alien from modern sympathies. If they had built their tombs above
ground, one could understand the arrangement better; but no sooner had
they adorned them so richly, and furnished them with such exquisite
productions of art, than they annihilated them with darkness. It was an
attempt, no doubt, to render the physical aspect of death cheerful, but
there was no good sense in it.

We went down also into another tomb close by, the walls of which were
ornamented with medallions in stucco. These works presented a numerous
series of graceful designs, wrought by the hand in the short space of
(Mr. Story said it could not have been more than) five or ten minutes,
while the wet plaster remained capable of being moulded; and it was
marvellous to think of the fertility of the artist's fancy, and the
rapidity and accuracy with which he must have given substantial existence
to his ideas. These too--all of them such adornments as would have
suited a festal hall--were made to be buried forthwith in eternal
darkness. I saw and handled in this tomb a great thigh-bone, and
measured it with my own; it was one of many such relics of the guests who
were laid to sleep in these rich chambers. The sarcophagi that served
them for coffins could not now be put to a more appropriate use than as
wine-coolers in a modern dining-room; and it would heighten the enjoyment
of a festival to look at them.

We would gladly have stayed much longer; but it was drawing towards
sunset, and the evening, though bright, was unusually cool, so we drove
home; and on the way, Mr. Story told us of the horrible practices of the
modern Romans with their dead,--how they place them in the church, where,
at midnight, they are stripped of their last rag of funeral attire, put
into the rudest wooden coffins, and thrown into a trench,--a half-mile,
for instance, of promiscuous corpses. This is the fate of all, except