ing Misenus seated
upon the buffalo, which at once was seen pursued and pricked by six
Tritons adorned in a very rich and most masterly fashion. And for the
tenth and last there was seen coming, almost with the same artifice, but
in a different and much larger form and in a different colour, another
similar Cloud, which, parting asunder in like manner at the appointed
place with smoke and flame and a horrible thunder, was seen to have
within it infernal Pluto, drawn in his usual car, and from it in a most
gracious manner was seen to come forth in place of a buffalo a great and
awful Cerberus, who was chased by six of those glorious ancient heroes
who are supposed to dwell in peace in the Elysian Fields. All those
companies, when they had appeared one by one upon the piazza, and
presented the due and gracious spectacle, and after a long breaking of
lances, a great caracoling of horses, and a thousand other suchlike
games, with which the fair ladies and the multitude of spectators were
entertained for a good time, finally made their way to the place where
the buffaloes were to be set to race. And there, the trumpet having
sounded, and each company striving that its buffalo should arrive at the
appointed goal before the others, and now one prevailing and now
another, all of a sudden, when they were come within a certain distance
of the place, all the air about them was seen filled with terror and
alarm from the great and deafening fires that smote them now on one side
and now on another, in a thousand strange fashions, insomuch that very
often it was seen to happen that one who at the beginning had been
nearest to winning the coveted prize, the timid and not very obedient
animal taking fright at the noise, the smoke, and the fires above
described, which, in proportion as one went ahead, became ever greater
and assailed that one with ever greater vehemence, so that the animals
turned in various directions, and very often took to headlong flight--it
was seen many times, I say, that the first were constrained to return
among the last; while the confusion of men, buffaloes, and horses, and
the lightning-flashes, noises, and thunderings, produced a strange,
novel, and incomparable pleasure and delight. And thus with that
spectacle was finally contrived a splendid, although for many perhaps
disturbing, conclusion of the joyous and most festive Carnival.

In the first and holy days of the following Lent, with the thought of
pleas