hat would have
to elapse before the wearing of ornaments became customary. We can still
benefit by this happy forethought if we are threatened with the evil eye
when divested of all our charms--when bathing for instance. The pope,
Pio Nono, was believed to have the evil eye, and pious pilgrims asking
his blessing used, at the same time, to take the precaution of protecting
themselves from his malign influence by pointing two fingers at him under
their clothes.

Inanimate things, of course, cannot be said literally to have the evil
eye, but many of them cause misfortunes. A hearse is a most unlucky
thing to meet when it is empty. Peppino says--

"If you shall meet the carriage of the dead man and it is empty, perhaps
it shall be coming to take you; this is not a good thing and then must
you be holding the horn in the hand. But if the dead man shall be riding
in his carriage, then certainly this time it shall not be for you and the
horn it is necessary not at all. This is what they believe."

He did not mean that you are bound to die if you see an empty hearse, but
that unless you take precautions you will certainly meet with some kind
of misfortune. I should say that the professor meets an empty hearse
every day of his life. He came up to Castellinaria, not knowing there
was to be a festa, found every place full and spent the night wandering
about the streets. It was impossible not to be sorry for the poor man
when I found him the following afternoon dozing on a chair in the kitchen
and, in a fit of expansiveness, I offered him the other bed in my room.
He accepted it with gratitude and said he should retire early as he was
too much fatigued to care about religious festivities.

Peppino took the earliest opportunity of blowing me up for this, saying
that it was most dangerous to sleep with a jettatore in the room. I told
him I did not believe in all that nonsense any more than he did and we
had a long discussion which he ended by producing a coral horn from his
pocket, saying the professor might have the other bed if I would wear the
coral all night. Of course I chaffed him about having the horn in his
pocket after his protestations of disbelief, but it was like talking to a
kitten that has been caught stealing fish and I had to take his charm and
promise to conform on the ground that one cannot be too careful.

The procession, which was the climax of the festa, did not begin till
11.30 P.M. and was not ov