The Sicilian dialect, also, has caught something of the different languages spoken by the various peoples who have successively inhabited the island, though softened by the poetical genius of the natives, and rendered suitable for verse. The peculiarity of Sicilian music is mentioned by Dr. Burney[73] in his history of that science. It was delightful to hear it on fine moonlight nights from the vessels and boats that entered or crossed the bay. The sailors used to sing many of those hymns which afterwards had such great success in England.
Of flowers they were particularly fond, and cultivated them with great care. They also displayed great taste in arranging flowers to decorate their rooms, and in the adjustment of drapery. The rocky ground and coast of Palermo were covered with the Indian fig, or prickly pear as we call it. The leaves are very large, and the fruit, which the common people devour greedily, is said to be remarkably wholesome. The Sicilians generally enjoyed excellent health, and I suppose there is hardly any civilised country where so little medicine is taken. Cold water was the usual prescription for bruises and abrasions, and it always worked a speedy cure, after more scientific applications had failed.
A grand dinner was given on the 4th June, 1799, at our minister’s, and there was a ball at Court in the evening. About this time I remarked a very singular phenomenon. I observed a little island opposite to us, of a picturesque form, and apparently not much more distant than Capri is from Naples. Whenever there were a few light clouds in the horizon I could clearly distinguish it, but if the sky happened to be entirely cloudless, I could see nothing of it. In answer to my inquiries, I was told that there was no such island visible, and that I must have mistaken a cloud for one. Still I persisted in my belief, because it had always the same shape, and at last I sketched it. On showing this drawing to some of our officers, they said that it resembled one of the Lipari islands which lies at a short distance from the rest of the group. The image of this islet had been reflected on the light clouds when they were at a certain angle to its image in the sea, something in the way of the fairy palaces at Messina of which so much has been said.