You are coming, I will suppose, from Ostia, and enter therefore by the “Porta San Paolo;” the gate where legends tell that Belisarius sat and begged.  I have chosen this out of the dozen entrances as recalling fewest of past memories and leading most directly to the heart of the living, working city.  You stand then within Rome, and look round in vain for the signs of a city.  Hard by a knot of dark cypress-trees waves above the lonely burial-ground where Shelley lies at rest.  A long, straight, pollard-lined road stretches before you between high walls far away; low hills or mounds rise on either side, covered by stunted, straggling vineyards.  You pass on.  A beggar, squatting by the roadside, calls on you for charity; and long after you have passed you can hear the mumbling, droning cry, “Per l’amore di Dio e della Santa Vergine,” dying in your ears.  On the wall, from time to time, you see a rude painting of Christ upon the cross, and an inscription above the slit beneath bids you contribute alms for the souls in purgatory.  A peasant-woman it may be is kneeling before the shrine, and a troop of priests pass by on the other side.  A string of carts again, drawn by bullocks, another shrine, and another troop of priests, and you are come to the river’s banks.  The dull, muddy Tiber rolls beneath you, and in front, that shapeless mass of dingy, weather-stained, discoloured, plaster-covered, tile-roofed buildings, crowded and jammed together on either side the river, is Rome itself.  You are at the city’s port, the “Ripetta” or quay of Rome.  In the stream there are a dozen vessels, something between barges and coasting smacks, the largest possibly of fifty tons’ burden, which have brought marble from Carrara for the sculptors’ studios.  There is a Gravesend-looking steamer too, lying off the quay, but she belongs to the French government, and is employed to carry troops to and from Civita Vecchia.  This is all, and at this point all traffic on the Tiber ceases.  Though the river is navigable for a long distance above Rome, yet beyond the bridge, now in sight, not a boat is to be seen except at rare intervals.  It is the Tiber surely, and not the Thames, which should be called the “silent highway.”

A few steps more and the walls on either side are replaced by houses, and the city has begun.  The houses do not improve on a closer acquaintance; one and all look as if commenced on too grand a scale, they had ruined their builders before their completion, had been left standing empty for years, and were now occupied by tenants too poor to keep them from decay.  There are holes in the wall where the scaffolding was fixed, large blotches where the plaster has peeled away; stones and cornices which have been left unused lie in the mud before the doors.  From the window-sills and from ropes fastened across the streets flutter half-washed rags and strange apparel.  The height of the houses makes the narrow streets gloomy even