te of things, found herself
stopped by a dead wall of silence, beyond which she guessed that there
lay an undiscovered land of trouble. She knew next to nothing of the
condition of her people; she only imperfectly understood the relations in
which they actually stood to herself, the extent of her power over them,
and of their power over her. The mysteries of _emphyteusis, emphyteuma,_
and _emphyteuta_ were still hidden to her, though her steward spoke of
them with surprising loquacity and fluency. She laboured hard to
understand the system upon which her tenants held their lands from her,
and it was some time before she succeeded. It is easier to explain the
matter at once than to follow Corona in her attempts to comprehend it.

To judge from the terms employed, the system of holdings common in the
Pontifical States has descended without interruption from the time of the
Romans to the present day. As in old Roman law, _emphyteusis_, now spelt
_emfiteuse_, means the possession of rights over another person's land,
capable of transmission by inheritance; and to-day, as under the Romans,
the holder of such rights is called the _emphyteuta_, or _emfiteuta_. How
the Romans came to use Greek words in their tenant-law does not belong to
the matter in hand; these words are the only ones now in use in this part
of Italy, and they are used precisely as they were in remote times.

A tenant may acquire rights of _emfiteuse_ directly from the owner
of the land, like an ordinary lease; or he may acquire them by
settlement--"squatting," as the popular term is. Wherever land is lying
waste, any one may establish himself upon it and cultivate it, on
condition of paying to the owner a certain proportion of the yield of the
land--generally one quarter--either in kind or in money. The landlord
may, indeed, refuse the right of settlement in the first instance, which
would very rarely occur, since most people who own barren tracts of rock
and heath are only too glad to promote any kind of cultivation. But when
the landlord has once allowed the right, the right itself is constituted
thereby into a possession of which the peasant may dispose as he pleases,
even by selling it to another. The law provides, however, that in case of
transfers by sale, the landlord shall receive one year's rent in kind or
in money in addition to the rent due, and this bonus is paid jointly by
the buyer and the seller according to agreement. Such holdings are
inheri