text:  Leaving Palermo early we pass _Monreale_ in our way to the Doric columns of _Segeste_ and find ourselves before the heat of day has reached its greatest intensity at a considerable elevation above the plain on which the capital stands amidst mountains which except in the difference of their vegetation remind us not a little of the configuration of certain wild parts of the Highlands where Ben Croachin flings his dark shadow across Loch Awe