I THINK I told you Sicily was being talked of for our next objective point. Well, we had a beautiful drive to Salerno; from there by rail to Paestum, where I enjoyed the grand old temples for the second time, the others for the first time.

We lunched in the temple of Neptune, and I gathered again the acanthus and wild flowers. The trip was charming, through a continuous garden with orchards and farm lands.

At the temple, an incident occurred I do not like to recall. I was looking at some curios surrounded by a throng of boys of all ages. While deciding about purchasing a very peculiar terra cotta head, they pressed closer and closer to me. Presently I wanted my glasses; they were gone. I could not linger. Before we reached the station, they were brought to me; had evidently been taken from my pocket for that very purpose, with the certainty of getting a reward. This was the only instance of the kind that happened to me in all my wanderings.

Back to Salerno, and from there to Pompeii. The whole route was a revel of spring beauty. Deep valleys, mountains, wide-spreading plains—“how beautiful and wonderful all this little earth!” We spent the time till train hour for Naples in the exhumed city. Nothing more marvelous than its frescoes so fresh and well-preserved.

Naples and shopping next day. Some friends who had just returned from Sicily and Tunis came to tell us about it. One brought many Tunis purchases to show us. Another gave a description of a Tunis wedding, which, by a happy chance, they witnessed. The bride did not see her husband for eight days! The display of presents was most gorgeous.

At 4 p. m., we went to the steamer for Sicily. A storm was brewing as we boarded it, and by the late dinner hour it was upon us in all its fury. One by one the passengers left the table till I alone remained. The effect on me was not ordinary sea-sickness, but a kind of torpidity; once in my birth I could not lift my head, though I was not unconscious. The storm lasted all night, but the morning broke brilliantly clear and invigorating.

Palermo at noon; we had to stay aboard

till 3 p. m., to be put through a process of disinfecting. All sorts of officers came to examine. Barges ran alongside with great tubs of disinfectant water to put soiled clothes through. Then the dogano, and such a racket of talk and cries! Hotel des Palmes from the steamer. It was pleasantly situated and very comfortable, and has a lovely garden. Before going to bed, Tunis was given up. The cousins could not risk the sea-sickness.

We spent several days in Palermo and its environs. I think it might be called the City of Mosaics. Its cathedrals, chapels, palaces, walls, everywhere were a mass of this ornamentation. We went from one to another till my brain was in a buzz. The gorgeousness and beauty and exquisite execution of the extraordinary subjects were beyond description. Only seeing can grasp such wonders. There was an English garden full of flowers and familiar and unfamiliar trees and shrubbery. Indeed, Palermo can boast many gardens. In our drives on the Marina, a very brilliant feature was the carts peculiar to the country. The body of the cart, the two wheels, the shafts and the trappings of the donkey were covered with pictures and designs in the gaudiest colors—blues, reds, greens, orange, etc. The peasants in them were arrayed in garb to match, with faces alight with the most good-humored smiles.

The palaces we were most interested in were those of La Zisa and La Cuba, of Saracenic origin. The feature of the former was its fountain bursting from the wall in the vestibule facing the entrance door, and descending over a succession of steps to the floor, where it took the form of a simple rectangular cross. Above the fountain was a painted arch, below which were three pictures in Mosaics. This was very curious. La Cuba had nothing but a discolored honey-combed vaulting in a small court. A pavilion formerly belonging to it had been removed to the center of a garden on the opposite side of the street. We tramped to it. It had a dome in the roof and an arched doorway, and was built of massive stones, but otherwise was not especially interesting.

To Monreale was a drive of several miles, to see its Cathedral and Abbey and fine views. Its Mosaics are celebrated, but I did not dream of anything like the wonderful Cloisters of the Abbey. The Mosaics on the walls of the Cathedral cover an area of 70,000 square feet,

representing scenes from both the Old and New Testaments. I could only look and exclaim.

The Cloisters are all that remain of the original Abbey; they are quadrangular and the pointed arches supported by 216 columns are covered with mosaics, all of their capitals and many of the shafts being different. I could not even faintly grasp the amount of labor required for the execution of such elaborate work. We had haze, showers and rain every day, but lost no time from our sight-seeing. One day we went in the rain to the Museum, where are the famous Metopes, “the most ancient of Greek sculptures except the lions of Mycene.” These are from the temple of Selinus, where we were to have gone, but a party of English, who had just returned, gave such a disenchanting account of the hardships of the trip, we gave it up. These Metopes are on a sublime scale representing the contests of gods and goddesses and heroes, and are indescribable. One is that of Perseus slaying Medusa.

Not tiring of beautiful Palermo, but of the rain, we left one afternoon for Girgenti, “the most beautiful city of mortals,” according to Pindar. The railway must have been the work of friendly genii, taste, labor and abundance of the “coin of the county,” for it ran for miles between triple hedges of roses, geraniums and cacti, planted in the order I have named them one above the other.

In Holland the hedges are of poppies, and “Out West” in our own country, of sunflowers, both such a blaze of color, the one red, the other orange, as to almost scorch the eye.

The number of ruins of temples on a grand scale in and around Girgenti keeps the sightseers “on the wing;” and at bed-time, the second in the little day-book reads: What a full and interesting day! I wish I had time to tell of these in detail. But Syracuse and the Fountain of Arethusa! Thither the route was of the most varied. Hills and wide-spreading vales like our prairies; cities crowning mountains; sulphur-works and great blocks of it piled at the stations ready for shipment; orchards, exquisite gardens and vineyards, but no forests, only a few trees here and there, principally eucalyptus that have been recently set out. Wild flowers by the acre in countless varieties, one being a species of clover, the head three, four and five inches long, and blood-red in color. We stopped at Catania for lunch at the station, ordered it, and when it was served with one glance let it “severely alone.” Whereupon the waiter fell into a deep dejection. We reached Syracuse at 9:30 p. m.

The night drive through the streets to the hotel was beautiful, and we slept the sleep of those who knew the good things of this world were awaiting us next morning. What a day we made of it! We rambled through the Roman Ampitheater; sat where the nobles had in the Greek Theater; visited the quarries—quarries are one of the most famous characteristics of Syracuse—Euryalis, the fountain of Arethusa, indeed, leaving nothing unseen. In the quarry of Paradise is the famous Ear of Dionysius. You may be sure we tried its extraordinary echoes. In another, that of Latonia de Cappuccini, quarry of the Capuchins, we lunched. The manager of our hotel was our cicerone, a refined and gentlemanly person, but we could not induce him to join us, so strong was his feeling of the difference in our positions. He served us with gloved hands, and when we had finished withdrew from sight to take his lunch. We walked around the ruined fort atop of it, and descended into the depths of its subterranean fortifications. From the top, Mt. Etna was a sublime spectacle—its vast mass of snow-covered volcano seemed lifted bodily into the loftiest heights of air while its base was enveloped in an impenetrable white mist. Anything more ideally ethereal could not be imagined.

The Fountain of Arethusa is inclosed in a circular basin, and can be gazed upon from above standing on a platform with a railing. I looked and longed to get nearer. The custodian was at hand with key ready to unlock a gate. I entered and found the familiar quotation a truth, “Facilis est discensus.” The water was edged with a thick growth of the papyrus, its long, slender stalks topped with a kind of palmlike tuft. There was a most enchanting walk from our hotel to the fountain, and an irresistible fascination found me repeating my visit to it. It took in one of the finest views of the harbor and Mt. Etna. I often stopped as I wandered to wonder if perchance I trod in the footsteps of Archimides, if my glance rested on the same points in both land and water view, and wished—how I wished!—my brain might burn with his momentous thoughts and calculations.

Exquisite views await and arrest the traveler everywhere in Sicily. There are some barren stretches, but these seem to be forgotten

as soon as lost sight of. As our train swept on, these were unrolled before us. Afar off, nestling on the side of a mountain, we caught a glimpse of Meliti, where the Hybla honey of the poets was made. Once more at Catania—it seemed almost a miracle—we were ushered into a Pullman palace car! We could hardly credit “the evidence of our senses.” No cars are comparable for comfort, convenience and elegance with those of our own native land. It was really amusing to see how soon we adjusted ourselves to the accustomed luxuries. We ascertained on inquiry that this was a special train placed at the expense of the Pullman Company as an experiment. It was hoped and thought it would be a success.

Directly there was a chorus of exclamation. The seven rocks of the Cyclops! The rocks the blind Polyphemus hurled so impatiently after “the crafty Ulysses.” They rise at no great distance from the shore, and from the size of some of them the strength of the giant must have been indeed taxed.

Speeding over the plain of Catania took me back to school days and my mythology. For to a part of it belongs the touching story of Proserpine and its harrowing pictures of Pluto carrying her off, her arms outstretched for rescue, and her lovely face furrowed with such terror, horror and agony as fixed itself indelibly upon memory. “The Vale of Enna,” with its flowers bedewed with the tears of the tortured mother and lighted by the burning torch in her hand, as she sought hither and thither for her lost child—how strange to think I was recalling all the story right there upon the ground.

We made but a short tarry at Messina, and then came our reluctant addio to beautiful, historic Sicily. Trinacria of old, so called because of its triangular shape. Not anywhere was flaunted that hideous coat of arms—the head of Medusa, the Gorgon with locks of wreathing serpents and the three legs springing from it as a center, representing a triangle, and the haunting countenance of horror that turned one into stone but to look at it. Yet, I put the picture of it into my album of Sicilian photographs!

How the heart aches over the good-byes that we know mean forever.

Good-bye, O lovely Sicily.

L. G. C.

Naples, May 1, 1886.