Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/14

2 With late October the forests begin to glow with a golden tinge or a scarlet flush, the fever abates and slackens its hold, the ague-trembling limbs grow stronger, the north winds come, and the swamps are healthy with the smell of the sea or the scent of the woods; the land that has been baked and cracked till it looks like dried lava, or has been soaked by torrential rains till it is one vast smoking morass, becomes ready for cultivation.

Then the real life of Maremma begins; down from the mountains of the Lucchese and Pistoiese districts labourers troop by the thousand; shepherds come from the hills with long lines of flocks; herds of horses and cattle go daily by the roads; hunters chase the boar and buck, and charcoal burners and ploughmen pour themselves in busy legions over the plains and the woods.

The country is then full of the men come from the hills, from far and near, 'il montanino con scarpe grosse e cervello fine,' whom the Maremmano employs, envies, and detests; brown, erect, healthy, smiling, stalwart; looking, beside the pale, swollen, ague-shaken creatures, who live here all the