GOOD-NATURED HOSPITALITY, AND FACETIOUS IGNORANT OLD GENTLEMAN.
(CHRISTMAS DAY, 1777.)
“Having spent the best part of the day in examining, measuring, and drawing this noble building, I hastened back to Calatafimi, as eager for refreshment as I had been in the morning for antiquities. I found the best fare provided for me the place could afford; the lodging, however, was old, crazy, and cold, but the owners so civil and attentive that it was impossible to complain of any inconveniences; the master of the house was a notary, and his wife one of the prettiest women I had yet seen in Sicily. I was afterwards distressed beyond measure to learn that they had not suffered my man to pay for the least thing, and had sitten up all night to accommodate us with beds. To enliven the evening conversation they invited the principal people of the town with their wives, who were very free and sociable; this rather surprised me, as many travellers, and those very modern ones, tell us that the Sicilians are so jealous and severe to their wives that they never suffer them to come into the company of strangers, much less to join in conversation with them. I suspect these persons have copied authors who wrote in times when such mistrust reigned more than it does at present, or have formed general inductions from partial evidence. There seems to be very little constraint laid upon the intercourse of the two sexes among the nobility at Palermo, and none among my visitors at Calatafimi, people of a lower class; the observation, therefore, does not hold good in every instance. The assembly was very attentive to all my words and motions, that they might anticipate my wishes and save me trouble; but their civility was of an unpolished kind. I was frequently the subject of their discourse, and those that knew anything about me, either from the archbishop’s letter or from my servants, communicated their knowledge aloud to every new-comer, as if I were deaf or did not understand their language. An old gentleman, the wit of the circle, put many questions to me, and in return acquainted me with the politics and scandal of the town. He was possessed of great cheerfulness and native humour, but so totally ignorant of every thing and place beyond the limits of Sicily, that I never could make him comprehend where England is situated, or how circumstanced with regard to its colonies, of which he has learned something from the gazettes. Finding my answers to his questions were incapable of conveying instruction, I gave myself no farther trouble, but suffered him without interruption to smoke his pipe, and in the intervals of his puffing to run on in a long string of stories, confounding times, names, places, and persons, in so ridiculous a manner, that the most inflexible features must have been betrayed into a smile: fortunately he took my laugh for a compliment, and joined very heartily in it.”—Swinburne’s Travels in the Two Sicilies, vol. iii p. 357.
SPECIMEN OF HIGHER SOCIETY.
“Wild honey is found in great abundance in these woods” (between Terranova and Calatagerone), “but the inhabitants have also hives near their houses; its flavour is delicious, and has been celebrated from the remotest antiquity, for Hybla was situated in the centre of this country. Men may degenerate, may forget the arts by which they acquired renown; manufactures may fail, and commodities be debased; but the sweets of the wild-flowers of the wilderness, the industry and natural mechanics of the bee, will continue without change or derogation. From the quality of soil, and the want of water, this upper part of the province must always have had a great deal of waste land.
“The corn wore the most promising appearance: the fallow land seemed to be excellent soil. Twenty-three pair of oxen were ploughing together within a square of thirty acres.
“Beyond the town we entered a very fine tract of vineyards, which improved as we gradually approached the mountains of Calatagerone.
“Calatagerone, a royal city, containing about 17,000 inhabitants, living by agriculture and the making of potter’s ware, is twenty miles from the sea, and situated on the summit of a very high, insulated hill, embosomed in thick groves of cypresses; the road to it, though paved, is very steep, difficult, and dangerous for anything but a mule or an ass. I was conducted to the college of the late Jesuits; and as the house was completely stripped of furniture, full of dirt and cobwebs, I apprehended my night’s lodgings would be but indifferent. The servant belonging to the gentleman who has the management of this forfeited estate, and to whom I had brought a letter requesting a lodging in the college, perceiving the difficulties we lay under in making our settlement, ran home, and returned in a short time with a polite invitation to his master’s house. There was no refusing such an offer, though I was far from expecting anything beyond a comfortable apartment and homely fare in a family settled among the inland mountains of Sicily; but, to my great surprise, I found the house of the Baron of Rosabia large, convenient, and fitted up in a modern taste with furniture that would be deemed elegant in any capital city in Europe. Everything suited this outward show, attendance, table, plate, and equipage. The baron and his lady having both travelled and seen a great deal of the world, had returned to settle in their native city, where they assured me I might find many families equally improved by an acquaintance with the manners of foreign countries, or at least a frequentation of the best company in their own metropolis. Nothing could be more easy and polite than their address and conversation, and my astonishment was hourly increasing during my whole stay. After I had refreshed myself with a short but excellent meal, they took me out in a very handsome coach. It was a singular circumstance to meet a string of carriages full of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen on the summit of a mountain which no vehicle can ascend, unless it be previously taken to pieces and placed upon the back of mules. We seemed to be seated among the clouds. As the vast expanse of the hills and vales grew dim with the evening vapours, our parading resembled the amusements of the heathen gods in some poems and pictures, driving about Olympus, and looking down at the mortals below.
“The hour of airing being expired, which consisted of six turns of about half a mile each, a numerous assembly was formed at the baron’s house; the manners of the company were extremely polished, and the French language familiar to the greatest part of it. When the card-tables were removed, a handsome supper, dressed by a French cook, was served up, with excellent foreign and Sicilian wines; the conversation took a lively turn, and was well supported till midnight, when we all retired to rest. Calatagerone has several houses that live in the same elegant style, and its inhabitants have the reputation of being the politest people in the island.”—Swinburne’s Travels, vol. iii. p. 337.