eeking
opportunities of flight. Farmers and parish priests in black
petticoats feel the cattle and dispute about the price, or whet their
bargains with a draught of wine. Meanwhile the nets are brought on
shore glittering with the fry of sardines, which are cooked like
whitebait, with cuttlefish--amorphous objects stretching shiny feelers
on the hot dry sand--and prickly purple eggs of the sea-urchin. Women
go about their labour through the throng, some carrying stones upon
their heads, or unloading boats and bearing planks of wood in single
file, two marching side by side beneath one load of lime, others
scarcely visible under a stack of oats, another with her baby in its
cradle fast asleep.

San Remo has an elder brother among the hills, which is called San
Romolo, after one of the old bishops of Genoa. Who San Remo was is
buried in remote antiquity; but his town has prospered, while of San
Romolo nothing remains but a ruined hill-convent among pine-trees. The
old convent is worth visiting. Its road carries you into the heart of
the sierra which surrounds San Remo, a hill-country something like
the Jura, undulating and green to the very top with maritime pines and
pinasters. Riding up, you hear all manner of Alpine sounds; brawling
streams, tinkling cowbells, and herdsmen calling to each other on the
slopes. Beneath you lies San Remo, scarcely visible; and over it the
great sea rises ever so far into the sky, until the white sails hang
in air, and cloud and sea-line melt into each other indistinguishably.
Spanish chestnuts surround the monastery with bright blue gentians,
hepaticas, forget-me-nots, and primroses about their roots. The house
itself is perched on a knoll with ample prospect to the sea and to
the mountains, very near to heaven, within a theatre of noble
contemplations and soul-stirring thoughts. If Mentone spoke to me of
the poetry of Greek pastoral life, this convent speaks of mediaeval
monasticism--of solitude with God, above, beneath, and all around, of
silence and repose from agitating cares, of continuity in prayer, and
changelessness of daily life. Some precepts of the _Imitatio_
came into my mind: 'Be never wholly idle; read or write, pray or
meditate, or work with diligence for the common needs.' 'Praiseworthy
is it for the religious man to go abroad but seldom, and to seem to
shun, and keep his eyes from men.' 'Sweet is the cell when it is often
sought, but if we gad about, it wearies us by its