of saints and apostles who cling to the roof of the choir, and yield in size only to the awful figures of the Saviour, the Virgin, and Saint Paul, enthroned in the apsides of the nave and aisles.  The ambones, though not so large as those of Salerno, are very gorgeous; and the paschal candlestick, here at all events in its usual shape, is of deeply-carved marble, and displays an incongruous assemblage of youths, maidens, beasts, birds, and bishops, hanging each from other like a curtain of swarming bees.

Service, which had been going on in the choir when we arrived, had now ceased; but from the crypt below arose a chant so harsh, vibratory, and void of solemnity, that we were irresistibly reminded of the subterranean chorus of demons in “Robert le Diable.”  Two of us ventured below and discovered the chapter, all robed in purple, sitting round a pall with a presumable coffin underneath.  Little of reverence did they show,—­it is true, the death was not recent, the service being merely commemorative, as we afterwards learned,—­and as the procession shortly afterwards emerged and proceeded down the chapel, the unwashed, unshaven, and sensual countenances of some of highest rank among them gave small reason to believe that they could feel much reverence on any subject whatever.

The Palace itself is as tedious as any other palace:  the Pompeian room follows the Louis Quinze, and is in turn followed by the Chinese, till, for our comfort, we emerged into one large square hall, whose stiff mosaics of archers killing stags, peacocks feeding at the foot of willow-pattern trees, date from the time of Roger.  Another wearisome series of rooms succeeded, which we were bound to traverse in search of a bronze ram of old Greek workmanship, brought from Syracuse.  The work is very good and well-preserved; in fact, no part is injured, save the tail and a hind leg, whose loss the custode ascribed to the villains of the late revolution.  He even charged them with the destruction of another similar statue melted into bullets, if we may believe his incredible tale.  A pavilion over the Monreale gate commands a view right down the Toledo to the sea.

The drive to Monreale is a continued ascent along the skirts of a limestone rock, whose precipices are thickly planted at every foothold with olive, Indian fig, and aloe.  The valley, as it spread below our gaze, appeared one huge carpet of heavy-fruited orange-trees, save where at times a rent in the web left visible the bluish blades of wheat, or the intense green of a flax-plantation.

Monreale is a mere country-town, containing no object of interest, save the Cathedral.  This is a noble basilica, grandly proportioned, the nave and aisles of which are separated by monolith pillars, mostly of gray granite, and some few of cipollino and other marbles, the spoils, no doubt, of the ancient Panormus.  Above the cornice the walls are entirely sheeted with golden mosaics, representing, as usual, Scripture history.