bserved in
these fragments of Cimbrian, while other words will have been noticed
as quite foreign to either.

There was a poor little house of refreshment beside our spreading haw,
and a withered old woman came out of it and refreshed us with clear
spring water, and our guides and friends with some bitter berries of
the mountain, which they admitted were unpleasant to the taste, but
declared were very good for the blood. When they had sufficiently
improved their blood, we mounted our mules again, and set out with the
journey of an hour and a quarter still between us and Fozza.

As we drew near the summit of the mountain our road grew more level,
and instead of creeping along by the brinks of precipices, we began
to wind through bits of meadow and pleasant valley walled in by lofty
heights of rock.

Though September was bland as June at the foot of the mountain, we
found its breath harsh and cold on these heights; and we remarked that
though there were here and there breadths of wheat, the land was
for the most part in sheep pasturage, and the grass looked poor and
stinted of summer warmth. We met, at times, the shepherds, who seemed
to be of Italian race, and were of the conventional type of shepherds,
with regular faces, and two elaborate curls trained upon their cheeks,
as shepherds are always represented in stone over the gates of villas.
They bore staves, and their flocks went before them. Encountering us,
they saluted us courteously, and when we had returned their greeting,
they cried with one voice,--"Ah, lords! is not this a miserable
country? The people are poor and the air is cold. It is an unhappy
land!" And so passed on, profoundly sad; but we could not help smiling
at the vehement popular desire to have the region abused. We answered
cheerfully that it was a lovely country. If the air was cold, it was
also pure.

We now drew in sight of Fozza, and, at the last moment, just before
parting with Brick, we learned that he had passed a whole year in
Venice, where he had brought milk from the main-land and sold it in
the city. He declared frankly that he counted that year worth all the
other years of his life, and that he would never have come back to his
native heights but that his father had died, and left his mother and
young brothers helpless. He was an honest soul, and I gave him two
florins, which I had tacitly appointed him over and above the bargain,
with something for the small Brick-bats at home, wh