sausages, and black-puddings,[581] and pickles, and cheese, and preserved fruits, and spices, from the farthest east. Here were the sellers[582] of salt-meat and fish from the Black Sea,[583] there the toy-shops and upholsterers, while ever and anon the crowds that thronged the passages were compelled to make way for a string of asses[584] laden with vegetables or wood from Parnes or Cithæron, with the ends sticking out on both sides and threatening the eyes of the buyers. Sometimes a porter,[585] with a wooden knot on his shoulders, bore along, like Protagoras, a load of faggots, the size of which astonished the beholders. At times, near the corner of the street leading from the Eleusinian Gate, you saw a half-starved Megarean[586] sneaking through the crowd and bringing along with him sucking pigs, and leverets, and cucumbers, and salt-fish, and garlic,[587] which if observed by the agoranomoi were, during wartime, seized as contraband. On the other hand the broad-faced jolly Bœotian[588] came smirking and grinning, like a Neapolitan, with mule-loads of wild marjoram, pennyroyal, eaten by sheep, mats, lampwicks, fowls,[589] ducks, locusts, jackdaws, francolins,[590] coots, divers, geese, hares, foxes, moles, hedgehogs, cats, pyctides, otters, and eels, from Lake Copaïs. Here in rows stood, black as chimney-sweeps, the charcoal-sellers from Acharnæ, with their mallequins and rush-baskets full piled before them.[591] Yonder were the cornchandlers,[592] surrounded by piles of sacks, measuring their grain, while a horde of ragged spermologoi[593] hovered round to collect what fell. Close at hand stood the flour-merchants, each beside his huge covered wooden trough,[594] from which he measured forth flour or barley-meal to the buyers. Beyond these were the stalls of the fishmongers,[595] the flambeau-sellers[596] and the shining jars of the oil-merchants, piled in heaps to the roof of the booths. In other rows were the shops of the potters,[597] where every variety of jugs, vases, and tureens, was exhibited with vessels of glass, and bronze, and ivory. Here and there, threading their way through the multitude, you beheld the pedlar[598] with his pack of small-wares, the hawker crying his fish or fruit,[599] or vegetables, or sausages, or wild-fowl, laid out on a board on his head; the female bread-seller, with a variety of delicate loaves and cakes piled up before her on a tray; the pastry-girl with sweetmeats; the flower-girl with nosegays of fresh violets from the meadows of Colonos and the banks of the Eridanos and Cephissos. Sheltered from the warm rays of the sun, beneath some magnificent marble colonnade, or the portico of some temple or chapel, sat whole bevies of female flute-players, citharists, or dancing-girls,[600] calling forth, from time to time, whilst waiting to be hired for a party, bursts of music from their instruments, or humming a war-song, or a Palladian hymn, or a merry scholion, the favourite ditties of the Athenian people.