of Ortygia, the island where the original Greek settlement was planted. The five prosperous towns that once surrounded the central city have disappeared; the magnificent harbor alone remains unchanged; it could still hold a fleet of battleships.

“Where can we get the best view of Greater Syracuse?” Patsy wondered; “it must have been very like Greater New York. The central city built on an island in a magnificent harbor surrounded by five cities and connected by a bridge to the mainland. You can see the remaining ruins of the five cities on this map—see here they are, they correspond quite well to Brooklyn, Hoboken, Jersey City, Staten Island and the Bronx!”

We had fixed Sunday afternoon, our last day, to deliver a letter of introduction to a lady of Syracuse; our time was so short we could not risk being tempted with hospitalities! When the hour for the visit arrived Patsy “begged off!”

“That old Greek fort of Euryelus,” he began, “I didn’t half see it the other day—the English officer I met in the catacombs says that Archimedes invented the catapult for its defence. He says it’s still so solid it could be repaired to stand a siege—an old-fashioned one of course—like the siege of Troy!”

“You more interested in an old ruin than a new acquaintance?” I cried. No use, for once Patsy deserted me.

On the way to deliver the letter I stopped at the cathedral, formerly a Pagan temple. The baroque faÇade is disappointing. Where are the remains of the temple, of the costly treasures Verres carried off to Rome, and got soundly scolded by Cicero for, in consequence? To get back to that time you must go over step by step what has happened since then. In the seventh century the temple was turned into a Christian church by Bishop Zosimus, in the eighth it became a Mohammedan mosque; temple, mosque, cathedral, it has served its purpose of worship well! When my guide, a bright-eyed boy, rattled off his lesson, the place immediately grew interesting. I found the temple’s superb Doric columns—they are whitewashed now and hard to discover—imbedded in the cathedral walls; at the sight of them the church vanishes, a splendid temple stands in its place. Near this deep-fluted column, may have knelt Simaetha, the deserted girl, imploring help of Artemis to win back false Delphis—hark, her old cry echoes through the ages:

“Three times do I pour libation, and thrice, my Lady Moon, I speak this: Be it with a friend he lingers, be it with a leman, may he clean forget them, as Theseus of old forgot the fair-tressed Ariadne!”

“There will be a baptism,” said the boy, “if the lady cares to see the font—“

I looked at the curious baptismal font, while the sacristan lighted his candle in preparation for the rite. The font is a classic vase, resting on twelve quaint Phoenician-looking lions of green bronze; an inscription states it was a gift to Zosimus. Who was he? A god, as one book says, or the Bishop, or a pagan historian, who criticizes Christian emperors over much? Either way, it was strange to see the ancient vase used as a baptismal font, to witness the casting out of the old Adam from a new-born baby by a cross apoplectic archpriest, who so frightened the infant that it roared horribly as Adam departed.

“You are the son of the custode?” I said to my guide, a lad perhaps eleven years old.

“No, I am the custode!”

“And your father, what does he do?”

“Oh, he is a custode too.”

The lady, to whom I had the letter, received me cordially. She lives in an old palace, with large high rooms, and modern furniture. I pleased her by saying how much we admired the dark Syracusan type; I did not see one blonde in Syracuse.

“Your women have superb hair,” I said; “they dress it beautifully.”

“You noticed that? I have seen women without shoes, whose coiffures were finer than those I saw in Paris. They are extravagant. Imagine! my washerwoman has her hair dressed; she pays a franc and a half a month to a hair-dresser—you should see her; her coiffure is almost as good as mine.”

“That would be difficult; your hair is magnificent.”

“All my own—see, hardly a white hair, just two or three over the temple. When I was young, it covered me like a cloak, but what can one expect at sixty?”

“Sixty—it’s not possible!”

“Yes, my festa was a week ago; how old should you have said?”

“Less than forty.”

It was true, she was the youngest person for her age I ever saw. A tall shy man now came in followed by a brown lupetto dog.

My hostess introduced me. “An American lady—she brings a letter from the Contessa Q.—she would be welcome without it—we know what the Americani are doing, Signora. I myself saw the good warm clothes the American Capitano landed here. O, the Prefetto was glad of those garments and those medicines—what was the name of the ship, Arturo?”

“There were several; thou referest to the Celtico.”

“What a kind man was that captain—he spoke French like a Frenchman and the young biondino who kept the lists; tanto simpatico!”

It was pleasant to hear of the “Celtic’s” good work in this very foreign house, of Captain Huse and of Paymaster Jordan ycleped il biondino!

“Did I tell thee,” said Arturo, addressing my hostess—he was too shy to speak directly to me—“that the sailors of the American fleet made up a purse of sixteen thousand francs for the families of our mariners smitten by the disaster? It is a fact of piety and comradeship not to be forgotten.”

“Thou sayest well. Hast thou not a glass of wine, a bit of cake to offer?”

Poor Arturo, thankful for any excuse to escape, lurched out of the room followed by the lupetto. He was one of those painfully shy men whose greatest intimacies are with animals, as dumb as they themselves would like to be.

“Your husband—” I began.

“No, no, my son!” she interrupted, laughing till the tears came to her eyes.

“My son, the eldest; not a good son; he has married against my wishes. Children are nothing but vexations; to be happy one must be childless!”

I tried to change the subject by asking Arturo’s profession.

“He has no profession, no ambitions. His father was in the Legislature, as was my father. Arturo is satisfied to live in the country, to make wine, to raise sheep, goats, swine. That is very well, but it is not enough. He should see the world, pass a winter in Rome; but no, he thinks only of his vineyards and his sheep, Madonna Santa, his goats—my son!”

Arturo returned, followed by a servant bringing refreshments. He poured the wine, held the glass to the light, handed it to me with a deep bow:

“Your health!”

“This is exquisite—so light—it’s like some Syracusan wine I had at Taormina;” I mentioned the name.

“That is not an honest wine,” he was all alive now. “I should not advise you to take it. This now is pure; be not afraid, it cannot hurt you!”

“It’s hard to get wine in Rome at any decent price nowadays,” I said.

“What do you pay a flask?”

“We are fortunate, we do not pay forestieri prices, we have it from a friend for two francs—“

“If this suits the Signora, we can make an arrangement to send her a quantity, direct, not through the hands of an agent—they are all robbers!”

When I thought I had stayed long enough, I rose to go.

“It is early,” said my hostess, surprised at my haste, though we had talked for over an hour; there is more time in Syracuse than in some places.

“My cab has come—“

“The Signora will drive in the Passeggiata Aretusa? Everybody goes there Sunday afternoon; there is music, it is just the time. Shall I accompany her?”

“It would be most kind.”

“No, no, a pleasure! Take my keys, Arturo, be sure you give them to none but me.” She bustled about briskly; in a few minutes was ready for our drive. “I will show you more people worth looking at in half an hour than you would see alone in a week.”

Arturo helped us into the cab; as we drove off he bowed with a certain rustic awkwardness not without its charm; he pleased in spite of his plainness. He is not fitted for courts or capitals, but just for the country life he likes; I am sure his flocks flourish, I know his wine is good; even in Syracuse, mothers are not always the best judges of a son’s capacity.

In the Passeggiata Aretusa the band was playing Cavalleria Rusticana. The pleasant

promenade, facing the harbor front, was crowded with people dressed in their best. The Syracusans walked up and down in family groups, father and mother behind, children in front, or sat upon benches in threes, young girl, young man, and the inevitable chaperon. There were few carriages, only one with pretensions, an antique barouche lined with mulberry cloth; coachman and footman wore liveries to match; horses and harnesses were fresh and handsome, the whole turnout was of the style of fifty years ago. The scene had a strong Spanish flavor. In Italy you expect to find the population on a festa afternoon assembled in a piazza, the proper social center of every Italian community; in Spain the social center is the alameda, a long shaded promenade with seats and space for people to pace and talk. In the interval “between the selections,” we paced slowly up and down. My friend was a person of distinction; all the best-dressed people bowed very low to her. At one end of the Passeggiata the crowd was so great that we halted near a pool, enclosed by an iron railing.

“Ecco la fontana Aretusa,” said the lady; she had been so busy bowing to right and to left, that she had hardly spoken since we entered the drive. The Fountain of Arethusa! Another of Sicily’s delicious surprises; in this fairy-land you meet old friends every moment.

Arethusa! At her very name, the opening words of Shelley’s poem ring through the memory:—

Arethusa, you remember? the lovely maiden of Elis, who was seen bathing and pursued by the river god, Alpheus. The maid, appealing to Artemis, was changed to a fountain, whereupon Alpheus mingled his stream with hers, and they both sank into the earth, passed under the sea, and rose again in Ortygia:

Would you know how she looks to an artist? The next time you are at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, look at George Fuller’s lovely picture of Arethusa, and you will learn.

The fountain rises from an arch in the rock and spreads into a wide picturesque pool, where papyrus and water lilies grow.

The concert was over, the band put up their instruments, the crowd began to disperse; it was time to leave the Passeggiata Aretusa. As we drove back to the lady’s house she pointed out a large building.

“See, they have nearly finished that labor—who knows when it would have been done if it had not been for the earthquake? The American Mees Davis had a hand in that.”

“You know Miss Davis?” I asked.

“If I know her? Per Bacco, who does not? I tell you that woman is a marvel! You have heard what she accomplished after the earthquake, she and the German Dr. Colmers? We had three thousand of those poor creatures to feed, house and clothe. Magari! it would have gone hard without the help of that woman—and what influence, what power she possessed! She had but to ask, no matter what, it was granted—money, but thousands of scudi; work-rooms, the Sindaco gave her three in the Palazzo Municipale.”

Miss Davis! That is another story; it has been told elsewhere, will, I hope, be more fully told by Miss Davis herself. She had come to Sicily for a vacation, having so overworked herself that the trustees of her Woman’s Prison at Bedford insisted she should take a few months’ rest. The day after the earthquake she offered her services for relief work. Syracuse was fortunate in having a good Prefect, a good Mayor, doubly fortunate in having two women of power among the volunteers—Miss Davis and the Marchesa di Rudini, daughter of Mr. Labouchere, the editor of Truth. Miss Davis had with her just six hundred dollars; this she promptly spent for the relief work. Her first purchase was two hundred francs’ worth of pocket handkerchiefs. She had besides, what the American Committee in Rome had, faith unlimited in the heart of America; that is better than a bank account.

“From the point of view of actual achievement,” writes Mr. Cutting, “and also of example, Miss Davis’ feat at Syracuse seems to me the most important single contribution to the problem of rehabilitating the sufferers from the earthquake.”

This praise was borne out by all we saw and heard at Syracuse.

Miss Davis opened a hospital for the wounded; and work-rooms where all, who could sew, were employed to make clothes and bedding for the horde of almost naked refugees the Russian, English, German as well as the Italian ships brought to slumbrous Syracuse. She was one of the prime movers in the relief work at Syracuse, that the Duke of Genoa said was the best organized of all he saw. Each man was set to work at the thing he could do; the tailors made clothes, the cobblers made boots, the masons, carpenters and painters were employed to finish a large public building that stood half completed. So these poor people were enabled from the first to earn their own living, to escape the dreadful pauperization that in Rome, and almost everywhere else, confronted them. There remained the “poor things,” the men who had no skill, no trade; what work could be invented for them? Miss Davis was now entrusted with large sums of money, the spending of it was left to her judgment. From the first she maintained that among the able bodied, only those who worked could be fed. It would have been far easier to issue rations, or so much money a day to the profughi: those methods did not suit the “Angel of Mercy.” She looked about her, found the roads in a bad condition; organized and kept at work a road gang, mending the roads of Syracuse.

The tributes Miss Davis received are wonderfully touching. A poor organist from Messina composed a song in her honor, dedicated to the Tortorella (turtle dove); the Sindaco sent her a diploma of honor, beautifully engrossed with the coat-of-arms of the city; most precious of all is the address, signed by a long list of her profughi, addressed to the “Gentile Miss,” the sublime “Heroine of Charity,” who is saluted “in the name of the great heart of Ortygia, the center of the ancient world!”

“After Taormina, Girgenti is the most beautiful place in Sicily,” Patsy declared.

“Some people say Taormina is the most beautiful place on earth; if you like to measure—“

“I don’t—I couldn’t—so many places seem best! Wait till you see the temples though; there’s nothing to compare with them outside Athens.”

We had arrived at the port of Empedocles at sunset, and driven through the violet dusk up to the town, glowing like a jewelled city on the heights overlooking river and harbor. I had gone direct to the comfortable Hotel des Temples, a mile outside Girgente, where again as at Syracuse we were the only guests. When we met at breakfast, Patsy had already explored the place.

“We ought to have kept more time for this,” he said; “for us it’s even more interesting than Syracuse.”

“Girgenti—” I began.

“Call it Acragas, the Greek name, or at least Agrigentum, the Roman,” Patsy interrupted. “I’ve made friends with the custode of the Temple of Zeus; he’s like the others, a superior man—here in Sicily they all seem a cut above the same sort on the mainland.”

Breakfast over, I was hurried to see the Temple of Zeus and Patsy’s new friend. He welcomed us with effusion and lamented the scarcity of tourists. Patsy asked him to what nationality the larger part of his traveling public belonged.

“German,” he said. “I always know them because they walk.”

“They are economical?”

“In part for that reason, also because they see more on foot than driving.”

“Americans all come in cabs?”

“It is true, but they are mostly ladies. Touching those Germans, before 1870 they traveled very little; now they come in crowds. The Kaiser sets the fashion; he comes every spring to Syracuse, often to Girgenti. What a lot of German architects and men of science were here this time last year! They study, they measure, they make drawings, they return, they measure again—oh, intelligent! One cannot deny it, if not so sympathetic as others—Americani for example.”

The Temple of Zeus is a vast ruin; hardly one stone remains standing on another. The mighty pillars lie where they sank; their bases are still in place, the drums that composed them have fallen asunder; you can trace the relation of part to part as they lie forlorn and disjointed on the earth. A sandstone giant, that once upheld the roof, lies on the ground; he reminds us of the Colossus at Thebes, even more of the carved wood colossi that held up the great organ of the old Boston Music Hall. The Temple of Heracles, near the Temple of Zeus, is no better preserved; these vast ruins arouse a feeling of sadness and confusion. To what end were they erected, with such incredible labor, if they were to be so utterly destroyed? It was futile, discouraging, hopeless!

“There, there!” said Patsy, “that’s the reason I brought you here first. Now come and see the great glory!”

“Notice one thing more,” said the custode, pointing to a bit of cornice that lay protected from the weather by a large fragment. “You see this white coating like fine stucco? The six temples of Girgenti were all built of sandstone, yet they must look like marble. Oh! the ancients knew some things we have forgotten! White marble was brought from Greece, ground to a powder, mixed with mastic and spread over the sandstone; the temples of Girgenti shone white as the Parthenon itself.”

“I should like to think so,” sighed Patsy; “now they tell us the marble surface was painted over with blue, red and green decorations.”

“It was a protection as well,” said the custode. “See, the stone is friable; if it had not been for so many centuries covered with this stucco, it would have been worn away by the sirocco.”

We walked through olive and almond groves to the Temple of Juno, standing lonely and grand on the edge of a precipice. Lavender morning-glories, blue iris, yellow daisies, grow about the broad steps. After the desolate ruins we had seen, this looked, in comparison, almost a complete building. We climbed the stair to the roof; against the gray-green of the olives, the emerald of the almond trees, the flower-gemmed grass, the rich amber color of the colonnade glowed dull in the sunlight.

“It’s more like PÆstum than anything else,” said Patsy, “only I do not find the roses of PÆstum that bloom twice in the year. Will a bit of myrtle do as well?”

The Temple of Concord, even better preserved than the Juno, is the most admired. The site of the Juno is more picturesque; the staircase to the roof gives an extraordinary sense of nearness to the time when this was a living place of worship, not a dead ruin.

At the Cathedral of Girgenti instead of being made much of, we were made to feel that we were in the way—they were preparing for the services of Passion Week—no time for forestieri, a resolute monk gave us to understand;—we managed to steal a look at a lovely marble sarcophagus, with scenes from the tragic story of Hippolytus carved in high relief. We went to the Museum, a neglected dreamy place with a few real treasures: an archaic marble statue of Apollo, very lovely, with the fixed Æginetan smile; a gold belt, three thousand years old, with a buckle exactly like one I wore.

“The Signori are Americans?” A handsome old man, poring over a big book, looked up at us, as he asked the question of the attendant. The man whispered something in his ear; then the old gentleman closed the book and came to greet us with his faraway smile.

“That grand and majestic country, America, is not egotistical,” he explained when he had welcomed us to Girgenti. “What vibrant sympathy it has shown our country! We are egotists, it is the curse of our people; but I revere America most, for the wondrous new science that has come from there.” He beckoned us to look at his big book; an Italian translation of a vulgar work on spiritualism, illustrated with cheap spirit photographs.

“The last thing I should have expected to find in Agrigentum!” sighed Patsy.

“You have some knowledge of spiritismo?” said the stranger.

“Oh yes, we know all about it!” Patsy assured him.

“Last night I paced up and down the room for twenty minutes with the great Sesostris—it was his wish to talk with me, the medium, a wonderful woman, ascertained.”

“How did Sesostris look?”

“Majestical! He was dressed all in white; though not so tall as I, he has a noble bearing.”

“What did he say?”

Little that was new, it appeared, though the old gentleman repeated the conversation, as well as those of Plato and Socrates, with whom he often talked. While he rambled on, the attendant, a fat perspiring man, was visibly embarrassed—he too wished to talk about America. As we took our leave he found his chance.

“Behold, this came from San Francisco,” he pointed to a hideous porcelain medallion, with a photograph of a man and a woman, hanging from his buttonhole, “a portrait of my son and his wife, non c’È male?”

“The Signori will return?” said the old man, hovering between us and his big book. “They will let me be of some service to them?”

We would gladly have returned, our new friend is one of the most learned archeologists in Sicily; but, alas, he would only speak of materializations and controls—his book was full of the gross impostures we used to hear about years ago, before the high-grade mediums of these later days and their dupes came to the fore.

“Think of the things he could have told us!” groaned Patsy. “What a wasted opportunity!”

Not far from the Museum we passed a flaring placard with the words:

“At the Theatre of Empedocles will be presented the Cinematograph of Edison.” Here in ancient Syracuse, the ends of the earth are brought together—Empedocles and Edison; what a combination!

My last impression of Girgenti is of our visit to a little church—the name is forgotten—and of Patsy’s chatter about what we saw there.

“This,” he said, as we walked along a dusty road of “splendor-loving Acragas,” “is the Temple to Demeter and Persephone, though you wouldn’t know it if I didn’t tell you.”

The little church shows few traces of the ancient temple. Its chief treasure is a famous crucifix, that hangs against the wall, surrounded by votive offerings, wax models of hands, feet, breasts and stomachs (very like those of terra-cotta I saw at the Temple of Juno in Veii), the most gross things of the kind I have seen in a Christian church.

“A lady who had paralysis of the hands,” said the cripple who served as cicerone, “promised the Lord, if he would cure her, to pay him this compliment. Eccelenza, she had faith—aimÉ if we all had her faith—she was cured. My grandmother herself saw this thing. Those two wax arms she hung up in gratitude, they cost a horror; she gave the prete ten francs as well for the poor. It is a miraculous crucifix, davvero, but to deserve the miracle one must have faith!”

From an olive grove came the sound of a shepherd’s flute; the thin sweet music of the pastorale was the only sound that broke the noontide quiet as we sat outside the old temple of Demeter and Persephone, dreaming!

“It all happened here,” said Patsy. “It was through these very fields Persephone wandered picking violets when Pluton, king of Hades, sprang from a dark cave and carried her off to his kingdom underground. Then came the mother Demeter, in her hands the sceptre, corn, and the mystic basket, searching for her lost daughter; she lighted Etna for a torch to show the way; she looked high and low, she asked all she met for news of her child. Kyane, Persephone’s playmate, alone had met Pluton carrying off the maid, and because she begged him to set free her friend, Kyane was turned into a beautiful spring (that very spring where the custode’s son went for papyrus). The voice of Demeter was heard calling Persephone, Persephone, through these very fields and meadows. In vain! Persephone, even if she heard her mother’s voice in the dark kingdom of the dead, could not return; she had eaten the seed of the pomegranate, she was the wife of Pluton. There was a great to-do; Olympus was shaken to its foundations. Demeter refused to attend the counsel of the gods, she laid a spell upon the land so that it bore no fruit, no wheat, and was threatened by famine. In the end however the matter was arranged, the family became reconciled. Zeus gave Sicily to Persephone, as a wedding gift; the daughter now spends half the year in her mother’s house, and half in her husband’s.”

So he repeated the lovely old fable-allegory of the seed hidden in the earth half the year, and half the year alive again. How it echoes in the thunder of the burial service!

“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”

Paul had been at Eleusis; he knew the mysteries, had perhaps seen the ancient marble bas-relief in the temple there of Demeter laying in the hand of Triptolemus the precious grains of corn!