The road led me through a little village where there was an old Romanesque
church. There were numerous archivolts over the broad portal, and above
these was a horizontal dog's-tooth moulding with grotesque heads at
intervals; but time had effaced most of the carving. All about the church
the long grass and gaudy mulleins stood over the bones of men and women
who, like their parents before them, had clung to their old homes in the
midst of the pestilential marshes, suffering continually from malaria,
watching their children grow paler and paler, and yet never thinking of
surrender. What a strange combination of heroism, obstinacy, and stupidity
do we find in human nature! But now things had changed here. There was an
air of prosperity in the village, and the people said that the fever had
almost left them.
While crossing another bit of wild and deserted country, I saw the dark
gleam of poisonous pools nearly hidden by sallows and reeds. The vibration
of my footsteps disturbed the vipers that lay near the hot road; they slid
down the banks and curved out of sight amongst the roots of the heather.
These reptiles abound in the Double; conditions that are baneful to men are
healthful to them.
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