And naked sow the land,
For lazy winter numbs the lab’ring hand.
Dryden’s Virgil, Georgic i.
CHAPTER III.
Sunday, April 18, to Thursday, April 22, 1880.
E commenced fresh studies in a rocky ravine beneath Thililit, where trees nodded over the steep path. These sketches were never finished to our satisfaction, we were harassed by the sun, and continual calls to make way for brushwood-bearing peasants, timid cows, sheep, goats and kids. Much as I delight in goats and kids, they are truly provoking when they roll down stones upon one’s picture, or skip into the palette.
Provisions are cheap, twelve fresh eggs for nine sous, for two sous more dried figs than can be piled in the hands. Every morning a lad brought us a freshly-baked wheaten loaf, unleavened, in the form of a round flat cake; we found this sweet and good, and ate it with honey. The more general bread of the people is made of barley-flour, but the sweet acorn of the ilex is also much used, and the natives think this as good as barley-flour, and pay as much for it. The poor are often reduced to a dinner of herbs; everyday we saw women washing salads; one in particular we noticed, that looked like celery, but which really was the midrib of the leaf of a thistle.