One cannot compare the two singers. Gayarré has the real quality of a tenor, exquisitely tender, suave, and still powerful. He has a way of keeping his voice bottled up until a grand climax; then he lets it swell out in a triumphal burst. This funeral service is a very long and fatiguing affair. I pity the _carabinieri_ (the soldiers) who are on service that day. Although they are men chosen for their powerful build, some of them cannot endure the fatigue of standing "at arms" the two hours that the service lasts. I suppose the poor things are put there from early dawn, and there they must stand, stiff and straight, with uplifted sword, without moving a muscle. We saw one (not this year, but last) faint dead away and drop in a heap on the marble steps of the altar. His sword and casque made a great clatter when they fell and rattled over the pavement. Four of his comrades rushed in, picked him up, and carried him out, staggering under his weight. He was replaced by another _carabinier_ noiselessly and so quickly that you hardly knew that anything had happened. The Argentina Theater attempted to give Wagner's Ring. It was a dismal performance. Wagner is not at his best in an Italian setting, with all the gas turned on and the scenery half tumbling down and the orchestra fiddling in full view. In the first act of "Rheingold," where the three maidens are swimming, the poor girls, with hair of unequal lengths, sprawled about, their arms clutching at air, and held up to the roof by visible and shaky ropes, half the time forgetting to sing in their wild efforts to keep themselves from falling, separated from the audience only by a gauze curtain which was transparency itself. DENMARK, _July, 1887_. My dear Aunt,--Denmark in July is ideal. It is never too warm in the day and always cool at night. I have been spending a few days with Howard on his farm. On the Fourth of July Howard wished to give the peasants in the neighborhood an entertainment to celebrate his country's "glorious Fourth." He hoped to inspire them with due enthusiasm and give them a good day's sport. The Danish peasant's idea of amusement is to walk leisurely to the place of rendezvous, to sit quietly and rest from his week's hard work, eat plenty of Smörrebrod (sandwiches), drink barrels of beer, have tobacco _ad libitum_, and finally to leave as lazily as he came. This feast was going to be otherwise. Everything was to be done _à l'Américaine_. The Fourth fell on a Sunday, and the farmers all accepted and came on the stroke of the clock, dressed in their Sunday-best clothes, which are of heavy broadcloth, made in the fashion of Louis Philippe, voluminous over the hips, thick, heavy-soled boots, and with long snake-like pipes hanging from their mouths. Howard had arranged all sorts of _gymkhana_ sports, for which prizes were to be given. There were to be the long jump, the high jump, a running-race, catching the greased pig, pole-climbing, a race in a bag, and so forth.