ly satisfied with his facts and his philosophy. But what
he has seen was really not a quarrel. It is simply the game of _Mora_,
as old as the Pyramids, and formerly played among the host of Pharaoh
and the armies of Caesar as now by the subjects of Pius IX. It is thus
played.

Two persons place themselves opposite each other, holding their right
hands closed before them. They then simultaneously and with a sudden
gesture throw out their hands, some of the fingers being extended, and
others shut up on the palm,--each calling out in a loud voice, at the
same moment, the number he guesses the fingers extended by himself and
his adversary to make. If neither cry out aright, or if both cry out
aright, nothing is gained or lost; but if only one guess the true
number, he wins a point. Thus, if one throw out four fingers and the
other two, he who cries out six makes a point, unless the other cry out
the same number. The points are generally five, though sometimes they
are doubled, and as they are made, they are marked by the left hand,
which, during the whole game, is held stiffly in the air at about the
shoulders' height, one finger being extended for every point. When the
_partito_ is won, the winner cries out, "_Fatto!_" or "_Guadagnato!_" or
"_Vinto!_" or else strikes his hands across each other in sign of
triumph. This last sign is also used when Double _Mora_ is played, to
indicate that five points are made.

So universal is this game in Rome, that the very beggars play away their
earnings at it. It was only yesterday, as I came out of the gallery of
the Capitol, that I saw two who had stopped screaming for "_baiocchi per
amor di Dio_," to play pauls against each other at _Mora_. One, a
cripple, supported himself against a column, and the other, with his
ragged cloak slung on his shoulder, stood opposite him. They staked a
paul each time with the utmost _nonchalance_, and played with an
earnestness and rapidity which showed that they were old hands at it,
while the coachmen from their boxes cracked their whips, and jeered and
joked them, and the shabby circle around them cheered them on. I stopped
to see the result, and found that the cripple won two successive games.
But his cloaked antagonist bore his losses like a hero, and when all was
over, he did his best with the strangers issuing from the Capitol to
line his pockets for a new chance.

Nothing is more simple and apparently easy than _Mora_, yet to play it
well r