cargoes. Dark-faced porters in rags carried on
their shoulders enormous burdens; men in loose knickerbockers,
embroidered shirts, and funny little turbans lounged about, and stared
at us as if they were every-day people and we extraordinary. And the
setting for the lively picture was the deeply-indented bay, surrounded
with quaintly pretty houses among vineyards and olive groves, which
climbed terrace after terrace to a mountainous horse-shoe, hemming in
the port.

All this we saw in the moment or two that we halted by the quay, before
turning up the road to Ragusa. It was a mile-long road, and like a
pleasure garden all the way, with the whiteness of wild lilies flung
like snow drifts against dark cedars, and trails of marvellous roses,
strangely tinted with all shades of red and yellow from the palest to
the deepest, clambering among the branches of umbrella pines. There were
villas, too, with pergolas, and two or three dignified old houses of
curious architecture, of which we had a flashing glimpse through
doorways in enormous walls.

We bounded up the saddle of a hill, then down again, and so came to a
charming hotel, white, with green verandahs, set in a park that was half
a garden. We were to spend the night and go on next day, after seeing
the town; but the Chauffeulier said that we should not see it to the
same advantage by morning light as in this poetic flush of sunset. So
after greeting Signore Bari and his sister, who were painting in the
park, we drove on, through a crowded _place_ where music played, crossed
a moat, and were swallowed by the long shadow of the city gate, black
with a twisted draping of ancient ivy.

A throng of loungers, theatrically picturesque, fell back in
astonishment to give us passage, and a moment later we were caught in a
double row of fortifications with a sharp and difficult turn through a
second gate. It was almost like a trap for a motor-car, but we got out,
and sprang at the same instant into the main street of a town that
might have been built to please the fancy of some artist-tyrant.

"It's a delicious mixture of Carcassonne and Verona set down by the sea,
with something of Venice thrown in, isn't it?" said Mr. Barrymore: and I
thought that part of the description fitted, though I had to be told
about splendid, fortified Carcassonne with its towering walls and
bastions, before I fully understood the simile.

"Yes, a Verona and Venice certainly," I answered, "with a su