nant industry in the Sicilies. If I were to repeat all the stories of the banditti, I might tax your credulity. There is nothing that takes romantic dimensions so rapidly as stories of crime and adventure. But one of the gentlemen who called on General Grant yesterday is an English banker resident. A few months ago he went out of town with his brother to visit some mining property in which he was interested. When he reached the station and was quietly walking through the town, two horsemen galloped up, leading a riderless horse. They had carbines over their shoulders. They stopped the banker and bade him mount. He objected, and appealed to some fellow passengers for protection. They shrugged their shoulders and told him that God's will had to be done, and he had better mount; these armed men were Leoni, the terrible brigand, and a lieutenant, who would murder any who interfered with him. So the banker was mounted and carried into the hills. He lived in a cave and was arrayed in brigand's costume. A messenger was sent to his family saying that unless 60,000 francs were paid within a certain time, the banker would be slain. The money was paid, one-half by the government, the other by the family, and the banker came home after three weeks' life in the hills. All this happened within a few months, and the victim is as well known in Palermo as Mr. Belmont in New York. The capture

was arranged on careful business principles. The bandit bribed a servant of the banker to inform him of his master's movements and took his measures accordingly.

I allude to brigandage as a dominant industry. But it is due to the Italian Government to say that the authorities have done all in their power to suppress it. This brings me to another point-the manifest and gratifying advance that has been made in Sicily since the union of the Italian nation under Victor Emmanuel. I have no

doubt that there are many things about such a reign as that of the Bourbons to be regretted, especially by a society like that of Palermo. In the Bourbon days kings came here and lived in the palaces. Now the palaces are deserted. Occasionally a prince comes and there is a ripple of life, but as a general thing Palermo is no longer a royal, courtly town. I visited one or two of the houses of the King-houses which are untenanted unless by the royal servants. There was the château of La Favorita, for instance. We reached it by a long drive through the environs of the city, under range of Monte Pellegrino. This range is one of the attractions of the city. It is a gray limestone of early formation, which Goethe found "indescribably beautiful." To my mind it resembles the Palisades, opposite Yonkers, although there is more beauty, more grandeur in our brown Hudson hills. It was to a cavern here that St. Rosalia retired to live out her brief and holy life, and pilgrims go to the shrine where her statue lies carved in marble and covered with bridal robes. We drive along the base of the hills through avenues of orange and olive trees until we come to the château. Two or three liveried servants awaited us. The gates were closed. The avenues were untidy. There was no sign of life in the house, and yet the site was one of rare natural beauty. It was the work of Ferdinand IV., a mighty sovereign, who now rests with God. Ferdinand governed for as many years as George III. He was driven out by the French and brought back by the English, and after receiving from Murat many attentions when Murat was king, afterward shot the French hero as a revolutionist. Ferdinand belonged to the driftwood period of European politics, and had an uneasy time of it until Waterloo secured the tenure of every despotism in Europe. This château is one of his works. It is a Chi

nese building, with rooms in various styles of decorationTurkish, Pompeiian and Chinese. The view from the observatory, the bit of sea on the left sweeping through the hills, the majestic range of limestone in front, to the right the city, with the shipping in the harbor and the sea beyond, embowered in groves of roses, and oranges, and lemons, and olives, made the spot one of the most attractive I have ever seen. Yet it is abandoned to a few servants. No royal persons come here. The grounds are closed, except to those who can obtain permission. I noticed this spirit of exclusion in other royal habitations, and it led to the wish that some radical Parliament would throw open the royal preserves to the people, whose money made them what they are and for whose pleasure they should be preserved.

Yet the day of awakening has come even to this Bourbon nest of Sicily. It is seventeen years since Garibaldi began here the mad errand which was to go into history as one of the most glorious of heroic deeds, for it was from Palermo that he marched with a handful of soldiers and overthrew the Bourbons. Behind that handful of men was the spirit of Italian unity which seemed to break out with all the force, and fire, and splendor of one of her volcanoes. In that time great changes have come over Sicily. I was told that for twenty-five years before the union of the kingdoms not a house had been built in Palermo. Now a mole has been thrown out into the bay. Walls and walks encompass the sea. Fine avenues have been laid out, and it was a gratification to an American and a sign of the new days that have come to pass to see that one of these avenues bore the venerated name of Lincoln. There are beggars enough, as General Grant and his friends could testify, but the authorities are pursuing and repressing beggary. The brigands still infest the hills,

but they are severely handled when caught, and the regular troops are fast making brigandage a crime and no longer a form of political action. Much, very much, remains to be done in Sicily, and every step showed us matters for regret and amendment. We tried to speculate upon what a firm, gifted Englishman or American would do with this island. But when we remembered what Sicily had been; that under the reign of the Bourbons the feudal spirit survived; that the Church has held it in the darkest tyranny; that for ages no light has fallen upon its people; that they have been trained and coaxed and driven into the deepest superstition and ignorance; when we remembered this we forgave Sicily, even her bandits and her beggars, and rejoiced with her sons in the coming of the glorious day of freedom and light-recalling, as we did, the eloquent lament of Byron over Italy of the Bourbon days:

Italia! oh Italia! thou who hast

The fatal gift of beauty, which became
A funeral dower of present woes and past,

On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame,
And annals graved in characters of flame.

Leaving Palermo, the travelers sailed for Malta, where they arrived on the 28th. Says our correspondent:It was not without a regret that we saw the anchors slowly release themselves from their cozy bed and the good ship swing from her moorings. The day was far spent, and the sun was throwing the mountain of Hamilcar in long, trailing shadows over the bay of the beautiful Palermo. · Beautiful Palermo-beautiful despite the dust and grime, the poverty and idleness, the weakness and crime of her people. Something, perhaps it was those Christmas bells, had won us to the place. Or perhaps it was the four American flags shining in the sunshine. Or perhaps it was the orange groves. Or perhaps it was the mountain which recalled the Palisades on the Hudson. Or perhaps