No railroad or other modern innovation penetrates into those Arcadian regions, where the goatherd plays upon his pipe all the day long, the picture of peace and innocence, or prowls in the passes with a murderous long gun, if there are foreigners in the air.  The women toil at carrying their scant supply of drinking-water from great distances during a part of the day, and in the evening they spin industriously by their firesides or upon their doorsteps, as the season will have it.  It is an old life, the same to-day as a thousand years ago, and perhaps as it will be a thousand years hence.  The men are great travellers, and go to Rome in the winter to sell their cheese, or to milk a flock of goats in the street at daybreak, selling the foaming canful for a son.  But their visits to the city do not civilise them; the outing only broadens the horizon of their views in regard to foreigners, and makes them more ambitious to secure one, and see what he is like, and cut off his ears, and get his money.  Do not suppose that the shepherd of the Abruzzi lies all day on the rocks in the sun, waiting for the foreign gentleman to come within reach.  He might wait a long time.  Climbing has strengthened the muscles of his legs into so much steel, and a party of herdsmen have been known to come down from the Serra to the plains around Velletri, and to return to their inaccessible mountains, after doing daring deeds of violence, in twenty-four hours from the time of starting, covering at least from eighty to ninety miles by the way.  They are extraordinary fellows, as active as tigers, and fabulously strong, though they are never very big.

This country begins behind the range of Sabine mountains seen from Rome across the Campagna, and the wild character of it increases as you go towards the south-east.

Since I have told you this much I need not weary you with further descriptions.  I do not like descriptions, and it is only when Nino gives me his impressions that I write them, in order that you may know how beautiful things impress him, and the better judge of his character.

I do not think that Gigi really cheated me so very badly about the donkey.  Of course I do not believe the story of his carrying the brother-in-law and the heavy load uphill at a gallop; but I am thin and not very heavy, and the little ass carried me well enough through the valleys, and when we came to a steep place I would get off and walk, so as not to tire him too much.  If he liked to crop a thistle or a blade of grass, I would stop a moment, for I thought he would grow fatter in that way, and I should not lose so much when I sold him again.  But he never grew very fat.