s. It was in the
spring-time, and the peach-trees and almond-trees hung full of blossoms
and bees; the lizards lay in the walks absorbing the vernal sunshine;
the violets and cowslips sweetened all the grassy borders. The scene did
not want a human interest, for the peasant-girls were going to market at
that hour, and I met them everywhere, bearing heavy burdens on their own
heads, or hurrying forward with their wares on the backs of donkeys.
They were as handsome as heart could wish, and they wore that Italian
head-dress which I have never seen anywhere in Italy except at Trieste
and in the Roman and Neapolitan provinces,--a kerchief of dazzling white
linen, laid square upon the crown, and dropping lightly to the
shoulders. Later I saw these comely maidens crouching on the ground in
the market-place, and selling their wares, with much glitter of eyes,
teeth, and ear-rings, and a continual babble of bargaining.

It seemed to me that the average of good looks was greater among the
women of Trieste than among those of Venice, but that the instances of
striking and exquisite beauty were rarer. At Trieste, too, the Italian
type, so pure at Venice, is lost or continually modified by the mixed
character of the population, which perhaps is most noticeable at the
Merchants' Exchange. This is a vast edifice roofed with glass, where are
the offices of the great steam navigation company, the Austrian
Lloyds,--which, far more than the favor of the Imperial government, has
contributed to the prosperity of Trieste,--and where the traffickers of
all races meet daily to gossip over the news and the prices. Here a
Greek or a Dalmat talks with an eager Italian, or a slow, sure
Englishman; here the hated Austrian button-holes the Venetian or the
Magyar; here the Jew meets the Gentile on common ground; here
Christianity encounters the superstitions of the East, and makes a good
thing out of them in cotton or grain. All costumes are seen here, and
all tongues are heard, the native Triestines contributing almost as much
to the variety of the latter as the foreigners. "In regard to language,"
says Cantu, "though the country is peopled by Slavonians, yet the
Italian tongue is spreading into the remotest villages, where a few
years since it was not understood. In the city it is the common and
familiar language; the Slavonians of the North use the German for the
language of ceremony; those of the South, as well as the Israelites, the
Italian; wh