es
round their respective 'visitors' and priests, and the strange rite
began. In the midst the priest stood still. Round and round him the lay
'visitor' moved in a solemn dance, striking his copper bells
rhythmically to his steps, while all the circle followed his gyrations,
chanting a barbarous invocation, half Latin and half Greek: 'Hail,
divinity of this spot! Receive our prayers in fortunate hour!' and many
verses more to the same purpose, and quite beyond being construed
grammatically.

The dance is over with the song. One of the parish priests mounts upon
an ass, backwards, facing the beast's tail, and a papal chamberlain
leads the animal, holding over its head a basin containing twenty pieces
of copper money. When they have passed three rows of benches--which
benches, by the bye?--the priest leans back, puts his hand behind him
into the basin, and pockets the coins.

Then all the priests lay garlands at the feet of the Pope. But the
priest of Santa Maria in Via Lata also lets a live fox out of a bag, and
the little creature suddenly let loose flies for its life, through the
parting crowd, out to the open country, seeking cover. It is like the
Hebrew scapegoat. In return each priest receives a golden coin from the
Pontiff's hand. The rite being finished, all return to their respective
parishes, the dancing 'visitor' still leading the procession. Each
priest is accompanied then by acolytes who bear holy water, branches of
laurel, and baskets of little rolls, or of those big, sweet wafers,
rolled into a cylinder and baked, which are called 'cialdoni,' and are
eaten to this day by Romans with ice cream. From house to house they go;
the priest blesses each dwelling, sprinkling water about with the
laurel, and then burning the branch on the hearth and giving some of the
rolls to the children. And all the time the dancer slowly dances and
chants the strange words made up of some Hebrew, a little Chaldean and a
leavening of nonsense.

Jaritan, jaritan, iarariasti
Raphaym, akrhoin, azariasti!

One may leave the interpretation of the jargon to curious scholars. As
for the rite itself, were it not attested by trustworthy writers, one
would be inclined to treat it as a mere invention, no more to be
believed than the legend of Pope Joan, who was supposed to have been
stoned to death near San Clemente, on the way to the Lateran.

An extraordinary number of traditions cling to the Region of Monti, and
considering