"What does all this mean?" I asked of my friend the shop-keeper, who, with a very significant mien, and somewhat stealthily, pointed to a lank and haggard gentleman, who, elegantly dressed, was walking with great dignity and indifference, through the dung and dirt. Frizzled and powdered, with his hat under his arm, in a silken vest, with his sword by his side, and having a neat shoe ornamented with a jewelled buckle—the old man walked on calmly and sorrowfully. All eyes were directed towards him.
"It is the Prince Pallagonia," said the dealer, "who, from time to time, goes through the city collecting money to ransom the slaves in Barbary. It is true, he does not get much by his collection, but the object is kept in memory; and so it often happens that those who, in their life-time, were backward in giving, leave large legacies at their death. The prince has for many years been at the head of this society, and has done a great deal of good."
"Instead of wasting so much on the follies of his country house," I cried, "he might have spent the same large sum on this object. Then no prince in the world would have accomplished more."
To this the shopkeeper rejoined: "But is not that the way with us all? We are ready enough to pay for our own follies. Our virtues for their support must look to the purses of others."
Palermo, April 13, 1787.
Count Borck has very diligently worked before us in the mineralogy of Sicily, and whoever of the same mind visits the island after him, must willingly acknowledge his obligations to him. I feel it a pleasure, no less than a duty, to celebrate the memory of my predecessor. And what am I more than a forerunner of others yet to be, both in my travels and life.
However, the industry of the Count seems to me to have been greater than his knowledge. He appears to have gone to work with a certain reserve, which is altogether opposed to that stern earnestness with which grand objects should be treated.
Sicily—Palermo.
Nevertheless, his essay in quarto, which is exclusively devoted to the mineralogy of Sicily, has been of great use to me; and, prepared by it, I was able to profit by my visit to the Quarries which formerly, when it was the custom to case the churches and altars with marble and agate, were more busily worked, though even now they are not idle. I purchased at them specimens of the hard and soft stones: for it is thus that they usually designate the marble and agate, chiefly because a difference of price mainly depends on this difference of quality. But, besides these, they have still another for a material which is the produce of the fire of their kilns. In these, after each burning, they find a sort of glassy flux, which in colour varies from the lightest to the darkest, and even blackest blue. These lumps are, like other stones, cut into thin lamina, and then pierced according to the height of their colour and their purity, and are successfully employed in the place of lapis lazuli, in the decoration of churches, altars, and sepulchral monuments.