Foliage so rich and varied that only a catalogue can describe it riots in the garden once part of the temple precincts, and sprouts between the stones of the ancient, partly ruined castle that legend would have us believe was erected by no less a personage than Dædalus himself. To-day the castle is partly used as a prison, and it is a warden who admits to the quiet precincts. Crumbling bastion and curtain, roofless hall and moldy dungeon keep, silent corridor and deserted rampart, where no Elymian spears now glisten in the occasional sunshine or drip gloomily with the characteristic golden fog, weave a powerful spell, so powerful, so enchanting none would be surprised in the slightest did the castle suddenly galvanize into life, and the figure of the lovely goddess of eld once more smile in the little temple whose foundations only now exist.
It is a city, a castle, a location only to be sketched. No colors, no details can at all conjure forth the charm at once so definite and so elusive. See Eryx!—even if you have no æroplane and must either “ride or walk”—a guidebook solemnly advises this as the best way to reach the summit—up that splendid road into the very skies.
XVIII
ADDIO, SICILIA!
IN Sicily all roads lead to Palermo. And if they do not, you manage to make them. And no matter how many times you return to that city of splendid light, you always find that there is some pleasant or interesting or profitable trip out from the city that you have missed before: perhaps to the picturesque Albanian colony of Piana dei Greci; or up in the hills to the suppressed Benedictine monastery of San Martino, founded by Gregory the Great in the sixth century; or to the village of Acquasanta near by for the sea-bathing; or even to the convict island of Ustica, about five hours away, whose population was killed or carried off by pirates as recently as the middle of the eighteenth century; and always—unless you have spent a year straight through in the city,—you will find some new festival to gladden your eyes and deafen your ears. It may be that after a tiresome day your matutinal slumbers are rudely disturbed by a weird clamor in the street long before getting-up time. Growlfully you turn over and try to sleep again. The racket goes right on, with darting insistence, and by and by you grow interested enough to ring for a maid and ask why in the name of Morfeo the concierge doesn’t go out and put on the soft pedal if he can’t entirely stop the bedlam!
“Why, signori!” cries the girl, astonished at ignorance of so important an event. “It is the Festa della Madonna dei Capri—the Feast of Our Lady of the Goats. We have it every single year. Everybody is out!”
It sounds that way! There is no use in trying to sleep, so you get up wrathfully and open the shutters. Along the dusty way in solemn processions march conscious-looking cows, wreathed and garlanded with flowers. Now and then a stately bossy ambles by, wearing a three-foot horseshoe of red and white roses, rising above her horns like a halo, and exhaling, if not the odor of sanctity, at least right sweet odors withal. Other cows have about their necks painted wooden poke-collars surmounted by floral horseshoes, or wear simply strings of flowers; and behind nearly every cow tags her mournful looking baby. The goats, fairly strutting with pride, however, are the most ludicrous members of these amazing cavalcades, for they have bouquets attached with wire and toothpicks to twisted horns and even to their sub-tails, which wig-wag signals as they bob along with arched necks. Occasionally a lone lamb, waddling toilsomely behind everything else, bleats its disgust and weariness, its immaculate wool tied full of flaring crimson or blue ribbon crosses, its tail banded with ribbons in a network until it looks like the foot and ankle of a dancing girl.
Before them all march the “bands,” scratch organizations of amateur players who discourse painfully upon all manner of instruments, wind, string and brass. The fortunate morning we saw this unique festa pasturale, I really wanted to make pictures, but mindful of my chilly sunrise experience in Taormina, neither blare of bands nor tinkle of bells could move me until after breakfast. Then, alas! the decorated animals had all passed by, and I had to be content with a plain, motherly cow, whose baby—tied to mother’s tail!—managed to get a few pints of breakfast as the crowd posed. I made the picture-taking as slow as possible, to give the poor little calf five minutes for refreshments.
No one who has ever seen the pastures in and near Palermo wonders at the poor beasts’ melancholy air of appetite. You find some of these grazing fields on the slopes of Monte Pellegrino when you go toilsomely up to visit the shrine of the city’s virgin saint, Rosalia. The little Mount of the Pilgrim has not always borne that name; only since the great plague of 1624, in fact. Before that, for ages, it was Herkte, or Heircte. Square-faced and rugged, it rises in a sheer precipice from the waves on one side, an isolated limestone crag, and slopes less abruptly down to the Conca d’Oro on the other. In 248 B. C., Hamilcar the Carthaginian, who camped up on Herkte to keep in check the Romans in Palermo, cleared and planted fields with grain to feed his hungry troops. There are still scanty cultivated fields on the mountain, and though now, from a little distance, Pellegrino seems even balder than it is, large herds of cattle manage by hard work to crop a meager living from its insignificant grass and herbage.
Visiting Pellegrino’s upper slopes and the little chapel in the grotto of Sta. Rosalia is as much a part of seeing Palermo as the visit to the Colosseum is a part of seeing Rome. But it is not quite so easy as some of the other little journeys about Palermo, since the steep ascent cannot be negotiated by carriage. Either on four feet or on two the trip must be made—most people make it on four. Tumultuous donkeyboys lie in wait in the Piazza, Falde at the foot of the mountain, and “bark” the merits of their beasts with a vigor that is sometimes confusing, while the donkeys themselves—mere burros they are, tiny but powerful—gaze at their burdens-to-be with a droll air of resignation. Most of the saddles are medieval housings built of boards, over which odds and ends of coarse carpet have been nailed until they look like Joseph’s famous coat. Lucky visitors, or those who start early enough after either breakfast or luncheon to have room for choice, pick the more commonplace and comfortable leather saddles that decorate two or three of the newer donkeys. Otherwise, eating from the mantelpiece for a day or so afterward is almost a necessity!