THE TELL TALE TOWER. Frontispiece.
The clock stopped at the hour of the earthquake.
SICILY IN SHADOW
AND IN SUN
THE EARTHQUAKE AND THE
AMERICAN RELIEF WORK
BY
MAUD HOWE
AUTHOR OF “ROMA BEATA,” “SUN AND SHADOW
IN SPAIN,” “TWO IN ITALY,” ETC.
With numerous illustrations
Including pictures from photographs taken
in Sicily and original drawings by
JOHN ELLIOTT
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1910
Copyright, 1910,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved
Published, November, 1910.
LOUIS E. CROSSCUP
Printer
Boston, Mass., U. S. A.
TO
MRS. LLOYD C. GRISCOM
FOREWORD
Sicily, the “Four Corners” of that little ancient world that was bounded on the west by the Pillars of Hercules, is to southern Europe what Britain is to northern Europe, Chief of Isles, universal Cross-roads. Sicily lies nearer both to Africa and to Europe than any other Mediterranean island, and is the true connecting link between East and West. Battle-ground of contending races and creeds, it has been soaked over and over again in the blood of the strong men who fought each other for its possession. There has never been a Sicilian nation. Perhaps that is the reason the story of the island is so hard to follow, it’s all snarled up with the history of first one, then another nation. The most obvious way of learning something about Sicily is to read what historians have to say about it; a pleasanter way is to listen to what the poets from Homer to Goethe have sung of it, paying special heed to Theocritus—he knew Sicily better than anybody else before his time or since! Then there’s the geologist’s story—you can’t spare that; it’s the key to all the rest. The best way of all is to go to Sicily, and there fit together what little bits of knowledge you have or can lay your hands upon,—scraps of history, poetry, geology. You will be surprised how well the different parts of the picture-puzzle, now knocking about loose in your mind, will fit together, and what a good picture, once put together, they will give you of Sicily.