The whole circle of
the piazza itself is covered with an awning, festooned gayly with
garlands of box, under which the procession passes; and the ground is
covered with yellow sand, over which box and bay are strewn. The
celebration commences with morning mass in the basilica, and that over,
the procession issues from one door, and, making the whole circuit of
the piazza, returns into the church. First come the _Seminaristi_, or
scholars and attendants of the various hospitals and charity-schools,
such as San Michele and Santo Spirito,--all in white. Then follow the
brown-cowled, long-bearded Franciscans, the white Carmelites, and the
black Benedictines, bearing lighted candles and chanting hoarsely as
they go. You may see pass before you now all the members of these
different conventual orders that there are in Rome, and have an
admirable opportunity to study their physiognomies in mass. If you are
a convert to Romanism, you will perhaps find in their bald beads and
shaven crowns and bearded faces a noble expression of reverence and
humility; but, suffering as I do under the misfortune of being a
heretic, I could but remark on their heads an enormous development of
the two organs of reverence and firmness, and a singular deficiency in
the upper forehead, while there was an almost universal enlargement of
the lower jaw and of the base of the brain.
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