company form up in a straight line outside the church.
Then the best man comes forward with a kind of cake, which, after
various feints, he throws among the crowd of children which quickly
collects, and they scramble for it. Then the husband and wife, with the
best man, go to the goldsmith's to buy the marriage present. Later there
is a dance. The men and women face each other in line. They pace rapidly
back and forth without moving forward. Then the couples advance, the man
raises his right arm and opens the hand to the woman, who grasps it, and
turns herself under the arch of the two arms. Then the man passes his
arm round his partner's waist and they go round in measured walk.

Between San Vincenti and Pola are Valle and Dignano. At the former the
fortifications are earlier than the fourteenth century, heavy and
imposing, with five lofty towers (two of which are embattled), so that
projectiles were dangerous rather from the force of gravity than from
the impulse given. A portion of them is ruined, and one of the towers is
now the communal cistern. In the crypt of the church are fragments of
ninth-century carving, cut up disgracefully and made into a modern
altar, and there is a sarcophagus of the same period in the cemetery.
The campanile is considered to be the oldest in Istria. In the treasury
are a silver-gilt monstrance with many pinnacles and Renaissance scrolls
on the foot, a cross and a chalice of silver-gilt with medallions on the
foot, which once had an enamel ground. The most interesting thing,
however, is a chasuble of the fifteenth century, with embroidered
figures of silver-gilt thread in high relief upon the cross. At the
back, on the upright part, is a half-length of our Lord in a chalice,
and two saints, all three beneath canopies, and on the arms SS. Peter
and Paul. On the front are two figures and an Annunciation on the arms;
the Virgin on one side, and the angel on the other. The flesh is
painted.

XII

POLA

The town and arsenal of Pola lie at the head of one of those convenient
inlets which provide the Austrian coast so plentifully with fine
harbours. As the steamer passes between Cape Compare and Monte Grosso
the naval port appears to the right with many powerful ships-of-war
anchored in the bay: beyond and above the island of Olivi, occupied by
part of the arsenal, rises the town, its buildings climbing the hill
towards the castle which crowns the summit. To the left is the ample
c