And yet it is very simple.

In Calabria any strong young fellow with a decently good character can find a wife with a small dowry, though he be ever so penniless.

Generally within a week, and always within a fortnight, he emigrates alone, taking all his wife's money with him and leaving her to work for her own living with her parents.

He goes to Buenos Ayres or Monte Video.

If, at the end of four, five or six years he has managed to increase the money so as to yield a small income, and if his wife behaves herself during his absence, he comes home again and buys a piece of land and builds a house.