CEFALÙ, mentioned in history as early as 397 B.C., has at the present time ten thousand inhabitants engaged in fishing and seafaring. Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, and Arabs fought for its possession; but it was an ’Act of God’ that made it a place of interest to me, and it is now a social problem of our country that makes it a place of more interest to all of us.

In 1129 King Roger was lost and beaten in a storm on a journey from Naples to Palermo and, offering up a prayer for safe deliverance, promised to erect a church to Christ and His disciples wherever he landed. His ship, so the story is told, touched the shores of Cefalù, and a cathedral was erected befitting the gratitude of such a personage as King Roger.

The cathedral towers over the town, but it in turn is dwarfed by the limestone cliff rising directly in the rear and high above. The style of the architecture records the reign of Norman rulers in Sicily, and recalls certain churches in Caen, France. And now, forlorn, neglected, unappreciated, stands this great pile of stone. A few inveterate loafers block the entrance, and it was heresy for them to move simply because I wanted to see the interior. Stripped of all the furnishings that must have adorned it stood the great nave, flanked by columns of granite majestic in the mission they were performing. There was something in the atmosphere that made me feel the strong pulse this building had in its youth. What pageantry existed at its christening: great processions, rich robes, inspiring chants, strands of incense permeating the air, all commemorating the safe deliverance of King Roger and the fulfillment of his vows!

I was moving with the procession up to the tribune, and here I paused to study the walls covered with mosaics, the finest in all of Sicily. A small door gave out on a Norman cloister where palm trees and the cathedral pooled their shade to entice one to linger in the coolness.

A storm landing King Roger at Ccfalù can be credited with my pilgrimage there eight hundred years later to see mosaics commemorating the event. My interest satisfied, I sauntered in and out among winding streets, down to the sea, and out on a wharf built of hewn stone blocks. Looking back at the town, I could see ledges of rock rising out of the water and, upon these, rough masonry walls leading up to smoother surfaces of stone or stucco, set back, projecting, leaning; and all of these surfaces pierced by openings placed without symmetry, as if forms on the cliff piling up above the houses inspired their creation. And all around me sea, boats, filth, flies, boys, men — young and old, sleeping, playing at games, mending nets or repairing boats, as if one were essential to the other.

As a morsel of food draws insects around it, so my sketch pad gathered all the boys on the wharf, and they had a mischievous interest in every line I drew. Eager to see, they pulled at the pad or turned it to an angle of advantage. My limited Italian vocabulary they could not understand, and their mutterings were less comprehensible to me. A carnivorous fly lit upon an ear and, my hands engaged, I wiggled my ears in an effort to dislodge him. There was a shout full of glee and surprise as one of the urchins noticed the motion. All eyes and interest centred on my ears and a few well-timed wiggles permitted of enough freedom to finish the sketch. Then my levity was sobered. I heard one of the boys say in English, ’How does he do it? Who was this, coming to take me back to my world? I asked, ’How came you here, my lad?’ ’With my father and brother,’ he answered.

Back in a cove in the direction indicated by the boy I saw figures moving, purposeful figures, more alert than their fellow men about me. They slipped into the boat whose bow was slowly showing itself beyond the cove. There was a dull explosion or two, followed by a series in rapid succession. The sleeping men, awakened by the din, rose to rub their eyes. Others dropped their work to gaze out across the bay. Every window along the water front filled up with one, two, or three figures. Inhabitants rushed to the end of the streets and all stared at the sight of one of their boats skimming across the water, driven by an outboard motor, leaving a churned lane in its wake. A modern invention had come to disturb the peace, the quiet, of this primitive town.

I sat later, waiting in the shade of the small station for a train to take me to Taormina, and I looked at the town that had taken me back to antiquity and then rudely dropped me into our modern age again. A figure turned a corner, came into the shade and paused.

Rounded shoulders topped a slender body barely forty, but looking fifty, and as the man came toward me I could see glassy eyes sunken in a bony face covered with pallid skin. A square hand clutched a cane with a willingness to help even in its frailty. From the shell that slumped on a bench came a hollow voice, talking to me.

Yes, he had been in America. Twenty years ago with thousands he went to work on our railroads. In and around Chicago he labored until his savings enabled him to rent a little store. Profits warranted the use of a larger store and then he bought property. Every day and night, every holiday, he worked incessantly, building up his fortune to return, some day, to Sicily. Then fate took the reins. I11 health was the reward. To the hospital he was taken; an operation was necessary. Long weeks recuperating did not retrieve the desired vitality. Sicily called to him. There he could bask in the sun along the shore of his native town, and get well. And here he was, still weak, broken. Had he brought his gleanings with him? No, he held property in America on which he paid one thousand dollars a year for taxes and from which he derived a good income; he felt that his money was safer there. Would he undergo the second operation necessary in Sicily or in Italy? No, he had more faith in our doctors, and was planning to return to the United States.

Not a few Sicilians have come back from America to use their money transforming barren slopes into small gardens, and orchards laden with lemons and oranges. And now while at work they sing of their contentment, their mellow voices in tune with the surrounding color and atmosphere laden with the scent of almond blossoms.

Now it is easier to make money in the United States, I was told. A cane was slowly raised and its quiverings betrayed the trembling hand that held it. Following the direction of the cane, I saw a section of the town I had not explored and I noticed a number of new houses of no mean size and a few under construction. All of these houses were owned by natives, men who had no compunctions about the violation of our prohibition laws, no scruples about their right to supply something that was much sought after and whose acquisition was a subject of boast and a focal point of conversation in many homes. The man I saw in the motordriven boat had been a bootlegger in Baltimore and had just returned with his family to enjoy his spoils. I was directed to two new houses owned by his cousins, retired bootleggers, who, tired of the peace and quiet of Cefalù, closed up their homes and went to dip again into that great pot of gold accessible to them because of our experiment with the prohibition problem.

To visit a town like Cefalù, in a strange land, off the beaten tourists’ path, is conducive of strong emotions. The complete detachment from the modern world is refreshing. All the more stunning is the blow when we hear echoes of all our problems — the daily grind, keen competition; money, money, and the price we pay for it. Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, have left their stamp upon these people, and to-day political struggles in the United States are being reflected in their habits and means of livelihood. Because of the money coming into it from America, Cefalù will probably receive the greatest stimulus it has felt since the time of King Roger.