370

LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

(about ten shillings a-year) to the said Bishop; none ofthese men had their families there with them, the latterlived at villages around at some eight or ten miles distance,such as Vico di Pantano, Castel Volturno, Mondragoni,&c. every Sunday they went home. The dealers in fish andgame made their rounds with their carts to the numerousPagliari, and purchased the produce of the Pantanari.

Amongst the men who had some reason for retiring tothis sporting district, was one named Bartolomeo, who hadacquired with many the cognomen of “ arbiter ”— heappeared in comfortable circumstances — had excellentclothes, boots, arms, and a very comfortable pagliara, inthe midst of a wilderness of reeds, the only approach towhich was by some all-but-hidden ditches, just wideenough for the passage of a very small Londra .

Numerous flocks of goats are brought down to browsehere in the winter; vast herds of cattle graze there all theyear round. All the Pantanari keep fowls, ducks, geese,&c., now here and there a scamp would, perhaps, intrudehimself upon the honest community, whose pagliari beingfar asunder might be supposed subject to occasional de-predations. During all the many years that I frequentedthose parts, I only heard of three cases of anything being-lost in a suspicious manner, and these were of trifling-value, certainly not exceeding five shillings.

But, at one time, if any man lost a pig, or a fowl, or ifany one boasted that he w-ould injure any other in theneighbourhood, Bartolomeo was often applied to as a peace-maker. Although the inhabitants of these curious districtsare very widely dispersed, yet their callings take them dailyon wide tours, in which they meet, and so they all knowthe passing occurrences. Two cases which happened undermy own observation will illustrate what I mean to say ofBartolomeo’s “ arbitrations.” A man whom I knew, named