Omaha daily bee., 1892-01-10

house and shop servants Of the peasant
class; and probably the most interesting
studies for tourist, writer or artlst are to be
found among these lowly folks beside the
fountains.
AT everyone of these moss covered %jetties
groups OF barefooted men and women are
constantly. gathering. What muscular.
swarthy fellows are the men, and what
graceful attitudes and posings they uncon-
sclously assume as they loiter a bit for chat
ter and gossip before they shoulder the huge
Wo9den a,oi casks and o. trot : igaily away
you will exclaim. But they are not Portu-
guese. They arc Gallegans, from the an
cient sovereignty of Galicia, comprising the
present four northwesternmost provinces OF
Spain named Lugo, Coruna, Orense and
Ponteveda, with a population OF 100000
souls. One-fourth of the entire lumber are
continuously servants in Spain and Portrayal;
perhaps 10000 in Portugal alone; and more
than 5000 are water carriers here in Lisbon.
l know them we'll in their northern homes or
chozas and In their southern work and ways;
and they are loveaole for their matchless
docility and fidelity, one and all.
The G~allegan Youth.
When the Gallegau youth has arrived at
the age of Is ne goes to his drudgery at sea,
in the army, or as the city mental. He suf-
fers every conceivable indignity without re-
sentiment. 'Ga!legan dog !" is the nildest
universal epithet applied to him. Kick him
and he will not even crlnge. No power can
tempt him to resent insult, or break law, but
to deprive him Of his earnings. He will not
squander a dozen refs in a whole year. He
will starve to save. He will do anything but
rob or murder while at service to increase
his hoard; and though his inconsistencies for
his mountain dulcinea. perro aud gaita
are often so despairing that he
he will never return to his oeioyed
Galicia until he has earned enough TO possess
his own choza and patch of ground. This is
his only earthly ambition aud he seldom fails
Of its realization. Thousands of others gain
this accomplishment as segadors or reapers.
When the southern fields are ripe whole ar
mics OF Gallegan reapers set out from their
mountain homes armed with the short hoz or
sickle, their wooden shoes stung over their
shoulders, something as the West of Irel and
men annually set forth for the English har-
vest fields, and, carrying also their gaitas
with them, pipe their way. to the south,
where they reap the grain for the indolent
farmers of CASTLE and Portugal. Returning
on foot as they went, they wake wild and
barbaric echoes through The Sierra de la
Culebre, Sierra de Banaderio and The fair
Montanos dc Leon. The Genegan women
meantime have cared for their own little
harvests, and from autumn nntil springtime,
save for the occasional droning of the bag
pipe, the crack of the retaco or blunderbuss
and the wolhsh barking OF tue mountain dog,
SOuuoh SllcuCo duu llIcleSD Slctp Sooh W nave
knit all Galicia into a forbldding and gloomy
web OF leaden and obdurate repose.
Prettiest of All Women.
But see these maiden water carr iers of Lis
bon, prettlest of all women ia the ancient
city, with great dancing eyes, pouting lips
ever parting from dazzling white teeth, their
tongues ceaselessly running in musical STAG
cato, and their supple forms ever in irrepres-
sible movement from the boundless life
within tbem. Their short skirts disclose
limbs which outrivaI the Venus OF Cos in
delicate symmetry. Their smart bodices
vainly hide busts Of marvellous roundness and
amplitude, with full arcn!ng neck barred
above, and browning 1t such a dainty aud
dlmpled chin as even Tuscany cannot match;
while the line from the tip Of the little fine
ger up their brown ropnd arms TO beyond
the dimpled elbow Is Q marvellous study in
natures only perfect mobile bronze. But
they have dallied aud chatted long enough.
With a whisk a little pad of + ushes or cloth
Is slapped on their dainty, shapely heads; in
a twinkling the great cask, half as tall ana
quite as big as they, IS resting on the pad, and
with a song or roughish laugh they are away
tripping homeward as aaintly aud alrily as
In measures OF the contradanza or waltz,
EDGAR L. WAkEMAN. 4