Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/273

Rh topped with a Saracenic looking dome. Italians take a lively interest in visitors, and soon several children and grown-ups were eagerly watching the result. "Look, they are painting our tower—come and see!" Italians never seem in a hurry, as one of their proverbs has it: "Time for everything," which includes an amount of loafing and gossip which would simply bore the average Anglo-Saxon, but which greatly adds to the amusement of the holiday traveller. Not far from here there are the remains of a large church, wrecked in the earthquake of 1887, a mass of ruin, broken columns and stonework. Inquiring why nothing had been done to remove the ruin, we learnt that underneath lie scores of people who in panic had rushed into the church, and were overwhelmed. They had let them lie there untouched.

Very curious are the habits of Italians with regard to their dead. Professionals perform the last offices for them; no one else, not even near relatives, go near the body. The services in church are impressive, but the actual burial takes place attended by only a few officials. The cemeteries are enclosed with walls, with cloisters and arcades, under which stand elaborate monuments, but the actual graves in the centre of the ground are only known to the sexton. They are very particular in keeping the days of the death of a relative, and going to the cemetery, spend some time by the monument, making a sort of family reunion of the occasion. At Genoa the Campo Santo, as it is termed, is of great extent, and full of magnificent sculpture; not exactly the place a visitor affects, yet directly you are recognized as a sightseer, guides and cabbies beset you with the invitation: "II Cimeterio, Signor?"