ittle of reverence did they
show,--it is true, the death was not recent, the service being merely
commemorative, as we afterwards learned,--and as the procession shortly
afterwards emerged and proceeded down the chapel, the unwashed,
unshaven, and sensual countenances of some of highest rank among them
gave small reason to believe that they could feel much reverence on any
subject whatever.

The Palace itself is as tedious as any other palace: the Pompeian room
follows the Louis Quinze, and is in turn followed by the Chinese, till,
for our comfort, we emerged into one large square hall, whose stiff
mosaics of archers killing stags, peacocks feeding at the foot of
willow-pattern trees, date from the time of Roger. Another wearisome
series of rooms succeeded, which we were bound to traverse in search of
a bronze ram of old Greek workmanship, brought from Syracuse. The work
is very good and well-preserved; in fact, no part is injured, save the
tail and a hind leg, whose loss the _custode_ ascribed to the villains
of the late revolution. He even charged them with the destruction of
another similar statue melted into bullets, if we may believe his
incredible tale. A pavilion over the Monreale gate commands a view right
down the Toledo to the sea.

The drive to Monreale is a continued ascent along the skirts of a
limestone rock, whose precipices are thickly planted at every foothold
with olive, Indian fig, and aloe. The valley, as it spread below our
gaze, appeared one huge carpet of heavy-fruited orange-trees, save where
at times a rent in the web left visible the bluish blades of wheat, or
the intense green of a flax-plantation.

Monreale is a mere country-town, containing no object of interest, save
the Cathedral. This is a noble basilica, grandly proportioned, the nave
and aisles of which are separated by monolith pillars, mostly of gray
granite, and some few of cipollino and other marbles, the spoils, no
doubt, of the ancient Panormus. Above the cornice the walls are entirely
sheeted with golden mosaics, representing, as usual, Scripture history.
The series which begins, like the speech of the Intendant in "Les
Plaideurs," "_Avant la creation du monde_" complies with the wish of
(the judge?) by going on to the Deluge, in a train of singularly meagre
figures, most haggard of whom is Cain, here represented (as in the Campo
Santo of Pisa) receiving his death accidentally from the hand of Lamech.
In the passage of the bea