Sunday rest at the Aquarium and National Museum

May 23, 1897

Today we started for a walk to stretch our cramped limbs. It was a beautiful Sunday morning, but the shops were open and the streets about as full of hawkers, burros and goats as on week days. We went down to the park on the bay and spent an hour looking at the aquarium which is said to be one of the finest in Europe. The devil fishes or octopus, the coral sponges, jelly fishes and shells were very interesting. We also took a peep in the National Museum, which contains nearly all of the Pompeiian antiquities together with masterpieces of Italian art and sculpture. The sarcophagus of Tiberius Caesar in white marble with elegant sculpturing on the sides was especially fine. We spent the afternoon in our room writing this diary and thinking of our dear ones at home. We have no chance to go to church except to Catholic ones where we couldn’t understand what was said. The rooms of the Italians, no matter how poor they may be, contain the picture of some saint with a lot of wax candles surrounding it.