Which was the commander, nobody could tell, for every one was giving orders. The slightest manœuvre caused a clatter and bawling that made me think the masts were going overboard. If there was a rope as big as a tom-cod-line to be pulled, the whole crew would string themselves along it, yo! heave ho! tug it an inch and a half, puff and blow, thump and clamor, as if it were a case of life and death. Every man must have a finger in what was going on, even to cuffing the cabin-boy. The men squatted down upon deck to their meals all in a group, and fell to cracking jokes and cutting capers together. The helmsman sat in a chair to steer, and moved his seat as often as he luffed or bore away. A little hop-off-my-thumb fellow, with a comically dirty face and ragged breeches, sat upon a bucket to watch the hour-glass in the binnacle. We had only seventy or eighty miles to sail from Malta to Sicily, with a fair wind and a smooth sea, but the fuss and clatter during the navigation of this short space were prodigious. All hands were running fore and aft, looking out ahead and astern, bustling around the man at the helm, peeping at the compass, and jabbering and gesticulating as if they were in the most imminent danger. At daylight the next morning, we found ourselves close under the Sicilian shore, with Mount Ætna in the north, towering up majestically to the heavens, like a huge pyramid of snow with a black spot at the top. It was more than seventy miles off. About ten in the forenoon we arrived at Syracuse, a city which was once ten times as big as Boston, but is now almost entirely depopulated. It has a noble harbor, but we found only a few fishing-boats there; and when we landed at the quay, hardly a living being was to be seen: everything looked solitary, ruinous, and forlorn. I walked through the streets, but saw no signs of trade, commerce, or industry. A few people were sitting lazily before their doors, sunning themselves; and numbers of beggars dogged my heels wherever I went. Now and then I met a donkey with a pannier of greens, but no such thing as a wagon or chaise. When I got to the market-place, I saw groups of people sitting in the sun or lounging idly about, but no business doing. I could not help smiling to see a constable, who was strutting up and down to keep the peace among this pack of lazy fellows. He wore a great, long, tattered cloak, a huge cocked hat, a sword, and he had a most flaming, fiery visage, with a nose like a blood-beet. I never saw such a swaggering figure in my life, before. He happened to spy a little urchin pilfering a bunch of greens, on which he caught him by the nape of the neck with one hand, and drawing his sword with the other, gave him a lusty thwacking with the flat of the blade. The little rogue kicked and squalled, and made a most prodigious uproar, which afforded great amusement to the crowd: they seemed to be quite familiar with such adventures.