a traveller's journal. 279 



and brought to Palermo. Their prefence delivered the 

 city from a peftilence ; and Rofalia, from that mo- 

 ment, has been the tutelar faint of the nation ; chapels 

 were built, and fplendid folemnities were inftituted to 

 her honour. 



Pious pilgrims induftrioufiy repair to the fummit of 

 the mountain ; and a road has been conftrueted at a 

 vaft expence, which refts, like an aqueduct, on pillars 

 and arches, and afcends in a zigzag along a fiffure in 

 the rock. 



The place of devotion itfelf is more fui table to the 

 humility of the faint who made it her refuge, than the 

 pompous celebration that is inftituted to the honour of 

 her complete dereliction of the world. And perhaps 

 all chriftendom, which has now, for eighteen hundred 

 years, been accumulating its opulence, erecting its 

 magnificence, and inftituting its folemn entertainments 

 on the wretchednefs of its htft founders and molt bi- 

 goted confefTbrs, has no facred place to mew which 

 is ornamented and revered in fo harmlefs and fenti- 

 mental a manner. 



When you have afcended the mountain, you turn 

 an angle of the rock, where it rifes againft you like a 

 Heep wall, on which the church and the monastery 

 adjoining are both conftrueted. 



The outfide of the church has nothing inviting or 

 promising : the gate was opened without delay ; and, 

 on entering, I was furprifed in an extraordinary man- 

 ner. I found myfelf in a fpacious hall or parlour 

 which runs the whole breadth of the church, and opens 

 to the nave. Here are feen the ufual veilels with holy- 

 water and fome confeffionals. The body of the church 



t 4 .is 



1 



