merly used during the prevalence of the plague, has now a different destination. The Teatro della Scala of Milan is one of the largest in Italy, and, perhaps, in Europe. It was built by Piermarini, in 1778, and is superior to all others in its accommodations. The operas and ballets are here exhibited in a style not surpassed for brilliancy and completeness in Italy. Besides this, there are the theatres Re, Canobiana, Carcano, &c.

Milan contains a great number of palaces, and other handsome buildings, but the streets are not, in general, broad or straight. The Corso (the Porta Orientale), which, with public gardens, form a beautiful promenade, is particularly fine. The gardens are not so much frequented as the Corso, in which the fashionable world parades on foot and on horseback, but principally in rich equipages, every evening. The principal articles of commerce are corn, rice, silk, and cheese. The number of manufactories is considerable. The arts and sciences are held in high esteem, and the Milanese school of engraving is favorably known. The environs of the city are fertile; two large canals are connected with the Ticino and the Adda, and the Alps of Switzerland are visible. Milan has about 130,000 inhabitants, and is one hundred and forty leagues from Vienna, one hundred and ten from Rome, and one hundred

CHAPTER XVIII.-SICILY.

SICILY.-The beautiful and fertile island of Sicily, in the Mediterranean, occupies a surface of 10,642 square miles, and has a population of 1,800,000 inhabitants. Its population is said to have been much greater in ancient times, but it is now considerably more than it was fifty years ago, having been 1,123,163 in the year 1770; and 1,619,305 in the year 1798.

Sicily was formerly the granary of ancient Rome, and it has still capabilities of feeding a population very far exceeding its own, if its agriculture were not depressed and shackled by bad husbandry and erroneous regulations. Artificial meadows are unknown; so are potatoes, turneps, beets, and other green crops; unless when Flanted with beans or peas, the ground is constantly cropped with corn, with intervals of one or two years' fallow or wild pasture. The soil, though badly cleaned and manured, yields upon an average eight for one, in some districts sixteen for one, and in some few, even thirty-two for one. The land is let in large tracts to com. panies of farmers, or rather shepherds, some of them proprietors of ten or twelve thousand sheep. The different flocks feed together, and once a year an account is taken of them, the result of which is afterward entered in a book, where each of the proprietors is debited and credited with his share of the proceeds and expenses, in proportion to his number of sheep, and credited with the proceeds of the milk converted into cheese, of the buttermilk, of the wool, and of the rent of a portion of the land let to under-tenants.

There are in Sicily many well-cultivated vineyards; and the wine of Milazzo, of Syracuse, of Avola, and Vittoria, go to Italy. That of Marsala is exported to all parts of the world, and is largely consumed in England. Hemp is also grown; but corn is the main produce of the island, and it is received in certain public magazines free of charge, which in some parts of the island are rather excavations into calcareous rocks, or holes in the ground, shaped like a bottle, walled up and made water-proof, containing each about 1,600 English bushels of corn. The receipt of the carricatore, or keeper of the magazine, being a transferable stock, is the object of some gambling on the public exchange of Palermo, Messina, and Catania, the speculatious being grounded on the expected rise or fall of corn. So long has corn been preserved by these means, that it has been found perfectly good after the lapse of a century. The olive grows to a larger size in Sicily than on the continent of Italy, and attains a greater age, there being evidence of trees having reached the age of seven or eight centuries. The peasants respect the olive, and can not bear that they should be destroyed, yet they take no care of them, and the oil they make is, in general, only fit for soap-boilers. The pistachio-nut is cultivated here, as well as a large sort of beans, which answer the purpose of potatoes, and form a considerable part of the food of both men and animals. The Sicilian honey is in much estimation, and owing to the great consumption of wax in churches, the proceeds of bee-hives form a valuable item in husbandry. Some cotton is grown about Terranova and Catania; and these are the principal natural resources of the country.

Palermo, the capital of the island of Sicily, is beautifully situated on a gulf five miles in depth, and at the extremity of a natural amphitheatre formed by lofty mountains. The approach by sea is magnificent. Monte Pellegrino, lofty and picturesque in the extreme, stands over a narrow but most fertile plain, and seems posted there as a giant to protect the fair city, which in part stretches along the curving shores of the bay, and in part retires inland on some very gentle declivities, that are backed everywhere by pleasant hills, groves, and gardens. The force of language and metaphor has almost been exhausted to find expression to describe the beautiful plain round Palermo; the Conca d'Oro, or the Golden Shell, expressive of its situation and richness; the Hortus Sicilia, or Garden of Sicily; the Aurea Valle, or Golden Vale; Perla d'Italia, or Pearl of Italy; Felix, or the Happy, with many others, have been applied to it. The town itself is not altogether unworthy of the site. It is regularly built, has some fine streets, and, taken on the whole, an air of elegance and solidity. Two principal streets, each about a mile in length, cross each other at right angles, and divide the city into four pretty equal quarters.

At both ends of these two streets there is an ornamental porta, or gate, and at the point of their intersection in the middle of the town there is a handsome octangular square, called Piazza Vigliena, or Quattro Cantoneri, from the centre of which there is a fine view of the two great streets, with the gates that terminate them. The northern gate, called Porta Felice, toward the suburb of the Marina and the sea, is richly ornamented, and has a very graceful effect. Besides this central square there are several other piazzas, ornamented with obelisks and with fountains; the largest of these squares are, Il Piano della Marina, a space in front of the royal palace, and another near the senate-house, which is occupied by a fine large fountain. The number of these public ornaments and luxuries, and the abundant supply of water, are immense advantages, and fully appreciated during the intense heats of summer. Most of the houses in the good part of the town have fountains, and water is convey. ed even to the second and third stories.

The two great streets are well paved, and have trottoirs, or side pavements, those excellent provisions for the pedestrian which are too commonly neglected in continental towns. The houses are lofty, and nearly uniform in height; and were the Iwo streets somewhat broader, they may be classed among the finest in the south of Europe: but, as it is, the Cassero is broader, longer, and more regular, than the famed Corso at Rome. Sicilian architecture, however, will not stand a comparison with the Romans. The movement, the activity, the constant animation of these streets, with the exception of an hour or two in the middle of the day in summer, when people retire to take their siesta, are exceedingly striking. Indeed, Palermo is the only city in Sicily that does not convey a melancholy idea of decay and depopula. tion. The lesser streets for the most part run parallel with the two main ones, and afford a ready access to them at all points. Some of the lower parts of the town are filthy, and excessively disorderly.

The city is surrounded by an old, weak, and broken wall; some of the bastions are occupied by gardens, and others have been wholly cut away, to increase the breadth of the Marina, a beautiful drive and promenade on the seashore. The port, however, is rather well defended by the citadel, Fort la Galita, and other works. There is a strong mole-head battery at the end of the mole, or pier, which forms the convenient port, and is in itself a noble work, running from the arsenal, for the length of a quarter of a mile, into nine or ten fathoms depth of water.

In the interior of Palermo, one is continually reminded of the Saracens and the Normans, who successively held possession of Sicily, and whose styles of architec ture, sometimes separate, and sometimes mixed, still survive them, and give a peculiarly characteristic air to the city, which is hardly to be found anywhere else. In the royal palace, a spacious building, now the residence of the viceroys of Sicily, the Saracenic, or Arabic, and the Norman architectures are blended together in a most singular manner, and predominate over the whole, though modern additions and alterations-the mixing of the new with the old-give the edifice a patchwork sort of appearance. Attached to it is the beautiful little church of St. Peter, which, with its cryptic, or underground chapel, and superb mosaics, is quoted as one of the most perfect specimens extant of Saracenic taste and magnificence. In the armory of the palace they show the silver-hilted sword of the brave Norman chieftain, Count Ruggiero (Roger) who took Palermo from the Saracens in 1073, and became the independent sovereign of all Sicily. In the old cathedral, which was built during the twelfth century by Archbishop Walter, an Englishman, there are many, and some of them very fine features, of the oriental style. In one part, the roof is formed by a succession of small domes, precisely like those which are found on the mosques of Cairo and Constantinople. Some of the windows are small, with the low, heavy Norman arch, but others spring up lightly and beautifully, and terminate in the form of a sharp arrowhead. The exterior is rich in moulding and tracery; and though, both within and without, this ancient cathedral has suffered much from injudicious modern alterations, it is still a picturesque and most interesting object. The nave is supported by eighty-four magnificent columns of Sicilian granite. There are some sarcophagi in the church, made of the finest red porphyry, which contain the bodies of princes of the Norman and other dynasties.

Besides the old cathedral, the churches of San Cataldo, San Giovanni Eremito, Martorana, and some others, are of the Saracenic or Norman eras. The Saracenic style again shows itself in many of the palaces. That of Ziza, outside of the town, which was once the habitation of Mussulman princes, is in almost perfect preserva