obtain one good night's sleep.

The modern Girgenti lifts its high, narrow, solid streets, dominated
by a sombre Spanish cathedral, upon the side of the acropolis of
the antique Agrigentum. I can see from my windows, half-way on the
hillside towards the sea, the white range of temples partially
destroyed. The ruins alone have some aspect of coolness. All the
rest is arid. Water and life have forsaken Agrigentine. Water--the
divine Nestis of the Agrigentine Empedocles--is so necessary to
animated beings that nothing can live far from the rivers and the
springs. But the port of Girgenti, situated at a distance of three
kilometres from the city, has a great commerce. "And it is in this
dismal city," I said to myself, "upon this precipitous rock, that
the manuscript of Clerk Alexander is to be found!" I asked my way
to the house of Signor Michel-Angelo Polizzi, and proceeded thither.

I found Signor Polizzi, dressed all in white from head to feet, busy
cooking sausages in a frying-pan. At the sight of me, he let go
the frying-pan, threw up his arms in the air, and uttered shrieks
of enthusiasm. He was a little man whose pimply features, aquiline
nose, round eyes, and projecting chin formed a very expressive
physiognomy.

He called me "Excellence," said he was going to mark the day with a
white stone, and made me sit down. The hall in which we were
represented the union of the kitchen, reception-room, bedchamber,
studio, and wine-cellar. There were charcoal furnaces visible, a
bed, paintings, an easel, bottles, strings of onions, and a
magnificent lustre of coloured glass pendants. I glanced at the
paintings on the wall.