Widows of the sort just described would be in good case in the island of Chios,[127*] the fairest, sweetest and most pleasant of the Levant, formerly possessed by the Genoese, but now for five and thirty years usurped by the Turks,—a crying shame and loss for Christendom. Now in this isle, as I am informed of sundry Genoese traders, ’tis the custom that every woman desiring to continue a widow, without any intent to marry again, is constrained to pay to the Seigneurie of the island a certain fixed sum of money, which they call _argomoniatiquo_, which is the same as saying (with all respect to the ladies), _an idle spot is useless_. So likewise at Sparta, as Plutarch saith in his _Life of Lysander_, was a fine established by law against such as would not marry, or did marry over late, or ill. To return to Scio (Chios), I have enquired of certain natives of that island, what might be the aim and object of the said custom, which told me ’twas to the end the isle might always be well peopled. I can vouch for this, that our land of France will surely never be left desert or infertile by fault of our widows’ not marrying again; for I ween there be more which do re-marry than not, and will pay never a doit of tribute for idle and useless females. And if not by marriage, at any rate in other ways, these Chiotes do make that same organ work and fructify, as I will presently show. ’Tis well too for our maids of France they need not to pay the tax their sisters of Chios be liable to; for these, whether in country or town, if they do come to lose their maidenhead before marriage, and be fain after to continue the trade, be bound to pay once for all a ducat (and surely ’tis a good bargain to compound for all their life after at this price) to the Captain of the Night Watch, so as they may pursue their business as they please, without let or hindrance. And herein doth lie the chiefest and most certain profit this worthy Captain doth come by in his office. These dames and damsels of this Isle be much different from those of olden days in the same land, which, by what Plutarch saith in his _Opuscula_, were so chaste for seven hundred years, that never a case was remembered where a married woman had done adultery, or a maid had been deflowered unwed. A miracle! ’twill be said, a mythic tale worthy of old Homer! At any rate be sure they be much other nowadays!