Along the sides of these galleries were innumerable niches and recesses cut in the rock as places of deposit for corpses; they were probably all full, thousands of years ago. Here and there we found a solitary bone, which I gazed at with feelings of awe as the relic of an ancient generation. The place appeared to me like a great subterranean city whose inhabitants had all deserted it. The age of it is unknown; not even tradition can tell it. It was used as a hiding-place by the early Christians during times of persecution, and must have been found admirably suited to that purpose: thousands and thousands of people might conceal themselves beyond all search in its immense extent of winding and perplexing avenues, which run into one another, and would lead any one astray who was not perfectly familiar with all their turnings and windings.
In one of the large halls we found two ancient hand-mills for corn and oil, which had been used by the inhabitants of this dark abode. Every passage and room is full of secret nooks and openings, into which the inmates might creep for safety in case of surprise. Great numbers of names and inscriptions are cut in all parts of the rock; and the sides and ceiling of the narrow galleries are blackened with the smoke of torches. Strange and overpowering were the sensations that came upon me as I followed my guide through these drear avenues and halls of death. In spite of my confidence in him, it was impossible not to feel an apprehension of being lost among the innumerable turnings and windings of this dark labyrinth. Now and then we would stop and contemplate the striking effect of our flickering torches, which threw red gleams of light along the walls, and seemed to show us indistinct forms flitting hither and thither amid the darkness beyond.
We stood still, held our breath, and marked the drear silence that reigned around, where the sound of a footstep or a whisper struck the ear like an unhallowed intrusion breaking the still repose of the ancient dead. Then we shouted and listened to the hollow echoes that rumbled through the rocky mansion, and died away in the distance, among miles of long galleries and reverberating caverns. No scene could be more impressive—I almost expected the dead inmates of this gloomy abode to start up before my face, and greet me with the accents of three thousand years ago. We traversed one long passage after another, but the labyrinth appeared to be endless. The excavations are said to be fifteen miles in extent; they may be twice as long for aught I know: the only wonder is that any man ever undertook to measure them. After all I have said, the reader will have no adequate conception of these wonderful abodes: he must go to the spot to know what they really are.
I never knew the light of day so cheerful, delicious, and exhilarating as when I got out of this dark place, into the open air; it seemed like passing from death to life. The little monk was very thankful for a ninepence which I gave him for his trouble in showing me through the catacombs.
Going along one of the streets of the town, I saw a statue of St. Paul, shaking the viper from his hand. This is believed to be the spot where the house stood in which he lodged while in the island. There is a bay on the southwestern shore, where, according to tradition, he was shipwrecked. This I determined to visit, and hired a stout boy, whom I found in the street, to show me the way. We travelled over a road on the bare rock, very rough, and which grew rougher every mile. The country was pretty much like what I have mentioned, parcelled out into little square inclosures, with low cabins in the sides of the walls, looking like dog-kennels, but designed as lodging-places for the men who guard the fields by night. By-and-by the road began to descend, and I soon found we were close to the sea. I was obliged to clamber down the ragged rocks, but my companion jumped from cliff to cliff like a goat. We soon reached the margin of the bay, and he conducted me to a bold projection in the rocky shore, which tradition has marked out as the precise spot where the ship which was bearing St. Paul to Rome, struck the land, as related in the twenty-seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.
I walked out to the extremity of the point, against which the sea was dashing, and sat down upon the rock to enjoy the feelings excited by the history of this interesting place. I gazed for some time upon the wild scene around me, and called up in imagination the shadows of the beings who, 1800 years ago, had figured in these events. Here stood the shipwrecked apostle and beheld the same wild and rugged prospect that strikes the eye at the present moment, for hardly a single point in the landscape appears to have undergone any change since his time. There is a chapel on the shore a few yards from the water, and two or three castles on the eminences around; these are all the buildings in sight. Three or four ragged boys were picking up shells on the beach, but no other living creature was to be seen. I saw the sun sink into the ocean, and was obliged to hasten my return, lest the city gates should be closed.
(To be continued.)
Wit.—Some one observed to a wag on one occasion, that his coat seemed to have been made too short; to which he replied, that “it would be long enough before he got another.”