. At last, beside a little bridge near the railroad
station, Leonardo addressed his ten-thousandth adjuration to
Beppino, whose poor little legs trembled under him. It was no
longer, 'Ah, sacred one!--don't you see Anticoli!'--or 'the rock,'
or whatever it might be; now he said, 'Ah, sacred one!--don't you
comprehend?--the Signora descends'--and Beppino looked distinctly
pleased.

"Here we demanded the reckoning, skilfully evaded hitherto.

"'Well--a franc for each beast,--and half a franc for the
room,--the rest was nothing--a _sciocchezza_.'

"A franc apiece!--half a franc!--were _we_ brigands that we should
do this thing?"

This typical picture of idyllic days in Italy, enjoyed in the impromptu
excursion and trip, reveals the delicacy of feeling and the sunny
kindness that characterize the _contadini_ and which imparts to any
social contact with them a grace and sweetness peculiar to Italian
life. There are parts of Italy where it is still the Middle Ages and no
hint of the twentieth century has yet penetrated. The modern spirit has
almost taken possession of Rome; it is largely in evidence in Florence
and even Venice, and it dominates Milan; but in most of the "hill towns"
and in the little hamlets and lonely haunts where a house is perhaps
improvised out of the primeval rock, the prevailing life is still
mediaeval, and only awakens on festa days into any semblance of activity.

Somewhere, away up in the hills, several miles from Pegli,--on the
Mediterranean coast near Genoa,--is one of these sequestered little hill
towns called _Acqua Sacra_. The name is obvious, indeed, for the sound
of the "sacred water" fills the air, falling from every hillside and
from the fountain of the _acqua sacra_ by the church. Pilgrims come from
miles around to drink of these waters. Each house in this remote little
hamlet is of solid stone, resembling a fortress on a small scale, and
the houses cling to the hillsides like mosses to a rock. Though far up
in the mountains, the hills rise around the hamlet like city walls,
as if the life of all the world were kept outside. The unforeseen visit
to these remote hamlets, suddenly chancing upon some small centre of
happy and half-idyllic life, is one of the charms of tourist travel in
this land of ineffable loveliness.

[Illustration: RUINS OF THE GREEK THEATRE, TAORMINA, SICILY
_Page 429_]

The approach to Ital