"C'était le temps des guerres sans pitié et des inimitiés mortelles." H. TAINE. _Voyage en Italie._ _Perouse et Assise._ All who ascend the hill of the Seraphic City must feel its indescribable charm--intangible, mysterious, and quite distinct from the beauty of the Umbrian valley. "Why," we ask ourselves, "this stillness and sense of marvellous peace in every church and every street?" And, as though conscious of our thoughts, a young Assisan, with a gesture of infinite sadness towards the large, desolate palaces and broad deserted streets, said, as we lingered on our way: "Ah! Signore mie, our city is a city of the dead--of memories only." As he spoke a long procession of a grey-clothed confraternity, bearing on their breasts the franciscan badge, preceded by a priest who walked beneath a baldachino, streamed out of a small church. Slowly they passed down the road, and then the priest turned into a wayside cottage where lay a dying woman, while the others waited outside under the olive trees. But the sound of their chanting and the tinkling of the small bell came to us as we leaned over the city walls. Of a truth we felt the religious life of the town was not dead: perchance, down those streets, now so still, men had passed along to battle during the sad turmoil of the middle ages, had hated and loved as well as prayed, with all the fervour of their southern nature. We must turn to the early chroniclers to find in their fascinating pages that Assisi has had her passionate past and her hours of deepest trial. Her origin goes back to the days when the Umbrians, one of the most ancient people of Italy, inhabited the country north and south of the Tiber, and lived a wild life in caves. But the past is very dim; some Umbrian inscriptions, a few flint arrow heads, and some hatchets made of jade found on the shore of lake Thrasymene are the only records we possess of these early settlers.