]
"And yet such people live quite close to us. We need not think of the
savage inhabitants of Oceania,--we can see enough of them and to spare
in this very place. Your ladyship can hear from your balcony the
melancholy songs of their pastoral flutes, especially of an evening,
when the milch-goats are returning from the deep valleys.
"The herdsman here never sleeps beneath a roof either summer or winter;
every spring he counts the goats of his master's herds and the half of
every increase belongs to him; nobody enquires how he lives there among
his herds in the lofty mountain-passes, how he defends himself against
hurricanes and snow-storms, yes, and against the wild beasts of the
forest, the bears and wolves--nobody troubles his head about all that.
"Such a goatherd is that same Juon whom your ladyship has learnt to
know. Perhaps we shall hear something more about him some other time,
for his life has been very romantic; now, however, I will only tell you
of a single episode therein:
"There once lived near here in the district of Vlaskutza, a rich
_pakular_[25] who had scraped together a lot of gold out of a mining
venture at Verespatak, and therefore went by the name of wealthy Misule.
[Footnote 25: Roguish speculator.]
"He had an only daughter, Mariora by name,--and has your ladyship any
idea of what Roumanian beauties are? A sculptor could not devise a
nobler model.
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