into the
Guide Book; but he did _not_ ask him, because he knew that Mr. George
did not like to have dried plants in the Guide Book. Such specimens
between the leaves of a book interfere very much with the convenience of
using it, by dropping out when you open the book, or impeding the
turning of the leaves.

"But I mean to come again," continued Rollo, "and bring my pressing
book, and then I can get as many specimens as I please. Wouldn't you,
uncle George?"

"Wouldn't you what?" said Mr. George. Mr. George had been paying very
little attention to what Rollo had been saying.

"Come again some day," said Rollo, "and bring my pressing book, so as to
collect specimens of some of these little plants."

"Yes," said Mr. George, "that will be an excellent plan. And I wish,
while you are doing it, you would gather some for me. And if you wish
for some now, I can let you put them in the Guide Book."

"No, I thank you," said Rollo. "I will wait till I come again."

The height of the outer walls of the Coliseum is over a hundred and
fifty feet, which would be the height of a house fifteen stories high.
There are not many church steeples higher than that.

If, therefore, you conceive of an oval-shaped field six acres in
extent, with a massive wall one hundred and fifty feet high, and divided
into four immense stories, surrounding it, and from the top of this wall
ranges of seats, with passages between them, sloping in towards the
centre, leaving about an acre of open and level space in the centre for
the arena, the whole finished in the most magnificent and gorgeous
manner, with columns, statues, sculptured ornaments, and all the seats,
and walls, and staircases, and corridors, and vestibules, and tribunes,
and pavilions for musicians, and seats for judges, designed and arranged
in the highest style of architectural beauty, and encased and adorned
with variegated marbles of the most gorgeous description,--if, I say,
you can conceive of all this, you will have some faint idea of what the
Coliseum must have been in the days of its glory.

Mr. George and Rollo continued to ascend the different staircases which
they met with in their wanderings, until at length they had reached a
great elevation; and yet so immense was the extent of the interior of
the edifice, that they were not at all too high to see the arena to
advantage. Here Rollo crept out upon one of the sloping platforms, where
there had formerly been seats for spect