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

availing, a certain lowIy Palermitan, a
soapmaker named Bouelli, in despe-
rate distraction and to escape the horrors
of disease and death around him, and
especially to bemoan the loss of his own
wife, wandered out upon the mountains.
The vision of beautiful virgin appeared
to him. Leading him to a cavern the
virgin told him it was her grotto, and
that she was the devotee, Rosalia. The
blunt and honest fellow, with his own
sorrows uppermost in his mind, inquired
why she had abandoned her country to
such dire Affections. II was then re-
vealed to him that this had so far been
the will of heaven; but that as soon as
the remains of her body, which had
previously been discovered and
placed in charge of the archbishop,
had been carried through the
city the plague would cease; closing the
revelation with the assurance that in four
days Bonelli would be with her in para
disc. The latter made confession to the
Capuchins; the relics of Rosalia were
followed in splendid procession through
the city by the senate, clergy and peo-
pie; from that moment the plague be-
gan to diminish; the soapmaker followed
Rosalia to paradise on the fourth day
after having seen the glorious vision; a
magnificent yearly festival celebrating
the deliveranoe, is annually held be-
tween the 18th and 10Th of July,
when an effigy of Rosalia
is drawn through the principal
streets on q triumphal car, 100 feet long,
twenty feet wide and fifty to seventy-five
feet high. by from eighty to 100 capari-
soned mules, the effigy being in silver
upon dome supported by colossal figures
of apostles and saints, below which are
masses of roses and trees of artificial
coral; and the grotto is thus miraculous
ly discovered, which has become
FAMOUS sIcTLIAN SHRINE,
is adorned by a statue of the adored
SAINT by the sculptor Gregorio Ledeschi,
clothed with a robe of solid gold, and
another gigantic statue in marble stands
near the grotto on the brink of mighty
precipice. To this figure of Santa Rosa
liza the devout mariner and fishermen al
ways turn for protection against the
dread evils of the mighty sea.
The architecture as well as the dialect
of Sicily is mixture of Greek, Arabic,
Norman and Spanish. Nowhere else is
this more noticeable than In the Palermo,
whose streets disclose most curious COM
posite of structures, though the effect is
always extremely bright and interesting,
if never artistically 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 ele-
gance on the part of the possessors of
wealth and nobility in general. The latter
| class form monstrous, undue proportion
of the population; and, as in the gay
Cuban capital where the Spanish saying,
1.-The father a grocer; the son GENTLE
man; the grandson beggar; so tersely
expresses the rapid changes of condition,
on account of the wild extravagances of
metropolitan life, the entire nobility and
aristocracy of Sicily, rich or beggared,
seemed housed within Palermo 'swalls.
While the shops and cafes are very beau
tiful, the street facades above present
grotesque commingling of sunken gal
leries like oloisters, colonnaded fronts of
the most classic severity and projecting
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 ex-
ceedingly narrow, swarm with priests,
officers, mobiles and picturesque
mountaineers, with every man
ner of the lowly city folk of the South;
while carpenters, tailors, coopers, cob
blers, locksmiths and the various petty
artisans, unconcerned for the comfort of
pedestrians, pursue their several vOca-
tons with delightful conscious impor-
lance entirely outside their shop doors,
gossiping, whistling and singing, adding
much to the picturesque confusion Of
the thoroughfares. Indeed, in no othtr
part of the world have l come upon such
melodious activities. Everybody huns,
whistles or sings as he labors; and not
infrequently is the passerby halted and
enthralled by the delicious abandon with
which some laborer, unconscious of his
own melodic power, pours forth I'M
trained but perfect notes, rising as clear
and loud above the distraoting sounds of
the street as the lark's song above the
chirpings about farmhouse and meadow.
Unlike the custom in Spain and some
Italian provinces where women are
treated as persons requiring never-end-
ing servillance, in Sicily, and particu-
larry in Palermo, no hateful restrictions
of this nature seem to be required.
Women are seen in the streets, shops
and cafes as free from any restraint,
and universally treated with as much
respect and consideration, as in America.
Indeed if there is q difference it Is in
favor of the Sicilian man, whose cour-
tesy and chivalry are
ASTOUNDING AND ENDLESS.
This gives the traveller most gratifying
opportunity for the study of Italian
women in Sicily; and 1 most unhesitat-
lngly pronounce these of Palermo more
vivacious than French women; more
beautiful than the best examples of
Spanish female loneliness; and more
graceful and altogether sparkling
and charming than any l have
elsewhere seen. My own obseryas.
ton disclosed a singular condition sof
contrasts. 1t would seem that the aris-
toeratic women of Palermo possesses 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 re-
verse is usually true, as the painters will
tell you, in Mediterranean countries.
On the other hand the male members Of.
the nobility and aristocracy, and even
the clergy, who as class are usually
men of fine stature and bearing, are
most insignificant lot of swarthy
skin-and- bone fellows, ''chicken-
breasted or bumped, with cadav-
erous faces, claw-like hands, and
limbs that would discredit the skeleton