Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/320

 May 1st, 1899.

Again at work, after a year's holiday, partly at Home, in Brittany, Italy, and Sicily, with six weeks in Egypt on my return journey. I can only give you some notes by the way of what I saw, and of the people I met.

Christmas Eve—late at night in the great nave of Santa Maria Maggiore,—no service, but every part of the church thronged, people slowly moving about, and exchanging greetings. In a side chapel a scenic representation of a pastoral landscape; in the foreground a grotto, in which are the Virgin and Child, with Joseph; the ox and the ass, shepherds and kings in adoration; the figures richly dressed and life-size. The scene is illuminated with a multitude of wax tapers. The only light in the vast church, besides that from this side-chapel, are candles set in patterns on the walls, scarcely sufficient to enable you to see your way. At Christmas time the country folk flock into Rome and make holiday until Twelfth Night and the Feast of Epiphany.

Twelfth Night is to the children what Christmas Eve is with us. It is then that the Christmas presents are given. But there is a curious difference between