Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/347

Rh house. Generally the house in Calymnos has two stories, in order to have more room for the stowage of sponges. There are hardly any shops. Each man lays up his own stock of provisions for the winter, so that a stranger has difficulty in existing at all, unless he has some friend to purvey for him.

As from the scarcity of fodder there are very few beasts of burden, most of the necessairies of life imported into the island, such as corn, fuel, wine, and even timber and stone for building, have to be carried on the backs of men, and oftener of women and children, from the port to the higher town, a distance of about two miles. There are no fountains in the town of Calymnos; the wells are very deep, and at some distance from the town. When the supply of water gets low, the women descend to the bottom of the wells, inserting their hands and feet in the crevices between the stones on each side with great dexterity.

Nothing would be easier than to make a road for wheeled vehicles; but the Calymniotes are still very far from this stage of civilization. The constant labour of transport presses very heavily on the women, who are puny and undersized. They are usually married at the age of fourteen, and sometimes as early as twelve. It is a common sight to see a young girl, herself a mere child, tottering under the weight of a sack of flour or load of wood, under which, slung in a kind of scarf, is a bambino so tightly swathed as to be no more than a flexible cylinder. Many of these children die ofl" when they are very young, from imperfect nourishment,