GIRGENTI, a city in the south of Sicily, at the head of a province of its own name, occupies a fine position about 3 miles from the coast on a platform of Mount Camicus, more than 1100 feet above the level of the sea. It lies about 60 miles S.S.E. of Palermo, with which it is connected by a railway 90 miles long. As seen from the lower ground Girgenti presents a grandiose but sombre appearance, with its buildings rising in close array from ancient substructions and the steep rocks of the mountain; but within it is for the most part mean, monotonous, and melancholy, the streets with few exceptions being confined, irregular, steep, and ill-paved, and the houses all presenting the same greybrown walls, the same reddish roofs, and the same narrow doors and narrow windows. The cathedral, begun in the 14th century, has still an impressive effect, in spite of the incongruous mixture of styles; but the interior is a typical specimen of modern rococo. The acoustic conditions are sufficiently peculiar: a word spoken in the softest whisper at the entrance can be distinctly heard behind the choir, 100 paces off. One of the chapels contains the shrine and bears the name of St Gerlando, the first bishop of Girgenti; the altar-piece is a Virgin and Child by Guido Reni; and in the north aisle there stands a marble sarcophagus now used as a font, with fine rilievos, probably of Roman workmanship after a Greek original, representing the story of Hippolytus and Phaedra. Not only are the archives of the cathedral rich in historic documents of the Norman period, but they profess to contain an autograph letter of the devil himself. Among the other churches, upwards of forty in number, S. Maria dei Greci is worthy of note as preserving two Doric pillars which had belonged to the temple of ...