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Rh with indifferent curiosity, until we wish them a plenteous rain—"May the rain come soon, good people." Then they bend their heads respectfully at the salutation, and instantly

COUNTRY CARTS

become bright and smiling. Winsome kiddies, muddy and naked, offer us flowers, and bowls of water from the streams upon which their elders have settled.

As the road threaded through the mountains, long valleys, widely and richly cultivated, the yellow lustre of the golden crops blazing in the sunlight, lay below. Granite peaks towered upwards, their rugged faces scored by time and tempest, their ragged outlines screened with firs and birch. The still air was laden with the aromatic scent of the pine-woods; the sky was clear and blue. In the distance, snow-white clouds hung in diaphanous festoons about a curve in the mountains. The rough contour broke