CHAPTER X. 



ROME OSTIA. 



HAVING arrived at Rome, at the " Eternal City," and 

 after having been swindled for some days at an hotel, 

 we found ourselves located in what was called a 

 Palazzo, in a small street which went under the name 

 of " Contrada di Maria di Fiori." The street was 

 somewhat out of the way it is true, but it was a quiet 

 street, there was no one but my own family in the 

 suite of rooms I had taken, which were over some 

 stables, and which, of course, were redolent of 

 stables, and all things appertaining to horses. It was 

 not exactly pleasant to feel that one was as it were 

 almost living in the stables, but the smell from them 

 was far preferable to the generality of odours which 

 assailed one's olfactory organs in the palazzos in 

 other streets odours which the far-famed Rimmel or 

 Atkinson would have no chance of succeeding in 

 imitating. Added to these little contretemps the rooms, 



L 



