text:  Among the most striking peculiarities of the interior or street views presented to the stranger's eye at Palermo are its very unusually situated convents buildings which even in cities are commonly and naturally in _retirement_; but here in whichever of the most public ways you walk a number of extraordinary trellised balconies are observed on the upper stories of almost every large house while business and bustle of all kinds are transacted as usual in the street below