with its reminiscences of St Romuald?--which the retreat of La Verna, with its thoughts of St Francis? Our anticipations were in no way damped when we found ourselves half an hour later sitting in the little dining-room of the Albergo Amorosi. Certainly the chief merit of the broth was its warmth,--the pigeon was not drawn, though it was tender,--and the cheese could never have suggested the difference between this commodity and chalk. But the delicious fried artichokes, and the assurance of mine host that to-morrow he could procure anything we pleased, went far to restoring our confidence. It was Easter Sunday, visitors could hardly have been expected at this late hour. Besides, the bedrooms and general appurtenances of the place were unexceptionable. So we made the best of our meal, examined the visitors’ book with deliberate curiosity, and then we sat down by the window and watched the fading light of day across a bit of old-fashioned garden, with its blossoming almond tree, the tender green of the budding fig, and the rusty black of a row of cypresses between us and the distant mountains. Looking back to the time when the Casentino as such emerges from the dimness of the unrecorded past, we find obscurity hanging over this district longer than over adjacent parts of Tuscany. The circle of its enclosing mountains gave the Casentino a remoteness, which qualified its fate in the past as it adds a special colour to its life of to-day. The period of Etruscan independence and the period of Roman rule have left few obvious traces; it is of the times following the barbarian invasion that the district chiefly speaks. When men are thrown into new surroundings, new qualities come into play. There is something fascinating in analysing the influence which race has had upon race, and the results of bringing peoples of different degrees of culture into juxtaposition. All that survived of Roman culture and learning after the advent of the barbarians was to be found in the towns. The German invaders on the banks of the Arno, as on those of the Rhine, were impatient of the restraints of mutual dependence--they avoided life in cities. Once in possession of new lands, the leaders of the conquering host divided, each leader sought a centre of authority for himself, and the lesser military chiefs strove to equal the autonomy of the greater. Solitary and as reserved towards compeers as the eagle, these men made their homes by preference on rocky heights, which nature protected against surprise, and which the art of defence succeeded in rendering almost impregnable.