SYRACUSE. 
69 
houses or means of living, and prey upon travelers for the 
wretched pittance by which they support life. 
The whole region around Syracuse is rocky and desolate, 
and so little remains of its ancient grandeur that it requires 
a warm imagination to invest it with sufficient interest to re¬ 
pay a visit. It is difficult to conceive how a city that once 
contained a population of two millions should be reduced to 
such utter ruin : now a mere hill-side of quarries and a dirty 
little town with a population of seventeen or eighteen thou¬ 
sand. Where the land was to support such a population, or 
the port for such a commerce as they would have required, is 
a mystery that can not be solved by any evidences now exist¬ 
ing ; and the probability is that history in this instance, as 
in many others, has greatly exaggerated the facts. 
Some distance from the gates of Ortigia, on an eminence, 
is an old convent, and near it the cemetery in which lie 
buried the remains of two Americans—one a young midship¬ 
man, killed in a duel, and the other a gunner. We visited 
their graves, and took copies of the inscriptions placed upon 
their tombs by some kind shipmates. It was sad, in a for¬ 
eign land, amid the vestiges of ruin and decay, to stand by 
these lonely graves and think how died these two of kindred 
blood and language, so far away from home. The young 
midshipman was cut short in his bright career, not by wasting 
disease, but by the hand of a brother officer. A brief notice 
in the guide-book was all that told the story. He fell in a 
duel, near the place of his burial; and he sleeps his last 
sleep in a far-off land, with none to mourn over his lonely 
grave, none to feel a pang of pity, save the passing stranger. 
This was honor ! Does the slayer of that youth, if he still 
lives, feel that he has done an honorable deed when he thinks 
of the lonely grave of his victim ? Is there a charm in the 
thought to wash out the stain of blood ? Has the admiration 
of the world made him feel in his secret heart that he is the 
braver for having risked his life and slain his fellow-man ? 
Was forgiveness of an injury so base an act that it would 
have embittered his whole future ? Oh, honor, honor ! for 
what dark and bloody crimes hast thou to answer! 
