96 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Pantheon, and in a few minutes came to the Tiber. If we except the 

 quaint and bright costumes of many classes of the people, and the 

 ever-changing street scenes of Rome, there is nothing in the drive of 

 very much interest until we reach the river. Here, looking back, we 

 see the noble structure which crowns the Capitoline Hill. The fine 

 building on the farther bank of the river is the Hospital of St. 

 Michele. On this side we are passing the small harbor of the steam- 

 boats which ply to Ostia. Presently, the Marmorata, or landing-place 

 of the beautiful marble of Carrara, is reached. From here a drive of 

 a few minutes brings us to the cypress-covered slope of the Protestant 

 Cemetery, where, in the shadow of the pyramid of Cestius, lie the 

 graves of Shelley and Keats. Apart from the interest attached to 

 these two lowly tombs and the memories aroused by their touching 

 epitaphs, no Englishman can visit this secluded spot and look without 

 deep feeling upon the last resting-places of his countrymen, who have 

 died so many hundred miles from home and friends. The cemetery is 

 kept in order and neatness, and flowers grow upon nearly all the 

 graves. 



Our route next lay along the base of that remarkable enigma the 

 Monte Testaccio, a hill as high as the London Monument or the Yen- 

 dome Column kt Paris, made entirely of broken Roman pots and tiles, 

 as old perhaps as the time of Nero ! Leaving behind this singular 

 heap of earthenware, we thread long avenues of locust-trees, and 

 presently, passing through the gate of St. Paul, reach the magnificent 

 basilica of that name. Nor can I pause here to dwell upon the mar- 

 vels of this noble temple, or to tell of its glorious aisles and column- 

 supported galleries ; of its lake-like marble floor, or of the wealth of 

 malachite, of lapis lazuli, of verde antique, of alabaster, and of gold, 

 that has been lavished upon the decoration of its shrine. I must 

 stop, however, to note that nowhere has the presence of the dread 

 tnalaria made itself so obvious to myself. We had scarcely entered 

 the church, when we became conscious of an odor which recalled at 

 once the retort-house of a gas-works, the bilge-water on board ship, 

 and the atmosphere of a dissecting-room ; and we were obliged to 

 make a hasty retreat. There could be little doubt that the gaseous 

 emanations which produced this intolerable odor were equally present 

 in the Campagna outside, but that in the church they were pent up 

 and concentrated. 



Even did space admit, this is not the place to enter into any pro- 

 longed dissertation on the history or causes of this terrible scourge of 

 the Roman Campagna, the fever-producing malaria. The name ex- 

 presses the unquestionable truth, that it is a gaseous emanation from 

 the soil ; and all that is certainly known about it may be summed up 

 in a very few lines. The vast undulating plain known as the Cam- 

 pagna was ages ago overflowed by the sea, and owes it present aspect 

 to volcanic agency. Of this the whole soil affords ample evidence. 



