solace of a garden; and
if these places of more than usual mortification have any connexion with
the world without, it is by an under-ground passage to some church in
the neighbourhood! Thither repair the poor victims of superstition to
warble _Aves_ to the Virgin behind their screens, and then back again to
their monotonous cloister. There are twenty-four nunneries in the city
of Palermo alone, each containing from thirty to sixty women, and there
are as many monasteries! With open doors like coffee-houses, full upon
the street, are placed at Palermo innumerable _consulting shops_ of so
many _lawyers_; the earliest to begin business, the last to close, you
may have the luxury of law at any hour of the day till bedtime. Nay,
your Sicilian lawyer, unlike the lazy tradesman who puts up his shutters
and sleeps from twelve to four, takes no _siesta_; his _atra janua
lilis_ is always open, and there sit the _firm_, one listening to a
client, another smoking a cigar, a third chatting with an acquaintance
over his coffee or the newspaper. Scarcely less mischievous than these
sowers of dissension, is the _barber-surgeon_, who still flourishes in
Trinacria. The bleeding arm over the peruke shop is often to be seen in
Rome and Naples; but at Palermo almost at every third house, you read
_Salassatore_ over a half-naked figure in wood or canvass, erect like
Seneca in his bath, or monumentally recumbent, the blood spouting, like
so many Tritons, from twenty orifices at once. Led by professional
curiosity, we enter one of these open doors; and, desiring the ordinary
service of the razor, and intending to ask some questions
parenthetically touching the double craft, we have scarcely occupied the
chair, when a smart youth comes up with a razor and a lancet, and
quietly asks "_Which_?" Why, surely he could not think of _bleeding_ us
without a warrant for our needing it. "_Eperche? Adesso vi le diro
subito_--Why not? I'll tell you whether you want it without a
doctor,"--feeling for our pulse. "_Non c'e male_--not so much amiss,"
pursued the functionary; "but a few ounces bleeding would do you _no
harm_! Your hand is hot, it must be _several months_ since you were last
bled!" "A year." "Too long: you should be bled, at your age, at least
_twice a-year_ if you would keep your health!" "What amount of depletion
did he recommend?" "_Depende--di sei a dieci oncie_," at which portion
of the dialogue our mouth was shut to all further interrogati