ootmen with their threadbare liveries. At last, out of the dreary
waste, at the end of the interminable ill-paved sloughy road, the long
line of the grey tumble-down walls rises gloomily. A few cannon-shot
would batter a breach anywhere, as the events of 1849 proved only too
well. However, at Rome there is neither commerce to be impeded nor
building extension of any kind to be checked; the city has shrunk up
until its precincts are a world too wide; and the walls, if they are
useless, are harmless also; more, by the way, than you can say for most
things here. There is no stir or bustle at the gates. Two French
soldiers, striding across a bench, are playing at picquet with a pack of
greasy cards. A pack-horse or two nibble the blades of grass between the
stones, while their owners haggle with the solitary guard about the
"octroi" duties. A sentinel on duty stares listlessly at you as you
pass,--and you have entered Rome.

You are coming, I will suppose, from Ostia, and enter therefore by the
"Porta San Paolo;" the gate where legends tell that Belisarius sat and
begged. I have chosen this out of the dozen entrances as recalling
fewest of past memories and leading most directly to the heart of the
living, working city. You stand then within Rome, and look round in vain
for the signs of a city. Hard by a knot of dark cypress-trees waves
above the lonely burial-ground where Shelley lies at rest. A long,
straight, pollard-lined road stretches before you between high walls far
away; low hills or mounds rise on either side, covered by stunted,
straggling vineyards. You pass on. A beggar, squatting by the roadside,
calls on you for charity; and long after you have passed you can hear the
mumbling, droning cry, "Per l'amore di Dio e della Santa Vergine," dying
in your ears. On the wall, from time to time, you see a rude painting of
Christ upon the cross, and an inscription above the slit beneath bids you
contribute alms for the souls in purgatory. A peasant-woman it may be is
kneeling before the shrine, and a troop of priests pass by on the other
side. A string of carts again, drawn by bullocks, another shrine, and
another troop of priests, and you are come to the river's banks. The
dull, muddy Tiber rolls beneath you, and in front, that shapeless mass of
dingy, weather-stained, discoloured, plaster-covered, tile-roofed
buildings, crowded and jammed together on either side the river, is Rome
itself. You are at th