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carried by the mules being filled, the ascent is effected alonga similar inclined spiral road ; but a very extraordinaryfeature in this vast construction is, that there are two roads,one above the other, so that the mules and persons descend-ing, and those ascending, see nothing of each other. Thewhole is cut out of a solid mass of Tuffo lava, without aj crack.
1 At the period I am now writing of, murders, and what wein England call “manslaughters,” with the stilo, were atRome “as plenty as blackberries.” This was the period ofthe first restoration of the Pope by Napoleon (!) (Pius VII .)It was evident to any one of common sense that impunityalone was the cause of the evil. All the sympathies of theignorant people, but more especially of the priests andmonks, whose business it is in all countries to deceive man-kind, were enlisted on the side, not of the murdered, butof the murderer. One day, as I was returning from anglingin the lake of the Villa Borgliese, walking across thePiazza del Popolo , some men of the lower order wereplaying at cards in a corner. A dispute arose, and beforeten words had passed, one of the party stabbed the other tothe heart. The assassin walked leisurely, with his bloodyknife in his hand, towards the gate of the city, at whichwas a guard of soldiers. Of course I expected to see himstopped by the sentinels, who witnessed the actual blowgiven; but a friar, who happened to be present, with violentgesticulations, and invoking the name of Jesus, with ex-[ pressions of compassion for the murderer, induced the sen-tinels to allow him to pass, which he did, with the mostimperturbable coolness imaginable!
Returning one Sunday evening from a long country walkwith my friends Martyr and Kay, as we were crossing thebridge of St. Angelo, then thronged with people, we werestartled by the discharge of fire-arms, and a sudden rush of
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