The fever often attacks them, and they have to return home with their work half done; often a father will have to send back his son, fearful that he may die on the road, but conscious that, though he seems hardly able to crawl, the lad's only chance of safety lies in his reaching the pure air of the mountains before it is too late.
If all goes well, they arrive at home by the 24th of June, the feast of St. John. As they near their native place, the more active and eager members of the different parties press on; and as soon as they are descried from the village, a group is formed to meet them and welcome them back; then, too, do the wives learn what their husbands have earned and whether they have had a good year.
We may fancy the inhabitants who have remained at home, assembling at the old tower that bars the entrance to the village, eagerly asking and hearing the news of the winter. "Old Giuseppe" has had a good year; Peppe da Cacciono has had a touch of the maremna, but he got better; Renzo of Cognocco's dead, died of "la perniciosa." "Poor fellow! God rest his soul!" is the reply. "He had a bad attack last year; we never thought to see him again." And then they will visit Renzo's family and condole with them.
Not only do they bring back news to their own, but to all the villages that they pass through. Before the eve of St. John you may often, as the Abbé Tigri says, "meet a group of five or six, burnt nearly black with the sun, in their worst dress, and wearied out by the long journey. Ben tornati, welcome back!" you cry. "Do you come from far? Poor fellows, how tired you seem!" "It is nothing now, sir," they say, "for we are going home; but it was a hard time this spring." And, with that smile of singular brightness which no poverty or suffering seems able to drive from their face, they pass by.
The maremna is more accessible now than when we last visited and travelled through it. The works that were originated and so sedulously carried on by the former government have been continued by the present, and have fertilized and rendered comparatively healthy large portions of the country which were formerly desolate and pestilential: a railroad has been made, which familiarizes many a modern traveller with the country under its present aspects, but tempts him to hurry by much that is interesting and would have rewarded a longer sojourn. We may endeavor in some future number to describe the impression made upon us by this portion of Etruria, and to lead the reader
"By lordly Volaterra,
Where scowls the far-famed hold
Piled by the hands of giants
For god-like kings of old;
By sea-girt Populonia,
Whose sentinels descry
Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops
Fringing the southern sky.
"By the drear bank of Ufens,
Where flights of marsh-fowl play,
And buffaloes lie wallowing
Through the hot summer day;
By the gigantic watch-towers,
No work of earthly men,
Whence Cora's sentinels o'erlook
The never-ending fen,
To the Laurentian jungle,
The wild-hog's reedy home."
Miscellany.
Pagan Irish Sepulchral Pillar-Stones.—That standing stones were used during pagan times in Ireland as sepulchral monuments appears certain; for we find in the description of the royal cemetery of Brugh-na-Boinne, as given in the Dinnsenchus contained in the Book of Ballymote, fol. 190, translated and published by the late Dr. Petrie, in his treatise on the Round Towers of Ireland, the following: "The pillar-stone of Buidi the son of Muiredh, where his head is interred." We also find quoted by the same eminent antiquary, from the Leabhar-na-h-hide, an account of the death of Fothadh in the battle of Ollarba, fought, according to the Four Masters, in A.D. 285, with a description of his grave, in which is recorded, "And there is a pillar-stone at his carn; and an ogumis on the end of the pillar-stone which is in the earth." The earliest sepulchral monuments mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters are carns, (large heaps of stones,) and murs or tuiams, (mounds of earth,) now more generally known by the name "barrow." However, that pillar-stones may even then have been in use appears probable; for in the opening paragraph of those Annals there is, "From Fintan is named Feart Fintain" (that is, Fintain's grave) "over Loch Deirgdheire." The place is still called by this name, and is situated on the northern slopes of the Arra mountains, overlooking Lough Derg, county Tipperary. There is a pillar-stone at the grave, from which the hill is called Laghtea.—G. Henry Kinahan, in Athenoeum.
The Monks' Model Farm in Algeria.—The Mois Agricole contains an interesting account of the Trappist Model Farm at Cheragas, in Algeria. In 1843, Marshal Bugeaud granted the Trappists one thousand two hundred hectares of land, on which, two years afterward, three hundred thousand francs were expended by the order in buildings. The stock of animals on the farm is now magnificent. The Trappist cows each yield sixteen quarts of milk a day, in a country where the native cows do not yield more than goats; and the sheep and pigs are equally fine. A large quantity of honey is also produced at Cheragas. There are in the establishment one hundred and eight monks, of whom twenty-two belong to the choir, and ten are priests. Twenty lay workmen are constantly employed at the convent, and every poor or sick wayfarer is entitled to claim or receive aid or work there. When the emperor visited the establishment, he discovered, to his surprise that upward of a dozen of the monks had been soldiers of the imperial guard. They explained to him that, after the severe discipline and simple fare of the French army, the Trappist rule, ascetic as it is, did not appear harsh to them.