hich it is the custom in
many places to make at Christmas; there is a most elaborate one, treated
as though the event had happened in modern times, preserved in the
convent of S. Martino, in Naples; there is one in the Musee de Cluny in
Paris, _L'Adoration des Rois et des Bergers_, Art Napolitain XVIII
siecle. I was most familiar with such things in the chapels on the Sacro
Monte at Varallo-Sesia, where the figures are the size of life. When
they saw I had got hold of the idea, they told me that in Trapani it is
the custom in the homes of the sailors to celebrate the 8th September by
making a representation of the house of S. Joachim as it appeared on the
occasion of the birth of his daughter, the Madonna, and to keep it on
view for three weeks, till S. Michael's day. They do not do this in any
other town, and the avvocato's article was about one he had seen.

Next morning about 7.30 Ignazio's father most politely called for me in a
carriage and pair and, accompanied by two other guests, we drove to the
house of the bride's family, where there was a crowd of people, and we
were all presented; then we proceeded to the Municipio, where the civil
part of the marriage was performed; after which we returned to the
bride's house and went through the religious service at an altar that had
been erected in one of the rooms. We admired the presents and the
flowers, partook of refreshments and exchanged compliments till it was
time to go, and I carried away with me a copy of _L'Amico_ given me by
the Avvocato Scalisi, who was one of the guests.

While reading his article I recognised that the little waxen heads and
hands must be part of the raw material for a Nascita, and in my mind I
identified certain figures in the museum which Conte Pepoli was then
arranging in the disused convent of the Annunziata as remains of old
examples of the Nascita and of the Nativita. Nothing would do for it
then but I must see a Nascita, and the difficulty was how to proceed.
One cannot very well go round knocking at all the doors in a Sicilian
town and asking if they have made a Nascita; the Avvocato Scalisi had
gone off to another wedding or to defend a mafioso, or to transact
whatever business falls to the lot of a Trapanese avvocato. Mario, my
coachman, takes no interest in anything to do with religion in any shape,
so he was no use, and everyone else I spoke to was very kind about it but
evidently did not know how to help me.

I consider