I was on the French mail-steamer _Tage_ at anchor in the Dardanelles, a little way below the Narrows, on Friday 30 April 1880. There were many Mohammedans on board; and, when prayer-time came, they unrolled their prayer-rugs, and laid them out on deck, pointing them to Mecca. Just as they began to pray, the current caught the ship, and she began to swing; and, as soon as they looked up, they saw that they had got their bearings wrong. So they slewed round, and put their rugs straight; and then, of course, the same thing happened again. And it went on happening till they had finished their prayers. They had a procession at Thebes in Bœotia, when I was there, 11 April 1888. They were badly in want of rain, and reckoned on getting some, if they marched solemnly round the place in honour of Elijah. They were of the Greek Church, and had greater faith in him than in the saints of later times. There is a pleasant procession in Rome on Christmas morning, the True Cradle being carried round S. Maria Maggiore. I saw that done in 1909, and somehow in the clouds of incense I saw the cradle of Romulus and Remus carried in procession through the Forum. The high-altar at St Peter’s is scrubbed on Maundy Thursday; and, as I was in Rome, 14 April 1892, I went to see it done. This rite comes after Miserere, and therefore in the twilight. St Peter’s is not lighted up, and looks the vast size that it really is, as one cannot see the details that impair it. The dignitaries of the church come down in procession, each one carrying a candle and a mop; and they throw oil and wine upon the altar, and then begin to scrub. I was close by, and noticed how differently they all did it. Some evidently thought it symbolical, and merely waved their mops across the altar, hardly touching it. And others would scrub hard, and then put their heads down and look carefully through their spectacles to see what they had done, and then go on scrubbing again till they were satisfied that they had done their bit. I was in Rome with my father and my mother in 1876, and Monsignor Stonor arranged that we should be presented to the Pope. There were about a hundred other people to be presented, 22 September, and we were all ranged in groups round one of the big rooms in the Vatican. And then the Pope came in, and went leisurely round the room, saying a few words to each of us. Stonor told him that I had just left Harrow, and was going up to Cambridge: whereupon he beamed, and said he hoped that I should be a good historian. It was an odd remark, for nothing had been said of history, and that was not my line. But some years afterwards I took to writing books on history. Pius IX was then in his eighty-fifth year, and was altogether a most pleasant person to behold--tall, big and genial, with nothing ecclesiastical about him but his dress. He had a judge’s face, rather than a bishop’s. * * * * *