J. Hawksworth Sculp.
ST. Nicolò Della Kalsa at Palermo.
London, Published by J. & A. Arch. Cornhill. March 1st 1828.
There is a good botanic garden at Palermo, and the warmth of the climate gives us an opportunity of seeing many of our green-house plants growing freely and in great perfection in the open air. Among them we may observe the sugar-cane, the papyrus, and the banana; and the botanist will also be gratified by meeting with many Sicilian plants, which are hardly to be seen elsewhere. The casino was designed by M. du Fourny, whom I have already mentioned to you at Paris: the general form is good, but the details do not please me. The metopes (for the order is Doric) are ornamented with different fruits. The idea is ingenious, but it ought to have exhibited the various modes of fructification, especially such as tend to elucidate the different families of plants. In the present instance, they have neither been well chosen nor well executed.
LETTER LV.
AGRIGENTUM—SELINUS—SEGESTA.
Naples, 22nd Sept. 1818.
I bargained with a sensale to be taken to Girgenti in two days and a half for six Sicilian dollars, each of which is a trifle less in value than the Spanish dollar. These sensali, who are the brokers of the horse-keepers, generally take care to have a good share of the profit; and I found in this case that the owner of the horse, who accompanied me on foot, and who was on his return to Alicata, was to have forty tari for his portion, a tari being the twelfth part of a dollar. We set out on Monday the 17th. The road lies for some distance along the shore, then winds up a fine valley, the varied forms and receding distances of whose boundary mountains offer a succession of beautiful scenes.
At Casteglione[[38]] we leave the valley, and proceed over naked hills, which in spring are covered with corn, but at this season the burnt up stubble or bare earth presented a uniform dead brown, like that of some dreary moor. We passed some baths furnished with a pretty copious spring of warm water, without taste, issuing from the foot of a rock, which I believe to be of limestone, but it was capped with a breccia composed of rounded fragments of different substances, the base of which is a hard, reddish stone. Warm springs in this island seem more common than cold. Hence, we descended to Belli Frati, which is placed in a beautiful open valley abounding in vineyards and orchards: and the slopes of the hills are covered with olives; higher up are corn, rocks and brushwood; but the principal feature is a very bold face of mountain at some distance, of great extent, covered with fine wood, except where the perpendicular rock will not admit its growth, and except various little beautiful openings among the trees. This is, I believe, part of the royal forest or chase of Busambra. Above this mountain rise more distant summits, which were only obscurely seen among the clouds. My guide’s scheme was to stop at this place, twenty-two miles from Palermo, but he was willing to proceed, and so was I, as there was plenty of day remaining. We therefore continued our route to San Giuseppe, about nine miles further. Here also is a pretty valley, and the flowering heads of the aloes rising abundantly among, and above the olives, had the charm of novelty as well as beauty. San Giuseppe is a miserable solitary hovel, which contained no separate apartments, and had I remained there, I could only have slept on the straw, among the vetturini and their mules. I therefore determined to push on to Alcara, thirty-nine miles from Palermo, and here with some difficulty I obtained a bed. The hesitation about giving me one was merely adopted in order to form a plea for a more exorbitant charge. This latter part of the road led me over a considerable mountain, (Serra Fareschia) and I found myself enveloped in the clouds. If this had not been the case, I was too late in the evening to have seen from them any extensive prospect, but as far I could judge, the country was entirely destitute of wood; and my journey the next morning to Fontana Fredda was of the same character. Here again is a pleasant valley, and finding myself fatigued and rather unwell I stopt for the night. The place derives its name from a well of excellent water. The scenery is of a very peculiar character, arising from the frequent mural precipices formed by the hills. The substance of those in the immediate neighbourhood I supposed to be gypsum from its translucency, and brilliant fracture, but it effervesces with acids, and is therefore I suppose, a carbonate of lime. The structure seems to be somewhat fibrous. There is, however, also a quantity of gypsum on the road. Higher up, the mountains offer another series of mural precipices, equally vertical, and of perhaps about the same height, which may be from one to two hundred feet. These appear to be of a conglomerate, but I did not approach near enough to any one of them to be certain of the fact. During the first day we passed many beds of rivers, but only one of them contained a stream of water, and that was poisoned by the flax and hemp steeped in it. On the second day, after a long descent from Alcara, we arrived at the banks of the Fiume, or rather Fiumara, di San Pietro, in some parts of which the water ran, while in others we saw only a bed of stones; but this also was extremely offensive. The third day, the first part of our course lay near the same river; the quantity of water was increased, but the smell remained the same. It was an excessive disappointment to me, when after riding and walking a long way under a hot sun, and seeing in the distance the sparkling of the water, to find on a nearer approach, that what ought to give a charm to every thing about it, was only productive of disgust. Even when a clear stream does occur, a Sicilian, having perhaps formed his ideas of running water from its general offensiveness, never either drinks it himself, or lets his cattle drink of it, but the water of various springs is conducted here and there, through covered channels, to troughs on the road sides prepared for that purpose. After a few miles we crossed a range of high, clayey hills, in parts of which sulphur is dug, and arrived before noon at Girgenti. The modern city stands high on the southern slope of a steep hill, which forms on the summit, a narrow ridge. The highest part has perhaps an elevation of 800 feet. It commands a full view of the sea and the intervening country, interspersed with vineyards, and orchards, and groves of olive and almond-trees; a delightful prospect. About half-way between this and the shore stand the ruins of the ancient Agrigentum. The way to them from Girgenti is on a continued descent, but they nevertheless occupy a rocky and picturesque eminence, which shows them to great advantage. I had been warned not to go to the Benedictine convent, and recommended to stay at that of the Capuchins, which among other merits, has that of being on the outskirts of the town, and towards the ruins; but I prefer the sovereignty of my own apartment in an inn, where it is practicable; and finding that there was a locanda in the place, I made my arrangements there, and though I cannot boast greatly of my accommodations, yet I must doubt their being better at the Capuchin convent. I delivered a letter to Don Guglielmo Salice, who was exceedingly civil, and in compliance with what he conceived to be English customs, offered me rum in the morning, and tea at noon. Afterwards taking a boy whom I found at the city gate for a guide, I walked down to the temples.
The first antiquity we meet with is called the Oratory of Phalaris; but from the multiplication of small mouldings, I conjecture it to be of Roman times; the pilasters have bases, while the architrave shews the guttæ belonging to the triglyphs of the Doric order.
A wide interval occurs between this temple and the rest, but the walk is very pleasant among vineyards and olive-groves, with here and there some trifling fragment of a wall or an aqueduct. The principal objects form a single series, occupying the ridge of a hill, which, steep on one side, is almost precipitous on the other. This ridge is between two and three miles from the sea, but only partially open to it; the eastern point is the highest, and may perhaps have an elevation of 250 feet. Here we find a ruin usually called the Temple of Juno. Eleven columns with their architrave are still standing, and several other single columns, more or less perfect. The proportions and forms are beautiful, and the sober brown colour of the stone is in perfect harmony with the scene. These tinted ruins, the brown rock from which they rise, the dark green of the carob, and the sober gray of the olive-trees, among which they stand, and all seen against the deep blue sky, have an indescribable air of repose. In this edifice there are vestiges of smaller steps below the two principal ones in front of the pronaos, and at the foot of these smaller steps there is a course hollowed out on the surface, as if for a drain, and after an interval of about 27 feet, a mass of masonry, which bears the appearance of steps rising from the temple, as if to give a view of what was going forward within, or immediately in front of the edifice.