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 THE LIBRARY 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN
 
 BY-PATHS IN SICILY
 
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 "Roast Sheep!"
 
 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIZA PUTNAM HEATON 
 
 Scatter now some bright Praise for the island which Zeus, the Lord of 
 Olympus, gave to Persephone, and confirmed to her by shaking his locks, 
 that he uiould support prosperous Sicily, fairest spot of the fruitful earth, 
 by the wealthy excellence of cities. — First Nemean Ode of Pindar. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 68 1 Fifth Avenue
 
 Copyright 1 9 20 
 
 By E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 Printed in the United States of Amerira
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Eliza Osborn Putnam was born in Danvers, 
 Mass., a descendant of families long native to that 
 region. Her education, begun in Danvers and 
 Salem schools, and furthered by graduation in 
 Boston University, where she was an honor student 
 in the classic tongues, well fitted her for a writer's 
 career. 
 
 After her marriage and removal to New York, 
 Mrs. Heaton began newspaper work, in which she 
 swiftly gained such success as was possible at a 
 time when women in that profession were still few 
 and looked upon as experimental; serving first as 
 special writer and afterward as a managing editor 
 in newspaper and syndicate offices, until failing 
 health made arduous tasks impossible. 
 
 Marooned in Sicily by ill health a dozen years 
 ago, the author turned for occupation to the study 
 of peasant life, a study eagerly pursued until it 
 was cut short by her death. Of that work the 
 present volume can fairly be presented as com- 
 pleted.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction i . vii 
 
 PART I 
 THE OLD MAGIC 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Elflocks and Love Charms .... 3 
 
 II. Donna Pruvidenza's Lemon .... 34 
 
 III. Cola Pesce 66 
 
 IV. The Cleft Oak 96 
 
 V. The Hairy Hand 116 
 
 VI. Jesus as Destroyer 137 
 
 PART II 
 FAIRS AND FESTIVALS 
 
 I. Christmas 159 
 
 11. Troina Fair 178 
 
 III. St. Philip the Black 203 
 
 IV. The Miracles of Sant' Alfio . . . 228 
 
 V. The Car of Mary at Randazzo . . 261 
 
 VI. "Red Pelts" at Castrogiovanni . . 281 
 
 vii
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 PART in 
 ISLAND YESTERDAYS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Etna in Anger 297 
 
 11. Messina Six Months After . . . .312 
 
 in. In the Sulphur Mines 327 
 
 IV. Hearth, Distaff and Loom . . . .339 
 
 V. Speed the Plow 352
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "Roast Sheep" Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 The Flax Worker ..3 
 
 Elf Locks 16 
 
 Door Charms for Evil Eye . . . . .48 
 
 Catania Boats Have Eyes 67 
 
 Lobster Pots and Fish Traps 85 
 
 The San Pancrazio 85 
 
 The Little Oak Tree 109 
 
 The Piper 163 
 
 Going to the Fair 195 
 
 Hotel at Troina 195 
 
 A Herdsman 195 
 
 Girls and Pigs 195 
 
 "Most Becoming" ....... 195 
 
 The "American" Cart, and Detail Showing 
 
 Llncoln 248 
 
 A Straw Hut 263 
 
 Tying the Boys in Place, and Detail of the 
 
 Car 272 
 
 "White Wings" 292 
 
 Gossips at Castrogiovanni 292 
 
 A Pig Pillow 292 
 
 The Laundry 292 
 
 Driven by the Lava 305 
 
 Fruit Trees for Fuel 305 
 
 Ruined by Etna 305 
 
 ix
 
 X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FAOMG PAGE 
 
 How THE Lava Advances 310 
 
 A Useless Vigil 310 
 
 Queen Elena's Village 318 
 
 "Kitchenette," American Village . . .318 
 
 Miners at Villarossa 329 
 
 "Carusi" 337 
 
 Child Labor 337 
 
 The Little Sulphur Miners 337 
 
 Gna Tidda's Loom 341 
 
 A Sicilian Kitchen 345 
 
 Plowman Homeward Bound 353 
 
 Threshing 355 
 
 The "American Houses" 358 
 
 More Houses of Returned Emigrants . . 358 
 
 Pictures Made for "Babbo in America" . . 363
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The author of this book was able to act in 
 Messina after the earthquake as an occasional in- 
 terpreter between Italian ofificers from the North 
 and the local peasants. This odd situation may 
 illustrate the difficulties that dialects threw in the 
 way of her study of Sicilian customs and her suc- 
 cess in mastering them. But the gift of tongues 
 was not the only qualification for the task by which 
 intimate acquaintance with the chosen field enabled 
 her to profit. Of the 700 local dialects of Italy, 
 those used in Sicily have a family resemblance. 
 All draw more largely than those of North Italy 
 upon Greek, Saracen and Spanish sources. Such 
 skill in comparative philology as the author pos- 
 sessed, from Sanscrit down to the modern Latin 
 languages, was a key to them all. A better key 
 to confidences and frank speech was her neighborly 
 sympathy. Probably there were few regions in 
 Sicily where she did not gain true friends among the 
 unlettered, as well as among savants and anti- 
 quarians. 
 
 Beginning her work with no plan beyond solacing
 
 xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 an Invalid's leisure by the production of a book of 
 tourist observations, Mrs. Heaton delved Into the 
 mass of material presented by the survival of old 
 beliefs upon a soil largely pagan; by picturesque 
 custom and poetic observance; by peasant steadfast- 
 ness through centuries and the recent swift effect 
 of new-world migration, until her projects widened 
 to embrace several volumes. To these a capstone 
 should have been set by describing the debt of the 
 United States to the industry of the Sicilians, and 
 the benefit Sicily in turn derives from the home- 
 coming emigrant. Her study of island thought and 
 work as affected by the "Americani" might have 
 helped to make the industrious children of the sun 
 better understood in the country which Is enriched 
 by their labors. 
 
 For this task much material was gathered and 
 many hundred photographs taken of intimate 
 Sicilian life. This remains material only. The 
 author's projected study of the reaction of the old 
 world to the new, through sea migrations more vast 
 and more fruitful of change than were the Crusades, 
 was interrupted by the war. She was one of those 
 Americans who, protesting, were ordered home by 
 Secretary Bryan in the early days of the great con- 
 flict; her health did not permit her to offer her 
 services in war work, so that her observations upon 
 a theme so deeply affected by the past five years 
 would require rewriting from fresh Inquiry, and 
 must be counted lost.
 
 INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 Nine chapters of this book were completed by 
 the author. Those upon the August festival in 
 Randazzo and the fairs of Troina and Castro- 
 giovanni were finished from rough drafts. The 
 account of the sulphur mines, of the Etna eruptions 
 in 19 10 and of Messina after the earthquake, are 
 made up from letters home. Two remaining 
 chapters of Part III were put together from notes 
 and material left in unfinished form. The manner 
 of a work thus gathered varies, from the fanciful 
 treatment of "Donna Pruvidenza's Lemon" and 
 "Jesus the Destroyer" to the more soberly descrip- 
 tive later pages. Nor can a volume so compiled 
 be wholly free from errors, which an author's re- 
 vision would have corrected. 
 
 A very small part of the rhymes, invocations, 
 charms and " 'razioni" noted down by Mrs. Heaton 
 in all manner of difficult circumstances, and at much 
 cost of labor and discomfort, are printed in foot- 
 notes. These passages, with examples of familiar 
 speech in the text, will furnish material for com- 
 parison with literary Italian to those acquainted 
 with the most beautiful of all languages. 
 
 The Sicilian dialects do not differ so competely 
 as to bar speech between provinces, as sometimes 
 happens in the mainland. The doubling of initial 
 consonants and the substitution of "g" and "d" 
 for "1," and of "u" for "o," are the peculiarities 
 most striking to the visitor. Thus ''beautiful 
 daughter" — if one could be supposed to tempt the
 
 xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 evil eye by such a compliment — is "bedda figghia," 
 not "bella filia." Anello (ring) is "aneddu"; 
 castello (castle), "casteddu"; Mongibello (Etna), 
 "Mungibeddu." "B" is frequently softened to "v," 
 as in modern Greek. 
 
 Spanish influence is noted in many words; and 
 diminutives and nicknames are universal, applied 
 as freely to tourists as to natives, perhaps not al- 
 ways with their knowledge. For an American 
 matron of years and presence to be addressed as 
 Dear Little Missy, "Cara Signurinedda," is a com- 
 pliment of friendship. 
 
 Naturally, Greek words appear, as in "cona" 
 (icon), a sacred picture or statue; and there are 
 places, like the ever memorable Plain of the Greeks 
 of Garibaldi's heroes, where more than a little 
 Greek is still spoken. Words of Arab or Saracen 
 origin are common in place names, in the names 
 of winds, of tools, of articles of ancient and com- 
 mon barter. 
 
 Nearly all the illustrations of the book are from 
 photographs taken by the author, or from those 
 made under her direction by Francesco Galifi, of 
 Taormina. On her behalf it is proper to offer 
 thanks to many who furthered her work by aid or 
 encouraged it by interest; to the memory of the 
 learned Dr. Pitre; to the Advocate Lo Vetere and 
 the Deputies Colaianni and De Felice; to Mrs. 
 George H. Camehl, of Buffalo; the American-born 
 Signora Baldasseroni, of Rome; the British-born
 
 INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 Signora Caico, of Monte d'Oro, and Miss Hill, of 
 Taormina; to the courteous American Consular 
 representatives; to a hundred Sicilians of humble 
 station in life, many of them known to the editor 
 only by nicknames; last and most, to the Signorina 
 Licciardelli ("Nina Matteucci") ; her brother, 
 Major Licciardelli, and their family, in Taormina 
 and Catania. 
 
 J. L. H.
 
 PART I 
 THE OLD MAGIC
 
 The Flax Worker
 
 CHAPTER I 
 Elf-locks and Love Charms 
 
 Amusing and caressing him (the babe in the cradle) they 
 (the "Donne di fuora") sometimes touch his hair and mat 
 it into a Httle lock not to be tangled, which goes by the 
 name of woman's tress, "plica polonica." This tress is the 
 sign of the protection under which the baby has been taken, 
 and constitutes its good fortune, as well as that of its 
 family. No one ever dares to cut it; certain, in case it 
 should be cut, of incurring the wrath of the Signore, who 
 would visit on the child cross-eyes, or a wry neck, or spinal 
 weakness. — Pitri. 
 
 It was early twilight of a bleak day at the end 
 of December when I first saw Vanna, the Grass- 
 hopper-eater. I had left Giardini while purple 
 clouds still scudded across the golden sky, and the 
 smoke of Etna flamed in the sunset. In the cold 
 hill shadows as I climbed the old road to Taormina 
 the wind from the sea bit sharply, and the first brave 
 clusters of almond blossoms shivered, pinkish-gray 
 against bare gray-brown branches. 
 
 There passed me a couple of men muffled in 
 shawls, their long cane poles bearing witness that 
 they had been beating olives from the trees; then 
 I was alone until at a sudden turn I came upon a 
 group of women knitting and gossiping as they 
 
 3
 
 4 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 toiled up the bare lime-rock way, so hard at the 
 surface, so soft and rutted where the crust has worn 
 through. 
 
 "A-a-a-a-ah !" twanged one of them to an ass 
 that snatched a hasty bite at the side of the path 
 and then lurched ahead, its saddle-sacks bulging 
 with the squeezed skins of lemons. 
 
 "A-a-a-a-ah !" The woman repeated the nasal 
 call. But the ass refused to quicken its pace, swing- 
 ing now right, now left, in the zig-zag track from 
 step to step across the path where countless gen- 
 erations of mules and asses have trodden foot-holes 
 and helped the rain to scoop channels. 
 
 Three hens that clung to the animal's back, their 
 wings flopping nervously every time it heaved up 
 a shoulder, so absorbed my attention that I started 
 when a voice said, "Good-evening, your ladyship!" 
 
 An old woman had detached herself from the 
 group and was waiting for me, lowering from her 
 head to the wall a great bundle she had been carry- 
 ing. "All sole alone?" she queried, looking curi- 
 ously at me out of faded yellow-gray eyes that yet 
 were the brightest I had ever seen. 
 
 In a country where shop girls still hesitate to go 
 to and from work unchaperoned, a woman who 
 walks by herself outside of her village is an object 
 of scrutiny. 
 
 "Are there wolves?" I responded. 
 
 The old woman grinned comprehension. "The 
 way is safe. Are we Christians, or are we not?"
 
 ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 5 
 
 she answered. "I have failed hi my duty ! I should 
 have knov^n that Vossia (Your Ladyship) under- 
 stands her own affairs. But," she added, "I do 
 not persuade myself that Vossia ought to make the 
 road alone at this hour." 
 
 "My daughter, I am not alone," I said; "am I 
 not with you?" 
 
 "Va be! Rest then a minute, and we will make 
 the road together." 
 
 She was lean as a grasshopper but erect, and 
 her cheeks, though sunken, showed a wholesome 
 red. She had no visible teeth and her chin curved 
 up toward her nose. She was barefooted, and her 
 skirt, in faded checks of black and red, was pulled 
 up at one side under the string of her blue apron. 
 A yellow kerchief was tied over her head and 
 another in pink and white covered her shoulders. 
 
 "Softly! The way is bad," she warned me, as 
 presently we started forward. 
 
 "The way indeed is bad," I replied; and then 
 almost I lost consciousness of her presence in the 
 monotonous rhythm of the prayer she began to wail : 
 
 St. Nicola, send away this gale; 
 
 Sant' Andrea, beyond our pale! 
 
 I walk with Mary, I walk the way; 
 
 In the name of God and of Christ I pray 
 
 Let wind touch me not as I walk this day. 
 
 The cracked voice went on and on. When it 
 came at last to a stop I perceived that with Sicilian
 
 6 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 facility of rhyme she had finished her song with a 
 twist in my direction: 
 
 Joseph, Mary and our Lord, 
 Give me health along the road; 
 For Vossia's sake this prayer I say, 
 May she meet good people by the way. 
 
 "How are you called?" I asked abruptly. 
 
 "Vanna," she answered, naming also her three 
 daughters-in-law. 
 
 " The Grasshopper-eater !' " I exclaimed, a nick- 
 name that I had heard coming suddenly to memory. 
 
 "First the nickname, then the name!" she re- 
 turned, good-humoredly. "And Vossia is the 
 American who talks as we others talk." 
 
 "You may use my nickname, if you like," I 
 apologized. 
 
 "It suffices to say 'the little American,* " she re- 
 sponded, politely. 
 
 Thus completely introduced, we gossiped about 
 our families until we came to the roadside altar 
 that stands at the last turn in the way from which 
 one looks back on Giardini. Here under the carob 
 tree Vanna paused. Untying the mouth of her 
 heavy bag, she took out a tight little bunch of the 
 red carnations that are called "cobblers' flowers" 
 and set them on the ledge of the picture in a rusty 
 tin that once had held tunny fish in oil. Then she 
 signed herself, kissing her fingers to the Mother 
 and Child.
 
 ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 7 
 
 I had long been curious about this unbeautiful 
 Madonna, at once neglected and revered. Old red 
 paint shows behind the harsh blue of the altarino's 
 broken masonry. Mary's face is long-nosed and 
 anxious and her hands are as huge and clumsy as 
 the baby's legs. Neither sun nor rain can soften 
 the stark green» and yellows of the icon ; yet offer- 
 ings never fail of flowers, fading without water. 
 
 "Is she perhaps miraculous," I inquired; "this 
 Madonna?" 
 
 "Yes," said Vanna, with a short positive nod; 
 adding after a pause: "I make a novena to her for 
 the return of my son from America." 
 
 "She will bring him?" 
 
 "Once before when I made it he came and stayed 
 a year." 
 
 She retwisted the cloth that made a pad for her 
 head, and bent while I lifted the great sack to its 
 place on this "corona." As we resumed the way 
 she said: "One rests well here, for Vossia knows 
 it was here the Madonnuzza rested when she came 
 to Taormina fleeing the Saracens." 
 
 The Madonna is seen so frequently at Taormina 
 even to-day, in the visions of the old, that I asked, 
 without surprise, even as to the Saracens: 
 
 "And St. Joseph, did he rest here also?" 
 
 Vanna looked full at me with her quick, quiet 
 eyes that shone like a cat's with yellow. "No," 
 she said. "The Madonnuzza sat on the wall and 
 gave the feeding bottle to the Bambineddu while
 
 8 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 San Giuseppe took his stick and went to find a 
 hiding place." 
 
 Vanna's active step became that of a bent old 
 man trudging uphill leaning on a staff. 
 
 "He went up past Taormina," she said, "until 
 he came to the grotto where is now the church " 
 
 We looked up, but the rock under the Castle of 
 Taormina where stands the hermitage of the 
 Madonna della Rocca was not in view. -^ 
 
 "When San Giusipuzzu had found the grotto, 
 he hurried back to the Madonna and the Bambinu, 
 for the Saracens were coming, *Pum! Po! Pum! 
 Po!'" 
 
 Here the Patriarch's feeble step was changed to 
 that of a tramping host as my companion continued 
 to stamp, "Pum! Po! Pum! Po!" 
 
 St. Joseph and the Madonna climbed as fast as 
 they could, but the Saracens climbed faster; so 
 they turned aside into a wood of lupines but the 
 lupines rattled their pods and made such a clatter 
 that the Madonna did not dare to stop, though she 
 was tired and the Bambineddu kept crying. 
 
 Vanna twisted her mobile old face and began to 
 whimper like a fretted baby; stopping to say: "So 
 the Madonna cursed the lupines, saying, 'May your 
 hearts be as bitter as my grief,' " And Vossia 
 knows how bitter are the lupines; one soaks them 
 long before eating. 
 
 "They hurried through the lupines and came to 
 a field of rye, but the rye refused to close behind
 
 ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 9 
 
 them. It bent as they passed and would not spring 
 up again, but left a track for the Saracens to see. 
 The Bambineddu kept crying, and the Madonna 
 cursed the rye. It is for this that bread made of 
 it is not satisfying. 
 
 "The Saracens were close behind, coming Pum! 
 Po! Pum! Po! So they hurried through the rye 
 and came to a field of wheat. The good wheat 
 closed well behind them and made no noise, and 
 the Madonna blessed it, and they rested, and the 
 Bambineddu went to sleep with its face in the 
 Madonnuzza's neck. 
 
 "By and by they went into a vineyard, and the 
 vines arched over them and twisted their tendrils 
 and made a shelter like a straw hut; and there 
 they stayed till it was dark, for the Madonna said: 
 'I can no more!' When it was night they went 
 up to the grotto. Thus it was, Vossia." 
 
 "Did the Madonna stay long at the grotto?" I 
 inquired. 
 
 "Yes; one day in a thunderstorm there came 
 into the grotto a little girl who was minding two 
 Iambs, and the Madonna said to her: 'Pretty little 
 girl, go down to Taormina and tell the archpriest 
 to come up here.' 
 
 "The little girl said: *I can't go; I must tend 
 my lambs.' 
 
 " T'U tend them for you,' said the Madonna. 
 
 "So the little girl went. The archpriest came
 
 lo BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 up to the grotto and the Madonna said to him: 
 'Excellency, I wish a church built here.' 
 
 "The archpriest answered: 'There is too much 
 rock.' 
 
 "But the Madonna said: 'The rock will break 
 away of itself.' 
 
 "The archpriest called the master masons, and 
 the minute they went to work the rock did break 
 away of its own accord. They built the church 
 that Vossia has seen, but the grotto itself they did 
 not disturb. These are things of God, Vossia; no 
 one knows them but me," 
 
 Vanna looked at me again with her calm, shining 
 yellow eyes. She set the tip of her forefinger 
 against her forehead, repeating with deliberation: 
 "I tell these things of God to Vossia; there is no 
 one else who knows them." 
 
 It is true that the flight into Egypt through 
 Taormina is known to no one but Gna Vanna; 
 but the legend of the plants that hid and that re- 
 fused to hide the Virgin is old Italian. A's to the 
 sanctuary of the Madonna della Rocca, there are 
 those in Taormina who say that it was a boy, not a 
 girl, who entered the grotto, and that he saw a 
 beautiful woman spinning. Frightened, he ran 
 away and told the story. The people who came to 
 look found, indeed, no woman; but, instead, a 
 miraculous picture of the Mother and Child. 
 
 In the gathering dusk we met fishermen coming 
 down the hill to the sea for their evening's work,
 
 ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS ii 
 
 and there passed us a scrap of a boy driving a little 
 Sardinian donkey. The child had been to mill to 
 get a tumulu of wheat ground, for his father had 
 land, he said; and almond trees so tall you could 
 not get the nuts without climbing a ladder. While 
 he boasted sociably of this phenomenon and of the 
 clean, shivering ass, newly clipped because it had 
 been "too dirty," Vanna lapsed into a silence so 
 unresponsive that, when the lad had bubbled 
 "bb-b-bb-r-rr-r" to the ass and had left us, I asked 
 if the great bag was tiring her. 
 
 "No," she said, shortly, straightening herself and 
 stepping out more smartly. Although she was old, 
 she could work in the fields and carry burdens with 
 the best of them. Of course the bag was heavy. 
 In it there were chick peas, cauliflowers, lemons 
 and chestnuts. Some of these things she had earned 
 picking up olives as the men beat them from the 
 trees, and others people had given her out of re- 
 spect. It was fortunate that people did respect her 
 and give her food, because her husband had a 
 heart "like the claw of a devil fish"; he was so 
 stingy he never gave her anything. In the bag 
 there was food for several days, and her grand- 
 children would be glad to see her coming. Of 
 course it was heavy, but she could carry it, because 
 the Madonna, St. John and the sainted souls of 
 the beheaded bodies helped her. It was natural that 
 she should be helped, because she was good. She 
 worked, she brought food from the country, and
 
 12 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 she had no amusement except to stand in her door- 
 way. 
 
 The monologue ran along until a mysterious 
 "they" aroused my curiosity. The respect and help 
 on which she was enlarging seemed to involve 
 other personages than the Madonna, St. John and 
 the sainted souls of the beheaded bodies. 
 
 "Who are 'they?' " I interrupted. 
 
 She gave me no answer and continued to talk 
 of her merits and their rewards. But it was not 
 long before the flood of her own words swept her 
 to revelation. Setting down her sack, she glanced 
 quickly around and took off her head kerchief, 
 replacing it instantly as a couple of women came 
 in sight at the turn. 
 
 "What long hair you have !" I exclaimed. I had 
 had a momentary glimpse of grizzled braids, thin 
 as a string, wound many times round and round 
 her head and held in place by the knifelike blade 
 of a silver dagger. 
 
 "Si," she replied with finality, as if there were 
 something I ought to understand. And suddenly 
 there came to me a recollection of old men I had 
 seen in mountain villages among whose scant, 
 short locks there stood out long matted wisps of 
 gray hair. Such "trizzi," tangled by elfin fingers 
 while a baby lies in the cradle and never cut — how 
 would one recognize them on a woman? Were 
 Vanna's protectors those impish little sprites, half 
 fairy, half witch, the Women of the Outside?
 
 ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 13 
 
 "You have 'the tresses?'" I inquired. 
 
 "Si," she said, with short positiveness. 
 
 She would tell me nothing more, for we had 
 passed the chapel of the Madonna of the Mercies, 
 and already we heard the stir of the village as 
 we climbed the last long slope under the walls of 
 Taormina. Some day she would show me her hair, 
 she promised; but these were secret things not to 
 be spoken of except when we were alone. 
 
 Vanna the grasshopper-eater had just moved 
 into my own street, and I marked the house she 
 pointed out to me. But next morning when I passed 
 it going to the Corso the door was shut, for 
 Taormina was shivering at a temperature of not 
 more than fifteen degrees above freezing, and the 
 fiend was riding in the wind. It was not until 
 New Year's Day that, noticing hens hopping casually 
 across her threshold, I followed them inside. 
 
 The room in which I found myself was so dark 
 and smoke-grimed that in spite of the partly opened 
 door I did not see at first that I had stumbled on 
 a family gathering. Vanna's house has a window 
 opening, but for economy of heat its wooden shutter 
 was closed. Vanna and her daughter-in-law Rocca, 
 a red-cheeked young woman, were making macaroni, 
 and Vanna's greeting was more ready than cordial. 
 
 Vanna's husband, too, was at home. He of the 
 claws of the devil-fish proved to be a little half- 
 blind old man whom I already knew as Domenico 
 the dwarf. With a rusty long cap pulled down
 
 14 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 over his head, hairy sandals resting on the "conca" 
 where perhaps a Httle warmth Hngered in the white 
 ashes, chin bent on his two hands that nursed the 
 top of a stick, he looked sunk in chilled misery. 
 Ordered to kiss my hand, he yielded dumb obedience. 
 
 Vanna set a chair, lifting from it a bundle of 
 clothes wet from the wash, and wiping it with her 
 apron while she shrilled "sciu! sciu!" to a lean 
 brown fowl that flew upon the bed to get at the 
 macaroni. A less enterprising bird was settled in 
 a nest of rags and brush under the fireplace. 
 
 "Do they lay well?" I asked. 
 
 "They eat and do nothing!" scolded Vanna. 
 "Uncle January sends us cold weather. The hens 
 dirty the house," she added ; "but what can one do?" 
 
 Let those criticise Vanna's housekeeping who 
 have themselves kept house and reared live stock 
 in one room. Beside the cold fireplace were heaped 
 brambles and roots of cactus fig for the cooking 
 fire. A disordered table, a long brown shelf against 
 the rear wall and a chest at the foot of the bed held 
 most of the family possessions. Behind the great 
 bed and in the corners stood old baskets, boxes, 
 water jars and tall coops made out of rush-woven 
 fish-traps. A hen with a broken leg and a cock 
 moped in these cages, and from some burrow in 
 the litter appeared at moments dirty white rabbits. 
 
 While Vanna railed at a peevish child that 
 tumbled about on the floor, I studied the walls and 
 their smoke-dimmed icons. The Madonna of the
 
 ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 15 
 
 Rock, the Madonna of the Chain, the Black 
 Madonna of Tindaro, S. Pancrazio, Sant' Alfio and 
 his brothers, S. Filippo the black, S. Francesco di 
 Paola, S. Giovanni the beheaded, the sainted souls 
 of the beheaded bodies 
 
 I had not finished counting the Lares and Penates 
 when Vanna found an interval of quiet in which 
 to tell me how she had set the hen's leg, which "he" 
 had broken with his stick. Furtively she thrust 
 out towards her husband her first and fourth 
 fingers in the sign of the horn, her gesture and the 
 gleam in her pale bright eyes spelling warning. 
 
 While she talked Vanna did not neglect the 
 macaroni. Rocca held on her knees a board carrying 
 a lump of dough, from which from minute to minute 
 she pinched off bits. Rolling these between her 
 hands, she passed the rolls one by one to Vanna, 
 who sank into each a knitting needle and re-rolled 
 the paste on the board to form the hole. Each 
 short piece as she slipped it off the needle she hung 
 to dry over the edge of a sieve that balanced on 
 the rolled-up mattress at the foot of the bed. When 
 enough for supper was ready she tied the rest of 
 the dough In a kerchief and shut it into the chest, 
 throwing the crumbs to the cock with a "chi-chi- 
 richi! cu-cu-rucu!" 
 
 This work finished, Vanna picked up the dark 
 mite of a child and began crooning, "ninna, nan- 
 na " interrupting herself to kiss the tear- 
 blurred face. "Pretty boy ! He has fifteen months,
 
 i6 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Vossia. His grandma's wee one! Ninna, ninna, 
 nanna " 
 
 The brown eyes shut, and after a minute Rocca 
 carried the baby away, his shaven head drooping 
 over her arm. 
 
 I was rising to follow when old MIcciu, who 
 beyond grunting once or twice, *T am not content !" 
 had sat hunched in his chair seemingly oblivious 
 of his surroundings, struggled to his feet. 
 
 Vanna repeated the sign of the horn, forming 
 with her lips the words, "Zu Nuddu is going out" ; 
 and, in fact, "Uncle Nobody," picking up his 
 shoulder bags of black and white wool, scuffed to- 
 ward the door. 
 
 "An accident to you!" exclaimed Vanna. 
 "Eccu!" she said, with satisfaction, as the door 
 closed behind the old man. 
 
 Left alone with me, she took off her kerchief after 
 some urging, displaying again her fleshless head, 
 where the skin clung to the scalp like parchment. 
 Gold hoops hung in her ears, and wound in rings 
 like a mat around the back of her skull were griz- 
 zled strings of hair. Pulling out the pins, she let 
 down this mass, undoing with her fingers the upper 
 part of two braids and releasing a scanty lot of 
 gray old woman's hair that hung loose and ragged 
 to her shoulders. 
 
 Starting from this short mane and falling to 
 Vanna's feet, even lying on the floor, dropped two 
 dark tails that, felted with dust, had more the look
 
 Elf Locks
 
 ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 17 
 
 of strands of sheep's wool than of what they were 
 in fact, matted locks of her own hair. 
 
 "Eccu!" she repeated. 
 
 These tails were the "trizzi." Never cut, never 
 combed, treated with the respectful neglect which 
 is their proper care, they marked Gna Vanna as 
 a person living under a spell; the protegee from 
 birth of the mysterious "women of the outside," 
 or "women of the house" — the little "ladies" who 
 have many names. Her fearsome pixy locks set 
 Vanna apart as one who, taught by witches, pos- 
 sessed some at least of the seven faculties of the 
 witch summed up in the jingle! 
 
 She can embroil the peaceful moon and sun, 
 Fly through the air fast as the wind doth run; 
 Through closed doors she knoweth how to go, 
 The man most strong she maketh weak and slow; 
 She leadeth closest friends to fight with knives; 
 Her will makes husband wrangle with their wives; 
 She striketh men and women sore and lame, 
 To have no rest and suffer cruel pain, 
 
 Vanna's "Eccu!" was said with pride. She 
 looked over her shoulder at the tails and then smil- 
 ingly at me. 
 
 "What would happen," I asked, "if they were 
 cut?" 
 
 "I should die." 
 
 It is a number of years now since Vanna said 
 this to me, and I am as confident to-day as I was 
 then that she meant it. She believed and still be-
 
 i8 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 lieves in the sanctity of her elf-locks, while fully 
 realizing their value as an asset. 
 
 "But if you combed them?" 
 
 "Something would happen to me." 
 
 With much dramatic gift the weird old creature 
 told me how sometimes in the night she waked to 
 see in her room twenty-four lovely little "women 
 of the house," ladies and fairies. 
 
 When the "ronni" appeared the whole room 
 glowed with light. They wore bright, beautiful 
 clothing and sometimes they sang. Sometimes they 
 talked in tiny little voices, but mostly they were 
 mute. Sometimes they played games. One of 
 their favorite tricks was to pitch "the old man," 
 whom they did not like, out of bed. Once when 
 "the old man" would give her nothing to eat they 
 showed her the key of the box where he kept 
 bread and wine. Sometimes they caressed her hair 
 and made new tresses. 
 
 Lifting her gray locks she pointed out little curls 
 against her neck, sacred like the tresses. But even 
 she was not safe from their anger. Sometimes, if 
 she went bare-footed, they gave her beatings be- 
 cause they insist on cleanliness. She pulled up her 
 skirts to show her white, well-kept flesh. 
 
 Oftenest of all they danced. 
 
 I looked on dazed while Vanna the grasshopper- 
 eater whirled around the room in a wild dance in 
 imitation of the ronni, her brown, wrinkled face 
 full of uncanny animation, yellow eyes glowing,
 
 ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 19 
 
 elf-locks swinging, her grotesque hops scaring the 
 hen out of the nest under the fireplace. 
 
 Not scanning details too closely, I did not doubt 
 the good faith of words or actions, because I have 
 long understood with what literal truth Pitre says 
 that in certain environments we cannot listen to 
 tales told in all honesty without remaining uncer- 
 tain "whether these men and these women are a 
 prey to continual visions, or whether we ourselves 
 are dreaming with our eyes open." Rather through 
 this woman so garrulous and so secretive, so simple 
 and so shrewd, so vindictive and yet so kindly, so 
 credulous and so positive, I seemed to catch glimpses 
 of an obscure brain-life like that of a witch of the 
 fifteenth century. 
 
 Up to a certain point she would believe in herself 
 and others would believe in her. Witches have 
 always carried magic in their hair, and hence the 
 foes of witches have cut it off. Sibilla herself was 
 unkempt and her hair tangled like a horse's mane. 
 
 I wondered if any trace attached to this skeleton- 
 thin "Grasshopper-eater" of the evil eye fear ex- 
 pressed in the saying: 
 
 "A grasshopper has looked on thee." 
 
 Ceasing her gyrations, Vanna put the cackling 
 hen to the door and sank out of breath on the dark 
 old chest, bringing the warm egg and dropping it 
 into my hands. While she coiled her hair once 
 more around the dagger, she repeated her former 
 self-congratulations that she could work, although
 
 ao BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 she was old, by the help of the ronni. "Because 
 of their favor, too, people brought her gifts, de- 
 siring her prayers." That very morning she had 
 received the unhappy cock in the fish-trap and two 
 rotoli of flour to make pasta for the New Year. 
 These things were fortunate, because she had no 
 one but the ronni to provide for her. 
 
 'T am an orphan," she concluded; "I have no 
 father, mother I have none. I have no one. I 
 must live. Do I speak well?" 
 
 She replied to her own query with a complacent 
 nod. 
 
 Knowing what sorts of prayers are in request 
 from reputed "wise women," I suggested: "People 
 ask your 'razioni against witchcraft?" 
 
 "Si," she answered. Only a few days before a 
 woman had sent for her whose bread had come 
 out of the oven full of ugly bubbles and "twisted 
 as if it had been struck by lightning." Even a blind 
 woman must have seen that this was the work of 
 evil eyes. She had not used oil, salt or incense, 
 but she had said a prayer: 
 
 Four loaves and four fishes, 
 Away forever with ill wishes ! 
 God is moon and God is sun, 
 Harm this bread there can no one. 
 Christ Jesus died, Christ Jesus rose, 
 Out of this oven malocchio goes ! 
 
 Next morning the woman baked sixteen loaves 
 and they came out as beautiful as bread could be.
 
 ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 21 
 
 She cut a big piece and gave it to Vanna to eat, 
 all hot as it was, seasoned with oil and garlic. 
 
 "These are things of God, Vossia," Vanna con- 
 tinued. "The priests speak against these 'razioni, 
 but they themselves cannot help the people. What 
 do priests do but say the mass and eat and sleep? 
 If people want help they must come to me; there- 
 fore they respect me. I cannot read prayers out 
 of a book, but I have many written in my mind. 
 Always for good, never for evil, are they. Loose? 
 yes; bind? No! Are we Christians or are we 
 not? Vossia is persuaded?" 
 
 Relieving me of the egg, she lifted the lid of 
 the chest as if to put it away; questioning as she 
 did so. "In Vossia's country hens make themselves 
 by machine; it is true?" 
 
 "By machine ?" I repeated. 
 
 "Si ; one of my sons brought home from America 
 a machine for making chickens; but the hens make 
 them better. He lost everything, and now he has 
 not pennies to go again." 
 
 Taking out of the chest two or three other eggs, 
 she pressed them all on me, saying: "They do not 
 give to eat to Vossia such eggs as these, eggs of 
 the house, all made to-day." 
 
 A suspicion that Vanna meant to save herself 
 from bare feet and beatings by enlisting me as a 
 respectful giver of shoes grew larger in my mind, 
 but fortunately I concealed it. To me, at least.
 
 22 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Vanna has always been a friend more disinterested 
 than a ronna. 
 
 To cover my uncertainty I picked up a strip of 
 faded silk that lay on a pile of stuff in the open 
 chest ; it proved to be a man's necktie knitted in pink, 
 through which ran a line of black embroidered 
 lettering. 
 
 "What does it say?" demanded Vanna. I read 
 to her. It was in correct Italian: *T love thee, 
 thee always have I loved, thou wert the first." 
 
 "To wear at festas the poor thing gave it to 
 him!" exclaimed Vanna. 
 
 "Who is he?" I demanded, scenting a story. 
 
 Vanna took out of the chest a pair of coarse 
 blue socks and two or three men's kerchiefs. 
 These things she turned over for some time on her 
 knees before she brought herself to the point of 
 telling me that they belonged to a young man 
 called Peppino who had refused to marry the girl 
 to whom he was promised, on the ground that his 
 mother objected, and that the poor girl's father 
 was threatening to kill her. The girl's mother, who 
 lived not far away, had sent for Vanna the day 
 before, and had asked her to make a "recall" of 
 the youth to the girl he had abandoned. 
 
 I fingered the pink necktie with fresh interest. 
 "You are going to do it?" I questioned. 
 
 Vanna said she didn't know. The poor girl 
 cried all day long ; it broke one's heart to hear her. 
 She would gladly do something to bring the mother
 
 ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 23 
 
 to such a good will that she would say to her son: 
 "Take her." But never had she heard of such a 
 hard-hearted mother-in-law. And they had not 
 given her money enough to buy candles. To make 
 the recall she must light seven candles every night 
 for nine nights in succession, and if anything went 
 wrong, she must begin again at the beginning. 
 Every candle cost half a lira, so that she ought to 
 have at least nine lire. 
 
 At this point the door opened and Rocca entered 
 with a little girl, perhaps four years old. Glancing 
 at us curiously, she demanded: "What do you talk 
 about so long?" 
 
 "Things of God," replied Vanna, shutting the 
 chest and warning me with a glance of her quiet 
 shining eyes. "I tell Vossia things of God of which 
 she may think in these days of rain when she must 
 stay indoors." 
 
 Rocca snorted good-humoredly. 
 
 Bidden to wish me "good-evening," the child, as 
 I rose to go, proffered a timid "buona sera." 
 
 "Listen to her !" cried Vanna delightedly. "She 
 says 'buona sera!' instead of 'buna sira' like we 
 others. That comes of going to school !" 
 
 The brown little curly-head was made to speak 
 a piece: 
 
 Giovannina is my name; 
 I am not pretty nor too plain, 
 I do not know how it can be 
 That everybody's so good to me.
 
 24 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 "Beautiful, eh?" cried the proud grandmother, 
 fishing a soldo out of the big pocket that hung at 
 her waist. "Beautifully she speaks! Run, buy a 
 biscotto !" 
 
 It was some days before I again saw Vanna, and 
 I might never have known more of the poor "zita" 
 at Santa Venera, if I had not chanced to pass her 
 door one afternoon just as she was inserting the 
 key. A little book that I carried caught her atten- 
 tion. Taking it from me as she invited me indoors, 
 she turned the pages with interest, putting on spec- 
 tacles to see the better. Finally, giving it back to 
 me, she asked: 
 
 "What does it say?" 
 
 The book happened to be an Italian version of 
 the old Sicilian Greek, Theocritus, and it opened to 
 the page I had been reading. I turned into the 
 vernacular what Andrew Lang has better phrased: 
 "As turns this brazen wheel, so, restless imder 
 Aphrodite's spell, may he turn and turn about my 
 door ! My magic wheel, draw home to me the man 
 Hove!" 
 
 Vanna looked puzzled. She asked: "Is it a book 
 of prayers? There was a lame man who lived 
 above Giarre who had an ancient book of 'razioni. 
 He is dead now, but to all who went to him for 
 help he would read out of his book. I cannot read, 
 I have no book, but in my head I have many 
 'razioni. What more does it say, Vossia?" 
 I began the second idyl, but when I had reached
 
 ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 25 
 
 the words, "Wreathe the bowl with bright-red wool, 
 that I may knit the witchknots against my grievous 
 lover, who for twelve days — oh, cruel ! — has never 
 come hither " she interrupted, exclaiming: 
 
 "It is a love prayer !" 
 
 "Yes," I admitted; "is it like the one you were 
 going to say for the poor deserted girl at Santa 
 Venera?" 
 
 "Mine is more better," she boasted. 
 
 It may have been the wish to prove that the 
 prayers in her head were "more better" than those 
 written in my book that procured me a matinee re- 
 hearsal of the charms she was saying nightly for 
 the abandoned sweetheart. For she had reached 
 the middle of the novena. The difficulty about 
 candle money had somehow been overcome. 
 
 Opening the chest, she took out Peppino's socks, 
 necktie and kerchiefs. "The wool must be white," 
 she said, going to a sheepskin that hung from a 
 nail on the wall, and pulling off some flocks. Be- 
 fore proceeding, she fastened the door. 
 
 The "recall" could not be made, she said, except 
 when the moon was waxing and on a night when 
 the stars were bright. The first step was to light 
 seven candles. She nodded towards the table, where 
 seven spots betrayed that seven drops of melted 
 tallow served as candle bases. Then, taking the 
 wool, she carded hastily a little, using a hand con- 
 trivance supported on a chair. Next, spinning a 
 thread with the distaff, she braided a cord of three
 
 26 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 strands, explaining that if this "lacciu" — lassoo or 
 noose — were made just the length of Peppino, that 
 would add to its virtue. 
 
 Taking the cord in her hands, she tied in it three 
 knots while reciting as fast as her tongue could run : 
 
 Peppino, two are they that watch thee; 
 Of them that bind thee, ten there be. 
 I bind and do not loose the knot 
 Till what I wish from thee I've got. 
 'Tis thee I bind and thee I make 
 Thy promised bride to wife to take. 
 
 Laying down the knotted cord, Vanna put Pep- 
 pino's kerchiefs on her head, piling above them the 
 socks and necktie. Having thus put herself into 
 communion with him, she rushed on: 
 
 Peppino, I look at thee. 
 
 Thou look'st at me. 
 
 All things else out of mind must sink, 
 
 Of pledged wife only must thou think. 
 
 Dropping Peppino's property beside the cord, 
 Vanna next took a little salt and stirred it with 
 the forefinger of her left hand around and around 
 in the palm of her right hand ; but before she could 
 begin the new prayer I begged her not to gabble 
 at such a speed. 
 
 Glib recitation of formulas was no more essen- 
 tial in ancient Roman sacrifice than it is to-day in 
 Sicilian incantations. Unless a spell is said, fast 
 and smoothly, without mistaking a syllable, it must
 
 ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 27 
 
 be repeated from the beginning. A trip is a bad 
 omen. It results that no conjuror can get through 
 her formula at all except at top speed. 
 
 "Softly ! Softly !" I would entreat of Vanna. "I 
 don't get half the words." Then she would break, 
 stumble, begin again and in a minute rattle faster 
 than before. While stirring the salt she said: 
 
 Turn salt! 
 
 Turn bread! 
 
 Turn pine cone! 
 
 Turn wood! 
 
 Turn Peppino's head. 
 
 All things else from his mind must sink, 
 
 Of his sweetheart only must he think; 
 
 For I hold true faith that come he must 
 
 His troth to keep, for this is just. 
 
 Opening the wooden shutter of the small window 
 and looking up, Vanna said that the next 'razioni 
 must be said while gazing at the moon: 
 
 Vitu, dear saint of Mountain Royal, 
 To you there comes your servant loyal; 
 I come to you to ask a grace, 
 As if kin we were of blood and race. 
 It is your dogs that you must lend ; 
 To hunt Pippinu you must them send. 
 The beast so savage that has eyes. 
 Like a butcher's dog "A-a-a!" that cries. 
 Let him seize Pippinu by the hair 
 E'en to his pledged wife's door to bear. 
 
 With no woman may he speak, 
 No man's counsel may he seek.
 
 28 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 In thee I trust, strong is my hope 
 
 To hear dogs bark, bells ring, doors ope. 
 
 Saint Devil, concede me what I wish. I will not respect 
 you as Devil, if you do not concede me what I wish. I will 
 respect you as Devil, when you concede me what I wish. 
 
 With a face as placid as if she were knitting a 
 stocking Vanna concluded this invocation. Then, 
 dropping on her knees at the window, and surveying 
 the heavens as if she were choosing a star, she 
 declaimed : 
 
 Shining star, powerful star, 
 
 Heedless of me still you are? 
 
 Bright angel of the good light, 
 
 In three words bring him to my sight. 
 
 Well come, well go ; take him by the feet, 
 
 And he comes thither fast and fleet. 
 
 Devil of Mt. Etna dread, 
 
 Peppino seize by the hairs of his head, 
 
 Thou devil of the mouth awry, 
 
 Peppino take and bring him nigh. 
 
 In Holy Trinity its name. 
 
 When sounds Ave Maria bring him home. 
 
 It spoiled the congruity of Vanna' s charm that 
 from force of habit she tacked a Holy Trinity tag 
 belonging to some other 'razioni to an invocation 
 of the devil. More to myself than to her I com- 
 mented: "Why does every love-charm call up the 
 evil one?" 
 
 "He has great power," said Vanna, pulling her- 
 self to her feet, and confirming her answer with a
 
 ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS a9 
 
 positive glance and nod. She was beginning an 
 account of Satan's subjects — unbaptized babies who 
 die while yet pagan and scream forever in the dark- 
 ness, and dying sinners whose hair "the black man" 
 clutches, shouting "Come on!" while they howl, 
 "U-u-u-u-u!" when I brought her back to Pep- 
 pino. 
 
 The "recall" ended, she said, with a prayer, to 
 "the sainted souls of the beheaded bodies," fol- 
 lowed by nine paters, nine aves and nine glorias. 
 During these and after the finish she made "the 
 listening" standing at her window to catch the night 
 sounds of the village. If this listening brought 
 to her ears music or laughter or the ringing of bells, 
 or the opening of doors, or if a cock crowed or a 
 dog barked, her prayers were answered. But if 
 an ass brayed or a cat miaued, or if she heard 
 quarreling or the splash of water thrown into the 
 street, these were bad omens. 
 
 She folded away Peppino's goods and began 
 cutting up lettuce leaves and throwing the green 
 ribbons on the floor as she told me that, for her, 
 the best sign of all was the appearance of a little 
 white puppy that sometimes came and lay on her 
 knees. When she saw this shadow dog, her 'razioni 
 never failed. Lacking the puppy, she observed 
 whether the star to which she had prayed "shut 
 and then opened again," for this meant that it 
 heard, thought and said "yes." Our stars, she said, 
 give us the grace we ask of them.
 
 30 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 "It Is a great labor/' I said ; "this recall." 
 "Yes," she admitted; "but it never fails." 
 While the hens fought for the lettuce she asked 
 to hear my prayer again, and I read: "Do thou, 
 my Lady Moon, shine clear and fair, for softly. 
 Goddess, to thee will I sing, and to Hecate of 
 hell. The very whelps shiver before her as she 
 fares through black blood and across the barrows 
 of the dead. Hail, awful Hecate! to the end be 
 
 thou of our company " 
 
 When Vanna realized that my 'razioni, as well as 
 her own, included knots, a turning spell, dogs and 
 invocations to the moon and to a ruler of hell, she 
 agreed that for a book prayer it was not bad. 
 
 I continued to read, and we were still comparing 
 notes when there came a thump at the door. "The 
 old man!" sighed Vanna, going to let him in. "He 
 swears by the Holy Devil," she said, "if he finds 
 the door shut." 
 
 Instead of swearing, the old man scuffed and 
 stumped across the floor and hid himself in a chair 
 behind the bed. But our seance was over. When 
 I asked Vanna to complete the recall by reciting 
 her prayer to the souls of the beheaded — criminals 
 who, expiating their deeds by the forfeit of their 
 lives, have acquired power to work miracles — she 
 was absorbed In the pot of basil on her window 
 ledge. She must put a wet cloth over it at night, 
 she said, to make it grow better. She offered me
 
 ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 31 
 
 a few fragrant sprigs together with a double lemon 
 — two lemons merged in one except for their twisted 
 ends. 
 
 "It is against malocchio; it makes the horns," 
 she assured me, tucking it into my handbag. 
 
 My first thought on reaching home was to look 
 up an old prayer to S. Vito that I happened to 
 have copied long before. The chief function of 
 this' saint is to protect from the bite of mad dogs; 
 he also casts out evil spirits, and his underworld 
 connections are such that for centuries lovers have 
 appealed to him. Gna Vanna's prayer, in fact, is a 
 time-battered fragment of an old charm, included 
 in a manuscript book of "secrets for making gold, 
 constraining devils, evoking and divining the future" 
 that was taken from Dr. Orazio di Adamo and 
 used as evidence against him in his trial for witch- 
 craft at Palermo in 1623. 
 
 This 'razioni was to be said in a garden by moon- 
 light. At the end a knife was to be stuck into a 
 tree. 
 
 Dr. Pitre gives a charm practically identical with 
 Adamo's as still in use; but I have come upon 
 nothing more than fragments which have undergone 
 many changes. Once, for example, while a good- 
 natured dealer in antiques was turning her drawers 
 upside down for me in search of some trifle, there 
 fell out a crumpled paper scrawled over with char- 
 acters so illegible that it was with difficulty I recog-
 
 32 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 nized the prayer to S. Vito. The first six lines 
 ran like Vanna's; then, as to the dogs, it continued: 
 
 You must "sick" them into S 's heart, 
 
 Hard as the pain of my grief's dart. 
 
 And there it stopped. On the other side of the 
 paper was a charm to be said in church. Smoothing 
 out the sheet before us, my friend informed me 
 with hesitation that to use it one must enter the 
 church with the left foot foremost, hiding a red 
 cord under the shawl. At the moment of the con- 
 secration one must make three knots in the cord, 
 saying: 
 
 I do not come to mass to hear, 
 Nor yet to worship Christ so dear. 
 I come to bind with this my noose; 
 I bind, I tie, I do not loose 
 Till my love does all my pleasure. 
 His feet I tie with this my noose, 
 His hands I bind, I do not loose 
 Till my love does all my pleasure. 
 
 "It was a woman in Catania," said my friend, 
 "who gave me these." 
 
 "A wise woman?" I suggested. 
 
 "Yes," she confessed; "but I don't use them. 
 Sometimes when my husband is away on his busi- 
 ness trips I should like to know — but I don't be- 
 lieve in charms. And yet — do you know X ? 
 
 He used to beat his wife till all the neighbors heard.
 
 ELF-LOCKS AND LOVE CHARMS 33 
 
 and now he takes her out in an automobile. They 
 say she puts drops of her blood in his coffee. Some 
 
 things don't seem true and yet But charms 
 
 can't be of any use, else every man in Taormina 
 would be married to a rich tourist." 
 
 Elf-locks and incubators! Love-charms and 
 automobiles !
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Donna Pruvidenza's Lemon 
 
 John Bly and William Bly testified that, being employed 
 by Bridget Bishop to help take down the Cellar-wall of the 
 old House, wherein she formerly Lived, they did in Holes 
 of the said old Wall find several Poppets, made up of Rags 
 and Hogs Brussels, with headless Pins in them, the Points 
 being outward. — Cotton Mather. Wonders of the Invisible 
 World. Testimony against Bridget Bishop, executed, Salem, 
 Mass., June lo, 1692. 
 
 On the eighth of May, 191 3, there appeared in 
 the "Giornale di SiciHa," of Palermo, an item which 
 I abridge as follows: 
 
 Yesterday an old man and woman, red-faced and out of 
 breath, followed by a crowd of excited women, burst into 
 the procuratore's office, crying: "We have found it! Look, 
 Signore ! Look !" 
 
 "See!" shouted the man; "see what killed our daughter!" 
 
 The man laid on the table two parcels, one containing 
 locks of chestnut hair, the other something made of wool. 
 
 "Here is what killed my daughter !" screamed the woman, 
 shuddering with terror. "Here is the witchcraft!" 
 
 The two people were Emanuele Malerba and his wife An- 
 tonina Bracciante, whose daughter died some time ago, a 
 few months after marriage. The parents have suspected the 
 girl's mother-in-law, who opposed the match, of making 
 away with her by witchcraft. 
 
 All the furniture, including the marriage bed, which the 
 
 34
 
 DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 35 
 
 girl had carried as dowry to her husband, was restored in 
 due course to her family; and the old mother, picking over 
 the mattress, pricked her hand. Searching inside the bed, 
 she found something in the shape of a doll into which were 
 stuck a large needle, two safety pins, one black and the 
 other white ; and two other safety pins on each of which was 
 transfixed a seed of a nespolo (medlar). 
 
 "Here is the witchcraft!" she thought. 
 
 As soon as she had recovered she ran to tell hef husband 
 and the neighbors. The quarter was thrown into commotion. 
 To die at eighteen years by the will of God is one thing; to 
 perish through the brutal malignity of a mother-in-law is 
 quite another. 
 
 One of the women explained : "When the seed dried, poor 
 Rusidda died." 
 
 "You see," said another, pointing to the doll without 
 daring to touch it; "there is a seed at its stomach, which 
 means that the witchcraft was made in the stomach of 
 Rusidda." 
 
 "It is true," shuddered the mother; "my daughter com- 
 plained always of stomach pains." 
 
 The two old people denounced the fact to the police, and 
 when their complaint was not received seriously, they betook 
 themselves to the public prosecutor, who also met their de- 
 mand for justice with good-natured laughter. 
 
 The father and mother, once again at home, allowed a 
 brave young neighbor to cut open the image. When there 
 came out more nespoli seeds mixed with sawdust they re- 
 turned to their belief in the strange doll's errand of murder. 
 
 "There is no justice!" they raved, glaring at the by- 
 standers; "there is no justice!" 
 
 There were thousands of years when learned 
 judges did not laugh at such dolls, and ignorance 
 does not yet laugh at them. 
 
 Twelve hundred years before Christ, in the reign 
 of Rameses III, a steward of the king was prose- 
 cuted in an Egyptian court of law for causing
 
 36 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 paralysis to men and women by making wax figures 
 of them. As late as 1692 the finding of "poppets" 
 stuck full of pins was admitted in Salem, Mass., 
 as evidence in a witch trial. Even now, maltreating 
 an image to harm a man, if not actionable in court, 
 and if not as usual everywhere as it may be in 
 Amoy, where bamboo and paper "substitutes of per- 
 sons" are sold ready-made, is certainly not a form 
 of imitative magic confined to the primitive 
 Bakongo. 
 
 "Substitutes of persons" are not uncommon in 
 Sicily; but oftener than into a human figure, simple 
 like those of Amoy, or elaborate like those which 
 thirteenth century black art modeled with the fea- 
 tures of an enemy and baptized with his name, 
 Sicilian magic stabs its jeers or its threats into an 
 egg or a lemon, a potato or even a piece of meat. 
 
 The first lemon of this sort that ever I saw in 
 Taormina was a "substitute" of Donna Pruvidenza, 
 and I had sight of it, as it were, by accident. If 
 Donna Pruvidenza's confessor had not chanced to 
 be at a church convention in Malta, she would have 
 taken the "making" straight to him, after the man- 
 ner of the more devout, to beg that he read a prayer 
 over it, first putting on his stole. It was the absence 
 of the priest that sent her to the kindly family who 
 exorcised the lemon, much as he might have done, 
 perhaps, by assuring her that it could do no harm; 
 and who suggested that she bring it to me. 
 
 It was on the terrace outside the dining room
 
 DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 37 
 
 that Donna Pruvidenza found me; and no sooner 
 had Pietro set a chair and brought a second coffee 
 cup than I saw that hers was no ordinary visit ; for 
 though she drank with appreciation and was lavish 
 of morning compHments, her manner was at once 
 uneasy and that of a person even more conscious 
 than prim little Donna Pruvidenza commonly is of 
 her own importance. 
 
 "Dear little Missy," she said when the coffee was 
 finished, "can we not withdraw to some location 
 less public? What I have to say to you is conse- 
 quential." 
 
 "Let us go to my room," I assented, for beyond 
 the long window stood Pietro, arranging flowers for 
 luncheon by putting into each glass blossoms of as 
 many different colors as possible. 
 
 As he opened the door for our retreat I saw him 
 glance at a cloth Donna Pruvidenza carried, for it 
 hurt Pietro's sense of the proprieties that parcels 
 brought to me were apt to hold gifts of carob pods, 
 dried chestnuts or hard Httle salted olives, beneath 
 the dignity, as he considered it, of the dining room. 
 
 In the quiet of my chamber Donna Pruvidenza 
 untied the kerchief and laid it on the table. 
 
 "Ah," I said, seeing among the folds of the cloth 
 the shape of a lemon; "have you brought me some 
 fruit?" 
 
 "Cara Signurinedda !" There was horror in 
 Donna Pruvidenza's voice, and in the gesture of 
 her hands.
 
 38 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Looking closer, I saw that the lemon which lay 
 on the kerchief was livid with black and purple 
 spots, exuding moisture and at the same time drying 
 and warping out of shape. Stuck into it were nails, 
 the rusty shanks of which were beginning to show 
 as the fruit twisted, shrinking away from them. 
 
 "What is that? A fattura?" I exclaimed, guess- 
 ing at the meaning of the ugly thing. 
 
 The parchment of Donna Pruvidenza's brown 
 face crinkled with indignation. "It is a brutal sur- 
 prise that I have brought the Signurinedda !" she 
 ejaculated, her hands denouncing the authors of the 
 injury ; "a surprise for me, an orphan who have no 
 one to vindicate me, who am dedicated to the service 
 of God, and who look for nothing but his graciosity 
 and the protectorate of good people!" 
 "Where did it come from ?" I questioned. 
 Donna Pruvidenza began her account of the 
 lemon with praise of her grandparents. While in 
 quaint, high-flown phrase she extolled her family, 
 I drew the kerchief to my side of the table. "The 
 Signurinedda must not touch the 'gghiommaru' !" 
 she interrupted herself to warn me. 
 
 Why instead of lemon she said "gghiommaru," 
 which means anything round like a ball of thread, 
 I can only guess. Donna Pruvidenza never uses a 
 common word when she can find an uncommon one. 
 I had counted three needles, seven pins and five 
 screws piercing the lemon, and had reached the 
 thirty -first nail when she came to her own childhood.
 
 DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 39 
 
 "I called my progenitors 'father' and 'mother/ 
 as did Jesus Christ, and morning and evening I 
 asked their blessing, kissing their hands. While 
 in the days of to-day the very off scouring of the 
 streets scream 'Papal' 'Mamma!' as if they were 
 ladies and gentlemen! . . . Madonna mia! The 
 Signurinedda must not touch the thing!" 
 
 "Where did you get it ?" I reiterated, pushing the 
 kerchief away from me. 
 
 "It is of the devil ! Of the brute beast !" 
 
 Donna Pruvidenza would not be hurried. Half- 
 listening to the ills of life that had reduced a person 
 of her worth to the one inherited room that was 
 her sole remaining property, I noticed that the nails 
 ranged from cobbler's tacks to blacksmith's sizes 
 and even to crooked board nails. 
 
 In spite of all reassurances, my guest was ill at 
 ease ; but no hoodoo could lessen the innocent satis- 
 faction with which, pursing her lips and arching 
 her brows like an old-fashioned New England spin- 
 ster, she pouted out the river of her talk until she 
 came at last to the great discovery. 
 
 Someone had hidden the lemon in her oven. 
 There it might have stayed, she said, till the viaticum 
 was brought and the passing bell was tolled for her, 
 since she never had flour with which to bake, if 
 she had not touched it accidentally while reaching 
 for a brush she kept inside. 
 
 Donna Pruvidenza is old, nearly hump-backed 
 and half-blind. She is poor, short of temper and
 
 40 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 sharp of tongue, the butt of many a brutal jest; 
 but pride and an applauding conscience brought a 
 smile of conviction to her lips as she said she must 
 have been attacked because of envy. 
 
 "Dear Missy, I am envied," she assured me ; "and 
 where there is envy there is witchcraft, or there is 
 the blow of the eye." 
 
 Someone must have entered her room while she 
 was at mass, she thought, or receiving the evening 
 benediction; some evil-minded neighbor who saw 
 that, even if she was poor and condemned to live 
 in a bare and squalid nest, good friends when they 
 had a nice dish to eat often sent for her to enjoy 
 it with them. Because of her friends some envious 
 person must have said, "How she is respected ! This 
 morning So-and-So has sent her salted codfish! 
 Such-a-One has given her a dress for the festa of 
 San Pancrazio!" 
 
 There flashed through my mind a vision of the 
 cast-off dinner dress left by some tourist to a charity 
 fund in Taormina, which Donna Pruvidenza had 
 trailed with dignity through the dust of the Corso. 
 
 "Dear little Missy," she concluded, "can any but 
 the envious think me greedy if I accept now and 
 then a cup of broth or even a little meat? Surely 
 a person worthy of respect, an orphan without father 
 or mother, ought not to suffer !" 
 
 "The family you mentioned," I ventured, "are 
 not your friends?" 
 
 "Bad people !" It was not a month since Donna
 
 DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 41 
 
 Pruvidenza had begged her confessor to tell the 
 man's wife that if she must throw at respectable 
 neighbors words as hard as dog-killing stones, at 
 least she "should throw them gently! gently! And 
 'this was the answer — to hide in her house a charm, 
 as if she were a witch! 
 
 "It is not that I fear!" she protested. "Not a 
 leaf moves without the will of God; but" — she 
 pushed her chair farther from the kerchief — "who 
 would not shudder at the malignity that fills a lemon 
 with nails?" 
 
 Through the open window there came the cry 
 of a peddler ! "Sixty brass pins for a soldo ! Four 
 yards of tape for a soldo! Look, females; Look 
 and buy ! *Tis a sin to leave them !" 
 
 "Sixty pins for a soldo !" groaned Donna Pruvi- 
 denza ; "and this is stuffed with nails !" 
 
 Her emphasis led me to ask, "Are nails worse 
 than pins ?" 
 
 "Signurinedda !" Donna Pruvidenza was shocked. 
 "Nails fastened our Lord to the cross! Never be- 
 fore have I seen a 'gghiommaru' filled with nails !" 
 
 In the end, Donna Pruvidenza gave me the lemon. 
 It was not likely to harm me, she said, since the 
 sending was not against me; and as to herself, she 
 was not afraid, though it would be well if I would 
 promise not to throw it away but to burn it, first 
 taking out the nails. These points settled, she pulled 
 up her rusty black shawl around her shoulders and 
 trotted away — a pathetic little figure, pursing her
 
 42 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 lips and smiling with the discreet happiness of those 
 conscious of well-doing. 
 
 At the door she turned to say, "Cara Signuri- 
 nedda, let all this remain between you and me." 
 
 I had no thought of betraying Donna Pruvidenza's 
 secret, but an hour later when I returned to my 
 room the box into which I had shut the lemon was 
 on the floor, and Tidda the Bat, dusting cloth in 
 hand, was gazing at the evil looking fruit with 
 horrified curiosity. "I did not touch it," she said 
 in explanation; "it went down." 
 
 Tidda 'a Taddarita has a way of bumping about 
 the room as aimlessly as her namesake, the bat. 
 This morning, whether dusting or bringing water, 
 or lowering canvas screens against the May sun, 
 her motions were even more hit-or-miss than usual. 
 She did not pick up the lemon, and she could not 
 keep her eyes away from it; she revolved around 
 it, striking against whatever stood in the way. It 
 was not until she stood at the open door, her tasks 
 done, that she said, turning for once her brown and 
 peaked face in my direction : 
 
 "Scusi ; was that made against the Signurinedda?" 
 
 "No," I answered, stopping to pick it up. 
 
 "Jesus, Joseph and Mary! Jesus, Joseph and 
 Mary!" Tidda crossed herself hastily, backing into 
 the hallway. "For the love of God ! Little Missy, 
 don't touch the bewitched thing!" 
 
 I dropped the lemon into its box, "But since it 
 is not against me "
 
 DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 43 
 
 "For the love of God !" Tidda's face worked con- 
 vulsively. "One sees that the Signurinedda does 
 not understand such things !" 
 
 Tidda is a forlorn creature with high red cheek- 
 bones, shiny little African eyes and a low forehead 
 covered with black hair. By trade she is a carrier 
 of water. Morning, noon and night, an earthen 
 quartara on her head, her small black-clad figure 
 comes to our door. Sometimes when the domestic 
 machinery stalls I find her at work inside. 
 
 Shutting the door with a blow of her broom, she 
 poured out a flood of tales. Years ago there was 
 a good woman in Taormina, she said, who used to 
 give food to the prisoners in the jail. One day when 
 this woman felt ill, a woman in the jail who was 
 a witch asked her many questions and then begged 
 her to bring an egg when she came back next day. 
 The sick woman brought a fresh egg, laid by one 
 of her own hens ; but when the witch broke the shell 
 it was full of broken glass. The sick woman at once 
 felt well. 
 
 "That was long ago," I commented. 
 
 "But it's not six months," returned Tidda, "since 
 my chum found thorns in an orange stuck into the 
 wall beside her door; and who knows what might 
 have happened if she had not asked the priest to 
 bless it?" 
 
 "At least nothing did happen," I suggested. 
 "Someone is ringing." 
 
 "Something happened to Vitu 'u Moddu," Tidda
 
 44 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 persisted, shaking her head impatiently as a bell 
 sounded from a neighboring room. 
 
 "The Signurinedda knows Vitu the Soft, steward 
 for the English in the villa? Two years ago Vitu 
 fell so ill that no medicine could help him. Month 
 after month he lay groaning in bed till one day a 
 hunter thought he saw a bird fly into a hole in the 
 rock above Vitu's house. The Signurinedda knows 
 the place, under the hill on the path to Monte 
 Ziretto ? So the hunter climbed up and put his hand 
 into the hole; but it was not a nest of sparrows 
 that he pulled out; it was the head of a kid full of 
 pins. Vitu's wife called a priest to undo the spell, 
 and Vitu has been as well ever since as he was 
 before." 
 
 Again the bell rang, but Tidda had plunged into 
 the case of an uncle saved from death by a witch- 
 finder's discovery of a thorn-filled potato. From 
 the uncle she jumped to the tale of a bedridden 
 woman who walked as soon as her son had dug 
 in a place pointed out by a passing stranger. "Your 
 ills are before your door," the stranger said, and 
 indeed they found the dried liver of an animal. 
 
 "Bad people do these things," she concluded, as 
 a third time the bell jangled; "witches who ought to 
 die like dogs ! Why does the Signurinedda handle 
 things made by witches?" 
 
 After luncheon a fear that Tidda might gossip 
 about the lemon was confirmed when Pietro detained 
 me in the dining-room to see a photograph of the
 
 DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 45 
 
 palace on Staten Island inhabited by his brother. 
 The "palazzo," which looked like a brick tenement, 
 was distant from New York one little hour by train- 
 in-air, steamship and train-of-fire ; and to it he 
 wished to send a package for which would I please 
 write the address? 
 
 Pietro did not approach abruptly the topic of 
 Donna Pruvidenza's lemon. The parcel was to con- 
 tain razors, for Pietro's brother is a barber, and 
 in New York razors cost too much money. There 
 were to be stockings knitted by his signora — Pietro's 
 wife is his "lady" — and a loaf of baked "ricotta," 
 which is curd sun-dried and browned in an oven. 
 For his brother's children there was a quantity of 
 a hard almond sweet called "torrone." 
 
 It was while we were planning the packing of 
 these articles that Pietro began a gently superior 
 discourse on Tidda's cowardice and my curiosity 
 as to lemons. A lemon turned into a pincushion 
 was only a lemon. He ought to know, for had he 
 not paid more than four hundred lire for the finding 
 of a piece of meat stuck full of nails? And had it 
 done him any good to have the nails taken out ? Not 
 a particle! Once he had believed such foolishness, 
 but now he knew better. 
 
 "Four hundred lire !" I exclaimed ; for Pietro is a 
 plodding man of fifty, careful of his money. 
 
 "Four hundred lire!" he repeated with mild 
 cynicism; was he not then a judge of such matters? 
 
 The thing had happened some years earlier, he
 
 46 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 said, when he had given up his profession as a 
 waiter, because his signora had tired of starching 
 shirts and collars. "A waiter," he exclaimed, with 
 a glance at his Hnen, "must always be clean." 
 
 So he had opened a shop for the sale of salted 
 codfish, oil, wine and macaroni — such things as 
 people need. But trade was not good, and to make 
 matters worse a great oil jar leaked one night, and 
 the oil ran over the floor and even into the street. 
 Now to spill oil is a bad sign, and for days his lady 
 was ill with worry. 
 
 Just at this time there came to their door one 
 morning a woman who begged food. When she 
 had eaten and rested, the poor woman seemed grate- 
 ful, and offered to search the house for the evil 
 influence that interfered with sales. When he and 
 his signora understood that she had such power 
 they agreed gladly. So for days she searched, eat- 
 ing always of the best, until at last she declared the 
 place was haunted by a demon. 
 
 "We believed her," said Pietro with melancholy 
 scorn of past credulity, "because, though we never 
 saw anything, we often heard a 'pum ! pum !' " 
 
 "E-e-e — I think now," he added with hesitant 
 utterance that was not yet a stammer, "that she may 
 have made the noise herself." 
 
 The woman carried away a suit of Pletro's cloth- 
 ing, which she said must be burned. "It was a good 
 suit," he sighed reminiscently. 
 
 One night she led him and his lady to a lonely
 
 DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 47 
 
 place behind a church, when she made them dig at 
 the roots of a clump of fichi d'India. The charm 
 was buried there, she said ; but they found nothing. 
 The next night she took them down to the sea and 
 walked into the water until it reached her knees. 
 There she searched a long time, and when she came 
 back she brought a bag that held a piece of meat 
 full of broken glass and nails. This, she said, was 
 the source of their misfortunes; some rival had 
 pierced the flesh as if it had been their bodies. 
 
 The woman took the nails out of the meat and 
 burned it. Then she sprinkled salt and water in the 
 house, repeating charms. She demanded much 
 money because she had found the charm in the sea. 
 
 "That proved her clever?" I questioned. 
 
 "Yes," conceded Pietro; "at least she said so." 
 
 "Of course," confirmed Tidda, who had bumped 
 into the room and was picking up dishes. "The 
 Signurinedda sees that a charm hidden in a house 
 may perhaps be found quickly, and so do little 
 mischief; but what is lost in the sea only a person 
 of great power can find. It goes on working until 
 it kills the one against whom it was made. For a 
 charm thrown into the sea there is no pardon ; God 
 cannot forgive such wickedness." 
 
 "Business was no better," said Pietro skeptically, 
 comforting himself with bites at a medlar. "I gave 
 up the shop and came back to waiting." 
 
 Before the day was done I took the lemon to the 
 padrona's sewing room, begging her to check
 
 48 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Tidda's tongue, though I had no faith that our 
 silence would prevent the spreading of Donna 
 Pruvidenza's news. 
 
 The mistress of our house is so wise in the lore 
 of the people that whatever of interest I hear is 
 submitted to her judgment. Looking up from her 
 mending, she regarded curiously the discolored 
 lemon, which was still leaking juice and bulging and 
 shrinking around the puncture of the rusty nails. 
 Poking it with her plump thimble finger, she told 
 me fresh tales of haps and mishaps with charms. 
 Often as she had heard of such things, never before, 
 she said, had she seen one. 
 
 "But fear of witchcraft," I queried, "is not yet 
 forgotten?" 
 
 The padrona looked long toward the courtyard 
 beyond the terrace, where her husband and the cook 
 were bowling. **Fear of lemons like this, yes," she 
 said finally. "If a woman's neighbors think her a 
 witch and threaten her with this counter-witchcraft, 
 one sees the threat is harmless, because such people 
 do not know the proper words to use when sticking 
 in the nails." 
 
 "What proper words?" demanded Maria, the 
 laundress, checking her song, "The sun which goes 
 to-day returns to-morrow," as she came in from 
 the terrace with an armload of folded towels. 
 
 Maria told us the tale of a girl who once picked 
 up a lemon from the ground, when teased about her 
 betrothed, and in a joke began pricking it with
 
 Door Charms for Evil Eye
 
 DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 49 
 
 thorns. "This in his head !" she said. "This in his 
 arm! This in his leg!" The girl was washing at 
 the riverside, and no sooner had she and the others 
 reached home with their bundles of dry clothes than 
 she heard that her betrothed had come from reaping 
 seized with terrible pains. Running back to her 
 washing stone, she found the lemon and pulled out 
 the thorns. Next morning her lover was well. 
 
 "What words did that girl know?" laughed Maria, 
 as she took up her song again and started towards 
 the garden to pick towels from the flowering bushes. 
 "The thorns are the thing!" 
 
 In Sicilian magic few acts are performed without 
 accompanying incantations. The padrona's re- 
 minder, therefore, of the need of words decided 
 me not to touch the nails until I knew whether their 
 extraction required a formula. I did not hope to 
 learn the putting in of nails. "Release, yes; bind, 
 no," is a saying in the mouth of every adept. But 
 if to black magic no one would own, in the white 
 magic of undoing a spell someone might instruct 
 me. 
 
 Gna Angela, called the Fox, who censes houses to 
 drive out the evil eye, and Gna Vanna, the Grass- 
 hopper-eater, who claims uncanny powers, because 
 of her protection by the "ladies," were the women 
 I planned to consult. I should not have thought 
 of Za Tonietta, whose dealings with the unknown 
 are more limited, had I not come across her next
 
 so BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 morning, crouched in a recess of the ivy-clad wall 
 near my own door. Indeed, at first nothing was 
 farther from my thoughts than magic, for Za 
 Tonietta's grizzled hair stood up in moist rings, her 
 kerchief was open at the throat, and she was gasp- 
 ing "As God wills," bent double with asthma. 
 
 I sat down beside her in the flickering shade of 
 the pepper trees, and after a while, when the strug- 
 gle for breath became less violent, she told me that 
 she was on her way to a house where a death had 
 occurred, to sprinkle holy water, which she had 
 taken from the three fonts of the Matrice, the 
 mother church. In her lap there lay a bottle which 
 still carried a Worcestershire-sauce label. 
 
 While we rested there came in sight a swarm of 
 children playing a favorite game of our street — 
 conducting a saint's procession. Down the winding 
 road, carried on the shoulders of ivy-crowned boys 
 and girls, advanced a toy Vara, adorned with 
 candles and flowers, and holding, instead of a church 
 image, a rude print of Sant' Alfio and his brothers. 
 Ahead marched a tiny boy ringing a bell to stop and 
 start the bearers. Behind flocked children shouting 
 vivas. 
 
 "As God wills !" wheezed Za Tonietta, when the 
 procession, to which she had hardly lifted her eyes, 
 had gone its way. Sant' Alfio was a powerful saint, 
 but it was to our own San Pancraziu, great father 
 of the people, that she prayed:
 
 DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 51 
 
 1 To the ten thousandth time we raise 
 San Pancraziu's high praise; 
 We praise him daily when we wake, 
 Who Taormina safe doth make, 
 
 she recited, smiling drearily. She had prayed much 
 to be well, but at night she could not lie in her bed. 
 
 In Za Tonietta's windowless house asthma is not 
 as God, but as building custom wills. Waiting till 
 she dragged herself to her feet, I rose also; and then, 
 remembering my errand, showed her the lemon. 
 
 The result startled me. At sight of the shrunken, 
 ominous-looking thing Za Tonietta dropped back 
 into her seat, clutching at the bag of amulets pinned 
 under her dress, and racked by a spasm of coughing 
 that shook her bowed old figure. When at last she 
 panted that the lemon was "to die! to die!" I had 
 had more proof than I liked that it could do mis- 
 chief. 
 
 As Za Tonietta moved wavering down the road 
 with her holy water, and I turned towards Gna 
 Vanna and the village, I could think of nothing but 
 the cruelty of fear which ages of life had not driven 
 out of so radiant a world. 
 
 In the morning sun the gray-green mountain wall 
 above the town drew so close that I could follow the 
 movements of men and goats up and down the zig- 
 zags, to and from the old castle of Taormina, and 
 the church of the Madonna of the rock. 
 
 ^A la decimila vota 
 Lu ludamu San Pancraziu; 
 Lu ludamu la matina 
 Ca prutiggi Taormina.
 
 52 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Over the gray walls between which winds our 
 road, purple flower clusters hung from the patience 
 trees. From cypress and cedar, and even from tall 
 eucalyptus dropped curtains of honeysuckle. Olives 
 were blossoming green, and the lemon gardens in 
 white bloom scented the air. 
 
 The village was out of doors. As trees gave way 
 to gray-white houses, I came up with Cola the rope- 
 maker, who had planted his wheel in a shaded spot 
 and was rubbing down yellow lengths of cord with 
 halved lemons. 
 
 Beside their doorstones were the gossips, wash- 
 ing, knitting, spinning, making nets and nursing 
 babies. Men, too, had brought out chairs to the 
 cobblestones, where they plaited fishtraps, cobbled 
 shoes or, seated on the ground, twisted with fingers 
 and toes store of rush twine against the wheat 
 binding. Even the tinsmith had littered the street 
 with petroleum tins to be knocked down to usable 
 sheets of metal. 
 
 I found Gna Vanna standing over a wandering 
 tinker who was drilling holes in the fragments of 
 a thick earthen basin. "Have a care!" she warned 
 the swart young Calabrian, as he raised and lowered 
 the rude cross-bow contrivance that turned the point 
 of his drill. "Have a care !" she repeated while he 
 patched together the huge dish, straddling wire pins 
 from hole to hole and poking in cement as a final 
 operation. 
 
 Vanna looked cross, and as I stepped indoors to
 
 DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 53 
 
 avoid the tilt over pennies for the mending, I saw 
 that an upset house had perhaps upset her temper. 
 The once smoke-blackened walls were wet with 
 whitewash, and in the middle of the spattered floor 
 were heaped goods and chattels. 
 
 "Badly have I done!" she fretted, bringing in 
 the big dish and setting it down anxiously. "The 
 house was too dirty, but five lire they made me pay ! 
 Bad Christians! They broke the basin, and in a 
 week smoke and flies will make things worse than 
 before!" 
 
 There is a vent above Vanna's fireplace which 
 smoke never finds. 
 
 Without the name of its owner the charm did not 
 soothe Gna Vanna. As I took the cover off its 
 box she signed an impatient cross or two, looking 
 from it to me with irritation. The victim must be 
 suffering pains in the ears, eyes and stomach, she 
 asserted ; and whose was the blame if I refused to 
 take her to the house, so that she might drive out 
 the witchcraft by her prayers ? 
 
 "Vossia knows that I understand these things," 
 she pursued with the air of an unappreciated genius, 
 planting the tip of a skinny forefinger in the middle 
 of her forehead. "There is no one else who under- 
 stands them. Let them call me witch! Vossia 
 knows that I am respected because I have broken 
 many evil charms." 
 
 Whether in the end she would have relented and 
 taken out the nails, I cannot tell; for as she jerked
 
 54 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 a chair from the piled up furniture, there crawled 
 from some cave underneath her grandson Micciu 
 and the white-faced kid, Sciuriddu. Fresh almond 
 leaves satisfied "Little Flower" ; but Micciu ranged 
 the floor, dragging the kid by the red rag at his neck, 
 scrambling after a dish of raw, shining fish and 
 tugging at his one garment, a dingy little shift. 
 
 "Nanna," he teased, "take it off, grandma! It's 
 hot!" 
 
 "Fui! Fui! Run away!" scolded Vanna; and the 
 child, seizing a fish, darted towards the street, bump- 
 ing into a fleshy, middle-aged woman who appeared 
 in the doorway. 
 
 At sight of me, Comare Alfia, Vanna's sister-in- 
 law, came forward with hesitation. Lowering her- 
 self into a chair, she sat in heavy silence, her round, 
 not unkindly face set in lines of dissatisfaction. My 
 chance was gone, and I was rising to yield the field 
 when, responding little by little to complaints about 
 the price of whitewashing, Comare Alfia gathered 
 confidence, and put into Vanna's hand a thick 
 knotted cord braided of red and green rags. 
 
 "What is it?" asked Vanna, glancing sharply from 
 the braid to the lumpy face of her sister-in-law. 
 
 "I want to know," answered Comare Alfia; "what 
 is it?" 
 
 Her suspicious eyes fixed on the cord, Comare 
 Alfia explained that she had found it an hour before 
 among the vine cuttings with which she was feeding 
 the fire in her oven. It might be harmless, but
 
 DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S XEMON 55 
 
 she could not feel safe unless Vanna undid the 
 knots, for her head ached and her stomach felt as 
 if it also were tied in knots. It was just such a 
 sending that two years earlier had killed her hus- 
 band, and she knew well the wretches who had 
 twisted the spell. On that very street they lived, 
 not many doors away. They had quarreled with 
 her husband over the price of two hens, and now 
 perhaps they had braided this cord to twist and tie 
 her vitals also. The law ought to punish such 
 assassins. 
 
 Gna Vanna studied the braid which had been 
 made the more deadly by three knots drawn tight. 
 "It may be," she agreed, "a fattura." 
 
 Restored to good humor by her sister-in-law's 
 openly expressed dependence, Gna Vanna asked me 
 to show the lemon. At sight of the nails Comare 
 Alfia displayed something like animation, while I 
 tried to look wise over the charms. A fellow feeling 
 being thus established, I was allowed to stay while 
 Vanna conjured the harm that might have been 
 planned against her sister-in-law's bowels. 
 
 First muttering formulas of which "name of 
 God" was all I heard, she picked at the first knot 
 until she had loosened and untied it, repeating the 
 while: 
 
 Hair of God and Mary's hair, 
 Be called home this witchcraft sair! 
 Let there be praised and thanked 
 The most holy Sacrament
 
 56 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 And God's great Mother Mary 
 
 And all the heavenly company. 
 
 In the name of God and for Jesus* sake, 
 
 Let this woman no harm take. 
 
 Comare Alfia, who sat hunched forward in her 
 chair by Vanna's side, paid dolorous attention as 
 Vanna smoothed the kinky strands and passed to 
 the second knot, reciting while she tugged with 
 persistent fingers, 
 
 The ass, the ass, he came on feet four; 
 It was St. Mark on his back he bore. 
 In the name of God, for St. Pancras' sake. 
 Let this woman no harm take. 
 
 The third knot was more difficult. "The knife !" 
 called Gna Vanna impatiently. "Micciu, the knife !" 
 
 Micciu, who had strayed back to the doorstone, 
 brought her from the table drawer a knife and the 
 loaf he found with it. "Always bread in your 
 mouth! Devil's face!" she ejaculated, kissing him 
 as she cut a big piece. Then slashing the knot, she 
 proceeded : 
 
 Four loaves and four fishes. 
 Out, I say, with ill wishes ! 
 Bright angel of the good light. 
 In three words I break evil's might. 
 In the name of God and of St. John, 
 If there's harm, I cut; 't is gone. 
 
 While Vanna unbraided the strands she continued 
 to recite charms for good measure. Comare Alfia
 
 DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 57 
 
 brightened enough to twitch her white kerchief 
 straight, so that the knot came under her chin. 
 When I left the house she was gathering the red 
 and green rags to burn, and Gna Vanna was re- 
 peating, 
 
 2 Star of the Eastern light, 
 Never back but forward bright. 
 To the three, to the three, to the three, 
 And even to the twenty-four. 
 Now this witchcraft is no more. 
 In Jesus' name I undo the charm ; 
 ■Never more shall it work harm. 
 
 Though Gna Vanna had recited nothing over the 
 lemon, I felt sure that, if I had been able to take 
 her to Donna Pruvidenza, her procedure, as to the 
 nails, would not have differed in essentials from 
 her conjuring of the knots. It was to get, if pos- 
 sible, a different method that I set out in the after- 
 noon to find Gna Angela, the Fox, who is perhaps 
 wiser in old lore than Gna Vanna. 
 
 May in Sicily is summer and the town was taking 
 its siesta. Shops were shut as I passed through 
 the Corso, streets empty. Nothing stirred but dart- 
 
 2 Stidda di lu luveri, 
 Veni avanti e mai arreri ! 
 A li tri, a li tri, a li tri 
 E sinu a li ventiquattru ; 
 Ssu malunatu e sfasciatu. 
 Pi lu nomu di Gesu, 
 Sciogghiu ssa fimmina; 
 E nun mi avi nenti chiu.
 
 S8 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 ing lizards. Even the blackbirds were silent in the 
 many cages ranged against the house walls. But 
 while I climbed to the high under-the-castle quarter 
 of Taormina, a little breeze began to wake the sea. 
 Its effect was magical. • Heavy black wooden doors 
 opened, and from under round-arched doorways 
 came women carrying water jars that lay slantwise 
 on their heads as they started towards the fountains. 
 Women appeared on little iron balconies taking in 
 dry clothes from long cane poles. The tottering old 
 people at the Hospice crept out on their terrace. 
 Sounds arose of chatter and singing. 
 
 From a distance as I approached Gna Angela's 
 house I saw her across the way from her door, 
 sitting at her netting beside the wall towards the 
 sea. She was alone; but even while I hurried for- 
 ward, there appeared two women coming over the 
 hill from an opposite direction. They reached her 
 first. There was a moment of gesticulation; and 
 then, picking up the chair in which she had been 
 sitting and another over which were folded the 
 brown lengths of her net, Gna Angela crossed the 
 road with the newcomers. 
 
 It was too late to retreat ; but instead of following 
 the three into the house, I sat down on the door- 
 stone, watching the chickens that old Zu Paulu, 
 Gna Angela's husband, was taking one by one from 
 under a tall, rush-woven cage and protecting from 
 evil eye by tying red rags under their pinfeathery 
 wings.
 
 DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 59 
 
 The two women, who looked like mother and 
 daughter, were telling their errand when Gna 'An- 
 gela came to the door to wish me good-day ; and so 
 it chanced that I overheard their anxiety about the 
 younger one's husband. Desperately ill he was, the 
 mother said, in New York. The news had come a 
 week before, and now for seven days they had had 
 no letter. Was he getting better or was he dead? 
 Would Gna Angela tell them? 
 
 More than once I had heard Gna Angela, the 
 Fox, pronounce on the health of absent relatives, 
 so that her agreement to this request did not sur- 
 prise me. 
 
 Drawing her chair into the breeze at the doorway, 
 she sat almost at my side, clasping her hands about 
 her knees and composing herself to immobility. 
 Little by little her faded eyes became veiled, and 
 her queer animated old face put on a mask devoid 
 of expression. Surreptitiously I pulled out a pencil, 
 for I guessed that she would recite the so-called 
 "paternoster of San GiuUano," protector of travelers. 
 Presently, crossing herself, she muttered "Jesus, 
 St. Joseph and Mary!" and then words began to 
 pour from her lips in a rapid, colorless stream. 
 Faster and faster, becoming almost inarticulate, ran 
 the river of sound. It seemed a long time before, 
 suddenly as it had begun, the flow stopped. The 
 gray old figure straightened itself. Gna Angela's 
 eyes brightened, and her half-opened mouth snapped 
 shut with a look of satisfaction.
 
 6o BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 "Your spouse is well," she said to the younger 
 woman. "You will soon hear from him." 
 
 "Are you sure?" the two demanded. There fol- 
 lowed a hubbub of questions. 
 
 "It is certain," replied Gna Angela in the tone 
 of one who finishes a simple matter. "It is not I 
 who tell you; it is San Giuliano himself, the mirac- 
 ulous saint who never mistakes. Did you not hear ? 
 The words came quick and smoothly ; I said it three 
 times through without missing a syllable. It is San 
 Giuliano himself who says it: Your spouse is well." 
 
 As Gna Angela spoke she rose, dismissing her 
 guests. Old, sinewy, a little bent, she seemed, as 
 she leaned against a doorpost, indifferent as a sybil 
 to the doubts of the ignorant. • 
 
 "Come, daughter," she said, touching my shoulder 
 to indicate the turn of another client. 
 
 The women were impressed. Dropping coppers 
 into her hand, they came out of the house, bidding 
 a cheerful good-by to Zu Paulu as they trudged 
 down the road, two black figures in the white Sicilian 
 sunshine. 
 
 "Come, daughter," repeated Gna Angela, inviting 
 me into the bare little room. 
 
 By repute Gna Angela is a witch, able to call up 
 spirits of the dead; but the trade, if such it is, yields 
 her little more than the bed, the bench and the chest 
 of the old song of the dancing master: 
 
 Trois pas du cote du banc 
 Et trois pas du cote du lit;
 
 DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 6i 
 
 Trois pas du cote du cofifre 
 Et trois pas — revenez ici. 
 
 Driving out a hen from the heap of stones that 
 served her as fireplace, Gna Angela questioned me 
 with a look as she sat down before the broken chair 
 that held the unfinished net. 
 
 "Won't you say the paternoster again?" I begged, 
 for I had not succeeded in writing the half of the 
 old charm, which for who knows how many cen- 
 turies, anxious women have invoked for news of 
 travelers. 
 
 "Again ?" she queried. 
 
 I showed my pencil. "Please; say it slowly for 
 me." 
 
 "Ah," she said good-naturedly; "you will tell it 
 to the wise in your own country. Listen then, 
 daughter." 
 
 Dropping again the reed netting needle, she loos- 
 ened her neckerchief, uncovering her corded yellow 
 throat. Then she looked meditatively at me and 
 away again, and the flood of words recommenced. 
 I could not keep pace with it, and a request to repeat 
 caused Gna Angela's jaw to drop and her brown 
 and yellow mottled face to look hopelessly bewil- 
 dered. 
 
 That old gossip, Pliny, says that in order to 
 ensure the exact recital of certain Roman public 
 prayers, one assistant read the formula in advance 
 of the celebrant, while others kept silence in the
 
 62 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 audience and played the flute to shut out extraneous 
 sounds. A slip in the prayer spoiled the omens. 
 
 Gna Angela had no help, and a slip in the pater- 
 noster was disastrous. To ensure success she rushed 
 to the end on impetus. If she paused, the thread 
 broke. 
 
 As nearly as I could catch it, what she recited 
 ran: 
 
 Come the true cross to adore 
 Which down from Calvary they bore; 
 May grace and light our -spirits foster 
 To say St. Julian's paternoster. 
 
 Once St. JuHan went to the chase ; 
 
 In his hand his good stick found its place. 
 
 To Mary, great Virgin, chance him led; 
 
 Great St. Julian spoke and said: 
 
 At this court good friends we be; 
 
 From evil foes deliver me; 
 
 From doctors, too, and jails unkind 
 
 And from misfortune's cruel mind; 
 
 From raging demons set me free, 
 
 From mad dogs' bites safe let me be. 
 
 Should any wish to do me harm, 
 
 May a dead man's heart inspire his arm; 
 
 But mine the heart of a lion strong 
 
 That wreaks its wrath on doers of wrong. 
 
 This morn I rose up from the sod, 
 And my right foot with speed I shod. 
 St. George's sword to my side I girt; 
 Mary's mantle shielded me from hurt. 
 Then down I went unto the sea. 
 Where one and all my foes met me; 
 Down on their faces they fell in the mould. 
 While I stood up like a lion bold.
 
 DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 63 
 
 Be it on the road, or indeed safe at home, 
 Come with me, Saviour, where'er I roam. 
 Be it on the road or indeed by the way. 
 Come with me, Mary mother, I pray. 
 Be it on the road or indeed on the plain. 
 Come with me ever, St. Julian. 
 Be it on the road or when danger is near, 
 Come with me ever, St. Antonine dear. 
 
 This St. Julian is he of whom the Golden Legend 
 says that, having slain in ignorance his father and 
 mother, he did penance in long wanderings. Indeed 
 Dr. Pitre gives a form of the paternoster which 
 begins : 
 
 His mother he slaughtered, his father he slew; 
 St. Julian he to the mountain flew. 
 
 I have heard a similar version from a woman who, 
 instead of resorting to a witch, had memorized the 
 charm and would retire into a corner, shut her eyes 
 and recite it whenever her husband, whose business 
 took him much from home, failed to return at an 
 expected time. 
 
 When Gna Angela had resumed her netting and 
 I with apologies for my many questions, had pro- 
 duced the lemon, I discovered a witch's limitations. 
 Gna Angela could cure headache by driving away 
 its cause — the evil eye; she could tell me of the life 
 or death of friends beyond the ocean; but before 
 the lemon she confessed ignorance. 
 
 Touching gingerly the nails which, as the skin 
 of the fruit grew dry, began to stick out like chevaux
 
 64 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 de frise, she said it would take strong magic, the 
 magic of a book, to undo such a spell. Once she 
 had known a priest who had a book of the fifteenth 
 century. (Fifteenth-century charm-books are most 
 esteemed.) She had no book. I must ask a priest 
 to read a prayer over it, first putting on his stole. 
 
 My second call having proved even less satisfac- 
 tory than the first, I planned as I left Gna Angela's 
 door to submit the lemon as a last resort to a witch 
 of whose powers I had heard much — a woman who 
 lived at Piedimonte at the foot of Etna. But the 
 notion was short-lived. I had not yet reached the 
 flight of steps at the head of my own street when 
 an urgent voice said, "Cara Signurinedda !" \nd 
 there was Donna Pruvidenza harnessed by a string 
 to a packing case which she was dragging through 
 the Corso with a serene disregard of on-lookers. 
 
 "Dear little Miss !" she repeated in a tone of im- 
 portance and uneasiness. "That badly educated, the 
 
 wife of screams maledictions against all who 
 
 respect me ! You have destroyed the lemon ?" 
 
 Donna Pruvidenza's apprehensions had so in- 
 creased that it was not until I had promised imme- 
 diate action that she demanded admiration of the 
 packing box. "Firing for weeks ! Hot food I shall 
 
 have!" she exulted. "Ah, Missy, 's wife has 
 
 reason to envy me my friends !" 
 
 The lemon went to the kitchen fire. I have kept 
 the pins, the needles, the screws and the nails. For
 
 DONNA PRUVIDENZA'S LEMON 65 
 
 Donna Pruvidenza's sake I recited as I pulled them 
 out, a revised edition of one of Gna Vanna's charms: 
 
 Star of the Eastern light, 
 
 Never back but forward bright. 
 
 To the three, to the three, to the three 
 
 And even to the twenty-one; 
 
 Now this lemon is undone. 
 
 Thus do I take out the nails, 
 
 And thus the spell of all harm fails.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 Cola Pesce 
 
 The king seized the goblet — he swung it on high, 
 And, whirHng, it fell in the roar of the tide: 
 "But bring back that goblet again to my eye, 
 And I'll hold thee the dearest that rides by my side; 
 And thine arms shall embrace as thy bride, I decree, 
 The maiden whose pity now pleadeth for thee." 
 
 — "The Diver." Schiller. 
 
 It was at his sister Brigida's wedding party that 
 Cola asked why I did not come oftener to the 
 marina to fish with him. 
 
 "The Taormina boats are Wind," I said; "I like 
 better the fishing boats of Catania, because they have 
 eyes, and they are painted with saints." 
 
 "We carry our saints in our hearts," retorted 
 Cola, "instead of painting them on our boats." 
 
 Then he left me to take his place In the tarantella. 
 Brigida was dancing, a brown girl with almond- 
 shaped Arab eyes; and the bridegroom and others 
 of the fisher folk. The clear space for the dancers 
 had but the length of twelve bricks of the uneven 
 pavement; the musicians had barely room for their 
 elbows ; but the "Sucking Babes" played — it was the 
 "Babes" and not the "Rats," I think, who sent 
 
 66
 
 COLA PESCE 67 
 
 music; the "Babes" and the "Rats," conservatives 
 and radicals, do not mix at weddings any more than 
 in poHtics — till the floor shook, and the basket-work 
 fish traps that hung in clusters from the ceiling, 
 shook also. 
 
 It was hard to move without stepping on plates, 
 and Brigida's mother was still dishing roasted kid 
 and spaghetti to be sent to the neighbors. Brigida's 
 sister served wine and "Spanish bread," which is a 
 powdery sponge cake; and later, when the day de- 
 clined towards sunset, and we had helped Brigida 
 out of her cotton house dress, and into her dove- 
 colored wedding silk and white scarf, and had stood 
 about pretending not to see her weep as she kissed 
 the hands of her father and mother in good-by, we 
 walked in procession through the narrow streets 
 conducting Brigida and Santu to the little white- 
 washed upper room that was to be the new home. 
 
 It was after we had admired the knitted counter- 
 pane of the big white bed and the fine oil lamp and 
 the colored prints of saints and the royal family, 
 and the band had played at the door, and we had 
 said good wishes to the couple that, as Cola and 
 I walked away together, he said, "Signorina, 
 Occhietti, who fishes from Giardini, has a Catania 
 boat; I shall borrow it, and my father and I will 
 take you fishing to-morrow morning." 
 
 "After all, I prefer the Nuovo Sant' Alfio," I an- 
 swered. 
 
 Cola's boat, the New Saint Alfio, was an old and
 
 68 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 leaky tub as long ago as when I first saw Cola 
 perched on the wall by the highway above the beach 
 at Isola Bella, kicking together his hard little-boy 
 heels and hailing every passing tourist with, "Voli 
 battellu? Andiamu a li grotti?" 
 
 The poor old boat has been fishing by night and 
 taking tourists to the grottoes by day from then 
 until now, when Cola has done his military service 
 and feels himself a man; so I repented that I had 
 scorned so tried a friend as the sea-worn saint and 
 had longed for painted boats with eyes. 
 
 "We'll ask Occhietti to come with us," said Cola, 
 "and bring his boat, the San Pancraziu." 
 
 And so it happened that when I opened my door 
 at three o'clock next morning a dark figure that 
 stood leaning against the wall on the opposite side 
 of the Via Bagnoli Croce started towards me from 
 under the red-flowering pomegranate tree, and there 
 was Cola, carrying a little lantern and a big basket, 
 the padded rim of which was stuck full of the many 
 hooks of a baited trawl. 
 
 "Why have you brought the trap?" I asked, for 
 setting a trawl is not lively fishing. "Let us lift 
 some pots for lobsters." 
 
 "We shall lift lobster traps," said Cola. "Come 
 on ! Father has gone down already." 
 
 There were stars in the blue-black sky, and the 
 Fisherman's Path, which drops sharp and steep 
 from Taormina to the sea, is cut for the most part 
 against the bare rock face of the mountain; but
 
 COLA PESCE 69 
 
 when our stump of a candle flickered out, I could 
 have wished for another to relight the tiny lantern, 
 for the zig-zags are rough, and here the heavy leaf- 
 age of a carob tree, and there a miniature pass, 
 left us in thick warm darkness without vision. Even 
 on the blindest turns Cola's bare feet trod boldly as 
 if it were noon; but my groping hands made sad 
 acquaintance in the long steps down from stone 
 to stone with dusty brambles and the harsh stubble 
 of cut forage, or the dry white stems of wormwood, 
 for it was mid-June, when the Southern world is 
 burnt and gritty. There was not a growing thing 
 along our way except thistle heads and the pink 
 blossoms of an oleander shrub. But at last we 
 passed under the walls of the inn that stands by the 
 high road and so down to the water, just as a low 
 pale streak in the East began to hint the dawn. 
 
 At the little curving harbor between Isola Bella 
 and the rock of Capo Sant' Andrea we found griz- 
 zled old Vanni, who is Cola's father, and Turriddu, 
 his cousin, putting rollers under the bow of the 
 New Saint Alfio and the equally battered Madonna 
 della Rocca, and drawing the two boats down the 
 beach. Occhietti's long Catania-built boat, the San 
 Pancrazio, was just coming up to the landing rock 
 through the narrow clear way between the stones. 
 
 Occhietti, like his boat, is named Pancrazio; but 
 his little twinkling eyes make him Occhietti as in- 
 evitably as Turriddu's thirst makes him Acquaf risca. 
 Occhietti had been spearing fish all night by the
 
 70 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 light of a gas torch, many-branched, like the horns 
 of a stag, a light of which most of the older fisher- 
 men strongly disapprove. 
 
 "Very beautiful, Vossia !" he said exultingly,,hold- 
 ing up to view in the yellow flare, a big poulpe, all 
 stomach and arms. 
 
 "A beauty of a polyp !" exclaimed Turriddu. 
 
 "Splendidu!" cried Cola. 
 
 "Magnificu !" I echoed as in duty bound. 
 
 "Beauty of a torch !" growled Vann!, who is not 
 moved often to such ill-temper. "Vossia knows that 
 the light goes down into the water and burns the 
 fish, so that they do not taste good; and little fish 
 that are not caught are burned so that they never 
 grow well." 
 
 "Beautiful pennies to pay for the gas!" taunted 
 Occhietti, dropping the devil fish and poising his 
 long-handled trident. "Some boatmen have not the 
 heart to put out the money!" 
 
 "A stomach-twisting to you!" snarled Vanni. 
 
 "Did you ever hear," I asked in a hurry, "of the 
 old Greek of Syracuse who ate a poulpe a meter 
 long and ached so with colic after it that his doctor 
 told him to dispose quickly of his affairs? *I have 
 disposed of all but the head,' he groaned, dying ; 'and 
 if you will bring it, I will dispose of that also.' " 
 
 "It is true the stomach must be strong," grinned 
 Occhietti; "but a good eating of polyp is worth a 
 twisting of the inwards." 
 
 "Come on!" he said sharply to the boy who stood
 
 COLA PESCE 71 
 
 at the oars; and the San Pancrazio slid away over 
 the warm black water to lie in wait for more poulpes 
 under the rock shadows of the Beautiful Island. 
 
 "Deaf .doctors to you, and dead druggists !" mut- 
 tered Vanni, angry at the desertion. 
 
 Turriddu had hung two great fish-traps shaped 
 like beehives to the bow-post of the Madonna della 
 Rocca; he pushed out leisurely behind Occhietti. 
 Cola brought oars from the fish-house on the beach 
 and a longish cane with a hook at the end and a 
 heavy spear. Then we, too, with Vanni, climbed 
 aboard, and the tubby Nuovo Sant' Alfio took the 
 water last of the three. Cola's trousers were rolled 
 up to the knee, and as he stood pushing forward 
 his clumsy oars tied each to its single oar peg, his 
 dark figure took just the attitude of the rower in 
 one of the Herculaneum pictures. 
 
 Like most of the Taormina boats, the Nuovo 
 Sant' Alfio is heavy and squat, hardly more than 
 fourteen feet long, with three thwarts and decked 
 a little at the bow. Her sea-keeping furniture is as 
 dingy as her planks — two traps swinging at her 
 bow-post, tangles of net like mops stowed under 
 the bow seat, cheek by jowl with a basket for bread, 
 a fat jug for carrying water, and a flask for oil; 
 and in her side cleats, and under foot, knives, stones 
 for weighing fish and coils of rope twisted of rushes 
 so roughly that the ends bristle at every joining. 
 
 We were outside of Isola Bella, and Vanni was 
 setting the trawl when we began talking about Cola
 
 7a BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Pesce. It takes time to put out four hundred hooks, 
 passing each through the hand to make sure it is 
 running true and is well baited. First, Vanni threw 
 overboard one of our rope coils. A stone tied in 
 a loop went to the bottom, and at the other end 
 floated slices of sea-bleached cork strung on the rope 
 like little islands. Near these floats he tied the trap. 
 Each drop line with its hook was two meters long, 
 perhaps, and each was separated by several feet from 
 its neighbors. 
 
 The pale streak in the East was turning crimson, 
 but the sea was blacker than before. Turriddu had 
 put out a trolling line at each side of the Madonna 
 della Rocca, and had headed North beyond our view. 
 In the distance towards Naxos gleamed the drifting 
 lights of a dozen torches. From the beach beyond 
 Capo Sant' Andrea came the distant shouts of men 
 hauling a seine. 
 
 Of a sudden one of Vanni's hooks, as it went over- 
 side, caught in floating pumice, such as is driven 
 at times through the Straits of Messina from Strom- 
 boli. We took aboard some spongy pieces, for the 
 floors of Taormina are scoured and the hearth for 
 the winter fire is lined with pumice. 
 
 "Do you often find it like this in open sea?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "Oftener at the beach," said Cola. "When the 
 current sets North it will wash ashore at our 
 marina." 
 
 "Like the body of Cola Pesce?" I suggested.
 
 COLA PESCE 73 
 
 "Like Cola Pisci," to my surprise assented Cola. 
 
 At Messina I once went fishing with an old man 
 who prattled of the legendary diver who inspired 
 Schiller's ballad as of a hero well remembered ; but 
 though tradition says that the body of Nicola, the 
 Fish, who plunged into the whirlpool of CharySSis 
 to gratify a whim of Frederic II, the Suabian, was 
 cast up at Taormina, and though the tale itself is 
 one of the commonest told in Sicily, never before 
 had I heard his name among our fishermen. 
 
 "Just where did they find Cola Pesce?" I pursued. 
 
 "How should I know?" returned Cola, who is of 
 the newer days, scornful of old fables. "It is my 
 father who talks of Cola Pisci," he added. 
 
 By this time the trawl was set, and Vanni was 
 dropping the buoy and anchor. I was silent until 
 he had finished; then, as the Nuovo Sant' Alfio, now 
 half a mile beyond the island, turned slowly towards 
 its outer ledges, I said, "Aren't there dolphins out 
 yon? They remind me always of Cola Pesce." 
 
 Vanni is taciturn when his son is with us, and 
 I glanced towards his end of the boat without much 
 hope of drawing an opinion. "They bring bad 
 weather," was his only response at the moment; 
 but after a little, pulling off his sun-faded cap and 
 scratching among the curls of his grizzled hair, he 
 went on slowly: 
 
 "In the days of to-day there is no one who speaks 
 of Cola Pisci. The young men have never heard 
 of him. But my mate and I reason together about
 
 74 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 him once in a while, because we are of the old 
 times. My 'cumpari' does not wish to believe it, 
 but I hold that Cola Pisci deceived the king." 
 
 "You think," I asked, "that he was not drowned?" 
 
 "No," said Vanni. "There are those who hold 
 that he swam away under the sea, because he was 
 half man and half fish; but I say that he deceived 
 the king. My chum says that the king threw into 
 the sea a cup of gold ; but my grandfather, who died 
 very old, always told me that it was a golden plate 
 that twinkled with precious stones." 
 
 Vanni spoke deliberately, planning his argument. 
 
 "And the king threw this plate into the round 
 whirlpool that they call the 'Carnation'.?" 
 
 "Yes, Charybdis. And the king said to Cola 
 Pisci, Tf you go to the bottom and bring it up 
 to me again, it is yours !' And Cola threw himself 
 into the sea and brought back the king's plate in 
 his hand. *There it is. Majesty!' he said. And 
 the king gave it to him as he had promised. But 
 then the king threw in a ring, and told Cola he must 
 go down a second time and bring this up also. 
 
 "Why?" demanded Vanni, his bronzed wrinkled 
 face asking the question as earnestly as his tone. 
 "Why did the King say to Cola Pisci, 'Again you 
 must go down and you must fetch me this ring?* 
 
 "Because," replied Vanni to his own question, 
 "my grandfather said that when Cola brought back 
 the golden plate he had not been to the bottom. 
 How did he know? My grandfather's ancients said
 
 COLA PESCE 75 
 
 that Cola had not been gone long enough to get 
 to the bottom ; and they were fishermen. A fisher- 
 man always knows the depth of water. The boat- 
 men of Messina must have told the king how many 
 fathoms deep is Charybdis. And then the plate " 
 
 Vanni finished the sentence with his hand, rocking 
 it to show the dipping motion with which a flat 
 object sinks slowly, like a falling leaf. 
 
 "Understand, Vossia?" He repeated the dipping 
 motion, "It was still near the surface when Cola 
 reached it. It was for this that the king sent him 
 down again, to go really to the bottom, which Cola 
 did not succeed in doing. You persuade yourself, 
 Vossia?" 
 
 Vanni did not argue as a partisan. His heavy 
 grizzled brows shadowed his puckered face, and he 
 smiled good-humored admission of the perplexities 
 of the case as he reasoned his way through it; but 
 at the end he lifted his head with the air of one 
 whom logic has satisfied. His "You persuade your- 
 self, Vossia ?" was less a question than a chance for 
 me to affirm my conviction. 
 
 "But Cola's body," I queried, "where did it come 
 to land?" . 
 
 "My grandfather's ancients told him nothing of 
 that," he answered. "Somewhere at the beach; or 
 it might be yonder at the Grotto of the Bats." 
 
 In the tourist season the Grotto of the Bats be- 
 comes the Grotto of the Doves, and there are those 
 who count its changing emerald lights more beauti-
 
 76 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 ful than those of the Blue Grotto of Capri. Look- 
 ing across at its mouth in the wall of Capo Sant* An- 
 drea was like regarding the grave of Poseidon; for 
 Cola Pesce, who, according to Messina, was a mar- 
 velous diver who explored the bottom of the straits, 
 and according to Vanni was a man who deceived 
 the king, was but another phase, according to Dr. 
 Pitre's folklore studies, of San Nicola, and of Nep- 
 tune, and even of Old Nick of Northern sailors. 
 
 "How deep is the water over there?" I wondered. 
 
 "Outside the grotto, six fathoms, perhaps " 
 
 Vanni was marking "braccie" with outstretched 
 arms when Cola, weary of his namesake, inter- 
 rupted: "In the days of to-day men go under the 
 sea in diving bells ; but as to the past, such tales are 
 fables. Ecco, our floats!" 
 
 Vanni and I were silent, a little shy before Cola's 
 young wisdom. The Nuovo Sant' Alfio was now 
 under Isola Bella, and just ahead floated another 
 set of cork buoys. We had come to lift traps in 
 search of bait for the larger traps that are set for 
 lobsters. 
 
 Vanni took my place at the stern; and, fixing 
 in place a small block and wheel, he seized the rope 
 the corks supported, and passed it over the pulley. 
 One hairy leg inside the boat and one outside, his 
 sun-bleached shirt and trousers gray in the growing 
 light, he presented a lean and still sinewy figure 
 as he began to haul. The huge baskets came up 
 slowly. As the first appeared at the water's edge.
 
 COLA PESCE 77 
 
 he redoubled his efforts, bringing it dripping into 
 the boat, where it stood nearly three feet tall, its 
 funnel-shaped entrance defended against escaping 
 fish by a chevaux de frise of rush ends pointing up 
 from the broad bottom. 
 
 Unpinning from the thimble top the small round 
 cover, he shook Into the boat a dozen or more of 
 the tiny black fish that are called "little monks." 
 Then, fastening the cover again with wooden pins, 
 he rinsed the hive-shaped trap and tossed It at my 
 feet, the very pattern, perhaps, of Pliny's "osier 
 kipes" for taking "purples" for making dye. 
 
 But Pliny's traps were baited with cockles. In 
 Vanni's there was nothing. "The little monks do 
 not go in for food," he answered to my query. 
 "They take delight in the traps ; they go in to play. 
 We do not bait them." 
 
 The little monks did not seem on pleasure bent 
 that morning. One by one Vanni hauled traps until 
 the boat was piled with them, as with a towering 
 load of bubbles ; and still we had taken little — a few 
 monks, a few dozen shrimps, some wee red "ruf- 
 fian!" and half a dozen "coraUI," striped orange, 
 white and green. 
 
 It was not until nine or ten traps were up that 
 Cola pointed to rising bubbles. "Eels!" he ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 Vanni was working too hard to speak. He puck- 
 ered his lips as If to whistle.
 
 78 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 "The eels do like children with their mouths," 
 explained Cola; "they whistle." 
 
 Bubble after bubble came to the surface and at 
 last appeared the trap, which held two conger eels, 
 each of six to eight pounds. The last trap should 
 have held an eel, also, but instead there was a hole 
 in its wicker side. 
 
 "Robber!" said Cola disgustedly. "He ate the 
 monk and then bit out a hole and got away," 
 
 When the traps were all up, Vanni put them down 
 again one by one, while the boat moved just enough 
 to float them apart, the floats marking as before the 
 end of the long rope on which they were strung. 
 The two fresh traps that swung from the bow-post 
 went down in place of the torn one and another 
 which we carried away to be cleaned and mended. 
 
 By this time the stars had faded. The dark red 
 streaks in the Eastern sky had paled to pink and 
 gray, and the morning clouds were like delicate 
 wings brushing the sky. In the clear dawn-light 
 the straits narrowed up sharply to the North of us 
 towards Messina, and the saddle of the mountains 
 of Aspromonte was defined to the smallest detail. 
 At one side of us was the rocky Isola Bella, at the 
 other the red marble ridge of Capo Sant' Andrea. 
 Behind us rose the hills of Taormina, parched and 
 brown, more bare and rigid than in winter. The 
 sea was smooth and silvery. 
 
 As the boat slid leisurely back to the trawl we 
 had left almost an hour earlier, the pink in the
 
 COLA PESCE 79 
 
 East brightened again until it was saffron. One 
 held one's breath in sharp suspense waiting for the 
 sun. Minute by minute the saffron became more 
 vivid and the waiting more tense, until at last a 
 knife-like gleam flashed above Calabria. 
 
 "Does the sun come up just the same in your 
 country?" asked Vanni, while we watched the red 
 crescent become a globe and slowly lift itself from 
 the horizon. "They say it is the earth that moves; 
 it does not seem so, but Vossia, who has been in 
 many places and perhaps understands the seven 
 languages of the world, should know." 
 
 The trawl as Vanni stripped it did not net us 
 many fish. From the four hundred hooks we took 
 not more than half a dozen "uopi," or "bo-opi"; 
 brilliant little eye-shaped fish spotted with red; ox- 
 eyes, according to their name, like those of Hera. 
 
 "Thieves!" again exclaimed Cola. "The fish eat 
 the bait, and if they don't bite hard, they get away," 
 
 Turriddu's boat was now again in sight. He had 
 taken in his trolling lines, and we headed out to 
 meet him without bait-fish, for he was ready to haul 
 the lobster pots sunk in deep water. 
 
 Before we reached him we could see that the trap 
 refused to come. His straining figure silhouetted 
 against sea and sky put forth its strength to no 
 purpose. The powerful current running South from 
 the straits must have twisted a rope, Cola said, under 
 a rock. When we came up with the Madonna della 
 Rocca he stepped aboard of her and took the oars,
 
 8o BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 pushing at top strength against the tide, while Tur- 
 riddu continued to haul. 
 
 The cousins were much alike, with the brown 
 skin, straight nose and fine features of Arabs. Cola 
 was much the younger, and his crisp hair, almond 
 eyes and flashing teeth made him as he bent to his 
 work, a swarthy model for a statue of labor. 
 
 There were sixty fathoms of water under the 
 boat, Vanni said, and it would be hard to free the 
 trap before the tide turned. Vanni measures the 
 depth of water as the Romans used to do, by "brac- 
 cie," though the Roman braccium was under five 
 feet, while nowadays, it has become a fathom. 
 
 We left the two men at the task and headed south 
 of the island. The men who had been fishing by 
 torch-light had finished their work, and their boats 
 scattered over the sea as far away as Capo Schizo 
 were putting ashore. Over the water came the 
 monotonous, long-drawn wail of their song: 
 
 ". . . Quantu beddu star cu te. 
 Lasciu patri, 
 Lasciu matri, 
 Lasciu casa 
 Ppi star cu te." 
 
 At the beach South of Capo di Taormina some 
 twenty men were hauling a "sciabica," a net that 
 may be an eighth of a mile long, and that was 
 ancient in the days of the Phoenicians. As the 
 two files of men, leg-deep in water, pulled in the
 
 COLA PESCE 81 
 
 red folds and coiled them in heaps on the sand, the 
 boat that had cast the seine followed it to shore. 
 Behind the arms of the net trailed its deep pocket, 
 which as it was drawn up and emptied, seemed to 
 hold but little, though a night or two earlier a net 
 had taken, between sunset and morning, more than 
 twenty-six hundred pounds of anchovies. 
 
 "To-night, maybe," said Vanni, "they will not 
 take the value of fifteen lire, and of that a third 
 goes to the net. But that is fishermen's luck. I 
 myself have paid ten soldi for bait and taken eleven 
 soldi of fish ; and with one soldo how does one give 
 food to a family ?" 
 
 He hesitated, then went on : "I am but one, and 
 if I were really to fill myself, I could eat all alone 
 five and a half soldi ; that would be only half a kilo 
 of macaroni. The rich strangers who visit our 
 country pick a little of many things, but we eat 
 all we can get of one or two things — bread and 
 macaroni, or bread and beans. It is only at wed- 
 dings," he finished confidentially, "that we arrive 
 at sweets." 
 
 As Vanni sent the Nuovo Sant* Alfio in among 
 the rocks that fringe the south side of Isola Bella, 
 he dipped a reed into his oil- jar and let fall on the 
 water a drop or two of oil. Then he put overboard 
 a tangle of net, dragging it across the bottom by 
 the hook on his cane rod, keeping within the circle 
 of the oil mirror. After a little he lifted the net 
 and took out of it, enmeshed by their spines, half
 
 82 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 a dozen big brown sea urchins, such as sell two or 
 three for a soldo. 
 
 "Shall we eat?" he suggested, bringing out the 
 basket with bread and cutting the "fruit of the sea" 
 as one might slice off the top of a lemon. 
 
 It was a pleasant place to breakfast. Isola Bella 
 lies half way betwene Capo Sant' Andrea and the 
 slate-black crag of the Capo di Taormina, which 
 rose across the little bay to our south, broken into 
 the rugged walls of miniature fiords, rough with 
 jutting rocks, the haunts of rooks and wild pigeons, 
 where even in the morning light the green and violet 
 waves were somber. 
 
 On the other side of the boat, almost within hand 
 reach, dropped the dark green leaves of a leaning 
 fig tree, rooted in a crevice of the island rock. 
 
 There was little depth where we floated. At one 
 minute through the crystal-clear, radiant water every 
 breath of the bottom life was visible; at the next 
 the rock reefs were hidden by streamers of many- 
 colored sea weed. High overhead circled swallows. 
 In the air was a clean, pleasant smell of salt and 
 algae. 
 
 "It's good here," said Vanni. He dipped a last 
 morsel of bread Into the cup of a sea urchin, and 
 picked up again the handful of net and the pole. 
 
 With the urchins there came up presently a red 
 starfish, Vanni laid it out on a thwart, separating 
 Its five points carefully.
 
 COLA PESCE 83 
 
 "Fine and red," I commented. "It Is against evil 
 eye." 
 
 "Yes," he answered reservedly. 
 
 "You don't believe in the evil eye?" 
 
 "But, yes," he said, with a considering smile such 
 as he had given to the case of Cola Pesce. Straight- 
 ening his bent figure, he wiped his shaggy eyebrows 
 with a red handkerchief. "Would the priests 
 fumigate the altar and the people if there was no 
 evil eye?" He seemed reasoning with himself as 
 well as me. "The people see the priests swing the 
 censer and they argue about it. They see that the 
 fumigation is against evil eye." 
 
 "And the starfish " I pursued. 
 
 The starfish was for my pleasure. 
 
 I spoke of a door that I passed almost daily, where 
 a horseshoe was nailed between two starfish, and 
 he said that now and then a family that had suffered 
 a misfortune would pay a soldo or two for one 
 large and red. Mothers asked for cowrie shells to 
 hang at the neck of teething babies; papery white 
 sea horses, too, would sometimes bring soldi; but 
 these were not to be had often. 
 
 We talked of a hundred things — of the dogfish 
 with teeth "like a mule," for fear of which the 
 fishermen dare not nap in the boat In the long sum- 
 mer nights when they are afloat from evening until 
 sunrise ; and of the great tunny, which the Taormina 
 men take at times in open sea, looking well not 
 to get a slap from its tail. And minute by minute
 
 84 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 it grew hot even In the shadow of the wild fig trees ; 
 so hot that I had grown sleepy when of a sudden 
 Vanni dropped his cane rod and began to row at 
 full speed out to sea. 
 
 As the boat shot forward, I strained my eyes to 
 find the object of this chase, but the sea was empty, 
 white and shimmering. It was some minutes before 
 I caught sight of an upstanding black fin. Giving 
 one last powerful shove as we came within striking 
 distance, Vanni dropped the oars ; and, seizing Cola's 
 heavy lance-headed pole, he cast it while the boat 
 shot past what looked like a great black wheel. A 
 streak of blood stained the water, and the wheel 
 began to plunge and wallow. 
 
 We had speared a huge basking sunfish, better 
 named in the Italian — a "mola," millstone. It was 
 not easy to get It into the boat, for it was more than 
 two feet in diameter, and may have weighed sixty 
 pounds. At last it lay at our feet, to the eye a 
 headless, tailless mass, inchoate but for its big black 
 back and belly fins. 
 
 Vanni was more elated than he wished to show. 
 The rough shagreen hide was thick and good for 
 nothing, not even for leather, he said. The fish 
 would be two-thirds waste, and the rest would sell 
 for soup; it would fetch no more than a few lire; 
 but as he took a long drink of water from the 
 fat-bellied jug, and headed the boat again inshore, 
 his eyes shone with satisfaction. Cola was the
 
 Lobster Pots and Fish Traps 
 
 The San Pancrazio
 
 COLA PESCE 8s 
 
 cleverest lancer, he boasted, of all Taormina, though 
 when he himself was young 
 
 Cola could not beat him yet, I protested. 
 
 Fish were plentier in his young days. As a lad 
 he lanced the mola for sport, he said ; nobody would 
 have eaten it. Did I know the "palamati" — the 
 beautiful young tunny fish all blue and silver ? Years 
 ago the Taormina men caught them as now they 
 catch anchovies, by the boatload; and sold them 
 for good prices. But in the days of to-day when 
 Christians eat meat, even on Fridays, like Turks, 
 the few fish you get you must give away almost 
 for nothing. 
 
 The Madonna della Rocca was still where we had 
 left her. Cola and Turriddu must have had a hard 
 time freeing the traps, for though the boat was piled 
 high with them, the last were not yet in. 
 
 "She's all bubbly domes," I said ; "Hke a floating 
 mosque." 
 
 "A mosque? I don't know," returned Vanni. 
 "When the tramontane wind blows we can't lift 
 traps ; the boat would be carried out to sea." 
 
 When Cola saw us approaching, he shouted, 
 "You got the mola?" 
 
 "Yes," replied Vanni, with assumed indifference. 
 "How many lobsters?" 
 
 "Eight," said Vanni, holding up in each hand a 
 big red lobster, "Are there lobsters in your country, 
 Vossia?" he demanded, as we came alongside. 
 
 "Ours are green," I said, "before they are cooked."
 
 86 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 "Then they are not so beautiful." 
 
 Turriddu was baiting the last trap. Cola tossed 
 him two or three little monks strung on a rush and 
 he twisted it across the trap on the Inside and pinned 
 down the cover. They would follow us to the beach, 
 they said, as soon as the nasse had been put over- 
 side, stopping on the way for another look at the 
 trawl. 
 
 As we approached the landing rock we saw fish 
 peddlers waiting with baskets and scales. The fisher- 
 men do not market their own fish, but sell at the 
 water's edge, weighing In balances, each man 
 against his own set of stones. Knives were at work 
 in a minute, hacking the tough black skin off the 
 mola. 
 
 It was not much past eight o'clock, but sky and 
 sea were white with sclrocco, and the chain of my 
 watch was so hot that It scorched the hand. Their 
 fish disposed of, the men would clean out their 
 boats, light a fire on the beach, cook the remains of 
 their bait fish, if there were any, and eat before 
 going up to Taormlna. 
 
 I walked along the curve of the tiny beach, for 
 while we were skirting Isola Bella I had noticed 
 through an opening in the rocks, a pocket overgrown 
 with acanthus; and I had a mind to have a closer 
 look at the flowers. It hardly costs a foot-wetting 
 to pass the ford that makes the broken rock an 
 island. Split by storm and sun, eaten by the waves, 
 Isola Bella Is fantastic, a caprice of nature. There
 
 COLA PESCE 87 
 
 is only a handful of it, and it rises not many meters 
 above the water, but its crags and precipices, its 
 beaches and caverns, are as picturesque as they are 
 lilliputian. 
 
 The little refuge it afforded from the heat was 
 rock shade, for the scanty leafage of its sea-gray 
 olive trees allowed the sun to pass almost without 
 hindrance. In a cleft of the rock grew an aloe with 
 a flower shoot twenty feet tall and thick as a young 
 tree. Beyond this in a tangled glade surrounded 
 by a thick scrub of resin-scented "scornabeccu" — 
 the lentisk of Theocritus — rioted acanthus. The 
 spikes of its white, purple-veined flowers rose above 
 my head, mixed with Queen Anne's lace — wild car- 
 rots. 
 
 I do not know how long I had dallied, dreading 
 the hot climb to Taormina, when there came a mut- 
 ter of thunder. At sea level, rain in June is almost 
 a prodigy. Under the rock parapet that skirts the 
 shore it was impossible to see Etna, the barometer; 
 but over the sea the sky had grown threatening. 
 Cola and Vanni were still at the beach, and I hurried 
 back to the fish house, taking a stool in the doorway 
 to await developments. 
 
 To my query, "Is water coming?" Vanni an- 
 swered, "With difficulty." 
 
 Ammazzacarusi was of a different opinion. His 
 nickname, "Boykiller," handed down from who 
 knows what incident, through who knows how many 
 generations, belied the mild, white-haired old fisher-
 
 88 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 man whose boat, the Santa Liberata, was drawn 
 up beside Cola's. Glancing at the purple and gray 
 cloud masses through which the sun still managed 
 to dart an occasional beam, he said gloomily: 
 
 8 "June rain ; 
 Ruin in train." 
 
 "In my country," I ventured, "summer rains arc 
 good for the crops." 
 
 Patiently, painstakingly, speaking each in turn, 
 they explained to me that this is impossible. Warm 
 slow scirocco rains mildew the flowers of the olive 
 and the vine, while the hail that comes with a 
 thunderstorm cuts whatever it touches. If in my 
 country it rained often in summer, how could any 
 crops be raised? 
 
 "You understand?" concluded Vanni. 
 
 I assented, though I had scarcely listened. I was 
 studying the pictures on Occhietti's boat. He had 
 come ashore before us at daylight, and had left the 
 San Pancrazio nearer the fish house than any other 
 of the dozen boats in line, so that I could measure 
 her against the tubby Taormina craft and see that 
 she was ten feet longer than our boats, though 
 smaller at that than many of her build at Catania, 
 where the barche mostly carry sails. 
 
 But it was her shining colors that caught my eyes 
 — ^her checker-board sides gleaming in yellow, red 
 
 ^Acqua di Giugnu 
 Ruvina lu munnu.
 
 COLA PESCE 89 
 
 and green. At one side of her curved bow-post 
 was painted our black San Pancrazio, at the other 
 his companion of Taormina, San Pietro. Her short 
 stern-post carried San Giorgio, young and valiant; 
 and, backed against him, a group of souls in the 
 streaming flames of purgatory. Under the right 
 bow Agramonti led a file of crusaders; under the 
 left, Italian soldiers of to-day who fought in Tripoli. 
 At the stern a fight between lion and gladiator vied 
 with Judith cutting off the head of a limp and bloody 
 Holofernes. Rows of cherubs enlivened the free- 
 board on the inside. 
 
 Most fascinating of all were the San Pancrazio's 
 eyes. Since the days when Egyptian lords voyaged 
 in painted barges on the Nile, boats have had eyes 
 against the evil eye. At Siracusa the blue-painted 
 boats that cross the Porto Piccolo wear pictured 
 horns against witchcraft, as well as eyes with queer 
 looped brows. At Catania there are boats with sharp 
 protruding beaks like those of swordfish, and the 
 eyes of these are round and fishy. But the eyes of 
 the San Pancrazio, with winking lids and bushy 
 brows, were grotesquely human. 
 
 "Fine, eh?" said Ammazzacarusi, noting my gaze. 
 
 I had scarcely answered, "Very beautiful ! Even 
 in the darkest night the San Pancrazio sees !" when 
 there came forked lightning and a rattle of hail. 
 Vanni was whittling pins for fastening the covers 
 of his traps. The sight of his knife and of his figure
 
 90 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 in the doorway blotted out the boats and brought 
 back to mind a June storm of the year before. 
 
 In memory I saw myself sitting in the doorway 
 of the church of the Madonna della Rocca at Cas- 
 tiglione on the slope of Etna. Beside me there had 
 been a bent little man who walked slowly with a 
 stick. Behind us above the altar, smiled one of 
 Gaggini's soft, smooth Madonnas, a golden chain 
 falling between her hands. In front, I looked out 
 on gray and yellow roofs of tumbled tiles pelted with 
 hail. The bells of many churches were tolling. 
 
 Of a sudden there had come a blinding flash, and 
 the old sacristan had shrunk behind the worm-eaten, 
 iron-bossed door, tottering forward again after a 
 minute and peering into the blackness to spy out 
 the direction of the squall. I could see again his 
 shaking arm as, opening a knife, he signed with it 
 in air three great crosses, finishing with a furious 
 stab towards the wind, his lips moving, his faded 
 ayes agleam. 
 
 "That is a prayer?" I asked; every "scongiuro" 
 goes by the name of prayer. 
 
 "Yes," he answered ; "to cut the squall." 
 
 He had evaded telling me the words of the charm ; 
 an incantation is not taught to a passing stranger. 
 "Three Fathers, three Sons, and three Holy Ghosts" 
 was all I could coax out of him. But later, when 
 the weather had lifted and his rheumatic old wife 
 hobbled into the church and he had asked her with
 
 COLA PESCE 91 
 
 a man's superior smile, "Wert thou frightened?" 
 he turned to me with pride, saying: 
 
 "The knife cut it; you saw. I have more than 
 eighty-two years, I have seen many "things and I 
 know much that I tell to no one." 
 
 "What did the knife cut?" I persisted. 
 
 "The dragon's tail," he had said concisely. Water- 
 spouts, whirlwinds and sometimes hail clouds are 
 dragons because of their tails. 
 
 "The malignant spirit," his wife had added. 
 
 *Fraser says that the South Slavonian peasant 
 shoots at hail clouds in order to bring down the 
 hags that are in them ; but for these two old Sicilians 
 I fancied that the dragon itself was the evil spirit — 
 had some such personality as had the south wind 
 for the Psylli who, Herodotus says, went out to 
 fight it because it had dried up their reservoirs. 
 
 Thinking of these things as I watched Vanni's 
 knife, while we sat in the doorway of the fish house, 
 I asked him if he knew a 'razioni to drive away the 
 hail, or to cut the tail of the waterspout that so often 
 on these coasts brings terror to fishermen. 
 
 "No," he said. "There are such 'razioni and they 
 are useful, for there is peril In storm ; but I do not 
 know anybody who is skilled in them." 
 
 The scudding clouds dropped showers here and 
 there over the sea, but on our beach there fell little 
 water, and after no long time I was rising for the 
 
 4 "Balder the Beautiful." Vol. i, p. 345.
 
 92 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 homeward climb when Ammazzacarusi lifted his 
 brown weazened face with a friendly smile. 
 
 "If it is true," he said, "that before long Vossia 
 must cross the sea to her own country, this knowl- 
 edge would be useful to her. There is one who cuts 
 the tail of the dragon for us; she is Filippa 'a 
 Babba." 
 
 I thanked him, asked to have the lobsters brought 
 up for me by the long way past the octroi, and took 
 the shorter path. 
 
 It was not until next morning that I went to find 
 Filippa 'a Babba, who is Filippa the Idiot — only 
 by the sort of inheritance that makes Ammazza- 
 carusi the Boykiller. Filippa must live in the short 
 Via le Mura; but who wants her seeks her at the 
 wall above the old steep road that comes up from 
 Giardini past the chapel of the Madonna delle 
 Grazie ; a perch commanding every man, woman and 
 ass that climbs out of the valley and giving a broad 
 outlook over the sea. 
 
 It was at the wall that I found her with two or 
 three comari, putting a black patch into a blue apron. 
 In presence of the other women I did not venture 
 questions about whirlwinds or waterspouts, but con- 
 tented myself with looking at the light smoke which 
 rose idly from the black cone of Etna. 
 
 The rain of the day before had been heavy on 
 the mountain, for a long yellow tongue of roiled 
 water streamed from the mouth of Alcantara, and 
 on sea and slope the play of blues and greens was
 
 COLA PESCE 93 
 
 as vivid as in winter. The air was so still that the 
 lemon gardens of Capo Schizo were doubled in the 
 water. 
 
 One of the comari who sat on the gray round- 
 topped wall was knitting the sole of a stocking for 
 her husband in America. I picked up the leg which 
 had lain at her side. 
 
 "Why is it?" she asked, "that in your country 
 stockings make themselves in one piece?" 
 
 "Why do they make themselves here in two 
 pieces?" I countered. 
 
 Comare Lia smiled indulgently at my ignorance. 
 "One knows," she said, "that an American stocking 
 is good for little because when the foot is worn one 
 must throw the whole away. With us when the sole 
 is gone one throws away only the sole. One unsews 
 it and puts in a new one." 
 
 "But who will sew extra feet into the stockings 
 of your husband in America?" 
 
 "Who knows?" returned Lia so soberly that I 
 was glad to hear the melancholy call of a peddler 
 "The lupine man is passing!" which broke up the 
 party. 
 
 In the Via le Mura there had appeared the scraggy 
 mule of an old peasant who comes to town with 
 saddle-bags full of lupines, soaked till they are 
 sodden to take out their bitterness, and from the 
 doorways flocked women with plates and bits of 
 paper, bargaining for one soldo's worth, or two. 
 
 Even when Filippa and I were left alone together,
 
 94 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 we gossiped of twenty things before I had courage 
 to say "dragon" to the plump comfortable looking 
 old body whom I had associated always with clean- 
 ing and fine ironing. But she told me readily enough 
 that an old fisherman had taught her grandmother 
 how to cut the tail of the dragon. 
 
 "Sometimes when there is bad weather," she said, 
 "the water goes up and up to meet the sky, and the 
 sky comes down, down to meet the water, to destroy 
 boats and trees and houses. But if you do as I shall 
 tell you, the water will fall and the tempest become 
 calm. 
 
 "You must take a white-handled knife of the sort 
 used in pruning the vine shoots; wait," she said, 
 "I will show you." 
 
 She hurried away up the street and came back 
 after a minute bringing some of the dried vine cut- 
 tings that are used for firing and a knife so small 
 that I asked if my white-handled penknife would 
 not answer. 
 
 "Perhaps?" she said, looking at It doubtfully. 
 
 "You must sign three crosses in air," she con- 
 tinued, turning towards the sea, knife in one hand, 
 a bit of vine in the other; and making three sweep- 
 ing crosses such as I had seen at Castiglione. "And 
 you must say: 
 
 "Whither goest thou, ugly fate?" 
 
 " 'I go to a bourne lone and far, 
 Where never singeth hen, 
 Nor shineth moon or star.'
 
 COLA PESCE 95 
 
 "There drop the water without wrong. 
 
 Father, Son and Holy Ghost, 
 
 I cut the tail; remains the song." 
 
 As she reached the words, "I cut the tail," she 
 slashed the vine shoot viciously. 
 
 "You have a knife," she concluded; "do you wish 
 that I give you some vine shoots to take on board 
 ship when you go to your own country ?"
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 The Cleft Oak 
 
 In a farmyard near the middle of this village stands at 
 this time a row of pollard ashes which by the seams and 
 cicatrices down their sides manifestly show that in former 
 times they have been cleft asunder. These trees when young 
 and flexible were severed and held open by wedges while 
 ruptured children, stripped naked, were pushed through the 
 apertures under a persuasion that by such a process the poor 
 babes would be cured of their infirmity. As soon as the 
 operation was over the tree in the suffering part was plastered 
 with loam and carefully swathed up. If the part coalesced 
 and soldered together, as usually fell out where the feat was 
 performed with any adroitness at all, the party was cured; 
 but where the cleft continued to gape, the operation, it was 
 supposed, would prove ineffectual. — Gilbert White's "Natural 
 History of Selboiirne," letter 28, Jan. 1776. 
 
 For a day or two after the festa my neighbors 
 along the Via BagnoH Croce talked of little but 
 Sant' Alfio. The greatest miracle of the day, they 
 agreed, had been worked for the dumb child in blue 
 whom we had seen weeping at the altar. In the 
 church she had not spoken ; but later, on the car of 
 the saints, she had said, "The bells of Sant' Alfio 
 are ringing." One or two of the people claimed 
 to have been near enough to hear her voice. 
 
 96
 
 THE CLEFT OAK 97 
 
 "Now Vossia knows," they said with satisfaction; 
 "now she has seen with her own eyes." 
 
 I was standing among a group of women at the 
 door of Zu Saru, a bronzed fisherman who sat mend- 
 ing a fish-trap plaited of rushes. "Are there any 
 Taormina children," I inquired, "whom Sant' Alfio 
 has liberated?" 
 
 "But yes," said Zu Saru's wife, Lucia, who is 
 blue-eyed like her husband, and whose yellow hair 
 is sun-bleached to the color of tow. Her tone was 
 one of surprise. "Here is Vincenzinu of Cumari 
 Tidda. He was ruptured, and Sant' Alfio did the 
 miracle two years ago." 
 
 Vincenzinu is Gna Vanna Pipituna's grandson. 
 He was then a thin, silent four-year-old, brown as 
 a Moor, with big, sober bright eyes. Zu Saru 
 dropped the trap and caught him as he trotted 
 clumsily past, riding a stick, and pulled up his one 
 garment to show that his flesh was whole and 
 smooth. 
 
 So it happened that when I passed Gna Vanna's 
 door, and she called me inside to see the naked, 
 uneasy chicks which her two white pigeons had 
 hatched in their nest behind the bed, I inquired of 
 her about Vincenzinu. She, too, caught the solemn 
 youngster by his petticoat, and bribed him with 
 green almonds to stand still for exhibition. 
 
 It was not true, she said, that Vincenzinu owed 
 his liberation to Sant' Alfio. Tidda had indeed 
 taken him to Trecastagne not only once but two
 
 98 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 years in succession. He had lain on the vara, and 
 his father had sent money from New York to buy 
 a two-pound wax candle. She herself had given a 
 white kid, the one she had called "the little flower." 
 But the saint did nothing. Tidda, her daughter-in- 
 law, had been in despair. "But I understand such 
 things," she concluded; "I said we must wait till 
 the vigilia of San Giovanni." 
 
 Gna Vanna was cleaning hens' heads to make 
 broth for Vincenzinu's sister, who was ill. She had 
 bought three heads for three soldi and three "in- 
 teriori" for five soldi, and was so scandalized at 
 the high cost of living that she wandered from the 
 subject. 
 
 "Bad Christians!" she ejaculated, three red combs 
 dangling as she shook three necks venomously. "Bad 
 Christians who ask so much from me ! I am a poor 
 unfortunate! I have no father; mother I have not; 
 I have no one. I go barefoot, I must live. I cannot 
 pay so much." 
 
 The orphan planted the tip of a long, lean old 
 forefinger in the middle of her forehead, the gesture 
 that calls attention to right ways of thinking; and 
 her pale, keen eyes snapped as she appealed to me; 
 "Vossia persuades herself? Do I speak well?" 
 
 "But the vigilia of San Giovanni?" I suggested. 
 
 "San Ciuvanuzzu? Ah, si; Vincenzinu. We 
 passed him over the tree." 
 
 "Over the tree? You made Vincenzinu pass 
 over the tree?" I thought I had not heard correctly.
 
 THE CLEFT OAK 99 
 
 "Yes, through the trunk of an oak." 
 
 "Through the trunk of an acorn tree? Did pass- 
 ing through an oak make Vincenzinu well ?" 
 
 "Of course!" 
 
 It is often Gna Vanna's pleasure to assure me, 
 when speaking of the spells and charms which she 
 calls prayers, "These things I know; no one else 
 knows them, no one at all; and I tell them only 
 to you. When I die no one in the world except 
 you will know them. Daughter I have not ; you are 
 my heir." 
 
 As one thought worthy to pass the old wisdom 
 on, I seldom express surprise at any revelation. In 
 the matter of the oak tree I asked, as if the answer 
 were a matter of course, "At midnight?" 
 
 "Yes ; down at the shore." 
 
 She told me at some length how she and her 
 daughter-in-law, and a party of friends had taken 
 the ruptured child down to the shore at Isola Bella, 
 where they had made a slit through a young oak, 
 and then under her direction had passed him three 
 times through the gash. "Three times they made 
 him enter." Then they tied up the tree and ate 
 and drank toasts as if it had been a baptismal festa. 
 Vincenzinu slept under the tree, and in the morning 
 he felt better. After a year they had visited the 
 oak and had found it healthy and grown together. 
 Vincenzinu's hurt had grown together also; he was 
 no longer ruptured.
 
 loo BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 "I wish you had told me at the time," I said; 
 "I should have liked to go with you." 
 
 Gna Vanna promised that if ever she heard of 
 another child who needed to pass through the tree, 
 she would tell me in season; but the twenty-third 
 of June came and went, and I heard nothing more 
 about the matter. I learned by inquiry that this 
 old, old cure by sympathetic magic is still well known 
 in Eastern Sicily. My landlady gossiped to me 
 about a neighbor who had been subjected to it in 
 childhood, but who nevertheless had not been sound 
 enough to do his military service. The ceremony 
 seemed not uncommon, but I had given up hope 
 of ever seeing it when, a year later at the approach 
 of San Giovanni, Gna Vanna beckoned me mysteri- 
 ously inside her door one morning to announce that 
 only the night before her services had been spoken 
 for in behalf of a lad, whose parents had not been 
 able to take him to Trecastagne. She had already 
 sent a message to her cumpari, Vanni Nozzulu, 
 John of the olive stone, to ask if he would help her, 
 as he had done in the case of Vincenzinu. Would 
 I really like to make one of the party? 
 
 The Sicilian ritual requires that the ruptured child 
 be handed through the tree by a man and woman 
 who "make their names" on St. John's day ; that is, 
 who are called Giovanni and Giovanna. Gna 
 Vanna's repute as a witch makes her an especially 
 appropriate Jane to act as mistress of such a 
 ceremony.
 
 THE CLEFT OAK loi 
 
 I did not accept at once my invitation, though 
 I did not doubt Vanna's good faith. Whether she 
 or her compare, or the parents of the child had any 
 substantial faith in the ancient formula they pro- 
 posed to repeat, who could know? That the force 
 of tradition, dying but not dead, would make the 
 experiment seem to them perhaps useful, certainly 
 not harmful, was beyond question. I held acceptance 
 in reserve only to make sure that nothing should be 
 added to the function or taken away from it be- 
 cause of the expected presence of an outsider. 
 
 From day to day Gna Vanna chatted of the 
 preparations. This time they were going into the 
 hills, not down to the shore. Petru Barbarussa, 
 the boy's father, had already found a likely tree. It 
 would be moonlight ; they would take bread, cheese 
 and fish, and make a supper after the ceremony. 
 Cumpari Vanni would bring wine. In the late after- 
 noon of the twenty-third she reported that every- 
 thing was ready, except the supper; she would like 
 to give that herself ; "but I am scarce" she concluded 
 with a shrewd eye-glance. It was then that I agreed 
 to come and to supplement her scarceness of money, 
 if she would buy for me the peas, beans, nuts and 
 seeds necessary to complete the festa. 
 
 Peter of the Red Beard is a fisherman. His 
 Pippinu I had known from the child's babyhood. 
 Pippinu was at this time a white, sickly sprout of 
 a six-year-old, red-headed, pale-eyed, ill-fed; yet 
 withal an ingratiating little soul. When I stopped
 
 I02 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 hesitatingly at his door at nine o'clock that evening 
 his shy grin of welcome made me even more 
 ashamed than I had expected to be of gratifying 
 curiosity at the expense of such a weakly mite of 
 humanity. 
 
 Pippinu lives at the foot of the broad "ladder" 
 that goes up from a confusion of narrow ways to 
 the street known of all tourists, the Via Teatro 
 Greco. His is the usual house of one room, its 
 smoky wall lighted only from the doorway, its floor 
 of broken bricks littered with water jars, brambles 
 for the fire, confused heaps of nets and dingy house- 
 hold utensils. Gna Vanna had not yet come, and 
 in the dim interior Barbarussa, a gaunt man of forty 
 with a red stubble beard, barefooted, wearing cotton 
 shirt and trousers, was preparing lanterns, ropes 
 and the like for our excursion. 
 
 Donna Catina, Pippinu's mother, was putting 
 down children for the night; two boys on one side 
 of the room, two girls on the other, the pallets 
 partly screened by ragged sacking. The big mar- 
 riage bed stood as usual in an alcove at the back, 
 cut off by worn red curtains. 
 
 There was not much other furniture: Two small 
 tables, a chest, chairs, a washtrough full of soapy 
 water, a rack holding bottles and dishes, prints of 
 the Madonna and saints, family clothing. 
 
 Donna Catina was pretty once; she might be 
 pretty now, if her straggling hair were ever combed 
 and her untidy dress were ever buttoned at the
 
 THE CLEFT OAK 103 
 
 throat. She is not yet thirty, but her oval face is 
 thin and faded, and her smile flickers anxiously. 
 While we waited, she showed me by the light of an 
 ill-smelling lamp the two treasures of the household, 
 a "snapshot" of 'her husband's first wife taken by 
 some tourist, and a wax image of the baby Christ, 
 framed in a wooden box with a glass front. 
 
 At last Cumpari Vanni appeared, a rugged con- 
 tadino, better-nourished than the others. His straw 
 hat was so huge it interfered with the big basket he 
 carried on his shoulder. Behind him came Gna 
 Vanna, limping with a touch of rheumatism, and 
 Pippinu's aunt. Donna Ciccia, whose good brown 
 face, framed in its yellow kerchief, beamed in an- 
 ticipation of the adventure. 
 
 When our party of seven started at ten o'clock, 
 the moon was not up ; and, once outside the village, 
 we lighted two square lanterns not bigger than water 
 glasses. Our way took us past the Messina gate 
 and then down beyond the Campo Santo into a 
 rough path that dips into a fold of the hills, a short- 
 cut to the shore north of Taormina, It was a black 
 descent; the circle of mountains almost cut out the 
 sky. There was not a breath of air. The hot earth 
 exhaled an aromatic smell of pennyroyal. 
 
 The two men walked ahead, talking in low tones 
 of the scarcity of fish, of the drought, of the light 
 wheat crop. Donna Catina came behind them with 
 Pippinu clinging mute and frightened to her hand. 
 Next came Donna Ciccia with the second lantern.
 
 I04 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 flashing it now and then to discover a sprig of the 
 tall-growing shrub; "for the presepio," she said. 
 Pennyroyal gathered and dried on the eve of San 
 Giovanni blossoms fresh at Christmas. 
 
 Gna Vanna grasped my arm, groaning, "My leg 
 hurts enough and too much. I cannot walk. I 
 cannot sleep. There has gone from me the love 
 of eating. To-day I cooked myself one soldo's 
 worth of spaghetti, one soldo's worth and nothing 
 more. I want to die, for I cannot suffer any more." 
 
 She interrupted her lament to point out a big toad 
 that hopped across our path, calling it a good omen ; 
 then went on, "They call me lame, I who, Vossia 
 knows, have always walked better than any of 
 them." And she stepped out so vigorously that with 
 difficulty I kept up with her 
 
 After perhaps half an hour we dropped the basket 
 under a big walnut tree, left the path, and began 
 scrambling up the parched mountain side. It was 
 a familiar slope, where in autumn blossom narcissus, 
 cyclamen and Jack-in-the-pulpit, which Sicilian 
 children call the pipe; but in the blackness I could 
 not recognize.a landmark. Barbarussa had come by 
 daylight to choose us an oak, but Gna Vanna refused 
 to accept the gnarled, stunted little tree he had 
 pitched upon. Though small, it was old, and would 
 not augur long life for Pippinu. 
 
 The men climbed higher while we women clung 
 together. A screech owl hooted ; Gna Vanna crossed 
 herself, and Donna Ciccia muttered, "Beautiful
 
 THE CLEFT OAK 105 
 
 Mother of the Rock, deliver us!" Donna Catina 
 touched something in the bosom of her dress. 
 
 After a long wait the men came back. They 
 had found a better oak, but high on a cliff side 
 so steep that without Gna Vanna's help I should 
 have been slow in reaching it. "My leg hurts," she 
 mourned, as she dragged me up the baked and 
 crumbly steep. There was no vegetation but bunches 
 of a wiry grass on which the feet slipped, and which 
 cut the hands. 
 
 The new oaklet stood on a narrow shelf with 
 a few dwarf fichi dTndia and wild plum trees above, 
 and at one side a recently planted baby olive. It 
 may have been four feet tall, a straight slender stem 
 carrying at top two waving brushes of the small, 
 close-growing, much indented leaves of the Sicilian 
 oak. We sat down beside it. 
 
 It was not yet half-past eleven; nothing could 
 be done until midnight. To save oil for our return 
 we put out the lanterns, and stuck a candle atop 
 of a stone under the oak, whose dark glossy leaves 
 rustled without wind as if it shivered before coming 
 pain. 
 
 Pippinu went to sleep in his mother's arms. The 
 yellow point of candle flame made blacker the black 
 outlines of Monte Ziretto and Monte Veneretta that 
 loomed silent on the opposite side of the ravine. 
 There was no sound but the sleepy "Frisci, frisci, 
 frisci" of a belated cicala. 
 
 "What does the cicaledda say?" I asked.
 
 io6 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 "I am wrong, I die," answered Donna Ciccia; and 
 she told us the tale of the idle cicala and the in- 
 dustrious ant, as she had heard it from her elders; 
 as they heard it from their "ancients" ; for on the 
 lips of the South some of the old Greek tales have 
 never died. 
 
 The silence that fell again was broken by the hoot 
 of the cucca. "Some one must die," shuddered 
 Donna Catina. 
 
 "The cicaledda," suggested Vanni. 
 
 Gna Vanna settled her bad leg more comfortably, 
 announcing, "When there passes the pain in my leg, 
 I shall carry two candles to the dear Madonna of 
 the Chain." 
 
 She told us again how Vincenzinu, her grandson, 
 had passed "over the little oak" and how much 
 better he had felt the next morning, Vincenzinu's 
 father, Turiddu, who had made already two voyages 
 to New York, was about to sail again. "He says," 
 she continued, "that they call our cucuzzi 'squashes' ; 
 is it true, Vossia ?" 
 
 I praised Turiddu's English, and confirmed his 
 tales of "treni in aria" and "treni suttu terra" — 
 elevated and subway trains. Turiddu had told his 
 mother that in America one does not enjoy life, 
 for there is no music in the piazza on Sunday. The 
 air, too, is not so fine as in Sicily, and the fish have 
 not the same good taste. 
 
 "That would be true," said Barbarussa, "for even 
 the fish taken at Catania, one hour from here, have
 
 THE CLEFT OAK 107 
 
 not the same good taste as the fish of our own sea 
 of Taormina." 
 
 A few minutes before twelve by Cumpari Vanni's 
 watch Gna Vanna gave the signal for us to sign 
 ourselves with the cross. Then the party repeated 
 in unison three paternosters, three aves and three 
 gloria patris. 
 
 When these were finished Cumpari Vanni took 
 the little tree by its two poor leafy branches, and 
 slowly and dexterously split it with his hands. To 
 use a knife, Gna Vanna said, would be unlucky. 
 When he had opened it two-thirds of the way to 
 the ground, he put one side of the top into my hands 
 and the other side into Barbarussa's. By traditional 
 usage this made me cumari — co-mother — with the 
 parents of Pippinu. We stood North and South 
 of the oak. 
 
 Pippinu began to whine as his mother delivered 
 him, cold and sleepy, to Gna Vanna, who unbuttoned 
 and pulled off his short patched breeches. Custom 
 prescribes that the child be naked; but Pippinu's 
 screams became so shrill, and his thin, dusty legs 
 waved so protestingly that she left him his shirt 
 and cuddled him, cold, sleepy and afraid, in her 
 old arms, promising sweets to eat in the morning. 
 She had taken off her white headkerchief, and the 
 yellow hoops of her earrings gleamed in the flicker- 
 ing candle light that brought nose and chin gro- 
 tesquely close together. She would have looked a 
 witch, if she had not looked a good grandmother.
 
 io8 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 The split in the tree ran East and West. When 
 Pippinu's sobs had subsided into disconsolate little 
 chokes, Cumari Vanni and Cumpari Vanni placed 
 themselves in front of it and behind, making a cross 
 with Barbarussa and me. Then Vanna, holding out 
 the boy, began: 
 
 "Cumpari Vanni!" 
 
 He answered, "Cumari Vanna!" 
 
 "Cumpari Vanni!" 
 
 "Cumari Vanna, What do you wish?" 
 
 Vanna replied: 
 
 ^Pigghia stu figghiu 
 E lu passa cca banna; 
 A nomu di Sanciuvanni, 
 Lu dugnu ruttu, dammilu sanu. 
 
 At the word "pigghia" Gna Vanna passed Pip- 
 pinu feet first across the split betwen the two halves 
 of the tree into the hands of Vanni, who, when he 
 had received him, began in his turn, "Cumari 
 Vanna!" They repeated the formula until Pippinu 
 had passed from one to the other through the tree 
 three times. There was no attempt to be impressive 
 and nothing like jesting. They made a plain work- 
 ing conversation. 
 
 When Vanna had received the child back for the 
 last time, she set him on his feet, still frightened 
 
 ^ Take this child and pass him back to me again ; In the 
 name of San Giovanni, I give him you broken, give him me 
 sound.
 
 The Little Oak Tree
 
 THE CLEFT OAK 109 
 
 and shivering, a wee pathetic smile dawning on his 
 face. Holding him at her side, her hands on his 
 shoulders, she finished her incantation : 
 
 Praised and thanked be the most holy Sacrament, the great 
 Mother of God, Mary, and all the (heavenly) company. San 
 Giovanni, in the name of Jesus close this flesh. In the 
 name of Jesus, blessed San Giovanni, close this hurt; and 
 may Pippinu suffer nothing more. Take away all the peril 
 and the evil suggestion, dear good San Giovanni. Praised 
 and thanked be the most holy Sacrament, the great Mother 
 of God, Mary and all the heavenly company! 
 
 - A little dazed, the child wavered across to his 
 mother, who dressed him while Cumpari Vanni 
 bound up the tree, winding the new rope that Bar- 
 barussa had provided in a continuous coil to cover 
 the entire length of the slit, while he and Vanna 
 repeated together: "As this tree closes, so may 
 Pippinu's rupture close." 
 
 If the tree healed within a year, Vanna said, 
 Pippinu would heal ; if not, Pippinu would not get 
 well. 
 
 Vanna does not know how passage through the 
 tree was to help Pippinu. To her, Gaidoz, whose 
 monograph aims to prove the root idea to be a shift- 
 ing of trouble from Pippinu to the tree ; or Frazer, 
 who thinks that an escaping Pippinu leaves a pur- 
 suing malady caught in the cleft; or Baring Gould, 
 who sees a new Pippinu reborn free of old ills, 
 would be equally meaningless. She does not need 
 to speculate about the matter; she has inherited a
 
 no BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 practice that comes down to her perhaps from the 
 elder Cato, who advised that a green spHt reed be 
 tied to a dislocated limb during the recitation of a 
 spell, the two then being tied together to heal in 
 sympathetic harmony. 
 
 Vanna's invocation is a prayer. People call her 
 a witch, but they are wrong, since she works only 
 "things of God." Many a time she has said to me, 
 **It is always for good and never for ill. Release 
 (from evil) yes; bind, never! Am I a Christian, 
 or am I not?" 
 
 If the priests do not approve of certain practices, 
 it is because the priests have not the devotion. Her 
 thought does not separate religion and magic; each 
 is an appeal to superior powers; but in daily life, 
 since the priests refuse to make appeals of various 
 necessary sorts, wise people must make them, or 
 cause them to be made, for themselves. 
 
 After rendering first aid to the oak, we slipped 
 and slid down the hillside to the path, where under 
 the walnut tree we laid out the baptismal supper. 
 Barbarussa had brought three big round brown 
 loaves of bread, a few early figs and a plate of little 
 cold fried fish, and Cumpari Vanni had added a 
 small form of sheep's milk, cheese and two bottles 
 of wine. Vanni cut the bread with his evil-looking 
 knife. We hung our lanterns to the thorn bushes 
 and ate with satisfaction. Gna Vanna had not for- 
 gotten the feast. 
 
 It was time for tlie moon to be up ; this we knew
 
 THE CLEFT OAK iii 
 
 by a faint light above the mountain tops; but she 
 never gave a real look into our cup among the hills. 
 My new honor as godmother gave me the first easy 
 time-worn toast : 
 
 * Good and fine is this wine ; 
 A toast to Pippinu, this is mine. 
 
 Pippinu's father followed with the second: 
 
 Good as bread is this wine; 
 Vanni made it from his vine. 
 
 I have yet to see the Sicilian who could not 
 rhyme toasts as long as breath held out. 
 
 Dawn was in the sky before we reached home. 
 As we climbed out of the gorge Donna Catina 
 stopped to touch the ground, and then kissed her 
 fingers, saying, "I kiss the earth; God save us from 
 traveling again this fearsome road." She opened 
 the bosom of her dress to show me, stitched into her 
 clothing, the flat thin gold cross she had worn as 
 protection against the evil spirits that infest the 
 night, 
 
 "You and I saw the botta, Vossia," said Vanna, 
 shaking her wise old head reassuringly; "that toad 
 may have been a 'donna di fora,' one of the little 
 people." 
 
 Within a few days I left Sicily, and it was more 
 than a year before I saw Pippinu again. Time had 
 
 ^ Chistu vinu e beddu e finu, 
 Facciu brindisi a Pippinu.
 
 112 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 not changed the house at the foot of the great 
 scalinata, except that, hung to the side of the bed 
 in the alcove, was now a cradle, made of a piece 
 of sacking that swung by ropes from the bedf rame. 
 
 Donna Catina was not at home. Barbarussa said 
 she had gone "To make the day's expenses (for 
 provisions)." More gaunt and good-humored than 
 ever, he was sweeping the floor. *T am making the 
 cleaning of the house," he added, explaining an 
 occupation not unusual among the fishermen. . 
 
 After a few minutes Catina appeared carrying in 
 her arms the tenant of the cradle, ten-months-old 
 Giovanninu, named for the saint we had invoked 
 when his brother passed over the tree. "Four teeth 
 he has," she said proudly, as soon as we had ex- 
 changed greetings, prying open the youngster's 
 mouth to show me his four new teeth. "He creeps, 
 and he can stand alone." 
 
 She coaxed him to smile, smoothing his red hair, 
 tapping his plump rosy cheeks. He was indeed a 
 fine boy compared with his thin hungry-looking 
 sisters, grown too large to be nourished with their 
 mother's milk. 
 
 "But where is Pippinu?" I asked finally. 
 
 "At the cobbler's," said the little girls in chorus, 
 darting from the house to fetch him. 
 
 My godson, being now seven years old, had be- 
 come one of the men of the household. He was 
 apprenticed to a cobbler, who, being cumpari with 
 Barbarussa, asked no fee, and sometime would pay
 
 THE CLEFT OAK 113 
 
 wages. Meantime he did not give food, as seemed 
 obvious when Pippinu sidled bashfully into the 
 room, white and frail as always. • 
 
 While the children were gone Catina had been 
 rummaging in the big wooden chest to find the 
 certificate of Pippinu's marks in the Taormina 
 school. He had finished the second elementary class, 
 and pointed out with small leather-stained fingers 
 how well he had done in reading and writing. 
 Would he ever go to school again? Perhaps; they 
 hoped he might go one more year. 
 
 That afternoon Pippinu's aunt went with me to 
 inspect the tree. It was not the first excursion 
 Donna Ciccia and I had made together, and I do not 
 know a better companion. Her brown, leathery 
 face and sun-strained eyes, her brows arched in a 
 perpetual question, bear witness that life has not 
 handled her gently ; but to every buffet she opposes 
 a jest. I have never seen her wear shoes, though 
 she saved money for months to buy a pair for mass 
 on Sundays. She says the cobbler — ^he to whom 
 Pippinu is apprenticed — made them too tight; per- 
 haps her good muscular feet rebelled at confinement. 
 Even for this visit of ceremony, she left them in 
 her chest, that family hold-all. 
 
 It was late July. For that very afternoon Hesiod 
 might have written of the summer resting time, 
 "When the artichoke flowers, and the tuneful 
 cicala, perched on a tree, pours forth a shrill song 
 ofttimes from under his wings." The white smoke
 
 114 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 of Etna rose straight and slow into a white and 
 cloudless sky. The sea was blue-white. There was 
 a bluish haze over all the world. It was a day of 
 powerful heat, when the stones baked under foot, 
 and the long walls scorched the hand. Even in the 
 rock shade of the fold among the hills the leaves 
 of the almond trees were turning yellow before the 
 fruit had ripened, and the thick fleshy leaves of the 
 fichi d'lndia were drooping. 
 
 We found the little tree still wound tightly. It 
 showed a long, dark scar well closed. Its crown 
 of leaves was thick and vigorous. It had grown 
 a trifle, was more than four feet tall. It held its 
 head up courageously in face of the scorched moun- 
 tains opposite, which showed their bleakest summer 
 aspect. The drought for a year had been extreme. 
 Again there was nothing green under foot; the air 
 was heavy with the pungent smell of pennyroyal. 
 
 We rested in the warm silence. The air was so 
 still we might have thought Pan had not yet waked 
 from his siesta. Donna Ciccia pulled her knitting 
 work out of the pockets of her apron, and I read 
 to her the words of the goatherd in Theocritus: 
 "We may not pipe in the noontide; 't is Pan we 
 dread, who truly at this hour rests weary from the 
 chase." 
 
 By and by Donna Ciccia dropped her needles. "I 
 used to come here when I was a girl," she said, 
 "to pick up wood. Nowadays my Christian has a
 
 THE CLEFT OAK 115 
 
 vote, but they have not left us any place to pick 
 up wood." 
 
 Again for a long time v^^e said nothing. In one 
 of her pockets she had brought green almonds ; with 
 her strong teeth she cracked them easily. It was 
 nearly five o'clock, and there was a faint air stirring, 
 when we rose to begin the homeward road. We 
 knew the hour because on the path below fishermen 
 were going down to the sea. • 
 
 "The tree has come good, it is healed," said 
 Donna Ciccia. We did not take off the cord, lest 
 Pippinu should take off his bandage. It has been 
 agreed that while the tree wore a truss Pippinu 
 should wear one also. "It has come good," she 
 repeated ; "but as to Pippinu one does not yet know." 
 
 But perhaps when he is older, a little surgery may 
 help us find out about Pippinu.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 The Hairy Hand 
 
 Fel Fi! Fol Fum! 
 
 I smell the blood of an Englishman ! 
 
 Be he 'live or be he dead, 
 
 I'll grind his bones to make my bread! 
 
 The moon was coming up large and round over 
 the shoulder of Monte Tauro. The air was heavy 
 with the scent of jasmine. The summer evening 
 
 was peaceful and still. *Tf the war lasts " said 
 
 the Signora L , drawing forward a chair for 
 
 me in the doorway of her shop. She did not finish 
 the sentence, but I knew she was thinking, "there 
 will be no tourists next winter, and no work." 
 
 Donna Peppina's Mazza, trudging homeward 
 from vespers, paused a minute to say, *T have taken 
 the holy benediction !" Her brown, wrinkled face 
 expressed well-considered self-satisfaction. "But — ■ 
 what is that? Thunder?" 
 
 "Cannon," answered the Signora. 
 
 It was that August evening when the German 
 ships, Breslau and Goeben, leaving the port of Mes- 
 sina, ran the gauntlet of the French and British 
 fleets. Not two hours earlier we had watched the 
 silent passage, one by one, of dark, low war-vessels. 
 
 Ii6
 
 THE HAIRY HAND 117 
 
 "A verra?" pursued Donna Peppina. "Is it the 
 war? It can't last long." But the tone was not 
 as cheerful as the words, and the little bent figure, 
 muffled in its black shawl, hurried uneasily away. 
 
 A neighbor's child sat down at our feet, stuffing 
 her fingers into her ears, as from the quiet, moon- 
 lighted water there came another sullen boom, 
 "Sarina," I suggested, "ask the Signora to tell us a 
 story." 
 
 The Signora smiled indulgently. In those tragic 
 days we whiled away with stories many an evening. 
 She thought a minute, following with her eyes a 
 man who was hurrying supperward, carrying 
 cracked ice on a folded kerchief. Then she began, 
 "When I was a little girl in Caltagirone and my 
 grandmother used to tell me stories, the one I liked 
 best of all was 'The Hairy Hand.' " 
 
 "Once upon a time there was a poor man who 
 had four daughters. Every morning he went into 
 the country to gather soup greens to sell. When 
 summer came and the great sun burnt the country 
 bare, the poor man's children must have died of 
 hunger, had not the neighbors given them sometimes 
 a glass of wine, sometimes a little oil, sometimes a 
 bit of bread. 
 
 "One day when the poor father had found noth- 
 ing at all to put into his shoulder bags except a 
 few wild blackberries, he saw in the field on the 
 other side of a hedge of fichi d'India a fine plant of 
 wild fennel. He scrambled through the thorny
 
 ii8 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 hedge, but no sooner had he reached out his hand 
 to gather the most beautiful plant than he heard, 
 *Cing-a-li ! Cling-a-li ! Cing-a-li !' a sound as of some- 
 thing dropping. He looked with all his eyes, but 
 could see nothing. He pulled again, and again he 
 heard, 'Cing-a-li! Cling-a-li! Cing-a-li!' as if a little 
 bell were ringing or money dropping. He looked 
 again, but could find nothing. The third time he 
 pulled the plant up by the roots, and he saw a hole 
 which grew and grew until it became the mouth 
 of a great cave and out of the cave there came a 
 giant fierce and monstrous. He was a wicked 
 dragon, who killed every person that passed and 
 ate the flesh. If he was not hungry, he would cut 
 off head and hands and throw the body into a great 
 locked room. 
 
 "At first the dragon did not see the poor father. 
 He stood in the mouth of the cave and said: 
 
 What a good smell of Christian meat! 
 If it I see, I'll swallow it neat! 
 
 "The poor father said, 'Give me your blessing, 
 your Excellency.' 
 
 "Then the dragon said, 'Come in, good man; sit 
 down.' 
 
 "The poor father went into the cave and looked 
 about. He saw rich furniture and bags of money. 
 'Eat,' said the dragon, 'if you are hungry; eat as 
 much as you like' ; and he set out bread, wine, pasta, 
 cheese and fish.
 
 THE HAIRY HAND 119 
 
 "When the poor man had eaten, the dragon asked, 
 'Where do you come from, good man?' 
 
 'The man said he had been gathering minestra 
 to support his family. 
 
 ** *Are you single or married ?' 
 
 " *I have four daughters,' replied the poor father. 
 
 " 'Four daughters !' said the dragon. 'I have no- 
 body; I live alone.' He asked the poor father to 
 give him a daughter to be his wife, promising that 
 she should have plenty to eat and fine clothes to 
 wear, and he gave him a fistful of gold. 
 
 "The poor father promised to bring his eldest 
 daughter next day, then he said, 'I salute you; I 
 kiss your Excellency's hand' ; and he went home. 
 
 "That night he showed his four daughters the 
 money. 'Eat,' he said; 'eat, my children, if you are 
 hungry; eat as much as you like.' He told his 
 eldest daughter that a prince had asked for her hand 
 in marriage, and next morning he took her with 
 him to the cave. The drau received him kindly 
 and gave the poor father another fistful of gold. 
 
 "When the man had gone home the dragon gave 
 the girl the keys of all the rooms in the cave, telling 
 her she was mistress of the place to do what she 
 pleased, except that one door she must not unlock; 
 he pointed towards the great dark room where he 
 kept the bodies of the men he had slain. Then he 
 called, 'Hairy Hand!' 
 
 " 'What do you want ?' replied a voice, and there 
 appeared a great hairy hand. It was black and
 
 120 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 knotted, and its fingers were like the claws of * " 
 
 The Signora hesitated. Sarina gulped with sus- 
 pense. She no longer heard the sullen booming 
 from the sea. 
 
 "Like the claws of the one that dances," continued 
 the Signora finally ; "the claws of a bear." 
 
 " *Do you see the hairy hand?' asked the dragon. 
 'You have to eat it. If you eat it, you shall be 
 my wife; if you don't eat it, woe to you! I shall 
 cut off your head. Will you eat it?' 
 
 " *Yes, I will eat it/ said the eldest daughter. 
 
 " *I give you three days,' said the dj-au, and he 
 went away. The dragon had vast estates; he was 
 always busy traveling through his properties. 
 
 "When she was alone, the eldest daughter looked 
 at the hairy hand. 'How ugly it is!' she said to 
 herself ; 'I am afraid ; this thing I cannot eat.* She 
 hid it in a big chest, and went about the work of 
 the house. On the third day she took flour and 
 made home-made macaroni. She killed a hen and 
 made a stew. When the drati came home the table 
 was set, and there were roasted onions hot from 
 the bread oven. 
 
 "'Have you eaten the Hairy Hand?' he de- 
 manded. 
 
 " 'Yes, I ate it,* she answered. 
 
 " 'It seems to me you did not eat it,' he said ; and 
 he called 'Hairy Hand !' 
 
 " 'A-u-u ! What do you want ?' replied a voice. 
 
 " 'Where are you ?' asked the dragon.
 
 THE HAIRY HAND 121 
 
 " 'In the big chest,* replied the Hand. 
 
 "So the dragon knew that the girl had not eaten 
 it, and he said, 'Woe to you ! I cut off your head !' 
 And he cut it off and threw her into the great locked 
 room. 
 
 "Now when the poor father had spent all the 
 money the dragon had given him he came again to 
 the cave, and inquired for his daughter. Said the 
 dragon, 'She is having a good time; she is with 
 my sister who thinks her pretty.' 
 
 "The dragon complained that he v/as again all 
 alone, and asked the poor father to bring another 
 daughter. 'Eat,' he said; 'if you are hungry, eat 
 as much as you like.' And again he set out food 
 and brought a fistful of gold. 
 
 "Next day the father brought his second daughter, 
 and the dragon said to her, as he had to the first, 
 that she was mistress of everything in the cave ex- 
 cept the great locked room. He showed her the 
 hairy hand, and told her she should be his wife 
 if she ate it. 'If not, woe to you!' He gave her 
 three days and went away. 
 
 "The second daughter looked at the hairy hand, 
 and said to herself, 'This thing I cannot eat,' and 
 she threw it into a cask of wine. 
 
 "When the drau came home she had done up all 
 the work of the house and the pasta with tomato 
 sauce was on the table. 
 
 " 'Well ?' he demanded ; 'the Hand ? Have you 
 eaten it?'
 
 122 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 "'Yes/ she said; 'I ate It' 
 
 " 'I don't believe you ate it/ answered the drau, 
 and he called, 'Hairy Hand !' 
 
 " 'A-u! What do you want?' 
 ' " 'Where are you ?' 
 
 " 'In the wine cask/ 
 
 "So the dragon saw that the second daughter had 
 not eaten the hairy hand, and he cut off her head 
 and put her with her sister. 
 
 "When the poor father was again out of money 
 and came back to the cave to inquire for his two 
 daughters, the dragon said the second girl was visit- 
 ing his brother. He was alone, quite alone, and the 
 father must bring yet a third daughter. The poor man 
 did as he was told, and to the third girl everything 
 happened much as to her sisters. She hid the hairy 
 hand in the oven, and the dragon cut off her head. 
 Where the father came back to ask after his three 
 children, the drau said the third daughter was with 
 his sister-in-law. The poor man agreed for another 
 fistful of gold to bring his fourth daughter, but 
 he warned the dragon not to send her to any of his 
 relatives, because she was the very last. 
 
 "Now the youngest daughter was more clever 
 than the others. She received the order not to 
 meddle with the door of the locked room, and she 
 promised to eat the hairy hand. But as soon as 
 the dragon had given her three days' respite and 
 had gone away, she unlocked the forbidden door, 
 and found the bodies of her three sisters and of
 
 THE HAIRY HAND 123 
 
 all the other murdered people. She was frightened, 
 and she thought, 'He will kill me, too ; I am as good 
 as dead.' 
 
 "On the third day when it was time for the 
 dragon to come home, instead of setting the table, 
 she took a piece of cloth and made a pocket and 
 sewed the hairy hand inside," 
 
 The Signora folded a corner of her apron to 
 show Sarina just how the youngest daughter had 
 made a bag to hold the hairy hand. Then she 
 went on: 
 
 "The youngest daughter tied the bag across her 
 stomach with a rag and went to bed. When the 
 dragon found her groaning, he asked, 'What ails 
 you?' 
 
 "She complained: T don't feel well/ 
 'Did you eat the hairy hand?' 
 
 " *Yes ; I have eaten it.' 
 'Hairy Hand !' called the drau. 
 'What do you want?' 
 'Where are you?' 
 'At the mistress' stomach.' 
 *Va be,' said the drau; 'Since you have eaten it 
 you shall be my wife.' 
 
 "When the dragon saw that the youngest daughter 
 was ill, he went away, and she got up at once and 
 went back to the forbidden room. This time she 
 heard a sound as of someone trying to breathe. 
 
 " 'U-h, a-u-h, uh, a-u-h !' It was like this," said 
 the Signora, moaning as if hardly alive.
 
 124 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 "In the dark corner of the room the youngest 
 daughter found a man in an iron cage. He was 
 dying of hunger. 'Help me/ he wailed; 'for I am 
 the son of the king.' 
 
 "The youngest daughter killed a pigeon and made 
 broth. She put a spoon to the bars and fed the 
 man, who lifted his head and began to move his 
 hands Then she minced the flesh of the pigeon 
 fine like meal, and fed that to him. By and by he 
 said, T feel much better.' He told her to send for 
 a shepherd with a mule. 
 
 " 'But the dragon/ she objected. 
 
 *' 'He is gone away.* 
 
 "When the herdsman came, he filed the bars of 
 the cage with a piece of iron, and the king's son 
 and the youngest daughter climbed into the mule's 
 saddle-bags, one on each side. The shepherd stuffed 
 the bags with wool, for it was the time of the 
 shearing of the sheep, and rode away towards the 
 palace of the king. 
 
 "They had not gone far when they met the 
 dragon, who asked, 'What have you got in those 
 bags ?' 
 
 " 'Wool,' said the herdsman. 
 
 "The drau thrust his sword into the saddle-bags, 
 and looked at its point. There was no blood on it, 
 nothing but a bit of wool. So the drau believed 
 the shepherd was telling the truth. He struck the 
 mule with the flat of his sword and said, 'Get on
 
 THE HAIRY HAND 125 
 
 with you?* and off went the mule to the king's 
 palace. 
 
 "Now the king's son had been gone two years, 
 and when he reached home there was great rejoic- 
 ing. He kissed his father's hand and said, 'Your 
 majesty, bless me. Father, grant me a wish; give 
 me this girl for my wife.' 
 
 "Now the youngest daughter had left at the 
 window of her room in the cave a figure dressed 
 in her clothing, so that the dragon might think her 
 at home and attend to his mule before coming in- 
 doors. The hairy hand she had thrown into the 
 rubbish heap. When the dragon saw the doll at the 
 window he called, 'What ails you? Why don't 
 you speak to me ? Comedown.' Then as the figure 
 did not move, he came upstairs and discovered the 
 trick. 
 
 "'Hairy Hand!' he called. 'Where are you?' 
 
 " Tn the rubbish.' 
 
 " 'Then the mistress didn't eat you?* 
 
 " 'She didn't eat me.' 
 
 " 'Then why did you say she did eat you?' 
 
 " 'I said I was at the mistress' stomach, and for- 
 got to say whether I was inside or out.' 
 
 " 'Where is the mistress ?' . 
 
 " 'Fled with the son of the king.' 
 
 "Even in the king's palace the youngest daughter 
 feared the dragon and she told the servant who kept 
 the door to pretend to be deaf in case he came. The 
 dragon did come, and to all his questions the old
 
 126 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 woman answered, 'You want onions and beans? 
 Down yon they sell them' ; and she pointed to a shop 
 down the street." 
 
 But of course the dragon got into the palace, 
 and hid himself inside an enchanted clock to work 
 mischief; and equally of course he was killed by 
 the king's son, and the three older sisters were 
 brought to life, and everybody lived happy ever 
 afterward. 
 
 Sarina drew a long breath of satisfaction when 
 the tale was finished, and begged for another. 
 
 "Enough," said the Signora; *'it's time for you 
 to go to bed." But in the end she was coaxed to 
 tell us about a dragon's wife, a "mammadrava." 
 A little wind stirred Sarina's short light hair. She 
 leaned her head against the doorjamb, her eyes 
 fixed blissfully on the Signora's face. She had for- 
 gotten the cannon. 
 
 "They tell and they retell," began the Signora; 
 "that once upon a time there was a woman who 
 went to the fountain to wash. There came by a 
 'm.ammadrava' who said: 
 
 "'What a beautiful smell of Christian meat I 
 If it I see, I'll swallow it neat!' 
 
 "There is nothing that tastes so good to a dragon 
 or a she-dragon as the flesh of us Christians. 
 " 'Spare me !' cried the woman. 
 "The 'mammadrava' spared the woman because
 
 THE HAIRY HAND 127 
 
 she was with child, and said, 'I'll eat what you have 
 within you when you have brought it forth.' 
 
 "The woman gave birth to a beautiful daughter, 
 but she did not give her child to the 'mammadrava.' 
 One day the she-dragon saw the little girl passing 
 and called to her: 'Pretty child, tell your motHer 
 that I want what she promised me.' 
 
 "The child told her mother, T saw the "mamma- 
 drava," and she said, *T want what your mother 
 promised me." ' 
 
 "The mother replied, 'Tell the "mammadrava," 
 "Take it where you see it." 
 
 "When the little girl had given the message the 
 'mammadrava' said, 'Come here, my child; I have 
 some sweets for you.* 
 
 "The little girl was afraid; for you must know 
 that a dragon does not talk as do we other Chris- 
 tians; they drawl in a terrifying way through the 
 nose." 
 
 The Signora bent towards Sarina, giving to every 
 word a harsh nasal twang. 
 
 "The 'mammadrava' took the child to her house 
 and put her into the 'cannizzu' to fatten until she 
 should be big and tender enough to eat. (In a 
 Sicilian house a tall cylinder of woven cane is an 
 ordinary receptacle for grain or beans. It has a 
 small hole near the floor, stopped commonly with 
 rags.) She fed the little girl with pasta, fish and 
 sweets, giving her every day as much as she could
 
 128 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 eat. After a time she said one morning, 'Stick out 
 a finger.' 
 
 "The child poked a finger through the hole. 
 
 " 'You are still too little to eat,' said the 'mamma- 
 drava,' and every day she gave her more pasta and 
 more fish and more sweets. As the child grew she 
 became clever; and she thought, 'If she sees that 
 I am now good and big, she will eat me.' So she 
 killed a rat and cut off its tail, and the next time 
 the *mammadrava' said, 'Put out a finger,' instead 
 of a finger she poked out the rat's tail. 
 
 "The 'mammadrava' was cross and hungry, for 
 it was a long time since she had tasted Christian 
 flesh. She fed the girl as much as she could eat, 
 but always when she asked to see a finger the child 
 put out the rat's tail. At last when the girl was 
 eighteen years old she thought, 'Now that I am 
 really good and big I shall soon be strong enough 
 to get the better of the old she-dragon.' And one 
 day instead of the rat's tail she put out her flesh- 
 and-blood finger. 
 
 "At sight of it the 'mammadrava's' mouth 
 watered. She took the girl out of the 'cannizzu* 
 and looked at her. 'How fine and fat you are!' 
 she exclaimed, licking her lips. 'We'll make a festa 
 to-day because you have come out.' She built a 
 fire in the oven, for she meant to roast the girl 
 as a dinner for herself and her husband, the dragon. 
 When she thought the oven must be hot enough
 
 THE HAIRY HAND 129 
 
 she said, 'Go, look into the oven and see if it is 
 ready.' 
 
 "But the girl answered, 'I don't know anything 
 about the oven; I've lived all my life inside the 
 'cannizzu.' Go you; I'll set the table.' 
 
 "When the 'mammadrava' stooped to take away 
 the balata (the sheet of iron that closed the mouth 
 of an oven) the girl took her by the feet and threw 
 her inside and put the balata in position. Then she 
 set the table and brought out wine. 
 
 "Towards Ave Maria the dragon came home. 
 'Where is my wife?' he asked. 
 
 " 'She has gone to market. She is making a festa 
 to-day because I am good and big and have come 
 out of the 'cannizzu.' She is roasting a fine sheep. 
 Do you want to see ?' 
 
 "The girl opened the oven and the dragon sniffed 
 the roasting meat. 'Would you like to taste a little 
 bit now ?' she suggested. 
 
 "The dragon was greedy. 'Yes,' he said; 'my 
 wife has such an appetite she'll eat it all and I 
 shan't get a bite. I'll eat a leg.' 
 
 "The girl gave him as much as he wanted of the 
 flesh of the 'mammadrava.' When he had drunk 
 so much wine that he was sleepy, she took all the 
 goods that God had given the house, and ran away 
 home. . 
 
 "Now you must surely go to bed," said the 
 Signora to Sarina. 
 
 The Corso was deserted. The men who through-
 
 130 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 out the evening had been standing in the Piazza 
 Sant' Agostino, looking out over the sea, by twos 
 and threes had gone home. The houses were dark 
 and quiet. 
 
 Sarina looked across the narrow way to a shop 
 where a light still burned. "My sister," she said, 
 "has not finished ironing. Just another little short 
 one. Tell us about the thirteen robbers." 
 
 "But you know it," replied the Signora. 
 
 "I don't," I suggested. 
 
 "Once upon a time," recommenced the Signora 
 patiently, "there was a mother who had two beauti- 
 ful daughters. One day she was obliged to go a 
 long way from home to bleach her flax. She aske3 
 an old woman to sleep in the house with her daugh- 
 ters that night, and to let no one in for fear of 
 robbers. 'Lock the door as soon as it is dark,' 
 she said, 'and hang the key on the nail.' 
 
 "The old woman agreed, but as soon as the 
 mother had gone, she sought out the chief of a 
 robber band; and told him that if he would knock 
 at the door at midnight, he might get possession of 
 everything in the house. The robber chief gave 
 the old woman a purse of silver, and at midnight 
 precisely he rapped at the door. The old woman 
 snored as if she were fast asleep. 
 
 " 'Open, I am your mother,' called the master 
 thief. 
 
 "The older daughter would have opened, but the 
 younger was more clever. She said, 'Mother would
 
 THE HAIRY HAND 131 
 
 never come home at this hour.' So the two beautiful 
 girls climbed up into the hay-loft and pulled up the 
 ladder. 
 
 "There were thirteen of the robbers, and they 
 broke down the door. But the younger daughter 
 threw blocks of rock salt on their heads until she 
 had killed twelve. Only the robber chief remained 
 alive, and to avoid discovery he carried away one 
 at a time the bodies of all his men. 
 
 "When the mother came home next day the old 
 woman pretended to have slept soundly all night 
 and to have heard nothing. The robber chief was 
 determined to avenge himself, so he asked the 
 mother to give him her younger daughter in mar- 
 riage. The clever girl knew that it was the head 
 robber who sought her, and guessed that he meant 
 to kill her ; but she said yes, and they were married. 
 On the day of the wedding she made a figure as 
 large as herself, dressed it in her own clothes and 
 put it into the bed. Then she hid underneath. 
 
 "When the head robber came into the room and 
 saw the dummy, he thrust his dagger through and 
 through it, shouting, 'Thus do I take vengeance for 
 the death of my brave lads! Thus do I drink the 
 blood of the murderess!' And he drank of the 
 liquid that ran from the pupa. No sooner had he 
 done so than he started to his feet, crying, 'How 
 sweet is my wife's blood ! I repent me that I have 
 killed her! I will kill myself !' 
 
 "He began to sob and groan, and he would have
 
 IS2 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 thrust the knife into his own heart; but the younger 
 daughter jumped from her hiding place and said: 
 
 ' " 'A sugar doll has bled at your knife 
 And you and I are husband and wife.' " 
 
 "Is that the end ?" asked Sarina. "Did they make 
 peace?" 
 
 "Yes," said the Signora ; "they made peace. And 
 when my grandmother told me that story she used 
 to say, 
 
 8 " 'Now husband and wife are rich and contended, 
 But we poor folks are sadly stinted.' " 
 
 Sarina's sister had finished ironing and came to 
 fetch her. It had been a long hot day for the 
 laundress, and while she rested with us in the even- 
 ing air, she, too, begged for a story. The Signora 
 tried to tell us about The Beauty of the Seven 
 Veils; but she couldn't remember it, and gave us 
 instead. The Enchanted Mirror.* 
 
 "Once upon a time a wicked woman had a beauti- 
 f ull step-daughter whom she beat and kept in rags. 
 One day she asked an enchanted mirror whether 
 the girl was fortunate or unfortunate. 
 
 "Fortunate," answered the enchanted mirror. 
 
 ^ " 'La pupa e f atta di zucchero e mieli, 
 E nui siamu maritu e mugghieri.' " 
 
 8 " 'Ora sono ricchi c cuntenti, 
 
 Ma nuiautri restiamu senza nenti.' "
 
 THE HAIRY HAND 133 
 
 "The step-mother flew into a rage, and commis- 
 sioned a bad old woman to take the child a long 
 way from home and leave her in a place from 
 which she could not find her way back ; but the little 
 girl guessed what was going to happen, and filled 
 her pockets with flour; then as they walked she 
 dropped a little here and there. After they had 
 gone a long distance they sat down in a thicket 
 and ate two pieces of bread. The child was so 
 tired that she fell asleep, and the old woman stole 
 away. 
 
 "When the wicked step-mother asked the mirror 
 whether or not the girl would come back, the mirror 
 said yes ; and indeed after a couple of days the child 
 came home. The step-mother treated her worse 
 than ever, and after a time inquired again of the 
 mirror whether the girl was lucky or unlucky. The 
 mirror repeated that the girl was lucky, so the step- 
 mother sent her away again with the old woman, 
 feeling her all over before they started to make sure 
 there was no flour this time in her bag. The old 
 v/oman walked and walked, and when at last they 
 sat down in a wood the girl was so tired that she 
 fell asleep before she had tasted food. 
 
 "When she awoke alone, the beautiful girl did 
 not know which way to turn. Not far away she 
 saw a cave. A latchstring was hanging out, so she 
 opened the door. Inside she found bread and cheese 
 and eggs and oil and wine, and she saw men's cloth- 
 ing hanging from pegs, but nothing belonging to
 
 134 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 a woman. She knew the men who lived in the cave 
 must come home to eat, so she gathered minestra 
 and cooked it, and she killed a hen and stewed it 
 with onions and olives and basil. Then she set the 
 table and hid in a corner. 
 
 "When the twelve brigands who lived in the cave 
 came home and saw the table they thought at first 
 some other brigand must have been there but the 
 head brigand said, 'These are not men's doings, 
 they are the doings of a woman.' 
 
 " 'If the woman were here,' said the other 
 brigands, 'she should be our sister.' 
 
 *'When the girl heard this, she came out from 
 her corner. The head brigand made her sit by him 
 and fed her from his own plate. The men told 
 her she should truly be their sister to cook the food 
 and make the beds and attend to all the work of 
 the cave. They gave her fine clothes and became 
 very fond of her. 
 
 "But after a time the wicked step-mother asked 
 the enchanted mirror whether the girl was alive or 
 dead, and the mirror answered that she was alive 
 and had twelve brothers. Then the step-mother 
 sent for a witch who gave her an enchanted ring 
 that had power to throw into a sleep like death any 
 person who put it on. This ring the step-mother 
 entrusted to the old woman, who went back to the 
 wood and offered it to the girl, who put it on her 
 finger and fell at once asleep.
 
 THE HAIRY HAND 135 
 
 "When the brigands came home, they mourned 
 their beautiful sister as dead. They put her into 
 a box of carved wood, with a purse by her side, 
 and carried the box to the top of a high mountain. 
 One day a prince who was hunting found the box. 
 When he had opened it, he called his men to carry 
 it to his palace, for he was wiser than the brigands 
 and knew that the beautiful girl was sleeping. In 
 the palace the prince's servant noticed the ring and 
 watched her chance to slip it off the girl's finger, 
 saying to herself, 'What a pretty ring! I'll take 
 it myself !' 
 
 "As soon as the ring was off her hand the girl 
 awoke and asked for her brothers. She told the 
 prince about her step-mother and the old woman, 
 but as to her brothers she refused to say anything 
 except that they lived in a cave. The prince guessed 
 they must be brigands and gave his word to pardon 
 them, 'for,' he said, 'you are to be my spouse.' So 
 they were married and the prince gave the brigands 
 much land. 
 
 "Then again the wicked step-mother asked the 
 mirror whether the beautiful girl was alive or dead. 
 'She is now a princess,' said the mirror ; 'she is the 
 wife of the king's son ; she lives in a splendid palace 
 and wears fine clothes.' 
 
 " 'Then how can I avenge myself?* screamed the 
 step-mother. 
 
 "The mirror did not answer. It had spoken in 
 the past, because the beautiful girl was fortunate.
 
 136 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 her happy fate was certain to be fulfilled. But now 
 destiny was accomplished. She was a princess and 
 happy. What more was there to say? 
 
 "The step-mother broke the mirror in her rage; 
 it never spoke again."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 Jesus as Destroyer 
 
 Another time, when the Lord Jesus was coming home in 
 the evening with Joseph, he met a boy who ran so hard 
 against him that he threw him down. To whom the Lord 
 Jesus said, "As thou hast thrown me down, so shalt thou 
 fall, nor ever rise." And that moment the boy fell down 
 and died. . . . 
 
 Then said Joseph to St. Mary, "Henceforth we will not 
 allow him to go out of the house ; for everyone who dis- 
 pleases him is killed." — Apocryphal books of the New Testa- 
 ment; First Gospel of the Infancy, Chaps. XIX and XX. 
 
 In spite of the fervor of the Bambino cult, the 
 most important person of the Sicihan Holy Family 
 is the Madonna, because she is not only powerful, 
 but in her relations with man she is almost uniformly 
 benign. Caprices of ill-temper are indeed attributed 
 to her, as in case of the old charm against colic: 
 
 *Vine branches out, vine branches in, 
 Straw and grain. 
 Away in no time goes this pain. 
 For Jesus' sake 
 No more of this ache. 
 
 ^ Fora sciarmenti, intra sciarmenti, 
 Pagghia e f rumenti ; 
 Si nni va stu duluri tempu nenti. 
 Pi lu nomu di Gesu 
 Mi ci passa e nun mi nni avi nenti chiu. 
 
 137
 
 138 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Once upon a time, the tale goes, the Madonna 
 was cold and begged of a neighbor cuttings pruned 
 from the vines. The woman refused, saying she 
 had none ; but the Madonna knew that she had and 
 cursed her saying, "May you twist in pain like the 
 prunings that are twisting under your oven." 
 Whereupon the woman writhed in torment until the 
 Madonna thought she had been punished enough and 
 charmed away the pain with the prayer now in 
 use. 
 
 But in spite of such trivial outbursts, the Madonna 
 appears in the folk tales as the world's great kindly 
 Mother. San Giuseppe, too, is a wholly benevolent 
 patriarch; but there are aspects of the Lord Jesus 
 which remind one of the anecdotes of a vindictive 
 Child Christ related in the Apocryphal Gospels of 
 the Infancy. 
 
 As in more than one ancient trinity there figure 
 the creator, the preserver and the destroyer-regen- 
 erator, so in the Sicilian trinity of father, mother 
 and child one is tempted to place the child as the 
 destructive force, thwarted and controlled by the 
 mother. In old stories still current, as in songs 
 newly manufactured, the Lord Jesus is shown as 
 wrathful against men as was the far-darting Apollo 
 towards the people who neglected his altars. 
 
 On one of my first visits to Messina after the 
 earthquake of 1908, 1 heard the wail of a cantastorie 
 among the ruins, and bought a copy of the penny 
 ballad the crippled, dim-sighted old man was singing
 
 JESUS AS DESTROYER 139 
 
 to curiosity-seekers and to those who sought their 
 dead in that great sepulchre. The song of forty- 
 eight stanzas explained the catastrophe as an effort 
 of Jesus to destroy the world • an attempt limited 
 in its success by Mary. Said lu Signuri: 
 
 . . . "For me the world is dead; 
 Destroyed would I see the blue sky." 
 So his mantle black of wrath he took 
 To break man's back that he die. 
 He called the earthquake quickly; 
 To his command it ran. 
 "Shake thou the earth this minute! 
 Destroy perfidious man !" 
 
 The earthquake obeyed orders, and men ran from 
 their houses calling on the Madonna. She was 
 asleep, but the groans of the dying woke her and 
 at once she bade earth and sea be still. They refused 
 obedience, telling her that Christ had expressly com- 
 manded them to sink the entire earth: 
 
 "This word from whom did you get it 
 
 To destroy my people devout?" 
 
 The sea it answered her promptly. 
 
 "The command 't is of Christ, do not doubt." 
 
 Then the Madonna went to her son and besought 
 him by her tears, 
 
 Behold how many thousands dead! 
 The innocent for help who cry! 
 Forget your wrath, all-powerful son ; 
 Think of your bitter cross so high.
 
 140 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Jesus refused to listen, saying that man had been 
 warned with floods and fire, but refused to respect 
 either sacraments or gospel, and the time had come 
 to make an end of him: 
 
 See you not man, the ill-liver? 
 His sins he does not repent; 
 Even the lads of tender years 
 New blasphemies invent. 
 
 Yet in the end the Madonna had her will. Jesus 
 put off his black cloak, though grudgingly, and bade 
 her do as she chose. At once she renewed her 
 command to earth and sea: 
 
 "O earthquake, return to thy corner," 
 Then said the great spotless Mother; 
 "Calm the fears of these my devoted, 
 And make no more pitiless slaughter. 
 And thou, sea wave, get back also; 
 From my son the grace I have got." 
 So, but for the Virgin Maria, 
 This earth as 'tis now were not. 
 
 But for Mary, the fate of Messina would have 
 been the fate of the entire world. 
 
 Again after the earthquake at Linera in the spring 
 of 1914 the "story-singer" sang of the wrath of 
 Christ and the intervention of the Madonna to 
 save man. In a ballad called "The Powerful Earth- 
 quakes in Sicily" Jesus Christ tells his mother that 
 he can no longer endure the insults heaped on him, 
 and that if he has called in the earthquake, it is
 
 JESUS AS DESTROYER 141 
 
 no affair of hers. This time San Giuseppe came 
 to his wife's help, demanding payment, if the earth 
 was to go down in wreck, of the Madonna's dowry: 
 
 First give to me the sun and moon, 
 And stars and earth, then too the sea, 
 Paradise, angels, archangels and saints; 
 These must thou give me instantly. 
 And next consign to me the crown 
 Of my wife constant and divine; 
 For these things are her dowry ; of them 
 She's mistress; hers they are and mine. 
 
 The price was found so great that man received 
 his pardon. 
 
 This doggerel, lacking simplicity and sincerity 
 as completely as it lacks the dialectic interest of the 
 older ballads, is of value only as showing the me- 
 chanical continuance of a tradition through its own 
 impetus. 
 
 It was a drowsy afternoon when I first heard 
 this song of San Giuseppe and the Madonna, one 
 of those August afternoons when even the sea is 
 sunwhite, except where waving lines mark the track 
 of a boat long past or the motion of currents. At 
 Gna Vanna's doorstone in the Via Bagnoli Croce 
 a group of women were shucking almonds. Zu 
 Vincenzu Nanu, the dwarf, has thirty-four trees 
 on his bit of land under the castle, and their fruit 
 lay in sacks just inside the door. 
 
 Peeling the outside shell off rich brown mennuli 
 is commonly a merry task, but this day we were
 
 142 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 very quiet. The drought was extreme. From where 
 we sat we could look up at the castle crag above 
 the town, gray and yellow, bleached and bare, hot in 
 the sun. Clinging to fissures, dwarfed fichi d'India 
 drooped their sapless leaves to the rock. On the 
 steep lower slopes against the gray-white terraces 
 stood out withering almond trees, Zu Vincenzu's 
 among them, dropping discouraged yellow leaves. 
 
 Instead of splitting away in ripening, the shells 
 of our nuts had dried to the stone, making it neces- 
 sary to use teeth and bits of rock as well as fingers 
 in shucking them. Mine was the only knife in the 
 party. The nuts, too, were so small and poor that 
 low prices stood out in prospect. 
 
 Then, too, that morning thirty young men had 
 left Taormina to join the colors, and who knew 
 whether or not next morning another manifesto 
 would be posted, calling other classes, and who knew 
 whether or not Italy was going into the great war? 
 Probably yes ; for both the Pope and the black pope 
 were dead; God had called home his ambassadors. 
 
 "Woe, woe to us others," complained Za Sara, 
 puckering tighter her brown puckered face. "Last 
 year I earned a lira and a half a day for a month, 
 shucking almonds; but this year there are no nuts. 
 Without taking in soldi how shall we live?" 
 
 A breath of wind stirred her rough hair. Za 
 Sara has only two teeth, though she is not an old 
 woman; a yellow fang on one side of the lower 
 jaw and a second on the other side of the upper.
 
 JESUS AS DESTROYER 143 
 
 I do not know how she keeps up with the other 
 women biting off the outer shells of almonds. 
 
 "Woe, woe to us," she went, her eyes, drawn 
 up small by exposure to the sun, lost behind puckers 
 of anxiety. "God sends us thirst and war! It is 
 the punishment of our sins." 
 
 "Does God send thirst and war?" I ventured. 
 
 "Thirst, yes," answered old Za Delfi Sittima — 
 Aunt Delphia, the seven-months-child; "for the 
 Lord rains when he will; but war is an affair of 
 kings." 
 
 It was after this pronouncement of the separation 
 of church and state that we heard the quavering 
 lament of the cantastorie. A blind old man led 
 by a boy was coming down the street singing of 
 the destruction of Linera: 
 
 To an earthquake mighty and strong 
 Christ gave the order, you ken ; 
 But Mary the mother asked him, 
 "What do'st thou, O Lamb, to men?" 
 
 When the singer had tottered away over the cob- 
 ble stones to the next group of houses, I inquired, 
 "Why is the Madonna kinder to us than the Lord 
 Jesus?" 
 
 "Because she is the Mother," said Gna Vanna. 
 
 Bastianu, the youngest of her three grandchildren, 
 had been fretting for a tomato. Pulling a round, 
 brown loaf of bread out of the table drawer, he 
 brought it to Gna Vanna, who cut him a piece,
 
 144 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 muttering as she struggled with the dull knife, 
 "Hard as a mazzacani," a stone big enough to kill 
 a dog. Bastianu got his white little teeth into it 
 without trouble, and flung himself on the sacks 
 of nuts whimpering for the "pumiduru," the golden 
 apple, as the tomato is called. 
 
 Bastianu was ill. A tomato would hurt him. All 
 night long he had fever. An ailing child is a great 
 expense. Five pennies of milk she bought for Bas- 
 tianu every day, three in the morning and two at 
 night; while Vincenzinu, his five-year-old brother, 
 contented himself with bread and wine. 
 
 Unmoved by this reasoning, Bastianu whined the 
 louder. Gna Vanna's face sharpened; her bright 
 eyes became steely. "Get out !" she screamed. "Get 
 out of here! You dirty dog! You devil's face!** 
 
 The child began shrieking. Seizing Zu Vin- 
 cenzu's stick, she took Bastianu by the slack of his 
 dust-colored, faded clothes and cast him at our 
 feet in the narrow, cobble-paved way. Gasping, he 
 came back to her side, his dark eyes shining too 
 big by half in his white little face. 
 
 "Why do you make the child cry!" screeched 
 Gna Vanna, throwing back his stick to Zu Vin- 
 cenzu, who sat as usual bent in his chair, his head 
 tied up in a red kerchief, oblivious to everything 
 that went forward. Kissing Bastianu, she gave him 
 a tomato in each hand. 
 
 "The Madonna," she continued, turning to me, 
 "is the Mother; she keeps us beneath her mantle.
 
 JESUS AS DESTROYER 145 
 
 You know, Signurinedda, how a mother is. If a 
 child is bad, she gives him some good slaps, but 
 afterwards she kisses and caresses him. The 
 Madonna is like that with us. But the Lord Jesus, 
 you know, Signurinedda, he is her son, and children 
 have no judgment." 
 
 Zu Vincenzu, rousing himself, retreated to a seat 
 behind the bed, his skin sandals making a scuffing 
 sound as he crossed the cement floor. Gna Vanna 
 made spiteful horns with her fingers behind his 
 back; and then, shucking nuts faster than the best 
 of us, she began telling us between bites a tale of 
 how the Madonna thwarted Jesus. 
 
 The Ashes of the Sheep 
 
 "Once upon a time a boy was minding sheep 
 Vv^hen there appeared a man who said, 'You must 
 give me the best lamb you have.' 
 
 ** 'I can't give it to you,' said the boy shepherd, 
 'because they are not mine ; they are my master's.* 
 
 " 'Then go to your master and tell him there is 
 a gentleman who wants the best sheep there is.' 
 
 " 'Vossia, I can't go/ said the boy, 'because I have 
 to mind my sheep.' 
 
 " 'I'll watch them,' said the man. 
 
 "So the boy went, and the padrone, who thought 
 the man might take all his lambs if he refused one, 
 told the shepherd to bid him take whichever one 
 he liked.
 
 146 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 "The man chose the best of the lambs and gave 
 it to the boy saying, 'Hold it.' The boy took the 
 lamb by its four feet and held it. Then the man 
 said, 'Get me some wood.' 
 
 "The boy picked up what wood he could find and 
 some light stuff for kindlings. Then the man said, 
 'Give me a match.' 
 
 " 'Vossia, I haven't any,' said the boy ; 'I don't 
 carry matches.' 
 
 " 'But you see that you have some ; you do carry 
 matches,' replied the galantomo, nodding towards 
 the boy's pockets. The boy felt in his sacchetti and 
 found matches. Then the man made a great fire 
 and said, pointing to the Iamb, 'Throw it in!' 
 
 "The boy threw the lamb into the fire alive, just 
 as it was, with all its wool." Gna Vanna took off 
 her apron and threw it by its four corners on to 
 the nut sacks, as if it had been the lamb. "Alive 
 with its wool," she repeated, her hooped earrings 
 bobbing, her shining faded eyes expressing the 
 boy's fright and horror. 
 
 "When the lamb was entirely burned, the man 
 took a stick and scattered the ashes. As soon as 
 these were cold he told the boy to sweep them with 
 a brush of leaves. Then he said, 'Give me a hand- 
 kerchief.' 
 
 " 'Vossia,' said the boy, *I haven't any ; I don't 
 carry a handkerchief,* 
 
 ** 'You see that you have one/ answered the man.
 
 JESUS AS DESTROYER 147 
 
 nodding again towards the boy's sacchetti. The 
 boy felt in his pockets and found a handkerchief." 
 
 Gna Vanna pulled up her faded cotton skirt and 
 felt in the bag pocket that hung by its cords from 
 her waist, drawing out a huge kerchief, at which 
 she gazed with all the amazement of the shepherd 
 boy. 
 
 " 'You see that you do carry a handkerchief,' 
 said the man. He made the boy hold it by the 
 four corners while he poured into it all the ashes." 
 
 Gna Vanna's kerchief drooped in the middle 
 with the weight of imaginary ashes, and she held 
 it carefully with both hands, finally knotting to- 
 gether the corners. 
 
 "The gentleman made the boy tie up the bundle, 
 and he said, 'Now you must go to the sea and throw 
 it in.' 
 
 " 'Excellency, I can't go,' said the boy. 'The 
 sea is a long way off, your Excellency. I must 
 mind my sheep.' 
 
 " 'You must go to the sea and throw in the 
 ashes,' repeated the man. 'I'll mind the sheep.* 
 
 "So the boy went. Half way on his journey he 
 met a woman who said to him, 'Where are you 
 going?' 
 
 " 'I am going to the sea,' he answered, 'to throw 
 in this handkerchief with the ashes.* 
 
 "'Where did you get it?' 
 
 ** 'A man gave it to me.' 
 
 " 'Give it to me.'
 
 148 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 "When the woman had looked at the hand- 
 kerchief with the ashes, she said, 'My son! I 
 thought so! At it again!' 
 
 "The woman was the Madonna, though the boy 
 did not know it; and the gentleman was really the 
 Lord Jesus. Because of the sins of man he meant 
 to destroy the world. If the boy had reached the 
 sea, and had thrown in the ashes, the world would 
 have gone in ruins like Messina. But the Madonna 
 took the handkerchief and put it under her arm, 
 hidden by her shawl. 
 
 " 'Because of his sins,' she said, *I take away 
 from man three things, bread, wine and oil ; but let 
 the world stand as it is.' 
 
 "Then she said to the boy, 'Greetings/ and she 
 went away to her own house. 
 
 "The boy said, 'Vossia, give me your blessing,' 
 and he returned to his sheep. 
 
 "When the boy reached the place where the fire 
 had been, the gentleman asked him, 'Did you throw 
 the handkerchief into the sea?' 
 
 "The boy said a woman had taken it away from 
 him. The Lord Jesus knew that it was the Ma- 
 donna, and he said, 'I salute thee ; nothing but that ; 
 I salute thee.' The boy answered, 'Your blessing. 
 Excellency' ; and watched him as he took a step or 
 two away. All at once the man disappeared. The 
 boy went home and lay down on his bed. He died 
 of fright. 
 
 "Children have no judgment," concluded Gna
 
 JESUS AS DESTROYER 149 
 
 Vanna. "The Lord Jesus wishes to unmake the 
 world, but the Madonna does not permit, because 
 she is the Mother. It is true that we are sinners, 
 and that is why we have no food. The Madonna 
 has taken away bread, oil and wine. It does not 
 rain, and there are no crops ; but the Madonna does 
 not allow her son to make an end of us. • 
 
 "Do I say well?" she demanded, tapping her 
 forehead with a long forefinger, and glancing from 
 one to another, confident of approval. 
 
 "Are these things excellent? I have no books, 
 but I have all these things in my head. I know 
 these things, and other people do not know them. 
 The Madonna keeps us tmder her mantle. You 
 agree with me?" 
 
 By this time Bastianu had finished eating, and 
 was crawling under the table to get at a quartara 
 of water. He mishandled the thick earthem jar, 
 which rolled on its side, fortunately without break- 
 ing. "I'll knock you!" shrieked Gna Vanna with 
 a blow of her clenched fist under her chin. 
 
 Scrambling out of her way and out of the way 
 of the running water, Bastianu struck the box under 
 the bed in which sat a hen open-beaked in the heat. 
 With a squawk the fowl flapped out of the box and 
 out of the room. Gna Vanna rose threateningly, 
 but Bastianu had escaped with the hen. 
 
 Cumari Ciccia, the most good-natured woman 
 on the street, had worked at the nuts until glances 
 from Gna Vanna's eyes hinting that she ate too
 
 ISO BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 freely while shelling sent her to her own steps just 
 opposite. From that point she could still talk with 
 us, and now she came back with a pan of greens to 
 pick over for minestra, saying, "I can tell Vossia 
 another story." 
 
 The Old Man and the Bells 
 
 "Once upon a time an old man was digging in a 
 vineyard when there appeared to him a young man 
 who said, 'You must go to the church of the Ma- 
 donna di la Catina to ring the bell.' 
 
 "The old man answered, 'It is far. I have not 
 strength for the climb.' 
 
 "Then the young man, who was the Lord Jesus, 
 replied, 'You have the strength and you have to go.' 
 
 " 'But,' said the old man, 'the church is shut* 
 
 " 'The church is open,* said the young man. 
 
 "The old man carried his zappa to the straw hut 
 where he had left his coat. Then he climbed the 
 mountain side to the church where no one ever goes 
 except in September to the great festa. Vossia has 
 been to the festa? She knows the church, high up 
 above Mongiuffi? The church was open. The old 
 man went in, and began to climb the stairs of the 
 campanile, when there appeared a woman who said, 
 'Good old man, where are you going?' 
 
 " 'To ring the bell. A young man told me I must 
 come to the church to ring the bell. He said the 
 church would be open, and it is open.'
 
 JESUS AS DESTROYER 151 
 
 "The woman was the Madonna. She said to the 
 old man, 'What was the young man like?' 
 
 "The old man told her, and she said, 'It was my 
 son, who wants to sink the world. Go away ! Don't 
 ring the bell.' 
 
 "The old man went down the belfry steps and back 
 to the vineyard. He had just picked up his zappa 
 and was going to work again when the young man 
 appeared a second time, and said, 'Did you ring the 
 bell? I did not hear it' 
 
 " 'I met a woman who told me not to ring.' 
 
 "Then the Lord Jesus said, 'My mother! Must 
 you break my heart again, troubling my plans ?' At 
 once he disappeared. 
 
 "If the old man had rung the bell, the world 
 would have gone down in ruins." 
 
 Donna Ciccia retreated as soon as she had fin- 
 ished, for Gna Vanna took revenge for the almonds 
 by nibbling the tenderest greens. Zu Vincenzu had 
 come back from his corner, and now he suggested, 
 "Vossia, when you go to your own country, you 
 must make known to the learned what we tell you 
 
 here. I myself must " But Gna Vanna and 
 
 the others interrupted the blind old man. 
 
 The idea of a benevolent power and a power for 
 destruction crops out in many directions. Only a 
 few days after the almond-shelling party there came 
 a partial eclipse of the sun. An hour or two after 
 the excitement was over Gna Vanna was snapping 
 green beans when I passed her door, Zu Vincenzu
 
 152 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 helping by shelling beans out of the larger pods. 
 When he had finished a handful he reached them out 
 uncertainly in her direction. 
 
 "Signurinedda, did you see it ?" Gna Vanna called 
 to me, patting the back of an inviting chair. 
 
 Donna Ciccia, Cumari Lucia, who is Gna Vanna's 
 goddaughter, and others of the cronies, dropped 
 their work to come to the doorstep rendezvous. 
 Donna Ciccia's nose and forehead were still 
 blackened from gazing through smoked glass. "All 
 the better it is passed," she said, her dark eyes 
 twinkling good-humoredly. 
 
 Gna Vanna threw the refuse of the beans on a 
 heap of wool flocks inside the door, her thin ani- 
 mated old face brightening at the prospect of an 
 audience. "Yes," she repeated ; "the less harm that 
 it is over, for an eclipse always brings fear." 
 
 "Why?" I queried. 
 
 "Because the sun and the moon are angry with 
 each other; they quarrel, and if the moon should 
 win, it would destroy the world." 
 
 "But the sun always wins," I suggested. 
 
 "Yes," agreed Gna Vanna. "The sun is more 
 powerful. The sun is the Madonna; the moon is 
 her son, the Lord Jesus ; you know that." 
 
 "How do I know that? I don't understand," I 
 said. 
 
 "Certainly Vossia knows that. *God is sun and 
 God is moon.' You remember?"
 
 JESUS AS DESTROYER 153 
 
 I remembered a couplet I had often heard her 
 use in spells against the evil eye. So I quoted: 
 
 ^° God is moon and God is sun ; 
 Work you ill there can no one. 
 
 "That is what you mean?" I questioned. 
 
 "Of course !" she returned triumphantly. "Vossia 
 is convinced? The moon is the young master, the 
 sun is the Madonna. The moon would like to burn 
 the world, but the sun does not permit. To-day the 
 sun, in order not to quarrel with the moon, hid be- 
 hind the clouds. Instead of doing harm, the sun 
 did good, because there came a little rain. The Ma- 
 donna is always kind. She hides us beneath her 
 mantle." 
 
 The neighbors did not contradict her identifica- 
 tions. More or less openly they call her a witch, 
 openly and secretly they have, some more, some less, 
 faith in her knowledge and powers. Cumare Lucia 
 ventured a wish that the Madonna would send rain 
 enough to do some good before the olives dropped 
 off the trees. 
 
 The women drifted away to their own doorstones, 
 and Gna Vanna began to fry peppers for supper. 
 As I rose to go she paused in front of me, fork in 
 hand, to say, "It can't rain; the rain is bound." 
 
 Her pale blue, bright eyes regarding alternately 
 me and the peppers, she told me that certain masters 
 
 ® Ddiu e suli e Ddiu e luna ; 
 Supra di vui nun ci po persuna.
 
 154 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 in charge of work that had been in progress for 
 some months on the raihvay below us at Giardini 
 had tal<en steps before beginning the job to insure 
 good working weather. They had made, she said, 
 five wooden figures of the size of one's hand and 
 had wound them with cords, each cord tied with 
 three, seven, or nine knots. With each knot they 
 pronounced the words, "No rain! No rain! No 
 rain ! Always good weather !" These five pupi they 
 buried on five mountain tops overlooking the town ; 
 on Monte Croce, at the Castle of Taormina, at the 
 Castle of Mola, on Monte Ziretto and on Monte 
 Veneretta. Until these pupi were dug up and the 
 knots untied there could be no rain within the magic 
 circle. Whenever clouds gathered instead of rain 
 there came an evil wind, Farauni, and not more than 
 a few drops fell. 
 
 I do not know into what depths of demonology 
 and magic we might have plunged, if at this minute 
 Cumari Pancrazia, Gna Vanna's daughter-in-law, 
 had not come to show us a photograph she was about 
 to send to her husband, who is in New York. Gna 
 Vanna never talks magic when her daughter-in-law 
 is in the room. She says that Tidda does not under- 
 stand such matters. 
 
 The group picture which Tidda had brought in- 
 cluded likenesses of herself, little Vanna, her 
 daughter, and the two boys, Vincenzinu and Bas- 
 tianu, all painfully clean and fine. She showed me 
 gleefully how she had pulled down her short dress
 
 JESUS AS DESTROYER 155 
 
 under her apron to make it long enough to cover 
 her feet, and called on us to admire the boys' curls. 
 The poor things had not had their heads shaved for 
 the entire summer for the sake of growing those 
 locks. 
 
 "He'll eat it!" she exclaimed, anticipating her 
 husband's pleasure. 
 
 Gna Vanna's face expressed cold disapproval. 
 She said the photographer charged too much. She 
 said that Tidda, who in the picture was shown sit- 
 ting in a high-backed carved chair, looked like San 
 Pancrazio, the black patron saint of the town, in his 
 throne seat above the altar. She said a number of 
 other things which Tidda did not mind in the least, 
 and so we forgot all about the weather and the 
 peppers.
 
 PART II 
 FAIRS AND FESTIVALS
 
 CHAPTER I 
 Christmas 
 
 " Grande Virgo, Mater Christi, 
 Quae per aurem concepisti, 
 Gabriele nuncio. 
 Gaude quia Deo plena 
 Peperisti sine pena 
 Cum pudoris lilio. 
 
 — S. Bonaventura's Hymn. 
 
 "Rain! Rain!" said Carmela, beckoning from 
 her doorway with that gesture of invitation which 
 to the non-Itahan means good-by. The rain, in fact, 
 was coming down so hard that great drops jumped 
 up from the pavement making "campanelli" — little 
 bells. 
 
 Carmela lives in the Cuseni quarter of Taormlna, 
 where the streets are so narrow that its Corpus 
 Domini procession is called "the Lord in a hole." 
 I was bringing Christmas cakes to her smallest 
 brother, so I took shelter hurriedly in the window- 
 less room where three women huddled around the 
 
 ^^ Great Virgin, Mother of Christ, thou who by the ear 
 didst conceive, Gabriel bearing the message! Rejoice because, 
 pregnant with God, thou gavest birth without pain, with the 
 lily of modesty. 
 
 159
 
 i6o BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 "conca" drew their chairs closer together to make 
 room for a fourth pair of feet on its wooden rim. 
 
 "What a storm !" I exclaimed, shivering. 
 
 Even Ninu, Cicciu and Micciu, babies of eight 
 days, six months and sixteen months, who lay on 
 their mothers' knees with the passivity of SiciHan 
 infants accustomed from birth to the cHck of knit- 
 ting-needles, were heavily shawled. 
 
 "But no, Signurinedda !" protested Carmela, put- 
 ting fresh charcoal on the white ashes of the conca. 
 "It's not bad weather. It is only a little passion of 
 the heart; and He is right, because He has made 
 enough of splendor. For ten days what a feast of 
 sunshine !" 
 
 "Yes, but to-day " 
 
 "Signurinedda!" insisted Carmela, her big seri- 
 ous eyes continuing to reprove me. "One must not 
 speak ill of the weather, otherwise He gets annoyed. 
 And the sun, too ; the sun buries himself deeper be- 
 hind the clouds, because He is discouraged." 
 
 Carmela's sister Angelina, looking like a brown, 
 anxious Madonna — in fact like the Madonna Pani- 
 cottu pictured at Catania — was feeding Micciu with 
 bread soaked in hot water. "Where is Babbu?" she 
 demanded of the swaddled youngster, poking and 
 tickling among his interstices, when I inquired for 
 her husband. 
 
 "Babbu is in America ; in America, figghiu beddu ! 
 Tell the Signurinedda Babbu is in America. When 
 is Babbu coming home to Micciu? In two years,
 
 CHRISTMAS i6i 
 
 Micciu, tell the Signurinedda. If Babbu makes a 
 little money, in two years Babbu will come home 
 from America. Will Daddy be glad to see his baby? 
 Yes; Daddy has never seen Micciu at all, but he is 
 very affectionate towards his little pet. Ask the 
 Signurinedda, Micciu, if she sees your presepio 
 most beautiful." 
 
 At mention of a presepio I glanced about the 
 room whose smoke-darkened walls were hung with 
 prints of the royal family of Italy, "coni" — icons — 
 of various saints, and a high-colored poster adver- 
 tising Rhode Island rubber boots. In one corner 
 stood a table whose oilcloth cover was patterned 
 with a big black Brookl3^n Bridge and bordered with 
 heads of Roosevelt and Washington. 
 
 The design of the Bridge, which is common in 
 homes from which Sicilians have emigrated, was 
 almost hidden by a presepio so elaborate that An- 
 gelina was right to be proud of it. Bits of lava, 
 cork cut into ingenious shapes, sand, lichens and 
 green moss had been laid out with the help of a 
 little paint in a miniature landscape, where wandered 
 shepherds with their sheep and herdsmen guarding 
 cattle. 
 
 "If my Christian were here," said Angelina, in- 
 terrupting the lullaby she was singing to Micciu, "he 
 would have made a fountain and a river — Ninna, 
 
 nmna, nmna, nmna- 
 
 Against the wall at the back was a grotto of lava 
 stones arched with ivy, twigs of orange and lemon
 
 i62 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 trees in fruit and branches of the sacred thorn, a 
 buckthorn, of which Christ's crown was woven. In 
 the grotto, for lack of the traditional wax baby in 
 a manger, had been placed a small colored picture 
 of a Madonna and Child together with terracotta 
 figures of Joseph and Mary, an ox, an ass and some 
 goats and chickens. At the mouth of the cave were 
 figures of the Magi and shepherds bringing gifts, all 
 colored in time-hallowed tints of red, dull blue, yel- 
 low and gray. In front of the presepio were set 
 offerings of oranges and lemons, nine snailshells and 
 two toy automobiles loaded with dry pennyroyal. 
 
 For the automobiles Carmela apologized. One 
 knows they are not appropriate to the presepio ; but 
 how does one do? Little Saru, her brother, insisted 
 on using his toys. "He would even have put in a 
 white porcelain pig!" she protested. "A rabbit, 
 now, one might endure, but a pig at the manger !" 
 
 Carmela had freighted the machines with penny- 
 royal because the herb would blossom fresh at mid- 
 night of Christmas Eve, at the very moment when 
 the Babe is bom; provided, of course, she had suc- 
 ceeded in gathering it precisely at midnight of St. 
 John's Eve. The snailshells were nine tiny oil lights 
 for the nine days of the novena, lamps as old as the 
 automobile is new. 
 
 At this point of her explanation entered small 
 Saru himself, and at an ill-timed word about pigs 
 cast himself on his stomach writhing. When I had 
 produced "natalizi," which are twisted Christmas
 
 The Piper
 
 CHRISTMAS 163 
 
 cakes pockmarked with hazelnuts baked in their 
 shells, he discoursed to me tearfully between bites 
 about the terracotta shepherds, pointing out the one 
 that carried a sheep over his shoulder, the one who 
 was offering a basket of curds and the old woman 
 who was bringing chickens, naming one by one 
 traditional figures which have not varied for who 
 knows how many generations of time. He had just 
 reached "chiddu chi suona 'a ciaramedda," he who 
 pipes, when the drone of bagpipes came in at the 
 open door. 
 
 "Gagini," said everyone in the room. 
 
 Presently there appeared in the doorway the old 
 piper who has played the novena in Taormina for 
 thirty years. From morning till night of the nine 
 days before Christmas, Gagini trudges the ill-paved 
 ways between the rows of tiled roofs gray and 
 tumbled, sounding before every one of the fifty or 
 more presepie his shrill pastorale. He brings lentils 
 and figs which smell of the smoky fires of the moun- 
 tains, and receives at the end a few soldi here, a few 
 lire there, to which those good people who are able 
 add macaroni and sausage. 
 
 Gagini is a goatherd. When his brown-black 
 wards patter through the Corso at sunset and sun- 
 rise, and one begs for the milker's last good-measure 
 squeeze into the foaming cup, then he is just a 
 good humored old fellow whom the boys call "hair- 
 feet," because he wears hide sandals ; but at Christ 
 mas, when he fingers the stops and sends out the
 
 i64 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 humming notes of the old pastorale, then comes 
 Gagini's hour of dignity. His father and his 
 father's father played the bagpipes. His son has 
 gone to Argentina ; but, he says, when he dies, some- 
 one will rise up to succeed him, for the shepherds 
 played at the birth of Christ, and so long as the 
 world shall last there must always be those v,^ho 
 pay this devotion. 
 
 When the old piper had taken his stand in front 
 of the snail-shells, and was blowing out his cheeks 
 to begin the droning wail of the first motif, I slipped 
 out of the house; for if one listens, it is to the very 
 end, and then there are the colored leather tassels 
 of the pipes to look at and the four pipes themselves, 
 basso, falsetto, tenore and quarto. The sheepskin 
 of Gagini's bag has darkened till it is almost black. 
 The pipes, too, are dark and old, fashioned of some 
 tough wood like heather. 
 
 But I did not stay, because this was the morning 
 when Gna Angela had promised to tell me a tale of 
 the birth of the Bambineddu as she had heard it 
 from her "antichi." More than once Gna Angela 
 had begun the story for me, but always there had 
 come some woman anxious about the life or health 
 of son or husband in America, for news of whom 
 she must repeat the paternoster of San Giuliano; 
 or we had been interrupted by some shopkeeper 
 begging to have her shop rid of the damage to busi- 
 ness caused by the evil eye of an envious rival. Gna 
 Angela's repute as one who deals with mysterious
 
 CHRISTMAS 1 6s 
 
 powers is such that my friends seldom mention her 
 except as "that one"; but they keep her so busy 
 that I rejoiced in a rainy morning in the hope of 
 finding her at Hberty. 
 
 "That one" lives in the upper, under-the-castle 
 quarter of Taormina, and the walk was windy. By 
 the time I had climbed one of the long flights of 
 steps that connect the upper streets with the Corso, 
 the gale had grown worse. The persistent Sicilian 
 sun shone fitfully, painting the water green, yellow 
 and blue; but puffs of wind, falling perpendicularly 
 from the mountains, drovj into the sea to such a 
 depth that spray rose high like jets from a foun- 
 tain. Looking over the wall in front of the hospice, 
 I saw far out at sea troops of little white water- 
 spouts, like dancing storm spirits, driven towards 
 shore by the wind that came scudding up the coast 
 from Catania. Another minute and it looked as if 
 a wall of water were advancing into the bay of 
 Taormina. 
 
 Gna Angela's bent, tremulous husband stood at 
 his door. The squall carried away his words, but 
 I could see him muttering, "Evil spirits are in the 
 air." Since the Messina earthquake one knows that 
 the spirits of those killed before their time range 
 abroad, seeking entrance into human bodies to com- 
 plete their period of earthly habitation. It is they 
 who bring us bad weather. 
 
 " Vossia !" stammered Zu Paolu, turning towards
 
 1 66 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 me, "a tile might fall on your head ; it's not safe to 
 be out when such a wind is blowing." 
 
 Indoors was Gna Angela, bent as always over the 
 "sciabica" she was netting. Yards of its fine mesh 
 hung over a broken chair. At her side was a 
 "conca," its wooden shell partly burned, its mortar 
 bed holding nothing but ashes. "You here, daugh- 
 ter ! I was not looking for you !" was her surprised 
 greeting. Before kissing hands she wiped her lips 
 carefully. 
 
 While I was shaking off raindrops the church 
 bells and the bells of the clock tower began ringing 
 to drive away storm demons, or, as one says nowa- 
 days, to call the people to prayer against them. 
 
 "Daughter, do you hear?" asked Gna Angela. 
 
 "The bells are tolling 'a penitenza.' " 
 
 "For the greater grief ; there is fear in the town," 
 said Zu Paolu. 
 
 The walls of Gna Angela's room are so grimed 
 with soot that the saints of the many "coni" show 
 but dimly. The battered chest, the bed, the rack 
 holding bottles and a few bowls, the portable stove 
 made of a square Standard Oil tin — every item of 
 furniture had seen long usage. 
 
 The black fury of the storm which awed the two 
 old people made the squalid place more desolate. 
 Gna Angela sat hunched forward in her chair, her 
 lean sinewy figure huddling under its gray shawl. 
 Her lower jaw dropped, showing two or three yel- 
 low fangs. Her gray hair and wrinkled forehead
 
 CHRISTMAS 167 
 
 retreated under her faded kerchief ; even her watery- 
 eyes withdrew deeper into their cavernous sockets. 
 
 When I spoke of Micciu's presepio she plucked up 
 heart to show me her own, which was nothing more 
 than an arch of ivy and myrtle trained over an 
 icon of the Madonna, a little shelf in front being 
 covered with flowers with an orange or two as 
 offerings. 
 
 Then she said, "If one talks it is more better," 
 and haltingly, with many pauses to listen to the 
 rattle of the hail, she began a story of Mary which 
 "my grandmother told me," she said with a wan 
 smile, "when I who now have four twenties and 
 three was a beautiful young girl." 
 
 The tale must have been handed down in rhyme, 
 I think, though Gna Angela gave it to me confusedly 
 in verse and prose. There are many like it cur- 
 rent in Sicily, woven in part, perhaps, out of old 
 monkish versions of the ante-Nicene Gospels, 
 modified by each generation of tellers and listeners ; 
 for a legend changes, but is never lost, say my old 
 friends. 
 
 When "Mariolina" (dear little scamp of a Maria) 
 was a child, she said, and went to school, the mis- 
 tress one afternoon asked all the boys and girls to 
 remember their dreams that night so as to tell them 
 to her next day. In the morning, as soon as the 
 children were assembled, she asked, "Alfieddu, what 
 did you dream?" Alfieddu related his dream. 
 \ Then the teacher asked the same question of Grazia
 
 i68 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 and Carmellinu and Pippinu, and one by one all the 
 boys and girls told her what they had dreamed. 
 Maria's turn came last. When the mistress asked 
 her, "Mariolina, what did you dream.'"' Maria 
 answered: 
 
 "I dreamed of a ray of sunshine that entered my 
 right ear and by my left ear came out again." 
 
 Gna Angela turned towards me, and lifted a 
 gnarled yellow finger touching first the right side of 
 her head and then tracing a course down through 
 her body and up again on the left side to her left 
 ear. "Like this," she said ; "this was the course the 
 sunray had taken." 
 
 The mistress was im.pressed by this dream. She 
 told the children it presaged something strange and 
 important. She said: 
 
 These things are clear; it is no jest; 
 All my books I'll burn; this way is best. 
 
 The mistress made a great fire, and called upon 
 the children to give up their books also. Something 
 so new and portentous was about to happen that 
 books of the old wisdom she had taught them had 
 become useless. Except Maria, all the boys and 
 girls gave her their books. The teacher asked 
 Mariolina among the others if she had burned hers. 
 The little girl was a clever little rogue ; and she an- 
 swered with a play upon words, "c'haiu" ; which 
 might mean, *T have them" or *T have." The mis- 
 tress supposed she had obeyed; but Mariolina kept
 
 CHRISTMAS 169 
 
 her book. She hid It under her shawl, in her arm- 
 pit. 
 
 The teacher told Maria that the dream was a 
 prophecy that she would give birth to a prince or 
 a king; and in fact before long the Bambineddu 
 could be seen in the girl's body, lying visible as it 
 were through the sides of a crystal box. 
 
 About this time Maria's parents and the high- 
 priest and the judicial authorities married her to 
 Giuseppe, a good old man who had a long white 
 beard. Giuseppe had lands and houses in Egypt, 
 and after the marriage he said he must go to his 
 own coimtry to prepare for his wife. He went 
 away and after six months came back again. When 
 the Madonnuzza saw him she said : 
 
 12 You are welcome, 
 Royal husband; 
 
 So long it is that I've not seen you. 
 I cannot think whatever mean you. 
 
 Giuseppe looked at her with all his eyes; he saw 
 she had grown big, and he said with a frown, 
 "Make up my bundle." He had decided to leave 
 her. 
 
 "Why are you going away?" asked the Ma- 
 donuzza. 
 
 "Because you have betrayed me." 
 
 ^2 Si' bomminutu, 
 Me spusu riari; 
 
 E tantu tiempu ca nun hain virutu; 
 Supra di vui nun sacciu chi pinsari.
 
 I70 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 (This is like the Protevangelium of James: "And 
 she was in her sixth month; and, behold, Joseph 
 came back from his building, and entering into his 
 house, he discovered that she was big with child. 
 And he smote his face and threw himself on the 
 ground and wept bitterly.") 
 
 He answered her in hostile wrath, 
 "I go this day to my own hearth; 
 To Egypt's land this hour I'm bound. 
 All my houses I'll raze to the ground." 
 
 But at this point there descended an angel, and 
 said: "Giuseppi, 
 
 Of the mistress have no fear; 
 See, your stick has blossomed here." 
 
 "Understand, daughter?" asked the old woman, 
 speaking as eloquently with long lean hands and 
 gestures of the shoulders and turns of the corded 
 neck as with words "Giuseppi stamped with his 
 stick, and it flowered in his hand." 
 
 Giuseppe saw the miracle, and he exclaimed: 
 
 "Now that I know all, how much and why, 
 I go me not: I stay thee by; 
 Ever I stay beneath thy cloak, 
 Till unto life Messiah is. woke." 
 
 So Giuseppe remained with Maria, and to while 
 away the hours of waiting he took her to green 
 places. She saw dates hanging from the branches
 
 CHRISTMAS I7T 
 
 of a tree, and she begged, "Climb up, dear husband, 
 and get me some." Giuseppi answered: 
 
 "Oh, woe is me ! I'm grown too old !" 
 The sacred palm bowed to the mould; 
 Marie plucked the fruit of the tree; 
 San Giuseppe saw the prodigy. 
 
 Gna Angela's tale went on and on, while her 
 gray old husband, who is, he says, confused in his 
 mind, interrupted and corrected, and now and then 
 opened the door wide enough to let in a wet hen and 
 a gust of rain. At last we came to the point where 
 Maria said: 
 
 "Let us climb up under yonder wall; 
 There is a grotto with a stall. 
 Let us enter, husband dear." 
 The Madonnuzza's time was near. 
 
 San Giuseppe would have swept out the place for 
 Maria, but there was not time; flights of angels de- 
 scended and swept it for him. After the birth the 
 Madonna was afraid, because there were animals in 
 the grotto, and she called to Sant' Anastasia, who 
 happened to pass: 
 
 "Come in ! Come in ! Anastasia dear. 
 Seest thou this mule? Ah, how I fear! 
 Take this my son; keep him thee near." 
 
 Sant' Anastasia had no hands, but she stretched 
 out the stumps of her arms, and when the Madonna
 
 172 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 laid the Bambino upon them, at once hands appeared. 
 She gave the baby to her blind father, who was with 
 her, and when he touched his forehead to the Child's 
 forehead he saw. 
 
 "Understand?" asked Gna Angela again. *'The 
 Bambino made hands for Sant' Anastasia and eyes 
 for her father. All day I sit quite alone and say 
 over to myself these things of God." 
 
 But at this point Zu Paolu announced, "The 
 weather is tired." 
 
 Tired weather is resting, preparatory to fresh 
 activities, so I hurried away in the lull, as confused 
 in mind as he between dim recollections which 
 ranged from the old Egyptian faith that the croco- 
 dile, sacred to our Lady Isis, conceived by the ear 
 when it brought forth Logos, the word; and from 
 that other faith that Buddha's mother was a virgin 
 impregnated by the sun, down to the Sicilian fairy 
 tale in which a king's daughter shut up in a dark 
 tower because a seer had foretold that she should 
 conceive by light, scraped a hole in the wall with 
 a bone, and bore a child to the bright beam that shot 
 through the crevice. 
 
 When I reached home I heard the padrona call- 
 ing, "Three castles and you want more?" So I 
 knew that Mariuccia and Vanni were playing games 
 with hazelnuts. In Sicily nuts take the place of 
 marbles. One uses hazelnuts at Christmas and 
 almonds in August, and the games are the same that 
 were played in ancient Rome and that are played
 
 CHRISTMAS 173 
 
 in America. Four nuts heaped pyramidally make 
 a castle ; at this one pitches a fifth nut, and he who 
 knocks it down wins. 
 
 Luncheon was not ready, so we took a tile out 
 of the dining-room floor, making a ditch to play 
 "a fossetta." For this game you throw eight nuts 
 at once. If an even number go into the ditch, you 
 win and have the right to snap in the others with 
 thumb and finger. If an odd number, you lose and 
 the other player snaps in his nuts. 
 
 There had come for me a box from Palermo, a 
 huge Christmas cake topped with a sugar image of 
 the Bambino surrounded by spiky rays of gold and 
 silver tinsel. After luncheon Vanni earned his 
 share of it by rehearsing the piece he was to speak 
 in church after the midnight mass Christmas morn- 
 ing, explaining the church presepio. He had not 
 yet learned it glibly; but "rough cave," "squalid 
 manger" and "Babe that wept for lack of comforts" 
 came out efifectively. 
 
 I had picked up somewhere a little old hand loom, 
 shaped like a gridiron, and the good-natured 
 padrona tried to teach me to weave braid, while we 
 wore away the hours of a storm Sicilian in its 
 beauty as in violence. Overhead there drifted a 
 gray transparent veil of cloud borne by the wind, 
 and spilling as it flew great hailstones that tore the 
 first white blossoms from the almond trees in the 
 garden and rolled them in drifts on the terrace. The 
 sun burnt hot on the sea, streaking it silver and dark
 
 174 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 blue, except where the waters of the swollen Al- 
 cantara made splashes of gold, brown and gray. 
 Towards mid-afternoon the gale increased, and the 
 bells tolled once more their spell. 
 
 The padrona has almost as many old tales at her 
 tongue's end as has Gna Angela. "Do you know," 
 she asked smiling at my interest, "that three ani- 
 mals on three mountain tops announced the birth 
 of the Bambineddu? First the ox lowed, 'E nas- 
 ciutu lu Redinturi di lu mu-u-u-u-u-nnu ! There is 
 bom the Redeemer of the world !' " She prolonged 
 the Italian "u" to imitate the bellow of an ox. 
 "Then the ass brayed from his hill, 'Un-n-n-n-n-'e ? 
 Where is he ?' and from the third mountain the goat 
 bleated, 'A Be-e-e-e-e-e-tlem.' " 
 
 "Then these animals are blessed?" I suggested, 
 considering the reward of well-doing. 
 
 "But, no, Signora," she returned in surprise; "the 
 ox, yes; because in the grotto it warmed with its 
 sweet breath the Child's napkins. But the ass ate 
 the Child's straw out from under him. And the 
 goat also had no respect for the Child; it walked 
 over him, and for this the goat is accursed; but 
 some say only from the knees down." 
 
 So the day faded and at night Etna wore an 
 aureole of gold. Next morning the streets were 
 littered with broken tiles, but sea and sky had 
 resumed their festival of sunshine. It was the 
 twenty-fourth of December. Over the casino where 
 gathers the "Civil Club" the knotted old bougain-
 
 CHRISTMAS 175/ 
 
 villea vine was in glorious blossom. Hedges of red 
 geraniums warmed the air, and the fields were full 
 of wild iris. 
 
 Towards night a blind ballad-singer, led by his 
 wife, plodded up the old road from Giardini. Up 
 and down the Corso and into the narrowest side 
 streets he wandered, singing to his squeaky violin 
 a Christmas song that is common on the lips of the 
 older cantastorie. In the evening when the Christ- 
 mas fire was lighted in front of the church of Santa 
 Caterina, he was still there, wailing in a cracked 
 voice: 
 
 On the eve of the Birth 
 
 There's rejoicing on earth; 
 
 For the dear Babe was born, 
 
 To sound of drum and horn. 
 
 S. Joseph, the Uttle old man, 
 
 To walk he began; 
 
 With good staff in hand 
 
 A hundred miles he walked the land 
 
 Till a cavern he found, 
 
 Where he swept the ground, 
 
 For snow and rain had fallen there. 
 
 So when came her hour to bear, 
 
 A great lady bore her son, 
 
 Bore a beautiful little one. 
 
 He who passed her did adore; 
 
 What beautiful fruit 't was Mary bore! 
 
 Just before midnight, when the long evening had 
 been whiled away with nuts and cards, the starlit 
 streets were filled with dark figures converging at 
 the Duomo, where before the hour for mass the old
 
 176 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 red marble bench, once the throne of Taormina's 
 Senate, now the rendezvous of unattached boys, re- 
 sounded to swinging heels. 
 
 Mass over and a naked doll Jesus revealed on the 
 altar by the lifting of a napkin, the flood of people 
 streamed towards the Carmine, where a presepio 
 with life-size figures and real hay filled one of the 
 chapels. Vanni's discourse was not audible, for 
 outside the church, as soon as the second mass was 
 finished, red, green and blue lights flared, rockets 
 fizzed, and preparatory to the street procession two 
 brass bands began to flare. The crowd which had 
 come almost to blows with uplifted chairs in its 
 struggle to get in was even more anxious to get out 
 again. At my side the peasant who had turned the 
 wheel of bells to punctuate the mass, scrambled 
 hastily across benches to get his banner, shaking 
 over his head the while the white processional sack 
 of his confraternity. 
 
 Presently through the dark Corso passed the 
 image of the baby Jesus carried by the arciprete and 
 lighted by flaring torches. Before it marched the 
 "concerti musicali," and behind it three men played 
 bag-pipes. Then came men costumed as Magi and 
 shepherds, and after these the people of Taormina, 
 a black mass of muffled figures, cloaked and shawled 
 as if the mercury had said zero, instead of perhaps 
 fifty-five degrees. 
 
 After the masses and the procession, when the 
 fast of the vigilia is over, is the time to eat one's
 
 CHRISTMAS 177 
 
 cake, with more substantial food, unless sleep seems 
 preferable. 
 
 It is at Caltagirone that one should really pass 
 Christmas, where the Bambino cult requires a liv- 
 ing Bambineddu. The little Jesus is chosen by lot 
 from among poor boys about three years old, pre- 
 sented for alms by their parents; but the lot never 
 falls, I am told, on any except a beautiful blond. 
 After the midnight mass Giuseppe and Maria lead 
 the blond Jesus between them from the sacristy to 
 the altar, where the naked mite, sometimes whimper- 
 ing with cold, is exposed for perhaps half an hour.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Troina Fair 
 
 From Messina Roger advanced by Rametta and Centorbi 
 to Troina, a hill-town raised hijjh above the level of the sea 
 within view of the solemn blue-black pyramid of Etna. 
 There he planted a garrison in 1062, two years after his first 
 incursion into the island. — /. A. Symonds, "Sketches and 
 Studies in Soutlicrn Europe." 
 
 Before dawn I peered from my window in 
 Randazzo at the impending mountain. Above a 
 huddle of black old houses Etna loomed dark and 
 clear and calm, a breath of smoke drifting from its 
 vaguely white summit. It would be a good day. 
 
 Coffee had been promised for three o'clock, but 
 when I had groped my way down stairs nothing in 
 the disorderly inn seemed astir except swarms of 
 flies that, disturbed by my candle flame, crawled 
 sluggishly over wine-stained tablecloths, and -then 
 were still again. Stumbling over broken floor-tiles, 
 I prowled in search of a bell. The eating-room was 
 windowless, but as the light flickered along the walls 
 from garish saints to steamship posters it touched 
 a key hanging beside the street door. Despairing of 
 breakfast, I fumbled with bolts and stepped uncer- 
 tainly into the open air. 
 
 178
 
 TROINA FAIR 179 
 
 The stars had hardly begun to pale. The old 
 lava-black city perched high on the Northern slopes 
 of Etna was still asleep ; dreaming, perhaps, of days 
 when beneath its gates Greek and Saracen and Nor- 
 man bloodied the waters of the Simeto and Alcan- 
 tara. Behind Randazzo's walls in Roman times the 
 slave Salvius gathered 40,000 slaves to fight For 
 freedom. Past the church of Santa Maria that rose 
 somber at my right marched Peter of Aragon's bow- 
 men in the days when the Vespers rang the knell of 
 the French in Sicily. Through the dim Corso wind- 
 ing left, Charles the Fifth, Emperor of the World, 
 flaunted his bronzed captains and his laurels won in 
 Africa. 
 
 As I shrank into the doorway out of the path of 
 ghostly processions a voice said, "Signura?" 
 
 A muffled figure detached itself from the house- 
 wall. 
 
 "Silvestro?" I ventured. 
 
 "Signura, it is late. Shall we go?'* 
 
 "Let us go !" I answered, trying to recognize the 
 driver with whom I had covenanted for a three 
 days' trip to Troina, the first Sicilian capital of the 
 Great Count Roger the Norman. 
 
 Two horses attached to a carrozzela shifted their 
 feet sleepily. Silvestro, his long wispy mustache 
 and faded eyes peering at me from under the 
 shawls that wrapped his head and drooping shoul- 
 ders, picked up my bag. I climbed to a seat. The
 
 i8o BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 whip cracked and our wheels were rattHng when 
 behind us there rose a clamor. 
 
 "Silvistru ! The coffee of the Signura !" In the 
 inn doorway, half-clad, shrieked the fat padrona, 
 madly waving a candle. "Blessed little Madonna! 
 Wait! Sil-vis-tru!" 
 
 "Silvistru ! A gut-twisting colic to you !" bawled 
 Pietro, son of the house, shaking back his lock of 
 tow-colored hair as he tilted towards us on gro- 
 tesquely tall heels. 
 
 "By the souls of my dead!" sputtered the old 
 padrone, limping to the carriage-side with coffee pot 
 and drinking bowl. 
 
 In spite of Silvestro's muttered "Accidinti ! It 
 is late!" I swallowed a scalding mouthful. Then 
 after hasty farewells we clattered through the tor- 
 tuous Corsp flanked by grim mediseval houses — a 
 stronghold in itself where in troublous times men 
 might bar themselves against all enemies. Suddenly 
 wheeling to the right, we plunged into a black 
 passage. Straining my eyes towards the arches 
 that linked the walls overhead, I was surprised by 
 the stopping of the horses. 
 
 Alighting at a murky doorway, Silvestro picked 
 from the skirts of a woman who came to meet us 
 a mite of a girl whom he lifted to my side. 
 
 "Aita," he ordered, "put on your hat. Aita, blow 
 your nose." 
 
 Silvestro has suggested to me earlier that his 
 wife, who, like himself, came from the Alpine rock
 
 TROINA FAIR i8i 
 
 oi Troma, would like to see again the great yearly- 
 fair which was my excuse for the expedition. A 
 mention of three bimbi too small to stay behind had 
 restrained me from hospitality; but here was one 
 child, and Silvestro had gone indoors. Must I 
 transport the family ? 
 
 "Her name Is Agata?" I asked dubiously. 
 
 "Si, Signora; Aita," returned the mother, trying 
 to adjust a flower-wreathed hat which the child 
 pushed fretfully away from her light stringy hair. 
 
 Before I could question further the lank driver 
 reappeared, cuddling something under his shawls. 
 
 "Let the Signura look !" he swaggered. He held 
 up in the circle of his long arms two almost naked 
 babies. "Let her see how blond they are!" 
 
 "Especially the boy?" I hazarded, glancing fear- 
 fully at the scant yellow hair of the wriggling 
 twins. 
 
 "Gia ! Turriddu is blond as honey. Daddy's big 
 boy!" 
 
 "Turriddu is, in fact, the handsomer," beamed 
 the mother; "but to-day he is ill, he eats nothing. 
 The Signura will excuse that I do not take him, 
 ugly with crying, to Troina? Aita will keep the 
 Signura company." 
 
 Effusively I took leave of the small pale diplo- 
 mat who had let me off with one baby. "Buon 
 divirtimentu !" she called as the horses started. "Be 
 good, Aita." 
 
 "Aita, put on your hat !" repeated Silvestro. "It
 
 i82 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 is late." But the five-year-old snuggled down in the 
 coat I put about her, teasing sleepily, "Papa, buy me 
 a doll?" 
 
 As we passed West out of Randazzo, Mongibello 
 rose South of us, green and black against the 
 whitening sky, the snow that still streaked its shoul- 
 ders contrasting harshly with sooty fingers of lava. 
 In the East filaments of dawn clouds floated; and, 
 while I watched, the mountain top blushed saffron. 
 In an instant the fairy glow had vanished; and, 
 shut away from us by rugged heights, the sun had 
 risen from the Calabrian hills. 
 
 We were following up the Alcantara between 
 Etna and a scrap of rock that dropped abruptly to 
 the river, beyond whose high valley we looked 
 North to the foothills of the Peloritan mountains, 
 mottled dark with oaks and the vivid green of 
 wheat. Behind us Randazzo on its seat of ancient 
 lava overhung the cliff, the Norman tower of San 
 Martino thrusting up above the black houses. 
 
 Along the lonely road we passed now and again 
 dark hooded figures hunched over slow-stepping 
 mules. Huddled in a rough cappotto worn like a 
 burnoose, its hood pulled over the forehead, its 
 sleeves hanging empty, gun on his shoulder or slung 
 at his back, man after man turned towards us a 
 lean, leathery face with high cheekbones and keen, 
 suspicious eyes. 
 
 Leaving the river, we held Southwest across a 
 wilderness of lava that lay as grim in the early light
 
 TROINA FAIR 183 
 
 as when centuries ago it crunched and hissed down 
 from a spent crater above our heads, one of the 
 two hundred "sons" that sprout from the sides of 
 Etna. Hardly had we entered this waste, sar- 
 donically gay with flame-colored lichens, when the 
 air was filled with bleatings. Bunched beside the 
 road in an amazing hamlet we came upon black pens 
 roughly piled of slag and clinkers. Of the shep- 
 herds' huts beside these grimy folds a few were 
 roofed with new red tiles but the most were caves 
 supplied by bubbles in the lava. 
 
 "Licotta!" lisped Aita, struggling to a sitting 
 position. 
 
 "Ricotta? Sure! What says the Signora?" 
 asked Silvestro, twisting his bent shoulders towards 
 me. *'Zu Puddu!" he shouted, _ as in a yard where 
 steaming kettles spoke of cheese-making there 
 started up a dwarfish old man. 
 
 "Don Silvistru!" returned the other. 
 
 Agile as a lizard the shepherd came towards us, 
 his little black eyes lively with curiosity. Behind 
 him raced swart children and from a hovel peeped 
 a bare-legged woman. "Ricotta?" she echoed. "I 
 myself strained the milk through fern leaves and 
 stirred it with wild olive twigs." Her great ear- 
 rings shook as she trotted to the carriage-side, fetch- 
 ing a wooden bowl full of curds made from "re- 
 cooked" whey. 
 
 While we ate Zu Puddu questioned, "Is it true 
 that in the land of the Signura they do not know
 
 1 84 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 ricotta?" His face puckered with wonder. "When 
 the cheese is made the 'Murricani throw away the 
 whey?" 
 
 After breakfast our road forked, one branch veer- 
 ing South towards Bronte, home of the thunder 
 god, and the other, which we followed, West across 
 the mountain-surrounded valley from which issue 
 both the Simeto and the Alcantara. Running sea- 
 ward, one West and South of Etna, the other North 
 of it, the rivers enclose the mountain, opening high- 
 ways which Sicanians, Siculians, Phoenicians, 
 Greeks, Carthagenians — every race that has known 
 Sicily — ^has followed between the coasi and the in- 
 terior of the island. 
 
 The land was blotched with lava. On its North- 
 ern face Mongibello's black glaciers sprawl until 
 they strike the Peloritan rocks and the hills of 
 Cesaro and Centorbi backed against the Nebrodeans. 
 One minute we were passing green waves of wheat 
 or fave, the mouth-filling broad bean; the next we 
 were crossing an old lava flow, whose slowly 
 crumbling substance lay here in hummocks and 
 there in pools wrinkled like molasses. Here molten 
 stone had tossed in inky surf and there it had broken 
 over some obstacle in mud-colored rapids of coke 
 and clinkers. 
 
 From crevices of the rock grew mullein stalks 
 and sunburnt weeds. Dwarfed and twisted cactus 
 wrestled for existence. Over the road hovered 
 sulphur-yellow butterflies. Once or twice we started
 
 TROINA FAIR 185 
 
 quail. We met a begging friar riding a mule whose 
 saddle-bags bulged. 
 
 "Beetle!" spat Silvestro, making the sign of the 
 horns. 
 
 The enormous straw hat above the brown habit 
 did not turn. The fingering of the rosary went on 
 as mechanically as the plodding of the mule. 
 
 It was the first day of June and the sunrays 
 began to prick. A light scirocco was stirring, the 
 cloudless sky looked pale. Etna had hidden his 
 oaks and chestnuts, his yellow splashes of genestra 
 and his stretching lava fingers behind blue aerial 
 veils. Quivering in the distances ahead of us blue 
 and white dream castles seemed to float on clouds. 
 Silvestro named them — Agira, where Diodorus 
 Siculus was born, though Silvestro knew him not, 
 and where S. Filippo cast out devils; Centuripe on 
 its hundred rocks and lofty Trcina. 
 
 "It makes hot," fretted Aita. 
 
 She twisted herself out of her wraps and dis- 
 closed an odd little figure in a soiled blue dress. Red 
 strings tied up greenish stockings. 
 
 "Put it on, Aita!" bade Silvestro; but the mite, 
 instead of complying, dropped at her feet the dis- 
 tasteful hat. 
 
 "Aita is wild," pursued Silvestro. "Not that I 
 hold with hats ; chinicchi-nacchi !" he added. "But 
 let one woman bring home fantastic gear from 
 America, every skirt in town goes mad for it." He 
 shrugged his shoulders, exposing patched, sun-faded
 
 i86 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 raiment, far from fantastic. "Aita, blow your 
 nose !" 
 
 We had crossed the dry bed of the Flascio and 
 had come to a succession of no-trespassing signs 
 that read, "Duca di Bronte; Private Street." 
 **Duca di Bronte; Hunting Forbidden." North of 
 us lay the vast feud, once of the Abbots of Maniace, 
 which Ferdinand IV gave to Nelson, rewarding with 
 a dukedom the Admiral's betrayal of the Republic 
 of Naples. 
 
 The strawberry-leaved notices marked more than 
 the "too fine compliment." "La Nave," the lava 
 stream that flooded the valley, lay desert as far as 
 our road, but across it on the Duke's side shimmered 
 waist-high wheat. As we drew under the wooden 
 ridges that shut the valley to the North Silvestro 
 prattled of the Duke's rich lands, of his olives, his 
 vines and his strange machines. So we reached the 
 crossways where the road from Bronte, traversing 
 the "Ship," cuts the highway before climbing to the 
 nook in the hills where lies Nelson's castle. 
 
 The plain of the "sconfitta," Silvestro to my de- 
 light called the region; for after a thousand years 
 daily speech still records the rout to which in 1040 
 Georges Maniaces here put 60,000 Saracens. The 
 Greek was besieging Moslem Siracusa when Abd 
 Allah's hosts poured down from beyond Etna to our 
 plain, not yet blackened by La Nave, whence he 
 could reach the sea. Taken thus behind, Maniaces 
 led his Norse and his Russians, his Asiatics, his
 
 TROINA FAIR 187 
 
 Italians and his Norman knights up by the Simeto. 
 He camped near wood and water, and the spot has 
 never lost his name. Abd Allah sowed the ground 
 with caltrops, but Maniaces attacked with a wind 
 that drove with him and, despite the iron barbs his 
 cavalry "reaped" the Saracens. 
 
 We crossed the Simeto and began to crawl up the 
 interminable windings of the hills down which came 
 Abd Allah and, later, a greater than his conqueror 
 — Roger, son of Tancred, who added Sicily to the 
 domains of the Normans. 
 
 It was a confusion of mountains that we entered, 
 mountains that rode one another's backs. Aside 
 from the red-painted stations of the road-menders, 
 there were few houses, fewer trees. The sun was 
 blinding on the white ribbon of the road. The 
 baked soil opened in drought fissures. 
 
 As we climbed past thirsty wheat and fave, the 
 horses, gray with white feet, like those Goethe saw 
 in Sicily, stopped to breathe ; and from a close above 
 the roadway limped down a gray man wrinkled 
 like a baked apple. Eyeing us curiously, he piled 
 my lap with scalora, refusing payment with head 
 and hands as well as voice that squeaked, "The 
 owner, it is I!" But when Silvestro priced arti- 
 chokes, fearing Troina's high cost of festa, our 
 owner, turning merchant, turned miser. Ten 
 minutes he haggled before the horses' water basin 
 was heaped with them. 
 
 As we crept up zigzag after zigzag Aita nibbled
 
 i88 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 the straight green lettuce. High above us Cesaro 
 showed at moments, a gray mass above a gray 
 mountain. In the hot sky to the left quivered 
 Troina. Silvestro bargained with a gunner for a 
 quail to make broth "for Turriddu, who eats 
 nothing." 
 
 After we had broken fast on bread and eggs at 
 a roadside locanda, wayfaring in the noonday heat 
 grew slower. The sun beat on lonely pasture coun- 
 try where the silence was broken only by the wail- 
 ing song of laborers stacking scant hay. On rocky 
 hillslopes stretched sheepfolds defended by the 
 thorny spina santa. Conical thatched huts rose near 
 them, the shepherds' shelters. 
 
 At last the road twisted downward, grazing 
 precipices, looping over ridges, dipping into hol- 
 lows. Below us lay the valley of the Troina River, 
 a green streak in a gray desert. Under naked banks 
 cattle cooled their feet in the trickle of water. Be- 
 yond the river we crept for an hour up dizzy shelves 
 of the mountainside, catching glimpses now of the 
 depths below, now of the eagles' perch above. The 
 gray tufa blocks of which it is built mortised 
 squarely into its tufa clififs, house above house, 
 street above street, Roger's city sits its mountain 
 ridge as If astride a saw. 
 
 Reaching wearily the tumble-down Cenobio of 
 S. Basilio, we skirted the slope where the greatest 
 animal fair of Sicily would open at gunfire, and 
 woimd along under the far side of the town; for
 
 TROINA FAIR 189 
 
 no road attacks the ancient citadel except cautiously, 
 from behind. Was it to this same gate, I wondered, 
 that Roger led his freebooters when, plundering 
 Sicily twenty-two years after Maniaces, he threat- 
 ened Greek Troina; and its Christian people, still 
 free from the Moslem on their rock in the wild Val 
 Demone, opened to the blond Norman horse thief 
 and welcomed him with crosses and swinging cen- 
 sers as a protector against the Saracens. 
 
 Inside the gate Silvestro pulled up at a squalid 
 locanda provided, he assured me, with "all the con- 
 veniences of English usage. Put on your hat, 
 spoiled child !" he railed cheerfully at Aita as a knot 
 of acquaintances started towards him. 
 
 The Stella's fat little asthmatic padrone led me 
 into a dark passage that ran through the inn and 
 opened one of a procession of low doors. 
 
 "What pleases you?" he panted amiably. "Shall 
 Silvistru unharness?" 
 
 The grimy walls once whitewashed and the dirty 
 floor to which I was introduced did not please me 
 twenty francs' worth, that being the room's price 
 per night; but, explained my host, in June God 
 gives Troina the providence of the fair. When 
 Uncle January should send snow to stop travel, my 
 excellency might stay the night for a lira. Besides, 
 his wife was giving me her own room. 
 
 His wife had already fetched a petroleum tin 
 full of water, drops of which made mud on the 
 bricks. Mumbling that the servant creature was
 
 igo BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 out, she produced soap and a broken comb. She 
 uncurled a mountainous roll of mattress at the 
 foot of a bed, spreading it on boards that rested 
 on iron horses. From a deep chest she took home- 
 spun linen and a blue spread figured with red, 
 trumpet-blowing angels. 
 
 While she examined my hat and dusty clothing, 
 fingered my watch and flattered as "blond" my 
 tanned skin, I tripped over everything I tried to say, 
 fascinated by the erratic motions of my hostess' 
 one tooth and by her straining eyebrows, dragged 
 up from the yellow parchment of her face by a 
 sinfully tight knot of hair. 
 
 .Before I had detailed, as in duty bound, my per- 
 sonal history and excused the absence of other 
 members of my family, Silvestro returned alone, 
 having shifted to a sister the job of getting Aita's 
 hat on. With him as guide I abandoned my "Eng- 
 lish comforts" for the narrow street, where push- 
 carts and benches, ropes of sparta grass and forks 
 for thrashing, sickles and "ingeneri," which are 
 wooden angles for holding grain in reaping, 
 awaited the opening of the fair. 
 
 A foxskin hung beside a door, hinting at wild 
 country; but as we climbed the Corso Ruggiero I 
 saw little, aside from crumbling walls bare of 
 windows and balconies and grimly eloquent of win- 
 ter, of such individuality as marks Castrogiovanni 
 and other mountain strongholds. 
 
 At the top of the town, 5,600 feet above the sea,
 
 TROINA FAIR ^pi 
 
 we came to Roger's cathedral, built beside his castle 
 by masons whom the Great Count brought from "all 
 parts soever." Rebuilt except its belfry, it covers 
 now the castle ruins. Above its high altar sat en- 
 throned, not Mary, patron saint of the devout 
 marauder, but S. Silvestro, a monk who worked 
 marvels in Troina in Roger's day, and who for 
 centuries has been Troina's patron. His festa it was 
 that the great fair honored. 
 
 I had barely a glimpse of his silvery robes and 
 the silver vara on which he takes his outings, and 
 of the brown old pictures in the sacristy of Roger 
 and his brother-in-law Robert, first Norman bis- 
 hop of Troina; for it was four o'clock, the hour of 
 gunfire. Down a narrow way on the east side of 
 the town Silvestro rushed me to a rock shelf de- 
 fended by a parapet directly above the uneven 
 stretch of rolling hillside called the "plain" of the 
 fair. 
 
 Seldom has fairground a more grandiose setting. 
 Over a world of mountains our isolated peak stood 
 guard, watching the passes in the valleys. Far be- 
 low us the Troina River joined the Simeto. Be- 
 yond Cesaro rose naked hills, ridge above ridge; 
 sunburnt lands of wheat and pasture. Almost in 
 front, under a rain of light and shadow dropped by 
 the sun through motionless clouds, dimly visible 
 through the scirocco, loomed Etna, and beyond it 
 something hinted the sea. 
 
 A shot rang out and the empty plain was black
 
 192 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 with cattle. From everywhere and from nowhere 
 trampling droves covered the hillslope; rushing 
 from this side, that side, meeting, passing, losing 
 themselves in swirling maelstroms, each stream of 
 horns or tossing heads driving hard towards its own 
 goal. 
 
 "What a sight !" shouted Silvestro. "They shoot, 
 and gone is the grass!" 
 
 The grass had vanished under the hoofs of horses 
 and mules, bulls and cows which milled so thick 
 "one could not drop a grain of wheat between 
 them!" And this, Silvestro boasted, was only the 
 prelude! A fine show, yes, but nothing to the fair 
 next day. 
 
 "From as far away as Calabria/' he gloated, 
 "come beasts to Troina I" 
 
 After the confusion of harried animals had sub- 
 sided I scrambled down to the plain. Men and 
 beasts were settling themselves on hummocks and 
 in hollows; the herdsmen in taciturn groups lean- 
 ing on goadsticks — black as Moors they were, with 
 high cheekbones and wild, not unkindly faces; the 
 cattle snuffing the grass that had grown three 
 months uncut to give them forage. A path was al- 
 ready trodden to a fountain behind the Stella, and 
 boys all patches and beady eyes were fetching water. 
 
 As I ventured among the horses, few of which 
 were hobbled or tethered, I caught gloomy phrases 
 about a "cold fair." With its bustle and its huge- 
 ness the fair looked far from "cold"; but perhaps
 
 TROINA FAIR 193 
 
 neither the booted and spurred signorl who cantered 
 their mounts up and down, inspecting the better 
 nags, nor their retinues of velveteen-clad guards, 
 whose guns slapped about on their backs as they slid 
 to the ground to Hft a foot or wrench open a mouth, 
 had warmed up to Silvestro's enthusiasm. 
 
 More attractive than the rather commonplace 
 horses were the thousands of big sleek mules. With 
 their handsome "basti," their gay long-tasseled 
 saddle-cloths and saddle-bags decked with red wool 
 and embroidered with scrolls and arabesques, saints 
 and animals, the mules were the stars of the fair. 
 The rough-coated colts and young mules, fifty or a 
 hundred to the bunch, were too restless to visit ; but 
 the ugly, awkward little donkeys submitted to be 
 looked at, as did the tall red cows with horns a yard 
 long, the very cattle of Helios hunted by the com- 
 panions of Ulysses. On the outskirts sulked hud- 
 dles of sheep with noses to the ground; intruders 
 they felt themselves in the great fair of the "pelle 
 rosse" — red-skinned bovines and the horse kind. 
 
 The collars of the bell-cows, which I had come to 
 see, proved sadly crude and uninteresting; though 
 patience found me a few carved and painted in the 
 old manner with saints and Madonnas, double- 
 headed eagles, bandits, carabinieri and their train. 
 
 Two girls whose orange-colored kerchiefs and 
 huge earrings caught my eye were tending a cow 
 as big as an ox which at my approach turned its 
 neck stiffly in a tight wooden yoke covered with
 
 194 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 figures. On one side St. George in red spiked a 
 green dragon, on top was a crucifix and on the other 
 side a swarm of beseeching Souls in Purgatory. 
 
 "How are you, Excellency?" asked the younger 
 girl, adding in Mulberry Street English, "Wat-a 
 you do 'ere?" Laughing, she hid her face in her 
 apron. 
 
 We laughed together as a hot-air balloon in the 
 shape of a horse drifted over the fairground from 
 the heights of the city. There followed a swollen, 
 unwieldy cow and a menagerie of other animals, 
 some of which, taking fire, blazed merrily. 
 
 As the air grew dusk and I climbed towards the 
 Stella, cloaked and hooded figures, silhouetted 
 against the sky as they galloped along a rise of the 
 hill, seemed to shift the scene to a camp of 
 Bedouins. 
 
 "What would your Ladyship like for supper?" 
 was my landlady's greeting. 
 
 "What is there?" I retorted. 
 
 "Bread, wine and sleep." 
 
 The humorous old padrone rested her head on 
 her hand, feigning slumber. 
 
 "Bread and wine," I agreed; "but no sleep till 
 after S. Silvestro's procession." 
 
 Doubling a sheet over a greasy pine table, she 
 fetched in addition to bread some hard sausage, 
 very salt, and a plate of faviana, green beans. 
 
 Before I had eaten, Aita was at the door with 
 Silvestro; Aita washed and dressed in white and
 
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 TROINA FAIR 195 
 
 wearing her flower-wreathed hat. She carried a doll, 
 she was eating "torone" and Silvestro wanted 
 money. He had a toothache, he said, and in fair- 
 time no dentist would look at him for less than ten 
 francs. 
 
 "Doll," teased Aita ; "my doll." She twitched my 
 skirt with sticky fingers, holding up the doll. Of 
 course Silvestro needed money. 
 
 Going out into the warm darkness, we met Aita's 
 aunt and cousins near the cathedral — the title lasts, 
 though the Great Count himself who built it trans- 
 ferred the bishopric to Messina. With chairs which 
 the party carried we sat blocking the street in com- 
 fort until in the distance rose frenzied "evvivas." 
 From S. Silvestro's own church below the paese 
 half of the city was upon us, following his relics to 
 the cathedral. 
 
 With flare of rockets and deafening drumbeat 
 there approached a host of torches lighting up the 
 long white sacks and black mantles of a confra- 
 ternita that followed. Candles flickered over 
 bronzed faces that looked out from under turbans 
 whose white flowing ends drooped to the shoulders 
 and rolled behind the back into a queue. Other 
 drums and a phalanx of torches led a second con- 
 fraternita with red mantles, and then a riot of 
 shouts heralded a third whose color was blue. Last 
 of all passed priests and friars escorting the Euchar- 
 ist and the silver image that holds a bone of the 
 saint's skull. As the torches moved, flaming, up the
 
 196 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 high steps of the cathedral, rockets flashed skyward, 
 and from stands above our heads there broke out 
 crashing music. 
 
 Between blare and bang Aita fretted, and her 
 aunt told shivery tales of S. Silvestro's tomb. Sunk 
 below an altar of his church, it rises. "Half an 
 inch," she said, "since last year. Something will 
 happen !" 
 
 And something happened. Silvestro said that 
 next day we should see neither an "Intrillazzata" 
 nor a Cavalcade. 
 
 Though he is but a second class thaumaturge, 
 with little more to boast than that he healed a king's 
 son and rode his stick to Catania and back in a day, 
 and that a falcon and a flame revealed his burial 
 place, lost for centuries, S. Silvestro's festa has 
 been honored by spectacles that might stir the jeal- 
 ous wrath of many a greater saint. 
 
 He had a miracle play; has it yet, sometimes; 
 and against hope I had hoped to see black-robed 
 Lucifer in his priest's hat and the angels and God 
 himself who figure in the "sacra rappresentazione," 
 now legend, now Bible story; for as time goes on 
 and towns spend less and less on festas, Troina's 
 miracle play, seldom put on paper — for peasant 
 poets who cannot write give out their rhymes by 
 word of mouth to peasant actors who cannot read 
 — may soon become a memory. 
 
 If the Sindaco is generous or his own income 
 permits, S. Silvestro holds a Cavalcata, when
 
 TROINA FAIR 197 
 
 Roger's knights spur shining steeds through 
 Roger's Corso. In Scicli, for the Madonna of the 
 MiHtia the Great Count still struggles, festa after 
 festa, with the Saracen; and so at Aidone. But 
 Troina, Norman capital, celebrates Norman victory. 
 
 In Troina Ruggiero stood that hungry siege 
 when he and his newly wedded Eremberga shared 
 a single cloak. Once his horse was killed under 
 him when he had sallied from the gate ; but, swing- 
 ing his sword in gleaming circles, he dragged off 
 bridle and saddle — so, grown old and garrulous, he 
 used to boast to worshiping Malaterra — shoul- 
 dered the harness and hewed a bloody way back to 
 the walls. In the fight above Cerami St. George on 
 a white charger scattered with his gold-tipped spear 
 50,000 paynim, and the Norman handful, trium- 
 phant, gloried in the miracle. 
 
 And so for S. Silvestro, who saw that fighting, 
 his devotees, when there is money, don helm and 
 spear like those of the warriors painted on the carts, 
 and in guise of paladins they prance and curvet 
 now rising in their stirrups, now leaning from the 
 saddle, to divide to ladies at their windows and to 
 the mob the flowers and confetti carried by their 
 squires — spoils of the vanquished dogs of Mussul- 
 mans. 
 
 "Quintals of sweets it takes," explained Sil- 
 vestro, "Not every year can we see a Cavalcade!" 
 
 "In the old days they gave chickens," sighed 
 Aita's aunt.
 
 198 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 That night when braying mules and trampling 
 horses murdered sleep I vowed to ignore next year 
 such modern things as miracle play or strife of 
 Cross and Crescent, and to reach Troina a week be- 
 fore the festa to see an ancient function whose 
 roots are deep so that it fails not — the bringing of 
 the laurel. 
 
 When Apollo re-entered. Delphi after he had killed 
 Python he wore laurel plucked in Tempe to guard 
 him from avenging ghosts. And every eighth year 
 thereafter throughout the old years a Delphian lad 
 burned a mimic dragon's den, and fled, blood-guilty, 
 to Tempe and the purifying laurel, bringing 
 branches home with pomp and music before the 
 Pythian games to crown the victors. 
 
 And every spring to-day Troina men go out to 
 fetch the laurel, wandering for days, for there is 
 no Tempe near. On Sunday two weeks before the 
 festa hundreds who went on foot return in pro- 
 cession, crowned with the sacred leaves. Seven days 
 later the hundreds who went on horseback clatter 
 home, firing guns as they approach to call Troina 
 to the parapets. Gay with boughs and ribbon, the 
 Cavalcata d'Addauru, spurring to the cathedral, 
 casts sprigs of laurel at it, keeping the rest, blessed 
 and blessing, throughout the year. 
 
 Next morning the "A-a-a-h! A-a-a-h!" of don- 
 key boys waked me before sunrise. In the court- 
 yard under my window horses were being put to an 
 ante-diluvian stage named in tall letters "Automo-
 
 TROINA FAIR 199 
 
 bile." Slipping out of doors behind pattering asses 
 buried to the ears in hay, I followed to the fair 
 ground. 
 
 The encampment on the plain looked chill and 
 sluggish. The black masses of cattle chewed in- 
 differently at the red-flowered sudda in their forage. 
 The men stood in silent groups, rigid, motionless. 
 Each had his "scappularu" buttoned across his 
 chest, or one end of the long cape was flung over 
 the opposite shoulder. Hoods were pulled forward 
 over dark wild faces. Men of tougher fiber they 
 looked than the people of towns. 
 
 Breakfast was in progress. Against heaps of 
 saddles sat cowherds and horseboys, the skin san- 
 dals that covered their feet sticking out straight in 
 front of them, hacking chunks of bread with their 
 American knives from the round loaves which they 
 pulled, together with cheese and onions, from their 
 saddlebags, and drinking from wooden bottles 
 hooped like casks. 
 
 I found one of my cowgirls of the day before 
 muffled in a black shawl, an end of which was 
 drawn across her mouth. An old woman had joined 
 her, and the two, cushioned on mounds of clover, 
 were munching bread. Presently the other sister ap- 
 peared balancing a tin of water on her head, lead- 
 ing the big cow at the end of a rope and knitting. 
 
 The scene was as yesterday, the light brilliant 
 upon the wonderful circle of mountains presaging 
 heat. Boys were passing up and down with water
 
 200 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 flasks; animals drank at the great fountain. The 
 women with cows wore enormous earrings and 
 faded gowns of print. The sheep huddled together, 
 faces toward the ground. 
 
 At eleven o'clock we lunch on bread, eggs and 
 wine, and start. Aita's white dress is soiled, but she 
 still has the medal, Silvestro, who has paid five lire 
 to have his offending tooth drawn, is tired and 
 cross. The fair in the street is now lively; sheep 
 are roasting; unidentifiable meats are frying; there 
 is noisy sale of small necessaries, sickles, sparta 
 grass ropes, three-tined hay-forks, pots, pans and 
 the like, A relative of Silvestro going down to 
 Linguaglossa ambles beside us on muleback; later 
 he is to leave his mule at home and ride with us. 
 We are all sleepy, even the horses; but Silvestro's 
 young relative scrutinizes every bunch of cows or 
 flock of sheep we pass, and asks what they cost at 
 the fair. 
 
 White, winding, shadeless road; browned fields; 
 brown, bare mountain slopes, the farther hills in 
 summer haze — down again to Fiume di Troina, 
 which helps make the Simeto; it is nearly three 
 o'clock when we make the beetling crag of Cesaro, 
 our first goal, where we eat again bread, eggs and 
 a handful of green fave, washed down with wine, 
 and are off. 
 
 Near a country house the family — two boys, 
 three or four girls and the mother — are furbishing 
 up a "cona" of San Calogero for his festa, which
 
 TROINA FAIR 201 
 
 is due at Cesaro, June 18, a great fair. The shrine 
 is of the usual wayside sort, a miniature chapel with 
 cross on top, figure of the saint in a niche and a little 
 shelf for oil and flowers. The girls have white- 
 washed it inside and out, and are now putting on 
 stenciled decorations. At each side of the front 
 wall a girl has put a yellow flower pot with yellow 
 plant; she is adding a large full-blown blue flower. 
 Her stencil pattern is cut out of brown paper; she 
 holds it with one hand against the white wall and 
 dabs paint with the other. It takes her only a min- 
 ute or two to blue-flower both walls. Silvestro 
 asks if they light up the saint all the year round, 
 and they reply, only at the time of the festa. He 
 tells them that if they leave Calogero in the dark 
 all the year except at festa they cannot expect him 
 to do much for them. 
 
 We chat with the girls while the boys climb up 
 into the fields above to cut artichokes for us. Sil- 
 vestro haggles to get four for a soldo, but he has 
 to give a trifle extra. 
 
 Looking back on the way to Randazzo, Tro- 
 ina's low black houses in the distance seem like nests 
 of birds or the lair of beasts of prey. The men talk 
 about animals while Aita sleeps, nodding when her 
 father scolds her because she drops her sweets, or 
 doesn't blow her nose often enough, or will not 
 wear her hat. We pass a big plantation of f ave and 
 Silvestro says we can gather there, as it belongs to 
 a cousin, and Aita wakes up to eat.
 
 202 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 There is a fine view of Randazzo as we at last 
 draw near, with Etna in the evening light vast and 
 serene; and as we plunge into the streets of the 
 town we find them gayer than is their wont, the 
 long main street especially thronged for the pro- 
 cession of I'Annunziata, the balcony flower pots 
 gay with Bermuda lilies, roses and bright gera- 
 niums. So, consoled for the gayeties we had cut 
 short at Troina, we look for a little at the proces- 
 sion, the torches, the robes of the confraternita, the 
 Madonna and the angel — a grim, dark face under 
 a white head-cloth — until sleep has its will of the 
 weary.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 Saint Philip the Black 
 
 The expulsion of demons from the bodies of those unhappy 
 persons whom they had been permitted to torment was 
 considered as a signal though ordinary triumph of religion, 
 and is repeatedly alleged by the ancient apologists as the 
 most convincing proof of the truth of Christianity. The 
 awful ceremony was usually performed in a public manner 
 and in the presence of a great number of spectators. — Gib- 
 bon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." 
 
 Calatabiano means "Citadel of Bian," and to 
 this day the gray little town beside the Alcantara 
 huddles under the ruins of the Arab chief's strong- 
 hold. High on the castle hill near the fort's outer 
 wall stands the small mediaeval church of Bian's 
 successor in the protectorate of the neighborhood, 
 San Filippo the Black, the great exorcist of Sicily. 
 
 As well ask who was the forgotten Bian as who 
 was S. Philip the Black. His color tells nothing. 
 San Pancrazio of Taormina, San Calogero of Gir- 
 genti and the Madonna of Tindaro are black. In 
 Sicily, as in other Catholic regions of Europe, black 
 Christs and black Virgins have succeeded to black 
 Isis and the black Venus of Corinth. 
 
 In Calatabiano San Filippo is called "the Syrian." 
 203
 
 204 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Omodei, who lived in Castiglione on Etna In the 
 sixteenth century, says that he came from Constan- 
 tinople into Sicily in the reign of the Emperor Arca- 
 diiis, and drove out the demons that infested the 
 country. Agira, where he died, and Calatabiano 
 have been centers of devotion to him for many hun- 
 dreds of years ; and in other towns of Eastern Sicily 
 he is famed as a liberator of the "possessed" and 
 for the frenzy of his processions. 
 
 It is not more than four or five years, for In- 
 stance, since Sicilians in the United States sent 
 money for a new statue of San Filippo to their 
 home in the mountain village of Limina, where the 
 old one had been broken by many falls. At Limina, 
 when the saint goes out in yearly procession, the 
 contadini who carry the beams at one end of his 
 vara, acting not of their own will but as automatons 
 under his control, push and pull so madly against 
 the tradesmen who carry the beams at the other end 
 that these battering rams are hurled against trees 
 and walls, until not infrequently vara and saint go 
 to the ground. If in the tug of war an outer stair- 
 way or a projecting balcony that encumbers the 
 street is demolished, or the growing crops of an 
 unpopular landlord are trampled, this was San 
 Filippo's will ; his bearers could not help themselves. 
 
 The new American statue remains discreetly In 
 the church. It is still the scarred veteran that in- 
 spires the Dionisiac madness of the procession. 
 
 At Calatabiano the feature of San Filippo's pro-
 
 SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 205 
 
 cession is speed. The "traditional, most rapid, 
 miraculous descent of the simulacrum of the saint 
 from the castle hill in less than five minutes" — to 
 quote from a notice posted annually in near-by vil- 
 lages — draws thousands of spectators. 
 
 Yet at noon of a hot, still eighteenth day of May 
 Calatabiano was drowsing so heavily that if I had 
 not seen a carter bargaining with a cobbler for four 
 pairs of children's white shoes, I might have thought 
 I had mistaken the date of the festa. It is true the 
 descent was not to take place until six o'clock in 
 the evening. 
 
 As I climbed the narrow way that leads between 
 gray wasps' nests of houses plastered against the 
 hill to the mountain path, four children picked 
 themselves up from the powdery soil and followed. 
 There was Nunziata, a tot in a dusty blue dress 
 that came to her heels. From broken stone to broken 
 stone of the precipitous ascent she struggled on, 
 though at times a bobbing head tied up in an orange- 
 colored kerchief was all that we saw of her. There 
 were Saria and Cicciu, wiry creatures, yellow with 
 malaria, who darted ahead in chase of lizards or 
 for the cautious gathering of prickly wild arti- 
 chokes. And there was half-blind Ninu, a waif and 
 a beggar, who paused now and then at one of the 
 rudely painted stations of the cross to pass his hands 
 over the pike of a soldier or the nails in a basket 
 carried by one of the Jews. 
 
 The way was deserted, except for the bees in the
 
 2o6 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 yellow blossoms of the cacti, until half-way up we 
 came to the solitary church of the Madonna del 
 Carmine, where strong brown women were getting 
 in the ecclesiastical hay. "Time of almonds," they 
 said when I asked the date of the Madonna's f esta ; 
 "in the time of ripe almonds." It seemed, that 
 sleepy afternoon, a definite enough reply. 
 
 And so we came to San Filippo's mountain 
 chapel. Here a couple of men were planting rough 
 stone mortars beside the path, and digging out from 
 them the refuse of old charges of powder. No one 
 else was to be seen. 
 
 "Vossia, can you read?" asked Saria, as we 
 turned to the gray little church balanced preca- 
 riously on a shelf of the hillside. 
 
 Her tone was one of simple inquiry, but no 
 sooner had I said "yes" than Ninu and Cicciu 
 abandoned the mortar men, though these had ar- 
 rived at the stage of loading in fresh charges, and 
 cried out with her in chorus, "Can you read this?" 
 pointing eager fingers towards a weather-beaten 
 Greek inscription over the old Byzantine-Norman 
 doorway. 
 
 Without waiting for an answer, they poured out 
 the marvel with which they were bursting: Nobody 
 could read that writing! "Not even the king!" said 
 Cicciu. Saria giggled a little doubtfully at this as- 
 sertion of the king's Incapacity, but the children 
 agreed that the letters made an incantation. If only 
 I could understand it and we could come to the
 
 SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 207 
 
 church again together on Christmas eve and repeat 
 the charm aloud, at midnight precisely, three times 
 without missing a word, the mountain would open 
 and show us heaps and heaps of gold. 
 
 "We could take as much as we wanted," said 
 Saria, cutting away the prickles with Ninu's broken 
 knife from the artichoke she was eating. 
 
 But through the open doorway we caught sight 
 of something more entrancing even than enchanted 
 treasure. San Filippo's vara was in plain sight. The 
 church was not empty. We hurried inside. 
 
 It was still early afternoon. Aside from a droop- 
 ing woman who sat, coughing and exhausted, sur- 
 rounded by two or three villagers, the sacristan 
 and his helpers had the place to themselves. A dusty 
 closet above the high altar was open and the half- 
 length figure of the patron saint of Calatabiano 
 had just been taken down. 
 
 San Filippo is not a pink-cheeked boy doll like 
 Sant' Alfio. He is ebon black; his beard is forked 
 and the whites of his fiery eyes give him such a fear- 
 some look that Nunziata and even Saria shrank 
 when they saw his halo unscrewed and the unwieldy 
 wooden image brought towards the vara which had 
 been placed opposite the door. 
 
 The conveyance on which a saint is taken out of 
 his church in procession varies from a simple bar- 
 row to the towering car of Santa Rosalia of Pa- 
 lermo. San Filippo's vara is a substantial platform, 
 standing on legs and covered by a standing top in
 
 2o8 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 tarnished gilding. It is carried on the shoulders of 
 some thirty men by means of beams run through 
 sockets below its floor, projecting in front and 
 behind. 
 
 When San Filippo had been dusted and screwed 
 to his pedestal under the canopy, the sacristan 
 brought out his holiday vestments. San Filippo's 
 toilet is not elaborate like that of a woman saint — 
 Sant' Agata of Catania wears more jewels than did 
 Isis — but the taking off of his rusty every-day 
 chasuble and the putting on of another shining with 
 gold embroidery, the changing of his stole and 
 maniple and the refitting of his silver halo occupied 
 some time. 
 
 Before the process was complete people had be- 
 gun to arrive, bringing bunches of flowers and 
 young wheat — first fruits — which were tied with 
 red ribbons to the vara. One or two watches, a 
 bracelet and some rings were hung to the saint's up- 
 lifted hand. A woman fastened a hen with red rags 
 to a column, where it dropped as forlorn as the one 
 goose Julian the Apostate saw offered to the Apollo 
 of Daphne in place of hecatombs of fat oxen. The 
 spikes that fenced the four sides of the vara began 
 to blaze with candles. A weeping girl who had 
 climbed the hill in stockinged feet brought a wax 
 torch taller than herself. 
 
 Next to the vara the forlorn woman I had seen 
 on entering the church was the center of interest. 
 The villagers said she came from Messina, and that
 
 SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 209 
 
 since the hour when she was taken from under the 
 ruins of her house after the great earthquake she 
 had been unable to speak until that day. Hour after 
 hour in the bare little church she had mutely im- 
 plored San Filippo, and at last had come the sign of 
 liberation: All her clothes had fallen from her, so 
 that "to see her was a scandal." She had brought 
 new clothes in faith, and the by-standers had re- 
 clothed her piously. Now she could speak. The 
 dumb demon had been expelled. In gratitude for 
 her healing she had licked crosses with her tongue 
 upon the pavement three times across the floor. 
 
 In proof of this first miracle of the festa the peo- 
 ple showed me hanging in a side chapel, the faded 
 shawl and skirt and the broken shoes she had ded- 
 icated. Ghastly white, the poor soul affirmed, 'Tt 
 is true, Signura," 
 
 Men as well as women were coming up the path, 
 among them young contadini in whose holiday at- 
 tire red neckties flamed conspicuous. Two or three 
 of the children were recognized as of those to be 
 honored by carrying San Filippo. 
 
 We climbed to Bian's ruined castle. The children 
 found the one piombatoio that remained above the 
 arched entrance, and put it to its original use, hurl- 
 ing down stones. The nearer hill slopes were 
 planted sparsely with olives and almonds and 
 glowed with yellow broom. To the South heaved 
 up the bulk of Etna, still snow-crowned, its lower 
 slopes dreaming under blue veils of summer haze.
 
 2IO BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 To the West lay the valley of the Alcantara, whose 
 waters have been bloodied age after age by the 
 struggles of race after race — Sicanians, Siculians, 
 Greeks, Carthagenians, Mamertines, Byzantines, 
 Arabs, Normans, Spaniards, French and Germans. 
 To the North rose the mountains of Taormina, and 
 to the East the blue and silver plains of the sea. 
 
 While we lingered in that rapture of light, Saria 
 spied a movement below. 
 
 "Come on!" she cried. "Let us go!" 
 
 San Filippo must be making ready for his exit, 
 for people were swarming out of the church and 
 scurrying down the broken path to avoid the rush 
 of his bearers. We scrambled down ourselves, and 
 mid- way between church and village found half 
 the countryside massed on the abrupt slopes above 
 the dry torrent bed down which for half his course 
 the wild ^ lack saint must come. It had taken us per- 
 haps jfifteen minutes to reach a place of vantage. 
 Cicciu and Saria climbed a rock above the heads of 
 the impatient throng and pulled the rest of us up 
 beside them. Still there was no sign from above; 
 but the wait was not long. At six o'clock exactly 
 the mortars crashed their signal. "Now!" called 
 eager voices. "Now!" 
 
 A minute later roared the multitude! "They're 
 coming !" 
 
 The vara with its thirty bearers came lurching 
 towards us, past us, down into the valley, reeling, 
 rocking, hurling itself in flying leaps, seeming to
 
 SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 211 
 
 hit the earth and rise again, a tremendous human 
 projectile. 
 
 There was a gasping silence; then "Viva San 
 Pilippu!" echoed from every rock of the mountain. 
 Once again the "traditional, most rapid, miraculous 
 descent" of the cannon-ball saint had been made in 
 less than five minutes. At a guess, the precipitous 
 descent is three-quarters of a mile. 
 
 "Fine! Eh, Vossia?" asked Cicciu. "Great! 
 Wasn't it?" 
 
 "A miracle!" I answered. If they reach the foot 
 alive, the greatest miracle San Filippo ever per- 
 formed ! 
 
 We hurried with the crowds to the bottom of the 
 hill, where priests, banners and torches had awaited 
 the vara. The triumphal progress of San Filippo 
 through the village was made with slow pomp, with 
 bands of music blowing horns and clashing cym- 
 bals, with children strewing the way with golden 
 broom flowers and the red petals of geraniums, 
 with confraternita in white sacks, with priests in 
 golden vestments. The setting sun gilded the vara 
 as it moved towards the Matrice, followed by the 
 greater part of the population. 
 
 From the door of the mother church the vara 
 sprang forward with great leaps to the altar and 
 then back to a place in the rear, where the brown 
 young peasants who had vindicated the saint's 
 prowess and their own dropped into chairs, finger- 
 ing bruised shoulders where the vara beams had
 
 212 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 rested, panting, wiping away the sweat that rolled 
 from their foreheads. Five had fallen in mid- 
 course. Broken ribs are not uncommon. 
 
 The vara meanwhile was taken by assault. Men 
 clung to its columns kissing the saint with frenzy. 
 Parents lifted children to kiss him. Women kissed 
 their fingers that had touched his vestments. Cicciu 
 and Saria swarmed up on to the platform and 
 reached down towards Nunziata. 
 
 "Take me ! Take me !" cried the baby, twitching 
 my skirts and speaking for the first time that after- 
 noon. I picked her up, but too late. Men were at 
 work again, unscrewing San Filippo's halo. 
 
 From the vara the black saint was carried to the 
 main altar and set high above us. Below him 
 burned candles rank on rank. In the dim church 
 gleamed and swayed tinsel hangings of many 
 colors. At the chancel rail blazed huge wax torches. 
 
 Next morning Calatabiano awoke to the boom 
 of cannon, the clangor of bells and the drums and 
 brass of parading bands. Even before sunrise, on 
 foot, muleback, in high two-wheeled carts, by early 
 trains, the countryside flocked to the fair that ac- 
 companies every festa, until by nine o'clock the 
 piazza in front of the Matrice and the narrow 
 streets adjoining, the center of a village of less than 
 5000 inhabitants, were packed with many times that 
 number of people. 
 
 The day proved hot, and the sellers of rainbow-
 
 SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 213 
 
 hued ices rent the air with their calls: "Like snow! 
 Like snow! One cent each! Cool as snow!" 
 
 From the copper pans where chick peas were 
 popping came the return challenge of the ciceri men. 
 "Hot! All hot! Hot peas here! Taste! Come and 
 taste! He who has money let him eat! Hot! All 
 hot!" 
 
 From the donkey fair beyond the bridge that 
 crosses the Torrente Sincona rose the braying of 
 asses whose mouths were wrenched open by pros- 
 pective buyers and of mules galloped furiously to 
 show their paces. 
 
 Gay carts were almost as numerous as at the f esta 
 of Sant' Alfio. Mule saddles stuffed with straw 
 and covered with coarse linen were heaped in great 
 piles, each bastu flaming with red flannel scrolls, 
 figures of men and animals and signs against the 
 evil eye. 
 
 Sickles, broad straw hats and stacks of rushes 
 spoke of haying time, of the tying up of vines and 
 of the nearness of the grain harvest. 
 
 In the church mass succeeded mass. At the be- 
 ginning of each function the sacristan, armed with 
 a drum, beat a tattoo at the door in competition 
 with the horn that tooted at one side of the steps 
 over a barrow-load of bright summer muslins — 
 "Five cents a yard, women!" — and the shouts that 
 rose at the other side over the game of feeding the 
 dragon. The dragon was tall and stood on his tail. 
 One tucked into his mouth a ball with flattened
 
 214 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 numbered sides; betting, as it squirmed down 
 through his red and yellow contortions, on which 
 face it would fall at the bottom. 
 
 The church when I entered was a sea of many- 
 colored kerchiefs in tempest. San Filippo's empty 
 vara, where yesterday's flowers were fading, stood 
 forsaken, while men and women elbowed towards 
 a recess at the right of the main altar from which 
 came shrieks and shrill laughter. The hysteric and 
 insane who had been brought to the saint for the 
 casting out of the evil spirits that possessed them 
 had been present in the church during the earlier 
 masses; but now before high mass they were being 
 removed. 
 
 When the sacristy door had shut behind them 
 and quiet was restored I found sitting beside me 
 two dainty little girls who radiated such bliss that 
 I hinted how "simpatici" I thought their new blue 
 dresses. They preened themselves, spreading out 
 pink scarfs and turning up the toes of white shoes; 
 and presently, while San Filippo glared in the 
 candle light and the lean sacristan wormed his per- 
 sistent way between close-set rows of chairs in quest 
 of his lawful soldi, they began to chatter about 
 "Babbu" who had sent the money for all these 
 pretty things. Perhaps I had bought meat of Babbu, 
 since I was " 'Murricana" and he a butcher in New 
 York. Babbu had been gone seven years, but he 
 never forgot new dresses or wax for the day of 
 San Filippo.
 
 SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 215 
 
 They pointed out to me Mamma's wax torch 
 among the many blazing at the rail. More than a 
 meter tall it was, and trimmed with roses and red 
 ribbons. After mass they would help her carry it 
 home, to light in case of illness. The flowers, too, 
 they would save to lay on the bed of a sick person. 
 Next May, perhaps. Mamma would melt on more 
 wax to the torch and lengthen it to offer again. 
 
 "Mamma," who sat beyond the children, looked 
 so uneasy and the sacristy door remained so ob- 
 stinately shut that I abandoned mass in quest of 
 luncheon. The little shops turned for the day into 
 eating-houses put out hard boiled eggs, sheep's-milk 
 cheese and round brown loaves of bread on small 
 stands as signs. The one table was occupied in the 
 room down into which I ventured — its floor of 
 broken bricks was below ground level ; but the stout 
 padrona, whose big hoops of earrings swung with 
 the vigor of her movements, set a plate for me on 
 the shelf of her American sewing machine. 
 At the other end of it seated himself an old "hair- 
 foot" wearing the homespun and the hairy sandals 
 of the mountains. Setting down his stick, engraved 
 by a patient knife with men on horseback and stiff 
 be-aproned ladies, he pulled out a lump of bread 
 and called for two soldi worth of wine. 
 
 Service was rapid, for just inside the street door, 
 not three steps from the table, stood the cookstove. 
 Once it had been a petroleum tin; but wires run 
 through its middle made a fire rack, a vent had
 
 2i6 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 been cut below; and, mounted on the box in which 
 it had traveled from Texas, it seemed on terms of 
 old friendship with the terra cotta cooking pot 
 where simmered a stew of kid and peas. 
 
 At the other side of the door stood the family 
 bed, the mattress of which, rolled up for the day, 
 left half the length of three wide planks as a side- 
 board for bread, lettuce, plates and other nec- 
 essaries. 
 
 The short brown men at the main table, who 
 might have been itinerant venders — the gypsy folk 
 who gather at every fair — had the squinting eyes, 
 the deeply lined faces and the faded dust-gray 
 clothes of men who live under a powerful sun. They 
 ate fast and much, swallowing wine from the carafe 
 and haggling over every soldo. 
 
 "Eat like Christians and pay like Christians !'* ad- 
 monished the padrona, not once but often; for 
 when the first were gone there came others, and yet 
 others like them, so that the padrona went to mar- 
 ket, bringing back yards of white butcher's waste 
 to follow the kid into the pot for a stew of tripe and 
 entrails. 
 
 Luncheon over, exit f^om the shop was blocked 
 for a time by the crowds that gathered about a 
 strolling auctioneer who set goggles on the eyes of 
 every purchaser to enable him the better to admire 
 his bargain. 
 
 The streets were as gay as the shifting scenes 
 of a kaleidoscope with the orange, blue, green and
 
 SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 217 
 
 red that blossomed together in the dresses of the 
 dark, oval-faced women as naturally as flowers in 
 gardens. 
 
 In the piazza "La Sonnambula" was heralded by 
 the tooting horn and raucous voice of her exploiter 
 as "Paula the privileged, born at midnight before 
 the day of San Paulo! Paula who has a spider 
 under her tongue ! Paula who cannot mistake ! Paula 
 who sees your past, present and future !" 
 
 Paula, who was a girl just entering her teens, 
 slept to order for two soldi wherever she happened 
 to be standing. 
 
 On the steps of the church, blinder than the day 
 before, blind Ninu was begging. Cicciu, who led 
 him, interrupted his cry of "BHnd! A poor blind 
 boy! Charity for the dear sake of the Madonna!" 
 to greet me with a gleeful, "What a crowd, 
 Signura !" 
 
 In the dim cool church there were not a hundred 
 people; but I had not sat long in the restful quiet 
 before there came a stir at the door of the sacristy. 
 The "spiritati," whom people oftener call "li spirdi." 
 were coming back to San Filippo. 
 
 In other years, when the last mass had been said 
 and the curious crowds were scattering, I have 
 seen "li spirdi" and the old women who are, as in 
 all time they have been, specialists in exorcism take 
 possession of the church. I have seen the coaxings, 
 the threatenings and the physical violence which are 
 supposed to influence evil spirits, going forward in
 
 2i3 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 half a dozen places at once; before the altar, beside 
 the vara, wherever the various groups of exorcists 
 and their patients might find themselves. But this 
 afternoon the manner was different. 
 
 Marshaled by priests and sacristan, a little pro- 
 cession moved decorously across the church, paus- 
 ing to bend the knee before the altar, then continu- 
 ing towards the recess which the "possessed" had 
 occupied in the morning. Across the mouth of an 
 open chapel a fence of benches had been drawn; 
 but before the group had passed behind the bar- 
 rier a disheveled woman, breaking away from her 
 conductors, stumbled uncertainly through the 
 church an instant, then ran toward the nearest door. 
 There was a glimpse of a heavy, sullen face, of 
 rough hair and a dirty white dress, then up came 
 the sacristan and a hurrying swarm of people. 
 
 "Ugly devil!" shrieked the guardian old woman 
 who retook the distracted creature in charge. "You 
 will not kiss the saint? Birbante! You will not 
 speak? You would run away? 
 
 "Kiss San FiHppu!" she cajoled, changing tone. 
 "Shout 'Viva San Filippu!' My joy! My jewel! My 
 heart ! Pray ! Pray with all your soul ! Kiss San 
 Filippu!" she held up a penny icon. 
 
 To kiss the figura of the saint and to shout vivas 
 are a sine qua non of exorcism. I 
 
 The woman jerked away her head. She would 
 not kiss the picture. She would not look at it. The 
 crone became a fury. Taking the younger woman
 
 SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 219 
 
 by the shoulders, she shook her, screeching, "Ugly 
 devil! Kiss San Filippu! Cry 'Viva San FilippuT 
 Ugly one!" 
 
 The people swarmed close like bees, weeping 
 aloud, begging the woman to kiss the saint, catch- 
 ing her by the arms, by the dress, imploring her to 
 cry "Viva San Filippu !" The old woman continued 
 to shake her, again pleading, "My love, my treasure, 
 kiss San Filippu! Kiss the saint!" 
 
 The woman's hair tumbled over her shoulders 
 and her shawl fell to the floor. She would not kiss 
 the figura and she would not speak; but after a 
 little she allowed herself to be led, scowling, back 
 to the chapel. 
 
 Here, behind the row of benches, huddled five 
 women. How often men are brought to San Filippo 
 I do not know. I never have seen one. Two of the 
 five, whom the people crowding in front of the bar- 
 rier nicknamed "the twins," sat squeezed together, 
 one short and dark, the other a big, round-faced 
 blonde, neither far removed from idiocy. 
 
 The oldest of the five was a gray woman of more 
 than fifty years. Her stringy hair pushed plainly 
 back, her high cheekbones and brown channeled 
 skin, her tight faded bodice and full gathered skirt 
 were not unlike those of twenty other women in the 
 building. Nor did anything in her manner mark 
 her off from them, except an occasional smile made 
 sinister by a lift of the upper lip at one side, show- 
 ing a fang. Under the altar of San Giorgio she
 
 220 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 sat, smiling and malign. The gossiping crowd 
 called her " 'a jatta," the cat. 
 
 There was another of whom the gossips spoke as 
 "she of the lovely face." The loveliest thing about 
 her was a mass of dark hair that fell nearly to the 
 ground as she sat, veiling her worn and faded cloth- 
 ing — red skirt, blue apron, green bodice. Mechanic- 
 ally, her eyes fixed on vacancy, she rubbed a pic- 
 ture of the saint over her head without ceasing. 
 
 Backed into a corner, the poor creature who had 
 run the gauntlet remained impassive, save for heavy 
 defiant eyes that watched for another chance of 
 escape. At her the people shuddered, whispering, 
 "She would not kiss the saint!" They called her 
 " 'a 'Murricana" — the American; and said she had 
 in her the spirit of a wicked man who had been 
 murdered. Her husband had brought her all the 
 way from New York to San Fillppo, but the Amer- 
 ican spirit did not understand Italian, and there was 
 little chance of her liberation. 
 
 In popular opinion the spirits that invade the 
 bodies of such unfortunates are mostly of the mur- 
 dered and of those cut off before their time; souls 
 that wander through the air causing storms and 
 seeking homes in other human bodies because they 
 cannot find rest until the appointed hour. Since the 
 earthquake at Messina with its holocaust of vic- 
 tims the number of such errant demons has been 
 fearfully multiplied. 
 
 Behind the barrier with the five possessed ones
 
 SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 221 
 
 were the priests who had officiated at high mass, 
 the sacristan, the old woman who had recaptured 
 " 'a 'Murricana" — a sinewy crone with scant white 
 hair and a white kerchief open to her waist; and 
 two other ancient dames, less active, whose ker- 
 chiefs were like flower gardens. 
 
 For a long time little happened. People who had 
 rushed into the church at the reappearance of the 
 possessed strolled out again. A plump middle-aged 
 priest returned to the sacristy. Two others, thin 
 young peasants, went and came aimlessly. The 
 archpriest, a thick-set man of more than sixty, 
 paced up and down before a great crucifix, a benev- 
 olent, white-haired figure, not too intelligent, bored 
 apparently, awaiting like the rest of us the events 
 of the afternoon. 
 
 A little boy found his v;ay into the choir and 
 threw himself on his knees, alternately kissing a 
 picture of the saint and shrilling, "Viva San Fi- 
 lippu !" People said he might be trying to "stir up 
 the saint." 
 
 And still the possessed women sat quiet. The two 
 old women who seemed to be under-mistresses of 
 ceremonies held icons before the lips of "the twins" 
 without visible results, except that the wretched 
 girls, moaning and babbling, wept their swollen 
 faces yet more sodden. 
 
 The people in the church fretted audibly. Why 
 was nothing done? Why were not the possessed 
 made to call upon the saint? Were the evil spirits
 
 222 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 so much at ease in San Filippo's presence that they 
 did not even stamp? Why were not the women 
 shaken? Spirits do not issue for an "if you please." 
 
 While matters were thus at a standstill, the thin, 
 grasshopper sacristan leaped over the benches, the 
 ribbons of his black tie streaming, his arms flung 
 above his head as if he himself were bewitched. 
 Storming at a group of on-lookers, he drove them 
 out at the church door. Relatives of one of the poor 
 creatures, said the people. San Filippo is powerless 
 in presence of a spiritata's — suppliant's — family. 
 What wonder nothing had been accomplished ! 
 
 And now, indeed, "she of the beautiful face" 
 stopped rubbing the saint's picture over her hair. 
 Starting from her seat and thrusting aside the old 
 women, she began to whirl up and down the space 
 behind the barrier, slowly at first, then spinning 
 like a dancing dervish. With every round her 
 shrieks grew louder and her pace became more 
 dizzy until at last she dropped to the floor. 
 
 The archpriest calmly brought water. Two of the 
 old women lifted her and helped her to a chair. The 
 head old woman incited her with wild gesticula- 
 tions. Almost at once she was on her feet again, 
 stretching her arms towards the black saint above 
 the altar and screaming, "Viva San Filippu!" 
 
 "Louder ! Louder !" exhorted the old women and 
 the sacristan. She began to beat the floor with her 
 feet, stamping rhythmically to the shouted words, 
 "Vi-va! Vi-va! Vi-va San Filip-pu!"
 
 SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 223 
 
 It was for this the people had been waiting. "She 
 stamps !" they said delightedly. "The stamping be- 
 gins!" At last the demon in the woman felt the 
 saint's power. All day in church it must have been 
 uneasy. It had made her dance, and now it was 
 stamping. "She is freed!" flew from mouth to 
 mouth. No one had been liberated for the whole 
 day, but now at last the work was beginning. Men 
 and women came running into the church. They 
 pushed and thrust to reach the barrier. They el- 
 bowed and kicked. They climbed on chairs. They 
 began to shout with "the pretty one," "Vi-va! Vi- 
 va! Vi-va San Filip-pu!" 
 
 The cry that began uncertainly with three or four 
 voices was taken up by hundreds ; and presently the 
 sacristan, springing again on one of the benches 
 that fenced the chapel from the rest of the church, 
 began waving his long, windmill arms at us and 
 shouting like a cheer-leader at a football game. 
 "Now then, boys, all together — Vi-va ! Vi-va ! Vi-va 
 San Fihp-pu!" 
 
 Swinging half around towards the woman, he 
 urged her, "Stronger! Stronger! — Vi-va! Vi-va! 
 Vi-va San Filip-pu!" 
 
 And so, marking time with his lean black rock- 
 ing body, he led the excited crowd in a chant the 
 beat of which became ever more pronounced until 
 the roof shook. 
 
 The paroxysm did not cease until the woman 
 once more fell heavily. The three witches lifted her
 
 224 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 and the archpriest brought wine. There was a 
 period of consultation, and then Catina — as eager 
 voices began to say that "she of the beautiful face" 
 was named — was urged to try again. She rose to 
 her feet, and the sacristan, still acting as cheer- 
 leader, inciting her with waving arms and "Force ! 
 Force !" as she beat the floor, and us with "Shout, 
 boys! Louder!" recommenced his measured cry 
 more frantically than before. 
 
 Of a sudden he interrupted himself. "Get down 
 from the chairs, boys! Stop breaking the chairs!" 
 
 He wriggled through the crowd, pulling people 
 from the cane seats of the church property, to which 
 at once they climbed back again. In the confusion 
 the archpriest cuffed the nearest boys. Two "cara- 
 binieri" who had been in the church throughout the 
 afternoon forced people back from the line of 
 benches which had become as crooked as a worm 
 fence. 
 
 After a minute the archpriest sprayed Catina 
 with holy water, and the three old women took 
 places beside and behind her, shouting with the 
 sacristan now returned from his excursion, "Vi- 
 va ! Vi-va ! Vi-va San Filippu !" 
 
 At length Catina sank into her chair, where she 
 fell to weeping and to rubbing the picture again 
 over her hair. 
 
 This scene had been repeated perhaps three or 
 four times when I left the church for a breath of 
 air. Half an hour later on my return the heat was
 
 SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 225 
 
 more stifling and the sweltering mob more closely 
 packed than before. It was not possible again to 
 approach the freed ones; but an old acquaintance 
 who haunts the fairs of Eastern Sicily, little Lucia, 
 a beggar child without hands, beckoned me to a 
 perch beside her on the high base of a column. 
 
 "The Signura will be crushed," she said, smil- 
 ing at me like a hostess, "down there among the 
 'popolazione'." 
 
 Catina sat drooping in her chair. The archpriest 
 had taken off his purple stole, and was holding the 
 embroidered cross to her lips. He put the stole upon 
 her shoulders. He seemed to speak encouragingly. 
 Then the old women led her forward and the rhyth- 
 mic pounding and shouting recommenced. 
 
 Of a sudden Catina stopped in her chant. Start- 
 ing from her place between the old women, she 
 staggered towards the barrier, lifting her arms and 
 livid face towards the gleaming eyes and forked 
 beard above the altar. 
 
 "Do it now, San Filippu !" she implored as if her 
 tormented demons were speaking through her. "Do 
 it quickly! We are ready! Show thy mercy!" 
 
 She opened her mouth and spat violently. 
 
 The crowd was hushed. Excitement touched 
 hysteria. 
 
 "Quick, San Filippu!" she repeated. "We are 
 ready ! Grant us this grace !" Again she spat, shud- 
 dering and swaying; writhing as if she would cast 
 out her very soul.
 
 226 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 "Out with it!" squeaked the head witch. "Spit 
 it out! Out of her, Satan, in the name of San 
 Filippu!" 
 
 "They go !" groaned Catina, spitting convulsively. 
 "They are going!" 
 
 "They are gone !" Gasping, she dropped into the 
 arms of the old women. 
 
 "Liberata!" It was not a word, it was a vast 
 sigh of relief that went up from the church. Like 
 the Messalians of old who spat and blew their noses 
 without ceasing, to rid themselves of the devils that 
 filled them, so Catina had cast out her devils at her 
 mouth; and more than one of the spectators snap- 
 ped his own shut, not to afford them refuge. The 
 old women stroked and patted her, helping her to 
 a seat, adjusting her dress and smoothing her 
 tangled hair. 
 
 Yet something like a chill seemed to damp the 
 audience. Catina's clothing had not fallen. If the 
 spirits really had been cast out, why had they not, 
 in leaving, torn off her clothes? She should have 
 been left naked ! Was there not a sheet in readiness 
 on the altar of San Giorgio? Spirits do not go out 
 so decently. So the people reasoned, doubting the 
 miracle. They were hardly persuaded even when 
 the sacristan, climbing up behind the altar, hung to 
 the saint's hand a thank-offering of two fine old 
 earrings. 
 
 Catina was a widow, little Lucia told me; she
 
 SAINT PHILIP THE BLACK 227 
 
 had three children, and could spare little except her 
 earrings in return for liberation. 
 
 After some minutes she came out alone from the 
 chapel, walking unsteadily to the chancel gate. Her 
 long hair had been bound up, and a red ribbon — 
 "the measure of the saint" — hung about her neck. 
 She knelt on the altar steps and repeated aloud a 
 formula of thanks to San Filippo. Then she passed 
 wearily on to the sacristy. 
 
 All the spring was gone out of the tired sacristan. 
 Half-heartedly he helped the old women conduct 
 the sullen one and "the American" in front of the 
 main altar. One smiled at the saint her malignant 
 smile, the other refused to look at him, and pres- 
 ently both were taken away together with "the 
 twins." The crowds were dispersing. 
 
 "Signura, I go," said Lucia, putting up the stump 
 of an arm to brush away a lock of her bright, pretty 
 hair. 
 
 "I, too, am going," I answered. 
 
 I left Lucia at work on the steps of the church, 
 where Ninu and Cicciu still clamored, "Help the 
 blind!" There were to be fireworks that evening 
 and a band concert. For Ninu and for Lucia fes- 
 tival days are days of harvest.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 The Miracles of Sant' Alfio 
 
 (Paul had) shorn his head in Cenchrea, for he had a 
 vow.— Acts XVIII. 
 
 To some of these deities the Egj-ptians give thanks for 
 recovering their children from sickness, as by shaving their 
 heads and weighing the hair with the like weight of gold 
 or silver ; and then giving the money to them that have the 
 care of the beasts. — Diodorus Siadus. 
 
 Alfio, Filadelfo and Cirino were Christian 
 brothers persecuted under Decian and Valerian. 
 Persisting in their faith, they were set to carry 
 from Taormina to Lentini a heavy beam fastened 
 across their shoulders. Near the hamlet now called 
 Sant' Alfio, above Giarre, a whirlwind caught away 
 the beam into midair. The soldiers of the escort 
 stopped with their prisoners at Trecastagne to rest 
 and recover from fear. Arrived at Lentini, the three 
 brothers were martyred by Tertullus, commander of 
 the garrison. Alfio suffered the pulling out of his 
 tongue; Filadelfo was broiled on a gridiron; Cirino 
 boiled in a caldron of pitch. 
 
 The martyrs were taken as patrons by the towns 
 of Sant' Alfio, Trecastagne and Lentini. each of 
 
 228
 
 THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 229 
 
 which celebrates a festa in their honor for three 
 days, beginning with the tenth of May, The festa 
 at Trecastagne, the largest spring festival in East- 
 ern Sicily, is mainly in honor of Sant' Alfio, the only 
 miracle-worker of the three. 
 
 Sant' Alfio stood up under the beam, while his 
 brothers crouched. Thus he became ruptured, and 
 acquired the power to heal rupture. He lost his 
 tongue, and gives speech to the dumb. With Sant' 
 Agata of Catania he protects the mountain villages 
 from Etna ; and, as do many saints, he watches over 
 emigrants at sea. 
 
 Like Demeter "of the big loaf" — of the full din- 
 ner pail — a modern saint who influences weather 
 and crops, or who heals the sick, is sure of votaries. 
 "He is too miraculous," say my friends who fear 
 Sant' Alfio. "It is a pain to see his miracles. He is 
 a saint who makes himself respected for sure." 
 
 Agatina's grandmother did not approve of the 
 levity with which Agatina and I prepared for our 
 trip to Trecastagne. Agatina's nonna is a dignified 
 old woman who, like the saint, makes herself re- 
 spected. She had been buying "ox-eyes" of a pass- 
 ing fisherman, choosing those best speckled with 
 red, and still sat in the doorway of the antiquities 
 shop, the little shining fishes in a plate on her lap, 
 while she glanced up and down the Corso observ- 
 ing the news of the morning. 
 
 Near her house in Catania there lived fifteen 
 years ago, she told us, a man who was paralyzed.
 
 230 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 On the eve of the festa of Sant' Alfio, as this man 
 lay in his bed praying, there appeared to him a 
 stranger clothed in white, who asked what ailed 
 him, and who rubbed him with an ointment, after 
 which the paralytic got up and walked. The stranger 
 was Sant' Alfio. 
 
 *Tn the days of to-day the saints no longer ap- 
 pear to men, because there is no faith; we others 
 are not worthy," she concluded, re-tying the knot 
 of her purple and white head-kerchief, and rising 
 heavily to carry the fish indoors. "We are not 
 children of the saints, like our ancients." 
 
 The old woman's disapproval checked our light- 
 mindedness. I had been teasing Agatina for put- 
 ting on her pretty gray spring dress with its lace 
 blouse and the plumed hat that framed her delicate 
 face so becomingly. "There will be more than 
 30,000 people," I said; "why try to make a figure? 
 Sant' Alfio won't see your finery." 
 
 Agatina declared mysteriously that she was a 
 practical woman. 
 
 That evening, when we reached the house of 
 Agatina's parents in Catania, her stout, child- 
 burdened, good-humored mother, after scattering 
 her family to Catania's great fish-market to buy our 
 supper, to the bed-rooms to turn down our beds, to 
 the dining-room and the kitchen, found time, as she 
 tied on her work-apron, to disapprove of our trip 
 even more thoroughly than had the grandmother. 
 
 "Capers and clover!" she exclaimed. That two
 
 THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 231 
 
 women should start for Trecastagne at two o'clock 
 in the morning along with the riff-raff who would 
 be swarming up the long road in the darkness, how 
 was Pippinu thinking? 
 
 She cuffed Alfieddu, the sticky-fingered three- 
 year-old who clung to her skirts, instead of cuffing 
 me; ejaculating as he screamed, "Mary Mother, 
 what torment! He drives me into hysterics!" 
 
 "Listen," laughed Agatina; "how Mamma is 
 jesting !" 
 
 Agatina had telegraphed Pippinu, her husband, 
 for permission to come with me to the festa; but 
 from the depths of Calabria, where he had gone 
 with a gun for quail and bad Christians and an eye 
 for old furniture to sell to tourists, Pippinu had 
 not answered. This lack we concealed. 
 
 On his return from the fish market, Agatina's 
 sensible, middle-aged father brought, in addition to 
 our supper, the driver he had chosen f(-r our car- 
 riage; and while the red meaty slices of tunny fish 
 were cooking, he instructed Santu not to race his 
 horse, and not to bring us back next day by the high- 
 way, where the traditional "return of the drunk- 
 ards" would be in full swing. We were to take a 
 quiet side road, and we were to have as escort 
 Agatina's seventeen-year-old brother, Michellinu. 
 
 At this Michellinu looked bored. Later, while one 
 sister was brushing Agatina's long hair, and an- 
 other was censoring my Sicilian, my friend excused 
 her brother. "£ appassionatu," she said; "he's
 
 232 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 very much in love. We others are live flames." 
 We Sicilians, that is to say. 
 
 "He doesn't look it," said the younger sister. 
 "Signora, say 'tri' ; ah, you can't do it ; no one but 
 a Sicilian born can pronounce Sicilian! Signora, 
 try again; say 'tri!' " 
 
 At two o'clock in the morning, when the sound 
 of horses' hoofs roused us from brief rest, Michel- 
 linu did not look a live flame; even a boy of seven- 
 teen cannot, when he is sleep3^ 
 
 Below in the darkness our carrozzella was wait- 
 ing. Somewhere in the distance sounded revolver 
 shots. "The gallants," volunteered Santu; "the 
 young bloods are starting up their horses." 
 
 As we moved towards Catania's main street, 
 shouts and the rapid fire of crackers became louder. 
 Once on the Via Stesicoro Etnea, the jingle of 
 bells, the snapping of whips, the rattle of tam- 
 bourines, even the gun fire, were merged in the con- 
 fused roar of thousands of people. Half Catania 
 was keeping vigil. The broad street was packed 
 with carts and carriages three and four abreast, all 
 moving in one direction, straight towards Etna. It 
 was a dark stream of which one could not see 
 the end. 
 
 The carriages were overloaded with people able 
 to hire them. Two-wheeled carretti carried ten or 
 a dozen each of "little people," men, women, chil- 
 dren and babies, laughing, beating drums and shak- 
 ing tambourines, waving flaring torches, discharging
 
 THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 233 
 
 pistols close to the horses' ears. The sidewalks were 
 jammed with other thousands jostling forward, 
 shouting. 
 
 "Viva Sant' Aaaaarfiu!" was the bellow that im- 
 posed itself through the din. 
 
 Catania had gone mad, as it does every year on 
 the evening of the tenth of May. Santu turned 
 cautiously into the torrent. 
 
 "There will be a horse dance all the way"; had 
 said Agatina's wise old father ; and indeed the play 
 of whips as each driver lashed his crazed team to 
 force it ahead of the one in front threatened some- 
 thing worse than a dance of horses. The hospitals 
 are busy after the race to the shrine of Sant' Alfio. 
 
 Beyond the city and its suburbs, on the long 
 straight course into the foothills, the scene was wild. 
 Though the stars were bright, it was dark between 
 the high walls that shut away vineyards and lemon 
 gardens ; all the darker for the yellow glare of cane 
 torches that flamed on straining horses and black, 
 swaying figures as the galloping procession, carriage 
 after carriage, cart by cart, lurched past us. 
 
 "May your horse drop dead, cold as a pear!" 
 growled Michellinu, rousing himself. "Can't 
 he go?" 
 
 "He is I'Allegru, the Lively," said Santu stolidly. 
 "Forty lire were offered me to let a young fellow 
 race him to-night; but I'm too fond of him. He'll 
 be in at the finish, without dripping blood like these 
 others. Shall we bet on it?"
 
 234 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Michellinu wound a shawl about his head and 
 lapsed into gloom. 
 
 We were climbing steadily. It was cold. Agatina 
 had left in Catania her fine frock, and was wearing 
 the common one her practical mind had hidden 
 under it. A black head scarf and heavy black shawl 
 had turned her into a brilliantly pretty contadina. 
 
 "Michellinu is cross," she answered Santu; "be- 
 cause he didn't want to come. But — here comes an- 
 other caravan of the nudes!" 
 
 At every stiff grade where we slowed to a walk, 
 groups of "nudi" passed us at a trot. They were 
 not moving in great bands, as I have seen them at 
 the festa of San Sebastiano at Melilli ; but by tens 
 or twenties. Except for a red or white loin sash, 
 some were literally naked, as v/as David when he 
 danced before the Lord girded with a linen ephod ; 
 or as were the Bedouins when they made the sacred 
 circle of the Ca'aba in the days before Mahomet. 
 Some added to the red sash short white cotton 
 breeches. Some wore a sleeveless shirt, as well as 
 drawers and streaming ribbons. A few wore their 
 ordinary clothing with the red band draped from 
 one shoulder under the opposite arm. Almost all 
 were barefooted. When the head was not bare, it 
 was covered by a white kerchief knotted like a 
 turban. 
 
 Each was making his pilgrimage as he had vowed 
 it; "dressed nude" as the phrase is, or simply bare-
 
 THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 235 
 
 footed. Each carried his monstrous candle, trimmed 
 with flowers and broad red ribbons. 
 
 Each group moved past us at a lunging run, look- 
 ing neither to the right nor the left, panting with 
 dry throats, "Viva Sant' Aaaaarfiu !" Their breath 
 came in gasps. They pumped out the words. One 
 man was a mute who moaned grotesque, inarticu- 
 late cries. One man limped; he had hurt his foot, 
 yet not for that did he give over the vow he had 
 sworn — eight miles, involving more than 1,800 feet 
 of ascent, without slackening pace to Trecastagne, 
 
 One of the "nudes" was not running; he walked 
 beside his wife, a small woman in black whose hair 
 streamed loose over her shoulders. He carried a 
 torcia decked with red rosettes, she a red-rosetted 
 baby. 
 
 There were many women who walked, like 
 Petronius's Roman matrons when they prayed Jove 
 for water, "up the hill in their stoles with bare feet 
 and loosened hair." But the greater number of 
 these Catanese matrons, even when they let down 
 their dark braids and made their pilgrimage with 
 disordered hair, removed from the feet their shoes 
 only, and walked in stockings. 
 
 Horses continued to pound past at a furious pace, 
 the flags and tall pheasants' plumes that rose from 
 their heads wig-wagging, their fly-nets, covered with 
 red, white and yellow artificial flowers, slapping 
 madly. L'Allegru was not so fine; Santu had put
 
 236 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 no holiday touches to his harness beyond his gay 
 little bells. 
 
 It was the mules and horses drawing the painted 
 Sicilian carts whose trappings put us most sadly to 
 shame. Not a harness showed a hint of leather. 
 Many a man had spent the savings of months on 
 the mirrored panaches of vari-colored plumage that 
 towered from back and head piece, and on capari- 
 sons that made the carter's mule as gorgeous as the 
 steeds of Rinaldo and Charlemagne, whose knightly 
 exploits were pictured on his cart. In tinsel and 
 spangles, flashing with mirrors and vivid with 
 isinglass, were wrought scrolls, arabesques, double- 
 headed eagles, knights' heads and cherubs that 
 glittered with every toss of head or lift of hoof, 
 and housed the animals till they looked weighed 
 down by their own splendor. 
 
 We reached a low black village crouching in the 
 lavas of Etna. There were lights in the doorways, 
 where people had gathered to see us pass. "The 
 first stage," said Agatina, as we came to a wine shop 
 the door of which was wreathed with ivy and fresh 
 lemon boughs. Over the door were hung round 
 loaves of bread. In front were tables set with coffee 
 cups. Many a man threw himself exhausted on the 
 ground to rest while eating. 
 
 At the watering trough was a mix-up of horses* 
 heads and legs in the dance to approach. "Some 
 dispute might arise," said Santu, as, to Michellinu's 
 disgust, he kept I'Allegru still in the rear.
 
 THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 237 
 
 Up and up the dark, narrow road we climbed. 
 The scent of lemon and orange flowers no longer 
 drifted over the walls. We had reached the vine- 
 yards of the terre forti, Sicily's strong lands. The 
 "nudi" overtook us on every rise; on every descent 
 we left them behind. They had no breath left. 
 Painfully they wheezed, "Sa-ant' A-a-rfiu!" 
 
 Imperceptibly the sky paled. In the East there 
 came a faint red streak under the waning, just-risen 
 moon. Overhead the heavens were blanching to 
 white. The West sulked blacker than before. From 
 the moment of the start Mungibeddu (Etna) had 
 loomed across our path, a ghostly shape ; now it ap- 
 peared a sharp-cut silhouette against the sky. There 
 came a cold dawn light over the snows of the moun- 
 tain and in the blue air. The procession of carts 
 and carriages looked interminable. The red streak 
 in the sky widened. Below us the quiet sea was the 
 color of steel. 
 
 We began to see more clearly the villages we 
 passed, with here and there a fondaco lighted for 
 the sale of bread, wine, bran and hay. We met 
 beggars, the one-armed and one-legged, the blind 
 and the dumb, who swarm at every festa. A 
 cripple who had vowed to the saint a wax leg if he 
 should be healed carried on a tray his "miracle" 
 while he begged money to pay for it. 
 
 The "nudi" quickened their pace. Their shirts 
 were gray with dust. Their eyes stuck out blood- 
 shot.
 
 238 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Trecastagne was just ahead. We could see the 
 jagged skyline of its houses and church spires. On 
 each side of the way were now "sons of Etna," as 
 the human sons of the volcano call the many erup- 
 tive cones it has flung out upon its sides. Those 
 near us, dead for ages, seemed alive once more, 
 shining with the green flame of wheat. 
 
 It was well before sun-up when we reached the 
 foot of the steep incline at the entrance to the 
 village. Here in the old days the racers tied the 
 fore legs of their horses before beginning the last 
 frantic dash to greet Sant' Alfio. That custom is 
 gone, but the mad race continues. 
 
 Horse after horse struggled past us, sobbing for 
 breath, streaked with bloody lather; the driver on 
 his feet, swaying, swinging the lash and screaming. 
 Just in front a nervous white horse, fretted by his 
 housings, and his two towering panaches, balked, 
 blocking the way. The whip rained cuts on his 
 bleeding flanks, and he bolted. Behind us the mo- 
 ment's halt had brought up half a hundred vehicles 
 with their babel of bells, cracking whips, shouts and 
 gunfire. 
 
 To this point I'Allegru had come sleek and cool. 
 Now for the first time Santu's whip sang in air, and 
 he bent forward, calling softly, "Let's be going!" 
 L'Allegru took the hill at the head of the mob. 
 
 Michellinu's head poked out from under the folds 
 of the gray shawl. Casting it from him, he scram- 
 bled upon his seat, holding to Santu's shoulders and
 
 THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 239 
 
 shrieking to the horse, "Ah ccaa ! Ah ccaa ! Car- 
 ricca! Ah, ccaa!" At every team we passed his 
 fingers made the derisive sign of the horns. 
 
 "Get down, Michellinu!" called his sister; but to 
 me she said proudly, "A live flame, isn't he?" 
 
 And so we entered Trecastagne, scattering holi- 
 day crowds, endangering the street stands of 
 hawkers, rocking from side to side, galloping to 
 the very church door. 
 
 "Is your Lordship satisfied?" asked Santu yet 
 more softly, stroking I'Allegru's nose. 
 
 "He can go," grunted Michellinu, falling back 
 into indifference. 
 
 Early as it was, the piazza could not hold its 
 swarming multitudes. The place was like a great 
 camp of gypsies waking to the business of the morn- 
 ing. Fortune tellers, merry-go-rounds and gam- 
 bling games were in full swing. A moving picture 
 show was hanging out Tripoli war posters. We 
 stopped to look at nothing, but went at once to the 
 church of Sant' Alfio. 
 
 The building was of some size, though of no 
 architectural pretensions. From the doorway it 
 looked as if entrance would be impossible. Thou- 
 sands of people had left their homes in distant 
 villages at sunset of the previous evening, and had 
 been kneeling before the high altar since the church 
 opened at midnight. The press to reach the altar 
 rail was suffocating. The church was hot, and 
 echoed with the confused noise of men and women
 
 240 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 moving about, weeping, praying aloud. The air 
 was heavy with candle reek and incense. 
 
 We could see but little. Columns and walls were 
 hung with the gaudy paraments of tinseled paper 
 which in days of festa degrade the decent white 
 plaster of Sicilian village churches. These were the 
 usual heavy draperies in elemental colors — red, blue, 
 yellow and green, spangled and gilt-bordered, gleam- 
 ing darkly in the shadows where the flame of the 
 great altar candles did not penetrate. 
 
 Near the door by which we stood the walls were 
 covered with votive pictures, perhaps like those 
 which Juvenal had in mind when he said that 
 Roman painters got their living out of Isis. All 
 were small, some dim with age, some fresh with 
 colors not six months old. Here, painted on tin 
 or wood, were sick men spitting blood or dying 
 with cholera; here were a soldier wounded at 
 Misurata in a Tripoli campaign ; a man saved from 
 the Messina earthquake ; a house saved from Etna ; 
 a ship saved from wreck near New Orleans. Each 
 scene was sketched with the crudest realism, and 
 bore name, date and description of the miracle. 
 
 Above and beside the pictures hung wax ex-voti, 
 models of legs and arms, throats and stomachs, 
 gruesome with red marks of wounds or pits of dis- 
 ease; "the price and pay for those cures which the 
 god hath wrought," says Livy of just such objects 
 that hung in the temples of Esculapius. Behind 
 the ears of a wax head clung wax leeches.
 
 THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 241 
 
 A column near us was hung with children's cloth- 
 ing; straw hats and caps, little breeches and petti- 
 coats, offered to Sant' Alfio for the healing of the 
 infants, as to San Sebastiano of Melilli, San Calo- 
 gero of Girgenti and many other saints of Sicily. 
 Beside the column stood a table where two priests 
 were selling penny pictures of the saints. From 
 the high altar to the main doorway ran a railway 
 for the processional exit of the "vara," the saints' 
 car. 
 
 Little by little we edged our way towards the 
 front of the church where flowers, flung over the 
 chancel rail by almost everyone who entered, lay 
 In heaps at the foot of the altar. Beside a table to 
 the left of the chancel stood a stout sacristan re- 
 ceiving offerings. As we approached he held up a 
 watch with dangling chains, and the church shook 
 with vivas. 
 
 Next came a ruptured baby. The sacristan took 
 it in his arms, laid it on the floor among the flowers, 
 and then held it up, bare legs kicking, to show thatj 
 the flesh had closed and the rupture was no longer 
 visible. 
 
 A mother placed on the table her little girl, and 
 stripped off green skirt, pink waist and yellow ker- 
 chief until the mite stood before us naked. The sac- 
 ristan, expressionless as a sheep, received the bun- 
 dle, while the mother reclothed in a fresh dress the 
 little one, now free, according to tradition, of all 
 trouble.
 
 242 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 At my side a woman held a red-frocked baby. 
 "An idiot," said another neighbor in my ear; she 
 asked the mother, "Was the miracle made?" 
 
 "Not yet," came the sighing answer. 
 
 Two mutes were flinging up their arms and writh- 
 ing in frenzied struggle to call upon the saint, the 
 expected sign of liberation being the power to speak 
 his name. Tears rolled down their cheeks. Their 
 inarticulate cries rose above every other noise; an 
 agonized "uh, uh, uh, uh!" 
 
 Beside one of them, a man seemed to stretch with 
 his whole body towards the great golden doors 
 above the high altar, behind which in their niche the 
 saints were still hidden. He was thin and worn- 
 looking, shabbily dressed. Clasping his hands high 
 in air, he moaned without ceasing, "Sant' Arfiu! 
 Do me the miracle ! Liberate my son ! Sant' Arfiu !" 
 
 Our neighbors said that one of the mutes was 
 his only child. 
 
 There was a sudden stir in the church. We were 
 flung back with a violent wave movement as the 
 throng gave place before the entrance of a group 
 of "nudi." Shouting they ran, their candles flaring 
 as they swopped past us to the altar, where their 
 yells of "Sanf Arfiu! Viva Sant' Arfiu!" made 
 the roof ring. Their brown faces lined and hag- 
 gard, shirts dripping sweat, their quivering bodies 
 painted with the red of their sashes they stood 
 triumphant, casting down flowers, holding up huge 
 torches to the sacristan.
 
 THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 243 
 
 I wondered then, I wonder now, how Columbus 
 dressed when he carried his "wax taper of five 
 pounds" to St. Mary of Guadaloupe after his escape 
 from shipwreck returning from the discovery of 
 America. 
 
 As the men disappeared in the admiring care of 
 relatives, a blue-clad girl of eight or nine was lifted 
 over the rail, struggling and holding out her arms 
 to be taken back again. Her father bade her kneel, 
 and she did as she was bidden, looking about wildly 
 for a familiar face, her plump cheeks streaked with 
 dirt where her fingers continued to rub away tears. 
 Women sobbed as loud as she, saying one to an- 
 other, "She has no speech, poor little thing." 
 
 The girl's mother fought past us with frantic feet 
 and elbows, shrieking, "My child is frightened! 
 Let me pass! Let me pass! My child is afraid!" 
 
 She dropped on her knees at the chancel rail, but 
 we did not see what happened, for there came an- 
 other wave of excited movement in the church. 
 
 "They are making the vow of the tongue!" said 
 Agatina, dragging me with her toward the rails laid 
 for the wheels of the processional car. 
 
 Up the track constructed for the vara from the 
 doorway to the altar there came a man who walked 
 slowly backward, flicking with a handkerchief the 
 pavement grimed with the tread of thousands. Be- 
 hind him crawled one of the "nudes" on hands and 
 knees, painfully licking crosses on the floor. His 
 movement from doorway to altar was blind and
 
 244 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 wavering. After each slow forward grope there 
 came a pause; one wondered if he would have 
 strength to proceed. 
 
 The people pressed close to the track crying hys- 
 terically, "Bravu, son! Courage! Courage! An- 
 other little and we are there!" 
 
 "Back ! Back !" called others. "Don't you see he 
 is suffocating?" 
 
 Inch by inch the man lapped his way towards the 
 chancel. Behind him came a second and a third. 
 There were seven in line. Earlier in the morning 
 at one time there had been ten. One or two were 
 supported by a knotted kerchief passed under the 
 neck and held by a friend. 
 
 Staggering dizzily to his feet at the altar rail, 
 the first man tottered a minute, staring about him, 
 stammering thickly, "Viva Sant' Arfiu!" The 
 building echoed and re-echoed with the answering 
 shout. Then, wiping with a handkerchief his 
 swollen tongue, he lurched to one side and dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 When all seven had passed there came a gray 
 haired woman in black, who looked nearer sixty 
 than fifty years of age. So slowly that it seemed as 
 if she could never finish, wandering from the track 
 in spite of the guiding rails, trembling from ex- 
 haustion, she fulfilled her vow. Her mouth was 
 full of blood as friendly hands lifted her. 
 
 Agatina had turned veiy white; she whispered, 
 "Shall we go?"
 
 THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 245 
 
 Not far behind us a woman had begun to flourish 
 scissors. A younger woman at her side had taken 
 off her white head kerchief, and was fumbling with 
 hairpins. Down fell two long dark braids. A 
 minute later the scissors were laboring close to the 
 younger woman's head. The hair was thick; we 
 could hear the grinding of the blades. Presently 
 there came away one of the tresses. Its owner 
 coiled and pinned what hair remained, and hid her 
 disfigurement under the kerchief. Then she tied 
 the severed braid with a red ribbon and gave it to 
 the sacristan, who held it up for exhibiton. 
 
 There had appeared at the altar a young, red- 
 cheeked priest in golden vestments who gave com- 
 munion to kneeling devotees. One such brought a 
 candle so heavy that only with great effort could 
 he lift it. It was fully two meters long and thicker 
 than a man's leg. Its owner was taken over the rail 
 with it. "Any more? Is there any other?" the 
 priest was calling, holding up his wafer, as, cling- 
 ing together, we reached the open air. 
 
 It was not seven o'clock. We had been in the 
 church only two hours, yet we have gone back to the 
 times when Julius Caesar crawled on hands and knees 
 up the steps of the Capital to appease Nemesis. 
 
 In the piazza the crowd had become so dense that 
 it was almost as hard to move about as indoors. The 
 square was of some size, surrounded by the small 
 gray-plaster houses of a Sicilian village. It was 
 given over to hawkers and hucksters, for the festa
 
 246 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 presents the same medley of religion, trade, athletics 
 and amusement that constituted the Olympian 
 games. 
 
 At one end were piled tons of garlic. Beyond 
 were pottery, glass, copper, tin and iron ware ; sad- 
 dles and donkey-harness; straw hats and caps dis- 
 played on the ground. Push carts and improvised 
 tables were heaped with nespoli, cherries, sides of 
 bacon, fishes in oil. Long lines of booths were de- 
 voted to high-colored sweets, toys, kerchiefs and 
 scarfs and many sorts of small wares. 
 
 In a dirty inn we drank a dark, muddy, sweet 
 fluid that had all the vices and none of the virtues 
 of Turkish coffee. The owner of the shop had 
 nailed up a rough shelf outside the door and hung 
 a balance. He brought out in his hands a roasted 
 sheep, smoking hot; and, after haggling with a 
 customer, hacked it with a cleaver. The buyer re- 
 ceived a quarter on a kerchief, knotted opposing 
 corners and so carried away his portion. 
 
 Two or three doors away a rival dealer bran- 
 dished the head of a ram impaled on a pointed stock, 
 its dead eyes glaring, its horns ready for battle. 
 The two barkers shouted in competition. "Roast 
 sheep ! Roast sheep ! Better than sweets ! Roast 
 sheep ! Better than sweets !" 
 
 On the other side of the narrow way there bally- 
 hooed three or four vendors of roasted "ciceri," the 
 chick-peas of Cicero's family name, and squash 
 seeds, peanuts, dried chestnuts and roasted beans.
 
 THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 247 
 
 One of them was crying: "Hot, all hot; red hot 
 the ciceri ! Here I have them all hot ! Red hot the 
 ciceri !" 
 
 To which another responded: "'Murricani! 
 'Murricani! Who wants to eat American nuts? 
 Peanuts ! Peanuts !" 
 
 The peanuts were small and poor ; they lay about 
 in sacks marked "Portland cement." 
 
 The brown, seamed face of the woman who 
 roasted the ciceri fascinated me. Her orange head- 
 kerchief was knotted at the back of her head, show- 
 ing earrings that touched her shoulders. Her black 
 dress was tucked up, leaving her petticoats pro- 
 tected by a huge blue apron. On a circle of lava 
 stones rested a deep iron pan over a fire of vine 
 cuttings. In the pan was sand, which she stirred 
 with a wooden shovel till it came to the right heat; 
 then she turned in her peas, stirred briskly till they 
 began to pop, and then with bundles of rags lifted 
 the pan — it was patched, for I counted, with nine 
 pieces of iron nailed on — and turned the sand 
 through a sieve into another big pan, delivering the 
 hot peas to her husband, v/ho acted as salesman. 
 
 "A-li! A-H! A-li!" drivers shouted to their 
 mules. Carts and carriages were still coming up the 
 hill, plumes waving, harness glittering. Champions 
 were giving exhibitions of whip-snapping. 
 
 Fishsellers arrived almost as exhausted as the 
 "nudi." Like these, they had run all the way from 
 Catania, bringing fish taken during the night. In
 
 248 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 the flat baskets on their heads eels were still 
 wriggling. 
 
 Some distance up a steep side street Santu had 
 unharnessed L'Allegru. With him we found 
 Michellinu, who had slipped away from us while 
 we were in church, and who could not be brought 
 to cheerfulness even by Agatina's promise of a share 
 of her "falsamagru" at luncheon. Wearily he came 
 with us to look at the carretti. 
 
 Every writer on Sicily talks of the painted carts 
 of Palermo; but he who has not seen the festa at 
 Trecastagne has missed one of the great cart sights 
 of the island. Over a large part of Eastern Sicily 
 every carter who affords himself a new cart or has 
 an old one repainted times the work to have it fresh 
 and shining for Sant' Alfio. 
 
 Among the carretti parked in Santu's neighbor- 
 hood were one or two decorated in the older style 
 which Pitre says was general down to i860, having 
 the panels of the drab or yellow box painted with 
 fruit or flowers. But the rest of these vehicles, 
 whose mission in life it is to carry charcoal, sulphur, 
 stones, sand, oil, bricks or any other merchandise, 
 were vivacious as a moving picture show. The two 
 panels of each side and the three panels of the back 
 were covered with figures, and each figure, in a style 
 sincere, vivid and mediaeval, got action. 
 
 Against a background of dragons' blood red the 
 paladins of Carlo Magno tilted in the lists, crusaders 
 fought Saracens, San Giorgio slew the dragon, or
 
 THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 249 
 
 Sant' Agata worked miracles. Columbus discovered 
 America and Ruggiero repeated all his real and 
 legendary Sicilian victories. One or two of the 
 Catania cart painters had departed from tradition, 
 and made to live again such recent happenings as 
 the assassination of King Umberto, King Vittorio 
 Emanuele watching an aviation display, the Messina 
 earthquake and battles in Tripoli. 
 
 "Look; the starry flag!" said Michellinu, point- 
 ing out a cart which showed the Stars and Stripes 
 wreathed with the Italian tricolor as frained to its 
 pictured panels. 
 
 The paint was shining new. Stepping closer, we 
 saw that the cart bore the date May i, 19 13. On 
 one side was blazoned a rendition of Washington 
 Crossing the Delaware, flanked by Lincoln Receiving 
 a Group of Freed Slaves. On the other side were 
 Washington's Farewell to His Troops and Wash- 
 ington's Farewell to Lafayette. On the tailpiece was 
 the Assumption of the Virgin with at one side Envy, 
 green and scowling, and on the other Fortune, in 
 yellow with streaming banner. 
 
 The owner of the cart came forward to enjoy 
 our interest in his horse's brilliant caparisons. He 
 was called Bernardo Pappalardo, and he said he 
 had worked four years in the woolen mills of Taun- 
 ton, Massachusetts. He had saved a little "pile," 
 and had come home with it a year earlier to Catania. 
 Needing a cart, he had sent to Boston for picture 
 postcards to help in its decoration.
 
 2SO BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Proudly he called attention to the carved Turks* 
 heads that finished the key bar under the box and 
 to the two mottoes set into the lacelike iron-work 
 below the portrait of Garibaldi: 
 
 "Se nemico set, guardami con invidia; se amico 
 set, con placer e," ran the first: 'Tf thou art an 
 enemy, regard me with envy; if a friend, with 
 pleasure." The second said, "This cart is thus ele- 
 gant to give an answer to the ignorant." 
 
 We ate early the chicken that Agatina had 
 brought, and her "falsamagru," which was rolled 
 like a jelly cake with chopped meat, eggs and good 
 black olives inside. From a huckster's cart we got 
 wild artichokes and scalora, a variety of endive. 
 
 High mass was beginning. Its progress was 
 marked by the clangor of bells and the explosion of 
 mortars. At a certain point we knew by the roar 
 of cannon from the hill that the golden doors above 
 the altar had opened, and the three saints were dis- 
 closed to adoration. 
 
 When we tried to push our way back to the 
 church, it was twelve o'clock, almost time for the 
 saints' triumphal procession through the village. 
 The piazza was all but impassable. The vendors 
 of tin ware, the men with copper pots and braziers 
 and brass lamps, the men with pottery, the men with 
 strips of hide for shoes, the men with saddles and 
 donkey harness, were gathering up their goods from 
 the ground. 
 
 The tin especially interested me. Out of empty
 
 THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 251 
 
 cans the smiths had contrived graters, cups, lamps, 
 lanterns, sauce-pans, utensils of many sorts still 
 bearing the manufacturers' labels of canned sar- 
 dines, tomato conserve or biscuits. 
 
 The oil jars, the mixing-bowls, the plates and 
 the basins of glazed earthenware shone in brilliant 
 greens, yellows and blues. The water jars were of 
 uncolored red terra cotta. We watched an old 
 shepherd from the mountains squat, choose a 
 "quartara" and test it carefully by sound for any 
 imperfection in the baking. 
 
 In the morning a great stretch of ground had 
 been covered with spreading hats of dwarf palm; 
 now these were hung against the walls of houses. 
 An energetic woman stood over a quantity of cheap 
 German cloth caps trying one after another on the 
 head of a loutish boy who drooped in the sun as 
 his mother critically surveyed him. 
 
 The mountains of garlic had diminished. Every 
 other man and every mule wore a rope of garlic 
 as a necklace. 
 
 Small gambling games did a lively trade. On a 
 table under a big red umbrella little nickel horses, 
 legs and tails in air, raced round and round, ridden 
 by knights in red, green, yellow and black, whose 
 colors corresponded with those of other little horses 
 painted in the many narrow radiating segments that 
 divided the circle of the table. 
 
 At the next stand was a fishing game. Your hook 
 caught an envelope which held a ticket which gave
 
 252 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 the number of the trinket you won. The fisher- 
 man's invitation, punctured by his jangling bell, ran, 
 "Come in, fellows, let's go fishing ! To the miracu- 
 lous fishing, come on !" 
 
 Swanns of flies settled over the cherries and the 
 sweets. Every hawker had thrust into his goods a 
 split stick carrying a picture of the saints, and had 
 wound his balance with roses. 
 
 Little terra cotta whistles crudely colored to rep- 
 resent saints were among the toy-dealers' best sell- 
 ers. Michellinu chose one that stood for the risen 
 Christ; Agatina took the Madonna Addolorata; I 
 chose Sant' Alfio. 
 
 The people who, like ourselves, were struggling 
 for viewpoints near the church were mostly of city 
 types unlike the mountain gnomes one sees at Ran- 
 dazzo or Bronte, higher on the slope of the volcano. 
 Some mountaineers there w^re, small, dark people, 
 their eyes squinting at the sun; the men wearing 
 short pendent caps, the women heavy antique ear- 
 rings. But more numerous were handsome, white- 
 skinned girls of Catania with soft, rounded faces, 
 black hair and big dark eyes half-hidden under black 
 shawls. 
 
 There were many brides, marked by shining dove- 
 colored silk dresses and shawls. In the old days it 
 often happened that a Catania bridegroom bound 
 himself in his marriage contract to take his bride 
 to the festa of Sant' Alfio. Perhaps it happens 
 sometimes to-day.
 
 THE MIRACLES OF SANT* ALFIO 253 
 
 Near the main doors of the church a brass band 
 worked so industriously that I did not hear when 
 Carmela spoke to me, nor did I see the hands that 
 she and her sister and her mother stretched to draw 
 us into their position of advantage. Carmela had 
 told me only two days earlier that she should not 
 dare to come to the festa because she had not yet 
 the money to buy a wax stomach ; yet here she was ; 
 to help her sister, she told us. 
 
 Carmela had vowed a stomach to Sant' Alfio 
 something more than two years earlier on recovery 
 from an illness; but when his festa came around 
 she had not saved money enough to present more 
 than a rotolo of wax, about a pound and three- 
 quarters. The next year, still unable to spend six- 
 teen lire for the stomach, she offered a candle weigh- 
 ing two rotoli. This year she had feared the saint 
 would look bored if she presented herself for the 
 third time stomachless ; but her sister's great candle 
 had to be brought, and the sister could not bring it 
 alone. 
 
 The wife's husband, who had just emigrated, had 
 written from New York that during a storm at sea 
 he had vowed a candle of five kilos if the ship should 
 come safely to land. "He said," continued Carmela, 
 "that his wife must fulfill his promise." 
 
 Carmela and her sister are dark, wholesome girls 
 with high cheekbones and the regular features of 
 Arabs. Their mother still has a red glow in her 
 olive cheeks, but most of her teeth are gone, and
 
 254 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 her forehead is puckered from the effects of strong 
 sunlight. Carrying by turns the eleven-pound 
 candle, the three had walked in stockings the twenty 
 miles or more from Taormina, arriving at Trecas- 
 tagne the evening before. 
 
 They had been in the church since midnight, and 
 could tell us the gossip of the festa. The woman 
 whom we had seen sacrifice her hair had done so 
 because of a grace given to her a few minutes before 
 our arrival. She had brought in her arms from 
 Catania a seven-year-old daughter who, after a 
 long illness, had become lame. The mother im- 
 plored Sant* Alfio to liberate the child, but nothing 
 happened. At last the two sat down in the church, 
 the mother sobbing. But of a sudden, said Carmela, 
 "The little one jumped up, walked and shouted, 
 'Viva Sant' Alfiu !' " The mother fainted for joy, 
 and when she recovered she caused her hair to be 
 cut in gratitude for the miracle. 
 
 Our friends said that most of the men who had 
 licked the pavement had done so because during the 
 eruption of Etna six months earlier Sant' Alfio had 
 caused the lava to spare their vineyards. 
 
 But, before the women had time to tell us more, 
 with a clamor of brass and tumult of bells the 
 gilded "vara" appeared on the threshold of the 
 church, and Sant' Alfio, San Filadelfo and San 
 Cirino, three seated wooden figures painted in green, 
 gold and red, were before us, receiving the salute of 
 40,000 frenzied people.
 
 THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 255 
 
 Hot air balloons went up. "Viva Sant' Alfio," 
 written in huge letters across the facade of the 
 church, flashed out in sputtering fireworks. The 
 bells in the campanile crashed an ear-splitting 
 gloria. The air was thick with powder smoke. The 
 ground shook with the explosion of mortars and 
 cannon. 
 
 Meanwhile on the golden car sat the three 
 brothers side by side, each impassive on his chair 
 of state, a full moon halo shining at his back ; each 
 dressed in brilliant vestments and hung with jewels 
 and flower garlands. 
 
 The struggle to approach the vara was appalling. 
 Men carrying babies kicked, shoved and cursed 
 their way towards salvation for their infants. Sant' 
 Alfio is criticised, Carmela told us, because it is 
 mostly men who obtain the miracles; but this is 
 not his fault ; it is only because women cannot get 
 at him. 
 
 Across the middle of the flat car ran a gilded 
 fence, behind which, under the canopy of the saints, 
 stood the priest and sacristan we had seen in the 
 morning. Outside the bar on the front platform, 
 immobile, expressionless as the statues, stood two 
 carabinieri. Clinging wildly to the sides and front 
 were shrieking men, holding up watches, money, 
 children. Some were mutes, some possessed with 
 evil spirits; some merely distracted fathers. 
 
 Some of the gifts received by priests and sacris- 
 tan went into the box over which the policemen
 
 2 56 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 stood guard; some were pinned to Sant' Alfio's 
 clothing, which presently was a-flutter with paper 
 money. I recognized numbers of American bills. 
 One man reached up a kicking kid which the priest 
 laid over his shoulder. Another offered a live hen, 
 gay with red ribbons. 
 
 Now and then the priest, reaching down, took a 
 child from its father, laid it on the platform of the 
 vara, and after a minute, picking it up again, held 
 it high in sight of the shouting mob, or gave it back 
 to the father without showing. A few favored 
 children, placed on the floor of the car before it 
 issued from the church, remained there throughout 
 the procession. 
 
 After a long wait the sacristan tinkled a bell and 
 the car started forward a fev/ paces, running on 
 low wheels and pushed by every hand that could 
 reach its long side bars. Behind it blared the band ; 
 in front walked hundreds of people carrying great 
 candles. After a minute it stopped again, facing us. 
 There was a fresh outburst of gunfire. 
 
 This time we could see more distinctly the re- 
 splendent painted images, each bearing the palm of 
 martyrdom. Sant' Alfio sat between his brothers, 
 so bedizened that earrings, bracelets, watches and 
 golden chains combined to make for him a glitter- 
 ing barbaric garment. Men and women who could 
 put a finger to his chair or to that of either of his 
 brothers kissed the finger devoutly.
 
 THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 257 
 
 "How he is beautiful!" murmured Carmela's 
 mother. "He looks as if he were going to speak." 
 
 At this moment a three-year-old boy in a con- 
 spicuous green skirt was passed up to the priest, 
 mother as well as father stretching after him el- 
 oquent gesticulating arms. After a little while man 
 and woman struggled back in our direction sobbing. 
 
 "He didn't!" wailed the father; "He didn't do 
 it ; the saint didn't do it ! Poor son ; poor little son 
 of mine ; Poor broken baby !" 
 
 They passed out of our sight. Later I saw the 
 green skirt on the vara a second, and then a third 
 time. 
 
 "Look, Vossia," said Carmela at my ear; "the 
 saint does look out of sorts; I ought not to have 
 come." 
 
 "Out of sorts? How can you tell?" 
 
 *T know," returned Carmela; "without the stom- 
 ach I ought not to be here." 
 
 Carmela's trepidation, or fatigue, was so genuine 
 that we withdrew with her and her people to the 
 balcony of a house that overlooked the route of the 
 procession. From this vantage point we watched 
 for another hour the offering of gifts and the 
 prayers for assistance. Next day we heard that in 
 money, jewelry, loads of wheat, wine, carts, and 
 horses Sant' Alfio received nearly $5,000. He is 
 very rich indeed. 
 
 After the procession had passed the side street 
 where we had left Santu, we returned to the car-
 
 2 58 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 riage. Preparations were in progress for fireworks 
 and other spectacles in the evening; but the mass 
 of hoUdaymakers were already tying bunches of 
 garlic and pictures of the saints to the panaches of 
 the mules, and beating drums and tambourines as 
 they climbed into carts, or mounted their women 
 folks behind them on asses, ready for the occasion. 
 A blind tale-singer recited to the notes of a 
 squeaky violin: 
 
 ^3 When San Filadelfu was druggist, 
 And San Cirinu was the doctor, 
 With Sant' Alfiu the surgeon, 
 They made pass every pain. 
 
 With eleventh hour desperation the hucksters 
 thrust small wares into women's hands, shouting, 
 "What fine goods, women! It's a piggish shame to 
 leave them." 
 
 It was good to turn away from the noise and the 
 shouting for the quiet Mascaluccio road which 
 Agatina's father had recommended for our return. 
 We took Carmela into the carriage, since she re- 
 fused to rest for the night with her mother and 
 sister at Trecastagne. 
 
 "Sant' Alfiu always smiles at sight of the people 
 at his festa," she said mournfully; "but to-day — 
 he did look out of sorts." 
 
 ^^ E San Filadelfu era speziali, 
 E San Cirinu era lu dutturi, 
 E Sant' Alfiu chirugo magari 
 Facevunu passari ogni duluri.
 
 THE MIRACLES OF SANT' ALFIO 259 
 
 The Mascaluccio road is not beautiful, but its 
 grades are so stiff that few carts followed us. Car- 
 mela and Santu told tales of miracles as we jogged 
 homeward through old fields of lava, where the tree 
 like genestra of Etna blossomed fragrant and yel- 
 low, though we were too tired to listen. It was still 
 mid-afternoon, but even I'Allegru, the Lively, was 
 subdued. Michellinu had deserted us for the cart 
 of a friend. 
 
 Down through the region of vineyards and of 
 lemon gardens we came to the suburbs of Catania, 
 where thousands of people had come out to watch 
 the annual spectacle of the return, which is not in 
 any Northern sense of the word a descent of the 
 "drunken." For a Sicilian a little meat and a mir- 
 acle are an orgy. Through the long Via Stesicoro 
 Etnea we rattled as we had done the night before, 
 in a hubbub of bells, cracking whips and tam- 
 bourines. 
 
 Agatina's mother had prepared a great dinner 
 equal to that of the last day of Carnival ; but we did 
 not stay to eat it. Tinuzza and Turriddu, Agatina's 
 children, were expecting us in Taormina. 
 
 From the doorstep of the antiquities shop they 
 shouted as the old post wagon came willingly to a 
 stop: "A fairing! A fairing! You promised us a 
 fairing! The ciceri?'* 
 
 We gave them saintly whistles and tambourines; 
 but the ciceri were saved for the morning. 
 
 When the children had whistled and drummed
 
 26o BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 themselves away, Agatina's nonna explained why 
 Sant' Alfio cannot grant a miracle to everyone who 
 asks it. "Not a leaf moves without the will of 
 God." And then one must comply with conditions. 
 
 Once a mother asked her three-year-old child 
 v.ho was dumb, "What will you give Sant' Alfio if 
 he liberates you?" This is custom. One asks a 
 child, and it holds up perhaps the bread it is eating, 
 perhaps a toy; the first thing it sees. The offering 
 must be just that. The three-year-old held up a 
 bean. To the mother a bean seemed too mean a 
 thing to be accepted by the saint, and she had it 
 copied in silver. 
 
 "The child was not liberated," concluded the 
 dignified old woman. 
 
 "Before next year I must buy that stomach," said 
 Carmela, shaking her head forebodingly. 
 
 I left Agatina telling her grandmother about that 
 live flame, Michellinu.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 The Car of Mary at Randazzo 
 
 The heap of old houses blackened by the sun and beaten 
 by the winds, on the edge of cliffs under which runs the 
 Alcantara — who looks at the merlature of its walls and its 
 gates, the Gothic windows of Santa Maria and of San 
 Martino, cannot resist a sort of fascination, almost an hal- 
 lucination : It seems that the city's barons are on the alert. — 
 Italia Artistica. 
 
 At four in the morning the Bagnoli Croce is 
 awake. It is still dark, but there are lights in the 
 houses, and I hear voices. Going down to Giardini, 
 I meet mules coming up, laden with barrels of 
 water and wine. A muleteer warns me, "Carefully, 
 Signura ; the road is bad." It is dawn before I reach 
 the marina ; twenty-five or thirty men are hauling a 
 net. The Alcantara is reduced to a thread of water. 
 Etna looks very near and very brown. At Giarre 
 men are loading into a freight car great bales of 
 snow from its upper slopes, protected by thick layers 
 of broom and oak leaves. 
 
 The garden behind the Circum-Etna station at 
 Giarre shows what can be done with irrigation. It 
 it a riot of roses, hibiscus, geraniums and oleanders. 
 The vineyards on the lower slopes of Etna are 
 
 261
 
 262 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 heavy with purple clusters. Knotty, rheumatic- 
 looking vines, closely pruned, from which half the 
 leaves have fallen, carry grape bunches that must 
 weigh several pounds. At frequent intervals we 
 pass a straw hut, newly built or put in repair, the 
 sheepskins on its raised floor showing that the 
 watchman is not far distant. Every palm of ground 
 is cultivated. The "sorbi" are turning red. Pear 
 trees overladen are propped by long canes. 
 
 As we climb higher, tlie tall genestra of the Etna 
 slopes still shows a few fragrant yellow blossoms. 
 Near Castiglione the plantations of hazel nuts, 
 planted as regularly as the hills of a cornfield, show 
 themselves heavy with fruit. 
 
 Some stations before reaching Randazzo our 
 third-class car becomes overfull. Women carry big 
 pasteboard boxes that hold their gala clothes. The 
 guard jests with a group of boys. "To the festa? 
 Yes? Bravo! Then take care of this half of your 
 ticket. You'll need it coming home. Do you under- 
 stand?" A little girl clutches in her sweaty hand 
 the claws of a frightened sparrow. She doesn't 
 know she is cruel. She tries to feed the bird. 
 
 From Giarre one goes up and up among terraces 
 and vineyards, flourishing in lava which has be- 
 come rich soil. As one passes them one sees the 
 lava not yet reduced to cultivable powder piled into 
 the walls of terraces or into heaps. What infinite 
 labor to reclaim even these patches of fruitful soil ! 
 
 There are wonderful views of the sea where the
 
 
 '•■^K 
 
 l^>^. 
 
 
 
 A Straw Hut
 
 THE CAR OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 263 
 
 Alcantara comes down, a streak of yellow and 
 white, becoming green, and melting into the blue 
 of the sea. The clouds throw shadows that lie on 
 the mountains, deep blue at some hours, towards 
 sunset red. The transparency of the air is such that 
 to name a color is almost impossible. Deep, deep 
 blue predominates. As one rises higher one comes 
 to scattered pines and passes through miles of hazel 
 woods and birches. Before and after the hazel 
 groves one passes pine groves of enormous extent, 
 but the trees are all apparently young. 
 
 Beyond Solicchiata one passes lava ejected in 
 1879, 3. dead country; the lava assumes grotesque 
 forms of giants and dwarfs, animals and sea waves, 
 at the caprice of nature. Where a teaspoonful of 
 soil has accumulated springs a brilliant yellow 
 flower. Here and there the lava is piled into ter- 
 races to give place to a spot of cultivated ground. 
 The black lava stones are in color a murky, brown- 
 ish black, dead, without character or shape; 
 amorphous. 
 
 It is hard to explain the existence of the villages 
 that one sees lost among the mountains. What 
 brought anyone here to live? Castiglione is three 
 and one-half miles from the railway, yet it looks 
 prosperous and populous. 
 
 Randazzo itself, stern and black looking in its 
 lava dress, and with successive waves of lava 
 flows of the past scarring the country about it, is 
 spelled in terms of power. Even to-day the strategic
 
 264 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 importance of the valley of the Alcantara is recog- 
 nized by the Italian government ; the valley dug out 
 by nature, between Etna and the Nettuniani moun- 
 tains, is a great way of travel between the Eastern 
 coast and the island centers; who holds Randazzo 
 is master, commanding the roads to Messina, Mi- 
 lazzo and Patti. So Peter of Aragon must have 
 reasoned, who came here after the Sicilian Vespers, 
 and his crowning in Palermo in 1252, to liberate 
 Messina beseiged by d'Angio. So perhaps thought 
 Federico, Frederick II of Aragon, who chose it as 
 his summer home. 
 
 L'Arezzo, il Riccioli and others may be right who 
 insist that Randazzo was inhabited by the Romans, 
 and by the Greeks before them ; they must be right, 
 considering its commanding site; but its historic 
 fame is slight before those spacious times when 
 Robert Guiscard came into the land, "in stature 
 taller than the tallest," as Anna Comnena describes 
 him ; "of a ruddy hue and fair haired ; he was broad- 
 shouldered and his eyes sparkled with fire ; the per- 
 fect proportion of all his limbs made him a model 
 of beauty from head to heel." Bloody battles were 
 fought in its neighborhood by the Byzantines and 
 the Normans against the Saracens, and the city was 
 taken now by one party, now by another ; after nine 
 centuries the plain where Georges Maniaces gave 
 battle to the Paynims still bears the title "della 
 Sconfitta"; of the Defeat; eight centuries ago, only, 
 Roger sent hither Greek slaves from the islands of
 
 THE CAR OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 265 
 
 the archipelago who established the silk trade — an 
 infant industry, quite, in these old lands! 
 
 From Randazzo the hard mountain slopes look 
 even more bleak than in winter; all brown, lacking 
 the cool contrast of green and snow. But no one 
 has eyes to spare from nearer scenes. The tree- 
 shaded space at the entrance to the town is the 
 scene, as usual, of the fair that accompanies the 
 festa. There are mountains of green melons, bas- 
 kets of figs and of fichi d'lndia, apricots, grapes, 
 pears. There are heaps of terra cotta wares, tin, 
 glass. Under the trees at each side of the way are 
 tables for the "little horses," targets for shooting 
 at the mark, rough benches for luncheon, the usual 
 merry-go-round and band stand. 
 
 A band from Riposto, followed by all the popula- 
 tion, parades the streets. They are brilliant with 
 devices to call attention, vocal v/ith cries of vendors, 
 fortune-tellers, showmen and all the traveling 
 chasers of coin whose calendars are marked with 
 the dates of island festivals. And from the country 
 about the peasants have poured in. Under the flut- 
 tering flags, going towards the Matrice, I notice 
 just ahead an elderly man with an elf-lock, sticking 
 out from among the short grizzled hair on the back 
 of his head. The younger men wear sprigs of basil 
 in their buttonholes ; older people dress as in winter ; 
 the women in white wool mantles, the men wear- 
 ing stocking caps. The great vases hooped into 
 their iron rings on every balcony are gay with
 
 266 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 brilliant blue morning-glories, petunias, fuschias, 
 carnations, roses, basil and kitchen greens. A can- 
 tastorie is singing and selling songs of "The Great 
 European Conflict." A word or two comes to the 
 ear in passing. 
 
 "Every poor mother afflicted, whose dear sons 
 have departed, prays from her heart the hand divine 
 to send them back in safety. Every mother weeps, 
 evening and morning; sad have become the poor, 
 the rich and every sort of people; peace is ours no 
 more, we are anxious." 
 
 Men of hard brown faces stop, listen, shake their 
 heads and pass on. Children gather about a lame, 
 bright-eyed old fellow who is selling whistles made 
 in the form of small, rude terra cotta images of 
 saints, painted in primary colors. Any member of 
 the heavenly choir, from St. Michael, the Arch- 
 angel, to the Madonna Addolorata, can be had for 
 a soldo. But to me the price is four soldi. "Why? 
 Because I am Sicilian, and sell according to the 
 customers. You, a lady, are able to pay four soldi ; 
 the boys are not. What are you doing, kid?" And 
 he hobbled off swearing at an urchin who was 
 fingering the basket load of saints. 
 
 "The risen Christ? All right; bravo!" The boy 
 goes off, shrilling on his penny whistle. 
 
 In the Matrice, or Mother Church, men and 
 women are kneeling before the chapel where lies a 
 life size image of the dead Madonna on a lace- 
 covered bier. Long hair flows about her shoulders.
 
 THE CAR OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 267 
 
 She wears a blue mantle and a pink silk robe tied 
 with a flowered sash. Marble feet in leather san- 
 dals peep from beneath her skirts; her head rests 
 on a silver halo. At her head and feet watch papier- 
 mache angels. Over her body is thrown a veil of 
 tulle. Tall candles droop in the heat ; as do the basil 
 and flowers that stand in great jars behind the 
 chapel rail. 
 
 At my side kneels a woman hidden, except fore- 
 head and eyebrows, under her white wool man- 
 tellina. She is praying in an undertone loud enough 
 to catch the ear: "Beautiful Mother, I entreat you 
 that my son be not called as a soldier." Not many 
 of us that day were in festival mood! 
 
 From the moment of my entrance into town I 
 have seen the framework of the tall car backed up 
 against the wall of the sacristy of the Matrice, and 
 the throng of people drawn to the town's chief pride, 
 superintending the operation of preparing it for 
 the procession. This car deserves a detailed de- 
 scription, for it is the vehicle of a Strang rite, sug- 
 gesting atavistic survivals from very old days. 
 
 The entire car has a height of fifteen or sixteen 
 yards, about a yard higher than in recent years. It 
 consists of a low, heavy base car from which rises 
 a mast of wood bound with iron, to which the va- 
 rious "fantasies" are fixed. This mast is made to 
 turn by four men who sit on supports arranged 
 under the floor of the car, which rolls on wheels. 
 
 The "fantasies" are arranged in eight tiers. From
 
 268 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 the floor of the car the tomb of Mary, a great 
 sarcophagus in anything but mourning colors, 
 gleams with red, yellow, green, pink and blue, and 
 carries a huge M on one side. Above this comes 
 what is meant to be a mass of fleecy clouds among 
 which peep the heads of cherubs. The clouds are 
 done in yellow picked out with black. 
 
 Above the clouds comes a great triple wheel in 
 red, gold, green and pink, set vertically. Then two 
 ranks more of clouds; then a second wheel not so 
 large as the first, but rayed like a sun with spokes of 
 many colors; then a third wheel in blue and gold. 
 Above these a crown in red and gold supports a 
 blue globe, which in its turn bears a tall gold cross 
 and banner. 
 
 The base of the car is adorned with a balustrade 
 of columns in gold and white paper. All the decora- 
 tions are flimsy paper and cardboard on a frame- 
 work of cane. 
 
 The twenty-five boys who sing the verses, the 
 "praises of the Madonna," bound to this structure, 
 are kept nearly fasting as a precaution against 
 nausea and dizziness. They get a little dry food, 
 biscuits and cheese, but no fluids, for a whole day 
 previous to the procession. They look as if they 
 were twelve or thirteen years old. They are re- 
 quired to confess and take communion before put- 
 ting on their gala clothes. In former days many 
 accidents are said to have taken place, but now the 
 car is better built, or possibly Maria is more vig-
 
 THE CAR OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 269 
 
 ilant. The boys mount to their places by ladders 
 set against the church wall, and are well fastened, 
 
 "It is a most ancient tradition," said a man who 
 seemed to have in charge the ornamentation of the 
 car. "Give her a turn or two, and let the lady see 
 how it works," he called to the men who were busy 
 tacking paper jars of flowers in place. 
 
 Obedient to the command, the men dropped their 
 tasks and turned the levers that made the tall mast 
 revolve in its socket, carrying around and around 
 the tomb, the clouds and the great wheels. The 
 fantasies are bedecked with much isinglass which 
 sparkles as it turns. 
 
 The car is backed up against the sacristy next the 
 apse of the Matrice between two scaffolds, with 
 ladders at the sides. The work of trimming it is 
 going on busily when I arrive; a crowd of people 
 are watching. The head mechanician takes me in- 
 side the enclosure to show me the works, assuring 
 me there is no danger, though when the wind blows 
 and the tall mast sways it may look perilous. The 
 boys, he says, are well tied. For them it is im 
 giuoco. They enjoy it, and they get a lira for their 
 pains. 
 
 "Another turn or two;" and the mast groans 
 and creaks and revolves experimentally; revolves 
 vertically as it swings in its circle, and the mechan- 
 ician looks on proud of his job. There is nothing 
 like it, he says, anywhere else in the world. 
 
 The base cart or box is heavily framed of wood
 
 2 70 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 and iron ; it runs on low, small wheels, and from the 
 floor descends a well, in which stands the iron- 
 bound mast. Under the floor on their cramped seats 
 crouch the four men who push the iron handles 
 that spring from the iron ring encircling the mast, 
 and make it turn. 
 
 As the hour for the procession approaches the 
 boys scramble up the ladders and one by one are 
 fastened into their placeq. On the great triple wheel 
 each lad is tied into an iron belt, while his feet are 
 bound to iron footholds. Most of them look like 
 caricatures of mediaeval knights, with helmets, 
 slashed doublets and hose; marionette figures 
 copied out of the "Reali di Francia," but without the 
 armor of fighting men. Their colors are as gay as 
 the isinglass paper — pink, green, blue, yellow, etc. 
 Their pink fleshings, doublets and cloaks have seen 
 service and do not fit; but the boys make up in 
 enthusiasm for all deficiencies. 
 
 The scene at the finish is a riot of enthusiasm, as 
 the boys scramble up the ladders. Tying them in 
 takes time. Clouds are gathering, but the people 
 say it cannot rain; the Madonna will not permit. 
 Everyone is explaining to his neighbor all about 
 the carro. One says the figures on the car in the 
 procession at Messina before the earthquake were 
 nothing but papier-mache. In Naples they make a 
 procession with a car in the form of a ship, but it 
 has not the significance of this, which sets forth 
 the Ascension of Maria into Heaven.
 
 THE CAR OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 271 
 
 At the very top is the boy Maria in a blue robe 
 by the side of the Padre Eterno, who wears a beard 
 and carries a cross. Two or three angels are in at- 
 tendance. On the wheels are boy angels in the at- 
 titude of flight. Below among the clouds are cherubs 
 and groups figuring scenes from the Bible. The 
 archangel Michael, with his sword, is dressed in 
 red. Guarding the tomb are Roman soldiers. 
 
 There is intense excitement as the last touch is 
 given. At a signal from the attendant priests the 
 boys begin to sing — 
 
 Bedda Signura, Matri Maria, 
 Evviva la Vara, .... 
 
 What follows of the lodi is lost in the wild cheers 
 that go up from the crowd. Little cannon explode. 
 The mast sways in the wind as it begins to revolve, 
 groaning and squeaking. The great triple wheel 
 turns slowly, then faster, as the car swings out 
 from its place between the scaffolds, and is pulled 
 and pushed by hundreds of hands towards the main 
 street, the Corso Umberto. 
 
 It is an amazing sight — the shining car, the gay 
 tomb of the Madonna supported by the angels, by 
 tall vases of gelatine paper flowers; the three re- 
 volving wheels, the second of which swings higher 
 than the roofs of the low houses, the singing boys 
 whirling perilously in air, the isinglass and tinsel 
 glittering as the dazzling procession takes up its 
 march in the sunset light through the length of the
 
 2 72 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 town. People lean from balconies and roofs de- 
 lirious with excitement. 
 
 The whole population of the town follows the 
 glittering car towards the dazzle of the sunset, the 
 gloria rung by the bells of each church, as it ap- 
 proaches, heralding its passage. At the west end 
 of the town, under the Norman campanile of San 
 Martino, the car halts and turns; its return must 
 be accomplished before the passing of the summer 
 twilight, for the electric light wires have been re- 
 moved to give room for its passage. 
 
 Once again at a stand in the open space behind 
 the apse of Santa Maria, there begins a frenzied 
 work of spoliation. "They grab off all the fan- 
 tasies," says the lame man at my side; and indeed 
 the boy angels are casting themselves upon every 
 bit of ornamentation within reach, pulling in pieces 
 the yellow clouds, wrenching away the cardboard 
 cherubs, stripping from the wheels the gaudy sun- 
 rays and casting them to the crowd, which fights 
 for the scraps to be preserved as charms for an en- 
 tire year, until there are other rags of another festa 
 to be fought for. 
 
 The angels, as is meet, keep for themselves the 
 best. At the top of the mast little boy blue Maria 
 is scuffling with the Eternal Father for pink paste- 
 board cherubs. The two attendant angels watch 
 their chance to rob both, but Maria gets the better 
 of all three and remains triumphant with his arms 
 full of chubby heads and spreading wings. 
 
 1
 
 Tying the Boys in Place, and Detail of the Car
 
 THE CAR OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 273 
 
 When the mast has been rifled, It is pushed back 
 between the scaffolds against the wall of the 
 sagrestia, and the work of untying the boys begins 
 Each, as he is released from his iron belt, stands 
 a moment, cramped and stiff, then slowly clambers 
 down, 
 
 "Were you pleased with the festa?" asks Saitta, 
 proud, happy, sure of my answer, limping en- 
 thusiastically at my side as we hurry to the convent 
 of the Cappucini to get a closer look at the boys be- 
 fore they have time to strip off their angel robes. 
 Tired, sweaty, dirty, the band of angels lies on the 
 grass in what was once the garden of the cloisters. 
 "Tired? Yes, Signura; very tired." 
 
 And frightened ? Maria laughs at the idea. Maria 
 is never afraid of anything! "Disconcerted?" Well, 
 a little nauseated, just at first. 
 
 Maria is a chunky boy, as blond as a Swede, with 
 yellow hair and colorless white skin. In the scuffle 
 for the cherubs his blue mantle has been twitched to 
 one side, the golden halo is awry, his pale blue eyes 
 still gleam with berserker battle light as he hugs 
 the torn and ragged prizes. 
 
 The riches of Santa Maria, which pay for these 
 religious rites, were inherited from the Catanese 
 baroness Giovanella de Ouattro, who died in 1506, 
 leaving her entire property to this church. The boys 
 come together in the morning of every August 15th 
 at San Domenico, where in one of the rooms of the
 
 274 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 antique convent they put on the robes kept for the 
 purpose. 
 
 The spectacle of this car, painted with a thousand 
 colors, from which hang those clusters of little 
 whirling creatures, is something which recalls not 
 so much the Middle Ages as the customs of more 
 distant places and barbaric times. It is a sort of 
 car of Moloch and of Vishnu which, if it does not 
 reek with human blood, yet costs a sacrifice. Those 
 angels, those miniature warriors, are kept fasting 
 from the previous day; they undergo hunger, nau- 
 sea and fear gladly for the honor and the fame. 
 
 The vara of Messina, which Randazzo scorns, 
 dates from the sixteenth century or earlier; in 
 "Feste Patronali," Pitre says much earlier than 
 1535. When the Imperatore Carlo V entered Mes- 
 sina in triumph after the Tunis enterprise one of 
 the cars that came out to meet him was an Assump- 
 tion car, with Charles and Victory substituted for 
 Maria and the Eternal Father. In 1571 the August 
 festa with the car was repeated in November in 
 honor of Don John of Austria, victor at Lepanto. 
 
 Pitre illustrates the car as seen and sketched by 
 the French artist Huel before 1784. It shows cer- 
 tain differences from the car of recent times. The 
 great wheels have sun faces with rays as spokes; 
 the angels stand on clouds; Maria is held in the 
 hand of the Eternal Father. There are only two 
 banks of clouds. 
 
 Pitre also illustrates the car as it was in the first
 
 THE CAR OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 275 
 
 half of the nineteenth century, with clouds and sun 
 faces. He speaks of the moon and earth; and the 
 earth is obvious. There are apostles, angels, arch- 
 angels, cherubim. The Padre Eterno is represented 
 by a man with a beard, cross in hand. The children 
 are attached at the ends of the principal rays of the 
 sun; they rise and fall in such a manner as always 
 to remain erect, like those on the wheel of fortune. 
 The angels are enjoying the triumph of the Virgin. 
 
 The basic ideas of the car may be confused: 
 Mary ascending into Heaven mixed up in naive 
 incongruity with old wheel festivals that typify the 
 sun and his fructifying magic. The earth and the 
 clouds, the sun and moon, the angels and "the souls 
 in their degree," all are in place. No one can fall, 
 since the city and the festival are under the protec- 
 tion of Mary. On that day, at least, no malignant 
 spirit can walk abroad, seeking to do mischiefs. 
 
 Well, it is over for the year! Randazzo turns to 
 its daily problems of war and work. 
 
 From the window of my room in the primitive 
 hotel I look over the red tiled roofs of the city 
 towards Etna. To my right is a palace with a fine 
 double window; two dark arches of lava in a dark 
 facade; beyond is the refreshing green of the oaks 
 of the town; still beyond, the great mass of Etna, 
 broad of base as seen from here. 
 
 The streets are gay with catch-penny games. 
 Half a dozen men have set up marks for shooting. 
 The barker nearest me has a wooden box which he
 
 2 76 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 hangs to an acacia tree; inside are crudely painted 
 figures of Turks or Arabs, reminding me that some 
 of the streets of the town have been re-named for 
 the TripoH war — Ain-Zara, etc. The weapon is a 
 rude cross-bow, shooting stones. Another man has 
 a "miraculous fish" game. You pay a soldo for an 
 envelope containing the number of your catch. 
 
 At another pitch are tables for playing the ponies 
 — gorgeous nickel-plated ponies gaily caparisoned, 
 their tails in air, their legs prancing. They race 
 under belled arches round and round, one horse car- 
 rying a tri-color banner. The hard-faced woman 
 who acts as starter has a little switch to keep too 
 importunate customers in order. She is not barking, 
 but presently her place is taken by a man who barks 
 in competition with the other ponies under the next 
 tree. The ponies are yellow, green, red and black. 
 The bannered horse carries a marker that ticks the 
 slate of the barrier fence. The circle of the table is 
 divided into segments of the four colors, each seg- 
 ment marked by radiating lines into little segments, 
 where painted horses, from i to lo in number, 
 gallop briskly. You bet on your color and win as 
 many soldi as there are horses of your color in the 
 little segments where the banner stops. The barker 
 cries: "Green, color of hope; yellow, color of gold; 
 the Red Cavalier gains ! The Black Cavalier wins !" 
 
 It is hard to get anything to eat at the little hotel ; 
 at night they seemed to think I had had enough at 
 noon. At noon they had refused me chicken, though
 
 THE CAR OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 277 
 
 I could see fowl upon the tables. The guests had 
 brought their own. At last an old man reluctantly 
 pokes his head out of the kitchen and offers me 
 asparagus omelet, bread and nespoli. 
 
 While I eat, the daughter of the house tells me 
 that the women in nun-like dress I have noticed are 
 "monache di casa," home-staying nuns, of different 
 orders. For ITmmaculata the dress is celeste with 
 a white girdle and a long white wool shawl or scarf, 
 with a white band across the forehead. The Car- 
 melite dress is coffee-colored, with a black shawl. 
 These nuns call one another sister, and help one 
 another. They live at home but occupy themselves 
 with their devotion, much as if in a convent. Not 
 many women now become home-nuns, but always 
 some; "there is always religion." The old mon- 
 asteries and convents of Randazzo have now been 
 turned into schools; one is a factory; one the post 
 office. 
 
 I rose early to take a carriage for Maniaca, a 
 matter not to be arranged without difficulty. Finally 
 I start with Pietro, the waiter, on foot. He has 
 missed his morning coffee and is ill-natured. But 
 the way is beautiful, Etna in deep blue. 
 
 To the right as we climb out of the paese rises a 
 chain of mountains. The Mountain of the Wood of 
 Maria belongs to the church of Santa Maria, the 
 church of the car, which Pietro says is enormously 
 rich; it has an income of 700 lire per day — which 
 must be a mistake — and thus is able to celebrate its
 
 278 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 great festa every year. Beyond is the Monte Flas- 
 cio. We pass a desolate lava tract where it is hard 
 to understand why anybody should live; but there 
 is almost a village. It is "for the convenience," 
 Pietro says. There are several new houses going 
 up; houses built of the lava itself, sometimes in 
 large part excavated in the black lava rock, their 
 roofs of red tile very little above the ground level. 
 A party of men on muleback overtake us, and with- 
 out ceremony, offer us a mount. We ask them about 
 the way to Maniaca; it is obviously impossible to 
 walk there and catch my afternoon train, so we 
 turn off toward Maletto on the hill to our left. 
 
 Our new way leads for three or four kilos along 
 a rough track up a lava flow; but before this is a 
 strip of clayey soil, wet in winter, split by cracks 
 in summer, poor land. The lava is old and rough, 
 almost as desert as it is twenty years after an erup- 
 tion. The path is worn into hollows by the feet of 
 mules, yet lonely as it is desolate. In an hour's 
 tramp we see two men. There are ring markings 
 on the lava as if it had stiffened in waves while 
 cooling. Where bubbles of lava broke are grottoes 
 sometimes big enough for sheep pens. Now and 
 then a few square meters of soil have softened 
 enough to permit of a patch of culture. 
 
 Not far from Maletto is a wee trickle of water 
 to our left where women are washing linen and 
 spreading it to bleach. The village itself is of per- 
 haps 4000 souls, dominated by the ruins of an old
 
 THE CAR OF MARY AT RANDAZZO 279 
 
 castle. Some of its streets are arched, making pas- 
 sages like those in Berne. The conspicuous church 
 is that of the patron, Sant' Antonino. 
 
 People gaze as we wander, looking for something 
 to eat. We go at last into a clean looking house 
 where the woman conducts us from the shop into 
 a back room, and sends out a boy to buy us pro- 
 visions. He comes back with a bit of meat, and 
 her husband cooks it for us over a portable stove 
 that stands outside on the balcony, overlooking 
 another narrow street. The woman spreads a sheet 
 over a small table and brings out bread, cheese, 
 sausage and scalora. 
 
 I bargain with a carrettiere to take us back to 
 Randazzo. Pietro has given out. Stefano, the 
 carter, ties two chairs in his cart and harnesses a 
 white mule, Concettina, very slow and sedate, who 
 is said to have a very beautiful harness, but it is 
 used on days of festa only. 
 
 Stefano is middle-aged, brown and wholesome 
 looking. He comes from Aderno, but has been six- 
 teen years at Maletto, and does not want to go to 
 America; he has his cart, his mule and his wife; 
 what more could a man want? He believes in the 
 miracles of Sant' Alfio; has seen a dumb girl made 
 to speak after three pilgrimages made in three suc- 
 cessive years. 
 
 Pietro goes to sleep. The sun comes out, making 
 the day glorious. Stefano urges me to get out of 
 the chair and make myself more comfortable on
 
 28o BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 the sheepskin rug on the floor of the cart, which 
 bumps and jars over stones and rough places. 
 
 At times Stef ano sings ; at times we talk of Etna, 
 always in plain view, and its terrors. We talk of 
 bandits ; there are said to be few, though many men 
 in the lonely country carry rifles, Pietro thinks 
 they have learned that in order to eat it is necessary 
 to work. We talk of the Duke of Bronte, Admiral 
 Nelson's English heir and successor in that vast 
 estate. The Duke's men never leave him and are 
 mostly old. His service is well liked. The gardens 
 of the estate are very beautiful, and everything is 
 well administered. And, so talking, we jog along 
 back to the little albergo just in time to pay my bill 
 and catch my train. 
 
 If I had listened to Stef ano I should have had to 
 stay another night in Randazzo; he had suggested 
 that I get down from the cart as we approached 
 the town, thinking I might not like to enter in so 
 rural a vehicle. 
 
 Considering the inn, that would have been to pay 
 dearly for sinful pride!
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 "Red Pelts" at Castrogiovanni 
 
 At the end of May I have seen the men wrapped up in 
 a mantle which hides their faces and rises above their heads 
 like a cap; and the women, like the men, . . . swathe 
 themselves in a mantle which they clutch with one hand 
 under the chin. — Gaston Vuillier. 
 
 Castrogiovanni is a little over 3,000 feet up in 
 the air, and I have never seen it really warm. Past 
 the middle of May, the time of which Vuillier 
 writes, a season elsewhere of bare brown earth and 
 sun-baked herbage, I once more found the mountain 
 much of the time bathed in fog; why do they hold 
 the greatest animal fair in Sicily high in the clouds ? 
 
 Possibly because it is the center of the earth — 
 Enna of the ancients, Kasr Jani of the Arabs, half- 
 way house between East and West, the famous 
 fighting ground for men from both sides. It is a 
 city in the shape of a horse-shoe, a rocky nest, with 
 a steep valley in the middle. One sees old palaces 
 here and there, relics of former strength, huge for- 
 tress-like structures of squared stone blocks with 
 few windows, more like the mediaeval palaces of 
 Florence than the plaster ones of Catania. These 
 
 281
 
 282 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 fortresses and the imposing churches contrast with 
 streets that are not streets, but narrow ways among 
 the rocks, worn by the men, the mules and the 
 carts that have passed there hundreds, thousands 
 of years — for no one knows when the first men 
 came. 
 
 The people are the most interesting I have seen 
 in Sicily; the men darker and leaner than those of 
 the lowlands, clad in dark blue hoods and coats; 
 the women with pure oval faces, olive complexions 
 and red cheeks, and with black hair; of the Greek 
 type, perhaps; in any case, beautiful. There is also 
 a type almost African in tint and feature, with skin 
 extremely dark and hair kinky as well as black, 
 black! They wear a black mantellina or a heavy 
 black shawl, and they crowd about the doorways to 
 look at us. Visitors are not many. 
 
 Yesterday I saw a wedding procession. Walk- 
 ing in front was the bride with her two sisters, all 
 in handsome dresses of dove-colored brocade, rich 
 and heavy, with black silk embroidered shawls hung 
 with long, rich fringe. Their heads were bare. Be- 
 hind the bride came her female relatives and 
 friends, all in peasant dress, with black headker- 
 chiefs and dark clothes. Behind these was the pro- 
 cession of the men, led by the bridegroom between 
 two friends, two or three dozen others following. 
 Paper confetti were thrown from the doors. 
 
 "There they are marrying a bride," said the boy 
 who guided us, in his imperfect Italian.
 
 "RED PELTS" AT CASTROGIOVANNI 283 
 
 Stupidly I asked which was the bride, and the 
 sisters, hearing, pointed out the pretty girl in the 
 middle whose eyes were red from weeping. Peasants 
 never wear orange blossoms or put on white for 
 weddings. The gray brocade is a gala dress for a 
 lifetime, and the embroidered shawl the most 
 treasured of possessions. 
 
 There are here in Castrogiovanni the usual 
 Madonna legends; one is of an image found drift- 
 ing in the sea and towed to land by sailors. It was 
 put on an ox-cart, when the oxen without guidance 
 brought it to Castrogiovanni. At her festa in July 
 men dressed as reapers with shirt outside the 
 trousers carry this Madonna from the Mother 
 Church to the convent, where it remains for thirteen 
 to fifteen days — every day a festa — and people come 
 from far to pay their devotions. 
 
 A kindly old woman told us that here in Castro- 
 giovanni is the belief that some day the Madonna 
 must appear in person at the Franceschini church 
 — la Madonna della Visitazione. Her church in 
 Rome has been shaken by an earthquake, a sign 
 that she must leave it and come here; the Pope 
 must come also, with all the devout of earth, and 
 so Castrogiovanni will become once more Enna, the 
 center of civilization. In the church, of a usual bare 
 plaster type, a sacristan showed us the body of 
 Angelo Musico, a frate of Caltagirone who died 
 two centuries ago, whose relics have worked mir- 
 acles and who some day may become a saint. The
 
 284 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 corpse, that of a toothless man of seventy-two 
 years, a wierd spectacle, is preserved in the habit 
 of the order, with cord and staff. 
 
 Beyond the garden of the convent one looks out 
 over a prospect second only to that of the Castello ; 
 over an endless succession of hills blue in the azure 
 shadows of the scirocco; blue, blue hills without 
 end. Never a road, but hills, hills, hills — and nes- 
 tling among them the lake of Pergusa, fishless for 
 its sins. 
 
 This Lago Pergusa is the spot from which Pluto 
 bore away Persephone. Legend says it was once 
 full of fish; good ones. Two rotoli of fish were 
 vowed every year to the Saviour by the men who 
 leased the fishing, but they were not paid, so the 
 lake was caused to yield only tiny fish not worth 
 taking. And so, shamed and accursed, it remains. 
 
 At sunset, from the old Castello, now a prison, 
 there is a view of the snows of Etna and of the 
 Madonni mountains, also snow-capped; a view of 
 the lower lying Salascibetta; views of interminable 
 wastes of wheat and fave, dark green and light 
 green, spaced by black cypress trees in groups of 
 two like carabinieri. Near the town a few fruit 
 trees, pears and cherries and quince, with now and 
 then an apple tree, are seen. But for the most part 
 wheat and fave alone speak of culture and give the 
 tone to the landscape. Sterile and deserted the land 
 looks, sand showing between the grain; there are
 
 "RED PELTS" AT CASTROGIOVANNI 285 
 
 few roads and no signs of life on them; everybody 
 lives in the town and homes early these long days. 
 
 A strange town it is — 60,000 people with one 
 weekly journal, less a newspaper than a Socialist 
 circular; with one kiosque where out-of-town papers 
 are sold; with a decent public library, not large — 
 and a gun shop in every block. Small boys on the 
 steps of blacksmith shops finish off bullets moulded 
 in the old fashion, and trim away with nippers the 
 strips of lead in which they are imbedded. 
 
 I do not know whether to be more disturbed by 
 the Bowery manners of these Sicilians who have 
 been in America or the excessive politeness of older 
 people who have stayed at home. In the street yes- 
 terday a girl saluted me with, "Say, mister, how 
 do?" I asked if she could not use better English 
 and she explained, "I no speaka much. I back three 
 years." She had lived four years in Brooklyn, near 
 Coney Island, and would like to go again, but 
 Babbo "no want, because he got store now." 
 Father's store, set up with Brooklyn money, is a 
 hole in the wall where tobacco, wine and flour are 
 sold, with spaghetti and other indispensables. 
 
 On the other hand, there was the old woman who 
 was picking up manure in her hands for her grand- 
 children's garden. She looked eighty years old, 
 dodging about the heels of the donkeys. But when 
 I made her acquaintance her pity was for me, not 
 herself. She smiled and said, "Give me your bless- 
 ing!" the common salutation to a superior, some-
 
 286 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 times improved to "Your Excellency, bless me!" 
 And she went on: "Are you quite alone, Your 
 Ladyship?" A bystander helped her lift the basket 
 of manure to her head and she walked with me 
 toward the church, a stately model of courtesy to- 
 ward a stranger. 
 
 Better excuse for keeping long awake who could 
 ask than the unceasing song of the nightingale? 
 This morning there was Etna, white with mist half 
 way to the top; then a band of blue, and then the 
 pearl-white snow and the deep shadows of the 
 summit, almost more beautiful, more dream-like, 
 than from Taormina. And beyond Etna the sea. 
 
 But for morning sounds, to ears that had heark- 
 ened over-long to Philomel, there came a sudden 
 clamor of bells, jingled by cows, oxen, asses, mules 
 and horses climbing up from below in procession. 
 I did not know there were in Sicily so many an- 
 imals. The plain of the mountain was black with 
 them. It is strange how black the "red beasts" can 
 be when massed together with fog blurring their 
 outlines at a distance, as at intervals it did in the 
 early morning. 
 
 From the church of Monte Salvo down and up 
 the hills and beyond on each side were these black 
 masses of cattle, tethered, hobbled, free. I never 
 reached the limits of them ; I don't know how many 
 acres there were ; always more black masses in view. 
 Where do all the animals go at night? — some are 
 sheltered in the ground floors of houses; many
 
 "RED PELTS" AT CASTROGIOVANNI 287 
 
 must stay at the Inn of the Beautiful Stars. The 
 forage, largely clover in flower, is brought on the 
 backs of asses. 
 
 For the men, there are two or three barracks of 
 poles covered with canvas, sheltering tables and 
 portable stoves. Most of the guests pull from their 
 pockets bread and a bit of cheese. There is not yet 
 such an abundance of trinkets for sale as at a f esta ; 
 no dried chick-peas or sweets; a man's affair it is, 
 and strictly business. Two or three men are selling 
 knives — which here may be necessaries. Each car- 
 ries a stout piece of cane into which the knives are 
 stuck, the handles pointing up. "American knives," 
 they call ; "genuine American knives." 
 
 Not that relaxation is wholly lacking. A young 
 fellow has a fortune-telling stand; in a column of 
 water little figures sink and rise; one comes to the 
 surface and brings your fortune in a slip of paper. 
 An old man brought me his, asking me to read it. 
 It said he had had many misfortunes, had suffered 
 much but should not despair. His distant friend 
 was well and would come home. He must not trust 
 all who would speak smooth words to him ; he had 
 false friends. But things were coming his way and 
 he would live to be seventy-four years old. The 
 brown, lean old fellow asked eagerly if all this was 
 true. Could he trust it? Voscenza would know. 
 He thanked me gratefully. 
 
 The bargaining is most animated. There is much 
 opening of animals' mouths to read the record of 
 
 SL.
 
 288 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 the teeth; much lifting of saddles for possible galls 
 to show ; much heated argument. When a price dis- 
 pute becomes acute the seller will swear that he will 
 give away the animal — ^here a magnificent gesture! 
 — but sell below his price, that he will not, bear 
 witness the old gods! 
 
 There are splendid big mules with handsome 
 trappings and saddle-cloths; a few fine horses; 
 rough-coated young mules, fifty in a bunch. The 
 bands of color on the saddle-bags are strips of red 
 wool with applied embroidery of set designs, scrolls 
 and arabesques in green and yellow and white wool 
 stitched down with crewel. The broad tail-piece is 
 decorated similarly. The ornamentation covers one 
 end of the saddle-cloth and the lower ends of the 
 pack-saddle. At each side is a strip of red. Some- 
 times the pack-saddle has gay red wool corners; 
 sheepskins are often used as saddle-cloths. A horse 
 fully loaded with basto, saddle-cloths and saddle- 
 bags is "caricato." 
 
 Men with the air of masters, attended by guards 
 and foremen, look over the animals. Most of them 
 are dark, lean and sinewy, with high cheekbones, 
 foreheads lined, eyes keen and alert, squinting from 
 the sun. The noses are straight or aquiline, the 
 brows straight and heavy. Every man carries a 
 staff or goad stick, and the guards have double- 
 barreled guns on their shoulders or, if mounted, 
 carried in front on the saddle. In "making proof" 
 of an animal the herdsmen ride like Arabs or like
 
 "RED PELTS" AT CASTROGIOVANNI 289 
 
 cowboys. A group of them silhouetted on the sky- 
 line moving at a gallop is a wild picture. 
 
 Women appear and set up shop for the hungry. 
 One has loaded a lemon basket with her wares. 
 Another balances on her head a great water-jar. A 
 third has a heavy cooking pot full of onions. Bar- 
 gaining is as keen as the hunger. Curiously, the 
 onions come from the shore ; they say it is too cold 
 for them to thrive on these heights. 
 
 There Is a stir in the crowd. A donkey in gay 
 harness clatters wildly towards us. Someone is 
 trying out a donkey before accepting him. The don- 
 key bumps into a mountain of onions and scatters 
 them; he stampedes a bunch of sheep that have 
 drawn together in a huddle, their patient noses to 
 the ground. 
 
 "Holy Patience!" says my photographer com- 
 panion; "One of St. Joseph's!" A "St. Joseph's 
 donkey" is a special breed, small, strong and bad- 
 tempered, mouse-colored and marked with two 
 black lines that form a cross, one stroke down the 
 spine, the other crossing the shoulders. Later in 
 the day I came across this beast and his purchaser. 
 The animal cost twenty dollars and was bought for 
 speedy reselling. 
 
 You need a special lingo to chaffer at a fair. It 
 is an art. 
 
 You glance at an animal, refraining from show- 
 ing deep interest.
 
 ago BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 "Suit you?" asks the seller with equal uncon- 
 cern, but politely. 
 
 You answer with a little grimace, and pass on, 
 paying attention to other animals. After a time, 
 wandering back into the neighborhood, you care- 
 lessly ask the price. 
 
 "One hundred lire." 
 
 "Blood of Christ," is a mild oath at a fair. Up 
 go your hands in amazement. You hardly trouble 
 to add: "Now if you had said fifty, we might talk." 
 The other, knowing his ground, is indifferent to 
 your scorn. 
 
 You turn as if to go away; but at the moment 
 up saunters friend Pietro, a judge of animals; in 
 fact, an agent. He also glances at the beast and 
 makes some slighting remark. Follows the agent of 
 the owner, a poet in praise of the animal. Discourse 
 becomes animated. What looks like and sometimes 
 is a quarrel may result, as when a would-be buyer 
 tries to force earnest money, to bind the bargain, 
 on the seller against his will. 
 
 In one group we watched the chaffering over 
 two young cows and a restless young bull, plunging 
 and tossing his rope, I noted four old peasants, the 
 shawls over their shoulders in stripes of black and 
 white wool. These are mountain men, with brown, 
 lined faces, skin shoes and an air of coming from 
 wide spaces, a sharp contrast to the more ordinary 
 types from the shore. I gather that they are from 
 Limina. Their middleman is not tactful; he dis-
 
 "RED PELTS" AT CASTROGIOVANNI 291 
 
 parages the judgment of the other agent in such 
 fashion that the seller stalks away, angry. The 
 herdsman himself strides after him, the trouble is 
 patched up, earnest money taken and the red bull 
 led away. 
 
 It is hot now. A couple of girls who have pigs 
 in charge have thrown themselves on the ground 
 for an early siesta, each pillowed on a pig, A boy 
 threads his way in and out, calling pictures of the 
 Madonna of the Chain for two cents. A blind 
 ballad singer sets up a broad sheet of canvas painted 
 with scenes of tortures inflicted by Arabs on Italians 
 in Tripoli. The colors are greens, blues, yellows 
 and reds; the sketching crude but spirited, espe- 
 cially the sweep from heaven of the rescuing spirit, 
 one of the "souls of the beheaded." The singer 
 points to each tableau as he sings of the episode it 
 pictures, then offers printed copies. 
 
 It is eleven o'clock now, and the meat ovens are 
 being drawn. Inside each oven one sees a brown, 
 sizzling stack of flesh and bones, with rich perfume 
 escaping. The meat is sold in half an hour. Beside 
 each oven stands a crier, a long form in his hand 
 and on the trident a sheep's head. He is hoarsely 
 calling: "Roast sheep! Roast sheep! Better than 
 sweets!" Men stand in line to buy. A quarter is 
 the usual purchase, for the sheep are small and a 
 quarter may not be many pounds. Each customer 
 takes his portion in a big handkerchief which he 
 knots and carries off, perhaps to one of the luncheon
 
 C92 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 booths that have sprung up in the shade of the 
 lemon trees by the dry stream bed. These are roofed 
 and sided, hke the dry goods pavilions, with flower- 
 ing branches of oleander or screens of split and 
 plaited cane. They are furnished with rough tables 
 and benches, and the keepers sell little but the nec- 
 essaries of life — wine, peasant bread, raw onions, 
 garlic, Sicilian cheese ; but it is understood that the 
 patrons will for the most part bring roast sheep and 
 will buy only bread and wine to complete the 
 Homeric feast. How they eat meat, these Sicilians, 
 when they do eat it, as if storing up flesh food for 
 months when they do not see it! 
 
 Our party was not large — the photographer, his 
 cousin, Sambastiano, a friend from Limina, a man 
 who had come to attend a flock of goats a cousin 
 was selling, Mastro Peppino, two children and my- 
 self ; but when Mastro Peppino failed to get more 
 than what seemed half a sheep, distress was ob- 
 vious. We carried our baskets out of the crowd 
 toward a spring at the stream, some distance from 
 the fair, but the picnic ground we had known in 
 winter was sadly changed. For lack of rain the 
 crops had failed, only yellow stalks sticking up out 
 of the ground. 
 
 We sought the shade and Sambastiano broke up 
 the hot meat. "Excuse my hands," he said; "if we 
 send to buy forks the meat will get cold." There 
 was bread from wheat grown on Sambastiano's 
 land, and ground by his mother in a hand-mill.
 
 "RED PELTS" AT CASTROGIOVANNI 293 
 
 There was no butter, but "ricotta," buttermilk curd 
 dried in the sun and baked, food for Sicilian gods. 
 There were fresh figs, bought at the fair; the early 
 summer figs, sweeter and bigger than later cullings. 
 There was wine pressed from Sambastiano's grapes, 
 not more than a year old, pure and delicious. 
 
 While we ate and drank, Don Vincenzo told 
 stories. Don Vincenzo is the Sindaco of Limina. 
 Short, dark, fresh-complexioned, plump, bright- 
 eyed and good-humored, he has been in America 
 and come home well-to-do. He is so pronounced a 
 radical that he has caused this inscription to be 
 picked out in pebbles on the front of his house: 
 
 "Here lives Vincenzo , Socialist." Yet he 
 
 directs the yearly festa of San Filippo, whose 
 miracles are the marvel of Sicily. In short, Don 
 Vincenzo is a man of the world and a good picnic 
 companion. 
 
 After we had eaten, the horses were put to, and 
 we set off down the break-neck slope with, as pres- 
 ently appeared, a broken rein, but a whip in ex- 
 cellent state, along with carts, mules, donkeys and 
 a stream of home-going people, personally conduct- 
 ing the goats, pigs and sheep they had bought. 
 
 The washing place below the town is not enclosed 
 from rain and cold, and we stopped to commiserate 
 with the washer-women there. But they would have 
 none of it. What would you? It is known that 
 one must work! Below is a watering place for 
 animals, busy beyond its wont with the needs of
 
 294 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 the newly purchased beasts. A water carrier there 
 told us he had worked in America, in mines near 
 "Pittisborgo" where he earned ten lire a day; in 
 Castrogiovanni he can get but three, and not always 
 that. But his wife and children are here. And 
 thereabouts came to us also one Lina Potenza, who 
 had been four years in America, and hopes to re- 
 turn when her father is able to travel. She has a 
 brother a barber in New York, a dressmaker sister 
 and another who is a featherworker. She has her- 
 self, though even now but fourteen, earned six dol- 
 lars a week working after school on feathers in 
 New York. 
 
 Also, I regret to say, there were boy beggars. I 
 had earlier written in my notes that no beggars ac- 
 costed us in Castrogiovanni. It was not, in fact, 
 then or now the begging season; few tourists ever 
 saw the fair of the red pelts. 
 
 But news of our strange taste in sights must have 
 got abroad ; for down into the plains, amid the low- 
 ing and whinnying and mooing of the boughten 
 beasts, and the twittering of the sparrows keeping 
 pace above them ; down past the miraculous crucifix, 
 a steep way with a never-ending procession of 
 women and donkeys carrying water ; down through 
 fields of asphodel, and small red Adonis; down the 
 white ribbon of road we could see winding for miles 
 ahead of us, we were followed, quite in the fashion 
 of the "Milordi" travelers of tradition, by "Gimme 
 a penny ! Give me a little soldo !" 
 
 So were the proprieties tardily preserved.
 
 PART III 
 ISLAND YESTERDAYS
 
 CHAPTER I 
 Etna in Anger 
 
 Etna, that proud and lofty head of Sicily. — Seneca. 
 
 "Madre Mia" becomes an actual personality, terrible or 
 beautiful, and silently worshiped. The Sicilian peasants are 
 pagans at heart in their regard for Mount Etna. — William 
 Sharp: Three Travel Sketches. 
 
 Terrible or beautiful," the "actual personality" 
 of Etna stirred in his sleep, waking the countryside 
 to apprehension. There had been in September a 
 lava flow, that "unapproachable river of purple 
 fire"; and still in January the mountain grumbled. 
 As N and I drove with Salvatore as coach- 
 man to Castiglione — perched on its rock, facing that 
 side of Etna from which the lava came down — the 
 flow of four months earlier still smoked blue and 
 wierd against the snow, and it was hard to believe 
 it was not still moving. 
 
 The people told us of two brothers who had 
 great wealth. One, when the lava approached his 
 vineyards and thickets of filberts, refused to let the 
 poor gather wood or help themselves to what could 
 be carried off, saying that if the lava came it would 
 come — that was fate — but meanwhile what was his 
 
 297
 
 298 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 was his. He lost all he had, buried a thousand 
 years deep. The other vowed his year's harvest to 
 the Madonna del Carmine if his yield was spared. 
 The lava went around his farm; nothing was 
 touched — and now he is selling his crops to provide 
 money for the restoration of the church. 
 
 Some little girls took me up to the church of the 
 Madonna who worked this miracle, and told us a 
 tale that is repeated of half the saints of Sicily. 
 When she sees that her people are in danger and 
 wishes to come out in procession to save them, the 
 heavy marble statue makes itself so light that it can 
 be moved almost at finger-touch. When she knows 
 there is no danger she makes herself so heavy she 
 cannot be budged. She came out against the earth- 
 quake of Messina, and Castiglione did not suffer. 
 She refused to come out when Etna threatened, and 
 the lava did not touch the town. 
 
 We had been too hasty ; Etna bides his time ; but 
 two months later the eruptions suddenly assumed 
 terrible proportions. And from Palermo I came 
 hastening back to Catania for another ascent to the 
 devouring streams of fire. 
 
 The houses you pass on the way to Nicolosi are 
 black and ugly, built all of lava blocks, but they 
 look comfortable and I saw quantities of meat for 
 sale, and abundant bread. The region produces, on 
 the slopes of age-old eruptions, the best wine in Sic- 
 ily; broom plants, almost like young pine or larch, 
 border the way and there was the mocking green of
 
 ETNA IN ANGER 299 
 
 young vegetation just on the edge of all that horror 
 above, of which, here, there was as yet little hint. 
 
 We reached Nicolosi at six o'clock, left the car- 
 riage and set out, on foot or by muleback, two 
 hours to the lava — so near to it that my face was 
 scorched. In the black night the river of fire was 
 hideous and fascinating. At the point I reached, 
 the lava was two kilometers wide and nearly forty 
 feet deep, spluttering stones that came tumbling 
 with a grumbling, thundering sound down the men- 
 acing front of the red lava stream that pushed them 
 on. Sometimes they split, showing the dull glow 
 of the heat within; and the vast mass moved im- 
 placably onward, so that you must gradually draw 
 back before its advance. 
 
 Another crater had opened that day and the lava 
 was moving faster. As this blasting flood reached 
 a tree or shrub it flamed like matches; poor little 
 peach trees, just in trembling spring flower, or glo- 
 rious great chestnuts with spreading branches alike 
 must yield, shrivel and fall. When the mass touched 
 a house the walls, as Papalia says, bent in a curious, 
 wavering fashion, then came tumbling down. Some- 
 times they sturdily stood against the pressure. It 
 was the same in the end. The lava covered all. 
 
 The processions of peasants, on foot and on 
 mules, going to the lava and returning from it, 
 with despair in their faces, the children crying, the 
 women praying — it was a terrible sight! I cried 
 myself as bitterly as any of them. I talked with
 
 300 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 one man who had lost 30,000 vines; with others 
 whose poor bits of land were covered and would 
 yield nothing for three hundred years. Priests were 
 going with candles to bless the lava and beg it to 
 turn aside from threatened villages. 
 
 I stood more than two hours unable to turn away. 
 Two parties came up, each v/ith an image of the 
 Madonna. They arranged little altars and threw 
 themselves flat on the ground at the feet of the 
 Virgin. 
 
 If you can imagine a cataract of fire dropping 
 hundreds of feet, and rolling down with it huge 
 blocks of half-molten stone, you may know what 
 I saw. The night was so cold that we sat on half- 
 hot lava to keep from freezing. The sulphur gases 
 blew in our faces and when the wind cleared away 
 the vapor a little we were covered with snow. 
 Finally we went into the mountain climber's refuge, 
 a little hut occupied by twenty persons. One of our 
 party fainted and the rest were not much better off. 
 At six in the morning we began the descent and 
 did not reach Nicolosi until nearly noon. Thirty 
 hours of the inferno! 
 
 Still the mountain spouted lava! Still it covered 
 little farms, depopulated villages; gulped down 
 trees in blossom. So once again we made our usual 
 trip to Nicolosi. Once more we called for mules. 
 We got one with an excellent side-saddle, and 
 another with something that had been a side-saddle 
 but was broken out of all resemblance to its family.
 
 ETNA IN ANGER 301 
 
 I said I could ride it astride, so I arranged a blanket 
 over the mule's back and begged rope to make 
 stirrups. They brought me bits of cord so slight 
 that I did not dare put my weight on them, and 
 we started on the most toilsome trip I ever made. 
 The usual path over the flow of 1886, where it 
 swept down through these valleys between many 
 extinct cones, was so completely blocked by new 
 lava that we had to pick our way diagonally through 
 a lava stream where I do not suppose twenty peo- 
 ple had ever been before us. The lava, mostly of 
 1886, entirely surrounding a hill green with young 
 blades of grain at our left, was grotesque. In 
 places it was as if the waves of a storm at sea had 
 suddenly been petrified — as if stone surf were 
 plunging toward you; sea waves arrested just as 
 they were breaking, white and savage. In others 
 there were wierd shapes of men and animals; some- 
 times the flow was covered with white lichen. 
 
 The mules picked their way so slowly that we 
 were nearly three hours crossing the flow diag- 
 onally. At last we came upon beautiful fertile 
 slopes, green with wheat and planted with chestnut 
 trees. We were high enough to get a broad view 
 of the upper slopes of Etna, streaked and scarred 
 with black lava streams, some new, some old, run- 
 ning down through the valleys according to the tilt 
 of the land, now dividing to leave a green hill un- 
 touched, now uniting again, spreading like the 
 fingers of a grasping hand.
 
 302 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 On our left was a moving stream of the new lava 
 thirty feet high, winding down like a serpent, bury- 
 ing vineyards and engulfing or pushing over great 
 nut trees that seemed to suffer death agonies at the 
 shriveling touch. 
 
 We climbed up beside it for another hour, watch- 
 ing the peasants cutting trees and loading mules 
 with the trunks to save at least the wood. These 
 processions of mules coming down with their mel- 
 ancholy loads were saddening to see. In some places 
 charcoal burners had put up huts to utilize the wood. 
 
 As we got still higher we passed the timber line 
 and reached a country covered with patches of 
 coarse, prickly grass, where sometimes the snow lay, 
 blackened with cinder and ashes. We were close 
 to three new cones, and all about were those of 
 previous convulsions. The muleteer told us the 
 name and age of each little mountain, but I could 
 not listen. I was tracing the black streams of death 
 of all ages and all widths that have run like rivers 
 down the dreadful mountain, leaving here and there 
 below us a green spot of a few acres where one 
 could see a house and picture the effort at tillage, 
 the isolation — and again spreading over miles of 
 country. 
 
 It was intensely cold, with a bitter wind, and when 
 we reached the shelter hut after five hours of rid- 
 ing, I could scarcely stand. We were told it would 
 be useless to try to go to the top, since the central 
 cone was sending out no lava, and so we started on
 
 ETNA IN ANGER 303 
 
 foot to visit the highest craters we could reach. 
 The trip was not unlike the previous one, except 
 that we went much higher and were able to approach 
 two craters closely because they were not throwing 
 out pumice or stones. The ground was everywhere 
 covered with blocks of pumice, yellow with sulphur, 
 which the craters had vomited. But as we neared 
 the highest vents the lava flowed rapidly and 
 silently. When the sulphur fumes allowed, we 
 could go within a few feet of one crater and watch 
 the violet and orange lights, the play of colors in 
 the cavern. Our faces, and my dress, were burned 
 and we were nearly choked. It was an awesome 
 thing to see this river of fire pouring down hill, red, 
 like molten metal. 
 
 As the darkness came on we could trace its course, 
 winding among the hills for a distance that our 
 muleteer said was several miles. We were close to 
 two craters; one, higher than the other, was pour- 
 ing lava over its lip; the lower one had built itself 
 something like a well-head, and the lava had 
 tunneled below and was coming out from a long 
 cavern. The two streams gradually approached, ran 
 side by side, leaving a great ridge of cold lava be- 
 tween, and finally became one river, pouring to- 
 gether through a high gate they had built, and down 
 to desolate the country. The nearer brook was 
 about thirty feet wide, the other much the same. 
 The only sound was like the soft lapping of a stony 
 surf, as the lava poured itself along.
 
 304 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Back at the hut we were shaken by two little 
 earthquakes. The ground quaked everywhere; it 
 was like walking on jelly; but there were no severe 
 shocks. I wanted to stay overnight to get more 
 photographs, but the weather was too threatening 
 to urge anyone to sit in a chair all night in a tiny 
 room packed with twenty men, so we mounted our 
 mules to return. If you can imagine the sensation 
 of sharp descents over jagged rock in pitchy dark- 
 ness without stirrups, you will believe that I did 
 not greatly enjoy this return. We reached Nicolosi 
 
 about midnight, and N said she had been afraid 
 
 of the ghostly rocks. I had been afraid of nothing 
 except going over the mule's head, but very much 
 afraid of that. I tried at one time to have the man 
 lead the mule, but he had to let the animal's head 
 down so much that the poor beast kept stumbling 
 worse than before. The muleteer had one small 
 lantern, but the oil gave out just as we reached the 
 old lava flow. When they lifted me off the mule I 
 
 was so near fainting that N got me wine, while 
 
 the good woman in the hotel made hot coffee. 
 There was no room ; the place was crowded with 
 newspaper men and tourists. We swallowed an in- 
 credible number of eggs and started by carriage for 
 Catania. At five o'clock in the morning, not having 
 gone to bed, we took train for Taormina, reaching 
 there at 7:30. 
 
 Late in April — for this was a drama of months; 
 a mockery of spring; a daily visible tragedy seen
 
 Driven by the Lava Fruit Trees for Fuel 
 
 Ruined by Etna
 
 ETNA IN ANGER 305 
 
 afar from the fairest scenes of earth, by people who 
 had little heart to enjoy the beauty about them — 
 
 late in April N and I went again to the lava. 
 
 Our fourth visit to Hell followed the now familiar 
 route to Nicolosi, which we reached about noon, eat- 
 ing luncheon in the carriage driving up from 
 Catania, so that we were ready to start at once for 
 the new craters ; but the lava had spread so terribly 
 that all the nearer ways were blocked, and we were 
 told that to reach the nearest crater — there were 
 seven in eruption — would take five hours on mule- 
 back and four for the return. We could get no 
 beds at Nicolosi, so we contented ourselves with 
 going to the main lava stream and climbing beside 
 it as far as time allowed. We had an appalling 
 view of the fire from three of the craters, getting 
 near them as the crow flies, though to reach them 
 we must have made a detour of more than ten miles. 
 Then we came down to the head of the lava, the 
 advancing wave of the main stream. It was moving 
 about fifty feet per hour and in places was more 
 than one hundred feet high, in others perhaps fifty. 
 The advance of the horrible thing brings the tears 
 into your eyes. Upon the previous visit, in the 
 evening, the rivers of fire were like dreams of the 
 inferno. But by daylight I was even more impressed. 
 The sky cloudless; everywhere the beautiful, smil- 
 ing spring ; peach trees in delicate pink blossoms, the 
 vines putting out their first juicy little leaves, the 
 almond trees all a tender green. The Sicilian spring
 
 3o6 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 is an enchantment. I never tire of the rich green 
 of the wheat, the blue of the flax, the red of the 
 poppy fields — and down into this smiling country 
 was moving black desolation ! 
 
 N and I sat on a low wall in front of a beau- 
 tiful chestnut tree. To our right were young 
 olives, a few apple trees with their blossoms just 
 opening, one or two pear and cherry trees and a 
 clump of fig trees. All around us was the richest 
 imaginable soil, fine as powder, black and immensely 
 fertile, planted with American vines, like most of 
 the vineyards in Sicily. The best table wine of the 
 island came from these slopes ; much like the Vesu- 
 vian brands about Naples. 
 
 The crowd of onlookers was as interesting as the 
 lava — perhaps six or eight tourists, the rest peasants 
 from the villages threatened with destruction. One 
 of the visitors was the pretty royal Princess of 
 Nomatterwhat, who laughed heartily at the spec- 
 tacle of the peasants hastily cutting trees to save the 
 firewood and carrying away even the smallest 
 branches of the olives. They were doing this with 
 frantic haste, because until the last minute they 
 could not bear to touch the precious nut trees which, 
 almost as much as the vines, mean their livelihood. 
 
 When this blonde Princess laughed, a poor old 
 woman spoke to me, as I was trying to take a photo- 
 graph, and asked, "Why do you outlanders come 
 here to mock our misery and take our pictures?" 
 
 I told her that I would throw my camera into
 
 ETNA IN ANGER 307 
 
 the fire if that would do any good, and that I cer- 
 tainly was not laughing. Then I said that perhaps 
 my pictures might some time show other people how 
 Sicily was suffering, and asked if she would not like 
 to see some of them. I had received in the morn- 
 ing, just as I was starting, half a dozen that I had 
 taken with a borrowed camera on my other visit — 
 taken with a slight time exposure before it got really 
 dark. She looked at the first of these, recognized 
 her son in the foreground and was delighted. I 
 gave her the copy, and she began to talk faster than 
 I could follow the Sicilian. 
 
 It was a pitiful story of years of sweat and toil 
 to buy the ground over which the lava was advanc- 
 ing ; a little bit of ground, I fancy, for in this region 
 there are both very large and very small properties. 
 But she and her husband had given their lives to 
 but their tiny plot, and plant it with American vines 
 and bring these into bearing. They were splendid 
 vines, with big stalks ; she had tears in her eyes as 
 she bent to show me the knobs or shoulders of the 
 old vines in full vigor. Little shoots of green were 
 starting from the big knobs, and the woman 
 touched them as if they had been her children. She 
 said all this work had been for the son whose pic- 
 ture I had taken. He had been in school in Bel- 
 passo and was to have gone to a higher school, but 
 now all was over. The vines were being buried; 
 her son — she did not care for herself; she was old 
 and must soon die ; but her boy
 
 3o8 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 "All yesterday," she said, "I lay flat at the feet of 
 the Madonna and begged her to spare the fruit of 
 blood and sweat; but the fire has covered half the 
 vines already, and before night it will cover the 
 rest. And there is nothing we can do." 
 
 It would have been mockery to say anything en- 
 couraging; I answered only: "It is true; there is 
 no hope but in the good God." I do not know why 
 I said such a thing in the face of cruel nature, ex- 
 cept that the faith of these people is so simple that 
 one must bow to it. 
 
 The effect it produced was astounding, even to 
 one who knows Sicily. 
 
 "Do you pray to the good God ?" said the woman. 
 "Then you must be much better than we. We pray 
 to our Saints and to the Beautiful Mothers because 
 they are nearer and may perhaps hear us. We are 
 not good enough to pray to the far-off God." 
 
 N came up with two Englishmen from 
 
 Taormina and the woman saluted them respectfully 
 with "Bless you, Sirs!" but when it came my turn 
 she hesitated a minute and then threw her arms 
 around my neck and kissed me, begging me to pray 
 for her to the good God. I had no great faith in 
 prayer, with the fire rolling down at our very feet, 
 so I went to the carabinieri who were policing the 
 place, and inquired about the woman. She had told 
 me a true story, and I went back and gave her a 
 few lire. She said that if they could after a year 
 or so save a little money by working in other vine-
 
 ETNA IN ANGER 309 
 
 yards the son would — come to America I That is 
 the dream of half Sicily. 
 
 I wish it were possible to picture the sight. The 
 blue shadows on the hills, the laughing flowers, the 
 throng of sad people watching, nearly all holding 
 rough alpenstocks which until yesterday were sup- 
 ports for the doomed vines — pulled up out of the 
 earth because no longer needed. The stream of lava 
 moving toward us, one formed of many streams, 
 was here probably three hundred meters wide. 
 Under the sun it was blackish, except when a great 
 piece fell away from the high front and rolled 
 down at our feet, red and emitting sparks. There 
 was a continuous fall of small stones and powdery 
 material, with the occasional descent of a great 
 mass, so that we saw our beautiful chestnut tree 
 buried almost to its top and the olives and fig trees 
 one after another uprooted and covered. This 
 wider river moved with greater noise and tumult 
 than the smaller rivulets of lava we had seen farther 
 up the mountain; many such must have united to 
 make its thousand feet of menacing width. 
 
 It is a piteous sight to see a little peach tree all in 
 flower shriveling before the fire. Back and back 
 we moved, for the lava scorched our faces. The 
 hundreds of people in mountain capes and hoods, the 
 women with yellow and white kerchiefs on their 
 heads, were very quiet. They had come to expect 
 the worst. For the most part, they said nothing. 
 Only now and then when seemingly half a moun-
 
 3IO BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 tain fell with thunderous noise, someone would 
 cry out, "Oh, Madonna Mia, we are ruined!" 
 
 As night came on, it was as if we saw cataracts 
 of flame. The activity of the lava increased, or 
 seemed to do so, and one saw nothing but running 
 fire, fluid streams of fire, pouring from the lava 
 mountain wall that slowly pushed its way down- 
 ward. Now and then great caverns of fire opened 
 and tons and tons of molten lava came down with 
 a crash, breaking tree trunks and knocking down 
 walls. People were moving about with flaming 
 torches and lanterns. It needed only a group of 
 tourists to dance upon partly cooled lava, as some 
 are said to have done with strange bravura, to fin- 
 ish a study of the inferno in action. 
 
 And so once more, and for the last time, we came 
 away, reeling with fatigue, sick with horror, ready 
 with sympathy, able to do nothing in the face of the 
 appalling disaster. 
 
 The beauty of this cruel region is incredible. 
 Throughout the earlier days of the eruption Taor- 
 mina was in a fog of smoke and mist, the wind 
 much of the time a terrible scirocco. The terrace 
 was always strewn with ashes, and Etna lowered 
 through slate-colored clouds, a threatening monster, 
 a perpetual menace. Now and then tremendous 
 clouds of smoke were visible from the terrace, 
 whirlwinds of smoke, and at night gorgeous spec- 
 tacles of fire. 
 
 Then the sky cleared. After a belated snowfall
 
 How THE Lava Advances 
 
 ^ "^^^^^^X 
 
 ^Ly^r 
 
 
 
 
 B /m|| ;«t4P!H^K>isM 
 
 ^H^^^^^jb 
 
 
 wf^l^Jtt 
 
 ^^^1 
 
 
 
 Ik 
 
 ^^^^^^V"* '^^^pi 
 
 
 A Useless Vigil
 
 ETNA IN ANGER 311 
 
 there were glorious sunrises. Etna with new snow 
 whitening its sides was beautiful as a vision, with 
 rosy lights tinting the fainter smoke wreaths and 
 touching the white slopes into a dream of fairyland. 
 The snow lay as low as in January, covering the 
 cold black lava of many yesteryears. 
 
 Then rain washed the ashes from the vines and 
 everything jumped forward into summer life. The 
 vine leaves were of a most wonderful, delicate, 
 beautiful green. Wistaria was in luxuriant flower. 
 Spring roses everywhere blossomed. The hills were 
 orange-colored with marigolds. Below me the 
 lemon garden, and then the village with tiled roofs 
 yellow with lichen; then the young green of the 
 almond trees, punctuated by dark, straight firs ; then 
 the rocks of Theater Hill, yellow here and there 
 with spurge ; at the top the dull red of the Theater, 
 and beyond, the blue sea — all this I saw 
 
 And so around once more in the mighty sweep of 
 the vision to the Mountain — and I knew the mean- 
 ing of every tiniest wisp of rising smoke, its cost 
 in tears and anguish !
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Messina Six Months After 
 
 While I was waiting at the wooden shed that 
 served Messina for a Post Office, I saw a little dust- 
 covered Sicilian coming up, pulling the bridle of a 
 donkey loaded with fresh figs and lettuce. Two 
 trim Americans of the teacher type followed, each 
 armed with Baedeker and camera. 
 
 "Vossia ," began the SiciUan. But one of the 
 
 Americans interrupted: 
 
 "We want some figs, but what stuff is she 
 talking?" 
 
 The bent little woman was patiently repeating the 
 prices. 
 
 "Three for a soldo," I translated. 
 
 "That's three for a cent, isn't it? Could I get 
 them any cheaper?" 
 
 A minute later the purchase had been made and 
 the woman was moving away with a parting 
 blessing. 
 
 The American looked at me with round eyes. 
 "That's Sicilian for 'May God reward Your Lady- 
 ship,' " I explained. 
 
 "My Ladyship! That's good!" said the other. 
 "Do they all talk like that ? But come on, Josie, we 
 
 312
 
 MESSINA SIX MONTHS AFTER 313 
 
 never shall have time to see the ruins and catch the 
 train." 
 
 To this had come Messina ! Six months after the 
 earthquake of December 28, 1908, the Smiling City 
 had become the hunting ground of tourists in 
 search of a new sensation in a new Pompeii. The 
 search never failed, for half a year had changed 
 Messina chiefly in adding the grotesque and the 
 pitiful to the appalling. 
 
 Under the great sepulcher lay perhaps 30,000 
 dead. Camped close among the mountainous graves 
 were not far from 40,000 living. The peaceful 
 summer sky of Sicily, the moveless waters of the 
 Strait, the outlines of the Calabrian mountains, 
 were a dream of blue. Waking, you breathed the 
 poisonous dust of death hot with the scent of 
 orange blossoms. 
 
 The disaster left, aside from immediate relief, 
 two problems: the temporary and the permanent re- 
 building of Messina, Reggio, Palmi, Bagnara, Tre- 
 Mestieri, Ali and dozens of other towns along the 
 Sicilian and Calabrian coasts. The barracks, the 
 building of wooden sheds provided imperfectly for 
 the first difficulty. At all plans for permanent re- 
 construction the ghastly piles of ruins, here chaotic, 
 there imposing, grinned much as they grinned in 
 December. 
 
 Of the one thousand three hundred houses al- 
 lotted to Messina, three hundred not yet built are 
 to stand to the north of the old citv toward the
 
 314 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Faro, the famous lighthouse many times destroyed. 
 The other one thousand lie a little to the south, not 
 far from the railway station. This village, ap- 
 proaching completion, is to Messina the "American 
 street"; to its American superintendents "The 
 White City." 
 
 To reach this bright spot that relieves the hor- 
 rors of the great sepulcher you pick your way from 
 the port, crowded with lumber-laden ships, to the 
 little wooden Post Office at the corner of the Via 
 Primo Settembre and the Viale San Martino. Here 
 you are at a rag-fair among the graves. All about 
 rise disemboweled houses, their crumbling walls, 
 gay with scarlet poppies, threatening to fall on 
 wreckage or on the gypsy huts hastily put up in the 
 first days of agony by the Italian and Russian 
 sailors. 
 
 The street is as busy as before the earthquake. 
 You are jostled by peddlers whose push-carts are 
 full of small wares saved from the ruins, and by 
 donkey-carts piled high with blood-stained mat- 
 tresses, bound not to the fire that should consume 
 them but to be sold, with or without disinfection, 
 throughout Sicily. Bumping these are the carts of 
 fruit and vegetable sellers and the venders of 
 lemonade and ices. Here is a great ox-cart laden 
 with lumber and there the carriage of a chance 
 tourist from Naples, gaping at the strange sights. 
 Everybody except the tourist wears a soiled, grimy 
 black, powdered by daily dust storms. Everybody
 
 MESSINA SIX MONTHS AFTER 315 
 
 from the bootblack to the tourist wears huge pro- 
 tective eye-glasses. 
 
 In the old days the Viale San Martino was a broad 
 boulevard shadowed by locust trees. Now it is a 
 narrow, treeless lane flanked by double, sometimes 
 triple lines of wooden structures, ranging from huts 
 of six boards and a mass of old clothes to trim little 
 restaurants and barber shops. Every one of these 
 shelters is a barrack, and to make a barrack you 
 need nothing more than a bit of sailcloth stretched 
 between two shanties. Here on the ground sleep per- 
 haps four or five persons, while by daylight the 
 space is given over to a tailoress with her sewing 
 machine. Nothing at once more grotesque and more 
 pitiful than the Viale San Martino has been seen 
 since civilization dawned. The barracks are roofed 
 as it may happen with tar paper, bamboo or old 
 boards. All the older ones and some of the newer 
 are without fire-places. Four to six bricks or a 
 couple of stones in front of each door support the 
 cooking pot, and among a people for ages used to 
 stone or cement houses it is a miracle that fires are 
 not as common as the daily earthquakes. 
 
 Behind the barracks are the mountains of ruins. 
 Slowly, in the Italian fashion, the wreckage is be- 
 ing removed as far back as the curb and a few 
 streets are being opened. On one side of the Viale 
 little iron tip-carts are run on temporary tracks; 
 on the other side donkeys and boys are doing their 
 poor best to clear the city.
 
 3i6 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Following the Viale south, one comes to the first 
 new brick house begun since the earthquake. I re- 
 member seeing two months ago a stick thrust into 
 the ruins with the sign "Occupied by the Owner." 
 The owner has now run his back wall perhaps 
 twenty feet high against a mass of rubbish, such as 
 no one who has not seen the wreckage of Messina 
 can imagine, a mountain of broken brick, plaster, 
 iron beams twisted as you would twist a straw, 
 bamboo, mattresses, iron beds and broken furniture. 
 At each side the tottering walls of tall houses prom- 
 ise to come down before many days to wipe out 
 this little stroke of energy. 
 
 A few steps more against the poisonous dust 
 that always sweeps the Viale and you reach a house 
 that stood the earthquake without injury. It is a 
 beautiful mansion of one story in reinforced con- 
 crete, standing in a rose garden. Its elderly owner 
 spends hours daily on a terrace overlooking the 
 city, and I sometimes wonder if he is glad of the 
 lesson in construction he has taught his fellow cit- 
 izens, or if, like so many others, he has lost friends 
 enough to say, "We who are so unfortunate as to 
 survive." 
 
 The clamor is like that of another Naples. 
 Around a little spigot bored into an old aqueduct 
 fifty people are literally fighting for water. The 
 braying of the donkeys and the screeching of women 
 offering lettuce and huge purple figs, fresh from 
 the country, that already — or is it fancy? — exude
 
 MESSINA SIX MONTHS AFTER 317 
 
 the acrid stench of Messina, deafen the ears. Mes- 
 sina is rising again — but through sufferings! 
 
 Constantly rising, one comes to the plain of 
 Mosella, a suburb of the city where the first lands 
 were expropriated for building on a large scale. 
 Sorry barracks are most of them, sheds divided into 
 rooms twelve feet by twelve feet without windows, 
 often without doors. Passing these rapidly, at the 
 height of the long slope is a bridge crossing a tor- 
 rent where the way is stopped by guards. Beyond 
 the bridge shines a white village under the Stars 
 and Stripes. 
 
 An American passes with a quiet "Buon giorno," 
 and then is almost at home. Not quite; the intense 
 blue of the sky and the overpowering scent of 
 lemon and orange blossoms do not chime with the 
 little Yankee houses all in white trimmed with 
 green. Yet — yes; he is at home! 
 
 The village has been built under the architectural 
 direction of John Elliott, artist, son-in-law of Julia 
 Ward Howe, with Lionel Belknap, represent- 
 ing Lloyd Griscom, American Ambassador to Rome, 
 as Superintendent in charge. It is away from the 
 ruins; it stands on healthy, uninfested ground; 
 shaded by such trees as could be spared, orange, 
 figs, olives and acacias. 
 
 The village is laid out roughly as a square with 
 broad streets running East and West, and narrower 
 side streets grouping the houses into blocks of 
 twelve. Each house is sixteen by twenty feet and
 
 3i8 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 stands apart from its neighbors, though the space 
 is not so wide as it should be. Each is clapboarded 
 and roofed with zinc. It has a little attic with 
 ventilating louvre boards and is divided below into 
 two rooms with a small annex for kitchen. Outside 
 it has two coats of white paint and a little notice in 
 white and green enamel, "U. S. to Italy, 1908." 
 The kitchen would hardly be recognized by an 
 American even as a kitchenette. Its only furniture 
 is a brick fireplace built solid to a convenient height. 
 A brick wall is carried up at the back and side but 
 the wise Sicilian smoke finds its way out through 
 a chimneypot in the ceiling. The front room is 
 often divided further by hangings into bedroom and 
 living room while the back room serves for dining- 
 room and, often, a second chamber. 
 
 When completed, this village will be given to the 
 City of Messina. At present several hundred houses 
 are occupied by families in special need, as when 
 an invalid must be removed or a child is expected. 
 In addition to the barracks a church in the form of 
 a Greek cross and a hotel of seventy-five rooms, 
 placed East of the village toward the station, are 
 well under way. 
 
 By the wish of the United States Government, all 
 this work is being done by Sicilian laborers ; largely 
 by survivors of the earthquake. Six hundred men 
 are employed now and they show no signs of the 
 apathy of which Messina has been accused in the
 
 Queen Elena's Village 
 
 "Kitchenette," American Village
 
 MESSINA SIX MONTHS AFTER 319 
 
 Italian Parliament. "Faithful and intelligent" are 
 the words of Mr. Elliott. 
 
 As for the future, in the minds of commissions, 
 sub-commissions and sub-sub-commissions, every- 
 thing is done, because plans for everything have 
 been endlessly discussed. There is a key-plan for 
 the laying out of a new city with commercial and 
 residential quarters, the essential quarters consisting 
 of streets ranging from ten meters for those of less 
 importance to twenty for the main avenues; the 
 houses to range from seven to twelve meters in 
 height, each standing in its own garden. This plan, 
 aside from the bureaucratic difficulties expected in 
 Italy, encounters two obstacles : It cannot be carried 
 out without the removal of the mountains of ruins 
 that encumber the city and without the foimding 
 of special credit for builders* loans. 
 
 Messina has complained with reason about nearly 
 everything that has been done and has not been 
 done for her during the past six months, and espe- 
 cially of the lack of schools. There is no school 
 yet in the American village, but it might surprise 
 those Americans who think of Sicily as a country 
 of ignorance to see schools in barracks which are 
 little more than dens, barracks that seem to cancel 
 twenty centuries of civilization. The only schools 
 that do not bring tears to the eyes are those of the 
 village built by the Italian sailors and soldiers and 
 called by the name of Queen Elena. 
 
 Inferior in some respects to those of the Amer-
 
 320 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 ican village, these houses pay far more attention to 
 picturesqueness of appearance. They stand well 
 North of old Messina among olive and lemon 
 groves and near the sea. The life of the village 
 centers around the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele III, 
 a public square adorned with a little wooden church 
 and with a fair supply of gymnastic apparatus. The 
 barracks are of one and two rooms each and are 
 built for the most part roof touching roof, almost 
 in solid blocks but always with the prolongation of 
 the roof above a porch in a manner almost Swiss, 
 which gives a sense of cheerful homelikeness not 
 to be found elsewhere in Messina. As in the Amer- 
 ican village, every house is staring white, and the 
 village has a workshop with sixty sewing machines 
 and a public kitchen. 
 
 It devotes two barracks to elementary schools, 
 one for boys and one for girls. The girls' school is 
 furnished with rough benches, a blackboard and 
 pictures of the King and Queen. On the blackboard 
 was written, "A dirty and ignorant girl is scorned 
 by all." Intent on spelling out the syllables stood 
 a child of the dark, almost wild, Moorish beauty 
 so often seen in Sicily, in this case domesticated by 
 the uniform of the school, a long blue and white 
 pinafore. Five minutes later girls and boys together 
 were scampering up and down the street, skipping 
 rope, turning handsprings and watering the roses 
 that grew in their gardens. 
 
 This is the bright side of Messina. Another
 
 MESSINA SIX MONTHS AFTER 321 
 
 school I visited flourished under different condi- 
 tions. To reach it, an alpenstock and hob-nailed 
 shoes would not be out of place, for you take one 
 of those mountain paths among the wreckage which 
 are still the ordinary means of communication in 
 Messina, climbing now to the second story of a 
 house whose front wall has fallen, leaving almost 
 intact the furnishings of the upper floors, now de- 
 scending through debris of every sort to the broken 
 pavement. I came to a little square bounded on two 
 sides by ruins, on the other two by barracks, life 
 touching death everywhere here. Among the scat- 
 tered stones, the wrecked chairs, the torn mattresses 
 that had fallen from the ruins a dozen or twenty 
 girls were dancing in a circle and singing something 
 as pretty and nonsensical as our old nursery rhyme: 
 
 1* Swing around, around me ! 
 A loaf and a round loaf, see ! 
 A handful of blue pansies 
 I would give to her who fancies — 
 And who fancies is Sandrina. 
 Down; kneel down, the littlest! 
 
 As, obedient to orders, the smallest girl dropped 
 on her knees the Sister of Charity in charge said 
 to me in her sweet Southern Italian: "The little 
 ones do not know." Her glance went from the ruins 
 about us to a table inside the nearest barrack where 
 
 ^* Gia, gia tondo ! Un pan' ed un' pan' rondo ! U mezzo 
 di viole Lo vi dare a chi lo vuole; E lo vuole la Sandrina. 
 S'inginocchi la piu piccina!
 
 322 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 stood a jar of flowers that carry to all Italians a 
 meaning, the flowers of patience. 
 
 But it is not patience that is keeping a once proud 
 and turbulent city so quiet during its months of 
 agony. It is grief, it is physical and mental fatigue, 
 the result of unhygienic living, and it is a powerful 
 wrath that becomes despair. A few weeks ago there 
 was started a weekly journal called "L'Iniziativa," 
 edited by Giacomo Marocco, a survivor of the 
 earthquake, whose object is to call the attention of 
 Italy to the red tape that strangles the new life of 
 Messina, and to sing the song of the moment: 
 "Beautiful is Life, and holy is the Future!" 
 From the first number I take a paragraph which, 
 exaggerated or not, expresses the feeling of Mes- 
 sina against the government of Giolitti: 
 
 Under the ruins lay our dear ones, wounded and calling 
 for help, and you sent us 12,000 soldiers, not with hooks 
 and ladders to save us, but with rifles to hinder us from 
 approaching our houses, under which we still could hear 
 the groans of our families. You justified your work by 
 saying that it was necessary to guard private property. Set- 
 ting aside the fact that we would have given everything we 
 possessed to save the lives of our relatives, only bureaucracy 
 could have conceived the idea that among the wreckage and 
 in the dark any sort of watch was possible. 
 
 I remember San Francisco. As soon as the fires which 
 completed the destruction of the business part of the city 
 were extinguished, the people, who lived for the most part 
 outside the business section, came flocking into town, laugh- 
 ing, calling to each other "I've nothing to wear. I don't 
 know where to get my next meal. But we're all alive. We're 
 here; we're here!"
 
 MESSINA SIX MONTHS AFTER 323 
 
 Hardly fair. San Francisco kept her people. 
 Messina lost her best. The tall palaces of her men 
 of substance and of energy, the heart and core of 
 a commercial city, perished; the low houses of the 
 slums escaped. Catania is sheltering six thousand 
 refugees, the largest number of any city in Italy, 
 and a census of these unfortunates shows that only 
 seventy-five are above the class of the day laborer. 
 
 To be a refugee from Messina has become a trade. 
 It suffices to put on black and, to the anger of all 
 Sicily, to revive the custom of hand kissing, which 
 since the days of the Bourbons Messina has fought, 
 side by side with Palermo, to extirpate as a relic 
 of feudalism. The custom will dwindle again as the 
 disaster recedes into history, but at present it is 
 pathetic to be unable to pass through a village with- 
 out being mobbed by a crowd all struggling to kiss 
 your hand or arm, and all crying: "I kiss your hand, 
 Your Excellency" or "I kiss your hand, dear pretty 
 young lady." Foolish private charity has done this 
 mischief, has done so much mischief that intelligent 
 Sicilians are beginning to measure its evils against 
 its good. The multiplication of private committees 
 and the lack of statistics of families have made it 
 possible for a diligent refugee to receive help from 
 half a dozen committees while persons not accus- 
 tomed to asking relief have had nothing. 
 
 This offense to their dignity the best of Messina 
 is feeling, and against the clamor of beggars rises 
 a protest. One day I heard an old sailor tell a story
 
 324 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 with much bitterness. Awhile ago a couple of little 
 beggars, ragged and barefoot, were begging 
 through the streets of Rome and playing a hand 
 organ. A lady threw them a pair of shoes so worn 
 that they hesitated to take them, but a woman of 
 the people called to the lads : "I'll take them ; they'll 
 serve a year for 'Pro Sicilia.' " 
 
 "What's not good enough for beggars will do for 
 us Sicilians," he said wrathfully. "And whose fault 
 is it if not our own that for every little misfortune 
 — tidal waves, earthquakes and the like — we beg 
 the rags of all nations? We who have survived the 
 earthquake and those who have the courage to re- 
 turn — we have no need to beg, even of the Govern- 
 ment! We are sufficient to ourselves." 
 
 There will be a new Messina, not because the 
 domination of the Strait is necessary to Italy, not 
 because in 1908 Messina was eighth in importance 
 among the ports of Italy; but because her people 
 love the city. When in January it was proposed to 
 bombard the ruins the people rushed to the port 
 crying: "Kill us too! Let us die with Messina!" 
 
 A few days ago as I stood by a ruined church, 
 since brought to the ground with dynamite, there 
 came to me a man and a tottering old woman, 
 strangers to each other, who told me the story of 
 the church, of its great convent suppressed years 
 ago by the Government, of its wealth and of its 
 beauty. Finally the woman said : "Ah, what beauty
 
 MESSINA SIX MONTHS AFTER 325 
 
 is gone forever! If the lady could have seen that 
 she could have seen our city!" 
 
 I told her that I had seen Messina before the 
 disaster and the woman, smiling as if I had given 
 her a fortune, turned away saying: "God reward 
 you ! She knew our city !" 
 
 Love of the city will rebuild it. It is easy to see 
 the difficulties. But also easy to see that the noble 
 impulse of brotherhood that gathered the survivors 
 on shipboard and trainboard and scattered them 
 from Naples to Genoa and from Taormina to 
 Palermo went too far. Well for the wounded that 
 there were hospitals; well for orphans and widows 
 and the old that they could find asylum. But for 
 able-bodied men with families stranded in cities 
 where they could not speak the language — Sicilian 
 dialects arc foreign to Northern Italy — the natural 
 rehef was the soup kitchen. When funds were ex- 
 hausted and the kitchens closed, the cry "Send the 
 Messinians back to Messina" found the barracks 
 full to overflowing, and work on the ruins taken 
 largely by Northerners. Houses are going up now 
 with speed, though they cannot keep pace with the 
 flood of population ; people are sleeping on the lower 
 floors of ruined houses likely to fall in upon them. 
 
 Some weeks ago I met a poor creature in black 
 carrying a baby and leading a donkey laden with a 
 few poor articles of furniture. She had lost her 
 entire family except a brother in New York. In 
 the first hours under the ruins she and her husband
 
 326 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 had talked together. Later, she had said to him: 
 "Let us not lose strength speaking. When I press 
 your hand, press mine, and we shall know both 
 live." After a time her husband ceased to return 
 her pressure, and later still when rescue came 
 husband and three children were dead. She was 
 taken to a hospital in Palermo and when she had 
 recovered strength went to her brother in New 
 York. But in New York she was unhappy because 
 of her mother and sisters still under the ruins. So 
 the brother gave her what little he could spare and 
 she returned — to find that April was nearly spent, 
 and that after the beginning of May digging in the 
 ruins would for sanitary reasons be forbidden.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 In the Sulphur Mines 
 
 Castrogiovanni, the most picturesque town in 
 Sicily, is as good a point as any to set out for the 
 place to which descent is swift, as dimly fore- 
 shadowed for us by the sulphur mines. N and 
 
 I went together, local belief being that it was un- 
 wise to set out alone into that wild and desolate 
 country. 
 
 The transformation in the appearance of man 
 and his habitations was dramatic enough; at the 
 very edge of the town we passed grottoes dug in 
 the rock of the cliff-side and still inhabited by cave- 
 dwellers, as we were to see them at Caltanisetta and 
 elsewhere. But once out in the country, the way 
 was bare, through limitless plains of wheat and 
 beans for miles. 
 
 The few people whom we met were kindly and 
 interested. An old shepherd was watching sheep on 
 a slight rise to the left of our road. I jumped from 
 the carriage to photograph him. He was manifestly 
 pleased by the process and asked if I could not wait 
 while he went to his hut to get a ricotta for me, 
 anxious above all things to prove his hospitality. 
 
 327
 
 328 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 That little break in the journey past, nothing in- 
 terrupted the monotony. 
 
 It was more than a two hours' drive to Bonanno. 
 The desolation of the sulphur country is unspeak- 
 able — a blasted region of yellow earth, with little 
 holes pecked into the ground, about which the smell 
 of sulphur ever hangs. The Bonanno mine is small 
 and still uses the old-time kilns, so that from a dis- 
 tance one sees the conical furnaces walled up on the 
 sides, but open at the top except in the actual proc- 
 ess of burning, when the sulphur with which they 
 are filled is covered with earth and refuse. Fusing 
 can take place only in settled weather; at that alti- 
 tude, only in summer. Rain has free entrance. 
 
 As I expected, permission to enter was refused. 
 The superintendent was most kind and showed us 
 the smelting and other exterior operations, but 
 seemed inflexible in his refusal to go further. He 
 said that the galleries are so deep in water that they 
 would be quite impassable for me. I assured him 
 that I understood the conditions and took my own 
 risk, and chatted a little in Sicilian, that being the 
 easiest way to get on terms with sub-authority. 
 Pointing to the line of wretched little "carusi" com- 
 ing out, each with an abominable back-load of stone, 
 I said I was sure I could go once where those boys 
 went twenty-four times a day. Finally he agreed, 
 and I took off my hat, wrapped my head in a scarf, 
 took off my coat to replace it with a workman's 
 canvas jacket, pinned my skirt high, and was ready.
 
 Miners at Villaross\
 
 IN THE SULPHUR MINES 329 
 
 The superintendent detailed two master workmen 
 to accompany me, each with a Httle terra cotta lamp 
 fastened at his forehead. The law prescribes that 
 safety lamps must be used but in practice they are 
 not, except immediately after an explosion of am- 
 monial gas. The tunnel down which we started was 
 in no place much more than two feet wide and we 
 had often to flatten ourselves against the slimy stone 
 wall to permit the passage of boys laden with sul- 
 phur ore — wretched, wrinkled, yellow little bodies 
 bent double under their yellow load. 
 
 The law forbids inside labor before the age of 
 thirteen, but outside the boys begin at eight and 
 ten, and who is to know if they go into the mine? 
 There is nothing to prevent except the fear of 
 accidents to boys too young to be licensed. Each 
 boy must make twenty-four trips daily with sul- 
 phur rock on his shoulders. The pick-men work 
 twelve hours. Caution money of thirteen hundred 
 lire must be paid to the parents of boys ; in theory 
 this is simply a loan, to be repaid when the work is 
 given up. The boys are bent and wrinkled like old 
 men. 
 
 Very seldom could I stand erect, the roof seem- 
 ing not much more than three or four feet high. 
 The descent was almost perpendicular, down broken 
 stone steps deep in mud, water constantly dripping 
 from the top and sides. The two men constantly 
 warned me not to slip, strengthening my conviction 
 that I should.
 
 330 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 After a little we began to pass side galleries 
 where because of the intense heat men were work- 
 ing naked; they dodged out of sight as we ap- 
 proached, but it was easy to guess that they cannot 
 stand erect at their task but must work in a crouch- 
 ing position. We went down and down, the heat 
 every minute more suffocating; my clothing was 
 plastered with mud. Finally we came to the mouth 
 of a gallery where someone was screaming with 
 pain. We found that a mass of rock had fallen 
 and apparently broken the arm of a miner. It is 
 unlawful to use dynamite in the mine because the 
 roofs are precariously supported by slender props, 
 but it hastens production and the owners wink at 
 the process. This was die result of a blast, I used 
 my scarf to make a tourniquet and bandage — there 
 was nothing else to do. They did not dare carry 
 him out until quitting time for fear of raising a 
 riot. So there we left him, in that inferno, to wait 
 another half hour; I felt as if I were leaving my 
 own brother, but there was nothing I could do 
 except sacrifice my muddy scarf. I had left money 
 and food with N 
 
 So I climbed back up the broken, slimy steps, 
 the water dripping on my head, through darkness to 
 daylight, emerging, I was told, white-faced and 
 nerve-shaken as well as muddy. 
 
 One of the more primitive mines was hardly a 
 fair sample, perhaps. So, three days later, off we 
 started for one of the six or seven largest mines in
 
 IN THE SULPHUR MINES 331 
 
 Sicily, the Lucia, three hours from Girgenti. I had 
 a letter of introduction from a man who had been 
 paymaster of a neighboring property but had been 
 thrown out of work by the flooding of his mine. 
 We were warned at Girgenti that the road to Lucia 
 was unsafe and that we must have a good driver 
 with a gun; we let the hotel choose him, and he 
 proved a sensible fellow. After such precautions, 
 less experienced island travelers might have been 
 made nervous when, an hour out of town, a group 
 of countrymen taking their ten o'clock luncheon by 
 the ditch at the roadside ran toward us waving their 
 arms and calling on us to stop. The driver pulled 
 up and the rough-looking fellows offered him and 
 us their flask of wine and some hot beans. I put 
 my hand into the bean dish and held out my glass 
 for the wine, winning from the driver compliments 
 upon my Sicilian manners. For it is custom, and 
 very old custom, thus to offer food and wine ; to re- 
 fuse is an insult that, in the case of a man, is some- 
 times the cause of feud and bloodshed and is always 
 grave discourtesy. But with these chance acquaint- 
 ances of the roadside we parted most amicably, ex- 
 changing courteous good wishes. 
 
 The Lucia mine belongs to the Principessa Pi- 
 gnatella di Napoli ; the director, Signor Savona, en- 
 tertained us at luncheon. To his stock of food we 
 added our own, and duly complimented the cook 
 upon his adaptability and skill. 
 
 Signor Savona was unwilling that we should enter
 
 332 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 the mine, but while we sat at table, arrived most 
 fortunately the young son of the lessee with a 
 
 friend. They both fell in love with N , as 
 
 everyone does, and insisted that if we wished to see 
 the mine, the mine we must see. So the reluctant 
 superintendent had us shown to a room where we 
 put on waterproofs and later were conducted to the 
 shaft where the elevators were bringing up cars of 
 sulphur ore — for in this mine there is considerable 
 machinery, and a force of one thousand men where 
 there are but eighty or a hundred at Bonanno. 
 
 We stopped on the cage, or lift, a dirty iron plat- 
 form hanging from four steel ropes, which met so 
 close above our heads that it was necessary to 
 crouch on our knees to avoid them. These elevators 
 are commonly used only to hoist the sulphur; the 
 men go up and down on foot. We went to the sec- 
 ond level, about two hundred meters below ground, 
 with the superintendent and three workmen. I found 
 a gallery seven or eight feet wide, with a narrow 
 track for dump-cars and room to walk beside them ; 
 the height ample, the way comparatively dry. Here 
 
 N sensibly stopped, while the men and I 
 
 walked on in the darkness almost endlessly — I for- 
 get how many miles of passages there are — the 
 way narrowing little by little as branch galleries 
 leave it at either side; and finally, after following 
 through v/ater a tortuous side branch, we came to 
 the end of the track and were in a part of the mine 
 much like that at Bonanno, with narrower galleries
 
 IN THE SULPHUR MINES 333 
 
 and steep, broken stairs, where men were slaving 
 naked, and from which yellow little boys carried big 
 weights of yellow-veined rock on their shoulders to 
 the track. Here also there were the channels of 
 drilling for dynamite; for the superintendent said 
 that, law or no law, they could not mine sulphur 
 without it. 
 
 I felt as if I had lived a lifetime underground. It 
 was impossible to imagine the light and the air. 
 Here was a world of human beings, dwarfed and 
 stunted, snatching up their jackets at my approach, 
 or hiding behind jutting rocks; yet there was no 
 sense of impropriety; the men seemed a race of 
 gnomes. The heat was so intense that the natty 
 superintendent had stripped to his shirt. We came 
 to a pause, and a man brought water to bathe our 
 faces and wrists. 
 
 "If I cannot endure this two hours," I asked the 
 superintendent, "how do men and boys endure it 
 all their lives?" 
 
 "Poor devils," he replied, "I don't know. The 
 mine is big, but not rich in sulphur, so the earnings 
 are low. They work in shifts, but for the most part 
 from 5 A. M. to 3 or 4 p. m., and they never have a 
 soldo. When they are paid on Saturday they are 
 so" — the Italian word means so driven by fatigue 
 and desperation — "that they are mad drunk over 
 Sunday, and knife for a word. They come back 
 Monday moody and melancholy and work all week
 
 334 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 as patiently as mules, but as sullenly as bears until 
 another Saturday." 
 
 Not without reason are the mine bosses averse 
 to visitors. The men are given to little jests like 
 cutting the ropes of the elevators. A year ago they 
 killed an engineer. He had done nothing. He v^^as 
 not responsible for conditions in the mine; his 
 duties lay outside, in the power house, but the 
 miners were desperate and craved excitement. Later 
 I learned that a considerable guard had been put on 
 in our honor. v 
 
 When we had regained breath we climbed to the 
 level — two levels are almost exhausted and they are 
 now digging down to a third — and in a few mo- 
 ments rejoined N and the young men. They 
 
 gave us their arms as punctiliously as if at a ball, 
 and I reflected upon the caricature of life afforded 
 by two women picking their way with the polite 
 help of cavaliers through the water, while gaunt, 
 wrinkled men were sweating out their lives in every 
 side gallery and peering at us from the darkness 
 with their little lamps flickering at their foreheads. 
 Some of the men dressed hastily and ran out to 
 offer us bits of sulphur for money, and I affected 
 not to understand their blasphemy when they were 
 ordered back. 
 
 By and by we came again to our elevators and 
 waited until a man had been sent up to make sure 
 that all was ready for our ascent and to stand by
 
 IN THE SULPHUR MINES 335 
 
 the gear. When we emerged I was for a time 
 bHnded by the sudden daylight. 
 
 The men were coming up early from their work, 
 for it was Saturday and pay-day, and I thought 
 I would see what they really were like. I asked a 
 number if I might take their photographs and they 
 were as pleased as children. They crowded about 
 me so eagerly that it was difficult to use the camera, 
 but I could not have found people more kindly, 
 more anxious to see my camera and more good- 
 natured. The superintendent and the young men 
 at first tried to take me away, but presently saw that 
 all would go well, and I used every film. 
 
 "You Americans are queer people," said the 
 superintendent ; "you are not afraid of these miners, 
 and yet if you went to their village, and put your- 
 self in their power — well, I wouldn't answer for 
 the consequences." 
 
 I am a coward, but I am not at all afraid of 
 Sicilians. I immediately asked the coachman to take 
 us home by way of the miners' village, and the party 
 divided, some going with the young men's carriage 
 direct to Girgenti, while I took the longer route, 
 with a miner on the box-seat with Jehu, and a 
 "caruso" hanging on behind. Of course I did not 
 meet with the smallest incivility. On the contrary, 
 an old woman whom I picked up on the way told 
 me quaint stories to add to my gatherings. Naturally 
 I was well scolded at the hotel, but the coachman 
 defended me, reminding them of the Barone G
 
 336 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 and the Barone A . These two men own much 
 
 land about Girgenti. One never stirs out of his 
 house without six or eight mounted men to protect 
 him. The other goes on foot alone everywhere and 
 is safe because everybody feels that he is a friend. 
 And yet — it is a sad thing to stand on a mountain 
 and not be able to see beyond the land of one man ! 
 
 Next day we went again into the country to 
 Siculiana, four hours from Girgenti, along roads 
 not supposed to be too safe, but they seemed as 
 peaceful as Long Island. We attended a festa where 
 one man in every six or eight carried a gun, but 
 unless rabbits are plenty it was hard to see why he 
 needed it. We bought roasted chick-peas and pea- 
 nuts and were as happy as children. I did not see a 
 beggar and the courtesy was in striking contrast 
 with the rudeness often encountered in Naples or 
 Rome. 
 
 We went also to Caltanisetta, where we visited a 
 mud volcano and another group of mines. I did 
 not go in again but watched the smelting. A good 
 furnace smelts sulphur in thirty hours. At Lucia 
 the furnaces are twenty- four in number, with four 
 compartments each. The fire is started with a little 
 coal, and spreads from furnace to furnace, for all 
 are connected. The old-fashioned furnaces consist 
 of circular walls of stone-like lime kilns within 
 which the sulphur is piled, and covered with refuse 
 sulphur rock or slag. In these the fire smoulders 
 for three or four days.
 
 
 r.r "'^^^^:r:i^?' 
 
 
 "Carusi" Child Labor 
 
 The Little Sulphur Miners
 
 IN THE SULPHUR MINES 337 
 
 It was not imagination that made me see the 
 sulphur workers as occupational dwarfs. In a grave 
 report of the Minister of War, printed in Rome in 
 1909 and retailing observations of the military- 
 classes born in 1887 as called up for service, it is 
 stated that the largest percentage of boys above five 
 feet nine inches came from Udine and Lucca. The 
 greatest percentage below the height of five feet 
 one inch were from Cagliari, Sardinia, and from 
 the sulphur districts of Sicily. In Caltanisetta one 
 youth of every six is undersized. 
 
 Yet it is an interesting place. The old hotel is 
 buried in a huddle of streets, the new one fine and 
 brave. Many of the mines about this town are 
 closed because of obstinate fires and a bad explosion 
 in one of them four months ago that injured sixty 
 men. The hands doing outside jobs, such as shovel- 
 ing loose sulphur rock into cars, paint dark pictures 
 of their Hfe; but there is one ray of hope. "As fast 
 as we can," said one of them, "we escape to Amer- 
 ica." The "carusi" have bright faces and go to their 
 work laughing, though they may come from it cry- 
 ing. And they play about the great scales in which 
 the sulphur is weighed as if it was a giant swing. 
 
 The piazza of the town is too pleasant a place to 
 be obliged to "escape," with the Sicilian swallows 
 twittering about, the band playing — in Sicily a bank 
 may maintain a brass band as good business — and the 
 miners, goat-herds, peasants and town gentry taking 
 their evening ease together.
 
 338 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Ought I to feel aggrieved that in this town a mass 
 of mud thrown through a restaurant window struck 
 my face? Assuredly not; since I was solemnly told 
 that it was meant for quite another person; since 
 by it I made the acquaintance of a noted Anglo- 
 Sicilian authoress; since the Mayor most humbly 
 apologized in person, and since the suburbs contain 
 some of the finest cave houses it has been my happy 
 fortune to behold, yet not inhabit!
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 Hearth, Distaff and Loom 
 
 Gna Tidda was preparing this morning to set up 
 her loom for a new job, to weave a wider cloth. She 
 was adding to her "lizzu" — the English "healds" 
 is as foreign a word — by slipping on old threads 
 that had been used before, keeping a record of the 
 additions by taking a grain of Indian corn from her 
 apron for each twenty-five threads and putting it 
 in her lap. 
 
 Gna Tidda is grown very gray and old and 
 patient and sad. She lives alone in her room at the 
 left of the street. Her children are married and 
 gone. Her husband died four years ago, and she 
 has a horrible photograph of him dead in bed. Be- 
 hind the room is the tiniest kitchenette possible. She 
 eats a pennyworth of bread in the morning and 
 another at noon; at night, if she has anything to 
 cook, she cooks it, but her ovens did not look as if 
 they had been used for a month, and there were no 
 olive-prunings for fuel. I never pass the house 
 without hearing the clack of the loom, and seeing 
 her bent figure in shabby black sitting in the loom 
 seat, her stockinged feet on the rough treadles. Her 
 shoulders are bent alm.ost to a hunch. 
 
 339
 
 340 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Gna Tidda has to keep her loom In repair, which 
 may not be easy, as it belonged to her cousin's 
 mother and is fifty years old. She must pay the 
 woman who comes to fill the spools, and can only 
 charge so many pennies a yard for weaving. Tak- 
 ing one day with another, she may clear seven to 
 ten cents. She is working now on an order from a 
 woman who has a little girl eight years old and is 
 already preparing the stuff for the child's dowry. 
 Little by little the mother saves the money for 
 cotton and linen. Perhaps she has spun the thread 
 herself. She has ordered three pairs of spreads for 
 a big bed, and this homespun, half cotton, half 
 hemp, is preferred to machine-woven stuff because 
 it is more durable. It is not fine enough for pillow 
 cases or underwear. 
 
 Gna Tidda is always tired ; has no longer the will 
 to work; the cotton keeps breaking and her chest 
 hurts. She suffers, suffers, but compels herself to 
 go on. But little attractive as loom and life are, 
 both must be protected. She unfastens her dress 
 to show me that she carries on her neck figures of 
 various saints, including the Madonna della Rocca 
 and the Madonna di la Grazia. On the old loom 
 hang red rags, a little bag of "sacred things," a 
 bunch of olive sprigs, several small palm crosses 
 and a handful of wheat from the piatti — plates — 
 of Holy Week. These plates are of all sizes, but 
 each contains sprouted wheat rooted in wet cotton- 
 wool, and reminds us of I know not how ancient
 
 HEARTH, DISTAFF AND LOOM 341 
 
 customs of honoring the old gods in the season of 
 nature's resurrection. At the head of her bed Gna 
 Tidda has more wheat from the plates and her 
 rosary. 
 
 Her loom must differ little from those used in 
 our country in Colonial days. Blankets and carpet- 
 bags are made much as our rag carpets are still — 
 woven by hand in odd corners here and there. The 
 tension is kept right by a rope wound around the 
 beam and weighted with a stone. 
 
 At the head of the stair-way street is another old 
 woman who uses the hand-loom for fringes, braids 
 and the like. The garters of the contadini who still 
 wear knee-breeches are woven on the little hand- 
 loom. But this old woman is weaving fine cotton 
 and the work goes slowly. She is very old, and can- 
 not work all day; a little in the cool of the morn- 
 ing and the evening. The hand-loom is as old as she 
 is. When she was a wee thing it was new. Now 
 that she has a bad chest the loom is sick, too, and 
 trembles. Never does she or any right-minded 
 weaver begin a task without making the sign of 
 the cross. 
 
 In the dusty, dark, low cellars of Limina I came 
 upon younger weavers. One of these had a brown 
 face with straight wrinkles across the forehead 
 from perpetual peering at warp and woof, and eyes 
 that looked tired. She was making cloth for her 
 own dowry at odd times, and weaving for hire as 
 well. And she weaves all that the family wears,
 
 342 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 bed and body. The black and white "scampittu" 
 worn so gracefully as a mantle is woven on the 
 same loom in summer, after sheep shearing. 
 
 The colored ribbons that I see in mountain vil- 
 lages, on the hand looms, red, blue and yellow, must 
 mean complicated arrangements of the threads, for 
 mechanism so crude. Silkworm women weave 
 coarse stuff while tending their charges. Sicilian 
 silk is yellow, suitable for soft satins. In reeling it 
 the filaments should come off evenly in one long 
 smooth thread. The method is to float the cocoons 
 in basins in boiUng water, brush them until filaments 
 which will unwind to the center of the cocoon are 
 found, then wind them into hanks upon the reels. 
 Much of the inland silk must go into the silk-and- 
 cotton mixture of Palermo factories. 
 
 Spinners of spells are all these women of reel 
 and loom and spindle; but the wisest are of course 
 the old. If one needs a very special spinning, where 
 could one better go than to seek La Scimone as, 
 bent double with asthma, she gathers minestra at 
 the foot of the garden. 
 
 La Scimone feels well enough by daylight, but 
 at night cannot lie down and rest, and she is afraid. 
 Medicines do her no good. She can eat nothing but 
 eggs and a little milk. She has prayed to God, to 
 the Madonna and to the good people, and yet she 
 is not well. 
 
 The air is breathless and warm ; the mountain is 
 covered with blue veils one above another, through
 
 HEARTH, DISTAFF AND LOOM 343 
 
 which the mountain villages show dimly. There 
 is just a fringe of surf at Giardini ; the water near 
 the shore is greenish-white; further out a whitish 
 blue and bluish purple. But there is little air in the 
 old woman's room. 
 
 La Scimone's devotional table changes with the 
 seasons and Saints' days. Recently it was made up 
 of pictures of S. Pancrazio, Sant' Alfio, the 
 Madonna del Carmine and tlie Madonna della Catena. 
 She has a prayer in seven sections; so long that 
 when she tries to tell it to the priest, he says in sec- 
 tion I, "Enough!" Also she has salt and oil for 
 evil eye, and never fails to say "Bless you!" under 
 her breath when she has met a person and has 
 thought of her, "How fat!" or any other unpleasant 
 thing. Now why should one who is so exemplary 
 have asthma? 
 
 La Scimone's husband was a sailor. For thirty 
 years she "did the tongue" in church to ensure his 
 safe return, but he died five years ago. She makes 
 brooms for sale, and her door charms against 
 witchcraft are complete and exhaustive. But she 
 cannot make the round of the great church festas 
 because of the asthma and the cost of travel. 
 
 I asked La Scimone about the conjuration with a 
 thread, and she said it must be a thread of wool, 
 and at once proposed to make me a sufficient protec- 
 tion. Going to a corner of the room where there 
 was a sheepskin, she pulled out some flocks of wool 
 and shredded them in her fingers, making them soft
 
 344 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 and pliable. She looked admiringly at the stuff and 
 said she would card it and make me a "lacciu" — a 
 lasso or snare. 
 
 When at night I went back a minute, the beauti- 
 ful soft wool was on the distaff and in my presence 
 she spun, winding the thread about it. She did not 
 finish because the church bells began ringing the 
 benediction; she must go to church, where they 
 would say "many beautiful things of God"; after 
 that 
 
 The snare later proved to be a braid of three 
 strands of wool. She could not tell me how or why 
 it is useful against the evil eye, but there can be no 
 doubt of the fact, for when she was a child her 
 parents told her the evil eye had no power when 
 it was worn. She said I must make a bag and wear 
 it inside my dress. 
 
 La Scimone does not forget the church in her 
 veneration for the old ways. In a Worcestershire 
 sauce bottle she has holy water from the three fonts 
 of the Mother Church; she is waiting a chance to 
 send it down to the wife of the man who tends the 
 dazio, whose mother is dead, so the house must be 
 sprinkled anew. 
 
 La Scimone has never combed her hair on Fri- 
 day, and she says there are many women in the 
 country hereabouts who have never done so. For 
 there is a curse 
 
 Cursed be that woman's hair 
 
 For which on Friday comb shall care!
 
 en 
 
 <
 
 HEARTH. DISTAFF AND LOOM 345 
 
 Some who respect this ancient wisdom wear a 
 kerchief, so that no one knows the difference. 
 There are young girls, even, who do not comb on 
 Fridays. Some stay away from the lace schools a 
 day for that reason. 
 
 Even in America there are people who do not 
 like to begin a journey on Friday ! 
 
 As I came down the path with La Scimone's 
 licciu fending off all evil a day or two later, Cumari 
 Ciccia was heating her oven — for in Sicily as else- 
 where the oven and the distaff are not far sep- 
 arated; bread and the needle; baking, weaving, 
 spinning — these are the trades of the home-matrons. 
 
 Cimiari Ciccia's stubby, calloused feet were bare, 
 her grizzly hair in disorder; her dress was open at 
 the throat, and the sweat was trickling down her 
 round, seamed, brown face. 
 
 "Walking in this heat, Signurinedda ! !" she ex- 
 claimed, brandishing a handful of the vine-cuttings 
 she was drawing from the writhing heap outside 
 her door. "Sit down a minute." 
 
 As I entered she opened the wooden shutter of 
 the little square window about the oven to let out 
 the heat, and went on breaking up the vines. Gna 
 Ciccia's hearth, like that of every contadina for- 
 tunate enough to have one, is of masonwork, its 
 mouth opening between the two ovens that serve for 
 everyday cookery, the one a fire-hole for bits of 
 wood, the other for charcoal when steadier heat is 
 needed. Under the shelf is a recess handy for odds
 
 346 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 and ends or for chickens at night ; at one side is a 
 dish-rack. There is no chimney. 
 
 When the flames had quieted a bit Gna Ciccia 
 thrust in a poker with a hook on one side and a rake 
 on the other and drew out the nearer red embers, 
 catching them on the iron plate that serves as oven 
 door. Dropping these on the floor she dipped a 
 broom in an earthen dish of water and wet them 
 down, "for the brazier, when Uncle January sends 
 us cold weather." Home-made charcoal. Then she 
 broke and bunched more cuttings and fed her fires. 
 
 "How often do you bake?" I asked. 
 
 "Every twelve days; and the bread, does it get 
 dry? Hard as a stone to kill a dog; too hard to 
 eat without grinding teeth." She opened her mouth 
 to show me a few straggling yellow fangs. "But at 
 night if there is no cooked food one boils water 
 with a little garlic and dips in the bread. That is 
 good." 
 
 She wiped her face with her grimy apron. The 
 hen sitting in a basket nest of rags under the bed 
 gaped in the glow. 
 
 "How long does it take to heat the oven?" I 
 asked, pushing my chair as far away as possible. 
 
 "Half an hour in August but in winter, when the 
 walls are damp, perhaps an hour." 
 
 A Colonial housewife used to piling wood intc 
 her brick oven would have rebelled if expected to 
 bake with no fuel but grape prunings, but in Gna 
 Ciccia's land these are good fuel; the woman who
 
 HEARTH, DISTAFF AND LOOM 347 
 
 bakes with thorn twigs or brambles is the one to 
 pity. 
 
 Again and again Gna Ciccia brought in waving 
 lengths of the red-brown cuttings, doubled them 
 and poked them into the flaming cavern. "The oven 
 is ready," she said at last, drawing out and wetting 
 down another heap of glowing coals and bending 
 to sweep the inside walls with her black, charred 
 broom. 
 
 The loaves were still "abed," literally in the 
 family bed. Many times I have watched Gna Ciccia 
 knead her dough, spread a dark bread blanlcet on 
 the bed, set her round loaves in rows and cover them 
 with another blanket. Once, when her husband had' 
 been driven home from work by rain, I saw him 
 roused from a nap to give place to the batch. 
 
 All the older women have charms to insure a 
 good baking, one to be said when mixing the dough, 
 another when the bread goes into the oven. 
 
 "Tell me again," I begged Gna Ciccia, "what 
 does one say over the bread?" 
 
 There was soot on her white bristling eyebrows 
 and lashes as she turned good-naturedly. "What 
 does one say?" she repeated, arms akimbo, leaning 
 on the broom, "One says: 
 
 ^5 "Rise, dough, grow, 
 
 As grew little Jesus in his swaddling clothes." 
 
 15 "Crisci, crisci, pastuni, 
 
 Comu crisciu Gesuzzu 'u fasciuni."
 
 348 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 Then she took from its place against the wall a 
 long-handled wooden shovel, which she carried to 
 the bedside, lifting with it a great round loaf. "I'm 
 forgetting the salt," she said, and shifting the 
 shovel to her left hand, she took a pinch of brownish 
 salt from a dish on the rack and threw it into the 
 oven. Then she signed a cross before the oven door 
 and recited the second charm: 
 
 ^' "Saint Rosa and Saint Zita, 
 
 Good of crust and good of crumb!" 
 
 She slid the shovel into the oven, dislodging the 
 loaf far inside. Another and another she carried, 
 until all twelve were in place; then she ranged a 
 few hot coals at the front and set the iron door in 
 place. 
 
 "It's hot!" she sighed, dropping on a stool and 
 beginning to retell the gossip of the neighborhood. 
 After fifteen minutes or so she took down the door, 
 examined and moved every loaf and closed the 
 oven again with a satisfied "They must bake a while 
 longer. If you wait until they're done we can eat 
 this noon some hot bread dipped in oil." 
 
 Gna Ciccia's bread charms may not be the best. 
 Very common is "Santa Rosalia, white and red, 
 like you," referring to the reddish-brown bread 
 crust and the white within; or "Santa Margherita, 
 make it pretty as a zita," a bride. But you must use 
 
 ^^ "Santa Rosa e Santa Zita 
 
 Beddu di crusta e beddu di muddica!"
 
 HEARTH, DISTAFF AND LOOM 349 
 
 some charm, even if you bake bread every day for 
 the neighbors. 
 
 Seeking the mill that ground Gna Ciccia's flour, 
 one runs the gauntlet of street industries. Most 
 familiar are the old men and women past more 
 active work who make fish-nets, trailing their long 
 lines by the blank walls, and the blacksmiths and 
 tinsmiths who set up forges in the street. The bel- 
 lows blows up a little fire kindled in a hole in the 
 pavement. So one forges nails, or even considerable 
 pieces of iron-work, or dismembers the square 
 kerosene tins of Zu Vanni Rockefeller and makes 
 of them a surprising variety of useful objects. 
 
 In an old factory down by the water, a long and 
 dusty shed, we come upon the making of citrate. 
 Three girls bending over a trough cut with one 
 quick motion the pulp out of half a lemon. The 
 peels fall on the floor and are taken by a boy who 
 presses them for juice to make essences. The pulp 
 is ground in a big hand-mill and then piled under a 
 press which is turned by levers. The juice runs in 
 channels under the floor to another room whence 
 it is pumped into tanks and boiled with powdered 
 lime-rock ; the fluid is run off into vats and the rock 
 is squeezed dry. The soft gray residue is spread 
 on shelves in a drying room where a stove fire 
 burns three or four days, when the finished citrate 
 is packed for exportation. Nearby, halved oranges 
 and lemons are put into casks with salt water to be 
 shipped to Germany for marmalade.
 
 3 so BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 A little farther, at the macaroni factory, the 
 search for the mill grows "warm." There is a mill 
 of a sort that grinds the special hard wheat used for 
 "pasta"; then it goes into revolving sieves where 
 the bran is taken out. It is then fine flour. In one 
 corner of the room is a huge stone, a little hollowed 
 by use, in which the dough is kneaded, making 
 rather a hard, yellowish batch. A suitable piece is 
 cut off and put into a cylinder, in the bottom of 
 which is the mold, a metal disk punched with holes 
 to graduate the size of the spaghetti or vermicelli 
 as it is forced through. This mold would turn out 
 only solid pasta. Above it a clumsy hand press is 
 adjusted so that a woman, pressing hard against a 
 wooden beam, toils from one side of the room to 
 the other, bending forward, a patient animal, as 
 in a treadmill, and the pasta issues at the bottom 
 in strings. The man adjusts them deftly along a 
 rod, cuts off the skein at the top and hangs the rod 
 outside the house to dry in the dust. It takes from 
 a day to two days to dry the pasta; and whether 
 volcanic sulphur in the air betters the taste I know 
 not, but in the lee of Vesuvius, as of Etna, the sub- 
 urbs are whitish-yellow with drying pasta, like a 
 floury wash-day. 
 
 And now we are at the real mill of Giardini, 
 small and hard to find, but a pretty picture against 
 the background of the steep hill. It is almost the 
 only one remaining of many that used to function 
 along the torrent. The wheat is brought by peasants
 
 HEARTH, DISTAFF AND LOOM 351 
 
 who have patches of ground or who get grain as 
 part wages. I often see women sifting wheat pre- 
 paring to send it down to be ground. 
 
 The mill is overshot. The grain is weighed and 
 poured into a feeding-trough from which it is run 
 between two small mill-stones and issues into sacks. 
 And, as the miller says the saints make good flour, 
 others may wish to know with what pictures the 
 hopper is covered. They are the Madonna delk 
 Catena, a crucifix, San Giuseppe, Alfio and his 
 brothers, Filadelfo and Cirino, and others — good 
 workmanlike saints, all of them.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 Speed the Plow ! 
 
 Mark, too, when from on high out of the clouds you shall 
 have heard the voice of the crane uttering its yearly cr3', 
 which both brings the signal for plowing and points the 
 season of rainy winter, but gnaws the heart of the man that 
 hath no oxen. — Hesiod, Works and Days; Banks's Trans. 
 
 Retracing Gna Ciccia's flour from her oven back 
 to the mill and thence to the sower and the plow 
 was a long trail. 
 
 It led back to Rome and Egypt ; across the sea to 
 the United States; back again to Sicily with the 
 returning emigrants. It united the most incongru- 
 ous seeming elements of old and new. 
 
 Consider merely the plow — not the symbol; the 
 tool. You may see in many parts of Sicily the 
 ancient Egyptian plow described by Maspero in 
 "The Dawn of Civilization"; a larger hoe, drawn 
 by oxen. A bas relief from the tomb of Ti shows 
 one less primitive than that of Sicily often is. It 
 actually had two handles! 
 
 In plow-making the bend of the wood is utilized. 
 Two sticks fitted and spiked together at one end to 
 form the proper angle at the other, the longer and 
 lighter one turned up and smoothed to a handle — 
 
 352
 
 Plowman Homeward Bound
 
 SPEED THE PLOW! 353 
 
 this is a plow. The end is sharpened at the point 
 and hardened by fire or shod with iron. A brace 
 is set between the sticks a little back of the coulter. 
 A ruder plow may be made of two branches or the 
 natural knee of a tree; the bigger stem, placed 
 lowest and smoothed at the bottom, serves as the 
 share; an upright stick is the handle. 
 
 Like the Egyptian fellah or the rayah of Asia 
 Minor, the Sicilian peasant sows by hand and plows 
 or scratches in the seed. To restore fertility to great 
 areas impoverished by latifundia since Roman 
 times, resort is made to fallow, which Hesoid calls 
 "a. guardian from death-and-ruin and a soother of 
 children." 
 
 When plowing is finished the plow is reversed; 
 the share catches on the yoke of the animals that- 
 draw it, and with the end of the handle trailing on 
 the ground it is taken home. As in Ovid 
 
 . . . what time the laboring hind, released, 
 The plow reversing, yokes it to his beast. 
 
 Pliny describes the plowshare as "a lever fur- 
 nished with a pointed beak; while another variety, 
 used in light, easy soils, does not present an edge 
 projecting from the sharebeam throughout, but only 
 a small point at the extremity"; but he speaks of 
 a newly invented plow with two small wheels used 
 in the Grisons — much as an Italian of to-day would 
 describe a gang-plow made in Chicago and bought 
 by a Sicilian co-operative association.
 
 354 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 The thrashing floor derives as anciently and 
 honorably. Varro says it "should be on high ground 
 so that the wind can blow upon it from all direc- 
 tions, preferably round, with the middle slightly 
 raised. It should be paved with well-packed earth, 
 best of all clay, so that it may not crack in the sun, 
 and water collect." And so it is made now. The 
 sheaves are brought on the backs of mules or don- 
 keys. Threshing is done by treading the grain be- 
 neath the feet of animals, men stirring it with 
 wooden forks. To winnow the grain, it is tossed in 
 the air — and we see why Varro wanted free access 
 for the wind. The heavier grain falls straight, the 
 chaff is blown away. A sieve is used for more care- 
 ful screening. 
 
 Crude? Well, a great American farmer, George 
 Washington, wrote to Gen. Harry Lee: "The model 
 (of an English threshing machine) brought over 
 by the English farmers may also be a good one, but 
 the utility of it among careless negroes and ignorant 
 overseers will depend absolutely upon the simplicity 
 of the construction — I have seen so much of the 
 beginning and ending of new inventions that I have 
 almost resolved to go on in the old way of treading 
 until I get settled again at home and can attend my- 
 self to the management of one — I have one of the 
 most convenient barns in this or perhaps any other 
 country, where thirty hands may with great ease 
 be employed in threshing. Half the wheat of the 
 fnrm was actually stored in this barn in the straw
 
 SPEED THE PLOW! 355 
 
 by my orders for threshing ; notwithstanding, when 
 I came home about the middle of September, I 
 found a treading yard not thirty feet from the barn 
 door, the wheat again brought out of the barn, and 
 horses treading it out in an open exposure liable to 
 the vicissitudes of the weather." 
 
 The anonymous "Virginia Farmer" who has de- 
 scribed for us "Roman Farm Management" has set 
 down many such curious parallels. In Varro's 
 time the peasant sowed and reaped substantially 
 the same amount of wheat per acre as the American 
 farmer to-day. Varro's shrewd advice that you 
 should "reserve ground for planting hemp, flax, 
 rush and Spanish broom (spartum) which serve to 
 make shoes for the cattle, thread, cord and rope" 
 reads like the appeal of a State agricultural college 
 in our own South for diversified farming. 
 
 There are processes more primitive. Many is- 
 landers have tiny patches of wheat snuggled in 
 among other crops, the yield of which is reaped, 
 like nearly all Sicilian grain, with the sickle, beaten 
 out in small quantities at home and winnowed in a 
 sieve on the doorstep. When the contadino who 
 has emigrated to the United States comes back to 
 Sicily he buys a small farm. For a time he rather 
 puts on airs ; does not want to work. Gradually the 
 soil draws him back. He may enlarge his acres by 
 hiring, like his neighbors, from the great land- 
 owners through their agents on the share-and-share 
 system, the landlord furnishing the seed, the man
 
 356 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 the labor. Or, more likely, he will seek the "co- 
 operative" and modern crop machinery. 
 
 From the door of my hotel in Siracusa I set out 
 in a carriage one day at dawn to follow the city- 
 dwelling peasants out to their patches of ground; 
 and to discovery beyond. As we neared the bridge 
 over the Ortygia the street was full of men and 
 women going out to work. Sometimes they spend 
 as many as three hours going to their tasks and re- 
 turning for the shelter and companionship of the 
 town. Some were on foot, with a bag across the 
 shoulder and perhaps a cricle of bread hanging 
 with a wide straw hat from the other arm; some 
 were on mules or pattering donkeys. 
 
 As we left the city and turned toward Canicattini, 
 1 began to see peasants already at work, reaping 
 with sickles. Their heads were bound with red ker- 
 chiefs, their faces burnt almost as black as Moors. 
 With dexterous movements others bound sheaves of 
 cut grain. Behind the reapers and binders followed 
 gleaners, as in Bible times, each woman with a huge 
 canvas apron or sack at her back. The heads they 
 gathered seemed scanty. Each wore her red ker- 
 chief ; each was as dark as the men. The proprietors 
 expect the workers to be in the field by daylight 
 and to work, with intervals for food and rest, until 
 seven at night. Some give only a money wage; 
 others supplement it with cheese, olives and other 
 bread-accompaniment, with wine at discretion. 
 
 The plain below Epipolse was luxuriant with
 
 SPEED THE PLOW! 357 
 
 olives and almonds, lemons and vines — the strong 
 perfume of the grape blossoms filling the air. But 
 after a little we began to climb into less fertile 
 country, so stony that I ceased to wonder that reap- 
 ing is done by hand. "Machines destroy them- 
 selves," said the driver. It was a marvel that any 
 grain could be raised; yet where the outcropping 
 was most obtrusive was always the yellow wheat, 
 with undergrowth of poppies between the stones. 
 Here and there were stone walls six feet high to 
 keep off hungry animals. On fallow land overgrown 
 with thistles and white morning glories were graz- 
 ing sheep and goats. By the roadside were wild 
 artichokes in abundance; the driver called them 
 "time-killers," they are so small. 
 
 Up the ladder of Canicattini we went, so called 
 because it climbs swiftly through country so barren 
 that even olive trees become scanty. Then again we 
 came into wheat fields and vineyards through which 
 we fared to the one long street of the town, all 
 white houses one story high, each with door and 
 single window frame. Then up again through more 
 rock desert, ever climbing, ever watching the reap- 
 ers at their hot work, winding through the passes of 
 the hills of Palazzolo and finally to the rock cave 
 tombs of Monte Pineta, pierced in the sides of cliffs 
 so steep that one wonders how bodies were ever laid 
 there to rest. 
 
 The landlady of the little inn has had twelve 
 children and lost seven. She called me Little One,
 
 3S8 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 and spoke of far-away America, to which so many 
 of this place have gone. So few tourists come that 
 she and the custode of the tombs remember them 
 all for years — but there are links with America, 
 none the less ; for, passing through Floridia on our 
 return, we found the greatest building activity I 
 had seen in Sicily, the masons at work after seven 
 o'clock at night. Streets and streets of new houses 
 were going up, each white, of one story, with a 
 frontage of fifteen to twenty feet; clean, neat 
 houses, if tiny. They were built by the returning 
 emigrants from America, and such new quarters are 
 called "the American houses." They are surrounded 
 by luxuriant vineyards, olive and almond orchards 
 and the inevitable wheat filling the gores between. 
 In time these staring new houses will be wreathed 
 like their ancient neighbors with low arbors of 
 clinging vines. 
 
 And they told me that at Belvidere, a mile beyond 
 Epipolse, only one thousand were left of the one 
 thousand five hundred inhabitants; five hundred 
 men and boys were in America ! There will be more 
 little white houses when some of them come back. 
 
 Everywhere the same story. Following the plow 
 to Monte San Giuliano in an automobile bus which 
 strangely contrasts with sickles and threshing floors, 
 we stopped at a rare steam mill to deliver bags of 
 wheat and take in bags of flour; but even from such 
 advantages the men thereabouts emigrated hun- 
 dreds at a time. In America they make fortunes in
 
 The "American Houses'' 
 
 More Houses of Returned Emigrants
 
 SPEED THE PLOW! 359 
 
 two or three years ; sometimes they come home and 
 stay ; sometimes they make a second voyage ; in the 
 end they buy a bit of land and settle down; so that 
 in the same region there are both small proprietors 
 and the estates owned by rich nobles. 
 
 In San Giuliano itself I was reminded at once 
 of the steam mill and of Gna Ciccia's painful 
 labors by three old women working a hand mill for 
 the grinding of wheat; an ancient quern of little 
 mill-stones in the shape of larger ones, the flour 
 issuing in driblets into a crock on the floor. The 
 women grasp a bar to turn the stones, as they do in 
 Palestine, as the twelve slaves did in the palace of 
 Ulysses, as the Greeks of the Archipelago do now. 
 
 There is much money at the Post Office, sent from 
 America. Emigration interferes with the marriage 
 of the girls, though the returning men marry, rather 
 later in life than if they had stayed. The custode 
 of the castle, who carries a gun, wanted to know if 
 I could not recommend him as armed guard to some 
 rich American family; half a generation of tourists 
 could vouch for his honesty. 
 
 The boy called Candela who acted as guide at San 
 Giuliano never ate meat except at carnival and on 
 holidays. In the morning he had bread and olives ; 
 at noon bread and finocchi; or once or twice a 
 week salt fish; at night minestra. "Signora mia," 
 he asked, "what should I do with meat? It is for 
 you others, not for us." Candela had been at school 
 and could read and write. He had learned a few
 
 36o BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 words of English from some ladies who stayed a 
 month on the mountain — he thought because they 
 had so much knitting to do they could not finish it. 
 He showed me a five-cent piece given him by a 
 tourist and pointed to the head of Liberty: "Amer- 
 ica, then, is not a republic?" But republic or not, 
 all the countryside was going there. 
 
 How, in returning, the adventurers aid in the 
 stirring up of Sicily I wished to hear now, not from 
 reapers and gleaners singly, and little boys dreaming 
 of America, but at headquarters of intelligence. 
 The Advocate lo Vetere, a specialist in urging and 
 arranging for co-operation on the soil, was of such 
 information an authoritative source, and to him I 
 went. There were at that time, he told me, three 
 hundred and forty-two co-operative societies in 
 Sicily, mostly in the provinces of Caltanisetta and 
 Girgenti. Perhaps forty had taken land to work 
 co-operatively. A majority of their members were 
 men who had come back from America. There is 
 intelligence at work in these associations, but money 
 is lacking. To be sure, there is the "credito 
 agricolo," but the amount that can be loaned one 
 group is limited. There should be money to buy up 
 the great estates and split them Into holdings. There 
 is water; deep, but it can be had. Machines are 
 coming in slowly, though much of the land is too 
 rough for machine sowing and reaping. Emigra- 
 tion, says lo Vetere, is a great good, since it brings 
 into the country not only money but intelligence.
 
 SPEED THE PLOW! 361 
 
 The co-operative societies lessen crime ; only men of 
 good character can belong to them. Boys lie about 
 their ages to go to work, and age fast ; but so do the 
 men who go to America. They work so hard to get 
 money to come home with ; perhaps they do not eat 
 as much as the American climate demands. They 
 come home tired. But they bring money and ideas. 
 
 The venerated and lamented Giuseppe Pitre, be- 
 sides his labors as a savant, with some forty 
 volumes on folk-lore and kindred topics to his 
 credit, and his wide labors as a practicing physician, 
 was a Senator and a statesman. Describing condi- 
 tions which the war must have changed greatly, he 
 told me that emigration to America had become an 
 intoxicant. It unsettled people, though not so much 
 in Catania and the large places — for the immigrant 
 who in America huddles in tenements is in his own 
 land a farmer. Home wages were raised by the 
 drain of labor until land owners did not know what 
 to do. Taxes frequently ran to forty per cent of 
 income. The American Sicilians sent home big 
 sums of money, preferring to deposit in their home 
 banks, but many districts were too poor to pay the 
 school tax ; the compulsory education law could not 
 be enforced. 
 
 Whether the emigrants take Socialism to America 
 or bring it back from there is like the old question 
 whether the bird or the egg came first. It is a 
 power in the towns, and is becoming a power behind 
 the plow. Deputy Giuseppe De Felice, middle-
 
 362 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 aged, a little gray, stout, big for a Sicilian, not 
 much given to Latin oratory, earnest and sincere, 
 is one of the great leaders of the movement and a 
 powerful man in Sicily. 
 
 Him I asked about conditions in Catania and in 
 the great Etna-enriched plain to which its city- 
 dwelling laborers go out for work upon the fields. 
 He was basing great hopes which the war must have 
 rudely shocked upon the labor leagues and the 
 Catania Chamber of Labor. The city gives rooms 
 for the league meetings rent free, with lighting and 
 a little money for expenses. The members hire 
 a doctor for each league, who is paid perhaps five 
 hundred lire a year. Each quarter of the city has 
 its public doctor, but workingmen prefer the physi- 
 cians employed by their leagues. 
 
 De Felice favored emigration. It had, with the 
 action of the leagues, raised wages for those who 
 stayed, while those who go and come back are not 
 the same people. Away, they pour a stream of 
 wealth into the country; returning, their minds are 
 quicker and they join in co-operative and other for- 
 ward movements — if they stay. Illiteracy one can- 
 not estimate, since the last census was taken in 1901. 
 In all Sicily it may be forty-fiv-e per cent, including 
 the smaller centers. 
 
 But was not De Felice, here, too optimistic? 
 Girls are not sent to school as generally as the boys 
 who figure in the army statistics. Other authorities 
 set the percentage lower. Nothing could be finer
 
 Pictures Made for "Babbo in America'
 
 SPEED THE PLOW! 363 
 
 in spirit than the Francesco Crispi school which I 
 had visited in Palermo, with its eleven hundred 
 pupils — the Sicilian parallel of our "little red school 
 house," since most peasants live in towns. Here are 
 none of the beautiful gymnasiums and assembly 
 halls of American city schools ; but what American 
 school has classes in fencing? And how many 
 teach, once a week, "rights and duties" in the true 
 Mazzinian spirit — one's duties toward his country 
 and his fellow men? 
 
 The children look intelligent; many of them 
 beautiful, with fine oval faces. They read, it seems 
 to me, with more expression than American children 
 of the same age and are more fond of reciting 
 poetry. They are neatly dressed and have been 
 carefully trained in politeness. They rise with one 
 accord as one enters the room. Always in such a 
 school are some children who made the beginnings 
 of school education in New York, or near the 
 aqueduct works of Mt. Kisco or the steel mills of 
 "Pittisborgo." 
 
 De Felice spoke frankly of such festivals as that 
 of Sant' Alfio as relics of paganism, commercial- 
 ized, with which one must be patient a little longer. 
 Italy has neglected the South; it should have given 
 the communes all the proceeds of the sale of the 
 lands of the religious congregations for public 
 works. Naturally De Felice did not favor dividing 
 commune lands among small owners, because they 
 would be obliged to sell them again and the big
 
 364 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 owners would pick up the little farms one at a 
 time as they have done in the past. So Arthur 
 Young, studying French farming just before the 
 revolution of 1790, did not favor dividing the es- 
 tates, as was so soon to be done, preferring the effi- 
 ciency of larger operations. 
 
 De Felice is of the fertile coastal plain, the till- 
 age lands. Castrogiovanni is in the grazing coun- 
 try of high hills; and Napoleone Colaianni, the 
 veteran Deputy, is its prophet and spokesman in the 
 Roman Congress, He says — and I thought at once 
 of the cattle reivers of the Scottish Border and 
 other fierce bands in hill forays — that one reason 
 why Sicily has but one hundred and sixty-four 
 cattle for each one thousand inhabitants, while 
 France, Germany and Great Britain have, or had 
 before the war, from two hundred and sixty-eight 
 to three hundred and eighty-three, is the activity 
 of cattle stealers, carried on under a system which 
 subjects the owner, if he seeks to prevent or pun- 
 ish the theft, to the danger of having his remaining 
 stock killed, himself shot at or taken for ransom, 
 and his buildings burned. How are capitalists to 
 be attracted to an industry, however lucrative, in 
 which they are likely to lose their all without 
 redress? 
 
 "I remember," says Signor Colaianni, "two 
 plucky young men from Argentina who on their 
 return from that far-away land, where they had 
 saved up forty thousand lire, full of faith bought
 
 SPEED THE PLOW! 365 
 
 thirty-two animals of the finest breed from fanciers 
 at Caltavutoro and other villages to devote them- 
 selves to stock-farming. They were fancy farmers 
 exactly one week and one day. Eight days after 
 they had taken the beasts to the grazing ground 
 came the word that all their stock had been taken 
 by bandits." 
 
 Colaianni tried to do something for the young 
 men, but without success. How should these re- 
 turned emigrants of modest means hope to escape 
 a toll which was laid upon great landlords, like 
 Baron Lombardo of Canicatti and Baron Sabatini 
 of Petralia; on resourceful lawyers like the Advo- 
 cate Algozine of Leonforte — the very town where 
 the young Argentine adventurers came to grief — 
 and the Advocate Pace di Bella of Bronte? No; 
 the plucky pair went back to Argentina to make 
 another fortune. Cattle stealing will lessen with 
 better courts, roads, detective service, schools, hy- 
 gienic service; they had only one lifetime to spend 
 and could not wait. 
 
 The Sicily that is a garden, the Sicily known 
 chiefly to the tourist, the smiling shore of the sea, 
 is only one-quarter of the island. The frowning in- 
 terior, of the wheat fields and the wide estates and 
 the big landlords with their armed and mounted 
 guards, is three-quarters of the whole area. Here 
 the estates that existed even before Roman times, 
 intensified by the Norman baronage, modified now 
 for the better, now for the worse, in constant three-
 
 366 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 cornered struggles between serfs, kings and nobles, 
 exist to our day. The fall of feudalism, so far as 
 it did fall, made it easier for a careless owner to 
 lose his property, but also easier for a more nig- 
 gardly master to gain it — and no easier at all for 
 the workers to secure its division. 
 
 The modern land question met Garibaldi at 
 Marsala, marched with him into Palermo, dogged 
 him to the Strait. Franchetti writes that the North 
 Italian government has misunderstood Sicilian con- 
 ditions, much as England misunderstood Irish land 
 systems a century ago; and that the confiscation 
 of church properties made matters worse. The 
 lands fell into the hands of large owners, and the 
 peasants suffered a disaster, losing age-old privileges 
 and being driven from their homes. 
 
 As in France, the new legislation aimed at creat- 
 ing small proprietors, but the auctions of church 
 lands took capital out of circulation, so that peasants 
 who took small holdings could get no advances to 
 work their grounds and fell into the hands of 
 usurers. Usually they lost their lands, the estates 
 became wider than before, rents rose and owners 
 fattened, while the peasants, no longer allowed to 
 live in the feuds, to gather wood, to pasture their 
 animals, bore a rule harder than of old. 
 
 Inevitably there followed secret organizations, 
 revolts, bloodshed, until public opinion began to 
 take the Sicilian land question seriously. Emigra- 
 tion supplied a harsh remedy, so far as wages went.
 
 SPEED THE PLOW! 367 
 
 but found or forced no cure for lack of water ; for 
 the closing of ancient rights-of-way by new owners ; 
 for the absentee system, caused as often by fear as 
 by greed; for the armed rural guards who play 
 upon the timidity of city owners to prolong their 
 hold ; for the flocking of peasants into town to find 
 more congenial labor. 
 
 And all this is as much an American question as 
 was the famine in Ireland in 1847. It has an im- 
 mediately practical bearing not only upon the im- 
 migration of Sicilians into the United States, but 
 upon their proclivity for shooting robins when they 
 get here, in the country ; and in the city their cynical 
 views about the police and the courts of law. With 
 them they bring their unwillingness to seek legal re- 
 dress for wrongs suffered ; their fear of testifying 
 against desperadoes ; their "mafioso" code of honor. 
 Upon American soil their tribute to the brigand 
 scarcely ceases, and for the landlord the "bosso" and 
 the padrone furnish a substitute to be feared or 
 hated. 
 
 To understand Is to pardon. To teach is to win. 
 Something we may teach ourselves. The Italian is 
 possibly the only element in our immigration whose 
 children are less healthy in the new country than in 
 the old. The men, coming from the farms, may 
 suffer less on the canal and aqueduct, in spite of 
 the bad housing of labor camps and loneliness for 
 home faces and the beauty of the old land. The 
 women and children, accustomed to live in the open
 
 368 BY-PATHS IN SICILY 
 
 air, huddle into swarming tenements and work in 
 city factories. Even in mining regions, factories 
 follow the "labor supply" to congested towns. In 
 New England the factory itself is a family affair, 
 and there are at least fewer domestic tragedies of 
 alienation, desertion, bigamy. 
 
 But how quick the children are in school! How 
 the Latin genius shows in handiwork shaming our 
 clumsier Northern fingers! How the little ones 
 bring to their schools the gift of song and the sun- 
 shine of affection! They are the true immigrants; 
 they see, as their parents cannot, what America 
 really means, the good and the bad alike, the hard- 
 ships, but also the opportunities. Through them we 
 conquer prejudice and suspicion. 
 
 And the fathers and mothers, unlettered as they 
 are, and inevitably the prey of exploiters and agita- 
 tors of their own race — have we tried to teach them 
 also? Have we shown proper gratitude and appre- 
 ciation in treatment? Have we granted them the 
 courteous address which is essential to their honest 
 pride? Have we any conception of the debt we 
 owe to their patient toil in the darkness of the mine, 
 the danger of the trench, the service of the rising 
 walls of new homes? 
 
 The United States itself is a League of Nations. 
 Let us look to the justice and the love that should 
 bind it close. 
 
 THE END "^~
 
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