My companion proposed a visit next to the Cloaca Maxima. A _common sewer_, after the Temple of Vesta, sounds like an abrupt transition; but the arches beneath which we descended were touched by moonlight, and the vines and ivy crossed our path, and instead of a drain of filth, which the fame of its imperial builder would scarce have sweetened, a rapid stream leaped to the right, and disappeared again beneath the solid masonry, more like a wild brook plunging into a grotto than the thing one expects to find it. The clear little river _Juturna_ (on the banks of which Castor and Pollux watered their foaming horses, when bringing the news of victory to Rome), dashes now through the Cloaca Maxima; and a fresher or purer spot, or waters with a more musical murmur, it has not been my fortune to see. We stopped over a broken column for a drink, and went home, refreshed, to bed. FOOTNOTE: [3] On my way to Rome (near Radicofani, I think), we passed an old man, whose picturesque figure, enveloped in his brown cloak and slouched hat, arrested the attention of all my companions. I had seen him before. From a five minutes' sketch in passing, Mr. Cole had made one of the most spirited heads I ever saw, admirably like, and worthy of Caravaggio for force and expression. LETTER XLIV. MASS IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL--THE CARDINALS--THE "LAST JUDGMENT"--THE POPE OF ROME--THE "ADAM AND EVE" CHANTING OF THE PRIESTS--FESTA AT THE CHURCH OF SAN CARLOS--GREGORY THE SIXTEENTH, HIS EQUIPAGE, TRAIN, ETC. All the world goes to hear "mass in the Sistine chapel," and all travellers describe it. It occurs infrequently and is performed by the Pope. We were there to-day at ten, crowding at the door with hundreds of foreigners, mostly English, elbowed alternately by priests and ladies, and kept in order by the Swiss guards in their harlequin dresses and long pikes. We were admitted after an hour's pushing, and the guard retreated to the grated door, through which no woman is permitted to pass. Their gay bonnets and feathers clustered behind the gilded bars, and we could admire them for once without the qualifying reflection that they were between us and the show. An hour more was occupied in the entrance, one by one, of some forty cardinals with their rustling silk trains supported by boys in purple. They passed the gate, their train bearers lifted their cassocks and helped them to kneel, a moment's prayer was mumbled, and they took their seats with the same servile assistance. Their attendants placed themselves at their feet, and, taking the prayer-books, the only use of which appeared to be to display their jewelled fingers, they looked over them at the faces behind the grating, and waited for his Holiness.