Page:The nomads of the Balkans, an account of life and customs among the Vlachs of Northern Pindus (1914).djvu/50

 repairs or cleaning. Only a few conduits are built over a spring on the spot, and the water of these is considered the best. We next pass a willow tree with a wooden platform built round it where there are benches for those who patronise the small café opposite. Then we enter a narrow road roughly paved with cobbles and havmg on one side a small artificial stream which is used to irrigate the gardens below. On our left we notice some ruins in a garden and more on our right ; these are the remains of houses burnt by Leonidha. Passing one on each side the shops of two blacksmiths and knife makers we cross by a wooden bridge the Valitshe, a small rivulet which runs through the middle of the village, supplies water for irrigation purposes, and is a receptacle for rubbish of all kinds. Above on our left are two tailor’s shops, and beyond them a sweet shop with a crowd of small children about it. On our right we pass more shops including one of the general stores of Samarina, where one can buy any non-edible necessary of life, such as lead pencils, cottons, aniline dyes, mirrors, silks and soap. Beyond this our road narrows suddenly between two houses, we turn sharply to the left and find ourselves in the Misohori, usually known as La Hani This is the market and meeting place of Samarina (Plate VI). It is a roughly triangular space paved with cobbles, and not more than a hundred yards long. In the middle are a large willow and a small cherry tree. The earth round their stems is banked up with stones so as to form a narrow platform about three feet high which makes convenient show benches for the muleteers to display for sale the goods they have brought up. Here we shall find muleteers offering petroleum from the railway at Sorovitsh, olives from Avlona or Volos, red wine from Shatishta, vegetables such as onions, green peppers, vegetable marrows and beans from Tshotili, fruit, cherries, pears or apples from the Kupatshar villages, and wheat from Kozhani or Monastir. What is not sold is not removed at night, but covered up in case of a chance shower, and watched by two or three muleteers who sleep on the sacks of grain wrapped in their goat’s hair capes. Round La Hani are the principal cafés and food shops, and