and the Tiber was turned to blood!

[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO.]

[Illustration: ISLAND OF THE TIBER.]

From the bridge of St. Angelo the river is lost again for a long
distance, although one can make one's way to it at various points--where
at low water the submerged piers of the Pons Triumphalis are to be seen,
where the Ponte Sisto leads to the foot of the Janiculum Hill, and on
the opposite bank the orange-groves of the Farnesina palace hang their
golden fruit and dusky foliage over the long garden-wall upon the
river--until we come to the Ponte Quatro Capi (Bridge of the Four Heads)
and the island of the Tiber. This is said to have been formed in the
kingly period by the accumulation of a harvest cast into the stream a
little way above, which the current could not sweep away: it made a
nucleus for alluvial deposit, and the island gradually arose. Several
hundred years afterward it was built into the form of a ship, as bridges
and wharves are built, with a temple in the midst, and a tall obelisk
set up in guise of its mast. In mediæval days a church replaced the
heathen fane, and now it stands between its two bridges, a huddle of
houses, terraces and gardens, whence one looks down on the fine mass of
the Ponte Rotto (Broken Bridge), whose shattered arches pause in
mid-stream, and across to the low arch of the Cloaca Maxima and the
exquisite little circular temple of Vesta. From here down, the river is
in full view from either side until it passes beyond the walls near the
Monte Testaccio--on one side the Ripa Grande (Great Bank or Wharf), a
long series of quays, on the other the Marmorata or marble landing,
where the ships from the quarries unload. Here, on each side, all sorts
of small craft lie moored, not betokening a very extensive commerce from