er cloak--and
pretty arabesque scrolls on the soffit.

Isola is delightful from outside; but inside there is much dirt, and
little food for the traveller. All that we could obtain was bread and
rough red wine. While waiting for the train, as the sun set and twilight
fell, we saw many of the _contadini_ returning from their work, most of
them on donkeys or ponies--a father with a little son before or behind
him, a man in a black cloak with panniers laden with branches of trees,
which hid the saddle, and, in the semi-obscurity, made them look like
some monstrous beast of strange form, another perched upon a great
bundle of hay or grass, and so on, all passing rapidly from the malaria
of the fields to the safety of the malodorous town.

It reminded one of the return of the townspeople within the walls at
nightfall necessitated by the mediaeval custom of closing the gates an
hour after "Ave Maria," after which none could enter or leave the
cities; and how the lamps of the shrines were the only illumination of
the streets, about which none were allowed to go without carrying a
light.

In the train we had as fellow traveller an engineer who spoke English
well. He said that all over Istria nothing could be obtained to eat
(except, of course, in the more important towns). He had been
constructing a new line near Divaca, where nothing was obtainable, and
he and his companions had been obliged to take a cook and all supplies
with them. He appeared to have a very bad opinion of the Triestines,
whom he characterised as drunken swine, which we had not observed
ourselves. He said that beer was too dear for the majority, so they got
drunk on black wine and brandy--a statement which sounded strange to our
English ears. The smaller boats, being for the use of the country
people, are very inconvenient for tourists, since they generally start
so as to arrive at Trieste early in the day, thus allowing of return the
same night with the purchases made. Baedeker advises an excursion to
Muggia and on to Capodistria and Isola and Pirano, "returning by boat in
the evening"; but the last boat from Pirano leaves at 1.30 p.m., and the
last one from Capodistria at 4.0 (by which, by-the-bye, we paid twice as
much as we paid for the same journey in the morning), and after that the
traveller is dependent upon the little railway, which lands him in
Trieste after 10.0 p.m., at the S. Andrea Station, rather late to obtain
a meal.

VIII

UMAGO