SICILY AND MALTA. 197
braces them up, and setsthem to rights again.
Now, in Naples, and in many otherplaces
in Italy, where its violence is not to be
compared to this, it is often attended with
putrid disorders, and seldom fails to pro-
duce almost a general dejection of spirits.
It is true, indeed, that there the Sirocc lasts
for many days; nay, even for weeks; so
that, as its essects are different, it pro-*-
bably proceeds likewise from a different
cause,
I have not been able to procure any good
account of this very singular object in the
climate of Palermo. The causes they assign
for it are various, though none of them, I
think, altogether satisfactory.
I have seen an old fellow here, who has
written upon it. He says, it is the same wind
that is so dreadful in the sandy deserts of
Africa, where it sometimes proves mortal
in the spacc of half an hour. He alleges
O 3 that
braces them up, and setsthem to rights again.
Now, in Naples, and in many otherplaces
in Italy, where its violence is not to be
compared to this, it is often attended with
putrid disorders, and seldom fails to pro-
duce almost a general dejection of spirits.
It is true, indeed, that there the Sirocc lasts
for many days; nay, even for weeks; so
that, as its essects are different, it pro-*-
bably proceeds likewise from a different
cause,
I have not been able to procure any good
account of this very singular object in the
climate of Palermo. The causes they assign
for it are various, though none of them, I
think, altogether satisfactory.
I have seen an old fellow here, who has
written upon it. He says, it is the same wind
that is so dreadful in the sandy deserts of
Africa, where it sometimes proves mortal
in the spacc of half an hour. He alleges
O 3 that