ood Friday they hang the
columns and the windows with black; they cover the pictures and deface
the altar; above the high altar they raise a crucifix, and below they
place a catafalque with the effigy of the dead Christ. To this sad
symbol they address their prayers and incense, chant their 'litanies
and lurries,' and clash the rattles, which commemorate their rage
against the traitor Judas. So far have we already passed away from the
Greek feeling of Mentone. As I listened to the hideous din, I could
not but remember the Theocritean burial of Adonis. Two funeral beds
prepared: two feasts recurring in the springtime of the year. What a
difference beneath this superficial similarity--[Greek: kalos nekus
oia katheudon]--_attritus aegra macie_. But the fast of Good
Friday is followed by the festival of Easter. That, after all, is the
chief difference.

After leaving the cathedral we saw a pretty picture in a dull old
street of San Remo--three children leaning from a window, blowing
bubbles. The bubbles floated down the street, of every colour, round
and trembling, like the dreams of life which children dream. The town
is certainly most picturesque. It resembles a huge glacier of houses
poured over a wedge of rock, running down the sides and along the
ridge, and spreading itself into a fan between two torrents on the
shore below. House over house, with balcony and staircase, convent
turret and church tower, palm-trees and olives, roof gardens and
clinging creepers--this white cataract of buildings streams downward
from the lazar-house, and sanctuary, and sandstone quarries on the
hill. It is a mass of streets placed close above each other, and
linked together with arms and arches of solid masonry, as a protection
from the earthquakes, which are frequent at San Remo. The walls are
tall, and form a labyrinth of gloomy passages and treacherous blind
alleys, where the Moors of old might meet with a ferocious welcome.
Indeed, San Remo is a fortress as well as a dwelling-place. Over its
gateways may still be traced the pipes for molten lead, and on its
walls the eyeloops for arrows, with brackets for the feet of archers.
Masses of building have been shaken down by earthquakes. The ruins of
what once were houses gape with blackened chimneys and dark forlorn
cellars; mazes of fungus and unhealthy weeds among the still secure
habitations. Hardly a ray of light penetrates the streets; one learns
the meaning of the Italian word _uggi