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.