In these parts the cottages must be built low, and the nearly flat roof of boards, fastened with long projecting wooden pins, must be farther secured by very heavy stones--a precaution employed for the same reason among the mountains of Switzerland. The soil must never be lightened for the reception of the seed, otherwise it would scarcely fail to be blown away like dust. The poor, shallow, hard ground therefore can scarcely be expected to produce good crops; and such as it does bear are exposed to other dangers before they attain maturity. Millet, the favourite grain of the husbandman, is frequently cut off by a single frost in the beginning of September. Under such circumstances, the fruitful and middling years could not make amends for the unfavourable seasons even to an industrious people, and much less to the inhabitants of these frontiers, who are apt to consider labour as not belonging to their vocation. The government is in consequence frequently obliged to step in to their relief, and to save them by abundant supplies from starvation. Regularity and perseverance are not virtues of these people. Like men in a state of nature they are fond of variety and of extremes. Military service, hunting, the transport of wares on horses, and traffic on the cordon are occupations which they like: domestic and agricultural employments are too tedious and quiet, and these therefore in general fall to the share of the women. If, however, one of these men goes out at all to the fields, he first chats away some hours by the side of the fire in the middle of the floor; and when he is urged to repair to his work, he coolly replies, that a wise man never leaves his house till the sun is over his fields. He is remiss at every kind of labour; whether he is using the hoe, the axe, the trowel, or the spade, he handles it as though he were afraid of hurting the implement. To him work is worse than severe want. The wife on the other hand is incessantly employed. All the apparel worn by herself, her husband, and her children, is, with some trifling exceptions, her own work. She spins, dyes, and weaves the linen and woollen stuffs for this purpose, and makes them up into garments, besides washing and attending to her house and kitchen. The shoes alone, made of untanned hide, are the work of the man. Hard labour and early marriages cause the women to lose all the charms of youth much sooner than in many other countries. The character of the country from Trieste to Zara is uniformly the same. The width of the plain, which intervenes between the sea and the range of naked mountains, alone distinguishes the nature of the country in this long tract, and determines the degree of vegetation peculiar to each spot. The Draga of the Fiume is destitute of the majesty of wood, and of the refreshing verdure of extensive pasturages. The olive, the fig-tree and the vine indeed here furnish their valuable fruit, but they confer neither affluence nor the appearance of it.