Gradually and slowly the street fills. One day is so like another that to see one is to have seen all. The length of the Corso there saunters listlessly an idle, cloak-wrapt, hands-in-pocket-wearing, cigar-smoking, shivering crowd, composed of French soldiers and the rif-raff of Rome, the proportion being one of the former to every two or three of the latter. The balconies, which grow like mushrooms on the fronts of every house, in all out-of-the-way places and positions, are every now and then adorned with red hangings. These balconies and the windows are scantily filled with shabbily-dressed persons, who look on the scene below as spectators, not as actors. At rare intervals a carriage passes. The chances are that its occupants are English or Americans. On the most crowded day there are, perhaps, at one time, fifty carriages in all, of which more than half belong to the _forestieri_. Indeed, if it were not for our Anglo-Saxon countrymen, there would be no carnival at all. We don't contribute much, it is true, to the brilliancy of the _coup d'oeil_. Our gentlemen are in the shabbiest of coats and seediest of hats, while our ladies wear grey cloaks, and round, soup-plate bonnets. However, if we are not ornamental, we are useful. We pelt each other with a hearty vigour, and discharge volleys of _confetti_ at every window where a fair English face appears. The poor luckless nosegay or sugar-plum boys look upon us as their best friends, and follow our carriages with importunate pertinacity. Fancy dresses of any kind are few. There are one or two very young men--English, I suspect,--dressed as Turks, or Greeks, or pirates, after Highbury Barn traditions, looking cold and uncomfortable. Half a dozen tumble-down carriages represent the Roman element. They are filled with men disguised as peasant-women, and _vice versa_; but, whether justly or unjustly, they are supposed to be chartered for the show by the Government, and attract small comment or notice. Amongst the foot-crowd, with the exception of a stray foreigner, there is not a well- dressed person to be seen. The fun is of the most dismal character. Boys with bladders whack each other on the back, and jump upon each other's shoulders. Harlequins and clowns--shabby, spiritless, and unmasked--grin inanely in your face, and seem to be hunting after a joke they can never find. A quack doctor, or a man in crinoline, followed by a nigger holding an umbrella over his head, or a swell with pasteboard collars, and a chimney-pot on his head, pass from time to time and shout to the bystanders, but receive no answer. Give them a wide berth, for they are spies, and bad company. The one great amusement is pelting a black hat, the glossier the better. After a short time even this pleasure palls, and, moreover, victims grow scarce, for the crowd, contrary to the run of Italian crowds, is an ill-bred, ill-conditioned one, and take to throw