The Eve of Epiphany, or Twelfth-Night, is to the children of Rome what Christmas Eve is to us.  It is then that the Bifana comes with her presents.  This personage is neither merry nor male, like Santa Claus, nor beautiful and childlike, like Christ-kindchen,—­but is described as a very tall, dark woman, ugly, and rather terrible, “d’ una fisionomia piuttosto imponente” who comes down the chimney, on the Eve of Epiphany, armed with a long canna and shaking a bell, to put playthings into the stockings of the good children, and bags of ashes into those of the bad.  It is a night of fearful joy for all the little ones.  When they hear her bell ring, they shake in their sheets; for the Bifana is used as a threat to the wilful, and their hope is tempered by a wholesome apprehension.  It is supposed to be a distorted image of the visit of the kings and wise men with their presents at the Nativity, as Santa Claus may be of the shepherds, and the Christ-kindchen of Christ himself.  However this may be, it is curious to observe the different characters this superstition assumes among different nations and under different influences.

The great festival of the Bifana (a corruption, undoubtedly, of Epifania) takes place on the Eve of Twelfth-Night, in the Piazza di San Eustachio,—­and a curious spectacle it is.  The Piazza itself, (which is situated in the centre of the city, just beyond the Pantheon,) and all the adjacent streets, are lined with booths covered with every kind of plaything for children.  Most of these are of Roman make, very rudely fashioned, and very cheap; but for those who have longer purses, there are not wanting heaps of German and French toys.  These booths are gayly illuminated with rows of candles and the three-wicked brass lucerne of Rome; and, at intervals, painted posts are set into the pavement, crowned with pans of grease, with a wisp of tow for wick, which blaze and flare about.  Besides these, numbers of torches carried about by hand lend a wavering and picturesque light to the scene.  By eight o’clock in the evening, crowds begin to fill the Piazza and the adjacent streets.  Long before one arrives, the squeak of penny-trumpets is heard at intervals; but in the Piazza itself the mirth is wild and furious, and the din that salutes one’s ears on entering is almost deafening.  The object of every one is to make as much noise as possible, and every kind of instrument for this purpose is sold at the booths.  There are drums beating, tamburelli thumping and jingling, pipes squeaking, watchmen’s-rattles clacking, penny-trumpets and tin horns shrilling, and the sharpest whistles shrieking everywhere.  Besides this, there are the din of voices, screams of laughter, and the confused burr and buzz of a great crowd.  On all sides you are saluted by the strangest noises.  Instead of being spoken to, you are whistled at.  Companies of people are marching together in platoons, or piercing through the crowd in long files, and dancing