ry over to the reptiles and insects of the marshy
fields.

The lodging keeper and his wife in the little station were the only
evidences of humankind still able to exist in this solitude, trembling
with fever, trying to endure the corrupt air, the poisonous sting of
the mosquito, and the solar fire that was sucking from the mud the
vapors of death. Every two years this humble stopping place through
which passed the lucky ones of the earth,--the millionaires of two
hemispheres, beautiful and curious dames, rulers of nations, and great
artists,--was obliged to change its station-master.

The three tourists passed near the remains of an aqueduct and an
antique pavement. Then they went through the _Porta della Sirena_, an
entrance arch into a forgotten quarter of the city, and continued along
a road bordered on one side by marshy lands of exuberant vegetation and
on the other by the long mud wall of a grange, through whose mortar
were sticking out fragments of stones or columns. On turning the last
corner, the imposing spectacle of the dead city, still surviving in the
magnificent proportions of its temples, presented itself to view.

There were three of these temples, and their colonnades stood forth
like mast heads of ships becalmed in a sea of verdure. The doctor,
guide-book in hand, was pointing them out with masterly authority--that
was Neptune's, that Ceres', and that was called the Basilica without
any special reason.

Their grandeur, their solidity, their elegance made the edifices of
Rome sink into insignificance. Athens alone could compare the monuments
of her Acropolis with these temples of the most severe Doric style.
That of Neptune had well preserved its lofty and massive columns,--as
close together as the trees of a nursery,--enormous trunks of stone
that still sustained the high entablature, the jutting cornice and the
two triangular walls of its facades. The stone had taken on the mellow
color of the cloudless countries where the sun toasts readily and the
rain does not deposit a grimy coating.

The doctor recalled the departed beauties and the old covering of these
colossal skeletons,--the fine and compact coating of stucco which had
closed the pores of the stone, giving it a superficial smoothness like
marble,--the vivid colors of its flutings and walls making the antique
city a mass of polychrome monuments. This gay decoration had become
volatilized through the centuries and its colors, borne away b