Photograph by Von Gloeden 



SICILIAN FISHERFOLK 



The deep-sea fisheries of Sicily afford a livelihood for more than 20,000 natives of that 

 historic island. These hardy seamen in their sturdy smacks oftentimes cross the Mediter- 

 ranean to let down their nets in the waters off the North African shore. The tunny fish 

 alone vields an annual revenue of more than half a million dollars. 



From high in air to below the water- 

 line the island is scarred and pitted with 

 myriad vast pock-marks, some pillared 

 with stalactites and stalagmites, some 

 through which the never-quiet sea moans 

 and sobs with the agonized wail of an 

 hurt monster ; one white, with little pools 

 of pure, sweet water on its floor, only a 

 few inches above the sea ; one greener 

 than emerald ; one blue as heaven, with 

 row upon row of delicate pink corals and 

 tiny scarlet jelly-fish studding the water- 

 line like jewels, while the refraction of the 

 sunlight tints everything with the most 

 marvelously diaphanous color, through 

 which the silvery ripples of the bottom 

 sand, about 40 feet below, seem within 

 arm's length. 



Driving up over the crest of the Sor- 

 rentine peninsula, the Siren Islands loom 

 in the distance, too far away for even the 

 echo of the charmers' song to be heard. 

 At Positano the road divides into two 

 white ribbons, binding the town to the 



green hillside. Farther along great holly- 

 hocks burn in somber flame beside the 

 road, and the tallest olives imaginable 

 crane their necks upward from the sea- 

 side of the drive to watch what is passing 

 on the King's Highway. 



On by the caves of troglodytes, who 

 have all the comforts of home — little 

 patches of garden, amiable goats, olive 

 groves, and grape-arbors — the road 

 winds in and out, up and down the stern 

 face of the cliffs, rising and sinking in 

 great billowy sweeps, plunging hastily 

 through short, black tunnels, racing 

 around big and little bends. Now it 

 skirts the shoulder of a cliff, with only an 

 18-inch wall between the wheels and the 

 boulders hundreds of feet below. 



Furore flashes up at one like a rainbow 

 as he dashes, blinking, out of an inky 

 little tunnel upon a soaring viaduct in the 

 blinding sunshine. A little group of fish- 

 ermen's houses, clinging to the bare 

 rock — huge gray cliffs beetling up be- 



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