After the ceremonies of the Holy Week are over, strangers generally leave the city, and Rome becomes a quiet place. There is little traffic or industry here, although the population is nearly double that of Boston. No rattling of carts over the pavements, no throng of busy passengers in the streets, give tokens of active business. The shopkeepers sit idly at their counters, and look as if a customer would astonish them. Two or three little feluccas lie at a landing-place in the Tiber, unloading coffee and sugar from Marseilles, and this is all that looks like commerce. Rome has nothing to export but rags and _pozzolana_, or volcanic sand, which, mixed with lime, forms the composition known as Roman cement. At sunset the genteel classes ride out in their carriages to the gardens in the neighborhood of the city, and this gives some appearance of life to the place at that time. But far the greater part of the day the streets are lonely and still. The shopkeepers close their doors after dinner and go to sleep. Rome is full of splendid palaces and churches, profusely and magnificently adorned with pictures, sculptures, precious stones, gilding, and every other sort of embellishment. The shrines of the saints are very curious. They are covered all over with votive offerings from persons who have been sick or have escaped from accidents. If a man is in danger of drowning, or is run over by a horse, or gets a bang on the shin, or has a sore finger, he makes a vow to his favorite saint, and, after his escape or recovery, gives him a present of a little silver ship, or leg, or finger, which is stuck up in the church as a memento of the saint’s intercession and the man’s gratitude. In this manner you may see the walls of a church covered, for many yards square with silver legs, toes, arms, hands, fingers, hearts, ears, noses, and nobody knows what else. A traveller unacquainted with the fact might take them for hieroglyphics. All sorts of rich offerings are made to these shrines. I have seen the figure of a saint in a glass case completely covered with gold watches, rings, bracelets, necklaces, &c. When the saint finds himself so overloaded with ornaments as to leave no room for any more, he allows himself to be stripped. The watches and jewels are sold, and the shrine is open for new presents. It is easy to see how, in a long course of years, this practice, and others similar, have brought into the treasury of the church that abundance of wealth which has been lavished upon the magnificent edifices of this country. The votive offerings above described are so numerous and constant that the silversmiths have always for sale, heads, legs, hearts, arms, &c., of all sizes, to suit the customer as to wealth or devotion. Sometimes the offering is accompanied with a painting descriptive of the event commemorated; and you see a portion of the church walls covered with the oddest pictures in the world. A man is tumbling down a ladder; another is run over by