137 XI. THE VELABRUM, THE GHETTO, AND THE TRASTEVERE. A REMARKABLE number of interesting antiquities are contained within the narrow circuit of the VELABRUM, a low piece of ground which lies between Mount Palatine and the Tiber. Most conspicuous among them is the Temple of Vestu, an elegant little structure of Parian marble in the purest Greek style, circular in shape, and surrounded by twenty Corinthian columns. The bronze models of it, manufactured by the Roman tradesmen as classical inkstands, have scattered its graceful form over the world. It is now converted into a church, as is too the neighboring temple of Fortuna Virilis, dedicated to Saint Mary of Egypt, but retaining on its frieze the heathen ornaments of oxen's heads, little Genii, and candelabra supporting festoons. Another temple is built into the Church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, and in its portico is the famous "Mouth of Truth." This is a round slab of marble, five feet across, in the middle of which is roughly sculptured out a large face with open mouth. The witness, instead of "kissing the book," as in modern times, put his hand into this mouth when he made his affirmation, fully believing that, if he testified falsely, the marble lips would shut upon his hand, and crush it in punishment for his perjury. The mouth still gapes open, as of old, but it seems now to have lost its miraculous powers. Turning your back on the river, and passing through the Arch of Janus (a huge square mass of masonry, pierced by two arches at right angles to each other, so as to form a shelter in stormy weather), you descend a road which slopes downward between two high walls, till it ends in front of a perpendicular pile of stone-work overhung with ivy, under which passes the Cloaca Maxima. This was the main sewer of ancient Rome, and, undignified as it may seem, it is one of the greatest wonders which remain to us. It is a subterraneous arched passage, large enough for a load of hay to pass through, and covered with a triple arch of immense blocks put together without cement, but so indestructibly, that they have lasted from five hundred years before Christ, down to the present time, and still bid fair to outlive all the other antiquities of the world. Beside its mouth boils up a remarkably bright and clear spring, to which the people attribute potent qualities in some diseases, and which is supposed to be the precise spot at which Castor and Pollux were once seen watering their horses. Retracing your steps, you come upon the house of Rienzi," the last of the Roman Tribunes." Its walls display a most singular and incongruous collection of antique ornaments. Frag ments of columns and capitals, carved cornices, broken statues, and the like, are built into the walls as if they were common stones, and are laid on their sides or their tops, just as the mason found most convenient. Among them are large patches of bare brick wall, so that the general effect is like that of richly carved old furniture in the garret of a log-cabin. A little farther is the Church of San Niccolo in carcere, built on the site of three temples, whose columns are incorporated in its walls, and one of which stands over the dungeon, which was the scene of the story of the "Roman daughter." You descend into a dark cell, and may then say with Childe Harold— "There is a dungeon in whose dim drear light An old man and a female young and fair," &c. Passing by the Theatre of Marcellus (which is like a piece of the Coliseum), and the Portico of Octavia (whose tall columns supported arches to shelter the people from rain and sun), you enter the GHETTO, or Jews' quarter. Within its narrow limits all the Jews in Rome are compelled to reside, and in it they are locked up every night by iron gates which are placed at the head of each of the streets leading from it. This illiberality seems scarcely credible to Americans, who are born and bred in the axiomatic belief that all men and creeds have equal rights, but the same restriction existed at the free city of Frankfort on the Maine, till a bombardment knocked down the gates in 1796; and in the same city, until 1834, the number of marriages among the Hebrews was not allowed to exceed thirteen yearly. Their condition is becoming gradually ameliorated even in Rome, for formerly they were obliged to race on foot in the Corso during the Carnival, for the amusement of the people, but now horses run, and the Jews only supply the prizes, which are usually pieces of rich velvet. An old Italian one day told me an anecdote, which illustrates the popular feeling towards them. We were walking past the Tor de' Conti at the foot of the Quirinal, and he said that this tower was formerly inhabited by a Prince who had an especial antipathy to the Jews, and used to keep a supply of big stones beside an upper window with which he would pelt the poor creatures as they passed by, and would often wound them severely. The Pope heard of this, and recommended the Prince to show his detestation by pelting them with oranges, or nuts, or some sort of fruit, which would express his enmity as well, and be less serious in their effects. The Prince promised to obey, but took for his fruit the cones of the pine trees, which here contain eatable kernels, but grow to a great size, and are almost as heavy and hard as stones, and with these he continued to pelt the unfortunate Hebrews. The Ghetto is very dirty, and its streets are lined with little shops, some of which (according to the ladies) contain the best assortment of dry-goods in Rome; while others are filled with old clothes, which seem the pecu liar property of a portion of the tribe all the world over. The people preserve their unchangeable national physiognomy, though here it is less remarkable from its similarity to the Roman, in its aquiline nose and dark eyes. But this personal resemblance does not lessen the popular prejudice against them, and I saw an example of it on my first visit to the Ghetto. A wretched-looking countrywoman, with her feet wrapped in rags instead of shoes, but with a cross on her breast, which showed her to be a Christian, was standing on the narrow side-walk, when a well dressed and portly Hebrew came behind her and told her to make room. She turned, and seeing who it was, she exclaimed with flashing eyes, and with a look of the most intense contempt, "Room for you, a Jew dog?" She kept her place, and the rich Hebrew turned out for her into the gutter! On leaving the Ghetto I stepped in at a café just outside of its limits, and while refreshing myself, I asked the waiter how he liked his neighbors. "Oh, they are very nice people," said he, laughing; "I can hit them a good rap on the head and they never say a word back." Truly may they still exclaim with Shylock, "sufferance is the badge of all our tribe." A church beside one of the gates bears, in Hebrew characters, an inscription from Isaiah, "I have stretched out my hands all day long to a rebellious people." This is indeed "adding insult to injury." Passing by it on new-year's day, I met a procession of monks, which |