Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/75

 raked upon the beach; but smoke seldom issued from its chimney, though wood was to be had for the getting, and salt for the taking of it. The people had little strength and less spirit. In winter time their lives were very hard, and with the summer came the pestilence, and then ague and fever fed on them and drained their bodies, and left them scanty force to do more than sit in the shade of their boats or their walls and push out for moonlit fishing when night fell. It was the strong fellows who came down from the mountains of Pistoija and the hills of Lucca that did their work, and reaped the harvest on moor and in forest when autumn came round.

The people of the shore were nearly all dropsical, and the few soldiers and coast-guardsmen sent on duty along the shores suffered more than the native population at most times. But the Pistoiese and the Lucchese and the armies of winter-workers did not come into Santa Tarsilla itself except at rare odd times, when some of them brought, from the interior, grain or timber or charcoal to load the little coasters that were the only vessels insignificant enough to deign to remember this secluded little bay; and even to