Will the reader accompany me to another and very different scene? We leave these midnight vaults, and tread again the narrow lava-paved Appian road; and through rural lanes we seek the summit of the Caelian mount, where stands in statued pomp the church of St John Lateran. Here are shown the _Scala Santa_ which were brought from Jerusalem, and which the Church of Rome certifies as the very stairs which Christ ascended when he went to be judged of Pilate. On the north side of the quadrangle is an open building, with three separate flights of steps leading up from the pavement to the first floor. The middle staircase, which is covered with wood to preserve the marble, is the _Scala Santa_, which it is lawful to ascend only on your knees. Having reached the top, you may again use your feet, and descend by either of the other two stairs. Placed against the wall at the foot of the Scala Santa, is a large board, with the conditions to be observed in the ascent. Amongst other provisions, no one is allowed to carry a cane up the Scala Santa, nor is dog allowed to set foot on these stairs. On the pavement stood a sentry-box; and in the box sat a little dark-visaged man, so very withered, so very old, and so very crabbed, that I almost was tempted to ask him whether he had been imported along with the stairs. He rattled his little tin-box violently, which seemed half full of small coins, and invited me to ascend. "What shall I have for doing so?" I asked. "Fifteen years' indulgence," was the instant reply. There might be about fifteen steps in the stair, which was at the rate of a year's indulgence for every step. The terms were fair; for with an ordinary day's work I might lay up some thousands of years' indulgence. There was but one drawback in the matter. "I don't believe in purgatory," I rejoined. "What is that to me?" said the old man, tartly, accompanying the remark with a quick shrug of the shoulders and a curl of his thin lip.