through cooks the semolina
and the onions. The fish are put into the water at the right moment and
are boiled while the semolina is being steamed. It is all served
together like bouillabaisse, the semolina answering to the bread, and
extract of pomidoro is added. One would not be likely to meet with
cuscuso in the houses of the well-to-do; one might get it in the albergo
by insisting on it, but they would rather not provide it because, like
the Discobolus in Butler's poem _A Psalm of Montreal_, it is vulgar. I
have eaten it only once when I dined with my compare Michele Lombardo, a
jeweller, to whose son I stood as padrino at his cresima, and I do not
care to eat it again, not because it is vulgar, but because I did not
find it nearly so good as bouillabaisse. The recipe for it has
penetrated to Trapani from Africa as a result of the constant intercourse
between Sicily and the French colony of Tunis, the fishermen of Trapani
going over to the African coast not only for fish, but also for coral and
for sponges.

My priest was inclined to treat the Nascita with tolerant contempt; he
muttered the word "Anacronismo" several times and, since I have
ascertained that Melchizedek was a contemporary of Abraham, I think he
should not have done so. I said that the anachronisms did not disturb
me. I told him that in the marionette theatre in Palermo, when
Cristoforo Colombo embarks from the port of Palos in Spain to discover
America, a sailor, sitting on the paddle-box of the piroscafo, the
steamboat, sings that Neapolitan song _Santa Lucia_. I passed over the
anticipation of steam and contented myself with asking the buffo whether
the song had been composed so long ago and also whether its popularity
had extended from Naples into Spain. He replied that it had extended to
Palermo and that his audience connected it in their minds with the sea,
and as for the date of its composition he had made no inquiries, but he
knew it was older than "O Sole Mio"; we do not go to the arts for
accurate archaeological details.

"I will make you a paragon," said the buffo. "When I was returning from
Catania I looked out of the side windows of the train and saw that the
telegraph posts, as we passed by, were some distance apart. But I made
friends with the guard, who took me into his van, and when I looked at
them again out of the back window of the train they seemed to get closer
and closer together in the distance until, far away, ther