Donkeys. Out from under the low stone arches they come, or down the straggling narrow street, slipping and staggering over the greasy cobblestones, yet never falling. There is one driven by a Cretan boy, another by a jet black Nubian, with thick lips and shell-white teeth, another by a shuffling Greek monk in dirty robe. Each in his own outlandish way curses and threatens his animal, but the stick falls with the same rattling thwack on the bony ribs, whether wielded by Christian or Turk. Look at the loads which the donkeys bear in their immense, squeaking baskets, and you will gain some idea of the fertility of this garden spot of the world, harried though it be by oppression and bloodshed. We see borne by or arranged in heaps yonder on the pavement, great quantities of cucumbers, artichokes, beans, cauliflower, garlic, tomatoes, courgets, eggplant, medlars, apricots, cherries, and those various wild greens which are so delicious, but which cannot be bought in the cities of America for love or money. If you ask the price of any of these crisp, tender vegetables or fruits dewy fresh, you will find that one penny will go as far as twenty-five would among the stale, withered and niggardly exhibits of Chicago--the emporium of the great Mississippi valley and the hub of a hundred railroads. But there is no cabbage trust in Crete, and the donkey route has no board of directors to fix the price of freight. It is evident that the sea is no less prodigal of her riches here than the land, for ragged urchins dart by every few moments carrying fine catches of fish, strung upon strands of tenacious reed; mullets that gleam like gold in the sun, silvery mackerel, still quivering with life and glittering with dripping brine, baskets of white-bait, leaping upon a bed of green sea-grass; _echini_ and huge lobsters without claws.