1858] FOREIGN" LIFE 471
the extreme picturesqueness of the old towns we passed through. In Valmontone, where the huge Doria palace is, we met a ghastly funeral, an old woman carried by the Frati della Misericordia on an open bier., her withered head nodding to and fro with the motion, and priests — as Lea said — " gibbering before her." Here, from the broad deserted terrace in front of the palace, we looked over the mountains, with mists drifting across them in the wind; all was the essence of picturesqueness, raggedness, ignorance, .and filth. By Frosinone and Ceprano — then the •dreary scene of the Neapolitan custom-house — we reached San Germane, where the inn was in those days most wretched. In our rooms we were not only exposed to every wind that blew, but to the invasions of little Marianina, Joannina, and Nicolina, who darted in every minute to look at us, and to the hens, who walked about and laid their eggs under the bed .and table. Most intensely, however, did we delight in the beauties of the glorious ascent to Monte Gas-sino and in all that we saw there.
How well I remember the extreme wretchedness of our mid-day halting-places in the after journey to Capua, and wonder how the pampered Italian travellers of the present day would put up with them; but in those days we did not mind, and till it was time to go on again, we drew the line of old crones sitting miserably against the inn-wall., rocking themselves to and fro in their coloured hoods, and cursing us in a
chorus of —
" Ah, vi pigli un accidents Voi che non date niente,"
if we did not give them anything.it of himt4t*if in in th« Utlm at Klcmtnoa.the years old!ends to which nlte devoted httr life brought trunblo tos once instead of three times every day of the year.