When the service was concluded, the pilgrims bought tapers at the porch of the church, and forming a procession in a long line, descended a wooden stair-case of many steps to the mouth of the catacombs, down each side of which were arranged an uninterrupted line of kneeling devotees, of the most wretched appearance. The procession halted, as the first part reached the entrance of the excavated passages of the catacombs, the priest preceding them; they then slowly and reverently entered the subterraneous vaults, the roof blackened with the smoke of thousands, and tens of thousands of the candles of the faithful, which had burnt there on previous years. On each side, in niches in the walls, were placed in open coffins, the bodies of those, who dying in the odour of sanctity, have been canonised for their pious acts and thoughts. There unburied they remain, enveloped in wrappers of cloth, and silk, highly ornamented with gold and silver embroidery, that their fellow mortals who come to them for intercession, seeing their honours after death, may study to imitate them in the purity of their lives; while their spirits, having ascended into heaven, are devoutly believed to exercise an influence with the Father and Son. Their names are written on their breasts, and many have also a history of their virtuous actions, while their stiffened hands placed before them in the attitude of prayer, receive the kisses of the pilgrims, though few perchance could decypher even the names of those they worshipped. Further on, they reached a passage in which was a range of small windows, where men had, with their own hands, built themselves in with stones against the wall, leaving open only a small hole to receive their food; dying with the insane thought, that they were doing their Maker a good service. Before each of the windows of those fanatics' last dwelling, now their tomb, knelt some bigoted and devoted worshipper, firmly believing that their self-immolation and unnatural death, had purchased for them everlasting life, and place, and power, among the spirits of the blessed.