“You see all these young men?” said the shoemaker. “In another couple of months they will be in America.”
I spoke to some of those who had returned from the States and from South America. Those who have been to the States like an opportunity to speak English, but they are
not very strong at it, and it is more than tinged with Yankeeisms. One of them told me that in New York he was treated very well by his Capo-Boss. They earn more over there than they can at home; every week brings American money-orders to Custonaci and on mail days the post-office is crowded with wives, mothers and sweethearts. When they have saved anything up to 5000 lire (£200) they return and buy a bit of land on which a family of contadini can live, or they embellish the family shop or open a new one and hope for the best. If business is bad and they lose their money before they are too old, they can go back and make some more. It is the same on the Mountain; the young men emigrate and bring back money and new ideas. The time will come when Cofano will see what influence this wooing of Fortune in a foreign land by the sons of Mount Eryx and Custonaci may have on the next incarnation of the goddess who reigns in this corner of the island.
CALATAFIMI
CHAPTER XIII—THE PRODIGAL SON AND THE ARTS
Calatafimi is a town of 10,000 inhabitants about twenty miles inland from Trapani. A slight eminence to the west of the town, 1115 feet above the sea, crowned by the ruins of a castle of the Saracens (hence the name of the place, Cal’ at Eufimi), commands an extensive and beautiful view which includes three monuments—first, the famous Greek temple of Segesta; secondly, the theatre and the remains of the city above it; thirdly, the obelisk commemorating Garibaldi’s first victory over the Neapolitans in May, 1860. These three monuments are considered to be the chief attractions of Calatafimi; but one should not suppose that, after one has seen its principal monuments, there is nothing more to be got out of a Sicilian town. I had
picnicked in the temple of Segesta, climbed up through the site of the ancient city to the theatre and seen Garibaldi’s monument over and over again and in all kinds of weather, before I knew anything of the processions which occur at Calatafimi early in May.
I was there one year when the annual festa was conducted with more than the usual ceremony. I went to the Albergo Samuel Butler, named after the author of Erewhon, who often stayed there when writing The Authoress of the Odyssey, and was well known in the town. Owing to the death of Don Paolo who, with his wife, Donna Maria, used to manage the hotel, it is now (1908), I regret to say, closed, and the traveller must do the best he can at one of the other inns. Butler’s memory is, however, still preserved in the name of one of the streets.
The day after my arrival was the great day of the festa, and opened with rain. The people, who had come from all the country round, hung about listlessly during the morning, hoping that the weather might clear up and by noon the authorities decided that the ceremonies should proceed, so that, as they all had to be crowded into
the afternoon, the town for the rest of the day was choked with processions.