DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70302#0051
CATACOMBS OF THE ANCIENT SYRACUSANS.
35
intelligent traveller:—We were conducted by an old
Capuchin friar into these celebrated tombs, and were
obliged at the entrance to creep on our hands and knees,
but we soon found the place sufficiently lofty. The streets
and alleys into which these vaults are cut, cross each
other in every direction, and had our guide extinguished
his torch, we must have remained in this dismal abode,
till relieved by the hand of death, as it would be very dif-
ficult for a stranger to find his way out, even with a light;
without it, impossible. At certain distances we came to
large round chambers, whose dome-like roof admitted a
small portion of light and air from an aperture in the up-
per part. The walls of these rooms were covered with a
sort of stucco, and round them were placed, in uniform
directions, a number of stone coffins, like those we saw
on each side of the alleys. These were excavated from
the solid rock, and of various dimensions, some appear-
ing scarcely large enough for a new-born infant. We
were informed that skeletons had been found in some of
them, with a piece of money in their jaws, perhaps to
pay the ferry-man of the Styx for their passage to the re-
gions of Pluto.
We next proceeded to a monastery of Capuchins on
an eminence near the sea. It is a neat and airy building,
placed on a barren rock, without any appearance of vege-
tation near it. But no sooner had we paid our respects
to the reverend fathers, than we were conducted by them
into subterraneous gardens, where verdure and vegetation
flourished in the highest degree. The scene appeared
like enchantment; nor could we at first devise the cause
of it, till on examination we discovered that they were
the same sort of excavations as the quarries we had before
visited, the soil of which being, by labour and cultiva-
tion, rendered rich and productive, is become a luxuriant
orchard of orange, lemon, and olive trees.
f 2 The
35
intelligent traveller:—We were conducted by an old
Capuchin friar into these celebrated tombs, and were
obliged at the entrance to creep on our hands and knees,
but we soon found the place sufficiently lofty. The streets
and alleys into which these vaults are cut, cross each
other in every direction, and had our guide extinguished
his torch, we must have remained in this dismal abode,
till relieved by the hand of death, as it would be very dif-
ficult for a stranger to find his way out, even with a light;
without it, impossible. At certain distances we came to
large round chambers, whose dome-like roof admitted a
small portion of light and air from an aperture in the up-
per part. The walls of these rooms were covered with a
sort of stucco, and round them were placed, in uniform
directions, a number of stone coffins, like those we saw
on each side of the alleys. These were excavated from
the solid rock, and of various dimensions, some appear-
ing scarcely large enough for a new-born infant. We
were informed that skeletons had been found in some of
them, with a piece of money in their jaws, perhaps to
pay the ferry-man of the Styx for their passage to the re-
gions of Pluto.
We next proceeded to a monastery of Capuchins on
an eminence near the sea. It is a neat and airy building,
placed on a barren rock, without any appearance of vege-
tation near it. But no sooner had we paid our respects
to the reverend fathers, than we were conducted by them
into subterraneous gardens, where verdure and vegetation
flourished in the highest degree. The scene appeared
like enchantment; nor could we at first devise the cause
of it, till on examination we discovered that they were
the same sort of excavations as the quarries we had before
visited, the soil of which being, by labour and cultiva-
tion, rendered rich and productive, is become a luxuriant
orchard of orange, lemon, and olive trees.
f 2 The