They were evidently the dwellings of peasantry, and people
engaged in rustic labor; and no doubt they have burrowed into the
primitive structures of the castle, and, as they found convenient, have
taken their crumbling materials to build barns and farm-houses. There
was space and accommodation for a very considerable population; but the
men were probably at work in the fields, and the only persons visible
were the children aforesaid, and one or two old women bearing bundles of
twigs on their backs. They showed no curiosity respecting us, and though
the wide space included within the castle-rampart seemed almost full of
habitations ruinous or otherwise, I never found such a solitude in any
ruin before. It contrasts very favorably in this particular with English
castles, where, though you do not find rustic villages within the warlike
enclosure, there is always a padlocked gate, always a guide, and
generally half a dozen idle tourists. But here was only antiquity, with
merely the natural growth of fungous human life upon it.
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