22 
A GIRA THROUGH SICILY. 
with him to the last. These I fancied were lively fellows, 
who were carried off suddenly after a midnight carouse. I 
sat down on a box containing a dead child, and looked up at 
a row of bodies opposite that attracted my notice in a par¬ 
ticular degree. In the middle stood a rolicking fellow, about 
two years dead, whose sunken eyes appeared still to burn 
with the fire of life and humor. His hands were lifted in a 
deprecating manner over a congregation of corpses sitting on 
a shelf below. Some appeared to be listening; some grinning 
at his humorous harangue ; others, with their heads together, 
seemed to question the propriety of his anecdotes; old gentle¬ 
men, with knitted brows and lantern jaws ; ranges of bodies 
stood on each side of him as if laughing, talking, praying, 
dying, suffering, listening, rejoicing, and feasting at the ban¬ 
quet of death. One little man, in a dingy suit of black, sat 
in a corner; the end of his nose was eaten off by the worms ; 
his mouth was compressed, and had a pinched expression; his 
hands grasped eagerly at something. I thought that little 
man was a miser, whose death was caused by starvation. 
Another figure, a large portly body, stood in a conspicuous 
part of the vault; it was the corpse of a fat old bishop, whose 
jaws were still rotund and smooth with good living, and his 
sleek hair was patted down to his head as with the oil of 
bygone roast beefs and macaroni soups, and his jolly cast of 
countenance betokened a system liberally supplied with the 
juices of life, and a conscience rendered easy by attention to 
the creature comforts. That man lived an easy life, and died 
of good feeding. He was carefully labeled, and carried on his 
wrists a jeweled cross. There stood in another part of the 
vault a fiery orator, with open mouth and distended arms. 
The head was thrown back, the breast partially bare, a few 
tufts of black hair fell from his piebald skull; his round star¬ 
ing eyes were stretched wide open, and his brows arched 
high on his wrinkled forehead ; he looked toward heaven for 
inspiration. I fancied I could hear the flaming torrent, as it 
blazed and crackled and scintillated from his thin ashy lips. 
It was the glowing eloquence of an ardent soul that left its 
parting impress upon the clay ; the form yet spoke, but the 
