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In the neighbourhood of Spalato they think that new-born children, if strong and handsome, are likely to be taken away by "Vilen," and therefore watch the infants most carefully till they are baptized. These maidens busy themselves with rope-making, spinning, and gold and silver embroidery, and have the power of changing stones and coal to gold and silver.
Frequently, at one and the same time, you see every trade in operation on the gun-deck coopering, carpentering, tailoring, tinkering, blacksmithing, rope-making, preaching, gambling, and fortune-telling. In truth, a man-of-war is a city afloat, with long avenues set out with guns instead of trees, and numerous shady lanes, courts, and by-ways.
Can't he paint anything but massive oxen wading to their buttocks in the sea; or fisher boats with swelling sails blotting out the horizon; or a girl after a dip standing, as her boyish cavalier covers her with a robe you see the clear, pink flesh through her garb; or vistas of flower gardens with roguish maidens and courtly parks; peasants harvesting, working women sorting raisins; sailors mending nets, boys at rope-making is all this great art?
Then the warriors, grasping their spears, and sometimes the young women armed only with staves, drive their herds to pasture: the matrons and children, spinning or rope-making, tend the flocks, and the kraal is abandoned to the very young, the old, and the sick. The herdsmen wander about, watching the cattle and tasting nothing but the pure element or a pinch of coarse tobacco.
I spent all that day and the next in going to the people of my own trade, who worked as hard every day for their bread as I had done; and giving them money beforehand, engaged them to work for me in different sorts of rope-making, according to their skill and ability, with a promise not to make them wait for their money, but to pay them as soon as their work was done.
Our forefathers found a province, the least favoured by nature of the four of which Ireland consists, and it is to-day the stronghold of Irish industry and commerce. Its capital, Belfast, stands abreast of the leading manufacturing centres in Great Britain; it contains the foremost establishments in Europe, in respect of such undertakings as linen manufacturing, ship-building, rope-making, etc.
These boys were apprentices to the rope-making business, and a few days before, while spinning ropeyarns, with the loose hemp wound in folds around their waists, the youngest, a lad about fourteen years old, unwittingly approached an open fire, the weather being cold. A spark ignited the hemp, and in a moment the whole was in a blaze.
Soon after midday, while Blondet was seating himself at table opposite the Abbe Brossette and receiving the tender expostulations of the countess, Pere Fourchon and Mouche arrived at this establishment. From that vantage-ground Pere Fourchon, under pretence of rope-making, could watch Les Aigues and see every one who went in and out.
The buildings in Mechanics' Bay, as the name imports, are principally devoted to ship-building, boat-building, and rope-making. The shore of Commercial Bay is occupied by the store and shop-keeping people, while Official Bay is surrounded by the principal official buildings, the Government storehouses, and such like.
And man appears emulous of Nature, for the city below is full of activity; the nearest part of the bay is covered with boats, busy multitudes crowd the strand, and at the same time may be seen a number of the arts belonging to civilised society in operation house-building, ship-building, rope-making, the manipulations of the smith and of the agriculturist, and not only the useful arts, but even the amusements and luxuries of a great metropolis may be witnessed from the spot in which we stand; that motley crowd is collected round a policinello, and those smaller groups that surround the stalls are employed in enjoying the favourite food and drink of the lazzaroni.
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