Wed 12 [12 February 1902] Lovely day, the best we have had in
Sicily [Sicilia]. Off about 8.30, the street full of goats and people.
Drove to Segesta which we reached at 10.30. You see the temple
from quite far away and the theatre from still further. The country is a
swelling mass of hills and valleys in great open curves and all green
but mostly treeless. Nothing but a few fruit trees and olives, carubba
and almonds. We drove along the valley of the Scamander - so
named I suppose because of the fanciful relation of Egesta [Segesta]
to Troy - and passed some very hot sulphur springs. It takes a good
1/2 hour to walk up from the road to the temple. The situation beyond
all praise - a backing of steep rocky hill, asphodel overgrown, and a
foreground of hill and valley away and away to the sea. It was not
finished; there is no trace of a cella, the columns are not fluted and the
stones of the stylobate have the carrying knobs on them. It is
sexastyle peripteral, 30 columns in all, the spaces between the
columns being 13 to 5. It is very large and massive, and very severe,
no carving in pediments or metopes, but it struck me as being
remarkably well proportioned - thoroughly satisfying to the eye from
every side. To stand inside it on the lovely carpet of grass with the
uninterrupted lines of columns all round was a most impressive and
lovely thing. One sees the sea through the columns. I photographed
a shepherd with fur cloathed legs - he looked like Pan. Then up to the
theatre, passing the necropolis and through the walls. It stands on the
very top of the hill facing the sea, the wide bay with cliffs, the water was
so still and blue that the high ground was reflected in it. It is
wonderfully perfect. So back to the carriage at 12.15, lunching on our
way. I walked up a long hill and talked to the Vetturino. He told me
how bitter poor everyone was - una propria miseria in Castellamare
[Castellammare del Golfo] in spite of the aria finissima. 2 years ago
the philoxera came and killed nearly all the vines - the dead stumps
are still in the cornfields. Lots of the contadini emigrate to America.
Fine view of Calatafimi and Alcamo from the theatre hill of Eryx [Erice].
Caught a train at 2.40 from Castellamare and reached Castelvetrano
at 4.30 Hotel Bixio passing through a curious rolling country covered
with corn. Walked about the town in which there are many fine houses
and churches of the 18th cent. Talked at dinner to a nice German.