MALTA AND SICILY. 
213 
they were such complete ruins, and were so 
overgrown with grass and herbage, that it 
required a close examination to convince us 
that these heaps of stones had ever been 
used for the purposes of building. We passed 
over part of a road, in which the ruts 
made by the passing of carriages perhaps 
two thousand years ago, were deeply worn 
into the solid rock; and we ascended the 
ruins of a castle, from the top of which we 
enjoyed a most enchanting view of the sea, 
and of the coast from Syracuse beyond 
Catania, with old Etna towering up into the 
heavens in the back-ground. We visited 
several excavations or Latomias, which are 
supposed to have been quarries originally, 
and afterwards used for prisons; an under¬ 
ground aqueduct, which now answers the 
purpose of conveying water to a mill, and 
the remains of a most magnificent theatre, 
