The innocents abroad; . emonk at the church of San Sebastian showed us a paving-stonewith two great footprints in it and said that Peters feet madethose, we lacked confidence again. Such things do not impressone. The monk said that angels came and liberated Peterfrom prison by night, and he started away from Rome by theAppian Way. The Saviour met him and told him to go back,which he did. Peter left those footprints in the stone uponwhich he stood at the time. It was not stated how it was everdiscovered whose footprints they were, seeing the interviewoccurred secretly and at night. The print of
The innocents abroad; . emonk at the church of San Sebastian showed us a paving-stonewith two great footprints in it and said that Peters feet madethose, we lacked confidence again. Such things do not impressone. The monk said that angels came and liberated Peterfrom prison by night, and he started away from Rome by theAppian Way. The Saviour met him and told him to go back,which he did. Peter left those footprints in the stone uponwhich he stood at the time. It was not stated how it was everdiscovered whose footprints they were, seeing the interviewoccurred secretly and at night. The print of the face in theprison was that of a man of common size; the footprints werethose of a man ten or twelve feet high. The discrepancy con-firmed our unbelief. We necessarily visited the Forum, where C^sar was assassi- 276 THE RUINED COLISEUM. nated, and also the Tarpeian Rock. We saw tlie Dying Gla-diator at the Capitol, and I think that even we appreciated thatwonder of art; as much, perhaps, as we did that fearful story. wrought in marble, in theVatican—the Laocoon. Andthen the Coliseum. Every body knows the picture of the Coliseum; everybod}^ recognizes at once that looped and windowed band-box with a side bitten rather isolated, it showsto better advantage than any other of the monuments of ancientRome. Even the beautiful Pantheon, whose pagan altars upholdthe cross, now, and whose Yenus, tricked. out in consecratedgimcracks, does reluctant duty as a Yirgin Mary to-day, is builtabout with shabby houses and its stateliness sadly the monarch of all European ruins, the Coliseum, main-tains that reserve and that royal seclusion which is proper tomajesty. Weeds and flowers spring from its massy arches andits circling seats,and vines hang their fringes from its lofty THE RUIISrED COLISEUM. 277 walls. An impressive silence broods over the monstrous struc-ture where such multitudes of men and women were wont toassemble in other days. The butterflies have taken
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectvoyagesandtravels
