In the cathedral church of San Siro on Good Friday they hang the columns and the windows with black; they cover the pictures and deface the altar; above the high altar they raise a crucifix, and below they place a catafalque with the effigy of the dead Christ.  To this sad symbol they address their prayers and incense, chant their ’litanies and lurries,’ and clash the rattles, which commemorate their rage against the traitor Judas.  So far have we already passed away from the Greek feeling of Mentone.  As I listened to the hideous din, I could not but remember the Theocritean burial of Adonis.  Two funeral beds prepared:  two feasts recurring in the springtime of the year.  What a difference beneath this superficial similarity—­[Greek:  kalos nekus oia katheudon]—­attritus aegra macie.  But the fast of Good Friday is followed by the festival of Easter.  That, after all, is the chief difference.

After leaving the cathedral we saw a pretty picture in a dull old street of San Remo—­three children leaning from a window, blowing bubbles.  The bubbles floated down the street, of every colour, round and trembling, like the dreams of life which children dream.  The town is certainly most picturesque.  It resembles a huge glacier of houses poured over a wedge of rock, running down the sides and along the ridge, and spreading itself into a fan between two torrents on the shore below.  House over house, with balcony and staircase, convent turret and church tower, palm-trees and olives, roof gardens and clinging creepers—­this white cataract of buildings streams downward from the lazar-house, and sanctuary, and sandstone quarries on the hill.  It is a mass of streets placed close above each other, and linked together with arms and arches of solid masonry, as a protection from the earthquakes, which are frequent at San Remo.  The walls are tall, and form a labyrinth of gloomy passages and treacherous blind alleys, where the Moors of old might meet with a ferocious welcome.  Indeed, San Remo is a fortress as well as a dwelling-place.  Over its gateways may still be traced the pipes for molten lead, and on its walls the eyeloops for arrows, with brackets for the feet of archers.  Masses of building have been shaken down by earthquakes.  The ruins of what once were houses gape with blackened chimneys and dark forlorn cellars; mazes of fungus and unhealthy weeds among the still secure habitations.  Hardly a ray of light penetrates the streets; one learns the meaning of the Italian word uggia from their cold and gloom.  During the day they are deserted by every one but babies and witchlike old women—­some gossiping, some sitting vacant at the house door, some spinning or weaving, or minding little children—­ugly and ancient as are their own homes, yet clean as are the streets.  The younger population goes afield; the men on mules laden for the hills, the women burdened like mules with heavy and disgusting loads.  It is an exceptionally good-looking race; tall, well-grown,