32, TRAVELS IN VPPER 



edge of the instruments employed in detaching it 

 from the mass. But it is no easy matter to dis- 

 abuse persons accustomed to explain natural facts 

 by miracles. 



A lichen entirely white grows over the interior 

 surface of the vault of St. Paul's grotto. 



At some distance from the old city are found 

 vast excavations, which it is easy to dig and to ex- 

 tend, in a soil which presents very little resistance. 

 They are divided into numerous ramifications, 

 multiplied to such a degree that they formed a la- 

 byrinth, in which a man might lose himself and 

 perish, had not *he precaution been employed of 

 walling up the entrance of some of those subter- 

 ranean galleries ; they were formerly used as a 

 place of sepulture, catacombs, the name still given 

 them. Tombs of stone are placed in them on each 

 side, one above another ; they are of various sizes ; 

 a dome likewise of stone covers some of them, and 

 there is great reason to think that they were all en- 

 closed in the same manner. The part of those 

 stone-coffins on which the head of the dead per- 

 son rested, is raised about two inches above the 

 bottom, and there was cut into it the form of the 

 head and neck, so that they were enchased in this 

 species of dead pillow. Some coffins, broader than 

 others, presented an excavation for two heads ; 



affection 



