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While we still waited there came up from the side of the steaming river a splendid figure—a woman all in scarlet hung about with silvery chains. “That,” said the guide, “is the washer-woman.” We climbed up behind the waterfall, where it sprang in its strange excitement out of the earth, and found a stone courtyard, built round with little empty houses, one of these prepared for us.

While we paused at the door a moment, I saw between the stones a tiny plant—a plant to conjure with. It is like clover, splashed with crimson. A poet who wore the Red Cap has said that this crimson is the blood of Spring, and, to him, a drop of his own heart’s blood.

A French family were living here in a clean, empty house with airy guest-rooms; and while they regaled us with wild-boar’s flesh they talked of the topics of their day: how the jackals howled about the courtyard in winter; how the rugged way to the Roman City was not yet open; how the locusts came down ten years ago, swarm upon swarm, till you could hear the sound of the eating of their hosts by night; how they devoured fruit and leaf and bark like the “army” in Joel, and then melted like snow under the sun.