Leaving Palermo early, we pass _Monreale_ in our way to the Doric
columns of _Segeste_, and find ourselves, before the heat of day has
reached its greatest intensity, at a considerable elevation above the
plain on which the capital stands, amidst mountains which, except in
the difference of their vegetation, remind us not a little of the
configuration of certain wild parts of the Highlands, where Ben
Croachin flings his dark shadow across Loch Awe. Indeed, we were
thinking of this old and favourite fishing haunt with much
complacency, when two men suddenly came forth from behind the bristly
aloes and the impenetrable cactus--ill-looking fellows were they;
but, moved by the kindest intentions for our safety, they offer to
conduct us through the remainder of the defile. This service our
hired attendant from Palermo declined, and we push on unmolested to
Partenico, our halting-place during the heat of the day. It is a town
of some extent, large enough to afford two fountains of a certain
pretension, but execrably dirty within. Twelve thousand inhabitants
has Partenico, and five churches. Out of its five locandas, who shall
declare the worst? Of that in which we had first taken refuge, (as,
in a snow-storm on the Alps, any _roof_ is Paradise,) we were obliged
to quit the shelter, and walk at _noon_, at _midsummer_, and in
_Sicily_, a good mile _up_ a main street, which, beginning in
habitations of the dimensions of our almshouses, ends in a few huts
intolerably revolting, about which troops of naked children defy
vermin, and encrust themselves in filth. At one door we could not
help observing that worst form of _scabies_, the _gale à grosses
bulles;_ so we had got, it appeared, from _Scylla_ into _Charybdis_,
and were in the very preserves of Sicilian _itch_, and we
prognosticate it will spread before the month expires wherever human
skin is to be found for its entertainment. Partenico lies in a
scorching plain full of malaria. Having passed the three stifling
hours of the day here, we proceed on our journey to _Alcamo_, a town
of considerable size, which looks remarkably well from the plain at
the distance of four miles--an impression immediately removed on
passing its high rampart gate. Glad to escape the miseries with which
it threatens the _détenu_, we pass out at the other end, and zigzag
down a hill of great beauty, and commanding such views of sea and
land as it would be quite absurd to write about. Already a double row
of aloë, planted at intervals, marks what is to be your course afar
off, and is a faithful guide till it lands you in a Sicilian plain.
This is the highest epithet with which any plain can be qualified.
This is indeed the month for Sicily. The goddess of flowers now wears
a morning dress of the newest spring fashion; beautifully _made up_
is that dress, nor has she worn it long enough for it to be sullied
ever so little, or to require the washing of a shower. A delicate
pink and a rich red are the colours which prevail in the tasteful
pattern of her voluminous drapery; and as she _advances_ on you with
a light and noiseless step, over a carpet which all the looms of
Paris or of Persia could not imitate, scattering bouquets of colours
the most happily contrasted, and impregnating the air with the most
grateful fragrance, we at once acknowledge her beautiful
impersonation in that "_monument of Grecian art_," the _Farnese
Flora_, of which we have brought the fresh recollection from the
museum of Naples.
The _Erba Bianca_ is a plant like southernwood, presenting a curious
hoar-frosted appearance as its leaves are stirred by the wind. The
_Rozzolo a vento_ is an ambitious plant, which grows beyond its
strength, snaps short upon its overburdened stalk, and is borne away
by any zephyr, however light. Large crops of _oats_ are already cut;
and oxen of the Barbary breed, brown and coal-black, are already
dragging the simple aboriginal plough over the land. Some of these
fine cattle (to whom we are strangers, as they are to us) stood
gazing at us in the plain, their white horns glancing in the sun;
others, recumbent and ruminating, exhibit antlers which, as we have
said before, surpass the Umbrian cattle in their elk-like length and
imposing majesty. Arrived at the bottom of our long hill, we pass a
beautiful stream called _Fiume freddo_, whose source we track across
the plain by banks crowned with _Cactus_ and _Tamarisk_. Looking back
with regret towards _Alcamo_, we see trains of mules, which still
transact the internal commerce of the country, with large packsaddles
on their backs; and when a halt takes place, these animals during
their drivers' dinner obtain their own ready-found meal, and browse
away on three courses of vegetables and a dessert.