Don Pasquale could not be satisfied until I had privately
assured him of my genuine admiration. Was it, he asked, at all like
a chemist's shop in London? My reply certainly gratified him, but I
am afraid it did not increase his desire to visit England.
Whilst I was at the chemist's, there entered a number of peasants,
whose appearance was so striking that I sought information about
them. Don Pasquale called them "_Greci_"; they came from a mountain
village where the dialect of the people is still a corrupt Greek.
One would like to imagine that their origin dates back to the early
Hellenic days, but it is assuredly much later. These villages may be
a relic of the Byzantine conquest in the sixth century, when
Southern Italy was, to a great extent, re peopled from the Eastern
Empire, though another theory suggests that they were formed by
immigrants from Greece at the time of the Turkish invasion. Each of
the women had a baby hanging at her back, together with
miscellaneous goods which she had purchased in the town: though so
heavily burdened, they walked erect, and with the free step of
mountaineers.
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