Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1879-10-25
Gathering Fig. i'm italy.

vi RlOunu Vi UIt remark UlldJ ne
had been native of a certain country for ten
years. The season, just at its height, joins
hands in october with the rendeInrItjd or Vint-
age; but it begins in August, owing to a curious
system OF culture. Early in that month as you
sit gaSping under the MONDAY sun you hear a
wild. eerie strain in minOr-key which goes echo
ing up and down the slopes with intense mourn
fitness. 1t is the song ofthe tiggatherers, tossed
back and forth from hillside to hillside and from
tIeetop to treetop as they squirm through the
twisted branches and soil the fruit"
The tribe is nOmadic, and appears and diSap-
pears like the wandering harvesters of France
10 one knowing whence they come or whittier
they go. Late in July the nldSselie are rented
to them they paying given sum to the proprie-
ming with the figs and ending with the last
WaXen cluster of grapes. Rude huts matched
with straw are built by the proprietor in all his
orchards, and there these two gypsy-like crea-
lures live with their families-Stalwart, fierce
looking men, Swarthy, dark-eyed women and
active, 1.-THE young rascals of children. Some
times they supplement their narrow quarters
with ragged tent-three sticks croSSwiSe aud
Kettle in the crotch constitute the kitchen. Beds
are an unknown luxury. Indeed, they seem
never to lay aside their clothing and day and
night they patrol the orchards With long guns
and a fierce dog, the very sight OF which is
enough to destroy ones appetite for those par
t1cular figs.
The process of forcing the fruit is at once be-
gun, and for many days that wild, sweet song.
into whose weird melody the spirit of their home
less life seems to have entered is heard from tree
adumbration OF sound can reach. The methods
of forcing the ripening are curious. In one wad
OF cotton is dipped In olive Oil and gently rub
ced on the flower end of the fig. Fig by fig is
thus treated, and eight days thereafter the fruit
is ready for MARKET where it commands high
price as a pfl7neur. Another method consists in
gathering in the spring the half-formed fruit
which is strung on ropes as we string dried fruit
These ropes or garlandS are thrown over the
branches OF the tree and allowed to decay under
the burning sun. Life out of death. An insect
W nj tIlof rr,ry
ing fig and produces rapid maturity-or, shall
we call 1t early decay? maturity being only that
precious zenith OF existence which must newt
ably be followed by decline. Leaving such prema-
ture sweetness to the epicure one may well be
content to wait the result of natures unhurried
process. The fig, when perfectly ripe, exudes
end, which never falls but hangs there, stand
ing temptation to bees and men. When fresh
picked, at this stage, the fig Is indescribably
luscious, with a rich flavor entirely lost in the
dried fru1t.-[FVore,ace Letter to Chicago Times.
The Nude in the Fifteenth Century.
The naked human body, which the Greeks had
trained. studied and idoized, did not exist in the
fifteenth century; in its stead there was emily the
and distorted by the garments only just cast off;
cramped and bent by sedentary occupations,
hvid with the plague-spots OF the Middle Ages
Scared by the whip-marks of ascetlciSm. This
stripped body, unseen and unfit to be seen. I'M
accustomed to the air and to the eyes of
others, shivered and covered for cold and
for shame. The Giottesques ignored its
very existence, conceiying humanity as a
bodiless creature, with face and hands to
express emotion, and just enough mal-formed
legs and feet to be either standing or moving;
further, beneath the garments there was no
thing. The realiSts Of the 18th century tore Off
the clothes and drew the ugly thing beneath,
and bought the corpses from the lazar houses
how bone fitted into bone and muscle was
stretched over muscle. They learned to perfec-
tfon the anatomy OF the human frame, but they
tic hnn I,.nn
reconciled to the ugliness they were accustomed
to see, and, with their minds full of antique eX-
amples, Verrocchio, DonatellO, Pollaiolo and
GhirlandajO the greatest ANTAGONISTS of the 18th
century, initiated their coarse and nl-made Iv-
ing models when they imagined that they were
initiating antique marbleS.-[The Contemporary