Here I shall note down a few of the things we have discovered on the road:—
Hay and corn stacks are all made round a tall pole fixed in the ground. Another piece of wood nailed across often converts this into a cross over the corn.
In Arezzo cathedral during tierce a black cat was howling about the cathedral in a most ludicrous manner. It belongs to the church and is always howling about, sitting on altars, and so forth. Foreigners never care about taking animals into church with them. Dogs are special church-goers in Italy!
About Perugia the women’s costume is good: white sleeves, blue skirt, pink bodice and bright handkerchief over the head. The women usually wear immense straw hats about two feet six inches in diameter, generally pinned on to the back of the head and flapping back to shade none of the face. Between Arezzo and Florence the women often wear round beaver hats with broad flat brims—and very ugly they are. Women carry a fan instead of a parasol. Women in Genoa wear white veils.
The staple production of much of Tuscany, Siena, and the Papal States seems to be olives. The trunks of the trees are always very old, crushed down in the centre and sometimes two or three feet in diameter. The branches are young wood and always trained out so as to leave a hollow circle in the centre. The colour is a very blue green and as they are planted everywhere in lines and at regular intervals, they do not improve either the near or the distant view of the landscape. Maple trees are trained in the same way for the purpose of growing vines. The vines are festooned sometimes from tree to tree and at others festooned round the tree itself.
The ploughs here are very clumsy, they have a very heavy wooden frame with an iron shoe put on in front. It does not turn the dirt over but only digs a rough furrow in the ground. Oxen are always used for all agricultural work. They are ringed through the nose and a cord, fastened to this ring and passing under a rope between the horns, serves as a rein. The carts are so made that they are loaded far out on the pole to the shoulder of the men.
All houses here have a pigeon house raised above the roof. On it are painted some flying pigeons on a white ground. It is generally a large construction and looks like a look-out room at first.
It is curious that we never see a bird flying about, yet we eat at dinner every day portions of two or three. Where do they all come from?
All the houses are built over stables.
Wayside churches seem almost always to have a small window on each side of their western door protected by a grating and with a shutter inside. Often there is an arcaded porch above.