themselves able to crush, and the country
finds that it can manage with no more than
four hundred physicians.

THE GIGLIO FESTA.

A CROWD has assembled round the gates
of the Naples railway-office to go to the
festival of the Giglios at Nola. Young men
with their "spose " dressed out in the rich
and varied colours which nature herself seems
to suggest in Italy; others who had once come
down alone with said wives, but who now
bring three or four black and brown-skinned
repetitions of papa and mamma in addition;
foreigners, like myself, intent on seeing a
curious fête; tradesmen, priests, soldiers,
flower-girls, fisher-women, and boys and girls,
of every rank and costume; all making such
a crowd that the gates are ordered to be
shut, and no more tickets issued. A bell
tinkles, and the waiting-rooms being opened,
out we rush and take our seats. Tinkle,
tinkle, says another bell, followed by
something between a shriek and a whistle, and off
we start for Nola.

A glance round the capacious carriage
shows me several hard-working tradesmen
whom I had seen in their shirtsleeves in Toledo
during the week. How happy they look with
their children beside them! Life is not then
one perpetual round of toil and trouble. Sunday
is not, to their minds, what the week had
been to their bodies — a weight and a cloud,
oppressing and saddening. O no! their
bright faces say, as plainly as faces can say,
that amidst all the unavoidable anxieties and
sufferings of life, God had not forgotten to
be gracious, and that He had brought them
out this day to look upon the loveliness of
Nature. Then they look out of windows on
the vines which are trained in rich festoons,
from tree to tree, forming, down long lines
of poplars, such pretty vistas; and on the
sunburnt corn being cut and carried throughout
the whole country as we pass along;
and on the mulberry-trees with their thick
glistening foliage, and the hemp and the
flax-fields — forming altogether such a picture
of calm beauty that, had they ever read the
Bible (which I am very sure they never had),
they would have thought of Jesus Christ and
his disciples walking through the corn-fields
on a Sunday. At Cancello, the road diverges
on the left to Caserta and on the right to
Nola. So we are compelled to change
our train, and mingle with fresh companions.
In the corner is a poor woman, a native of
Nola, so ill with malaria fever, that no more
than a few days of existence appear to remain
for her. Yet the prospect of seeing the Giglios
had given her strength enough to pay perhaps
her last visit to her birth-place. By her side
sits a stout, burly-looking man, with two
small children, evidently great pets.

"And where is the wife ? " said the dying
woman.

"Ah! " said the man, " a misfortune!
God's will be done! " and so the strong and
healthy could not boast himself above the
weak. God had touched him, as well as the
poor attenuated being at his side. He is an
intelligent man, and gives me a great deal of
information. Nola, he says, has a population
of fourteen thousand souls. It is in the
province, and under the government of the
Intendente (Lord Lieutenant) of Avellino.
It has also a Sottintendente, a Syndic, Royal
Judge,  Inspector of Police, and extensive
barracks for soldiers. In fact Nola is not a
place to be sneezed at. There is no staple
trade here, continued my informant, the
Nolanese are an agricultural people, and, besides
grain, grow a great quantity of oil and small
wine. Look at those mountains! they are
covered with thousands of olives. As to the
small wine, that was a fact evident from
the mode of cultivation, for I never knew
good wine produced from festooned vines.
And this makes me think of another subject
showing the intimate yet almost invisible
connection which often exists between things.
The small wine; or, perhaps, the adulterated
wine consequent on the universal grape
failure has ruined the silk of this year. It
is the custom of the Nolanese, and of the
people of this country generally, to steep the
eggs of the silk-worms in strong pure wine
for a short time — the silk in this way
acquires strength. The operation is described
as making the eggs drunk, but this year,
they did not get drunk, and perhaps not
more than one third of the eggs were hatched.
Hence, a most unusual sight at this season
of the year; — the mulberry-trees were clothed
with foliage, the fruit had actually ripened,
and quantities were continually brought
into the town to make mulberry wine;
and very good it is too, said the jolly
widower, smacking his lips. Do you see,
he continued, that quarry-looking place on the
right?  Well, that was the old Campo Marzo.
There were found some of the most precious
vases which now grace the Museo Borbonico,
and which have set the modern world mad
with admiration. The government has now,
however, prohibited excavation; and, since
eighteen hundred and fifty-two, it has been
cultivated as you see.

Here we are, however, in Nola, a large,
irregularly-built city on a vast plain, with a
background of mountains. The thousands
in the city are waiting for the thousands
continually arriving. Through a mob of
coachmen with various coloured feathers in
their hats, we fight our way to the fair.
There are cloths and cottons from Salerno
and Scaphati, very gay, and not very bad;
there is crockery from Naples and Ischia;
there are fruits and sweets from everywhere;
small boys are looking on with longing faces;
dark bright eyes are glistening, while Italian
Johnny Raws are standing by with hands in
their pockets, wishing to be generous. A few