Peasants soon began to appear that seemed not only out of their region, but almost out of their hemisphere. The physical peculiarities were certainly European; but in size, tint, and almost dress, they might have passed for Esquimaux. Sheep-skins with the wool on were the favourite jacket; and some actually wore blankets, like our own Indians. The sallow hue made us shudder; for one saw it was not owing to climate and habits, acting through centuries, but to disease. Had the same individual been so happy as to pass his days on the adjacent mountains, the springs of life would have remained pure: his colour might have been dark under this fierce sun, but it would not have denoted disease; and his days, though numbered, would have reached the allotted time of man. As it was, the fabulous adventurers of the Bohan Upas were not more certainly doomed than these poor wretches. The rice fields of Carolina are kind in comparison with these wastes; for those kill, and there is an end of it; and, unlike these, they do not much injure those whose hard fortune compels them to dwell there, but merely those who yield to cupidity, and not to necessity. On reaching the Silaro, we found the bridge broken, and we had to cross in a boat. The carriage was swamped, and buffaloes were procured to drag it out. In all this country, buffaloes appear to be used instead of oxen. The plains abound with them, and we saw them at work in all directions. Of course, you are naturalist enough to know that the animal familiarly called the buffalo in America, and which furnishes the sleigh-skins, is not the buffalo, but the bison; the real buffalo differing little from the ox. At Florence oxen are employed, and oxen too of a breed I was very desirous of getting sent to America. They are of a cream colour, a little inclining to the dun, and, besides having a handsome form, are admirably suited to a warm climate, and are the fastest walkers I have ever seen in the yoke. I have frequently walked by their sides, at a quick pace, and have generally found them as nimble as I am myself; nor do I remember ever to have seen one lolling. They are said to fatten kindly, and have a good carcase, though certainly they are a little longer-legged than our own. Their weight might fail a little in the heavy toil of a clearing; but there is a vast deal of lighter American labour in which their qualities would come admirably in use. I was told the breed is Hungarian. I question if the cows are very good milkers; though this may be the result of husbandry and climate, for milk is far more precious and scarcer in Italy than wine, as I have already told you, and good pasture is very scarce—almost unknown.