Dumpy children, bulky men, compressed old women with baked faces, and comical squat dogs, kept the villages partly alive.

We observed one young urchin sitting on a stone opposite a dog, and he and the dog took alternate bites off a platter-shaped cake, big enough to require both his hands to hold it.

Whether the dog ever snapped more than his share was matter of speculation to us.

It was an education for him in good manners, and when we were sitting at dinner we wished our companions had enjoyed it.

They fed with their heads in their plates, splashed and clattered jaws, without paying us any hospitable attention whatever, so that we had the dish of Lazarus.