with Etrurian antiquities, in which the district adjoining Civita Vecchia on the north is particularly rich; and the sight of these was more than worth the moderate charge of one paul, which was made for my visee. At length I got this business off my hand; and, having secured my seat in the _diligence_ for Rome, I had leisure to take a stroll through the town. Civita Vecchia, though the port of Rome, and raised thus above its original insignificance, is but a poor place. A black hill leans over it on the north, and a naked beach, dreary and silent, runs off from it on the south. A small square, overlooked by stately mansions, emblazoned with the arms of the consuls of the various nations, forms its nucleus, from which numerous narrow and wriggling streets run out, much like the claws of a crab, from its round bulby body. It smells rankly of garlic and other garbage, and would be much the better would the Mediterranean give it a thorough cleansing once a-week. Its population is a motley and worshipful assemblage of priests, monks, French soldiers, facini, and beggars; and it would be hard to say which is the idlest, or which is the dirtiest. They seemed to be gathered promiscuously into the caffes,--priests, facini, and all,--rattling the dice and sipping coffee. Every one you come in contact with has some pretext or other for demanding a paulo of you. The Arabs of the desert are not more greedy of _backsheish_. A gentleman, as well dressed as I was at least, made up to me when I had taken my seat in the _diligence_, and, after talking five minutes on indifferent subjects, ended by demanding a paulo. "For what?" I asked, with some little surprise. "For entertaining Signore," he replied. Yet why blame these poor people? What can they do but beg? Trade, husbandry, books,--all have fled from that doomed shore.