doubt as to the purpose of the building whose site is so
delightfully chosen; for walking slowly along the shady path, or seated in
some pleasant nook, singly or in groups, he will perceive the long-robed
monks, the reverend masters of the holy place.

Connoisseurs say that a landscape is imperfect without figures; and as
that is the case in a picture, it is most probably so in a magazine
article; and the reader might complain if I were to neglect giving some
slight outlines of the figures of the Sicilian landscape. In travelling
from city to city, although they may not be more than twenty miles apart,
the wayfarer meets with very few persons on the road; seldom an
individual, and only now and then, at an interval of miles, a group of men
mounted on mules, each person carrying a gun; or perhaps a convoy of
loaded mules and asses with several muleteers, some mounted and some on
foot, who urge by uncouth cries and blows the weary beasts over the rocky
or swampy ground, or up some steep acclivity or across some torrent's bed.
At times he will see a shepherd or two watching their flocks; these are
half-naked, wild looking beings, scarcely raised in the scale of
intelligence above their bleating charge. Their dwelling may be hard by, a
conical hut of grass or straw, or a ruined tower. On the fertile slopes or
plains he will sometimes observe a dozen yokes of oxen ploughing abreast.
The laborers probably chose this contiguity for the sake of company across
the wide fields. If the grass or grain is to be cut, it is by both men and
women armed with a rude sickle only. It is seldom you meet either man or
woman on foot upon the roads; men scarcely ever. Donkeys are about as
numerous as men, and their ludicrous bray salutes your ear wherever the
human animal is to be seen.

The peasant-women through a great part of Sicily wear a semi-circular
piece of woollen cloth over their heads; it is always black or white, and
hangs in agreeable folds over the neck and shoulders. There is but little
beauty among them; and alas! how should there be? They are in general
filthy; the hair of both old and young is allowed to fall in uncombed
elf-locks about their heads; and the old women are often hideous and
disgustful in the extreme. The heart bleeds for the women: they have more
than their share of the labors of the field; they have all the toils of
the men, added to the pains and cares of womanhood. They dig, they reap,
they carry heavy burthe