he scene by any means less strange and
weird-looking. The greater number of visitors, especially in the poor
quarter of the dead city, were women. Such is always the case, whether
it be that the female mind is more generally accessible to gentle
thoughts of and yearnings over their lost ones, or whether the
explanation be simply that, as is especially the case here, women,
having less to occupy their leisure either in the way of business or
amusement, are more eager to seek any emotion or occasion which may
serve to break the flat monotony of their lives.

Certainly the scene in the cemetery on the evening of the "Day of the
Dead" was one calculated to make an impression not to be readily
forgotten by any mere looker-on who witnessed it. Nor was that presented
by the road from the gate to the cemetery less remarkable in its way. It
is an ugly, disagreeable bit of road, between high walls, deep with mud
in wet, and with dust in dry weather, as was the case on the present
occasion, and without the smallest vestige of a pathway for
foot-passengers; so that the motley crowd, with their lights and
chaplets and flowers, had to make their way amid a cloud of dust and
among the carriages of those bound for the "Pincetto" as best they
might. But it was the general apparent mood and temper of mind in which
these pilgrims, bound on so sad an errand, seemed to be performing their
self-imposed task that was especially noteworthy. It might be supposed
that a certain degree of reverential self-concentration, or at least of
quietude, would have been the characteristic of a crowd bound on such an
errand. There was not the smallest symptom of anything of the sort. It
is true that many visit the cemetery on the evening in question who have
not recently lost any relative or friend, going thither merely as
performing an act of devotion or of amusement, or, as is usually the
case with all devotion in this country, of both combined. But the
greater number of the pilgrims is composed of those who have buried
their dead within the preceding year. Yet, as I have said, there was
observable in the bearing of the crowd not only no reverential feeling,
but not even that amount of quietude which the most careless body of
people of our race would have deemed it but decent to assume on such an
occasion. Laughter might have been heard, though not perhaps very much.
But the noise was astonishing--noise of incessant chatter in tones which
bespoke anything