It will be asked, however, if this is really the place where St. Cecilia was buried, and if Paschal really visited the adjoining chapel, how is it possible that he could have had any difficulty in finding her tomb? To this we reply, first, by reminding our readers of the condition in which the Catacombs were at that time: these translations of relics were being made, because the cemeteries in which they lay were utterly ruined. But, secondly, it is very possible that the doorway, or the recess, or both, may have been walled up or otherwise concealed, for the express purpose of baffling the search of the sacrilegious Lombards. Nor is this mere conjecture. Among the _débris_ of this spot De Rossi has found several fragments of a wall, too thin ever to have been used as a means of support, but manifestly serviceable as a curtain of concealment; and, although, with that perfect candour and truthfulness which so enhances all his other merits, he adds that these fragments bear tokens of belonging to a later date, this does not prove that there had not been another wall of the same kind at an earlier period; for he is able to quote from his own discoveries the instance of an _arcosolium_ in another Catacomb, which was thus carefully concealed in very ancient times by the erection of a wall. However, be the true explanation of this difficulty what it may, our ignorance on this subject cannot be allowed to outweigh the explicit testimony of Paschal and the other ancient witnesses now so abundantly confirmed by modern discoveries.