MALTA AND SICILY. 
229 
is considered to be a fine collection of 
broken bits of marble and mutilated statues, 
and it also contains a great number of very 
pretty little ancient figures in bronze; some 
Turkish fire-arms, inlaid with ivory; some 
ancient Sicilian garments, a few shells, 
insects, minerals, &c. 
Should I ever become a monk I will join 
the order of Benedictines, and endeavour to 
obtain admission into their convent at Ca¬ 
tania, where these gentlemen have a very 
handsome establishment indeed. Their con¬ 
vent is built in the form of a hollow square, 
and formerly contained seven hundred 
monks, but at present their number is only 
about two hundred. The community is 
very rich, and we were told that the monks 
sometimes boast that they can travel on 
their own land as far as Messina, a distance 
of sixty or seventy miles. We were very 
