Palermo,
Saturday, April 7, 1787.
In the public gardens, which are close to the roadstead, I have passed some most delightful hours. It is the most wonderful place in the world: regularly laid out by art, it still looks a fairy spot; planted but a short time ago, it yet transports you into ancient times. Green edgings surround beds of the choicest exotics; citron-espaliers arch over low-arboured walks; high walls of the oleander, decked with thousands of its red carnation-like blossoms, dazzle the eye; trees wholly strange and unknown to me, as yet without leaf, and probably, therefore, natives of a still warmer climate, spread out their strange-looking branches. A raised seat at the end of the level space gives you a survey of these curiously mixed rarities, and leads the eye at last to great basins in which gold and silver fish swim about with their pretty movements,—now hiding themselves beneath moss-covered reeds, now darting in troops to catch the bit of bread which has tempted them from their hiding-place. All the plants exhibit tints of green such as we are not used to,—yellower and bluer than are found with us. What, however, lent to every object the rarest charm was a strong halo which hung around everything alike, and produced the following singular effect: objects which were only distant a few steps from others were distinguished from them by a decided tint of light blue, so that at last the distinctive colours of the most remote were almost merged in it, or at least assumed to the eye a decidedly strong blue tint.
The very singular effect which such a halo imparts to distinct objects, vessels, and headlands, is remarkable enough to an artistic eye: it assists it accurately to distinguish and, indeed, to measure distances. It makes, too, a walk on the heights extremely charming. One no longer sees Nature, nothing but pictures; just
