Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-05-03

the nights bring with them the real
splsndor and Iuxuriousness of this match
less CITY of the South. There is music
everywhere. In a thousand half-lighted
balconies are groups of men and women
chatting in low, musical tones or listen
ing to the sweet notes of mandolin or
guitar; in countless entradas backed by
courts filled with rich lights, plants,
flowers and quaint corridors III an almost
oriental perspective, are families with
friends seated half out upon the street,
and among them somewhere Is
music of voice or instrument; and
here, there and everywhere, upon the
housetops, in luxurious gardens. are
merry crowds singing, playing, dancing
Melody in word, laugh and song, and
from musical instruments OF every KIND
nothing loud and sonorous, but every
thing soft and dreamful-pulses IN har-
monious chords above and over and
through the soundful streets. You msy
be alone and not of it, but 1t is all-com-
passing, and it possesses you. You know
it not, yet it has the loving familiarity of
the universal voice of mirth and music.
1t is in a strange tongue, yeti is as plain
to you as the untought
JOY OF BLESSED CHILDHOOD.
Then, from the half seen, wholly felt
scenes of melodious nirth, look upon the
splendid nightly carnival pouring out of
the Corso into the glorious Marina.
Fully 10 900 equipages. filed with richly
attired and merry occupants, may be
seen. Three times that number of pe-
destrians look down from the Upper
Marina. Military bands discourse the
sensuous airs of Italy. In this concourse
of perhaps 80 900 souls, rudeness and
clamor are unknown. Every frequenter OF
the Marina only intensifes the every
where manifest chivalrous courtesy and
consideration so distinguishing this great
outdoor reception room of great city
1t Is not until after midnight that the
crowds seem to diminish; for it is made
sort of social obligation upon every gen.
tleman 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 has the right of way
1t is an intense life, over which Italians
have few agonized PHILOSOPHERS; but it is
as much part of this Southern life and
cline as that strange brown flower of the
South, which only eXhales odor from its
dropping foliage by starlight, is an en-
chanting and sensuous type of cline
and nature that in no hour cease their
warm and glowing activities.
or the hundreds of religious edifces of
great age and exceeding interest in and
about Palermo, the stranger will linger
longest at the church and monastery of
Santo Spirito, famous as the scene of the
sad tragedy of the Sicilian Vespers, on
March 30, 1882, and its Campo Santo for
the lowly dead, where there are 365
stone pits, covered with stone slabs,
into one of which the dead of single
day of the year are cast with consuming
quioklime, to remain undisturbed until
the same day of the succeeding year;
the huge convent of San MARITIME and
cathedral of Monreale, built by William
II. to outrival the greatest religious edi-
fees of Northern Europe; the Royal
chapel, with its marvellous mosaics, fin
ished in 1892; the interesting Saracenic
relics of La Cuba and La Elsa; and the
magnificent cathedral I'll Duomo), with
its mighty sarcophagi, where Tepose the
ashes of the royal Normans, King Roger
1. his daughter, Constantine, and En-
peror Frederick H.; but the most weird
and unearthly fascination will be felt
in the crypts of the convent of
the Cappuccini, where over 5000
bodies are disposed in the
eternal sleep in manner which ought to
bring eternal sleeplessness to the living.
These bodies are practically embalmed,
or mummified, and many habited in the
clothing of their mortal days, are stood,
or fastened, or hing, in inches, in up
right post1res, in which they sway
seeming to writhe in horrible facial con-
tortions, for the entertainment of the on
locker. Every possible age, every man
ner of dress, every conceivable posture,
is discernable. The theory upon
which this CHASTITY show-house is
conducted is that it is q good thing for
the living to commune with the dead.
Perhaps it is not bad idea, but 1t would
take healthy American some time to
get used to it; and as our steamer sped
toward Naples, 1 was glad that the
brightness and beauty of Palermo, ola
felice, - were rich enough in memories
of delight to hide the Capuchin cata-
combs as gladsomely as a sweet June
day will efface q hateful dream.
EDGAR L. WAKEAAN.