Away We Go Again, By Muddy Roads, And Through The Most Shattered
And Tattered Of Villages, Where There Is Not A Whole Window Among
All The Houses, Or A Whole Garment Among All The Peasants, Or The
Least Appearance Of Anything To Eat, In Any Of The Wretched
Hucksters' Shops.
The women wear a bright red bodice laced before
and behind, a white skirt, and the Neapolitan head-dress of square
folds of linen, primitively meant to carry loads on.
The men and
children wear anything they can get. The soldiers are as dirty and
rapacious as the dogs. The inns are such hobgoblin places, that
they are infinitely more attractive and amusing than the best
hotels in Paris. Here is one near Valmontone (that is Valmontone
the round, walled town on the mount opposite), which is approached
by a quagmire almost knee-deep. There is a wild colonnade below,
and a dark yard full of empty stables and lofts, and a great long
kitchen with a great long bench and a great long form, where a
party of travellers, with two priests among them, are crowding
round the fire while their supper is cooking. Above stairs, is a
rough brick gallery to sit in, with very little windows with very
small patches of knotty glass in them, and all the doors that open
from it (a dozen or two) off their hinges, and a bare board on
tressels for a table, at which thirty people might dine easily, and
a fireplace large enough in itself for a breakfast-parlour, where,
as the faggots blaze and crackle, they illuminate the ugliest and
grimmest of faces, drawn in charcoal on the whitewashed chimney-
sides by previous travellers.
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