In the afternoon, we are again in St Peter’s; this time, to find it almost crowded. At three, the ‘holy relics’ are exposed. These are—the handkerchief given by St Veronica to the Saviour as He passed on His way to the cross, and on which there is said to be the impression of His face; the lance with which His side was pierced; the head of St Andrew; and a portion of the true cross. They are presented to the public gaze from a balcony at an immense height, on one of the four great buttresses which support the dome. There is a rattle of small drums, and priests with white vestments appear on the balcony, holding up certain magnificent jewelled caskets of different shapes, amidst the dazzling settings of which it is quite impossible to recognise any object in particular. The kneeling throng, the vast dim church, the clouds of incense, the roll of drums, the sudden appearance of the glittering figures on the balcony, their disappearance, followed by the noise of the crowds as they quickly move and talk, after the dead silence during the exposure of the objects of veneration, combine to make this a most striking and impressive scene. Then, in the Capello Papale, follows the service of the Tenebræ, as it is called, with the singing of the Lamentations and the Miserere. The quietness of the now densely packed crowd, the soft music, and the glimmer of the few lights left in the dim chapel, strike one with a novel effect, after the somewhat careless and florid services usually conducted here. Emerging thence, the vast space of the cathedral looks larger than ever in the twilight, and the brilliant line of lights round the shrine of St Peter seem to glitter with double lustre; these, however, with all others, are soon extinguished, and the great basilica remains in darkness with covered crucifixes and stripped altars till Saturday morning. The ‘crowd’ as it seemed within the small chapel, appears nothing outside, and one by one the listeners disappear through the heavy leathern curtain that screens the door, finding by contrast the great piazza a scene of brilliant light, but quiet with what seems a strange stillness in the midst of a crowded city.