prepared to work he had already
preémpted it for his mechanical workshop, and was
filling the air with clatter and the noxious fumes of
smoldering charcoal as he knocked together water-
ing-pots to keep the garden green,

There are so many means of communication be-
tween the wings and the dining-room that it is very
easy to lose one’s self. Beware the kitchen stair
especially, where a large, plump, elderly, and exceed-
ingly dignified goat often blocks the way. Try to
push her gently aside, and you are astonished to
find how heavy and strong a goat is. Take her
firmly by her stump of a tail and one horn, to hoist
her bodily, and the proverbial pig under the stile
could make no more distressing noise. Among those
who hear is the cook. Full of apologies, and un-

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VISTAS IN SICILY

heeding terrific protests, she grabs at the animal’s
beard and a horn or leg, and literally yanks her in-
side. But the moment she lets go, Signora Goat
bounces out again as though on the end of a rubber
band.

Taormina is bound to the green hillside by one
long, curving white ribbon of a street, with flying
tag-ends of alleys and byways. This Corso Vittorio
Emmanuele is the artery that carries the thin but
pulsing tide of the town’s affairs, a narrow, wind-
swept chasm, but far from being a dull one. Traf-
fic is brisk, and the tiny shops, whose dark interiors
are scarcely more than visible, do a lively trade with
the townsfolk and contadini. Were and there a
curio store—— Taormina lives and fattens on the
gullible foreigner, be he collector, artist, or traveler
only — displays a great stringful of pottery hung
beside the door to tempt the unwary browsing an-
tiquary with tangible memories of “the glory that
was Greece.”

All about artistic decay is embayed by square,
ugly, utilitarian buildings which the natives con-
sider more practical than the exquisite finery of
their noble predecessors. ‘The very unexpectedness
with which delicate bits of ruin appear constitutes
one of the town’s greatest charms. Yet happy in
‘ts isolation is the Badia Vecchia, a bit of fine old
crumbling, machicolated stone tower once the nun-
nery of Taormina, surrounded by a brilliant patch

[172]TAORMINA

of lavender-flowered cactus among the trees on the
irregular hillside above the town. Roofless and
abandoned, it stands outlined in soft brown against
the cobalt sky, its delicate windows still bordered
by snowy marble diapering, its walls partly check-
ered in black lava and white marble, a noble Gothic
picture, saturated with the atmosphere of Norman
days.

A rugged, winding path leads up this hillside to
the ancient castle, crowning a crag far above,
though the usual route is by way of Mola. To-day
the chief importance of the castle is as a platform
for viewing the stirring panorama of shore and
hills. Just beyond Giardini on a little promontory
now covered by a luxuriant lemon plantation, those
ardent pioneers under 'Theocles — it seems hardly
fair to call them pirates, as some writers have done
— established Naxos, the elder sister of all Greek
colonies in Sicily, in 735 B. C. One thing of
especial interest about Naxos is that outside its
walls on what quickly became neutral ground, the
colonists erected an altar and shrine to Apollo
Archegetes, not merely the patron of Naxos, but
the patron of all Hellenic Sicily. Hither all the
Greeks could come in safety for a blessing ere de
parting on a journey, no matter what internecine
strife might rage in the island. The athletes and
patrons of the Olympic and Isthmian Games came
here before sailing, to secure the favor of the god

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VISTAS IN SICILY

in their endeavors to wrest the laurel from their
brethren of Greece.

Naxos, however, was short-lived compared with
the other cities. In 476 B. C., the Tyrant Hieron
of Syracuse, who might well be called “ the juggler
of colonies,” forcibly depopulated it and resettled its
inhabitants in the city of Leontinoi. This seems to
have been a favorite amusement of tyrants. ‘To
satisfy a passing whim, or as a means of punish-
ment, the tyrant of the moment would calmly compel
some unfortunate community to move in a hurry to
a spot of his own choosing. However, there seem
to have been people living in Naxos seventy-three
years later, for we read that in 403 Dionysius de-
stroyed it completely, and ever since it has existed
only as a name, as the first milestone along the
path of the superior incoming Greek civilization
that made Sicily great.

The Taormina castle, by the way, is an excellent
vantage point from which to pick out the places to
which excursions may be made, and there are many
very attractive ones—by boat, on foot, or on
donkeyback, to Capo di Taormina and Capo di
Sant’? Andrea, where the coast is pock-marked with
curious grottoes, to Monte Venere, to Monte Zir-
reto, and to many another local beauty spot.

In Sicily you must not believe everything you
think you hear — and above all, you must not act
rashly upon such an impression. When a Sicilian is
[174]TAORMINA

feeling well, his “ Good morning, sir!” sounds like
“Spartacus to the gladiators.” When anyone ad-
dresses you as though murder were contemplated,
with yourself as the victim, be easy. It is most
likely to be a polite wish for a pleasant journey, de-
livered with characteristic Latin fervor and inflec-
tion. Our first morning in Taormina, a wild look-
ing peasant beauty bearing upon her shapely head
a huge dripping amphora, stopped us with uncouth
gestures and a laugh so eldritch it startled us.
Jerking her finger at La Signora, she poured forth
a torrent of impassioned Sicilian dialect we failed to
understand, though I thought she said we were folk
unfit to be in Taormina and had better leave im-

mediately.
Unpleasant thoughts of the Maffiusi —the Mano
Nera we loosely call them— swept through me.

The girl’s utterance was so fierce, her expression so
positively menacing, I wondered whether she might
not be really an agent of the dreaded band. But
before my combined annoyance and alarm led me
into difficulties, two Taorminians came up and ex-
plained in Italian: ‘ The signorina is afraid your
Stgnora will lose her handkerchief. It is falling out
of her belt.”

I was glad I had not shouted for the police!

When I asked the girl, who could understand
Italian perfectly, though she spoke none herself, if
I might photograph her, she consented without a

[175]VISTAS IN SICILY

trace of her former ferocity and — with a self-re-
spect unfortunately rare in Taormina — refused
any gratuity, merely wishing us a torrential good
day as she vanished up the black and smoky stairs
of a stone hut on one of the side streets.

It is a pity the town has not more like her. The
Taorminians display comparatively little of the
simple geniality and charm of the Palermitans, lit-
tle of their bright-faced mnocence and heartiness.
At first it is hard to understand why, since they are
no less Sicilian than their fellows of the capital.
But a slight acquaintance with them will convince
the most casual observer that they have learned their
own value only too well as replicas of Greek and
Roman and Saracenic beauty. Consequently many
of them have turned from simple hill folk into in-
sincere, lazy, professional poseurs, alert for cam-
era or pencil, and lost forever to the childlike graces
that distinguish their brothers.

And not only are the people replicas of the past,
but their native music is remiiscent also — pure
Greek melodies that have floated down the river of
time from the days when Bion and Theocritus
rambled these same hills and wrote songs eternally
young; Saracenic love-songs full of the wild spirit
of desert and river, quavering and melancholic;

romances suggestive of cavalier
Norman days. But it is the Greek that, being the
purest and simplest strain, has always prevailed.
Every day little shepherd lads stir the terrific soli-
[176]

passionate lyricTAORMINA

tudes of wind-swept mountain steeps with wordless
songs drawn as by magic from their reedy flutes,
music shrilly sweet and unforgettable. And at din-
ner in the evening you may hear some little minstrel
wandering up and down the Corso, fluting his heart
ight.

In your eagerness you peradventure hale him into

out in the moonl

the mysterious labyrinthine ‘Garden of the
Moon ” behind the hotel, where the silvery blue orb
of a great arc-lamp glows among the interlacing alm-
onds and medlars, and bid him play. But he is a
shy, embarrassed Pan, stiff of finger, timid of lip
until he forgets the listening bystanders. Then the
magic pipe takes up again the silver strain. There
is no hotel upon the mountainside, but only the
melody, the moon-mellowed primeval forest, the
slumbering forms of the little shepherd’s weary
flock. The music ceases—the elfin charm is
broken. Rudely over the fairy ring of your vision
burst the ungentle voices of moderns in tailor-fash-
ioned clothes, stiff boots and Paris hats, wearing
no chaplets of ivy or acanthus upon ambrosial locks
—and worst of all, some of them smoking ciga-
rettes !

One such night I pleaded with the little minstrel,
urged him by strange and magic names he never
knew, to let me have his reed. Reluctantly, unsmil-
ing, he gave it up, and as I write, it lies close by.
But alas, no more it knows the Grecian strain —
it will not sing for me!

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a ee ee ee ee

—

ee ee a

XIII

SOME MOUNTAIN VISTAS

HE ignorance and illiteracy to which refer-
ence has already been made are the chief
misfortunes of the Sicilians. Since schools

are few and far between, little girls are taught only
to sew, knit and cook. The boys, more unfortunate,
receive little or no instruction at all—there is
work for them as soon as they are old enough, and
they are useful in the fields and about the stables
and goatpens at six or eight. The children of
wealthy or noble families seem to be regarded as
superior beings who have to learn practically noth-
ing, and who accordingly go through life unworried
by knowing anything. A few years ago an Eng-
lish lady undertook to make Taormina over single
handed, and though the town still has a long and
thorny road to travel, the results the Hill School
has accomplished in helping the people to help
themselves have surpassed all anticipations, and
prove that even with both heredity and environment
against them, the people are willing to learn and to
work when shown how.

Within one of the dark doorways along the Corso
[178]= ee
$$ ETS ——

SOME MOUNTAIN VISTAS

is a typically Taorminian institution, a knitting
school where little tots sit demurely knitting, cro-
cheting or embroidering with faces as expressionless
as the visages of so many trained kittens. The
“lady principal” comes forward graciously to wel-
come visitors in her tiny domain, and readily grants
permission to make photographs. But the room is
lighted only from the front door, and the little
heads and bodies are so difficult to keep in repose
for even a few séconds that photography is speedily
abandoned for an inspection of the work of the
pupils, babies of from three upward, except that oc-
casionally an older girl takes a “ post graduate
course ” in fine embroidering. They click away in-
dustriously as their visitors pass along the line,
and some do not even glance up, so thoroughly have
they been drilled by the schoolmistress. Each
juvenile knitter uses two long needles and wears a
belt with a little leather plastron, in which the butt-
end of the stationary needle rests, to protect the
thinly clad little body from the prick of the sharp
steel instrument.

When we visited the school, I asked the teacher
how much she charged for tuition.

“Ten cents a month each,” was her grave reply.
“It is much for some to pay.”

Does that pay you?”

She waved her hand at the circle of twenty-five
pupils. “It does!”

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ehtiteinhie naire tie aes ae in ak ee a ee

ted

VISTAS IN SICILY

The food of the people is intended to support life
rather than gratify the palate. And though the
little ones, like normal children anywhere in the
world, are gifted with a sweet tooth, their desire
for dolci is very, very seldom gratified. So when
you loiter about the door of the little school, be sure
to have a bag of sweet cakes with you — the bakers
along the Corso all sell them. The “ lady prin-
cipal” will gladly permit you to distribute the
glistening, white-iced treasures, and you will be
amply repaid in watching the pupils — the dainti-
ness with which they accept and hold the proffered
delicacies, the timid “ Graz’, Signora! Graz’!” of
each, the perfect restraint of eager eyes and
mouths.

A very important personage in this little moun-
tain town is Signor Atenasio Pancrazio, banker,
steamship agent, postal messenger, and storekeeper ;
and curious indeed are his business methods. On
four days which we noticed especially because of a
desire to get at some of Signor Atenasio’s money,
he opened his bank-store at the somewhat irregular
and unusual hours of eleven-thirty, a quarter before
nine, noon, and twenty minutes past three. And
then, to make the hours appear still less like a mat-
ter of sordid business for gain, the gentleman threw
wide his doors on a Sunday morning and kept open
shop, bank and house until long after everybody

but the ubiquitous tourist had gone to bed.
[180]es

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She charged ten cents a month each for tuition... ‘It is much

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Se ae ee eeSOME MOUNTAIN VISTAS

Banker though he is, the good gentleman has
ideas above mere money-making, and if you are con-
tent to sit at his feet in the big, dim counting-room
—which smells of cheese and wine, of garlic and
rubber-stamp ink — you can learn much about the
Sicilian problem, which is as perplexing to the
Italian Government as the Irish bogy is to Downing
Street. When absentee landlordism is combined
with ignorance and poverty, it makes a problem
indeed.

The agricultural system is very old. It had its
inception as long ago as the days when Pope
Gregory the Great was one of the most important
proprietors in the island, in the name and person
of the Church. He was a good and careful land-
lord, but others are the opposite, and the system,
always unjust, has degenerated. At the present
time an estate is nominally managed on behalf of
the owner by a factor, who most often re-rents it
to someone else. This third person in turn, not
wishing to cultivate it personally, leases it in small
patches to the farmer at exorbitant rates, or to a
fourth factor, who repeats the operation. Thus
when the peasant finally comes into possession of his
acres, he is paying so heavy a rental that it is prac-
tically impossible to do more than make his actual
expenses.

Driven to desperation by such a condition and
often in actual need, he has recourse to the money-

[181]rae

ee
Se ee
Bape pe pets penis Sede -.
SS ee

VISTAS IN SICILY

lender, who loans readily and collects with grim
certainty, practically enslaving the wretched farmer.
The usurers grow rich, but they hoard up their
evil fortunes, keeping the money out of circula-
tion, and the country is the poorer. Naturally the
steamship office becomes the most important place
in towns where discontent prevails. ‘The companies
used not only to encourage the peasant to give up his
hard-earned savings, but even sent glib and persua-
sive agents about to drum up trade in likely districts
by painting glowing pictures of America.

Things are very different to-day. The new Ameri-
can emigrant quota law has cut Sicily’s mountain
torrent to a mere trickle. The sudden stoppage
worked much hardship at first, separating families,
blasting cherished hopes, and adding to the incon-
ceivably serious problem of mere food. The situa-
tion, however, is being met wisely and. with foresight.
Industrial conditions are being improved, production
speeded up, emigration to the Italian colonies and to
South America encouraged, and such supervision
exercised over those permitted to go to America that
very few Sicilians indeed are rejected.

The miniature hamlet of Mola, on the hilltop above
Taormina, may be cited as a typical example of
what taxes, lack of education, usury, and as a con-
sequence, emigration, are doing for Sicily to-day.
Though Mola lies only about a thousand feet higher

up in the air than Taormina, it is ten times as far
[ 182 |SOME MOUNTAIN VISTAS

away by foot —and by foot you must go, “ either
your own or another donkey’s!” as one weary but
none the less enthusiastic visitor put it on return-
ing. The road—a good part of it is low stone
steps, the round, flat pebbles set on edge in mortar
— winds along the uncertain sides of the little val-
leys, and since not a single tree of any size
shades it from an almost tropical sun at full power,
it is sufficiently trying. Here and there a female
beggar pops up most unexpectedly to demand an
alms “ for the love of the blessed Christ who walked
thus to Calvary!”

The town curves in a semi-circle around the top
of the hill, behind the battered remains of stout
old walls which even to-day are massive and in
places almost perfect, and might be turned to ex-
cellent account in defense. Just where the road
skirts the base of the cliff, one night in December
of 1677, forty stout-hearted native soldiers scaled
the wall — when you look up at it, it seems an im-
possible feat — with ropes, and surprised and cap-
tured the French garrison then in possession. The
highly picturesque entrance by a carved archway
under a bit of wall leading outward at right angles
from the overhanging cliff is commanded by an
equally picturesque evil-looking iron smooth-bore
cannon.

So still is Mola that the old lines fit it perfectly:

[183]= ee ee ee
‘ ne tw —_
oe ee
€ ee ees = owes

VISTAS IN SICILY

“ Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o’ertops the moldering wall;
And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler’s hand,
Far, far away, thy children leave the lJand.”

It is literally the “ Deserted Village.” Half an
hour suffices to explore the Corso — even tiny Mola
has its highway named for the King! — and all the
silent high- and by-ways from end to end; mere
gradini, crooked and steep, slits between out-of-
plumb houses whose only occupants seem to be pigs.
The biggest, blackest, dirtiest and leanest razor-
backs imaginable march solemnly up and down the
front steps of the best houses, or snore comfortably
inside on the parlor floor. Occasionally a savage
mother with her little shoats takes up a good share
of the way, snapping viciously at anyone who ven-
tures too close. Our “ guide,’ a mere baby, of-
fered to go and stir up such a family when he saw
me about to take its picture, and nearly lost a leg
for his pains.

But in all these streets not a man 1s visible of
adult years and able to work. Only at the “ Cathe-
dral” can vigorous men be seen, the verger and the
priest. The whereabouts of the others are told in
the single magic word that spells so much to all
Europe —* America!” It is literally true. Of all
the male inhabitants only those too poor, too feeble
to make the long trip, or too young to be acceptable

as toilers, have remained at home. Even the ex-
[184]SOME MOUNTAIN VISTAS

ceptions, the verger and the priest, gaze seaward
with longing eyes.

The “ Cathedral” is a building to make the heart
ache. Poor and ignorant though they are, the
people strive with cheap, garish colors and hideous
decorations to please the Deity as well as to give
their lowly church the air of a rich-folks’ Cathedral.
What grips one most is to be found in the sacristy.
Tied tightly to the arm of a much betinseled Mary
Magdalen is a beautiful and amazingly thick braid
of human hair. What is the tragedy behind the
oblation? What poor little girl from Mola came
cowering and repentant to the feet of the saint and
fastened the simple ex-voto in broken-hearted grati-
tude to the arm of her who wept over the sacred
feet and wiped them with her hair? Is it a local
tragedy or one from across the unfathomable seas?
The verger pretends he does not know. Yet as you
wander through the unkempt streets of the deserted
village, you cannot help looking curiously about for
any woman whose head shows the trace of the votive
shears.

Many a time throughout Italy we had been tor-
mented by filthy beggars on the steps of the cathe-
drals; but it was reserved for Mola to show us a
pig who owned to being a pig in such a place! As
we came out a huge, lean razorback grunted in
savage disapproval, lurched to his feet, and trotted
heavily off down a side street.

[185]ee eee
owe matt - a
2 See ee ee ee re a ay
eT ee ee
Pe ae ee Se ae ee ee err eee -
F Se eee entre aay

VISTAS IN SICILY

If the ascent to Mola is difficult, what can be
said of the coming down? You stretch muscles
you never knew you had, all the corns in the world
seem to have concentrated upon your luckless feet,
and you pitch and roll and toss like a mastless ship
in a cross-sea.

After that Mola trip the most energetic traveler
is apt to go to bed very early, and so for the first
time hears the night noises of Taormina. The
town makes quite a clatter on its way to bed—the
click! click! click! of hobnailed heels on the lava
pavement, the light chatter and songs of the children,
which for all their occasional gayety have an elusive
element of the tragic in them, the fluting of some
little shepherd, and the tired bray of a home-going
donkey glad the day’s work is over. And every
half-hour the bell-baiting! Would that Poe had
heard these Sicilian bells before he wrote his tin-
tinnabulating rhyme. Beaten, not rung, they
clamor with the maddening insistence of fiends until
the ear rebels and no longer notices their angry
tumult. One tradition has it that there is not a
bell-clapper in the island, for the returning French
took the iron tongues away after the Massacre of
the Vespers, to keep the people from ringing alarms.

But the ingenious Sicilian found that he could make
much more noise with a hammer, and though six
hundred years and more have rolled by, he is still

so tickled with the racket that he seems each time
[186]SOME MOUNTAIN VISTAS

to be trying to break all previous records. A more
plausible story is that the clappers were taken away
by the Neapolitans as recently as the day of Gari-
baldi’s arrival with his thousand red-shirts in 1860.

Save for the bell-baiting only, silence reigns from
about ten until two. Then the first donkey’s tiny
little overburdened feet come ticking down the Corso,
the whack of his rider’s stick and an occasional gruff
adjuration to the patient little mouse-colored beast
recurring in a regular work-motif. Slowly the
light begins to come. A sleepy ringer bangs out
fifty irregular notes from his bell, hesitates a mo-
ment as though not quite certain of his count, and
adds one last vigorous clang for good measure.
Chanticleer first awakes the echoes, in strenuous
rivalry with stentorian peacocks. Again silence
reigns for half an hour or so. Then Taormina
turns in bed, stirs luxuriously, yawns, and “ gets
busy.”

Along the Corso donkeys bearing slim wine-casks
and great tins of goats’ milk patter past at a smart
pace; vegetable hawkers from the piana shout their
wares into open doorways; cats and chickens side
by side strike out into the daylight from the ob-
scurity of their shelters, stretching and flapping
comfortably. Children, standing like models of Jus-
tice, scales and weights in hand, call their merchan-
dise, weigh and measure with preternatural gravity,

or eye older hucksters sharply as the latter use their
[187]See a ee eee ee Ne ren Te Ss

ens

VISTAS IN SICILY
a

&e penorth » of this or a

own scales to weight out a
“ haporth ” of that.

These street views are keenly interesting, but
after all it is Attna that makes Taormina an
Travelers and artists alike come

artist’s paradise.
return

for a brief glimpse or a sketch of AXttna,
or perchance find the fascination
and delicate lights and shades so
ttle down in the volcano’s shadow
aiming Taormina to be

again and again,
of hoary crown
irresistible they se
and remain for years, procl
the rarest beauty spot in creation.

One of the American artists who came twenty

years ago and has never been able to tear himself

away from the thrall of the great cold peak, shows
his studies of its moods, a great stack of marvelous
water colors made at dawn, at noon, at sunset, at
and night, with every whimsical
adow could give as he sat at
his easel in a white-walled garden with the perpet-
ually beautiful before him as a model. Perhaps the
most remarkable contrasts are from a_ perfectly
moonlight night to a clear dawn the next morning.
All night the moon, sailing in solemn round over-
head, tints the peak’s snowy shoulders with a faint
greenish tinge that makes it the wraith of a volcano.
A little before four o’clock, slowly, tenderly, moon
and pallid stars dwindle into spookish reflections of
themselves as the sky lightens, the velvet blue of
the night puckers into gelid gray, changes into pale
[188]

every hour of day
effect cloud or sun or shSOME MOUNTAIN VISTAS

turquoise through which majestically sail a vast
fleet of enormous fluffy clouds, while Aitna rises
dark and forbidding from the piana below.

Graciously a faint flush in the eastern sky in-
creases in volume, deepens in tone; the grim pile of
the volcano on the west darkens at the top, and
as the ineffable pink spreads around behind it, the
cone turns dead and spectral, and the thin, cottony
tuft of curling smoke above the main crater eddies
upward with all the seeming of steam on a foggy
winter’s morning. These first changes come with
the measured caution of a master painter working
carefully lest through some hasty stroke he spoil
the effect of the tone picture to come. The light
spreads. Neither camera nor pen can keep pace
with the instantaneous transformations on every
side. The vast crimson-coppery disc sails slowly
up in majesty to eye the little world of Taormina
from behind the inky green shoulder of the Greek
Theater’s hill. The upper edges of the clouds turn
pink and silver; the lower, soft salmon pink, saffron,
orange, gold. It is day!

There is something awe-inspiring, archaic, terrible
about it all. It suggests the ancient Egyptian be-
lef of Amen-ra riding through the horrible fast-
nesses of the Tuat in his sacred boat, and emerging
in the glory of the resurrection.

It is a chilly performance of a spring morning,
and a hungry one. At a quarter before six, an

[189]Tae
aa Bed ee ee ee ee

Se ee ee ee

bly segue Apia ptineten! sateen va

| PRI ea eieres feet

VISTAS IN SICILY

eight o’clock breakfast seems at a starving dis-
tance; so the best thing to do is to come down into
the street to see the milk being delivered. Right,
left, and everywhere are nothing but goats! goats!
goats! the whole length of the Corso; by twos,
singly, in herds of twenty or more, with a pair of
fractious kids roped together under their mother’s
usually wide open, yellow old eye, or tied one to
each hind leg, very much to mother’s discomfort.
They burst out upon the Corso from narrow little
gradimi as if they had been kicked out of Mola on
the crags above, and had not been able to check
their speed on the long roll down. The tobacconist
whose shop is directly opposite the hotel, opens at
dawn to catch the early trade of the Mola goatherds
‘n snuff and sigari. If you catch his eye he will
throw wide both arms to include all the goats on the
Corso, and exclaim: “ Latte de’ capri é molto bell!”

Take his gracefully conveyed hint, and ask for a
One of the ragazze—two-thirds at least of
atherds in Taormina and Mola are young
girls—milks a rich, warm, foaming pint. What-
ever your misgivings, the tobacconist is quite right
—* Milk of goats is very beautiful! ”’—very grate-
ful to a cold and empty stomach.

The hotel is quite civilized, the honest goatherd
milking his animals into bottles which he carries in
under the eye of a servant whose business it is to
see that there is no adulteration or watering. In

[190]

glass.
the goSOME MOUNTAIN VISTAS

the private houses still more scrupulous care is ob-
served. Many a protesting goat is compelled to
scramble up as many as four or five flights of dark
and difficult stairs to be milked in the “ parlor”
into the suspicious or indolent housewife’s own can
or bottle. The Taorminians are worried by no in-
spectors or supervision of their milk supply, for the
purchasers are their own supervisors, and milk is
one thing in Sicily absolutely above reproach.

for]Fee ee ee ee ee eee ion .

Se ee

ed
—

A eee cote te beet ent

ete ae
aa —

XIV

LIGHTS AND SHADES

OUNTAINS in Sicily occupy much the same
place in the life of the people that the
forum occupied in a Roman community of

old. That is, the fountain and its piazza are the
center for exchanging news and gossip, for recrea-
tion, for all the varied diversions the people have
“1 common. Taormina’s principal fountain lies
just outside the old wall, not far from the Porta
Catania, the gate facing toward Catania. About
the cool and dripping basin gather the graceful
young peasant girls, balancing incredibly large and
heavy amphorai of water upon their well poised
heads; pretty, kittenish children and grimgaunt old
rheumatic gossips; loutish waterboys in from the
piana with their great barrel-carts to take the ichor
of the gods back home; and generally the back-
ground for all is a fringe of seedy, admiring youths,
casting sheeps’ eyes at the girls and wondering how
long it will be until they can get married—or sail
for America!

This particular fountain 1s crowned by the arms
of Taormina, which consist of the twin castles of

[192]LIGHTS AND SHADES

Mola and Taormina, and a mythological creature
with the body of a bull, the tail of a fish and the
head of a woman. Exactly what this beast is would
tax the powers of the most ingenious of zoologists
to explain—possibly a “nature-faker ” could do
it better.

From the Porta Catania the old town wall, per-
haps twenty feet in height, rambles up the hillside
In weird curves and abrupt angles, following the
contour of the ground. Now that it is useless as a
defense the thrifty Taorminians have built up a
row of tiny houses which cling limpet fashion to the
outside of the sturdy old masonry, through which
windows have been driven that add greatly to its
picturesqueness. | Wonderful climbing bougain-
villeas and other vines have sprung up from the
fertile soil and spread their graceful tendrils higher
and higher until almost every window is smothered
in a mass of tender greenery and blossom.

To see these picturesque cottages is to wish to
end one’s days in one, or at least to bring some of
its perfume and beauty back home. Near by a steep
gradino is a floral waterfall. On the house-sides,
festooning every post and projecting bit of ma-
sonry, brilliant flowers foam in pink spray, as from
some perfumed fountain farther up the hill where
roses distil their spicy fragrance from long, nodding
branches.

Facing its own little piazza inside the wall, and

[193]ee ed ee ”

Sit ee eee

wens = - ‘
Scaspistndiabicniatitinn-oicheesishoummaisocaiie

all

VISTAS IN SICILY

just below the Corso, is the Cathedral, which has a
fne fourteenth century Gothic side portal. Per-
haps the service is fourteenth century, too. It is
conducted by the parish priest, a withered old man
of grim and ascetic aspect, who drones in out-of-
key nasals through the ritual, his voice drowned out
a good deal of the time by the wheezy old organ,
played by the village cobbler. The choir consists
of the verger and another man who appears and
disappears like a jack-in-the-box; at no time are
more than two men visible in the organ loft, but
in their vigor they quite make up for lack of num-
bers or inspiration. On the opposite side of the
choir rises what seems to be a larger and more im-
posing organ. It is really nothing but a huge
stretcher of canvas on which an instrument iS
painted, evidently to impress visitors with the
dignity and grandeur of this mountain church.
When we were at service the good padre was
assisted in his ministrations by the verger—when he
was not singing—who worked with a becoming sense
of the dignity of his position, and by an impish
little acolyte in flaming scarlet, who hopped about
like a cricket. If ever there was a little rascal who
deserved excommunication for his pranks, it was
this juvenile mischief-maker, who swung his censer
50 as almost to choke the old priest, keeping a more
watchful eye upon the strangers than upon his busi-
and scarcely stopping to crook an irreverent

M185, rio
194LIGHTS AND SHADES

little knee as he passed about in front of the altar,
Once, stooping to rearrange the priest’s robes, he
did it with such a mischievous flirt, and such a droll
gleam in the brown eyes fixed on us, that we half
expected to be held up by a small highwayman after
mass, and asked for a penny or two in token of the
sacrilegious show we had been permitted to witness.

The elders of the town sit upon the long bench
or dais of red porphyry where the archbishop would
be enthroned should he visit Taormina. They are
curious old men, gnarled, withered apples full of
sun and wind-wrinkles, who wear the typical brown-
gray-black shawl as a muffler. Below them, on the
throne’s lowest step, squat several of the oldest
women in the town. Over this seat a large and
imposing shield bearing the arms of Taormina is
supported by a time-stained oaken eagle, who leers
with side-cocked head and an expression of in-
ebriate gravity in his partly closed eyes. He seems
more a gargoyle, a grotesque, than a strictly ap-
propriate bit of ecclesiastical decoration.

Some of the peasant girls in the congregation are
very lovely—perfect young Madonnas; sloe-eyed,
raven-haired; with exquisite features and coloring,
and distinctly Greek profiles. But they are not all
dark; there is also the florid blonde type the Latin
peoples so greatly admire, though it cannot bear
comparison with the other. All of them dress with
a taste and a restraint hardly to be expected among

[195]A, tet eget et

renters icnres + tetuniindebeiltlie Mpa be pee
Se ey eee -
eee

Dien: <> Srey rrp 4 feed sh Pet pinning! = a

VISTAS IN SICILY

ee eet ee eee
eens Pan <4 Aaa ~ ~

A cea

mountain folk only a few degrees removed from the
primitive. Here and there a fawn-like maid has
thrown a Roman scarf with broad orange bands
lightly over her hair, its vivid colors in pleasing con-
trast with her simple dark blue dress, piped with
white, and the usual black silk apron that dis-
tinguishes her as of a prosperous family.

About through the throng in the nave the wor-
shipers’ children run freely to and fro, laughing,
crying, talking, calling to one another. Some
gather in little colonies on a step of the door at the
foot of the church and eye the scene with baby
solemnity ; and even when the Host is elevated, some
dainty nymph of three or four may unconcernedly
clatter higgledy-piggledy across the tiles in hob-
nailed shoon that wake the ancient echoes, crying at
the top of her small voice: “ Papa! Papa!” to an
old farmer entering the door.

There is an indescribably moving something in
the spectacle these poor folk present as they sit and
stand and kneel and make the responses with the
utter devotion of ignorance and superstition. Still,
the outside can not be forgotten, even in the eccles-
jastical atmosphere, and as the big bell up in the
campanile booms the hour clear and mellow through
the sound of voice and instrument, the world, the
flesh and the devil stir the worshipers with a rest-
less little movement of anxiety to get back into the

sunshine again.
[196]Irs.

lled to scramble up four or five flights of dark sta

ing goat 1s compe

“Many a protest

SEmtictwioutinns “Sea

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:

“We were suddenly halted by two juvenile troubadours,
seeking whom they might charm.”

Cee ta Rice ielhe be to ee ne ee

ai +LIGHTS AND SHADES

The eagle over the bishop’s throne would appear
to greater advantage in the funerals to be met on
the Corso, conducted by the Fraternity of the
Misericordia, which originated in Florence so many
centuries ago. Weird indeed is one of these pro-
cessions, as it ambles leisurely along through the
heavy dust, often stirred by a light sirocco which
flaps the robes and sends the incense smoke eddying
upward in sacerdotal wreaths. Tragedy and farce
clasp hands in the pitiful cortége. The boy mem-
bers of the Guild amuse themselves and shock the
beholder by pulling their ghastly masks awry, con-
torting their faces into uncouth grimaces, and wink-
ing portentously through the large eyeholes. The
men are scarcely better—eyen the pall-bearers
laugh, joke, turn freely to pass a word with some
acquaintance in the street or up in a window, and
tilt the casket so recklessly that the cross and crown
on top slip about and all but fall off. Their white
frocks are too short, and from beneath the skirts
protrude very baggy trouser-legs, dirty socks, or
even a few inches of bare leg thrust hastily into
shoes donned for the nonce, and left with strings
dangling in the dust. Inquisitive goats and uncer-
tain chickens get in the way and are either lifted to
one side, carried along and petted for a few mo-
ments, or gently pushed out of the way with a
kindly foot.

Strange indeed was a double funeral we saw one

[197]ahaa mini raed nat eon te ete eee ee ee °

See

VISTAS IN SICILY

sultry afternoon. At the head marched the ancient
Guild, bearing a curious double cross, perhaps eight
feet high and apparently very heavy. Nailed to its
upper limb — askew, of course — was a small light
cross. Behind the men walked eighteen little girls
in ordinary street dress, and after them six older
girls in black, marching in couples, each pair carry-
ing a large floral wreath The middle pair bore
their vreath with an air that did not distinguish
the others, since it surrounded a framed picture of
the dead man. Directly behind the picture came
a priest, his hands clasped over a missal which he
held firmly against his well-fed stomach.

After the living, the dead—the first of the
coffins was a tiny one of flaming pink, stolidly
handled by four sturdy lads of the Feaild who took
as much interest in it and the proceedings as though
they were bearing a crate of lemons to market.
Immediately behind four unusually tall Guildmen
bore the man’s coffin, large and black, with a cross
and a silver crown resting upon it. On either side
trudged the womenfolk of the family, one in each
file carrying a smoking plate of incense that nearly
choked her, while two files of friends brought up
the rear of the procession proper, followed by the
usual rabble.

Through the heavy African air the cathedral bells
tolled with an inexpressibly sad intonation as the

little cavalcade passed along the street. But even
[198]LIGHTS AND SHADES

the relatives were compelled to laugh when from
the rear, running at full speed, came a panting boy
of about ten bearing the canonicals of the officiating
priest. The robe flapped behind in most undigni-
fied fashion, one corner occasionally raising a little
spurt of dust as it swept the stones; and every few
steps the boy yelped an unintelligible sound, to bid
the marchers slow down and let him catch up before
the priest entered the cathedral.

However, the touch of the ridiculous that turns
tears to laughter is never far away in Sicily. Turn-
ing into a side street, one of those little gradini or
flights of slippery stone steps which make up most
of Taormina’s lesser byways, and thinking only of
the funeral, we were suddenly halted by two of the
juvenile troubadours who lie in wait for strangers,
or patrol the streets, seeking whom they may charm.
They sprang out at our approach, struck tragic
attitudes, and began to shout out an old pirate
song at the top of their thin little pipes. Lustily
they sang, till the veins in their small foreheads
bulged blue with the effort, screaming out the blood-
thirsty words of the ancient ditty with gusto,
and acting their parts like veterans. It was all so
sudden, so utterly ludicrous, that we laughed until
we cried. The moment we began to laugh, the
larger boy frowned, stopped singing, and shaking
his pudgy fist at us indignantly, announced: “I am
a singer! A very good singer — you listen to me! ”

[199]ee a

Cases Seniesa Deane one ee

eee

ete ein baton eae eae ae ee

VISTAS IN SICILY

No cosmopolitan tenor could have put more out-
raged dignity. and temperament into a protest.
But sturdily they began all over. Here and there
we caught a phrase about a wicked captain who
stole a lovely maiden from her doting parents and
took her away on his rakish barque to rove the
smiling seas. Before I could reward them a large
boy, who had kept away the crowd during the sing-
ing of the infant highwaymen, touched me on the
arm.

“ Signore — you should pay me all. I. . .”

“Oh-ho! So you think you are their impresario,
do you?” I demanded.

“ Sissignore! Si! Si!” he exclaimed joyfully,
not in the least understanding anything but that
I seemed willing to play into his hands.

“ Are you a relative of the great Hammerstein? ”
I asked.

“Probably, sir. I do not know. Does the
gentleman live in Taormina? ”

Just then an ancient crone, toothless, and gifted,
if anyone ever was, with the “ evil eye,” pinched my
arm with a vigor astonishing in so aged a crea-
ture, and shrilly demanded her gift. Annoyed, |
asked her as gently as possible, while the crowd
grinned in derision: “ But what have you done that
I should pay you?”

“Done!” she retorted. “Done! It is enough

—am I not here? ”*
[200]LIGHTS AND SHADES

Declining to pay for being pinched, we worked
our way slowly through the tenacious rabble —
which clamored for soldi down into the court-
yard of the hotel that was once a pious house of
prayer and fasting, the gray and ancient Convento
di San Domenico. Beyond the edge of the older
town it poises its massive stone bulk, whitewashed
and scrupulously neat, on the ragged edge of the
cliff: where fragrant roses climb all about and potted
plants fringe the balustrades on all sides with rich
color. It is a joy to sit here and take tea, with the
marvelous panorama of storied coast and slumber-
ing sea directly beneath. San Domenico is as cold
as it is lovely, and the guests are hardly to be
envied their rooms, once the silent stone cells of the
monks. ‘They are, however, to be envied the charm
of the great hall with its carven choir stalls and
lecturn, and the beautiful flower-decked cloisters.
But where the crumbling Byzantine arcades once
echoed with the Vesper, the Matin and the Ave,
now is heard only the laughter of the heedless
tourist, the chatter of children, the swish of skirts,
and the click of the camera-shutter.

From the stone balustrades of the terrace, one
gazes down upon slopes thorny with the spikes of
the prickly pear, toothed and spurred with many
an ugly rock that must have been there when the
intrepid tyrant, Dionysius I, led his storming party
up the slopes one winter night in 394 B. C., and

[2or]ela eatiors dietiareena ine’ loca iene ne eee ey ee ee ee ee a ee ree

teenie eee ee ee ee ee

atta Da re ee tes ett

VISTAS IN SICILY

forced his way into the very marketplace, only to be
repulsed by the heroic citizens and come tumbling
down — literally, it is said—six hundred feet
among the rocks and thorns of the snowy ascent.
No wonder Dionysius hated Taormina after that!
He disliked it before, and his little impromptu to-
boggan filled him with a tyrant’s decision to even
things with Taormina sooner or later. Four years
afterward he kept his oath, in an outburst of sav-
age fury that reduced the hamlet to ruins but
failed to injure it permanently.

The moldering palace of the once mighty Dukes
of Santo Stefano is also at this western end of the
town. But all there is to see is a garden, tangled
and sweet, a deep well whose carven curb speaks
eloquently of the love of its former masters for the
beautiful, and a barren earthen room under the
palace, where dingy mosaics upon the stucco walls
peep through the grime of ages. In one corner is
a mortared pit about thirty inches deep and two
feet in diameter. The caretaker is contemptuous
at any failure to understand so simple a thing as
an ancient bath, and displays the superior air of
one who, however economical she may herself be in
the use of such a luxury, is thoroughly versed in
the theory of its employment by others of less
Spartan virtue.

Beyond this— nothing! The key is in Palermo.

With the characteristic fondness of Sicilians for
[202]LIGHTS AND SHADES

separating buildings and their keys, the Duke leaves
it in the capital, so the Greek and Roman marbles
stripped ruthlessly from the Theater at the other
end of town are usually invisible.

But though they may not be visible, the Theater
from which they were taken is very much so. The
Corso on the way is always a human and animal
kaleidoscope. Here a man holds his grateful horse
by the bridle while his wife lifts a black iron soup
kettle to give the weary beast a drink of warm and
nourishing soup made of bread, vegetables and goats’
milk. Yonder a demoralized old cat licks her kit-
tens into shape on a shady doorstep while a vener-
able hen looks on and seems to have a proprietary
interest in seeing the work properly performed.
Cats and kittens and dogs lie jumbled together, in
genial disregard of the usual enmities, suggesting
the lion and the lamb parable.

Quaintly dressed peasants from the piana stare
at the visitor, and vendors of antiquities call lazily
from their black little holes in the wall, advertising
their strings of “ ancient” pottery, that rattle
ominously whenever a wisp of breeze playfully tugs
at them. A carriage-full of tourists Baedekering
through Sicily passes literally on the jump, with
craned necks and vociferous consultation of the fat
little red books so essential to comfort in this land
Where no one is willing to confess that he really
knows anything positively. Water-carts creak by, a

[203]ee es

ee ee ee eee

~e .

VISTAS IN SICILY

huckster whose wares are not yet all sold bellows
most musical of “ A-a-ar — ca — cio-o-0 — fi-t-1-!
and from behind comes the mellow boom of the
cathedral chimes knelling away the brilliant hour.
Artists with easels and sketching kits lumber heavily
by on their way back from the Theater, the only
great ruin of which Taormina can boast.

There is little now in the shattered playhouse to
make alive its glories of Greek days, for as it stands
it is largely a Roman ruin. The conquerors built
amphitheaters throughout the island, but their
theaters were in almost every instance merely en-
largements or adaptations of older structures.
Here in Taormina the building shows perfectly
what the Romans did with the stage, which is in an
almost perfect state of preservation. The play-
house, hewn in great part from the living rock,
measures three hundred fifty-seven feet in its great-
est diameter, while the diameter of the pit or
orchestra is no less than one hundred and fifteen
feet. The stage itself is quite narrow, with a
vaulted channel or passage underneath for the
water, used in flooding the arena, for the naval com-
bats that the degenerate Romans preferred to Greek
drama. Behind the stage the wall they built —
of plain red brick instead of the costlier marble of
early days —is still two stories high, and four of
its granite Corinthian columns, with parts of the
architrave, have been reérected to show the decora-
[204]LIGHTS AND SHADES

tive scheme. Directly behind are the entrances
upon the stage, one at the right, another at the left:
and in the center a great ruinous breach in the wall
where was once the third or central entrance. On
2ach side are niches which contained statues, and
in the side wall at each end of the stage are the
vestiaria, the dressing-rooms of the actors. What
is left of the auditorium proper — the superstruc-
ture added by the Romans is all gone — shows that
the seats were divided into nine cwnei, sections
shaped like wedges; and so perfect were the acous-
tics that even yet, ruined though the structure is,
the slightest word spoken upon the stage is dis-
tinctly audible at the very farthest extremity of the
upper tier of seats.

The way up to the topmost seats is through grass
and weeds starred with tiny flowerets, mantling over
the scars of Time. Sitting there where Greek and
Roman and Saracen in turn have mused before, he
is cold indeed who does not thrill to memory and
to the marvelous panorama spread below: on the
right, tier on tier of the eternal hills in warm brown,
their crowns of Saracenic-looking castles lending a
militant air to their own stern beauty; below them,
a confused medley of roofs and spires, roads and
wandering walls, Taormina; through the scena one
of the grandest vistas in all creation — Atna the
giant holding heaven and earth apart, his feet in
the mists of the low rolling farmlands, his mighty

[205]ee aetian ee Eee

—

ones

P
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a Rete deal rea ee ee ee ee

VISTAS IN SICILY

crest lost amid the clouds of the spring afternoon;
and reaching away into infinity, the passionless
Ionian Sea of song and story, murmuring a su-
surrant requiem for the vanished glories of other

days.XV
THE CITY THAT ‘was

ROM Taormina to Messina the train hur-

ries along at what seems breakneck speed

— through vine and olive yards; past broad
shallow, dry fiwmi, dusty in summer but heavily
walled on both sides against the coming of the win-
ter and spring freshets. Now the hills rise bold
and sheer, as we dash into and out of innumerable
little smoky tunnels, like a firefly flashing through
tangled brush. High on one hillside an old ceme-
tery looks down —an enormous file of dusty old
pigeon-holes tossed out from a Titan’s office and
abandoned among the greenery.

There comes a town; a queer, quaint, smelly little
fishing village — Ali — whose distinct perfume wafts
in through even closed windows. Every house in
it possesses atmosphere, character, a certain uncouth
distinction all its own. Farther on goats —a big
herd of them— munch their way along the beach
undisturbed by our noisy passing, walking in the
cool water up to their fetlocks, eating seaweed and
wagging their cronish old heads over the salty feast.
What must be the flavor of their milk! But the

[207]a

VISTAS IN SICILY

goats are forgotten as up the Strait from Reggio
steams the great car-ferry Scylla, since six miles
away along the sweeping curve of the Italian shore
to the north, the ugly gaunt rock of Scylla herself
crouches against the dun background of iron shore.

Scylla and Charybdis, those fabled monsters of
early Hellenic legend, apparently had no terrors for
the pirates of Kymé who, Thucydides tells us,
planted the first nursling settlement of Zankle, later
Messina, in one of the most splendid natural loca-
tions ever utilized by man—a long, narrow strip
of flat shore along the Bay, where the mountains
stand well back, and only the foothills come near
the water. Before the town shimmers one of the
fnest harbors in the world, a big circular bay
fenced in by a low and sandy strip curved like the
sickle the Sicilian Greeks called Danklon or Zankle.
The site was a natural emporium at the point where
the East and the West meet and are one; an ideal
location for a great strategic, commercial and social
center.

It has always been a notable city. Now we see
it in the scarlet page of history as the home of the
pirate, the prey of the Carthaginian, the bandit
stronghold of the Mamertine, the first glorious con-
quest of the dashing Norman; then glorying in the
wealth the Crusades poured into its lap as the kings
of the earth passed by in their search after the

impossible and unattainable. Now we hear of it as
[208]THE CITY THAT WAS

the prey of a despot, an absentee monarch; now as
the favorite of a king who loaded it with privilege ;
now as the bulwark of all Sicily against incursion
from the mainland when Charles of Anjou, after
the Vespers, came down upon Messina like Byron’s
Assyrian. Every man became a soldier, every
woman in the city — ladies accustomed to ease and
luxury as well as their less fortunate sisters —a
worker. A song still popular in Sicily runs:

Deh com’ egli é gran pietate
delle donne di Messina,
veggiendo iscapigliate,
portando pietre e calcina!

“Oh, what a pity ’t is to see the ladies of Messina
carrying stones and chalk!”

One of the things that brought disaster upon
Messina was its location upon the line of contact
between the primary and secondary formations of
AXtna and Vesuvius, where the shock of earthquake
is necessarily the most violent and frequent. And
during the last two centuries or so every misfortune
that could befall a city has befallen it — siege, bom-
bardment, fire, inundation, cholera, plague, earth-
quake. Yet through it all, however severe the visita-
tion, the city has been great and undaunted, rising
heroically from every catastrophe to begin anew;
great in commerce, too, as well as in the heroic spirit

[209]

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7
4
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eda

VISTAS IN SICILY

of its citizens. Notwithstanding its tragic story,
of late years it was a dusty, commercial town,
eminently set upon minding its own business and
giving little heed during business hours to anything
but business.

In the evening, however, the whole town was out
of doors, gathering in a dense throng to listen to
the band concert in the Piazza di Municipio. Grave
and reverend seigniors puffing at black Italian
cheroots, fat wives on their arms or waddling behind
under the weight of their wonderful jewelry; young
sparks who wore their hats rakishly and eyed the
daughters of families with roguish airs of expert
judgment in petticoats; flashy corner loafers whose
visages betrayed their character — or lack of it;
solemn family parties to whom this open air concert
was the diversion of the week; and scores of impish
little ragamuffins whose specialty seemed to be
vociferous appeals to smokers for cigarette stubs.
But the crowd was very Italian, very good-natured,
very indolently happy. Dolce far niente ruled, save
for the industrious bandsmen, and everybody en-
joyed himself in his own way.

In the eighteenth century the wide and handsome
promenade along the clear waters of the Strait was
named La Palazzata, because the stately palazzi of
the nobility lined its entire length, and each palace
was equal in height, style and construction to all
its neighbors. But slowly there crept into the city

[210]DHE Ciny THAT WAS

the sneaking spirit of commercialism. The haughty
nobles fell upon evil days and died. Their palaces
became shops, hotels, stores; the old glory was fad-
ing fast, and the new was a tawdry imitation. The
splendor of the Palazzata waned before the vigor
of expanding trade that filled the wharves with casks
of spoiling lemons for the manufacture of acids and
essential oils. The very air of Messina became im-
pregnated, redolent of the pungent essence of fruit
turning into gold.

But that was not the end. The Palazzata —
aye, all Messina — was doomed to fall in the crown-
ing misfortune of the centuries. The terrible earth-
quake predicted almost to the minute by Mr. Perret
of the Vesuvius Observatory, smote the city while
it slept, on the morning of December 28, 1908.
The earth became a shaken old carpet, ripping,

behinds b Set @ be nea ed

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i

tearing, rending apart hideously, crumpling upon
itself. The sea receded and heaped itself in moun-
tains of waters, the beach lay bare. The grim gods
of the nether world smiled: they piled the sea and
the waves higher into an Olympian bolt, hurled it
resistless and foaming upon the helpless town, again
to take toll of man’s rashness. Palace and hotel,
shop and church trembled — vacillated — crashed
down into agonizing ruin, burying half the city in
their débris. In the city alone 77,283 persons
perished. Humanity stood aghast before a catas-
trophe so tremendous that the intelligence could

[211]om Se
a,

_ aa

aed
3 ote ote cede ee “ apt een

ROT 3 oi kinds Ssh eee:

VISTAS IN SICILY

not grasp its full significance of horror. And
when the final relief work was completed, the last
reports tabulated, the toll of Adtna on both sides
of the Strait in Calabria as well as in Sicily —
mounted up to two hundred thousand — nearly a
quarter of a million lives !

Sleeping and praying, weeping and cursing, un-
conscious and paralyzed with terror, Messina died
in the murdering cruelty of the most appalling of
all the disasters the heroic city had ever known.

The Cathedral, which was begun in 1098 and
finished by King Roger, had shared the misfortunes
of the city. Earthquake and fire and the still more
vandal hand of the restorer had robbed it long be-
fore of almost all semblance to the plans of King
Roger’s architects. And the gods of the earth,
being no respecters of buildings, hurled it down into
ruin like the commonest hut in the city. Not all
‘ts massiveness and splendor could save it from the
common fate; not all its treasures of goldsmith’s
work and sculpture and art. But though it fell,
the people of the dauntless city did not blench.
Crushed and dazed as they were, one of the first
buildings they put up was a new house of prayer.
Hastily knocked together of rough boards, the

triumphant symbol of hope and faith nailed firmly

above it, that pitiful church spoke dramatically of

the spirit that defies defeat and honors victory.
The city has arisen anew in a metropolis of more

[212].,

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Messina—“The City that Was

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than 65,000 souls, with suitable churches now.
Moreover, the commercial spirit of the people as-
serted itself almost immediately, and exports be-
gan with scarcely any delay. In the new Messina
that has sprung up —a little to the south and a
trifle farther inland— away from the chaos of
wrecked buildings and blasted hopes, there is at
least a measure of safety. It is largely a wooden
city; the buildings are restricted in height, and no
fires are permitted except in the kitchens, which are
built of brick.

The American relief work is especially interest-
ing tous. No less than 1336 two-room-and-kitchen
houses were put up by American hands and with
American materials and money in the new Messina,
and five hundred more across the Strait in Reggio
di Calabria, a total of 1836, capable of housing
more than 12,000 people. Each family is bound
under pain of expulsion to observe stringent rules
for public safety and sanitation, approved by Queen
Elena herself. In places these low, white clap-
boarded cottages, shaded by mulberry trees, have a
decidedly New England town appearance. Beside
these, American funds built an hotel with seventy-
five rooms and thirteen or fourteen baths: a church
Where some 850 people can worship; two schools
that care for eighty children each, and the Eliza-
beth Griscom Hospital, in which every available re-
source of modern sanitary engineering in design and

[213]VISTAS IN SICILY

construction was employed. Since then the whole
terrible ruin has been cleared away, the population
has increased by some fifteen or twenty thousand, and
solid structures of stone and stucco been reared.
None of these may reach eight metres in height, and
the new city, constructed with a view to allowing
space enough for the safety of the people out of
doors should another convulsion occur, occupies half
as much space again as the old.

During the reign of horror that followed the fall
of the city, fire and snow, rain and pestilence added
their agonies to the already overflowing tragedy.
British and American, Russian and French blue-
jackets toiled heroically, regardless of danger from
falling ruins or infection from the thousands of un-
buried corpses, to help succour the wounded and
rescue the dying. King Victor Emmanuele himself,
disregarding comfort and personal safety, hurried to
the scene and risked his life in superintending the
work of rescue, endearing himself to the Nation by
his cool bravery. And not only the King, but Queen
Elena, who accompanied him, struggled through the
ruins day after day, braving hardships and danger,
aiding the wounded and dying with her own hands.
All Italy arose and called her blessed. They gave
her a new name. She was no longer merely Regina
d’ Italia — Queen of Italy — but Regina di pieta —
Queen of Pity.

[214]XVI
TKE NORTHERN SHORE

LONG the northern coast from Messina
westward to Palermo, almost every foot of
the way has some historic interest. High

among the precipitous cliffs above the present
station of Rometta, the Christians held out against
the invading Saracens — who had entered the island
in 827 — until 965. Rometta was the last place to
fall. A little farther along the rocky shore Sextus
Pompey was annihilated by Agrippa in the battle
of Naulochus in B. C. 36. Milazzo, sixteen miles
from Messina, is the site of ancient Mylex, Messina’s
first colony, which had a stirring time of it through
all the centuries. The last big event in her history
was Garibaldi’s victory over the Neapolitans, free-
ing the city from the hated Bourbon rule.

The train runs over fiumare after fiumare — river-
beds dry in Summer, rushing torrents in Winter —
and vineyards stretch beside the track in vast ex-
panses of low, bushy vines, ripe with promise. Then,
with a shriek, the engine drags us in a cindery
cloud of smoke through the promontory on which
stood Tyndaris, the Greek colony founded by

[215]Ce ee eee
ats Potpetrerinitehes Baeneem
ce tae amie ee ee SNL
ieee od oe tie pi) mene

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ri
Pn
t
t
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VISTAS IN SICILY

Dionysius I. The town stood nine hundred feet
above the black hole into which we plunge. What
would be the sensations of this swash-buckling Greek
could he see the rock to-day, with the trains, black
worms darting through the solid rock he never
dreamed of penetrating! More tunnels follow fast,
then another cape, and a stretch of glad, open, smil-
ing country that makes one think of the orchards
at home.

Picturesque towns, groves of oleanders, battered
old Roman bridges and medieval castles in which
life is still of the Dark Ages, flit by rapidly until
Caronia is reached. Here, nearly 2,600 years ago,
a Sikel settlement called Kalé Akté — Beautiful
Shore — was made under an ambitious leader named
Ducetius, who hoped to save the remnant of his
people who were still free in the interior, from ab-
sorption by the Greeks. A single defeat, however,
crushed this native rising, and all hope of Sikel in-
dependence vanished in 444 with the death of
Ducetius. “ Beautiful Shore ” withered away until
to-day Calacte is a commonplace Sicilian town with
even a commonplace name, and only its memories
to save it from utter insignificance.

And then we come to Cefalu, a town whose reputa-
tion depends on its dirt, its beggars, and its Cathe-
dral. And there is no excuse for either dirt or
mendicants, since it is a thriving commercial and

manufacturing city with ample resources to keep
[216]THE NORTHERN SHORE

itself clean, and purged of begging pests. The
name tells its location — Kephalé, in Greek, meant
head; that is, promontory in this case, and the old
Sikel city occupied the crest of the big jutting head-
land thrusting straight out into the sea and rising
over 1,200 feet in height. On this elevation —
seventy minutes now of stiff climbing it takes to
reach it, over boulders and the detritus of centuries
—— the Sikels built them a safe city, and swept it
about with massive battlemented walls, carried clear
down to the sea. Parts of them are still in very
good condition; no doubt through the centuries they
have been restored again and again,

The “Head” is bald now —a snowy pate with
only a sprinkling of grass — and but one building
of uncertain age remains to testify to the different
races that have ruled upon this lofty spot. After
its acquisition by the Greeks it was important as
their western outpost on the northern shore of the
island. The one small ruin still standing seems to
be that of a Sikel building, of unique structure and
great interest. The huge irregular stones in part
of it indicate its original appearance, while all about
them the decently cut and shaped blocks show an
Hellenic restoration. From this height the view is
all-embracing — Pellegrino towering above Palermo
forty miles to the west; the gaunt black fire peaks
of most of the Lipari Islands — once the windy isles
of Molus — straight out to sea in the northeast;

[217]VISTAS IN SICILY

and behind us fertile stretches of rolling country
checkered with farms and vineyards; town after
town set upon impossible rugged peaks, mountains
whose tops tear ragged holes in the mist clouds.

In the near distance is the Punto della Caldara,
where the shrewd and wily sons of Tyre and Sidon,
full of the instinct of commerce, not combat, beached
their frail craft and sat down at the feet of the
Sikel natives for barter, within easy eyeshot of this
eyrie. No doubt from the battlements the natives
peered down with less of an eye for the splendid view
than for the marketplace of the swarthy, black-
bearded Canaanites; and thither they were lured by
tempting displays of the royal purple of Tyre, the
gold of distant Tarshish far to the west, and the
glass and ornaments and _ statuettes that the
Phenician tempters knew how to make and to mar-
ket so much better than their uncouth selves.

As we came down from the desolate heights, it
began to rain. Within a few hundred yards of the
town we passed the house of an old contadino who
sat calmly inside his jute-walled goatpen meditat-
ing. In the kitchen door stood his brawny wife,
feeding the unkempt, shrewish looking old goat with
soup full of green onions from her husband’s bowl,
and diverting herself betimes by lashing the gentle
philosopher vigorously, after the fashion of Mrs.
Caudle.

In 1129 King Roger was returning from the
[218]THE NORTHERN SHORE

Italian mainland — whither he had gone to whip
into docility sundry recalcitrants among his unruly
barons — when his vessel was overtaken by a violent
storm of the sort that so often lashes the Mediter-
ranean into fury. The King, greatly alarmed,
vowed a fine church in honor of the Christ and the
Twelve Apostles if he and all his company were per-
mitted to land unharmed. The ship made Cefald
head, and everyone came ashore safely. Two years
later King Roger fulfilled his vow, by establishing
a town at the foot of the cliff, and beginning to rear
the most magnificent sanctuary that had been built
in Sicily since the Greeks constructed their massive
Doric temples.

Tremendous and massive are the only words that
fit this building, and the enormous hewn stones upon
which the fagade rests seem to indicate that here
must once have stood some ancient fortification
which offered the Norman architects a permanent
base upon which to build their shrine. The twin
spires, the play of the interlacing arches, the round-
headed portal — it is especially worthy of notice,
by the way —all spell the cool and coherent genius
of the northern French architect. Indeed, it is, like
King Roger himself, of the Norman brood, but
thoroughly adapted to its Sicilian environment.

Within, one realizes how royally Roger fulfilled
his vow. What miracles were wrought by these
hard-living, hard-fighting, hard-worshiping souls

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who took their religion with such mighty seriousness
that it became an integral part of themselves and
their daily lives! The main body of the Cathedral
is plain white and generally barren. But no pen
can describe in detail the blazing mosaics in the
tribune without heaping color upon color, design
upon design. ‘The colors of the pictures were ex-
ecuted by artists who were almost tone impression-
ists, so delicate are the soft shades they used to set
off the more primitive hues of the borders.

From the floor of the chancel the flying ribs of
the roof seem sections of delicate enameled work.
The farther away one stands the more perfect the
illusion becomes, to the point where the designs lose
their identity. Indeed, no master jeweler could
produce a more harmonious effect with his intricate
interweaving of colors and blending of tones. But
the crowning wonder of the Cathedral— as in the
Cathedral of Monreale and the Cappella Palatina
is the enormous mosaic bust of the Christ which
fills the vault of the tribune. Built up like its fel-
lows of the brilliant bits of colored glass that adorn
the rest of the apse, it seems a portrait of encrusted
gems, a human conception of the Godhead that
flashes inspiration from myriad delicate facets.

Nevertheless, Cefali Cathedral fails to impress
the beholder as do the other two in which there is
not a jarring or inconsistent note from pave to

rooftree. Here in Cefalt the bare and dingy plas-
[220]THE NORTHERN SHORE

ter walls of the main body — adorned with dubious
figures of saints of both sexes, covered with dirt
and cobwebs and minus certain of their limbs —
make a contrast so glaring as to strike dismay to
the most appreciative spirit.

Old as the Cathedral is, the beach at Cefalti is
strewn with curious craft that seem even more an-
cient: queer old feluccas, cask-like smacks with bar-
rel bows and truncated sterns swept by huge tillers,
bottle-nosed xebecs with staring painted eyes for
hawse-holes and central sideboards in lieu of keels.
And nowhere else in the island are the different
types of the forefathers more numerous and dis-
tinct: here a distinctly Semitic type, with the swart
face, black beard and piercing eyes of the
Pheenicians; here a pure Greek face worthy of the
sculptor; there a burnt-up son of the desert, and
yonder a Roman beside a Gaul. Busy and prosper-
ous they seem, for all their dirt and indifference to
squalor and evil smells; and moreover, contented.
Their fishing smacks bring in tons of herring which
by euphemy go out of Cefalii in cans of oil as the
best sardines. The chief industries of the town,
after the selling of clothes and notions, seemed to
be the manufacture and sale of cheap perfumes and
footgear, so far as I could see.

From Cefalu westward the railway runs beside
acres upon acres of artichokes and whole fields of
crimson sumac, while the “donkey ears” of the

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prickly pear form spiky hedges and great pin cush-
ions everywhere. For these are the Campi Felict,
the Happy Fields of Fertility, whose fruitful farms
give back rich returns for the labor spent upon
them, and which murmur always with the creaking
music of huge wooden wheels over which run the end-
less strings of irrigating buckets introduced ages
ago by the Arabs. Another of their importations
is manna. On the slopes of Angels’ Peak — other-
wise Gibilmanna, or Manna Mountain — these trees
still grow, as they did in Africa and Araby, and the
people gather considerable quantities of their exu-
dations of gum.

Ten miles down the line we come to the site of
Himera. Here two of the greatest events in Greek
history transpired, battles both, one a glorious vic-
tory, the other a frightful defeat and disaster. ‘The
good tyrant Theron of Akragas secured his vast
number of able-bodied slaves here after the first bat-
tle, when in 480 B. C., with his son-in-law, the ty-
rant Gelon of Syracuse, he defeated the Cartha-
ginians. It is said that Hamilcar himself took no
part in the battle, but that all day he stood alone
on a hilltop overlooking the fight, watching the
Greeks driving back his picked troops. All day
he prayed and sacrificed in vain, and at evening, his
own army little more than a disorganized rabble
streaming pellmell across the field, he threw him-
self into the altar fire as a supreme sacrifice to the

[222]THE NORTHERN SHORE

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bloody gods of Carthage. When Hamilecar’s grand-
son, Hannibal Gisgon, was sent over in another cam-
paign against the Sicilian Greeks — this warfare
was practically continuous —- he wasted no time —
though he destroyed Selinus by the way — but hur-
ried to Himera, urged on by the spirit of filial
vengeance. Baal and Ashtaroth were more gracious
to him than they had been to his grandfather, and
he wiped Himera from the map, literally leaving
not one stone upon another in the fated city. At
the end of the day he made his sacrifjce to the gods
— three thousand of the men of Himera, all who
were left alive after the battle, on the very spot
where the Shophet Hamilcar seventy-one years be-
fore had offered up himself.

What is the relation between strect cries and
criers? Do certain words or names necessarily
draw to themselves vendors whose characters can be
influenced by the sounds they utter in selling their
wares; or do natures of a given sort instinctively
select only those things whose names have a corre-
sponding spirit to their own? Some Max Mueller
can perhaps answer the question; but anyone can
observe the facts. They apply especially to news-
boys in the Latin countries. Passing Termini
again — the hot springs of Himera — the papers
were just out, and the voice of the little fellow at
the window of the compartment with copies of The

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Hour was a long, musical drawl — “‘ L’ Oh-oh-oh-oh-
—raaaa! L’ Oh-oh-oh-oh—raaa ... !”
Very different from this cry was that of the lad
selling Life. He cried in a sharp staccato recita-
tive, repeating very rapidly: “ La Vita-Vita-Vita-
Vit?-Vit’-Vit?!”’ Most lackadaisical of all was the
older boy who had Sicilia. From scarcely opened
lips and with dreamy eyes, he slowly intoned each
syllable of the name, extending and amplifying and
sweetening it, as a tender morsel of which he could
not get enough, softening his ¢’s and making his I!’s
most liquid and mellifluous — “‘ Seee-sheeeeee-lill-ly-
aaaaah!”

About the time that the Phenicians founded Pan-
ormos, their greatest city, in the bosom of the rich
plain at the water’s edge, they also founded another
city upon the crest of a lofty rock at the other side
of the bay, and called it Solous, probably from the
Hebrew or Phenician word sela, meaning rock. It
was a border fortress, a watch tower from which
the Semitic traders could keep an eye on the ever
encroaching Greeks. But when the heyday of
Phenician power was fading, the Soluntines invited
the conquering Romans in, so the meager ruins to
be seen are not the wreck of Pheenician Solous,
but of the Roman Soluntum in which its iden-
tity was swallowed up. No greater contrast can
be imagined than that which exists between these
two cities— Palermo living, Solunto dead _ be-

[224]THE NORTHERN SHORE

yond any power to infuse life into its stony veins.

There are three ways to reach Solunto — that is
its modern Italian name — by express train to the
station for Bagheria; by accommodation to Santa
Flavia, which is within five minutes? walk of the
Antichita di Solunto; or by carriage from Palermo,
a ten- or twelve-mile drive each way. Luncheon
should be taken. If you enjoy a lively time, by all
means go by express to Bagheria on a festa or feast-
day. As you step from the station platform you
are immediately the center of a howling mob of
peasants and hackmen, all behaving like enraged
lunatics and grabbing at you from every side.
When this happened to me, I called into play all the
football tactics I had ever learned, charged through
the thickest of the mass, and pelted down the road
in exceedingly undignified fashion, the whole pack
yelling derisively at my heels.

As I trudged ahead, I heard the squeak of un-
greased wheels, and was hailed by the driver of a
skeleton stage capable of holding four uncomfort-
ably — five were already in it.

‘““ Hai— get in and ride!” he called cheerily.
“Where are you going? ”

“To Bagheria. I like walking!”

The driver laughed; so did his inconsiderate fares.
“It is a very long walk by this road to Bagheria —
all the way around Sicily!”

I stopped walking. He went on: “ But if you

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want to go to Solunto, I’ll take you there for three
lire. You can walk to Bagheria from there.”
“But your stage is too full now,” I objected.

“Never! Plenty of room. Come — I'll take you
for two lire, if you can’t afford to pay me three.”

Crowding uncomfortably together, the other oc-
cupants, decent young peasants, made room for me,
and we creaked slowly on behind the half-starved
horse whose best pace was a walk. Here a huge
brown villa of the soap-box type deflected the road
to one side; there fresh young vegetables sprouted
thickly from clay pits which had all the seeming of
prehistoric stone ruins; yonder a meadow full of
drying brick and loose straw proclaimed the brick-
maker at work. Turning and twisting, the road
wandered on leisurely until we neared the Antichita
di Solunto, the rest house where visitors may stop to
eat luncheon and buy the sour red wine the custodian
has for sale. A sudden ominous sagging of the rear
of the stage made everyone seize something. But a
cheery voice reassured us, and Gualterio’s beaming
face peered in over the tailboard.

“JT am here, signore!” he cried delightedly.
“ Behold, if you need me.”

I crawled out with some difficulty while everybody
laughed but the driver, who was demanding four lire
instead of two. Promptly Gualterio took command
of the situation.

“ You go on —I will pay him!” and he turned on
[226]THE NORTHERN SHORE

the fellow with a fervid exposition of his complete
ancestry of thieves and jailbirds, threw him two lire,
and started him off again.

The road up the hill to Solunto js magnificently
paved even yet with the great irregular smooth
blocks the Romans put to such excellent purpose on
their military highways, curving to take advantage
of every angle in the abrupt hillside, winding among
thickets of prickly pear, and past little irrigation
ducts among lemon groves which murmur with a su-
surrant echo of the little channels that flow down
Granada’s long slope. Neatly piled beside the
upper reaches of the road on either hand are dis-
membered columns, statues, fragments of pilasters,
cornices, and blocks of marble. The ruins of the
city itself are unsatisfying and meager —a single
wide street lined with the foundations of some build-
ings of undiscernible age, half a dozen streets, sim-
larly desolated, crossing it at almost right angles,
a single three-cornered structure set up by an ar-
cheologist and called, for want of a better title, the
Gymnasium, and here and there some bit of mosajc
pavement or wall decoration.

Indeed, no one knew the exact site of Soluntum,
which vanished ages ago, until in 1825 a peasant
scratching about on the hillside unearthed splendid
marble candelabra whose richness indicated their
Roman origin, and small statues of Jupiter and Isis.
Soluntum was found, and the archeologists pro-

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ceeded to uncover it. It reminds one strongly of
Pompeii, though much less of interest has been dis-
covered in it. But Solunto has a view, a transcend-
ent panorama before which even a fountain pen fal-
ters.

At the foot of the hill, Gualterio — he had come
out from Palermo for the festa— put me into a
passing jaunting car and sent me on my way to the
villas of Bagheria, the most interesting of which
is the property of Prince Palagonia. On either
side of the gate are two queer old gnomes mounted
upon marble pedestals and dressed in fantastic
adaptations of Saracenic costume; the head gar-
dener’s wife assured me that these trolls are so
terrible they frighten away not only trespassers,
but “ any other evil spirit ” who dares to come that
way. She crossed herself devoutly when she men-
tioned the names of certain malicious spirits who,
she said, would be only too glad to molest Bagheria
but for the forethought of the Prince.

The hollow wall about the rather ragged garden
is wide enough in places to be used as dwellings for
the servants. Courageous indeed must they be to
rest under the shapes that decorate the wall, as
weird a collection of zoological nightmares as ever
were carved in stone by an insane sculptor at the
hest of an insane patron. Black with age and the
weather, grotesque pipers, trolls, knights, gentlemen,

ladies, elves, monkeys, dragons, hunchbacks, cats,
[228]“One realizes how royally Roger fulfilled his vow in
this magnificent Cathedral.”a ees

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the encroaching Greeks.”THE NORTHERN SHORE

roosters, things intended to be representations of
evil spirits, a miscellaneous scattering of angels and
cherubs, a virgin or two, and the Prince’s patron
saint, stand, jump, walk, fly, or poise on one foot.

A heavy wind had played havoc with some of the
figures a few days before my visit. “ Ecc’!” ex-
claimed the gardener’s wife, pointing ahead.

On the wall a most pious madonna, her hands
crossed over her faded blue breast, gazed sadly down
upon a dancer standing upon her head and buried
almost to her shoulders in the mucky earth. How
horrified the staid Virgin must have been when the
worldling flew down the wind and poised upside
down!

“ Frightful, isn’t it?” asked my guide.

“Oh, spaventosa! When are you going to put
her back on the wall?” I inquired.

She shook her head sadly. “I do not know.
Maybe never. The Prince is not rich enough now
to bother about raising fallen ladies!”

There are other unoccupied villas in Bagheria of
the same kind, with the same sort of “ devil-
scarers,” but I preferred the live performers to the
dead ones—the festa waited. Festa di San Guu,’
the natives called it; but the railroad announcements
in the stations stated that it was a town fair in
honor of San Giuseppe. Bagheria itself is not a
particularly attractive town, though clean and well-
kept, and its nineteen or twenty thousand inhabit-

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ants do their best to decorate themselves and their
buildings in honor of the saint, while thousands of
merrymakers flock in from Palermo and all the
country round.

At one side of the Corso two workmen were nailing
pinwheels, serpents, set pieces and other explosives
to a set of frames for a castello di fuoco (fire-
castle), at the same time puffing on long, thin Italian
cigars. As I came along, one of the men knocked
the ashes of cigar upon a pile of small saucis-
sions, and nodded a cheerful greeting.

“'What’s the matter?” he called, as I sprang
back. ‘* Did something bite you? ”

“No,” I replied, steadily walking backward.
** But aren’t those fireworks? ”

** Certainly ! ”

Stalls with cakes, sweet bread-sticks, candies, pre-
served watermelon seeds, nuts, fruit of various sorts,
and indigestion-breeding pastry filled the streets.
Around them the people flocked in their wonderful
Sunday clothes. Others, gray-headed and sedate,
sat in couples on the curbs, the men, generally fat,
tinkling on ridiculously tiny mandolins, while their
Wives sang, and the crowds in the cafés and on the
sidewalks clapped time or danced with feet, hands
and heads, though all the while sitting still. One
wineshop, little more than a cellar, had twelve heaps
of not overly clean straw spread upon the damp
stones.

[230]THE NORTHERN SHORE

“Does the illustrious foreign Signore require a
bed?” asked the proprietor with a grinning bow.
** Most cheap, sir, and excellent, only two soldi —
for all night. Eleven are already taken. Behold
the property!” and he pointed to various lumpy
bundles of clothes, and large bandanna_ handker-
chiefs tied at the corners, undoubtedly containing
food. The owners of these bundles had made sure
of their beds by stuffing their property into the
straw. Thanking the genial Boniface, I declined
his invitation and passed on.

At San Giuseppe the people, with cheery indiffer-
ence, had turned the yard of the house of prayer
into a den of thieves. Gambling of every sort known
to the Sicilian peasantry was going on, and two
eames were running full blast, one on each side of
the main entrance. There were the familiar p’tits
ch’vaux; lotto on a black rubber sheet bearing num-
bers; the old familiar shel] game, and a sort of crude
roulette, Surrounding these stalls, of which there
were nineteen on the sloping piazza between the
church and the street, were hundreds of boys and
young men, mostly lads of ten to twelve years.
Their average play was one soldo or penny, the min-
imum bet half a soldo, and the high four soldi,

The facade of the church was covered with hun-
dreds of oil-cups in rows. Inside, the whitewashed
walls were hung, for the nonce, with a bewildering
Jumble of strips of gaudy colored cloth, pendant

[231]VISTAS IN SICILY

from the gallery, fringed and criss-crossed with gold
lines like cheap wall paper. The image of San
Giw’ (Saint Joseph), mounted upon a large float,
waited at one side of the nave ready to go out on
the men’s shoulders just at dusk for the procession,
and around it stood eighteen candles, some of them
six inches in diameter and no less than six feet in
height. On the front of the float hung votive offer-
ings, paintings in smudgy oils on cardboard, one
showing the death of Benedetto Giuseppe, at the
hand of an assassin.

Children with carts and poles and rubber balls
played about while old men and women knelt pray-
ing on the stone floor, and young girls strolled
about in giggling pairs. Four hundred or more
guttering candles filled the church with smoke and
falling flakes of soot, and ‘‘a]] the world ” eddied
in and out comfortably and contentedly, unawed by
their church or their saint, making a comrade of
holy Giuseppe and at peace with the whole of Crea-
tion, including even the foreign interloper with the
camera, who sat to one side and watched as they
made merry.

[232]XVII
THE WESTERN SHORE

OING westward from Palermo, the railroad
cuts inland behind Monte Pellegrino, cross-
ing the Conca d’ Oro past many villas, and

does not again touch the coast until, ten miles away,
it reaches Sferracavallo, whose main street is so
atrociously paved as to give the town its merited
name — Unshoe-a-Horse. The line then skirts the
shore for some distance, and the early morning
scenes on the water to the right are more than
lovely. Fishermen flit about in their white-winged
boats or toil at launching the heavy craft. The
waterfront of every village is a hive of industry.
One picturesque and striking scene after another
flits by until, at the end of an hour or so, we come
out at Cinisi-Terrasini on the shores of the Gulf of
Castellammare, a tremendous, sparkling expanse
belted in by a fillet of gleaming white sand. From
the bay, orchards and grain fields roll upward to
the hills that pyramid, one upon another, into moun-
tains dim and blue in the misty distance.

At Partinico we desert the shore and sweep in a
ragged loop inland to pause a moment at the town

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— jt has a far reaching trade in oil and wine — be-
fore darting back shoreward again, unable to resist
the fascination of Father Neptune. Close to the
water’s edge another town, Balestrate, sprawls along
shore among the dunes, over which grows a savage
luxuriance of reeds and grasses, among which, on
an occasional acre, wrested from barrenness, is a hut
of thatch and a hardy family of hard working peas-
ants. Can these be the descendants of the Sikans
and Sikels who so long ago vanished from the
earth; and are these huts anything like the primi
tive dwellings in which those still more primitive
folk loved and bred and died? Certainly except for
using iron tools and smoking tobacco, they seem
to have little advantage over their progenitors.
Paying back-breaking taxes and furnishing con-
scripts to-day is almost as bad as being at the
mercy of a Greek tyrant with his demands for
money and men.

At the head of the bay, three miles before the rail-
road reaches the town of Castellammare, once the
seaport of Elymian Segesta, it turns southward,
and ascends the valley of the Fiume San Bartolom-
meo. Its principal tributary is the Fiume Freddo
(Cold Stream), once the Krimisos, near which a
wonderful battle was fought between the Cartha-
ginians, and the Greeks under Timoleon the Deliv-
erer. So alarmed was Carthage by his prowess and
activity that for the first time the Sacred Band, the

[234]THE WESTERN SHORE

$$ ___ ES es

picked Home Guard, was sent over to Sicily. Near
the Krimisos, Timoleon, undaunted by the desperate
odds, hurled his eleven thousand Greeks against the
70,000 barbarians. Just before the conflict the
Greeks met a mule train laden with selinon, or wild
celery, the plant used at funerals. What omen
could have been worse? Panic hovered in the air.
But Timoleon’s wit was quick and sure. Gayly he
made a wreath of the plant and crowned himself,
with the remark that it was the crown used at
the Isthmian Games. With a shout of relief offi-
cers and men followed his example, and confidence
mounted high as the host marched on. In the
battle that followed, the very gods of Hellas fought
for the Deliverer, Zeus the Thunderer darkening the
heavens and hurling his fiery bolts. Rain and hail
quenched the ardor of the Carthaginians; the
thunder deafened and the lightning blinded them —
the whole storm drove straight in their faces. And
the Greeks, marching forward steadily under the
divine xgis, cut the Punic host to pieces, annihilated
the Sacred Band.

History repeated itself 1 May 15, 1860, when, on
the hills of Calatafimi, again a deliverer of the peo-
ple, this time Giuseppe Garibaldi, crushed a foreign
enemy and oppressor. Many an army had marched
and camped and fought among these hills and vales,
and the powdery dust of hel milk-white roads had
puffed up from the feet of Elymian and Pheenician,

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Greek and Roman legions. But never before had a
victory meant so much to civilization as the success
of the badly armed but desperately determined and
immortal Thousand who followed the gray-haired
sailor-hero. And history repeated itself yet again
when Garibaldi, like Timoleon, refused everything
for himself, counting it honor enough to serve Sic-
ily so well.

While it is possible to drive from Castellammare
to all the points of interest in the vicinity, and they
are many, it 1s better to go on by the train to the
station Alcamo-Calatafimi. Neither town is near
the railway station, but either diligenza or carriage
is to be had for the ride — four miles to Alcamo, an

old Saracenic town which still keeps a certain orien-
tal tang, or about six miles in the other direction to
Calatafimi. Almost straight north, along the high-
road to Castellammare, are the ruins of Segesta, a
spot full of tragic memories.

Segesta — Egesta it was then — one of the two
great Elymian cities, trafficked with Carthage, with
Sicilian Greeks, with Athens, with anyone, in a
word, as suited her purpose at the moment; but
somehow she usually came to grief through these
very alliances. Indeed, it was her continual bicker-
ing with Greek Selinus, her distant neighbor on the
southern shore, that first brought the meddling
Athenians to Sicily, and so indirectly caused the

great war between Athens and Syracuse. ‘To-day
[236]THE WESTERN SHORE

there is not an Elymian ruin left in the city; all
that remains of the ill-starred metropolis is Greek
and Roman.

The superb temple, alike a monument to Greek
genius and the devotion of the people, rises from a
lofty plateau—a glowing golden shrine upon an
altar all of green, embayed by watchful, hoary
mountains. Only the massiveness of a Doric struc-
ture could so perfectly chime in with the grandeur
of Nature, so fittingly command the immense and
silent though turbulent landscape that rolls away
from its feet. Revelation inspired its location, and
genius erected it — to stand lovelier and more mar-
velous still after the lapse of ages than when there
was a city near by to detract from its majestic soli-
tude.

The Greeks, with their unerring artistic sense,
always built their theaters in positions commanding
magnificent views, and the little theater here at
Segesta, though only about half the size of the one
at Syracuse, looks out upon the sea, many miles
away, and a magnificent panorama of hills and for-
ests on either side. Of the town only a few very
scanty bits of ruined houses have been uncovered.

One of the most lurid episodes in the city’s his-
tory occurred when the tyrant Agathocles — he
feigned to be a merry soul, though really a butcher
at heart, with massacre as his chief diversion! —
tortured and slaughtered ten thousand of the inhabit-

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eh te ari bea mie nee ae ee ee

ie -

VISTAS IN SICILY

ants, sold all the likely looking boys and girls as
slaves, repeopled the city with colonists of his own,
and called it Dikaiopolis, the City of Righteousness!
Indeed, Agathocles was in many respects the most
picturesque despot Sicily ever produced, and his
career reads like a modern romantic novel. Born
a potter, he entered the army, was banished, re-
called to Syracuse, married a wealthy widow there,
frustrated plot after plot against his life, engaged
in wholesale murders, established himself as a full
fledged tyrant, and made war against Carthage
in her own territory — the first time the arrogant
daughter of Pheenicia had ever been tracked to her
lair by an enemy. Raising himself by treachery
and massacre upon a throne of his enemies’ skulls,
Agathocles made himself master of all Sicily, and
for seventeen years more held his power intact,
butcher and trickster to the end, yet somehow man-
aging always to retain the good will of the
masses.

From Calatafimi the train goes on southward
past ancient Halicye, a big town arrogantly perched
upon a height, gemmed with a castle, to Castelve-
trano, where we leave it for the ruins of Selinus on
the shore, seven miles away. The trip tis made
either by carriage or on horseback, as you may pre-
fer. The acropolis, the pulsing heart of Selinus, is
an empty shell. Beneath our feet the historic pave

over which rumbled the springless chariots of
[238]THE WESTERN SHORE

Phenician and Greek, lies buried in crumbling dé-
bris; the fallen temples, the vast hillocks of ruin
beyond, tell mutely how great and how glorious must
the city have been before Hannibal the destroyer
poured forth his savage wrath upon it; and in
street and plain the selinon, or wild celery, which
named the city, still thrusts upward to the same
sun that warmed the early settlers.

On the hill east of the acropolis rise the ruins of
the three largest temples, colossal structures, but
not a fragment of any other kind. These stupen-
dous edifices, even in their desolation, are among the
most inspiring of Sicilian monuments; especially
when we remember that at no time was the city first
or even second among the Greek communities. And
from these temples of Selinus were taken the wonder-
ful metopes — now in the Palermo Museum — that
so graphically illustrate the progress of Greek-
Sicilian temple sculpture. Here on the eastern
hill the Selinutines were busy raising to Phebus
Apollo his greatest fane when the invader came,
and, dropping their tools, the workmen hastened to
their doom. The structure was 371 feet long, 177
wide —so tremendous that upon its base were
erected forty-six giant columns, almost fifty-eight
feet high and twelve feet thick! It seems almost
impossible that so vast, so tremendously solid a
structure should collapse like an eggshell; and yet
the seismic shock that evidently destroyed it tossed

[239]Bele i ees ant ee ee ee ee ee ~ ~

Nn ee ee ee ee ee

VISTAS IN SICILY

those huge walls and columns lightly aside, void-
ing at a single stroke the work of the builders who
planned like genii and executed like Titans. How
was it, we wonder, that Selinus offended the mighty
earth gods as well as the god of war? And how
long was it before they shook the earth to its very
vitals and completed the work of destruction the
barbarian had begun?

That the Carthaginians cut off the temple builders
at their work is proven by a visit to the quarries,
some distance inland. From the necropolis, west of
the river, the road winds in, and before the quarries
are reached we pass block after block of the shaped
stones abandoned in transport to the temples. In
the great pits themselves one may look on, almost
as if time had been annihilated, at the various
stages of the work—there are some huge blocks
from eight to ten feet long and eight feet thick,
corresponding exactly with the column drums
of the temple marked G on the plans for the use
of visitors, and without doubt intended for
that edifice. It is an object lesson one cannot
soon forget, of the blighting breath of war,
a tragedy without words that is inexpressibly
moving.

To the southwest of Selinus is the Punta di Grani-
tola, where the Arabs landed in 827 A. D., Koran
in one hand, sword in the other —the last African
invaders to conquer the island, let us hope. Far-
[240]THE WESTERN SHORE

ther along, on both shore and railroad, is Mazzara,
with a Norman cathedral and ruined castle; and
straight northwest on a little promontory of its
own is Marsala, better known for its sweet, rich
wine than as the modern successor of Carthaginian
Lilybaion. Though Marsala — the name is Arabic:
Marsa Ali, Ali’s Harbor—vwas never possessed
by the Greeks, its story is nevertheless vivid and
varied. As the chief stronghold of Carthage, it
played a vital part in the struggle for supremacy
” of the island. Pyrrhus

in this ** barbarian corner
besieged it in vain, and thirty years later Rome be-
sieged it unsuccessfully for eight years in one of
the most stubborn and remarkable campaigns in
history. Afterward, during the Roman period, the
city was known as “the most splendid,” and was
made the capital of the western half of Sicily,
Syracuse being the eastern capital. It became an
important dockyard and naval station, whence the
Roman campaigns against Africa were dispatched.
Don John of Austria, too, sailed hence on his expe-
ditions against he Turks.

It was into the harbor of Marsala on that memo-
rable 11th of May, 1860, that the two little steamers
Lombardo and Piemonte, which the revolutionists
had shanghaied from the Rubattino Company up at
Genoa the week before, sneaked to land Garibaldi
and his red-shirt brigade. They got ashore safely,
in spite of the Bourbons’ cruisers, and before they

[241]eens

Se ee

oe Na

Setiiaatin thie helene eee

VISTAS IN SICILY

left for Calatafimi Garibaldi posted his now famous
proclamation claiming Sicily for King Victor Em-
manuele.

Of course there are a cathedral, Punic and Chris-
tian tombs, the remains of ancient walls and harbor
works, latomie and so on, but to-day Marsala really
spells only— Wine! The largest and most im-
portant establishments are those of the English-
men Ingham and Woodhouse, and the Sicilian Flo-
rio of Palermo. But there are numerous others not
so well known nor doing so large a business. The
long, low, white bodegas are open to the inspection
of visitors, and to those who have never seen them,
the processes of blending and converting with the
use of the “ mother ” wines, the mechanical bottling
and corking, the labeling and packing departments,
the endless rows of hogsheads and the strongly
vinous atmosphere, all possess an attraction pecul-
larly their own. There is something of interest in
every foot of each establishment. But — verbum
sap! Beware the atmosphere, and the testing to
which you are invited. In all the great wine-mak-
ing countries it is considered a legitimate joke to
befuddle the careless American whose enthusiasm
outruns his prudence. One or two sips of the wine
may be taken with dignity, but Marsala, like its
Spanish cousin, Sherry, is a heady wine, and the
rich, heavy air of the winery and wareroom alike
bespeak caution on the part of the investigator, if

[242]THE WESTERN SHORE

a delightful memory is not to be spoiled by a prick-
ing conscience.

Around the old harbor to the north of Marsala
are extensive salt works, and between it and Tra-
pani are about forty-five more, all worked by private
capital, since Italy’s royal monopoly has not been
extended to Sicily. Salt is one of the island’s most
valuable exports, and the salt-pans down by the sea,
at Trapani—the ancient Drepana of Cartha-
ginian days — have made the city the most pros-
perous place, for its size, in the island. From a
distance the heaps look as if an army of invading
Saracens had pitched their tents upon the flats, and
quaint windmills add a distinctly Dutch note to the
scene. The heavy brine is pumped up into shallow
excavations or “pans,” as the tanks are called.
The hot Sicilian sunshine and the warm African
breezes do the rest. When the water has evapo-
rated, the pans are thickly coated with the crystals,
which workmen shovel into glittering heaps and
cover with tiles to protect them. There the salt
waits, for either the refinery or for shipment in
bulk as a crude product.

Trapani itself is one of the cleanest towns in the
island, as well as one of the most prosperous, and
of course has its Via Garibaldi, which proves its
fraternity with all other Sicilian cities. While
there is nothing really great in it, in either archi-
tecture or art, the city is nevertheless full of minor

[243]

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Santa De Se ele pe ee ee ee

=e ee

VISTAS IN SICILY

interest, and various objects of art ranging all the
way from pieces of the Middle Ages down to the
present day statues of King Victor Emmanuele II
and Garibaldi, neither of which is yet forty years
old. One could while away many a pleasant day
loitering among these things — the Cathedral, with
its Crucifixion by Van Dyck, and splendid old carven
seats in the choir; the quaint decorations of Sant?
Agostino, where the Knights Templars worshiped
centuries ago; Lucca della Robbia’s marble-framed
Madonna in the other church of Santa Maria di
Gest; the seventeenth century polychrome wooden
statues by Trapani’s own sons in the Oratory of
San Michele; the queer tower of the Spedadello
down in the Ghetto, and so on. Equally pleasant
it is to wander along the tree-shaded promenade
at the water’s edge, or as far out as the Torre di
Ligny, on the very tip of the “sickle” (drepana)
that Trapani thrusts out into the sea,

Off shore, the picturesque Aigadian Isles rise like
jewels from the sea. From the middle of the eight-
eenth to the last quarter of the nineteenth cen-
tury they were owned by the noble Pallavicini family
of Genoa. They are still private property, since
in 1874 Signor Florio of Palermo, the steamship
man and wine grower, added them to his multifa-
rious interests and made them the headquarters of
the most important tunny fishery in Sicily.

Trapani possesses the usual historical interest of
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as the crowd posed.”Sa

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“All Palermo toiled up the trackless hill to worship in
the grotto where Rosalia died.”

ote Dat airTHE WESTERN SHORE

intermittent conflict between the races that strug-
gled for the possession of the island, but its legend-
ary story is even more gripping. Virgil pictures
the founding of the city by the hero Aineas and his
Trojans after Troy had fallen, the death of the
venerable Anchises, and the festival Afneas insti-
tuted in honor of his father’s uneasy spirit. The
poet’s soaring imagination carried the hero on up
the mist-shrouded mountain behind, to worship at
the fane of his mother Venus. This cloudy peak
was named after Eryx —son of Butes, the mighty
wrestler — who challenged Hercules to a test of
strength, and was vanquished by that worthy rob-
ber, who stopped while driving off Geryon’s stolen
herds long enough to win the match and take the
mountain as his prize.

With the beginning of history it appears in the
possession of the Elymians, who claimed to be de-
scendants of the Trojans. Twenty-five hundred
feet in the air rises Eryx, to-day Monte San Guiu-
liano, reached from Trapani by an interminably
winding but easy road that twists and turns half a
hundred times in its ascent. Up through the pur-
ple shadows of gulches, along the sharp edges of
startling acclivities winds the trail, with haleyone
fields of every brilliant flower and plant below, and
great expanses waving with grain, green and gold
with lemons and oranges, red with the fresh wounds
of the plow. Hide-sandaled and heavily caped and

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VISTAS IN SICILY

hooded peasants, shepherds who seem to have
stepped right out of Odyssey or Aneid, carrying
classic water or wine flasks, greet us cheerily
along the way. As we near the top the reason for
these heavy garments becomes apparent in the lower
temperature, for Eryx is a peak and a city of fog,
often a little world by itself far above the earth,
unseen by and unseeing city and plain below, look-
ing down only on the tufted white of rolling mists.
Cyclopean fragments of ancient walls and natural
precipices blend into one another and into the pres-
ent town walls, above steep approaches to the Gates
of Trapani, of the Heralds, and of the Sword, the
three entrances to all that exists of Eryx to-day,
where less than three thousand souls live in that
part of the town nearest the ruins of the temple,
whose very altars long since crumbled into the
dust of oblivion.

In the days when the Elymians were its masters,
the mountain was sacred to a goddess who evidently
had the same functions as the Roman Venus. What
her Elymian name was we do not know: but since
the Pheenicians called her Astarte, the Greeks Aph-
rodite and the Romans Venus, one after the other,
we may feel sure that whatever her original name,
she stood, as did those later goddesses identified with
her, for love and beauty and sustenance. And
though centuries have passed, and the altar before

her whereon no blood was permitted to be spilt no
[246]THE WESTERN SHORE

longer bears the fire of sacrifice, the priestly ideal
of woman still presides over this sacred rock so high
among the mists. For here where the pagans wor-
shiped their unknown goddess, to-day the Virgin
gazes down upon the unchanging sacrifice of years,
the hearts of men.

The town is rugged and irregular and personal to
a degree that captivates the most hardened sight-
seer — crooked, narrow streets, full of quaint build-
ings rich in Eastern touches: here a latticed case-
ment suggesting veiled women and mystery, yonder
ajimez windows divided by delicate little columns,
farther along an harmonious blending of the Nor-
man and Moorish on sculptured pillar capital and
gallery. The people are as captivating as the
town — caped men stalking to and fro like comic
opera brigands, women whose loveliness has made
Eryx noted.

Foliage so rich and varied that only a catalogue
can describe it riots in the garden once part of the
temple precincts, and sprouts between the stones
of the ancient, partly ruined castle that legend
would have us believe was erected by no less a per-
sonage than Dedalus himself. To-day the castle is
partly used as a prison, and it is a warden who ad-
mits to the quiet precincts. Crumbling bastion and
curtain, roofless hall and moldy dungeon keep, silent
corridor and deserted rampart, where no Elymian
spears now glisten in the occasional sunshine or

[247]a oes

Be ee ee a ee ee

Se ee ee ee en ee ae ee

VISTAS IN SICILY

drip gloomily with the characteristic golden fog,
weave a powerful spell, so powerful, so enchanting
none would be surprised in the slightest did the
castle suddenly galvanize into life, and the figure
of the lovely goddess of eld once more smile in the
little temple whose foundations only now exist.

It is a city, a castle, a location only to be
sketched. No colors, no details can at all conjure
forth the charm at once so definite and so elusive.
See Eryx!—even if you have no eroplane and
must either “ ride or walk ”’— a guidebook solemnly
advises this as the best way to reach the summit —
up that splendid road into the very skies.XVIII
AD D110, SEC rT TA!

N Sicily all roads lead to Palermo. And if
they do not, you manage to make them. And
no matter how many times you return to that

city of splendid light, you always find that there is
some pleasant or interesting or profitable trip out
from the city that you hae missed before: per-
haps to the picturesque Albanian colony of Piana
dei Greci; or up in the hills to the suppressed Bene-
dictine monastery of San Martino, founded by
Gregory the Great in the sixth century; or to the
village of Acquasanta near by for the sea-bathing;
or even to the convict island of Ustica, about five
hours away, whose population was killed or carried
off by pirates as recently as the middle of the
eighteenth century; and always — unless you have
spent a year straight through in the city,— you
will find some new festival to gladden your eyes and
deafen your ears. It may be that after a tire-
some day your matutinal slumbers are rudely dis-
turbed by a weird clamor in the street long before
getting-up time. Growlfully you turn over and
try to sleep again. The racket goes right on, with
[249]

ee eeie Bt aee lanl bee eee ee ree

Se en ee ee ee

tt ae ee

VISTAS IN SICILY

darting insistence, and by and by you grow inter-
ested enough to ring for a maid and ask why in the
name of Morfeo the concierge doesn’t go out and
put on the soft pedal if he can’t entirely stop the
bedlam!

“Why, signori!” cries the girl, astonished at
ignorance of so important an event. “It is the
Festa della Madonna dei Capri —the Feast of Our
Lady of the Goats. We have it every single year.
Everybody is out!”

It sounds that way! There is no use in trying
to sleep, so you get up wrathfully and open the
shutters. Along the dusty way in solemn proces-
sions march conscious-looking cows, wreathed and
garlanded with flowers. Now and then a stately
bossy ambles by, wearing a three-foot horseshoe of
red and white roses, rising above her horns like
a halo, and exhaling, if not the odor of sanctity, at
least right sweet odors withal. Other cows have
about their necks painted wooden poke-collars sur-
mounted by floral horseshoes, or wear simply
strings of flowers; and behind nearly every cow tags
her mournful looking baby. The goats, fairly
strutting with pride, however, are the most ludicrous
members of these amazing cavalcades, for they have
bouquets attached with wire and toothpicks to
twisted horns and even to their sub-tails, which wig-
wag signals as they bob along with arched necks.
Occasionally a lone lamb, waddling toilsomely be-
[250]ADDIO, SICILIA!

hind everything else, bleats its disgust and weari-
ness, its immaculate wool tied full of flaring crim-
son or blue ribbon crosses, its tail banded with rib-
bons in a network until it looks like the foot and
ankle of a dancing girl.

Before them all march the bands,” scratch or-
ganizations of amateur players who discourse pain-
fully upon all manner of instruments, wind, string
and brass. The fortunate morning we saw this
unique festa pasturale, I really wanted to make pic-
tures, but mindful of my chilly sunrise experience
in Taormina, neither blare of bands nor tinkle of
bells could move me until after breakfast. Then,
alas! the decorated animals had all passed by, and
I had to be content with a plain, motherly cow, whose
baby — tied to mother’s tail !— managed to get a
few pints of breakfast as the crowd posed. I made
the picture-taking as slow as possible, to give the
poor little calf five minutes for refreshments.

No one who has ever seen the pastures in and
near Palermo wonders at the poor beasts’ melan-
choly air of appetite. You find some of these eraz-
ing fields on the slopes of Monte Pellegrino when
you go toilsomely up to visit the shrine of the city’s
virgin saint, Rosalia. The little Mount of the Pil-
grim has not always borne that name: only since
the great plague of 1624, in fact. Before that, for
ages, it was Herkte, or Heircte. Square-faced and
rugged, it rises in a sheer precipice from the waves

[251]ee

ee ee ene

adie eee ee ee

aa a ee eek ae nen ne ec TE

VISTAS IN SICILY

on one side, an isolated limestone crag, and slopes
less abruptly down to the Conca d’ Oro on the other.
In 248 B. C., Hamilcar the Carthaginian, who
camped up on Herkte to keep in check the Romans
in Palermo, cleared and planted fields with grain to
feed his hungry troops. There are still scanty cul-
tivated fields on the mountain, and though now,
from a little distance, Pellegrino seems even balder
than it is, large herds of cattle manage by hard
work to crop a meager living from its insignificant
grass and herbage.

Visiting Pellegrino’s upper slopes and the little
chapel in the grotto of Sta. Rosalia is as much a
part of seeing Palermo as the visit to the Colosseum
is a part of seeing Rome. But it is not quite so
easy as some of the other little journeys about Pa-
lermo, since the steep ascent cannot be negotiated
by carriage. Hither on four feet or on two the trip
must be made—most people make it on four.
Tumultuous donkeyboys lie in wait in the Piazza
Falde at the foot of the mountain, and “ bark ” the
merits of their beasts with a vigor that is sometimes
confusing, while the donkeys themselves — mere
burros they are, tiny but powerful — gaze at their
burdens-to-be with a droll air of resignation. Most
of the saddles are medieval housings built of
boards, over which odds and ends of coarse carpet
have been nailed until they look like Joseph’s famous
coat. Lucky visitors, or those who start early
[252]ADDIO, SICILIA!

enough after either breakfast or luncheon to have
room for choice, pick the more commonplace and
comfortable leather saddles that decorate two or
three of the newer donkeys. Otherwise, eating from
the mantelpiece for a day or so afterward is almost
a necessity!

The road up the hill is a splendid piece of engineer-
ing as well as a picturesque and romantic highway.
Who but Latins would construct at vast expense a
road like this simply for the ease and comfort of pil-
grims to a shrine no more illustrious than scores
of others, and call it the Via al Santuario, the Way
to the Sanctuary? Partly on the solid rock of the
mountain, partly on graceful arched bridges or via-
ducts, it leaps upward in short, acute angles, now
spanning the dry bed of a torrente, now edging its
way along the precarious parapet of a crag.
Large, smooth pebbles set on edge in mortar, di-
vided and bordered by three lengthwise parallel
strips of lava or some other equally durable stone
and crossed by other strips every fifty feet or so,
make it apparently as enduring as Pellegrino it-
self. On either side rises a low, thick stone wall,
and every few hundred yards are white signposts with
the name in black letters.

From the Piazza Falde — falde, in Italian, means
flank, skirt —it leads upward in an easy ascent
that continues for two or three hundred yards. But
after the third turn, it takes a sudden inclination of

[253]~~

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om
eet

ee ee ee
——

VISTAS IN SICILY

twenty degrees or more out of the horizontal. That
begins the real climb,— and the view. Palermo, the
Conca d’ Oro, the sea below, the mountains behind,
appear and disappear with each turn, like the ever-
changing film of a motion-picture.

The Japanese say there are “two kinds of fools:
those who have never ascended Fuji-yama, and those
who have ascended him twice.” The proverb ap-
plies here on Pellegrino perfectly. It is as great
a mistake not to make the journey once as it would
be needless to make it a second time, for no one
can ever forget the picturesque climb up that zig-
zag road on donkey-back. When the writer went
up, everybody who saw the miniature procession
laughed. We three, beast, boy and man, made a
sight Cervantes would have smiled to see, Equipped
with a stout club, the plump boy answered very
well for Sancho Panza. With my camera case over
my shoulder in lieu of a target, and my tripod-legs
projecting at impossible angles, I did very well
as Don Quijote. And the faithful burro was surely
a replica in miniature of Rosinante, long ears flop-
ping disconsolately back over her neck.

Instead of beating his beast as almost every other
boy does when the animal balks at the steeper part
of the ascent, “Sancho” ran lightly forward and
began picking up wisps of the straw gleaners had
dropped on their way down the mountain. When
he had a handful, he held the bunch of fodder out
[254]ADDIO, SICILIA!

temptingly, and yelled ‘‘ Aaaaaa-ah-ah!” “ Rosi-
nante ” snorted, sniffed suspiciously, and with a sud-
denness that almost slid “ Don Quijote” over her
haunches into the road, bolted forward for the
tidbit. A mouthful at a time it was given to her,
and thus the hardest part of the way was quickly
passed over without a blow being struck.

“Do all the donkey-boys do this? ” I asked, sur-
prised at the humanity of the proceeding.

*Sancho’s” reply was disconcertingly frank.
“Oh, no, Signore. I am the only one. I can’t af-
ford to buy a new donkey, and if I wear this one out,
how can I bring forestiert at Pellegrino? The
other boys beat their donkeys— yes! But then,
they can get new ones every little while! ”

Once above the long series of viaducts that keep
the road on an even plane of ascent over gullies and
chasms, the way ceases to be so steep. On the rocky
slopes, hardy Swiss cows graze among stones that
seem incapable of yielding even thistles. When all
the sparse grass is gone, with muzzle and hoofs the
hard-working cows turn over boulders of consider-
able size and eagerly lick up the meager, pale blade
or two of grass they conceal, finishing the attack by
calmly devouring the fat little snails that cling to
the moist earth and the under side of the big stones
—I saw this myself. The cows have a hard time
of it indeed, trudging out from the city every morn-
ing, grazing and ie a day among the rocks,

255itetpenget hahaa ican Soe te -

a are nel wee ee ts oe te eT TO ee

Sieh ee et

ee ee

a a

VISTAS IN SICILY

—

and then going down at night to be milked from
door to door.

But the goats have an even harder time. Some
are seen every day on the very apex of the moun-
tain, mere black specks against the sky. They
clamber up there opposite the telegraph and sema-
phore stations without a thought of the journeys
they must make in the evening. On coming back
into town with heavy bags, their owners drive them
ruthlessly up four or five flights of stairs to give
some lazy customer as little as half a pint of their
strong, rich milk.

Near the top of this Via del Santuario is the
roofless chapel of Croce, the Cross, which projects
bastion-like from the jutting brow of the hill. Here
every year a priest from the monastery on the
heights, standing where he can see the whole splendid
sweep of the Golden Shell below, a rippling sea of
green and gold, returns thanks for its fertility dur-
ing the past season, and beseeches heaven for a con-
tinuance of it for another year.

The chapel of Santa Rosalia is in the gloomy
cavern to which the lovely maiden fled to escape
the temptations of her uncle’s court in Palermo; a
court full of the factitious splendor and richness
of the East, with Saracens all about and an atmos-
phere which, to say the least, was probably not con-
ducive to saintly meditation. She is a mysterious

and interesting figure, this daughter of the
[256]ADDIO, SICILIA!

mighty Duke Sinibaldo and niece of King William
the Good. How could she ever have cast aside the
ease and luxury of the elaborate civilization in which
she had been reared, and come to this stalactite
grotto, dripping and cold, where her companions
were no lords and ladies in waiting, but only the
bats and small mountain animals seeking shelter
from inclement weather?

Exactly how long Rosalia maintained herself here
in holy seclusion no one knows, but the date of her
death seems to have been about 1170. In any event,
she lay peacefully in oblivion until in 1624 some bones
were discovered in the cavern. At that time a
plague was raging, the city panic stricken, and
when the bones were brought in to the Cathedral,
the plague stopped. Such a coincidence was too
striking to be ignored by the simple-minded, so Ro-
salia was canonized and appointed the patron of the
city, because of her gracious intervention on behalf
of the people against whose ancestors she had
shaken off the dust of her feet.

Filled with that dramatic religious fervor which
has found its expression in so many wonderful
pilgrimages, from the Crusades to the present, all
Palermo toiled up the trackless hill to worship be-
fore the niche in the grotto where she died. Miracle
after miracle was performed; and to-day the whole
city, whether religiously inclined or not, is devoted
to its female saint, whose relics are believed to be

[257]

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VISTAS IN SICILY

preserved in a huge funerary urn surmounted by
her statue, and kept in the treasury of the Cathe-
dral. The monument, which is solid silver, weighs
more than fourteen hundred pounds. Every year
her festival is celebrated with great pomp, a huge
car, fifty feet high and as big as a house, being
dragged through the streets amid the acclamations
of the faithful. The float is also brought out in
solemn procession whenever her intercession is
especially desired for the city.

No attention has been paid to the gratuitous in-
formation of a scientist that the saint’s relics are
really only animal bones. The late Andrew D.
White, in his “ History of the Warfare of Science
with Theology,’ says: ‘When Professor Buck-
land, the eminent osteologist and geologist, discov-
ered the relics of Rosalia at Palermo, which had for
ages cured diseases and warded off epidemics, were
the bones of a goat, this fact caused not the slight-
est diminution of their miraculous power.” Cer-
tainly no Palermitan to-day would listen to any
Goth who attempted to tell him such a story as
this; and even to heretic Americans, the “ scientific ”
attitude which delights in iconoclasm is hard to com-
prehend. Why should the scientist who claims that
his only wish is to benefit humanity, take from the
poor and miserable any belief that heals them,
however idle or superstitious that faith may seem to
him?

[258]ADDIO, SICILIA!

Eventually up on the mountain a chapel was
constructed whose artificial wall meets the edges of
the grotto, enclosing it completely. There is no
roof to this outer section except over the front
door; and the sunshine, falling upon the floor be-
tween entrance and choir, gives this open court the
air of a pleasant vestibule roofed only by the azure,
and throws into strong, shadowy relief the cavern
beyond, with its candles twinkling in the dusk be-
fore the altars. A handsome black iron screen di-
vides outer court from inner grotto; and both are
paved with big, uneven stones worn to glassy slip-
periness by the knees of the devout. The natural
rock roof is weird and fantastic, covered with stalac-
tic pendants, colored in all the shades of brown
and green by the highly alkaline water that whispers
perpetual requiem into myriad leaden gutters which
carry it to the sides, and so preserve the decora-
tions from destruction. Bent and twisted and an-
gled, the gutters seem the branches of so many dead
trees sprawling high among the jumbled rocks.

At the rear of the chapel is a handsome white
marble and mosaic altar, and nearer the front, en-
closed in a glass case under an elaborate and mas-
sive shrine of highly colored marbles, is the figure
of the saint over which Goethe rhapsodized. By the
light of a flickering taper thrust between the marble
bars, little by little the image within takes shape in
the gloom. The head and hands are marble, the

[259]eed intent

Te es fini = ined te eg are mn ime eh et teh

a i ae ta ee en Te ee ee

—

VISTAS IN SICILY

robes gilt. She seems to sleep naturally, a young
girl of eighteen or twenty, her head easily dis-
posed upon the pillow, her lips just apart; exactly,
as the great German expressed it, as if she might
breathe and move at any moment. Upon her breast
blaze the crimson jewels of the Cross of Savoy, pre-
sented by Queen Margharita herself, and innumer-
able other tokens, among them a huge golden heart,
the gift of a Palermitan cardinal. Gold and silver
watches, jeweled rings, loose precious stones, brace-
lets, necklaces, and other ornaments by the dozen
lie about the glass casket or upon the gilded robes,
which are exquisitely worked with lacelike tracery.
And to one side is a gilt scepter fully five feet long.

Opposite, on the wall, a white marble slab mark-
ing the niche where the bones lay, bears the words:

Vr evo Loco, er sirv D. RosaLiaE sACRYM CORPYS
ADMIRABILI OPERE LAPIDEIS THESIS INSERTVM
ANNos FERME CCCC De irtvenrir,
Qvop MAIORES NOSTROS LATVIT, NOBIS DIVINITVS IN-
NOTVIT
PosTERI NON IGNORARENT:
Ipstvs ExpiRANTIO IMAGO VBI IACVERAT SITA EST:
ARA SUPERIMPOSTA ANNO IVBILAEI M DC XXV

From the grotto-chapel, past a group of goat-
herds’ houses and through their attendant flocks,
it is only about a quarter-mile stumble to a jutting

spur which forms the highest crag of the moun-
[260]ADDIO, SICILIA!

a ee

tain. Perched there between the halves of a dis-
mantled arcade of plaster columns, stands a colos-
sal figure of Santa Rosalia, hundreds of feet above
the sea. Lightning has beheaded the statue twice,
and the two marble heads lie in a little hollow at
the saint’s feet. After the second bolt from the
heavens the Sicilians, who are not by any means a
wealthy people, put on a third head—a cheap
plaster one; and though many a fierce storm has
raged about Pellegrino since then, not once has the
lightning struck the statue — perhaps the plaster
head is not worth destroying.

That all forestieri have money, so why shouldn't
they pay? is the logic of the Italian, and every-
where except in Sicily he carries it to the absurdi-
ties; and even in this blissful isle an individual some-
times forgets his geniality by turning highwayman
for the nonce. A tatterdemalion goatherd, for in-
stance, charged me sixteen cents for a milked-to-
order pint of goat’s milk.

“Sancho” regarded the transaction with undis-
guised scorn. “ By Bacchus, but all forestiert are
fools!” he said. ‘‘ Why didn’t you tell me to get
it for you? I could get all you wanted for four
cents!”

Yet notwithstanding his philosophizing “ San-
cho” generously let me off with only the usual
gratuities.

A day or so later — with so much yet undone —

[261]—

VISTAS IN SICILY

grieving that we must leave the island which had
taken so mighty a grip on our hearts, we rolled
down, for the last time, through the Place of the
Four Winds, and went aboard the beautiful little
Marco Polo.

Half a dozen Nations decorated the Bay with
their colors from a score of mastheads. Here lay a
filthy little Greek tramp whose faded blue and white
stripes fluttered limply from her steam-spitting
stern; there a smutty white trading barque with
gaping red seams and burnished copper, hairy a
foot below the water line with grass and moss;
yonder trim white steamers of the N. G. I. Dis-
consolate we sat on the promenade deck watching
the lively scene along the Scala Florio. A tiny
breeze was stirring, and the slip of new moon came
staggering up the blue vault with the rotund body
of her deceased mother in her thin little wide-
stretched arms, followed at a respectful distance by
a winking, blinking satellite. Pellegrino and dis-
tant Grifone showed soft and dim in blue and pink
and gray, like the too closely cropped hide of a
young donkey.

On the wharf were tears and laughter. An eager
crowd drove up in ever increasing numbers and
thronged the space about the gangplank to give
their friends a hearty send-off. Farther out a
young girl sang atrociously to a wheezy handorgan,

while a small boy, cap in his teeth, clambered over
[262]ADDIO, SICILIA!

the Marco Polo’s rail and begged for pennies. A
gold-laced official, with an important beard and
furious mustachios, marched aboard with as digni-
fied a stride as his five-feet-two permitted, and
instantly the quiet ship became alive. Boatswains
bellowed gruff orders, a steam-donkey somewhere
forward chattered right merrily, and down in the
hold the ingegniero “turned over ” his engines to
make sure everything was working properly. A ser-
pentine hawser slipped from its bitt on the wharf
and splashed writhing into the water at our feet —
we were sailing.

But no — at this very last instant a shout from
the empty Place of the Four Winds a block away,
stopped us. The heartiest send-off of all was yet
to come. Roaring and spitting fire and smoke, a
huge automobile in gray warpaint tore through the
square, skidded to the edge, stopped as though it
had rushed into a stone wall, and fairly shot a
young man out upon the gangplank just as it quiv-
ered on the rise, while women shrieked and men
laughed.

His two companions were on the dock in a sec-
ond, seized his shiny little black box-trunk, swung:

it to and fro once or twice, and hurled it after him

with such precision that it caught the unlucky pas-

senger in the small of his back and bowled him over

squarely. As he was rising to his feet, white with

astonishment and rage, his heavy handbag, thrown
[263]VISTAS IN SICILY

with the same forceful kindliness, knocked him down
a second time, and ship and dock chorused happily
together. Meantime the automobile panted con-
tentedly as the fasts were cast off bow and stern,
the screw began to revolve, and the white Marco Polo
shipped out into the gathering night.

Silently we fled the harbor, dotted now with myr-
jad dancing lights; curtseyed gracefully out past
Santa Rosalia’s statue, nine hundred feet aloft on
the crag; dashed by small clusters of lights in a
shadowy pocket of the outer hills, and were at sea

| again. Once more the long, slow roll of Mediter-

_ ranean was under our feet, its grateful salt breath

; J in our nostrils.

| A boy with the dinner-gong came yam-yam-yam-

at ming down the decks. We did not heed him. ‘The

whirling screw was throbbing a different refrain in
our ears —

Thou art the garden of the world, the home

\ Of all Art yields or Nature can decree;

K’en in thy desert what is like to thee?

Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste

More rich than other climes’ fertility,

Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced

With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced.”

Set oe Sah a phate ee ee

THE END

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aINDEX

Achradina (Syracuse), 116.
1350 °147.,, 748:

Acolyte, irreverent, 194.

Acqueducts, 139-140, 154.

Aetna, Introd. i, 14, 85, 107,
108, 109, 111, 153, 155, 159,
160, 161, 163, 164, 188, 189,
205, 212.

Aetnean Railroad, 162-163.

Agatha (Agata) St., 156.

Agathocles, King (Tyrant), 135,
237,

Agora (Marketplace), 134.

Agrigentum (See Girgenti).

Akragas, Introd., viii; 19, 90,
91, 92.

Alfonso (Caratozzo), 95, 96,
102, 104, 106.

Amber, Catanian, 158.

Amphitheatres, Roman, 140,

54,
Reece 115, 128.
Angevin (Anjou), Introd., x; 74,
7b, 76, $4, 209.
Antisthenes, 91.
Aragon (Aragonese), Introd., x;
71, 155-156.
Archimedes, Introd., vii; 135.
136, 1388, 145, 146.
Arethusa, 120, 121-122, 151.
Arms of Taormina, 198.
Artemis (Diana), 120, 121, 12
Asdrubal, Gen., 82, 83.
Atenasio, banker, , Signor Pan-
crazio, 180-182.
Athens, 116, 124 9 149, 150,
151, 236.
Augusta, 112, 1138.

Bagheria, 81, 225-232

‘Beautiful Shore” (See Kalé
Akté).

Beggars, 54, 55, 183, 216.

Bellini, Composer, 154,

Bell-baiting, 186-187.

Berlinas, 88.

Bits (horses’), 26.

Bourbon, Introd., xi; 62, 64,
163.

Bull, brazen, 96-9

Byron, Lora (eResaly 264.

Byzantine, Empire, Introd.,
ix; Style, 62, 201.

Cafés, 35, 36, 55, 68, 92, 110,
139

Cala, La, 18.
Carabinieri, 106.

Carthage, Introd., iv, vii, viii;

92°" 99 3998) 9936, 241.

Carthaginians, Introd., vii, viii;

129, 208, 228, 234-235, 240.
Carts, painted, 25, 26.
Castrogiovanni (Enna), 108.
Catacombs, 147-148.
Cathedrals—

Catania, 155-156.

Cefalu, 219-221.

Girgenti, 105.

Marsala, 242.

Messina, 212.

Mola, 185.

Monreale, 48-52, 2

Palermo, 42-44, 258.

Syracuse, 118-119.

Taormina, 194-196

Trapani, 244.
Cefald, 216-221.

Beach, 221.

Cathedral, 219-221.

Types at, 221.
Cemeteries, 47, 74, 76.
Cephaloedium (See Cefalud).
Charondas, 152-153.
Chiaramonte, Pallazzo, 71-72.
Christ of the Onions, The, 32.
Churches—

20,

Bagheria, 231-232
Catania, 158-159.
Girgenti, 95, 100, 105.
Messina, 211, 212.

Palermo, 2656.
Syracuse, 146, 147, 148.
Trapani, 244.
Cicero, 6, 119, 145.
Class distinction, 49.
Cleanliness, 21, 243.
Climate, 6.
Coins in Sicily, Greek, 120.
Conea d’Oro (Golden Shell)
4. 55) 62. 74; 175; 78, 80; 233.
252, 254, 256.
Consuls, 58-59

Corso (promenade), 23, 24, 86.
Corso (street), 21, 22, 177, 178,

184, 197, 203.
Crusades, The, 208.

[ 267 ]

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rf

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jal inkseenstinl act rnc ia

Ri eee ee oe Oe

—

INDEX

Cuba, La, 47-48.
Cyane (Kyana), 123, 130-132.

Danklon (Zankle), 208.

Demagogues, 5.

Deserted Village, 184.

Dialect, Sicilian, 175.

Dikaiopolis (See Segesta).

Diodorus, Introd., ii, vii; 96,
109, 110.

Dionysius, 114, 129, 136, 162,
A774 -201; 202° 216.

Donkeys, Sardinian, 26, 252,
2538.

Drepana (See Trapani).
Dulcie, Dulcinea, 13.

Earthquake, Messina, 209.

Eggs, 38.

Elephants, 82-83.

le utemaL Feasts, The, 141-
142,

Emigration, 182, 184.

Empedocle, Porto, 93.

Empedocles of Akragas, In-
trod., vii; 92-93.

Enna (See Castrogiovanni).

Entrails, 24, 2 33.

Epipolai (Syracuse), iL G5s 135;
136, 137, 140.

Eryx (See M te San Giuliano).

Euryelus, Fort, 136, 138, 139.

Favorita, Chateau of La, 11,

Felice (Lady ih Orsinis and
Porta, He); Ss:

Ferdinand IV, King, 62-64.

Festa (Festivals).

Sta. Agata, 156-157.

San Giuseppe, 229-230.

della Madonna dei Capri,
250-251.

Sta Rosalia, 258.

Fiera di Pascua (Easter Fair),
28, 29.

Floral displays, 15, 19, 69, 88,
99; 148, 149, 169, 171, 193,
206, 221° ct 245.

Food, 8, 24, 25, 338, 36, 538-54,
58, 94, igo. 230.

Forestieri, 24, 31, 96, 261.

Fountains, 192-193.

Four Winds, Place of, 262, 263.

Frederick II, Emperor, Introd.,
Ix x; 43, 80-81, 113.

Funeral, "A Taormina, 197-198.

[ 268 ]

Gambling Games, 231.

Garibaldi, Giuseppe, Introd.,
xis 83, 168; 187, 215; 235-
236, 241, 244.

Garibaldi, Theatre Politeama,

Gellias, 91.
Gelon, Tyrant, 1156, 129; 135:

Gest, Sta Maria di, 76-79.

Giotto; 625 ‘707:

Girgenti, 90.

ore Suv ane Donna (Villa
G 4,

Giuliano, Mte San. (Eryx), 15,
245, 246, 247, 248.

Giuseppe, San, Church of, 231-
232:

Goats) 91745 4190: 191) 197. 320%
250-251, 256, 261.

Goethe, Wolfgang, 75, 259, 260.

Golden Shell (See Conca
d’Oro).

Grazing on Pellegrino, 255.

Greece, EEOC: IE Hiatt s.dbic
LLGS 12, 174.

Gregorio, 9. 10.

Greek religion, 99-100.

Greek temples, Introd., _ vi,
oe 27, 99-103, 140, 219,

Greeks, The, Introd., iv, v,
Vis) VAl;, “xii 19) 104= S109:
1338, 139, 140, 149- 150, 173,
204, 205, 209, 235, 236, 246.

Greeks, famous, in Sicily, In-

trod:, iv; Vi, vil; 975 11S" 1405
150.

Gualterio, 10, 11, 29, 30, 47,

79, 80, 84, 227-228.

Hadranos (Hadranum), 162.
Hamilear, 70, 98, 222- 923.
Hammerstein, Oscar, 200.
Hannibal, Gisgon, 70-71, 223,

239.

Heircte, Herkte (See Pelle-
grino).

Hichens, Robert, 77.

Hieron, King, 130, 135, 137, 141,
143, 144.

Hieron, Tyrant, 153, 174.

Himera, Introd., viii; 79, 91,
98, 129, 2292- 992.

Historians, Introd., ii, vii; 48,
fe 92° 98, 124, 126, 127,
144, 149, 150.Ni rl tue

INDEX

_
eo
we

Homer (Odyssey), Introd., i
158, 164.
Hotels, 170.

gnorance (Illiteracy), 64-65,
178

Kalé Akté (Calacte), 216.

Kataneion, Katane (See Chap-
ters on Catania).

Kephalé (See Cefalu).

Kipling, Rudyard, 63.

Krimisos (Cold Stream), 234-
235; battle of, 235,

Land ownership, 181-182.
Latomie (Quarries), 14, 115,
142. 148, 149, 151, 242.
Lebrosi, S. Giovanni ‘dei, 81-82.
Legends, 121-122, 123, 164, 165,

166.
Lentini, Lake, 110.
Lucy, St., 156.

Macaroni, 34, 53-54, 90.

Maffiusi (Mafia), 175.

Marcellus, 136-138,

Mare Dolce, The, 80.

Marionettes, 37-40.

Markets, 30- -36, 134.

Marriage, 57.

Marsala, 241-243.

Martorana, Church of, Poamans

Massimo, Theatre, 27, 28.

Mediterranean, Introd., i iii,
iy Xi) Doe OF i, 101, 219,
264.

Messana (See Messina).
Messina (and Strait of), In-
trod., iii; 44, 207-214.

Metellus, Consul, 83.
Metopes, 70-71, 239.
Milk, 190-191, 207.
Minstrels, 177, 199-200.
Misericordia, The, 197.
Mola, 173, 182-186, 190.
Monks, 76, 77.
Monreale, 48-55, 72, 220.
Mosaics, glass, 49-51, 60-62.
Mummies, Subway of, 47.
Museums—

Girgenti, 103.

-alermo, 67-70.

Syracuse, 119-120.

Mylae, 215.

Naxos, 173, 174.

Neapolis (Syré LcUuse), 116, 135.

Newspapers, 223-2:

Nicias (Greek General), LS:

Night, Noises of the, 186-187.

Normans, The (also N. Archi-
tecture), Introd., ii, ix;
43, 44, 89, 118, 173, 208, 219,
247,

Ortygia, Island of (Syracuse),
VAS e e116 6 L713 122) 13851355
138.

Ovid, 109.

Palace (See Palazzo).

Palaestra, 134.

Palagonia, Prince (also Villa),
228-229.

Palatina, La Cappella, 60-62,
220.

Palazzata, La, 210-211.

Palazzo, 56, 59, 62-64, 71-72,
210.

Panormos (Palermo), 18, 224.

Papyrus, 130, 131, 132.

Parks, 19, 20.

Pellegrino, Mte., 17, 78, 86,
217, 951, 252-261, 262.

Pergusa, Lake of, 109.

Phalaris, 96, 97.

Philistis, Queen, 143-144.

Phoenicians (Phoenicia), In-
trod., iv: 18, 19, 1238, 218
924, 235, 238, 246.

Pigs, 184, 185.

Pindar, Poet, 97, 98, 143, 144.

Posers, BLOLe ssional, 176.

Primitive Inhabitants (Sikans,
Sikels, Elymians, Pheeni-
cians), Introd., iii, iv, 69,
IG 217, 22S; 234, 235, 236,
237, 245, 246, 247

Prisoners, Athenia an, 149-150,
151.

Problem, The Sicilian, 181-182.

Proserpina (Persephone), 14,
109, 131

Punic Wars, Introd., viii.

Quattro Venti (See Four
Winds, Place of).
Quijote, Don, and Soancho,
261.

254, 26

Railroad about Aetna (see
Aetnean R.R.).

[ 269 ]

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INDEX

Ratnoeds (also Service), 167-

Randazzo, 163-164.

Relies, 8.

Relief Work at Messina, 213-
214.

Roger, King, 43-45, 60, 72, 83,
155, 212; 218, 219.

Rome (Roman), Introd., viil,
ix, xii; Diz 825 083; 1095
116, 13 138, 148, 204- -205,
241, o4G:

Rometta, 215.

Rosalia, Saint, 42, 156, 251,
256-261.

Chapel of, 259-261.

Festival of, 258.

Statue of, 261, 264.
Rosinante, 254, 255.

Sacred Band (see Krimisos).

Saints, female, 156.

Salamis, Introd., vili.

Salinas, Professor A, 69;

Salt Works, 113, 123, 243.

“Sancho,’ 954- 261.

Santo Spirito, Campo, 74,

Santuario, Via al, 253, 256.

Saracens (Moors), Introd., ii,
ix vile: 125 195 415 44° 47;
PA, (SW TER EX) HI Te
111, 118, 176, 205, 247, 256.

Scenery (also Railroad and
Coast), 89, 90, 99, 111, 112,
TAN S5 14851495 155° 161,
169, 170, 205-216, 207, 215,
216) 2iie218; 221. 222: 233,
234, 245, 246.

Schools, 65, 178, 179-180.

Sclafani Palace, 45.

Seylla and Charybdis, 169, 208.

Segesta (Egesta), 236-238.

Selinus, 70-71, 286, 238-240.

Solous (Soluntum), Solunto,
224-225, 227-228.

Spanish (Spaniard): Introd.,
> PAR BY APAL

Stefano, ‘Dukes of (also Pal-
ace), 202, 203.

Stesichorus (Tisias), Introd.,
viii; 154.

Sulphur (Mines; Mining), 90,
93, 107, 152.

Sunrise over Aetna, 188-189.

Syracuse, Introd., vili; 19.
Battle of the bay, 124-127.
Sieges of, 124, 136, 138, 149-

150.

Taormina peasants, 175.

Termini Imerese, 223-224.

Tessere, 4, 5, 6, 87.

Theatres, 27, 36-41, 1438-145,

154, 208, 204-206, 237.

pheocrtus: Introd., vii; 12,
1355 076"

Theron, Tyrant, 98, 115, 222.

Thucydides, Introd., i; 125-6,
149-150, 209.

Timoleon, 135, 144-145, 168,
2384. 235, 236.

Tips (Tipping), 8, 9.

Tisias (see Stesichorus).

Trapani, 243-245.

Trionfo della Morte (fresco),
ons

Trireme, The, 92.

Trojans at Trapani, 245.

Troubadours (see Minstrels).

Tyche (Syracuse), 116, 135.

Tyndaris, 215-216.

Tyrant (defined), 98-99,

Tyrants, 115,

Age of the, 114, 141.

Usury (Usurers), 181-182.

Venus Anadyomene, 120.
Venus, Temple of, 245, 246,
Verres, C. Gaius, 119, 128.
Vespers, Sicilian, —Introd., =x
8, 74-75, 84, 186, 209.
villa’ ‘66-67.
V ulcanological Observatory,

William I, The Bad, King, 72,
(3, 14

William II, The Good, King
47-48, 52, 74, 257.

Wine, Marsala, 242.

Xerxes, Introd., vii.
Xiphonia (see Augusta).

Zankle (Danklon, Messina),

208
Zeus (Jupiter), Introd., viii,
108, 105, 129, 153, 235.—

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