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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of By the Ionian Sea, by George Gissing
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: By the Ionian Sea
+       Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy
+
+Author: George Gissing
+
+Posting Date: July 7, 2009 [EBook #4354]
+Release Date: August, 2003
+First Posted: January 14, 2002
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY THE IONIAN SEA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BY THE IONIAN SEA
+
+NOTES OF A RAMBLE IN SOUTHERN ITALY
+
+
+BY
+
+GEORGE GISSING
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+       I  FROM NAPLES
+      II  PAOLA
+     III  THE GRAVE OF ALARIC
+      IV  TARANTO
+       V  DULCE GALAESI FLUMEN
+      VI  THE TABLE OF THE PALADINS
+     VII  COTRONE
+    VIII  FACES BY THE WAY
+      IX  MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR
+       X  CHILDREN OF THE SOIL
+      XI  THE MOUNT OF REFUGE
+     XII  CATANZARO
+    XIII  THE BREEZY HEIGHT
+     XIV  SQUILLACE
+      XV  MISERIA
+     XVI  CASSIODORUS
+    XVII  THE GROTTA
+   XVIII  REGGIO
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+FROM NAPLES
+
+
+This is the third day of sirocco, heavy-clouded, sunless. All the
+colour has gone out of Naples; the streets are dusty and stifling. I
+long for the mountains and the sea.
+
+To-morrow I shall leave by the Messina boat, which calls at Paola. It
+is now more than a twelvemonth since I began to think of Paola, and an
+image of the place has grown in my mind. I picture a little _marina_; a
+yellowish little town just above; and behind, rising grandly, the long
+range of mountains which guard the shore of Calabria. Paola has no
+special interest that I know of, but it is the nearest point on the
+coast to Cosenza, which has interest in abundance; by landing here I
+make a modestly adventurous beginning of my ramble in the South. At
+Paola foreigners are rare; one may count upon new impressions, and the
+journey over the hills will be delightful.
+
+Were I to lend ear to the people with whom I am staying, here in the
+Chiatamone, I should either abandon my project altogether or set forth
+with dire misgivings. They are Neapolitans of the better class; that is
+to say, they have known losses, and talk of their former happiness,
+when they lived on the Chiaia and had everything handsome about them.
+The head of the family strikes me as a typical figure; he is an elderly
+man, with a fine head, a dignified presence, and a coldly courteous
+demeanour. By preference he speaks French, and his favourite subject is
+Paris. One observes in him something like disdain for his own country,
+which in his mind is associated only with falling fortunes and loss of
+self-respect. The cordial Italian note never sounds in his talk. The
+_signora_ (also a little ashamed of her own language) excites herself
+about taxation--as well she may--and dwells with doleful vivacity on
+family troubles. Both are astonished at my eccentricity and hardiness
+in undertaking a solitary journey through the wild South. Their
+geographical notions are vague; they have barely heard of Cosenza or of
+Cotrone, and of Paola not at all; it would as soon occur to them to set
+out for Morocco as for Calabria. How shall I get along with people
+whose language is a barbarous dialect? Am I aware that the country is
+in great part pestilential?--_la febbre_! Has no one informed me that
+in autumn snows descend, and bury everything for months? It is useless
+to explain that I only intend to visit places easily accessible, that I
+shall travel mostly by railway, and that if disagreeable weather sets
+in I shall quickly return northwards. They look at me dubiously, and
+ask themselves (I am sure) whether I have not some more tangible motive
+than a lover of classical antiquity. It ends with a compliment to the
+enterprising spirit of the English race.
+
+I have purchases to make, business to settle, and I must go hither and
+thither about the town. Sirocco, of course, dusks everything to
+cheerless grey, but under any sky it is dispiriting to note the changes
+in Naples. _Lo sventramento_ (the disembowelling) goes on, and regions
+are transformed. It is a good thing, I suppose, that the broad Corso
+Umberto I. should cut a way through the old Pendino; but what a
+contrast between that native picturesqueness and the cosmopolitan
+vulgarity which has usurped its place! "_Napoli se ne va_!" I pass the
+Santa Lucia with downcast eyes, my memories of ten years ago striving
+against the dulness of to-day. The harbour, whence one used to start
+for Capri, is filled up; the sea has been driven to a hopeless distance
+beyond a wilderness of dust-heaps. They are going to make a long,
+straight embankment from the Castel dell'Ovo to the Great Port, and
+before long the Santa Lucia will be an ordinary street, shut in among
+huge houses, with no view at all. Ah, the nights that one lingered
+here, watching the crimson glow upon Vesuvius, tracing the dark line of
+the Sorrento promontory, or waiting for moonlight to cast its magic
+upon floating Capri! The odours remain; the stalls of sea-fruit are as
+yet undisturbed, and the jars of the water-sellers; women still comb
+and bind each other's hair by the wayside, and meals are cooked and
+eaten _al fresco_ as of old. But one can see these things elsewhere,
+and Santa Lucia was unique. It has become squalid. In the grey light of
+this sad billowy sky, only its ancient foulness is manifest; there
+needs the golden sunlight to bring out a suggestion of its ancient
+charm.
+
+Has Naples grown less noisy, or does it only seem so to me? The men
+with bullock carts are strangely quiet; their shouts have nothing like
+the frequency and spirit of former days. In the narrow and thronged
+Strada di Chiaia I find little tumult; it used to be deafening. Ten
+years ago a foreigner could not walk here without being assailed by the
+clamour of _cocchieri_; nay, he was pursued from street to street,
+until the driver had spent every phrase of importunate invitation; now,
+one may saunter as one will, with little disturbance. Down on the
+Piliero, whither I have been to take my passage for Paola, I catch but
+an echo of the jubilant uproar which used to amaze me. Is Naples really
+so much quieter? If I had time I would go out to Fuorigrotta, once, it
+seemed to me, the noisiest village on earth, and see if there also I
+observed a change. It would not be surprising if the modernization of
+the city, together with the state of things throughout Italy, had a
+subduing effect upon Neapolitan manners. In one respect the streets are
+assuredly less gay. When I first knew Naples one was never, literally
+never, out of hearing of a hand-organ; and these organs, which in
+general had a peculiarly dulcet note, played the brightest of melodies;
+trivial, vulgar if you will, but none the less melodious, and dear to
+Naples. Now the sound of street music is rare, and I understand that
+some police provision long since interfered with the soft-tongued
+instruments. I miss them; for, in the matter of music, it is with me as
+with Sir Thomas Browne. For Italy the change is significant enough; in
+a few more years spontaneous melody will be as rare at Naples or Venice
+as on the banks of the Thames.
+
+Happily, the musicians errant still strum their mandoline as you dine.
+The old trattoria in the Toledo is as good as ever, as bright, as
+comfortable. I have found my old corner in one of the little rooms, and
+something of the old gusto for _zuppa di vongole_. The homely wine of
+Posillipo smacks as in days gone by, and is commended to one's lips by
+a song of the South. . . .
+
+Last night the wind changed and the sky began to clear; this morning I
+awoke in sunshine, and with a feeling of eagerness for my journey. I
+shall look upon the Ionian Sea, not merely from a train or a steamboat
+as before, but at long leisure: I shall see the shores where once were
+Tarentum and Sybaris, Croton and Locri. Every man has his intellectual
+desire; mine is to escape life as I know it and dream myself into that
+old world which was the imaginative delight of my boyhood. The names of
+Greece and Italy draw me as no others; they make me young again, and
+restore the keen impressions of that time when every new page of Greek
+or Latin was a new perception of things beautiful. The world of the
+Greeks and Romans is my land of romance; a quotation in either language
+thrills me strangely, and there are passages of Greek and Latin verse
+which I cannot read without a dimming of the eyes, which I cannot
+repeat aloud because my voice fails me. In Magna Graecia the waters of
+two fountains mingle and flow together; how exquisite will be the
+draught!
+
+I drove with my luggage to the Immacolatella, and a boatman put me
+aboard the steamer. Luggage, I say advisedly; it is a rather heavy
+portmanteau, and I know it will be a nuisance. But the length of my
+wanderings is so uncertain, its conditions are so vaguely anticipated.
+I must have books if only for rainy days; I must have clothing against
+a change of season. At one time I thought of taking a mere wallet, and
+now I am half sorry that I altered my mind. But----
+
+We were not more than an hour after time in starting. Perfect weather.
+I sang to myself with joy upon the sunny deck as we steamed along the
+Bay, past Portici, and Torre del Greco, and into the harbour of Torre
+Annunziata, where we had to take on cargo. I was the only cabin
+passenger, and solitude suits me. All through the warm and cloudless
+afternoon I sat looking at the mountains, trying not to see that
+cluster of factory chimneys which rolled black fumes above the
+many-coloured houses. They reminded me of the same abomination on a
+shore more sacred; from the harbour of Piraeus one looks to Athens
+through trails of coal-smoke. By a contrast pleasant enough, Vesuvius
+to-day sent forth vapours of a delicate rose-tint, floating far and
+breaking seaward into soft little fleeces of cirrus. The cone, covered
+with sulphur, gleamed bright yellow against cloudless blue.
+
+The voyage was resumed at dinner-time; when I came upon deck again,
+night had fallen. We were somewhere near Sorrento; behind us lay the
+long curve of faint-glimmering lights on the Naples shore; ahead was
+Capri. In profound gloom, though under a sky all set with stars, we
+passed between the island and Cape Minerva; the haven of Capri showed
+but a faint glimmer; over it towered mighty crags, an awful blackness,
+a void amid constellations. From my seat near the stern of the vessel I
+could discern no human form; it was as though I voyaged quite alone in
+the silence of this magic sea. Silence so all-possessing that the sound
+of the ship's engine could not reach my ear, but was blended with the
+water-splash into a lulling murmur. The stillness of a dead world laid
+its spell on all that lived. To-day seemed an unreality, an idle
+impertinence; the real was that long-buried past which gave its meaning
+to all around me, touching the night with infinite pathos. Best of all,
+one's own being became lost to consciousness; the mind knew only the
+phantasmal forms it shaped, and was at peace in vision.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+PAOLA
+
+
+I slept little, and was very early on deck, scanning by the light of
+dawn a mountainous coast. At sunrise I learnt that we were in sight of
+Paola; as day spread gloriously over earth and sky, the vessel hove to
+and prepared to land cargo. There, indeed, was the yellowish little
+town which I had so long pictured; it stood at a considerable height
+above the shore; harbour there was none at all, only a broad beach of
+shingle on which waves were breaking, and where a cluster of men, women
+and children stood gazing at the steamer. It gave me pleasure to find
+the place so small and primitive. In no hurry to land, I watched the
+unloading of merchandise (with a great deal of shouting and
+gesticulation) into boats which had rowed out for the purpose;
+speculated on the resources of Paola in the matter of food (for I was
+hungry); and at moments cast an eye towards the mountain barrier which
+it was probable I should cross to-day.
+
+At last my portmanteau was dropped down on to the laden boat; I, as
+best I could, managed to follow it; and on the top of a pile of rope
+and empty flour-sacks we rolled landward. The surf was high; it cost
+much yelling, leaping, and splashing to gain the dry beach. Meanwhile,
+not without apprehension, I had eyed the group awaiting our arrival;
+that they had their eyes on me was obvious, and I knew enough of
+southern Italians to foresee my reception. I sprang into the midst of a
+clamorous conflict; half a dozen men were quarreling for possession of
+me. No sooner was my luggage on shore than they flung themselves upon
+it. By what force of authority I know not, one of the fellows
+triumphed; he turned to me with a satisfied smile, and--presented his
+wife.
+
+"_Mia sposa, signore_!"
+
+Wondering, and trying to look pleased, I saw the woman seize the
+portmanteau (a frightful weight), fling it on to her head, and march
+away at a good speed. The crowd and I followed to the _dogana_, close
+by, where as vigorous a search was made as I have ever had to undergo.
+I puzzled the people; my arrival was an unwonted thing, and they felt
+sure I was a trader of some sort. Dismissed under suspicion, I allowed
+the lady to whom I had been introduced to guide me townwards. Again she
+bore the portmanteau on her head, and evidently thought it a trifle,
+but as the climbing road lengthened, and as I myself began to perspire
+in the warm sunshine, I looked at my attendant with uncomfortable
+feelings. It was a long and winding way, but the woman continued to
+talk and laugh so cheerfully that I tried to forget her toil. At length
+we reached a cabin where the _dazio_ (town dues) officer presented
+himself, and this conscientious person insisted on making a fresh
+examination of my baggage; again I explained myself, again I was eyed
+suspiciously; but he released me, and on we went. I had bidden my guide
+take me to the best inn; it was the _Leone_, a little place which
+looked from the outside like an ill-kept stable, but was decent enough
+within. The room into which they showed me had a delightful prospect.
+Deep beneath the window lay a wild, leafy garden, and lower on the
+hillside a lemon orchard shining with yellow fruit; beyond, the broad
+pebbly beach, far seen to north and south, with its white foam edging
+the blue expanse of sea. There I descried the steamer from which I had
+landed, just under way for Sicily. The beauty of this view, and the
+calm splendour of the early morning, put me into happiest mood. After
+little delay a tolerable breakfast was set before me, with a good rough
+wine; I ate and drank by the window, exulting in what I saw and all I
+hoped to see.
+
+Guide-books had informed me that the _corriere_ (mail-diligence) from
+Paola to Cosenza corresponded with the arrival of the Naples steamer,
+and, after the combat on the beach, my first care was to inquire about
+this. All and sundry made eager reply that the _corriere_ had long
+since gone; that it started, in fact, at 5 A.M., and that the only
+possible mode of reaching Cosenza that day was to hire a vehicle.
+Experience of Italian travel made me suspicious, but it afterwards
+appeared that I had been told the truth. Clearly, if I wished to
+proceed at once, I must open negotiations at my inn, and, after a
+leisurely meal, I did so. Very soon a man presented himself who was
+willing to drive me over the mountains--at a charge which I saw to be
+absurd; the twinkle in his eye as he named the sum sufficiently
+enlightened me. By the book it was no more than a journey of four
+hours; my driver declared that it would take from seven to eight. After
+a little discussion he accepted half the original demand, and went off
+very cheerfully to put in his horses.
+
+For an hour I rambled about the town's one street, very picturesque and
+rich in colour, with rushing fountains where women drew fair water in
+jugs and jars of antique beauty. Whilst I was thus loitering in the
+sunshine, two well-dressed men approached me, and with somewhat
+excessive courtesy began conversation. They understood that I was about
+to drive to Cosenza. A delightful day, and a magnificent country! They
+too thought of journeying to Cosenza, and, in short, would I allow them
+to share my carriage? Now this was annoying; I much preferred to be
+alone with my thoughts; but it seemed ungracious to refuse. After a
+glance at their smiling faces, I answered that whatever room remained
+in the vehicle was at their service--on the natural understanding that
+they shared the expense; and to this, with the best grace in the world,
+they at once agreed. We took momentary leave of each other, with much
+bowing and flourishing of hats, and the amusing thing was that I never
+beheld those gentlemen again.
+
+Fortunately--as the carriage proved to be a very small one, and the sun
+was getting very hot; with two companions I should have had an
+uncomfortable day. In front of the _Leone_ a considerable number of
+loafers had assembled to see me off, and of these some half-dozen were
+persevering mendicants. It disappointed me that I saw no interesting
+costume; all wore the common, colourless garb of our destroying age.
+The only vivid memory of these people which remains with me is the
+cadence of their speech. Whilst I was breakfasting, two women stood at
+gossip on a near balcony, and their utterance was a curious
+exaggeration of the Neapolitan accent; every sentence rose to a high
+note, and fell away in a long curve of sound, sometimes a musical wail,
+more often a mere whining. The protraction of the last word or two was
+really astonishing; again and again I fancied that the speaker had
+broken into song. I cannot say that the effect was altogether pleasant;
+in the end such talk would tell severely on civilized nerves, but it
+harmonized with the coloured houses, the luxuriant vegetation, the
+strange odours, the romantic landscape.
+
+In front of the vehicle were three little horses; behind it was hitched
+an old shabby two-wheeled thing, which we were to leave somewhere for
+repairs. With whip-cracking and vociferation, amid good-natured
+farewells from the crowd, we started away. It was just ten o'clock.
+
+At once the road began to climb, and nearly three hours were spent in
+reaching the highest point of the mountain barrier. Incessantly
+winding, often doubling upon itself, the road crept up the sides of
+profound gorges, and skirted many a precipice; bridges innumerable
+spanned the dry ravines which at another season are filled with furious
+torrents. From the zone of orange and olive and cactus we passed that
+of beech and oak, noble trees now shedding their rich-hued foliage on
+bracken crisped and brown; here I noticed the feathery bowers of wild
+clematis ("old man's beard"), and many a spike of the great mullein,
+strange to me because so familiar in English lanes. Through mists that
+floated far below I looked over miles of shore, and outward to the
+ever-rising limit of sea and sky. Very lovely were the effects of
+light, the gradations of colour; from the blue-black abysses, where no
+shape could be distinguished, to those violet hues upon the furrowed
+heights which had a transparency, a softness, an indefiniteness, unlike
+anything to be seen in northern landscape.
+
+The driver was accompanied by a half-naked lad, who, at certain points,
+suddenly disappeared, and came into view again after a few minutes,
+having made a short cut up some rugged footway between the loops of the
+road. Perspiring, even as I sat, in the blaze of the sun, I envied the
+boy his breath and muscle. Now and then he slaked his thirst at a stone
+fountain by the wayside, not without reverencing the blue-hooded
+Madonna painted over it. A few lean, brown peasants, bending under
+faggots, and one or two carts, passed us before we gained the top, and
+half-way up there was a hovel where drink could be bought; but with
+these exceptions nothing broke the loneliness of the long, wild ascent.
+My man was not talkative, but answered inquiries civilly; only on one
+subject was he very curt--that of the two wooden crosses which we
+passed just before arriving at the summit; they meant murders. At the
+moment when I spoke of them I was stretching my legs in a walk beside
+the carriage, the driver walking just in front of me; and something
+then happened which is still a puzzle when I recall it. Whether the
+thought of crimes had made the man nervous, or whether just then I wore
+a peculiarly truculent face, or had made some alarming gesture, all of
+a sudden he turned upon me, grasped my arm and asked sharply: "What
+have you got in your hand?" I had a bit of fern, plucked a few minutes
+before, and with surprise I showed it; whereupon he murmured an
+apology, said something about making haste, and jumped to his seat. An
+odd little incident.
+
+At an unexpected turn of the road there spread before me a vast
+prospect; I looked down upon inland Calabria. It was a valley broad
+enough to be called a plain, dotted with white villages, and backed by
+the mass of mountains which now, as in old time, bear the name of Great
+Sila. Through this landscape flowed the river Crati--the ancient
+Crathis; northward it curved, and eastward, to fall at length into the
+Ionian Sea, far beyond my vision. The river Crathis, which flowed by
+the walls of Sybaris. I stopped the horses to gaze and wonder; gladly I
+would have stood there for hours. Less interested, and impatient to get
+on, the driver pointed out to me the direction of Cosenza, still at a
+great distance. He added the information that, in summer, the
+well-to-do folk of Cosenza go to Paola for sea-bathing, and that they
+always perform the journey by night. I, listening carelessly amid my
+dream, tried to imagine the crossing of those Calabrian hills under a
+summer sun! By summer moonlight it must be wonderful.
+
+We descended at a sharp pace, all the way through a forest of
+chestnuts, the fruit already gathered, the golden leaves rustling in
+their fall. At the foot lies the village of San Fili, and here we left
+the crazy old cart which we had dragged so far. A little further, and
+before us lay a long, level road, a true Roman highway, straight for
+mile after mile. By this road the Visigoths must have marched after the
+sack of Rome. In approaching Cosenza I was drawing near to the grave of
+Alaric. Along this road the barbarian bore in triumph those spoils of
+the Eternal City which were to enrich his tomb.
+
+By this road, six hundred years before the Goth, marched Hannibal on
+his sullen retreat from Italy, passing through Cosentia to embark at
+Croton.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE GRAVE OF ALARIC
+
+
+It would have been prudent to consult with my driver as to the inns of
+Cosenza. But, with a pardonable desire not to seem helpless in his
+hands, I had from the first directed him to the _Due Lionetti_, relying
+upon my guide-book. Even at Cosenza there is progress, and guide-books
+to little-known parts of Europe are easily allowed to fall out of date.
+On my arrival----
+
+But, first of all, the _dazio_. This time it was a serious business;
+impossible to convince the rather surly officer that certain of the
+contents of my portmanteau were not for sale. What in the world was I
+doing with _tanti libri_? Of course I was a commercial traveller;
+ridiculous to pretend anything else. After much strain of courtesy, I
+clapped to my luggage, locked it up, and with a resolute face cried
+"Avanti!" And there was an end of it. In this case, as so often, I have
+no doubt that simple curiosity went for much in the man's pertinacious
+questioning. Of course the whole _dazio_ business is ludicrous and
+contemptible; I scarce know a baser spectacle than that of uniformed
+officials groping in the poor little bundles of starved peasant women,
+mauling a handful of onions, or prodding with long irons a cartload of
+straw. Did any one ever compare the expenses with the results?
+
+A glance shows the situation of Cosenza. The town is built on a steep
+hillside, above the point where two rivers, flowing from the valleys on
+either side, mingle their waters under one name, that of the Crati. We
+drove over a bridge which spans the united current, and entered a
+narrow street, climbing abruptly between houses so high and so close
+together as to make a gloom amid sunshine. It was four o'clock; I felt
+tired and half choked with dust; the thought of rest and a meal was
+very pleasant. As I searched for the sign of my inn, we suddenly drew
+up, midway in the dark street, before a darker portal, which seemed the
+entrance to some dirty warehouse. The driver jumped down--"Ecco
+l'albergo!"
+
+I had seen a good many Italian hostelries, and nourished no
+unreasonable expectations. The Lion at Paola would have seemed to any
+untravelled Englishman a squalid and comfortless hole, incredible as a
+place of public entertainment; the _Two Little Lions_ of Cosenza made a
+decidedly worse impression. Over sloppy stones, in an atmosphere heavy
+with indescribable stenches, I felt rather than saw my way to the foot
+of a stone staircase; this I ascended, and on the floor above found a
+dusky room, where tablecloths and an odour of frying oil afforded some
+suggestion of refreshment. My arrival interested nobody; with a good
+deal of trouble I persuaded an untidy fellow, who seemed to be a
+waiter, to come down with me and secure my luggage. More trouble before
+I could find a bedroom; hunting for keys, wandering up and down stone
+stairs and along pitch-black corridors, sounds of voices in quarrel.
+The room itself was utterly depressing--so bare, so grimy, so dark.
+Quickly I examined the bed, and was rewarded. It is the good point of
+Italian inns; be the house and the room howsoever sordid, the bed is
+almost invariably clean and dry and comfortable.
+
+I ate, not amiss; I drank copiously to the memory of Alaric, and felt
+equal to any fortune. When night had fallen I walked a little about the
+scarce-lighted streets and came to an open place, dark and solitary and
+silent, where I could hear the voices of the two streams as they
+mingled below the hill. Presently I passed an open office of some kind,
+where a pleasant-looking man sat at a table writing; on an impulse I
+entered, and made bold to ask whether Cosenza had no better inn than
+the _Due Lionetti_. Great was this gentleman's courtesy; he laid down
+his pen, as if for ever, and gave himself wholly to my concerns. His
+discourse delighted me, so flowing were the phrases, so rounded the
+periods. Yes, there were other inns; one at the top of the town--the
+_Vetere_--in a very good position; and they doubtless excelled my own
+in modern comfort. As a matter of fact, it might be avowed that the
+_Lionetti_, from the point of view of the great centres of
+civilization, left something to be desired--something to be desired;
+but it was a good old inn, a reputable old inn, and probably on further
+acquaintance----
+
+Further acquaintance did not increase my respect for the _Lionetti_; it
+would not be easy to describe those features in which, most notably, it
+fell short of all that might be desired. But I proposed no long stay at
+Cosenza, where malarial fever is endemic, and it did not seem worth
+while to change my quarters. I slept very well.
+
+I had come here to think about Alaric, and with my own eyes to behold
+the place of his burial. Ever since the first boyish reading of Gibbon,
+my imagination has loved to play upon that scene of Alaric's death.
+Thinking to conquer Sicily, the Visigoth marched as far as to the
+capital of the Bruttii, those mountain tribes which Rome herself never
+really subdued; at Consentia he fell sick and died. How often had I
+longed to see this river Busento, which the "labour of a captive
+multitude" turned aside, that its flood might cover and conceal for all
+time the tomb of the Conqueror! I saw it in the light of sunrise,
+flowing amid low, brown, olive-planted hills; at this time of the year
+it is a narrow, but rapid stream, running through a wide, waste bed of
+yellow sand and stones. The Crati, which here has only just started
+upon its long seaward way from some glen of Sila, presents much the
+same appearance, the track which it has worn in flood being many times
+as broad as the actual current. They flow, these historic waters, with
+a pleasant sound, overborne at moments by the clapping noise of
+Cosenza's washerwomen, who cleanse their linen by beating it, then
+leave it to dry on the river-bed. Along the banks stood tall poplars,
+each a spire of burnished gold, blazing against the dark olive foliage
+on the slopes behind them; plane trees, also, very rich of colour, and
+fig trees shedding their latest leaves. Now, tradition has it that
+Alaric was buried close to the confluence of the Busento and the Crati.
+If so, he lay in full view of the town. But the Goths are said to have
+slain all their prisoners who took part in the work, to ensure secrecy.
+Are we to suppose that Consentia was depopulated? On any other
+supposition the story must be incorrect, and Alaric's tomb would have
+to be sought at least half a mile away, where the Busento is hidden in
+its deep valley.
+
+Gibbon, by the way, calls it Busentinus; the true Latin was Buxentius.
+To make sure of the present name, I questioned some half a dozen
+peasants, who all named the river Basenzio or Basenz'; a countryman of
+more intelligent appearance assured me that this was only a dialectical
+form, the true one being Busento. At a bookseller's shop (Cosenza had
+one, a very little one) I found the same opinion to prevail.
+
+It is difficult to walk much in this climate; lassitude and feverish
+symptoms follow on the slightest exertion; but--if one can disregard
+the evil smells which everywhere catch one's breath--Cosenza has
+wonders and delights which tempt to day-long rambling. To call the town
+picturesque is to use an inadequate word; at every step, from the
+opening of the main street at the hill-foot up to the stern mediaeval
+castle crowning its height, one marvels and admires. So narrow are the
+ways that a cart drives the pedestrian into shop or alley; two vehicles
+(but perhaps the thing never happened) would with difficulty pass each
+other. As in all towns of Southern Italy, the number of hair-dressers
+is astonishing, and they hang out the barber's basin--the very basin
+(of shining brass and with a semicircle cut out of the rim) which the
+Knight of La Mancha took as substitute for his damaged helmet. Through
+the gloom of high balconied houses, one climbs to a sunny piazza, where
+there are several fine buildings; beyond it lies the public garden, a
+lovely spot, set with alleys of acacia and groups of palm and
+flower-beds and fountains; marble busts of Garibaldi, Mazzini, and
+Cavour gleam among the trees. Here one looks down upon the yellow gorge
+of the Crati, and sees it widen northward into a vast green plain, in
+which the track of the river is soon lost. On the other side of the
+Crati valley, in full view of this garden, begins the mountain region
+of many-folded Sila--a noble sight at any time of the day, but most of
+all when the mists of morning cling about its summits, or when the
+sunset clothes its broad flanks with purple. Turn westward, and you
+behold the long range which hides the Mediterranean so high and wild
+from this distance, that I could scarce believe I had driven over it.
+
+Sila--locally the Black Mountain, because dark with climbing
+forests--held my gaze through a long afternoon. From the grassy
+table-land of its heights, pasturage for numberless flocks and herds
+when the long snows have melted, one might look over the shore of the
+Ionian Sea where Greek craftsmen built ships of timber cut upon the
+mountain's side. Not so long ago it was a haunt of brigands; now there
+is no risk for the rare traveller who penetrates that wilderness; but
+he must needs depend upon the hospitality of labourers and shepherds. I
+dream of sunny glades, never touched, perhaps, by the foot of man since
+the Greek herdsman wandered there with his sheep or goats. Somewhere on
+Sila rises the Neaithos (now Neto) mentioned by Theocritus; one would
+like to sit by its source in the woodland solitude, and let fancy have
+her way.
+
+In these garden walks I met a group of peasants, evidently strange to
+Cosenza, and wondering at all they saw. The women wore a very striking
+costume: a short petticoat of scarlet, much embroidered, and over it a
+blue skirt, rolled up in front and gathered in a sort of knot behind
+the waist; a bodice adorned with needlework and metal; elaborate
+glistening head-gear, and bare feet. The town-folk have no peculiarity
+of dress. I observed among them a grave, intelligent type of
+countenance, handsome and full of character, which may be that of their
+brave ancestors the Bruttii. With pleasure I saw that they behaved
+gently to their beasts, the mules being very sleek and
+contented-looking. There is much difference between these people and
+the Neapolitans; they seem to have no liking for noise, talk with a
+certain repose, and allow the stranger to go about among them
+unmolested, unimportuned. Women above the poorest class are not seen in
+the streets; there prevails an Oriental system of seclusion.
+
+I was glad to come upon the pot market; in the south of Italy it is
+always a beautiful and interesting sight. Pottery for commonest use
+among Calabrian peasants has a grace of line, a charm of colour, far
+beyond anything native to our most pretentious china-shops. Here still
+lingers a trace of the old civilization. There must be a great good in
+a people which has preserved this need of beauty through ages of
+servitude and suffering. Compare such domestic utensils--these oil-jugs
+and water-jars--with those in the house of an English labourer. Is it
+really so certain that all virtues of race dwell with those who can
+rest amid the ugly and know it not for ugliness?
+
+The new age declares itself here and there at Cosenza. A squalid
+railway station, a hideous railway bridge, have brought the town into
+the European network; and the craze for building, which has disfigured
+and half ruined Italy, shows itself in an immense new theatre--Teatro
+Garibaldi--just being finished. The old one, which stands ruinous close
+by, struck me as, if anything, too large for the town; possibly it had
+been damaged by an earthquake, the commonest sort of disaster at
+Cosenza. On the front of the new edifice I found two inscriptions, both
+exulting over the fall of the papal power; one was interesting enough
+to copy:--
+
+  "20 SEPT., 1870.
+  QUESTA DATA POLITICA
+  DICE FINITA LA TEOCRAZIA
+  NEGLI ORDINAMENTI CIVILI.
+  IL DI CHE LA DIRA FINITA
+  MORALMENTE
+  SARA LA DATA UMANA."
+
+which signifies: "This political date marks the end of theocracy in
+civil life. The day which ends its moral rule will begin the epoch of
+humanity." A remarkable utterance anywhere; not least so within the
+hearing of the stream which flows over the grave of Alaric.
+
+One goes to bed early at Cosenza; the night air is dangerous,
+and--Teatro Garibaldi still incomplete--darkness brings with it no sort
+of pastime. I did manage to read a little in my miserable room by an
+antique lamp, but the effort was dispiriting; better to lie in the dark
+and think of Goth and Roman.
+
+Do the rivers Busento and Crati still keep the secret of that "royal
+sepulchre, adorned with the splendid spoils and trophies of Rome"? It
+seems improbable that the grave was ever disturbed; to this day there
+exists somewhere near Cosenza a treasure-house more alluring than any
+pictured in Arabian tale. It is not easy to conjecture what "spoils and
+trophies" the Goths buried with their king; if they sacrificed masses
+of precious metal, then perchance there still lies in the river-bed
+some portion of that golden statue of _Virtus_, which the Romans melted
+down to eke out the ransom claimed by Alaric. The year 410 A.D. was no
+unfitting moment to break into bullion the figure personifying Manly
+Worth. "After that," says an old historian, "all bravery and honour
+perished out of Rome."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+TARANTO
+
+
+Cosenza is on a line of railway which runs northward up the Crati
+valley, and joins the long seashore line from Taranto to Reggio. As it
+was my wish to see the whole of that coast, I had the choice of
+beginning my expedition either at the northern or the southern end; for
+several reasons I decided to make straight for Taranto.
+
+The train started about seven o'clock in the morning. I rose at six in
+chill darkness, the discomfort of my room seeming worse than ever at
+this featureless hour. The waiter--perhaps he was the landlord, I left
+this doubt unsolved--brought me a cup of coffee; dirtier and more
+shabbily apparelled man I have never looked upon; viler coffee I never
+drank. Then I descended into the gloom of the street. The familiar
+odours breathed upon me with pungent freshness, wafted hither and
+thither on a mountain breeze. A glance upwards at the narrow strip of
+sky showed a grey-coloured dawn, prelude, I feared, of a dull day.
+
+Evidently I was not the only traveller departing; on the truck just
+laden I saw somebody else's luggage, and at the same moment there came
+forth a man heavily muffled against the air, who, like myself, began to
+look about for the porter. We exchanged greetings, and on our walk to
+the station I learned that my companion, also bound for Taranto, had
+been detained by illness for several days at the _Lionetti_, where, he
+bitterly complained, the people showed him no sort of attention. He was
+a commercial traveller, representing a firm of drug merchants in North
+Italy, and for his sins (as he put it) had to make the southern journey
+every year; he invariably suffered from fever, and at certain
+places--of course, the least civilized--had attacks which delayed him
+from three days to a week. He loathed the South, finding no
+compensation whatever for the miseries of travel below Naples; the
+inhabitants he reviled with exceeding animosity. Interested by the
+doleful predicament of this vendor of drugs (who dosed himself very
+vigorously), I found him a pleasant companion during the day; after our
+lunch he seemed to shake off the last shivers of his malady, and was as
+sprightly an Italian as one could wish to meet--young, sharp-witted,
+well-mannered, and with a pleasing softness of character.
+
+We lunched at Sybaris; that is to say, at the railway station now so
+called, though till recently it bore the humbler name of Buffaloria.
+The Italians are doing their best to revive the classical place-names,
+where they have been lost, and occasionally the incautious traveller is
+much misled. Of Sybaris no stone remains above ground; five hundred
+years before Christ it was destroyed by the people of Croton, who
+turned the course of the river Crathis so as to whelm the city's ruins.
+Francois Lenormant, whose delightful book, _La Grande Grece_, was my
+companion on this journey, believed that a discovery far more wonderful
+and important than that of Pompeii awaits the excavator on this site;
+he held it certain that here, beneath some fifteen feet of alluvial
+mud, lay the temples and the streets of Sybaris, as on the day when
+Crathis first flowed over them. A little digging has recently been
+done, and things of interest have been found; but discovery on a wide
+scale is still to be attempted.
+
+Lenormant praises the landscape hereabouts as of "incomparable beauty";
+unfortunately I saw it in a sunless day, and at unfavourable moments I
+was strongly reminded of the Essex coast--grey, scrubby fiats, crossed
+by small streams, spreading wearily seaward. One had only to turn
+inland to correct this mood; the Calabrian mountains, even without
+sunshine, had their wonted grace. Moreover, cactus and agave, frequent
+in the foreground, preserved the southern character of the scene. The
+great plain between the hills and the sea grows very impressive; so
+silent it is, so mournfully desolate, so haunted with memories of
+vanished glory. I looked at the Crathis--the Crati of Cosenza--here
+beginning to spread into a sea-marsh; the waters which used to flow
+over golden sands, which made white the oxen, and sunny-haired the
+children, that bathed in them, are now lost amid a wilderness poisoned
+by their own vapours.
+
+The railway station, like all in this region, was set about with
+eucalyptus. Great bushes of flowering rosemary scented the air, and a
+fine cassia tree, from which I plucked blossoms, yielded a subtler
+perfume. Our lunch was not luxurious; I remember only, as at all worthy
+of Sybaris, a palatable white wine called Muscato dei Saraceni.
+Appropriate enough amid this vast silence to turn one's thoughts to the
+Saracens, who are so largely answerable for the ages of desolation that
+have passed by the Ionian Sea.
+
+Then on for Taranto, where we arrived in the afternoon. Meaning to stay
+for a week or two I sought a pleasant room in a well-situated hotel,
+and I found one with a good view of town and harbour. The Taranto of
+old days, when it was called Taras, or later Tarentum, stood on a long
+peninsula, which divides a little inland sea from the great sea
+without. In the Middle Ages the town occupied only the point of this
+neck of land, which, by the cutting of an artificial channel, had been
+made into an island: now again it is spreading over the whole of the
+ancient site; great buildings of yellowish-white stone, as ugly as
+modern architect can make them, and plainly far in excess of the actual
+demand for habitations, rise where Phoenicians and Greeks and Romans
+built after the nobler fashion of their times. One of my windows looked
+towards the old town, with its long sea-wall where fishermen's nets
+hung drying, the dome of its Cathedral, the high, squeezed houses,
+often with gardens on the roofs, and the swing-bridge which links it to
+the mainland; the other gave me a view across the Mare Piccolo, the
+Little Sea (it is some twelve miles round about), dotted in many parts
+with crossed stakes which mark the oyster-beds, and lined on this side
+with a variety of shipping moored at quays. From some of these vessels,
+early next morning, sounded suddenly a furious cannonade, which
+threatened to shatter the windows of the hotel; I found it was in
+honour of the Queen of Italy, whose _festa_ fell on that day. This
+barbarous uproar must have sounded even to the Calabrian heights; it
+struck me as more meaningless in its deafening volley of noise than any
+note of joy or triumph that could ever have been heard in old Tarentum.
+
+I walked all round the island part of the town; lost myself amid its
+maze of streets, or alleys rather, for in many places one could touch
+both sides with outstretched arms, and rested in the Cathedral of S.
+Cataldo, who, by the bye, was an Irishman. All is strange, but too
+close-packed to be very striking or beautiful; I found it best to
+linger on the sea-wall, looking at the two islands in the offing, and
+over the great gulf with its mountain shore stretching beyond sight. On
+the rocks below stood fishermen hauling in a great net, whilst a boy
+splashed the water to drive the fish back until they were safely
+enveloped in the last meshes; admirable figures, consummate in graceful
+strength, their bare legs and arms the tone of terra cotta. What slight
+clothing they wore became them perfectly, as is always the case with a
+costume well adapted to the natural life of its wearers. Their slow,
+patient effort speaks of immemorial usage, and it is in harmony with
+time itself. These fishermen are the primitives of Taranto; who shall
+say for how many centuries they have hauled their nets upon the rock?
+When Plato visited the Schools of Taras, he saw the same brown-legged
+figures, in much the same garb, gathering their sea-harvest. When
+Hannibal, beset by the Romans, drew his ships across the peninsula and
+so escaped from the inner sea, fishermen of Tarentum went forth as
+ever, seeking their daily food. A thousand years passed, and the fury
+of the Saracens, when it had laid the city low, spared some humble
+Tarentine and the net by which he lived. To-day the fisher-folk form a
+colony apart; they speak a dialect which retains many Greek words
+unknown to the rest of the population. I could not gaze at them long
+enough; their lithe limbs, their attitudes at work or in repose, their
+wild, black hair, perpetually reminded me of shapes pictured on a
+classic vase.
+
+Later in the day I came upon a figure scarcely less impressive. Beyond
+the new quarter of the town, on the ragged edge of its wide,
+half-peopled streets, lies a tract of olive orchards and of seed-land;
+there, alone amid great bare fields, a countryman was ploughing. The
+wooden plough, as regards its form, might have been thousands of years
+old; it was drawn by a little donkey, and traced in the soil--the
+generous southern soil--the merest scratch of a furrow. I could not but
+approach the man and exchange words with him; his rude but gentle face,
+his gnarled hands, his rough and scanty vesture, moved me to a deep
+respect, and when his speech fell upon my ear, it was as though I
+listened to one of the ancestors of our kind. Stopping in his work, he
+answered my inquiries with careful civility; certain phrases escaped
+me, but on the whole he made himself quite intelligible, and was glad,
+I could see, when my words proved that I understood him. I drew apart,
+and watched him again. Never have I seen man so utterly patient, so
+primaevally deliberate. The donkey's method of ploughing was to pull
+for one minute, and then rest for two; it excited in the ploughman not
+the least surprise or resentment. Though he held a long stick in his
+hand, he never made use of it; at each stoppage he contemplated the
+ass, and then gave utterance to a long "Ah-h-h!" in a note of the most
+affectionate remonstrance. They were not driver and beast, but comrades
+in labour. It reposed the mind to look upon them.
+
+Walking onward in the same direction, one approaches a great wall, with
+gateway sentry-guarded; it is the new Arsenal, the pride of Taranto,
+and the source of its prosperity. On special as well as on general
+grounds, I have a grudge against this mass of ugly masonry. I had
+learnt from Lenormant that at a certain spot, Fontanella, by the shore
+of the Little Sea, were observable great ancient heaps of murex
+shells--the murex precious for its purple, that of Tarentum yielding in
+glory only to the purple of Tyre. I hoped to see these shells, perhaps
+to carry one away. But Fontanella had vanished, swallowed up, with all
+remnants of antiquity, by the graceless Arsenal. It matters to no one
+save the few fantastics who hold a memory of the ancient world dearer
+than any mechanic triumph of to-day. If only one could believe that the
+Arsenal signified substantial good to Italy! Too plainly it means
+nothing but the exhaustion of her people in the service of a base ideal.
+
+The confines of this new town being so vague, much trouble is given to
+that noble institution, the _dazio_. Scattered far and wide in a dusty
+wilderness, stand the little huts of the officers, vigilant on every
+road or by-way to wring the wretched soldi from toilsome hands. As
+became their service, I found these gentry anything but amiable; they
+had commonly an air of _ennui_, and regarded a stranger with surly
+suspicion.
+
+When I was back again among the high new houses, my eye, wandering in
+search of any smallest point of interest, fell on a fresh-painted
+inscription:--
+
+  "ALLA MAGNA GRAECIA. STABILIMENTO
+  IDROELETTROPATICO."
+
+was well meant. At the sign of "Magna Graecia" one is willing to accept
+"hydroelectropathic" as a late echo of Hellenic speech.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+DULCE GALAESI FLUMEN
+
+
+Taranto has a very interesting Museum. I went there with an
+introduction to the curator, who spared no trouble in pointing out to
+me all that was best worth seeing. He and I were alone in the little
+galleries; at a second or third visit I had the Museum to myself, save
+for an attendant who seemed to regard a visitor as a pleasant novelty,
+and bestirred himself for my comfort when I wanted to make sketches.
+Nothing is charged for admission, yet no one enters. Presumably, all
+the Tarentines who care for archaeology have already been here, and
+strangers are few.
+
+Upon the shelves are seen innumerable miniature busts, carved in some
+kind of stone; thought to be simply portraits of private persons. One
+peers into the faces of men, women, and children, vaguely conjecturing
+their date, their circumstances; some of them may have dwelt in the old
+time on this very spot of ground now covered by the Museum. Like other
+people who grow too rich and comfortable, the citizens of Tarentum
+loved mirth and mockery; their Greek theatre was remarkable for
+irreverent farce, for parodies of the great drama of Athens. And here
+is testimony to the fact: all manner of comic masks, of grotesque
+visages; mouths distorted into impossible grins, eyes leering and
+goggling, noses extravagant. I sketched a caricature of Medusa, the
+anguished features and snaky locks travestied with satiric grimness.
+You remember a story which illustrates this scoffing habit: how the
+Roman Ambassador, whose Greek left something to be desired, excited the
+uproarious derision of the assembled Tarentines--with results that were
+no laughing matter.
+
+I used the opportunity of my conversation with the Director of the
+Museum to ask his aid in discovering the river Galaesus. Who could find
+himself at Taranto without turning in thought to the Galaesus, and
+wishing to walk along its banks? Unhappily, one cannot be quite sure of
+its position. A stream there is, flowing into the Little Sea, which by
+some is called Galeso; but the country-folk commonly give it the name
+of Gialtrezze. Of course I turned my steps in that direction, to see
+and judge for myself.
+
+To skirt the western shore of the Mare Piccolo I had to pass the
+railway station, and there I made a few inquiries; the official with
+whom I spoke knew not the name Galeso, but informed me that the
+Gialtrezze entered the sea at a distance of some three kilometres. That
+I purposed walking such a distance to see an insignificant stream
+excited the surprise, even the friendly concern, of my interlocutor;
+again and again he assured me it was not worth while, repeating
+emphatically, "_Non c'e novita_." But I went my foolish way. Of two or
+three peasants or fishermen on the road I asked the name of the little
+river I was approaching; they answered, "Gialtrezze." Then came a man
+carrying a gun, whose smile and greeting invited question. "Can you
+tell me the name of the stream which flows into the sea just beyond
+here?" "Signore, it is the Galeso."
+
+My pulse quickened with delight; all the more when I found that my
+informant had no tincture of the classics, and that he supported Galeso
+against Gialtrezze simply as a question of local interest. Joyously I
+took leave of him, and very soon I was in sight of the river itself.
+The river? It is barely half a mile long; it rises amid a bed of great
+reeds, which quite conceal the water, and flows with an average breadth
+of some ten feet down to the seashore, on either side of it bare, dusty
+fields, and a few hoary olives.
+
+The Galaesus?--the river beloved by Horace; its banks pasturing a
+famous breed of sheep, with fleece so precious that it was protected by
+a garment of skins? Certain it is that all the waters of Magna Graecia
+have much diminished since classic times, but (unless there have been
+great local changes, due, for example, to an earthquake) this brook had
+always the same length, and it is hard to think of the Galaesus as so
+insignificant. Disappointed, brooding, I followed the current seaward,
+and upon the shore, amid scents of mint and rosemary, sat down to rest.
+
+There was a good view of Taranto across the water; the old town on its
+little island, compact of white houses, contrasting with the yellowish
+tints of the great new buildings which spread over the peninsula. With
+half-closed eyes, one could imagine the true Tarentum. Wavelets lapped
+upon the sand before me, their music the same as two thousand years
+ago. A goatherd came along, his flock straggling behind him; man and
+goats were as much of the old world as of the new. Far away, the boats
+of fishermen floated silently. I heard a rustle as an old fig tree hard
+by dropped its latest leaves. On the sea-bank of yellow crumbling earth
+lizards flashed about me in the sunshine. After a dull morning, the day
+had passed into golden serenity; a stillness as of eternal peace held
+earth and sky.
+
+"Dearest of all to me is that nook of earth which yields not to
+Hymettus for its honey, nor for its olive to green Venafrum; where
+heaven grants a long springtime and warmth in winter, and in the sunny
+hollows Bacchus fosters a vintage noble as the Falernian----" The lines
+of Horace sang in my head; I thought, too, of the praise of Virgil,
+who, tradition has it, wrote his _Eclogues_ hereabouts. Of course, the
+country has another aspect, in spring and early summer; I saw it at a
+sad moment; but, all allowance made for seasons, it is still with
+wonder that one recalls the rapture of the poets. A change beyond
+conception must have come upon these shores of the Ionian Sea. The
+scent of rosemary seemed to be wafted across the ages from a vanished
+world.
+
+After all, who knows whether I have seen the Galaesus? Perhaps, as some
+hold, it is quite another river, flowing far to the west of Taranto
+into the open gulf. Gialtrezze may have become Galeso merely because of
+the desire in scholars to believe that it was the classic stream; in
+other parts of Italy names have been so imposed. But I shall not give
+ear to such discouraging argument. It is little likely that my search
+will ever be renewed, and for me the Galaesus--"dulce Galaesi
+flumen"--is the stream I found and tracked, whose waters I heard mingle
+with the Little Sea. The memory has no sense of disappointment. Those
+reeds which rustle about the hidden source seem to me fit shelter of a
+Naiad; I am glad I could not see the water bubbling in its spring, for
+there remains a mystery. Whilst I live, the Galaesus purls and glistens
+in the light of that golden afternoon, and there beyond, across the
+blue still depths, glimmers a vision of Tarentum.
+
+Let Taranto try as it will to be modern and progressive, there is a
+retarding force which shows little sign of being overcome--the profound
+superstition of the people. A striking episode of street life reminded
+me how near akin were the southern Italians of to-day to their
+predecessors in what are called the dark ages; nay, to those more
+illustrious ancestors who were so ready to believe that an ox had
+uttered an oracle, or that a stone had shed blood. Somewhere near the
+swing-bridge, where undeniable steamships go and come between the inner
+and the outer sea, I saw a crowd gathered about a man who was
+exhibiting a picture and expounding its purport; every other minute the
+male listeners doffed their hats, and the females bowed and crossed
+themselves. When I had pressed near enough to hear the speaker, I found
+he was just finishing a wonderful story, in which he himself might or
+might not have faith, but which plainly commanded the credit of his
+auditors. Having closed his narrative, the fellow began to sell it in
+printed form--little pamphlets with a rude illustration on the cover. I
+bought the thing for a soldo, and read it as I walked away.
+
+A few days ago--thus, after a pious exordium, the relation began--in
+that part of Italy called Marca, there came into a railway station a
+Capuchin friar of grave, thoughtful, melancholy aspect, who besought
+the station-master to allow him to go without ticket by the train just
+starting, as he greatly desired to reach the Sanctuary of Loreto that
+day, and had no money to pay his fare The official gave a contemptuous
+refusal, and paid no heed to the entreaties of the friar, who urged all
+manner of religious motives for the granting of his request. The two
+engines on the train (which was a very long one) seemed about to steam
+away--but, behold, _con grande stupore di tutti_, the waggons moved not
+at all! Presently a third engine was put on, but still all efforts to
+start the train proved useless. Alone of the people who viewed this
+inexplicable event, the friar showed no astonishment; he remarked
+calmly, that so long as he was refused permission to travel by it, the
+train would not stir. At length _un ricco signore_ found a way out of
+the difficulty by purchasing the friar a third-class ticket; with a
+grave reproof to the station-master, the friar took his seat, and the
+train went its way.
+
+But the matter, of course, did not end here. Indignant and amazed, and
+wishing to be revenged upon that _frataccio_, the station-master
+telegraphed to Loreto, that in a certain carriage of a certain train
+was travelling a friar, whom it behoved the authorities to arrest for
+having hindered the departure of the said train for fifteen minutes,
+and also for the offense of mendicancy within a railway station.
+Accordingly, the Loreto police sought the offender, but, in the
+compartment where he had travelled, found no person; there, however,
+lay a letter couched in these terms: "He who was in this waggon under
+the guise of a humble friar, has now ascended into the arms of his
+_Santissima Madre Maria_. He wished to make known to the world how easy
+it is for him to crush the pride of unbelievers, or to reward those who
+respect religion."
+
+Nothing more was discoverable; wherefore the learned of the Church--_i
+dotti della chiesa_--came to the conclusion that under the guise of a
+friar there had actually appeared "_N. S. G. C._" The Supreme Pontiff
+and his prelates had not yet delivered a judgment in the matter, but
+there could be no sort of doubt that they would pronounce the
+authenticity of the miracle. With a general assurance that the good
+Christian will be saved and the unrepentant will be damned, this
+remarkable little pamphlet came to an end. Much verbiage I have
+omitted, but the translation, as far as it goes, is literal. Doubtless
+many a humble Tarentine spelt it through that evening, with boundless
+wonder, and thought such an intervention of Providence worthy of being
+talked about, until the next stabbing case in his street provided a
+more interesting topic.
+
+Possibly some malevolent rationalist might note that the name of the
+railway station where this miracle befell was nowhere mentioned. Was it
+not open to him to go and make inquiries at Loreto?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE TABLE OF THE PALADINS
+
+
+For two or three days a roaring north wind whitened the sea with foam;
+it kept the sky clear, and from morning to night there was magnificent
+sunshine, but, none the less, one suffered a good deal from cold. The
+streets were barer than ever; only in the old town, where high, close
+walls afforded a good deal of shelter, was there a semblance of active
+life. But even here most of the shops seemed to have little, if any,
+business; frequently I saw the tradesman asleep in a chair, at any hour
+of daylight. Indeed, it must be very difficult to make the day pass at
+Taranto. I noticed that, as one goes southward in Italy, the later do
+ordinary people dine; appetite comes slowly in this climate. Between
+_colazione_ at midday and _pranzo_ at eight, or even half-past, what an
+abysm of time! Of course, the Tarantine never reads; the only bookshop
+I could discover made a poorer display than even that at Cosenza--it
+was not truly a bookseller's at all, but a fancy stationer's. How the
+women spend their lives one may vainly conjecture. Only on Sunday did I
+see a few of them about the street; they walked to and from Mass, with
+eyes on the ground, and all the better-dressed of them wore black.
+
+When the weather fell calm again, and there was pleasure in walking, I
+chanced upon a trace of the old civilization which interested me more
+than objects ranged in a museum. Rambling eastward along the outer
+shore, in the wilderness which begins as soon as the town has
+disappeared, I came to a spot as uninviting as could be imagined, great
+mounds of dry rubbish, evidently deposited here by the dust-carts of
+Taranto; luckily, I continued my walk beyond this obstacle, and after a
+while became aware that I had entered upon a road--a short piece of
+well-marked road, which began and ended in the mere waste. A moment's
+examination, and I saw that it was no modern by-way. The track was
+clean-cut in living rock, its smooth, hard surface lined with two
+parallel ruts nearly a foot deep; it extended for some twenty yards
+without a break, and further on I discovered less perfect bits. Here,
+manifestly, was the seaside approach to Tarentum, to Taras, perhaps to
+the Phoenician city which came before them. Ages must have passed since
+vehicles used this way; the modern high road is at some distance
+inland, and one sees at a glance that this witness of ancient traffic
+has remained by Time's sufferance in a desert region. Wonderful was the
+preservation of the surface: the angles at the sides, where the road
+had been cut down a little below the rock-level, were sharp and clean
+as if carved yesterday, and the profound ruts, worn, perhaps, before
+Rome had come to her power, showed the grinding of wheels with strange
+distinctness. From this point there is an admirable view of Taranto,
+the sea, and the mountains behind.
+
+Of the ancient town there remains hardly anything worthy of being
+called a ruin. Near the shore, however, one can see a few remnants of a
+theatre--perhaps that theatre where the Tarentines were sitting when
+they saw Roman galleys, in scorn of treaty, sailing up the Gulf.
+
+My last evenings were brightened by very beautiful sunsets; one in
+particular remains with me; I watched it for an hour or more from the
+terrace-road of the island town. An exquisite after-glow seemed as if
+it would never pass away. Above thin, grey clouds stretching along the
+horizon a purple flush melted insensibly into the dark blue of the
+zenith. Eastward the sky was piled with lurid rack, sullen-tinted folds
+edged with the hue of sulphur. The sea had a strange aspect, curved
+tracts of pale blue lying motionless upon a dark expanse rippled by the
+wind. Below me, as I leaned on the sea-wall, a fisherman's boat crept
+duskily along the rocks, a splash of oars soft-sounding in the
+stillness. I looked to the far Calabrian hills, now scarce
+distinguishable from horizon cloud, and wondered what chances might
+await me in the unknown scenes of my further travel.
+
+The long shore of the Ionian Sea suggested many a halting-place. Best
+of all, I should have liked to swing a wallet on my shoulder and make
+the whole journey on foot; but this for many reasons was impossible. I
+could only mark points of the railway where some sort of food or
+lodging might be hoped for, and the first of these stoppages was
+Metaponto.
+
+Official time-bills of the month marked a train for Metaponto at 4.56
+A.M., and this I decided to take, as it seemed probable that I might
+find a stay of some hours sufficient, and so be able to resume my
+journey before night. I asked the waiter to call me at a quarter to
+four. In the middle of the night (as it seemed to me) I was aroused by
+a knocking, and the waiter's voice called to me that, if I wished to
+leave early for Metaponto, I had better get up at once, as the
+departure of the train had been changed to 4.15--it was now half-past
+three. There ensued an argument, sustained, on my side, rather by the
+desire to stay in bed this cold morning than by any faith in the
+reasonableness of the railway company. There must be a mistake! The
+_orario_ for the month gave 4.56, and how could the time of a train be
+changed without public notice? Changed it was, insisted the waiter; it
+had happened a few days ago, and they had only heard of it at the hotel
+this very morning. Angry and uncomfortable, I got my clothes on, and
+drove to the station, where I found that a sudden change in the
+time-table, without any regard for persons relying upon the official
+guide, was taken as a matter of course. In chilly darkness I bade
+farewell to Taranto.
+
+At a little after six, when palest dawn was shimmering on the sea, I
+found myself at Metaponto, with no possibility of doing anything for a
+couple of hours. Metaponto is a railway station, that and nothing more,
+and, as a station also calls itself a hotel, I straightway asked for a
+room, and there dozed until sunshine improved my humour and stirred my
+appetite. The guidebook had assured me of two things: that a vehicle
+could be had here for surveying the district, and that, under cover
+behind the station, one would find a little collection of antiquities
+unearthed hereabout. On inquiry, I found that no vehicle, and no animal
+capable of being ridden, existed at Metaponto; also that the little
+museum had been transferred to Naples. It did not pay to keep the
+horse, they told me; a stranger asked for it only "once in a hundred
+years." However, a lad was forthcoming who would guide me to the ruins.
+I breakfasted (the only thing tolerable being the wine), and we set
+forth.
+
+It was a walk of some two or three miles, by a cart road, through
+fields just being ploughed for grain. All about lay a level or slightly
+rolling country, which in winter becomes a wilderness of mud; dry
+traces of vast slough and occasional stagnant pools showed what the
+state of things would be a couple of months hence. The properties were
+divided by hedges of agave--huge growths, grandly curving their
+sword-pointed leaves. Its companion, the spiny cactus, writhed here and
+there among juniper bushes and tamarisks. Along the wayside rose tall,
+dead thistles, white with age, their great cluster of seed-vessels
+showing how fine the flower had been. Above our heads, peewits were
+wheeling and crying, and lizards swarmed on the hard, cracked ground.
+
+We passed a few ploughmen, with white oxen yoked to labour. Ploughing
+was a fit sight at Metapontum, famous of old for the richness of its
+soil; in token whereof the city dedicated at Delphi its famous Golden
+Sheaf. It is all that remains of life on this part of the coast; the
+city had sunk into ruin before the Christian era, and was never
+rebuilt. Later, the shore was too dangerous for habitation. Of all the
+cities upon the Ionian Sea, only Tarentum and Croton continued to exist
+through the Middle Ages, for they alone occupied a position strong for
+defence against pirates and invaders. A memory of the Saracen wars
+lingers in the name borne by the one important relic of Metapontum, the
+_Tavola de' Paladini_; to this my guide was conducting me.
+
+It is the ruin of a temple to an unknown god, which stood at some
+distance north of the ancient city; two parallel rows of columns, ten
+on one side, five on the other, with architrave all but entire, and a
+basement shattered. The fine Doric capitals are well preserved; the
+pillars themselves, crumbling under the tooth of time, seem to support
+with difficulty their noble heads. This monument must formerly have
+been very impressive amid the wide landscape; but, a few years ago, for
+protection against peasant depredators, a wall ten feet high was built
+close around the columns, so that no good view of them is any longer
+obtainable. To the enclosure admission is obtained through an iron
+gateway with a lock. I may add, as a picturesque detail, that the lock
+has long been useless; my guide simply pushed the gate open. Thus, the
+ugly wall serves no purpose whatever save to detract from the beauty of
+the scene.
+
+Vegetation is thick within the temple precincts; a flowering rose bush
+made contrast of its fresh and graceful loveliness with the age-worn
+strength of these great carved stones. About their base grew
+luxuriantly a plant which turned my thoughts for a moment to rural
+England, the round-leaved pennywort. As I lingered here, there stirred
+in me something of that deep emotion which I felt years ago amid the
+temples of Paestum. Of course, this obstructed fragment holds no claim
+to comparison with Paestum's unique glory, but here, as there, one is
+possessed by the pathos of immemorial desolation; amid a silence which
+the voice has no power to break, nature's eternal vitality triumphs
+over the greatness of forgotten men.
+
+At a distance of some three miles from this temple there lies a little
+lake, or a large pond, which would empty itself into the sea but for a
+piled barrier of sand and shingle. This was the harbour of Metapontum.
+
+I passed the day in rambling and idling, and returned for a meal at the
+station just before train-time. The weather could not have been more
+enjoyable; a soft breeze and cloudless blue. For the last half-hour I
+lay in a hidden corner of the eucalyptus grove--trying to shape in
+fancy some figure of old Pythagoras. He died here (says story) in 497
+B.C.--broken-hearted at the failure of his efforts to make mankind
+gentle and reasonable. In 1897 A.D. that hope had not come much nearer
+to its realization. Italians are yet familiar with the name of the
+philosopher, for it is attached to the multiplication table, which they
+call _tavola pitagorica_. What, in truth, do we know of him? He is a
+type of aspiring humanity; a sweet and noble figure, moving as a dim
+radiance through legendary Hellas. The English reader hears his name
+with a smile, recalling only the mention of him, in mellow mirth, by
+England's greatest spirit. "What is the opinion of Pythagoras
+concerning wild fowl?" Whereto replies the much-offended Malvolio:
+"That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird." He of the
+crossed garters disdains such fantasy. "I think nobly of the soul, and
+no way approve his opinion."
+
+I took my ticket for Cotrone, which once was Croton. At Croton,
+Pythagoras enjoyed his moment's triumph, ruling men to their own
+behoof. At Croton grew up a school of medicine which glorified Magna
+Graecia. "Healthier than Croton," said a proverb; for the spot was
+unsurpassed in salubrity; beauty and strength distinguished its
+inhabitants, who boasted their champion Milon. After the fall of
+Sybaris, Croton became so populous that its walls encircled twelve
+miles. Hither came Zeuxis, to adorn with paintings the great temple of
+Hera on the Lacinian promontory; here he made his picture of Helen,
+with models chosen from the loveliest maidens of the city. I was
+light-hearted with curious anticipation as I entered the train for
+Cotrone.
+
+While daylight lasted, the moving landscape held me attentive. This
+part of the coast is more varied, more impressive, than between Taranto
+and Metaponto. For the most part a shaggy wilderness, the ground lies
+in strangely broken undulations, much hidden with shrub and tangled
+boscage. At the falling of dusk we passed a thickly-wooded tract large
+enough to be called a forest; the great trees looked hoary with age,
+and amid a jungle of undergrowth, myrtle and lentisk, arbutus and
+oleander, lay green marshes, dull deep pools, sluggish streams. A spell
+which was half fear fell upon the imagination; never till now had I
+known an enchanted wood. Nothing human could wander in those pathless
+shades, by those dead waters. It was the very approach to the world of
+spirits; over this woodland, seen on the verge of twilight, brooded a
+silent awe, such as Dante knew in his _selva oscura_.
+
+Of a sudden the dense foliage was cleft; there opened a broad alley
+between drooping boughs, and in the deep hollow, bordered with sand and
+stones, a flood rolled eastward. This river is now called Sinno; it was
+the ancient Sins, whereon stood the city of the same name. In the
+seventh century before Christ, Sins was lauded as the richest city in
+the world; for luxury it outrivalled Sybaris.
+
+I had recently been reading Lenormant's description of the costumes of
+Magna Graecia prior to the Persian wars. Sins, a colony from Ionia,
+still kept its Oriental style of dress. Picture a man in a long,
+close-clinging tunic which descended to his feet, either of fine linen,
+starched and pleated, or of wool, falling foldless, enriched with
+embroidery and adorned with bands of gay-coloured geometric patterns;
+over this a wrap (one may say) of thick wool, tight round the bust and
+leaving the right arm uncovered, or else a more ample garment,
+elaborately decorated like the long tunic. Complete the picture with a
+head ornately dressed, on the brow a fringe of ringlets; the long hair
+behind held together by gold wire spirally wound; above, a crowning
+fillet, with a jewel set in the front; the beard cut to a point, and
+the upper lip shaven. You behold the citizen of these Hellenic colonies
+in their stately prime.
+
+Somewhere in that enchanted forest, where the wild vine trails from
+tree to tree, where birds and creatures of the marshy solitude haunt
+their ancient home, lie buried the stones of Sins.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+COTRONE
+
+
+Night hid from me the scenes that followed. Darkling, I passed again
+through the station called Sybaris, and on and on by the sea-shore, the
+sound of breakers often audible. From time to time I discerned black
+mountain masses against a patch of grey sky, or caught a glimpse of
+blanching wave, or felt my fancy thrill as a stray gleam from the
+engine fire revealed for a moment another trackless wood. Often the
+hollow rumbling of the train told me that we were crossing a bridge;
+the stream beneath it bore, perhaps, a name in legend or in history. A
+wind was rising; at the dim little stations I heard it moan and buffet,
+and my carriage, where all through the journey I sat alone, seemed the
+more comfortable. Rain began to fall, and when, about ten o'clock, I
+alighted at Cotrone, the night was loud with storm.
+
+There was but one vehicle at the station, a shabby, creaking,
+mud-plastered sort of coach, into which I bundled together with two
+travellers of the kind called commercial--almost the only species of
+traveller I came across during these southern wanderings. A long time
+was spent in stowing freightage which, after all, amounted to very
+little; twice, thrice, four, and perhaps five times did we make a false
+start, followed by uproarious vociferation, and a jerk which tumbled us
+passengers all together. The gentlemen of commerce rose to wild
+excitement, and roundly abused the driver; as soon as we really
+started, their wrath changed to boisterous gaiety. On we rolled,
+pitching and tossing, mid darkness and tempest, until, through the
+broken window, a sorry illumination of oil-lamps showed us one side of
+a colonnaded street. "Bologna! Bologna!" cried my companions, mocking
+at this feeble reminiscence of their fat northern town. The next moment
+we pulled up, our bruised bodies colliding vigorously for the last
+time; it was the _Albergo Concordia_.
+
+A dark stone staircase, yawning under the colonnade; on the first
+landing an open doorway; within, a long corridor, doors of bedrooms on
+either side, and in a room at the far end a glimpse of a tablecloth.
+This was the hotel, the whole of it. As soon as I grasped the
+situation, it was clear to me why my fellow travellers had entered with
+a rush and flung themselves into rooms; there might, perchance, be only
+one or two chambers vacant, and I knew already that Cotrone offered no
+other decent harbourage. Happily I did not suffer for my lack of
+experience; after trying one or two doors in vain, I found a
+sleeping-place which seemed to be unoccupied, and straightway took
+possession of it. No one appeared to receive the arriving guests.
+Feeling very hungry, I went into the room at the end of the passage,
+where I had seen a tablecloth; a wretched lamp burned on the wall, but
+only after knocking, stamping, and calling did I attract attention;
+then issued from some mysterious region a stout, slatternly, sleepy
+woman, who seemed surprised at my demand for food, but at length
+complied with it. I was to have better acquaintance with my hostess of
+the _Concordia_ before I quitted Cotrone.
+
+Next morning the wind still blew, but the rain was over; I could begin
+my rambles. Like the old town of Taranto, Cotrone occupies the site of
+the ancient acropolis, a little headland jutting into the sea; above,
+and in front of the town itself, stands the castle built by Charles V.,
+with immense battlements looking over the harbour. From a road skirting
+the shore around the base of the fortress one views a wide bay, bounded
+to the north by the dark flanks of Sila (I was in sight of the Black
+Mountain once more), and southwards by a long low promontory, its level
+slowly declining to the far-off point where it ends amid the waves. On
+this Cape I fixed my eyes, straining them until it seemed to me that I
+distinguished something, a jutting speck against the sky, at its
+farthest point. Then I used my field-glass, and at once the doubtful
+speck became a clearly visible projection, much like a lighthouse. It
+is a Doric column, some five-and-twenty feet high; the one pillar that
+remains of the great temple of Hera, renowned through all the Hellenic
+world, and sacred still when the goddess had for centuries borne a
+Latin name. "Colonna" is the ordinary name of the Cape; but it is also
+known as _Capo di Nau_, a name which preserves the Greek word _naos_
+(temple).
+
+I planned for the morrow a visit to this spot, which is best reached by
+sea. To-day great breakers were rolling upon the strand, and all the
+blue of the bay was dashed with white foam; another night would, I
+hoped, bring calm, and then the voyage! _Dis aliter visum_.
+
+A little fleet of sailing vessels and coasting steamers had taken
+refuge within the harbour, which is protected by a great mole. A good
+haven; the only one, indeed, between Taranto and Reggio, but it grieves
+one to remember that the mighty blocks built into the sea-barrier came
+from that fallen temple. We are told that as late as the sixteenth
+century the building remained all but perfect, with eight-and-forty
+pillars, rising there above the Ionian Sea; a guide to sailors, even as
+when AEneas marked it on his storm-tossed galley. Then it was assailed,
+cast down, ravaged by a Bishop of Cotrone, one Antonio Lucifero, to
+build his episcopal palace. Nearly three hundred years later, after the
+terrible earthquake of 1783, Cotrone strengthened her harbour with the
+great stones of the temple basement. It was a more legitimate pillage.
+
+Driven inland by the gale, I wandered among low hills which overlook
+the town. Their aspect is very strange, for they consist entirely--on
+the surface, at all events--of a yellowish-grey mud, dried hard, and as
+bare as the high road. A few yellow hawkweeds, a few camomiles, grew in
+hollows here and there; but of grass not a blade. It is easy to make a
+model of these Crotonian hills. Shape a solid mound of hard-pressed
+sand, and then, from the height of a foot or two, let water trickle
+down upon it; the perpendicular ridges and furrows thus formed upon the
+miniature hill represent exactly what I saw here on a larger scale.
+Moreover, all the face of the ground is minutely cracked and wrinkled;
+a square foot includes an incalculable multitude of such meshes.
+Evidently this is the work of hot sun on moisture; but when was it
+done? For they tell me that it rains very little at Cotrone, and only a
+deluge could moisten this iron soil. Here and there I came upon yet
+more striking evidence of waterpower; great holes on the hillside,
+generally funnel-shaped, and often deep enough to be dangerous to the
+careless walker. The hills are round-topped, and parted one from
+another by gully or ravine, shaped, one cannot but think, by furious
+torrents. A desolate landscape, and scarcely bettered when one turned
+to look over the level which spreads north of the town; one discovers
+patches of foliage, indeed, the dark perennial verdure of the south;
+but no kindly herb clothes the soil. In springtime, it seems, there is
+a growth of grass, very brief, but luxuriant. That can only be on the
+lower ground; these furrowed heights declare a perpetual sterility.
+
+What has become of the ruins of Croton? This squalid little town of
+to-day has nothing left from antiquity. Yet a city bounded with a wall
+of twelve miles circumference is not easily swept from the face of the
+earth. Bishop Lucifer, wanting stones for his palace, had to go as far
+as the Cape Colonna; then, as now, no block of Croton remained. Nearly
+two hundred years before Christ the place was forsaken. Rome colonized
+it anew, and it recovered an obscure life as a place of embarkation for
+Greece, its houses occupying only the rock of the ancient citadel. Were
+there at that date any remnants of the great Greek city?--still great
+only two centuries before. Did all go to the building of Roman
+dwellings and temples and walls, which since have crumbled or been
+buried?
+
+We are told that the river AEsarus flowed through the heart of the city
+at its prime. I looked over the plain, and yonder, towards the distant
+railway station, I descried a green track, the course of the all but
+stagnant and wholly pestilential stream, still called Esaro. Near its
+marshy mouth are wide orange orchards. Could one but see in vision the
+harbour, the streets, the vast encompassing wall! From the eminence
+where I stood, how many a friend and foe of Croton has looked down upon
+its shining ways, peopled with strength and beauty and wisdom! Here
+Pythagoras may have walked, glancing afar at the Lacinian sanctuary,
+then new built.
+
+Lenormant is eloquent on the orange groves of Cotrone. In order to
+visit them, permission was necessary, and presently I made my way to
+the town hall, to speak with the Sindaco (Mayor) and request his aid in
+this matter. Without difficulty I was admitted. In a well-furnished
+office sat two stout gentlemen, smoking cigars, very much at their
+ease; the Sindaco bade me take a chair, and scrutinized me with
+doubtful curiosity as I declared my business. Yes, to be sure he could
+admit me to see his own orchard; but why did I wish to see it? My reply
+that I had no interest save in the natural beauty of the place did not
+convince him; he saw in me a speculator of some kind. That was natural
+enough. In all the south of Italy, money is the one subject of men's
+thoughts; intellectual life does not exist; there is little even of
+what we should call common education. Those who have wealth cling to it
+fiercely; the majority have neither time nor inclination to occupy
+themselves with anything but the earning of a livelihood which for
+multitudes signifies the bare appeasing of hunger.
+
+Seeing the Sindaco's embarrassment, his portly friend began to question
+me; good-humouredly enough, but in such a fat bubbling voice (made more
+indistinct by the cigar he kept in his mouth) that with difficulty I
+understood him. What was I doing at Cotrone? I endeavoured to explain
+that Cotrone greatly interested me. Ha! Cotrone interested me? Really?
+Now what did I find interesting at Cotrone? I spoke of historic
+associations. The Sindaco and his friend exchanged glances, smiled in a
+puzzled, tolerant, half-pitying way, and decided that my request might
+be granted. In another minute I withdrew, carrying half a sheet of
+note-paper on which were scrawled in pencil a few words, followed by
+the proud signature "Berlinghieri." When I had deciphered the scrawl, I
+found it was an injunction to allow me to view a certain estate "_senza
+nulla toccare_"--without touching anything. So a doubt still lingered
+in the dignitary's mind.
+
+Cotrone has no vehicle plying for hire--save that in which I arrived at
+the hotel. I had to walk in search of the orange orchard, all along the
+straight dusty road leading to the station. For a considerable distance
+this road is bordered on both sides by warehouses of singular
+appearance. They have only a ground floor, and the front wall is not
+more than ten feet high, but their low roofs, sloping to the ridge at
+an angle of about thirty degrees, cover a great space. The windows are
+strongly barred, and the doors show immense padlocks of elaborate
+construction. The goods warehoused here are chiefly wine and oil,
+oranges and liquorice. (A great deal of liquorice grows around the
+southern gulf.) At certain moments, indicated by the markets at home or
+abroad, these stores are conveyed to the harbour, and shipped away. For
+the greater part of the year the houses stand as I saw them, locked,
+barred, and forsaken: a street where any sign of life is exceptional;
+an odd suggestion of the English Sunday in a land that knows not such
+observance.
+
+Crossing the Esaro, I lingered on the bridge to gaze at its green,
+muddy water, not visibly flowing at all. The high reeds which half
+concealed it carried my thoughts back to the Galaesus. But the
+comparison is all in favour of the Tarentine stream. Here one could
+feel nothing but a comfortless melancholy; the scene is too squalid,
+the degradation too complete.
+
+Of course, no one looked at the _permesso_ with which I presented
+myself at the entrance to the orchard. From a tumbling house, which we
+should call the lodge, came forth (after much shouting on my part) an
+aged woman, who laughed at the idea that she should be asked to read
+anything, and bade me walk wherever I liked. I strayed at pleasure,
+meeting only a lean dog, which ran fearfully away. The plantation was
+very picturesque; orange trees by no means occupied all the ground, but
+mingled with pomegranates and tamarisks and many evergreen shrubs of
+which I knew not the name; whilst here and there soared a magnificent
+stone pine. The walks were bordered with giant cactus, now and again so
+fantastic in their growth that I stood to wonder; and in an open space
+upon the bank of the Esaro (which stagnates through the orchard) rose a
+majestic palm, its leaves stirring heavily in the wind which swept
+above. Picturesque, abundantly; but these beautiful tree-names, which
+waft a perfume of romance, are like to convey a false impression to
+readers who have never seen the far south; it is natural to think of
+lovely nooks, where one might lie down to rest and dream; there comes a
+vision of soft turf under the golden-fruited boughs--"places of
+nestling green for poets made." Alas! the soil is bare and lumpy as a
+ploughed field, and all the leafage that hangs low is thick with a
+clayey dust. One cannot rest or loiter or drowse; no spot in all the
+groves where by any possibility one could sit down. After rambling as
+long as I chose, I found that a view of the orchard from outside was
+more striking than the picture amid the trees themselves. _Senza nulla
+toccare_, I went my way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+FACES BY THE WAY
+
+
+The wind could not roar itself out. Through the night it kept awaking
+me, and on the morrow I found a sea foamier than ever; impossible to
+reach the Colonna by boat, and almost so, I was assured, to make the
+journey by land in such weather as this. Perforce I waited.
+
+A cloudless sky; broad sunshine, warm as in an English summer; but the
+roaring _tramontana_ was disagreeably chill. No weather could be more
+perilous to health. The people of Cotrone, those few of them who did
+not stay at home or shelter in the porticoes, went about heavily
+cloaked, and I wondered at their ability to wear such garments under so
+hot a sun. Theoretically aware of the danger I was running, but, in
+fact, thinking little about it, I braved the wind and the sunshine all
+day long; my sketch-book gained by it, and my store of memories. First
+of all, I looked into the Cathedral, an ugly edifice, as uninteresting
+within as without. Like all the churches in Calabria, it is
+white-washed from door to altar, pillars no less than walls--a cold and
+depressing interior. I could see no picture of the least merit; one, a
+figure of Christ with hideous wounds, was well-nigh as repulsive as
+painting could be. This vile realism seems to indicate Spanish
+influence. There is a miniature copy in bronze of the statue of the
+chief Apostle in St. Peter's at Rome, and beneath it an inscription
+making known to the faithful that, by order of Leo XIII. in 1896, an
+Indulgence of three hundred days is granted to whosoever kisses the
+bronze toe and says a prayer. Familiar enough this unpretentious
+announcement, yet it never fails of its little shock to the heretic
+mind. Whilst I was standing near, a peasant went through the mystic
+rite; to judge from his poor malaria-stricken countenance, he prayed
+very earnestly, and I hope his Indulgence benefited him. Probably he
+repeated a mere formula learnt by heart. I wished he could have prayed
+spontaneously for three hundred days of wholesome and sufficient food,
+and for as many years of honest, capable government in his
+heavy-burdened country.
+
+When travelling, I always visit the burial-ground; I like to see how a
+people commemorates its dead, for tombstones have much significance.
+The cemetery of Cotrone lies by the sea-shore, at some distance beyond
+the port, far away from habitations; a bare hillside looks down upon
+its graves, and the road which goes by is that leading to Cape Colonna.
+On the way I passed a little ruined church, shattered, I was told, by
+an earthquake three years before; its lonely position made it
+interesting, and the cupola of coloured tiles (like that of the
+Cathedral at Amalfi) remained intact, a bright spot against the grey
+hills behind. A high enclosing wall signalled the cemetery; I rang a
+bell at the gate and was admitted by a man of behaviour and language
+much more refined than is common among the people of this region; I
+felt sorry, indeed, that I had not found him seated in the Sindaco's
+chair that morning. But as guide to the burial-ground he was
+delightful. Nine years, he told me, he had held the post of custodian,
+in which time, working with his own hands, and unaided, he had turned
+the enclosure from a wretched wilderness into a beautiful garden.
+Unaffectedly I admired the results of his labour, and my praise
+rejoiced him greatly. He specially requested me to observe the
+geraniums; there were ten species, many of them of extraordinary size
+and with magnificent blossoms. Roses I saw, too, in great abundance;
+and tall snapdragons, and bushes of rosemary, and many flowers unknown
+to me. As our talk proceeded the gardener gave me a little light on his
+own history; formerly he was valet to a gentleman of Cotrone, with whom
+he had travelled far and wide over Europe; yes, even to London, of
+which he spoke with expressively wide eyes, and equally expressive
+shaking of the head. That any one should journey from Calabria to
+England seemed to him intelligible enough; but he marvelled that I had
+thought it worth while to come from England to Calabria. Very rarely
+indeed could he show his garden to one from a far-off country; no, the
+place was too poor, accommodation too rough; there needed a certain
+courage, and he laughed, again shaking his head.
+
+The ordinary graves were marked with a small wooden cross; where a
+head-stone had been raised, it generally presented a skull and crossed
+bones. Round the enclosure stood a number of mortuary chapels, gloomy
+and ugly. An exception to this dull magnificence in death was a marble
+slab, newly set against the wall, in memory of a Lucifero--one of that
+family, still eminent, to which belonged the sacrilegious bishop. The
+design was a good imitation of those noble sepulchral tablets which
+abound in the museum at Athens; a figure taking leave of others as if
+going on a journey. The Lucifers had shown good taste in their choice
+of the old Greek symbol; no better adornment of a tomb has ever been
+devised, nor one that is half so moving. At the foot of the slab was
+carved a little owl (civetta), a bird, my friend informed me, very
+common about here.
+
+When I took leave, the kindly fellow gave me a large bunch of flowers,
+carefully culled, with many regrets that the lateness of the season
+forbade his offering choicer blossoms. His simple good-nature and
+intelligence greatly won upon me. I like to think of him as still
+quietly happy amid his garden walls, tending flowers that grow over the
+dead at Cotrone.
+
+On my way back again to the town, I took a nearer view of the ruined
+little church, and, whilst I was so engaged, two lads driving a herd of
+goats stopped to look at me. As I came out into the road again, the
+younger of these modestly approached and begged me to give him a
+flower--by choice, a rose. I did so, much to his satisfaction and no
+less to mine; it was a pleasant thing to find a wayside lad asking for
+anything but soldi. The Calabrians, however, are distinguished by their
+self-respect; they contrast remarkedly with the natives of the
+Neapolitan district. Presently, I saw that the boy's elder companion
+had appropriated the flower, which he kept at his nose as he plodded
+along; after useless remonstrance, the other drew near to me again,
+shamefaced; would I make him another present; not a rose this time, he
+would not venture to ask it, but "_questo piccolo_"; and he pointed to
+a sprig of geranium. There was a grace about the lad which led me to
+talk to him, though I found his dialect very difficult. Seeing us on
+good terms, the elder boy drew near, and at once asked a puzzling
+question: When was the ruined church on the hillside to be rebuilt? I
+answered, of course, that I knew nothing about it, but this reply was
+taken as merely evasive; in a minute or two the lad again questioned
+me. Was the rebuilding to be next year? Then I began to understand;
+having seen me examining the ruins, the boy took it for granted that I
+was an architect here on business, and I don't think I succeeded in
+setting him right. When he had said good-bye he turned to look after me
+with a mischievous smile, as much as to say that I had naturally
+refused to talk to him about so important a matter as the building of a
+church, but he was not to be deceived.
+
+The common type of face at Cotrone is coarse and bumpkinish; ruder, it
+seemed to me, than faces seen at any point of my journey hitherto. A
+photographer had hung out a lot of portraits, and it was a hideous
+exhibition; some of the visages attained an incredible degree of vulgar
+ugliness. This in the town which still bears the name of Croton. The
+people are all more or less unhealthy; one meets peasants horribly
+disfigured with life-long malaria. There is an agreeable cordiality in
+the middle classes; business men from whom I sought casual information,
+even if we only exchanged a few words in the street, shook hands with
+me at parting. I found no one who had much good to say of his native
+place; every one complained of a lack of water. Indeed, Cotrone has as
+good as no water supply. One or two wells I saw, jealously guarded: the
+water they yield is not really fit for drinking, and people who can
+afford it purchase water which comes from a distance in earthenware
+jars. One of these jars I had found in my bedroom; its secure corking
+much puzzled me until I made inquiries. The river Esaro is all but
+useless for any purpose, and as no other stream flows in the
+neighbourhood, Cotrone's washerwomen take their work down to the beach;
+even during the gale I saw them washing there in pools which they had
+made to hold the sea water; now and then one of them ventured into the
+surf, wading with legs of limitless nudity and plunging linen as the
+waves broke about her.
+
+It was unfortunate that I brought no letter of introduction to Cotrone;
+I should much have liked to visit one of the better houses. Well-to-do
+people live here, and I was told that, in fine weather, "at least half
+a dozen" private carriages might be seen making the fashionable drive
+on the Strada Regina Margherita. But it is not easy to imagine luxury
+or refinement in these dreary, close-packed streets. Judging from our
+table at the _Concordia_, the town is miserably provisioned; the dishes
+were poor and monotonous and infamously cooked. Almost the only
+palatable thing offered was an enormous radish. Such radishes I never
+saw: they were from six to eight inches long, and more than an inch
+thick, at the same time thoroughly crisp and sweet. The wine of the
+country had nothing to recommend it. It was very heady, and smacked of
+drugs rather than of grape juice.
+
+But men must eat, and the _Concordia_, being the only restaurant, daily
+entertained several citizens, besides guests staying in the house. One
+of these visitants excited my curiosity; he was a middle-aged man of
+austere countenance; shabby in attire, but with the bearing of one
+accustomed to command. Arriving always at exactly the same moment, he
+seated himself in his accustomed place, drew his hat over his brows,
+and began to munch bread. No word did I hear him speak. As soon as he
+appeared in the doorway, the waiter called out, with respectful hurry,
+"Don Ferdinando!" and in a minute his first course was served. Bent
+like a hunchback over the table, his hat dropping ever lower, until it
+almost hid his eyes, the Don ate voraciously. His dishes seemed to be
+always the same, and as soon as he had finished the last mouthful, he
+rose and strode from the room.
+
+Don is a common title of respect in Southern Italy; it dates of course
+from the time of Spanish rule. At a favourable moment I ventured to
+inquire of the waiter who Don Ferdinando might be; the only answer,
+given with extreme discretion, was "A proprietor." If in easy
+circumstances, the Don must have been miserly, his diet was wretched
+beyond description. And in the manner of his feeding he differed
+strangely from the ordinary Italian who frequents restaurants.
+Wonderful to observe, the representative diner. He always seems to know
+exactly what his appetite demands; he addresses the waiter in a
+preliminary discourse, sketching out his meal, and then proceeds to
+fill in the minutiae. If he orders a common dish, he describes with
+exquisite detail how it is to be prepared; in demanding something out
+of the way he glows with culinary enthusiasm. An ordinary bill of fare
+never satisfies him; he plays variations upon the theme suggested,
+divides or combines, introduces novelties of the most unexpected kind.
+As a rule, he eats enormously (I speak only of dinner), a piled dish of
+macaroni is but the prelude to his meal, a whetting of his appetite.
+Throughout he grumbles, nothing is quite as it should be, and when the
+bill is presented he grumbles still more vigorously, seldom paying the
+sum as it stands. He rarely appears content with his entertainment, and
+often indulges in unbounded abuse of those who serve him. These
+characteristics, which I have noted more or less in every part of
+Italy, were strongly illustrated at the _Concordia_. In general, they
+consist with a fundamental good humour, but at Cotrone the tone of the
+dining-room was decidedly morose. One man--he seemed to be a sort of
+clerk--came only to quarrel. I am convinced that he ordered things
+which he knew the people could not cook just for the sake of reviling
+their handiwork when it was presented. Therewith he spent incredibly
+small sums; after growling and remonstrating and eating for more than
+an hour, his bill would amount to seventy or eighty centesimi, wine
+included. Every day he threatened to withdraw his custom; every day he
+sent for the landlady, pointed out to her how vilely he was treated,
+and asked how she could expect him to recommend the _Concordia_ to his
+acquaintances. On one occasion I saw him push away a plate of
+something, plant his elbows on the table, and hide his face in his
+hands; thus he sat for ten minutes, an image of indignant misery, and
+when at last his countenance was again visible, it showed traces of
+tears.
+
+I dwell upon the question of food because it was on this day that I
+began to feel a loss of appetite and found myself disgusted with the
+dishes set before me. In ordinary health I have the happiest
+qualification of the traveller, an ability to eat and enjoy the
+familiar dishes of any quasi-civilized country; it was a bad sign when
+I grew fastidious. After a mere pretence of dinner, I lay down in my
+room to rest and read. But I could do neither; it grew plain to me that
+I was feverish. Through a sleepless night, the fever manifestly
+increasing, I wished that illness had fallen on me anywhere rather than
+at Cotrone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR
+
+
+In the morning I arose as usual, though with difficulty. I tried to
+persuade myself that I was merely suffering from a violent attack of
+dyspepsia, the natural result of _Concordia_ diet. When the waiter
+brought my breakfast I regarded it with resentful eye, feeling for the
+moment very much like my grumbling acquaintance of the dinner hour. It
+may be as well to explain that the breakfast consisted of very bad
+coffee, with goat's milk, hard, coarse bread, and goat's butter, which
+tasted exactly like indifferent lard. The so-called butter, by a
+strange custom of Cotrone, was served in the emptied rind of a
+spherical cheese--the small _caccio cavallo_, horse cheese, which one
+sees everywhere in the South. I should not have liked to inquire where,
+how, when, or by whom the substance of the cheese had been consumed.
+Possibly this receptacle is supposed to communicate a subtle flavour to
+the butter; I only know that, even to a healthy palate, the stuff was
+rather horrible. Cow's milk could be obtained in very small quantities,
+but it was of evil flavour; butter, in the septentrional sense of the
+word, did not exist.
+
+It surprises me to remember that I went out, walked down to the shore,
+and watched the great waves breaking over the harbour mole. There was a
+lull in the storm, but as yet no sign of improving weather; clouds
+drove swiftly across a lowering sky. My eyes turned to the Lacinian
+promontory, dark upon the turbid sea. Should I ever stand by the sacred
+column? It seemed to me hopelessly remote; the voyage an impossible
+effort.
+
+I talked with a man, of whom I remember nothing but his piercing eyes
+steadily fixed upon me; he said there had been a wreck in the night, a
+ship carrying live pigs had gone to pieces, and the shore was sprinkled
+with porcine corpses.
+
+Presently I found myself back at the _Concordia_, not knowing exactly
+how I had returned. The dyspepsia--I clung to this hypothesis--was
+growing so violent that I had difficulty in breathing: before long I
+found it impossible to stand.
+
+My hostess was summoned, and she told me that Cotrone had "a great
+physician," by name "Dr. Scurco." Translating this name from dialect
+into Italian, I presumed that the physician's real name was Sculco, and
+this proved to be the case. Dr. Riccardo Sculco was a youngish man,
+with an open, friendly countenance. At once I liked him. After an
+examination, of which I quite understood the result, he remarked in his
+amiable, airy manner that I had "a touch of rheumatism"; as a simple
+matter of precaution, I had better go to bed for the rest of the day,
+and, just for the form of the thing, he would send some medicine.
+Having listened to this with as pleasant a smile as I could command, I
+caught the Doctor's eye, and asked quietly, "Is there much congestion?"
+His manner at once changed; he became businesslike and confidential.
+The right lung; yes, the right lung. Mustn't worry; get to bed and take
+my quinine in _dosi forti_, and he would look in again at night.
+
+The second visit I but dimly recollect. There was a colloquy between
+the Doctor and my hostess, and the word _cataplasma_ sounded
+repeatedly; also I heard again "_dosi forti_." The night that followed
+was perhaps the most horrible I ever passed. Crushed with a sense of
+uttermost fatigue, I could get no rest. From time to time a sort of
+doze crept upon me, and I said to myself, "Now I shall sleep"; but on
+the very edge of slumber, at the moment when I was falling into
+oblivion, a hand seemed to pluck me back into consciousness. In the
+same instant there gleamed before my eyes a little circle of fire,
+which blazed and expanded into immensity, until its many-coloured glare
+beat upon my brain and thrilled me with torture. No sooner was the
+intolerable light extinguished than I burst into a cold sweat; an icy
+river poured about me; I shook, and my teeth chattered, and so for some
+minutes I lay in anguish, until the heat of fever re-asserted itself,
+and I began once more to toss and roll. A score of times was this
+torment repeated. The sense of personal agency forbidding me to sleep
+grew so strong that I waited in angry dread for that shock which
+aroused me; I felt myself haunted by a malevolent power, and rebelled
+against its cruelty.
+
+Through the night no one visited me. At eight in the morning a knock
+sounded at the door, and there entered the waiter, carrying a tray with
+my ordinary breakfast. "The Signore is not well?" he remarked, standing
+to gaze at me. I replied that I was not quite well; would he give me
+the milk, and remove from my sight as quickly as possible all the other
+things on the tray. A glimpse of butter in its cheese-rind had given me
+an unpleasant sensation. The goat's milk I swallowed thankfully, and,
+glad of the daylight, lay somewhat more at my ease awaiting Dr. Sculco.
+
+He arrived about half-past nine, and was agreeably surprised to find me
+no worse. But the way in which his directions had been carried out did
+not altogether please him. He called the landlady, and soundly rated
+her. This scene was interesting, it had a fine flavour of the Middle
+Ages. The Doctor addressed mine hostess of the _Concordia_ as "thou,"
+and with magnificent disdain refused to hear her excuses; she, the
+stout, noisy woman, who ruled her own underlings with contemptuous
+rigour, was all subservience before this social superior, and whined to
+him for pardon. "What water is this?" asked Dr. Sculco, sternly, taking
+up the corked jar that stood on the floor. The hostess replied that it
+was drinking water, purchased with good money. Thereupon he poured out
+a little, held it up to the light, and remarked in a matter-of-fact
+tone, "I don't believe you."
+
+However, in a few minutes peace was restored, and the Doctor prescribed
+anew. After he had talked about quinine and cataplasms, he asked me
+whether I had any appetite. A vision of the dining-room came before me,
+and I shook my head. "Still," he urged, "it would be well to eat
+something." And, turning to the hostess, "He had better have a
+beefsteak and a glass of Marsala." The look of amazement with which I
+heard this caught the Doctor's eye. "Don't you like _bistecca_?" he
+inquired. I suggested that, for one in a very high fever, with a good
+deal of lung congestion, beefsteak seemed a trifle solid, and Marsala
+somewhat heating. "Oh!" cried he, "but we must keep the machine going."
+And thereupon he took his genial leave.
+
+I had some fear that my hostess might visit upon me her resentment of
+the Doctor's reproaches; but nothing of the kind. When we were alone,
+she sat down by me, and asked what I should really like to eat. If I
+did not care for a beefsteak of veal, could I eat a beefsteak of
+mutton? It was not the first time that such a choice had been offered
+me, for, in the South, _bistecca_ commonly means a slice of meat done
+on the grill or in the oven. Never have I sat down to a _bistecca_
+which was fit for man's consumption, and, of course, at the _Concordia_
+it would be rather worse than anywhere else. I persuaded the good woman
+to supply me with a little broth. Then I lay looking at the patch of
+cloudy sky which showed above the houses opposite, and wondering
+whether I should have a second fearsome night. I wondered, too, how
+long it would be before I could quit Cotrone. The delay here was
+particularly unfortunate, as my letters were addressed to Catanzaro,
+the next stopping-place, and among them I expected papers which would
+need prompt attention. The thought of trying to get my correspondence
+forwarded to Cotrone was too disturbing; it would have involved an
+enormous amount of trouble, and I could not have felt the least
+assurance that things would arrive safely. So I worried through the
+hours of daylight, and worried still more when, at nightfall, the fever
+returned upon me as badly as ever.
+
+Dr. Sculco had paid his evening visit, and the first horror of
+ineffectual drowsing had passed over me, when my door was flung
+violently open, and in rushed a man (plainly of the commercial
+species), hat on head and bag in hand. I perceived that the _diligenza_
+had just arrived, and that travellers were seizing upon their bedrooms.
+The invader, aware of his mistake, discharged a volley of apologies,
+and rushed out again. Five minutes later the door again banged open,
+and there entered a tall lad with an armful of newspapers; after
+regarding me curiously, he asked whether I wanted a paper. I took one
+with the hope of reading it next morning. Then he began conversation. I
+had the fever? Ah! everybody had fever at Cotrone. He himself would be
+laid up with it in a day or two. If I liked, he would look in with a
+paper each evening--till fever prevented him. When I accepted this
+suggestion, he smiled encouragingly, cried "_Speriamo_!" and clumped
+out of the room.
+
+I had as little sleep as on the night before, but my suffering was
+mitigated in a very strange way. After I had put out the candle, I
+tormented myself for a long time with the thought that I should never
+see La Colonna. As soon as I could rise from bed, I must flee Cotrone,
+and think myself fortunate in escaping alive; but to turn my back on
+the Lacinian promontory, leaving the cape unvisited, the ruin of the
+temple unseen, seemed to me a miserable necessity which I should lament
+as long as I lived. I felt as one involved in a moral disaster; working
+in spite of reason, my brain regarded the matter from many points of
+view, and found no shadow of solace. The sense that so short a distance
+separated me from the place I desired to see, added exasperation to my
+distress. Half-delirious, I at times seemed to be in a boat, tossing on
+wild waters, the Column visible afar, but only when I strained my eyes
+to discover it. In a description of the approach by land, I had read of
+a great precipice which had to be skirted, and this, too, haunted me
+with its terrors: I found myself toiling on a perilous road, which all
+at once crumbled into fearful depths just before me. A violent
+shivering fit roused me from this gloomy dreaming, and I soon after
+fell into a visionary state which, whilst it lasted, gave me such
+placid happiness as I have never known when in my perfect mind. Lying
+still and calm, and perfectly awake, I watched a succession of
+wonderful pictures. First of all I saw great vases, rich with ornament
+and figures; then sepulchral marbles, carved more exquisitely than the
+most beautiful I had ever known. The vision grew in extent, in
+multiplicity of detail; presently I was regarding scenes of ancient
+life--thronged streets, processions triumphal or religious, halls of
+feasting, fields of battle. What most impressed me at the time was the
+marvellously bright yet delicate colouring of everything I saw. I can
+give no idea in words of the pure radiance which shone from every
+object, which illumined every scene. More remarkable, when I thought of
+it next day, was the minute finish of these pictures, the definiteness
+of every point on which my eye fell. Things which I could not know,
+which my imagination, working in the service of the will, could never
+have bodied forth, were before me as in life itself. I consciously
+wondered at peculiarities of costume such as I had never read of; at
+features of architecture entirely new to me; at insignificant
+characteristics of that by-gone world, which by no possibility could
+have been gathered from books. I recall a succession of faces, the
+loveliest conceivable; and I remember, I feel to this moment the pang
+of regret with which I lost sight of each when it faded into darkness.
+
+As an example of the more elaborate visions that passed before me, I
+will mention the only one which I clearly recollect. It was a glimpse
+of history. When Hannibal, at the end of the second Punic War, was
+confined to the south of Italy, he made Croton his head-quarters, and
+when, in reluctant obedience to Carthage, he withdrew from Roman soil,
+it was at Croton that he embarked. He then had with him a contingent of
+Italian mercenaries, and, unwilling that these soldiers should go over
+to the enemy, he bade them accompany him to Africa. The Italians
+refused. Thereupon Hannibal had them led down to the shore of the sea,
+where he slaughtered one and all. This event I beheld. I saw the strand
+by Croton; the promontory with its temple; not as I know the scene
+to-day, but as it must have looked to those eyes more than two thousand
+years ago. The soldiers of Hannibal doing massacre, the perishing
+mercenaries, supported my closest gaze, and left no curiosity
+unsatisfied. (Alas! could I but see it again, or remember clearly what
+was shown tome!) And over all lay a glory of sunshine, an indescribable
+brilliancy which puts light and warmth into my mind whenever I try to
+recall it. The delight of these phantasms was well worth the ten days'
+illness which paid for them. After this night they never returned; I
+hoped for their renewal, but in vain. When I spoke of the experience to
+Dr. Sculco, he was much amused, and afterwards he often asked me
+whether I had had any more _visioni_. That gate of dreams was closed,
+but I shall always feel that, for an hour, it was granted to me to see
+the vanished life so dear to my imagination. If the picture
+corresponded to nothing real, tell me who can, by what power I
+reconstructed, to the last perfection of intimacy, a world known to me
+only in ruined fragments.
+
+Daylight again, but no gleam of sun. I longed for the sunshine; it
+seemed to me a miserable chance that I should lie ill by the Ionian Sea
+and behold no better sky than the far north might have shown me. That
+grey obstruction of heaven's light always weighs upon my spirit; on a
+summer's day, there has but to pass a floating cloud, which for a
+moment veils the sun, and I am touched with chill discouragement; heart
+and hope fail me, until the golden radiance is restored.
+
+About noon, when I had just laid down the newspaper bought the night
+before--the Roman _Tribuna_, which was full of dreary politics--a
+sudden clamour in the street drew my attention. I heard the angry
+shouting of many voices, not in the piazza before the hotel, but at
+some little distance; it was impossible to distinguish any meaning in
+the tumultuous cries. This went on for a long time, swelling at moments
+into a roar of frenzied rage, then sinking to an uneven growl, broken
+by spasmodic yells. On asking what it meant, I was told that a crowd of
+poor folk had gathered before the Municipio to demonstrate against an
+oppressive tax called the _fuocatico_. This is simply hearth-money, an
+impost on each fireplace where food is cooked; the same tax which made
+trouble in old England, and was happily got rid of long ago. But the
+hungry plebs of Cotrone lacked vigour for any effective self-assertion;
+they merely exhausted themselves with shouting "_Abbass' 'o sindaco_!"
+and dispersed to the hearths which paid for an all but imaginary
+service. I wondered whether the Sindaco and his portly friend sat in
+their comfortable room whilst the roaring went on; whether they smoked
+their cigars as usual, and continued to chat at their ease. Very
+likely. The privileged classes in Italy are slow to move, and may well
+believe in the boundless endurance of those below them. Some day, no
+doubt, they will have a disagreeable surprise. When Lombardy begins in
+earnest to shout "_Abbasso_!" it will be an uneasy moment for the heavy
+syndics of Calabria.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CHILDREN OF THE SOIL
+
+
+Any northern person who passed a day or two at the _Concordia_ as an
+ordinary traveller would carry away a strong impression. The people of
+the house would seem to him little short of savages, filthy in person
+and in habits, utterly uncouth in their demeanour, perpetual wranglers
+and railers, lacking every qualification for the duties they pretended
+to discharge. In England their mere appearance would revolt decent
+folk. With my better opportunity of judging them, I overcame the first
+natural antipathy; I saw their good side, and learnt to forgive the
+faults natural to a state of frank barbarism. It took two or three days
+before their rough and ready behaviour softened to a really human
+friendliness, but this came about at last, and when it was known that I
+should not give much more trouble, that I needed only a little care in
+the matter of diet, goodwill did its best to aid hopeless incapacity.
+
+Whilst my fever was high, little groups of people often came into the
+room, to stand and stare at me, exchanging, in a low voice, remarks
+which they supposed I did not hear, or, hearing, could not understand;
+as a matter of fact, their dialect was now intelligible enough to me,
+and I knew that they discussed my chances of surviving. Their natures
+were not sanguine. A result, doubtless, of the unhealthy climate, every
+one at Cotrone seemed in a more or less gloomy state of mind. The
+hostess went about uttering ceaseless moans and groans; when she was in
+my room I heard her constantly sighing, "Ah, Signore! Ah,
+Cristo!"--exclamations which, perhaps, had some reference to my
+illness, but which did not cease when I recovered. Whether she had any
+private reason for depression I could not learn; I fancy not; it was
+only the whimpering and querulous habit due to low health. A female
+servant, who occasionally brought me food (I found that she also cooked
+it), bore herself in much the same way. This domestic was the most
+primitive figure of the household. Picture a woman of middle age,
+wrapped at all times in dirty rags (not to be called clothing), obese,
+grimy, with dishevelled black hair, and hands so scarred, so deformed
+by labour and neglect, as to be scarcely human. She had the darkest and
+fiercest eyes I ever saw. Between her and her mistress went on an
+unceasing quarrel: they quarrelled in my room, in the corridor, and, as
+I knew by their shrill voices, in places remote; yet I am sure they did
+not dislike each other, and probably neither of them ever thought of
+parting. Unexpectedly, one evening, this woman entered, stood by the
+bedside, and began to talk with such fierce energy, with such flashing
+of her black eyes, and such distortion of her features, that I could
+only suppose that she was attacking me for the trouble I caused her. A
+minute or two passed before I could even hit the drift of her furious
+speech; she was always the most difficult of the natives to understand,
+and in rage she became quite unintelligible. Little by little, by dint
+of questioning, I got at what she meant. There had been _guai_, worse
+than usual; the mistress had reviled her unendurably for some fault or
+other, and was it not hard that she should be used like this after
+having _tanto, tanto lavorato_! In fact, she was appealing for my
+sympathy, not abusing me at all. When she went on to say that she was
+alone in the world, that all her kith and kin were _freddi morti_
+(stone dead), a pathos in her aspect and her words took hold upon me;
+it was much as if some heavy-laden beast of burden had suddenly found
+tongue, and protested in the rude beginnings of articulate utterance
+against its hard lot. If only one could have learnt, in intimate
+detail, the life of this domestic serf! How interesting, and how
+sordidly picturesque against the background of romantic landscape, of
+scenic history! I looked long into her sallow, wrinkled face, trying to
+imagine the thoughts that ruled its expression. In some measure my
+efforts at kindly speech succeeded, and her "Ah, Cristo!" as she turned
+to go away, was not without a touch of solace.
+
+Another time my hostess fell foul of the waiter, because he had brought
+me goat's milk which was very sour. There ensued the most comical
+scene. In an access of fury the stout woman raged and stormed; the
+waiter, a lank young fellow, with a simple, good-natured face, after
+trying to explain that he had committed the fault by inadvertence,
+suddenly raised his hand, like one about to exhort a congregation, and
+exclaimed in a tone of injured remonstrance, "_Un po' di calma! Un po'
+di calma!_" My explosion of laughter at this inimitable utterance put
+an end to the strife. The youth laughed with me; his mistress bustled
+him out of the room, and then began to inform me that he was weak in
+his head. Ah! she exclaimed, her life with these people! what it cost
+her to keep them in anything like order! When she retired, I heard her
+expectorating violently in the corridor; a habit with every inmate of
+this genial hostelry.
+
+When the worst of my fever had subsided, the difficulty was to obtain
+any nourishment suitable to my state. The good doctor, who had
+suggested beefsteak and Marsala when I was incapable of taking anything
+at all, ruled me severely in the matter of diet now that I really began
+to feel hungry. I hope I may never again be obliged to drink goat's
+milk; in these days it became so unutterably loathsome to me that I
+had, at length, to give it up altogether, and I cannot think of it now
+without a qualm. The broth offered me was infamous, mere coloured water
+beneath half an inch of floating grease. Once there was a promise of a
+fowl, and I looked forward to it eagerly; but, alas! this miserable
+bird had undergone a process of seething for the extraction of soup. I
+would have defied anyone to distinguish between the substance remaining
+and two or three old kid gloves boiled into a lump. With a pleased air,
+the hostess one day suggested a pigeon, a roasted pigeon, and I
+welcomed the idea joyously. Indeed, the appearance of the dish, when it
+was borne in, had nothing to discourage my appetite--the odour was
+savoury; I prepared myself for a treat. Out of pure kindness, for she
+saw me tremble in my weakness, the good woman offered her aid in the
+carving; she took hold of the bird by the two legs, rent it asunder,
+tore off the wings in the same way, and then, with a smile of
+satisfaction, wiped her hands upon her skirt. If her hands had known
+water (to say nothing of soap) during the past twelve months I am much
+mistaken. It was a pity, for I found that my teeth could just masticate
+a portion of the flesh which hunger compelled me to assail.
+
+Of course I suffered much from thirst, and Dr. Sculco startled me one
+day by asking if I liked _tea_. Tea? Was it really procurable? The
+Doctor assured me that it could be supplied by the chemist; though,
+considering how rarely the exotic was demanded, it might have lost
+something of its finer flavour whilst stored at the pharmacy. An order
+was despatched. Presently the waiter brought me a very small paper
+packet, such as might have contained a couple of Seidlitz powders; on
+opening it I discovered something black and triturated, a crumbling
+substance rather like ground charcoal. I smelt it, but there was no
+perceptible odour; I put a little of it to my tongue, but the effect
+was merely that of dust. Proceeding to treat it as if it were veritable
+tea, I succeeded in imparting a yellowish tinge to the hot water, and,
+so thirsty was I, this beverage tempted me to a long draught. There
+followed no ill result that I know of, but the paper packet lay
+thenceforth untouched, and, on leaving, I made a present of it to my
+landlady.
+
+To complete the domestic group, I must make mention of the
+"chambermaid." This was a lively little fellow of about twelve years
+old, son of the landlady, who gave me much amusement. I don't know
+whether he performed chambermaid duty in all the rooms; probably the
+fierce-eyed cook did the heavier work elsewhere, but upon me his
+attendance was constant. At an uncertain hour of the evening he entered
+(of course, without knocking), doffed his cap in salutation, and began
+by asking how I found myself. The question could not have been more
+deliberately and thoughtfully put by the Doctor himself. When I replied
+that I was better, the little man expressed his satisfaction, and went
+on to make a few remarks about the pessimo _tempo_. Finally, with a
+gesture of politeness, he inquired whether I would permit him "_di fare
+un po' di pulizia_"--to clean up a little, and this he proceeded to do
+with much briskness. Excepting the good Sculco, my chambermaid was
+altogether the most civilized person I met at Cotrone. He had a
+singular amiability of nature, and his boyish spirits were not yet
+subdued by the pestilent climate. If I thanked him for anything, he
+took off his cap, bowed with comical dignity, and answered "_Grazie a
+voi, Signore_." Of course these people never used the third person
+feminine of polite Italian. Dr. Sculco did so, for I had begun by
+addressing him in that manner, but plainly it was not familiar to his
+lips. At the same time there prevailed certain forms of civility, which
+seemed a trifle excessive. For instance, when the Doctor entered my
+room, and I gave him "_Buon giorno_," he was wont to reply, "_Troppo
+gentile_!"--too kind of you!
+
+My newspaper boy came regularly for a few days, always complaining of
+feverish symptoms, then ceased to appear. I made inquiry: he was down
+with illness, and as no one took his place I suppose the regular
+distribution of newspapers in Cotrone was suspended. When the poor
+fellow again showed himself, he had a sorry visage; he sat down by my
+bedside (rain dripping from his hat, and mud, very thick, upon his
+boots) to give an account of his sufferings. I pictured the sort of
+retreat in which he had lain during those miserable hours. My own
+chamber contained merely the barest necessaries, and, as the gentleman
+of Cosenza would have said, "left something to be desired" in point of
+cleanliness. Conceive the places into which Cotrone's poorest have to
+crawl when they are stricken with disease. I admit, however, that the
+thought was worse to me at that moment than it is now. After all, the
+native of Cotrone has advantages over the native of a city slum; and it
+is better to die in a hovel by the Ionian Sea than in a cellar at
+Shoreditch.
+
+The position of my room, which looked upon the piazza, enabled me to
+hear a great deal of what went on in the town. The life of Cotrone
+began about three in the morning; at that hour I heard the first
+voices, upon which there soon followed the bleating of goats and the
+tinkling of ox-bells. No doubt the greater part of the poor people were
+in bed by eight o'clock every evening; only those who had dealings in
+the outer world were stirring when the _diligenza_ arrived about ten,
+and I suspect that some of these snatched a nap before that late hour.
+Throughout the day there sounded from the piazza a ceaseless clamour of
+voices, such a noise as in England would only rise from some excited
+crowd on a rare occasion; it was increased by reverberations from the
+colonnade which runs all round in front of the shops. When the
+north-east gale had passed over, there ensued a few days of sullen
+calm, permitting the people to lead their ordinary life in open air. I
+grew to recognize certain voices, those of men who seemingly had
+nothing to do but to talk all day long. Only the sound reached me; I
+wish I could have gathered the sense of these interminable harangues
+and dialogues. In every country and every age those talk most who have
+least to say that is worth saying. These tonguesters of Cotrone had
+their predecessors in the public place of Croton, who began to gossip
+before dawn, and gabbled unceasingly till after nightfall; with their
+voices must often have mingled the bleating of goats or the lowing of
+oxen, just as I heard the sounds to-day.
+
+One day came a street organ, accompanied by singing, and how glad I
+was! The first note of music, this, that I had heard at Cotrone. The
+instrument played only two or three airs, and one of them became a
+great favourite with the populace; very soon, numerous voices joined
+with that of the singer, and all this and the following day the melody
+sounded, near or far. It had the true characteristics of southern song;
+rising tremolos, and cadences that swept upon a wail of passion; high
+falsetto notes, and deep tum-tum of infinite melancholy. Scorned by the
+musician, yet how expressive of a people's temper, how suggestive of
+its history! At the moment when this strain broke upon my ear, I was
+thinking ill of Cotrone and its inhabitants; in the first pause of the
+music I reproached myself bitterly for narrowness and ingratitude. All
+the faults of the Italian people are whelmed in forgiveness as soon as
+their music sounds under the Italian sky. One remembers all they have
+suffered, all they have achieved in spite of wrong. Brute races have
+flung themselves, one after another, upon this sweet and glorious land;
+conquest and slavery, from age to age, have been the people's lot.
+Tread where one will, the soil has been drenched with blood. An
+immemorial woe sounds even through the lilting notes of Italian gaiety.
+It is a country wearied and regretful, looking ever backward to the
+things of old; trivial in its latter life, and unable to hope sincerely
+for the future. Moved by these voices singing over the dust of Croton,
+I asked pardon for all my foolish irritation, my impertinent
+fault-finding. Why had I come hither, if it was not that I loved land
+and people? And had I not richly known the recompense of my love?
+
+Legitimately enough one may condemn the rulers of Italy, those who take
+upon themselves to shape her political life, and recklessly load her
+with burdens insupportable. But among the simple on Italian soil a
+wandering stranger has no right to nurse national superiorities, to
+indulge a contemptuous impatience. It is the touch of tourist
+vulgarity. Listen to a Calabrian peasant singing as he follows his oxen
+along the furrow, or as he shakes the branches of his olive tree. That
+wailing voice amid the ancient silence, that long lament solacing
+ill-rewarded toil, comes from the heart of Italy herself, and wakes the
+memory of mankind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE MOUNT OF REFUGE
+
+
+My thoughts turned continually to Catanzaro. It is a city set upon a
+hill, overlooking the Gulf of Squillace, and I felt that if I could but
+escape thither, I should regain health and strength. Here at Cotrone
+the air oppressed and enfeebled me; the neighbourhood of the sea
+brought no freshness. From time to time the fever seemed to be
+overcome, but it lingered still in my blood and made my nights
+restless. I must away to Catanzaro.
+
+When first I spoke of this purpose to Dr. Sculco, he indulged my fancy,
+saying "Presently, presently!" A few days later, when I seriously asked
+him how soon I might with safety travel, his face expressed misgiving.
+Why go to Catanzaro? It was on the top of a mountain, and had a most
+severe climate; the winds at this season were terrible. In conscience
+he could not advise me to take such a step: the results might be very
+grave after my lung trouble. Far better wait at Cotrone for a week or
+two longer, and then go on to Reggio, crossing perhaps to Sicily to
+complete my cure. The more Dr. Sculco talked of windy altitudes, the
+stronger grew my desire for such a change of climate, and the more
+intolerable seemed my state of languishment. The weather was again
+stormy, but this time blew sirocco; I felt its evil breath waste my
+muscles, clog my veins, set all my nerves a-tremble. If I stayed here
+much longer, I should never get away at all. A superstitious fear crept
+upon me; I remembered that my last visit had been to the cemetery.
+
+One thing was certain: I should never see the column of Hera's temple.
+I made my lament on this subject to Dr. Sculco, and he did his best to
+describe to me the scenery of the Cape. Certain white spots which I had
+discovered at the end of the promontory were little villas, occupied in
+summer by the well-to-do citizens of Cotrone; the Doctor himself owned
+one, which had belonged to his father before him. Some of the earliest
+memories of his boyhood were connected with the Cape: when he had
+lessons to learn by heart, he often used to recite them walking round
+and round the great column. In the garden of his villa he at times
+amused himself with digging, and a very few turns of the spade sufficed
+to throw out some relic of antiquity. Certain Americans, he said,
+obtained permission not long ago from the proprietor of the ground on
+which the temple stood to make serious excavations, but as soon as the
+Italians heard of it, they claimed the site as a national monument; the
+work was forbidden, and the soil had to be returned to its former
+state. Hard by the ancient sanctuary is a chapel, consecrated to the
+Madonna del Capo; thither the people of Cotrone make pilgrimages, and
+hold upon the Cape a rude festival, which often ends in orgiastic riot.
+
+All the surface of the promontory is bare; not a tree, not a bush, save
+for a little wooded hollow called Fossa del Lupo--the wolf's den.
+There, says legend, armed folk of Cotrone used to lie in wait to attack
+the corsairs who occasionally landed for water.
+
+When I led him to talk of Cotrone and its people, the Doctor could but
+confirm my observations. He contrasted the present with the past; this
+fever-stricken and waterless village with the great city which was
+called the healthiest in the world. In his opinion the physical change
+had resulted from the destruction of forests, which brought with it a
+diminution of the rainfall. "At Cotrone," he said, "we have practically
+no rain. A shower now and then, but never a wholesome downpour." He had
+no doubt that, in ancient times, all the hills of the coast were
+wooded, as Sila still is, and all the rivers abundantly supplied with
+water. To-day there was scarce a healthy man in Cotrone: no one had
+strength to resist a serious illness. This state of things he took very
+philosophically; I noticed once more the frankly mediaeval spirit in
+which he regarded the populace. Talking on, he interested me by
+enlarging upon the difference between southern Italians and those of
+the north. Beyond Rome a Calabrian never cared to go; he found himself
+in a foreign country, where his tongue betrayed him, and where his
+manners were too noticeably at variance with those prevailing. Italian
+unity, I am sure, meant little to the good Doctor, and appealed but
+coldly to his imagination.
+
+I declared to him at length that I could endure no longer this dreary
+life of the sick-room; I must get into the open air, and, if no harm
+came of the experiment, I should leave for Catanzaro. "I cannot prevent
+you," was the Doctor's reply, "but I am obliged to point out that you
+act on your own responsibility. It is _pericoloso_, it is
+_pericolosissimo_! The terrible climate of the mountains!" However, I
+won his permission to leave the house, and acted upon it that same
+afternoon. Shaking and palpitating, I slowly descended the stairs to
+the colonnade; then, with a step like that of an old, old man, tottered
+across the piazza, my object being to reach the chemist's shop, where I
+wished to pay for the drugs that I had had and for the tea. When I
+entered, sweat was streaming from my forehead; I dropped into a chair,
+and for a minute or two could do nothing but recover nerve and breath.
+Never in my life had I suffered such a wretched sense of feebleness.
+The pharmacist looked at me with gravely compassionate eyes; when I
+told him I was the Englishman who had been ill, and that I wanted to
+leave to-morrow for Catanzaro, his compassion indulged itself more
+freely, and I could see quite well that he thought my plan of travel
+visionary. True, he said, the climate of Cotrone was trying to a
+stranger. He understood my desire to get away; but--Catanzaro! Was I
+aware that at Catanzaro I should suddenly find myself in a season of
+most rigorous winter? And the winds! One needed to be very strong even
+to stand on one's feet at Catanzaro. For all this I returned thanks,
+and, having paid my bill, tottered back to the _Concordia_. It seemed
+to me more than doubtful whether I should start on the morrow.
+
+That evening I tried to dine. Don Ferdinando entered as usual, and sat
+mute through his unchanging meal; the grumbler grumbled and ate, as
+perchance he does to this day. I forced myself to believe that the food
+had a savour for me, and that the wine did not taste of drugs. As I sat
+over my pretended meal, I heard the sirocco moaning without, and at
+times a splash of rain against the window. Near me, two military men
+were exchanging severe comments on Calabria and its people. "_Che
+paese_!"--"What a country!" exclaimed one of them finally in disgust.
+Of course they came from the north, and I thought that their
+conversation was not likely to knit closer the bond between the
+extremes of Italy.
+
+To my delight I looked forth next morning on a sunny and calm sky, such
+as I had not seen during all my stay at Cotrone. I felt better, and
+decided to leave for Catanzaro by train in the early afternoon. Shaking
+still, but heartened by the sunshine, I took a short walk, and looked
+for the last time at the Lacinian promontory. On my way back I passed a
+little building from which sounded an astonishing noise, a confused
+babble of shrill voices, blending now and then with a deep stentorian
+shout. It was the communal school--not during playtime, or in a state
+of revolt, but evidently engaged as usual upon its studies. The
+school-house was small, but the volume of clamour that issued from it
+would have done credit to two or three hundred children in unrestrained
+uproariousness. Curiosity held me listening for ten minutes; the tumult
+underwent no change of character, nor suffered the least abatement; the
+mature voice occasionally heard above it struck a cheery note, by no
+means one of impatience or stern command. Had I been physically capable
+of any effort, I should have tried to view that educational scene. The
+incident did me good, and I went on in a happier humour.
+
+Which was not perturbed by something that fell under my eye soon
+afterwards. At a shop door hung certain printed cards, bearing a notice
+that "wood hay-makers," "wood binders," and "wood mowers" were "sold
+here." Not in Italian this, but in plain, blunt English; and to each
+announcement was added the name of an English manufacturing firm, with
+an agency at Naples. I have often heard the remark that Englishmen of
+business are at a disadvantage in their export trade because they pay
+no heed to the special requirements of foreign countries; but such a
+delightful illustration of their ineptitude had never come under my
+notice. Doubtless these alluring advertisements are widely scattered
+through agricultural Calabria. Who knows? they my serve as an
+introduction to the study of the English tongue.
+
+Not without cordiality was my leave-taking. The hostess confided to me
+that, in the first day of my illness, she had felt sure I should die.
+Everybody had thought so, she added gaily; even Dr. Sculco had shaken
+his head and shrugged his shoulders; much better, was it not, to be
+paying my bill? Bill more moderate, under the circumstances, no man
+ever discharged; Calabrian honesty came well out of the transaction. So
+I tumbled once more into the dirty, ramshackle _diligenza_, passed
+along the dusty road between the barred and padlocked warehouses, and
+arrived in good time at the station. No sooner had I set foot on the
+platform than I felt an immense relief. Even here, it seemed to me, the
+air was fresher. I lifted my eyes to the hills and seemed to feel the
+breezes of Catanzaro.
+
+The train was made up at Cotrone, and no undue haste appeared in our
+departure. When we were already twenty minutes late, there stepped into
+the carriage where I was sitting a good-humoured railway official, who
+smiled and greeted me. I supposed he wanted my ticket, but nothing of
+the kind. After looking all round the compartment with an air of
+disinterested curiosity, he heaved a sigh and remarked pleasantly to
+me, "_Non manca niente_"--"Nothing is amiss." Five minutes more and we
+steamed away.
+
+The railway ascended a long valley, that of the Esaro, where along the
+deep watercourse trickled a scarce perceptible stream. On either hand
+were hills of pleasant outline, tilled on the lower slopes, and often
+set with olives. Here and there came a grassy slope, where shepherds or
+goatherds idled amid their flocks. Above the ascent a long tunnel,
+after which the line falls again towards the sea. The landscape took a
+nobler beauty; mountains spread before us, tenderly coloured by the
+autumn sun. We crossed two or three rivers--rivers of flowing water,
+their banks overhung with dense green jungle. The sea was azure, and
+looked very calm, but white waves broke loudly upon the strand, last
+murmur of the storm which had raged and renewed itself for nearly a
+fortnight.
+
+At one of the wayside stations entered a traveller whom I could not but
+regard with astonishment. He was a man at once plump and muscular, his
+sturdy limbs well exhibited in a shooting costume. On his face glowed
+the richest hue of health; his eyes glistened merrily. With him he
+carried a basket, which, as soon as he was settled, gave forth an
+abundant meal. The gusto of his eating, the satisfaction with which he
+eyed his glasses of red wine, excited my appetite. But who _was_ he?
+Not, I could see, a tourist; yet how account for this health and vigour
+in a native of the district? I had not seen such a man since I set out
+upon my travels; the contrast he made with the figures of late familiar
+to me was so startling that I had much ado to avoid continuously gazing
+at him. His proximity did me good; the man radiated health.
+
+When next the train stopped he exchanged words with some one on the
+platform, and I heard that he was going to Catanzaro. At once I
+understood. This jovial, ruddy-cheeked personage was a man of the
+hills. At Catanzaro I should see others like him; perhaps he fairly
+represented its inhabitants. If so, I had reason for my suspicion that
+poor fever-stricken Cotrone regarded with a sort of jealousy the breezy
+health of Catanzaro, which at the same time is a much more prosperous
+place. Later, I found that there did exist some acerbity of mutual
+criticism between the two towns, reminding one of civic rivalry among
+the Greeks. Catanzaro spoke with contempt of Cotrone. Happily I made no
+medical acquaintance in the hill town; but I should have liked to
+discuss with one of these gentlemen the view of their climate held by
+Dr. Sculco.
+
+In the ages that followed upon the fall of Rome, perpetual danger drove
+the sea-coast population of Calabria inland and to the heights. Our own
+day beholds a counter movement; the shore line of railway will create
+new towns on the old deserted sites. Such a settlement is the Marina of
+Catanzaro, a little port at the mouth of a wide valley, along which
+runs a line to Catanzaro itself, or rather to the foot of the great
+hill on which the town is situated. The sun was setting when I alighted
+at the Marina, and as I waited for the branch train my eyes feasted
+upon a glory of colour which made me forget aching weariness. All
+around lay orchards of orange trees, the finest I had ever seen, and
+over their solid masses of dark foliage, thick hung with ripening
+fruit, poured the splendour of the western sky. It was a picture
+unsurpassable in richness of tone; the dense leafage of deepest,
+warmest green glowed and flashed, its magnificence heightened by the
+blaze of the countless golden spheres adorning it. Beyond, the magic
+sea, purple and crimson as the sun descended upon the vanishing
+horizon. Eastward, above the slopes of Sila, stood a moon almost at its
+full, the yellow of an autumn leaf, on a sky soft-flushed with rose.
+
+In my geography it is written that between Catanzaro and the sea lie
+the gardens of the Hesperides.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CATANZARO
+
+
+For half an hour the train slowly ascends. The carriages are of special
+construction, light and many-windowed, so that one has good views of
+the landscape. Very beautiful was this long, broad, climbing valley,
+everywhere richly wooded; oranges and olives, carob and lentisk and
+myrtle, interspersed with cactus (its fruit, the prickly fig, all
+gathered) and with the sword-like agave. Glow of sunset lingered upon
+the hills: in the green hollow a golden twilight faded to dusk. The
+valley narrowed; it became a gorge between dark slopes which closed
+together and seemed to bar advance. Here the train stopped, and all the
+passengers (some half-dozen) alighted.
+
+The sky was still clear enough to show the broad features of the scene
+before me. I looked up to a mountain side, so steep that towards the
+summit it appeared precipitous, and there upon the height, dimly
+illumined with a last reflex of after-glow, my eyes distinguished
+something which might be the outline of walls and houses. This, I knew,
+was the situation of Catanzaro, but one could not easily imagine by
+what sort of approach the city would be gained; in the thickening
+twilight, no trace of a road was discernible, and the flanks of the
+mountain, a ravine yawning on either hand, looked even more abrupt than
+the ascent immediately before me.
+
+There, however, stood the _diligenza_ which was somehow to convey me to
+Catanzaro; I watched its loading with luggage-merchandise and
+mail-bags--whilst the exquisite evening melted into night. When I had
+thus been occupied for a few minutes, my look once more turned to the
+mountain, where a surprise awaited me: the summit was now encircled
+with little points of radiance, as though a starry diadem had fallen
+upon it from the sky. "_Pronti_!" cried our driver. I climbed to my
+seat, and we began our journey towards the crowning lights.
+
+By help of long loops the road ascended at a tolerably easy angle; the
+horse-bells tinkled, the driver shouted encouragement to his beasts,
+and within the vehicle went on a lively gossiping, with much laughter.
+Meanwhile the great moon had risen high enough to illumine the valley
+below us; silvery grey and green, the lovely hollow seemed of
+immeasurable length, and beyond it one imagined, rather than discerned,
+a glimmer of the sea. By the wayside I now and then caught sight of a
+huge cactus, trailing its heavy knotted length upon the face of a rock;
+and at times we brushed beneath overhanging branches of some tree that
+could not be distinguished. All the way up we seemed to skirt a sheer
+precipice, which at moments was alarming in its gloomy depth. Deeper
+and deeper below shone the lights of the railway station and of the few
+houses about it; it seemed as though a false step would drop us down
+into their midst.
+
+The fatigue of the day's journey passed away during this ascent, which
+lasted nearly an hour; when, after a drive through dark but wide
+streets, I was set down before the hotel, I felt that I had shaken off
+the last traces of my illness. A keen appetite sent me as soon as
+possible in search of the dining-room, where I ate with extreme gusto;
+everything seemed excellent after the sorry table of the _Concordia_. I
+poured my wine with a free hand, rejoicing to find it was wine once
+more, and not (at all events to my palate) a concoction of drugs. The
+albergo was decent and well found; a cheerful prosperity declared
+itself in all I had yet seen. After dinner I stepped out on to the
+balcony of my room to view the city's main street; but there was very
+scant illumination, and the moonlight only showed me high houses of
+modern build. Few people passed, and never a vehicle; the shops were
+all closed. I needed no invitation to sleep, but this shadowed
+stillness, and the fresh mountain air, happily lulled my thoughts. Even
+the subject of earthquakes proved soporific.
+
+Impossible to find oneself at Catanzaro without thinking of
+earthquakes; I wonder that the good people of Coltrone did not include
+this among deterrents whereby they sought to prejudice me against the
+mountain town. Over and over again Catanzaro has been shaken to its
+foundations. The worst calamity recorded was towards the end of the
+eighteenth century, when scarce a house remained standing, and many
+thousands of the people perished. This explains a peculiarity in the
+aspect of the place, noticeable as soon as one begins to walk about; it
+is like a town either half built or half destroyed, one knows not
+which; everywhere one comes upon ragged walls, tottering houses, yet
+there is no appearance of antiquity. One ancient building, a castle
+built by Robert Guiscard when he captured Catanzaro in the eleventh
+century, remained until of late years, its Norman solidity defying
+earthquakes; but this has been pulled down, deliberately got rid of for
+the sake of widening a road. Lament over such a proceeding would be
+idle enough; Catanzaro is the one progressive town of Calabria, and has
+learnt too thoroughly the spirit of the time to suffer a blocking of
+its highway by middle-age obstructions.
+
+If a Hellenic or Roman city occupied this breezy summit, it has left no
+name, and no relics of the old civilization have been discovered here.
+Catanzaro was founded in the tenth century, at the same time that
+Taranto was rebuilt after the Saracen destruction; an epoch of revival
+for Southern Italy under the vigorous Byzantine rule of Nicephorus
+Phocas. From my point of view, the interest of the place suffered
+because I could attach to it no classic memory. Robert Guiscard, to be
+sure, is a figure picturesque enough, and might give play to the
+imagination, but I care little for him after all; he does not belong to
+my world. I had to see Catanzaro merely as an Italian town amid
+wonderful surroundings. The natural beauty of the spot amply sufficed
+to me during the days I spent there, and gratitude for health recovered
+gave me a kindly feeling to all its inhabitants.
+
+Daylight brought no disillusion as regards natural features. I made the
+circuit of the little town, and found that it everywhere overlooks a
+steep, often a sheer, descent, save at one point, where an isthmus
+unites it to the mountains that rise behind. In places the bounding
+wall runs on the very edge of a precipice, and many a crazy house,
+overhanging, seems ready to topple into the abyss. The views are
+magnificent, whether one looks down the valley to the leafy shore, or,
+in an opposite direction, up to the grand heights which, at this
+narrowest point of Calabria, separate the Ionian from the Tyrrhene Sea.
+I could now survey the ravines which, in twilight, had dimly shown
+themselves on either side of the mountain; they are deep and narrow,
+craggy, wild, bare. Each, when the snows are melting, becomes the bed
+of a furious torrent; the watercourses uniting below to form the river
+of the valley. At this season there was a mere trickling of water over
+a dry brown waste. Where the abruptness of the descent does not render
+it impossible, olives have been planted on the mountain sides; the
+cactus clings everywhere, making picturesque many a wall and hovel,
+luxuriating on the hard, dry soil; fig trees and vines occupy more
+favoured spots, and the gardens of the better houses are often graced
+by a noble palm.
+
+After my morning's walk I sought the residence of Signor Pasquale
+Cricelli, to whom I carried a note of introduction. This gentleman
+holds the position of English Vice-Consul at Catanzaro, but it is
+seldom that he has the opportunity of conversing with English
+travellers; the courtesy and kindness with which he received me have a
+great part in my pleasant memory of the mountain town. Signor Cricelli
+took me to see many interesting things, and brought me into touch with
+the every-day life of Catanzaro. I knew from Lenormant's book that the
+town had a singular reputation for hospitality. The French
+archaeologist tells amusing stories in illustration of this
+characteristic. Once, when he had taken casual refreshment at a
+restaurant, a gentleman sitting at another table came forward and, with
+grave politeness, begged permission to pay for what Lenormant had
+consumed. This was a trifle in comparison with what happened when the
+traveller, desirous of making some return for much kindness,
+entertained certain of his acquaintances at dinner, the meal,
+naturally, as good a one as his hotel could provide. The festival went
+off joyously, but, to Lenormant's surprise, nothing was charged for it
+in his bill. On making inquiry he learnt that the cost of the
+entertainment had already been discharged by one of his guests! Well,
+that took place years ago, long before a railway had been thought of in
+the valley of the Corace; such heroic virtues ill consist with the life
+of to-day. Nevertheless, Don Pasquale (Signor Cricelli's name when
+greeted by his fellow-citizens) several times reminded me, without
+knowing it, of what I had read. For instance, we entered a shop which
+he thought might interest me; the salesman during our talk
+unobtrusively made up a little parcel of goods, and asked, at length,
+whether I would take this with me or have it sent to the hotel. That
+point I easily decided, but by no persistence could I succeed in paying
+for the things. Smiling behind his counter, the shopkeeper declined to
+name a price; Don Pasquale declared that a payment under such
+circumstances was a thing unknown in Catanzaro, and I saw that to say
+anything more would be to run the risk of offending him. The same day
+he invited me to dinner, and explained that we must needs dine at the
+hotel where I was staying, this being the best place of entertainment
+in the town. I found that my friend had a second reason for the choice;
+he wished to ascertain whether I was comfortably lodged, and as a
+result of his friendly offices, various little changes came about. Once
+more I make my grateful acknowledgements to the excellent Don Pasquale.
+
+Speaking of shops, I must describe in detail the wonderful pharmacy.
+Signor Cricelli held it among the sights of Catanzaro; this chemist's
+in the main street was one of the first places to which he guided me.
+And, indeed, the interior came as a surprise. Imagine a spacious shop,
+well proportioned, perfectly contrived, and throughout fitted with
+woodwork copies from the best examples of old Italian carving. Seeking
+pill or potion, one finds oneself in a museum of art, where it would be
+easy to spend an hour in studying the counter, the shelves, the
+ceiling. The chemists (two brothers, if I remember rightly) pointed out
+to me with legitimate pride all that they had done for the beautifying
+of their place of business; I shall not easily forget the glowing
+countenance, the moved voice, which betrayed their feelings as they led
+me hither and thither; for them and their enterprise I felt a hearty
+respect. When we had surveyed everything within doors I was asked to
+look at the _mostra_--the sign that hung over the entrance; a sort of
+griffin in wrought iron, this, too, copied from an old masterpiece, and
+reminding one of the fine ironwork which adorns the streets of Siena.
+Don Pasquale could not be satisfied until I had privately assured him
+of my genuine admiration. Was it, he asked, at all like a chemist's
+shop in London? My reply certainly gratified him, but I am afraid it
+did not increase his desire to visit England.
+
+Whilst I was at the chemist's, there entered a number of peasants,
+whose appearance was so striking that I sought information about them.
+Don Pasquale called them "_Greci_"; they came from a mountain village
+where the dialect of the people is still a corrupt Greek. One would
+like to imagine that their origin dates back to the early Hellenic
+days, but it is assuredly much later. These villages may be a relic of
+the Byzantine conquest in the sixth century, when Southern Italy was,
+to a great extent, re peopled from the Eastern Empire, though another
+theory suggests that they were formed by immigrants from Greece at the
+time of the Turkish invasion. Each of the women had a baby hanging at
+her back, together with miscellaneous goods which she had purchased in
+the town: though so heavily burdened, they walked erect, and with the
+free step of mountaineers.
+
+I could not have had a better opportunity than was afforded me on this
+day of observing the peasantry of the Catanzaro district. It was the
+feast of the Immaculate Conception, and from all around the
+country-folk thronged in pilgrimage to the church of the Immaculate;
+since earliest morning I had heard the note of bagpipes, which
+continued to sound before the street shrines all day long. Don Pasquale
+assured me that the festival had an importance in this region scarcely
+less than that of Christmas. At the hour of high mass I entered the
+sanctuary whither all were turning their steps; it was not easy to make
+a way beyond the portico, but when I had slowly pressed forward through
+the dense crowd, I found that the musical part of the service was being
+performed by a lively string-band, up in a gallery. For seats there was
+no room; a standing multitude filled the whole church before the altar,
+and the sound of gossiping voices at moments all but overcame that of
+the music. I know not at what point of the worship I chanced to be
+present; heat and intolerable odours soon drove me forth again, but I
+retained an impression of jollity, rather than of reverence. Those
+screaming and twanging instruments sounded much like an invitation to
+the dance, and all the faces about me were radiant with cheerfulness.
+Just such a throng, of course, attended upon the festival of god or
+goddess ere the old religion was transformed. Most of the Christian
+anniversaries have their origin in heathendom; the names have changed,
+but amid the unlettered worshippers there is little change of spirit; a
+tradition older than they can conceive rules their piety, and gives it
+whatever significance it may have in their simple lives.
+
+Many came from a great distance; at the entrance to the town were
+tethered innumerable mules and asses, awaiting the hour of return.
+Modern Catanzaro, which long ago lost its proper costume, was enlivened
+with brilliant colours; the country women, of course, adorned
+themselves, and their garb was that which had so much interested me
+when I first saw it in the public garden at Cosenza. Brilliant blue and
+scarlet were the prevailing tones; a good deal of fine embroidery
+caught the eye. In a few instances I noticed men wearing the true
+Calabrian hat--peaked, brigandesque--which is rapidly falling out of
+use. These people were, in general, good-looking; frequently I observed
+a very handsome face, and occasionally a countenance, male or female,
+of really heroic beauty. Though crowds wandered through the streets,
+there sounded no tumult; voices never rose above an ordinary pitch of
+conversation; the general bearing was dignified, and tended to gravity.
+One woman in particular held my attention, not because of any
+exceptional beauty, for, indeed, she had a hard, stern face, but owing
+to her demeanour. Unlike most of the peasant folk, she was bent on
+business; carrying upon her head a heavy pile of some ornamented
+fabric--shawls or something of the kind--she entered shops, and paused
+at house doors, in the endeavour to find purchasers. I watched her for
+a long time, hoping she might make a sale, but ever she was
+unsuccessful; for all that she bore herself with a dignity not easily
+surpassed. Each offer of her wares was made as if she conferred a
+graceful favour, and after each rejection she withdrew unabashed,
+outwardly unperturbed, seeming to take stately leave. Only her
+persistence showed how anxious she was to earn money; neither on her
+features nor in her voice appeared the least sign of peddling
+solicitude. I shall always remember that tall, hard-visaged woman, as
+she passed with firm step and nobly balanced figure about the streets
+of Catanzaro. To pity her would have been an insult. The glimpse I
+caught of her laborious life revealed to me something worthy of
+admiration; never had I seen a harassing form of discouragement so
+silently and strongly borne.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE BREEZY HEIGHT
+
+
+Catanzaro must be one of the healthiest spots in Southern Italy;
+perhaps it has no rival in this respect among the towns south of Rome.
+The furious winds, with which my acquaintances threatened me, did not
+blow during my stay, but there was always more or less breeze, and the
+kind of breeze that refreshes. I should like to visit Catanzaro in the
+summer; probably one would have all the joy of glorious sunshine
+without oppressive heat, and in the landscape in those glowing days
+would be indescribably beautiful.
+
+I remember with delight the public garden at Cosenza, its noble view
+over the valley of the Crati to the heights of Sila; that of Catanzaro
+is in itself more striking, and the prospect it affords has a sterner,
+grander note. Here you wander amid groups of magnificent trees, an
+astonishingly rich and varied vegetation; and from a skirting terrace
+you look down upon the precipitous gorge, burnt into barenness save
+where a cactus clings to some jutting rock. Here in summer-time would
+be freshness amid noontide heat, with wondrous avenues of golden light
+breaking the dusk beneath the boughs. I shall never see it; but the
+desire often comes to me under northern skies, when I am weary of
+labour and seek in fancy a paradise of idleness.
+
+In the public gardens is a little museum, noticeable mostly for a fine
+collection of ancient coins. There are Greek pots, too, and weapons,
+found at Tiriolo, a village high up on the mountain above Catanzaro. As
+at Taranto, a stranger who cares for this kind of thing can be sure of
+having the museum all to himself. On my first visit Don Pasquale
+accompanied me, and through him I made the acquaintance of the
+custodian. But I was not in the museum mood; reviving health inclined
+me to the open air, and the life of to-day; I saw these musty relics
+with only a vague eye.
+
+After living amid a malaria-stricken population, I rejoiced in the
+healthy aspect of the mountain folk. Even a deformed beggar, who
+dragged himself painfully along the pavement, had so ruddy a face that
+it was hard to feel compassion for him. And the wayside children--it
+was a pleasure to watch them at their games. Such children in Italy do
+not, as a rule, seem happy; too often they look ill, cheerless,
+burdened before their time; at Catanzaro they are as robust and lively
+as heart could wish, and their voices ring delightfully upon the ear.
+It is not only, I imagine, a result of the fine air they breathe; no
+doubt they are exceptional among the poor children of the south in
+getting enough to eat. The town has certain industries, especially the
+manufacture of silk; one feels an atmosphere of well-being; mendicancy
+is a rare thing.
+
+Fruits abounded, and were very cheap; if one purchased from a stall the
+difficulty was to carry away the abundance offered for one's smallest
+coin. Excellent oranges cost about a penny the half-dozen. Any one who
+is fond of the prickly fig should go to Catanzaro. I asked a man
+sitting with a basket of them at a street corner to give me the worth
+of a soldo (a half-penny); he began to fill my pocket, and when I cried
+that it was enough, that I could carry no more, he held up one
+particularly fine fruit, smiled as only an Italian can, and said, with
+admirable politeness, "_Questo per complimento_!" I ought to have
+shaken hands with him.
+
+Even when I had grown accustomed to the place, its singular appearance
+of incompleteness kept exciting my attention. I had never seen a town
+so ragged at the edges. If there had recently been a great
+conflagration and almost all the whole city were being rebuilt, it
+would have looked much as it did at the time of my visit. To enter the
+post-office one had to clamber over heaps of stone and plaster, to
+stride over tumbled beams and jump across great puddles, entering at
+last by shaky stairs a place which looked like the waiting-room of an
+unfinished railway station. The style of building is peculiar, and
+looks so temporary as to keep one constantly in mind of the threatening
+earthquake. Most of the edifices, large and small, public and private,
+are constructed of rubble set in cement, with an occasional big,
+rough-squared stone to give an appearance of solidity, and perhaps a
+few courses of bricks in the old Roman style. If the building is of
+importance, this work is hidden beneath stucco; otherwise it remains
+like the mere shell of a house, and is disfigured over all its surface
+with great holes left by the scaffolding. Religion supplies something
+of adornment; above many portals is a rudely painted Virgin and Child,
+often, plainly enough, the effort of a hand accustomed to any tool
+rather than that of the artist. On the dwellings of the very poor a
+great Cross is scrawled in whitewash. These rickety houses often
+exhibit another feature more picturesque and, to the earthly
+imagination, more consoling; on the balcony one sees a great gourd,
+some three feet long, so placed that its yellow plumpness may ripen in
+sun and air. It is a sign of plenty: the warm spot of colour against
+the rough masonry does good to eye and heart.
+
+My hotel afforded me little amusement after the _Concordia_ at Cotrone,
+yet it did not lack its characteristic features. I found, for instance,
+in my bedroom a printed notice, making appeal in remarkable terms to
+all who occupied the chamber. The proprietor--thus it ran--had learnt
+with extreme regret that certain travellers who slept under his roof
+were in the habit of taking their meals at other places of
+entertainment. This practice, he desired it to be known, not only hurt
+his personal feelings--_tocca il suo morale_--but did harm to the
+reputation of his establishment. Assuring all and sundry that he would
+do his utmost to maintain a high standard of culinary excellence, the
+proprietor ended by begging his honourable clients that they would
+bestow their kind favours on the restaurant of the house--_signora
+pregare i suoi respettabili clienti perche vogliano benignarsi il
+ristorante_; and therewith signed himself--Coriolano Paparazzo.
+
+For my own part I was not tempted to such a breach of decorum; the fare
+provided by Signor Paparazzo suited me well enough, and the wine of the
+country was so good that it would have covered many defects of cookery.
+Of my fellow-guests in the spacious dining-room I can recall only two.
+They were military men of a certain age, grizzled officers, who walked
+rather stiffly and seated themselves with circumspection. Evidently old
+friends, they always dined at the same time, entering one a few minutes
+after the other; but by some freak of habit they took places at
+different tables, so that the conversation which they kept up all
+through the meal had to be carried on by an exchange of shouts. Nothing
+whatever prevented them from being near each other; the room never
+contained more than half a dozen persons; yet thus they sat, evening
+after evening, many yards apart, straining their voices to be mutually
+audible. Me they delighted; to the other guests, more familiar with
+them and their talk, they must have been a serious nuisance. But I
+should have liked to see the civilian who dared to manifest his
+disapproval of these fine old warriors.
+
+They sat interminably, evidently having no idea how otherwise to pass
+the evening. In the matter of public amusements Catanzaro is not
+progressive; I only once saw an announcement of a theatrical
+performance, and it did not smack of modern enterprise. On the
+dining-room table one evening lay a little printed bill, which made
+known that a dramatic company was then in the town. Their entertainment
+consisted of two parts, the first entitled: "The Death of Agolante and
+the Madness of Count Orlando"; the second: "A Delightful Comedy, the
+Devil's Castle with Pulcinella as the Timorous Soldier." In addition
+were promised "new duets and Neapolitan songs." The theatre would
+comfortably seat three hundred persons, and the performance would be
+given twice, at half-past eighteen and half-past twenty-one o'clock. It
+was unpardonable in me that I did not seek out the Teatro delle
+Varieta; I might easily have been in my seat (with thirty, more likely
+than three hundred, other spectators) by half-past twenty-one. But the
+night was forbidding; a cold rain fell heavily. Moreover, just as I had
+thought that it was perhaps worth while to run the risk of another
+illness--one cannot see the Madness of Count Orlando every day--there
+came into the room a peddler laden with some fifty volumes of fiction
+and a fine assortment of combs and shirt-studs. The books tempted me; I
+looked them through. Most, of course, were translations from the
+vulgarest French _feuilletonistes_; the Italian reader of novels,
+whether in newspaper or volume, knows, as a rule, nothing but this
+imported rubbish. However, a real Italian work was discoverable, and,
+together with the unfriendly sky, it kept me at home. I am sorry now,
+as for many another omission on my wanderings, when lack of energy or a
+passing mood of dullness has caused me to miss what would be so
+pleasant in the retrospect.
+
+I spent an hour one evening at the principal cafe, where a pianist of
+great pretensions and small achievement made rather painful music.
+Watching and listening to the company (all men, of course, though the
+Oriental system regarding women is not so strict at Catanzaro as
+elsewhere in the south), I could not but fall into a comparison of this
+scene with any similar gathering of middle-class English folk. The
+contrast was very greatly in favour of the Italians. One has had the
+same thought a hundred times in the same circumstances, but it is worth
+dwelling upon. Among these representative men, young and old, of
+Catanzaro, the tone of conversation was incomparably better than that
+which would rule in a cluster of English provincials met to enjoy their
+evening leisure. They did, in fact, converse--a word rarely applicable
+to English talk under such conditions; mere personal gossip was the
+exception; they exchanged genuine thoughts, reasoned lucidly on the
+surface of abstract subjects. I say on the surface; no remark that I
+heard could be called original or striking; but the choice of topics
+and the mode of viewing them was distinctly intellectual. Phrases often
+occurred such as have no equivalent on the lips of everyday people in
+our own country. For instance, a young fellow in no way distinguished
+from his companions, fell to talking about a leading townsman, and
+praised him for his _ingenio simpatico, his bella intelligenza_, with
+exclamations of approval from those who listened. No, it is not merely
+the difference between homely Anglo-Saxon and a language of classic
+origin; there is a radical distinction of thought. These people have an
+innate respect for things of the mind, which is wholly lacking to a
+typical Englishman. One need not dwell upon the point that their
+animation was supported by a tiny cup of coffee or a glass of lemonade;
+this is a matter of climate and racial constitution; but I noticed the
+entire absence of a certain kind of jocoseness which is so naturally
+associated with spirituous liquors; no talk could have been less
+offensive. From many a bar-parlour in English country towns I have gone
+away heavy with tedium and disgust; the cafe at Catanzaro seemed, in
+comparison, a place of assembly for wits and philosophers.
+
+Meanwhile a season of rain had begun; heavy skies warned me that I must
+not hope for a renewal of sunny idleness on this mountain top; it would
+be well if intervals of cheerful weather lighted my further course by
+the Ionian Sea. Reluctantly, I made ready to depart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+SQUILLACE
+
+
+In meditating my southern ramble I had lingered on the thought that I
+should see Squillace. For Squillace (Virgil's "ship-wrecking
+Scylaceum") was the ancestral home of Cassiodorus, and his retreat when
+he became a monk; Cassiodorus, the delightful pedant, the liberal
+statesman and patriot, who stands upon the far limit of his old Roman
+world and bids a sad farewell to its glories. He had niched himself in
+my imagination. Once when I was spending a silent winter upon the shore
+of Devon, I had with me the two folio volumes of his works, and
+patiently read the better part of them; it was more fruitful than a
+study of all the modern historians who have written about his time. I
+saw the man; caught many a glimpse of his mind and heart, and names
+which had been to me but symbols in a period of obscure history became
+things living and recognizable.
+
+I could have travelled from Catanzaro by railway to the sea-coast
+station called Squillace, but the town itself is perched upon a
+mountain some miles inland, and it was simpler to perform the whole
+journey by road, a drive of four hours, which, if the weather favoured
+me, would be thoroughly enjoyable. On my last evening Don Pasquale gave
+a good account of the sky; he thought I might hopefully set forth on
+the morrow, and, though I was to leave at eight o'clock, promised to
+come and see me off. Very early I looked forth, and the prospect seemed
+doubtful; I had half a mind to postpone departure. But about seven came
+Don Pasquale's servant, sent by his master to inquire whether I should
+start or not, and, after asking the man's opinion, I decided to take
+courage. The sun rose; I saw the streets of Catanzaro brighten in its
+pale gleams, and the rack above interspaced with blue.
+
+Luckily my carriage-owner was a man of prudence; at the appointed hour
+he sent a covered vehicle--not the open _carozzella_ in which I should
+have cheerfully set forth had it depended upon myself. Don Pasquale,
+too, though unwilling to perturb me, could not altogether disguise his
+misgivings. At my last sight of him, he stood on the pavement before
+the hotel gazing anxiously upwards. But the sun still shone, and as we
+began the descent of the mountain-side I felt annoyed at having to view
+the landscape through loopholes.
+
+Of a sudden--we were near the little station down in the valley--there
+arose a mighty roaring, and all the trees of the wayside bent as if
+they would break. The sky blackened, the wind howled, and presently, as
+I peered through the window for some hope that this would only be a
+passing storm, rain beat violently upon my face. Then the carriage
+stopped, and my driver, a lad of about seventeen, jumped down to put
+something right in the horses' harness.
+
+"Is this going to last?" I shouted to him.
+
+"No, no, signore" he answered gaily. "It will be over in a minute or
+two. _Ecco il sole_!"
+
+I beheld no sun, either then or at any moment during the rest of the
+day, but the voice was so reassuring that I gladly gave ear to it. On
+we drove, down the lovely vale of the Corace, through orange-groves and
+pine-woods, laurels and myrtles, carobs and olive trees, with the rain
+beating fiercely upon us, the wind swaying all the leafage like billows
+on a stormy sea. At the Marina of Catanzaro we turned southward on the
+coast road, pursued it for two or three miles, then branched upon our
+inland way. The storm showed no sign of coming to an end. Several times
+the carriage stopped, and the lad got down to examine his
+horses--perhaps to sympathize with them; he was such a drenched,
+battered, pitiable object that I reproached myself for allowing him to
+pursue the journey.
+
+"_Brutto tempo_!" he screamed above the uproar, when I again spoke to
+him; but in such a cheery tone that I did not think it worth while to
+make any further remark.
+
+Through the driving rain, I studied as well as I could the features of
+the country. On my left hand stretched a long fiat-topped mountain,
+forming the southern slope of the valley we ascended; steep, dark, and
+furrowed with innumerable torrent-beds, it frowned upon a river that
+rushed along the ravine at its foot to pour into the sea where the
+mountain broke as a rugged cliff. This was the Mons Moscius of old
+time, which sheltered the monastery built by Cassiodorus. The headlong,
+swollen flood, coloured like yellow clay, held little resemblance to
+the picture I had made of that river Pellena which murmurs so musically
+in the old writer's pages. Its valley was heaped with great blocks of
+granite--a feature which has interest for the geologist; it marks an
+abrupt change of system, from the soft stone of Catanzaro (which ends
+the Apennine) to the granitic mass of Aspromonte (the toe of Italy)
+which must have risen above the waters long before the Apennines came
+into existence. The wild weather emphasized a natural difference
+between this valley of Squillace and that which rises towards
+Catanzaro; here is but scanty vegetation, little more than thin
+orchards of olive, and the landscape has a bare, harsh character. Is it
+changed so greatly since the sixth century of our era? Or did its
+beauty lie in the eyes of Cassiodorus, who throughout his long life of
+statesmanship in the north never forgot this Bruttian home, and who
+sought peace at last amid the scenes of his childhood?
+
+At windings of the way I frequently caught sight of Squillace itself,
+high and far, its white houses dull-gleaming against the lurid sky. The
+crag on which it stands is higher than that of Catanzaro, but of softer
+ascent. As we approached I sought for signs of a road that would lead
+us upward, but nothing of the sort could be discerned; presently I
+became aware that we were turning into a side valley, and, to all
+appearances, going quite away from the town. The explanation was that
+the ascent lay on the further slope; we began at length to climb the
+back of the mountain, and here I noticed with a revival of hope that
+there was a lull in the tempest; rain no longer fell so heavily; the
+clouds seemed to be breaking apart. A beam of sunshine would have set
+me singing with joy. When half-way up, my driver rested his horses and
+came to speak a word; we conversed merrily. He was to make straight for
+the hotel, where shelter and food awaited us--a bottle of wine, ha! ha!
+He knew the hotel, of course? Oh yes, he knew the hotel; it stood just
+at the entrance to the town; we should arrive in half an hour.
+
+Looking upwards I saw nothing but a mass of ancient ruins, high
+fragments of shattered wall, a crumbling tower, and great windows
+through which the clouds were visible. Inhabited Squillace lay, no
+doubt, behind. I knew that it was a very small place, without any
+present importance; but at all events there was an albergo, and the
+mere name of albergo had a delightful sound of welcome after such a
+journey. Here I would stay for the night, at all events; if the weather
+cleared, I might be glad to remain for two or three days. Certainly the
+rain was stopping; the wind no longer howled. Up we went towards those
+ragged walls and great, vacant windows. We reached the summit; for two
+minutes the horses trotted; then a sudden halt, and my lad's face at
+the carriage door.
+
+"_Ecco l'albergo, Signore_!"
+
+I jumped out. We were at the entrance to an unpaved street of squalid
+hovels, a street which the rain had converted into a muddy river, so
+that, on quitting the vehicle, I stepped into running water up to my
+ankles. Before me was a long low cabin, with a row of four or five
+windows and no upper storey; a miserable hut of rubble and plaster,
+stained with ancient dirt and, at this moment, looking soaked with
+moisture. Above the doorway I read "Osteria Centrale"; on the bare end
+of the house was the prouder inscription, "Albergo Nazionale"--the
+National Hotel. I am sorry to say that at the time this touch of humour
+made no appeal to me; my position was no laughing matter. Faint with
+hunger, I saw at once that I should have to browse on fearsome food. I
+saw, too, that there was scarce a possibility of passing the night in
+this place; I must drive down to the sea-shore, and take my chance of a
+train which would bring me at some time to Reggio. While I thus
+reflected--the water rushing over my boots--a very ill-looking man came
+forth and began to stare curiously at me. I met his eye, but he offered
+no greeting. A woman joined him, and the two, quite passive, waited to
+discover my intentions.
+
+Eat I must, so I stepped forward and asked if I could have a meal.
+Without stirring, the man gave a sullen assent. Could I have food at
+once? Yes, in a few minutes. Would they show me--the dining room? Man
+and woman turned upon their heels, and I followed. The entrance led
+into a filthy kitchen; out of this I turned to the right, went along a
+passage upon which opened certain chamber doors, and was conducted into
+a room at the end--for the nonce, a dining-room, but at ordinary times
+a bedroom. Evidently the kitchen served for native guests; as a
+foreigner I was treated with more ceremony. Left alone till my meal
+should be ready, I examined the surroundings. The floor was of worn
+stone, which looked to me like the natural foundation of the house; the
+walls were rudely plastered, cracked, grimed, and with many a deep
+chink; as for the window, it admitted light, but, owing to the aged
+dirt which had gathered upon it, refused any view of things without
+save in two or three places where the glass was broken; by these
+apertures, and at every point of the framework, entered a sharp wind.
+In one corner stood an iron bedstead, with mattress and bedding in a
+great roll upon it; a shaky deal table and primitive chair completed
+the furniture. Ornament did not wholly lack; round the walls hung a
+number of those coloured political caricatures (several indecent) which
+are published by some Italian newspapers, and a large advertisement of
+a line of emigrant ships between Naples and New York. Moreover, there
+was suspended in a corner a large wooden crucifix, very quaint, very
+hideous, and black with grime.
+
+Spite of all this, I still debated with myself whether to engage the
+room for the night. I should have liked to stay; the thought of a sunny
+morning here on the height strongly allured me, and it seemed a shame
+to confess myself beaten by an Italian inn. On the other hand, the look
+of the people did not please me; they had surly, forbidding faces. I
+glanced at the door--no lock. Fears, no doubt, were ridiculous; yet I
+felt ill at ease. I would decide after seeing the sort of fare that was
+set before me.
+
+The meal came with no delay. First, a dish of great _peperoni_ cut up
+in oil. This gorgeous fruit is never much to my taste, but I had as yet
+eaten no such _peperoni_ as those of Squillace; an hour or two
+afterwards my mouth was still burning from the heat of a few morsels to
+which I was constrained by hunger. Next appeared a dish for which I had
+covenanted--the only food, indeed, which the people had been able to
+offer at short notice--a stew of pork and potatoes. Pork (_maiale_) is
+the staple meat of all this region; viewing it as Homeric diet, I had
+often battened upon such flesh with moderate satisfaction. But the pork
+of Squillace defeated me; it smelt abominably, and it was tough as
+leather. No eggs were to be had no macaroni; cheese, yes--the familiar
+_cacci cavallo_ Bread appeared in the form of a fiat circular cake, a
+foot in diameter, with a hole through the middle; its consistency
+resembled that of cold pancake. And the drink! At least I might hope to
+solace myself with an honest draught of red wine. I poured from the
+thick decanter (dirtier vessel was never seen on table) and tasted. The
+stuff was poison. Assuredly I am far from fastidious; this, I believe,
+was the only occasion when wine has been offered me in Italy which I
+could not drink. After desperately trying to persuade myself that the
+liquor was merely "rough," that its nauseating flavour meant only a
+certain coarse quality of the local grape, I began to suspect that it
+was largely mixed with water--the water of Squillace! Notwithstanding a
+severe thirst, I could not and durst not drink.
+
+Very soon I made my way to the kitchen, where my driver, who had
+stabled his horses, sat feeding heartily; he looked up with his merry
+smile, surprised at the rapidity with which I had finished. How I
+envied his sturdy stomach! With the remark that I was going to have a
+stroll round the town and should be back to settle things in half an
+hour, I hastened into the open.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+MISERIA
+
+
+"What do people do here?" I once asked at a little town between Rome
+and Naples; and the man with whom I talked, shrugging his shoulders,
+answered curtly, "_C'e miseria_"--there's nothing but poverty. The same
+reply would be given in towns and villages without number throughout
+the length of Italy. I had seen poverty enough, and squalid conditions
+of life, but the most ugly and repulsive collection of houses I ever
+came upon was the town of Squillace. I admit the depressing effect of
+rain and cloud, and of hunger worse than unsatisfied; these things
+count emphatically in my case; but under no conditions could inhabited
+Squillace be other than an offence to eye and nostril. The houses are,
+with one or two exceptions, ground-floor hovels; scarce a weather-tight
+dwelling is discoverable; the general impression is that of dilapidated
+squalor. Streets, in the ordinary sense of the word, do not exist;
+irregular alleys climb above the rugged heights, often so steep as to
+be difficult of ascent; here and there a few boulders have been thrown
+together to afford a footing, and in some places the native rock lies
+bare; but for the most part one walks on the accumulated filth of ages.
+At the moment of my visit there was in progress the only kind of
+cleaning which Squillace knows; down every trodden way and every
+intermural gully poured a flush of rain-water, with occasionally a
+leaping torrent or small cascade, which all but barred progress. Open
+doors everywhere allowed me a glimpse of the domestic arrangements, and
+I saw that my albergo had some reason to pride itself on superiority;
+life in a country called civilized cannot easily be more primitive than
+under these crazy roofs. As for the people, they had a dull, heavy
+aspect; rare as must be the apparition of a foreigner among them, no
+one showed the slightest curiosity as I passed, and (an honourable
+feature of their district) no one begged. Women went about in the rain
+protected by a shawl-like garment of very picturesque colouring; it had
+broad yellow stripes on a red ground, the tones subdued to a warm
+richness.
+
+The animal population was not without its importance. Turn where I
+would I encountered lean, black pigs, snorting, frisking, scampering,
+and squealing as if the bad weather were a delight to them. Gaunt,
+low-spirited dogs prowled about in search of food, and always ran away
+at my approach. In one precipitous by-way, where the air was
+insupportably foul, I came upon an odd little scene: a pig and a cat,
+quite alone, were playing together, and enjoying themselves with
+remarkable spirit. The pig lay down in the running mud, and pussy,
+having leapt on to him, began to scratch his back, bite his ears,
+stroke his sides. Suddenly, porker was uppermost and the cat,
+pretending to struggle for life, under his forefeet. It was the only
+amusing incident I met with at Squillace, and the sole instance of
+anything like cheerful vitality.
+
+Above the habitations stand those prominent ruins which had held my eye
+during our long ascent. These are the rugged walls and windows of a
+monastery, not old enough to possess much interest, and, on the
+crowning height, the heavy remnants of a Norman castle, with one fine
+doorway still intact. Bitterly I deplored the gloomy sky which spoiled
+what would else have been a magnificent view from this point of
+vantage--a view wide-spreading in all directions, with Sila northwards,
+Aspromonte to the south, and between them a long horizon of the sea.
+Looking down upon Squillace, one sees its houses niched among huge
+masses of granite, which protrude from the scanty soil, or clinging to
+the rocky surface like limpet shells. Was this the site of Scylaceum,
+or is it, as some hold, merely a mediaeval refuge which took the name
+of the old city nearer to the coast? The Scylaceum of the sixth century
+is described by Cassiodorus--a picture glowing with admiration and
+tenderness. It lay, he says, upon the side of a hill; nay, it hung
+there "like a cluster of grapes," in such glorious light and warmth
+that, to his mind, it deserved to be called the native region of the
+sun. The fertility of the Country around was unexampled; nowhere did
+earth yield to mortals a more luxurious life. Quoting this description,
+Lenormant holds that, with due regard to time's changes, it exactly
+fits the site of Squillace. Yet Cassiodorus says that the hill by which
+you approached the town was not high enough to weary a traveller, a
+consideration making for the later view that Scylaceum stood very near
+to the Marina of Catanzaro, at a spot called Roccella, where not only
+is the nature of the ground suitable, but there exist considerable
+traces of ancient building, such as are not discoverable here on the
+mountain top. Lenormant thought that Roccella was merely the sea-port
+of the inland town. I wish he were right. No archaeologist, whose work
+I have studied, affects me with such a personal charm, with such a
+sense of intellectual sympathy, as Francois Lenormant--dead, alas,
+before he could complete his delightful book. But one fears that, in
+this instance, he judged too hastily.
+
+There is no doubt, fortunately, as to the position of the religious
+house founded by Cassiodorus; it was in the shadow of Mons Moscius, and
+quite near to the sea. I had marked the spot during my drive up the
+valley, and now saw it again from this far height, but I could not be
+satisfied with distant views. Weather and evil quarters making it
+impossible to remain at Squillace, I decided to drive forthwith to the
+railway station, see how much time remained to me before the arrival of
+the train for Reggio, and, if it could be managed, visit in that
+interval the place that attracted me.
+
+It is my desire to be at peace with all men, and in Italy I have rarely
+failed to part with casual acquaintances--even innkeepers and
+cocchieri--on friendly terms; but my host of the _Albergo Nazionale_
+made it difficult to preserve good humour. Not only did he charge
+thrice the reasonable sum for the meal I could not eat, but his bill
+for my driver's _colazione_ contained such astonishing items that I had
+to question the lad as to what he had really consumed. It proved to be
+a very ugly case of extortion, and the tone of sullen menace with which
+my arguments were met did not help to smooth things. Presently the man
+hit upon a pleasant sort of compromise. Why, he asked, did I not pay
+the bill as it stood, and then, on dismissing my carriage--he had
+learnt that I was not returning to Catanzaro--deduct as much as I chose
+from the payment of the driver? A pretty piece of rascality, this,
+which he would certainly not have suggested but that the driver was a
+mere boy, helpless himself and bound to render an account to his
+master. I had to be content with resolutely striking off half the sum
+charged for the lad's wine (he was supposed to have drunk four litres),
+and sending the receipted bill to Don Pasquale at Catanzaro, that he
+might be ready with information if any future traveller consulted him
+about the accommodation to be had at Squillace. No one is likely to do
+so for a long time to come, but I have no doubt Don Pasquale had a
+chuckle of amused indignation over the interesting and very dirty bit
+of paper. We drove quickly down the winding road, and from below I
+again admired the picturesqueness of Squillace. Both my guide-books, by
+the way, the orthodox English and German authorities, assert that from
+the railway station by the sea-shore Squillace is invisible. Which of
+the two borrowed this information from the other? As a matter of fact,
+the view of mountain and town from the station platform is admirable,
+though, of course, at so great a distance, only a whitish patch
+represents the hovels and ruins upon their royal height.
+
+I found that I had a good couple of hours at my disposal, and that to
+the foot of Mons Moscius (now called Coscia di Stalletti) was only a
+short walk. It rained drearily, but by this time I had ceased to think
+of the weather. After watching the carriage for a moment, as it rolled
+away on the long road back to Catanzaro (sorry not to be going with
+it), I followed the advice of the stationmaster, and set out to walk
+along the line of rails towards the black, furrowed mountain side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CASSIODORUS
+
+
+The iron way crosses the mouth of the valley river. As I had already
+noticed, it was a turbid torrent, of dull yellow; where it poured into
+the sea, it made a vast, clean-edged patch of its own hue upon the
+darker surface of the waves. This peculiarity resulted, no doubt, from
+much rain upon the hills; it may be that in calmer seasons the Fiume di
+Squillace bears more resemblance to the Pellena as one pictures it, a
+delightful stream flowing through the gardens of the old monastery.
+Cassiodorus tells us that it abounded in fish. One of his happy labours
+was to make fish-ponds, filled and peopled from the river itself. In
+the cliff-side where Mons Moscius breaks above the shore are certain
+rocky caves, and by some it is thought that, in speaking of his
+fish-preserves, Cassiodorus refers to these. Whatever the local
+details, it was from this feature that the house took its name,
+Monasterium Vivariense.
+
+Here, then, I stood in full view of the spot which I had so often
+visioned in my mind's eye. Much of the land hereabout--probably an
+immense tract of hill and valley--was the old monk's patrimonial
+estate. We can trace his family back through three generations, to a
+Cassiodorus, an Illustris of the falling Western Empire, who about the
+middle of them fifth century defended his native Bruttii against an
+invasion of the Vandals. The grandson of this noble was a distinguished
+man all through the troubled time which saw Italy pass under the
+dominion of Odovacar, and under the conquest of Theodoric; the Gothic
+king raised him to the supreme office of Praetorian Prefect. We learn
+that he had great herds of horses, bred in the Bruttian forests, and
+that Theodoric was indebted to him for the mounting of troops of
+cavalry. He and his ancestry would signify little now-a-days but for
+the life-work of his greater son--Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator,
+statesman, historian, monk. _Senator_ was not a title, but a personal
+name; the name our Cassiodorus always used when speaking of himself.
+But history calls him otherwise, and for us he must be Cassiodorus
+still.
+
+The year of his birth was 480. In the same year were born two other
+men, glories of their age, whose fame is more generally remembered:
+Boethius the poet and philosopher, and Benedict called Saint.
+
+From Quaestorship (old name with no longer the old significance) to
+Praetorian Prefecture, Cassiodorus held all offices of state, and seems
+under every proof to have shown the nobler qualities of statesmanship.
+During his ripe years he stood by the side of Theodoric, minister in
+prime trust, doubtless helping to shape that wise and benevolent policy
+which made the reign of the Ostrogoth a time of rest and hope for the
+Italian people--Roman no longer; the word had lost its meaning, though
+not its magic. The Empire of the West had perished; Theodoric and his
+minister, clearly understanding this, and resolute against the
+Byzantine claim which was but in half abeyance, aimed at the creation
+of an independent Italy, where Goth and Latin should blend into a new
+race. The hope proved vain. Theodoric's successors, no longer kings,
+but mere Gothic chieftains, strove obscurely against inevitable doom,
+until the generals of Juistinian trod Italy into barren servitude. Only
+when the purpose of his life was shattered, when--Theodoric long
+dead--his still faithful service to the Gothic rule became an idle
+form, when Belisarius was compassing the royal city of Ravenna, and
+voice of council could no longer make itself heard amid tumult and
+ruin, did Cassiodorus retire from useless office, and turn his back
+upon the world.
+
+He was aged about sixty. Long before, he had written a history of the
+Goths (known to us only in a compendium by another hand), of which the
+purpose seems to have been to reconcile the Romans to the Gothic
+monarchy; it began by endeavouring to prove that Goths had fought
+against the Greeks at Troy. Now that his public life was over, he
+published a collection of the state papers composed by him under the
+Gothic rulers from Theodoric to Vitigis: for the most part royal
+rescripts addressed to foreign powers and to officials of the kingdom.
+Invaluable for their light upon men and things fourteen hundred years
+ago, these _Variae_ of Cassiodorus; and for their own sake, as literary
+productions, most characteristic, most entertaining. Not quite easy to
+read, for the Latin is by no means Augustan, but after labour well
+spent, a delightful revelation of the man and the age. Great is the
+variety of subjects dealt with or touched upon; from the diplomatic
+relations between Ravenna and Constantinople, or the alliances of the
+Amal line with barbaric royalties in Gaul and Africa, to the pensioning
+of an aged charioteer and the domestic troubles of a small landowner.
+We form a good general idea of the condition of Italy at that time,
+and, on many points political and social, gather a fund of most curious
+detail. The world shown to us is in some respects highly civilized, its
+civilization still that of Rome, whose laws, whose manners, have in
+great part survived the Teutonic conquest; from another point of view
+it is a mere world of ruin, possessed by triumphant barbarism, and
+sinking to intellectual darkness. We note the decay of central power,
+and the growth of political anarchy; we observe the process by which
+Roman nobles, the Senatorial Order when a Senate lingers only in name,
+are becoming the turbulent lords of the Middle Ages, each a power in
+his own territory, levying private war, scornful of public interests.
+The city of Rome has little part in this turbid history, yet her name
+is never mentioned without reverence, and in theory she is still the
+centre of the world. Glimpses are granted us of her fallen majesty; we
+learn that Theodoric exerted himself to preserve her noble buildings,
+to restore her monuments; at the same time we hear of marble stolen
+from palaces in decay, and of temples which, as private property, are
+converted to ignoble use. Moreover, at Rome sits an ecclesiastical
+dignitary, known as _Papa_, to whose doings already attaches
+considerable importance. One of the last acts of the Senate which had
+any real meaning was to make a decree with regard to the election of
+this Bishop, forbidding his advance by the way of Simony. Theodoric, an
+Arian, interferes only with the Church of Rome in so far as public
+peace demands it. In one of his letters occurs a most remarkable dictum
+on the subject of toleration. "_Religionem imperare non possumus, quia
+nemo cogitur ut credat invitus_--we cannot impose a religious faith,
+for no one can be compelled to believe against his conscience." This
+must, of course, have been the king's own sentiment, but Cassiodorus
+worded it, and doubtless with approval.
+
+Indeed, we are at no loss to discern the mind of the secretary in these
+official papers. Cassiodorus speaks as often for himself as for the
+king; he delights to expatiate, from an obviously personal point of
+view, on any subject that interests him. One of these is natural
+history; give him but the occasion, and he gossips of beasts, birds,
+and fishes, in a flow of the most genial impertinence. Certain bronze
+elephants on the Via Sacra are falling to pieces and must be repaired:
+in giving the order, Theodoric's minister pens a little treatise on the
+habits and characteristics of the elephant. His erudition is often
+displayed: having to convey some direction about the Circus at Rome, he
+begins with a pleasant sketch of the history of chariot racing. One
+marvels at the man who, in such a period, preserved this mood of
+liberal leisure. His style is perfectly suited to the matter; diffuse,
+ornate, amusingly affected; altogether a _precious_ mode of writing,
+characteristic of literary decadence. When the moment demands it, he is
+pompously grandiloquent; in dealing with a delicate situation, he
+becomes involved and obscure. We perceive in him a born courtier, a
+proud noble, a statesman of high purpose and no little sagacity;
+therewith, many gracious and attractive qualities, coloured by
+weaknesses, such as agreeable pedantry and amiable self-esteem, which
+are in part personal, partly the note of his time.
+
+One's picture of the man is, of course, completed from a knowledge of
+the latter years of his life, of the works produced during his monastic
+retirement. Christianity rarely finds expression in the _Variae_, a
+point sufficiently explained by the Gothic heresy, which imposed
+discretion in public utterances; on the other hand, pagan mythology
+abounds; we observe the hold it still had upon educated
+minds--education, indeed, meaning much the same thing in the sixth
+century after Christ as in the early times of the Empire. Cassiodorus
+can never have been a fanatical devotee of any creed. Of his sincere
+piety there is no doubt; it appears in a vast commentary on the Psalms,
+and more clearly in the book he wrote for the guidance and edification
+of his brother monks--brothers (_carissimi fratres_), for in his
+humility he declined to become the Abbot of Vivariense; enough that his
+worldly dignity, his spiritual and mental graces, assured to him the
+influence he desired. The notable characteristic of his rule was a
+sanctifying of intellectual labour. In abandoning the world, he by no
+means renounced his interest in its civilization. Statesmanship having
+failed to stem the tide of Oriental tyranny and northern barbarism, he
+set himself to save as much as possible of the nobler part, to secure
+for happier ages the record of human attainment. Great was the
+importance he attached to the work of his Antiquarii--copyists who
+laboured to preserve the manuscript literature which was in danger of
+utterly perishing. With special reference to their work upon the
+Scriptures, he tells them that they "fight against the wiles of Satan
+with pen and ink." And again: "Writing with three fingers, they thus
+symbolize the virtues of the Holy Trinity; using a reed, they thus
+attack the craft of the Devil with that very instrument which smote the
+Lord's head in his Passion." But all literature was his care. That the
+copyists might write correctly, he digested the works of half a dozen
+grammarians into a treatise on orthography. Further, that the books of
+the monastery might wear "a wedding garment" (his own phrase), he
+designed a great variety of bindings, which were kept as patterns.
+
+There, at the foot of Moscius, did these brethren and their founder
+live and work. But on the top of the mountain was another retreat,
+known as Castellense, for those monks who--_divina gratia
+suffragante_--desired a severer discipline, and left the coenobitic
+house to become anchorites. Did these virtuous brothers continue their
+literary labours? One hopes so, and one is glad that Cassiodorus
+himself seems to have ended his life down in the valley by the Pellena.
+
+A third class of monks finds mention, those in whom "_Frigidus
+obstiterit circum praecordia sanguis_," quotes the founder. In other
+words, the hopelessly stupid. For these there was labour in the garden,
+and to console them Cassiodorus recites from a Psalm: "Thou shalt eat
+the labour of thy hands; happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with
+thee." A smile is on the countenance of the humane brother. He did his
+utmost, indeed, for the comfort, as well as the spiritual welfare, of
+his community. Baths were built "for the sick" (heathendom had been
+cleaner, but we must not repine); for the suffering, too, and for
+pilgrims, exceptional food was provided--young pigeons, delicate fish,
+fruit, honey; a new kind of lamp was invented, to burn for long hours
+without attention; dials and clepsydras marked the progress of day and
+night.
+
+Among the monastic duties is that of giving instruction to the
+peasantry round about. They are not to be oppressed, these humble
+tillers of the soil, for is it not written that "My yoke is easy, and
+my burden light"? But one must insist that they come frequently to
+religious service, and that they do not _lucos colere_--worship in
+groves--which shows that a heathen mind still lingered among the
+people, and that they reverenced the old deities. Benedict, the
+contemporary of Cassiodorus (we have no authority for supposing that
+they knew each other), when he first ascended the mount above Casinum,
+found a temple of Apollo, with the statue of the god receiving daily
+homage. Archaeologists have tried to determine at what date the old
+religion became extinct in Italy. Their research leads them well into
+the Middle Ages, but, undoubtedly, even then they pause too soon.
+
+Legend says that Cassiodorus attained the age of nearly a hundred
+years. We may be sure that to the end he lived busily, for of idleness
+he speaks with abhorrence as the root of evil. Doubtless he was always
+a copious talker, and to many a pilgrim he must have gossiped
+delightfully, alternating mundane memories with counsel good for the
+soul. Only one of his monastic brethren is known to us as a man of any
+distinction: this was Dionysius Exiguus, or the Little, by birth a
+Scythian, a man of much learning. He compiled the first history of the
+Councils, and, a matter more important, originated the computation of
+the Christian Era; for up to this time men had dated in the old way, by
+shadowy consulships and confusing Indictions. There is happy
+probability that Cassiodorus lived out his life in peace; but the
+monastery did not long exist; like that of Benedict on Monte Cassino,
+it seems to have been destroyed by the Lombards, savages and Arians. No
+trace of it remains. But high up on the mountain is a church known as
+S. Maria de Vetere, a name indicating an ancient foundation, which
+perhaps was no other than the anchorite house of Castellense.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE GROTTA
+
+
+About a mile beyond Squillace the line passes by a tunnel through the
+promontory of Mons Moscius. At this point on the face of the sea-cliff
+I was told that I should discover a _grotta_, one of the caverns which
+some think are indicated by Cassiodorus when he speaks of his
+fish-preserves. Arrived near the mouth of the tunnel I found a
+signal-box, where several railway men were grouped in talk; to them I
+addressed myself, and all immediately turned to offer me guidance. We
+had to clamber down a rocky descent, and skirt the waves for a few
+yards; when my cluster of companions had sufficiently shown their
+good-will, all turned back but one, who made a point of giving me safe
+conduct into the cave itself. He was a bronzed, bright-eyed,
+happy-looking fellow of middle age, his humorous intelligence appearing
+in a flow of gossip about things local. We entered a narrow opening,
+some twelve feet high, which ran perhaps twenty yards into the cliff.
+Lenormant supposes that this was a quarry made by the original Greek
+colonists. If Cassiodorus used it for the purpose mentioned, the cave
+must have been in direct communication either with the sea or the
+river; at present, many yards of sloping shingle divide it from the
+line of surf, and the river flows far away. Movement of the shore there
+has of course been, and the Pellena may have considerably changed the
+direction of its outflow; our author's description being but vague, one
+can only muse on probabilities and likelihoods.
+
+Whilst we talked, the entrance to the cave was shadowed, and there
+entered one of the men who had turned back half-way; his face betrayed
+the curiosity which had after all prevailed to bring him hither.
+Shouting merrily, my companion hailed him as "Brigadiere." The two
+friends contrasted very amusingly; for the brigadiere was a mild,
+timid, simple creature, who spoke with diffidence; he kept his
+foolishly good-natured eyes fixed upon me, a gaze of wonder. After
+listening to all that my guide had to say--it was nothing to the point,
+dealing chiefly with questions of railway engineering--I had just begun
+to explain my interest in the locality, and I mentioned the name of
+Cassiodorus. As it passed my lips the jovial fellow burst into a roar
+of laughter. "Cassiodorio! Ha, ha! Cassiodorio! Ha, ha, ha!" I asked
+him what he meant, and found that he was merely delighted to hear a
+stranger unexpectedly utter a name in familiar local use. He ran out
+from the cave, and pointed up the valley; yonder was a fountain which
+bore the name "Fontana di Cassiodorio." (From my authors I knew of
+this; it may or may not have genuine historic interest.) Thereupon, I
+tried to discover whether any traditions hung to the name, but these
+informants had only a vague idea that Cassiodorus was a man of times
+long gone by. How, they questioned in turn, did _I_ know anything about
+him? Why, from books, I replied; among them books which the ancient
+himself had written more than a thousand years ago. This was too much
+for the brigadiere; it moved him to stammered astonishment. Did I mean
+to say that books written more than a thousand years ago still existed?
+The jovial friend, good-naturedly scornful, cried out that of course
+they did, and added with triumphant air that they were not in the
+language of to-day but in _latino, latino_! All this came as a
+revelation to the other, who stared and marvelled, never taking his
+eyes from my face. At length he burst out with an emphatic question;
+these same books, were they large? Why yes, I answered, some of them.
+Were they--were they _as large as a missal_? A shout of jolly laughter
+interrupted us. It seemed to me that my erudite companion was in the
+habit of getting fun of out his friend the brigadiere, but so kindly
+did he look and speak, that it must have been difficult for the
+simpleton ever to take offence.
+
+Meanwhile the sullen sky had grown blacker, and rain was descending
+heavily. In any case, I should barely have had time to go further, and
+had to be content with a description from my companions of a larger
+cave some distance beyond this, which is known as the Grotta of San
+Gregorio--with reference, no doubt, to S. Gregory the Thaumaturgist; to
+him was dedicated a Greek monastery, built on the ruined site of
+Vivariense. After the Byzantine conquest of the sixth century, Magna
+Graecia once more justified its ancient name; the civilization of this
+region became purely Greek; but for the Lombards and ecclesiastical
+Rome, perhaps no Latin Italy would have survived. Greek monks, who
+through the darkest age were skilful copyists, continued in Calabria
+the memorable work of Cassiodorus. The ninth century saw Saracen
+invasion, and then it was, no doubt, that the second religious house
+under Mons Moscius perished from its place.
+
+Thinking over this, I walked away from the cave and climbed again to
+the railway; my friends also were silent and ruminative. Not
+unnaturally, I suspected that a desire for substantial thanks had some
+part in their Silence, and at a convenient spot I made suitable
+offering. It was done, I trust, with all decency, for I knew that I had
+the better kind of Calabrian to deal with; but neither the jovially
+intelligent man nor the pleasant simpleton would for a moment entertain
+this suggestion. They refused with entire dignity--grave, courteous,
+firm-and as soon as I had apologized, which I did not without emphasis,
+we were on the same terms as before; with handshaking, we took kindly
+leave of each other. Such self-respect is the rarest thing in Italy
+south of Rome, but in Calabria I found it more than once.
+
+By when I had walked back to the station, hunger exhausted me. There
+was no buffet, and seemingly no place in the neighbourhood where food
+could be purchased, but on my appealing to the porter I learnt that he
+was accustomed to entertain stray travellers in his house hard by,
+whither he at once led me. To describe the room where my meal was
+provided would be sheer ingratitude: in my recollection it compares
+favourably with the _Albergo Nazionale_ of Squillace. I had bread,
+salame, cheese, and, heaven be thanked, wine that I could swallow--nay,
+for here sounds the note of thanklessness, it was honest wine, of which
+I drank freely. Honest, too, the charge that was made; I should have
+felt cheap at ten times the price that sudden accession of bodily and
+mental vigour. Luck be with him, serviceable _facchino_ of Squillace! I
+remember his human face, and his smile of pleasure when I declared all
+he modestly set before me good and good again. His hospitality sent me
+on my way rejoicing--glad that I had seen the unspeakable little
+mountain town, thrice glad that I had looked upon Mons Moscius and
+trodden by the river Pellena. Rain fell in torrents, but I no longer
+cared. When presently the train arrived, I found a comfortable corner,
+and looked forward with a restful sigh to the seven hours' travel which
+would bring me into view of Sicily.
+
+In the carriage sat a school-boy, a book open upon his knee. When our
+eyes had met twice or thrice, and an ingenuous smile rose to his
+handsome face, I opened conversation, and he told me that he came every
+day to school from a little place called San Sostene to Catanzaro,
+there being no nearer instruction above the elementary; a journey of
+some sixteen miles each way, and not to be reckoned by English
+standards, for it meant changing at the Marina for the valley train,
+and finally going up the mountain side by _diligenza_. The lad flushed
+with delight in his adventure--a real adventure for him to meet with
+some one from far-off England. Just before we stopped at San Sostene,
+he presented me with his card--why had he a card?--which bore the name,
+De Luca Fedele. A bright and spirited lad, who seemed to have the best
+qualities of his nation; I wish I might live to hear him spoken of as a
+man doing honour to Italy.
+
+At this station another travelling companion took the school-boy's
+place; a priest, who soon addressed me in courteous talk. He journeyed
+only for a short way, and, when alighting, pointed skyward through the
+dark (night had fallen) to indicate his mountain parish miles inland.
+He, too, offered me his card, adding a genial invitation; I found he
+was Parroco (parish priest) of San Nicola at Badolato. I would ask
+nothing better than to visit him, some autumn-tide, when grapes are
+ripening above the Ionian Sea.
+
+It was a wild night. When the rain at length ceased, lightning flashed
+ceaselessly about the dark heights of Aspromonte; later, the moon rose,
+and, sailing amid grandly illumined clouds, showed white waves rolling
+in upon the beach. Wherever the train stopped, that sea-music was in my
+ears--now seeming to echo a verse of Homer, now the softer rhythm of
+Theocritus. Think of what one may in day-time on this far southern
+shore, its nights are sacred to the poets of Hellas. In rounding Cape
+Spartivento, I strained my eyes through the moonlight--unhappily a
+waning moon, which had shone with full orb the evening I ascended to
+Catanzaro--to see the Sicilian mountains; at length they stood up
+darkly against the paler night. There came back to my memory a voyage
+at glorious sunrise, years ago, when I passed through the Straits of
+Messina, and all day long gazed at Etna, until its cone, solitary upon
+the horizon, shone faint and far in the glow of evening--the morrow to
+bring me a first sight of Greece.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+REGGIO
+
+
+By its natural situation Reggio is marked for an unquiet history. It
+was a gateway of Magna Graecia; it lay straight in the track of
+conquering Rome when she moved towards Sicily; it offered points of
+strategic importance to every invader or defender of the peninsula
+throughout the mediaeval wars. Goth and Saracen, Norman, Teuton and
+Turk, seized, pillaged, and abandoned, each in turn, this stronghold
+overlooking the narrow sea. Then the earthquakes, ever menacing between
+Vesuvius and Etna; that of 1783, which wrought destruction throughout
+Calabria, laid Reggio in ruins, so that to-day it has the aspect of a
+newly-built city, curving its regular streets, amphitheatre-wise, upon
+the slope that rises between shore and mountain. Of Rhegium little is
+discernible above ground; of the ages that followed scarce anything
+remains but the Norman fortress, so shaken by that century-old disaster
+that huge gaps show where its rent wall sank to a lower level upon the
+hillside.
+
+At first, one has eyes and thoughts for nothing but the landscape. From
+the terrace road along the shore, Via Plutino, beauties and glories
+indescribable lie before one at every turn of the head. Aspromonte,
+with its forests and crags; the shining straits, sail-dotted, opening
+to a sea-horizon north and south; and, on the other side, the
+mountain-island, crowned with snow. Hours long I stood and walked here,
+marvelling delightedly at all I saw, but in the end ever fixing my gaze
+on Sicily. Clouds passed across the blue sky, and their shadows upon
+the Sicilian panorama made ceaseless change of hue and outline. At
+early morning I saw the crest of Etna glistening as the first sun-ray
+smote upon its white ridges; at fall of day, the summit hidden by heavy
+clouds, and western beams darting from behind the mountain, those far,
+cold heights glimmered with a hue of palest emerald, seeming but a
+vision of the sunset heaven, translucent, ever about to vanish. Night
+transformed but did not all conceal. Yonder, a few miles away, shone
+the harbour and the streets of Messina, and many a gleaming point along
+the island coast, strand-touching or high above, signalled the homes of
+men. Calm, warm, and clear, this first night at Reggio; I could not
+turn away from the siren-voice of the waves; hearing scarce a footstep
+but my own, I paced hither and thither by the sea-wall, alone with
+memories.
+
+The rebuilding of Reggio has made it clean and sweet; its air is
+blended from that of mountain and sea, ever renewed, delicate and
+inspiriting. But, apart from the harbour, one notes few signs of
+activity; the one long street, Corso Garibaldi, has little traffic;
+most of the shops close shortly after nightfall, and then there is no
+sound of wheels; all would be perfectly still but for the occasional
+cry of lads who sell newspapers. Indeed, the town is strangely quiet,
+considering its size and aspect of importance; one has to search for a
+restaurant, and I doubt if more than one cafe exists. At my hotel the
+dining-room was a public _trattoria_, opening upon the street, but only
+two or three military men--the eternal officers--made use of it, and I
+felt a less cheery social atmosphere than at Taranto or at Catanzaro.
+One recurring incident did not tend to exhilarate. Sitting in view of a
+closed door, I saw children's faces pressed against the glass, peering
+little faces, which sought a favourable moment; suddenly the door would
+open, and there sounded a thin voice, begging for _un pezzo di pane_--a
+bit of bread. Whenever the waiter caught sight of these little
+mendicants, he rushed out with simulated fury, and pursued them along
+the pavement. I have no happy recollection of my Reggian meals.
+
+An interesting feature of the streets is the frequency of carved
+inscriptions, commemorating citizens who died in their struggle for
+liberty. Amid quiet by-ways, for instance, I discovered a tablet with
+the name of a young soldier who fell at that spot, fighting against the
+Bourbon, in 1860: "_offerse per l'unita della patria sua vita
+quadrilustre_." The very insignificance of this young life makes the
+fact more touching; one thinks of the unnumbered lives sacrificed upon
+this soil, age after age, to the wild-beast instinct of mankind, and
+how pathetic the attempt to preserve the memory of one boy, so soon to
+become a meaningless name! His own voice seems to plead with us for a
+regretful thought, to speak from the stone in sad arraignment of
+tyranny and bloodshed. A voice which has no accent of hope. In the days
+to come, as through all time that is past, man will lord it over his
+fellow, and earth will be stained red from veins of young and old. That
+sweet and sounding name of _patria_ becomes an illusion and a curse;
+linked with the pretentious modernism, _civilization_, it serves as
+plea to the latter-day barbarian, ravening and reckless under his civil
+garb. How can one greatly wish for the consolidation and prosperity of
+Italy, knowing that national vigour tends more and more to
+international fear and hatred? They who perished that Italy might be
+born again, dreamt of other things than old savagery clanging in new
+weapons. In our day there is but one Italian patriot; he who tills the
+soil, and sows, and reaps, ignorant or careless of all beyond his
+furrowed field.
+
+Whilst I was still thinking of that memorial tablet, I found myself in
+front of the Cathedral. As a structure it makes small appeal, dating
+only from the seventeenth century, and heavily restored in times more
+recent; but the first sight of the facade is strangely stirring. For
+across the whole front, in great letters which one who runs may read,
+is carved a line from the Acts of the Apostles:--
+
+"Circumlegentes devenimus Rhegium."
+
+Save only those sonorous words which circle the dome of S. Peter's, I
+have seen no inscription on Christian temple which seemed to me so
+impressive. "We fetched a compass, and came to Rhegium." Paul was on
+his voyage from Caesarea to Rome, and here his ship touched, here at
+the haven beneath Aspromonte. The fact is familiar enough, but,
+occupied as I was with other thoughts, it had not yet occurred to me;
+the most pious pilgrim of an earlier day could not have felt himself
+more strongly arrested than I when I caught sight of these words. Were
+I to inhabit Reggio, I should never pass the Cathedral without stopping
+to read and think; the carving would never lose its power over my
+imagination. It unites for me two elements of moving interest: a vivid
+fact from the ancient world, recorded in the music of the ancient
+tongue. All day the words rang in my head, even as at Rome I have gone
+about murmuring to myself: "_Aedificabo ecclesiam meam_." What a noble
+solemnity in this Latin speech! And how vast the historic significance
+of such monumental words! Moralize who will; enough for me to hear with
+delight that deep-toned harmony, and to thrill with the strangeness of
+old things made new.
+
+It was Sunday, which at Reggio is a day or market. Crowds of
+country-folk had come into the town with the produce of field and
+garden; all the open spaces were occupied with temporary stalls; at
+hand stood innumerable donkeys, tethered till business should be over.
+The produce exhibited was of very fine quality, especially the
+vegetables; I noticed cauliflowers measuring more than a foot across
+the white. Of costume there was little to be observed--though the long
+soft cap worn by most of the men, hanging bag-like over one ear almost
+to the shoulder, is picturesque. The female water-carriers, a long slim
+cask resting lengthwise upon their padded heads, hold attention as they
+go to and from the fountains. Good-looking people, grave of manner, and
+doing their business without noise. It was my last sight of the
+Calabrian hillsmen; to the end they held my interest and my respect.
+When towns have sucked dry their population of strength and virtue, it
+is such folk as these, hardy from the free breath of heaven and the
+scent of earth, who will renew a flaccid race.
+
+Walking beyond the town in the southern direction, where the shape of
+Etna shows more clearly amid the lower mountains, I found myself
+approaching what looked like a handsome public edifice, a museum or
+gallery of art. It was a long building, graced with a portico, and
+coloured effectively in dull red; all about it stood lemon trees, and
+behind, overtopping the roof, several fine palms. Moved by curiosity I
+quickened my steps, and as I drew nearer I felt sure that this must be
+some interesting institution of which I had not heard. Presently I
+observed along the facade a row of heads of oxen carved in stone--an
+ornament decidedly puzzling. Last of all my eyes perceived, over the
+stately entrance, the word "Macello," and with astonishment I became
+aware that this fine structure, so agreeably situated, was nothing else
+than the town slaughter-house. Does the like exist elsewhere? It was a
+singular bit of advanced civilization, curiously out of keeping with
+the thoughts which had occupied me on my walk. Why, I wonder, has
+Reggio paid such exceptional attention to this department of its daily
+life? One did not quite know whether to approve this frank exhibition
+of carnivorous zeal; obviously something can be said in its favour,
+yet, on the other hand, a man who troubles himself with finer scruples
+would perhaps choose not to be reminded of pole-axe and butcher's
+knife, preferring that such things should shun the light of day. It
+gave me, for the moment, an odd sense of having strayed into the world
+of those romancers who forecast the future; a slaughter-house of
+tasteful architecture, set in a grove of lemon trees and date palms,
+suggested the dreamy ideal of some reformer whose palate shrinks from
+vegetarianism. To my mind this had no place amid the landscape which
+spread about me. It checked my progress; I turned abruptly, to lose the
+impression as soon as possible.
+
+No such trouble has been taken to provide comely housing for the
+collection of antiquities which the town possesses. The curator who led
+me through the museum (of course I was the sole visitor) lamented that
+it was only communal, the Italian Government not having yet cared to
+take it under control; he was an enthusiast, and spoke with feeling of
+the time and care he had spent upon these precious relics--_sedici anni
+di vita_--sixteen years of life, and, after all, who cared for them?
+There was a little library of archaeological works, which contained two
+volumes only of the _Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_; who, asked the
+curator sadly, would supply money to purchase the rest? Place had been
+found on the walls for certain modern pictures of local interest. One
+represented a pasture on the heights of Aspromonte, shepherds and their
+cattle amid rich herbage, under a summer sky, with purple summits
+enclosing them on every side; the other, also a Calabrian mountain
+scene, but sternly grand in the light of storm; a dark tarn, a rushing
+torrent, the lonely wilderness. Naming the painter, my despondent
+companion shook his head, and sighed "_Morto! Morto!_"
+
+Ere I left, the visitors' book was opened for my signature. Some twenty
+pages only had been covered since the founding of the museum, and most
+of the names were German. Fortunately, I glanced at the beginning, and
+there, on the first page, was written "Francois Lenormant, Membre de
+l'Institut de France"--the date, 1882. The small, delicate character
+was very suggestive of the man as I conceived him; to come upon his
+name thus unexpectedly gave me a thrill of pleasure; it was like being
+brought of a sudden into the very presence of him whose spirit had
+guided, instructed, borne me delightful company throughout my
+wanderings. When I turned to the curator, and spoke of this discovery,
+sympathy at once lighted up his face. Yes, yes! He remembered the
+visit; he had the clearest recollection of Lenormant--"_un bravo
+giovane_!" Thereupon, he directed my attention to a little slip of
+paper pasted into the inner cover of the book, on which were written in
+pencil a few Greek letters; they were from the hand of Lenormant
+himself, who had taken out his pencil to illustrate something he was
+saying about a Greek inscription in the museum. Carefully had this
+scrap been preserved by the good curator; his piety touched and
+delighted me.
+
+I could have desired no happier incident for the close of my journey;
+by lucky chance this visit to the museum had been postponed till the
+last morning, and, as I idled through the afternoon about the Via
+Plutino, my farewell mood was in full harmony with that in which I had
+landed from Naples upon the Calabrian shore. So hard a thing to catch
+and to retain, the mood corresponding perfectly to an intellectual
+bias--hard, at all events, for him who cannot shape his life as he
+will, and whom circumstance ever menaces with dreary harassment. Alone
+and quiet, I heard the washing of the waves; I saw the evening fall on
+cloud-wreathed Etna, the twinkling lights come forth on Scylla and
+Charybdis; and, as I looked my last towards the Ionian Sea, I wished it
+were mine to wander endlessly amid the silence of the ancient world,
+to-day and all its sounds forgotten.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of By the Ionian Sea, by George Gissing
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY THE IONIAN SEA ***
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