pessimos fugis propinquos
inimicorum
solitaria succedens domo
quiesce.[7]
The same pessimistic note is struck by a third inscription over the archway before mentioned. There we find, writ large, the following Elban motto:
Amici, nemici;
Parenti, serpenti;
Cugini, assassini;
Fratelli, coltelli.[8]
We owe it to the owner to add that, like most people who rail against mankind in general, he is very tender-hearted to mankind in particular.
Passing from the brilliancy of the outer air, we stumble through a low doorway, over which, on the usual grey marble, stands printed Frantoio (crushing-house), and find ourselves in the hot, heavy atmosphere of the oil-making room. We distinguish a low, broad archway dividing the room into two parts, and at the further end a small twinkling light; while nearer the entrance a lamp, swung from the roof, enables us, after a little practice, to make out the objects around us. The whole place is pervaded by a grey steam, sweetish yet piquant, of the peculiar odour of the undried olive.
So great is the heat that the peasants are working without coats, and we, too, are glad enough to lay aside our winter wraps. Looming white through the steam, the first object that attracts our attention is the ox that patiently turns the great stone crushing wheel. Round and round he goes, triturating the dead oak leaves that make his path soft, while the olives, continually poured into the circular concavity in which the wheel moves, are quickly reduced, stone and all, to a dark-looking pulp. The whiteness of the steam and of the ox, the creature’s lustrous eyes as they catch the light, the dark olives pouring into the trough, the peasants dimly visible, make up a scene likely to remain impressed for a long while on the memory.
As soon as the crushing process is over and the ox led back to his stall, a number of flat, circular baskets are brought, made of rope-work, and open above and below. The lower openings having been closed for the moment, by drawing a rope, the baskets are filled with the pulp and piled one above another in the press. Now begins the second part of the operation, which costs the peasants a considerable amount of exertion.
We had noticed, near the archway, a tall pole, with a rope round it, pierced by a crosspiece, and turning on a swivel. This rope having been wound round the beam that works the press, and again round another upright on the further side of the press, four peasants set to work at the crossbar. Again and again is the press-bar drawn to the further upright, let go, and drawn back again, while the oil flows in an invisible stream through the pipe that leads to its destined receptacle, which is concealed under the floor beneath a trap-door. Every now and then the men stop and sit down on stones or on a heap of unused baskets to mop the perspiration which streams from them in that warm sweet atmosphere. It was during one of these pauses that they drew my attention to the advantages of the system on which they were working. In other villas, they said, the press-beam was wound towards the peasants, and sometimes broke under the pressure and injured them; but their padrone had invented a method of winding it away from them, thus freeing them from all danger in case of a breakage.