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292 there can be no doubt of that, for here the great dramas of Æschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, and Aristophanes were received with as much enthusiasm as at Athens. I sat there on an upper seat; silence everywhere; lizards peep out and run about the stones; some artists are at work; through the arches of the stage, which is partly ruined, I could see the cone of Mt. Etna, snow-clad, twenty miles distant. The inevitable small boy appears: "Would the Signor like a guide? He knows the path up to old fortress of Mola—up there 1,500 feet,—or Monte Venere still higher?" Then he followed me like a dog through the narrow streets, and when I turned into a shop to get my hair cut, came in, took a seat, and, seeing that I paid the proper sum, nodded approval: "Va bene"—all right. I asked him why he didn't work. "Oh, yes, he did work often to help his mother." So I gave him some coppers, and a day or two later, when leaving Taormina, we passed him cutting wood,—"Ecco mi, Signor,"—"See me, hard at work!"

Another characteristic town, twenty miles from Palermo; the "Thermæ Imerense" of old Greek days; a naval base where, in 480 B.C., they defeated the Carthagenian fleet that was raiding Sicily on the very day that at Marathon the Greeks defeated the Persian host,—two decisive battles which saved Europe from African and Oriental domination.

Our party of three were the only English folk in the town. Most tourists pass the place by. Our hotel was a spacious building, frequented by Sicilians chiefly in summer for bathing and the hot springs, which are included in the hotel precincts. These springs were famous in old days and gave the town its name. The personnel and the cuisine of the hotel