VI.

A RIDE ROUND SICILY.

Thome which affords such a refreshing change from

HERE is no country within the same distance of

everything English as Sicily. It is a multum in parvo. Its substratum is, of course, Italian, but its Grecian remains rival any to be found in Greece itself, and, as is well known, Greek colonists, with their Greek costumes, inhabit the "Piano dei Greci" to the present day. The Spanish element is also strongly represented both in the style of its houses and in many characteristics of its people. I would recommend any one who may have six weeks of spring at his disposal to take a through ticket to Palermo: and, when they have ridden the three weeks' journey from that city by Segesti, Girgenti, and Syracuse, to Messina, or for a week longer, so as to return by the northern coast to Palermo,-they will have enjoyed some pieces of unrivalled coast scenery: have in a measure visited Italy, Greece, and Spain; seen many of the finest specimens of ancient art; imbibed an endless

amount of sunshine and sunbrown; endured just as much discomfort and filth as is salutary for their moral and physical discipline; and not improbably have had "a new sensation" in the shape of meeting real banditti, in being carried off to the mountains, or at once robbed in the most approved highway fashion. We trust, however, that few will take our advice. There are too many tourists -or, as a certain Highland gamekeeper, a friend of ours, calls them, "touracks"-in Sicily even now for the permanent security of her peculiar privileges. We tremble lest those great districts, with no road but the bridle-path winding through bean fields and by groves of Cactus, should be opened up by dusty turnpikes. Diu absit Macadam! We are horrified at the idea of the little "Locanda " with its grimy labyrinths, unglazed windows and armies of fleas, not to speak of other and diverse species of irritants, giving way to a great staring hotel. By and by there will not be a spot within any reasonable distance from home, where we may, conscientiously and for necessary reasons, enjoy the

great unwashed great unbrushed" principle, which, when so enjoyed, is the most health-giving of all restoratives. Who would exchange the long day on the great mule, with his ponderous ears flapping clouds of flies, or lifting his loud clarion of joy, when in the balmy twilight he reaches the little village and scents the "Stallo” afar off, for the easiest of four-wheelers or most luxurious of railways? In many notable respects, civilization and comfort are a mistake for a week or two.

The time when, with the companion of many another such expedition, I rode round Sicily, was before the days

of Garibaldi, and when the notion of "Italia una was but an idea, fermenting in the brains of Cavour and a few brother patriots. Bomba Rex, Pater Patriæ, then held an undisputed sway. He was master of the warsteamers we used to see heaving along the brilliant coast, and his hand moved the arms of those signal posts, which passed his commands from headland to headland, and station to station. Things may be changed now by the opening up of new roads, but travelling in Sicily was then rather a formidable matter, as almost everything had to be carried, from bed and table linen down to pots and pans. Capital fellows are, how

ever, always to be had in Palermo, who are quite up to all that is required, being possessed of excellent canteenchests, and who are themselves good cooks as well as guides. We had a famous old man with us, a certain Giovanni Dimaria, who, if all he told us was true, had led as romantic a life as any contained in the wildest fiction. According to his own account, he had exercised in his time the various functions of cabin-boy, jockey at Newmarket, man-of-war's man, opera singer and cook; and, as a little episode, had once fallen in love and eloped with a young lady of Naples, whom he discovered to be a step-sister of his own within an hour or two of the celebration of the marriage at Portici ! Of these many accomplishments I can only vouch for his cooking and singing.

Before the dawn of a glorious April morning, this same Giovanni, leading four large mules hung with trappings and bells, came jingling into the quiet courtyard of the slumbering Trinacria. There were also

Vincenzo our muleteer, in his white Sicilian cap of "Kilmarnock" fashion, and Garofalo the boy, servus servorum, besides sundry waiters with pale unwashed faces, and Ragusa, the best of hosts, with his stentorian. voice, superintending the preparations. After the usual hubbub of packing, adjusting of saddles, balancing and lashing on of canteen-chests, breaking numberless straps, buckles, and old cords, and with much loss of temper and of breath among all the parties concerned, we got away from the hotel about six, leaving its inmates to enjoy whatever share of rest might still remain to them. We passed up the sombre street, still in deep shadow, with its great houses of Spanish fashion, and heavy eaves and balconies, and out by the Moorish-looking city gate, to the dusty road leading up in long ascent to the hills. The little fragments of suburbs were bright with morning sunshine, that lit up the rough fresco daubs on their walls into colour; women stood in the sunshine, spinning from the distaff; mothers tossed their half-dressed babies in the sunshine; the very donkeys, waiting to have their panniers laden, brayed and made their tails quiver for joy of that warm brilliant glory flooding hill and sea. The first leaves of spring were just beginning to tremble on the vines and fig-trees, the fields were freshly green with the young crops of corn and rows of shumack, here and there were orange groves with the golden clusters still hanging on the branches, while the gray olive mingled its sober colouring amid the brighter foliage. Long gossamers, beaded with glittering dewdrops, waved from the sharp spikes of the aloe or prickly pear, and spring flowers, blue, and yellow, and

scarlet, were strewn like stars among the natural grasses. An hour or two brought us to Monreale, with its grand old church, half Byzantine, half Moorish, standing boldly out on the hill-side overhanging the valley. Except St Mark's in Venice, there are few finer specimens of that particular style of art than Monreale. Its mosaic roof-pictures more than rival St Mark's, and however rude and conventional the stiff hard drawing may be, nevertheless there is something most impressive in those gigantic countenances. Enter at the western door, for. instance," and walk up the dim-lit nave, towards that apse, whose whole space is filled with a half-length colossal figure of our Lord, all set in blue and gold, with the long hair divided meekly on either side the brows, the hands raised in act to bless, and the large almond eyes, whose sad loving gaze follows you wherever you go; while all around this central figure and idea of them all, are rows of saints and angels and cherubims"Thrones, Dominions, Princedoms, Powers," filling the spaces on roof and walls, and every sense of rudeness in the art becomes lost in the pervading feeling of reverence which is inspired.

A short way past Monreale we took our last glimpse at Palermo. In the distance was the deep bay, shaped like a horse-shoe, held in on one side by the bare craggy height of Monte Pellegrino, at whose base were the harbour and the clustered roofs of the city; and ridged in on the other by the long stretching hills of Bagaria, while between the crescent disk of blue sea swelled up into the bosom of the plain-"La Concha d'oro.”— which, itself a sea of green, lay embayed between the