CHANTING OF THE MISERERE. 133 There is a sombre aspect on old Rome, taken from its silent haughty ruins, giving apparently a coloring to the feelings of the people. The gay, lighted-hearted Neapolitan seems too gay for music-like the French, his spirits burst out in action. The Piedmontese are forever singing, while Genoa is the only Italian city over which our memory lingers ever fresh and ever delighted. There is not a moonlight night in which its old palaces do not ring with the song of the strolling sailor-boy or idle lounger. The rattling of wheels seldom disturbs the quietness of the streets, while the lofty walls of the palaces confine and prolong the sound like the roof of a cavern. The narrow winding passages now shut in the song till only a faint and distant echo is caught, and now let it forth in a full volume of sound, ever changing like the hues of feeling. Hours and hours have we lain awake, listening to these thoughtless serenaders, who seemed singing solely because the night was beautiful. You will often hear voices of such singular power and melody ringing through the clear atmosphere that you imagine some professional musicians are out on a serenade to a "fayre ladye." But when the group emerges into the moonlight, you see only three or four coarse-clad creatures, evidently from the very lowest class, sauntering along, arm in arm, singing solely because they prefer it to talking. And, what is still more singular, you never see three persons, not even boys, thus singing together, without carrying along three parts. The common and favorite mode is for two to take two different parts, while the third, at the close of every strain, throws in a deep bass chorus. You will often hear snatches from the most beautiful operas chanted along the streets by those from whom you would expect nothing but obscene songs. This spontaneous street singing charms us more than the stirring music of a full orchestra. It is the poetry of the land—one of its characteristic features-living in the memory years after every thing else has faded. We like, also, those much abused handorgans, of every description, greeting you at every turn. They are the operas of the lazzaroni and children, and help to fill up the picture. Passing once through a principal business street of Genoa, we heard at a distance a fine, yet clear and powerful, voice that at once attracted our attention. On approaching we found it proceeded from a little blind boy not over eight years of age. He sat on the stone pavement, with his back against an old palace, pouring forth song after song with astonishing strength and melody. As we threw him his penny, we could not help fancying how he would look sitting in Broadway, with his back to the Astor House, and attempting to throw his clear, sweet voice over the rattling of omnibuses and carriages that keep even the earth in a constant tremor. Truly yours. FARMING IN THE PAPAL STATES. 135 LETTER XXVII. System of Farming in the Papal States-Suffering of the Peasantry. DEAR E.-Though you are not much of a farmer, perhaps the farming system, as it works in the States of his Holiness, may not be uninteresting. The Mezzaria system, or letting the farm upon shares, is the old and universal custom, both in the Papal States and in Tuscany. The landlord furnishes the necessary capital, and the tenant all the agricultural instruments and labor. The seed is paid for jointly, and the entire gross produce divided equally. This partnership of the landlord and tenant works very well in Tuscany, but destructively in the dominions of the Church. This is owing to the want of encouragement to industry, and the oppressive action of the government. The mode of managing rich arable lands around the eternal city, would be considered rather odd in the New World. I am not now speaking of the system of small farms with poor landlords and poorer tenants, but of the mode of farming the large districts. The tract of land called the Maremma district, embracing the territory that lies on the sea betweeen Tuscany and Naples, the low land around Ferrara and Ravenna, and the Campagna around Rome itself, called by agriculturists the "Agro Romano," are all divided into immense farms, owned of course by a few wealthy men. Thus the whole Maremma district is owned by only one hundred and fifty farmers. So also in the Agro Romano, embracing 550,000 acres, exists the same impolitic division. One of the farms, called the "Campo Marto," contains 20,000 acres, others 3,000, while there are none below 1,000. This whole territory is owned by forty-two or three landlords, called "Mercanti di Campagna, (merchants of the country.) They constitute a privileged corporation, under the protection of government. Each merchant rents several farms, paying tax only for that portion under cultivation. These Mercanti are, of course, extremely wealthy. They never reside on their farms, but build for themselves palaces in Rome, where they live in unbounded luxury. Their counting-houses and clerks are also all in the city. The "fattore," as he is called in Italian, or steward, resides with a few herdsmen in the solitary Casale-the only occupants of the immense plain. It requires a capital of $100,000 to manage one of the largest of these farms, and the smallest require $10,000.* The rent of the Campo Marto alone is $25,000 a year. The Mezzaria system, as I remarked, prevails almost universally, although, in some parts, leases or fixed rents are common. This is where the large farms are let to individuals, who immediately subdivide them into smaller ones, and rent them to men of smaller capital. These immense half barren tracts are as lonely looking as our western prairies; nay, more so, for the dilapidated form of some old ruin rising on the view, tells you that it was not always so— that once, glorious structures adorned that plain, and the hum of a busy population was heard on its surface. I have seldom seen a more lonely spectacle than the rude mud huts, shaped like a beehive, of the herdsmen, standing here and there on the unfenced plain, while the stewards, alone or with keepers dressed in their shaggy sheep-skin coat, with pike in hand, were galloping amid the herds on their half wild horses. They look more like Arabs than peaceful farmers. This system of grazing is practised only in the winter, when on the Campagna alone are collected more than half a million sheep, and three or four hundred thousand of the large grey Roman oxen. In the summer, these plains become too hot and unhealthy for the herds, and they are driven off to the mountains, to graze on the green pastures of the Sabian hills and the high grounds around the city, where they feed in safety till the season of malaria is past. But the horses on which the herdsmen ride, are turned loose among the morasses, to take care of themselves. They feed with perfect impunity on the unhealthiest tracts. I have seen them almost to their backs in swamps, feeding with the half wild buffaloes and swine, that are equally impervious to the climate. In this savage state they run about till * Vid. Murray. SUFFERING OF THE PEASANTRY. 137 autumn, when they are again caught, rode over the Campagna, fit companions for their wild-looking riders. The crops are raised during summer, when the herds are among the hills, and the harvest is gathered in by the mountaineers, who dwell on the Volscian hills and the more elevated land towards the frontier of Naples. At this time the heat is intense, and would make even the slave of a cotton plantation wince. The poor peasantry, who have been accustomed from their infancy to the fresh mountain breezes and clear running streams of their native home, lured by the prospect of gaining a few pauls to support their families during the approaching winter, descend into the plains, to gather in the harvest. Then the slaughter commences, and does not end till harvest is over, and often not even then. The malaria seizes the hardy mountaineer as its lawful prey, and hurries him with fearful rapidity into the grave. Unaccustomed to the scorching sun that beats on these plains, he finds himself at night exhausted and feeble. Inured to toil, and delving among his native hills from morning till night, he wonders at his weariness. Without a hut to shelter him, he flings his complaining limbs on the damp earth, as he has often flung them on the mountain side, expecting the morning will find him fresh and vigorous as ever. But ere slumber has wrapped his weary form, the pestilential vapors begin to steam up from the noxious earth, and noiselessly embrace their unconscious victim. In the morning, he who has felt all his life long his blood leap in his veins like his native torrents, now feels it creeping heavy and hot through his depressed system. Ignorant of his danger, or the cause of his ills, he renews his task, and again staggers on under a burning sun, and lies down again to sleep on the moist earth, in the embrace of his foe. The next day the poor fellow toils with hotter brain and a wilder pulse, and flings himself at night on the cool earth, from which he will never rise again to his labor. Thus, while the scanty harvest of grain is gathered in, the malaria has been reaping its richer harvest of men. Not scores and fifties, but hundreds are thus left every summer on the Roman Campagna, while the wives and children they hoped to feed by their industry, look in vain from their mountain homes for their coming, and turn to meet the winter with blasted hopes. Oh, what haggard faces, miserable forms, have I seen peep out |