At The Vatican

A correspondent from Eome desoribes a visit to the Vatican : " The gorgeous Swiss Guards, who look like nothing else, under heaven, and are probably the showiest soldiers on the face of the globe, filed back at our approach like a shattered rainbow, and we were immediately lost in the labyrinths of the palace. We climbed stairs that seemed cut out of solid marble quarries, lor there was nothing to be seen but marble in some shape or other. Again and again we were met and passed by guards, priests and monks, in robes of many fashions and colors, pass us ; the place was alive with people, and yet none of them seemed familiar to my eyes. We entered one room, passed into others, all of them having their separate uses and most of them in charge of officers, who looked as little like the last lot as possible. Finally we carne to a court, one of the 20, where were carriages and footmen in livery, but how they ever found their way thither I dare not conjecture. Beyond the court the chambers were more splendid than the last. New guards and pages in new uniforms and liveries moved to and fro through the endless suites of rooms and kept everything in a gentle state of commotion. Here we left our cloaks and hats. Here we took our rosaries and tokens in hand and pressed from onechamber toanother, perhaps waiting a few moments in each room while my companiou spoke to gentlemen in waiting, clothed in crimson satin and looking very impressive indeed. Booms that were frescoed to the very fioors finally gave place to rooms hung with splendid tapestries of inestimablo valne. It began to look like business. The ehambers were heated with great brazen pots of coal, such as one meetá with in all the Italian galleries and in the churches, when the churches are heated at all. These braziers - called scaldini - look a little heathenish, and are none the lesa interesting for that reason. They are big enough for human sacrifices, some of them, but they are seldom hot enough to hurt,"