I See Crowds Of Men And Women
From The Country, The Former In Brown Velvet Jackets, And The Latter In
Broad-Brimmed Straw Hats, Driving Donkeys Loaded With Panniers Or
Trundling Hand-Carts Before Them, Heaped With Grapes, Figs, And All The
Fruits Of The Orchard, The Garden, And The Field.
They have hardly passed,
when large flocks of sheep and goats make their appearance, attended by
shepherds and their
Families, driven by the approach of winter from the
Appenines, and seeking the pastures of the Maremma, a rich, but, in the
summer, an unhealthy tract on the coast; The men and boys are dressed in
knee-breeches, the women in bodices, and both sexes wear capotes with
pointed hoods, and felt hats with conical crowns; they carry long staves
in their hands, and their arms are loaded with kids and lambs too young to
keep pace with their mothers. After the long procession of sheep and goats
and dogs and men and women and children, come horses loaded with cloths
and poles for tents, kitchen utensils, and the rest of the younglings of
the flock. A little after sunrise I see well-fed donkeys, in coverings of
red cloth, driven over the bridge to be milked for invalids.
Maid-servants, bareheaded, with huge high carved combs in their hair,
waiters of coffee-houses carrying the morning cup of coffee or chocolate
to their customers, baker's boys with a dozen loaves on a board balanced
on their heads, milkmen with rush baskets filled with flasks of milk, are
crossing the streets in all directions.
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