WE had about a month previously taken rooms in Madame Tellenbach’s Pension for the 15th of March, but at her suggestion, as the weather had been cold and wet, had given them up. We obtained quarters in the Hotel de Londres, on the opposite side of the Piazza di Spagna. This is a large open space, in what is considered to be the strangers’ quarter, and most of the principal hotels are in it, or in its neighbourhood. It is very necessary to be cautious where one sleeps in Rome, and we heard that cases of fever had happened even in some of what are considered the best hotels. It is said that it is not desirable to have rooms immediately under the Pincian Hill; while, oddly enough also, it is believed that the most healthy localities are those in which the houses and their inhabitants are most crowded, as in the Ghetto. I cannot vouch for either of these theories. After being two nights in the Hotel de Londres, we procured rooms in Madame Tellenbach’s. There are some advantages attaching to a house of this description in a place like Rome; principally because the people mingle more sociably together than in an hotel, arising, I suppose, from the lady of the house sitting at table and introducing her guests to each other. It is also less expensive than an hotel. It cost me from 4 to 5 francs per day for each of my party more at the hotel than at the pension, the difference necessarily being more or less according to circumstances, and especially according to the rooms taken in the one and in the other. But it must be admitted that there is a certain amount of additional comfort, tidiness, and appearance, which are usually obtained at an hotel, which a little judicious expenditure in a pension might secure. And for a short visit the hotel is, in any view, preferable. Those who intend to spend the winter in Rome can, if they so desire, procure lodgings; and sometimes they can be obtained at a moderate rate. A friend had (winter 1878–79) for six months a suite of rooms (two public and three bed rooms) neatly furnished, in a good street near the Piazza di Spagna, for 320 francs per month, service included. The rooms, however, were on the fourth _piano_ or storey, and on a lower floor would have been greatly more. But in Rome, as in Italian towns generally, it is an advantage to be high up; and, indeed, one may toil up a long stair, as we have done, and find an excellent private dwelling on the top floor; for many of the houses in Rome resemble the ‘tenements’ or ‘lands’ so common in Scotland, divided into ‘flats,’—that is, a separate dwelling on each floor, and communicating with the street by a common stair. * * * * *