loaded with travellers, for Rome and other places in the south of Italy, I rise, dress myself, and take my place at the window.  I see crowds of men and women from the country, the former in brown velvet jackets, and the latter in broad-brimmed straw hats, driving donkeys loaded with panniers or trundling hand-carts before them, heaped with grapes, figs, and all the fruits of the orchard, the garden, and the field.  They have hardly passed, when large flocks of sheep and goats make their appearance, attended by shepherds and their families, driven by the approach of winter from the Appenines, and seeking the pastures of the Maremma, a rich, but, in the summer, an unhealthy tract on the coast; The men and boys are dressed in knee-breeches, the women in bodices, and both sexes wear capotes with pointed hoods, and felt hats with conical crowns; they carry long staves in their hands, and their arms are loaded with kids and lambs too young to keep pace with their mothers.  After the long procession of sheep and goats and dogs and men and women and children, come horses loaded with cloths and poles for tents, kitchen utensils, and the rest of the younglings of the flock.  A little after sunrise I see well-fed donkeys, in coverings of red cloth, driven over the bridge to be milked for invalids.  Maid-servants, bareheaded, with huge high carved combs in their hair, waiters of coffee-houses carrying the morning cup of coffee or chocolate to their customers, baker’s boys with a dozen loaves on a board balanced on their heads, milkmen with rush baskets filled with flasks of milk, are crossing the streets in all directions.  A little later the bell of the small chapel opposite to my window rings furiously for a quarter of an hour, and then I hear mass chanted in a deep strong nasal tone.  As the day advances, the English, in white hats and white pantaloons, come out of their lodgings, accompanied sometimes by their hale and square-built spouses, and saunter stiffly along the Arno, or take their way to the public galleries and museums.  Their massive, clean, and brightly-polished carriages also begin to rattle through the streets, setting out on excursions to some part of the environs of Florence—­to Fiesole, to the Pratolino, to the Bello Sguardo, to the Poggio Imperiale.  Sights of a different kind now present themselves.  Sometimes it is a troop of stout Franciscan friars, in sandals and brown robes, each carrying his staff and wearing a brown broad-brimmed hat with a hemispherical crown.  Sometimes it is a band of young theological students, in purple cassocks with red collars and cuffs, let out on a holiday, attended by their clerical instructors, to ramble in the Cascine.  There is a priest coming over the bridge, a man of venerable age and great reputation for sanctity—­the common people crowd around him to kiss his hand, and obtain a kind word from him as he passes.  But what is that procession of men in black gowns, black gaiters, and black masks, moving swiftly along, and bearing on their