The whole of that day Assisi was full of Umbrian men and women greatly concerned in buying and selling; but on the next the streets began to fill with people from distant parts of Italy, whose only thought was for St. Francis. At a very early hour of the 30th we were roused by the sound of many voices in the distance; going out on the terrace we saw a crowd of pilgrims coming across the plain, and others moving with slow steps up the hill. When near the Porta S. Francesco they knelt outside in the road and sang their hymn of praise before entering the Seraphic City. From dawn to evening a steady stream of pilgrims passed into the town, and the chanting, rising and falling like a fitful summer breeze, was the only sound to be heard throughout the day. Such different groups of people knelt together in the church, with nothing in common but the love for the franciscan saint whose name was for ever on their lips. They came from distant corners of Southern Italy generally in carts drawn by mules or oxen, for few could afford the luxury of coming by train. The Neapolitan women and those from the Abruzzi wore spotlessly white head-kerchiefs which fell round their shoulders like a nun's coif, a white blouse and generally a brilliant red or yellow skirt gathered thickly round the hips; the men were even more picturesque, with their waistcoats and knickerbockers of scarlet cloth, their white shirt sleeves showing, and their stockings bound round with leathern thongs. Some of the women from the Basilicata wore wonderful necklaces of old workmanship, and gold embroidered bands laid across their linen blouses, while long pins with huge knobs of beaten silver fastened their headgear of black and white cloth. There were two women from the mountains of the Basilicata who wore thick cloth turbans, and blue braid plaited in and out of their hair at one side, giving them a coquettish air; they suffered beneath the burden of their thick stuff dresses made with straight short jackets and skirts and big loose sleeves. Their felt boots were ill-fitted for Umbrian roads, and altogether they were attired for a winter climate and not for a burning August day in mid Italy. "Ah, it is cool among our mountains," they said with a sigh gazing wearily down at the plain which sent up hot vapours to mingle with the dust. Many of them had been three weeks on their journey and they look upon it as a great holiday, an event in their lives which cannot be often repeated for they are poor and depend for their livelihood upon the produce of their fields; but even the poorest brings enough to have a mass said at the Portiuncula and to drop some coppers on the altar steps. A few wandered through the Upper Church looking at Giotto's frescoes, but unable to read the story for themselves turned to us for an explanation when we happened to be there. They patted our faces, saying _carina_ by way of thanks, but realised little or nothing about the saint they had come so far to