downwards, bleated piteously.  The only sights of a private description were a series of deformed beggars, drawn in go-carts, and wriggling with the most hideous contortions; but the fat woman, and the infant with two heads, and the learned dog, whom I had seen in all parts of Europe, were nowhere to be found.  There was not even an organ boy or a hurdy-gurdy.  Music, alas! like prophecy, has no honour in its own country.  The crowd was of a very humble description; the number of bonnets or hats visible might be counted on one’s fingers, and the fancy peasant costumes of which Subiaco is said to be the great rendezvous, were scarcely more in number.  There was very little animation apparent of any kind, very little of gesticulation, or still less of shouting; indeed the crowd, to do them justice, were perfectly quiet and orderly, for a holiday crowd almost painfully so.  The party to which I belonged, and which consisted of four Englishmen, all more or less attired in those outlandish costumes which none but Englishmen ever wear, and no Englishman ever dreams of wearing in his own country, excited no comment whatever, and scarcely attracted a passing glance.  Fancy what the effect would be of four bloused and bearded Frenchmen strolling arm-in-arm through a village wake in an out-of-the-way English county?  By the time I had strolled through the fair, the guns, or rather two most dilapidated old fowling-pieces, were firing as a signal for the race.  The horses were the same as those run at the Carnival races in Rome, and as the only difference was, that the course, besides being over hard slippery stones, was also up a steep hill-street, and the race therefore somewhat more cruel, I did not wait to see the end, but wandered up the valley to hear the vespers at the convent of the Santo Speco.  I should have been sorry to have missed the service.  Through a number of winding passages, up flights of narrow steps, and by terrace-ledges cut from the rock, over which I passed, and overhanging the river-side, I came to a vault-like chapel with low Saracenic arches and quaint old, dark recesses, and a dim shadowy air of mystery.  Round the candle-lighted altar, standing out brightly from amidst the darkness, knelt in every posture some seventy monks; and ever and anon the dreary nasal chanting ceased, and a strain of real music burst from out the hidden choir, rising and dying fitfully.  The whole scene was beautiful enough; but,—­what a pity there should be a “but” in everything,—­when you came to look on the scene in the light of a service, the charm passed away.  There were plenty of performers but no audience; the congregation consisted of four peasant-women, two men, and a child in arms.  The town below was crowded.  The service was one of the chief ones in the year, but somehow or other the people stopped away.