“In one part we saw, through a long avenue of arches, an iron-grated door; within was a dim light which just sent its feeble rays upon some objects in its neighborhood, not strong enough to show what they were.  It required no great effort of the imagination to fancy an emaciated, spectral figure of a monk poring over a large book which lay before him.  It might have been as we imagined; we had not time to examine, for the sound of music far above us summoned us into the regions of day again, and we arrived in the body of the church just as the trumpets were sounding from the balcony within the church over the great door of entrance.  The effect of the sound was very grand, reverberating through the lofty arches and aisles of the church.

“We got sight of the head of the procession coming in at the great door, and soon after the Pope, borne in his crimson chair of state, and with the triple crown upon his head and a crimson, gold-embroidered mantilla over his shoulders, was seen entering accompanied by his fan-bearers and other usual attendants, and after him the cardinals and bishops.  The Pope, as usual, made the sign of the cross as he went.

“The procession passing up the great aisle went round to the back of the great altar, where was the canopy for the Pope and seats for the cardinals and bishops.  The Pope is too feeble to go through the ceremony of high mass; it was, therefore, performed before him by one of the cardinals.  There was nothing in this ceremony that was novel or interesting; it was the same monotonous chant from the choir, the same numberless bowings, and genuflections, and puffings of incense, and change of garments, and fussing about the altar.  All that was new was the constant bustle about the Pope, kissing of his toe and his hand, helping him to rise and to sit again, bringing and taking away of cushions and robes and tiaras and mitres, and a thousand other little matters that would have enraged any man of weak nerves, if it did not kill him.  After two hours of this tedious work (the people in the mean time perfectly inattentive), the ceremony ended, and the Pope was again borne through the church and the crowd returned.”

On July 7, Morse, with four friends, left Rome at four o’clock in the morning for Naples, where they arrived on the 11th after the usual experiences; beggars continually marring the peaceful beauty of every scene by their importunities; good inns, with courteous landlords and servants, alternating with wretched taverns and insolent attendants.  The little notebook detailing the first ten days’ experiences in Naples is missing, and the next one takes up the narrative on July 24, when he and his friends are in Sorrento.  I shall not transcribe his impressions of that beautiful town or those of the island of Capri.  These places are too familiar to the visitor to Italy and have changed but little in the last eighty years.

Prom Capri they were rowed over to Amalfi, and narrowly escaped being dashed on the rocks by the sudden rising of a violent gale.  At Amalfi they found lodgings in the Franciscan monastery, which is still used as an inn, and here I shall again quote from the journal:—­