Several Americans ran all sorts of saws on the Englishman, and prophesied some terrible calamity at every step, saying they never would have thought of coming into the gloomy region unless they had expected that a fair proportion of the excursionists would be killed. Two of my countrymen insisted that they had made their wills before they had left their hotel, and a third averred that he had a vial of prussic acid and a revolver in his pocket for the express purpose of committing suicide, if he should be lost in the cavernous windings. He asked the Briton if he had not taken the same precaution, and pronounced him superlatively reckless because he had not, explaining the advantage of self-destruction over a lingering and horrible death. John Bull, remarkable to relate, had not the slightest suspicion that the “Yankees” were poking fun at him. On the contrary, he regarded all their jests as solemnly sincere, and asserted that it was exactly like our nation never to enjoy anything that was not accompanied by a bloody murder of some sort. A young Italian, who was quite good-looking, and far more conscious of the fact than anybody else, endured martyrdom in the Catacombs from quite another cause. He was very carefully and daintily dressed, and appeared to consider dust or soil upon his clothes as a sovereign evil. He was the dandiest of dandies, and the most fastidious of fools. He looked rather blank, as I had noticed, when we first began the descent of the circular staircase in the Custom House garden. He was in advance, and before we had gone down a dozen steps, I observed a number of large drops falling from the blazing tapers above him upon his new hat and coat. Some kind friend pointed these out to him, and he actually turned pale with wrath and chagrin. [Sidenote: INCONVENIENCES OF A VISIT.] “Who could have done this? Such conduct is disgraceful! I did not come here to have my clothes ruined. I wish the Catacombs were in the bottomless pit.” These and other phrases he ejaculated in choice Tuscan, which very few understood, but which those who did understand enjoyed not a little. After the marring of his wardrobe, there could be no pleasure for him. If he had been shown all the wonders of the world, he could not have forgotten his tarnished garments. His misfortunes followed him. The water dropped through the crevices upon his august person, and as he was unusually tall, he crushed his hat every few minutes against the overhanging rock, which struck oaths out of him as steel strikes fire out of flint. I fancied sometimes that he envied the skeletons he passed, because they had no clothes to spoil. Long before he had finished his underground journey, his beauty of person and raiment was sadly injured, and I am confident that he will remember the Catacombs, and curse them for the harm they did his garments, till the end of his days. [Sidenote: INQUISITIVENESS OF AN AMERICAN.]