Cattle are few in number, and mostly poor, owing to the want of the artificial grasses, and to their being neglected and left in the fields without etabliog. Sheep are numerous, but little attention has been paid to improving the breed, and the wool is bad. Cheese is made from ewe' milk. Goats are in many places preferred to sheep. The government has established a stud of foreign stallions to improve the breed of horses. Wolves are common in the mountains and forests, and snakes in the low plains.
The population is distributed very unequally over the surface of the island. The coasts, especially the northern and eastern, are thickly studded with towns, whilst the central part of the island is compa ratively uninhabited. The tract between Messina and Catania is the most populous part of the island, whilst in the west the tract between Alcamo and Trapani is almost a desert. The mountains are generally uninhabited. The want of roads, and the greater resources for in dustry afforded by the -proximity of the sea, servo to explain this inequality.
Sicily was formerly divided into three great divisions, called Valli. 1. Vol di Ma---ara, which comprised the western part of the island; its eastern boundary very nearly coinciding with the northern and southern Ilimera, which both rise in the Hedonist Mountains, and flow—the former northward, under the name of Fiume Grande, into the sea between Cefaln and Termini, the latter southward, under the name of Fiume Salso—into the sea at Alicata. The Fiume Salso has brackish waters after its junction with a small stream that flows from the salt-mines of Caltanisetta, and has obtained its name from this circumstance. 2. Val di Drowse, which comprises the north and north east of the island, as far south as the Simiethus, or Giaretta, including the region of Meth. 8. Val di Nolo, which comprised all the rest of the Island between the Salso and one of the head streams of the Giaretta, which passes San Filippo d'Argyro.
The island is now divided into seven provinces, the area, subdivi sions, and population of which are as follows The government of the island is placed in the bands of a general governor, who is also commander-In-chief of the forces. Each province has its own Intendants, or civil governor; each district its Sothintendente, or subprefect ; and each commune Its Sindaco. or
mayor, as in the continental dominions. 1Nett.ee, voL iii. col. 907.] For judicial purposes the provinces are divided intojudicatures, each having a judge of first instance for criminal and police matters. In the head town of each province is a collegiate court for civil snits. There is a ' Oran Corte Civile,' or High Court of Appeal, in each of tha three principal cities, Palermo, Messina, and Catania, and a supreme court of jwitioe at Palermo. For scientific, instruction there are three universities, Palermo, Messina, and Cataoia ; and 21 colleges in the various provincial towns. There Is an Institute for female education at Palermo; naval schools at Palermo, Termini, Cefalti, and Messina ; a veterinary school at Palermo, and an academy of the fine arta in the same city.
Elementary instruction is much neglected ; some elementary schools exist in the towns, but few in the rural communes. The great majority of the people is illiterate.
The religion of the inhabitants is the Roman Catholic. The eccle siseticel establishment consists of three archbishops—Palermo, Mon reale, and Messina ; 11 bishops—Siracusa, Mariam, Cefalh, I'atti, Nicosia, Piazza, Gerace, Olrgeintl, Caltagirone, Catania, and Lipari; 13 abbacies, and about 80,000 secular priests. The regular clergy *masts of 7591 individuals, including lay brothers, distributed among 653 convents, of which 409 are possessed of property, and 219 an of the mendicant orders. Sicily having remained undisturbed by revolution or French invasion, the property of the convents has remained untouched. There are colonies of Greek or Epirote which have retained the Eastern ritual, hut acknowledge the Pope as their spiritual head, being of what is called United Greeks, who are Catholics in faith, but use the Greek ritual. The head of the Greek clergy resides in Messina, and is subject to the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Messina.
The governor-general represents the king's person, and is often a member of the royal family. He has under him a secretary of state; but all important matters are referred to a section of the council of state sitting at Naples, which section is specially concerned with the affairs of Sicily.