ithout this requisite. Neither he
himself nor Mr. George had observed the name of the hotel where the
coachman whom they had employed, on their arrival, had finally left
them; and in going out Rollo forgot to observe what it was. He did not
even take notice of the name of the street. He did observe, however,
that the hotel had a small open space, like a square, before it, with a
fountain on one side. The water from the fountain flowed into a small
stone basin, with curious figures sculptured on the side of it.

"Let us go and look at this basin," said Charles, "and see if it would
not be a good place for us to sail little boats."

The basin was in a cool and pleasant place, being overshadowed by the
drooping branches of a great tree. Rollo, however, did not wish to stay
by it long.

"Let us go now and see the streets of Rome," said he; "we can come out
and look at this basin at any time."

So the two boys walked along, paying little attention to the direction
in which they were going.

"We shall find some of the great streets pretty soon," said Rollo, "and
then we will take an observation."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Charles.

"Why, we will take particular notice of some great building, or
something else that is remarkable where we come out into the street, and
by that means we shall be able to find our way back to the hotel."

"Yes," said Charles, "that will be an excellent plan."

So the boys went on, and presently they came out into what seemed to be
quite a busy street. It was not very wide, but it was bordered with
gay-looking shops on each side. These shops were for the sale of models,
specimens of marbles, Etruscan vases, mosaics, cameos, and other such
things which are sold to visitors in Rome. The number of mosaics and
cameos was very great. They were displayed in little show cases, placed
outside the shops, under the windows and before the doors, so that
people could examine them as they walked along.

"O, what a quantity of mosaics and _cameos_!" exclaimed Rollo.

"What are mosaics and cameos?" asked Charles.

As perhaps some of the readers of this book may not know precisely the
meaning of these words, I will here explain to them, as Rollo did to
Charles, how mosaics and cameos are made.

In the first place, in respect to cameos. Imagine a small flat piece of
stone, of different colors on the two sides, say white and black. We
will suppose that the white extends half through the thickn