THE COASTS OF SICILY. 149 



this occasion. The Duke of Serra di Falco *, the 

 director general of this department, having been ap- 

 prised of our arrival had given orders that we should 

 be exempted from all investigation, and thus, to the 

 great surprise of the sailors who transported our 

 baggage, we were permitted to proceed without any 

 delay to the Hotel de France. 



Without loss of time we set forth to explore the 

 city, for in our uncertainty in reference to our future 

 destination we were unwilling to leave Palermo 

 without having examined the principal objects of 

 interest which it contains. Under the guidance of 

 able ciceroni, whose hospitable zeal was unwearied, 

 we visited those ancient buildings which once were 

 used as mosques, and where verses of the Koran 

 may still be read upon the pillars and walls which 

 have now for so many years past been consecrated 

 to Christian worship. It was with feelings of 

 intense astonishment that we traversed palaces, 

 churches, and cloisters carved and encrusted like 

 buhl cabinets, where the most precious marbles, 

 enamels, malachite, and lapis-lazuli were blended 

 and grouped together in a thousand different devices, 

 rising in one place in columns chiseled by the hands 

 of Greek or Arab workmen, clothing elsewhere the 

 walls and ceiling with the most delicately coloured 

 tracery, or forming deeply fluted masses, which hang 

 suspended like softly tinted drapery fresh from the 



* The Duke of Serra di Falco, Corresponding Member of the 

 Institute, is the author of a large work entitled, Le antichita del/a 

 Sicilia, and of several other works treating of the history of his 

 native country. 



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