There is just enough
breeze to raise a fine spray as the baby waves reach the rocks, and to
fill the sails of one or two tiny vessels speeding toward the coast of
Spain. There is just enough sun to warm the water in the pools to a point
that makes bathing the most desirable mid-day pastime, and over land and
sea a solemn sense of peace is brooding. From where the tents are set no
other human habitation is in sight. A great spur of rock, with the green
and scarlet of cactus sprawling over it at will, shuts off lighthouse and
telegraph station, while the towering hills above hide the village of
Mediunah, whence our supplies are brought each day at dawn and
sun-setting.
Two fishermen, clinging to the steep side of the rock, cast their lines
into the water. They are from the hills, and as far removed from our
twentieth century as their prototypes who were fishing in the sparkling
blue not so very far away when, the world being young, Theocritus passed
and gave them immortality. In the valley to the right, the atmosphere of
the Sicilian Idylls is preserved by two half-clad goatherds who have
brought their flock to pasture from hillside Mediunah, in whose pens they
are kept safe from thieves at night.
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