ese
Rovignese craftsmen.

[Illustration: AN ISTRIAN FARM-HOUSE

_To face page 133_]

XI

TO POLA BY LAND

One Easter Sunday we drove in lovely weather from Parenzo to S. Lorenzo
in Pasenatico, and on to Canfanaro. By the road we passed every now and
then farmers' houses, such as the one illustrated, and met groups of
peasants going into Parenzo to the _festa_. As we got further from the
city the men were collected in groups, talking, smoking, or playing
bowls; whilst the women also by themselves, in knots of as many as
twenty, were seated together enjoying a gossip. The landscape was
pleasant, but rather featureless, except for the bulk of Monte Maggiore
blue to the south-east. We reached S. Lorenzo at the moment of the
elevation of the Host, and found the ancient basilica crowded with
worshippers, while several men knelt with rosary in clasped hands
outside the open doors, their eyes fixed intently upon the altar. After
a time the congregation poured out, dressed in most picturesque
costumes, and evidently found our appearance quite as interesting and
strange as we found theirs. The men had one big earring (as at Rovigno),
and wore white shirts with full sleeves, sometimes embroidered, hose of
woven wool, a jacket hung loosely over the shoulders, and a little black
cap on the head. The women had full skirts of beautiful tertiary
colours, rows of coral round their necks, and large silver-gilt
brooches, and rosette ornaments on their breasts with chains attached.
On their heads, tied round the base of the skull, they had white
handkerchiefs, sometimes with ornamented borders. Over the bodice a kind
of loose waistcoat was worn.

The church is a basilica with nave and aisles, all terminated by
semicircular apses, with an arcade of nine arches of unequal width,
owing perhaps partly to the obliquity of the west wall, itself caused by
the close proximity of the palace of the Count, which was still in
existence till 1833. The three easternmost bays are enclosed as
presbytery, and this and other alterations are the work of the
seventeenth century; but two of the original pierced window-slabs are
still in position in the side apses, traces of the small clerestory
windows are visible, and in a wall to the left of the facade are
encrusted several fragments of carving which apparently formed part of
the original chancel of the ninth or early tenth century. The style of
the caps of the nave arcade, the irregularity