Those Accustomed To
The Stony Deserts Of Nearly All South European Mountain Districts Will
Find These Woodlands Intensely Refreshing.
Their inaccessibility has
proved their salvation - up to a short time ago.
Nearly all the cattle on the Sila, like the land itself, belongs to
large proprietors. These gentlemen are for the most part invisible; they
inhabit their palaces in the cities, and the very name of the Sila sends
a cold shudder through their bones; their revenues are collected from
the shepherds by agents who seem to do their work very conscientiously.
I once observed, in a hut, a small fragment of the skin of a newly
killed kid; the wolf had devoured the beast, and the shepherd was
keeping this corpus delicti to prove to his superior, the agent, that
he was innocent of the murder. There was something naive in his
honesty - as if a shepherd could not eat a kid as well as any wolf, and
keep a portion of its skin! The agent, no doubt, would hand it on to his
lord, by way of confirmation and verification. Another time I saw the
debris of a goat hanging from a tree; it was the wolf again; the boy had
attached these remains to the tree in order that all who passed that way
might be his witnesses, if necessary, that the animal had not been sold
underhand.
You may still find the legendary shepherds here - curly-haired
striplings, reclining sub tegmine fagi in the best Theocritean style,
and piping wondrous melodies to their flocks.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 331 of 488
Words from 88842 to 89099
of 131203
