ensures both privacy and the light and air of the great hall. The
bedsteads are of iron; and nothing can exceed the neatness and order of
the apartments. The boys' clothes are kept in another part of the house,
and they take to their dormitories only the clothes that they are using.
Each boy sleeps alone. Several of the Fathers sleep in the hall, in
curtained rooms at the ends of the passage-ways, and a watchman walks
the rounds all night, to guard against fire, and to give notice of
sickness.

The boys have a playground, a gymnasium, and a riding-school. But
although they like riding and fencing, they do not take to the robust
exercises and sports of English schoolboys. An American whom I met here,
who had spent several months at the school, told me that in their
recreations they were more like girls, and like to sit a good deal,
playing or working with their hands. He pointed out to me a boy, the son
of an American mother, a lady to whom I brought letters and kind wishes
from her many friends at the North, and told me that he had more pluck
than any boy in the school.

The roof of the Belen is flat, and gives a pleasant promenade, in the
open air, after the sun is gone down, which is much needed, as the
buildings are in the dense part of the city.

The brethren of this order wear short hair, with the tonsure, and dress
in coarse cassocks of plain black, coming to the feet, and buttoned
close to the neck, with a cape, but with no white of collar above; and
in these, they sweep like black spectres, about the passage-ways, and
across the halls and court-yards. There are so many of them that they
are able to give thorough and minute attention to the boys, not only in
instruction, both secular and religious, but in their entire training
and development.

From the scholastic part of the institution, I passed to the church. It
is not very large, has an open marble floor, a gallery newly erected for
the use of the brethren and other men, a sumptuous high altar, a
sacristy and vestry behind, and a small altar, by which burned the
undying lamp, indicating the presence of the Sacrament. In the vestry, I
was shown the vestments for the service of the high altar, some of which
are costly and gorgeous in the extreme, not probably exceeded by those
of the Temple at Jerusalem in the palmiest days of the Jewish hierarchy.
All are presents from wealthy devotees. One, an alb, had a circle of
precious stones; and the lace alone on a