away on three courses of vegetables and a dessert.


SICILIAN INNS.

"A beautiful place this _Segeste_ must be! One could undergo any
thing to see it!" Such would be the probable exclamation of more than
one reader looking over some _landscape annual_, embellished with
perhaps _a view_ of the celebrated temple and its surrounding
scenery; but find yourself at any of the inexpressibly horrid inns of
_Alcamo_ or _Calatafrini_, (and these are the two principal stations
between Palermo and Segeste--one with its 12,000, the other with its
18,000 inhabitants;) let us walk you down the main street of either,
and if you don't wish yourself at Cheltenham, or some other
unclassical place which never had a Latin name, we are much mistaken!
The "_Relievo dei Cavalli_" at Alcamo offers no _relief_ for you! The
_Magpie_ may prate on her sign-post about _clean_ beds, for magpies
can be made to say any thing; but pray do not construe the "_Canova
Divina_" Divine Canova! _He_ never executed any thing for the _Red
Lion_ of Calatafrini, whose "Canova" is a low wine-shop, full of
wrangling Sicilian boors. Or will you place yourself under the
_Eagle's_ wing, seduced by its _nuovi mobili e buon servizio_? Oh, we
obtest those broken window-panes whether it be not _cruel_ to expose
_new furniture_ to such perils! For us we put up at the "_Temple of
Segeste_," attracted rather by its name than by any promise or decoy
it offers. Crabbe has given to the inns at Aldborough each its
character: here all are equal in immundicity, and all equally without
provisions. Some yellow beans lie soaking to soften them. There is
salt-cod from the north, moist and putrid. There is no milk; eggs are
few. The ham at the Pizzicarolo's is always bad, and the garlicked