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Cofano has watched them come and go and will one day see the Madonna dethroned to make way for her successor. But that day will not dawn until, in the Sanctuary or upon the Mountain, the peasants shall stand unmoved before this touching symbol of the universal worship of Motherhood.
All of a sudden you realize what a mistake you had been making about the tumult as the riotous bells fling their additional accompaniments out into the night, all over the town, over the whole comune, down to Trapani, to Cofano and out to the islands.
Standing on the cliff one looks over the plain with Monte San Giuliano closing the view on the left and on the right the mountain promontory of Cofano, a great, isolated, solemn, grey rock, full of caves, sprinkled with green and splashed with raw sienna; between them, two or three kilometres away, is the sea which, I suppose, formerly covered the plain and washed the foot of the cliff.
With streaming eyes they knelt before the painting and prayed without ceasing to the Queen of Heaven that she would be graciously pleased to conduct them safely home. For a long time they met with no response, but when they were nearing Cofano, every sailor heard a voice, as though coming from the picture and declaring that the Madonna desired to be landed on the neighbouring coast.
Besides, it is forty feet below the surface, and another town is now built over it.... Pompeii, on the contrary, was destroyed by a shower of cinders in which there was a much less quantity of water. RÈ DI COFANO, vulg. July 5, 1740, N.S.
The next time I went to Trapani the brigadier, who had been transferred to Custonaci, was guarding the coast between Monte San Giuliano and Cofano; I put off going to see him, however, because it was cold and wet and windy, not weather for excursions into places beyond the reach of civilization.
He would give me his own room all to myself, for he had to be out on duty guarding the coast between Monte San Giuliano and Cofano from 9 p.m. till 6 a.m. and, if he should find the coast quiet and wish to lie down in the early morning, there would be no difficulty, because one of his men had left him, so that he had four beds and only three guards to put into them.
Cofano, looking across to Mount Eryx, saw the earliest appear on some prehistoric morning when man, born of a woman and living by the fruits of the earth, fashioned his first image of the Giver of Life and Increase, vivified it with the spirit of his faith and offered before it the homage of his praise and gratitude.
To the right of us rose Cofano and to our left, on the top of Mount Eryx, where formerly stood the temple of Venus, were the towers of Conte Pepoli's castle, touched by the rising sun and so distinct that we could almost count the stones.
Prominent on the shore, rather nearer to Cofano than to Monte Erice, is the caserma, an oblong white bungalow, and scattered upon the plain are a few fishermen's cottages, but no other dwellings. We first sent a boy off to the caserma to tell the brigadier I had come, and then Mario, after attending to his horses, joined me in the only trattoria in the place and we ate our provisions.
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