_cicer_,
the proper Italian pea. Little bundles of them are tied up for sale
at all the fruit stalls, and men are seen all the day long eating
these raw peas, and offering them to each other as sugar-plums.

[Footnote 17: "Virroni muraena datur, quo maxima venit Gurgite de
Siculo: nam dum se continet Auster, Contemnunt mediam tem eraria lina
Charybdim." JUVENAL, _Sat._ v. 99.]

In the Corso we see a kind of temporary theatre, the deal sides of
which are gaudily lined with Catania silk, and on its stage a whole
_dramatis personae_ of sacred puppets. It is lighted by tapers of very
taper dimensions, and its _stalle_ are to be let for a humble
consideration to the faithful or the curious. It turns out to be a
religious spectacle, supported on the voluntary system--but there is
something for your money. A vast quantity of light framework, to
which fireworks, chiefly of the detonating kind, are attached, are
already going off, and folk are watching till it be completed. Then
the evening's entertainment will begin, and a miser indeed must he
be, or beyond measure resourceless, who refuses halfpence for such
choice festivities. Desirous to make out the particular
representation, we get over the fence in order to examine the figures
of the drama on a nearer view. A smartly dressed saint in a court
suit, but whom mitre and crosier determine to be a bishop, kneels to
a figure in spangles, a virgin as fond of fine clothes as the Greek
Panageia; while on the other side, with one or two priests in his
train, is seen a crowd in civil costume. A paper cloud above,
surrounded by glories of glass and tinsel, is supported by two solid
cherubs equal to the occasion, and presents to the intelligent a
representation of--we know not what! Fire-works here divide the
public with the drum--to one or other all advertisement in Sicily is
committed. A sale of fish and flesh, theatric entertainments,
processions, and church invitations, are all by tuck of drum, or by
squib and cracker. How did they get on before the invention of
gunpowder? If a new coffeehouse is established, a couple of drums
start it advantageously, and beat like a recruiting party up and down
the street, to the dismay of all _Forestieri_. The drum tells you
when the thunny is at a discount, and _fire-works_ are let off at
_fish stalls_ when customers are slack.

An old tower, five miles off, is called the telegraph. People go
there for the panorama at the expense of three ho