The roof is formed of a few bundles of reeds and clods of grass which rest on a dozen bare poles. There is neither chimney nor window, and the earth is the floor. The smoke escapes as it best can through the numerous holes in the roof. The little daylight that enters can only come in by the same way. The occupiers walk about on the mud. The hearth, on which a few clods of turf are burning, is formed by four or five stones arranged in a circle. The opening that is used as a doorway must also serve as the entrance for every wind, for there is not the least trace of anything to close it with. With regard to furniture, I can only discover a saucepan, a kind of watering pot, an old, broken iron bedstead, on which an old blanket is thrown, and which stands to the left of the door, between it and the rock; on the right there is a camp bedstead, formed of a few planks supported by stakes The family, which surrounds us, consists of a man about forty years old, his wife, his mother-in-law, who is about seventy-seven and quite blind, and four children from ten to two years old. I never saw such utter misery in any part of the world. The man is covered with tattered garments that can hardly, strictly speaking, be called clothes. He has also shoes. In this country agriculture is all carried on with a spade. Now in order to dig with a spade one must have shoes. This is why the men are the only members of a family who wear anything on their feet. The nameless rags that are wrapped round the women and children defy description. The old woman, who is blind, as I have said, only wears a chemise and a skirt that scarcely reaches her knees. These two garments are in such a state that she is really almost naked. When she tries to walk she drags herself from rock to rock in order not to fall, testing the ground with her feet which are covered with cuts. The other woman is dressed in about the same style. The two smaller children are quite naked, and they certainly look the best. But it is terrible to see the sickly skin, the hollow cheeks, and drawn features of these poor people who are evidently suffering from hunger. How can it be otherwise? When the husband gets any work it is on the road, and he earns a shilling a day; but he rarely finds anything to do, and the money only pays the rent. The whole family must therefore live on the produce of two cows and the potato field. I asked if I might see it.