y feet in depth, but quite clear, so that
you can see the pebbles at the bottom and fishes swimming to and fro
among the weeds. Papyrus plants edge the pool; thick and tufted,
they are exactly such as one sees carved or painted upon Egyptian
architecture of the Ptolemaic period.

With Thucydides still in hand, before quitting Syracuse we must
follow the Athenian captives to their prison-grave. The Latomia de'
Cappuccini is a place which it is impossible to describe in words,
and of which no photographs give any notion. Sunk to the depth of a
hundred feet below the level of the soil, with sides perpendicular
and in many places as smooth as though the chisel had just passed
over them, these vast excavations produce the impression of some
huge subterranean gallery, widening here and there into spacious
halls, the whole of which has been unroofed and opened to the air of
heaven. It is a solemn and romantic labyrinth, where no wind blows
rudely, and where orange-trees shoot upward luxuriantly to meet the
light. The wild fig bursts from the living rock, mixed with
lentisk-shrubs and pendent caper-plants. Old olives split the masses
of fallen cliff with their tough, snakelike, slowly corded and
compacted roots. Thin flames of pomegranate-flowers gleam amid
foliage of lustrous green; and lemons drop unheeded from femininely
fragile branches. There too the ivy hangs in long festoons, waving
like tapestry to the breath of stealthy breezes; while under foot is
a tangle of acanthus, thick curling leaves of glossiest green,
surmounted by spikes of dull lilac blossoms. Wedges and columns and
sharp teeth of the native rock rear themselves here and there in the
midst of the open spaces to the sky, worn fantastically into notches
and saws by the action of scirocco. A light yellow calcined by the
sun to white is the prevailing colour of the quarries. But in shady
places the limestone takes a curious pink tone of great beauty, like
the interior of some sea-shells. The reflected lights too, and
half-shadows in their scooped-out chambers, make a wonderful natural
chiaroscuro. The whole scene is now more picturesque in a sublime
and grandiose style than forbidding. There is even one spot planted
with magenta-coloured mesembrianthemums of dazzling brightness; and
the air is loaded with the drowsy perfume of lemon-blossoms. Yet
this is the scene of a great agony. This garden was once the
Gethsemane of a nation, where 9000 free men of the prou