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 oblong tables, weighing and measuring out in little brass scales, like a chemist's, with all the care of apothecaries, small quantities of black, green, yellow and bluish powder (which recall in their volcanic colouring the lakes of Kruisivik and the pits of Caltanasetta), and then pouring them into the open mouths of half-empty shells that stand upright by their sides. They talk very little—indeed hardly at all. Perhaps their work requires all their attention; perhaps their spirits are under the spell of the deadly things they are dealing with. Some of them are wearing over their mouths and nostrils light green veils that are like the veils of Arab women inverted; others, in their indifference to danger, have tucked their respirators into their waistbands, and are working with nostrils and mouths exposed.

It is not for long we can bear to look on a scene like this, so fearfully charged with spiritual as well as physical tragedy, and when we step back to the causeway