In past ages a piece of money was put into the mouth of the corpse—a survival of the fare which Charon was bound to receive. A virgin has a palm branch and a crown in her coffin; a child a garland of flowers. It is the worst possible omen for a bridal procession to meet a funeral. It has to be averted by making the “horns”—or “le fiche” (thrusting the thumb between the first two fingers) or by putting a pomegranate before the door or in the window. At Piano de’ Greci certain little loaves or bread-cakes in the form of a cross are given to the poor on the day of a death. In Giacosa, behind the funeral procession comes an ass laden with food, which, after the burial, is distributed either here in the open or under cover in some house. The Sicilian-Albanians do not sit on chairs during the first days of mourning, but on the dead man’s mattress. In some houses all is thrown into intentional confusion—turned upside down, to mark the presence of death. Others put out the mattress to show that the invalid is dead; others again remake the bed as for marriage, placing on it the crucifix which the sick man had held in his hand when dying. Woe to those who let the candle go out while burning at the foot of the bed! On the first day of mourning, there is one only of these corpse-lights; on the second day two; on the third three. Men and women sit round—the men covered up in their cloaks with a black ribbon round their throats—the women with their black mantles drawn close over the head, all in deep mourning. For the first nine days, friends, also in strict mourning, throng the house to pay their formal visits of condolence. The mourners do not speak nor look up, but sit there like statues, and talk of the dead in solemn phrases and with bated breath, but entering into the minute and sometimes most immodest details. The mourning lasts one or two years for parents, husband or wife, and brothers and sisters; six months for grandparents, and uncles and aunts; three months for a cousin. Babies are buried in white with a red ribbon as a sash, or disposed over the body in the form of a cross. They lie in a basket on the table with wax candles set round, and their faces are covered with a fine veil. They are covered with flowers, and on the little head is also a garland of flowers. No one must weep for the death of an infant. It would be an offence against God, who had compassion on the little creature and took it to make of it an angel in Paradise before it had learned to sin. The announcement of its death is received with a cry of “Glory and Paradise!” and in some places the joybells are rung as for a festa. When taken to the Campo Santo, it is accompanied with music and singing.