ind some of happy days spent under the Roman sky, and, by directing
the attention of others to what they have overlooked, may open a door
to a new pleasure. _Chi sa?_ The plainest Ranz des Vaches may sometimes
please when the fifth symphony of Beethoven would be a bore.

CHAPTER II.

STREET-MUSIC IN ROME.

Whoever has passed the month of December in Rome will remember to
have been awakened from his morning-dreams by the gay notes of the
_pifferari_ playing in the streets below, before the shrines of the
Madonna and Bambino,--and the strains of one set of performers will
scarcely have ceased, before the distant notes of another set of
pilgrims will be heard to continue the well-known _novena_. The
_pifferari_ are generally _contadini_ of the Abruzzi Mountains, who, at
the season of Advent, leave their home to make a pilgrimage to Rome,--
stopping before all the wayside shrines, as they journey along, to pay
their glad music of welcome to the Virgin, and the coming Messiah. Their
song is called a _novena_, from its being sung for nine consecutive
days,--first, for nine days previous to the Festa of the Madonna,
which occurs on the 8th of December, and afterwards for the nine days
preceding Christmas. The same words and music serve, however, for both
celebrations. The _pifferari_ always go in couples, one playing on the
_zampogna_, or bagpipe, the bass and treble accompaniment, and the other
on the _piffero_, or pastoral pipe, which carries the air; and for the
month before Christmas the sound of their instruments resounds through
the streets of Rome, wherever there is a shrine,--whether at the corners
of the streets, in the depths of the shops, down little lanes, in the
centre of the Corso, in the interior courts of the palaces, or on the
stairways of private houses.

Their costume is extremely picturesque. On their heads they wear conical
felt hats adorned with a frayed peacock's feather, or a faded band of
red cords and tassels,--their bodies are clad in red waistcoats, blue
jackets, and small-clothes of skin or yellowish homespun cloth,--skin
sandals are bound to their feet with cords that interlace each other up
the leg as far as the knee,--and over all is worn a long brown or blue
cloak with a short cape, buckled closely round the neck. Sometimes, but
rarely, this cloak is of a deep red with a scalloped cape. As they stand
before the pictures of the Madonna, their hats placed on the ground
before them, and th