old by British sailors at the high
price of from five to seven shillings per English pound; the "Polvere
_nostrale_" of the Sicilians only fetches 1s. 8d.; yet such is the
superiority of English gunpowder, that every one who has a passion
for popping at sparrows, and other _Italian sports_, (complimented by
the title of _La caccia_,) prefers the dear article. When they have
killed off all the robins, and there is not a twitter in _the whole
country_, they go to the river side and shoot _gudgeons_.

The Palermo donkey is the most obliging animal that ever wore long
ears, and will carry you cheerfully four or five miles an hour
without whip or other _encouragement_. The oxen, no longer white or
cream-coloured, as in Tuscany, were originally importations from
Barbary, (to which country the Sicilians are likewise indebted for
the _mulberry_ and _silk-worm_.) Their colour is brown. They rival
the Umbrian breed in the herculean symmetry of their form, and in the
possession of horns of more than Umbrian dimensions, rising more
perpendicularly over the forehead than in that ancient race. The
lizards here are such beautiful creatures, that it is worth while to
bring one away, and, to _pervert_ a quotation, "UNIUS _Dominum sese
fecisse_ LACERTAE." Some are all green, some mottled like a mosaic
floor, others green and black on the upper side, and orange-coloured
or red underneath. Of snakes, there is a _Coluber niger_ from four to
five feet in length, with a shining coat, and an eye not pleasant to
watch even through glass; yet the peasants here put them into their
Phrygian bonnets, and handle them with as much _sang-froid_ as one
would a walking-stick.

The coarse earthen vessels, pitchers, urns, &c., used by the
peasants, are of the most beautiful shapes, often that of the ancient
_amphora_; and at every cottage door by the road-side you meet with
this vestige of the ancient arts of the country.

The plague which visited Palermo in 1624 swept away 20,000
inhabitants; Messina, in 1743, lost 40,000. The cholera, in 1837,
destroyed 69,253 persons. The present population of the whole island
is 1,950,000; the female exceeds the male by about three per cent,
which is contrary to the general rule. It is said that nearly
one-half the children received into the foundling hospital of Palermo
die within the first year.

Formerly the barons of Sicily were rich and independent, like our
English gentlemen; but they say that, since 1812,