One of the most attractive of the mountain-excursions from Palermo is that to the monastery of San Martino. At a height of seventeen hundred feet above the city, in a lonely spot, the monastery stands on another flank of the mountain on which Monreale is also perched. The mule-path from the suburban village of Boccadifalco to San Martino would be worth traversing for its own wild beauty alone. It first enters a gorge between grand cliffs: then, climbing a rocky ascent which commands a superb view of the plain, it runs through a fruitful valley, where the monastery suddenly appears in the front. [Illustration: Palermo.] The monastery of San Martino has been the wealthiest in Sicily. The entrance-hall is on a scale of regal magnificence, adorned with many-colored marbles. The brethren were all of noble extraction. Though the external architecture of the building is not in the best taste, the grand scale on which it is built, and still more the wild, picturesque site, give to the monastery a beauty which even an Italian architect of the last century could not disfigure. Ascending a grand staircase with balustrades of purple marble, an upper hall is reached, from which the wonderful view may be seen to the best advantage. Turning the eye to the north and east across the savage-looking mountains, a short reach of the coast is seen, and beyond is the boundless expanse of sea, dotted on the horizon by the volcanoes of the Æolian Islands, which lie more than a hundred miles away. The abbey abounds in pictures by masters of the seventeenth century, and there is also a museum of Greek and Saracenic remains, but nothing within the walls compares with the interest of the window-views. Attractive as are the sights of Palermo, most of them must be passed over or very hastily visited if the tour of the island is to be made in a month, for the Greek cities beyond demand a greater share of time by reason of their immense antiquity and the grandeur of their remains.