the lemons are packed are inconvenient to stow away in an emergency, as all squeezing destroys the value of their contents.
The so-called fishermen, whose trade in fish is not very large or lucrative, are the smugglers. Their boats are large and heavy, as they are obliged to be built to resist the sudden and violent storms to which the lake is subject. A good boat’s load is about 1440 kilos (metrical measure), and four strong men generally man the boat on these occasions. The transport to the opposite shore takes place by night, and they reckon their ordinary rowing in such cases at four geographical miles an hour. When seen and followed by the Austrian coast guards, who have better boats and more men, the smugglers put out all their strength, and row at the astonishing rate of eight geographical miles an hour. They very rarely attempt to return the Austrian fire; worse armed than their enemies, and always fewer in number, such a course would be fatal: they trust entirely to their herculean sinews, and almost always with success.
On the Austrian shore they have troops of spies and friends who have a perfect telegraphic system of torches and fires, of which the key (constantly changed) is known only to the initiated, to give warning of danger, and indicate safe spots for unloading. As soon as the boat touches the Austrian shore, those who lighted the signal fires appear by miracle as if out of the ground, in numerous, strong and active groups; each man seizes as much as he can carry of the cargo on his own shoulders, and often without a word spoken on either side, it disappears up the rocky paths or in caverns known only to the smugglers, as if by enchantment. The boatmen instantly put off again, often giving themselves no concern as to the disposition of the cargo, for that matter has all been arranged before in safety. Moreover the smugglers are seldom the proprietors of the goods, but are employed by the merchants themselves, who pay them so much a hundred-weight for their risk and labour. When surprised, for without a surprise they may be said to be never overtaken by the coast guard, the smugglers instantly abandon their boat, and fling themselves into the lake, and swim for their lives beneath a rain of rifle balls. On these occasions the loss of the boat is always made good to the smugglers by the owners of the cargo, and such confidence have they in the indomitable strength and courage of these fine fellows, that it hardly ever happens that such a claim is disputed.
The female population appear to have but one sole absorbing occupation, the eternal washing of everything washable; children, clothes, plates, dishes, silk-worm cocoons, beds, and even chairs and tables, in the lake. Indeed, the lake is the soul of the place, and every transaction of life among the peasants appears to take place on its sloping shore. When we first came, everybody bathed in it, some few in the perfectly unsophisticated and unembarrassed costume of our first parents, but the majority in night-gowns, petticoats, old dressing-gowns, sheets, or anything else that came to hand; while many sat in the lake, like the Great Mogul, “for company’s sake, under a huge umbrella.” But the funniest thing was to see ancient peasant crones, when work was done, calmly gather up their scanty garments above their venerable knees, and walk into the lake, chair or stool in hand, to a convenient distance, and there, after planting their chairs firmly in the stones at the bottom, sit to gossip and cool down for the night. The first old party I saw perform this feat I believed to be insane; but when others followed, I grew calmer, and now that I know it to be “their custom always of an afternoon,” I regard the proceeding with as much indifference as the natives themselves.
I have no doubt that if you were to look in Murray, you would find it stated that the chief productions of B are lemons, olives, and, of late years, silk; but that is only Mr. Murray’s gammon. Believe the statement of a sufferer that the chief products of B are scorpions, mosquitoes, ants, beetles, and spiders,—the black beetles especially being of an uncommonly fine race, remarkable for having a passion for sleeping in boots, and being gifted with extraordinary swiftness of foot. The ants do not present themselves, as a rule, until either a beetle or a scorpion has been squashed, when they suddenly appear in thousands, by miracle, Heaven only knows how or from whence, and endeavour, by labouring together with an organisation du travail which would delight Louis Blanc, to possess themselves of the corpse. The scorpions walk into one’s bed-room with the air of persons who “know their rights, and knowing dare maintain,” and having selected a sunny spot favourable to slumber, they curl themselves up into a mysterious black mass, which when touched with a cautious stick, unfolds into an attitude of menace calculated to appal the stoutest heart.
Our first trouble here was the search after a servant, but Madame C brought to us a barelegged maiden built like a female Hercules, who professed to be able to wash, draw water, cut wood, and cook polenta, besides being willing to learn to do more. This being the case, C, who like most soldiers can do a little of everything, and is a very respectable cook, undertook to teach Barelegs her duties. We make our kitchen, by the way, in the old reception hall, in which there is such an enormously tall, wide fireplace, that our small fire, and smaller cooking (achieved in one corner on the ground thereof), looks as if some elfin people had stolen in to cook their tiny meals in some old giant’s castle. When C went into this improvised kitchen to instruct Barelegs in the noble arts of boiling and roasting, she found the proceeding dull, and left him to cook while she retreated to the window, where, lolling comfortably out, she conversed with her numerous acquaintance in the square beneath, and pelted some of them with potato peelings, &c. Remonstrance proved useless, and one day, when the potato peelings began to be answered by pebbles from the piazza below, C lost all patience, and dismissed her then and there; whereupon, far from being abashed, she joined her friends outside, and laughed at us! This, you will admit, was irritating, and we were so exasperated that we declared we would do without