The road was twisting up and up a bare hillside. They roused themselves to think that they were approaching Taormina, the crown of Sicily’s beauty, the climax of all earthly loveliness, the spot apostrophised alike with dying breath by German poets and English statesmen, as being the fairest of all that their eyes had beheld on earth, place of “glories far worthier seraph’s eyes” than anything sinful man ought to expect in this blighted world according to Cardinal Newman. But where was it, that glamour of beauty? Underneath was a leaden stretch of sea, overhead a cold, clouded sky, jagged into by forbidding peaks. The grey road wound up and folded back upon itself, and slowly—oh dear departed Berliet, how slowly!—up they crawled. It was all grey, receding sea and rocky hillside, grey dust thick on parched bushes and plants, 60greyer still on grey olives and cactus, and what—those other dingy trees—could they be almonds!—those shrivelled and pallid ghosts of rosy bloom shivering in the icy wind? Was it all but a chill shadow, that for which they had left home and roaring fires and good steam heat? A furry grey head surmounted a dust wave, a donkey and a small square cart emerged behind him, following a line of others even greyer and dustier. Jane looked listlessly at the forlorn procession until her eyes discerned colour and figures dim beneath the dirt on the cart’s sides, and underneath fantastic mud gobs what appeared to be carvings. Could these be the famous Painted Carts, the “walking picture books” of a romance and colour loving people, the pride of a Sicilian peasant, frescoed and wrought, though the owner lived in a cave—the asses hung with velvet and glittering bits of mirrors though he himself walked in rags? Was everything hoped for in Sicily to prove a delusion? Up whirled the San Domenico porter in a cloud of dust, his empty carriage passing their laden one. “You might try the ‘Pension Bellevue,’ ladies—beautiful outlook—opposite the Castel-a-Mare, if you are not suited there,” he called out as he rolled by. They thanked him coldly, with spines stiffening in spite of fatigue. A pension? Never! If they could not have ascetic cells at San Domenico or the flowery loggias of the Castel-a-Mare, then at least the chambers that had sheltered a German Empress! Gardens and flowers began to appear behind the dust; a wave-fretted promontory ran into the sea below, a towering peak crowned with a brown rim loomed 61overhead. In a few more dusty twists of road the Castel-a-Mare was reached, and two large rooms with the best view carelessly demanded. The Concierge looked troubled and sent for a bland proprietor. Rooms? He had none! wouldn’t have for a month—could give one room just for that very night—that was all! To the Timeo then.