astonished as if he had got hold of a book of Cabbala or Magic.  He detained the whole work, but it was sent to me the next day, on my declaring that there was nothing damnable or heretical in it; for there was no person belonging to the department who could read German.  When the douaniers proceeded to the examination of the books belonging to one of my fellow travellers, the Neapolitan lady, she expressed great repugnance to the procedure; the douaniers however insisted and, behold! there were several livres galants with plates somewhat lubriques, the discovery of which excited blushes on her part and considerable laughter on the part of the byestanders.  These books, however, not being contraband, were immediately returned to her, as was an edition of Baffo, belonging to my other fellow traveller, returned to him.  Now this Baffo was a Venetian poet and his works are the most profligate that ever were penned or imagined by mortal man.  Martial and Petronius Arbiter must hide their diminished heads before Baffo.  The owner of this book chose to read out loud, quite unsolicited, several choice sonnets of this poet for our edification during the journey; and this branch of litterature seemed to be the only one with which he was acquainted.

When the examination was over I took leave of my fellow travellers, and repaired to the German Hotel in the Via de’ Condotti, where I engaged an apartment, and sat down to dinner at an excellent table d’hote at five o’clock.  There was a profusion of everything, particularly of fish and game.  Mullets and wild boar are constant dishes at a Roman table.  The mullets at Rome are small but delicious, and this was a fish highly prized by the ancient Romans.  Game of all kinds is very cheap here, from the abundance of it that is to be met with in wild uninhabited wastes of Latium and in the Pontine marshes.  Every peasant is a sportsman and goes constantly armed with fire-arms, not only to kill game, but to defend himself against robbers, who infest the environs of Rome, and who sometimes carry their audacity so far as to push their reconnaissances close to the very walls of the city.  At the German Hotel the price of the dinner at table d’hote, including wine at discretion, is six paoli, about three franks.  I pay for an excellent room about three paoli per diem and my breakfast at a neighbouring Caffe costs me one paolo.  A paolo is worth about five pence English.  There are ten paoli to a scudo Romano and ten bafocchi to a paolo, The bafocco is a copper coin.

ROME, 12th Sept.