Emily Crawford

“ The hairy skin and ferocious character of the hyena or the tiger, exhibited in our museums of Natural History, do not allow their false optics to appear unnaturally glaring; but the glass eyes in the caves of Palermo glisten fearfully, and have in them all that wild and aimless stare which so alarmed Macbeth when Banquo’s ghost rose up before him.
By some decree of distributive justice the old, when washed and filled with salts of arsenic, last much longer than the young, and are less revolting to the senses of the visitors. Those who die of age preserve for centuries ”

“ But in these days of railway speed we can, dear reader, go from Paris to Palermo without almost feeling the transition too abrupt. We shall there find the other exception in the shape of a sepulchre on a vast scale, where the identity of each body deposited in it is not lost in a ditch into which all are promiscuously thrown. Individualism is a strong feature in it; and the living may, as often as they like, go to contemplate the features of their defunct friends, without having to pass through a file of armed soldiers. ”

“ They built in the very midst of their buffooneries those grand cathedrals which overpower the soul with a sense of the sublime. And no sooner had they gone through the orgies of “unreason,” than they were clad in hair-cloth, and upon their knees, beating their breasts, and exclaiming “Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,” with a depth of contrition that none of us can understand. ”

“ But it is powerless to move, while a monk recites it in a sing-song voice, and points out the enormous holes, or glaring orbs of glass that replace those which tempted men to assassinate each other, and occasionally the possessors, for allowing them to shine too softly on some more favoured rival. ”

“ But after a visit to Palermo, or to a grave-yard, while the sexton is at work, we would feel convinced that for the dead it is the most respectful, and for the living, the least unwholesome. Consigning a friend to the funeral pyre, could prejudice once be surmounted, would certainly be found preferable to consigning him to the worm! and the fire would be less humiliating than the transformations from which mother earth cannot preserve us. In France, the substitution of the urn, instead of the cemetery, is warmly advocated by the majority of the enlightened ”

“ A fleshless skeleton is a beautiful object in the midst of skinny corpses; and a bare skull is loveliness itself when compared to one provided with a luxuriant head of hair. But fortunately, that fairest ornament of woman is, after her eyes, the first to desert her; and when nine or ten months are passed in the ordinary vaults, the heads of all who do so, become as bare as they can be, when caps, hats, and garlands of artificial flowers do not cover them. The hair does not fall by degrees ”

“ It is doubtful if those who took part in the apotheosis of the ass, and celebrated it by organ, fife, and drum, could be called irreverent or impious, whatever may be laid to the charge of those who celebrated the “Madman’s Day.” It was in the very nature of things that the festivals of the gloomy middle ages should take this frightful form of triviality; and the Church, when regarded in the light of a human institution, had no alternative but to join in them to a greater or lesser extent, when regarded from their own point of view. The people who got them up were by no means impious. ”

“ On first entering, nothing is to be seen but the dead monks, the place of honour being awarded to them, and thus some compensation made for their forced humility when among the living. But the poor fellows have not been treated to glass-fronted cases nor to changes of raiment since the day they were brought there from the vault for drying corpses. Their habits—whenever dust does not thickly coat them—are from brown faded into foxy red, and only leave the skull, the feet and hands naked. ”

“ But they have, above all, the mourning dinginess of men got up to attend a funeral in a professional capacity; and those of inferior birth, who are ranged along the floor, are not less common-looking in their way than the famous Mr. Tittlebat Titmouse was in his. The dingy finery of the ladies is frightful to behold, and a grinning skeleton crowned with flowers, or a fleshless neck and arms surrounded with embroidery and laces, are not inviting objects. ”

“ There is a geometrical precision, a scientific classification, an artistic design about the piles of skulls, thigh bones, shin bones, and all the bones that form the human skeleton, ranged as they are, row above row, and forming the surface of endless galleries, that gives a very opposite impression to that occasioned by the disorder and decay in which we invariably invest mortality. ”

“ A woman, whose lips are described as resembling rosebuds, and whose breath is compared to a south wind passing over groves of blossoming orange-trees and myrtles, bears the mark of a poignard on her breast-bone. ”

“ The proverb, “What’s one man’s meat is another man’s poison,” may thus be rendered in Palermo, “What’s poison to the living is preservation to the dead.” Among the Palermitans the arsenic, which in life would destroy, preserves them when dead from decomposition. They are, when able to afford it, carefully washed with soap of arsenic; and a strong preparation of salts of that mineral is injected into them previous to their being dried, and suspended from the walls. Glass eyes are, at considerable expense, stuck into the heads of these mummies. ”

“ It has been told a thousand times how a young girl, with a child in her arms, seated on a richly caparisoned ass, was led to the high altar of the cathedral, conducted by bishop, dean, and chapter. The military or militia of the province lined the streets as she passed along, beating drums and blowing fanfares with all their might, and with the best possible will. The governor and all the seigneurs of the province and local authorities were present, and the ass bearing the representative of the Virgin was often lead to its place by no less a personage than the king’s constable. ”

“ Ardent Sicilians are often to be found in floods of tears contemplating the faces of maidens along with whom they had hoped to have passed their lives, or not unfrequently apostrophising them in the most impassioned manner. A monk always accompanies them whenever they visit the virgins’ gallery. ”

“ During the middle ages the populace were permitted by the ecclesiastical powers to ape in the most apish manner the mysteries of religion, or, after long periods of sustained devotion, to run into all the excesses produced by ignorance and a violent but natural re-action. ”

“ Julien’s claret, he points to a piece of defunct humanity; and dead men’s names, with the dates of their death, replace the ages and the names of the different vintages which are most prized by the epicure. ”

“ The whole tendency of the soi-disant philosophy across the Channel is to prove death to be an inevitable crisis, for the purpose of effecting a certain modification of one’s being. The tomb-stones and the grave-stones inculcate a similar belief, although nobody intended that they should have ever done so. Mrs. Stowe was more inclined to laugh and be satirical when visiting the vaults of the Pantheon, than to moralise or grow sad, and who ever felt sorry but for the living when visiting Père la Chaise? ”

“ It is therefore utterly impossible to make a general classification according to position, age, sex, or date of entrance. That can only be effected in dealing with those for whom nobody cares, or whose descendants are so far removed by time as to forget all about them. ”

“ The Catholic Church hardly ventures to put mortality prominently forward in dealing with Voltaire’s countrymen, not even when dealing with those who are not, in religious matters, greatly given to scepticism. ”

“ But there are in Palermo some monks in whose heads the bump of order dominates, and who have preserved in an orderly condition several cases where the occupants are as regularly classified and catalogued as are the pictures in the Louvre or Versailles. The three first galleries contained in them, and exclusively devoted to monks, are submitted to certain regulations never infringed on by the confraternity or any member of it. So are those exclusively set apart for women. ”

“ Glass fills the eyeless holes in the heads of the occupants of zoological museums with as much success as dentistry stops the gaps that age, disease, or accidental causes make in the mouths of human beings. But false eyes are not always introduced into the Palermitan caves, and we shall presently see with what effect whenever they are. Ranges of heads, with pairs of round bottomless holes are therefore to be met at every turn. Noses do not either remain in a respectable state of preservation ”

“ If they be all true, it would be difficult to say whether constancy or inconstancy is attended in this world with the worst effects, for there are as often among the mummified maidens those who came there because they were the victims of misplaced affection, as those who are followed by despairing men or youths, many of whom very quickly find consolation in the smiles of others, while some end by assuming the cowl and frock for the purpose of passing the rest of their lives in watching, in the quality of Capuchins, the remains of their deceased inamoratas. ”

“ Pride is not a besetting sin among them, nor cleanliness a remarkable virtue. They are less intelligent than cicerones generally; far less talkative, and not so strongly tempted by the demon covetousness. They do not sell their services nor their prayers very dearly; and, for three or four halfpence, the simple fellows escort the visitor to his vehicle without, imploring all the saints in his behalf, and make a thousand promises to show any friend he should consign to their guidance every curiosity confided to their safe keeping, and to bring him all round their conventual necropolis. ”

“ Leap-frog and divers other sports of a similar nature succeeded, as well as fencing with the feet, an accomplishment in which the French excel every other nation as much as they do in making ragouts, millinery, false jewellery, and artificial flowers.
The traditions of the ancient bourgs as well as the illuminated missals are all unanimous in saying that no festival was more delightful, because of its buffooneries, than Christmas. ”

“ The cicerone always leads the stranger to him on first entering the vaults appropriated to the bi- and tri-centenaries. The one who has by at least sixty-one years the precedence of the latter, is a mummy dry as a piece of parchment. ”

“ It is situated close to the principal gate of Palermo, and in one of its most fashionable outlets. Its aspect from without is dismal in the extreme; and vast buildings that would be horribly uniform, were they not falling into ruins, rise above it. In the walls are little loop-holes, which serve as windows for the monks. Extending the whole way beneath these buildings are the subterranean caves which are excavated and constructed something like the ordinary wine-vaults of wholesale wine-merchants, or a branch of the Custom-house vaults of London. ”

“ A few exceptions are sometimes to be found, for by subjecting the dead to a certain curative process—which costs about ten pounds sterling—the monks can preserve for a longer time the hair, eyes, and a semblance of the flesh which formerly clothed their mummies. ”

“ Their gauze veils are trimmed with the costliest embroidery, for Palermitan fathers and mothers are more particular about the funeral trousseaux of their children than they are about their wedding garments, and lovers whom death has deprived of their adored ones are allowed to spend their money in buying them handsome clothes. ”

“ In the lofty galleries, which sometimes measure sixteen feet in height, there are often, between floor and ceiling, three rows of corpses. The bare and fleshless—or occasionally well-shod feet—of the third and second clatter against the bare and fleshless skulls of those beneath; and sometimes a cranium, that is more thrown back than the others, supports the burthen of an entire foot which has dropped from the ancle of its original possessor. ”

“ Sometimes the French Pope or Abbot of Unreason wore a pasteboard tiara, adorned with tinsel, and vestments of stuff less costly than was worn by the churchman who had abdicated in his favour. After being installed in the episcopal chair, he was borne in it through the town. The populace cheered him tumultuously, and made ironical genuflexions as he passed along to the palace or chapter-house, which the real proprietor also abdicated to his mock successor. ”

“ In them they evidently see so many chefs d’œuvres of art, and with the irresistible tendency of human beings to lavish favours on the well-conditioned, say twice as many prayers for their eternal happiness as they do for their more numerous but less flourishing companions. ”

“ The widows are not in every instance very gaily attired, but the virgins invariably wear crowns of flowers which were once white, and carry palm branches in their hands. They are objects of peculiar veneration; and are prayed to as frequently as they were prayed for by their fellow citizens, although not one of them yet figures in the saintly calendar. White gowns are not the only ones they wear ”

“ The fathers teach us that our guardian angels never leave us so long as we are laughing; and even though it be for fear the Devil should then take possession of us, no harm can befall us so long as we are under their immediate protection—a reason for believing that buffooneries do not endanger our salvation. ”

“ The disorder already noticed should not be entirely thrown upon the shoulders of the unhappy monks who pass their lives in this Necropolis, the most dismal in the world. In Sicily, as elsewhere, there is a strong desire in the living to be placed when lifeless among their deceased progenitors and kindred. Relations have also their peculiar fancies about the most becoming attitude or posture for defunct friends. ”

“ Some wealthy belles, who died early, have had by this means their bodies preserved from hideous ugliness; and a few wealthy matrons can, owing to the same cause, pray before defunct babies who in some slight degree recal the faces and the forms which they bore when living. ”