When we took leave of these simple folks, we took leave of almost the only natural and unprepared aspect of Italian life which we were to see in Rome; but we did not know this at the time.

II.

Indeed, it seems to me that all moisture of romance and adventure has been wellnigh sucked out of travel in Italy, and that compared with the old time, when the happy wayfarer journeyed by vettura through the innumerable little states of the Peninsula,—­halted every other mile to show his passport, and robbed by customs officers in every color of shabby uniform and every variety of cocked hat,—­the present railroad period is one of but stale and insipid flavor.  Much of local life and color remains, of course; but the hurried traveller sees little of it, and, passed from one grand hotel to another, without material change in the cooking or the methods of extortion, he might nearly as well remain at Paris.  The Italians, who live to so great extent by the travel through their country, learn our abominable languages and minister to our detestable comfort and propriety, till we have slight chance to know them as we once could,—­musical, picturesque, and full of sweet, natural knaveries, graceful falsehood, and all uncleanness.  Rome really belongs to the Anglo-Saxon nations, and the Pope and the past seem to be carried on entirely for our diversion.  Every thing is systematized as thoroughly as in a museum where the objects are all ticketed; and our prejudices are consulted even down to alms-giving, Honest Beppo is gone from the steps in the Piazza di Spagna, and now the beggars are labeled like policemen, with an immense plate bearing the image of St. Peter, so that you may know you give to a worthy person when you bestow charity on one of them, and not, alas! to some abandoned impostor, as in former days.  One of these highly recommended mendicants gave the last finish to the system, and begged of us in English!  No custodian will answer you, if he can help it, in the Italian which he speaks so exquisitely, preferring to speak bad French instead, and in all the shops on the Corso the English tongue is de rigueur.

After our dear friends at the Conservatorio, I think we found one of the most simple and interesting of Romans in the monk who showed us the Catacombs of St. Sebastian.  These catacombs, he assured us, were not restored like those of St. Calixtus, but were just as the martyrs left them; and, as I do not remember to have read anywhere that they are formed merely of long, low, narrow, wandering underground passages, lined on either side with tombs in tiers like berths on a steamer, and expanding here and there into small square chambers, bearing the traces of ancient frescos, and evidently used as chapels,—­I venture to offer the information here.  The reader is to keep in his mind a darkness broken by the light of wax tapers, a close smell, and crookedness and