rtments they live, I wonder they
are happy; but I suppose it is the all-nourishing sun and the equable
climate that do the business for them. They have few artificial
wants, and no uneasy expectation--bred by the reading of books and
newspapers--that anything is going to happen in the world, or that
any change is possible. Their fruit-trees yield abundantly year
after year; their little patches of rich earth, on the built-up
terraces and in the crevices of the rocks, produce fourfold. The sun
does it all.

Every walk that we take here with open mind and cheerful heart is
sure to be an adventure. Only yesterday, we were coming down a
branch of the great gorge which splits the plain in two. On one side
the path is a high wall, with garden trees overhanging. On the
other, a stone parapet; and below, in the bed of the ravine, an
orange orchard. Beyond rises a precipice; and, at its foot, men and
boys were quarrying stone, which workmen raised a couple of hundred
feet to the platform above with a windlass. As we came along, a
handsome girl on the height had just taken on her head a large block
of stone, which I should not care to lift, to carry to a pile in the
rear; and she stopped to look at us. We stopped, and looked at her.
This attracted the attention of the men and boys in the quarry below,
who stopped work, and set up a cry for a little money. We laughed,
and responded in English. The windlass ceased to turn. The workmen
on the height joined in the conversation. A grizzly beggar hobbled
up, and held out his greasy cap. We nonplussed him by extending our
hats, and beseeching him for just a little something. Some passers
on the road paused, and looked on, amused at the transaction. A boy
appeared on the high wall, and began to beg. I threatened to shoot
him with my walkingstick, whereat he ran nimbly along the wall in
terror The workmen shouted; and this started up a couple of yellow
dogs, which came to the edge of the wall and barked violently. The
girl, alone calm in the confusion, stood stock still under her
enormous load looking at us. We swung out hats, and hurrahed. The
crowd replied from above, below, and around us, shouting, laughing,
singing, until the whole little valley was vocal with a gale of
merriment, and all about nothing. The beggar whined; the spectators
around us laughed; and the whole population was aroused into a jolly
mood. Fancy such a merry hullaballoo in America. For ten minutes,
while the fun