Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/163

 that Greece eagerly bought and could not equal, the yellow grain that made Maremma then, as now, the granary of Italy, over that blue sea there still came stately ships bound for Athens or for Asia, fleets of fishing craft with their lateen sails curved and white in the summer sun, brigs laden to the waterline with cargo and steering straight for Africa. But on the land, the wondrous, mysterious, memory-haunted land, where the lost cities lay under the forests, and the labyrinths of endless cemeteries wound beneath the sand and turf, there scarce any sign of human life was ever to be seen, save when a mounted shepherd on his wild and shaggy horse rode in amongst the herds of buffalo—a true son still of the fierce Etruscan pastori whom even Rome confessed none could war with and none could win without.

True, not very far off there were the ironworkers of Follonica beating the ore of Elba into shape, in the only vigorous work to be found along the coast-line, true sons of the Etruscan Sethlans, who were said to be rough, coarse, ill company enough if met away from their sweltering furnaces. But of the smiths of Follonica she knew