Then the Saracens turned their attention to crockery ware, pots, pans, and water jars; forming like fruits and flowers the yielding clay, and establishing models that are every hour to be seen around one in this old nest. Clothes, too, they thought, should be made as they saw 'fit;' and, accordingly, head-dresses and dresses, under garments, &c., à la Saracenesca, were all the rage; and as the colors were in no wise sombre or melancholy to behold, the girls took kindly to them, and, slightly modified, wear them still. When you see the pane, the white cloth worn on the women's heads, remember it was once an Oriental yashmak, falling around and concealing the face of the Italian lady love of a Saracen; but when the Saracens departed, they rolled up the veil and disclosed to delighted Christians the features of Rita or Maria, who figured for a time as Zoe or Fatima.
With their religion, the Saracens were not so successful—they could not make it popular; so they waived this point, contented with having set the fashions, and introduced their own style of music, crockery, and jewelry.
Thus reflecting, Caper stopped short, regarded his watch, found it was near dinner time—the pastoral hour of noon-day—and then turned to walk down to the inn. On his way he passed a store having French calicoes in the window, and mourned in his heart to think how short a time it would be before these became popular, and the homemade picturesque dresses of the female Segnians would be discarded. The time, too, was fast coming—with the railroad from Rome to Naples—when travellers will overrun these mountain towns, and the price of board shoot up from forty cents to a dollar or two: then the inhabitants will learn geography and become mercenary, and will learn arithmetic and blaspheme (in their way) at forestieri Inglese, Americani, Francese, or Tedeschi, and cheat them. Then the peace of the Volscians will have departed, never, oh, never more to return.
Then the women will wear—bonnets! and cheap French goods; will no longer look like moving woodyards, bringing fagots on their heads down mountain sides; no longer bear aloft the graceful conche filled with sweet water from the fountain, for hydraulic rams will do their business; no longer lead the sportive pig to pastures new, but pen him up, and feed him when the neighbors are not looking on! These days will sorely try the men: now they labor in the fields in shirts and drawers, never thinking of putting on their pantaloons until they return to the very gates of the town, where, at sunset, you may see them, ten or twelve deep, thus employed before entering the city; but in the future they will have to observe les convenances and make their toilette in the fields. This they will do with great grumbling, returning homeward, and they will sing rondinelle bearing severely on the forestieri who have ruined the good old pod-augur days when they made vendetta without trouble: thus reflecting, the donkeys they ride, while their wives walk and carry a load, will receive many virulent punches intended for other objects.
'Signor Giacomo, dinner is served,' said the landlord, as Caper entered the old inn.
Cool wine, roast lamb, wild pigeons, crisp salad, with a broiled partridge; great bunches of luscious grapes, figs freshly picked, and maccaroni à la Milanese. Such was our artist's dinner that day. Patriarchally simple of a necessity; but, then, what can you expect in a town where the British Lion has never yet growled for a bushel of raw beef when he is fed, or swore at the landlord for not having a pint of hay boiled in hot water (tea?) for breakfast, when he is nervous?
Do not believe, in spite of all you hear about the benighted Papal States, that the people spend their holidays groaning and begging to depart from this vale of tears: on the contrary, the ignorant wretches believe in enjoying every moment of life; and, to judge by the Segnians, who are by no means dyspeptical, they do so with all their might. They know, if they fall sick, good Doctor Matteucci attends them carefully and well, without any charge, for he receives a salary from the commune. They know, if they have good health and do their work, they will be rewarded every now and then with a holiday, in which religion is so tempered with lottery tickets, wine drinking, fireworks, horse races, and trading, that, shorn lambs as they are, paying to the church three cents for every twenty-five pounds of corn they may grind, and as large a portion of their crops for the rent of the lands they till, they still have jolly good times at the fairs and festivals in their own and neighboring towns.
Every town has its patron saint, and it is in honor of his day that they hold one grand festival each year. To accommodate temporal affairs, a fair is also held on the same day, so that the country people of the neighborhood may purchase not only the necessaries, but the simple luxuries they need or long for.
Besides the only principal festival and fair in Segni to San Bruno, already described, they had three minor celebrations of minor saints, substitutes, as Rocjean declared, for Pomona, Bacchus, and Ceres: certainly, the saints' days fell very curiously about the same time their predecessors were worshipped.
It is, however, of five festivals and fairs held in five neighboring towns, that the present chapter treats; so let the drums beat while our three artists proceed to enjoy on paper the days they celebrated.
One evening, the vetturino, Francesco, came to the trio and told them that on the next day but one, Sunday, there would be a fair and festa at Frosinone, a town about twenty-three miles from Segni, and that if they wished to go, he had three seats to hire in his vettura. Having heard that the costumes to be seen there were highly picturesque, and anxious to study the habits of the people in holiday guise, our artists determined to go. At daybreak on the appointed morning, having breakfasted and filled their flasks with wine, they started with a guide to walk down to Casa Bianca, a small osteria, distant, as the guide assured them, about two miles; three miles, as Francesco swore to; four miles, as Gaetano, the landlord declared; and six miles as Caper and Rocjean were ready to affirm to. Down the mountain road they scrambled, only losing their patience when they found they had to wade a small marsh, where their tempers and polished boots were sorely tried. Once over, they reached Casa Bianca, and found the vettura there, having arrived an hour before from Rome, thirty odd (and peculiar) miles distant; and now with the same horses they had to make twenty-three miles more before ten A. M., according to agreement. Rocjean and Caper sat outside the carriage, while Dexter sat inside, and conversed with two other passengers, cheerful and good-natured people, who did all in their power to make everybody around them contented and jolly.
The road went through the fertile Sacco valley; right and left rich pasture grounds, or wheat and corn fields; the mountains on either side rising in grandeur in the early sunlight, their tops wreathed with veils of rising mist. They soon passed Castelaccio (the termination accio is one, according to Don Boschi, of vilification; consequently, the name may be translated Bigbad Castle): this castle belongs to Prince Torlonia, apropos of which prince it is rather singular that all his money cannot buy good Latin; for any one may read at Frascati, staring you in the face as it does, as you wind up the villa, engraved on a large marble tablet, an inscription touching
Uxsor may be Latin, but it is the kind that is paid for, and not the spontaneous gift of classic Italy.
The carriage next passed through Ferentino, Ferentinum of the Volscians, where it stopped for a time to let Rocjean see the stone called La Fata, whereon is inscribed the noble generosity of Quintilius Priscus, who gave crustula and mulsum (cakes and mead) to the old people; sportulæ (cold victuals?) to the decurions, and nucum sparsiones (a sprinkling of nuts) for the small children.
After which antiquarian research, and a drink of wine at the Hotel des Étrangères, the trio called loudly on Francesco to drive on; for the name of the inn suggested similar signboards, Hotel d'Angleterre, Hotel Vitoria, Hotel des Isles Brittaniques, at all of which one or other of our travellers had been savagely fleeced.
The carriage at last arrived at the tavern, at the foot of the mountain on which Frosinone stands, and our artists found that the ascent must be made on foot: this, in the face of the broiling sun, was equal to two hot baths at least. However, they determined to take it easily, and accordingly tarried for a while by an old bridge crossing a small stream, running