"But how in the world," I asked of my guide, "did you know that all these
people were wanting to sell?"

"I have my agents ebberywhere," was his reply.

I thought of the _Diable boiteux_ carrying the student of Alcala over the
city, Madrid, removing the roofs of the houses, and exposing to his view
the stories of the lives and miseries of those within.

I was at Florence on Easter Eve. A ceremony of a very peculiar character
takes place there on that day at noon. In the morning a monstrous black
structure on wheels, some twenty-five feet high, is brought into the square
before the cathedral by oxen, garlanded with flowers. This erection, the
_carro_, is also decorated with flowers, but is likewise covered with
fireworks. A rope is then extended from the _carro_ to a pole which is set
up in the choir of the Duomo, before the high altar. For this purpose the
great west doors are thrown open, and the rope extends the whole length of
the nave. Upon it, close to the pole, is perched a white dove of plaster.

Crowds assemble both in the square and in the nave of the cathedral.
Peasants from the countryside come in in bands, and before the hour of noon
every vantage place is occupied, and the square and the streets commanding
it are filled with a sea of heads.

[Illustration: The Carro.]

At half-past eleven, the archbishop, the canons, the choir, go down the
nave in procession, and make the circuit of the Duomo, then re-enter the
cathedral, take their places in the choir, and the mass for Easter Eve is