The neniae of Terra d'Otranto and of Calabria are not uncommonly composed in a semi-dramatic form. Professor Comparetti cites one, in which the friend of a dead girl is represented as going to pay her a visit, in ignorance of the misfortune that has happened. She sees a crowd at the door, and she exclaims: "How many folks are in thy house! they come from all the neighbourhood; they are bidden by thy mother, who shows thee the bridal array!" But on crossing the threshold she finds that the shutters are closed: "Alas!" she cries, "I deceive myself--I enter into darkness." Again she repeats: "How many folks are in thy house! All Corigliano is there." The mother says: "My daughter has bidden them by the tolling of the bell." Then the daughter is made to ask: "What ails thee, what ails thee, my mother? wherefore dost thou rend thy hair?" The mother rejoins: "I think of thee, my daughter, of how thou liest down in darkness." "What ails thee, what ails thee, my mother, that all around one can hear thee wailing?" "I think of thee, my daughter, of how thou art turned black as soot." A sort of chorus is appended: "All, all the mothers weep and rend their hair: let them weep, the poor mothers who lose their children." Here are the last four lines as they were originally set on paper: Ole sole i mane i cluene Isirnune anapota ta maddia, Afi na clapsune tio mane misere Pu ichannune ta pedia! Professor Comparetti has shaped them into looking more like Greek: [Greek: Olais, holais e manai eklaioune Esyrnoune anapoda ta mallia Aphese na klapsoune tais manais] _misere_ [Greek: Pou echanoune ta paidia!] In his "Tour through the Southern Provinces of the Kingdom of Naples," the Hon. R. Keppel Craven gave an account of a funeral at Corigliano. The deceased, a stout, swarthy man of about fifty, had been fond of field sports; he was, therefore, laid on his open bier in the dress of a hunter. When the procession passed the house of a friend of the dead man, it halted as a mark of respect, and the friend got up from his dinner and looked out for a few minutes, afterwards philosophically returning to the interrupted meal. The busy people in the street, carpenters, blacksmiths, cobblers, and fruitsellers, paused from their several occupations--all carried on, as usual, in the open air, when the dismal chant of the priests announced the approach of the funeral, resuming them with redoubled energy as soon as it had moved on. A group of weeping women led the widow, whose face was pale and motionless as a statue; her black tresses descended to her knees, and at regular intervals she pulled out two or three hairs--the women instantly taking hold of her hands and replacing them by her side, where they hung till the operation was next repeated.