Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/326

 We landed at Palermo, after a night passage in a comfortable boat from Naples, leaving one world-famous bay to enter another scarcely less beautiful. Rarely have I seen anything finer than Palermo and the group of mountains round it as we steamed in at sunrise on a white and gold morning. The ship goes alongside the quay, so there was no difficulty at all about landing the car. It was slung, and gently deposited on shore by the ship's crane, and we drove off on it at once to the Villa Igiea. Everything was new to me in Sicily, and I confess that the Igiea was a surprise. One has heard that Sicily is a hundred years behind the times, and that in accommodation the island is deficient. That cannot be said any longer. The Igiea is perfect. Miss Randolph reluctantly admitted that there is nothing better in America. In situation the house is unique, lying under the tall, pink Monte Pellegrino. It was built by the Sicilian millionaire Florio for a sanitarium, but never so used. It is a long building of honey-coloured stone, standing in an exquisite terraced garden that stretches along the sea, and actually overhangs it a charmingly irregular garden, with many unexpected nooks, and sweet-smelling flowers, palms, and all kinds of sub-tropical plants, fountains playing in marble basins, and a huge, half-covered balcony, where everyone except insignificant chauffeurs assemble for tea. Altogether a gay and delightful place, and it is having the effect of bringing to the island a stream of rich and luxury-loving travellers.

From afar I saw Miss Randolph and Aunt Mary breakfasting on the big balcony; and they could not