1064 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photo by Arthur H. Warner 

 STREET SCENE: TERMINI, SICILY 



play as important and varied a part in the 

 diet of Sicily as do potatoes with us, 

 while the untilled stretches are crimson 

 with patches of sanfoin, and dotted with 

 wild poppies, morning glories, and yellow 

 clusters of the fiori di maggio (flowers of 

 May). One misses here even the spread- 

 ing stone pines of Naples and, except for 

 an occasional cypress, scarcely a shade 

 tree is anywhere to be seen, the forests 

 long since having been ruthlessly de- 

 stroyed, much to the detriment of the 

 land and the present generation. 



In the heart of the sulphur region it 

 becomes more desolate. Nothing seems 

 to grow here. Even at this season, the 

 springtime, the valleys and hillsides look 



old and weary and in summer 

 they parch up like a desert. 

 To make matters worse, the 

 surface is torn up by mines 

 and the waste dirt is piled 

 about in ugly, forbidding heaps 

 which lie like a blight upon 

 land already poor enough. 



Mining may be a necessity, 

 but at best it is only a neces- 

 sary evil. It destroys nature 

 and despoils the earth just as 

 agriculture preserves and up- 

 lifts it. And so, too, with 

 men. The one occupation 

 seems to degrade and brutal- 

 ize just as the other broadens 

 and uplifts those who engage 

 in it. 



The miners in the sulphur 

 country work from six in the 

 morning until seven at night, 

 with an hour off at noon, for 

 from 40 to 60 cents for a full 

 day, but do not work Sun- 

 days and usually half time 

 only three days out of the six ; 

 so perhaps $2.50 would rep- 

 resent an average weekly wage. 

 No wonder men leave such 

 a life, even for the tenements 

 of Elizabeth Street, or the 

 mines of the Alleghanies. At 

 the time of my visit to Sicily, 

 emigration was almost at a 

 standstill. Yet, even so, one 

 encountered bands off to the new land. 



I shall not soon forget the first party 

 of departing emigrants I saw. It was 

 at a dreary little station in the sulphur 

 belt, and the moment the train drew in 

 one might know that some great event 

 was taking place by the crowd of women, 

 some gnarled and seamed with the years 

 like the olive trees of the hillsides, who 

 gathered on the platform, each one with 

 her black manto drawn close about her 

 head. 



The train stopped and the guards 

 opened the doors with a mighty clatter- 

 ing. Half a dozen young men, with a 

 hurried look backward, jumped into the 

 nearest compartment, dragging or push- 



