Home life in Hellas, Greece and the Greeks - eBooks4Greeks.gr

8 HOME LIFE IN HELLASthe Livadian country and Lake Copais, once ahotbed of fever which carried off three out of everyfour children born in the district. Since Copaishas been drained, thanks to English enterprise,the area has become one of the most productivein the country.crops of Livadia.Cotton and maize are the stapleThe golden heaps of grain andthe paler heaps of husks used for stuffing mattressesare conspicuous at harvest time. Whenthe cotton is being gathered the pyramidalmounds look like the white tents of a militarycamp, and the brightly garbed women and childrenmoving between the rows of plants as theypluck the cotton from the pods and drop itintolinen bags suspended from their necks, make apretty picture.A low range of hills divides this from the Boeotianplain, a fatwhich the Albanian element island with a mixed population inprominent—a landof laborious peasants, much richer than thestarved soil of Attica, though the inhabitantsof Athens look down on the Boeotians. Theirpredecessors inthe classical age likewise affectedto despise the country of Hesiod and Pindar,Plutarch and Epaminondas.Attica owes its importance to Athens and thePira?us. The commerce and industry of the lattermake it the busiest centre in the kingdom. Thetall chimneys of its factories recall the aspect ofour manufacturing towns, as the blast furnaces ofLavrion on the east coast of the Attic peninsula