I went by chance into a house from which there was a descent into a cistern, and embarked in a little skiff on its waters. The master of the house having lighted torches, rowed us to and fro between the pillars, which lay very deep in the water. He was very intent upon catching fish, with which the cistern abounds, and speared some of them by the light of the torches. A faint light descends from the mouths of the wells, and is reflected upon the water, and here the fish usually go for air. This cistern is 363 feet long, and 182 broad; the roof, arches, and sides are all brick work covered with terrass, and not in the least impaired by time. The roof is supported by three hundred and thirty-six marble pillars, of about forty and three quarter feet high, with spaces of intercolumniation of twelve feet. They stand lengthwise in twelve ranges, and twenty-eight in the breadth. Their capitals are partly finished after the Corinthian model part of them are not finished. " There are abundance of wells falling into the cistern. When it was filling in the winter time, I have seen a large stream of water falling from a great pipe with a mighty noise, till the pillars have been covered with water up to the middle of the capitals."

Dr. Walsh, whose travels in Turkey are so late as 183-, visited this subterranean

reservoir, and confirms the account of Gyllius. Modern Rome is almost as bountifully supplied with water as the ancient city, notwithstanding the destruction or decay of the old aqueducts. But the Romans of this day are but a handful perhaps 150,000 to the populousness of the elder time; and this comparatively small number possess, without enjoying as they might, the advantage of overflowing fountains.