Themistocles has conducted them, with much cracking of his whip, much irrelevant conversation, quite to the other side of what once was Syracuse, and has deposited them before a little low gate that pierces a high wall. Inside this gate is a tiny garden cultivated by two monks who do the work by means of short-handled double-ended hoes; a laborious-looking Sicilian implement. The garden is full of pansies growing between low hedges of sweet-smelling thyme and rosemary. At the same moment there debarks a carriage load of touring Germans. Typical touring Germans; solid, rosy, set four-square to the winds; all clinging to Baedekers encased in covers of red and yellow cross stitch of Berlin wool, all breathing a fixed intention of seeing everything worth seeing in the thorough-going German fashion. The monks openly squabble as to the division of the parties who have come to see the church and the catacombs, and eventually the big, shaggy, red-haired one, who might be some ancient savage Gaul come to life, sullenly carries off the Teutons. It is somewhat of a shock to Jane and Peripatetica 169when their slim, supple, handsome Sicilian explains to them that this contest has its reason not in their personal charm, but is owing to a reluctance to guide the hated Tedeschi. There is something inexplicable in this universal unpopularity of the Teuton in Italy. Germany has been dotingly sentimental about Italy for generations. “Kennst du das Land” has hovered immanent on every lip from beyond the Rhine ever since the days of Goethe. They passionately study her language, her literature, her monuments, and her history. They make pilgrimages to worship at all her shrines, pouring in reverent Pan-Germanic hordes across the Alps to do it, and despite their extreme and skilful frugality they must necessarily leave in the Peninsula hundreds of thousands of their hard-earned, laboriously hoarded marks, which they have not grudged to spend in the service of beauty. Yet Italy seems possessed of a sullen repugnance to the entire race. “Tedeschi!” hisses the monk. “Tutto ‘Ja! Ja! Wunderschön!’” with a deliriously funny imitation of their accent and gestures, as he steers swiftly around a corner to prevent the two parties fusing into one.