I made two excursions to the Timavo and San Giovanni. The first was with the "Fat Boy." It was a rainy sort of day, and there was nothing to be done in the way of exercise but to go for a walk, so I beguiled the "Fat Boy" into accompanying me. I like to take him for walks. I feel I am doing good to suffering humanity—he may get rid of a little of his superfluous flesh by the exertion. I cannot say that up to now he has exhibited much thankfulness for my philanthropic efforts. We took Pixner, the gamekeeper, and his two dogs with us. Pixner is much looked up to in the village of Duino as a great traveller and linguist. He spent one or two years in England as servant to "our host," and was commonly known there as "Mr. Pig-nose"—his own name being found difficult to pronounce.

San Giovanni is not far from Duino—only a walk of half an hour or so. It is classic ground, for does not the world-famed Timavo make here its appearance into the light of day?

The "nine mouths" of Virgil have now sunk to three, however. It is a most extraordinary thing, this river, all at once, seeming to come from nowhere, there it is, not a little feeble, trickling streamlet, but a wide, fast-flowing river. There is no doubt that the original springs are somewhere underground, and that it runs for a considerable distance in the bowels of the earth. Every now and then on the neighbouring hill-side you come to a hole in the ground where you hear the rush of the water, and the splash if you drop a stone down. The ground about this neighbourhood is a perfect honeycomb.

Almost all the classic authors speak of the Timavo. I had carefully compiled a list of these old gentlemen with a kind of history of the river, but I will spare the reader, and merely say that they believed it to be the entrance to the Infernal Regions, and that the Argonauts are said to have come here after they had annexed the Golden Fleece.

After having gazed at the place where the Timavo first appears, we went on to the little church of San Giovanni. This is very old, and is built on the foundations of a temple erected by the Greeks in honour of Diomed—either the Greek hero or the Thracian Diomed who was celebrated for his horses. The latter gentleman seems to have had a stud in the neighbourhood of San Giovanni. The horses from this part of the country were very celebrated, and eagerly sought after for the Olympian games. It is interesting to note that one of the great annual events here is the horse-fair of Duino, which takes place in the month of June.

The Romans built a temple on the same site later on, the temple of the "Speranza Augusta"; and there was another temple—that of the Nymphs—somewhere near it. Villas and country houses were here in abundance; it was then quite a fashionable watering-place on account of the warm springs in the neighbourhood. There is still a miserable little bathing-place at some distance from San Giovanni, a most abandoned and dismal-looking house, though the waters have still their ancient reputation for great healing power.

In Roman times the view from this now solitary spot must have been very beautiful: the murmuring springs of the Timavo, the great lake (now a marsh), with its banks bright with glistening white monuments and the neighbouring boundless forests, which fable said were inhabited by the most extraordinary creatures.

The wine of the country was very famous. It was the favourite beverage of Julia (or Livia), the wife of Augustus, who died in Aquileia at the age of eighty-three. She gave all the credit of her long life to the wine! Pliny the younger is our informant on this point.

Battles were continually fought on the Timavo towards the end of the Roman Empire and in the Middle Ages. Its banks were the scene of many a fierce conflict between the Roman legions and the Barbarians, whilst, later on, the German Emperors would generally choose this way to sweep down from the north upon Italy. The Venetian and Imperial troops often fought here, and the different lords of the land being always at war with each other, the country round about was kept pretty lively.

The "pigeon-holes" among the rocks are very interesting. They are like the shafts of extinct volcanoes, and descend to a great depth into the earth. The pigeons, which are identically the same bird as the old-fashioned English "Blue-rock," make their nests in the sides. There is good shooting to be had at these holes in September by lying in wait for the pigeons as they come home in the evening.

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The second time we went by sea, in a diminutive cutter bearing the proud name of St. George. I dislike yachting on the whole—there is always either too much wind or none at all. In my case it is generally the latter. It is enough for me to go out in a yacht for a cruise of an hour or two, and you may be sure that yacht will become becalmed, and the unhappy people on board will have to choose between a night "on the ocean wave" and a row home in a small boat. I seem to be a sort of Jonah, and live in expectation of being thrown overboard every time I go on a yacht. A steamer does away with the fear of being becalmed, but then there is the smell of the engines. Do not mistake me, it is not that I fear sea-sickness,

In fact, I am an excellent sailor.

Once I did feel rather queer, but that was a dispensation of Providence in fulfilment of the old adage "Pride goes before a fall." I was crossing the Channel—Dover to Calais. We had a small steamer, a choppy sea, and there was a young man with a Kodak on board. I abominate amateur photographers. They are offensive. It is the fact that they insist on photography being an art that makes them so objectionable. Photography is not an art. One merely requires a good apparatus and a knowledge of how to work it, and there you are—a good photographer. That is my idea on the subject.

Well, this young man was particularly offensive. He wore a knickerbocker suit, and skipped about with his Kodak and took "snap-shots" at everything. He did not "speak to the man at the wheel," but he "shot" him instead. He photographed the sea, the sky, the sea-gulls, the passing steamers, his fellow-passengers; but then he became sea-sick. His Kodak fell from his nerveless hand, and he looked very ill. I revelled in his misery, I "chortled in my joy"; but the Fates were on my track. Half an hour before we reached Calais I began to feel very miserable. I thought I was dying. Somebody came to me, a sailor, or a steward, or an admiral, or something of that sort, and asked me if I felt ill. I said I did, that my last hour had come, that I wanted to throw myself overboard and hasten the end. He would not let me do this. I should feel all right when we landed, he said. I knew this was impossible, it was merely uselessly lengthening my sufferings; but, curiously enough, he was right. At the time I was unable to understand my misery, but I see through it now. My wretchedness was intended to teach me a lesson—the lesson of never laughing at people in adversity. I learnt it, and since then have never suffered evil effects from being on the sea.

This is a long digression, but I wish to explain the disgust I felt on our going to San Giovanni by sea. We were not becalmed on this occasion, but there was next to no wind, the sun was blazing hot, and as we were constantly tacking, and the St. George is a very small boat, my life was in perpetual danger from the eccentricities of the boom. I was very unhappy, and not in the mood to admire the beauties of nature that were constantly pointed out to me. But Checco was a comfort. Checco is captain, crew, and cabin-boy combined of the St. George, a great character and a philosopher. A nice-looking man too, tall and broad-shouldered, with a bronzed skin and snowy white hair (though, in fact, he is not old) and extraordinarily bright blue eyes—they look as if all the light and colour of the sea were reflected in them. He is a proud man is Checco, and generally very silent. He only talks to particular chums, but then he does talk. The "Fat Boy" is the proud possessor of his confidence, and to him Checco unfolds his theories; he even puts the two learned men in the shade with regard to theories. On this particular occasion he was explaining earthquakes. (There have been some here lately.) This is what Checco said to the "Fat Boy": "People are very much afraid of earthquakes, you know. I am not afraid, for it is no use. What must be, must be. But I say, What is the reason for them? I will tell you: it is the doing of those mad winds. When I was young, things were quite different on the sea. The winds blew steadily. Either it was Bora, or Levante, or Scirocco, or Libeccio, and you knew how long it would blow in the same direction. It was a pleasure to sail a boat then. But now the winds blow all ways at once, and are always fighting against one another. The weaker winds must give way, and what becomes of them? They rush into the earth—you know all the holes and grottoes there are everywhere—and so cause the earthquakes. Yes, you can believe me, it is all the doing of those mad winds." Checco was silent and gazed out over the blue sea, and the "Fat Boy" pondered over his words. Then he began again, still looking at the distant horizon: "Everything was different when I was a young man—the winds were not mad, the girls were pretty. When we came out of church on Sundays, and the girls, as is the fashion, gave the red carnation they wore to the man they liked best, none of the fellows got as many as I did. But now I have white hair, you see.... Still none of my boys are as tall as I am, and I have never tried my whole strength yet."

Then Checco relapsed into silence, and not even the "Fat Boy" could draw another word from him.

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We sailed up the Timavo. The wind had freshened, and I must confess it was really rather pleasant. Wild ducks rose from the reeds with a great splashing and flapping of wings, and occasionally a snipe would dart away with its peculiar twisting zigzag flight and harsh cry. At San Giovanni we landed, and walked home. Our path, for part of the way, lay along an old Roman road, and then we passed through a little wood of stunted trees (the last remnant of the "boundless forests" of old times), which in autumn is one pink carpet of heavily-scented cyclamens. We skirted the deer park, where some twenty or thirty fallow deer lead a cheerless existence and are fed on hay all the year round. The ground in the park is covered with stones, not a blade of grass is to be seen, only the hardy ilex seems able to flourish on the barren soil.

It has a curious appearance, this little tract of country round Duino, with its dull gray rocks. A few bushes manage to extract enough nourishment from somewhere to exist, but every cranny and crevice in the stones is gay and bright with wild flowers.

Monotonous and almost melancholy is the scenery, and yet it has a charm of its own; the sun shines so brightly, the sky is so blue; and then there is always the sea, ever changeful and ever beautiful, and the old gray castle in the distance, towering above all, and watching over the silent land.