I was next conducted into a large hall, in which the patients walk and amuse themselves, when wet weather prevents them from going out. This place was adorned with a profusion of flowers, growing in pots and vases, and the walls were covered with fresco paintings, representing humorous subjects. The hall contained embroidery frames, spinning-wheels, and even weavers' looms; all presented traces of the work on which the lunatics had been engaged. Having passed through the great hall, I was conducted to the garden, which was tastefully laid out, shaded by large spreading trees and watered by fresh fountains. I was informed that, during the hours allotted to recreation, most of the patients may be seen wandering about the garden separately, and without holding any communication one with another, each following the bent of his or her own particular humor, some noisy and others silent. One of the most decided characteristics of madness is the desire of solitude. It seldom happens that two lunatics enter into conversation with each other; or, if they do so, each merely gives utterance to his own train of thought, without any regard to what is said by his interlocutor. It is different when they converse with the strangers who occasionally visit them. They then attend to any observations addressed to them, and not unfrequently make very rational and shrewd replies. The first patient we met on entering the garden, was a young man apparently about six or eight-and-twenty years of age. Before he lost his senses, he was one of the most distinguished advocates in Catania. One evening, at the theatre, he got involved in some dispute with a Neapolitan, who, instead of quietly putting into his pocket the card which Lucca (as I shall call him) slipped into his hand, went out and made a complaint to the guard. This guard was composed of Neapolitan soldiers, one of whom gladly availing himself of the opportunity of exercising authority over a Sicilian, seized him by the collar, whereupon Lucca struck his assailant. The other soldiers came to the aid of their comrade, and a violent struggle ensued, in the course of which Lucca received a blow on the head which felled him on the ground. He was conveyed to prison in a state of insensibility and placed in a cell, where he was left for the night. Next morning, when it was intended to conduct him before the judge for examination, he was found to be perfectly insane.