ris! Happy France!

But I must hurry on, in order to reach the end of my long journey. On
the 13th of September I saw the majestic Alps with their snow-clad
summits, which seemed to touch the very vault of heaven. The same day I
passed through the tunnel at Mont Cenis, and arrived the following day
at Rome, via Turin and Florence. And is this great and glorious Rome?
Yes! These walls, ruins, palaces, and Sabine hills,--aye, the very air I
breathe,--all this belongs to the eternal city. From the window of my
room in Hotel Malori I can read the signs,--"Via di Capo le Care," "Via
Gregoriana," etc., and among these an index pointing to the Rome and
Tivoli street-car line. Indeed, I have seen the great city of Rome, with
its churches, statues, paintings, and ancient ruins and catacombs; the
little monument to the Swedish Queen Christina in the St. Peter's
church; the triumphal arch which commemorates the destruction of
Jerusalem, and the temple of Vesta where the ancient vestal virgins
guarded the sacred fire. Two thousand years thus passed in review before
my eyes in a few days.

[Illustration: ROME.]

From Rome I proceeded to Naples. This city is built on the most
beautiful bay in the world, and has a population of six hundred thousand
inhabitants. It is built in the form of an amphitheatre, with a steep
decline toward the water. In the south we see the island of Capri,
fifteen miles distant, and on the east coast the volcano Vesuvius,
which, by its threatening clouds of smoke, seems to obscure the eastern
part of beautiful Naples, although it lies fourteen miles distant from
the city. Long before the time of Christ the bay looked about the same
as it does now. The chief cities around it at that time were Naples,
Herculaneum and Pompeii. Mount Vesuvius, however, did not look as it
does now, but rose as a green hill, called "La Somma," and served as a
summer resort for many wealthy Roman patricians. The city of Pompeii had
about forty thousand inhabitants. On August 23, A.D. 79, terrific
rumblings were heard from the interior of La Somma, the summit of which
suddenly burst open, and a pillar of ashes, steam, and red-hot rocks
shot up through the opening to a great height, and fell, scattering
itself over the surrounding country, while streams of melted lava rolled
down the hill-sides and buried Herculaneum and everything in it under a
layer of ashes and lava to the depth of eighty feet. Toward night the
eruptions increa