The town itself looks as if it had just been kicked out of a theatre. Round towers at entrance gates, streets narrow and all up hill, the tiles on the houses running down to see what is going on in the gutter, quaint old houses, gray with time, with latticed windows, queer old doors, a grand old castle in ruins. It is one of the scenes you long so much to see before you come abroad, and which you so seldom find along the Grande Route. Spend a summer in the mountain towns of Italy! among the Volscian mountains or hills--and have your eyes opened. As Caper entered the gate, the first objects meeting his sight were: a procession of genuine pilgrims, dressed precisely as you see them in Robert le Diable, or Linda di Chamouni, or on the stage generally--long gray robes down to their feet, cocked hats with cockle shells, long wands; some barefoot, some with sandals: on they passed, singing religious songs. Then came the peasantry, all in perfect theatrical harmony, costumes rigidly correct _a la Sonnambula_. German artists dressed in Sunday clothes _a la Der Freyschutz_. A cafe with festoons of lemon-peel hung from window to window--they are not up to this idea in _Fra Diavolo_. Pretty girls in latticed windows, with red boddices, white sleeves, flowers in their hair--_legitimate Italian drama_. Crockery-ware in piles--_low comedy_. A man with a table, Sambuca and Acqua-vita bottles on it, and wee glasses, one cent a drink: _melodrama_. Fresh oranges and figs, pumpkin-seed and pine cones; a house with mushrooms strung on thread, hanging from window to window--this was not for festival display, but is the common way of the country. Notices of the _festa_, containing programme of the day, including amusements, ecclesiastical and secular, hung up alongside the stands where they were selling lottery tickets--_tragedy_. Fountains, with groups of peasantry drinking, or watering horses and donkeys--_pantomime_. Priests, in crow-black raiment, and canal-boat or shovel hats--_mystery_. Strangers from Rome, in the negro-minstrel style of costume, if young men; or in the rotund-paunch and black-raiment dress, if elderly men; or in the _chiffonee_ style, if Roman women attempting the last Parisian fashion--_farce_. Here are the booths with rosaries, crucifixes, Virgin Mary's holy-water holders, medals of Pio Nono, or jewelry; gold crescent earrings, _spadine_ (long silver hair pins); silver hearts, legs, arms, for votive offerings, and crosses without number. Caper entered the church; it was filled, and stifling with heat and frankincense, and contadini, and wax lights burning before the shrine, on which the sun shone. There were beautiful faces among the _pajine_ (people in fine raiment), showing what can be made from the _contadine_ (people in coarse clothes) by not overworking them.