But now let us no longer tarry in the open air, but go down at once into the catacomb. A staircase stands ready at our side, being in fact a mere restoration of the original entrance. When we get to the bottom, a keen eye may detect upon the plaster of the walls a certain number of _graffiti_, as they are called, or scribblings of names, ejaculations, &c., of very great antiquity. It is comparatively a new thing to pay any attention to these rude scribblings of ancient visitors on the walls of places of public resort, and to take pains to decipher them; but of late years they have proved to be a most interesting subject of study, whether found on the tombs of Egyptian kings in Thebes, on the walls of the barracks and theatres in Pompeii, in the prisons and cellars of Pagan Rome, or, lastly, in the Christian Catacombs. Here especially they have proved to be of immense importance, being, as De Rossi justly calls them, “the faithful echo of history and infallible guides through the labyrinth of subterranean galleries;” for by means of them we can trace the path that was followed by pilgrims to subterranean Rome from the fourth to the seventh century, and identify the crypts or chapels which were most frequently visited. Probably there is no group of ancient _graffiti_ in the world to be compared, either for number or intricacy, with those which cover the wall at the entrance of the crypt we are about to enter; and it must have been a work of infinite labour to disentangle and decipher them. Now that the work has been done for us, however, by the indefatigable De Rossi, we can see that they may be divided into three classes. They are either the mere names of persons, with the occasional adjunct of their titles; or they are good wishes, prayers, salutations, or acclamations, on behalf of friends and relatives, living or dead; or, lastly, they are invocations of the martyrs near whose tombs they are inscribed. Of the names we find two kinds; one, the most ancient and most numerous, scribbled on the first coat of plaster, and in the most convenient and accessible parts of the wall, are names of the old classical type, such as Tychis, Elpidephorus, Polyneicus, Maximus, Nikasius, and the like; the other, belonging manifestly to a somewhat later period, because written on a later coat of plaster, and in more inaccessible places, high above the first, are such as Lupo, Ildebrand, Ethelrid, Bonizo, Joannes Presb., Prando Pr., _indignus peccator_, &c., &c.