s bring them up to the town and sell them.
These came from Monte Asparacio, which is near Cofano; they cost forty
centimes each, and bring good luck to the house. On Mount Eryx there is
a convent of nuns of S. Teresa, to whom flesh is forbidden, but the
prohibition does not extend to tortoises, which the nuns eat with tomato
sauce. When the nuns begin to feel the infirmities of age they are no
longer limited to this strange meat, the prohibition is withdrawn, and
they live like other old ladies, eating what they choose. I have no idea
how many fourpenny tortoises would make a meal for a healthy young nun on
Monte San Giuliano, where one's appetite is sharpened by the air. They
occasionally add a few snails, which are also permitted; there is a kind
of snail which is found underground and is considered a luxury by others
besides the nuns of S. Teresa.

After the stable and the courtyard we went to the terrace whence, over
the roofs and cupolas and among the towers and belfries of the town,
there is a view of the sea and the plain. Then we visited the kitchen
and saw the oven for baking the bread. All the well-to-do families on
the Mountain possess land on the campagna where they grow their own corn;
they take it to the mill to be weighed and ground, and fetch back the
flour which is also weighed; they know that if they leave a hundred
kilograms of grain they must receive ninety-nine of flour, and in this
wasted kilogram of flour lurks the true reason why the miller wears a
white hat. They bake their own bread and sometimes make their own
maccaroni at home. They grow their own grapes and make their own wine.
They have olive trees for oil, and goats whose milk they drink,
considering it lighter and more digestible than cows' milk. Berto's
sister has a private goat of her own, who lives down in the country and
comes up every morning, a journey of three-quarters of an hour, and she
milks it herself. Thus they pass their lives very close to Mother Earth,
and the seasons sensibly affect their comfort. They have little use for
money except to buy coffee, fish, sugar, meat, and clothes, or the stuff
of which they make their clothes, and some of them raise their own linen
and wool. But they want money when there is a family festa; Berto told
me he had spent 700 lire merely for the sweetmeats and cakes at his
wedding.

All Friday and most of Saturday I spent in being presented to various
members of the family and in m