The Brinkley argus., 1907-06-07
the ether. upon either side Of which were mches for the burial of the dead


 tbe o,her. upon either side Of which were niches for the burial of the dead The paneriss are rarrow. tortuous. poorly lighted with Gil lamps set in cl.fts Of the rocks. are cool and damp If is estimated that there are in all the Roman catacombs 537 miles Of these galleries visited only one. .- that was quite enough for me, ,--and l was glad to see the light of day when 1 emerged from its gloomy precincts. I am glad to have had the experience. however, since have seen with my own eyes those vast homes of the ea.ly Christian dead. fer all the authorities agree that the use Of them was introduced by the early Christians and that they were never used by the pagans It is also clearly established, in the judgement of those who have made the matter study, that these catacombs were places of refuge ir times of trouble and that they were even used as temples in which the earlier Christians secretly worshipped God in their own way. The dead have long ago gone b decay, or have been renoyed, 50 that now these vast galleries are uninhabited. and echo only to the tread of the Trsppist Monk as he conveys the curious. and sometimes timid traveller through them, pointing { Ut the onetime tomb of St. Cecilia, where she was buried by her friend Urban after her n1atry- dom, as well as other tonibs more or less noted. Returning to the city by way of the Via Latina, good view is obtained of the ruins of that splendid aoueduct commenced under Appius Claudlus, which conveyed an unpollnt- cd water supply from the mountains many miles away, and which attests to this day the marvellous engineering skill of the early Romans. A newer aqueduct, but not nearly so substan tial and imposing. now runs along by the older one part of the way across the Pontine marshes, supplying the city with water. The tomb of Sciplo Africanus, the little church of Domino Quo Vadis, with its reputed foot prints of the Master, in solid marble, the gloomy prison of Mamertine, in which St. Peter is reputed 10 have. been imprisoned, the Castle of St. Angelo. designed by Hadrian as magnificent tomb for his family, but now occepied as a barracks and mill tary prison, all these are among the things that made Rome famous in the old days, and constitute with the other relics have named, the stock in trade of the Rome of to-day. The artists, the romance writers, hardly without exception, deplore and con demn all the efforts being made by the authorities to reclaim to the uses of commerce any of the territory upon which these old ruins have been found. When the Piombno family became involved in debt and put up their handsome city property for sale, including the famous Villa Ludovisi, and it was bought by firm of specu- lators who razed the villa to the ground, dug up all the fine old trees and offered the acreage as town lots, the arti Is and romance writers writers howl ed with indignation. + was de.ecra- ton; it was an indig1ity put upon the traditional glory of Rome; the num- icipality. already nearly bankrupt, should have purchased 1.-the price was 6,OoO,OOo lire,-and preserved 1t as park. And every time an ave-