A few rough carts, loaded with charcoal or wood for the Roman markets; strings of mules, almost buried beneath high piles of brushwood, which were swung pannier-wise across their backs; and a score of peasant- farmers mounted on shaggy cart-horses, and jogging towards the fair, constituted the way-bill of the road.

The mountain slopes were apparently altogether barren, or at any rate uncultivated.

In the plain of the valley, bearing traces of recent inundation from the brook-torrent which ran alongside the road in strange zig-zag windings, were a number of poorly tilled fields, half covered with stones.

The season was backward, and I could see no trace of anything but hard, fruitless labour; and the peasants, who were working listlessly, seemed unequal to the labour of cultivating such unprofitable lands.

Personally the men were a vigorous race enough, but the traces of the malaria fever, the sunken features and livid complexion, were painfully common; their dress too was worn ragged and meagre, while the boys working in the fields constantly left their work to beg as I passed by, a fact which, considering how little frequented this district is by travellers, struck me unpleasantly.