You do not see the humour of such a remark whilst you are in the Casino. The strain on the minds of the gamblers tells on your mind, too. It is terribly tiring for every one taking part, and this is noticeable in the drawn and fatigued-looking faces. Even the croupiers have to be changed every hour. The strain is utterly exhausting. It would doubtless be different in these fine high halls if there were currents of air, but there are not. It is thousand-times-breathed gamblers' breath that you are breathing, suffused with the heavy odour of the expensive perfumes on the women. What a change when you step outside into the fresh air once more. You realize what it feels like when the Casino closes, and the maniacs with their hot heads are actually forced to leave the tables and come out. To think that at ten in the morning there are queues waiting to get in and get seats at the tables, and that men and women are ready to remain at the tables all day, and can live on it and die at it! Up on the heights above, at Rocco Bruna, is a Saracen-built little town with strange dark people who seldom come down from the heights. You go by shady steps between high white walls to a little chapel, and there on Sunday a beloved _cure_ beguiles an innocent little flock with a murmuring, heavenly, sing-song voice, whilst the children with untroubled voices are like larks in a heaven above Monte Carlo, singing, "_Sancta, sancta, nostra Dama priez pour nous!_" I'd rather live at Rocca Bruna than in the main seat of the Principality of Monaco. So would we all. But the devil has got such a terrible pull. LETTERS OF TRAVEL XVI. FROM LONDON You would hardly think that the greatest drama in world history is being played out in Europe, and that England was taking a part. You would hardly think that England herself was in mortal danger. London astonishes the traveller. It seems entirely given over to trivial and alien interest. Betting on horses has never reached such dimensions. Whilst the street-criers of Belgrade keep calling "_Politika, Politika!_" and the attention of Berlin is ruefully pinned down to Reparations, and Paris is dignified and serious and national in both newspapers and conversation, you hear nothing in the streets of London but, "What's the latest, Bill?" and "I can tell you of a 'orse." In the vestry of a fashionable church the admirers of a certain earnest preacher come to see him after the sermon. Says a lady, "Well, padre, can you tell us the great secret?" The priest pauses and reflects. "I suppose by the great secret you mean the love of God? I could not tell you that at once." "Oh, no," says the lady, "I don't mean that. I mean who will be winner on June the first."