Bones, bones, bones! Skulls, skulls, skulls! I can well believe six millions of mortal remains have been deposited in the Catacombs, which look as if they might have been the graveyard of the globe since the dawn of creation. They furnish the most extensive bone-yard I have ever visited. They do not contain nearly so many dead, in all probability, as the Catacombs of Rome; but on the Seine the dead are exhibited to much more advantage than on the Tiber. The French make the most of everything, and their osseous arrangement and display are not equalled anywhere. [Sidenote: FONDNESS FOR SOUVENIRS.] Americans have often been laughed at for their fondness for relics, and very deservedly too; for they seek mementos in all places, and under every variety of circumstances. I should never have suspected any of my countrymen of a disposition to deprive the Catacombs of any of their horrors; and yet several of them actually carried off shin and thigh bones in order to recall the pleasure they had experienced in Paris. One fellow—I think he was a medical student from Boston—tried to secure a whole skull; but as he could not very conveniently get it into his pocket, he was reluctantly forced to leave it behind. Possibly he was an admirer of the first Napoleon, and anxious to obtain a souvenir of Bonaparte. I presume I have met men who, if they were given time and opportunity, would despoil that horrid vault of a very large proportion of its revolting treasures. During our ramble we encountered a well of pure water enclosed by a wall. In it are a number of gold-fish that manage to live by some mysterious means, though the guide informed us that they did not spawn. The well comes from a spring which some of the workmen discovered while making repairs many years ago, and gave it the name of the Spring of Forgetfulness, afterwards changed to the Fountain of the Good Samaritan. The water is declared to be sweet; but I should need to be extremely thirsty before drinking what would seem infected with death. [Sidenote: MAXIMS FOR VISITORS.] The Roman church, always on the alert to point morals and preach sermons, has filled the Catacombs at convenient intervals with inscriptions designed to be impressive. Some of these are,— “Happy is he whose hour of death is ever before his eyes!” “Be not proud or boastful, O mortal; for this is the end of the loftiest ambition and the highest glory!” “Death recognizes not rank—in his eyes the prince and the peasant are the same!” “Come, all ye busy worldlings into this silent retreat, and listen to the solemn voice that rises from the tomb!” “Remember, O man, the mercies of thy God, and remember He will call thee when thou least expectest to hear His voice!” “The grave is dark; but the paths that lead from it are, to the righteous, strewn with eternal flowers!” “Mock not the lowly, for in the courts of Heaven the lowly may stand before thee, shorn of thy worldly pride!”