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SICILY.
Any boy who has read Marryat's _Midshipman Easy_ will remember
how that cheeky young Naval officer and a friend of his went for a
spree in an Italian sailing boat from Malta to Sicily, which is eighty
miles away, and how their spree turned into a pretty desperate
adventure.
The boys were attacked by their boat's crew during the night, and they
only saved themselves by using their pistols on the Italian
desperadoes. They eventually landed on the Sicilian coast not far from
Syracuse.
Anyone who has read Count Erbach's diary of his visit to Malta in the
time of the Knights of St. John will remember his exciting experiences
when, on leaving the island, for Sicily, the vessel in which he sailed
had got within sight of Syracuse when a rakish-looking craft, which
proved to be an Algerian pirate, ran out from under the land, and
chased and captured his ship, and carried him off a prisoner to Tunis.
Going farther back, every boy who has read his Greek and Roman history
knows how Syracuse was in ancient days one of the great war harbours
of the Mediterranean.
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