The Count of Monte Cristo

Back Forward Menu

of which the pale moonlight played and flickered like the unearthly
gleam from the eyes of the wandering dead. The carriage stopped near the
Meta Sudans; the door was opened, and the young men, eagerly alighting,
found themselves opposite a cicerone, who appeared to have sprung up
from the ground, so unexpected was his appearance.

The usual guide from the hotel having followed them, they had paid two
conductors, nor is it possible, at Rome, to avoid this abundant supply
of guides; besides the ordinary cicerone, who seizes upon you directly
you set foot in your hotel, and never quits you while you remain in the
city, there is also a special cicerone belonging to each monument--nay,
almost to each part of a monument. It may, therefore, be easily imagined
there is no scarcity of guides at the Colosseum, that wonder of all
ages, which Martial thus eulogizes: "Let Memphis cease to boast the
barbarous miracles of her pyramids, and the wonders of Babylon be talked
of no more among us; all must bow to the superiority of the gigantic
labor of the Caesars, and the many voices of Fame spread far and wide