vases of natural flowers.
The park fills up the background; it consists merely of a few
avenues and meadows, extending to the foot of Mount Rosalia.

This mountain I also ascended. The finest paved street, which is
sufficiently broad for three carriages to pass each other, winds in
a serpentine manner round the rocky heights, so that we can mount
upwards without the slightest difficulty.

The convent is small and very simply constructed; the courtyard
behind it, on the contrary, is exceedingly imposing. It is shut in
on all sides by steep walls of rock, covered with clinging ivy in a
most picturesque manner. On the left we find a little grotto
containing an altar. In the foreground, on the right, a lofty gate,
formed by nature and beautified by art, leads into a chapel
wonderfully formed of pieces of rock and stalactites. A feeling of
astonishment and admiration almost amounting to awe came upon me as
I entered. The walls near the chief altar are overgrown with a kind
of delicate moss of an emerald-green colour, with the white rock
shining through here and there; and in the midst rises a natural
cupola, terminating in a point. The extreme summit of this dome
cannot be distinguished; it is lost in obscurity. Here and there
natural niches occur, in which statues of saints have been placed.
To the left of the high altar I saw the monument of St. Rosalia,
beautifully executed in white marble. She is represented in a
recumbent posture, the size of life; the statue rests on a pedestal
two feet in height. In the most highly-decorated or the most
gorgeous church I could not have felt myself more irresistibly
impelled to devotion than in this grand temple of nature.

From the 15th to the 18th of July in every year a great feast is
held in honour of St. Rosalia, the patron saint of the city, in the
town and on the mountain. On these days a number of people make a
pilgrimage to the grotto above described, where the bones of the
saint were found at a time when the plague was raging at Palermo.
They were carried with great pomp into the town, and from that
moment the plague ceased.

The road from the convent to the temple, built on the summit of a
rock, and visible to the sailors from a great distance, leads us for
about half a mile over loose stones. Its construction is extremely
simple, and not remarkable in any way. In former times its summit
was decked by a colossal statue of the saint. This fell down, and
th