boys learned that the temple
referred to by the landlord was that of the Latian Jupiter.

As they had nothing else to do, they set out for the convent, and
soon reached it. Arriving there, they found spread out before them
a view which surpassed anything that they had ever seen in their
lives. Far down beneath them descended the declivity of the Alban
hill, till it terminated in the Roman Campagna. Then, far away
before their eyes it spread for many a mile, till it was terminated
by a long blue line, which it needed not the explanation of the
monk at their elbow to recognize as the Mediterranean; and this
blue line of distant sea spread far away, till it terminated in a
projecting promontory, which their guide told them was the Cape of
Terracina. But their attention was arrested by an object which was
much nearer than this. Through that gray Campagna,--whose gray hue,
the result of waste and barrenness, seemed also to mark its hoary
age,--through this there ran a silver thread, with many a winding
to and fro, now coming full into view, and gleaming in the sun,
now retreating, till it was lost to sight.

"What is this?" asked David.

"The Tiber!" said the monk.

At the mention of this august historic name, a thrill involuntarily
passed through them. The Tiber! What associations clustered around
that word!

Along this silver thread their eyes wandered, till at length it
was lost for a time in a dark, irregular mass of something. The
atmosphere just now had grown slightly hazy in this direction, so
that they could not make out what this was, exactly; whether a
hill, or a grove, or a town; but it looked most like a town, and
the irregularities and projections seemed like towers and domes.
Prominent among these projections was one larger mass, which rose
up above all the others, and formed the chief feature in that
indistinct mass.

"What is all that?" asked David, in a hesitating way, like one who
suspects the truth, but does not feel at all sure about it.

"Dat," said the guide, "dat is Rome; and dat black mass dat you
see is de Church of St. Peter's. It's not clear to-day--some time
we can see it all plain."

At this the boys said nothing, but stood in silence, looking upon
the scene. It was one which might have stirred the souls of even
the least emotional, and among this little company there were two,
at least, who were quick to kindle into enthusiasm at the presence
of anything connected with the storied p