Meanwhile, So Long As The Fit Lasts, Half A Million
Bright-Eyed Officials, Burning With Youthful Ardour, Are Employed In
Affixing these numerals, briskly entering them into ten times as many
note-books and registering them into thousands of municipal
Archives,
all over the country, for some inscrutable but hugely important
administrative purposes. "We have the employes," as a Roman deputy once
told me, "and therefore: they must find some occupation."
Altogether, the weather this day sadly impaired my appetite for research
and exploration. On the way to the castle I had occasion to admire the
fine tower and to regret that there seemed to exist no coign of vantage
from which it could fairly be viewed; I was struck, also, by the number
of small figures of Saint Michael of an ultra-youthful, almost
infantile, type; and lastly, by certain clean-shaven old men of the
place. These venerable and decorative brigands - for such they would have
been, a few years ago - now stood peacefully at their thresholds, wearing
a most becoming cloak of thick brown wool, shaped like a burnous. The
garment interested me; it may be a legacy from the Arabs who dominated
this region for some little time, despoiling the holy sanctuary and
leaving their memory to be perpetuated by the neighbouring "Monte
Saraceno." The costume, on the other hand, may have come over from
Greece; it is figured on Tanagra statuettes and worn by modern Greek
shepherds. By Sardinians, too. ... It may well be a primordial form of
clothing with mankind.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 29 of 488
Words from 7486 to 7741
of 131203
