...
<para>Information processing, especially text markup, was primitive in the colony. For example,
  most text stores were in XML! Documents may have looked like this:
  <programlisting language="XML">
&lt;teiHeader&gt;
  &lt;fileDesc&gt;
    &lt;titleStmt&gt;
      &lt;title&gt;Farming in the New World&lt;/title&gt;
      ...
    &lt;/titleStmt&gt;
  &lt;/fileDesc&gt;
&lt;/teiHeader&gt;</programlisting>
  Notice the paired Tags: <code>&lt;title&gt;</code> and <code>&lt;/title&gt;</code> and the
  primitive use of indenting. Unusual features of the colonists&#8217; data processing 
  practices included:
  <variablelist>
    <varlistentry>
      <term>Tags</term>
      <listitem>
        <para>Meaningful descriptions of the information enclosed by the markers</para>
      </listitem>
    </varlistentry>
    <varlistentry>
      <term>Balance</term>
      <listitem>
        <para>All markup is both opened and closed (or explicitly empty)</para>
      </listitem>
    </varlistentry>
  </variablelist>
</para>    
...