The Knickerbocker | Page 2

religion, and love of the
beautiful, that have distinguished their race above all others; and in a
short time after their establishment in Sicily, the magnificence of their
cities, the grandeur of their temples, equalled if they did not surpass
those of their fatherland. About the year 480 before Christ, a fierce
enemy landed on the coast of Sicily with two thousand gallies: this was
the warlike Carthaginian, whose altars smoked with the sacrifice of
human victims. This formidable invader was defeated under the great

Gelon of Syracuse, who was called the father of his country; but the
Carthaginians, returned again and with better fortune, at length became
masters of the island. The Romans next conquered Sicily, and held it
for several centuries. The Saracens in the ninth century were in the full
tide of successful conquest. They landed first in the bay of Mazara,
near Selinuntium, and after various conflicts and fortune, finally
subjugated the whole island in the year 878. The crescent continued to
glitter over the towers of Sicily for about three centuries, when the
Normans, a band of adventurers whom the crusades of the Holy
Sepulchre had brought from their northern homes, after a conflict of
thirty years under Count Roger, expelled the Saracen in the year 1073,
and planted the banner of the cross in every city of the land. Soon after
that time it came under Spain and Austria; France and England have
severally been its rulers. It is now under the crown of Naples.
Such is a brief outline of the eventful history of Sicily; a land formed
by nature in her fairest mould; but which the crimes and ambition of
men have desecrated by violence, oppression, and bloodshed; and with
the substitution of a word, one might exclaim with the poet:
'SICILIA! O SICILIA! thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty, which
became A funeral dower of present woes and past, On thy sweet brow
is sorrow ploughed by shame, And annals graved in characters of flame.
Oh GOD! that thou wert in thy nakedness Less lovely or more powerful,
and couldst claim Thy right, and awe the robbers back who press To
shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress!'
Her brightest age was when the Greek threw the light of his genius
around her; when rose those mighty temples which now, even in their
ruin, call forth the wonder and admiration of the traveller; her greatest
degradation was in the age just passed away. As an exemplification of
this, it is sufficient to say, that from the time of the Norman until the
accession of the present monarch, a space of seven hundred years, not a
single road has been constructed in the island. But we have reason to
believe that a brighter day now dawns, and that ere long the sun of
civilization will dispel the clouds that have so long overshadowed the
mountains of Sicily.

He who would make a tour through this magnificent land, must make
up his mind to submit to much fatigue, some danger, and innumerable
annoyances; such as filth, bad fare, the continual torment of vermin;
lodgings, to which a stable with clean hay would be in comparison a
paradise; knavish attempts at imposition of various kinds, etc. He must
mount on a mule whose saddle is of rude and of abominable
construction; whose bit is a sort of iron vice, which clasps the animal's
nose and under-jaw, and every day wears away the flesh; and whose
bridle is a piece of rope fastened to the bit on one side only. He must
ford rivers of various depth; he must fear no ascent or descent, however
precipitous, if there appears to be a track; and at times he must have a
careful eye to the priming of his pistol; and above all, a patient and
enduring temper is a great comfort.
The aspect of Sicily is widely different from that of this country; its
beauty is dependent on other forms and associations. Here, we have
vast forests that stretch their shady folds in melancholy grandeur; the
mountain tops themselves are clad in thick umbrage, which, rejoicing
in the glory of the autumnal season, array themselves in rainbow dyes.
There, no wide forests shade the land; but mountains more abrupt than
ours, and bearing the scars of volcanic fire and earthquake on their
brows, are yet clothed with flowers and odoriferous shrubs. The plains
and slopes of the mountains are now but partially under cultivation;
vineyards and olive-groves generally clothe the latter, while over the
gentler undulating country, or the plains, fenceless fields stretch far
away, a wilderness of waving grain, through which the traveller may
ride for hours nor meet a human being, nor see a habitation, save when
he lifts his eyes