Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 12.djvu/425

Rh reposes in a sort of melancholy fertility,—everywhere well cultivated, but scarce a dwelling to be seen. Flowering thistles were swarming with countless butterflies; wild fennel stood here from eight to nine feet high, dry and withered, of the last year's growth, but so rich, and in such seeming order, that one might almost take it to be an old nursery-ground; a shrill wind whistled through the columns as if through a wood; and screaming birds of prey hovered around the pediments.

The wearisomeness of winding through the insignificant ruins of a theatre took away from us all the pleasures we might otherwise have had in visiting the remains of the ancient city. At the foot of the temple, we found large pieces of the hornstone. Indeed, the road to Alcamo is composed of vast quantities of pebbles of the same formation. From the road a portion of a gravelly earth passes into the soil, by which means it is rendered looser. In some fennel of this year's growth, I observed the difference of the lower and upper leaves: it is still the same organisation that develops multiplicity out of unity. They are most industrious weeders in these parts. Just as beaters go through a wood for game, so here they go through the fields weeding. I have actually seen some insects here. In Palermo, however, I saw nothing but worms, lizards, leeches, and snakes, though not more finely coloured than with us: indeed, they are mostly all gray.

From Alcamo to the Castel Vetrano you come on the limestone, after crossing some hills of gravel. Between precipitous and barren limestone mountains, lie wide, undulating valleys, everywhere tilled, with scarcely a tree to be seen. The gravelly hills are full of large boulders, giving signs of ancient inundations of the sea.