Half-a-dozen civil officials are seated in a circle before a café,
gaping at one another. You join them. They ask you for news of
something that happened a dozen years ago. You ask them in turn, what
epidemic has depopulated the country?

Presently some thirty market-men and women begin to display on the
pavement an assortment of fruit and vegetables. Where are the buyers
of these products of the earth? Here they come! Night is approaching.
The entire population begins to return at once from their labour in
the fields; a stalwart and sturdy population; the thew and sinew of
some fine regiments. Every one of these half-clad men, armed with
pickaxe and shovel, rose two hours before the sun this morning, and
went forth to weed a little field, or to dig round a few olive-trees.
Many of them have their little domains several miles off, and thither
they go daily, accompanied by a child and a pig. The pig is not very
fat, and the man and his child are very lean. Still they seem
light-hearted and merry. They have plucked some wild flowers by the
roadside. The boy is crowned with roses, like Lucullus at table. The
father buys a handful of vegetables, and a cake of maize, which will
furnish the family supper. They will sleep well enough on this
diet--if the fleas allow them. If you like to follow these poor people
home, they will give you a kindly welcome, and will not fail to ask
you to partake of their modest meal. Their furniture is very simple,
their conversation limited; their heads are as well furnished as their
dwellings.

The wife who has been awaiting the return of her lord, will open the
door to you. Of all useful animals, the wife is the one which the
Roman peasant employs most profitably. She makes the bread and the
cakes; she spins, weaves, and sews; she goes every day three miles for