high above the other hills by which the city is surrounded, and in winter deep in snow, and gleaming white in the sun shine, presents a truly Alpine appearance. When you enter one of the gates of Siena, you pass along narrow streets, many of which are so steep as to be impassable to vehicles. Along the more level streets come lumbering country wains, each drawn by two milk-white oxen, with great, branching horns, and large, soft eyes. The contadine from the surrounding district, with bright, handsome, wholesome faces and immense waving Tuscan hats, give much picturesqueness to the streets, as do the numerous ecclesiastics in their shovel hats and knee-breeches.

In August comes the great festival of the city, the Palio. Its origin is lost in hoar antiquity. In fact, there is reason to believe that when only the summits of the three hills upon which Siena sits were built upon, the inhabitants used to come down to meet one another into what is now the Piazza del Campo, the great market-place. It is a true amphitheatre, having exactly the form of an immense upturned cockle-shell, and probably it was once the crater of a volcano. Its size may be estimated by the fact that it is said to hold, and indeed on at least one occasion has held, as many as thirty-five thousand people, though half that number is sufficient to give it a crowded appearance. The principal building in the piazza is the magnificent Palace of the Republic, standing now as strong and intact and perfect as if it had not witnessed the daily life, the games, and the life and death struggles of Siena in countless revolutions throughout nearly six centuries- for it was commenced in 1284 and finished about 1330. Rising gracefully by the side of the Palace of the Republic is the so-called Mangia Tower, which from every part of the city and for many miles around is visible, a miracle of lightness and strength. The Palazzo Pubblico, with the Mangia Tower, forms the diameter or base of the semicircle, and stands at the lowest part of the piazza, while the semicircle of palaces faces it from higher ground in a regular amphitheatre. In remote times the citizens used here to celebrate a game called Elmora, which was in truth more than a game; it was a regular battle with sticks and stones and other weapons, and always caused the death of at least one citizen. For this, in 1291, was substituted boxing, which continued to be practised down to the beginning of the present century. But the public games of the con

trade began in 1482, in which year, for the first time, jousts and tourneys were held by them in the Piazza. From 1500 to 1599 the contrade had annual bull-fights, to which each contrada brought its own bull. A little fortress, too, was constructed and adorned with banners by each contrada, in which the bull-fighters sought refuge when too closely pressed by the tormented animals. This cruel sport gave place, from 1600 to 1650, to races between buffaloes, each ridden by a jockey; but as this also was almost always accompanied by death or severe wounds to some of the competitors, in 1650 horses were substituted for buffaloes, and the races have thus been run down to the present day. The word contrada simply means a street or district of the city, but the contrade are more than lay corporations; each has a church, a distinctive banner, and special regulations of its own. They are probably as old as the republic itself. In 1328 there were fifty-nine of these contrade. Thirteen ceased to exist at the time of the plague, and twenty-three more after the siege. Six were suppressed in 1675 for having insulted the judges at the tourney of that year, thus leaving the seventeen which still remain. The contrade mostly take their name from some animal, a picture of which is emblazoned upon their respective banners. These emblems are as follows: the tortoise (the most ancient), the goose, the tower, the giraffe, the conch-shell, the wood, the caterpillar, the wolf, the eagle, the owl, the wave, the dragon, the snail, the panther, the sheep, the unicorn, and the porcupine. Of these only ten are allowed to run horses at the Palio, the course being too narrow to admit of more with safety. For weeks before the event actually comes off the greatest excitement prevails throughout the city, every one being anxious for the success of the horse belonging to his or her contrada. At length the great day arrives. The ten horses that are to run are led into the churches of their respective contrade, and are there blessed by the priests. The banners of all the seventeen contrade wave everywhere throughout the city. The people are crowded into the immense shell-like space of the Piazza del Campo, the centre of which is occupied by the spectators, as are tier upon tier of seats arranged against the ground floor of the palaces, and also balconies at a higher level.

The course is a stone pavement, about thirty feet wide, on the outside circumfer

ence of the Piazza, and exactly below the tiers of seats at the base of the palaces. It is now covered three or four inches deep with sand and earth, and even with this concession it seems a desperate course for mortal horses to run. Not only are the turns short and sharp, but there are constant steep ascents and descents. Where the descending slope is steepest, near the beautiful little chapel erected hard by the Palazzo Pubblico, not only have hoardings been freely erected, but they have been well padded with beds and mattresses, to give if possible a soft reception to any unfortunate rider who may be spilt here. A troop of carbineers, who, throughout Italy, are employed on police duty, and who are particularly fine men, well horsed, and with superb uniforms, canter round the course two or three times to clear it of people.

clothed in splendid armor, two ensigns, who act as wavers of banners, a first page, who walks by himself, carrying a banner on his shoulder, a drummer, and four other pages, all attired in the brilliant and picturesque fashion of the Middle Ages. Then follows the horse of parade, a show horse, richly caparisoned, bearing a rider armed cap à-pie as a knight, and, lastly, the horse that is to do the running, without even a saddle, and quite without ornament. Where these horses are procured, or how selected, I do not know; they must be chosen for qualities of speed or endurance, but they are said to be horses that, except on this festal day, are busy all the year round drawing carts and performing other humble duties. They are little creatures and have a weedy appearance. The bright colors of the costumes of the Middle Ages, the plumes on the The appearance of the Piazza during helmets, the burnished cuirasses, the rich last year's Palio was at this moment very caparisons of the horses, the flashing striking. An old gentleman, in one of swords, the gracefully attired pages, the the balconies, who said he was seventy- bold knights, the dexterous ensigns, four years old, and that he had witnessed who, proud of their office, wave their banmore than fifty Palios, estimated the num-ners in a thousand capricious curves, yet ber of people present at nearly thirty so that they always remain unfurled, and thousand. He was, of course, a laudator every now and again hurl them into the temporis acti, and thought the present air, catching them with wonderful agility, show very inferior to those of his youth. - and the captains with a grave and sol Probably, however, the change was more emn air, befitting the dignity of their poin the spectator than in the scene. The sition in short, all this wealth of costiers of seats crowded with gaily dressed tume, all this varied luxury of dress and spectators, the bright-colored clothing of of arms, carries even the most matter-ofthe crowd, the characteristic immense fact beholder many centuries backwards broad waving Tuscan hats of the coun- on the stream of time, to the days of em trywomen, the waving of fans, the hum battled castles with moats and drawof many voices, like the roar of the sea bridges, and of jousts and tourneys. Cerwhen the wind drives shorewards its tainly our modern dress, when placed side thundering breakers, the grand old palaces by side with that of the Middle Ages, decked out for the occasion, on whose looks mean and common indeed. topmost balconies up to the towers and roofs were grouped spectators, the music of the bands, the roll of the drums, the waving of banners, the signal shots from mortars, the capering of the horses, and the wild joy of an entire people, together formed a strange and intoxicating tout ensemble of movement, color, and sound. The clusters of many-colored elastic bal loons, inflated by the vendors and floated up almost to the level of the roofs of the palace, were a distinct addition to the brightness of the scene.

As the contrade defile past the balcony, where sit the judges of the course, they stop to salute them, to wave their banners, and to throw them into the air. Last comes the Carroccio, or sacred war car of the republic, the pride of the ancestors of those who now surround it, in defence of which the flower of the youth of Siena bled and died on many a hard-fought field. It is adorned with the standard which waved at the famous battle of Monte Aperto, and with the banners of all the contrade of Siena. The But now, in a moment, every voice is representatives of the contrade, nearly hushed and every neck is craned. From two hundred in all, now range themselves the street Casato, preceded by a band of on tiers of seats, appropriately raised at music, appear the representatives of the the foot of the Palazzo Pubblico; and a seventeen contrade, greeted by the ap- wonderful picture the old palace makes, plause of their respective partisans. Each with the graceful Mangia Tower rising be contrada is represented by a captain, | side it, its windows alive with gay and

made. This is, however, strictly negative evidence, and one would expect a great deal of betting in a country where in every town, little and great, there is an office for the sale of tickets in the government and municipal lotteries, institutions for national demoralization worthy only of the darkest of dark ages. Be this as it may, I never beheld a gentler or more wellbehaved crowd, and the great Piazza was quickly emptied by means of the eleven streets or passages which open into it.

happy faces, and at its base a perfect par- | umphal arch of evergreens, and there terre of bright colors, formed by the rep- a transparency of the arms of the conresentatives of the contrade. The roll of trada; the interested, but most orderly, drums ceases, the many-colored banners citizens of Siena, with their wives and are no longer waved, the music is hushed, children, assisting at the banquet by walkand there only remains the murmur of the ing down one side of the tables and up agitated and expectant crowd. The show the other; the narrow streak of soft, blue having finished, the business of the day Italian sky between the housetops on now begins. The horses that are to com- either side, illuminated by a full, clear pete are ridden bare-backed. However moon which, being in the zenith, looked humble their ordinary employment, they down upon the festivity, altogether seem now affected by the general enthu- formed a really charming tableau. siasm around them and are eager for the I am assured that there is little drunkstart. Hark! the roll of a drum, the re-enness, and not much betting on these port of a gun, the rope falls, and the ten occasions. Certainly I, personally, saw horses are off in a wild gallop. The no drunkenness, nor did I hear any bets partisans of the respective contrade are in a state of great excitement, and cheer their champions on with frantic cries. The horse of the Lupo (wolf) is a little ahead of any of the others; but that of the Torre (tower) presses him hard, although the rider of the latter had been thrown and slightly hurt at the trial race in the morning. There is a sharp strug. gle between the two riders with their leather thongs, the horses all the time at full gallop, and then the horse of the Torre shoots ahead, passes the starting. point for the third time, and wins. The contrada of the Torre is that which surrounds the Mangia Tower and the Palazzo Pubblico, and great is the delight of its inhabitants. A woman begins to ring the bell of the chapel of the Piazza. The victorious rider receives the prize from the hands of the judges, and the flag with the date, glorious for him and for his contrada, worked upon it. It is difficult to say whether man or horse is the hero of the hour: both are greeted with transports of joy, and are even fondly embraced by both men and women. They are then led in triumph into a church, where a priest intones the Te Deum, amid the evvivas of the people, for the Italians see nothing irreverent in this strange proceeding.

About a fortnight after the Palio, the conquering contrada gives a dinner to the representatives of all the other contrade. This year it took place in a narrow street at one side of the Palazzo Pubblico, right down the middle of which tables were placed. On either side the houses were brilliantly illuminated with tapers and Chinese lanterns of many colors, and, of its kind, nothing could be more picturesque. This dinner takes place at 9 P.M., and lasts far into the night. The narrow old street, with its lofty houses lighted from basement to garret, with here a tri

St. Catherine speaks of the sangue dolce of her beloved Sienese; and there is a feeling in the city that it is not consistent with this trait of their character that the riders at the Palio should be allowed to strike one another with their whips, a clear survival from the old days when the Elmora always counted its victims slain, and boxing and bull-fighting were the order of the day.

SAMUEL JAMES CAPPER.

From Blackwood's Magazine. THE LADIES LINDORES. CHAPTER XXXIX.

ROLLS disappeared on the evening of the day on which he had that long consultation with Mr. Monypenny. He did not return to Dalrulzian that night. Marget, with many blushes and no small excitement, served the dinner, which Bauby might be said to have cooked with tears. If these salt drops were kept out of her sauces, she bedewed the white apron, which she lifted constantly to her eyes. "Maister John in jyal! and oor Tammas gone after him; and what will I say to his mammaw?" Bauby cried. She seemed to fear that it might be supposed some want of care on her part which had led to this dreadful result. But even the sorrow

It's

of her soul did not interfere with her | alarmt; no, no, why should I be," she sense of what was due to her master's added in a trembling voice. "He will be guest. Beaufort's dinner did not suffer, hame, no doubt, in a day or twa, as ye whatever else might. It was scrupulously say, sir, and glad, glad we'll a' be. cooked, and served with all the care of not that we have any doubt - but oh! which Marget was capable; and when it what will his mammaw say to me?" cried was all over, and everything carefully put Bauby. After the tremulous momentary aside, the women sat down together in stand she had made, her tears flowed the kitchen, and had a good cry over the faster than ever. "There has no such desolation of the house. The younger thing happened among the Erskines since maids, perhaps, were not so deeply con- ever the name was kent in the countrycerned on this point as Bauby, who was side, and that's maist from the beginning, an old servant, and considered Dalrulzian as it's written in Scripture." "It's all a as her home: but they were all more or mistake," cried Beaufort. "That it is less affected by the disgrace, as well as that it is," cried Bauby, drying her eyes. sorry for the young master, who had "nae And then she added with another curtsey, pride," and always a pleasant word for his "I hope you'll find everything to your attendants in whatever capacity. Their satisfaction, sir, till the maister comes minds were greatly affected, too, by the hame. Tammas that's the butler, Tamabsence of Rolls. Not a man in the mas Rolls, my brother, sir, if ye please — house but the stranger gentleman! It is no' at hame to-night, and you wouldna was a state of affairs which alarmed and like a lass aboot to valet ye; they're all depressed them, and proved, above all young but me. But if you would put out other signs, that a great catastrophe had your cloes to brush, or anything that happened. Beaufort sent for the house- wants doing, outside your door, it shall a' keeper after dinner to give her such in- be weel attended to. I'm real sorry formation as he thought necessary; and there's no' another man aboot the house: Bauby was supported to the door by her but a' that women can do we'll do, and subordinates, imploring her all the way with good-will." "You are very kind, to keep up her heart. "You'll no' let on Mrs. Rolls," said Beaufort. "I was not to the strange gentleman." "Ye'll keep thinking of myself -- you must not mind up a good face, and no' let him see how me. I shall get on very well. I am sair cast down ye are," they said, one at sorry to be a trouble to you at such a either hand. There was a great deal of melancholy moment." "Na, na, sir, not struggling outside the door, and some melancholy," cried Bauby, with her eyes stifled sounds of weeping, before it was streaming; "sin' ye say, and a'body must opened, and Bauby appeared, pushed in allow, that it's just a mistake: we manna by some invisible agency behind her, be put aboot by such-like trifles. But nae which closed the door promptly as soon doubt it will be livelier and mair pleesas she was within. She was not the im- ant for yoursel', sir, when Mr. John and portant person Beaufort had expected to Tammas, they baith come hame. Would see; but as she stood there, with her you be wanting anything more to-night?" large white apron thrown over her arm," Na, I never let on," Bauby said, when and her comely countenance, like a sky she retired to the ready support of her after rain, lighted up with a very wan and handmaidens outside the door uncertain smile, putting the best face she could upon it, Beaufort's sympathy overcame the inclination to laugh which he might have felt in other circumstances, at the sight of her sudden entrance and troubled clinging to the doorway. "Good evening," he said, "Mrs. They call me Bauby Rolls, at your service,” said Bauby, with a curtsey and a suppressed sob. "Mrs. Rolls," said Beaufort, "your master may not come home for a few days; he asked me to tell you not to be anxious; that he hoped to be back soon; that there was nothing to be alarmed about." "Eh! and was he so kind as think upon me, and him in such trouble," cried Bauby, giving way to her emotions. "But I'm no'

"no"

me; I keepit a stout heart, and I said to him, It's of nae consequence, sir,' I said, -'I'm nane cast down; it's just a mistake everybody kens that;' and that he was to put his things outside his door. He got nothing that would go against the credit of the house out of me."

But in spite of this forlorn confidence in her powers of baffling suspicion, it was a wretched night that poor Bauby spent. John was satisfactorily accounted for, and it was known where he was; but who could say where Rolls might be? Bauby sat up half through the night alone in the great empty kitchen with the solemnsounding clock and the cat purring loudly by the fire. She was as little used to the

noises of the night as Lord Rintoul was, | entertained such a purpose as that which and in her agony of watching felt the per- now occupied Rolls. There are many petual shock and thrill of the unknown who would risk a great deal to smuggle going through and through her. She an illustrious prisoner out of his prison. heard steps coming up to the house a But this was an enterprise of a very difhundred times through the night, and ferent kind. He left Mr. Monypenny stealing stealthily about the doors. "Is with his head full of thoughts which were that you, Tammas?" she said again and not all heroic. None of his inquiries had again, peering out into the night: but no- been made without meaning. The selfbody appeared. Nor did he appear next devotion which was in him was of a sober day, or the next. After her first panic, kind, not the devotion of a Highland Bauby gave out that he was with his mas- clansman, an Evan Dhu; and though the ter that she had never expected him extraordinary expedient he had planned in order to secure him from remark. But appeared to him more and not less alarmin her own mind horrible doubts arose. ing than the reality, his own self-sacrifice He had always been the most irreproach- was not without a certain calculation and able of men; but what if, in the shock of caution too. this catastrophe, even Tammas should have taken to ill ways? Drink that was the natural suggestion. Who can fathom the inscrutable attractions it has, so that men yield to it who never could have been suspected of such a weakness? Most women of the lower classes have the conviction that no man can resist it. Heart-wrung for his master, shamed to his soul for the credit of the house, had Rolls, too, after successfully combating temptation for all his respectable life, yielded to the demon? Bauby trembled, but kept her terrors to herself. She said he might come back at any moment - he was with his maister. Where else was it likely at such a time that he should be?

All these things had been seriously weighed and balanced in his mind. He had considered his sister's interest, and even his own eventual advantage. He had never neglected these primary objects of life, and he did not do so now. But though all was taken into account and carefully considered, Rolls's first magnanimous purpose was never shaken; and the use he made of the important breathing-time of these intervening days was characteristic. He had, like most men, floating in his mind several things which he intended "some time" to do, a vague intention which, in the common course of affairs, is never carried out. One of these things was to pay a visit to Edinburgh. But Rolls was not with his master. He Edinburgh to Rolls was as much as Lonwas on the eve of a great and momentous don and Paris and Rome made into one. act. There were no superstitious alarms All his patriotic feelings, all that respect about him, as about Rintoul, and no ques- for antiquity which is natural to the mind tion in his mind what to do. Before he of a Scot, and the pride of advancing left Dalrulzian that sad morning, he had progress and civilization which becomes shaped all the possibilities in his thoughts, a man of this century, were involved in and knew what he intended; and his con- his desire to visit the capital of his own versation with Mr. Monypenny gave sub- country. Notwithstanding all the facilistance and a certain reasonableness to his ties of travel, he had been there but once resolution. But it was not in his nature before, and that in his youth. With a by one impetuous movement to precipi- curious solemnity he determined to make tate affairs. He had never in his life this expedition now. It seemed the most acted hastily, and he had occasional trem- suitable way of spending these all-imporors of the flesh which chilled his impulse tant days, before he took the step beyond and made him pause. But the interval, which he did not know what might happen which was so bitter to his master, although to him. A more serious visitor, yet one all the lookers-on congratulated them- more determined to see everything and to selves it could do him no harm, was take the full advantage of all he saw, exactly what Rolls wanted in the extraor- never entered that romantic town. He dinary crisis to which he had come. A looked like a rural elder of the gravest humble person, quite unheroic in his hab. Calvinistic type as he walked, in his black its as in his antecedents, it was scarcely coat and loosely tied white neckcloth, to be expected that the extraordinary about the lofty streets. He went to Holyproject which had entered his mind should rood, and gazed with reverence and prohave been carried out with the enthusi- found belief at the stains of Rizzio's astic impulse of romantic youth. But few youths, however romantic, would have VOL. XLII. 2134

LIVING AGE.

blood. He mounted up to the Castle, and examined Mons Meg with all the care of