CATACOMBS OF PALERMO. 21 
was struck with the wonderful variety and marked expression 
of character in the faces and forms around me. There were 
progressive dates of death, extending from remote centuries 
up to the present period, the niches being so arranged as to 
admit of a regular order of deposit. Many of the bodies 
stood erect, as if just lifted from the death-bed; the faces 
colorless, and the horrible agonies of dissolution stamped upon 
the features ; the lower jaws hanging upon the breast; the 
teeth grinning and glistening between the parched lips, and 
the black hue of sickness about the mouth and around the 
sunken sockets of the eyes; and in some the sightless orbs 
were open and staring with a wild glare of affright, asfif 
peering into the awful mysteries of the future; while others 
wore a grotesque laugh of derision still more appalling, with 
the muscles of the mouth drawn up, the eyebrows lifted, the 
head tilted knowingly on one side, the hair matted in horny 
tufts, the bare spots on the skulls, like the piebald wig of a 
harlequin ; the skeleton arms outstretched, and the bony fin¬ 
gers spread as if to clutch the relentless destroyer, and wrestle 
