. The sound used to flow along in great waves, following
the sights that passed, and swelling with them to a peal that was like a
cheer, and ebbing then to a steady, even ripple of enjoyment that never
ceased till it rose again in sheer joy of something new to see. Nothing
can give an idea of the picture in times when Rome was still Roman; no
power of description can call up the crowd that thronged and jammed the
long, narrow street, till the slowly moving carriages and cars seemed to
force their way through the stiffly packed mass of humanity as a strong
vessel ploughs her course up-stream through packed ice in winter. Yet no
one was hurt, and an order reigned which could never have been produced
by any means except the most thorough good temper and the determination
of each individual to do no harm to his neighbour, though all respect of
individuals was as completely gone as in any anarchy of revolution. The
more respectable a man looked who ventured into the press in ordinary
clothes, the more certainly he became at once the general mark for
hail-storms of 'confetti.' No uniform nor distinguishing badge was
respected, excepting those of the squad of cavalrymen who cleared the
way, and the liveries of the Municipality's coaches. Men and women were
travestied and disguised in every conceivable way, as Punch and Judy, as
judges and lawyers with enormous square black caps, black robes and
bands, or in dresses of the eighteenth century, or as Harlequins, or
even as bears and monkeys, singly, or in twos and threes, or in little
companies of fifteen or twenty, all dressed precisely alike and
performing comic evolutions with military exactness. Everyone carried a
capacious pouch, or a fishing-basket, or some receptacle of the kind for
the white 'confetti,' and arms and hands were ceaselessly swung in air,
flinging vast quantities of the snowy stuff at long range and short. At
every corner and in every side street, men sold it out of huge baskets,
by the five, and ten, and twenty pounds, weighing it out with the
ancient steelyard balance. Every balcony was lined with long troughs of
it, constantly replenished by the house servants; every carriage and car
had a full supply. And through all the air the odd, clean odour of the
fresh plaster mingled with the fragrance of the box-leaves and the
perfume of countless flowers. For flowers were thrown, too, in every
way, loose and scattered, or in hard little bunches, the 'mazzetti,'
th