their prayers, ascended the steps, kissed over and over again the margin
of the silver altar, laid their foreheads upon it, and then deposited an
offering in a box placed upon the altar's top. From the dulness of the
chink in the only case when I heard it, I judged it to be a small copper
coin.

In the inner part of this chapel is preserved a miraculous picture of the
"Santissima Annunziata," painted by angels, and held in such holy repute
that forty thousand dollars have lately been expended in providing a new
crown for the sacred personage represented. The picture is now veiled
behind a curtain; and as it is a fresco, and is not considered to do much
credit to the angelic artists, I was well contented not to see it.

We found a side door of the church admitting us into the great cloister,
which has a walk of intersecting arches round its four sides, paved with
flat tombstones, and broad enough for six people to walk abreast. On the
walls, in the semicircles of each successive arch, are frescos
representing incidents in the lives of the seven founders of the church,
and all the lower part of the wall is incrusted with marble inscriptions
to the memory of the dead, and mostly of persons who have died not very
long ago. The space enclosed by the cloistered walk, usually made
cheerful by green grass, has a pavement of tombstones laid in regular
ranges. In the centre is a stone octagonal structure, which at first I
supposed to be the tomb of some deceased mediaeval personage; but, on
approaching, I found it a well, with its bucket hanging within the curb,
and looking as if it were in constant use. The surface of the water lay
deep beneath the deepest dust of the dead people, and thence threw up its
picture of the sky; but I think it would not be a moderate thirst that
would induce me to drink of that well.