of band music. And thus they continue to amuse themselves till the sun
has set, and the first sound of the bells of Ave Maria is heard from
the churches; and then they wind their way homewards.

We pass out from the Piazza through the Porta del Popolo, the only way
by which strangers used to approach Rome from the north. It was indeed
a more suitable entrance into the Eternal City than the present one;
for no human being, with a spark of imagination, would care to obtain
his first view of the city of his dreams from the outside of a great
bustling railway station. But the Porta del Popolo had annoyances of
its own that seemed hardly less incongruous. One had to run the
gauntlet of the custom-house here, and to practise unheard-of
briberies upon the venal douaniers of the Pope before being allowed to
pass on to his hotel. And the first glimpse of the city from this
point did not come up to one's expectations, being very much like that
of any commonplace modern capital, without a ruin visible, or any sign
or suggestion of the mistress of the world. The Porta del Popolo
almost marks the position of the old Flaminian gate, through which
passed the great northern road of Italy, constructed by the Roman
censor, C. Flaminius, two hundred and twenty years before Christ,
extending as far as Rimini, a distance of two hundred and ten miles.
Through that old gate, and along that old road, the Roman cohorts
passed to conquer Britain, then a small isle inhabited by savage
tribes. Hardly any path save that to Jerusalem has been trodden by so
many human feet as this old Flaminian road. The present gate is said
to have been designed by Michael Angelo; but it shows no signs of his
genius. On the inner side, above the keystone of the arch, is a lofty
brick wall in the shape of a horse-shoe, built exclusively for the
purpose of displaying in colossal size, emblazoned in stucco, the city
arms, the sun rising above three or four pyramidal mountains arranged