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Rh humour, with roars of laughter, with an outlandish joy — a combination, as I find it, of ganchcrie and ridiculously high spirits, which, together with another ingredient, an exaggeration of les gesics, are to be accounted for by the splendours of the southern climate and the hotness of the southern blood. So I yielded up my bag, not sorry to have got rid of it, to my delighted guide, who trotted along by my side making the mountains echo with his un- seemly mirth. Instead of keeping to the high-road, we now took all the short cuts, a change of route which added to the peril though it considerably shortened the length of our journey. At last the dissatisfied ' Is life worth living ? ' grunt of some sleep- less pig, housed in the picturesque but inconvenient hovel of his master, and the narrowing of the road, which now became a precipitousi* path — never to be dignified by the name of street — announced that we were arriving at the village itself. About half-way up this main sewer — which really is a far more appropriate name than main street — at an angle in one of the lordlier hovels, my guide laughed less, he became serious, he became dignified, he became official, and with much importance asked me if I would mind waiting while he collected the leiler.t, which at four o'clock the next morning were to be taken to Cineto for Rome. He went with much solemnity, as though wearied and weighed down by the cares of his position, to a modern hole in an ancient wall, which is in very deed and fact the General Post Office of Anticoli; just as my new friend, for whom I had now conceived a new respect, was the Postmaster-General of the place. He unlocked a green iron door with a government stamp on it, which protects the post from the public eye, and found nothing therein. At this he appeared much concerned and surprised, or pretended to, and I too was far more impressed than I need have been; for I did not know then that, besides the painters who come to the place, there may be, but I should doubt it, two dozen people in the village capable of writing letters at all. So that I fear my friend was somewhat of an actor in pretending such consternation at sight of the letterless box.

Two minutes more, during which my guide had managed to throw off all the cares of office, and had become again possessed by his ' secure delight,' and we had climbed up to the very top, and were landed in the imposing square where are all the magnificent shops of the place. These are two in number — the first a sort of ' cheap-jacquerie ' (?) — if I dare coin such a word — a general dealer's, where everything can be bought that is wanted — at least, everything that is wanted at Anticoli, which, perhaps, involves a greater limitation than at first sight may appear. The other shop is a chemist's, kept by mine host ; who, of the two, I should imagine, makes more money than his brother, who owns the ' cheap-jacquerie.' For where yet was the peasant who would not more willingly spend money on 'doctor's stuff' than on soap; or indeed, would not rather have a funeral, whose magnificence should overawe and provoke the jealousy of his neighbours, than a cottage, the well-ordered appointments of which should command their esteem?

Very glad was I at last to have arrived at my destination, and very welcome and friendly looked the room, dignified by the name of salone, the common room of the artists who boarded with Signor Amato, three of whom were now sitting round the table. They had not expected me that evening, and had long since finished dinner, and were now joining in the rowdy chorus of some Neapolitan song, to the accompaniment of a guitar. There were three of them — two Italians; and in the third— clad on, or rather clad off, for there was little that was superfluous, in all the daring bravery of the wildest Bohemianism — I hardly recognised him whom in the conventionality of towns I had known as my Scotch friend, Mr. . Among artists there is little artificiality of manners, and I was soon quite at home with them, eating the impromptu dishes, the (to me, hungry as I was with my new mountain appetite) delicious inventions of Signora Amato. The chance poached egg, the hastily-cut strips of dried ham, the spontaneously-grilled mutton-chop, as it fizzes and hisses in your plate ; even the wine, which was neither 'fruity' nor ' scented,' and which, indeed, now that custom has unbandaged my eyes and novelty has departed from me, I know to be execrable,— how delicate, how fragrant, how grateful they all appear, those even-