standing, six on one side of his Holiness and six on the other. The pope
bent his head upon the prie-dieu, and seemed to spend three or four
minutes in prayer; then rose, and all the purple cardinals, and bishops,
and priests, of whatever degree, rose behind and beside him. Next, he
went to kiss St. Peter's toe; at least I believe he kissed it, but I was
not near enough to be certain; and lastly, he knelt down, and directed
his devotions towards the high altar. This completed the ceremonies, and
his Holiness left the church by a side door, making a short passage into
the Vatican.

I am very glad I have seen the pope, because now he may be crossed out of
the list of sights to be seen. His proximity impressed me kindly and
favorably towards him, and I did not see one face among all his cardinals
(in whose number, doubtless, is his successor) which I would so soon
trust as that of Pio Nono.

This morning I walked as far as the gate of San Paolo, and, on
approaching it, I saw the gray sharp pyramid of Caius Cestius pointing
upward close to the two dark-brown, battlemented Gothic towers of the
gateway, each of these very different pieces of architecture looking the
more picturesque for the contrast of the other. Before approaching the
gateway and pyramid, I walked onward, and soon came in sight of Monte
Testaccio, the artificial hill made of potsherds. There is a gate
admitting into the grounds around the hill, and a road encircling its
base. At a distance, the hill looks greener than any other part of the
landscape, and has all the curved outlines of a natural hill, resembling
in shape a headless sphinx, or Saddleback Mountain, as I used to see it
from Lenox. It is of very considerable height,--two or three hundred
feet at least, I should say,--and well entitled, both by its elevation
and the space it covers, to be reckoned among the hills of Rome. Its