Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/49

 countries in Europe. Some of the most interesting pages in Mrs. Olivia M. Stone's account of her visit to the Canary Islands (Teneriffe and its Six Satellites) relate to the cave villages, still inhabited by a curious troglodyte population—mostly potters—found in various places in Gran Canaria. Appositely to an account by the Rev. H. F. Tozer of certain underground rock-hewn churches in southern Italy, Mr. J. Hoskyns Abrahall relates that when visiting Monte Vulture, and while a guest of Signor Bozza, at Barili, having expressed surprise at learning the number of inhabitants in the place, his host told him that the poor lived in caves hollowed out of the side of the mountain, and took him into one of the rock-hewn dwellings; and he accounts for their existence by the facility with which they are formed.



The rock-cut village of Gh'mrassen, in the Ourghemma, southern Tunis, consists of rows of snug family dwellings, close to each other, hollowed out of the side of a cliff, the top of which at an overhanging point, is crowned by the remains of a small mosque.

At a recent meeting of the Royal Geographical Society of Madrid, Dr. Bide gave an account of his exploration of a wild district in the province of Caceres, which he represented as still inhabited by a strange people, who speak a curious patois, and live in caves and inaccessible retreats. They have a hairy skin,