ce, working gallantly to save life and
property; making rafts, carrying people on their backs, and going
through the inundated streets with boat-loads of food for the hungry,
shut up in their ill-provided houses. Usually at such times the priests
did this work; but now they stood idly looking on, and saying it was a
judgment on the people for their treatment of the Pope. The people were
troubled because the priests refused to pray for them: but otherwise
they snapped their fingers at the sullen old gentlemen in the Vatican;
and the brisk, brave troops worked for the city quite as well (the
heretics thought better) than the snuffy priests.

In the Ghetto the disaster was truly terrible, for the flood came so
suddenly that the whole quarter was under water in an hour. The scene
was pitiful; for here the Jews live packed like sardines in a box, and
being washed out with no warning, were utterly destitute. In one street
a man and woman were seen wading up to their waists in water, pushing an
old mattress before them, on which were three little children, all they
had saved.

Later in the day, as boats of provisions came along, women and children
swarmed at the windows, crying, 'Bread! bread!' and their wants could
not be supplied in spite of the care of the city authorities. One old
woman who had lost everything besought the rescuers to bring her a
little snuff for the love of heaven; which was very characteristic of
the race. One poor man, in trying to save a sick wife and his little
ones in a cart, upset them, and the babies were drowned at their own
door. Comedy and tragedy side by side.

Outside the city, houses were carried off, people lost, and bridges
swept away, so sudden and violent was the flood. The heavy rains and
warm winds melted the snow on the mountains, and swelled the river till
it rose higher than at any time since 1805.

Many strangers, who came to Rome for the Christmas holidays, sat in
their fine apartments without food, fire, light, or company, till taken
off in boats or supplied by hoisting stores in at the windows.

'We can hold out some time, as we live on a hill, and Pina has laid in
provisions for several days. But if the flood lasts, we shall come to
want; for the wood-yards are under water, the railroads down, and the
peasants can't get into the city to bring supplies, unless the donkeys
swim,' said Amanda, reviewing the situation.

'Never mind; it's so exciting; only we must not forget th