On our return from India, Richard produced "Sind Revisited" (2 vols., 1877) and "Etruscan Bologna" (1 vol.), which had been some time in preparation, but had not found a publisher. After this, Richard and I pursued a quiet, literary life, and I studied very hard. We began to translate Ariosto. It was summer, so we swam a great deal, and then we went up to the village inn at Opçina, of which I have already spoken. And we took a great interest in the Slav school-children--about two hundred and twenty boys and girls. We used to amuse ourselves with going in the evening to look at a _Sagra_ (the peasants' dances at one or other of the villages in the Karso), where they dance, and sing, and drink, and play games. On the 1st of August I had a great sorrow, in which Richard participated. I had taken out to Syria a couple of Yarborough fox-terriers. "Nip" was one of their offspring (one of five, born on the 24th of June, 1871, in Syria). She accompanied me to England, and then through France, Italy, Germany, to Trieste; then again all over Italy and Germany, back to England, to Arabia, India, and Egypt. In India (in April, 1876) she suddenly lost her eyesight from the heat. We nursed her for over three months, and tried everything. She had four doctors, but she died on the 1st of August, 1876, and is buried in Mr. Brock's garden, Campagna Hill, _viâ_ St. Vito, Trieste. She had to be chloroformed, as she was in such pain, and there was no hope for her. I put up a little tombstone to her memory, much to the rage of the peasants, who were also very angry at her little sealskin coat in winter, and her cradle to sleep in; they considering that I treated her like a Christian, which was true. The cradle had its mattress and pillow, sheets, blankets, and curtain; and God help anybody who ventured to touch that cradle, except to make it, like our beds, with the utmost respect. During this month, while we were out swimming, there was a cry of "Shark!" We swam for our lives to the baths; but one young man had been drawn down by his foot, and either the shark was a small one, or the cries frightened it, and the swimmer was strong, for he managed to save himself with a mangled foot. But some time before there had been a man sitting, dangling his naked legs in the water at the edge of a boat lashed to the quay, close to the hotel windows, and a shark had wriggled itself up, and bit one leg off by the thigh. The poor fellow died in a couple of hours from the fright and loss of blood, so there is a "shark scare" every year, and swimming is not an unmitigated joy. [Sidenote: _Delightful Trieste Life_.]