re
to be an adventure. Only yesterday, we were coming down a branch of the
great gorge which splits the plain in two. On one side the path is a
high wall, with garden trees overhanging. On the other, a stone parapet;
and below, in the bed of the ravine, an orange orchard. Beyond rises a
precipice; and, at its foot, men and boys were quarrying stone, which
workmen raised a couple of hundred feet to the platform above with a
windlass. As we came along, a handsome girl on the height had just taken
on her head a large block of stone, which I should not care to lift, to
carry to a pile in the rear; and she stopped to look at us. We stopped,
and looked at her. This attracted the attention of the men and boys in
the quarry below, who stopped work, and set up a cry for a little money.
We laughed, and responded in English. The windlass ceased to turn.
The workmen on the height joined in the conversation. A grizzly beggar
hobbled up, and held out his greasy cap. We nonplussed him by extending
our hats, and beseeching him for just a little something. Some passers
on the road paused, and looked on, amused at the transaction. A boy
appeared on the high wall, and began to beg. I threatened to shoot him
with my walkingstick, whereat he ran nimbly along the wall in terror The
workmen shouted; and this started up a couple of yellow dogs, which came
to the edge of the wall and barked violently. The girl, alone calm in
the confusion, stood stock still under her enormous load looking at us.
We swung out hats, and hurrahed. The crowd replied from above, below,
and around us, shouting, laughing, singing, until the whole little
valley was vocal with a gale of merriment, and all about nothing.
The beggar whined; the spectators around us laughed; and the whole
population was aroused into a jolly mood. Fancy such a merry hullaballoo
in America. For ten minutes, while the funny row was going on, the girl
never moved, having forgotten to go a few steps and deposit her load;
and when we disappeared round a bend of the path, she was still watching
us, smiling and statuesque.

As we descend, we come upon a group of little children seated about a
doorstep, black-eyed, chubby little urchins, who are cutting oranges
into little bits, and playing "party," as children do on the other side
of the Atlantic. The instant we stop to speak to them, the skinny hand
of an old woman is stretched out of a window just above our heads, the
wrinkled palm itching for m