By-Paths in Sicily. By Eliza Putnam Heaton. (New York :
E. P. Dutton.)—The late Mrs. Heaton was a clever New York journalist who for reasons of health had to spend seven years in Sicily. She devoted herself to the study of the Sicilian peasantry, their customs and their dialects. We are told that after the Messina earthquake this American lady was called in as an interpreter between Italian officers from the North and the peasants. Her book shows that she made many close friends among the poor and gained an unusual knowledge of their ways. She could not otherwise have written the interesting chapters on Sicilian magic. She translated the second idyll of Theocritus to one of her wise women," who at once recognized the forsaken maiden's "Wreathe the bowl with bright red wool that I may knit the witch-knots against my grievous lover " as a love- charm, which she herself proceeded to perform very much as the old Sicilian poet may have seen it in his day. Six of the chapters are given to descriptions of fairs and festivals, among which " The Miracles of Sant' Alfio " may be noted as a vivid presentation of an astonishing pilgrimage.
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