Next to St. Peter’s, in interest, is the great ruin of the Coliseum, that enormous edifice, which could contain 80,000 spectators, besides the area in the centre where wild beasts were hunted, and where gladiators killed each other, for the amusement of the Roman populace. These walls are now overgrown with weeds and flowers, lonely and desolate. During the day they resound only with the notes of the birds who nestle among the stones, and in the night you may hear the owls hooting out of their dark recesses. Travellers visit it by moonlight, when the spectacle is very solemn and striking. For a great distance around this building are scattered the ruins of the palaces of the Roman emperors, triumphal arches, baths, theatres and gigantic structures, that fill us with amazement in the contemplation of the ancient splendors of the city. While I sat on a broken column, among the ruins of Nero’s golden palace, a fox peeped out from a crumbling arch, and, fixing his sharp eyes on me for a minute, gave a whisk with his tail and bounded off across a bed of artichokes which a gardener was cultivating on the Palatine Hill. The poor man complained that he had lost all his chickens by the depredations of these marauders. Everybody has heard of the Vatican. This is an immense palace adjoining St. Peter’s, formerly the residence of the Pope, and now famous for its pictures and statues. I hardly knew which of the two struck me with the greater astonishment--St. Peter’s, with its stupendous architecture and gorgeous embellishments, or the Vatican, with its endless treasures of art. Gallery, hall and saloon open upon you, one after another, till there seems literally to be no end of statues, vases and columns of precious marble and porphyry. Beautiful fountains of water are playing in the pavilions, and long vistas of sculpture carry the eye a quarter of a mile in length. The apartments amount to many thousands: the wonder is that any man ever undertook to count them. All description of this place seems an utterly vain attempt. It is realizing the dreams of fairy splendor to wander over it.