come home in a carriage," said Mr. George.

"Why, we got lost," said Rollo. "I did not take notice of the name of
our hotel when we went out, and so we could not find our way home
again."

"That's of no consequence," said Mr. George. "I am glad you had sense
enough to take a commissioner. Whenever you get into any difficulty
whatever in a European town, go right to a commissioner, and he will
help you out."

So Rollo paid the coachman and the commissioner, and then he and Charles
went into the hotel.

CHAPTER VI.

THE COLISEUM.

The grandest of all the ruins in Rome, and perhaps, indeed, of all the
ruins in the world, is the Coliseum.

The Coliseum was built as a place for the exhibition of games and
spectacles. It was of an oval form, with seats rising one above another
on all sides, and a large arena in the centre. There was no roof. The
building was so immensely large, that it would have been almost
impossible to have made a roof over it.

The spectacles which were exhibited in such buildings as these were
usually combats, either of men with men, or of men with wild beasts.
These were real combats, in which either the men or the beasts were
actually killed. The thousands of people that sat upon the seats all
around, watched the conflict, while it was going on, with intense
excitement, and shouted with ferocious joy at the end of it, in honor of
the victors.

The men that fought in the arena were generally captives taken in
battle, in distant countries, and the wild beasts were lions, tigers,
and bears, that were sent home from Africa, or from the dark forests in
the north of Europe.

The great generals who went out at the head of the Roman armies to
conquer these distant realms and annex them to the empire, sent home
these captives and wild beasts. They sent them for the express purpose
of amusing the Roman people with them, by making them fight in these
great amphitheatres. There was such an amphitheatre in or near almost
every large town; but the greatest, or at least the most celebrated, of
all these structures, was this Coliseum at Rome.

Mr. George and Rollo went to the Coliseum in a carriage. After passing
through almost the whole length of the Corso, they passed successively
through several crooked and narrow streets, and at length emerged into
the great region of the ruins. On every side were tall columns, broken
and decayed, and immense arches standing meaningless and alone, and
mound