record truthful dragon yarns and untruthful barometrical observations;
or to China, dragon-land _par excellence;_ [Footnote: In Chinese
mythology the telluric element has remained untarnished. The dragon is
an earth-god, who controls the rain and thunder clouds.] or even to our
own Heralds' College, where these and other beasts have sought a refuge
from prying professors under such queer disguises that their own mothers
would hardly recognize them.




XV

BYZANTINISM


Exhausted with the morning's walk at Policoro, a railway journey and a
long drive up nearly a thousand feet to Rossano in the heat of midday, I
sought refuge, contrary to my usual custom, in the chief hotel,
intending to rest awhile and then seek other quarters. The establishment
was described as "ganz ordentlich" in Baedeker. But, alas! I found
little peace or content. The bed on which I had hoped to repose was
already occupied by several other inmates. Prompted by curiosity, I
counted up to fifty-two of them; after that, my interest in the matter
faded away. It became too monotonous. They were all alike, save in point
of size (some were giants). A Swammerdam would have been grieved by
their lack of variety.

And this, I said to myself, in a renowned city that has given birth to
poets and orators, to saints like the great Nilus, to two popes