I was reminded of it the more as I noticed the way in which the leader in the singing bowed his head and pressed his temples, just as I have seen it done before by the one who led the singing at the corn-husking. I recall that, as a boy, the way this leader or chorister bowed his head and pressed his hands against his temples made a deep impression. Perhaps he was merely trying in this way to remember the words, but it seemed as if he was listening to music that welled up inside of him, seeking in this way, not merely to recall the words, but catch the inspiration of the song. Sometimes, after he had seemed to listen this way for a few minutes, he would suddenly fling back his head and burst into a wilder and more thrilling strain. All this was strangely interesting and even thrilling to me, the more so, perhaps, because it seemed somehow as if I had seen or known all this somewhere before. Nevertheless, after watching these men, stained with wine and sweat, crushing the grapes under shoed and stockinged feet, I had even less desire to drink wine than ever before. It perhaps would not have been so bad if the men had not worn their socks. One thing that impressed me in all that I saw was the secondary and almost menial part the women took in the work. They worked directly under an overseer who directed all their movements--directed them, apparently, with a sharp switch which he carried in his hand. There was no laughter or singing and apparently little freedom among the women, who moved slowly, silently, with the weary and monotonous precision in their work I have frequently noted in gang labour. They had little if any share in the kind of pleasurable excitement which helped to lighten the work of the men. Once or twice every year, at the time of the grape and olive harvests, the girls and women come down from their mountain villages to share with the men in the work of the fields. For these two brief periods, as I understand it, the women of each one of these little country villages will be organized into a gang, just as is true of the gangs of wandering harvesters in Austria and Hungary. I had seen, on the Sunday I arrived in Catania, crowds of these women trooping, arm in arm, through the streets of the city. A party of them had, in fact, encamped on the pavement in the little open square at the southern gate of the city. They were there nearly all day and, I suppose, all night, also. I was interested to observe the patience with which they sat for hours on the curb or steps, with their heads on their bundles, waiting until the negotiations for hiring them were finished. This brief period of the harvest time is almost the only opportunity that the majority of these country women have to get acquainted with the outside world. For the remainder of the year, it seems, they are rarely allowed to venture beyond the limits of the street or village in which they live.