Any boy who has read Marryat's _Midshipman Easy_ will remember
how that cheeky young Naval officer and a friend of his went for a
spree in an Italian sailing boat from Malta to Sicily, which is eighty
miles away, and how their spree turned into a pretty desperate
adventure.
The boys were attacked by their boat's crew during the night, and they
only saved themselves by using their pistols on the Italian
desperadoes. They eventually landed on the Sicilian coast not far from
Syracuse.
Anyone who has read Count Erbach's diary of his visit to Malta in the
time of the Knights of St. John will remember his exciting experiences
when, on leaving the island, for Sicily, the vessel in which he sailed
had got within sight of Syracuse when a rakish-looking craft, which
proved to be an Algerian pirate, ran out from under the land, and
chased and captured his ship, and carried him off a prisoner to Tunis.
Going farther back, every boy who has read his Greek and Roman history
knows how Syracuse was in ancient days one of the great war harbours
of the Mediterranean.
It was the arsenal where fleets fitted out, and the depot where they
brought back their booties of valuables and slaves after their
victorious raids.
You may imagine, then, that it was interesting to us to steam into the
beautiful bay on a calm, sunny morning, past the old fort which guards
the entrance, and into the back of the island on which the town now
stands.
All was looking sweet and peaceful where for hundreds of years had
been the scene of strife and adventure. The Cathedral and Circus.
The walls of the cathedral are supported by immense columns, which,
500 years before Christ was born, formed the walls of the Temple of
Jupiter.
Many are the signs of the Greek and Roman occupation of the place.
We visited the great open-air circus where gladiators used to fight
each other to the death, and where slaves were given to lions to
devour before the eager eyes of ten thousand spectators. The seats are
still there, and the dungeons of the slaves, and the dens of the wild
beasts.
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