UNPLEASANT SURROUNDINGS. 90 



floor of the beggarly cancellaria, there is no 

 place indoors clean enough to lie down on ; 

 and outside, instead of peace and rest, you are 

 mobbed by a score or two of unclean and 

 inquisitive savages, possessed also of the 

 strongest lungs in the world, who hold long 

 discourses on you, talk to you incessantly, 

 though you don't understand a word, and 

 investigate and play with every article yon 

 possess, from your telescope to your toothpick. 

 After endurins: this kind of thino; for an hour 

 or so, and finding the promises of our nume- 

 rous friends to bring food unlikely to be ful- 

 filled, I despatched our interpreter to find the 

 starchina, and bring him to me by fair means 

 or foul. 



Then I wandered out into the village to 

 see what the peasants' life seemed like here. 

 As it was Sunday, of course all the men were 

 at home and idle, most of them indeed were 

 amusing themselves with a careful investiga- 



H 2 



