gray coating like that which has gathered upon the statues of Castor and
Pollux on Monte Cavallo. Not one of the great blocks is displaced, nor
seems likely to be through all time to come. They rest one upon another,
in straight and even lines, and present a vast smooth triangle, ascending
from a base of a hundred feet, and narrowing to an apex at the height of
a hundred and twenty-five, the junctures of the marble slabs being so
close that, in all these twenty centuries, only a few little tufts of
grass, and a trailing plant or two, have succeeded in rooting themselves
into the interstices.

It is good and satisfactory to see anything which, being built for an
enduring monument, has endured so faithfully, and has a prospect of such
an interminable futurity before it. Once, indeed, it seemed likely to be
buried; for three hundred years ago it had become covered to the depth of
sixteen feet, but the soil has since been dug away from its base, which
is now lower than that of the road which passes through the neighboring
gate of San Paolo. Midway up the pyramid, cut in the marble, is an
inscription in large Roman letters, still almost as legible as when first
wrought.

I did not return through the Paolo gateway, but kept onward, round the
exterior of the wall, till I came to the gate of San Sebastiano. It was
a hot and not a very interesting walk, with only a high bare wall of
brick, broken by frequent square towers, on one side of the road, and a
bank and hedge or a garden wall on the other. Roman roads are most
inhospitable, offering no shade, and no seat, and no pleasant views of
rustic domiciles; nothing but the wheel-track of white dust, without a
foot path running by its side, and seldom any grassy margin to refresh
the wayfarer's feet.