never even caught sight of one. After Tivoli, when the road enters the
mountains, there are a dozen small towns or so, all perched on the
summits of high hills, under which the road winds in passing. Detached
houses or cottages there are, as a rule, none--certainly not half a dozen
in all--the whole way along. There was little appearance of traffic
anywhere. A few rough carts, loaded with charcoal or wood for the Roman
markets; strings of mules, almost buried beneath high piles of brushwood,
which were swung pannier-wise across their backs; and a score of peasant-
farmers mounted on shaggy cart-horses, and jogging towards the fair,
constituted the way-bill of the road. The mountain slopes were
apparently altogether barren, or at any rate uncultivated. In the plain
of the valley, bearing traces of recent inundation from the brook-torrent
which ran alongside the road in strange zig-zag windings, were a number
of poorly tilled fields, half covered with stones. The season was
backward, and I could see no trace of anything but hard, fruitless
labour; and the peasants, who were working listlessly, seemed unequal to
the labour of cultivating such unprofitable lands. Personally the men
were a vigorous race enough, but the traces of the malaria fever, the
sunken features and livid complexion, were painfully common; their dress
too was worn ragged and meagre, while the boys working in the fields
constantly left their work to beg as I passed by, a fact which,
considering how little frequented this district is by travellers, struck
me unpleasantly. With my English recollections of what going to the fair
used to be, I looked but in vain for farmers' carts or holiday-dressed
foot-folk going towards Subiaco. I did not meet one carriage of any
description, except the diligence without a passenger, and could not have
guessed, from the few knots of peasants I passed, that there was anything
unusual going on in what I suppose I might call the county town of the
district.

By the time I reached Subiaco, the first day of the fair was at its
height. The topography of the place is of the simplest description,--a
narrow street running up a steep hill, with a small market-place; on the
summit stands a church; half a dozen _cul-de-sac_ alleys on the right,
terminated by the wall that hems in the river at their feet; a long
series of broken steps on the left, leading to a dilapidated castle,
where the Legate ought to reside, but does n