ist, to weave a
marvellous carpet such as the looms of Shiraz or of Cashmere never
spread. Rarely have I gazed on Flora in such riot, such luxuriance, such
self-abandonment to joy. The air was filled with fragrances. Songs of
cuckoos and nightingales echoed from the copses on the hill-sides. The
sun was out, and dancing over all the landscape.

After all this, Fano was very restful in the quiet sunset. It has a
sandy stretch of shore, on which the long, green-yellow rollers of the
Adriatic broke into creamy foam, beneath the waning saffron light over
Pesaro and the rosy rising of a full moon. This Adriatic sea carries an
English mind home to many a little watering-place upon our coast. In
colour and the shape of waves it resembles our Channel.

The seashore is Fano's great attraction; but the town has many churches,
and some creditable pictures, as well as Roman antiquities. Giovanni
Santi may here be seen almost as well as at Cagli; and of Perugino there
is one truly magnificent altar-piece--lunette, great centre panel, and
predella--dusty in its present condition, but splendidly painted, and
happily not yet restored or cleaned. It is worth journeying to Fano to
see this. Still better would the journey be worth the traveller's while
if he could be sure to witness such a game of _Pallone_ as we chanced
upon in the Via dell'Arco di Augusto--lads and grown-men, tightly girt,
in shirt sleeves, driving the great ball aloft into the air with
cunning bias and calculation of projecting house-eaves. I do not
understand the game; but it was clearly played something after the
manner of our football, that is to say, with sides, and front and back
players so arranged as to cover the greatest number of angles of
incidence on either wall.

Fano still remembers that it is the Fane of Fortune. On the fountain in
the market-place stands a bronze Fortuna, slim and airy, offering her
veil to catch the wind. May she long shower health and prosperity upon
the modern watering-place of which she is the patron saint!

FOOTNOTES:

[C] There is in reality no doubt or problem about this Saint Clair. She
was born in 1275, and joined the Augustinian Sisterhood, dying young, in
1308, as Abbess of her convent. Continual and impassioned meditation on
the Passion of our Lord impressed her heart with the signs of His
suffering which have been described above. I owe this note to the
kindness of an anonymous correspondent, whom I here thank.