droning and chanting. A weird scene, in truth. And the coachman was
quite right in his surmise as to the difference in temperature. It is
hot down here, damply hot, as in an orchid-house. But the aroma cannot
be described as a floral emanation: it is the _bouquet,_ rather, of
thirteen centuries of unwashed and perspiring pilgrims. "TERRIBILIS EST
LOCUS ISTE," says an inscription over the entrance of the shrine. Very
true. In places like this one understands the uses, and possibly the
origin, of incense.

I lingered none the less, and my thoughts went back to the East, whence
these mysterious practices are derived. But an Oriental crowd of
worshippers does not move me like these European masses of fanaticism; I
can never bring myself to regard without a certain amount of disquietude
such passionate pilgrims. Give them their new Messiah, and all our
painfully accumulated art and knowledge, all that reconciles civilized
man to earthly existence, is blown to the winds. Society can deal with
its criminals. Not they, but fond enthusiasts such as these, are the
menace to its stability. Bitter reflections; but then--the drive upward
had chilled my human sympathies, and besides--that so-called breakfast.
. . .

The grovelling herd was left behind. I ascended the stairs and,
profiting by a gleam of sunshine, climbed up to where, above the town,
there stands a proud aerial ruin known as the "Castle of
the Giant." On one of its stones is inscribed the date 1491--a certain
Queen of Naples, they say, was murdered within those now crumbling
walls. These sovereigns were murdered in so many castles that one
wonders how they ever found time to be alive at all. The structure is a
wreck and its gateway closed up; nor did I feel any great inclination,
in that icy blast of wind, to investigate the roofless interior.