If one drives out at any of the gates, he will see that spring is come. The hedges are putting forth their leaves, the almond-trees are in full blossom, and in the vineyards the _contadini_ are setting cane-poles and trimming the vines to run upon them. Here and there, along the slopes, the rude old plough of the Georgics, dragged by great gray oxen, turns up the rich loam, that "needs only to be tickled to laugh out in flowers and grain." In the olive-orchards, the farmers are carefully pruning away the decayed branches and loosening the soil about their old roots. Here and there, the smoke of distant bonfires, burning heaps of useless stubble, shows against the dreamy purple hills like the pillar of cloud that led the Israelites. One smells the sharp odor of these fires everywhere, and hears them crackle in the fields.
"Atque levem stipulam crepitantibus urere flammis."
On _festa_-days the way-side _osterias (con cucina)_ are crowded by parties who come out to sit under the _frascati_ of vines and drink the wine grown on the very spot, and regale themselves with a _frittata_ of eggs and chopped sausages, or a slice of _agnello_, and enjoy the delicious air that breathes from the mountains. The old cardinals descend from their gilded carriages, and, accompanied by one of their household and followed by their ever-present lackeys in harlequin liveries, totter along on foot with swollen ankles, lifting their broad red hats to the passers-by who salute them, and pausing constantly in their discourse to enforce a phrase or take a pinch of snuff. Files of scholars from the Propaganda stream along, now and then, two by two, their leading-strings swinging behind them, and in their ranks all shades of physiognomy, from African and Egyptian to Irish and American. Scholars, too, from the English College, and Germans, in red, go by in companies. All the schools, too, will be out,--little boys, in black hats, following the lead of their priest-master, (for all masters are priests,) and orphan girls in white, convoyed by Sisters of Charity, and the deaf and dumb with their masters. Scores of _ciocciari_, also, may be seen in faded scarlets, with their wardrobes of wretched clothes, and sometimes a basket with a baby in it, on their heads. The _contadini_, who have been to Rome to be hired for the week to labor on the Campagna, come tramping along too, one of them often mounted on a donkey, and followed by a group carrying their tools with them; while hundreds of the middle classes, husbands and wives with their children, and _paini_ and _paine_, with all their jewelry on, are out to take their _festa_ stroll, and to see and be seen.