the Hotel d'Europe. I found him just returned from a drive,--a gentleman
of about sixty, or more, with gray hair, a pleasant, intellectual face,
and penetrating, but not unkindly eyes. He moved infirmly, being on the
recovery from an illness. We went up to his saloon together, and had a
talk,--or, rather, he had it nearly all to himself,--and particularly
sensible talk, too, and full of the results of learning and experience.
In the first place, he settled the whole Kansas difficulty; then he made
havoc of St. Peter, who came very shabbily out of his hands, as regarded
his early character in the Church, and his claims to the position he now
holds in it. Mr. K------ also gave a curious illustration, from
something that happened to himself, of the little dependence that can be
placed on tradition purporting to be ancient, and I capped his story by
telling him how the site of my town-pump, so plainly indicated in the
sketch itself, has already been mistaken in the city council and in the
public prints.


February 24th.--Yesterday I crossed the Ponte Sisto, and took a short
ramble on the other side of the river; and it rather surprised me to
discover, pretty nearly opposite the Capitoline Hill, a quay, at which
several schooners and barks, of two or three hundred tons' burden, were
moored. There was also a steamer, armed with a large gun and two brass
swivels on her forecastle, and I know not what artillery besides.
Probably she may have been a revenue-cutter.

Returning I crossed the river by way of the island of St. Bartholomew
over two bridges. The island is densely covered with buildings, and is a
separate small fragment of the city. It was a tradition of the ancient
Romans that it was formed by the aggregation of soil and rubbish brought
down by the river, and accumulating round the nucleus of some sunken