The weather was still propitious. Enough snow had fallen in the night to whiten the tops of the hills surrounding Zicavo, but now the sun was shining, and warming the keen, delicious mountain air as we drove down the valley.
We had not gone far before we met a funeral, which was so perfectly simple, matter-of-fact, and devoid of anything ostentatious or needless, that I thought it a model worthy of imitation in less primitive places. Two mules drew a rough cart, in which lay the corpse, uncoffined, and covered over with a gaudy-coloured shawl, which allowed the outlines of the human form beneath to be plainly visible. After the cart walked a dozen or so of people, betraying no emotion, but looking serious and stolid. No vestige of black was to be seen. They were dressed in their ordinary
