Arthur Stanley Riggs

“ It is all hand work, and one is filled with admiration akin to awe as the eye follows the low, square limestone copings that mark the course of one of them across hill and vale and field, over the heights of the Epipolai down toward the harbor.
Though Rome has left us comparatively few monuments in Sicily, they show clearly the difference between Greek and Roman ideals, in life as well as in art. The Greeks reared matchless temples and theaters never equaled for their purity and simplicity; the Romans, baths and amphitheaters whose floridness suggested display and luxury. ”

“ You must use your imagination to-day to reconstruct the agora, to people it again with the dark faces and flowing robes of the Greeks of old, to hear the clank of weapons and armor as a Tyrant’s bodyguard passes through the unsmiling crowd: for the agora, now, is only a bare, open square, through the middle of which a naked red column thrusts upward. A kindlier fate has overtaken the Roman Palæstra near by—a gymnasium and auditorium where the youth of Latinized Syracuse used to polish their muscles and wits alike. ”

“ It is a white city with houses of pearl and roofs of carnelian, shimmering with golden sunlight against the dark background of vine-clad hills on the horizon and the rich green of the most fertile plain in the island, that sweeps, a vast natural amphitheater, from the edge of the sea up to the seats of the white gods on the cloud-veiled crags. Splendidly set is the city in the warm lap of its Conca d’Oro, the Golden Shell that blooms with countless orange and lemon trees whose golden fruits flash amid the glossy green of the foliage and give the rolling plain its name. ”

“ From its very beginning the benignant gods smiled upon Syracuse, and it prospered so rapidly that within seventy years it was founding colonies of its own. Under the tyrant Gelon, son-in-law of the great and good Theron of Akragas, and later practically co-ruler with him of all Greek Sicily, the era of Hellenic supremacy began, with Syracuse in the van of progress. Indeed, Syracuse was of such paramount importance that sometimes its history is mistaken for the history of Sicily. Tyrants good and bad rose and fell; democracy overthrew tyranny, and tyranny overthrew democracy. ”

“ The first of the Greek settlers brought their home legends with them to Sicily, where they found a friendly soil, attaining their fullest perfection in the sympathetic hands of the Latin poets. Some of the most beautiful weave through the story of Syracuse, and the most delightful walk in the city—one you will want to take often—leads you straight along the edge of the Great Harbor, on a wide, tamarind-bordered esplanade, with the town wall rising behind, to the picturesque, papyrus-fringed little pool accounted for by one especially gracious tale, and called the Fountain of Arethusa. ”

“ The ascent is by a road which—well, try it for yourself. But the town, once reached, pays for the climb in its magnificent views. It is the navel (umbilicus Siciliæ) of Sicily, and from the loftiest tower of the former citadel there sweeps away a mountain cyclorama such as not even Switzerland can excel—Ætna, peaks without number, range on range and tier on tier, melting into the haze of heaven. Towns, thousands of feet in the air, cling desperately to the steep, unfriendly sides, or perch precariously on the tops of needle-pointed mountains. ”

“ The way up to the topmost seats is through grass and weeds starred with tiny flowerets, mantling over the scars of Time. Sitting there where Greek and Roman and Saracen in turn have mused before, he is cold indeed who does not thrill to memory and to the marvelous panorama spread below: on the right, tier on tier of the eternal hills in warm brown, their crowns of Saracenic-looking castles lending a militant air to their own stern beauty; below them, a confused medley of roofs and spires, roads and wandering walls, Taormina ”

“ Carven slabs from the temple friezes—what a story they tell of the primitive and ardent culture of the early Greeks perched upon their twin hills at Selinus, beside the sounding deep! One whole hall is lined with them, arranged symmetrically in series, speaking even to-day with the voice of that mystic lore which, to understand, reveals ancient Sicily. And though individual carvings excel them in precision and beauty, as a series denoting the exact progress of Greek Sicilian art from its crudest to its most perfected form, the metopes are unsurpassed. ”

“ Ever shifting car-window prospects float by on the wing, and before you can fairly appreciate one, you pass another.
Around a curve, the train dashes into a big fishing village, a sturdy hamlet of nets and boats, of men in bare legs and knitted caps with tassels, of houses packed together on the side of a steep hill, struggling upward like lame sheep; a town of tiles and whitewash huddled together under the protection of a dozen stalwart-steepled belfries—Termini Imerese, busiest of Sicily’s provincial towns, famous for its macaroni. ”

“ Farther out from the city the beautiful precincts of the old Minorite monastery and church of Santa Maria di Gesù ramble along the steep side of one of those emerald hills that bound the Conca d’Oro. Long pebbled paths lead up from the gate through cool green vistas dotted with stately trees and headstones; and, with a pride which is the more curious in a Minorite—whose pledges are of humility and poverty—the monk who lets one in explains that this cemetery has never been used by any except the wealthiest of Palermo’s noble families. ”

“ The little establishment amuses rather than disappoints; and though it scarcely justifies its grandiose title, it commands a view that no doubt suggested the name to its proprietor. Falling away from its feet, the hill cascades down in great billows to the cool green and orange sea of the Conca d’Oro. And when the trolley car turns the shoulder of the hill, in Palermo—misty and dun in the gathering dark—lights like jewels flash out in scintillating ripples that spread and widen and sparkle as you race down the dusty mountain road, leaving medieval Monreale silent and spectral behind. ”

“ Nowadays nobody stops to look at Giardini twice, since far above, on the great cliffs against which it nestles, lies the favorite beauty spot of Sicily, the haunt of artist and traveler the year around.
If you so much as look doubtfully at the rickety old landaus that meet the train, a driver will pile your luggage into one, almost push you in after it, and cracking his whip, start slowly up the road, a long, gentle ascent built in great sweeping curves. Splendid views unveil themselves at every foot of the way. ”

“ Many an army had marched and camped and fought among these hills and vales, and the powdery dust of the milk-white roads had puffed up from the feet of Elymian and Phœnician, Greek and Roman legions. But never before had a victory meant so much to civilization as the success of the badly armed but desperately determined and immortal Thousand who followed the gray-haired sailor-hero. And history repeated itself yet again when Garibaldi, like Timoleon, refused everything for himself, counting it honor enough to serve Sicily so well. ”

“ Last of all the great molders of Sicily came the Normans, knights who with their keen blades carved a slice out of the Byzantine Empire on the Italian mainland and, conquering the Sicilian Muslims, built up a kingdom for themselves. Sicily’s period of greatest glory dawned with their conquest. They developed a splendid fabric of feudalism; and all the arts as well as the more usual graces of civilization stamped the new kingdom for their own. The very Italian language, as Dante himself acknowledges, had its feeble beginnings in the court of the Emperor Frederick II at Palermo. ”

“ And as you stand breathless with the wonder of it, history unfolds itself in memory, with something at every step to drive that history home, be it Sikel, Greek, Roman, Saracen or Norman. The ruins of the mighty fortress atop the inland hill breathe of the Age of Tyrants, and to follow the herculean walls of Dionysius around the deserted plateau fills one with awe and wonder anew, for the work seemingly has been performed by a race of giants. ”

“ Saracenic love-songs full of the wild spirit of desert and river, quavering and melancholic; passionate lyric romances suggestive of cavalier Norman days. But it is the Greek that, being the purest and simplest strain, has always prevailed. Every day little shepherd lads stir the terrific solitudes of wind-swept mountain steeps with wordless songs drawn as by magic from their reedy flutes, music shrilly sweet and unforgettable. And at dinner in the evening you may hear some little minstrel wandering up and down the Corso, fluting his heart out in the moonlight. ”

“ When a Sicilian is feeling well, his “Good morning, sir!” sounds like “Spartacus to the gladiators.” When anyone addresses you as though murder were contemplated, with yourself as the victim, be easy. It is most likely to be a polite wish for a pleasant journey, delivered with characteristic Latin fervor and inflection. Our first morning in Taormina, a wild looking peasant beauty bearing upon her shapely head a huge dripping amphora, stopped us with uncouth gestures and a laugh so eldritch it startled us. ”

“ You find him everywhere, especially among the lanes of the Fiera di Pascua, the Easter Fair, a piece bitten right out of the heart of Coney Island. The Easter season, by the way, is an exceedingly fortunate time to spend in Sicily, because of the multitudinous festivities going on.
For the Fair, great bare sheds spring up overnight in the square beside the Mássimo, mushroom-like—a sunstruck Babel of crazily built and decorated shops and stalls and booths where everything imaginable is to be bought, from tinware and toys to rosaries and vegetables. ”

“ Roofless and abandoned, it stands outlined in soft brown against the cobalt sky, its delicate windows still bordered by snowy marble diapering, its walls partly checkered in black lava and white marble, a noble Gothic picture, saturated with the atmosphere of Norman days.
A rugged, winding path leads up this hillside to the ancient castle, crowning a crag far above, though the usual route is by way of Mola. To-day the chief importance of the castle is as a platform for viewing the stirring panorama of shore and hills. ”

“ Once, stooping to rearrange the priest’s robes, he did it with such a mischievous flirt, and such a droll gleam in the brown eyes fixed on us, that we half expected to be held up by a small highwayman after mass, and asked for a penny or two in token of the sacrilegious show we had been permitted to witness.
The elders of the town sit upon the long bench or dais of red porphyry where the archbishop would be enthroned should he visit Taormina. They are curious old men, gnarled, withered apples full of sun and wind-wrinkles, who wear the typical brown-gray-black shawl as a muffler. ”

“ Palermo, the Conca d’Oro, the sea below, the mountains behind, appear and disappear with each turn, like the ever-changing film of a motion-picture.
The Japanese say there are “two kinds of fools: those who have never ascended Fuji-yama, and those who have ascended him twice.” The proverb applies here on Pellegrino perfectly. It is as great a mistake not to make the journey once as it would be needless to make it a second time, for no one can ever forget the picturesque climb up that zig-zag road on donkey-back. When the writer went up, everybody who saw the miniature procession laughed. ”

“ The noise and unrest of the busy Corso are forgotten in this magic precinct; smiling, happy men, women and children stream through the yard, picturesque in their holiday attire; while from the windows drones the chant of the Mass, like the buzzing of a swarm of kindly bees hovering over the flowers. The white glare of the Egyptian desert is never more blinding than a Sicilian spring morning radiance.
The blending of different architectural forms in the Palermo Cathedral gives it charm. ”

“ Though the service calls, religion in Sicily takes small heed of the antics of foreigners, and if one chooses to stay outside in the courtyard and take photographs, it causes not the slightest comment. The main charm of the Cathedral lies in the curious blending of its different forms of architecture—Arabic, Norman, Gothic; which produces a dashing and almost whimsical effect in its fine arcades, its rich friezes and battlements, its interlacing arches, and its airy turrets outlined against the blue sky. ”

“ The handsome street is an endless chain of moving vehicles of every description. Here a spanking team of blooded bays with silver-mounted harness draws the smart London trap of a young Florio; there a rickety old barouche, guiltless of varnish for many a long year, so crowded with a stout family party of six that its rheumatic springs creak, and the wind-broken old hack who pulls it feels his waning powers severely taxed. A splendid young Arab, full of blood and pride, pulling a new victoria, follows a ducal cart and precedes another overflow meeting, this time a stag party. ”

“ To deliver a whole people quickly and well, to be smitten with the black affliction of blindness while still in the very zenith of his popularity—and so to add the people’s pity and love to their admiration—and then soon to die a beloved hero before the fickle public mind could forget him and the fickle public tongue learn to slander and to curse his name, was the highest fortune man could wish—though in all probability Timoleon himself never realized how kind the gods were to him! ”

“ And nowhere else in the island are the different types of the forefathers more numerous and distinct: here a distinctly Semitic type, with the swart face, black beard and piercing eyes of the Phœnicians; here a pure Greek face worthy of the sculptor; there a burnt-up son of the desert, and yonder a Roman beside a Gaul. Busy and prosperous they seem, for all their dirt and indifference to squalor and evil smells; and moreover, contented. Their fishing smacks bring in tons of herring which by euphemy go out of Cefalù in cans of oil as the best sardines. ”

“ There is not much else that is Greek, but as you wander through the narrow streets, scattered bits of mediæval architecture appear in the most unexpected places, like the splendid Sicilian-Gothic and Saracenic windows of the Montalto and Lanza palaces, all the richer and more wonderful because of the surroundings from which they look down upon the squalid streets and out-at-heel people. The later Palazzo Municipale, or City Hall, is a fine example of the architectural spirit of the seventeenth century, its type that of a private palace, a baronial mansion rather than a public building. ”

“ Quaintly dressed peasants from the piana stare at the visitor, and vendors of antiquities call lazily from their black little holes in the wall, advertising their strings of “ancient” pottery, that rattle ominously whenever a wisp of breeze playfully tugs at them. A carriage-full of tourists Baedekering through Sicily passes literally on the jump, with craned necks and vociferous consultation of the fat little red books so essential to comfort in this land where no one is willing to confess that he really knows anything positively. ”

“ And though the Phœnicians have passed completely from the entire earth, and the Greeks remain a great Nation, this city which the Phœnicians founded is still Sicily’s most beautiful and prosperous center, while the wonderful Greek metropoli of Akragas and Syracuse have dried up like mummies within the battered outlines of their once splendid shells. ”

“ Crimson geraniums from five to eight feet in height blazing with color, pink wild roses, sweet-scented white locust blossoms, spiky prickly pear, the yellow striped spears of the agave, and pink and lavender morning glories vining among and over them all give one the impression of being hurled through a giant hot-house. But here is no cultivation. Sicilian Nature, with prodigal lavishness, is alone responsible for the brilliant pageant. At the feet of the taller plants burgeon scarlet poppies, low, earth-nestling lavender cactus blossoms, and legions of dazzling buttercups. ”

“ In Sicily the butchers sell the offal and entrails of slaughtered animals, which in America are turned over the soap manufacturers or thrown away. The kitchen-man who buys them cuts up the stuff, boils it in its own fat, and sells it in the reeking buns at a penny apiece. The sturdy Sicilian seems to enjoy and thrive on this horrible mess, and even the children come toddling up to clamor for their share.
Macaroni of all sorts, curled, fluted, twisted, frilled, chopped into squares and lead pencil lengths, woven, braided into shapes numberless, decorates several of the stalls. ”

“ THE WESTERN SHORE GOING westward from Palermo, the railroad cuts inland behind Monte Pellegrino, crossing the Conca d’Oro past many villas, and does not again touch the coast until, ten miles away, it reaches Sferracavallo, whose main street is so atrociously paved as to give the town its merited name—Unshoe-a-Horse. The line then skirts the shore for some distance, and the early morning scenes on the water to the right are more than lovely. Fishermen flit about in their white-winged boats or toil at launching the heavy craft. The waterfront of every village is a hive of industry. ”