expressed the wish that they had not undertaken what they declared to be a foolhardy enterprise. As I walked along, I saw at different turnings of the passage what appeared to be deep, yawning pits; and feeling a curiosity to examine them, I stopped and stretched my taper over the side. Appearances were not deceitful. The deep pits were really there—dark, awful, and impenetrable. I could not help thinking how easy it would be for any one who should get lost and become bewildered, to stumble into one of those fearful holes and dash his brains out. Even such a dreary death would be infinitely preferable to the long agony of confinement in, without any hope of release from, such a place of horrors. While I was speculating on the possibility of the situation, the little procession got quite beyond me, and I was aroused from my gloomy reverie by the echoing voice of the guide urging the members of our party to keep close together. I hurried forward just in time to see the door of the vestibule open, and to go in with the rest. The Catacombs are laid out very much like the old quarters of Paris, the different avenues being named after the streets above them, and the principal buildings overhead being indicated on the walls. It seemed very strange that certain famous structures, with which I am very familiar, should be only eighty or a hundred feet from where we were walking, as those sepulchral caverns appeared hundreds of miles away from the bright and beautiful city we had quitted half an hour before. Nothing can be more dismal and depressing than the Catacombs, with their miles and miles of human bones and skulls confronting you wherever you turn, and seeming to dance and grin as the light and the shadow of the passing tapers fall upon them.