At Chiasso we did what is required at the boundary line of all the countries visited; that is, stop and let the custom-house officials inspect the baggage.  I had nothing dutiable and was soon traveling on through Italy, toward Venice, where I spent some time riding on one of the little omnibus steamers that ply on its streets of water.  But not all the Venetian streets are like this, for I walked on some that are paved with good, hard sandstone.  I was not moved by the beauty of the place, and soon left for Pisa, passing a night in Florence on the way.  The chief point of interest was the Leaning Tower, which has eight stories and is one hundred and eighty feet high.  This structure, completed in the fourteenth century, seems to have commenced to lean when the third story was built.  The top, which is reached by nearly three hundred steps, is fourteen feet out of perpendicular.  Five large bells are suspended in the tower, from the top of which one can have a fine view of the walled city, with its Cathedral and Baptistery, the beautiful surrounding country, and the mountains in the distance.

The next point visited was Rome, old “Rome that sat on her seven hills and from her throne of beauty ruled the world.”  One of the first things I saw when I came out of the depot was a monument bearing the letters “S.P.Q.R.” (the Senate and the people of Rome) which are sometimes seen in pictures concerning the crucifixion of Christ.  In London there are numerous public water-closets; in France also there are public urinals, which are almost too public in some cases, but here in Rome the climax is reached, for the urinals furnish only the least bit of privacy.  One of them, near the railway station, is merely an indentation of perhaps six or eight inches in a straight wall right against the sidewalk, where men, women, and children are passing.

By the aid of a guide-book and pictorial plan, I crossed the city from the gateway called “Porto del Popolo” to the “Porto S. Paolo,” seeing the street called the “Corso,” or race course, Piazza Colonna, Fountain of Treves, Trajan’s Forum, Roman Forum, Arch of Constantine, Pantheon, Colosseum, and the small Pyramid of Caius Cestus.

The Porto del Popolo is the old gateway by which travelers entered the city before the railroad was built.  It is on the Flammian Way and is said to have been built first in A.D. 402.  Just inside the gate is a space occupied by an Egyptian obelisk surrounded by four Egyptian lions.  The Corso is almost a mile in length and extends from the gate just mentioned to the edge of the Capitoline Hill, where a great monument to Victor Emmanuel was being built.  The Fountain of Treves is said to be the most magnificent in Rome, and needs to be seen to be appreciated.  It has three large figures, the one in the middle representing the Ocean, the one on the left, Fertility, and the one on the right, Health.  Women who are disposed to dress fashionably at the expense of a deformed body