When We Were Fairly Going Off Again, We Began, In A Perfect Fever,
To Strain Our Eyes For Rome; And When, After Another Mile Or Two,
The Eternal City Appeared, At Length, In The Distance; It Looked
Like--I Am Half Afraid To Write The Word--Like LONDON!!!
There it
lay, under a thick cloud, with innumerable towers, and steeples,
and roofs of houses, rising up into the sky, and high above them
all, one Dome.
I swear, that keenly as I felt the seeming
absurdity of the comparison, it was so like London, at that
distance, that if you could have shown it me, in a glass, I should
have taken it for nothing else.
CHAPTER X--ROME
We entered the Eternal City, at about four o'clock in the
afternoon, on the thirtieth of January, by the Porta del Popolo,
and came immediately--it was a dark, muddy day, and there had been
heavy rain--on the skirts of the Carnival. We did not, then, know
that we were only looking at the fag end of the masks, who were
driving slowly round and round the Piazza until they could find a
promising opportunity for falling into the stream of carriages, and
getting, in good time, into the thick of the festivity; and coming
among them so abruptly, all travel-stained and weary, was not
coming very well prepared to enjoy the scene.
We had crossed the Tiber by the Ponte Molle two or three miles
before. It had looked as yellow as it ought to look, and hurrying
on between its worn-away and miry banks, had a promising aspect of
desolation and ruin.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 161 of 268
Words from 43852 to 44127
of 73541
