Young Knights of the Empire Part 30

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.

THE EAR OF DIONYSIUS.

In the neighbourhood are the great quarries in which the slaves not only worked, but also lived. They were made to cut the walls so that they inclined inwards, and therefore could not be climbed.

The only entrance to the quarries was by ladder, so there was no escape for a man once he got in there.

There are huge caves cut in the walls of the quarries in which the slaves lived, and one of these caves has been cut into a narrow cleft exactly on the principle of the inside of your ear. So that anyone sitting at the top of the cleft can hear every word that is being spoken or even whispered in the cave below.

It is said that Dionysius, the ruler of Syracuse, had this made so that he could sit in the cleft (where there is a little chamber with private door) unknown to the people in the cave, and there he could overhear all that the prisoners talked about and plotted among themselves.

The whole cave is called "The Ear of Dionysius."

I remember a similar kind of "ear" in a natural cave in Matabeleland.

It was here that one of the native sorcerers used to hide himself, and when he whispered through a crack in the rocks it could be heard all over the cave.

The people believed that it was the voice of a G.o.d speaking to them, so they used to come and pray to him for advice, and the old villain told them that they must rise up and murder all the white people, and their chief, Lobengula, who had long been dead, would come to life and lead them against their enemies once more.

He had nearly persuaded them to come out on the war-path, when Burnham, the American scout, made his way into the secret part of the cave and shot the supposed G.o.d while he was preaching murder.

CARTS IN SICILY.

A curious thing that strikes you in Sicily is the kind of cart and harness used by the country people.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SICILIAN PAINTED CART AND DECORATED HARNESS.]

The cart is a light, two-wheeled affair of an ordinary kind, but every inch of it inside and out as far as the ends of the shafts and down the spokes of the wheels, is painted in gaudy colours, for the most part yellow, blue, red, and green.

Pictures of incidents in Bible history, of the war against the Turks in Tripoli, of ballet dancers, etc., are to be seen on most of these carts, while on others ornamental patterns only are painted.

Then the harness of the horse is of a very gaudy kind when new, but being largely made up of cheap gold braid and coloured cloth, it soon fades and looks tawdry.

A MUSICAL SADDLE.

In place of a bit there is a steel noseband on the horse's bridle by which he is driven and guided, and instead of the ordinary pad on the horse's back, a great ornamental bra.s.s affair is used.

Years ago I bought one of these pads and brought it home as a curiosity. A friend met me as I was bringing it along, and said:

"Hullo! what on earth is this? Surely it must be some sort of musical instrument. Look here! I am getting up a concert; you _must_ bring your instrument and play it there. Will you?"

Of course, I always like to oblige a friend, and I did not like to disappoint this one, so I meekly promised.

I chose a beautiful piece of high-cla.s.s music, and got the orchestra to practise it over as accompaniment to my instrument, the "sellura."

I tuned it by winding the bra.s.s flags which adorn it.

I fingered the k.n.o.bs up and down the front of it as if they were the notes; the big projections on either side I pulled as if to alter the tone.

And the music? Well, I got that out of a comb and paper affixed to the back, and into which I sang.

But, mixed up with the other instruments, it sounded all right, and I got lots of applause and lots of questions afterwards as to where you could buy these wonderful organs, and how long did it take one to learn to play them, and so on!

TAORMINA.

Six hundred feet up on a mountain spur overhanging the sea stands the little town of Taormina.

Long ago it was chosen as a beauty spot by the Romans and Greeks, and here they had their villas and baths and theatre.

The theatre stands to this day, in ruins, it is true, but sufficiently whole to show what an ancient theatre was like.

One can sit in the upper circle and look down upon the "pit" and "orchestra," and the marble pillars and wall which formed the back of the stage in those days in place of scenery.

But an earthquake has thrown down the greater part of the back wall, and has thereby opened up a beautiful view of the coast of blue water and white sand far below, and of the purple slopes and snowy crest of Mount Etna above--a scene such as no scene painter could have equalled.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE THEATRE AT TAORMINA.]

Among the quaint and ancient buildings of the town stand the old monastery and church of San Domenico. The monastery is now the chief hotel, and with the splendid view from its windows and its pretty gardens makes a charming place to stay at in this most charming spot.

NAPLES. - VESUVIUS.

Naples is a city lying around a great bay on the Italian coast, and behind it, about ten miles distant, rises the double-peaked mountain, Vesuvius. Vesuvius is, as you know, a volcano and a thin cloud of smoke is always coming out of it.

When I visited Naples a few years ago, the mountain was shaped like this:

[Ill.u.s.tration: ]

Now it is like this

[Ill.u.s.tration: ]

It lost its peak in one night, and I was there the night that it happened.

I was sleeping peacefully in my hotel, when I was awakened in the middle of the night by heavy bangings, and it at once occurred to me that the artillery were firing guns in the street below my window.