An antiquary, being at Malta, cannot pass a portion of an idle day more agreeably than in visiting some singular sepulchral chambers not far from Notabile, which are built in a rocky eminence, and with entrances several feet from the ground. These are very possibly the tombs of the earliest Christians, who tried in their erection "to imitate that of our Saviour, by building them in the form of caves, and closing their portals with marble or stone." When looking at these tombs from a terrace near the Cathedral, we were strongly reminded of those which were seen by our lately deceased friend Mr. John L. Stephens, and so well described by him in his Incidents of Travel in eastern lands. Had we time or space, we should more particularly refer to several other interesting remains now scattered over the island, and, among them, to that curious sepulchre not a long time ago discovered in a garden at Rabato. We might write of the inscription on its walls, "In pace posita sunt," and of the figures of a dove and hare which were near it, to show that the ashes of those whom they buried there were left in peace. We might also make mention, more at length, of a tomb which was found at the point Beni Isa in 1761, having on its face a Phœnician inscription, which Sir William Drummond thus translates:
"The interior room of the tomb of Ænnibal, illustrious in the consummation of calamity. He was beloved. The people, when they are drawn up in order of battle, weep for Ænnibal the son of Bar Malek."
Sir Grenville Temple remarks, that the great Carthaginian general is supposed, by the Maltese, to have been a native of their island, and one of the Barchina family, once known to have been established in Malta; while some writers have stated that his remains were brought from Bithynia to this island, to be placed in the tomb of his ancestors; and this supposition, from what we have read, may be easily credited.
Might I ask if there is any writer, ancient or modern, who has recorded that Malta was not the burial-place of Hannibal?
W. W.
Malta.
Minor Notes.
Waterloo.—I do not know whether, in any of the numerous lives of the late Duke of Wellington, the following fact has been noticed. In Strada's History of the Belgian war (a work which deserves to be better known and appreciated than it is at present), there occurs a passage which shows that, about three hundred years since, Waterloo was the scene of a severe engagement; so that the late sanguinary struggle was not the first this battle-ground has to boast of. The passage occurs in Famianæ Stradæ de Bello Belgico, Decas prima, lib. vi. p. 256., edit. Romæ, 1653; where, after describing a scheme on the part of the insurgents for surprising Lille, and its discovery by the Royalists, he goes on:
"Et Rassinghemius de Armerteriensi milite inaudierat: nihilqve moratvs selectis centvmqvinqvaginta peditibvs et equitibus sclopetariis fermè qvinqveginta prope Waterlocvm pagvm pvgnam committit."