To-day the weather was not in the least Italian, being, on the contrary, gloomy and rough, as we generally find it in Austria at the same season of the year.  Yesterday it was so cold at Naples that Mount Vesuvius was covered with snow during several hours.

The dress of the peasants in these regions is of a more national character than I had yet found it.  The women wear short and scanty petticoats of blue or red cloth, tight-fitting bodices, and gaily-striped aprons.  Their head-dress consists of a white handkerchief, with a second above it folded in a square form.  The men look like robbers; with their long dark-blue or brown cloaks, in which they wrap themselves so closely that it is difficult to get a glimpse of their faces, and their steeple-crowned black hats, they quite resemble the pictures of the bandits in the Abruzzi.  They glide about in so spectral a manner, and eye travellers with such a sinister look, that I almost became uncomfortable.

From Jeromania we had still a few miles to travel until we entered the Roman territory near Ceprano.

In Naples, and in fact throughout the whole of Italy, the passports are continually called for,—­a great annoyance to the traveller.  In the course of to-day my passport was “vise” five times, making once in every little town through which we had passed.

It was our fortune at Ceprano to lodge with a very cheating host.  In the evening, when I inquired the price of a bedroom and breakfast, they told me a bed would cost two pauls, and breakfast half a paul; but when I came to pay, the host asked three pauls for my bed-room, and another for a cup of the worst coffee I have ever drunk; and the whole company was subjected to the same extortion.  We expostulated and complained, but were at length compelled to comply with the demand.

November 8th.

The landscape remains the same, but the appearance of the towns and villages is not nearly so neat and pretty as in the Neapolitan domain.  The costume of the peasants is like that worn by the people whom we met yesterday, excepting that the women have a stiff stomacher, fastened with a red lace, instead of the spencer.  The dress of the men consists of short knee-breeches, brown stockings, heavy shoes, and a jacket of some dark colour.  Some wear, in addition to this, a red waistcoat, and a green sash round the waist.  All wear the conical hat.  In cold weather the dark bandit’s cloak is also seen.

ROME.

As we approach Rome the country becomes more and more barren; the mountains recede, and the extended plains have a desert, uncultivated look.  Towns and villages become so thinly scattered, that it seems as though the whole region were depopulated.  The road is rather narrow, and as the country is in many places exceedingly marshy, a great portion of it has been paved.  For many miles before we enter Rome we do not pass a single town or village.  At length, some three hours before we reach the city, the dome of St. Peter’s is seen looming in the distance; one church after another appears, and at length the whole city lies spread before us.