In Sicily less than 10 per cent. of the farming class live in the open country. This results in an enormous waste of time and energy. The farm labourer has to walk many miles to and from his labour. A large part of the year he spends far away from his home. During this time he camps out in the field in some of the flimsy little straw-thatched shelters that one sees scattered over the country, or perhaps he finds himself a nest in the rocks or a hole in the ground. During this time he lives, so to speak, on the country. If he is a herdsman, he has his cows' or goats' milk to drink. Otherwise his food consists of a piece of black bread and perhaps a bit of soup of green herbs of some kind or other. During my journey through this mountain district, and in the course of a number of visits to the country which I made later, I had opportunity to learn something of the way these farming people live. I have frequently seen men who had done a hard day's work sit down to a meal which consisted of black bread and a bit of tomato or other raw vegetable. In the more remote regions these peasant people frequently live for days or months, I learned, on almost any sort of green thing they find in the fields, frequently eating it raw, just like the cattle. When they were asked how it was possible to eat such stuff, they replied that it was good; "it tasted sweet," they said. I heard, while I was in Sicily, of the case of a woman who, after her husband had been sent to prison, supported herself from the milk she obtained from a herd of goats, which she pastured on the steep slopes of the mountains. Her earnings amounted to not more than 12 to 14 cents a day, and, as this was not sufficient for bread for herself and her four children, she picked up during the day all sorts of green stuff that she found growing upon the rocks, and carried it home in her apron at night to fill the hungry mouths that were awaiting her return. Persons who have had an opportunity to carefully study the condition of this country say it is incredible what sort of things these poor people in the interior of Sicily will put into their stomachs. One of the principal articles of diet, in certain seasons of the year, is the fruit of a cactus called the Indian fig, which grows wild in all parts of the island. One sees it everywhere, either by the roadside, where it is used for hedges, or clinging to the steep cliffs on the mountainside. The fruit, which is about the size and shape of a very large plum, is contained in a thick, leathern skin, which is stripped off and fed to the cattle. The fruit within is soft and mushy and has a rather sickening, sweetish taste, which, however, is greatly relished by the country people.