ready has rained a little, but the air is soft and calm. The north
wind has left Rome, and all windows are open. Some carriages, with masks
in costumes and dominoes, begin to drive up and down the Corso; the war
with comfits and bouquets has begun between pedestrians and those who
are in carriages--between the people in the streets and the people at
the windows and in the balconies. They seek either to powder one another
or to make a present. Extremely beautiful bouquets and fine bonbons come
amongst quantities of others which are less beautiful and not at all
splendid. One is obliged, in the meantime, to hold a fine wire gauze, in
the form of a little scoop, before the face, if one would escape
bruises. Our balcony is decorated with red and white, and along the
outside of the iron railing small boxes are hung for the bouquets and
comfits. Our agreeable hostess belongs to the ornaments of her balcony,
into which flowers are assiduously thrown by gentlemen in carriages and
on foot.

"At five o'clock a mounted troop of soldiers, in close rank, galloped at
full speed up the Corso, in order to clear the street, for now the
horse-race was to begin. The people gather themselves close together by
the walls of the houses; a pause succeeds, and then a loud exulting
shout, which runs like wildfire along the Corso; and from the Piazza
del Popolo speeds, in flying career, a little troop of small horses,
adorned with gold-paper wings or flags. Away they rush at full speed
along the Corso up to the Piazza di Venezia, where they are stopped, and
the judges of the race award the prizes which their owners shall
receive. Scarcely have the swift-footed steeds passed, when the throng
of people crowd after them like a swarming ant-hillock. This closes the
amusements of the day....

"On Monday the Corso was, nevertheless, more animated than on Saturday,
and the warfare of comfits and flowers was carried on very gaily. People
threw flowers at each other from balcony to balcony, from window to
window; and people amused themselves with grand comfits, strung upon
long threads fastened to long sticks, like fishing-lines, which they
enticed their acquaintance, from one story to another, to catch; or they
deceived the boys in the streets with these same tempting baits, which
the next moment were snatched up again. If any one wishes to be polite,
he fastens at the end of the string a beautiful flower, or some other
pretty little thing, and allows i