e
persecution of the Christians it is said to have been the scene of
fearful barbarities.

On the second day I entered the Pantheon, "the best preserved monument
of ancient Rome," built by Marcus Agrippa, and consecrated to Mars,
Venus, and others. It was burned in the reign of Titus and rebuilt by
Hadrian, and in A.D. 608 Pope Boniface consecrated it as a church. The
interior is shaped like a vast dome, and the only opening for light is a
round hole in the top. Raphael, "reckoned by almost universal opinion as
the greatest of painters," lies buried in the Pantheon behind one of the
altars. I went to Hadrian's Tomb, now the Castle of St. Angelo, and on
to St. Peter's. Before this great church-building there is a large open
space containing an obelisk and two fountains, said to be the finest in
the city, with a semi-circular colonnade on two sides containing two
hundred and eighty-four columns in four rows, and on the top of the
entablature there are ninety-six large statues. There are large figures
on the top of the church, representing Christ and the apostles. The
interior is magnificent. There are three aisles five hundred and
seventy-five feet long, and the middle one is eighty-two feet wide. The
beautifully ornamented ceiling is one hundred and forty-two feet high.
In this building, which was completed three hundred and fifty years
after it was begun, is the reputed tomb of the Apostle Peter, and many
large marble statues. There are figures representing boy angels that
are as large as a full-grown man. The Vatican is not far from St.
Peter's, and I went up to see the Museum, but got there just as it was
being closed for the day. I had a glimpse of the garden, and saw some of
the Pope's carriages, which were fine indeed.

One of the most interesting places that I visited about Rome was the old
underground cemetery called the Catacombs of St. Calixtus. The visitors
go down a stairway with a guide, who leads them about the chambers,
which are but dimly lighted by the small candles they carry. The
passages, cut in the earth or soft rock, vary both in width and height,
and have been explored in modern times to the aggregate length of six
miles. Some of the bodies were placed in small recesses in the walls,
but I saw none there as I went through, but there were two in marble
coffins under glass. In one of the small chambers the party sang in some
foreign language, probably Italian, and while I could not understand
them,