I had a guide with me, who showed me over the cathedral of Citta Vecchia, and then asked if I wanted to see the catacombs. I had never before heard of them, but replied in the affirmative; whereupon he led the way through a narrow street, till he came to a door, at which he thumped lustily. It was opened by a little tawny-faced fellow in a monk’s dress. He bustled about and got a bunch of keys, and some torches and candles. We each took a torch and candle, and followed him through a series of long narrow lanes, till we came to a great gate in a wall. Here we struck fire, lighted our torches and candles, and entered the passage. It looked dark and dismal, and we continued going down long flights of steps till we came to a sort of landing-place at a great distance below the surface. I know not how to describe the scene that I witnessed here. For miles around, there was a labyrinthian extent of dark passages cut in the rock, winding and zigzagging in all directions; sometimes expanding into the breadth and loftiness of spacious halls, and sometimes contracting into a strait so narrow as hardly to admit a single person. Along the sides of these galleries were innumerable niches and recesses cut in the rock as places of deposit for corpses; they were probably all full, thousands of years ago. Here and there we found a solitary bone, which I gazed at with feelings of awe as the relic of an ancient generation. The place appeared to me like a great subterranean city whose inhabitants had all deserted it. The age of it is unknown; not even tradition can tell it. It was used as a hiding-place by the early Christians during times of persecution, and must have been found admirably suited to that purpose: thousands and thousands of people might conceal themselves beyond all search in its immense extent of winding and perplexing avenues, which run into one another, and would lead any one astray who was not perfectly familiar with all their turnings and windings. In one of the large halls we found two ancient hand-mills for corn and oil, which had been used by the inhabitants of this dark abode. Every passage and room is full of secret nooks and openings, into which the inmates might creep for safety in case of surprise. Great numbers of names and inscriptions are cut in all parts of the rock; and the sides and ceiling of the narrow galleries are blackened with the smoke of torches. Strange and overpowering were the sensations that came upon me as I followed my guide through these drear avenues and halls of death. In spite of my confidence in him, it was impossible not to feel an apprehension of being lost among the innumerable turnings and windings of this dark labyrinth. Now and then we would stop and contemplate the striking effect of our flickering torches, which threw red gleams of light along the walls, and seemed to show us indistinct forms flitting hither and thither amid the darkness beyond.