by all means. So, striking out of the long lean
Corso, sharply to the left, and pushing resolutely
past the palace of the Colonnas, where, between
two tawdry shields hung out like sign-boards,
flaunts the flag of three colours; and debouching
suddenly on the monster area where
Patagonians must have been playing at gigantic nine-
pins some time before the Flood, so quaintly
suggestive of that pastime are the files of blue
broken pillars tumbled over in the dust, snapped
off short, and crowded together in the huge
forum called after Trajan, let us make for the
great old established original concern—the
grand blighted Forum. In that blasted heath
of a place which has gotten enclosed somehow
in a sober city; where lorn columns stand
up piteously abandoned to their loneliness, and
a file of stunted trees stretch away with a
melancholy gravity; I see our Noble Roman navvy,
with all his best energies aroused, busy
excavating. Some hundreds of his brethren, having
some leisure moments disengaged, cheer him
by their presence. I see him and his fellows
disposed in tiers along the side of a great earthen
hollow which is being cleared out, plying spade
and shovel, indeed, but after the most lounging
and loitering system of husbandry that
can be conceived. It is the very dolce far
niente of digging; the procedure being
something in this wise. First navigator, who has
been in earnest discourse with a friend above,
leaning on his spade top, as it might be a
brigand standing at ease, suddenly bethinks him
that it is time to make some show of action.
Accordingly, the implement is slowly brought to
the rest, a little pinch of dust or clay which
another languid hand has cast up from below
is scraped together, amounting to perhaps a
teaspoonful. Rest and refreshment is surely needed
after this exertion, and perhaps a little quiet
conversation with sympathiser above; then the
teaspoonful being lifted on high with infinite
pains, the overtasked labourer wipes his brow
and sinks exhausted on the bank. The brethren
perform this manual exercise with a faithful
scrupulosity, scraping up their respective
portions of dust in successive acts. Sometimes
labour is suspended generally along the whole
line, and a scout being placed on a commanding
eminence, dirty packs of cards are produced.
The monotony of toil is then pleasingly diversified
by games of skill or the more exciting finger
gambling.

The loading and general management of a
barrow, as applied to scavengering, is a matter
of serious moment, and requires the service of
four or five men: one, to gather the street dust
into suitable ant-hillocks; two, furnished with
light egg-spoons suited to their strength, to
bear the hillocks (by relays) to their vehicle; a
fourth, to overlook despondingly the general
performance. I have often seen the whole society
taking its rest, bestowed, Heaven knows how, on
the various projections of the barrow, with one
asleep on the wheel. It is the old story,
the well-worn joke, of Beppo doing nothing,
and Giacomo helping Beppo. Both those worthy
sons of toil are idle six days of the week and
rest on Sundays.

Yet another slide in this social stereoscope,
still further illustrating the extravagant holding
by the faith that all work and no relaxation
will result in making Jack, or Giacomo, a dull
boy. I stand looking over the parapet of one
of the melancholy bridges, corroded out of
all shape and beauty, beyond its mere
purpose of being a bridge and nothing more.
I look down at the river below—of a rich
coffee colour—gurgling and eddying through
the arches, and discover with surprise that
industrious Beppo and Giacomo, with a strong
force of brethren, are emulating the little busy
bee on the old poco curante principles. Beppo
and friend, in brigand hats and jackets, have
the fee of one parapet; Giacomo and friends
have the fee of another; all are carrying on
the trade and business of fishing, disposed in
shady corners of the piers, fast asleep! Beside
each, the coffee-coloured current turns languidly
a huge clumsy wheel, and with the clumsy wheel
revolves a sort of broad landing net, by which
ingenious device Flavus Tiberis is made to fish
his own waters. The rickety wheel might have
some of the sluggish plebs element in him, so
drowsily does he work round, now moving
with a creak and spasm, now sticking fast
altogether, until some bough or drowned dog
is tided full against him, and sets him in
motion once more. I wait a full half-hour,
looking up and down the river: at St. Peter's
yellow casket, glistening afar off in the sun:
at the labyrinth of slums to the left yonder,
where is the Old Jewry of Rome: at the fringe
of tall soiled houses which line the river, all
fouled and crusted at their base, like the hulls
of old vessels—and am sent off into reveries, as
you must infallibly be, should you ever stop to
think, even for a minute, in this eternal city.
Thence coming down to the sad-coloured bridge
again, I find the old wheel turning, turning,
creaking as before, with the net still fishless.
It revolves many times more with like result.
Happy Giacomo and Beppo! They will sleep
on, indifferent to what Fortune, fickle jade,
may have in store for them. Rusticus expectat
(the old worn-out saw), and Rusticus waits, and
dreams, and waits, until the river shall go by,
and he shall start up regenerated.

But for a reasonable bit of inexpensive
luxuriousness—not by any means to be sourly dealt
with—commend me to that stereoscopic slide (of
the lazy series) depicting light-hearted cocchiere—
Roman Jehu—sitting aloft on his box and
fencing off the sun with a green umbrella:
partaking of his halfpenny cigar, too, with an
infinite relish. It is no surprise to see him driving
furiously through the shower and protecting
himself with the same engine of shelter; but it
does verge a little on the comical, when the
weary stranger, tramping at sultry noontide into
cheerful Spanish Place, finds that the whole
line of conveyances has deserted its authorised
standing place, and is drawn up on the footway
in the cooling shade, in utter obstruction of