Still I think the place is over yonder.

Follow me; at all events, we shall see." The four friends then wended their way towards the central part of the district, the part facing the Tiber, where a small nucleus of a population had collected.

The landlords turned the few completed houses to the best advantage they could, letting the rooms at very low rentals, and waiting patiently enough for payment.

Some needy employees, some poverty-stricken families--had thus installed themselves there, and in the long run contrived to pay a trifle for their accommodation.

In consequence, however, of the demolition of the ancient Ghetto and the opening of the new streets by which air had been let into the Trastevere district, perfect hordes of tatterdemalions, famished and homeless, and almost without garments, had swooped upon the unfinished houses, filling them with wretchedness and vermin; and it had been necessary to tolerate this lawless occupation lest all the frightful misery should remain displayed in the public thoroughfares.