ivilisation; and probably there is now a respectable
hotel at Longarone. I suppose, therefore, that I may say, without risk
of laying myself open to an action for slander, that a more filthy den
than the _osteria_ before which my charge and I alighted no imagination,
however disordered, could conceive. It was a vast, dismal building,
which had doubtless been the palace of some rich citizen of the republic
in days of yore, but which had now fallen into dishonoured old age.
Its windows and outside shutters were tightly closed, and had been so,
apparently, from time immemorial; a vile smell of rancid oil and garlic
pervaded it in every part; the cornices of its huge, bare rooms were
festooned with blackened cobwebs, and the dust and dirt of ages had
been suffered to accumulate upon the stone floors of its corridors.
The signorina tucked up her petticoats as she picked her way along the
passages to her bedroom, while I remained behind to order dinner of the
sulky, black-browed padrona to whom I had already had to explain that my
companion and I were not man and wife, and who, I fear, had consequently
conceived no very high opinion of us. Happily the priest had already
been warned by telegram that his service would not be required until the
morrow; so I was spared the nuisance of an interview with him.

After a time we sat down to our tete-a-tete dinner. Such a dinner! Even
after a lapse of all these years I am unable to think of it without a
shudder. Half famished though we were, we could not do much more than
look at the greater part of the dishes which were set before us; and the
climax was reached when we were served with an astonishing compote, made
up, so far as I was able to judge, of equal proportions of preserved
plums and mustard, to which vinegar and sugar had been superadded. Both
the signorina and I partook of this horrible mixture, for it really
looked as if it might be rather nice; and when, after the first
mouthful, each of us looked up, and saw the other's face of agony and
alarm, we burst into a simultaneous peal of laughter. Up to that moment
we had been very solemn and depressed; but the laugh did us good, and
sent us to bed in somewhat better spirits; and the malignant compote at
least did us the service of effectually banishing our appetite.

I forbear to enlarge upon the horrors of the night. Mosquitos, and other
insects, which, for some reason or other, we English seldom mention,
save under a modest p