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The solitude of the fields again; the moonlight sleeping on the vast sweep of the ranchos. Calpella past. Felipe rose in his stirrups with a great shout. At Calpella he knew he had crossed the divide. The valley lay beneath him, and the moon was turning to silver the winding courses of the Rio Esparto, now in plain sight. It was between Calpella and Proberta that Pepe stumbled first.

Tarascon, veil thy face! here is a son of thine on the point of becoming a renegade! XII. The Latest Intelligence from Tarascon. PARTING from his little country seat, Sidi Tart'ri was returning alone on his mule on a fine afternoon, when the sky was blue and the zephyrs warm. His legs were kept wide apart by ample saddle-bags of esparto cloth, swelled out with cedrats and water-melons.

A scheme of his for making paper by an improved process, which he tried to realize in 1833, and which he induced his mother, his sister's husband, and other friends to support with their capital, anticipated the employment of esparto grass and wood, which since has been adopted successfully by others and has yielded large fortunes to them.

From the state of the staircase, lighted by sash-windows on the side of the yard, it was pretty evident that the inmates of the house, with the exception of the landlord and M. Fraisier himself, were all workmen. There were traces of various crafts in the deposit of mud upon the steps brass-filings, broken buttons, scraps of gauze, and esparto grass lay scattered about.

Esparto, a Spanish grass grown in South Africa, has entered largely into the making of print-paper in England. Mixed with rags it makes an excellent product, but the chemicals required to free it from resin and gritty silica are expensive, while the cost of importation has rendered its use in America impractical.

But the fruit, when properly prepared, is the chief food of many thousands of men and beasts. Even the stones, or "pits," of the dried fruit are useful; those which are not sent to Italy to be used for adulterating coffee are made into an "oil-meal" for fodder. Esparto grass, called "alfa" or "halfa" by the Arabs, is another unique product of the Sahara.

One of these slings was of horsehair, one of esparto, and the third of bull tendon, and one or the other was used according to the distance they had to throw. They lived on their islands in caves or in the hollow spaces between huge masses of rock, and they were taught to use the sling while mere children.

Upon and between these smaller twigs, often torn off green from willow-and elm-trees, or stolen from faggots of recent cutting, are laid and woven. Then a fine deep basin is made, woven of roots, grass, and some wiry stalk like esparto, the secret of where to find which seems a special possession of crows, and on this often a lining of bits of sheep's wool and cow's hair.

From the state of the staircase, lighted by sash-windows on the side of the yard, it was pretty evident that the inmates of the house, with the exception of the landlord and M. Fraisier himself, were all workmen. There were traces of various crafts in the deposit of mud upon the steps brass-filings, broken buttons, scraps of gauze, and esparto grass lay scattered about.

In spite of its name, it is not a grass but a flowering plant whose stalk has a tough fibre useful in making cordage and paper. When the plant turns brown and has become dry to the root, the esparto picker gets busy. By four o'clock in the morning he is at work, his heavy woollen baracan, or blanket, wrapped tightly about him, for the air is not only chilly but almost freezing cold.