We might have taken our dinner with the cardinal of Perugia, who was residing there.[107] In sooth there is nothing anywhere to equal the courtesy of the gentlefolk of these parts, and of their dependents. The cardinal aforesaid sent word to me by one of my servants who had passed by his house that he has some cause of complaint against me, in that I had not called upon him, this servant having been taken for refreshment into the cardinal’s pantry; the cardinal had no acquaintance with me, and in this case was only showing the hospitality he was wont to give to strangers of any mark. On my part I heard that the day would hardly be long enough to allow us to complete the round I wished to make, seeing that I had gone many miles out of my way in order to get a sight of both banks of the Tiber. Here we crossed in a boat over a small branch of the Tiber to the Sacred Isle, a good Gascon league in length, where we found plenty of grazing land and divers ruins and columns of marble, which are abundant in all the parts about Porto, where stood the ancient city built by Trajan. Every day something of the kind is dug up by the Pope’s workmen and sent to Rome. When we had crossed this island we found we had still the Tiber to pass, and, as we had no means of transporting our horses, we were just thinking of retracing our steps, when, by good luck, we espied on the opposite bank M. de Bellai, M. le Baron de Chasai, M. de Marivau, and certain others. Whereupon I crossed the stream and made an arrangement with these gentlemen that we should exchange horses. Thus they returned to Rome by the road by which we had come out, and we took theirs, which led direct to Ostia.