296 SIGN LANGUAGE AMONG NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
Austria and in France; there his wife gave birth to a daughter, whom 
he had the misfortune to lose; he arrived by steamboat yesterday, but 
his wife had suffered so much from sea-sickness that she kept her bed, 
and he came alone to the play.’ ‘My dear friend, said I to Arami, ‘if 
you would have me believe you, you must grant me a favor.’ ‘What is 
it?’ said he. ‘It is, that you do not leave me during the evening, so 
that I may be sure you give no instructions to your friend, and when 
we join him, that you ask him to repeat aloud what he said to you by 
signs.” ‘That I will,” said Arami. The curtain then rose; the second 
act of Norma was played; the curtain falling, and the actors being re- 
called, as usual, we went to the side-room, where we met the traveler. 
‘My dear friend, said Arami, ‘I did not perfectly comprehend what you 
wanted to tell me; be so good as to repeat it.’ The traveler repeated 
the story word for word, and without varying a syllable from the trans- 
lation which Arami had made of his signs; it was marvelous indeed. 
“Six weeks after this, I saw a second example of this faculty of mute 
communication. This was at Naples. I was. walking with a young 
man of Syracuse. We passed by a sentinel. The soldier and my com- 
panion exchanged two or three grimaces, which at another time I should 
not even have noticed, but the instances I had before seen led me to 
give attention. ‘Poor fellow,’ sighed my companion. ‘What did he 
say to you?’ I asked. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘I thought that I recognized him 
as a Sicilian, and I learned from him, as we passed, from what place he 
came; hesaid he was from Syracuse, and that he knew me well. Then I 
asked him how heliked the Neapolitan service; he said he did not like it at 
all, and if his officers did not treat him better he should certainly finish by 
deserting. I then signified to him that if he ever should be reduced to 
that extremity, he might rely upon me, and that I would aid him all in 
my power. The poor fellow thanked me with all his heart, and I have 
no doubt that one day or other I shall see him come.” Three days after, 
I was at the quarters of my Syracusan friend, when he was told that a 
man asked to see him who would not give his name; he went out and 
left me nearly ten minutes. ‘Well,’ said he, on returning, ‘just as I 
said” ‘What?’ said I. ‘That the poor fellow would desert.’” 
After this there is an excuse for believing the tradition that the 
revolt called “the Sicilian Vespers,” in 1282, was arranged throughout 
the island without the use of a syllable, and even the day and hour for 
the massacre of the obnoxious foreigners fixed upon by signs only. In- 
deed, the popular story goes so far as to assert that all this was done by 
facial expression, without even manual signs. 
NEAPOLITAN SIGNS. 
It is fortunately possible to produce some illustrations of the modern 
Neapolitan sign language traced from the plates of De Jorio, with trans- 
lations, somewhat condensed, of his descriptions and remarks. 
In Fig. 76 an ambulant secretary or public writer is seated at his 
