Morning journal and courier., 1890-05-03

hundred caparisoned mules, the efdgy being in silver upon a dome supported by colossal figures of apostles and saints, below which are masses of roses and trees of artificial co- ral and the grotto thus miraeulously discov- cred, which has become famous Sic1lian shrine, is adorned by a statue of the adored saint by the sculptor Gregorio Ledeschi, clothed with . robe of solid gold, and anoth- grotto on the brink of mighty precipice. To this figure of Santa Rosalia the devout mariner and fisherman always turn for pro- lection against the dread evils of the mighty sea.
 The architecture as we'll as the dialect of Sicily is a mixture of Greek, Arabic, Nor- man and Spanish. Nowhere else is this more noticeable than in Palermo, whose streets disclose most curious composite of structures, though the effect is always ex- tremely bright and interesting, if never ar- tisticslly wholly satisfying; while with the people who are seen upon them there are striking gaiety and jauntiness as universal characteristics of the lowly, blended with astonishing elegance on the part of the pos- sessors of wealth and the nobility in gone ral. The latter class form a monstrous, un- due proportion of the population; and, as in the gay Cuban capital where the Spanish saying, "Tne father grocer; the son gen. tleman; the grandson . beggar;;" 80 tersely expresses the rapid changes of condition, on account of the wild extravaRaness of metro politan life, the entire nobility and aristocra- cy of Sicily, rich or beggared, seem housed within Palermo's walls. While the shops and cafes are very beautiful, the street fa- cades above present a grotesque commingling of sunken galleries ike cloisters, colonnaded fronts of the most classic severity and pro- jecting balconies as graceful and delicate as may anywhere be found in southern Spain. At all hours of the day the streets, which for the most part are ,excesdingly, marrow, swarm with priests, officers, nobles and pie turesque mountaineers, with every manner of lowly city folk of the south; while carpen- ters, tailors, coopers, cobblers, locksmiths and the various petty artisans, unconcerned for the comfort of pedestrians, pursue their several vacations with delightful conscious importance entirely outside their shop doors, gossiping, whistling and singing, adding much to the picturesque confusion of the thoroughfares. Indeed in no other part of the world have come upon such melodious activities. Everybody huns, whistles or sings as he labors; and not infrequently is the passer halted and enthralled by the deli cious abandon with which some laborer, un- conscious of his own meledic power, pours forth untrained but perfect notes rising as clear and loud above the distracting sounds of the street as the la1k's song above the chirpings about farm house and meadow.
 Unlike the custom in Spain and some ltal- ian provinces where women are treated az persons requiring never ending surveillance, in Sicily, and particularly in Palermo, no hateful restrictions of this nature seem to be reauired. Women are seen in the streets, shops and cafes as free from any restraint, and universally treated with as much respect and consideration, ss in America. Indeed if there is difference it is in favor of the Sicilian man, whose courtesy and chivalry are astounding and endless. This gives the traveller most gratifying opportunity for the study of Italian women in Sicily; and I most unhesitatingly pronounce these of Palermo more vivacious than French women; more beautiful than the best examples of Spanish female 1ovsliness; and more graceful and ale together sparkling and charming than any I have elsewhere seen. My own observation disclosed singular condition of contrasts. It would seem that the arirtocratic women of Palermo possess all the beauty to be found among the women of the city; the females among the lowly being sad lot of mournful faced, slow paced, idle scrags. The reverse is usually true, as the painters will tell you, in Mediterranean countries. On the other hand, the male members of the nobility and aristocrscy, and even the clergy, who as 8 class are usually men of fine stature and bearing, are most insignificant lot of swar- thy skin and bone fellows, "chicken breast ed" or bumped, with cadaverous faces olaw- like hands, and limbs that would diseredit the skeleton department of well ordered anatomical museum. A singular contrast to these are the men among the lowly-except- ing the fishermen, who seem to be as skinny a set as the nobility-whose forms and bear ing illustrate the real atistocracy in which nature often molds her least favored crea- tions. They are perfect in form, straight, 1.-the, beaming with good nature, and in all but dress and environment, seem prototypes of the real cavaliers that romance and chiv- airy picture to us as having existed Gin days of old when knights were bold, and barons held their sway"
 But if the sunny days in Palermo are full of light, beauty and picturesqueness, the nights bring with them the real splendor and luxuriousness of this matchless city of the south. There is music everywhere. In thousand half lighted balconies are groups of men and women chatting in low, musical tones or listening to tho sweet notes of man. dolin or guitar; in countless entradas backed by courts filled with rich lights, plants, flow CTS and quaint corridors in an almost orien- tai perspective, are families with friends seated half out upon the street, and among them somewhere is music of voice or instrn- ment; and here, there and everywhere, upon
 
 merry crowds singing, playing, dancing. Melody in word, laugh and song, and from musical instrument of every kind-nothing loud and sonorous, but everything soft and dreamful-pulses in harmonious chords above and over and through the soundful streets. You may be alone and not of it, but it is all composing and 1t possesses you. You know it not, yet it has the loving fa- miliarity of the universal voice of mirth and music. It is in O strange tongue, yet 1t is as plain to you as the untold joy of blessed childhood. Then, from the half seen, who'll ly felt scenes of melodious mirth, look upon the splendid nightly carnival pouring out of ten thousand equipages, filled with richly attired and merry occupants, may be seen. Three times that number of pedestrians look down from the upper Marina. Military bands discourse the sensuous airs of Italy. In this concourse of perhaps fifty thousand souls rudeness and clamor are unknown. Every frequsnter of the Marina only intensi- l fes the everywhere manifest chivalrous cour- tesy and consideration 50 distinguishing this great out door reception room of great city. | It is not until after midnight that the crowds seem to diminish; for it is made sort of so- cial obligation upon every gentleman and lady of the city to be present at some time during the evening. Then from midnight on, by an unwritten law, another sort of life | uhS tuo TlSu1 oI way. lh is au AhIohoo Alss over which Italians have few agonizad phi losophies; but it is as much part of this southern life and cline as that strange brown flower of the south, which only ex-
 hales odor from it's dropping foliage by star 1 light, is an enchanting and sensuous type of cline and nature that in no hour cease
 their warm and glowing activities.
 Of the hundreds of religious edi6ces of
 great age and exceeding interest in and about
 Palermo, tine stranger will finger longest al
 the church and monastery of Santo Spirito,
 famous as the scene of the sad tragedy of the Sicilian Vespers, on March 30, 12S2, and its
 Campo Santo for the lowly dead, where there
 are three hundred and sixty, five stone pits
 covered with stone slabs, into one of which
 the dead of single day of the year are cast
 with consuming quieklime, to remain undis
 turbed until the same day of the succeeding
 year; the huge convent of San Martino and cathedral of Monresle, built by William II.
 to outrival the greatest religious edi6ces of
 northern Europe; the Royal chapel, with it's
 marvellous mosaics, finished in 1132; the in-
 terssting Sarscenic relics of La Cuba and La
 Zisa; and the magnificent cathedral Ql Duo- mol with it's mighty sarcophagi where repose
 the aches of the royal Normans, King Roger