Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/47

 the outskirts of the retreating Apennines, and the woods upon the Giglio island rose up in sight.

When she could see the isle she had reached her home, an old house of stone and oak timber standing near the wharf of the small township of Santa Tarsilla, on a little bay, that scholars affirmed had once been, like its neighbours Telamone and Populonia, a port of those sea-kines, the Etruscans.

In this little bay some small traffic in fish, and in the stone and charcoal from inland, kept the little place from absolute stagnation and death; but in the summer nearly all its few souls fled away, and in summer no coasting smack cared to lie by its little quay.

For it was full of miasma and fever in the hot season, like all these places on the low Maremma coast; even now in the late days of October the fever mists still hung about it, the pools and the beach still sent out noxious vapours, the scanty population sat about listless and shivering, the children lay on the sand too weak to care to play, and there were but two or three of them in all the place; a few fishermen were out upon the shore, a coastguardsman paced to and fro, a