Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine – Volume 53, No. 332, June, 1843

But Nelson's star was then in the ascendant; the presence and notorious influence of Emma Hamilton in these frightful transactions, was unaccountably connived at by the British nation. The officer who has been a party to a convention, which his commander-in-chief thinks proper not only to disapprove but to violate, must inevitably suffer in that fame and popularity which our public services so justly cherish. And in the state of men's passions during that memorable war, so that it were against the French, a successful commander-in-chief could do no wrong! Yet here, probably, the matter would have rested; but when, nine years afterwards, Stanier Clarke so little appreciated the duty of a biographer as to relate a transaction susceptible of no excuse, in terms unjustified by the facts, and sought to render his hero immaculate at the expense of others, the excellent officer whose feelings and character had been so cruelly sacrificed, felt himself compelled at last to publish his "Vindication," judicious in every thing but the title. He most properly printed the Convention itself in the original words, and with all the signatures it bore. Such works, however, even when the affairs they refer to are recent, are never read but by friends—or enemies. A late atonement was made by William IV. in conferring on Sir Edward Foote a titular distinction, which the public heed not; but the tables are now turned, and Europe, taught by Cuoco, Coletta, and by Botta, the great historian of Italy, has irrevocably closed this great account. The name of Foote is recorded in all their pages in terms which, had he seen them, might well have consoled him for the past; while the last and most popular biographer of Nelson (Southey) feels himself compelled to admit, and the frank admission does him infinite honour, that this is a passage of his hero's life which the muse of history "must record with sorrow and with shame."

But the sea spray is dashing splendidly on our bows—we are clearing Capri, and have, as we pass it, a fine view of that high and precipitous rock, thinking of Tiberius and the soothsayer Thrasyllus, and of all the monstrous scenes which those unapproachable cliffs concealed from the indignation even of a Roman world. But twilight was already coming on, and the city and the coast were gradually withdrawn from the panorama—dark night came rushing over the deep, an Italian summer's night, and yet with no stars or moon; meanwhile steadily rides our vessel along the Calabrian waters, confident alike of her strength and her bearings, which we soon left her to pursue, and went down to see what the cabin and the company promised below. And thus the hours passed away; and when the suspended lamp began to burn dimly under the skylight, and grey morning found stealthy admittance through the cabin windows, although we had been unable to sleep, the anticipation of all the marvels we were to see in Sicily had answered the purpose of a night's rest, and sent us active and alert on deck to fresh air and the rising sun. Nor were we a moment too soon. A large flotilla of little boats manœuvring between two of larger size, placed to defend the space destined for their operations, were now in the full activity of the thunny and spada fishery; and a most picturesque rock, right over our bow, proved to be no other than Monte Pelegrino, at the foot of which lay Palermo and our breakfast—in short, after a voyage of little more than a summer's night, we are again on terra firma, if that name can be given to volcanic soils, and long before noon are actively engaged in perambulating the streets of the Sicilian capital of the fæcunda Panormos.

Among the most striking peculiarities of the interior or street views, presented to the stranger's eye at Palermo, are its very unusually situated convents, buildings which, even in cities, are commonly and naturally in retirement; but here, in whichever of the most public ways you walk, a number of extraordinary trellised balconies are observed on the upper stories of almost every large house, while business and bustle of all kinds are transacted as usual in the street below. You may well be surprised to see the nunnery over the Marchande de Modes! The unhappy inmates thus tormented by the sight and sound of worldly activity, have not in Palermo even the 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. "Eperchè? Adesso vi le dîrò subito—Why not? I'll tell you whether you want it without a doctor,"—feeling for our pulse. "Non c'è 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 interrogations by a copious supply of soap-suds, and now he became the tonsor only, and declares against the mode in which we have our hair cut: "They have cut your hair, Signor, à condannato—nobody adopts the toilette of the guillotine now; it should have been left to grow in front à la Plutus, or have been long at the sides à la Nazarène, which is the mode most of our Sicilian gentlemen prefer." We were about to rise, wash, and depart, but an impediment is offered by the artist. "Non l'ho raffinato ancora, Signor, bisogna raffinarlo un poco!" and before we could arrive at the occult meaning of raffinare, his fingers were exploring very technically and very disagreeably the whole surface over which his razor had travelled, and a number of supplementary scrapings were only stopped by an impatient basta of the victim. Still he was unwilling to part with us. Would we like, now that we are on the spot, to lose a few ounces of blood before he takes a stranger in hand, (who is waiting for the one or other operation;) and, as we most positively declined, he turned to the latter to ask him whether he was come for his "piccolo salassio di sei oncie." "Gia!" said Signor Antonio, taking off his coat, and sitting down with as much sangfroid as if he were going to take his breakfast. "Can you shave me?" asks a third party, standing at the door. "Adesso," after I have bled this gentleman. Such are all the interiors where Salassatore is written over the door; they bleed and they shave indifferently, and doing either, talk of the last take of thunny, the opera that has been or is to be, and the meagre skimmings of their permitted newspaper, which begins probably with the advertisement of a church ceremony, and ends always with a charade—for our subscribers!!

CHURCHES

The clergy are wealthy, the bishop's salary is 18,000 scudi, and many of the convents are very opulent; but there is scarcely one of the churches which you care to visit twice. Most of them are disgraced by vulgar ornaments, in which respect they surpass even the worst specimens at Naples! Gilt stucco, cut and stamped into flowery compartments, shows off like a huge twelfth cake! but the Matrice or Duomo, and the Saracenic Chapel of the Palazzo Reale, and the cathedral of Monreale, four miles beyond the town, are noble exceptions; these in their several ways are all interesting, both within and without. The old Siculo-Norman archway of Monreale, and its fine bronze gates crusted with a beautiful hard polished coin-like patina, would repay the excursion, even were the interior less fine. Here we have columns from whose high architraves the Gothic arch springs vigorously; walls perfectly covered with old Byzantine mosaics; a roof of marvellous lightness, and almost modern elegance; still the critic, who is bound by métier to find fault with violated canons, will, we must own, be at no loss for a text in the church of Monreale—a building which is, however, of sufficient importance in ecclesiastical architecture to have been designed, measured, and engraved, in whole and in part, in a splendid volume, published in folio, by the Duke of Serra di Falco.

VISIT TO THE GARDEN OF THE DUKE OF SERRA DI FALCO, NEAR PALERMO

After a delicious half hour's drive through country lanes hedged with cactus, aloes, and pomegranates, we find ourselves in front of a small villa distant about two miles from the sea. As to the house, many an English gentleman, in very moderate circumstances, has a far better; but on passing the archway of this Sicilian country-box into its garden, two trees, which must be astonished at finding themselves out of Brazil—trees of surpassing beauty—are seen on a crimson carpet of their own fallen petals, mixed with a copious effusion of their seeds, like coral. At the northern extremity of Italy (Turin) this Erythinia corallodendron is only a small stunted shrub; nor is it much bigger at Naples, where it grows under cover. Six years in the open air have in Sicily produced the tree before you: it is, in fact, larger than most of our fruit-bearers. We next recognise an agreeable acquaintance, formed two years ago, in the Neapolis Japonicus; it bears a delicate fruit, of the size of a plum, whose yellow, freckled skin contains such a nectar-like juice that the pine-apple itself scarcely excels it. Our fellow-passenger, the infallible voice of a new-made cardinal of the warlike name of Schwarzenburg, who tasted it here, as he told us, for the first time, has already pronounced a similar opinion, and no dissentients being heard, the Japan medlar passed with acclamation. The Buggibellia spectabilis of New Holland, calls you to look at his pink blossoms, which are no other than his leaves in masquerade. We grub up, on the gardener's hint and permission, some of the Cameris humilis, to whose filamentous radicles are attached certain little grains, of great sweetness and flavour. The banana-tree, "Musa paradisaica," which, cooped in our low hot-houses at home, breaks its neck, and might well break its heart, as its annual growth is resisted by the inexorable glass dome, is here no prisoner but an acclimated denizen of sun and air. The Cactus Opuntiæ, or Indian fig, is here for vulgar tastes; and the Cactus cochinellifera for the Luculluses of the day, who could afford to pay for its rearing. The small sneezing plant, a vegetable smelling-bottle, is still employed in headach by the common people of Sicily, who bruise the leaves and sniff their pungency: its vulgar name, malupertusu, is the corruption of Marum del Cortuso, as we find it in the ancient herbal of Durante. The Ferula communis or Saracinisca, a legacy left to the Sicilian pedagogues by their eastern lords, is sold in fagots at the green-grocers, and fulfils the scholastic office of birch; and, being more elastic, must be pleasant to flog with. We recommend it to head masters. The sumac, Rhus coriaria, is not only to be seen here, but every where else in Sicily; and they say there is a daily exportation of one thousand sacks of its ground leaves. The ancients knew it well, and employed it for giving a flavour to their meat, as they do now in Nubia and Egypt, according to Durante, who deems its many virtues deserving of Latin verse. We smell pepper!—a graceful shrub, whose slender twigs stand pencilled out like sea-weed spread upon paper; and the Schinus mollis, a leaf of which we have gathered ignorantly, is the source of the smell. We strew some leaves on the basin of a neighbouring fountain, and amuse ourselves by seeing them swim about as if they were bewitched, parting at the same time with a whitish fluid, which, spreading on the surface of the water, gives it an iridescent hue. The Fuchsia arborescens of Japan flowers here, they say, every month, just as we see him in all his pink luxuriance, and makes himself quite at home; and here is that little blue vegetable butterfly, the Polygala! Who can overlook his winged petals, peeping out of their myrtle-looking bower? Then the geraniums!—not potted, as in Covent-Garden, or the Marché aux Fleurs, but forming vast parti-coloured hedgerows, giving to every pathway its own particular flower and perfume; so that a connoisseur might be taken blindfold and declare where each kind grew. Hedges of geranium seven feet high! Think of that, ye Dicksons and nursery-ground men about Brompton and the King's Road! The stalks a mass of real ligneous matter, fit for the turner's lathe if it were but hard enough. A small mound enables us to look about us more at large; and now we discern the stately bamboo, thicker than your arm, and tall as a small mast; and the sugar-cane, formerly cultivated for his juice, but now looking as if he were ill-used and neglected. His biography (but as it is not auto-biography, and written with his own reed, there may be some mistake) is remarkable. Soon after the annexation of Sicily to Spain in 1420, he was carried from Syracuse into Spanish captivity; he then escaped to Madeira and the Canaries, and at length saved himself in the West Indies. The pistachia is also here, with its five-partite sessile leaf, like a dwarf walnut; the capsule holding the nut containing at present only a white germ, which it will require four months more to bring to nutty maturity. The manna-tree is very like an alder in its general character, but thicker in its stem, and bears the cicatrices of last year's ill treatment; its wounds, however, will not bleed afresh now; but towards August the salassatore of trees will run his steel into its limbs, taking care to place under the bleeding orifices leaves from the cactus hedge hard by to serve as recipients, and drain its juices till it faints.

That a leaf might not be wanting to record these vegetable treasures, the pagoda-topped papyrus nodded to us gracefully, and offered its services; while, to finish the picture, Angola goats are browsing amid the green and yellow ribbed agaves; and the beautiful blue sea peeps in through gaps of the wall of cactus, whose green stems are now all fringed with yellow blossoms. Leaving the flower garden, we enter a labyrinth, and arrive at a small hut, with a closed door, upon the threshold of which we have scarcely pressed, when the wicket flies open, and a big brown friar, with long beard and sandals, starts up in act to frighten us, which he succeeds in doing. This automaton Schedoni might really well produce abortion, and would not care if he did: he cannot, we suppose, be placed there as a lawful instrument of relief, for all the donzelle of Palermo must be aware of, and be used to him. This, however, is thought so good a joke, that it is repeated with variations; for on releasing another spring a similar contrivance introduces us to another monk of the same convent, who is reading a huge tome on the lives of the saints: resenting the interruption, he raises his head, and fixes his eyes on the intruder, at the same time beckoning to him with his hand, and intimating that if he will do him the favour to come a little nearer, he will knock him down with the folio, as Johnson did Osborn the bookseller.

Another surprise is—but really these are surprising enough—and we came here to see vegetable rarities, and not the tricks of an overgrown toyshop.

THE THUNNY FISHERY

Ταν βαιταν αποδυς εις κυματα τηνα αλευμαιΩπερ τως Θυννως σκοπιαζεται Ολπις ο γριπευς—Theoc.

The thunny fishery, if not as exciting as that of the whale, is far from uninteresting to the uninitiated. We were rowing about in want of an object, when our boatmen proposed to take us to see this animating species of labour; and off we went to a spot about two miles from shore, where we came upon a little flotilla of boats, all occupied in the common pursuit. A large quantity of floating cork announced our arrival on the fishing ground; then came long lines of buoys, to which the drop-nets were attached, and at last we drew alongside a small boat, hailing which, we learn that the net is already half-drawn, and that la pipa (the sword-fish) is in it. Now, we had long wanted to see a live sword-fish, but there was no need to stimulate our rowers, who appeared equally eager that we should assist at the fun, and made great exertions to reach the spot in time. "Questa," says our guide, showing the boundary of the space circumscribed by walls of net; "questa è la camera della morte, (this is the chamber of death,) piano, piano, (or we shall shoot ahead.") The space thus designated lay between two long barges, one of which was fixed by anchor, and had few people on board, while the other was crowded with naked limbs, and fine heads in Phrygian bonnets, academy figures every man of them. What symmetry of form! what jet black beard and mustache! what dark flashing eyes! what noses without reproach! All were in the various combinations of action which their position demanded, hauling away at what seemed to our impatience an endless net; by the shortening of which, however, as their boat received it, layer upon layer, fold upon fold, coil upon coil, they were slowly bringing up the reticulated wall. As the place of captivity came nearer, every body was intensely anxious to get a first view of the fish; and many other boats were coming up alongside of ours, which fortunately lay right over the meshes of the prison, which was becoming every second more and more restricted in size. At length some of us obtained a first view of the spada and his long sword, and testified our delight with vociferation. The fish, meanwhile, who hates publicity, backs off, and would back out, to the opposite end of the net, where, still finding himself an object of unpleasant remark, he tries by violence to escape sideways; but that is no go even for a sword-fish, for a sword is his which cannot cut cords, and he soon finds he can make nothing of it. Smaller and smaller, meanwhile, is becoming the condemned hold, and greater and greater the perturbation within. The captive fish begins to swim round and round, and to watch a new opportunity, but it is too late!—too many are on the look-out for him! Every man gets ready his hooked pole, and there is more tightening of the tackle! The terrified fish now rises to the surface, as it were to reconnoitre, and then down he dives with a lash of his tail, which sends buckets of water into the boat of the assailants. This dive, of course, only carries him to the false bottom of the net, and come up presently he must! Every eye now looks fishy, and every man's hand is armed for the first blow. One tall athletic fellow takes aim, and misses; another is more successful, and hits. Stunned by the blow, the poor fish flounders on this side and on that, and the water is discoloured by his blood! One, two, three pointed poles at once, are again in his flank; and now he rushes about like a rounded lion, brandishing his tail, and dashing up whirlpools of water. More Blows! more blood! He rushes desperately at the net, and running his long snout into the meshes, is hopelessly entangled. It is all over with him! Countless wounds follow, till he turns over on his side, and is handed up lifeless into the boat.

"There," says one, "goes fifteen scudi's worth, and no harm done to the net." "Little enough, too; but he is worth two thunny, anyhow," says another. "Ay! and gives more sport," exclaims a third. Such piscatory eclogue fell upon our ear, when our guide announced to us that we had now seen every thing. The excitement over, we sat down in our boat to make a note of what we have written, while the boatmen clave the phosphorescent water homewards, and landed us neatly at sunset, with their oars dripping luminous drops at every stroke, in the beautiful harbour of Palermo.

Some days after we were still more fortunate; we had observed the scouts with a white hood over their boat, looking keenly down (vide our quotation from Theocritus) into the deep blue sea, and watching with all-eyed attention for the apparition of some giant shadow which should pass athwart the abyss, and give the signal for a new chase, while their comrades were hauling in an immense miscellaneous take of fish, the acquisition of the morning. We shot the outpost, (placed to prevent larger vessels from entering the fishing preserves and injuring the nets,) and remarked our boatmen uncovering to a small Madonna railed in alongside. We were just in time on this occasion to see the water enclosed in the camera della morte, already all alive with fish; for a shoal of palamide, and of immense pesce di moro, filled the reticulated chamber. They darted here and there as the net was raising, and splashed so furiously about, that the whole water became one lather; meanwhile, the men who had been singing gaily, now prepared their landing-nets, shouting in a way which certainly did seem to increase the terror of their prisoners, who redoubled their efforts to escape.

The rich hues of the palamide, in shape and colour not unlike our mackerel, but with longitudinal, in place of transverse, green bands, were beautiful objects as they were raised all iridescent in their freshness out of the water, and transferred to the side boat. We also noticed in the net one or two immense fish, in shape like rounded parallelograms, with tough shagreen hides, goggle eyes, and two immense leathery fins placed at the lower part of the abdomen. They kept flapping these valves up and down, but not offering to strike, though lugged out by a hook. The haul was a good one, each fish worth a ducat; and had they, in fact, been at this price converted into coin at once, the money would have made no mean show in the bottom of the net. The treacherous camera della morte was emptied quickly, and in one minute more, down it went again into the depths below.

We should have mentioned a singular practice of the fishermen of the present day in Sicily, to pat the thunny while he is in the net, as you pat a horse or dog: They say it makes him docile. This done, they put their legs across his back, and ride him round the net room, an experiment few would practise on the dolphin's back, at least in these days; yet Aulus Gellius relates that there was a dolphin who used to delight in carrying children on his back through the water, swimming out to sea with them, and then putting them safe on shore! Now, but for the coins, taking the above custom into consideration, one might have supposed the ancients' delphinus to have been the modern thunny.