AND LOWER EGYPT, 41 



and that both she and her husband were treated 

 unhandsomely in his book ; but she was ignorant 

 of the particulars. I read the offensive passages. 

 On this she proved to me that Br\done had not 

 deviated far from the truth, in representing her as 

 a great talker : she was not soon exhausted in de- 

 tailing to me a number of little anecdotes which 

 had determined her to desire the Englishman to 

 look out for another lodging, and on this subject 

 pronounced a chapter at least as long as that of 

 the traveller. 



The churches of Palermo, like almost all those 

 of Italy, are decorated most magnificently. Some 

 of them, that of the Jesuits, for instance, are so 

 overloaded with ornaments and riches as to offend 

 against good taste. But, besides the beautiful pic- 

 tures which adorn the inside of most of those edi- 

 fices, the superb altar of the church of Sainte-Ca- 

 tharine is particularly admired ; the church is con- 

 structed of the most beautiful marble, and which, 

 by a singular accident, forms, round the altar, a 

 broad border in festoons. In the cathedral, the 

 attention is arrested on the twenty-four columns of 

 oriental granite which support it, the tombs of por- 

 phyry, and an immense tabernacle of lapis-lazuli. 

 A priest, after having drawn aside, and with an air 

 of great mystery, four or five curtains one after 

 another, shewed me a great wooden crucifix, which 



he 



