The night was almost as bright as day, and the mystic rays from the realm of Luna, shining on gate, arch, column, spire, tower, temple and dome, revealed to us the ghosts of vanished centuries, and from the depths of the Coliseum there seemed to rise the shouts of a hundred thousand voices, cheering the gladiator from Gaul, who had just slain a Numidian lion in the arena, when, with "thumbs up," he was proclaimed the victor, decorated with a crown of laurel and given his freedom forever. Shakspere could not resist his natural gift of exuberant poetry to sound these chunks of eloquence to the midnight air, while I listened with enraptured enthusiasm to the elocution of the Bard: _Hark! Saint Peter, with his brazen tongue Voices the hour of twelve; The wizard tones of tireless Time Thrills the silvery air; The multitudinous world sleeps, Pope and beggar alike-- In the land of lingering dreams-- Oblivious of glory, Poverty, or war, destructive; Sleep, the daily death of all Throws her mesmeric mantle Over prince and pauper; And care, vulture of fleeting life Folds her bedraggled wings To rest a space, 'till first cock crow Hails the glimmering dawn With piercing tones triumphant; Father Tiber, roaring, moves along Under rude stony arches And chafes the wrinkled, rocky shores As when Romulus and Remus Suckled wolf of Apennines! Vain are all the triumphs of man. These temples and palaces, Reaching up to the brilliant stars In soaring grandeur, vast-- Shall pass away like morning mist, Leaving a wilderness of ruins. And, where now sits pride, wealth and fraud Pampered in purpled power-- The lizard, the bat and the wolf Shall hold their habitation; And the vine and the rag-weed Swaying in the whistling winds Shall sing their mournful requiem. The silence of dark Babylon Shall brood where millions struggled, And naught shall be heard in cruel Rome, But the wail of the midnight storm, Echoing among the broken columns Of its lofty, vanished glory-- Where vain, presumptive, midget man Promised himself Immortality!_ After five days of sightseeing we took the public stage for Milan, guarded by soldiers, and arrived safely on board the Albion, which sailed away, through the Strait of Messina, around classic Greece to Negropont and on to Alexandria, Egypt, where we anchored for a load of dates, figs and Persian spices. William and myself took a boat up the Nile to Cairo, and hired a guide to steer us over the desert to the far-famed Pyramids.