ITALY 



469 



culture, and remains of their inscriptions and monuments have been found in abundance. 

 They gave a good deal of trouble to the Eoman people in early days by their warlike habits 

 and character, but in the end were conquered. Even the Gauls had at an early date settled 

 in North Italy. The Ligurians are considered to have been an older non-Aryan race. In 

 the south and in Sicily the Greek element has combined with another pre-Aryan race, the 

 lapygian, while Phoenician settlers from Africa helped to create still more variety. When 

 the Eoman Empire fell to pieces, Italy was swept by barbaric tribes which brought Slav 

 and Teutonic blood into the nation. Huns, Bulgars, and others of Mongol and Ugrian origin 

 gave an Oriental touch to the blend. In her later history the land has seen foreign dynasties, 

 Spanish, Austrian, and French, exercising their sway. How far these waves of foreign 

 immigration have modified the physical and mental attributes of the old Italian people it 

 is impossible to say. That they must have influenced its moral character is practically 

 certain. Taking the Italian as he is to-day, we naturally expect to find differences of type 

 in the various states which have been but lately welded into one. Space, however, will admit 

 of our noticing only some of the more important characteristics. 



The Italians are a remarkably handsome race, with well-formed, symmetrical features and 

 limbs. An average Italian makes a better model for the painter than the average member 

 of any northern race. Owing to Celtic and Teutonic influences, the Italian of the north is 

 of a lighter complexion than his brother of the south. In Genoa blond representatives of 

 the race may frequently be met with. The dark hair and rich colouring of the Southern 

 Italian are generally accepted as marking the true Latin type. 



The Italians are an agricultural people. Though naturally of a cheerful and patient 

 disposition, they have been plunged by 

 centuries of bad government, oppression, and 

 high taxation into a state of poverty and 

 misery. In the north the cultivation of the 

 olive and the silk industry are the principal 

 means of supporting life, and here the 

 peasants are industrious, and have a better 

 character for steadiness and sobriety than the 

 fickle southerner. The Lombards were at one 

 time celebrated for commercial and industrial 

 energy, and this character the people of to-day 

 still retain. In Milan the townsfolk are 

 more reticent and thoughtful than the idle 

 people of Naples. The lot of the peasant 

 throughout Italy is extremely hard. He has 

 received no assistance in the shape of intelli- 

 gent government in his efforts to cope with 

 difficulties. The Campania, which in classical 

 times was a rich tract of corn land, has, 

 on account of neglect, become marshy and 

 malarial, and its unhappy cultivators find their 

 rough sheep-skin garments afford but scanty 

 protection against the poisonous night air. It 

 is perhaps in Naples and Sicily that the 

 degradation of the people from maladminis- 

 tration is most apparent. Things are much 

 better now than they were nnder the Bourbon 

 rule, but the conditions both in town and 

 country are still far from what they ought 

 to be. In Naples the visitor may see little 



pMo by JL Berthaud} {Boulogne. 



A FISHER-WOMAN OF PORTEL. 



