selves at home in drawing-room and bed-chamber
and were not molested. The drivers of each and
every one of the slow-moving market-carts we met
were stretched in the sun upon their merchandise,
sound asleep. Every three or four hundred yards,
it seemed to me, we came upon the shrine of some
saint or other--a rude picture of him built into a
huge cross or a stone pillar by the roadside. Some
of the pictures of the Saviour were curiosities in
their way. They represented him stretched upon
the cross, his countenance distorted with agony.
From the wounds of the crown of thorns; from the
pierced side; from the mutilated hands and feet;
from the scourged body--from every handbreadth
of his person, streams of blood were flowing! Such
a gory, ghastly spectacle would frighten the children
out of their senses, I should think. There were
some unique auxiliaries to the painting which added
to its spirited effect. These were genuine wooden
and iron implements, and were prominently disposed
round about the figure: a bundle of nails; the ham-
mer to drive them; the sponge; the reed that sup-
ported it; the cup of vinegar; the ladder for the ascent
of the cross; the spear that pierced the Saviour's
side. The crown of thorns was made of real thorns,
and was nailed to the sacred head. In some Italian
church paintings, even by the old masters, the Sav-
iour and the Virgin wear silver or gilded crowns
that are fastened to the pictured head with nails.
The effect is as grotesque as it is incongruous.

Here and there, on the fronts of roadside inns,
we found huge, coarse frescoes of suffering martyrs

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