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 faÇade 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 in their size, and in that of the plain super-abaci above them, also point to the same period. The apses have shallow arcading outside; the campanile is an addition built on to the tower of one of the town gates, the exterior arch of which is stopped; about the height of the nave cornice two great brackets project. Another of the wall-towers near at hand still retains the staircase by which it was ascended. Along the south wall of the church runs a loggia supported on slender columns, and in the piazza in front is the base of the flagstaff which once supported the standard of S. Mark. A gateway with a very pointed arch at the bottom of this piazza forms the entrance to the town. The walls are all of the early Venetian period, and a well-head ordered to be carved in 1331 by Giovanni Contarini has a rampant winged lion half-length, crowned and nimbed, and with a closed book.

The city swore fealty to Venice in 1271, and became in 1304 the seat of the captain of the Pasenatico, an officer who had charge of the fortresses and town walls throughout Istria, and the duty of enlisting foot soldiers, sailors, and oarsmen. Marco Soranzo was the first captain. Fifty-two years after his time a second captaincy was created in Umago, afterwards transferred to Grisignana. At some time between 1312 and 1328 Marino Faliero was governor here. In 1394 the captaincy was removed to Raspo, and subsequently to Pinguente. In 1595 it was given to the podestÀ and captain of Capodistria, except as regarded Pirano.

The church is said to contain the bodies of SS. Victor and Corona, taken from Due Castelli during the war of Chioggia. The "Chronicle" relates that a Genoese squadron was in the Canal di Leme, and the people of S. Lorenzo sent a deputation suggesting co-operation in an attack on Due Castelli, between which town and itself there were rivalry and hatred. The enterprise was successful, and Due Castelli was sacked and burnt. Tommasini records that the marks of fire were visible in his time. The bodies of the saints were carried off as spoil; but it seems probable that it was a Venetian and not a Genoese fleet which co-operated with the men of S. Lorenzo, since Due Castelli belonged to the patriarch, who was allied to the Genoese.

The road from S. Lorenzo to Canfanaro crosses the Draga valley (which is 600 or 700 ft. deep) by long zigzags, from which the ruins of Due Castelli are seen towards the west. They can be visited from Canfanaro. Where the valley narrows upon two projecting spurs, nearly opposite to each other, were Monte Castello, or Moncastello, and Castello Parentino, given to the church of Parenzo by Otho II., but entirely destroyed long ago. These were the "Due Castelli" (two castles). The sea is five kilometres away. The walls and towers (which were built about 1616 by the provveditore, Marco Loredan) from a distance appear well preserved, but the only buildings remaining within are two churches and the castle.

The double girdle of walls of the castle, with well-preserved battlemented towers, is the principal factor in the effect. The gateways are pointed: outside the walls, towards Castel Parentino, is the pedestal for the municipal standard; on the other side is an illegible inscription in which the date 1475 may be deciphered. The more important church, S. Sofia, still has its outside walls, the three apses, with traces of frescoes in the central one, and the walls of the sacristy. At the beginning of the fourteenth century it appears to have belonged to the Castropola, and then to the Count of Gorizia; but in 1420 the Venetians appointed a podestÀ. In 1616 the Uscocs sacked the place, and the plague of 1630-1631 slew many of the remaining inhabitants. The district grew malarious; and at the beginning of the next century the rector, the ministers, the chapter, and the few people who remained took the precious things which the church still retained and moved to S. Silvestro, Canfanaro. S. Sofia was abandoned on June 7, 1714. The fourteenth-century pulpit, brought with them, is hexagonal, with subjects in the panels, and supported on six columns. In one panel a female figure holds two triple-towered castles of the same shape as those in the arms of Muggia. Malaria still keeps the district clear of houses, though the land is cultivated.

A few miles from Canfanaro to the north-west is Pisino, the capital of Istria, situated upon and about the rock beneath which the river Foiba disappears. The railway winds round the sides of green and wooded hills, rising with each curve till it is some height above the city. The landscape is more striking than is usual in Istria, hills of some size appearing on the horizon, while in the middle distance the Foiba meanders through a fruitful valley, occasionally broken by a low waterfall. The copses which clothe the hillsides here and there are vocal with the song of birds, and nightingales may be heard in plenty in the spring. The situation is magnificent. The town stands upon the summit of a promontory spreading out like the fingers of a hand, and at its base the river foams and rushes, entering a deep winding ravine and plunging beneath a rocky precipice several hundred feet high, on the top of which a few houses appear. The steep sides are green with trees to a certain height, and then the grey rock appears scantily covered with grass in places; above the abyss swallows dart and hawks hover. On all sides the rushing of water is heard, and fountains in the streets betoken an unusual supply, for Istria is generally a thirsty land. The castle is so close to the chasm that from one of the windows a stone can be tossed into the water. The dwarf wall shown in the illustration runs along the top of the precipice. Upon the door the date of 1785 is cut, but the greater part of the walls with their machicolations belongs to a reconstruction of the ancient castle in the fifteenth century. It is still inhabited, and part of it is used for district offices, but there is little of archÆological interest in city or castle. In the courtyard is a well on a platform ornamented with stone balls to which twelve steps ascend, a rather curious arrangement. The place for the bar which fastened the doors is still there, but in these peaceful times they appear to stand open day and night; at all events they were open when we reached the place about 7 a.m., having left Pola soon after 5. In the cathedral are a silver processional cross with figures of saints, and a tabernacle of 1543, rich of its kind, also a picture by Girolamo da S. Croce.

There was a cattle-fair on the day we were in the town; the place was full of contadini, and the roads were thronged with cattle being driven in for sale. The lambs were slung on donkeys' backs in couples, confined in sacks with their heads out of the mouths, and one lively little black fellow escaped and caused much excitement before he was caught and reimprisoned. The type of the peasants is quite different from that of those lower down the coast; the head is long, the nose aquiline, and the countenance seamed with many deep wrinkles. The older men wore one large earring in the right ear, hose of a thick whitish woollen material, or brown or blue trousers which sometimes reached but a little below the knee, a white shirt, and a brown jacket hung over the shoulder. The daughter of the house, who served us at a rough restaurant where we had dÉjeuner together with some of the country folk, was anxious to know whether the language we were speaking together was Russian. I fancy English travellers are very rare in that part of the country.

A few miles south of Canfanaro is the little town of San Vincenti, in which is one of the best preserved of the Istrian castles, showing indeed little sign of ruin externally. It occupies one side of the main piazza. At right angles to it is the church, with a faÇade recalling the work of the Lombardi, and there is a loggia and a public cistern, made in 1808 to ensure a good supply of drinking-water. In this piazza a joust was held as late as June 24, 1713. There Maria Radoslavich was hung and then burnt as a witch on February 25, 1632.

The castle is quadrilateral with a round and an octagonal tower at the angles of the northern face. The opposite side has a square tower at the angle to the right, and to the left the house of the governor just beyond the entrance-gate; the walls splay out widely to the bottom of the ditch. The slits for the chains of the drawbridge are on each side of a little grated window, and above the door are the date 1485 and the arms of Marino Grimani, with an inscription recording a restoration in 1589 after a fire in 1586. On a small door inside is the date 1728, showing that the castle underwent restorations and rebuildings. In the middle of the cornice is an arch for the castle-bell. The town was part of the feud of S. Apollinare, and was destroyed in 1330 by the soldiers of the Patriarch Pagano della Torre. The castle belonged first to the Castropola, then to the Morosini, and finally to the Grimani. It was dismantled by Bernardo Tiepolo after the war of Gradisca (during which Loredano used it as his quarters general), with the object of freeing the people from forced service of various kinds. Low buildings used as harness and store-rooms, &c., still remain against the walls inside, but the stair to the suite of principal rooms is ruinous. It is external, and led to a terrace beneath which were prisons, and from which another flight rose to a door of entrance, walled up but still traceable, at a considerable height. Other prisons were in the towers, which were bound together by the gallery which ran round the interior. The ground floor of the seventeenth-century house which occupies the ancient keep was arranged as guard-rooms and soldiers' lodgings; an internal stair conducts to a few rooms which look into the courtyard; the floors of the rest have been destroyed. Externally there is no opening for half the height; then there are two pointed windows with a considerable space between; above these in the middle is a large loggia with two pointed doors, at the sides quadrangular windows, and higher up, beneath the eaves, four more small window-openings. Some of the towers are ivy-grown.

In the church in the piazza is a S. Sebastian ascribed to Schiavone. The most ancient church is, however, in the cemetery to the north, a simple nave with pointed windows. The little chapel illustrated, at a crossing of the ways, is characteristic of this part of Istria. The people still speak Venetian Italian, though there are a good many Slav contadini, brought from Dalmatia by the Grimani in 1628. The type has regular and marked features, with dark eyes and hair. The costume is not quite that of the Morlacchi, being all black except the shoes, which are of natural leather. The women have short skirts, black stockings, and shiny shoes, many chains round the neck, and earrings, and on festas have a coronal of pins in their carefully arranged hair, like the women of the Brianza. Their weddings are celebrated amid great gatherings of friends; two pipers, with instruments timed in thirds, march first, playing a kind of tarantella; then follows a company of contadini two and two, not arm-in-arm, but with a coloured handkerchief from one head to the other. The bride has a kind of turban of brilliant colours on her head, from which masses of vari-coloured silken ribbons hang, covering her to the shoulders and breast except for her eyes, nose, and mouth. Her chemise is finely pierced and embroidered on neck, bosom, and cuffs, and her stockings are of open work, while her shoes are almost like sandals. Rows of coral deck her neck, and her fingers have as many gold rings on them as possible. The bridegroom's hat bears a crown of artificial flowers, as does that of the best man; all the friends have a similar bunch in their hands or caps. After the marriage the pipers play, and the whole of the company form up in a straight line outside the church. Then the best man comes forward with a kind of cake, which, after various feints, he throws among the crowd of children which quickly collects, and they scramble for it. Then the husband and wife, with the best man, go to the goldsmith's to buy the marriage present. Later there is a dance. The men and women face each other in line. They pace rapidly back and forth without moving forward. Then the couples advance, the man raises his right arm and opens the hand to the woman, who grasps it, and turns herself under the arch of the two arms. Then the man passes his arm round his partner's waist and they go round in measured walk.

Between San Vincenti and Pola are Valle and Dignano. At the former the fortifications are earlier than the fourteenth century, heavy and imposing, with five lofty towers (two of which are embattled), so that projectiles were dangerous rather from the force of gravity than from the impulse given. A portion of them is ruined, and one of the towers is now the communal cistern. In the crypt of the church are fragments of ninth-century carving, cut up disgracefully and made into a modern altar, and there is a sarcophagus of the same period in the cemetery. The campanile is considered to be the oldest in Istria. In the treasury are a silver-gilt monstrance with many pinnacles and Renaissance scrolls on the foot, a cross and a chalice of silver-gilt with medallions on the foot, which once had an enamel ground. The most interesting thing, however, is a chasuble of the fifteenth century, with embroidered figures of silver-gilt thread in high relief upon the cross. At the back, on the upright part, is a half-length of our Lord in a chalice, and two saints, all three beneath canopies, and on the arms SS. Peter and Paul. On the front are two figures and an Annunciation on the arms; the Virgin on one side, and the angel on the other. The flesh is painted.