I did not attempt to visualize the desert-dweller or his activities as I descended the steps that lead from this lovely hill to the Tiber, for I was soon lost in contemplation of a view with which I was very familiar but which now presents itself at a different angle, for I had never been down this well-worn stone staircase. The little street led first past the fine old Salviati Palace, a vast, massive structure built apparently to provide a sumptuous _piano nobile_ and a great impressive court. It has, I suppose, a definite architectural beauty, but to me it looks merely massive, cumbersome, and overgrown. It reminds of nothing so much as of a lady whose figure, once worthy of admiration, had become altered by the adipose that is fatal to beauty. From here it is but a few steps to the Villa Farnesina, with its priceless possessions from Raphael's hand, but my way leads me across the rickety iron suspension bridge immediately in front of the Salviati Palace, to cross which one must pay a penny. From the middle of this bridge one gets a stunning view of the Castle of S. Angelo and the Holy Ghost Hospital. The latter, an enormous Renaissance structure, accommodates upward of five thousand patients. It looks to-day much as illustrations of it show that it looked five hundred years ago. In those days it was the last cry in hospitals, but it is far from that to-day. In fact, as a hospital it leaves much to be desired. I go there sometimes to visit the library, which has one of the largest collections of incunabuli in the world. As you look over it from the end of the Ponte Ferro, the dome of St. Peter's seems as if it were suspended from the heaven and its marvellous symmetry is most impressive. When you look at the dome of St. Peter's and the church together, there is something a little incongruous. I do not attempt to define it, but it is the same thing that you get when you look at a man whose hat doesn't fit.