gle road has
been constructed in the island. But we have reason to believe that a
brighter day now dawns, and that ere long the sun of civilization will
dispel the clouds that have so long overshadowed the mountains of Sicily.

He who would make a tour through this magnificent land, must make up his
mind to submit to much fatigue, some danger, and innumerable annoyances;
such as filth, bad fare, the continual torment of vermin; lodgings, to
which a stable with clean hay would be in comparison a paradise; knavish
attempts at imposition of various kinds, etc. He must mount on a mule
whose saddle is of rude and of abominable construction; whose bit is a
sort of iron vice, which clasps the animal's nose and under-jaw, and every
day wears away the flesh; and whose bridle is a piece of rope fastened to
the bit on one side only. He must ford rivers of various depth; he must
fear no ascent or descent, however precipitous, if there appears to be a
track; and at times he must have a careful eye to the priming of his
pistol; and above all, a patient and enduring temper is a _great_ comfort.

The aspect of Sicily is widely different from that of this country; its
beauty is dependent on other forms and associations. _Here_, we have vast
forests that stretch their shady folds in melancholy grandeur; the
mountain tops themselves are clad in thick umbrage, which, rejoicing in
the glory of the autumnal season, array themselves in rainbow dyes.
_There_, no wide forests shade the land; but mountains more abrupt than
ours, and bearing the scars of volcanic fire and earthquake on their
brows, are yet clothed with flowers and odoriferous shrubs. The plains and
slopes of the mountains are now but partially under cultivation; vineyards
and olive-groves generally clothe the latter, while over the gentler
undulating country, or the plains, fenceless fields stretch far away, a
wilderness of waving grain, through which the traveller may ride for hours
nor meet a human being, nor see a habitation, save when he lifts his eyes
to some craggy steep or mountain pinnacle, where stands the clustered
village. The villages and larger towns are generally set among groves of
orange, almond, and pomegranate trees, with here and there a dark Carruba,
or Leutisk tree, casting its ample shade. Fields of the broad bean, the
chief food of the laboring classes, serves at times to vary with vivid
green the monotony of the landscape. The traveller rolls along over no