The appearance of the singer is mournful in the extreme. Her eyes are red with tears, and her face is convulsed with grief. She tears her hair violently, stoops down over the body, kisses it, calls it by name, and sways from side to side, all the time shrieking at the top of her voice. Other mourners arrive, all in black. On the threshold of the chamber they stop, raise their hands towards the heavens, and cry three times with all their might the name of the dead. Then they go forward, bathed in tears. When they reach the bed, they stoop to kiss the body and the relatives, and do their best in broken tones to mutter words of sympathy and consolation. They take their places in the circle of figures upon the floor, and the penetrating shrieks and cries are heard once more. All this time the _voceratrice_ is chanting the praises of the dead. When she is exhausted, she sinks upon a chair, and calls one of the mourners by name to take her place and continue the lamentations. So it goes on for hours, one after the other chanting the songs of misery and woe. [Illustration: ROADSIDE CROSS.] People passing by the house hear, but give little heed to all this clamour. They are used to it. Barry says: “One fine day when I was strolling about, and nearing a place where the washerwomen wash, I heard a succession of piercing shrieks, and, turning my steps in the direction of the sounds, perceived the clothes and figure of a female rolling about in the dust of the road. The said female, who was respectably dressed, and who seemed to be a girl of about sixteen or seventeen, would from time to time rise from the ground, walk a few steps in the direction of the town, and then again throw herself down, casting handfuls of dirt over her head, tearing out her hair, which was perfectly dishevelled, and frantically screaming all the while, though none of the washerwomen took the least notice, ‘My sister is dead! My sister is dead!’” It can easily be imagined that when a man has been assassinated the wailing and the chanting are more violent than usual. In 1896 a celebrated bandit was killed. In the night, his wife, his sister, and his cousins went to the village where his body was publicly exposed. They howled like tigresses in the silence of the night, and their cries were so piercing and so full of sorrow that all the people of the town were awakened in great fright, and shivered with terror.