this noble family. ² To the west is Chivasso, where the
marquises had their court sometimes; and one may see
there, hard by the parish church, a rectangular tower
once belonging to their residence. To the south of west
rises bellissimo Moncalvo a thousand feet above the
Gulf of Genoa, spreading its wide promenade grandly to
the sun, and exhibiting, in the church of San Francesco,
a pair of standards taken by them from the infidels. Only
five miles from Casale, to the east of south, lies Occimiano
with a hill for a pillow and a torrent at its feet, and in
this town--their usual residence--meagre traces of fortifi-
cations are still to be seen.

Casale itself, though not so closely associated with our
history, is by no means a place to be overlooked. Pictur-
esque hills encompass it, and only a little way distant
flows the Po, here a shifting, shiftless affair, roaming
about within low banks of sand and gravel, but still a
river, gleaming brightly through a screen of poplars.
Flanking three large cities as it does, the position is one
to catch the eye of a strategist, and from the time of the
Lombards there has always been a fortress here. The
walls are still formidable, though the children race up and
down their approaches unterrified; and the castle and the
citadel still re-echo to the clash of arms, as they have done
for more than a thousand years.

Within the ramparts there is many a quaint mediæval
corner, as I soon discovered in exploring the crooked place
with neither guide nor map. There is also a certain pro-
fessor in bronze in one of the squares, where I always
arrived sooner or later when I lost my way; and I shall
never forget how his domical forehead rose higher each
time, his preposterous foretop of hair peaked itself more
sharply, the twist of his features grew still more cate-
chetical, and with more and more severity he seemed just
removing his eye-glasses and demanding: "Tell me now,

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