pilgrims and devotees in later ages, who had come here—­many of them from distant lands—­to pay their respects at the graves of the saints and martyrs.  Two of these pilgrims, from the diocese of Salzburg, visited these Catacombs in the eighth century, and left behind an account of their visit, which has afforded a valuable clue to Cavaliere de Rossi in his identification of the chambers and graves.  Passing from this open space, I soon reached a sepulchral chapel, lined with the graves of the earliest popes—­many of them martyrs—­who were buried here for about a century, from the year 200 to the year 296 of our era.  The gravestones of four of them have been found, with inscriptions in Greek.  A beautiful marble tablet by Pope Damasus, who died in 384, stands where the altar of the chapel originally stood, and records the praises of the martyrs whose remains lay in the neighbouring chambers; ending with a wish that he himself might be buried beside them, only he feared that he was unworthy of the honour.  This good Pope, like an older “Old Mortality,” made it a labour of love, to which he consecrated his life, to rediscover and adorn the tombs which had been hidden under an accumulation of earth and rubbish during the fearful persecution of Diocletian.

From this chapel of the Popes I came through a narrow passage to a wider crypt, where the body of St. Caecilia was laid after her martyrdom in her own house in Rome, in the year 224.  There is a rude painting of this saint on the wall, clothed with rich raiment, and adorned with the jewels befitting a Roman lady of high station.  And at the back of a niche, where a lamp used to burn before the shrine of the saint, is painted a large head of our Saviour, with rays of glory around it shaped like a Greek cross.  This is said to be the oldest representation of our Lord in existence, and from it all our conventional portraits have been taken.  Doubts have, however, been thrown upon this by others, who assert that all the paintings in this chamber are not older than the seventh century.  After this, I wandered on after my guide through innumerable narrow galleries hewn out of the soft reddish-brown rock, and opening in all directions; all lined with horizontal cavities for corpses, tier above tier, in which once were crowded together old and young,—­soldiers, martyrs, rich and poor mingling their dust together, as in life they had shared all things in common.  Here social distinctions were abolished; side by side with the obscure and unknown slave were some of the most illustrious names of ancient Rome.  These shelves are now empty, for nearly all the bones and relics of the dead have been removed to different churches throughout Europe.  Even the inscriptions that were placed above each grave—­on marble tablets—­have been taken away, and now line the walls of the museums of St. John Lateran and the Vatican.  A few, however, remain in their place; and I know nothing more affecting than the study of these.  For the most part, they are very short, containing only the name and date; sometimes only an initial letter or a rudely-drawn cross, indicating that it was a time of sore trial, when such hurried obsequies were all that the imminent danger allowed.  Sometimes I came upon a larger record—­such as, “Thou sleepest sweetly in God;” “In the sleep of peace.”