By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy (2024)

NOTES OF A RAMBLE IN SOUTHERN ITALY

BY

GEORGE GISSING

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

FROM NAPLES

This is the third day of sirocco, heavy-clouded, sunless. All thecolour has gone out of Naples; the streets are dusty and stifling. Ilong for the mountains and the sea.

To-morrow I shall leave by the Messina boat, which calls at Paola. Itis now more than a twelvemonth since I began to think of Paola, and animage of the place has grown in my mind. I picture a little marina; ayellowish little town just above; and behind, rising grandly, the longrange of mountains which guard the shore of Calabria. Paola has nospecial interest that I know of, but it is the nearest point on thecoast to Cosenza, which has interest in abundance; by landing here Imake a modestly adventurous beginning of my ramble in the South. AtPaola foreigners are rare; one may count upon new impressions, and thejourney over the hills will be delightful.

Were I to lend ear to the people with whom I am staying, here in theChiatamone, I should either abandon my project altogether or set forthwith dire misgivings. They are Neapolitans of the better class; that isto 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 elderlyman, with a fine head, a dignified presence, and a coldly courteousdemeanour. By preference he speaks French, and his favourite subject isParis. One observes in him something like disdain for his own country,which in his mind is associated only with falling fortunes and loss ofself-respect. The cordial Italian note never sounds in his talk. Thesignora (also a little ashamed of her own language) excites herselfabout taxation—as well she may—and dwells with doleful vivacity onfamily troubles. Both are astonished at my eccentricity and hardinessin undertaking a solitary journey through the wild South. Theirgeographical notions are vague; they have barely heard of Cosenza or ofCotrone, and of Paola not at all; it would as soon occur to them to setout for Morocco as for Calabria. How shall I get along with peoplewhose language is a barbarous dialect? Am I aware that the country isin great part pestilential?—la febbre! Has no one informed me thatin autumn snows descend, and bury everything for months? It is uselessto explain that I only intend to visit places easily accessible, that Ishall travel mostly by railway, and that if disagreeable weather setsin I shall quickly return northwards. They look at me dubiously, andask themselves (I am sure) whether I have not some more tangible motivethan a lover of classical antiquity. It ends with a compliment to theenterprising spirit of the English race.

I have purchases to make, business to settle, and I must go hither andthither about the town. Sirocco, of course, dusks everything tocheerless grey, but under any sky it is dispiriting to note the changesin Naples. Lo sventramento (the disembowelling) goes on, and regionsare transformed. It is a good thing, I suppose, that the broad CorsoUmberto I. should cut a way through the old Pendino; but what acontrast between that native picturesqueness and the cosmopolitanvulgarity which has usurped its place! "Napoli se ne va!" I pass theSanta Lucia with downcast eyes, my memories of ten years ago strivingagainst the dulness of to-day. The harbour, whence one used to startfor Capri, is filled up; the sea has been driven to a hopeless distancebeyond a wilderness of dust-heaps. They are going to make a long,straight embankment from the Castel dell'Ovo to the Great Port, andbefore long the Santa Lucia will be an ordinary street, shut in amonghuge houses, with no view at all. Ah, the nights that one lingeredhere, watching the crimson glow upon Vesuvius, tracing the dark line ofthe Sorrento promontory, or waiting for moonlight to cast its magicupon floating Capri! The odours remain; the stalls of sea-fruit are asyet undisturbed, and the jars of the water-sellers; women still comband bind each other's hair by the wayside, and meals are cooked andeaten 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 ofthis sad billowy sky, only its ancient foulness is manifest; thereneeds the golden sunlight to bring out a suggestion of its ancientcharm.

Has Naples grown less noisy, or does it only seem so to me? The menwith bullock carts are strangely quiet; their shouts have nothing likethe frequency and spirit of former days. In the narrow and throngedStrada di Chiaia I find little tumult; it used to be deafening. Tenyears ago a foreigner could not walk here without being assailed by theclamour 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 thePiliero, whither I have been to take my passage for Paola, I catch butan echo of the jubilant uproar which used to amaze me. Is Naples reallyso much quieter? If I had time I would go out to Fuorigrotta, once, itseemed to me, the noisiest village on earth, and see if there also Iobserved a change. It would not be surprising if the modernization ofthe city, together with the state of things throughout Italy, had asubduing effect upon Neapolitan manners. In one respect the streets areassuredly less gay. When I first knew Naples one was never, literallynever, out of hearing of a hand-organ; and these organs, which ingeneral had a peculiarly dulcet note, played the brightest of melodies;trivial, vulgar if you will, but none the less melodious, and dear toNaples. Now the sound of street music is rare, and I understand thatsome police provision long since interfered with the soft-tonguedinstruments. I miss them; for, in the matter of music, it is with me aswith Sir Thomas Browne. For Italy the change is significant enough; ina few more years spontaneous melody will be as rare at Naples or Veniceas 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, ascomfortable. I have found my old corner in one of the little rooms, andsomething of the old gusto for zuppa di vongole. The homely wine ofPosillipo smacks as in days gone by, and is commended to one's lips bya song of the South. . . .

Last night the wind changed and the sky began to clear; this morning Iawoke in sunshine, and with a feeling of eagerness for my journey. Ishall look upon the Ionian Sea, not merely from a train or a steamboatas before, but at long leisure: I shall see the shores where once wereTarentum and Sybaris, Croton and Locri. Every man has his intellectualdesire; mine is to escape life as I know it and dream myself into thatold world which was the imaginative delight of my boyhood. The names ofGreece and Italy draw me as no others; they make me young again, andrestore the keen impressions of that time when every new page of Greekor Latin was a new perception of things beautiful. The world of theGreeks and Romans is my land of romance; a quotation in either languagethrills me strangely, and there are passages of Greek and Latin versewhich I cannot read without a dimming of the eyes, which I cannotrepeat aloud because my voice fails me. In Magna Graecia the waters oftwo fountains mingle and flow together; how exquisite will be thedraught!

I drove with my luggage to the Immacolatella, and a boatman put meaboard the steamer. Luggage, I say advisedly; it is a rather heavyportmanteau, and I know it will be a nuisance. But the length of mywanderings is so uncertain, its conditions are so vaguely anticipated.I must have books if only for rainy days; I must have clothing againsta change of season. At one time I thought of taking a mere wallet, andnow 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 theBay, past Portici, and Torre del Greco, and into the harbour of TorreAnnunziata, where we had to take on cargo. I was the only cabinpassenger, and solitude suits me. All through the warm and cloudlessafternoon I sat looking at the mountains, trying not to see thatcluster of factory chimneys which rolled black fumes above themany-coloured houses. They reminded me of the same abomination on ashore more sacred; from the harbour of Piraeus one looks to Athensthrough trails of coal-smoke. By a contrast pleasant enough, Vesuviusto-day sent forth vapours of a delicate rose-tint, floating far andbreaking seaward into soft little fleeces of cirrus. The cone, coveredwith 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 thelong curve of faint-glimmering lights on the Naples shore; ahead wasCapri. In profound gloom, though under a sky all set with stars, wepassed between the island and Cape Minerva; the haven of Capri showedbut a faint glimmer; over it towered mighty crags, an awful blackness,a void amid constellations. From my seat near the stern of the vessel Icould discern no human form; it was as though I voyaged quite alone inthe silence of this magic sea. Silence so all-possessing that the soundof the ship's engine could not reach my ear, but was blended with thewater-splash into a lulling murmur. The stillness of a dead world laidits spell on all that lived. To-day seemed an unreality, an idleimpertinence; the real was that long-buried past which gave its meaningto all around me, touching the night with infinite pathos. Best of all,one's own being became lost to consciousness; the mind knew only thephantasmal 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 ofdawn a mountainous coast. At sunrise I learnt that we were in sight ofPaola; as day spread gloriously over earth and sky, the vessel hove toand prepared to land cargo. There, indeed, was the yellowish littletown which I had so long pictured; it stood at a considerable heightabove the shore; harbour there was none at all, only a broad beach ofshingle on which waves were breaking, and where a cluster of men, womenand children stood gazing at the steamer. It gave me pleasure to findthe place so small and primitive. In no hurry to land, I watched theunloading of merchandise (with a great deal of shouting andgesticulation) into boats which had rowed out for the purpose;speculated on the resources of Paola in the matter of food (for I washungry); and at moments cast an eye towards the mountain barrier whichit was probable I should cross to-day.

At last my portmanteau was dropped down on to the laden boat; I, asbest I could, managed to follow it; and on the top of a pile of ropeand empty flour-sacks we rolled landward. The surf was high; it costmuch 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 ofsouthern Italians to foresee my reception. I sprang into the midst of aclamorous conflict; half a dozen men were quarreling for possession ofme. No sooner was my luggage on shore than they flung themselves uponit. By what force of authority I know not, one of the fellowstriumphed; he turned to me with a satisfied smile, and—presented hiswife.

"Mia sposa, signore!"

Wondering, and trying to look pleased, I saw the woman seize theportmanteau (a frightful weight), fling it on to her head, and marchaway at a good speed. The crowd and I followed to the dogana, closeby, 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 feltsure I was a trader of some sort. Dismissed under suspicion, I allowedthe lady to whom I had been introduced to guide me townwards. Again shebore the portmanteau on her head, and evidently thought it a trifle,but as the climbing road lengthened, and as I myself began to perspirein the warm sunshine, I looked at my attendant with uncomfortablefeelings. It was a long and winding way, but the woman continued totalk and laugh so cheerfully that I tried to forget her toil. At lengthwe reached a cabin where the dazio (town dues) officer presentedhimself, and this conscientious person insisted on making a freshexamination of my baggage; again I explained myself, again I was eyedsuspiciously; but he released me, and on we went. I had bidden my guidetake me to the best inn; it was the Leone, a little place whichlooked from the outside like an ill-kept stable, but was decent enoughwithin. The room into which they showed me had a delightful prospect.Deep beneath the window lay a wild, leafy garden, and lower on thehillside a lemon orchard shining with yellow fruit; beyond, the broadpebbly beach, far seen to north and south, with its white foam edgingthe blue expanse of sea. There I descried the steamer from which I hadlanded, just under way for Sicily. The beauty of this view, and thecalm splendour of the early morning, put me into happiest mood. Afterlittle delay a tolerable breakfast was set before me, with a good roughwine; I ate and drank by the window, exulting in what I saw and all Ihoped to see.

Guide-books had informed me that the corriere (mail-diligence) fromPaola to Cosenza corresponded with the arrival of the Naples steamer,and, after the combat on the beach, my first care was to inquire aboutthis. All and sundry made eager reply that the corriere had longsince gone; that it started, in fact, at 5 A.M., and that the onlypossible mode of reaching Cosenza that day was to hire a vehicle.Experience of Italian travel made me suspicious, but it afterwardsappeared that I had been told the truth. Clearly, if I wished toproceed at once, I must open negotiations at my inn, and, after aleisurely meal, I did so. Very soon a man presented himself who waswilling to drive me over the mountains—at a charge which I saw to beabsurd; the twinkle in his eye as he named the sum sufficientlyenlightened me. By the book it was no more than a journey of fourhours; my driver declared that it would take from seven to eight. Aftera little discussion he accepted half the original demand, and went offvery cheerfully to put in his horses.

For an hour I rambled about the town's one street, very picturesque andrich in colour, with rushing fountains where women drew fair water injugs and jars of antique beauty. Whilst I was thus loitering in thesunshine, two well-dressed men approached me, and with somewhatexcessive courtesy began conversation. They understood that I was aboutto drive to Cosenza. A delightful day, and a magnificent country! Theytoo thought of journeying to Cosenza, and, in short, would I allow themto share my carriage? Now this was annoying; I much preferred to bealone with my thoughts; but it seemed ungracious to refuse. After aglance at their smiling faces, I answered that whatever room remainedin the vehicle was at their service—on the natural understanding thatthey 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 muchbowing and flourishing of hats, and the amusing thing was that I neverbeheld those gentlemen again.

Fortunately—as the carriage proved to be a very small one, and the sunwas getting very hot; with two companions I should have had anuncomfortable day. In front of the Leone a considerable number ofloafers had assembled to see me off, and of these some half-dozen werepersevering mendicants. It disappointed me that I saw no interestingcostume; all wore the common, colourless garb of our destroying age.The only vivid memory of these people which remains with me is thecadence of their speech. Whilst I was breakfasting, two women stood atgossip on a near balcony, and their utterance was a curiousexaggeration of the Neapolitan accent; every sentence rose to a highnote, 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 wasreally astonishing; again and again I fancied that the speaker hadbroken into song. I cannot say that the effect was altogether pleasant;in the end such talk would tell severely on civilized nerves, but itharmonized with the coloured houses, the luxuriant vegetation, thestrange odours, the romantic landscape.

In front of the vehicle were three little horses; behind it was hitchedan old shabby two-wheeled thing, which we were to leave somewhere forrepairs. With whip-cracking and vociferation, amid good-naturedfarewells 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 inreaching the highest point of the mountain barrier. Incessantlywinding, often doubling upon itself, the road crept up the sides ofprofound gorges, and skirted many a precipice; bridges innumerablespanned the dry ravines which at another season are filled with furioustorrents. From the zone of orange and olive and cactus we passed thatof beech and oak, noble trees now shedding their rich-hued foliage onbracken crisped and brown; here I noticed the feathery bowers of wildclematis ("old man's beard"), and many a spike of the great mullein,strange to me because so familiar in English lanes. Through mists thatfloated far below I looked over miles of shore, and outward to theever-rising limit of sea and sky. Very lovely were the effects oflight, the gradations of colour; from the blue-black abysses, where noshape could be distinguished, to those violet hues upon the furrowedheights which had a transparency, a softness, an indefiniteness, unlikeanything 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 theroad. Perspiring, even as I sat, in the blaze of the sun, I envied theboy his breath and muscle. Now and then he slaked his thirst at a stonefountain by the wayside, not without reverencing the blue-hoodedMadonna painted over it. A few lean, brown peasants, bending underfa*ggots, and one or two carts, passed us before we gained the top, andhalf-way up there was a hovel where drink could be bought; but withthese exceptions nothing broke the loneliness of the long, wild ascent.My man was not talkative, but answered inquiries civilly; only on onesubject was he very curt—that of the two wooden crosses which wepassed just before arriving at the summit; they meant murders. At themoment when I spoke of them I was stretching my legs in a walk besidethe carriage, the driver walking just in front of me; and somethingthen happened which is still a puzzle when I recall it. Whether thethought of crimes had made the man nervous, or whether just then I worea peculiarly truculent face, or had made some alarming gesture, all ofa sudden he turned upon me, grasped my arm and asked sharply: "Whathave you got in your hand?" I had a bit of fern, plucked a few minutesbefore, and with surprise I showed it; whereupon he murmured anapology, said something about making haste, and jumped to his seat. Anodd little incident.

At an unexpected turn of the road there spread before me a vastprospect; I looked down upon inland Calabria. It was a valley broadenough to be called a plain, dotted with white villages, and backed bythe mass of mountains which now, as in old time, bear the name of GreatSila. Through this landscape flowed the river Crati—the ancientCrathis; northward it curved, and eastward, to fall at length into theIonian Sea, far beyond my vision. The river Crathis, which flowed bythe walls of Sybaris. I stopped the horses to gaze and wonder; gladly Iwould have stood there for hours. Less interested, and impatient to geton, the driver pointed out to me the direction of Cosenza, still at agreat distance. He added the information that, in summer, thewell-to-do folk of Cosenza go to Paola for sea-bathing, and that theyalways perform the journey by night. I, listening carelessly amid mydream, tried to imagine the crossing of those Calabrian hills under asummer sun! By summer moonlight it must be wonderful.

We descended at a sharp pace, all the way through a forest ofchestnuts, the fruit already gathered, the golden leaves rustling intheir fall. At the foot lies the village of San Fili, and here we leftthe crazy old cart which we had dragged so far. A little further, andbefore us lay a long, level road, a true Roman highway, straight formile after mile. By this road the Visigoths must have marched after thesack of Rome. In approaching Cosenza I was drawing near to the grave ofAlaric. Along this road the barbarian bore in triumph those spoils ofthe Eternal City which were to enrich his tomb.

By this road, six hundred years before the Goth, marched Hannibal onhis sullen retreat from Italy, passing through Cosentia to embark atCroton.

CHAPTER III

THE GRAVE OF ALARIC

It would have been prudent to consult with my driver as to the inns ofCosenza. But, with a pardonable desire not to seem helpless in hishands, I had from the first directed him to the Due Lionetti, relyingupon my guide-book. Even at Cosenza there is progress, and guide-booksto 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 thecontents of my portmanteau were not for sale. What in the world was Idoing with tanti libri? Of course I was a commercial traveller;ridiculous to pretend anything else. After much strain of courtesy, Iclapped 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 haveno doubt that simple curiosity went for much in the man's pertinaciousquestioning. Of course the whole dazio business is ludicrous andcontemptible; I scarce know a baser spectacle than that of uniformedofficials groping in the poor little bundles of starved peasant women,mauling a handful of onions, or prodding with long irons a cartload ofstraw. Did any one ever compare the expenses with the results?

A glance shows the situation of Cosenza. The town is built on a steephillside, above the point where two rivers, flowing from the valleys oneither side, mingle their waters under one name, that of the Crati. Wedrove over a bridge which spans the united current, and entered anarrow street, climbing abruptly between houses so high and so closetogether as to make a gloom amid sunshine. It was four o'clock; I felttired and half choked with dust; the thought of rest and a meal wasvery pleasant. As I searched for the sign of my inn, we suddenly drewup, midway in the dark street, before a darker portal, which seemed theentrance to some dirty warehouse. The driver jumped down—"Eccol'albergo!"

I had seen a good many Italian hostelries, and nourished nounreasonable expectations. The Lion at Paola would have seemed to anyuntravelled Englishman a squalid and comfortless hole, incredible as aplace of public entertainment; the Two Little Lions of Cosenza made adecidedly worse impression. Over sloppy stones, in an atmosphere heavywith indescribable stenches, I felt rather than saw my way to the footof a stone staircase; this I ascended, and on the floor above found adusky room, where tablecloths and an odour of frying oil afforded somesuggestion of refreshment. My arrival interested nobody; with a gooddeal of trouble I persuaded an untidy fellow, who seemed to be awaiter, to come down with me and secure my luggage. More trouble beforeI could find a bedroom; hunting for keys, wandering up and down stonestairs 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 ofItalian inns; be the house and the room howsoever sordid, the bed isalmost invariably clean and dry and comfortable.

I ate, not amiss; I drank copiously to the memory of Alaric, and feltequal to any fortune. When night had fallen I walked a little about thescarce-lighted streets and came to an open place, dark and solitary andsilent, where I could hear the voices of the two streams as theymingled 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 Ientered, and made bold to ask whether Cosenza had no better inn thanthe Due Lionetti. Great was this gentleman's courtesy; he laid downhis pen, as if for ever, and gave himself wholly to my concerns. Hisdiscourse delighted me, so flowing were the phrases, so rounded theperiods. Yes, there were other inns; one at the top of the town—theVetere—in a very good position; and they doubtless excelled my ownin modern comfort. As a matter of fact, it might be avowed that theLionetti, from the point of view of the great centres ofcivilization, left something to be desired—something to be desired;but it was a good old inn, a reputable old inn, and probably on furtheracquaintance——

Further acquaintance did not increase my respect for the Lionetti; itwould not be easy to describe those features in which, most notably, itfell short of all that might be desired. But I proposed no long stay atCosenza, where malarial fever is endemic, and it did not seem worthwhile to change my quarters. I slept very well.

I had come here to think about Alaric, and with my own eyes to beholdthe 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 thecapital of the Bruttii, those mountain tribes which Rome herself neverreally subdued; at Consentia he fell sick and died. How often had Ilonged to see this river Busento, which the "labour of a captivemultitude" turned aside, that its flood might cover and conceal for alltime 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 yearit is a narrow, but rapid stream, running through a wide, waste bed ofyellow sand and stones. The Crati, which here has only just startedupon its long seaward way from some glen of Sila, presents much thesame appearance, the track which it has worn in flood being many timesas broad as the actual current. They flow, these historic waters, witha pleasant sound, overborne at moments by the clapping noise ofCosenza's washerwomen, who cleanse their linen by beating it, thenleave it to dry on the river-bed. Along the banks stood tall poplars,each a spire of burnished gold, blazing against the dark olive foliageon the slopes behind them; plane trees, also, very rich of colour, andfig trees shedding their latest leaves. Now, tradition has it thatAlaric 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 haveslain all their prisoners who took part in the work, to ensure secrecy.Are we to suppose that Consentia was depopulated? On any othersupposition the story must be incorrect, and Alaric's tomb would haveto be sought at least half a mile away, where the Busento is hidden inits 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 dozenpeasants, who all named the river Basenzio or Basenz'; a countryman ofmore intelligent appearance assured me that this was only a dialecticalform, the true one being Busento. At a bookseller's shop (Cosenza hadone, a very little one) I found the same opinion to prevail.

It is difficult to walk much in this climate; lassitude and feverishsymptoms follow on the slightest exertion; but—if one can disregardthe evil smells which everywhere catch one's breath—Cosenza haswonders and delights which tempt to day-long rambling. To call the townpicturesque is to use an inadequate word; at every step, from theopening of the main street at the hill-foot up to the stern mediaevalcastle crowning its height, one marvels and admires. So narrow are theways that a cart drives the pedestrian into shop or alley; two vehicles(but perhaps the thing never happened) would with difficulty pass eachother. As in all towns of Southern Italy, the number of hair-dressersis 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 theKnight of La Mancha took as substitute for his damaged helmet. Throughthe gloom of high balconied houses, one climbs to a sunny piazza, wherethere are several fine buildings; beyond it lies the public garden, alovely spot, set with alleys of acacia and groups of palm andflower-beds and fountains; marble busts of Garibaldi, Mazzini, andCavour gleam among the trees. Here one looks down upon the yellow gorgeof the Crati, and sees it widen northward into a vast green plain, inwhich the track of the river is soon lost. On the other side of theCrati valley, in full view of this garden, begins the mountain regionof many-folded Sila—a noble sight at any time of the day, but most ofall when the mists of morning cling about its summits, or when thesunset clothes its broad flanks with purple. Turn westward, and youbehold the long range which hides the Mediterranean so high and wildfrom this distance, that I could scarce believe I had driven over it.

Sila—locally the Black Mountain, because dark with climbingforests—held my gaze through a long afternoon. From the grassytable-land of its heights, pasturage for numberless flocks and herdswhen the long snows have melted, one might look over the shore of theIonian Sea where Greek craftsmen built ships of timber cut upon themountain's side. Not so long ago it was a haunt of brigands; now thereis no risk for the rare traveller who penetrates that wilderness; buthe must needs depend upon the hospitality of labourers and shepherds. Idream of sunny glades, never touched, perhaps, by the foot of man sincethe Greek herdsman wandered there with his sheep or goats. Somewhere onSila rises the Neaithos (now Neto) mentioned by Theocritus; one wouldlike to sit by its source in the woodland solitude, and let fancy haveher way.

In these garden walks I met a group of peasants, evidently strange toCosenza, and wondering at all they saw. The women wore a very strikingcostume: a short petticoat of scarlet, much embroidered, and over it ablue skirt, rolled up in front and gathered in a sort of knot behindthe waist; a bodice adorned with needlework and metal; elaborateglistening head-gear, and bare feet. The town-folk have no peculiarityof dress. I observed among them a grave, intelligent type ofcountenance, handsome and full of character, which may be that of theirbrave ancestors the Bruttii. With pleasure I saw that they behavedgently to their beasts, the mules being very sleek andcontented-looking. There is much difference between these people andthe Neapolitans; they seem to have no liking for noise, talk with acertain repose, and allow the stranger to go about among themunmolested, unimportuned. Women above the poorest class are not seen inthe streets; there prevails an Oriental system of seclusion.

I was glad to come upon the pot market; in the south of Italy it isalways a beautiful and interesting sight. Pottery for commonest useamong Calabrian peasants has a grace of line, a charm of colour, farbeyond anything native to our most pretentious china-shops. Here stilllingers a trace of the old civilization. There must be a great good ina people which has preserved this need of beauty through ages ofservitude and suffering. Compare such domestic utensils—these oil-jugsand water-jars—with those in the house of an English labourer. Is itreally so certain that all virtues of race dwell with those who canrest amid the ugly and know it not for ugliness?

The new age declares itself here and there at Cosenza. A squalidrailway station, a hideous railway bridge, have brought the town intothe European network; and the craze for building, which has disfiguredand half ruined Italy, shows itself in an immense new theatre—TeatroGaribaldi—just being finished. The old one, which stands ruinous closeby, struck me as, if anything, too large for the town; possibly it hadbeen damaged by an earthquake, the commonest sort of disaster atCosenza. On the front of the new edifice I found two inscriptions, bothexulting over the fall of the papal power; one was interesting enoughto 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 incivil life. The day which ends its moral rule will begin the epoch ofhumanity." A remarkable utterance anywhere; not least so within thehearing 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 sortof pastime. I did manage to read a little in my miserable room by anantique lamp, but the effort was dispiriting; better to lie in the darkand think of Goth and Roman.

Do the rivers Busento and Crati still keep the secret of that "royalsepulchre, adorned with the splendid spoils and trophies of Rome"? Itseems improbable that the grave was ever disturbed; to this day thereexists somewhere near Cosenza a treasure-house more alluring than anypictured in Arabian tale. It is not easy to conjecture what "spoils andtrophies" the Goths buried with their king; if they sacrificed massesof precious metal, then perchance there still lies in the river-bedsome portion of that golden statue of Virtus, which the Romans melteddown to eke out the ransom claimed by Alaric. The year 410 A.D. was nounfitting moment to break into bullion the figure personifying ManlyWorth. "After that," says an old historian, "all bravery and honourperished out of Rome."

CHAPTER IV

TARANTO

Cosenza is on a line of railway which runs northward up the Crativalley, and joins the long seashore line from Taranto to Reggio. As itwas my wish to see the whole of that coast, I had the choice ofbeginning my expedition either at the northern or the southern end; forseveral reasons I decided to make straight for Taranto.

The train started about seven o'clock in the morning. I rose at six inchill darkness, the discomfort of my room seeming worse than ever atthis featureless hour. The waiter—perhaps he was the landlord, I leftthis doubt unsolved—brought me a cup of coffee; dirtier and moreshabbily apparelled man I have never looked upon; viler coffee I neverdrank. Then I descended into the gloom of the street. The familiarodours breathed upon me with pungent freshness, wafted hither andthither on a mountain breeze. A glance upwards at the narrow strip ofsky showed a grey-coloured dawn, prelude, I feared, of a dull day.

Evidently I was not the only traveller departing; on the truck justladen I saw somebody else's luggage, and at the same moment there cameforth a man heavily muffled against the air, who, like myself, began tolook about for the porter. We exchanged greetings, and on our walk tothe station I learned that my companion, also bound for Taranto, hadbeen detained by illness for several days at the Lionetti, where, hebitterly complained, the people showed him no sort of attention. He wasa commercial traveller, representing a firm of drug merchants in NorthItaly, and for his sins (as he put it) had to make the southern journeyevery year; he invariably suffered from fever, and at certainplaces—of course, the least civilized—had attacks which delayed himfrom three days to a week. He loathed the South, finding nocompensation whatever for the miseries of travel below Naples; theinhabitants he reviled with exceeding animosity. Interested by thedoleful predicament of this vendor of drugs (who dosed himself veryvigorously), I found him a pleasant companion during the day; after ourlunch he seemed to shake off the last shivers of his malady, and was assprightly 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 socalled, 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 ismuch misled. Of Sybaris no stone remains above ground; five hundredyears before Christ it was destroyed by the people of Croton, whoturned the course of the river Crathis so as to whelm the city's ruins.Francois Lenormant, whose delightful book, La Grande Grece, was mycompanion on this journey, believed that a discovery far more wonderfuland important than that of Pompeii awaits the excavator on this site;he held it certain that here, beneath some fifteen feet of alluvialmud, lay the temples and the streets of Sybaris, as on the day whenCrathis first flowed over them. A little digging has recently beendone, and things of interest have been found; but discovery on a widescale 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 Iwas strongly reminded of the Essex coast—grey, scrubby fiats, crossedby small streams, spreading wearily seaward. One had only to turninland to correct this mood; the Calabrian mountains, even withoutsunshine, had their wonted grace. Moreover, cactus and agave, frequentin the foreground, preserved the southern character of the scene. Thegreat plain between the hills and the sea grows very impressive; sosilent it is, so mournfully desolate, so haunted with memories ofvanished glory. I looked at the Crathis—the Crati of Cosenza—herebeginning to spread into a sea-marsh; the waters which used to flowover golden sands, which made white the oxen, and sunny-haired thechildren, that bathed in them, are now lost amid a wilderness poisonedby their own vapours.

The railway station, like all in this region, was set about witheucalyptus. Great bushes of flowering rosemary scented the air, and afine cassia tree, from which I plucked blossoms, yielded a subtlerperfume. Our lunch was not luxurious; I remember only, as at all worthyof Sybaris, a palatable white wine called Muscato dei Saraceni.Appropriate enough amid this vast silence to turn one's thoughts to theSaracens, who are so largely answerable for the ages of desolation thathave passed by the Ionian Sea.

Then on for Taranto, where we arrived in the afternoon. Meaning to stayfor 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 ofold days, when it was called Taras, or later Tarentum, stood on a longpeninsula, which divides a little inland sea from the great seawithout. In the Middle Ages the town occupied only the point of thisneck of land, which, by the cutting of an artificial channel, had beenmade into an island: now again it is spreading over the whole of theancient site; great buildings of yellowish-white stone, as ugly asmodern architect can make them, and plainly far in excess of the actualdemand for habitations, rise where Phoenicians and Greeks and Romansbuilt after the nobler fashion of their times. One of my windows lookedtowards the old town, with its long sea-wall where fishermen's netshung drying, the dome of its Cathedral, the high, squeezed houses,often with gardens on the roofs, and the swing-bridge which links it tothe mainland; the other gave me a view across the Mare Piccolo, theLittle Sea (it is some twelve miles round about), dotted in many partswith crossed stakes which mark the oyster-beds, and lined on this sidewith a variety of shipping moored at quays. From some of these vessels,early next morning, sounded suddenly a furious cannonade, whichthreatened to shatter the windows of the hotel; I found it was inhonour of the Queen of Italy, whose festa fell on that day. Thisbarbarous uproar must have sounded even to the Calabrian heights; itstruck me as more meaningless in its deafening volley of noise than anynote 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 itsmaze of streets, or alleys rather, for in many places one could touchboth sides with outstretched arms, and rested in the Cathedral of S.Cataldo, who, by the bye, was an Irishman. All is strange, but tooclose-packed to be very striking or beautiful; I found it best tolinger on the sea-wall, looking at the two islands in the offing, andover the great gulf with its mountain shore stretching beyond sight. Onthe rocks below stood fishermen hauling in a great net, whilst a boysplashed the water to drive the fish back until they were safelyenveloped in the last meshes; admirable figures, consummate in gracefulstrength, their bare legs and arms the tone of terra cotta. What slightclothing they wore became them perfectly, as is always the case with acostume well adapted to the natural life of its wearers. Their slow,patient effort speaks of immemorial usage, and it is in harmony withtime itself. These fishermen are the primitives of Taranto; who shallsay for how many centuries they have hauled their nets upon the rock?When Plato visited the Schools of Taras, he saw the same brown-leggedfigures, in much the same garb, gathering their sea-harvest. WhenHannibal, beset by the Romans, drew his ships across the peninsula andso escaped from the inner sea, fishermen of Tarentum went forth asever, seeking their daily food. A thousand years passed, and the furyof the Saracens, when it had laid the city low, spared some humbleTarentine and the net by which he lived. To-day the fisher-folk form acolony apart; they speak a dialect which retains many Greek wordsunknown to the rest of the population. I could not gaze at them longenough; their lithe limbs, their attitudes at work or in repose, theirwild, black hair, perpetually reminded me of shapes pictured on aclassic vase.

Later in the day I came upon a figure scarcely less impressive. Beyondthe 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. Thewooden plough, as regards its form, might have been thousands of yearsold; it was drawn by a little donkey, and traced in the soil—thegenerous southern soil—the merest scratch of a furrow. I could not butapproach the man and exchange words with him; his rude but gentle face,his gnarled hands, his rough and scanty vesture, moved me to a deeprespect, and when his speech fell upon my ear, it was as though Ilistened to one of the ancestors of our kind. Stopping in his work, heanswered my inquiries with careful civility; certain phrases escapedme, 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, soprimaevally deliberate. The donkey's method of ploughing was to pullfor one minute, and then rest for two; it excited in the ploughman notthe least surprise or resentment. Though he held a long stick in hishand, he never made use of it; at each stoppage he contemplated theass, and then gave utterance to a long "Ah-h-h!" in a note of the mostaffectionate remonstrance. They were not driver and beast, but comradesin labour. It reposed the mind to look upon them.

Walking onward in the same direction, one approaches a great wall, withgateway sentry-guarded; it is the new Arsenal, the pride of Taranto,and the source of its prosperity. On special as well as on generalgrounds, I have a grudge against this mass of ugly masonry. I hadlearnt from Lenormant that at a certain spot, Fontanella, by the shoreof the Little Sea, were observable great ancient heaps of murexshells—the murex precious for its purple, that of Tarentum yielding inglory only to the purple of Tyre. I hoped to see these shells, perhapsto carry one away. But Fontanella had vanished, swallowed up, with allremnants of antiquity, by the graceless Arsenal. It matters to no onesave the few fantastics who hold a memory of the ancient world dearerthan any mechanic triumph of to-day. If only one could believe that theArsenal signified substantial good to Italy! Too plainly it meansnothing 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 tothat noble institution, the dazio. Scattered far and wide in a dustywilderness, stand the little huts of the officers, vigilant on everyroad or by-way to wring the wretched soldi from toilsome hands. Asbecame their service, I found these gentry anything but amiable; theyhad commonly an air of ennui, and regarded a stranger with surlysuspicion.

When I was back again among the high new houses, my eye, wandering insearch of any smallest point of interest, fell on a fresh-paintedinscription:—

"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 anintroduction to the curator, who spared no trouble in pointing out tome all that was best worth seeing. He and I were alone in the littlegalleries; at a second or third visit I had the Museum to myself, savefor 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, allthe Tarentines who care for archaeology have already been here, andstrangers are few.

Upon the shelves are seen innumerable miniature busts, carved in somekind of stone; thought to be simply portraits of private persons. Onepeers into the faces of men, women, and children, vaguely conjecturingtheir date, their circ*mstances; some of them may have dwelt in the oldtime on this very spot of ground now covered by the Museum. Like otherpeople who grow too rich and comfortable, the citizens of Tarentumloved mirth and mockery; their Greek theatre was remarkable forirreverent farce, for parodies of the great drama of Athens. And hereis testimony to the fact: all manner of comic masks, of grotesquevisages; mouths distorted into impossible grins, eyes leering andgoggling, noses extravagant. I sketched a caricature of Medusa, theanguished features and snaky locks travestied with satiric grimness.You remember a story which illustrates this scoffing habit: how theRoman Ambassador, whose Greek left something to be desired, excited theuproarious derision of the assembled Tarentines—with results that wereno laughing matter.

I used the opportunity of my conversation with the Director of theMuseum to ask his aid in discovering the river Galaesus. Who could findhimself at Taranto without turning in thought to the Galaesus, andwishing to walk along its banks? Unhappily, one cannot be quite sure ofits position. A stream there is, flowing into the Little Sea, which bysome is called Galeso; but the country-folk commonly give it the nameof Gialtrezze. Of course I turned my steps in that direction, to seeand judge for myself.

To skirt the western shore of the Mare Piccolo I had to pass therailway station, and there I made a few inquiries; the official withwhom I spoke knew not the name Galeso, but informed me that theGialtrezze entered the sea at a distance of some three kilometres. ThatI purposed walking such a distance to see an insignificant streamexcited the surprise, even the friendly concern, of my interlocutor;again and again he assured me it was not worth while, repeatingemphatically, "Non c'e novita." But I went my foolish way. Of two orthree peasants or fishermen on the road I asked the name of the littleriver I was approaching; they answered, "Gialtrezze." Then came a mancarrying a gun, whose smile and greeting invited question. "Can youtell me the name of the stream which flows into the sea just beyondhere?" "Signore, it is the Galeso."

My pulse quickened with delight; all the more when I found that myinformant had no tincture of the classics, and that he supported Galesoagainst Gialtrezze simply as a question of local interest. Joyously Itook 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 greatreeds, which quite conceal the water, and flows with an average breadthof some ten feet down to the seashore, on either side of it bare, dustyfields, and a few hoary olives.

The Galaesus?—the river beloved by Horace; its banks pasturing afamous breed of sheep, with fleece so precious that it was protected bya garment of skins? Certain it is that all the waters of Magna Graeciahave much diminished since classic times, but (unless there have beengreat local changes, due, for example, to an earthquake) this brook hadalways the same length, and it is hard to think of the Galaesus as soinsignificant. 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 itslittle island, compact of white houses, contrasting with the yellowishtints of the great new buildings which spread over the peninsula. Withhalf-closed eyes, one could imagine the true Tarentum. Wavelets lappedupon the sand before me, their music the same as two thousand yearsago. A goatherd came along, his flock straggling behind him; man andgoats were as much of the old world as of the new. Far away, the boatsof fishermen floated silently. I heard a rustle as an old fig tree hardby dropped its latest leaves. On the sea-bank of yellow crumbling earthlizards flashed about me in the sunshine. After a dull morning, the dayhad passed into golden serenity; a stillness as of eternal peace heldearth and sky.

"Dearest of all to me is that nook of earth which yields not toHymettus for its honey, nor for its olive to green Venafrum; whereheaven grants a long springtime and warmth in winter, and in the sunnyhollows Bacchus fosters a vintage noble as the Falernian——" The linesof Horace sang in my head; I thought, too, of the praise of Virgil,who, tradition has it, wrote his Eclogues hereabouts. Of course, thecountry has another aspect, in spring and early summer; I saw it at asad moment; but, all allowance made for seasons, it is still withwonder that one recalls the rapture of the poets. A change beyondconception must have come upon these shores of the Ionian Sea. Thescent of rosemary seemed to be wafted across the ages from a vanishedworld.

After all, who knows whether I have seen the Galaesus? Perhaps, as somehold, it is quite another river, flowing far to the west of Tarantointo the open gulf. Gialtrezze may have become Galeso merely because ofthe desire in scholars to believe that it was the classic stream; inother parts of Italy names have been so imposed. But I shall not giveear to such discouraging argument. It is little likely that my searchwill ever be renewed, and for me the Galaesus—"dulce Galaesiflumen"—is the stream I found and tracked, whose waters I heard minglewith the Little Sea. The memory has no sense of disappointment. Thosereeds which rustle about the hidden source seem to me fit shelter of aNaiad; I am glad I could not see the water bubbling in its spring, forthere remains a mystery. Whilst I live, the Galaesus purls and glistensin the light of that golden afternoon, and there beyond, across theblue still depths, glimmers a vision of Tarentum.

Let Taranto try as it will to be modern and progressive, there is aretarding force which shows little sign of being overcome—the profoundsuperstition of the people. A striking episode of street life remindedme how near akin were the southern Italians of to-day to theirpredecessors in what are called the dark ages; nay, to those moreillustrious ancestors who were so ready to believe that an ox haduttered an oracle, or that a stone had shed blood. Somewhere near theswing-bridge, where undeniable steamships go and come between the innerand the outer sea, I saw a crowd gathered about a man who wasexhibiting a picture and expounding its purport; every other minute themale listeners doffed their hats, and the females bowed and crossedthemselves. When I had pressed near enough to hear the speaker, I foundhe was just finishing a wonderful story, in which he himself might ormight not have faith, but which plainly commanded the credit of hisauditors. Having closed his narrative, the fellow began to sell it inprinted form—little pamphlets with a rude illustration on the cover. Ibought the thing for a soldo, and read it as I walked away.

A few days ago—thus, after a pious exordium, the relation began—inthat part of Italy called Marca, there came into a railway station aCapuchin friar of grave, thoughtful, melancholy aspect, who besoughtthe station-master to allow him to go without ticket by the train juststarting, as he greatly desired to reach the Sanctuary of Loreto thatday, and had no money to pay his fare The official gave a contemptuousrefusal, and paid no heed to the entreaties of the friar, who urged allmanner of religious motives for the granting of his request. The twoengines on the train (which was a very long one) seemed about to steamaway—but, behold, con grande stupore di tutti, the waggons moved notat all! Presently a third engine was put on, but still all efforts tostart the train proved useless. Alone of the people who viewed thisinexplicable event, the friar showed no astonishment; he remarkedcalmly, that so long as he was refused permission to travel by it, thetrain would not stir. At length un ricco signore found a way out ofthe difficulty by purchasing the friar a third-class ticket; with agrave reproof to the station-master, the friar took his seat, and thetrain went its way.

But the matter, of course, did not end here. Indignant and amazed, andwishing to be revenged upon that frataccio, the station-mastertelegraphed to Loreto, that in a certain carriage of a certain trainwas travelling a friar, whom it behoved the authorities to arrest forhaving 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 thecompartment where he had travelled, found no person; there, however,lay a letter couched in these terms: "He who was in this waggon underthe guise of a humble friar, has now ascended into the arms of hisSantissima Madre Maria. He wished to make known to the world how easyit is for him to crush the pride of unbelievers, or to reward those whor*spect religion."

Nothing more was discoverable; wherefore the learned of the Church—idotti della chiesa—came to the conclusion that under the guise of afriar there had actually appeared "N. S. G. C." The Supreme Pontiffand his prelates had not yet delivered a judgment in the matter, butthere could be no sort of doubt that they would pronounce theauthenticity of the miracle. With a general assurance that the goodChristian will be saved and the unrepentant will be damned, thisremarkable little pamphlet came to an end. Much verbiage I haveomitted, but the translation, as far as it goes, is literal. Doubtlessmany a humble Tarentine spelt it through that evening, with boundlesswonder, and thought such an intervention of Providence worthy of beingtalked about, until the next stabbing case in his street provided amore interesting topic.

Possibly some malevolent rationalist might note that the name of therailway station where this miracle befell was nowhere mentioned. Was itnot 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 magnificentsunshine, but, none the less, one suffered a good deal from cold. Thestreets were barer than ever; only in the old town, where high, closewalls afforded a good deal of shelter, was there a semblance of activelife. 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 hourof daylight. Indeed, it must be very difficult to make the day pass atTaranto. I noticed that, as one goes southward in Italy, the later doordinary people dine; appetite comes slowly in this climate. Betweencolazione at midday and pranzo at eight, or even half-past, what anabysm of time! Of course, the Tarantine never reads; the only bookshopI could discover made a poorer display than even that at Cosenza—itwas not truly a bookseller's at all, but a fancy stationer's. How thewomen spend their lives one may vainly conjecture. Only on Sunday did Isee a few of them about the street; they walked to and from Mass, witheyes on the ground, and all the better-dressed of them wore black.

When the weather fell calm again, and there was pleasure in walking, Ichanced upon a trace of the old civilization which interested me morethan objects ranged in a museum. Rambling eastward along the outershore, in the wilderness which begins as soon as the town hasdisappeared, I came to a spot as uninviting as could be imagined, greatmounds of dry rubbish, evidently deposited here by the dust-carts ofTaranto; luckily, I continued my walk beyond this obstacle, and after awhile became aware that I had entered upon a road—a short piece ofwell-marked road, which began and ended in the mere waste. A moment'sexamination, and I saw that it was no modern by-way. The track wasclean-cut in living rock, its smooth, hard surface lined with twoparallel ruts nearly a foot deep; it extended for some twenty yardswithout a break, and further on I discovered less perfect bits. Here,manifestly, was the seaside approach to Tarentum, to Taras, perhaps tothe Phoenician city which came before them. Ages must have passed sincevehicles used this way; the modern high road is at some distanceinland, and one sees at a glance that this witness of ancient traffichas remained by Time's sufferance in a desert region. Wonderful was thepreservation of the surface: the angles at the sides, where the roadhad been cut down a little below the rock-level, were sharp and cleanas if carved yesterday, and the profound ruts, worn, perhaps, beforeRome had come to her power, showed the grinding of wheels with strangedistinctness. 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 beingcalled a ruin. Near the shore, however, one can see a few remnants of atheatre—perhaps that theatre where the Tarentines were sitting whenthey saw Roman galleys, in scorn of treaty, sailing up the Gulf.

My last evenings were brightened by very beautiful sunsets; one inparticular remains with me; I watched it for an hour or more from theterrace-road of the island town. An exquisite after-glow seemed as ifit would never pass away. Above thin, grey clouds stretching along thehorizon a purple flush melted insensibly into the dark blue of thezenith. Eastward the sky was piled with lurid rack, sullen-tinted foldsedged with the hue of sulphur. The sea had a strange aspect, curvedtracts of pale blue lying motionless upon a dark expanse rippled by thewind. Below me, as I leaned on the sea-wall, a fisherman's boat creptduskily along the rocks, a splash of oars soft-sounding in thestillness. I looked to the far Calabrian hills, now scarcedistinguishable from horizon cloud, and wondered what chances mightawait me in the unknown scenes of my further travel.

The long shore of the Ionian Sea suggested many a halting-place. Bestof all, I should have liked to swing a wallet on my shoulder and makethe whole journey on foot; but this for many reasons was impossible. Icould only mark points of the railway where some sort of food orlodging might be hoped for, and the first of these stoppages wasMetaponto.

Official time-bills of the month marked a train for Metaponto at 4.56A.M., and this I decided to take, as it seemed probable that I mightfind a stay of some hours sufficient, and so be able to resume myjourney before night. I asked the waiter to call me at a quarter tofour. In the middle of the night (as it seemed to me) I was aroused bya knocking, and the waiter's voice called to me that, if I wished toleave early for Metaponto, I had better get up at once, as thedeparture of the train had been changed to 4.15—it was now half-pastthree. There ensued an argument, sustained, on my side, rather by thedesire to stay in bed this cold morning than by any faith in thereasonableness of the railway company. There must be a mistake! Theorario for the month gave 4.56, and how could the time of a train bechanged without public notice? Changed it was, insisted the waiter; ithad happened a few days ago, and they had only heard of it at the hotelthis very morning. Angry and uncomfortable, I got my clothes on, anddrove to the station, where I found that a sudden change in thetime-table, without any regard for persons relying upon the officialguide, was taken as a matter of course. In chilly darkness I badefarewell to Taranto.

At a little after six, when palest dawn was shimmering on the sea, Ifound myself at Metaponto, with no possibility of doing anything for acouple of hours. Metaponto is a railway station, that and nothing more,and, as a station also calls itself a hotel, I straightway asked for aroom, and there dozed until sunshine improved my humour and stirred myappetite. The guidebook had assured me of two things: that a vehiclecould be had here for surveying the district, and that, under coverbehind the station, one would find a little collection of antiquitiesunearthed hereabout. On inquiry, I found that no vehicle, and no animalcapable of being ridden, existed at Metaponto; also that the littlemuseum had been transferred to Naples. It did not pay to keep thehorse, they told me; a stranger asked for it only "once in a hundredyears." However, a lad was forthcoming who would guide me to the ruins.I breakfasted (the only thing tolerable being the wine), and we setforth.

It was a walk of some two or three miles, by a cart road, throughfields just being ploughed for grain. All about lay a level or slightlyrolling country, which in winter becomes a wilderness of mud; drytraces of vast slough and occasional stagnant pools showed what thestate of things would be a couple of months hence. The properties weredivided by hedges of agave—huge growths, grandly curving theirsword-pointed leaves. Its companion, the spiny cactus, writhed here andthere among juniper bushes and tamarisks. Along the wayside rose tall,dead thistles, white with age, their great cluster of seed-vesselsshowing how fine the flower had been. Above our heads, peewits werewheeling and crying, and lizards swarmed on the hard, cracked ground.

We passed a few ploughmen, with white oxen yoked to labour. Ploughingwas a fit sight at Metapontum, famous of old for the richness of itssoil; in token whereof the city dedicated at Delphi its famous GoldenSheaf. It is all that remains of life on this part of the coast; thecity had sunk into ruin before the Christian era, and was neverrebuilt. Later, the shore was too dangerous for habitation. Of all thecities upon the Ionian Sea, only Tarentum and Croton continued to existthrough the Middle Ages, for they alone occupied a position strong fordefence against pirates and invaders. A memory of the Saracen warslingers in the name borne by the one important relic of Metapontum, theTavola de' Paladini; to this my guide was conducting me.

It is the ruin of a temple to an unknown god, which stood at somedistance north of the ancient city; two parallel rows of columns, tenon one side, five on the other, with architrave all but entire, and abasem*nt shattered. The fine Doric capitals are well preserved; thepillars themselves, crumbling under the tooth of time, seem to supportwith difficulty their noble heads. This monument must formerly havebeen very impressive amid the wide landscape; but, a few years ago, forprotection against peasant depredators, a wall ten feet high was builtclose around the columns, so that no good view of them is any longerobtainable. To the enclosure admission is obtained through an irongateway with a lock. I may add, as a picturesque detail, that the lockhas long been useless; my guide simply pushed the gate open. Thus, theugly wall serves no purpose whatever save to detract from the beauty ofthe scene.

Vegetation is thick within the temple precincts; a flowering rose bushmade contrast of its fresh and graceful loveliness with the age-wornstrength of these great carved stones. About their base grewluxuriantly a plant which turned my thoughts for a moment to ruralEngland, the round-leaved pennywort. As I lingered here, there stirredin me something of that deep emotion which I felt years ago amid thetemples of Paestum. Of course, this obstructed fragment holds no claimto comparison with Paestum's unique glory, but here, as there, one ispossessed by the pathos of immemorial desolation; amid a silence whichthe voice has no power to break, nature's eternal vitality triumphsover the greatness of forgotten men.

At a distance of some three miles from this temple there lies a littlelake, or a large pond, which would empty itself into the sea but for apiled 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 thestation just before train-time. The weather could not have been moreenjoyable; a soft breeze and cloudless blue. For the last half-hour Ilay in a hidden corner of the eucalyptus grove—trying to shape infancy some figure of old Pythagoras. He died here (says story) in 497B.C.—broken-hearted at the failure of his efforts to make mankindgentle and reasonable. In 1897 A.D. that hope had not come much nearerto its realization. Italians are yet familiar with the name of thephilosopher, for it is attached to the multiplication table, which theycall tavola pitagorica. What, in truth, do we know of him? He is atype of aspiring humanity; a sweet and noble figure, moving as a dimradiance through legendary Hellas. The English reader hears his namewith a smile, recalling only the mention of him, in mellow mirth, byEngland's greatest spirit. "What is the opinion of Pythagorasconcerning wild fowl?" Whereto replies the much-offended Malvolio:"That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird." He of thecrossed garters disdains such fantasy. "I think nobly of the soul, andno 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 ownbehoof. At Croton grew up a school of medicine which glorified MagnaGraecia. "Healthier than Croton," said a proverb; for the spot wasunsurpassed in salubrity; beauty and strength distinguished itsinhabitants, who boasted their champion Milon. After the fall ofSybaris, Croton became so populous that its walls encircled twelvemiles. Hither came Zeuxis, to adorn with paintings the great temple ofHera on the Lacinian promontory; here he made his picture of Helen,with models chosen from the loveliest maidens of the city. I waslight-hearted with curious anticipation as I entered the train forCotrone.

While daylight lasted, the moving landscape held me attentive. Thispart of the coast is more varied, more impressive, than between Tarantoand Metaponto. For the most part a shaggy wilderness, the ground liesin strangely broken undulations, much hidden with shrub and tangledboscage. At the falling of dusk we passed a thickly-wooded tract largeenough to be called a forest; the great trees looked hoary with age,and amid a jungle of undergrowth, myrtle and lentisk, arbutus andoleander, lay green marshes, dull deep pools, sluggish streams. A spellwhich was half fear fell upon the imagination; never till now had Iknown an enchanted wood. Nothing human could wander in those pathlessshades, by those dead waters. It was the very approach to the world ofspirits; over this woodland, seen on the verge of twilight, brooded asilent awe, such as Dante knew in his selva oscura.

Of a sudden the dense foliage was cleft; there opened a broad alleybetween drooping boughs, and in the deep hollow, bordered with sand andstones, a flood rolled eastward. This river is now called Sinno; it wasthe ancient Sins, whereon stood the city of the same name. In theseventh century before Christ, Sins was lauded as the richest city inthe world; for luxury it outrivalled Sybaris.

I had recently been reading Lenormant's description of the costumes ofMagna 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 withembroidery and adorned with bands of gay-coloured geometric patterns;over this a wrap (one may say) of thick wool, tight round the bust andleaving the right arm uncovered, or else a more ample garment,elaborately decorated like the long tunic. Complete the picture with ahead ornately dressed, on the brow a fringe of ringlets; the long hairbehind held together by gold wire spirally wound; above, a crowningfillet, with a jewel set in the front; the beard cut to a point, andthe upper lip shaven. You behold the citizen of these Hellenic coloniesin their stately prime.

Somewhere in that enchanted forest, where the wild vine trails fromtree to tree, where birds and creatures of the marshy solitude haunttheir ancient home, lie buried the stones of Sins.

CHAPTER VII

COTRONE

Night hid from me the scenes that followed. Darkling, I passed againthrough the station called Sybaris, and on and on by the sea-shore, thesound of breakers often audible. From time to time I discerned blackmountain masses against a patch of grey sky, or caught a glimpse ofblanching wave, or felt my fancy thrill as a stray gleam from theengine fire revealed for a moment another trackless wood. Often thehollow 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. Awind 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 themore comfortable. Rain began to fall, and when, about ten o'clock, Ialighted 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 twotravellers of the kind called commercial—almost the only species oftraveller I came across during these southern wanderings. A long timewas spent in stowing freightage which, after all, amounted to verylittle; twice, thrice, four, and perhaps five times did we make a falsestart, followed by uproarious vociferation, and a jerk which tumbled uspassengers all together. The gentlemen of commerce rose to wildexcitement, and roundly abused the driver; as soon as we reallystarted, their wrath changed to boisterous gaiety. On we rolled,pitching and tossing, mid darkness and tempest, until, through thebroken window, a sorry illumination of oil-lamps showed us one side ofa colonnaded street. "Bologna! Bologna!" cried my companions, mockingat this feeble reminiscence of their fat northern town. The next momentwe pulled up, our bruised bodies colliding vigorously for the lasttime; it was the Albergo Concordia.

A dark stone staircase, yawning under the colonnade; on the firstlanding an open doorway; within, a long corridor, doors of bedrooms oneither 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 thesituation, it was clear to me why my fellow travellers had entered witha rush and flung themselves into rooms; there might, perchance, be onlyone or two chambers vacant, and I knew already that Cotrone offered noother decent harbourage. Happily I did not suffer for my lack ofexperience; after trying one or two doors in vain, I found asleeping-place which seemed to be unoccupied, and straightway tookpossession 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, butonly after knocking, stamping, and calling did I attract attention;then issued from some mysterious region a stout, slatternly, sleepywoman, who seemed surprised at my demand for food, but at lengthcomplied with it. I was to have better acquaintance with my hostess ofthe Concordia before I quitted Cotrone.

Next morning the wind still blew, but the rain was over; I could beginmy rambles. Like the old town of Taranto, Cotrone occupies the site ofthe 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 skirtingthe shore around the base of the fortress one views a wide bay, boundedto the north by the dark flanks of Sila (I was in sight of the BlackMountain once more), and southwards by a long low promontory, its levelslowly declining to the far-off point where it ends amid the waves. Onthis Cape I fixed my eyes, straining them until it seemed to me that Idistinguished something, a jutting speck against the sky, at itsfarthest point. Then I used my field-glass, and at once the doubtfulspeck became a clearly visible projection, much like a lighthouse. Itis a Doric column, some five-and-twenty feet high; the one pillar thatremains of the great temple of Hera, renowned through all the Hellenicworld, and sacred still when the goddess had for centuries borne aLatin name. "Colonna" is the ordinary name of the Cape; but it is alsoknown 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 bysea. To-day great breakers were rolling upon the strand, and all theblue of the bay was dashed with white foam; another night would, Ihoped, bring calm, and then the voyage! Dis aliter visum.

A little fleet of sailing vessels and coasting steamers had takenrefuge within the harbour, which is protected by a great mole. A goodhaven; the only one, indeed, between Taranto and Reggio, but it grievesone to remember that the mighty blocks built into the sea-barrier camefrom that fallen temple. We are told that as late as the sixteenthcentury the building remained all but perfect, with eight-and-fortypillars, rising there above the Ionian Sea; a guide to sailors, even aswhen AEneas marked it on his storm-tossed galley. Then it was assailed,cast down, ravaged by a Bishop of Cotrone, one Antonio Lucifero, tobuild his episcopal palace. Nearly three hundred years later, after theterrible earthquake of 1783, Cotrone strengthened her harbour with thegreat stones of the temple basem*nt. It was a more legitimate pillage.

Driven inland by the gale, I wandered among low hills which overlookthe town. Their aspect is very strange, for they consist entirely—onthe surface, at all events—of a yellowish-grey mud, dried hard, and asbare as the high road. A few yellow hawkweeds, a few camomiles, grew inhollows here and there; but of grass not a blade. It is easy to make amodel of these Crotonian hills. Shape a solid mound of hard-pressedsand, and then, from the height of a foot or two, let water trickledown upon it; the perpendicular ridges and furrows thus formed upon theminiature 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 itdone? For they tell me that it rains very little at Cotrone, and only adeluge could moisten this iron soil. Here and there I came upon yetmore striking evidence of waterpower; great holes on the hillside,generally funnel-shaped, and often deep enough to be dangerous to thecareless walker. The hills are round-topped, and parted one fromanother by gully or ravine, shaped, one cannot but think, by furioustorrents. A desolate landscape, and scarcely bettered when one turnedto look over the level which spreads north of the town; one discoverspatches of foliage, indeed, the dark perennial verdure of the south;but no kindly herb clothes the soil. In springtime, it seems, there isa growth of grass, very brief, but luxuriant. That can only be on thelower ground; these furrowed heights declare a perpetual sterility.

What has become of the ruins of Croton? This squalid little town ofto-day has nothing left from antiquity. Yet a city bounded with a wallof twelve miles circumference is not easily swept from the face of theearth. Bishop Lucifer, wanting stones for his palace, had to go as faras the Cape Colonna; then, as now, no block of Croton remained. Nearlytwo hundred years before Christ the place was forsaken. Rome colonizedit anew, and it recovered an obscure life as a place of embarkation forGreece, its houses occupying only the rock of the ancient citadel. Werethere at that date any remnants of the great Greek city?—still greatonly two centuries before. Did all go to the building of Romandwellings and temples and walls, which since have crumbled or beenburied?

We are told that the river AEsarus flowed through the heart of the cityat its prime. I looked over the plain, and yonder, towards the distantrailway station, I descried a green track, the course of the all butstagnant and wholly pestilential stream, still called Esaro. Near itsmarshy mouth are wide orange orchards. Could one but see in vision theharbour, the streets, the vast encompassing wall! From the eminencewhere I stood, how many a friend and foe of Croton has looked down uponits shining ways, peopled with strength and beauty and wisdom! HerePythagoras may have walked, glancing afar at the Lacinian sanctuary,then new built.

Lenormant is eloquent on the orange groves of Cotrone. In order tovisit them, permission was necessary, and presently I made my way tothe town hall, to speak with the Sindaco (Mayor) and request his aid inthis matter. Without difficulty I was admitted. In a well-furnishedoffice sat two stout gentlemen, smoking cigars, very much at theirease; the Sindaco bade me take a chair, and scrutinized me withdoubtful curiosity as I declared my business. Yes, to be sure he couldadmit me to see his own orchard; but why did I wish to see it? My replythat I had no interest save in the natural beauty of the place did notconvince him; he saw in me a speculator of some kind. That was naturalenough. In all the south of Italy, money is the one subject of men'sthoughts; intellectual life does not exist; there is little even ofwhat we should call common education. Those who have wealth cling to itfiercely; the majority have neither time nor inclination to occupythemselves with anything but the earning of a livelihood which formultitudes signifies the bare appeasing of hunger.

Seeing the Sindaco's embarrassment, his portly friend began to questionme; good-humouredly enough, but in such a fat bubbling voice (made moreindistinct by the cigar he kept in his mouth) that with difficulty Iunderstood him. What was I doing at Cotrone? I endeavoured to explainthat Cotrone greatly interested me. Ha! Cotrone interested me? Really?Now what did I find interesting at Cotrone? I spoke of historicassociations. The Sindaco and his friend exchanged glances, smiled in apuzzled, tolerant, half-pitying way, and decided that my request mightbe granted. In another minute I withdrew, carrying half a sheet ofnote-paper on which were scrawled in pencil a few words, followed bythe proud signature "Berlinghieri." When I had deciphered the scrawl, Ifound it was an injunction to allow me to view a certain estate "senzanulla toccare"—without touching anything. So a doubt still lingeredin the dignitary's mind.

Cotrone has no vehicle plying for hire—save that in which I arrived atthe hotel. I had to walk in search of the orange orchard, all along thestraight dusty road leading to the station. For a considerable distancethis road is bordered on both sides by warehouses of singularappearance. They have only a ground floor, and the front wall is notmore than ten feet high, but their low roofs, sloping to the ridge atan angle of about thirty degrees, cover a great space. The windows arestrongly barred, and the doors show immense padlocks of elaborateconstruction. The goods warehoused here are chiefly wine and oil,oranges and liquorice. (A great deal of liquorice grows around thesouthern gulf.) At certain moments, indicated by the markets at home orabroad, these stores are conveyed to the harbour, and shipped away. Forthe 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 suchobservance.

Crossing the Esaro, I lingered on the bridge to gaze at its green,muddy water, not visibly flowing at all. The high reeds which halfconcealed it carried my thoughts back to the Galaesus. But thecomparison is all in favour of the Tarentine stream. Here one couldfeel 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 presentedmyself at the entrance to the orchard. From a tumbling house, which weshould call the lodge, came forth (after much shouting on my part) anaged woman, who laughed at the idea that she should be asked to readanything, and bade me walk wherever I liked. I strayed at pleasure,meeting only a lean dog, which ran fearfully away. The plantation wasvery picturesque; orange trees by no means occupied all the ground, butmingled with pomegranates and tamarisks and many evergreen shrubs ofwhich I knew not the name; whilst here and there soared a magnificentstone pine. The walks were bordered with giant cactus, now and again sofantastic in their growth that I stood to wonder; and in an open spaceupon the bank of the Esaro (which stagnates through the orchard) rose amajestic palm, its leaves stirring heavily in the wind which sweptabove. Picturesque, abundantly; but these beautiful tree-names, whichwaft a perfume of romance, are like to convey a false impression toreaders who have never seen the far south; it is natural to think oflovely nooks, where one might lie down to rest and dream; there comes avision of soft turf under the golden-fruited boughs—"places ofnestling green for poets made." Alas! the soil is bare and lumpy as aploughed field, and all the leafa*ge that hangs low is thick with aclayey dust. One cannot rest or loiter or drowse; no spot in all thegroves where by any possibility one could sit down. After rambling aslong as I chose, I found that a view of the orchard from outside wasmore striking than the picture amid the trees themselves. Senza nullatoccare, I went my way.

CHAPTER VIII

FACES BY THE WAY

The wind could not roar itself out. Through the night it kept awakingme, and on the morrow I found a sea foamier than ever; impossible toreach the Colonna by boat, and almost so, I was assured, to make thejourney by land in such weather as this. Perforce I waited.

A cloudless sky; broad sunshine, warm as in an English summer; but theroaring tramontana was disagreeably chill. No weather could be moreperilous to health. The people of Cotrone, those few of them who didnot stay at home or shelter in the porticoes, went about heavilycloaked, and I wondered at their ability to wear such garments under sohot a sun. Theoretically aware of the danger I was running, but, infact, thinking little about it, I braved the wind and the sunshine allday long; my sketch-book gained by it, and my store of memories. Firstof all, I looked into the Cathedral, an ugly edifice, as uninterestingwithin as without. Like all the churches in Calabria, it iswhite-washed from door to altar, pillars no less than walls—a cold anddepressing interior. I could see no picture of the least merit; one, afigure of Christ with hideous wounds, was well-nigh as repulsive aspainting could be. This vile realism seems to indicate Spanishinfluence. There is a miniature copy in bronze of the statue of thechief Apostle in St. Peter's at Rome, and beneath it an inscriptionmaking known to the faithful that, by order of Leo XIII. in 1896, anIndulgence of three hundred days is granted to whosoever kisses thebronze toe and says a prayer. Familiar enough this unpretentiousannouncement, yet it never fails of its little shock to the hereticmind. Whilst I was standing near, a peasant went through the mysticrite; to judge from his poor malaria-stricken countenance, he prayedvery earnestly, and I hope his Indulgence benefited him. Probably herepeated a mere formula learnt by heart. I wished he could have prayedspontaneously for three hundred days of wholesome and sufficient food,and for as many years of honest, capable government in hisheavy-burdened country.

When travelling, I always visit the burial-ground; I like to see how apeople commemorates its dead, for tombstones have much significance.The cemetery of Cotrone lies by the sea-shore, at some distance beyondthe port, far away from habitations; a bare hillside looks down uponits 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, byan earthquake three years before; its lonely position made itinteresting, and the cupola of coloured tiles (like that of theCathedral at Amalfi) remained intact, a bright spot against the greyhills behind. A high enclosing wall signalled the cemetery; I rang abell at the gate and was admitted by a man of behaviour and languagemuch more refined than is common among the people of this region; Ifelt sorry, indeed, that I had not found him seated in the Sindaco'schair that morning. But as guide to the burial-ground he wasdelightful. Nine years, he told me, he had held the post of custodian,in which time, working with his own hands, and unaided, he had turnedthe enclosure from a wretched wilderness into a beautiful garden.Unaffectedly I admired the results of his labour, and my praiserejoiced him greatly. He specially requested me to observe thegeraniums; there were ten species, many of them of extraordinary sizeand with magnificent blossoms. Roses I saw, too, in great abundance;and tall snapdragons, and bushes of rosemary, and many flowers unknownto me. As our talk proceeded the gardener gave me a little light on hisown history; formerly he was valet to a gentleman of Cotrone, with whomhe had travelled far and wide over Europe; yes, even to London, ofwhich he spoke with expressively wide eyes, and equally expressiveshaking of the head. That any one should journey from Calabria toEngland seemed to him intelligible enough; but he marvelled that I hadthought it worth while to come from England to Calabria. Very rarelyindeed could he show his garden to one from a far-off country; no, theplace was too poor, accommodation too rough; there needed a certaincourage, and he laughed, again shaking his head.

The ordinary graves were marked with a small wooden cross; where ahead-stone had been raised, it generally presented a skull and crossedbones. Round the enclosure stood a number of mortuary chapels, gloomyand ugly. An exception to this dull magnificence in death was a marbleslab, newly set against the wall, in memory of a Lucifero—one of thatfamily, still eminent, to which belonged the sacrilegious bishop. Thedesign was a good imitation of those noble sepulchral tablets whichabound in the museum at Athens; a figure taking leave of others as ifgoing on a journey. The Lucifers had shown good taste in their choiceof the old Greek symbol; no better adornment of a tomb has ever beendevised, nor one that is half so moving. At the foot of the slab wascarved a little owl (civetta), a bird, my friend informed me, verycommon 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 seasonforbade his offering choicer blossoms. His simple good-nature andintelligence greatly won upon me. I like to think of him as stillquietly happy amid his garden walls, tending flowers that grow over thedead at Cotrone.

On my way back again to the town, I took a nearer view of the ruinedlittle church, and, whilst I was so engaged, two lads driving a herd ofgoats stopped to look at me. As I came out into the road again, theyounger of these modestly approached and begged me to give him aflower—by choice, a rose. I did so, much to his satisfaction and noless to mine; it was a pleasant thing to find a wayside lad asking foranything but soldi. The Calabrians, however, are distinguished by theirself-respect; they contrast remarkedly with the natives of theNeapolitan district. Presently, I saw that the boy's elder companionhad appropriated the flower, which he kept at his nose as he ploddedalong; after useless remonstrance, the other drew near to me again,shamefaced; would I make him another present; not a rose this time, hewould not venture to ask it, but "questo piccolo"; and he pointed toa sprig of geranium. There was a grace about the lad which led me totalk to him, though I found his dialect very difficult. Seeing us ongood terms, the elder boy drew near, and at once asked a puzzlingquestion: When was the ruined church on the hillside to be rebuilt? Ianswered, of course, that I knew nothing about it, but this reply wastaken as merely evasive; in a minute or two the lad again questionedme. 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 Iwas an architect here on business, and I don't think I succeeded insetting him right. When he had said good-bye he turned to look after mewith a mischievous smile, as much as to say that I had naturallyrefused to talk to him about so important a matter as the building of achurch, but he was not to be deceived.

The common type of face at Cotrone is coarse and bumpkinish; ruder, itseemed to me, than faces seen at any point of my journey hitherto. Aphotographer had hung out a lot of portraits, and it was a hideousexhibition; some of the visages attained an incredible degree of vulgarugliness. This in the town which still bears the name of Croton. Thepeople are all more or less unhealthy; one meets peasants horriblydisfigured with life-long malaria. There is an agreeable cordiality inthe middle classes; business men from whom I sought casual information,even if we only exchanged a few words in the street, shook hands withme at parting. I found no one who had much good to say of his nativeplace; every one complained of a lack of water. Indeed, Cotrone has asgood as no water supply. One or two wells I saw, jealously guarded: thewater they yield is not really fit for drinking, and people who canafford it purchase water which comes from a distance in earthenwarejars. One of these jars I had found in my bedroom; its secure corkingmuch puzzled me until I made inquiries. The river Esaro is all butuseless for any purpose, and as no other stream flows in theneighbourhood, Cotrone's washerwomen take their work down to the beach;even during the gale I saw them washing there in pools which they hadmade to hold the sea water; now and then one of them ventured into thesurf, wading with legs of limitless nudity and plunging linen as thewaves 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-dopeople live here, and I was told that, in fine weather, "at least halfa dozen" private carriages might be seen making the fashionable driveon the Strada Regina Margherita. But it is not easy to imagine luxuryor refinement in these dreary, close-packed streets. Judging from ourtable at the Concordia, the town is miserably provisioned; the disheswere poor and monotonous and infamously cooked. Almost the onlypalatable thing offered was an enormous radish. Such radishes I neversaw: they were from six to eight inches long, and more than an inchthick, at the same time thoroughly crisp and sweet. The wine of thecountry had nothing to recommend it. It was very heady, and smacked ofdrugs rather than of grape juice.

But men must eat, and the Concordia, being the only restaurant, dailyentertained several citizens, besides guests staying in the house. Oneof these visitants excited my curiosity; he was a middle-aged man ofaustere countenance; shabby in attire, but with the bearing of oneaccustomed to command. Arriving always at exactly the same moment, heseated 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 heappeared in the doorway, the waiter called out, with respectful hurry,"Don Ferdinando!" and in a minute his first course was served. Bentlike a hunchback over the table, his hat dropping ever lower, until italmost hid his eyes, the Don ate voraciously. His dishes seemed to bealways the same, and as soon as he had finished the last mouthful, herose and strode from the room.

Don is a common title of respect in Southern Italy; it dates of coursefrom the time of Spanish rule. At a favourable moment I ventured toinquire of the waiter who Don Ferdinando might be; the only answer,given with extreme discretion, was "A proprietor." If in easycirc*mstances, the Don must have been miserly, his diet was wretchedbeyond description. And in the manner of his feeding he differedstrangely from the ordinary Italian who frequents restaurants.Wonderful to observe, the representative diner. He always seems to knowexactly what his appetite demands; he addresses the waiter in apreliminary discourse, sketching out his meal, and then proceeds tofill in the minutiae. If he orders a common dish, he describes withexquisite detail how it is to be prepared; in demanding something outof the way he glows with culinary enthusiasm. An ordinary bill of farenever 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 ofmacaroni is but the prelude to his meal, a whetting of his appetite.Throughout he grumbles, nothing is quite as it should be, and when thebill is presented he grumbles still more vigorously, seldom paying thesum as it stands. He rarely appears content with his entertainment, andoften indulges in unbounded abuse of those who serve him. Thesecharacteristics, which I have noted more or less in every part ofItaly, were strongly illustrated at the Concordia. In general, theyconsist with a fundamental good humour, but at Cotrone the tone of thedining-room was decidedly morose. One man—he seemed to be a sort ofclerk—came only to quarrel. I am convinced that he ordered thingswhich he knew the people could not cook just for the sake of revilingtheir handiwork when it was presented. Therewith he spent incrediblysmall sums; after growling and remonstrating and eating for more thanan hour, his bill would amount to seventy or eighty centesimi, wineincluded. Every day he threatened to withdraw his custom; every day hesent for the landlady, pointed out to her how vilely he was treated,and asked how she could expect him to recommend the Concordia to hisacquaintances. On one occasion I saw him push away a plate ofsomething, plant his elbows on the table, and hide his face in hishands; thus he sat for ten minutes, an image of indignant misery, andwhen at last his countenance was again visible, it showed traces oftears.

I dwell upon the question of food because it was on this day that Ibegan to feel a loss of appetite and found myself disgusted with thedishes set before me. In ordinary health I have the happiestqualification of the traveller, an ability to eat and enjoy thefamiliar dishes of any quasi-civilized country; it was a bad sign whenI grew fastidious. After a mere pretence of dinner, I lay down in myroom to rest and read. But I could do neither; it grew plain to me thatI was feverish. Through a sleepless night, the fever manifestlyincreasing, I wished that illness had fallen on me anywhere rather thanat Cotrone.

CHAPTER IX

MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

In the morning I arose as usual, though with difficulty. I tried topersuade myself that I was merely suffering from a violent attack ofdyspepsia, the natural result of Concordia diet. When the waiterbrought my breakfast I regarded it with resentful eye, feeling for themoment very much like my grumbling acquaintance of the dinner hour. Itmay be as well to explain that the breakfast consisted of very badcoffee, with goat's milk, hard, coarse bread, and goat's butter, whichtasted exactly like indifferent lard. The so-called butter, by astrange custom of Cotrone, was served in the emptied rind of aspherical cheese—the small caccio cavallo, horse cheese, which onesees 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 tothe butter; I only know that, even to a healthy palate, the stuff wasrather horrible. Cow's milk could be obtained in very small quantities,but it was of evil flavour; butter, in the septentrional sense of theword, 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 alull in the storm, but as yet no sign of improving weather; cloudsdrove swiftly across a lowering sky. My eyes turned to the Lacinianpromontory, dark upon the turbid sea. Should I ever stand by the sacredcolumn? It seemed to me hopelessly remote; the voyage an impossibleeffort.

I talked with a man, of whom I remember nothing but his piercing eyessteadily fixed upon me; he said there had been a wreck in the night, aship carrying live pigs had gone to pieces, and the shore was sprinkledwith porcine corpses.

Presently I found myself back at the Concordia, not knowing exactlyhow I had returned. The dyspepsia—I clung to this hypothesis—wasgrowing so violent that I had difficulty in breathing: before long Ifound it impossible to stand.

My hostess was summoned, and she told me that Cotrone had "a greatphysician," by name "Dr. Scurco." Translating this name from dialectinto Italian, I presumed that the physician's real name was Sculco, andthis proved to be the case. Dr. Riccardo Sculco was a youngish man,with an open, friendly countenance. At once I liked him. After anexamination, of which I quite understood the result, he remarked in hisamiable, airy manner that I had "a touch of rheumatism"; as a simplematter 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, Icaught 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 takemy quinine in dosi forti, and he would look in again at night.

The second visit I but dimly recollect. There was a colloquy betweenthe Doctor and my hostess, and the word cataplasma soundedrepeatedly; also I heard again "dosi forti." The night that followedwas perhaps the most horrible I ever passed. Crushed with a sense ofuttermost fatigue, I could get no rest. From time to time a sort ofdoze crept upon me, and I said to myself, "Now I shall sleep"; but onthe very edge of slumber, at the moment when I was falling intooblivion, a hand seemed to pluck me back into consciousness. In thesame instant there gleamed before my eyes a little circle of fire,which blazed and expanded into immensity, until its many-coloured glarebeat upon my brain and thrilled me with torture. No sooner was theintolerable light extinguished than I burst into a cold sweat; an icyriver poured about me; I shook, and my teeth chattered, and so for someminutes 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 thistorment repeated. The sense of personal agency forbidding me to sleepgrew so strong that I waited in angry dread for that shock whicharoused me; I felt myself haunted by a malevolent power, and rebelledagainst its cruelty.

Through the night no one visited me. At eight in the morning a knocksounded at the door, and there entered the waiter, carrying a tray withmy ordinary breakfast. "The Signore is not well?" he remarked, standingto gaze at me. I replied that I was not quite well; would he give methe milk, and remove from my sight as quickly as possible all the otherthings on the tray. A glimpse of butter in its cheese-rind had given mean 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 meno worse. But the way in which his directions had been carried out didnot altogether please him. He called the landlady, and soundly ratedher. This scene was interesting, it had a fine flavour of the MiddleAges. The Doctor addressed mine hostess of the Concordia as "thou,"and with magnificent disdain refused to hear her excuses; she, thestout, noisy woman, who ruled her own underlings with contemptuousrigour, was all subservience before this social superior, and whined tohim for pardon. "What water is this?" asked Dr. Sculco, sternly, takingup the corked jar that stood on the floor. The hostess replied that itwas drinking water, purchased with good money. Thereupon he poured outa little, held it up to the light, and remarked in a matter-of-facttone, "I don't believe you."

However, in a few minutes peace was restored, and the Doctor prescribedanew. After he had talked about quinine and cataplasms, he asked mewhether 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 eatsomething." And, turning to the hostess, "He had better have abeefsteak and a glass of Marsala." The look of amazement with which Iheard this caught the Doctor's eye. "Don't you like bistecca?" heinquired. I suggested that, for one in a very high fever, with a gooddeal of lung congestion, beefsteak seemed a trifle solid, and Marsalasomewhat 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 ofthe 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 Idid not care for a beefsteak of veal, could I eat a beefsteak ofmutton? It was not the first time that such a choice had been offeredme, for, in the South, bistecca commonly means a slice of meat doneon the grill or in the oven. Never have I sat down to a bisteccawhich was fit for man's consumption, and, of course, at the Concordiait would be rather worse than anywhere else. I persuaded the good womanto supply me with a little broth. Then I lay looking at the patch ofcloudy sky which showed above the houses opposite, and wonderingwhether I should have a second fearsome night. I wondered, too, howlong it would be before I could quit Cotrone. The delay here wasparticularly unfortunate, as my letters were addressed to Catanzaro,the next stopping-place, and among them I expected papers which wouldneed prompt attention. The thought of trying to get my correspondenceforwarded to Cotrone was too disturbing; it would have involved anenormous amount of trouble, and I could not have felt the leastassurance that things would arrive safely. So I worried through thehours of daylight, and worried still more when, at nightfall, the feverreturned upon me as badly as ever.

Dr. Sculco had paid his evening visit, and the first horror ofineffectual drowsing had passed over me, when my door was flungviolently open, and in rushed a man (plainly of the commercialspecies), hat on head and bag in hand. I perceived that the diligenzahad 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; afterregarding me curiously, he asked whether I wanted a paper. I took onewith the hope of reading it next morning. Then he began conversation. Ihad the fever? Ah! everybody had fever at Cotrone. He himself would belaid up with it in a day or two. If I liked, he would look in with apaper each evening—till fever prevented him. When I accepted thissuggestion, he smiled encouragingly, cried "Speriamo!" and clumpedout of the room.

I had as little sleep as on the night before, but my suffering wasmitigated in a very strange way. After I had put out the candle, Itormented myself for a long time with the thought that I should neversee 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 onthe Lacinian promontory, leaving the cape unvisited, the ruin of thetemple unseen, seemed to me a miserable necessity which I should lamentas long as I lived. I felt as one involved in a moral disaster; workingin spite of reason, my brain regarded the matter from many points ofview, and found no shadow of solace. The sense that so short a distanceseparated me from the place I desired to see, added exasperation to mydistress. Half-delirious, I at times seemed to be in a boat, tossing onwild waters, the Column visible afar, but only when I strained my eyesto discover it. In a description of the approach by land, I had read ofa great precipice which had to be skirted, and this, too, haunted mewith its terrors: I found myself toiling on a perilous road, which allat once crumbled into fearful depths just before me. A violentshivering fit roused me from this gloomy dreaming, and I soon afterfell into a visionary state which, whilst it lasted, gave me suchplacid happiness as I have never known when in my perfect mind. Lyingstill and calm, and perfectly awake, I watched a succession ofwonderful pictures. First of all I saw great vases, rich with ornamentand figures; then sepulchral marbles, carved more exquisitely than themost beautiful I had ever known. The vision grew in extent, inmultiplicity of detail; presently I was regarding scenes of ancientlife—thronged streets, processions triumphal or religious, halls offeasting, fields of battle. What most impressed me at the time was themarvellously bright yet delicate colouring of everything I saw. I cangive no idea in words of the pure radiance which shone from everyobject, which illumined every scene. More remarkable, when I thought ofit next day, was the minute finish of these pictures, the definitenessof every point on which my eye fell. Things which I could not know,which my imagination, working in the service of the will, could neverhave bodied forth, were before me as in life itself. I consciouslywondered at peculiarities of costume such as I had never read of; atfeatures of architecture entirely new to me; at insignificantcharacteristics of that by-gone world, which by no possibility couldhave been gathered from books. I recall a succession of faces, theloveliest conceivable; and I remember, I feel to this moment the pangof 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, Iwill mention the only one which I clearly recollect. It was a glimpseof history. When Hannibal, at the end of the second Punic War, wasconfined to the south of Italy, he made Croton his head-quarters, andwhen, in reluctant obedience to Carthage, he withdrew from Roman soil,it was at Croton that he embarked. He then had with him a contingent ofItalian mercenaries, and, unwilling that these soldiers should go overto the enemy, he bade them accompany him to Africa. The Italiansrefused. 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 strandby Croton; the promontory with its temple; not as I know the sceneto-day, but as it must have looked to those eyes more than two thousandyears ago. The soldiers of Hannibal doing massacre, the perishingmercenaries, supported my closest gaze, and left no curiosityunsatisfied. (Alas! could I but see it again, or remember clearly whatwas shown tome!) And over all lay a glory of sunshine, an indescribablebrilliancy which puts light and warmth into my mind whenever I try torecall it. The delight of these phantasms was well worth the ten days'illness which paid for them. After this night they never returned; Ihoped for their renewal, but in vain. When I spoke of the experience toDr. Sculco, he was much amused, and afterwards he often asked mewhether 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 seethe vanished life so dear to my imagination. If the picturecorresponded to nothing real, tell me who can, by what power Ireconstructed, to the last perfection of intimacy, a world known to meonly in ruined fragments.

Daylight again, but no gleam of sun. I longed for the sunshine; itseemed to me a miserable chance that I should lie ill by the Ionian Seaand behold no better sky than the far north might have shown me. Thatgrey obstruction of heaven's light always weighs upon my spirit; on asummer's day, there has but to pass a floating cloud, which for amoment veils the sun, and I am touched with chill discouragement; heartand hope fail me, until the golden radiance is restored.

About noon, when I had just laid down the newspaper bought the nightbefore—the Roman Tribuna, which was full of dreary politics—asudden clamour in the street drew my attention. I heard the angryshouting of many voices, not in the piazza before the hotel, but atsome little distance; it was impossible to distinguish any meaning inthe tumultuous cries. This went on for a long time, swelling at momentsinto a roar of frenzied rage, then sinking to an uneven growl, brokenby spasmodic yells. On asking what it meant, I was told that a crowd ofpoor folk had gathered before the Municipio to demonstrate against anoppressive tax called the fuocatico. This is simply hearth-money, animpost on each fireplace where food is cooked; the same tax which madetrouble in old England, and was happily got rid of long ago. But thehungry 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 imaginaryservice. I wondered whether the Sindaco and his portly friend sat intheir comfortable room whilst the roaring went on; whether they smokedtheir cigars as usual, and continued to chat at their ease. Verylikely. The privileged classes in Italy are slow to move, and may wellbelieve in the boundless endurance of those below them. Some day, nodoubt, they will have a disagreeable surprise. When Lombardy begins inearnest to shout "Abbasso!" it will be an uneasy moment for the heavysyndics of Calabria.

CHAPTER X

CHILDREN OF THE SOIL

Any northern person who passed a day or two at the Concordia as anordinary traveller would carry away a strong impression. The people ofthe house would seem to him little short of savages, filthy in personand in habits, utterly uncouth in their demeanour, perpetual wranglersand railers, lacking every qualification for the duties they pretendedto discharge. In England their mere appearance would revolt decentfolk. With my better opportunity of judging them, I overcame the firstnatural antipathy; I saw their good side, and learnt to forgive thefaults natural to a state of frank barbarism. It took two or three daysbefore their rough and ready behaviour softened to a really humanfriendliness, but this came about at last, and when it was known that Ishould not give much more trouble, that I needed only a little care inthe matter of diet, goodwill did its best to aid hopeless incapacity.

Whilst my fever was high, little groups of people often came into theroom, to stand and stare at me, exchanging, in a low voice, remarkswhich 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 natureswere not sanguine. A result, doubtless, of the unhealthy climate, everyone at Cotrone seemed in a more or less gloomy state of mind. Thehostess went about uttering ceaseless moans and groans; when she was inmy room I heard her constantly sighing, "Ah, Signore! Ah,Cristo!"—exclamations which, perhaps, had some reference to myillness, but which did not cease when I recovered. Whether she had anyprivate reason for depression I could not learn; I fancy not; it wasonly the whimpering and querulous habit due to low health. A femaleservant, who occasionally brought me food (I found that she also cookedit), bore herself in much the same way. This domestic was the mostprimitive 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 deformedby labour and neglect, as to be scarcely human. She had the darkest andfiercest eyes I ever saw. Between her and her mistress went on anunceasing quarrel: they quarrelled in my room, in the corridor, and, asI knew by their shrill voices, in places remote; yet I am sure they didnot dislike each other, and probably neither of them ever thought ofparting. Unexpectedly, one evening, this woman entered, stood by thebedside, and began to talk with such fierce energy, with such flashingof her black eyes, and such distortion of her features, that I couldonly suppose that she was attacking me for the trouble I caused her. Aminute or two passed before I could even hit the drift of her furiousspeech; she was always the most difficult of the natives to understand,and in rage she became quite unintelligible. Little by little, by dintof questioning, I got at what she meant. There had been guai, worsethan usual; the mistress had reviled her unendurably for some fault orother, and was it not hard that she should be used like this afterhaving tanto, tanto lavorato! In fact, she was appealing for mysympathy, not abusing me at all. When she went on to say that she wasalone 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 foundtongue, and protested in the rude beginnings of articulate utteranceagainst its hard lot. If only one could have learnt, in intimatedetail, the life of this domestic serf! How interesting, and howsordidly picturesque against the background of romantic landscape, ofscenic history! I looked long into her sallow, wrinkled face, trying toimagine the thoughts that ruled its expression. In some measure myefforts at kindly speech succeeded, and her "Ah, Cristo!" as she turnedto go away, was not without a touch of solace.

Another time my hostess fell foul of the waiter, because he had broughtme goat's milk which was very sour. There ensued the most comicalscene. In an access of fury the stout woman raged and stormed; thewaiter, a lank young fellow, with a simple, good-natured face, aftertrying to explain that he had committed the fault by inadvertence,suddenly raised his hand, like one about to exhort a congregation, andexclaimed in a tone of injured remonstrance, "Un po' di calma! Un po'di calma!" My explosion of laughter at this inimitable utterance putan end to the strife. The youth laughed with me; his mistress bustledhim out of the room, and then began to inform me that he was weak inhis head. Ah! she exclaimed, her life with these people! what it costher to keep them in anything like order! When she retired, I heard herexpectorating violently in the corridor; a habit with every inmate ofthis genial hostelry.

When the worst of my fever had subsided, the difficulty was to obtainany nourishment suitable to my state. The good doctor, who hadsuggested beefsteak and Marsala when I was incapable of taking anythingat all, ruled me severely in the matter of diet now that I really beganto feel hungry. I hope I may never again be obliged to drink goat'smilk; in these days it became so unutterably loathsome to me that Ihad, at length, to give it up altogether, and I cannot think of it nowwithout a qualm. The broth offered me was infamous, mere coloured waterbeneath half an inch of floating grease. Once there was a promise of afowl, and I looked forward to it eagerly; but, alas! this miserablebird had undergone a process of seething for the extraction of soup. Iwould have defied anyone to distinguish between the substance remainingand 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 Iwelcomed the idea joyously. Indeed, the appearance of the dish, when itwas borne in, had nothing to discourage my appetite—the odour wassavoury; I prepared myself for a treat. Out of pure kindness, for shesaw me tremble in my weakness, the good woman offered her aid in thecarving; 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 ofsatisfaction, wiped her hands upon her skirt. If her hands had knownwater (to say nothing of soap) during the past twelve months I am muchmistaken. It was a pity, for I found that my teeth could just masticatea portion of the flesh which hunger compelled me to assail.

Of course I suffered much from thirst, and Dr. Sculco startled me oneday by asking if I liked tea. Tea? Was it really procurable? TheDoctor assured me that it could be supplied by the chemist; though,considering how rarely the exotic was demanded, it might have lostsomething of its finer flavour whilst stored at the pharmacy. An orderwas despatched. Presently the waiter brought me a very small paperpacket, such as might have contained a couple of Seidlitz powders; onopening it I discovered something black and triturated, a crumblingsubstance rather like ground charcoal. I smelt it, but there was noperceptible odour; I put a little of it to my tongue, but the effectwas merely that of dust. Proceeding to treat it as if it were veritabletea, I succeeded in imparting a yellowish tinge to the hot water, and,so thirsty was I, this beverage tempted me to a long draught. Therefollowed no ill result that I know of, but the paper packet laythenceforth untouched, and, on leaving, I made a present of it to mylandlady.

To complete the domestic group, I must make mention of the"chambermaid." This was a lively little fellow of about twelve yearsold, son of the landlady, who gave me much amusem*nt. I don't knowwhether he performed chambermaid duty in all the rooms; probably thefierce-eyed cook did the heavier work elsewhere, but upon me hisattendance was constant. At an uncertain hour of the evening he entered(of course, without knocking), doffed his cap in salutation, and beganby asking how I found myself. The question could not have been moredeliberately and thoughtfully put by the Doctor himself. When I repliedthat I was better, the little man expressed his satisfaction, and wenton to make a few remarks about the pessimo tempo. Finally, with agesture of politeness, he inquired whether I would permit him "di fareun po' di pulizia"—to clean up a little, and this he proceeded to dowith much briskness. Excepting the good Sculco, my chambermaid wasaltogether the most civilized person I met at Cotrone. He had asingular amiability of nature, and his boyish spirits were not yetsubdued by the pestilent climate. If I thanked him for anything, hetook off his cap, bowed with comical dignity, and answered "Grazie avoi, Signore." Of course these people never used the third personfeminine of polite Italian. Dr. Sculco did so, for I had begun byaddressing him in that manner, but plainly it was not familiar to hislips. At the same time there prevailed certain forms of civility, whichseemed a trifle excessive. For instance, when the Doctor entered myroom, and I gave him "Buon giorno," he was wont to reply, "Troppogentile!"—too kind of you!

My newspaper boy came regularly for a few days, always complaining offeverish symptoms, then ceased to appear. I made inquiry: he was downwith illness, and as no one took his place I suppose the regulardistribution of newspapers in Cotrone was suspended. When the poorfellow again showed himself, he had a sorry visage; he sat down by mybedside (rain dripping from his hat, and mud, very thick, upon hisboots) to give an account of his sufferings. I pictured the sort ofretreat in which he had lain during those miserable hours. My ownchamber contained merely the barest necessaries, and, as the gentlemanof Cosenza would have said, "left something to be desired" in point ofcleanliness. Conceive the places into which Cotrone's poorest have tocrawl when they are stricken with disease. I admit, however, that thethought was worse to me at that moment than it is now. After all, thenative of Cotrone has advantages over the native of a city slum; and itis better to die in a hovel by the Ionian Sea than in a cellar atShoreditch.

The position of my room, which looked upon the piazza, enabled me tohear a great deal of what went on in the town. The life of Cotronebegan about three in the morning; at that hour I heard the firstvoices, upon which there soon followed the bleating of goats and thetinkling of ox-bells. No doubt the greater part of the poor people werein bed by eight o'clock every evening; only those who had dealings inthe 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 ofvoices, such a noise as in England would only rise from some excitedcrowd on a rare occasion; it was increased by reverberations from thecolonnade which runs all round in front of the shops. When thenorth-east gale had passed over, there ensued a few days of sullencalm, permitting the people to lead their ordinary life in open air. Igrew to recognize certain voices, those of men who seemingly hadnothing to do but to talk all day long. Only the sound reached me; Iwish I could have gathered the sense of these interminable haranguesand dialogues. In every country and every age those talk most who haveleast to say that is worth saying. These tonguesters of Cotrone hadtheir predecessors in the public place of Croton, who began to gossipbefore dawn, and gabbled unceasingly till after nightfall; with theirvoices must often have mingled the bleating of goats or the lowing ofoxen, just as I heard the sounds to-day.

One day came a street organ, accompanied by singing, and how glad Iwas! The first note of music, this, that I had heard at Cotrone. Theinstrument played only two or three airs, and one of them became agreat favourite with the populace; very soon, numerous voices joinedwith that of the singer, and all this and the following day the melodysounded, near or far. It had the true characteristics of southern song;rising tremolos, and cadences that swept upon a wail of passion; highfalsetto notes, and deep tum-tum of infinite melancholy. Scorned by themusician, yet how expressive of a people's temper, how suggestive ofits history! At the moment when this strain broke upon my ear, I wasthinking ill of Cotrone and its inhabitants; in the first pause of themusic I reproached myself bitterly for narrowness and ingratitude. Allthe faults of the Italian people are whelmed in forgiveness as soon astheir music sounds under the Italian sky. One remembers all they havesuffered, all they have achieved in spite of wrong. Brute races haveflung 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. Animmemorial woe sounds even through the lilting notes of Italian gaiety.It is a country wearied and regretful, looking ever backward to thethings of old; trivial in its latter life, and unable to hope sincerelyfor the future. Moved by these voices singing over the dust of Croton,I asked pardon for all my foolish irritation, my impertinentfault-finding. Why had I come hither, if it was not that I loved landand people? And had I not richly known the recompense of my love?

Legitimately enough one may condemn the rulers of Italy, those who takeupon themselves to shape her political life, and recklessly load herwith burdens insupportable. But among the simple on Italian soil awandering stranger has no right to nurse national superiorities, toindulge a contemptuous impatience. It is the touch of touristvulgarity. Listen to a Calabrian peasant singing as he follows his oxenalong the furrow, or as he shakes the branches of his olive tree. Thatwailing voice amid the ancient silence, that long lament solacingill-rewarded toil, comes from the heart of Italy herself, and wakes thememory of mankind.

CHAPTER XI

THE MOUNT OF REFUGE

My thoughts turned continually to Catanzaro. It is a city set upon ahill, overlooking the Gulf of Squillace, and I felt that if I could butescape thither, I should regain health and strength. Here at Cotronethe air oppressed and enfeebled me; the neighbourhood of the seabrought no freshness. From time to time the fever seemed to beovercome, but it lingered still in my blood and made my nightsrestless. 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 askedhim 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 mostsevere climate; the winds at this season were terrible. In consciencehe could not advise me to take such a step: the results might be verygrave after my lung trouble. Far better wait at Cotrone for a week ortwo longer, and then go on to Reggio, crossing perhaps to Sicily tocomplete my cure. The more Dr. Sculco talked of windy altitudes, thestronger grew my desire for such a change of climate, and the moreintolerable seemed my state of languishment. The weather was againstormy, but this time blew sirocco; I felt its evil breath waste mymuscles, clog my veins, set all my nerves a-tremble. If I stayed heremuch longer, I should never get away at all. A superstitious fear creptupon 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 todescribe to me the scenery of the Cape. Certain white spots which I haddiscovered at the end of the promontory were little villas, occupied insummer by the well-to-do citizens of Cotrone; the Doctor himself ownedone, which had belonged to his father before him. Some of the earliestmemories of his boyhood were connected with the Cape: when he hadlessons to learn by heart, he often used to recite them walking roundand round the great column. In the garden of his villa he at timesamused himself with digging, and a very few turns of the spade sufficedto throw out some relic of antiquity. Certain Americans, he said,obtained permission not long ago from the proprietor of the ground onwhich the temple stood to make serious excavations, but as soon as theItalians heard of it, they claimed the site as a national monument; thework was forbidden, and the soil had to be returned to its formerstate. Hard by the ancient sanctuary is a chapel, consecrated to theMadonna del Capo; thither the people of Cotrone make pilgrimages, andhold 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, savefor 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 attackthe corsairs who occasionally landed for water.

When I led him to talk of Cotrone and its people, the Doctor could butconfirm my observations. He contrasted the present with the past; thisfever-stricken and waterless village with the great city which wascalled the healthiest in the world. In his opinion the physical changehad resulted from the destruction of forests, which brought with it adiminution of the rainfall. "At Cotrone," he said, "we have practicallyno rain. A shower now and then, but never a wholesome downpour." He hadno doubt that, in ancient times, all the hills of the coast werewooded, as Sila still is, and all the rivers abundantly supplied withwater. To-day there was scarce a healthy man in Cotrone: no one hadstrength to resist a serious illness. This state of things he took veryphilosophically; I noticed once more the frankly mediaeval spirit inwhich he regarded the populace. Talking on, he interested me byenlarging upon the difference between southern Italians and those ofthe north. Beyond Rome a Calabrian never cared to go; he found himselfin a foreign country, where his tongue betrayed him, and where hismanners were too noticeably at variance with those prevailing. Italianunity, I am sure, meant little to the good Doctor, and appealed butcoldly to his imagination.

I declared to him at length that I could endure no longer this drearylife of the sick-room; I must get into the open air, and, if no harmcame of the experiment, I should leave for Catanzaro. "I cannot preventyou," was the Doctor's reply, "but I am obliged to point out that youact on your own responsibility. It is pericoloso, it ispericolosissimo! The terrible climate of the mountains!" However, Iwon his permission to leave the house, and acted upon it that sameafternoon. Shaking and palpitating, I slowly descended the stairs tothe colonnade; then, with a step like that of an old, old man, totteredacross the piazza, my object being to reach the chemist's shop, where Iwished to pay for the drugs that I had had and for the tea. When Ientered, 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 Itold him I was the Englishman who had been ill, and that I wanted toleave to-morrow for Catanzaro, his compassion indulged itself morefreely, and I could see quite well that he thought my plan of travelvisionary. True, he said, the climate of Cotrone was trying to astranger. He understood my desire to get away; but—Catanzaro! Was Iaware that at Catanzaro I should suddenly find myself in a season ofmost rigorous winter? And the winds! One needed to be very strong evento stand on one's feet at Catanzaro. For all this I returned thanks,and, having paid my bill, tottered back to the Concordia. It seemedto me more than doubtful whether I should start on the morrow.

That evening I tried to dine. Don Ferdinando entered as usual, and satmute through his unchanging meal; the grumbler grumbled and ate, asperchance he does to this day. I forced myself to believe that the foodhad a savour for me, and that the wine did not taste of drugs. As I satover my pretended meal, I heard the sirocco moaning without, and attimes a splash of rain against the window. Near me, two military menwere exchanging severe comments on Calabria and its people. "Chepaese!"—"What a country!" exclaimed one of them finally in disgust.Of course they came from the north, and I thought that theirconversation was not likely to knit closer the bond between theextremes of Italy.

To my delight I looked forth next morning on a sunny and calm sky, suchas I had not seen during all my stay at Cotrone. I felt better, anddecided to leave for Catanzaro by train in the early afternoon. Shakingstill, but heartened by the sunshine, I took a short walk, and lookedfor the last time at the Lacinian promontory. On my way back I passed alittle building from which sounded an astonishing noise, a confusedbabble of shrill voices, blending now and then with a deep stentorianshout. It was the communal school—not during playtime, or in a stateof revolt, but evidently engaged as usual upon its studies. Theschool-house was small, but the volume of clamour that issued from itwould have done credit to two or three hundred children in unrestraineduproariousness. Curiosity held me listening for ten minutes; the tumultunderwent no change of character, nor suffered the least abatement; themature voice occasionally heard above it struck a cheery note, by nomeans one of impatience or stern command. Had I been physically capableof any effort, I should have tried to view that educational scene. Theincident did me good, and I went on in a happier humour.

Which was not perturbed by something that fell under my eye soonafterwards. At a shop door hung certain printed cards, bearing a noticethat "wood hay-makers," "wood binders," and "wood mowers" were "soldhere." Not in Italian this, but in plain, blunt English; and to eachannouncement was added the name of an English manufacturing firm, withan agency at Naples. I have often heard the remark that Englishmen ofbusiness are at a disadvantage in their export trade because they payno heed to the special requirements of foreign countries; but such adelightful illustration of their ineptitude had never come under mynotice. Doubtless these alluring advertisem*nts are widely scatteredthrough agricultural Calabria. Who knows? they my serve as anintroduction to the study of the English tongue.

Not without cordiality was my leave-taking. The hostess confided to methat, 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 shakenhis head and shrugged his shoulders; much better, was it not, to bepaying my bill? Bill more moderate, under the circ*mstances, no manever discharged; Calabrian honesty came well out of the transaction. SoI tumbled once more into the dirty, ramshackle diligenza, passedalong the dusty road between the barred and padlocked warehouses, andarrived in good time at the station. No sooner had I set foot on theplatform than I felt an immense relief. Even here, it seemed to me, theair was fresher. I lifted my eyes to the hills and seemed to feel thebreezes of Catanzaro.

The train was made up at Cotrone, and no undue haste appeared in ourdeparture. When we were already twenty minutes late, there stepped intothe carriage where I was sitting a good-humoured railway official, whosmiled and greeted me. I supposed he wanted my ticket, but nothing ofthe kind. After looking all round the compartment with an air ofdisinterested curiosity, he heaved a sigh and remarked pleasantly tome, "Non manca niente"—"Nothing is amiss." Five minutes more and westeamed away.

The railway ascended a long valley, that of the Esaro, where along thedeep watercourse trickled a scarce perceptible stream. On either handwere hills of pleasant outline, tilled on the lower slopes, and oftenset with olives. Here and there came a grassy slope, where shepherds orgoatherds idled amid their flocks. Above the ascent a long tunnel,after which the line falls again towards the sea. The landscape took anobler beauty; mountains spread before us, tenderly coloured by theautumn sun. We crossed two or three rivers—rivers of flowing water,their banks overhung with dense green jungle. The sea was azure, andlooked very calm, but white waves broke loudly upon the strand, lastmurmur of the storm which had raged and renewed itself for nearly afortnight.

At one of the wayside stations entered a traveller whom I could not butregard with astonishment. He was a man at once plump and muscular, hissturdy limbs well exhibited in a shooting costume. On his face glowedthe richest hue of health; his eyes glistened merrily. With him hecarried a basket, which, as soon as he was settled, gave forth anabundant meal. The gusto of his eating, the satisfaction with which heeyed 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 vigourin a native of the district? I had not seen such a man since I set outupon my travels; the contrast he made with the figures of late familiarto me was so startling that I had much ado to avoid continuously gazingat him. His proximity did me good; the man radiated health.

When next the train stopped he exchanged words with some one on theplatform, and I heard that he was going to Catanzaro. At once Iunderstood. This jovial, ruddy-cheeked personage was a man of thehills. At Catanzaro I should see others like him; perhaps he fairlyrepresented its inhabitants. If so, I had reason for my suspicion thatpoor fever-stricken Cotrone regarded with a sort of jealousy the breezyhealth of Catanzaro, which at the same time is a much more prosperousplace. Later, I found that there did exist some acerbity of mutualcriticism between the two towns, reminding one of civic rivalry amongthe Greeks. Catanzaro spoke with contempt of Cotrone. Happily I made nomedical acquaintance in the hill town; but I should have liked todiscuss with one of these gentlemen the view of their climate held byDr. Sculco.

In the ages that followed upon the fall of Rome, perpetual danger drovethe sea-coast population of Calabria inland and to the heights. Our ownday beholds a counter movement; the shore line of railway will createnew towns on the old deserted sites. Such a settlement is the Marina ofCatanzaro, a little port at the mouth of a wide valley, along whichruns a line to Catanzaro itself, or rather to the foot of the greathill on which the town is situated. The sun was setting when I alightedat the Marina, and as I waited for the branch train my eyes feastedupon a glory of colour which made me forget aching weariness. Allaround lay orchards of orange trees, the finest I had ever seen, andover their solid masses of dark foliage, thick hung with ripeningfruit, poured the splendour of the western sky. It was a pictureunsurpassable in richness of tone; the dense leafa*ge of deepest,warmest green glowed and flashed, its magnificence heightened by theblaze of the countless golden spheres adorning it. Beyond, the magicsea, purple and crimson as the sun descended upon the vanishinghorizon. Eastward, above the slopes of Sila, stood a moon almost at itsfull, 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 liethe gardens of the Hesperides.

CHAPTER XII

CATANZARO

For half an hour the train slowly ascends. The carriages are of specialconstruction, light and many-windowed, so that one has good views ofthe landscape. Very beautiful was this long, broad, climbing valley,everywhere richly wooded; oranges and olives, carob and lentisk andmyrtle, interspersed with cactus (its fruit, the prickly fig, allgathered) and with the sword-like agave. Glow of sunset lingered uponthe hills: in the green hollow a golden twilight faded to dusk. Thevalley narrowed; it became a gorge between dark slopes which closedtogether and seemed to bar advance. Here the train stopped, and all thepassengers (some half-dozen) alighted.

The sky was still clear enough to show the broad features of the scenebefore me. I looked up to a mountain side, so steep that towards thesummit it appeared precipitous, and there upon the height, dimlyillumined with a last reflex of after-glow, my eyes distinguishedsomething which might be the outline of walls and houses. This, I knew,was the situation of Catanzaro, but one could not easily imagine bywhat sort of approach the city would be gained; in the thickeningtwilight, no trace of a road was discernible, and the flanks of themountain, a ravine yawning on either hand, looked even more abrupt thanthe ascent immediately before me.

There, however, stood the diligenza which was somehow to convey me toCatanzaro; I watched its loading with luggage-merchandise andmail-bags—whilst the exquisite evening melted into night. When I hadthus been occupied for a few minutes, my look once more turned to themountain, where a surprise awaited me: the summit was now encircledwith little points of radiance, as though a starry diadem had fallenupon it from the sky. "Pronti!" cried our driver. I climbed to myseat, and we began our journey towards the crowning lights.

By help of long loops the road ascended at a tolerably easy angle; thehorse-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 valleybelow us; silvery grey and green, the lovely hollow seemed ofimmeasurable length, and beyond it one imagined, rather than discerned,a glimmer of the sea. By the wayside I now and then caught sight of ahuge cactus, trailing its heavy knotted length upon the face of a rock;and at times we brushed beneath overhanging branches of some tree thatcould not be distinguished. All the way up we seemed to skirt a sheerprecipice, which at moments was alarming in its gloomy depth. Deeperand deeper below shone the lights of the railway station and of the fewhouses about it; it seemed as though a false step would drop us downinto their midst.

The fatigue of the day's journey passed away during this ascent, whichlasted nearly an hour; when, after a drive through dark but widestreets, I was set down before the hotel, I felt that I had shaken offthe last traces of my illness. A keen appetite sent me as soon aspossible in search of the dining-room, where I ate with extreme gusto;everything seemed excellent after the sorry table of the Concordia. Ipoured my wine with a free hand, rejoicing to find it was wine oncemore, and not (at all events to my palate) a concoction of drugs. Thealbergo was decent and well found; a cheerful prosperity declareditself in all I had yet seen. After dinner I stepped out on to thebalcony of my room to view the city's main street; but there was veryscant illumination, and the moonlight only showed me high houses ofmodern build. Few people passed, and never a vehicle; the shops wereall closed. I needed no invitation to sleep, but this shadowedstillness, and the fresh mountain air, happily lulled my thoughts. Eventhe subject of earthquakes proved soporific.

Impossible to find oneself at Catanzaro without thinking ofearthquakes; I wonder that the good people of Coltrone did not includethis among deterrents whereby they sought to prejudice me against themountain town. Over and over again Catanzaro has been shaken to itsfoundations. The worst calamity recorded was towards the end of theeighteenth century, when scarce a house remained standing, and manythousands of the people perished. This explains a peculiarity in theaspect of the place, noticeable as soon as one begins to walk about; itis like a town either half built or half destroyed, one knows notwhich; everywhere one comes upon ragged walls, tottering houses, yetthere is no appearance of antiquity. One ancient building, a castlebuilt by Robert Guiscard when he captured Catanzaro in the eleventhcentury, remained until of late years, its Norman solidity defyingearthquakes; but this has been pulled down, deliberately got rid of forthe sake of widening a road. Lament over such a proceeding would beidle enough; Catanzaro is the one progressive town of Calabria, and haslearnt too thoroughly the spirit of the time to suffer a blocking ofits highway by middle-age obstructions.

If a Hellenic or Roman city occupied this breezy summit, it has left noname, and no relics of the old civilization have been discovered here.Catanzaro was founded in the tenth century, at the same time thatTaranto was rebuilt after the Saracen destruction; an epoch of revivalfor Southern Italy under the vigorous Byzantine rule of NicephorusPhocas. From my point of view, the interest of the place sufferedbecause I could attach to it no classic memory. Robert Guiscard, to besure, is a figure picturesque enough, and might give play to theimagination, but I care little for him after all; he does not belong tomy world. I had to see Catanzaro merely as an Italian town amidwonderful surroundings. The natural beauty of the spot amply sufficedto me during the days I spent there, and gratitude for health recoveredgave me a kindly feeling to all its inhabitants.

Daylight brought no disillusion as regards natural features. I made thecircuit of the little town, and found that it everywhere overlooks asteep, often a sheer, descent, save at one point, where an isthmusunites it to the mountains that rise behind. In places the boundingwall runs on the very edge of a precipice, and many a crazy house,overhanging, seems ready to topple into the abyss. The views aremagnificent, whether one looks down the valley to the leafy shore, or,in an opposite direction, up to the grand heights which, at thisnarrowest point of Calabria, separate the Ionian from the Tyrrhene Sea.I could now survey the ravines which, in twilight, had dimly shownthemselves on either side of the mountain; they are deep and narrow,craggy, wild, bare. Each, when the snows are melting, becomes the bedof a furious torrent; the watercourses uniting below to form the riverof the valley. At this season there was a mere trickling of water overa dry brown waste. Where the abruptness of the descent does not renderit impossible, olives have been planted on the mountain sides; thecactus clings everywhere, making picturesque many a wall and hovel,luxuriating on the hard, dry soil; fig trees and vines occupy morefavoured spots, and the gardens of the better houses are often gracedby a noble palm.

After my morning's walk I sought the residence of Signor PasqualeCricelli, to whom I carried a note of introduction. This gentlemanholds the position of English Vice-Consul at Catanzaro, but it isseldom that he has the opportunity of conversing with Englishtravellers; the courtesy and kindness with which he received me have agreat part in my pleasant memory of the mountain town. Signor Cricellitook me to see many interesting things, and brought me into touch withthe every-day life of Catanzaro. I knew from Lenormant's book that thetown had a singular reputation for hospitality. The Frencharchaeologist tells amusing stories in illustration of thischaracteristic. Once, when he had taken casual refreshment at arestaurant, a gentleman sitting at another table came forward and, withgrave politeness, begged permission to pay for what Lenormant hadconsumed. This was a trifle in comparison with what happened when thetraveller, 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 wentoff joyously, but, to Lenormant's surprise, nothing was charged for itin his bill. On making inquiry he learnt that the cost of theentertainment had already been discharged by one of his guests! Well,that took place years ago, long before a railway had been thought of inthe valley of the Corace; such heroic virtues ill consist with the lifeof to-day. Nevertheless, Don Pasquale (Signor Cricelli's name whengreeted by his fellow-citizens) several times reminded me, withoutknowing it, of what I had read. For instance, we entered a shop whichhe thought might interest me; the salesman during our talkunobtrusively 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. Thatpoint I easily decided, but by no persistence could I succeed in payingfor the things. Smiling behind his counter, the shopkeeper declined toname a price; Don Pasquale declared that a payment under suchcirc*mstances was a thing unknown in Catanzaro, and I saw that to sayanything more would be to run the risk of offending him. The same dayhe invited me to dinner, and explained that we must needs dine at thehotel where I was staying, this being the best place of entertainmentin 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 aresult of his friendly offices, various little changes came about. Oncemore 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'sin 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 withwoodwork copies from the best examples of old Italian carving. Seekingpill or potion, one finds oneself in a museum of art, where it would beeasy to spend an hour in studying the counter, the shelves, theceiling. The chemists (two brothers, if I remember rightly) pointed outto me with legitimate pride all that they had done for the beautifyingof their place of business; I shall not easily forget the glowingcountenance, the moved voice, which betrayed their feelings as they ledme hither and thither; for them and their enterprise I felt a heartyrespect. When we had surveyed everything within doors I was asked tolook at the mostra—the sign that hung over the entrance; a sort ofgriffin in wrought iron, this, too, copied from an old masterpiece, andreminding one of the fine ironwork which adorns the streets of Siena.Don Pasquale could not be satisfied until I had privately assured himof my genuine admiration. Was it, he asked, at all like a chemist'sshop in London? My reply certainly gratified him, but I am afraid itdid 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 villagewhere the dialect of the people is still a corrupt Greek. One wouldlike to imagine that their origin dates back to the early Hellenicdays, but it is assuredly much later. These villages may be a relic ofthe Byzantine conquest in the sixth century, when Southern Italy was,to a great extent, re peopled from the Eastern Empire, though anothertheory suggests that they were formed by immigrants from Greece at thetime of the Turkish invasion. Each of the women had a baby hanging ather back, together with miscellaneous goods which she had purchased inthe town: though so heavily burdened, they walked erect, and with thefree step of mountaineers.

I could not have had a better opportunity than was afforded me on thisday of observing the peasantry of the Catanzaro district. It was thefeast of the Immaculate Conception, and from all around thecountry-folk thronged in pilgrimage to the church of the Immaculate;since earliest morning I had heard the note of bagpipes, whichcontinued to sound before the street shrines all day long. Don Pasqualeassured me that the festival had an importance in this region scarcelyless than that of Christmas. At the hour of high mass I entered thesanctuary whither all were turning their steps; it was not easy to makea way beyond the portico, but when I had slowly pressed forward throughthe dense crowd, I found that the musical part of the service was beingperformed by a lively string-band, up in a gallery. For seats there wasno room; a standing multitude filled the whole church before the altar,and the sound of gossiping voices at moments all but overcame that ofthe music. I know not at what point of the worship I chanced to bepresent; heat and intolerable odours soon drove me forth again, but Iretained an impression of jollity, rather than of reverence. Thosescreaming and twanging instruments sounded much like an invitation tothe dance, and all the faces about me were radiant with cheerfulness.Just such a throng, of course, attended upon the festival of god orgoddess ere the old religion was transformed. Most of the Christiananniversaries have their origin in heathendom; the names have changed,but amid the unlettered worshippers there is little change of spirit; atradition older than they can conceive rules their piety, and gives itwhatever significance it may have in their simple lives.

Many came from a great distance; at the entrance to the town weretethered innumerable mules and asses, awaiting the hour of return.Modern Catanzaro, which long ago lost its proper costume, was enlivenedwith brilliant colours; the country women, of course, adornedthemselves, and their garb was that which had so much interested mewhen I first saw it in the public garden at Cosenza. Brilliant blue andscarlet were the prevailing tones; a good deal of fine embroiderycaught the eye. In a few instances I noticed men wearing the trueCalabrian hat—peaked, brigandesque—which is rapidly falling out ofuse. These people were, in general, good-looking; frequently I observeda 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 ofconversation; the general bearing was dignified, and tended to gravity.One woman in particular held my attention, not because of anyexceptional beauty, for, indeed, she had a hard, stern face, but owingto her demeanour. Unlike most of the peasant folk, she was bent onbusiness; carrying upon her head a heavy pile of some ornamentedfabric—shawls or something of the kind—she entered shops, and pausedat house doors, in the endeavour to find purchasers. I watched her fora long time, hoping she might make a sale, but ever she wasunsuccessful; for all that she bore herself with a dignity not easilysurpassed. Each offer of her wares was made as if she conferred agraceful favour, and after each rejection she withdrew unabashed,outwardly unperturbed, seeming to take stately leave. Only herpersistence showed how anxious she was to earn money; neither on herfeatures nor in her voice appeared the least sign of peddlingsolicitude. I shall always remember that tall, hard-visaged woman, asshe passed with firm step and nobly balanced figure about the streetsof Catanzaro. To pity her would have been an insult. The glimpse Icaught of her laborious life revealed to me something worthy ofadmiration; never had I seen a harassing form of discouragement sosilently 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 notblow during my stay, but there was always more or less breeze, and thekind of breeze that refreshes. I should like to visit Catanzaro in thesummer; probably one would have all the joy of glorious sunshinewithout oppressive heat, and in the landscape in those glowing dayswould be indescribably beautiful.

I remember with delight the public garden at Cosenza, its noble viewover the valley of the Crati to the heights of Sila; that of Catanzarois in itself more striking, and the prospect it affords has a sterner,grander note. Here you wander amid groups of magnificent trees, anastonishingly rich and varied vegetation; and from a skirting terraceyou look down upon the precipitous gorge, burnt into barenness savewhere a cactus clings to some jutting rock. Here in summer-time wouldbe freshness amid noontide heat, with wondrous avenues of golden lightbreaking the dusk beneath the boughs. I shall never see it; but thedesire often comes to me under northern skies, when I am weary oflabour and seek in fancy a paradise of idleness.

In the public gardens is a little museum, noticeable mostly for a finecollection of ancient coins. There are Greek pots, too, and weapons,found at Tiriolo, a village high up on the mountain above Catanzaro. Asat Taranto, a stranger who cares for this kind of thing can be sure ofhaving the museum all to himself. On my first visit Don Pasqualeaccompanied me, and through him I made the acquaintance of thecustodian. But I was not in the museum mood; reviving health inclinedme to the open air, and the life of to-day; I saw these musty relicswith only a vague eye.

After living amid a malaria-stricken population, I rejoiced in thehealthy aspect of the mountain folk. Even a deformed beggar, whodragged himself painfully along the pavement, had so ruddy a face thatit was hard to feel compassion for him. And the wayside children—itwas a pleasure to watch them at their games. Such children in Italy donot, as a rule, seem happy; too often they look ill, cheerless,burdened before their time; at Catanzaro they are as robust and livelyas 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; nodoubt they are exceptional among the poor children of the south ingetting enough to eat. The town has certain industries, especially themanufacture of silk; one feels an atmosphere of well-being; mendicancyis a rare thing.

Fruits abounded, and were very cheap; if one purchased from a stall thedifficulty was to carry away the abundance offered for one's smallestcoin. Excellent oranges cost about a penny the half-dozen. Any one whois fond of the prickly fig should go to Catanzaro. I asked a mansitting with a basket of them at a street corner to give me the worthof a soldo (a half-penny); he began to fill my pocket, and when I criedthat it was enough, that I could carry no more, he held up oneparticularly fine fruit, smiled as only an Italian can, and said, withadmirable politeness, "Questo per complimento!" I ought to haveshaken hands with him.

Even when I had grown accustomed to the place, its singular appearanceof incompleteness kept exciting my attention. I had never seen a townso ragged at the edges. If there had recently been a greatconflagration and almost all the whole city were being rebuilt, itwould have looked much as it did at the time of my visit. To enter thepost-office one had to clamber over heaps of stone and plaster, tostride over tumbled beams and jump across great puddles, entering atlast by shaky stairs a place which looked like the waiting-room of anunfinished railway station. The style of building is peculiar, andlooks so temporary as to keep one constantly in mind of the threateningearthquake. 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 afew courses of bricks in the old Roman style. If the building is ofimportance, this work is hidden beneath stucco; otherwise it remainslike the mere shell of a house, and is disfigured over all its surfacewith great holes left by the scaffolding. Religion supplies somethingof adornment; above many portals is a rudely painted Virgin and Child,often, plainly enough, the effort of a hand accustomed to any toolrather than that of the artist. On the dwellings of the very poor agreat Cross is scrawled in whitewash. These rickety houses oftenexhibit another feature more picturesque and, to the earthlyimagination, more consoling; on the balcony one sees a great gourd,some three feet long, so placed that its yellow plumpness may ripen insun and air. It is a sign of plenty: the warm spot of colour againstthe rough masonry does good to eye and heart.

My hotel afforded me little amusem*nt 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 toall who occupied the chamber. The proprietor—thus it ran—had learntwith extreme regret that certain travellers who slept under his roofwere in the habit of taking their meals at other places ofentertainment. This practice, he desired it to be known, not only hurthis personal feelings—tocca il suo morale—but did harm to thereputation of his establishment. Assuring all and sundry that he woulddo his utmost to maintain a high standard of culinary excellence, theproprietor ended by begging his honourable clients that they wouldbestow their kind favours on the restaurant of the house—signorapregare i suoi respettabili clienti perche vogliano benignarsi ilristorante; and therewith signed himself—Coriolano Paparazzo.

For my own part I was not tempted to such a breach of decorum; the fareprovided by Signor Paparazzo suited me well enough, and the wine of thecountry 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 walkedrather stiffly and seated themselves with circ*mspection. Evidently oldfriends, they always dined at the same time, entering one a few minutesafter the other; but by some freak of habit they took places atdifferent tables, so that the conversation which they kept up allthrough the meal had to be carried on by an exchange of shouts. Nothingwhatever prevented them from being near each other; the room nevercontained more than half a dozen persons; yet thus they sat, eveningafter evening, many yards apart, straining their voices to be mutuallyaudible. Me they delighted; to the other guests, more familiar withthem and their talk, they must have been a serious nuisance. But Ishould have liked to see the civilian who dared to manifest hisdisapproval of these fine old warriors.

They sat interminably, evidently having no idea how otherwise to passthe evening. In the matter of public amusem*nts Catanzaro is notprogressive; I only once saw an announcement of a theatricalperformance, and it did not smack of modern enterprise. On thedining-room table one evening lay a little printed bill, which madeknown that a dramatic company was then in the town. Their entertainmentconsisted of two parts, the first entitled: "The Death of Agolante andthe Madness of Count Orlando"; the second: "A Delightful Comedy, theDevil's Castle with Pulcinella as the Timorous Soldier." In additionwere promised "new duets and Neapolitan songs." The theatre wouldcomfortably seat three hundred persons, and the performance would begiven twice, at half-past eighteen and half-past twenty-one o'clock. Itwas unpardonable in me that I did not seek out the Teatro delleVarieta; I might easily have been in my seat (with thirty, more likelythan three hundred, other spectators) by half-past twenty-one. But thenight was forbidding; a cold rain fell heavily. Moreover, just as I hadthought that it was perhaps worth while to run the risk of anotherillness—one cannot see the Madness of Count Orlando every day—therecame into the room a peddler laden with some fifty volumes of fictionand a fine assortment of combs and shirt-studs. The books tempted me; Ilooked them through. Most, of course, were translations from thevulgarest French feuilletonistes; the Italian reader of novels,whether in newspaper or volume, knows, as a rule, nothing but thisimported 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 apassing mood of dullness has caused me to miss what would be sopleasant in the retrospect.

I spent an hour one evening at the principal cafe, where a pianist ofgreat pretensions and small achievement made rather painful music.Watching and listening to the company (all men, of course, though theOriental system regarding women is not so strict at Catanzaro aselsewhere in the south), I could not but fall into a comparison of thisscene with any similar gathering of middle-class English folk. Thecontrast was very greatly in favour of the Italians. One has had thesame thought a hundred times in the same circ*mstances, but it is worthdwelling upon. Among these representative men, young and old, ofCatanzaro, the tone of conversation was incomparably better than thatwhich would rule in a cluster of English provincials met to enjoy theirevening leisure. They did, in fact, converse—a word rarely applicableto English talk under such conditions; mere personal gossip was theexception; they exchanged genuine thoughts, reasoned lucidly on thesurface of abstract subjects. I say on the surface; no remark that Iheard could be called original or striking; but the choice of topicsand the mode of viewing them was distinctly intellectual. Phrases oftenoccurred such as have no equivalent on the lips of everyday people inour own country. For instance, a young fellow in no way distinguishedfrom his companions, fell to talking about a leading townsman, andpraised him for his ingenio simpatico, his bella intelligenza, withexclamations of approval from those who listened. No, it is not merelythe difference between homely Anglo-Saxon and a language of classicorigin; there is a radical distinction of thought. These people have aninnate respect for things of the mind, which is wholly lacking to atypical Englishman. One need not dwell upon the point that theiranimation 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 theentire absence of a certain kind of jocoseness which is so naturallyassociated with spirituous liquors; no talk could have been lessoffensive. From many a bar-parlour in English country towns I have goneaway heavy with tedium and disgust; the cafe at Catanzaro seemed, incomparison, a place of assembly for wits and philosophers.

Meanwhile a season of rain had begun; heavy skies warned me that I mustnot hope for a renewal of sunny idleness on this mountain top; it wouldbe well if intervals of cheerful weather lighted my further course bythe Ionian Sea. Reluctantly, I made ready to depart.

CHAPTER XIV

SQUILLACE

In meditating my southern ramble I had lingered on the thought that Ishould see Squillace. For Squillace (Virgil's "ship-wreckingScylaceum") was the ancestral home of Cassiodorus, and his retreat whenhe became a monk; Cassiodorus, the delightful pedant, the liberalstatesman and patriot, who stands upon the far limit of his old Romanworld and bids a sad farewell to its glories. He had niched himself inmy imagination. Once when I was spending a silent winter upon the shoreof Devon, I had with me the two folio volumes of his works, andpatiently read the better part of them; it was more fruitful than astudy of all the modern historians who have written about his time. Isaw the man; caught many a glimpse of his mind and heart, and nameswhich had been to me but symbols in a period of obscure history becamethings living and recognizable.

I could have travelled from Catanzaro by railway to the sea-coaststation called Squillace, but the town itself is perched upon amountain some miles inland, and it was simpler to perform the wholejourney by road, a drive of four hours, which, if the weather favouredme, would be thoroughly enjoyable. On my last evening Don Pasquale gavea good account of the sky; he thought I might hopefully set forth onthe morrow, and, though I was to leave at eight o'clock, promised tocome and see me off. Very early I looked forth, and the prospect seemeddoubtful; I had half a mind to postpone departure. But about seven cameDon Pasquale's servant, sent by his master to inquire whether I shouldstart or not, and, after asking the man's opinion, I decided to takecourage. The sun rose; I saw the streets of Catanzaro brighten in itspale gleams, and the rack above interspaced with blue.

Luckily my carriage-owner was a man of prudence; at the appointed hourhe sent a covered vehicle—not the open carozzella in which I shouldhave cheerfully set forth had it depended upon myself. Don Pasquale,too, though unwilling to perturb me, could not altogether disguise hismisgivings. At my last sight of him, he stood on the pavement beforethe hotel gazing anxiously upwards. But the sun still shone, and as webegan the descent of the mountain-side I felt annoyed at having to viewthe landscape through loopholes.

Of a sudden—we were near the little station down in the valley—therearose a mighty roaring, and all the trees of the wayside bent as ifthey would break. The sky blackened, the wind howled, and presently, asI peered through the window for some hope that this would only be apassing storm, rain beat violently upon my face. Then the carriagestopped, and my driver, a lad of about seventeen, jumped down to putsomething 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 ortwo. Ecco il sole!"

I beheld no sun, either then or at any moment during the rest of theday, but the voice was so reassuring that I gladly gave ear to it. Onwe drove, down the lovely vale of the Corace, through orange-groves andpine-woods, laurels and myrtles, carobs and olive trees, with the rainbeating fiercely upon us, the wind swaying all the leafa*ge like billowson a stormy sea. At the Marina of Catanzaro we turned southward on thecoast road, pursued it for two or three miles, then branched upon ourinland way. The storm showed no sign of coming to an end. Several timesthe carriage stopped, and the lad got down to examine hishorses—perhaps to sympathize with them; he was such a drenched,battered, pitiable object that I reproached myself for allowing him topursue the journey.

"Brutto tempo!" he screamed above the uproar, when I again spoke tohim; but in such a cheery tone that I did not think it worth while tomake any further remark.

Through the driving rain, I studied as well as I could the features ofthe country. On my left hand stretched a long fiat-topped mountain,forming the southern slope of the valley we ascended; steep, dark, andfurrowed with innumerable torrent-beds, it frowned upon a river thatrushed along the ravine at its foot to pour into the sea where themountain broke as a rugged cliff. This was the Mons Moscius of oldtime, which sheltered the monastery built by Cassiodorus. The headlong,swollen flood, coloured like yellow clay, held little resemblance tothe picture I had made of that river Pellena which murmurs so musicallyin the old writer's pages. Its valley was heaped with great blocks ofgranite—a feature which has interest for the geologist; it marks anabrupt change of system, from the soft stone of Catanzaro (which endsthe Apennine) to the granitic mass of Aspromonte (the toe of Italy)which must have risen above the waters long before the Apennines cameinto existence. The wild weather emphasized a natural differencebetween this valley of Squillace and that which rises towardsCatanzaro; here is but scanty vegetation, little more than thinorchards of olive, and the landscape has a bare, harsh character. Is itchanged so greatly since the sixth century of our era? Or did itsbeauty lie in the eyes of Cassiodorus, who throughout his long life ofstatesmanship in the north never forgot this Bruttian home, and whosought 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. Thecrag on which it stands is higher than that of Catanzaro, but of softerascent. As we approached I sought for signs of a road that would leadus upward, but nothing of the sort could be discerned; presently Ibecame aware that we were turning into a side valley, and, to allappearances, going quite away from the town. The explanation was thatthe ascent lay on the further slope; we began at length to climb theback of the mountain, and here I noticed with a revival of hope thatthere was a lull in the tempest; rain no longer fell so heavily; theclouds seemed to be breaking apart. A beam of sunshine would have setme singing with joy. When half-way up, my driver rested his horses andcame to speak a word; we conversed merrily. He was to make straight forthe 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 justat the entrance to the town; we should arrive in half an hour.

Looking upwards I saw nothing but a mass of ancient ruins, highfragments of shattered wall, a crumbling tower, and great windowsthrough which the clouds were visible. Inhabited Squillace lay, nodoubt, behind. I knew that it was a very small place, without anypresent importance; but at all events there was an albergo, and themere name of albergo had a delightful sound of welcome after such ajourney. Here I would stay for the night, at all events; if the weathercleared, I might be glad to remain for two or three days. Certainly therain was stopping; the wind no longer howled. Up we went towards thoseragged walls and great, vacant windows. We reached the summit; for twominutes the horses trotted; then a sudden halt, and my lad's face atthe carriage door.

"Ecco l'albergo, Signore!"

I jumped out. We were at the entrance to an unpaved street of squalidhovels, a street which the rain had converted into a muddy river, sothat, on quitting the vehicle, I stepped into running water up to myankles. Before me was a long low cabin, with a row of four or fivewindows and no upper storey; a miserable hut of rubble and plaster,stained with ancient dirt and, at this moment, looking soaked withmoisture. Above the doorway I read "Osteria Centrale"; on the bare endof the house was the prouder inscription, "Albergo Nazionale"—theNational Hotel. I am sorry to say that at the time this touch of humourmade no appeal to me; my position was no laughing matter. Faint withhunger, I saw at once that I should have to browse on fearsome food. Isaw, too, that there was scarce a possibility of passing the night inthis place; I must drive down to the sea-shore, and take my chance of atrain which would bring me at some time to Reggio. While I thusreflected—the water rushing over my boots—a very ill-looking man cameforth and began to stare curiously at me. I met his eye, but he offeredno greeting. A woman joined him, and the two, quite passive, waited todiscover 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 atonce? Yes, in a few minutes. Would they show me—the dining room? Manand woman turned upon their heels, and I followed. The entrance ledinto a filthy kitchen; out of this I turned to the right, went along apassage upon which opened certain chamber doors, and was conducted intoa room at the end—for the nonce, a dining-room, but at ordinary timesa bedroom. Evidently the kitchen served for native guests; as aforeigner I was treated with more ceremony. Left alone till my mealshould be ready, I examined the surroundings. The floor was of wornstone, which looked to me like the natural foundation of the house; thewalls were rudely plastered, cracked, grimed, and with many a deepchink; as for the window, it admitted light, but, owing to the ageddirt which had gathered upon it, refused any view of things withoutsave in two or three places where the glass was broken; by theseapertures, and at every point of the framework, entered a sharp wind.In one corner stood an iron bedstead, with mattress and bedding in agreat roll upon it; a shaky deal table and primitive chair completedthe furniture. Ornament did not wholly lack; round the walls hung anumber of those coloured political caricatures (several indecent) whichare published by some Italian newspapers, and a large advertisem*nt ofa line of emigrant ships between Naples and New York. Moreover, therewas suspended in a corner a large wooden crucifix, very quaint, veryhideous, and black with grime.

Spite of all this, I still debated with myself whether to engage theroom for the night. I should have liked to stay; the thought of a sunnymorning here on the height strongly allured me, and it seemed a shameto confess myself beaten by an Italian inn. On the other hand, the lookof the people did not please me; they had surly, forbidding faces. Iglanced at the door—no lock. Fears, no doubt, were ridiculous; yet Ifelt ill at ease. I would decide after seeing the sort of fare that wasset before me.

The meal came with no delay. First, a dish of great peperoni cut upin oil. This gorgeous fruit is never much to my taste, but I had as yeteaten no such peperoni as those of Squillace; an hour or twoafterwards my mouth was still burning from the heat of a few morsels towhich I was constrained by hunger. Next appeared a dish for which I hadcovenanted—the only food, indeed, which the people had been able tooffer at short notice—a stew of pork and potatoes. Pork (maiale) isthe staple meat of all this region; viewing it as Homeric diet, I hadoften battened upon such flesh with moderate satisfaction. But the porkof Squillace defeated me; it smelt abominably, and it was tough asleather. No eggs were to be had no macaroni; cheese, yes—the familiarcacci cavallo Bread appeared in the form of a fiat circular cake, afoot in diameter, with a hole through the middle; its consistencyresembled that of cold pancake. And the drink! At least I might hope tosolace myself with an honest draught of red wine. I poured from thethick decanter (dirtier vessel was never seen on table) and tasted. Thestuff was poison. Assuredly I am far from fastidious; this, I believe,was the only occasion when wine has been offered me in Italy which Icould not drink. After desperately trying to persuade myself that theliquor was merely "rough," that its nauseating flavour meant only acertain coarse quality of the local grape, I began to suspect that itwas largely mixed with water—the water of Squillace! Notwithstanding asevere thirst, I could not and durst not drink.

Very soon I made my way to the kitchen, where my driver, who hadstabled his horses, sat feeding heartily; he looked up with his merrysmile, surprised at the rapidity with which I had finished. How Ienvied his sturdy stomach! With the remark that I was going to have astroll round the town and should be back to settle things in half anhour, I hastened into the open.

CHAPTER XV

MISERIA

"What do people do here?" I once asked at a little town between Romeand Naples; and the man with whom I talked, shrugging his shoulders,answered curtly, "C'e miseria"—there's nothing but poverty. The samereply would be given in towns and villages without number throughoutthe length of Italy. I had seen poverty enough, and squalid conditionsof life, but the most ugly and repulsive collection of houses I evercame upon was the town of Squillace. I admit the depressing effect ofrain and cloud, and of hunger worse than unsatisfied; these thingscount emphatically in my case; but under no conditions could inhabitedSquillace be other than an offence to eye and nostril. The houses are,with one or two exceptions, ground-floor hovels; scarce a weather-tightdwelling is discoverable; the general impression is that of dilapidatedsqualor. Streets, in the ordinary sense of the word, do not exist;irregular alleys climb above the rugged heights, often so steep as tobe difficult of ascent; here and there a few boulders have been throwntogether to afford a footing, and in some places the native rock liesbare; 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 ofcleaning which Squillace knows; down every trodden way and everyintermural gully poured a flush of rain-water, with occasionally aleaping torrent or small cascade, which all but barred progress. Opendoors everywhere allowed me a glimpse of the domestic arrangements, andI saw that my albergo had some reason to pride itself on superiority;life in a country called civilized cannot easily be more primitive thanunder these crazy roofs. As for the people, they had a dull, heavyaspect; rare as must be the apparition of a foreigner among them, noone showed the slightest curiosity as I passed, and (an honourablefeature of their district) no one begged. Women went about in the rainprotected by a shawl-like garment of very picturesque colouring; it hadbroad yellow stripes on a red ground, the tones subdued to a warmrichness.

The animal population was not without its importance. Turn where Iwould 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 awayat my approach. In one precipitous by-way, where the air wasinsupportably foul, I came upon an odd little scene: a pig and a cat,quite alone, were playing together, and enjoying themselves withremarkable spirit. The pig lay down in the running mud, and puss*,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 onlyamusing incident I met with at Squillace, and the sole instance ofanything like cheerful vitality.

Above the habitations stand those prominent ruins which had held my eyeduring our long ascent. These are the rugged walls and windows of amonastery, not old enough to possess much interest, and, on thecrowning height, the heavy remnants of a Norman castle, with one finedoorway still intact. Bitterly I deplored the gloomy sky which spoiledwhat would else have been a magnificent view from this point ofvantage—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 hugemasses of granite, which protrude from the scanty soil, or clinging tothe rocky surface like limpet shells. Was this the site of Scylaceum,or is it, as some hold, merely a mediaeval refuge which took the nameof the old city nearer to the coast? The Scylaceum of the sixth centuryis described by Cassiodorus—a picture glowing with admiration andtenderness. It lay, he says, upon the side of a hill; nay, it hungthere "like a cluster of grapes," in such glorious light and warmththat, to his mind, it deserved to be called the native region of thesun. The fertility of the Country around was unexampled; nowhere didearth yield to mortals a more luxurious life. Quoting this description,Lenormant holds that, with due regard to time's changes, it exactlyfits the site of Squillace. Yet Cassiodorus says that the hill by whichyou approached the town was not high enough to weary a traveller, aconsideration making for the later view that Scylaceum stood very nearto the Marina of Catanzaro, at a spot called Roccella, where not onlyis the nature of the ground suitable, but there exist considerabletraces of ancient building, such as are not discoverable here on themountain top. Lenormant thought that Roccella was merely the sea-portof the inland town. I wish he were right. No archaeologist, whose workI have studied, affects me with such a personal charm, with such asense of intellectual sympathy, as Francois Lenormant—dead, alas,before he could complete his delightful book. But one fears that, inthis instance, he judged too hastily.

There is no doubt, fortunately, as to the position of the religioushouse founded by Cassiodorus; it was in the shadow of Mons Moscius, andquite near to the sea. I had marked the spot during my drive up thevalley, and now saw it again from this far height, but I could not besatisfied with distant views. Weather and evil quarters making itimpossible to remain at Squillace, I decided to drive forthwith to therailway station, see how much time remained to me before the arrival ofthe train for Reggio, and, if it could be managed, visit in thatinterval the place that attracted me.

It is my desire to be at peace with all men, and in Italy I have rarelyfailed to part with casual acquaintances—even innkeepers andcocchieri—on friendly terms; but my host of the Albergo Nazionalemade it difficult to preserve good humour. Not only did he chargethrice the reasonable sum for the meal I could not eat, but his billfor my driver's colazione contained such astonishing items that I hadto question the lad as to what he had really consumed. It proved to bea very ugly case of extortion, and the tone of sullen menace with whichmy arguments were met did not help to smooth things. Presently the manhit upon a pleasant sort of compromise. Why, he asked, did I not paythe bill as it stood, and then, on dismissing my carriage—he hadlearnt that I was not returning to Catanzaro—deduct as much as I chosefrom the payment of the driver? A pretty piece of rascality, this,which he would certainly not have suggested but that the driver was amere boy, helpless himself and bound to render an account to hismaster. I had to be content with resolutely striking off half the sumcharged for the lad's wine (he was supposed to have drunk four litres),and sending the receipted bill to Don Pasquale at Catanzaro, that hemight be ready with information if any future traveller consulted himabout the accommodation to be had at Squillace. No one is likely to doso for a long time to come, but I have no doubt Don Pasquale had achuckle of amused indignation over the interesting and very dirty bitof paper. We drove quickly down the winding road, and from below Iagain admired the picturesqueness of Squillace. Both my guide-books, bythe way, the orthodox English and German authorities, assert that fromthe railway station by the sea-shore Squillace is invisible. Which ofthe 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 patchrepresents the hovels and ruins upon their royal height.

I found that I had a good couple of hours at my disposal, and that tothe foot of Mons Moscius (now called Coscia di Stalletti) was only ashort walk. It rained drearily, but by this time I had ceased to thinkof the weather. After watching the carriage for a moment, as it rolledaway on the long road back to Catanzaro (sorry not to be going withit), I followed the advice of the stationmaster, and set out to walkalong 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 alreadynoticed, it was a turbid torrent, of dull yellow; where it poured intothe sea, it made a vast, clean-edged patch of its own hue upon thedarker surface of the waves. This peculiarity resulted, no doubt, frommuch rain upon the hills; it may be that in calmer seasons the Fiume diSquillace bears more resemblance to the Pellena as one pictures it, adelightful stream flowing through the gardens of the old monastery.Cassiodorus tells us that it abounded in fish. One of his happy labourswas to make fish-ponds, filled and peopled from the river itself. Inthe cliff-side where Mons Moscius breaks above the shore are certainrocky caves, and by some it is thought that, in speaking of hisfish-preserves, Cassiodorus refers to these. Whatever the localdetails, 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 oftenvisioned in my mind's eye. Much of the land hereabout—probably animmense tract of hill and valley—was the old monk's patrimonialestate. We can trace his family back through three generations, to aCassiodorus, an Illustris of the falling Western Empire, who about themiddle of them fifth century defended his native Bruttii against aninvasion of the Vandals. The grandson of this noble was a distinguishedman all through the troubled time which saw Italy pass under thedominion of Odovacar, and under the conquest of Theodoric; the Gothicking raised him to the supreme office of Praetorian Prefect. We learnthat he had great herds of horses, bred in the Bruttian forests, andthat Theodoric was indebted to him for the mounting of troops ofcavalry. He and his ancestry would signify little now-a-days but forthe life-work of his greater son—Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator,statesman, historian, monk. Senator was not a title, but a personalname; the name our Cassiodorus always used when speaking of himself.But history calls him otherwise, and for us he must be Cassiodorusstill.

The year of his birth was 480. In the same year were born two othermen, 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) toPraetorian Prefecture, Cassiodorus held all offices of state, and seemsunder every proof to have shown the nobler qualities of statesmanship.During his ripe years he stood by the side of Theodoric, minister inprime trust, doubtless helping to shape that wise and benevolent policywhich made the reign of the Ostrogoth a time of rest and hope for theItalian people—Roman no longer; the word had lost its meaning, thoughnot its magic. The Empire of the West had perished; Theodoric and hisminister, clearly understanding this, and resolute against theByzantine claim which was but in half abeyance, aimed at the creationof an independent Italy, where Goth and Latin should blend into a newrace. 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. Onlywhen the purpose of his life was shattered, when—Theodoric longdead—his still faithful service to the Gothic rule became an idleform, when Belisarius was compassing the royal city of Ravenna, andvoice of council could no longer make itself heard amid tumult andruin, did Cassiodorus retire from useless office, and turn his backupon the world.

He was aged about sixty. Long before, he had written a history of theGoths (known to us only in a compendium by another hand), of which thepurpose seems to have been to reconcile the Romans to the Gothicmonarchy; it began by endeavouring to prove that Goths had foughtagainst the Greeks at Troy. Now that his public life was over, hepublished a collection of the state papers composed by him under theGothic rulers from Theodoric to Vitigis: for the most part royalrescripts addressed to foreign powers and to officials of the kingdom.Invaluable for their light upon men and things fourteen hundred yearsago, these Variae of Cassiodorus; and for their own sake, as literaryproductions, most characteristic, most entertaining. Not quite easy toread, for the Latin is by no means Augustan, but after labour wellspent, a delightful revelation of the man and the age. Great is thevariety of subjects dealt with or touched upon; from the diplomaticrelations between Ravenna and Constantinople, or the alliances of theAmal line with barbaric royalties in Gaul and Africa, to the pensioningof 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 curiousdetail. The world shown to us is in some respects highly civilized, itscivilization still that of Rome, whose laws, whose manners, have ingreat part survived the Teutonic conquest; from another point of viewit is a mere world of ruin, possessed by triumphant barbarism, andsinking to intellectual darkness. We note the decay of central power,and the growth of political anarchy; we observe the process by whichRoman nobles, the Senatorial Order when a Senate lingers only in name,are becoming the turbulent lords of the Middle Ages, each a power inhis own territory, levying private war, scornful of public interests.The city of Rome has little part in this turbid history, yet her nameis never mentioned without reverence, and in theory she is still thecentre of the world. Glimpses are granted us of her fallen majesty; welearn that Theodoric exerted himself to preserve her noble buildings,to restore her monuments; at the same time we hear of marble stolenfrom palaces in decay, and of temples which, as private property, areconverted to ignoble use. Moreover, at Rome sits an ecclesiasticaldignitary, known as Papa, to whose doings already attachesconsiderable importance. One of the last acts of the Senate which hadany real meaning was to make a decree with regard to the election ofthis Bishop, forbidding his advance by the way of Simony. Theodoric, anArian, interferes only with the Church of Rome in so far as publicpeace demands it. In one of his letters occurs a most remarkable dictumon the subject of toleration. "Religionem imperare non possumus, quianemo cogitur ut credat invitus—we cannot impose a religious faith,for no one can be compelled to believe against his conscience." Thismust, of course, have been the king's own sentiment, but Cassiodorusworded it, and doubtless with approval.

Indeed, we are at no loss to discern the mind of the secretary in theseofficial papers. Cassiodorus speaks as often for himself as for theking; he delights to expatiate, from an obviously personal point ofview, on any subject that interests him. One of these is naturalhistory; give him but the occasion, and he gossips of beasts, birds,and fishes, in a flow of the most genial impertinence. Certain bronzeelephants on the Via Sacra are falling to pieces and must be repaired:in giving the order, Theodoric's minister pens a little treatise on thehabits and characteristics of the elephant. His erudition is oftendisplayed: having to convey some direction about the Circus at Rome, hebegins with a pleasant sketch of the history of chariot racing. Onemarvels at the man who, in such a period, preserved this mood ofliberal 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 ispompously grandiloquent; in dealing with a delicate situation, hebecomes involved and obscure. We perceive in him a born courtier, aproud noble, a statesman of high purpose and no little sagacity;therewith, many gracious and attractive qualities, coloured byweaknesses, such as agreeable pedantry and amiable self-esteem, whichare in part personal, partly the note of his time.

One's picture of the man is, of course, completed from a knowledge ofthe latter years of his life, of the works produced during his monasticretirement. Christianity rarely finds expression in the Variae, apoint sufficiently explained by the Gothic heresy, which imposeddiscretion in public utterances; on the other hand, pagan mythologyabounds; we observe the hold it still had upon educatedminds—education, indeed, meaning much the same thing in the sixthcentury after Christ as in the early times of the Empire. Cassiodoruscan never have been a fanatical devotee of any creed. Of his sincerepiety 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 edificationof his brother monks—brothers (carissimi fratres), for in hishumility he declined to become the Abbot of Vivariense; enough that hisworldly dignity, his spiritual and mental graces, assured to him theinfluence he desired. The notable characteristic of his rule was asanctifying of intellectual labour. In abandoning the world, he by nomeans renounced his interest in its civilization. Statesmanship havingfailed to stem the tide of Oriental tyranny and northern barbarism, heset himself to save as much as possible of the nobler part, to securefor happier ages the record of human attainment. Great was theimportance he attached to the work of his Antiquarii—copyists wholaboured to preserve the manuscript literature which was in danger ofutterly perishing. With special reference to their work upon theScriptures, he tells them that they "fight against the wiles of Satanwith pen and ink." And again: "Writing with three fingers, they thussymbolize the virtues of the Holy Trinity; using a reed, they thusattack the craft of the Devil with that very instrument which smote theLord's head in his Passion." But all literature was his care. That thecopyists might write correctly, he digested the works of half a dozengrammarians into a treatise on orthography. Further, that the books ofthe monastery might wear "a wedding garment" (his own phrase), hedesigned a great variety of bindings, which were kept as patterns.

There, at the foot of Moscius, did these brethren and their founderlive and work. But on the top of the mountain was another retreat,known as Castellense, for those monks who—divina gratiasuffragante—desired a severer discipline, and left the coenobitichouse to become anchorites. Did these virtuous brothers continue theirliterary labours? One hopes so, and one is glad that Cassiodorushimself seems to have ended his life down in the valley by the Pellena.

A third class of monks finds mention, those in whom "Frigidusobstiterit circum praecordia sanguis," quotes the founder. In otherwords, the hopelessly stupid. For these there was labour in the garden,and to console them Cassiodorus recites from a Psalm: "Thou shalt eatthe labour of thy hands; happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well withthee." A smile is on the countenance of the humane brother. He did hisutmost, indeed, for the comfort, as well as the spiritual welfare, ofhis community. Baths were built "for the sick" (heathendom had beencleaner, but we must not repine); for the suffering, too, and forpilgrims, exceptional food was provided—young pigeons, delicate fish,fruit, honey; a new kind of lamp was invented, to burn for long hourswithout attention; dials and clepsydras marked the progress of day andnight.

Among the monastic duties is that of giving instruction to thepeasantry round about. They are not to be oppressed, these humbletillers of the soil, for is it not written that "My yoke is easy, andmy burden light"? But one must insist that they come frequently toreligious service, and that they do not lucos colere—worship ingroves—which shows that a heathen mind still lingered among thepeople, and that they reverenced the old deities. Benedict, thecontemporary of Cassiodorus (we have no authority for supposing thatthey knew each other), when he first ascended the mount above Casinum,found a temple of Apollo, with the statue of the god receiving dailyhomage. Archaeologists have tried to determine at what date the oldreligion became extinct in Italy. Their research leads them well intothe Middle Ages, but, undoubtedly, even then they pause too soon.

Legend says that Cassiodorus attained the age of nearly a hundredyears. We may be sure that to the end he lived busily, for of idlenesshe speaks with abhorrence as the root of evil. Doubtless he was alwaysa copious talker, and to many a pilgrim he must have gossipeddelightfully, alternating mundane memories with counsel good for thesoul. Only one of his monastic brethren is known to us as a man of anydistinction: this was Dionysius Exiguus, or the Little, by birth aScythian, a man of much learning. He compiled the first history of theCouncils, and, a matter more important, originated the computation ofthe Christian Era; for up to this time men had dated in the old way, byshadowy consulships and confusing Indictions. There is happyprobability that Cassiodorus lived out his life in peace; but themonastery did not long exist; like that of Benedict on Monte Cassino,it seems to have been destroyed by the Lombards, savages and Arians. Notrace of it remains. But high up on the mountain is a church known asS. Maria de Vetere, a name indicating an ancient foundation, whichperhaps 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 thepromontory of Mons Moscius. At this point on the face of the sea-cliffI was told that I should discover a grotta, one of the caverns whichsome think are indicated by Cassiodorus when he speaks of hisfish-preserves. Arrived near the mouth of the tunnel I found asignal-box, where several railway men were grouped in talk; to them Iaddressed myself, and all immediately turned to offer me guidance. Wehad to clamber down a rocky descent, and skirt the waves for a fewyards; when my cluster of companions had sufficiently shown theirgood-will, all turned back but one, who made a point of giving me safeconduct into the cave itself. He was a bronzed, bright-eyed,happy-looking fellow of middle age, his humorous intelligence appearingin 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 Greekcolonists. If Cassiodorus used it for the purpose mentioned, the cavemust have been in direct communication either with the sea or theriver; at present, many yards of sloping shingle divide it from theline of surf, and the river flows far away. Movement of the shore therehas of course been, and the Pellena may have considerably changed thedirection of its outflow; our author's description being but vague, onecan only muse on probabilities and likelihoods.

Whilst we talked, the entrance to the cave was shadowed, and thereentered one of the men who had turned back half-way; his face betrayedthe curiosity which had after all prevailed to bring him hither.Shouting merrily, my companion hailed him as "Brigadiere." The twofriends contrasted very amusingly; for the brigadiere was a mild,timid, simple creature, who spoke with diffidence; he kept hisfoolishly good-natured eyes fixed upon me, a gaze of wonder. Afterlistening to all that my guide had to say—it was nothing to the point,dealing chiefly with questions of railway engineering—I had just begunto explain my interest in the locality, and I mentioned the name ofCassiodorus. As it passed my lips the jovial fellow burst into a roarof laughter. "Cassiodorio! Ha, ha! Cassiodorio! Ha, ha, ha!" I askedhim what he meant, and found that he was merely delighted to hear astranger unexpectedly utter a name in familiar local use. He ran outfrom the cave, and pointed up the valley; yonder was a fountain whichbore the name "Fontana di Cassiodorio." (From my authors I knew ofthis; it may or may not have genuine historic interest.) Thereupon, Itried to discover whether any traditions hung to the name, but theseinformants had only a vague idea that Cassiodorus was a man of timeslong gone by. How, they questioned in turn, did I know anything abouthim? Why, from books, I replied; among them books which the ancienthimself had written more than a thousand years ago. This was too muchfor the brigadiere; it moved him to stammered astonishment. Did I meanto say that books written more than a thousand years ago still existed?The jovial friend, good-naturedly scornful, cried out that of coursethey did, and added with triumphant air that they were not in thelanguage of to-day but in latino, latino! All this came as arevelation to the other, who stared and marvelled, never taking hiseyes 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 laughterinterrupted us. It seemed to me that my erudite companion was in thehabit of getting fun of out his friend the brigadiere, but so kindlydid he look and speak, that it must have been difficult for thesimpleton ever to take offence.

Meanwhile the sullen sky had grown blacker, and rain was descendingheavily. In any case, I should barely have had time to go further, andhad to be content with a description from my companions of a largercave some distance beyond this, which is known as the Grotta of SanGregorio—with reference, no doubt, to S. Gregory the Thaumaturgist; tohim was dedicated a Greek monastery, built on the ruined site ofVivariense. After the Byzantine conquest of the sixth century, MagnaGraecia once more justified its ancient name; the civilization of thisregion became purely Greek; but for the Lombards and ecclesiasticalRome, perhaps no Latin Italy would have survived. Greek monks, whothrough the darkest age were skilful copyists, continued in Calabriathe memorable work of Cassiodorus. The ninth century saw Saraceninvasion, and then it was, no doubt, that the second religious houseunder Mons Moscius perished from its place.

Thinking over this, I walked away from the cave and climbed again tothe railway; my friends also were silent and ruminative. Notunnaturally, I suspected that a desire for substantial thanks had somepart in their Silence, and at a convenient spot I made suitableoffering. It was done, I trust, with all decency, for I knew that I hadthe better kind of Calabrian to deal with; but neither the joviallyintelligent man nor the pleasant simpleton would for a moment entertainthis 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 kindlyleave of each other. Such self-respect is the rarest thing in Italysouth of Rome, but in Calabria I found it more than once.

By when I had walked back to the station, hunger exhausted me. Therewas no buffet, and seemingly no place in the neighbourhood where foodcould be purchased, but on my appealing to the porter I learnt that hewas accustomed to entertain stray travellers in his house hard by,whither he at once led me. To describe the room where my meal wasprovided would be sheer ingratitude: in my recollection it comparesfavourably 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 whichI drank freely. Honest, too, the charge that was made; I should havefelt cheap at ten times the price that sudden accession of bodily andmental vigour. Luck be with him, serviceable facchino of Squillace! Iremember his human face, and his smile of pleasure when I declared allhe modestly set before me good and good again. His hospitality sent meon my way rejoicing—glad that I had seen the unspeakable littlemountain town, thrice glad that I had looked upon Mons Moscius andtrodden by the river Pellena. Rain fell in torrents, but I no longercared. When presently the train arrived, I found a comfortable corner,and looked forward with a restful sigh to the seven hours' travel whichwould bring me into view of Sicily.

In the carriage sat a school-boy, a book open upon his knee. When oureyes had met twice or thrice, and an ingenuous smile rose to hishandsome face, I opened conversation, and he told me that he came everyday to school from a little place called San Sostene to Catanzaro,there being no nearer instruction above the elementary; a journey ofsome sixteen miles each way, and not to be reckoned by Englishstandards, for it meant changing at the Marina for the valley train,and finally going up the mountain side by diligenza. The lad flushedwith delight in his adventure—a real adventure for him to meet withsome 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 bestqualities of his nation; I wish I might live to hear him spoken of as aman doing honour to Italy.

At this station another travelling companion took the school-boy'splace; a priest, who soon addressed me in courteous talk. He journeyedonly for a short way, and, when alighting, pointed skyward through thedark (night had fallen) to indicate his mountain parish miles inland.He, too, offered me his card, adding a genial invitation; I found hewas Parroco (parish priest) of San Nicola at Badolato. I would asknothing better than to visit him, some autumn-tide, when grapes areripening above the Ionian Sea.

It was a wild night. When the rain at length ceased, lightning flashedceaselessly about the dark heights of Aspromonte; later, the moon rose,and, sailing amid grandly illumined clouds, showed white waves rollingin upon the beach. Wherever the train stopped, that sea-music was in myears—now seeming to echo a verse of Homer, now the softer rhythm ofTheocritus. Think of what one may in day-time on this far southernshore, its nights are sacred to the poets of Hellas. In rounding CapeSpartivento, I strained my eyes through the moonlight—unhappily awaning moon, which had shone with full orb the evening I ascended toCatanzaro—to see the Sicilian mountains; at length they stood updarkly against the paler night. There came back to my memory a voyageat glorious sunrise, years ago, when I passed through the Straits ofMessina, and all day long gazed at Etna, until its cone, solitary uponthe horizon, shone faint and far in the glow of evening—the morrow tobring me a first sight of Greece.

CHAPTER XVIII

REGGIO

By its natural situation Reggio is marked for an unquiet history. Itwas a gateway of Magna Graecia; it lay straight in the track ofconquering Rome when she moved towards Sicily; it offered points ofstrategic importance to every invader or defender of the peninsulathroughout the mediaeval wars. Goth and Saracen, Norman, Teuton andTurk, seized, pillaged, and abandoned, each in turn, this strongholdoverlooking the narrow sea. Then the earthquakes, ever menacing betweenVesuvius and Etna; that of 1783, which wrought destruction throughoutCalabria, laid Reggio in ruins, so that to-day it has the aspect of anewly-built city, curving its regular streets, amphitheatre-wise, uponthe slope that rises between shore and mountain. Of Rhegium little isdiscernible above ground; of the ages that followed scarce anythingremains but the Norman fortress, so shaken by that century-old disasterthat huge gaps show where its rent wall sank to a lower level upon thehillside.

At first, one has eyes and thoughts for nothing but the landscape. Fromthe terrace road along the shore, Via Plutino, beauties and gloriesindescribable lie before one at every turn of the head. Aspromonte,with its forests and crags; the shining straits, sail-dotted, openingto a sea-horizon north and south; and, on the other side, themountain-island, crowned with snow. Hours long I stood and walked here,marvelling delightedly at all I saw, but in the end ever fixing my gazeon Sicily. Clouds passed across the blue sky, and their shadows uponthe Sicilian panorama made ceaseless change of hue and outline. Atearly morning I saw the crest of Etna glistening as the first sun-raysmote upon its white ridges; at fall of day, the summit hidden by heavyclouds, and western beams darting from behind the mountain, those far,cold heights glimmered with a hue of palest emerald, seeming but avision of the sunset heaven, translucent, ever about to vanish. Nighttransformed but did not all conceal. Yonder, a few miles away, shonethe harbour and the streets of Messina, and many a gleaming point alongthe island coast, strand-touching or high above, signalled the homes ofmen. Calm, warm, and clear, this first night at Reggio; I could notturn away from the siren-voice of the waves; hearing scarce a footstepbut my own, I paced hither and thither by the sea-wall, alone withmemories.

The rebuilding of Reggio has made it clean and sweet; its air isblended from that of mountain and sea, ever renewed, delicate andinspiriting. But, apart from the harbour, one notes few signs ofactivity; the one long street, Corso Garibaldi, has little traffic;most of the shops close shortly after nightfall, and then there is nosound of wheels; all would be perfectly still but for the occasionalcry of lads who sell newspapers. Indeed, the town is strangely quiet,considering its size and aspect of importance; one has to search for arestaurant, and I doubt if more than one cafe exists. At my hotel thedining-room was a public trattoria, opening upon the street, but onlytwo or three military men—the eternal officers—made use of it, and Ifelt a less cheery social atmosphere than at Taranto or at Catanzaro.One recurring incident did not tend to exhilarate. Sitting in view of aclosed door, I saw children's faces pressed against the glass, peeringlittle faces, which sought a favourable moment; suddenly the door wouldopen, and there sounded a thin voice, begging for un pezzo di pane—abit of bread. Whenever the waiter caught sight of these littlemendicants, he rushed out with simulated fury, and pursued them alongthe pavement. I have no happy recollection of my Reggian meals.

An interesting feature of the streets is the frequency of carvedinscriptions, commemorating citizens who died in their struggle forliberty. Amid quiet by-ways, for instance, I discovered a tablet withthe name of a young soldier who fell at that spot, fighting against theBourbon, in 1860: "offerse per l'unita della patria sua vitaquadrilustre." The very insignificance of this young life makes thefact more touching; one thinks of the unnumbered lives sacrificed uponthis soil, age after age, to the wild-beast instinct of mankind, andhow pathetic the attempt to preserve the memory of one boy, so soon tobecome a meaningless name! His own voice seems to plead with us for aregretful thought, to speak from the stone in sad arraignment oftyranny and bloodshed. A voice which has no accent of hope. In the daysto come, as through all time that is past, man will lord it over hisfellow, and earth will be stained red from veins of young and old. Thatsweet and sounding name of patria becomes an illusion and a curse;linked with the pretentious modernism, civilization, it serves asplea to the latter-day barbarian, ravening and reckless under his civilgarb. How can one greatly wish for the consolidation and prosperity ofItaly, knowing that national vigour tends more and more tointernational fear and hatred? They who perished that Italy might beborn again, dreamt of other things than old savagery clanging in newweapons. In our day there is but one Italian patriot; he who tills thesoil, and sows, and reaps, ignorant or careless of all beyond hisfurrowed field.

Whilst I was still thinking of that memorial tablet, I found myself infront of the Cathedral. As a structure it makes small appeal, datingonly from the seventeenth century, and heavily restored in times morerecent; but the first sight of the facade is strangely stirring. Foracross 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, Ihave seen no inscription on Christian temple which seemed to me soimpressive. "We fetched a compass, and came to Rhegium." Paul was onhis voyage from Caesarea to Rome, and here his ship touched, here atthe 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 himselfmore strongly arrested than I when I caught sight of these words. WereI to inhabit Reggio, I should never pass the Cathedral without stoppingto read and think; the carving would never lose its power over myimagination. It unites for me two elements of moving interest: a vividfact from the ancient world, recorded in the music of the ancienttongue. All day the words rang in my head, even as at Rome I have goneabout murmuring to myself: "Aedificabo ecclesiam meam." What a noblesolemnity in this Latin speech! And how vast the historic significanceof such monumental words! Moralize who will; enough for me to hear withdelight that deep-toned harmony, and to thrill with the strangeness ofold things made new.

It was Sunday, which at Reggio is a day or market. Crowds ofcountry-folk had come into the town with the produce of field andgarden; all the open spaces were occupied with temporary stalls; athand stood innumerable donkeys, tethered till business should be over.The produce exhibited was of very fine quality, especially thevegetables; I noticed cauliflowers measuring more than a foot acrossthe white. Of costume there was little to be observed—though the longsoft cap worn by most of the men, hanging bag-like over one ear almostto the shoulder, is picturesque. The female water-carriers, a long slimcask resting lengthwise upon their padded heads, hold attention as theygo to and from the fountains. Good-looking people, grave of manner, anddoing their business without noise. It was my last sight of theCalabrian hillsmen; to the end they held my interest and my respect.When towns have sucked dry their population of strength and virtue, itis such folk as these, hardy from the free breath of heaven and thescent of earth, who will renew a flaccid race.

Walking beyond the town in the southern direction, where the shape ofEtna shows more clearly amid the lower mountains, I found myselfapproaching what looked like a handsome public edifice, a museum orgallery of art. It was a long building, graced with a portico, andcoloured effectively in dull red; all about it stood lemon trees, andbehind, overtopping the roof, several fine palms. Moved by curiosity Iquickened my steps, and as I drew nearer I felt sure that this must besome interesting institution of which I had not heard. Presently Iobserved along the facade a row of heads of oxen carved in stone—anornament decidedly puzzling. Last of all my eyes perceived, over thestately entrance, the word "Macello," and with astonishment I becameaware that this fine structure, so agreeably situated, was nothing elsethan the town slaughter-house. Does the like exist elsewhere? It was asingular bit of advanced civilization, curiously out of keeping withthe thoughts which had occupied me on my walk. Why, I wonder, hasReggio paid such exceptional attention to this department of its dailylife? One did not quite know whether to approve this frank exhibitionof carnivorous zeal; obviously something can be said in its favour,yet, on the other hand, a man who troubles himself with finer scrupleswould perhaps choose not to be reminded of pole-axe and butcher'sknife, preferring that such things should shun the light of day. Itgave me, for the moment, an odd sense of having strayed into the worldof those romancers who forecast the future; a slaughter-house oftasteful architecture, set in a grove of lemon trees and date palms,suggested the dreamy ideal of some reformer whose palate shrinks fromvegetarianism. To my mind this had no place amid the landscape whichspread about me. It checked my progress; I turned abruptly, to lose theimpression as soon as possible.

No such trouble has been taken to provide comely housing for thecollection of antiquities which the town possesses. The curator who ledme through the museum (of course I was the sole visitor) lamented thatit was only communal, the Italian Government not having yet cared totake it under control; he was an enthusiast, and spoke with feeling ofthe time and care he had spent upon these precious relics—sedici annidi vita—sixteen years of life, and, after all, who cared for them?There was a little library of archaeological works, which contained twovolumes only of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum; who, asked thecurator sadly, would supply money to purchase the rest? Place had beenfound on the walls for certain modern pictures of local interest. Onerepresented a pasture on the heights of Aspromonte, shepherds and theircattle amid rich herbage, under a summer sky, with purple summitsenclosing them on every side; the other, also a Calabrian mountainscene, but sternly grand in the light of storm; a dark tarn, a rushingtorrent, the lonely wilderness. Naming the painter, my despondentcompanion shook his head, and sighed "Morto! Morto!"

Ere I left, the visitors' book was opened for my signature. Some twentypages only had been covered since the founding of the museum, and mostof the names were German. Fortunately, I glanced at the beginning, andthere, on the first page, was written "Francois Lenormant, Membre del'Institut de France"—the date, 1882. The small, delicate characterwas very suggestive of the man as I conceived him; to come upon hisname thus unexpectedly gave me a thrill of pleasure; it was like beingbrought of a sudden into the very presence of him whose spirit hadguided, instructed, borne me delightful company throughout mywanderings. When I turned to the curator, and spoke of this discovery,sympathy at once lighted up his face. Yes, yes! He remembered thevisit; he had the clearest recollection of Lenormant—"un bravogiovane!" Thereupon, he directed my attention to a little slip ofpaper pasted into the inner cover of the book, on which were written inpencil a few Greek letters; they were from the hand of Lenormanthimself, who had taken out his pencil to illustrate something he wassaying about a Greek inscription in the museum. Carefully had thisscrap been preserved by the good curator; his piety touched anddelighted 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 thelast morning, and, as I idled through the afternoon about the ViaPlutino, my farewell mood was in full harmony with that in which I hadlanded from Naples upon the Calabrian shore. So hard a thing to catchand to retain, the mood corresponding perfectly to an intellectualbias—hard, at all events, for him who cannot shape his life as hewill, and whom circ*mstance ever menaces with dreary harassment. Aloneand quiet, I heard the washing of the waves; I saw the evening fall oncloud-wreathed Etna, the twinkling lights come forth on Scylla andCharybdis; and, as I looked my last towards the Ionian Sea, I wished itwere mine to wander endlessly amid the silence of the ancient world,to-day and all its sounds forgotten.

THE END.