It is a mournful sight to see a city of one hundred and eighty thousand five hundred and thirty-nine inhabitants, including one thousand three hundred and thirty-one priests, two thousand four hundred and four monks, and eight hundred and fifty-four Jews, Turks, and heretics, as the census had it, attacked with hydrophobia. But it is so. A preternatural dread of water rages among all the inhabitants of Rome, from the untitled down to the titled. 'Madame,' said Rocjean to a distinguished female model, 'I assure you that, in the sixth century, [or as Sir Gardiner Wilkinson has it, in the five hundred,] there were nine thousand and twenty-five baths in this city.' 'Those must have been good times,' replied she, 'for the washerwomen, _seguro!_ There are a good many clothes of the _forestieri_ [strangers] washed here now; but not so many different places to wash them in.' 'I mean places to bathe one's self all over in.' '_Mai!_ Never, never!' exclaimed the woman with horror; 'never! 'twould give them the fever, kill them dead!' Mr. Van Brick, of New-York, arriving in Rome early in the morning, demanded of the porter at the hotel where he could find a _bagno_, or place where he could get a bath. He was directed to go down the Babuino, and at such a number he would find the establishment. Forgetting the number before he was three steps from the hotel, he inquired of a man who was driving a she-jackass to be milked, where the bath was. As he spoke very little Italian, he had to make up by signs what he wanted in words. The man, probably believing he wanted a church, and that his motions signified being sprinkled with water, pointed to the Greek church, and Van Brick, thinking it was a solemn-looking old _bagno_, strode in, to his astonishment finding out as soon as he entered that he was by no means in the right place. As he turned to go out, he saw an amiable-looking young man, with a black cocked hat in his hand, and a black serge shirt on that came down to his heels, and had a waist-band drawing it in over his hips. He asked the young man, as well as he could in Italian, where there was a _bagno_. 'The signore is English?' asked the youth in the black shirt. 'I want a bath,' said Van Brick, 'which way?' 'Have patience, signore. There are a great many English in Rome.' 'Farewell!' quoth Van Brick, turning on his heel, reflecting: 'That youth talks too much; he does it to conceal his ignorance; he don't know what a bath is.' Coming out of the church, he met a good-natured looking Roman girl, without any bonnet, as usual, going along with a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread. 'Can you tell me where the bath is?' '_Chi lo sa_, signore.'