University of Virginia Library

JOURNEY TO PALERMO.

Through fields of lava, in which the broad, dense
leaves of the Indian fig flourished in rank luxuriance,
the travellers, having once more left Catania, proceeded
on their way, and were soon on the mountain-road.
Nothing could exceed the abject wretchedness
of the towns through which they passed, choked up
with filth and seemingly populated by beggars; and
the heart of Isabel was alternately sickened by
the insignia of misery, or chilled by the scenes of discomfort
which met her view. To an American who
has been almost wholly unnused to the palpable evidences
of poverty, it is inconceivably trying to be
forced to witness the haggard visage, the impotent
limb, or the miserable covering of the beggar; to
hear his supplicating tones ever sounding in the ear,

to see his eager and wo-begone eye regarding him
enviously through the window of the café, and his
attenuated form following him like a shadow at every
turn. How depressing, then, were such objects to
the mind of Isabel, thronging as they did every village
in the route. Aged men with white beards and
hollow temples, women prematurely palsied, children
half-naked and already taught to attune their half-articulating
voices to the language of importunity;
and these beings not scattered here and there among
the multitude, but crowding every square and murmuring
beneath every hill-side; — creatures whom
civilization, if not humanity, has elsewhere consigned
to hospitals; victims of disease for whom, in almost
every land, asylums are provided, the maimed, the
blind, the paralysed, the bowed-down with age and
the stricken with famine, all urging every feeble nerve,
and straining every lingering art to prolong a wretched
existence. Let no one fancy he has witnessed the
lowest degree of human destiny until he has seen
the mendicants of Sicily.

“What a relief,” said Isabel, after leaving behind
them one of these villages, “to be again in the open
country. What though the mountains are wild and
dreary? The sheep on the slope yonder browse contentedly,
and the sparrows chirp as they pick the
scattered berries. There is nothing that speaks of
human suffering, nothing to remind us of wants we
cannot alleviate and degradation apparently irretrievable.”

“There,” observed Frazier, “pointing to a finely-situated

convent, behold the cause of what you lament.
It is a violation of the law of the social
universe that any part of the human family should
withdraw themselves from their allotted share in the
toil and responsibility of life. The very money that
supports the priests of Sicily in idleness, would more
than maintain her paupers; the hands of the idle
priesthood if judiciously employed, would double in
a short time the productiveness of the island, and the
day that witnessed the annihilation of priestcraft,
would give the death-blow to beggary.”

During their day's ride the most interesting objects
presented were three old castles, built at the period
of the Norman conquest, and affording very good
specimens of the gloomy architecture of the middle
ages. At one of their evening stopping-places, after
they had finished the meal composed chiefly of the
viands with which their Catania friends had loaded
the carriage, Frazier, whose principle it was to improve
every opportunity, however unpromising, to
acquire information, began by the help of Vittorio to
enter into conversation with the women of the locanda.
These two crones were old and remarkably
ugly. As Isabel looked upon their distorted features
and rude attire, she could recal no figures resembling
them except one or two she had seen, in
America, personate the witches in Macbeth. Her
uncle's attempt to extract a grain or two of knowledge
about the crops proved vain, as there was but
one topic upon which they seemed inclined to enlarge,
and this was the miracles of the patron Saint of

their village. Frazier had not the patience to listen
to their stories; but Isabel, to whom every chapter
in the volume of human experience was interesting,
was pleased to avail herself of their kind interpreter
and hear the hostess's account of St. Vito.

“His father was a Turk, eccellenza, and angry at
his conversion, threatened to boil him in oil if he did
not retract. Though only thirteen years old, the boy
maintained his faith; and when put into the cauldron
received not the least injury. He became a Saint at
once and is ever working miracles. A neighbor of
mine had a sick mule; he carried him into the church,
he knelt before St. Vito and was immediately cured.
A woman of the next village was bitten by a mad
dog; and came to pray to the Saint, but the people
would not admit her for fear of being infected by the
madness; they however brought a piece of holy wafer
from the Saint's shrine to the gate, and gave it to
her. No sooner had she eaten it, than five very
small dogs jumped from her mouth and fell dead in
the street. O, signora, he is a beautiful Saint, and if
you will go to the church to-morrow, and make the
sign of the cross before him, you will go to our
country, our most happy country—paradise.”

“But,” said Isabel, amused with the old woman's
ardor, “I think I have some guardian angel, for I
came over the wide sea in safety.”

“That,” replied the crone, “was only the grace of
God, for in your country you have no saint.”

“Yes, we have.”

“What do you call him?”

“It is a woman of noble countenance and majestic
mien, called Santa Liberta.”

“Ah!” exclaimed both the old women in rapture,
grinning horribly, and dancing with delight; “then
you are a Christian.”

“I hope so,” quietly replied Isabel, smiling at
their joy.

“Then we'll bring you a Saint Vito to kiss, and
you can have a crucifix and some holy water in your
room.”

“There's time enough to-morrow,” replied she,
beginning to be alarmed at the penances they might
inflict. “It is time to retire.”

“Good night,” said the Count, “I commend you
to the care of your true patron, St. Isabel.” And in
thus canonizing her name, he had a deeper meaning
than is often contained in the language of compliment.
He referred to that self-dependence, that trust
in individual mind and energy, that confidence in
the native and personal power of the soul, characteristic
of northern nations, and than which there is
no greater mystery of character to a southern European.

When the traveller's route lies through a region
of no peculiar interest or beauty, the prevalence
of mountains, while it augments the toil, greatly
lessens the ennui of his journey. The wild, sweeping
curves of the hills bring him continually in
view of new prospects. Now he ascends a steep
elevation, and thence beholds, far and wide, others
of various forms and altitude rising above him;
now an abrupt and curiously shaped cliff meets

his eye, and, anon, a fine green valley suddenly
breaks upon his sight. Here is a natural amphitheatre,
there a rocky precipice; and this changing
scenery is ever arrayed in the light and shade, the
mists and clearness which vary the aspect of the
mountains. Our little party realized this, perhaps
unconsciously, as they advanced on their course.
The motion of a carriage amid the hills induces a
meditative mood which is unfavourable to conversation,
and as the coach wound up and down the
dreary ranges beneath a gloomy sky, they yielded to
this influence, and were quite lost in their individual
reflections. Sometimes for miles the solitude was
uninterrupted save by the little carts of the country
passing with blocks of sulphur from the mines, or the
picturesque appearance of a shepherd lying on some
broad hill side, with his flock scattered before and
his dog crouched beside him.

“May I know your thoughts, Isabel?” said Frazier,
after one of their reveries had continued for an
unwonted space. “I was thinking,” she replied,
“how melancholy must be companionless travel
here, at such a season, for one inclined to sad fancies.
Where nature looks so lonely and man so
cheerless, the solitary traveller must have a gay
spirit to go singing on his way.”

“And I was thinking,” said her uncle, “of the
scene at the little church at the last village where
we stopped. I strolled in there while the horses were
feeding. The damp floor was covered with a wretched
looking set of kneeling women; and behind the

altar, three or four fat and well-clad priests were
carelessly chaunting. I was thinking how powerful
is superstition, since a carved railing and a few
words of Latin, can thus cheat human beings into
the surrender of their highest rights.”

“And I was thinking,” said Vittorio, pointing to
several large crows that were cleaving the air above
them, “how times change, but principles live. Centuries
ago, perhaps on this very spot, the flight of
these birds was watched as the intimation of destiny.
Now they soar unregarded, save by the jealous husbandman,
while the same feeling of our nature
which then caused them to be regarded as ominous,
is still abused by the professors of a purer faith for
like purposes of selfish aggrandisement.”

Nearly all the towns on the way appeared crowning
some lofty height, and presenting very interesting
objects viewed from a distance. One of the best of
these the Count pointed out to Isabel, at an early
stage of their journey, as the birth-place of Diodorus
Siculus, the historian; and on a mild afternoon he
called her attention to the fields they were crossing.

“These plains,” said he, “constitute the country
which, according to the ancient writers, was under
the peculiar care of Ceres. Here Agriculture was
born; and even now you see these fields are covered
with newly-sprouted grain. You remember the
classic legend. Proserpine it seems, like many maidens,
had a strange fancy for solitary rambling, and
while culling a nosegay here was surprised by Pluto,
who came up through a lake, and carried off to

the infernal dominions the lovely daughter of Ceres.
Her poor mother found her girdle on a fountain, and
disconsolate sought her every where. Arethusa at
length informed her of the abiding-place of Proserpine;
she appealed to Jupiter for her release, and
the father of gods promised her return provided she
had not eaten. But unhappily the unfortunate damsel
had devoured seven seeds of a pomegranate in the
Elysian fields. As usual in the case of clandestine
affairs a compromise was effected. She was to
remain one half of the year with Pluto and the other
with her mother. She presided over death, and it
was fabled that no one could die if she or her ministers
did not sever a lock of hair from the head of
the expiring mortal. Glance over this landscape, for
it is
In summer the untilled land around us is enamelled
with floral beauty. Castro Giovanni, which rises so
nobly on the hill to the left, was the ancient Enna
and the favorite abode of Ceres. It is said to stand
in the very centre of the island.”

Many an hour of their weary ride was beguiled
by such allusions to ancient times which the various
places on the road suggested. Every where the

tokens of Roger's dominion were visible. The lofty
sites of the towns were strikingly indicative of the
period of their foundation—an era when the secure
fortification of cities was indispensably necessary,
especially in an island continually exposed to the
invasion of the corsairs. It was not difficult at
times to imagine that, in the marked features of the
people, starting as it were from the shaggy hoods of
their brown cloaks, was discernible something of the
acuteness and fire of their Greek progenitors. Some
portions of the highway, composed of argillaceous
earth, were passed with difficulty from the inundation
of recent rains; and one evening, when near the
end of their journey, it was found necessary to stop
for the night at a locanda in the campagna. On entering
this house Isabel, fatigued as she was, paused
to observe a pictorial effect worthy of the pencil of
Murillo. Leaning against the doorway of the inner
room, stood a girl of apparently fifteen, shading the
lamp with her hand in order to obtain a better view
of the strangers. Its rays were thus cast up upon a
face more bright and expressive than any which
she had seen in Sicily. But what chiefly riveted
her gaze were the eyes of the damsel—so black,
clear, and expressive, as almost to facinate, while
they surprised the beholder.

“Did you remark the face of that young girl?”
enquired Isabel of her uncle when they were seated
at supper.

“Yes,” he replied; “and could not but think what a

treasure to a city belle would be her magnificent
eyes and snowy teeth.”

“By nature,” observed the Count, “that maiden is
endowed with an intelligent mind; you can read it
in those flashing orbs. By nature, she is gifted with
an amiable disposition; you can perceive it in her
good-humored smile. What an ornament to society
might not education make her! And yet, such is the
seeming waywardness of fate, this being, thus capable
of exerting an extensive and happy influence,
will live and die more like a vegetable than a human
creature; her powers cramped by ignorance and
overshadowed by superstition. The exalted distinction
of your country is that there is a fair field for
the gifted; whether peasants or citizens they can
freely exert their prerogatives, for the light of
knowledge and the atmosphere of freedom is around
them all. This poor girl has no more opportunity to
do justice to herself than the pearl in the ocean
depths to display its richness, or the diamond in its
rocky bed to exhibit its brilliancy.”

“Yet it is from such truths,” replied Isabel, “that
many delight to draw the inference of a future and
less-bounded being. The endowments of a human
soul, though latent throughout life, become not in
consequence extinct. The pearl or the diamond may
repose for ages in obscurity, or be dissolved into
their pristine elements, but spiritual attributes, if once
created, live on forever, and in some epoch of their
existence must, I would fain believe, shine forth in
the glory ordained them.”

On the following day they crossed the narrow but
swollen river, which anciently formed the boundary
between the Greeks and Carthagenians; on the next,
passed the celebrated battle ground of Rugiero, and
soon after came in sight of the sea. Isabel's heart
expanded at the view of that element which connected
her with her country. It was dearly familiar
to her eye. The carriage turned an angle of the
road, and directly before them rose the abrupt promontory
of Monte Pelegrino; the telegraph rising
distinctly from its summit, while on the plain below
appeared the city of Palermo, environed by olive-groves
on the one side, and the Mediterranean on
the other.

Whether the metropolis which greets the eye of
the traveller be an inland city, or reared on the
borders of the deep, let him mark well its distant
aspect. Whether Genoa rise like an amphitheatre
of palaces and orange-groves to his sea-worn eye,
or Florence repose amid its olive-clad hills beneath
his entranced gaze; whether it be the swelling dome
of St. Peter's, or the oriental cupola of St. Mark's,
which crowns the prospect, let him mark well its
distant aspect; let him patiently trace every line of
the landscape; let him watch the sunlight and shade,
as they alternately play upon the edifices and the
verdure, the heavy wall and the light-springing
tower; let him earnestly ponder the scene, even as
he dwelt upon the last fading landscape of his native
land; let him hoard up the associations of the novel
spectacle and feel, from a distant position, the inspiration

of the renowned locality; for when he has
once plunged into the narrow thoroughfares, and
mingled with the motley crowds within the circle of
the fairy scene, how much of the romance it awakens
will be rudely dispelled! how many of its brightest
suggestions will be coldly overshadowed! But Isabel
gazed upon Palermo, not only with the curiosity of a
traveller, and the interest of an enthusiast; she
looked long and earnestly upon its dense buildings
and numerous domes, as if she would ask the fair
Capital if within its wide walls was the father she
sought.