hired attendant from Palermo declined, and we push on unmolested to
Partenico, our halting-place during the heat of the day. It is a town
of some extent, large enough to afford two fountains of a certain
pretension, but execrably dirty within. Twelve thousand inhabitants
has Partenico, and five churches. Out of its five locandas, who shall
declare the worst? Of that in which we had first taken refuge, (as,
in a snow-storm on the Alps, any _roof_ is Paradise,) we were obliged
to quit the shelter, and walk at _noon_, at _midsummer_, and in
_Sicily_, a good mile _up_ a main street, which, beginning in
habitations of the dimensions of our almshouses, ends in a few huts
intolerably revolting, about which troops of naked children defy
vermin, and encrust themselves in filth. At one door we could not
help observing that worst form of _scabies_, the _gale à grosses
bulles;_ so we had got, it appeared, from _Scylla_ into _Charybdis_,
and were in the very preserves of Sicilian _itch_, and we
prognosticate it will spread before the month expires wherever human
skin is to be found for its entertainment. Partenico lies in a
scorching plain full of malaria. Having passed the three stifling
hours of the day here, we proceed on our journey to _Alcamo_, a town
of considerable size, which looks remarkably well from the plain at
the distance of four miles--an impression immediately removed on
passing its high rampart gate. Glad to escape the miseries with which
it threatens the _détenu_, we pass out at the other end, and zigzag
down a hill of great beauty, and commanding such views of sea and
land as it would be quite absurd to write about. Already a double row
of aloë, planted at intervals, marks what is to be your course afar
off, and is a faithful guide till it lands you in a Sicilian plain.
This is the highest epithet with which any plain can be qualified.
This is indeed the month for Sicily. The goddess of flowers now wears
a morning dress of the newest spring fashion; beautifully _made up_