The record-union., 1891-01-11

SOifle OIL WHICH are exceedingly meiOQl-
Gus; and the quality of his bells are OF
more concern to the Apulian shepherd
than that of his sheep. The latter are
odd little poddy creatures. Nearly all
are black. Their legs and hoofs are black
and shiny as ebony drum-sticks. Their
eyes are exceedingly small and brilliant
yellow; while the little creatures are as
are these which follow the focks and
herds to the mountains. Nearly every
shepherd of southern Italy is married.
de lnarries young. He rears, or rather
there grows, seemingly all unconscious
to himself, large family. The sons
marry other shepherds daughters; the
daughters, other shepherds sons. Him
self, perhaps born in the grass by the side
of the s'traturo,' in cleft of some rock
in the edge of a torrents gravina, or in
some low hut on hill or moor, he emerges
from babyhood to childhood nomad: is
a nomad in youth and manhood; he mates
as nomad; and never ceases nomadic
life until the quicklime of some village
Campo Santo consumes his bones. So
that to every flock belongs family.
The tatterdemalion group possesses no
home but that of the daily grazing land of
the flock. Their sole possessions never
equal five dollars in value. Their total
earnings do not exceed eleven cents per
day. Like Wallachian Gypsies, they
squat anywhere for rest and sleep, and eat
anything that will sustain life IT they
possess single aspiration on earth, it is
that secret one of so many other Italian
field and moor laborers to take to the
hills" that is, to become outright brig
ands. Universal Incidence and repug-
nance to effort are safeguards against this.
The Apulian shepherd himself is pic
turesque fellow enough, despite your con-
sciousness of his vacuous ignorance, his
rv1x ralf Ii, IL
utter sodden, rather than active, brutality
to his wife and children, who serve as his
pack-mules, like the American squaws,
for transporting his slender belongings to
the hills. Tall, and straight as an arrow,
he is clad from head to foot in undressed
skins. A bifurcated garment of untanned
hide, fashioned after the pattern OF that
one so well known to American dress re-
form ladies', forms sort OF waiStcoat and
trowsers combined. The latter are opened
at the sides, below the knees often display
ing gaudy buttons ornamenting the sides
of his half-gaiter, undressed skin boots.
Over his waistcoat is long. loose armless
jacket of hide, provided with numberless
pockets, his rain-proof storehouses OF
meager treasures. A jaunty, brigandish
hat sets perkily upon his fine, curly head
and brings into striking relief his olive
skin, his large, grave eyes, and crinkly,
curly beard-a half Egyptian type, one
would say, to see it represented in paint
ing. Slung from his right shoulder across
his left hip by a broad band Of hide, with
occasionally the priceless treasure of a
polished brass or bronze buckle, is the in
separable capsella or shepherds pouch
A rusty carbine, which is never dis
charged, or a stout staff as high as his
breast-but never the shepherds crook OF
olden tales and modern tableaux vivants
complete the picture. And it is always
a picture; for this fellow with the face ol
an apostle and the eyes Of saint is sc
deliciously languid and inexpressibly
lazy, that his splendid form is forever in
pose and repose.
Onathe mountain sides the life of this
shepherd family is changeless one the
whole summer long, unless the terrible
hail-storms of southern Italy fall upon
the mountains, or the still more destruct-
I've Wlnd-storms, that frequently fling
| both sheperds and flocks from the crags
to death, come whistling over peak OF
howiing through grayina. Then the hui
| man marmot awakens from his lethargy
and accomplishes prodigeous feats Of
strength and wondrous acts of valor, in
rescuing endangered members of the
flock or of his own terrified brood. His
food is pOlenta and cheStnut-fOur bread
He is the one Italian who drinks water
instead of wine. His field-lore, though
unconscious to himself, is marvellous.
When spurred by extreme hunger, all
mountain moorland birds are doomed
where he sets his snare. 1t is a wild,
strange, melancholy land he looks down
upon, II he have the energy for looking.
His wife and children around him are as
voiceless as himself and his fiocks. The
very melody Of the sheep-bells becomes a
meaningless din. One carries away from
his environment and companionship with
him only pathetic sense of his hopeless
ness and degradation. You can only re-
member him as another animal in hairy
hide, insensate to the trumpetings of eter-
nal nature around him. The sheen
browsing at his side are his equals in in
telligence; his SuperiorS in demonstrable
forces and activities. The lone kestral
wheeling above this Apulian shepherd
has wider horizon of view.
But there are other shepherds in Italy
of whom SUMMER picture can be drawn.
These are the shepherds and shepherd
esses OF the peasants lesser fiocks in
Piedmont, in Lombardy, in radiant Tus-
cany, and even in pestiferous, death
breeding Maremme, on the Tyrrhene Sea.
There are many among these who, like
the Apulian shepherds, have descended
from shepherd ancestors, and who all
their lives soddenly follow the one voca-
ton. But in the main they are the little
folks and the youths and wives of all the
peaSantry. In northern Italy the peas
antry are happier folk than those of the
South. The beauty of the cities, quaint
ness and peacefulnesS of the villages and
hamlets, the radiance OF the valleys and
the noble plctureSqueneSS of the forests
and mountains, seem to have given re-
fiexlye peacefulness, sunniness and even
vlrility to the people. Their shepherds
do not possess the grave, sad, vacuous
faces of the South. Companionship ac-
counts largely for this. In the North the
shepherd is always one of the villagers
He or she shares their everyday life.
The feasts, espousalS, marriages, funerals
all are theirs for enjoyment and contem-
plation. Nearly every family has its own
little flock. Often several of these are
merged into a larger flock and taken to
the higher mountain lands for the entire
summer. In such cases a shepherd and
his family accompany them, and they
live much as do their kind in Apulia. In
October the same flock will be driven to
the moors and marshes of Maremme
where the shepherd and his family sub
sist almost entirely on shared wild fowl,
which come here in myriads to escape
the winters of the British Isles, the Bal
tic regions and the German forests.
But tens of thousands of little flocks
led by tens of thousands of little shep-
herds and shepherdesses leave the village
greggia or sheep-fold and home every
morning, for the higher glades. Some
times "a dog, often pig trained to herd
the fiocks, goes with them. If "a maiden
has charge of the flock, she will have her
spindle of knitting, and will work and
sing and tend her flock the whole day
long. If a lad or STRIPPING tend a flock,
he will let the pig or the dog tend the
sheep, with an occasional moment of ex-
ecutive observation, and the rest of the
day he gathers mushrooms, hunts the
young of birds, and all of which are
eagerly eaten, save those of the swallow
and hawk, snares forest fowl, or pipes
on his flute in idle fantasy. Both must
bring back-load of ferns, grass, oak