There was a stone threshing-floor behind our house. During the vintage we had it nicely swept and lighted with torches, and the grape gatherers came and danced till long after midnight, to the great amusement of my daughters, who joined in the dance, which was the Saltarello, a variety of the Tarantella. They danced to the beating of tambourines. Italy is the country of music, especially of melody, and the popular airs, especially the Neapolitan, are extremely beautiful and melodious; yet it is a fact, that the singing of the peasantry, particularly in the Roman and Neapolitan provinces, is most disagreeable and discordant. It is not melody at all, but a kind of wild chant, meandering through minor tones, without rhythm of any sort or apparent rule, and my daughters say it is very difficult to note down; yet there is some kind of method and similarity in it as one hears it shouted out at the loudest pitch of the voice, the last note dwelt upon and drawn out to an immeasurable length. The words are frequently improvised by the singers, who answer one another from a distance, as they work in the fields. I have been told, this style of chanting -- singing it can hardly be called -- has been handed down from the most ancient times, and it is said, in the southern provinces, to have descended from the early Greek colonists. The ancient Greeks are supposed to have chanted their poetry to music, as do the Italian improvisatori at the present day. << less