fessor takes it, and in an almost incredibly brief space of time, it disappears. Your maccaroni-eater is very primitive in his habits. With him, such a thing as a knife, fork, or spoon, is quite superfluous. "But, did you pay for such an exhibition as this?" Candor compels me to reply that I did. I confess to having invested the sum of two cents in maccaroni, which a half-starved fellow ate, in his best style, for my edification and his own. If you will promise not to laugh at me for the investment aforesaid, I will give you a portrait of this maccaroni-eater, in the very act of performing the feat.

A little distance out of the city, about fifteen minutes' walk from my hotel, is the tomb of Virgil, or, at any rate, the spot which is pointed out as such. Some visitors think there is not sufficient evidence that this is the tomb of the celebrated poet. But it is always pleasanter to me to believe these traditions than to disbelieve them; and when I possibly can, I give them a place in my creed. I see no reason to discredit the notion, so generally believed among the Neapolitans, that Virgil was actually interred here. At all events, I visited the spot with the same interest as if the thing were indubitably settled among the critics. The sun had just set, when I applied to the woman who has the custody of the vault, for permission to enter it, and an unclouded moon was shining sweetly upon the calm waters of the bay, near the shore of which the tomb is situated. For a carlino, a small silver coin, the woman gladly conducted me through the gate leading from the street, and there she left me to shift for myself. A group of boys, each one of whom was unnecessarily clamorous to be my especial cicerone on the occasion, and all of whom, save one, I tried in vain to dismiss, showed me up a winding path, to the brow of a rocky hill, and led me thence into a grotto in which tradition says the far-famed Roman poet was buried. By the light of a torch which one of my conductors had provided, I saw enough to satisfy me that the tomb was in a most deplorable state. There was a slab in it, bearing, it is true, unmistakable evidence of great antiquity, on which was an inscription importing that this was the veritable resting-place of the poet. There was another slab, too, of more recent origin, telling the whole story. But the grotto was filthy, and uninviting to the last degree

I plucked a wild flower or two which bloomed near the entrance, and departed with my whole juvenile escort at my heels, each crying lustily for a grano.

A little beyond the spot, known as Virgil's tomb, is a famous tunnel cut through a solid rock. It is called la grotto di Pausilippo. I cannot tell you when this great work was executed, but it was probably before the time of the Romans. The object of it was, to facilitate the travel between Naples and the beautiful villages near it in that direction. This cavern is from eighty to ninety feet high, about thirty feet wide, and upwards of nine hundred yards long. A great many people, in carriages and on foot, are constantly passing through the grotto. There is a fine echo in the middle of it. In the centre there is a chapel of the Virgin Mary, at which I observed many people on foot stopped to pay their devotions.

A pleasant drive of less than an hour brings us to Pozzuoli, called Puteoli at the beginning of the Christian era. This place is celebrated on several accounts. There was a splendid temple here dedicated to Jupiter Serapis. The ruins of this edifice are among the most interesting in southern Italy. The temple was built when Rome was about six hundred years old, but it was by no means old before it was ruined by an earthquake. It remained for centuries buried beneath a mass of rubbish; a soil had accumulated above it, and its site had become lost, until, in 1750, a peasant by accident discovered the top of one of the columns a few inches above the ground, when the entire ruins were exhumed. Everything of value, connected with this magnificent temple, has been removed, to grace more modern edifices, except the columns. These remain, for a very obvious reason. They are too heavy to be carried off. They are formed of a single block of marble, and are among the most splendid specimens of the kind I ever saw. The pavement of the temple is of beautiful marble. Near the middle of the temple, are two rings of brass, to which, in the olden time, were fastened the victims intended for slaughter. The receptacles for their blood and ashes are still in a good state of preservation. So are the bathing rooms of the priests, where, probably, the sick came to avail themselves of consecrated water, the virtues of which were so much raunted by the priesthood.

On an elevation above the present village is a large amphitheatre. It has been a great deal damaged by earthquakes; but for all that, there is no old theatre which I saw, south of Rome, in so perfect a state as this. Everybody who visits Naples ought to see this edifice. Here you can learn more in ten minutes, about the construction of these celebrated places of amusement among the old Romans, than you could by studying plans of such edifices for long hours. This amphitheatre was capable of holding forty-five thousand people. Here, to crowds of admiring men and women, were exhibited those barbarous spectacles the very thought of which now causes the blood to chill in our veins. On that spot yonder, in the centre of the arena, strong men, without the slightest provocation, contended with each other. There they fought, encouraged by the multitude, until one or the other fell, perhaps to rise no more. Then rose the shouts of the spectators, peal on peal, drowning the groans of the dying man. Then the victor was crowned, with the utmost pomp

and ceremony.

"Do you see that dark, narrow passage yonder ?" asked our guide, "leading from the arena into the street?" We nodded assent. "Through that passage," said the old man, "were dragged the bodies of the dying gladiators." The sight made my heart sick, for well I remembered the testimony of history in respect to the fate of those who were unsuccessful in the arena. Their bodies were treated in the most shameful and inhuman manner. Among the ancient Roman amusements, was that of fighting wild beasts, singlehanded, in the theatre. When one of these beasts fell, its body was dragged out, with hooks, through this dark passage. The bodies of the gladiators shared the same fate!

Pozzuoli is interesting, too, on another account. It was here, when the place was called Puteoli, that Paul landed, after a long and dangerous voyage on the Mediterranean. It was here that he found brethren, with whom he remained a week, and from this town he departed for Rome. There was a fine road, at that time, all the way from Puteoli to the great metropolis of the Roman empire, and so there is at this very day. The same road, with very little variation, over which Paul traveled, is the one by which I ceeded from Rome to Naples.

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They tell us, too, that it was at Puteoli that the embassy from Carthage landed, on their way to Rome, to sue for peace at the termination of the Punic war.

Have you ever heard of the Campo Santo at Naples? This is a remarkable cemetery, situated a little more than a half-hour's drive from the heart of the city. It is remarkable in more than one respect. In the first place, it is quite as beautiful as any I saw in Europe, not excepting the celebrated Père la Chaise, near Paris. Some of the monuments here are very costly and magnificent. Multitudes of flowers bloom in every part of the enclosure. The choicest trees and shrubbery abound there. It would seem, indeed, that the Neapolitans have spared no pains, in providing here everything which can contribute to render a cemetery attractive. There is one peculiarity which distinguishes all cemeteries in Roman Catholic countries from those which are found among Protestants. Romanists, you are aware, believe in the existence of such a state as purgatory, that is, an unhappy state, into which the souls of mankind pass, immediately after leaving the body, and from which they are eventually delivered, only through the agency of the prayers of the living. The effects of this unscriptural doctrine are apparent everywhere in Italy, and in no place more strikingly than in cemeteries. Sometimes there is a large cross elevated in front of the tomb. Even the tombs themselves are often fitted up as altars, and the friends of the dead who slumber there resort to these altars, to pray for the repose of the souls of these departed ones. In the Campo Santo at Naples, many of the tombs are built in the form of chapels. In almost, perhaps I may say all of them, you will see either an image of the Virgin, or a cross, and frequently both. Nothing is more common than to see a parent, a husband, a wife, a brother, a sister, kneeling in or before one of these shrines, calling upon the Saviour, or the holy Virgin-for they oftener pray to the mother of our Lord than to our Lord himself-to have mercy upon the soul who has recently departed. They frequently visit the graves of their friends by night, and spend an hour in prayer there.

Such a scene as this is would affect you much. I was sometimes touched to tears by it, though, as I need not tell you, the Bible gives us no authority to pray for the dead, and on the contrary, explicitly