Far away among the Sabine hills, right up the valley of the Teverone, as the Romans now-a-days call the stream which once bore the name of Anio, hard by the mountain frontier-land of Naples, lies the little town of Subiaco. I am not aware that of itself this out-of-the-world nook possesses much claim to notice. Antiquarians, indeed, visit it to search after the traces of a palace, where Nero may or may not have dwelt. Students of ecclesiastical lore make pilgrimages thereto, to behold the famous convent of the Santo Speco, the home of the Benedictine order. In summer-time the artists in Rome wander out here to take shelter from the burning heat of the flat Campagna land, and to sketch the wild Salvator Rosa scenery which hems in the town on every side. I cannot say, however, that it was love of antiquities or divinity, or even scenery, which led my steps Subiaco-wards. The motive of my journey was of a less elevated and more matter-of-fact character. Some few days beforehand a yellow play-bill-looking placard caught my eye as I strolled down the Corso. A perusal of its contents informed me, that on the approaching feast-day of St Benedict there was to be held at Subiaco the great annual _Festa e fiera_. Many and various were the attractions offered. There was to be a horse-race, a _tombola_, or open lottery, an illumination, display of fire-works, high mass, and, more than all, a public procession, in which the sacred image of San Benedetto was to be carried from the convent to the town. Such a bill of fare was irresistible, even had there not been added to it the desire to escape from the close muggy climate of Rome into the fresh mountain-air,--a desire whose intensity nothing but a long residence here can enable one to appreciate.