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, the king's whole
pleasure and business, as before our _Magna Charta_ times, have been
to lower their importance. In that year a revolt was the consequence
of an income-tax even of two per cent, for they were yet unbroken to
the yoke; but now that he has saddled property with a deduction,