Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/297

284 portion, with unflagging spirit. Attached to the fronts of the balconies in which they stand, are long wooden boxes filled with ammunition. “''Ecco fiori, ecco fiori! Confetti, confetti!''” No pause to the fun. The air is darkened with flowers, and whitened with confetti, and rings with peals of laughter. The blood of the quietest must be roused by such a merry tumult: even those who had sagely declared it must be a vastly “slow affair” and “very childish,” are warmed into active life. Everything is forgotten but the desire to be doing—to have, if it were possible, hands and eyes everywhere. Why, the hundreds upon hundreds of faces beaming with mirth and mischief, were alone enough to create the highest degree of pleasure: a hundredth part of the glances given by bright eyes that come flashing from the topmost stories of the houses to the pavement, were enough to fever the blood; but when the bright sunlight and blue sky, the movement of gay colours, and mad humour of the scene is added, a degree of wild excitement—an intoxicating sensation, surpassing the effect of the best champagne—is produced, that nothing of the like nature can equal. Here the representatives of a dozen different nations jostle one another—Italians, English, Americans, French, Germans, Swiss, Danes, Poles, Russians, Greeks, &c.—all animated for once by one object, forgetting their individuality in the enjoyment of the moment.

How firmly and easily the Roman girls sit on the backs of the carriages, with their feet on the seats, as though they were accustomed to the position every day of their lives. On the back of one vehicle is enthroned a handsome woman in flowing robes, with a tiara on her head; the flowers fall about her like hail, and she, Flora like, dispenses them as abundantly. In the next carriage are three or four girls dressed in Eastern costume, looking like a cloud of white muslin. In another are three Greeks, wearing wire masks and patriarchal beards, which are continually getting entangled in a high basket in the middle of the carriage, into which they dive for flowers. Among the maskers on foot there is the greatest variety of costume, especially in a ridiculous style. Policinelli by the score; vivandières enough for an army; young ladies in black masks and full muslin petticoats, quite the ballet-dancer’s cut, always talking on a high note; men in fancy Court dresses, with huge bag-wigs and buckles, looking at everything through immense eye-glasses; harlequins—enormous faces with scarcely any legs; Indians, feathers and war-paint complete; mediæval costumes, one leg red, the other yellow; men with false noses a foot long, &c., &c.

Here comes a carriage filled with young Englishmen “got up” as sailors, who in a wild state of excitement fire unceasing broadsides at the fair ones on either side of the street. Their costume is not very orthodox; one wears a planter’s straw hat; another sports a white high-crowned beaver, fiercely cocked, with a feather in it; while their shirts are of divers colours. In the centre of their carriage stands a huge basket of confetti, while flowers are piled up in every available part. Their carriage stops opposite one in the other rank, containing a party dressed in full blouses and wearing wire masks, on which are painted faces of the most sublime inanity. “Is it peace or war?” cry the blouses to the sailors. The reply is a discharge of confetti, and a furious combat commences; while various parties from the windows, apparently actuated by much the same feelings that set all the dogs in a neighbourhood upon two of their fellows engaged in battle, shower down the contents of their wooden boxes on both sets of combatants—and they are not “confetti da signore” (gentlemanly sugar-plums) that are chiefly used, but villanous hard ones, made of flour and plaster of Paris: the ground is presently as white as though it had snowed.

The sailors discharge their small shot recklessly with both hands; their opponents take more deliberate aim through long tin tubes; the sailors seem to be getting the best of it, when a sudden “move on” in the ranks takes them slowly away, till the distance is too great for confetti, so they continue the fight with very small oranges, which fly among the crowd, catching the unwary unpleasant blows. The good humour, however, is unbroken. One unfortunate, wearing an enormous mask of a most Bacchic expression, which nearly covers him, the only parts of his person exposed being his arms and a pair of skinny calves clothed in bright blue, receives so many of their tokens, that we think something more than chance directs them, and certainly he is a tempting mark. Now an orange catches him on the side of the head,—quite staggering him—then a second rights his balance by taking him smartly across his blue terminations, and a third strikes his false carbuncled nose, to the great amusement of every one. The last feat performed before the belligerents separate is accomplished by one of the sailors, who, observing a blouse take off his mask to wipe the flour from his face, skilfully strikes it from his hand with an orange, and away it goes over the heads of the crowd, with many a cry of “Corpo di Bacco, ben fatto!”

We have now arrived at the opposite extremity of the Corso, the Piazza di Venezia, and near the carpet into which the horses plunge—for a horse-race is to terminate the day’s proceedings. Let us therefore return as fast as may be, in order to be in time for the starting from the Piazza del Popolo. That gun is the signal for all carriages and vehicles to leave the Corso, which they do with almost magical rapidity by the various streets on the right and left, a body of dragoons assisting in the operation with little ceremony, after which they station themselves at each outlet, while the foot soldiers try to keep a way clear for the race in the centre of the Corso. The Roman dragoons are formidable keepers of the street: they are noble-looking fellows; their swords of an enormous length, and their horses large and powerful, and the men use both swords and horses in an unscrupulous way. They present a fine appearance in their white cloaks—both men and horses remain at their posts now as immovable as statues.

In front of the obelisk and fountain in the Piazza del Popolo the horses start. On both sides of the square, galleries and platforms are erected for the accommodation of those who like to pay, and motley groups are there assembled. A little