our divertissements, a series of grand tableaux | moving placed him beyond the reach of the vengevivants had eminent success. For the drama of ful insects by the time they were fairly aroused. Pocahontas and Captain Smith, the party-espe- He shouted the alarm, but too late for the wellcially the ladies—were already in admirable cos-being of the next in pursuit. Those still behind tume; and with the wild glare of the fires, and the ghostly forest back-ground, the representation was very tragic.

hastily avoided the fatal track and escaped. While we were quizzing our fellow-traveler upon his swelled eye, incident to the warm reception given him by the hornets, Uncle Joe fell over a prostrate tree and bruised his back. Very soon after, another slipped upon a mossy rock and damaged his ankle; while we, to save ourself from a like fall, stupidly grasped at a thorn bush, and lace

Of the rewards of all our enterprise and trials, in the sublime spectacle of the succeeding dawn, we have already discoursed. After a very matutinal breakfast we made a successful descent, regaining the habitable globe in good condition, and with none but pleasant memories of our advent-rated our hands. Condoling with each other, we urous night on High Peak.

We have less agreeable memories of our first acquaintance with Round Top, the neighboring summit, and next in elevation to the High Peak. We had been assured that from the crest of the Round Top we should be able, at least by climbing a tree, to see "all creation." But, alas! when our destination was reached, our only reward was the consciousness of duty discharged; for so thick were the forest leaves, that look which way we would, our vision was every where obstructed We knew that "all creation" was—as we had been told-spread out beneath us, but that knowledge was merely a Tantaluscup, while creation was so effectually hidden from view. We recollected the supreme alternative of "climbing a tree;". but then, too, we remembered not only the ten miles which we had walked, but the other ten still to be trudged over in returning; and we felt ourselves much too fatigued to venture upon any rash exploit. Our feelings at that critical moment might be happily expressed by a slight parody of some lines in the soliloquy of Hamlet's uncle

"What then? what rests?

hobbled along, one with his hand over his smarting eye, another seeking to straighten his dorsal latitudes, a third limping heavily, and we with our digits wrapped in a white cambric. To increase the pleasures of the day, we lost the path, and after wandering hither and thither, very much befogged, finally emerged upon the turnpike, some miles further from our inn than the point at which we had left it. Here, after the fatigues of a night on High Peak, and of a day on the Round Top, we end our wanderings in the Catskills.

THE HOLY WEEK AT ROME.
SECOND ARTICLE.

THE grand object of the Roman Catholic

Church in its observance of the Easter festival, as stated by Bishop England, is "to use the most natural and efficacious mode of so exhibiting to a redeemed race the tragic occurrences of the very catastrophe by which that redemption was effectuated, as to produce deep impressions for their religious improvement," and he hazards the following observation, that "if the multiplication of religious rites be superstition, then is the God of Sinai its most powerful abettor." Acting upon this view of the inspired Word, the Church of Rome combines "music, scenery, action and poetry," with a grand melodrama to excite those emotions in the minds of its disciples which it Some-substitutes for religion, or to use the words of its expounder, "to bring the mind to any particular frame," so that "the effect is almost irresistible."

Try what the tree-tops can! What can they not?" And yet, what can they when one can not climb up. Here was a quandary! After lugging ourselves and our sketch-boxes to "the height of this great argument," not a glimpse could we get of all the marvelous beauties around us. thing, however, we were determined to draw, by way of memento of the visit. As good luck would have it, our eyes unanimously fell upon the picturesque figure of our guide, old Uncle Joe, as he gracefully reclined upon a moss-grown bank, filling the air with the perfumes of the fragrant weed. As he thus arrested our attention, we thought-to use again the speech of the Danish king-"all may yet be well!" Uncle Joe was a doomed man-sacrificed upon the altar of the picturesque and of High Art. Enjoining upon him the most statuesque quiet, we rapidly transferred his undying beauties to the spotless page; one assailing him in the van; a second on his flank; while a third worried his rear; until he soon fell a victim to black lead, and was carried at the point of the pencil. Thus provided with reminiscences of Round Top, we began the descent of the mountain a little more rapidly than we went up. While hurrying down the steep declivity, Uncle Joe, who led the file, overturned a hornet's nest; but the speed at which he was

There was a period doubtless in the history of Christianity when certain religious transactions, simply given in a pictorial manner, were not without efficacy in arousing heathen minds to inquiry and interest; but multiplied and diverted as they since have been from their original purposes, they are now presented to us more as a theatrical resource to sustain and show off priestcraft than as illustrating the truths of the Bible. Yet I would not be understood as asserting that there are no hearts moved even in this age to a clearer appreciation of the sublime doctrines which they are intended to illustrate, by these subtle appeals to the senses and imagination. Many a simple Romanist bows in adoring faith before image or relic, and arises from his devotion justified before God, as was the poor publican in the Temple who beat his breast and cried, “Have mercy upon me a miserable sinner," while the skeptical Pharisee, who thanked heaven that he was not

seen to complete the romantic human variety | Friends of mine paid a dollar each for the use of which Rome calls from the four quarters of the chairs at a café until morning-a counter to sleep globe, to witness the pride of her abasement. upon was an unexpected luxury-some even are Every European country sends its representa- compelled to find quarters in towns ten or twelve tives, and even the republicans of America add miles from Rome. greatly to the throng.

A Roman shop-keeper or landlord is at all times a stolid, proud character, indifferent whether you buy, and careless whether you are accommodated. The former at times is too lazy to take down his own wares for a purchaser; the latter does better, but both during Holy Week are sublimely elevated above all personal exertions beyond raising their prices, to swell the stream of cash which is sure to flow into them, like their own golden Tiber in a flood. Above all considerations of dirt, punctuality, or even a sufficiency of food, the traveler must take his meals at hotel or café as he can get them. The table laid, there is a rush of the first comers, who soon leave but a few cold fragments for those whose intuition could not tell them that the table-d'hôte of yesterday, at the fixed hour of seven, was to-day at four. The desperate mob at cafés is amusing. All the

Rome at no time has much to boast of in the extent and cleanliness of its accommodations. It it is a city a century behind all other European capitals in every public convenience except good water, in which, a legacy from Imperial Rome, it is as far ahead of them, possessing fountains and aqueducts sufficient for the wants of a million souls. The result is, that during Holy Week, Rome is crowded to an extent that Paris in its most brilliant fêtes never realized. Prices are quadrupled. Indeed there is no limit to the demand of a Roman where the necessity is pressing. Every hotel and apartment is erammed at prices which rival those of California when houses were scarcer than golden ingots. Alas for those tardy ones who arrive but a few days before Palm Sunday! They are to be seen anxiously driving from hotel to hotel, and from apartment to apart-world being anxious to arrive at some solemn ment, imploring to be "taken in" on any terms, paying for the carriage gold in lieu of silver, and at last content to mount some hundred steps, grimed, one would suppose with the accumulated filth of centuries, to some dimly-lighted back room, a few feet square, containing little else but an apology for a bed on which some two or three are to take their slumbers at the rate of ten dollars per night. Such is not a rare experiOthers fare worse and pay less. Some are compelled to pass the night in their carriages.

ence.

spectacle at the same moment, they all are equally anxious to breakfast in season. Pell-mell they tumble into the cafés demanding coffee and toast in a dozen languages in one breath, carrying one forcibly back to the first breakfast-scene after the polyglot confusion at the Tower of Babel. The waiter slaps on the table an unwiped cup, and a napkin that has seen a week's hard service. After waiting in an agony of impatience, for fear the Pope will bless the faithful and you be found not among them, and no coffee in sight, you angrily

again summon the waiter, who comes when he To your emphatic remonstrance he replies, "What would you have, Sir? it is Holy Week:"the stereotyped answer to every species of annoy-merly a stately cavalcade, when popes and cardiance and extortion to which strangers are subjected during this most unholy of periods, and with which they must be comforted, for none other will be vouchsafed.

tificial palm-branches to the sacristan, deacon, | of the Pope's choir is the best that Italy can proand subdeacon, who, kneeling before the pontiff, vide, and the procession, seen for the first time hold them up for his blessing. While the sign in St. Peter's in all its elaborate pageantry, is of the cross is made over them, a prayer is offered worth perhaps all the squeezing and wrangling that God will bless all those who will carry them for room which it occasions, to say nothing of with right sentiments. the odors arising from an unwashed, uncombed, garlic-fed Roman peasantry. Vast as is St. Peter's-so vast and massive that the same temperature is maintained during summer and winter-the smells arising from foul humanity overpower the fragrant fumes of the numberless censers, and, for days after the great festivals, leave the church in a disagreeable condition.

It would be impossible as well as unprofitable to describe all the etiquette accompanying each religious ceremony of the Holy Week. The programme of the procession for Easter Sunday will serve to show the variety and extent of the sacred household, each member of which has not only his appropriate costume but his specific amount of kissing, homage, and genuflexions to perform, or to fulfill some petty duty expressly created to give him something to do. No little time, and not a few learned heads, are constantly employed to regulate the numberless questions of duty and precedence, and all the nonsense of bombastic etiquette that naturally find growth in so prolific a soil of folly and absurdity. Thus the Pope reads in broad daylight, by a lighted candle, some sacred lesson which no one can hear.

The cardinals again pay homage, as each receives a palm from the Pope, by kissing the hand that gives it, the palm itself, and the right knee of the holy father. After them, in the order of the procession, follow the different hierarchal ranks down to the mitred abbots, who, with all that succeed them, kiss simply the pontiff's foot. Last of all come the military and the foreigners of distinction at Rome who are admitted to this honor, cach bearing away a palm. This, with the accompanying service, takes up a great deal of time, and is a very tiresome affair. The music

One of the drollest sights of the Holy Week is to see the Cardinal Grand Penitentiary from his throne dispensing absolution to the crowds that flock to him. He alone can absolve in those cases which the Pope reserves to himself; besides granting dispensation for contravention of civil law, illegitimate births, vows, simony, and every sin or error, which, for cause good or bad, the Church takes upon herself to pardon. That pardon for every crime has its price is no fiction in the annals of Rome; not that the traffic in absolution is openly indulged or always abused, but that it is in some cases openly avowed I know, and sermons preached proclaiming the detestable doctrine, and the price attached to the greatest crimes against the law of God. Such an one was heard by a friend of mine in Spain, in which the tariff was distinctly laid down. Good priests of every persuasion will reprobate this evil; but the Church of Rome, from which it sprung, still permits a practice so fruitful in profit to her treasury. The instances of absolution witnessed by myself bore a very ludicrous aspect. A large crowd sur