We were fortunate in getting a tolerably clear day for this ascent. I had intended to go up again on the following Monday, but found it too cloudy to be of any use. Another rather interesting sight, however, was in progress that day within the church; for an immense number of young children—boys and girls—were all seated in long rows round a vacant space, wherein were priests with candles, and an archbishop or some other dignitary, who was going round them. The girls were all dressed in white with white veils, the boys in their best attire, many of them with white ties and some with white waistcoats. The children seemed to be from seven to fifteen years of age, and by all it was evidently regarded as a grand gala–day—something like a public school examination–day in Scotland, before breaking up for the summer holidays. They were perhaps receiving confirmation. The procession of priests stopped at each child in rotation. The old bishop performed motions with his hands over each—I suppose making the form of the cross over them, and mumbling something inaudibly. It must have taken a long time so to go over them all, as there were several hundreds. * * * * * The people of Milan have wisely left a large vacant space or piazza in front of the cathedral, upon its west side, so that one can admire, without intervening interruption, its beauty from a sufficient distance. On the south side of the piazza, or rather of the cathedral, the Royal Palace, a plain building, is situated. The piazza itself is surrounded on three sides by new and very handsome commercial buildings, which are quite an ornament to the place; and out of it, upon the north side, there has been built, at an expense of no less than £320,000, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele—a splendid arcade, or rather street or streets of stone buildings, laid out in the shape of a cross, covered over by an iron and glass vaulted roof, upon the Crystal Palace model. The main gallery is nearly 1000 feet long, about 50 feet wide, and 94 feet high; and it is occupied in the lower floor by shops, and the upper floors apparently by warehouses or other places of business, the façades being of an elegant style adorned by sculpture. The central dome is particularly graceful, and at night is lighted up by a circle of gas jets placed round the top. These, with the other lights, produce a most brilliant effect, and it is scarcely surprising to find that in the evening the gallery is crowded by the townspeople and strangers, so that passage through it is rather difficult. This gallery—really the most perfect thing of the kind I have seen anywhere—leads out at the other end to another piazza, in the centre of which a very fine marble monument to Leonardo da Vinci has been erected. He stands surrounded by four of his pupils, all of white marble. In another part of the town is the famous picture by that artist of the Last Supper, a fresco which is almost obliterated. The