strangest,
old-world-looking patterns and the most brilliant colors. These things
are manufactured by the peasantry of the hill-country in the
neighborhood of San Germano, who grow, shear, spin, weave, dye and
embroider the wool themselves. And being barbarously unsophisticated by
any adulteration of cotton, and in no wise stinted in the quantity of
material, they are wonderfully strong and enduring. The most remarkable
thing about them, however, is the unerring instinct with which these
uneducated manufacturers harmonize the most audaciously violent
contrasts of brilliant color. It is not too much to assert that they are
_never_ at fault in this respect. So much is this the case, and so truly
artistic is this homely peasant manufacture, that there is hardly a
painter's studio in Rome in which two or three of these richly colored
apron-cloths may not be seen covering a sofa or thrown over the back of
a chair. A great part of the singularly picturesque and striking
appearance of the group of figures we are speaking of is due to the
universal use of these aprons by the women. The men also affect an
unusually large amount of bright color in their costume. The waistcoat
is almost always scarlet; the velveteen jacket or short coat generally
blue; the breeches sometimes the same, but often of bright yellow
leather, and the stockings a lighter blue. The men often wear a long
cloak reaching to the heels, always hanging open in front, and generally
lined with bright green baize. They generally, too, have some
bright-colored ribbons around their high-peaked, conical felt hats. But
I must not forget to mention the costume of the children. It consists of
an exact copy in miniature of that of their elders; and the
inconceivable quaintness and queer old-world look produced is not to be
imagined by those who have never witnessed it. Fancy a little imp of six
or seven years old dressed in little blue jacket, bright-yellow leather
breeches, blue stockings, sheepskin sandals on his little bits of feet,
and long bright flaxen curls streaming down from under a gayly-ribboned
brigand's hat!

But if the first glance is given to this singularity of costume, the
second will not fail to take cognizance of the remarkable beauty of
feature to be observed in almost every individual of this race of
models. The men are well grown, almost invariably wear their black hair
streaming over their shoulders, and have generally fine eyes and
picturesquely