is deep, and
in places there are pits where excavations have been made. Rubbish
lies around; bits of straw, and grass, and hay, and decayed leather,
and broken bottles, and old bones. A few dirty shepherds pass along,
driving lean and miserable sheep. Further up is a cluster of
wine-carts, with still more curious horses and drivers.

"What is this place?--what those ruins, these fallen monuments, these
hoary arches, these ivy-covered walls? What? This is--

"'The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood;
Here a proud people's passions were exhaled,
From the first hour of Empire in the bud
To that when further worlds to conquer failed;
The Forum where the immortal accents glow,
And still the eloquent air breathes, burns with Cicero!'

"Yet if you go up to one of those people and ask this Question, he
will answer you and tell you the only name, he knows--The Cow Market!'"

"Is that all?" inquired Buttons, as Dick laid down his paper.

"That's all I've written as yet."

Whereupon Buttons clapped his bands to express applause, and all the
others laughingly followed his example.

"Dick," said the Senator, after a pause, "what you have written sounds
pretty. But look at the facts. Here you are writing a description of
Rome before you've seen any thing of the place at all. All that you
have put in that letter is what you have read in books of travel. I
mention this not from blame, but merely to show what a wrong principle
travellers go on. They don't notice real live facts. Now I've promised
the editor of our paper a letter. As soon as I write it I'll read it
for you. The style won't be equal to yours. But, if I write, I'll be
bound to tell something new. Sentiment," pursued the Senator,
thoughtfully, "is playing the dickens with the present age. What we
ought to look at is not old ruins or pictures, but men--men--live men.
I'd rather visit the cottage of an Italian peasant than any church in
the country. I'd rather see the working of the political constitution
of this 'ere benighted land than any painting you can show.
Horse-shoes before ancient stones, and macaroni before statues, say I!
For these little things show me all the life of the people. If I only
understood their cursed lingo," said the Senator, with a tinge of
regret, "I'd rather stand and hear them talk by the hour, particularly
the women, than listen to the pootiest music they can scare up!"

"I tried that game," sai