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diff --git a/old/7385.txt b/old/7385.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c5793b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7385.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13920 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Calabria, by Norman Douglas + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Old Calabria + +Author: Norman Douglas + +Posting Date: June 16, 2013 [EBook #7385] +Release Date: January, 2005 +First Posted: April 23, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD CALABRIA *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred + + + + + + + + + +OLD CALABRIA + +BY NORMAN DOUGLAS + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + +I. SARACEN LUCERA +II. MANFRED'S TOWN +III. THE ANGEL OF MANFREDONIA +IV. CAVE-WORSHIP +V. LAND OF HORACE +VI. AT VENOSA +VII. THE BANDUSIAN FOUNT +VIII. TILLERS OF THE SOIL +IX. MOVING SOUTHWARDS +X. THE FLYING MONK +XI. BY THE INLAND SEA +XII. MOLLE TARENTUM +XIII. INTO THE JUNGLE +XIV. DRAGONS +XV. BYZANTINISM +XVI. REPOSING AT CASTROVILLARI +XVII. OLD MORANO +XVIII. AFRICAN INTRUDERS +XIX. UPLANDS OF POLLINO +XX. A MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL +XXI. MILTON IN CALABRIA +XXII. THE "GREEK" SILA +XXIII. ALBANIANS AND THEIR COLLEGE +XXIV. AN ALBANIAN SEER +XXV. SCRAMBLING TO LONGOBUCCO +XXVI. AMONG THE BRUTTIANS +XXVII. CALABRIAN BRIGANDAGE +XXVIII. THE GREATER SILA +XXIX. CHAOS +XXX. THE SKIRTS OF MONTALTO +XXXI. SOUTHERN SAINTLINESS +XXXII. ASPROMONTE, THE CLOUD-GATHERER +XXXIII. MUSOLINO AND THE LAW +XXXIV. MALARIA +XXXV. CAULONIA TO SERRA +XXXVI. MEMORIES OF GISSING +XXXVII. COTRONE +XXXVIII. THE SAGE OF CROTON +XXXIX. MIDDAY AT PETELIA +XL. THE COLUMN +INDEX. + + + + +OLD CALABRIA + +I + +SARACEN LUCERA + + +I find it hard to sum up in one word the character of Lucera--the effect +it produces on the mind; one sees so many towns that the freshness of +their images becomes blurred. The houses are low but not undignified; +the streets regular and clean; there is electric light and somewhat +indifferent accommodation for travellers; an infinity of barbers and +chemists. Nothing remarkable in all this. Yet the character is there, if +one could but seize upon it, since every place has its genius. Perhaps +it lies in a certain feeling of aloofness that never leaves one here. We +are on a hill--a mere wave of ground; a kind of spur, rather, rising up +from the south--quite an absurd little hill, but sufficiently high to +dominate the wide Apulian plain. And the nakedness of the land +stimulates this aerial sense. There are some trees in the "Belvedere" or +public garden that lies on the highest part of the spur and affords a +fine view north and eastwards. But the greater part were only planted a +few years ago, and those stretches of brown earth, those half-finished +walks and straggling pigmy shrubs, give the place a crude and embryonic +appearance. One thinks that the designers might have done more in the +way of variety; there are no conifers excepting a few cryptomerias and +yews which will all be dead in a couple of years, and as for those +yuccas, beloved of Italian municipalities, they will have grown more +dyspeptic-looking than ever. None the less, the garden will be a +pleasant spot when the ilex shall have grown higher; even now it is the +favourite evening walk of the citizens. Altogether, these public parks, +which are now being planted all over south Italy, testify to renascent +taste; they and the burial-places are often the only spots where the +deafened and light-bedazzled stranger may find a little green +content; the content, respectively, of _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso._ +So the cemetery of Lucera, with its ordered walks drowned in the shade +of cypress--roses and gleaming marble monuments in between--is a +charming retreat, not only for the dead. + +The Belvedere, however, is not my promenade. My promenade lies yonder, +on the other side of the valley, where the grave old Suabian castle sits +on its emerald slope. It does not frown; it reposes firmly, with an air +of tranquil and assured domination; "it has found its place," as an +Italian observed to me. Long before Frederick Barbarossa made it the +centre of his southern dominions, long before the Romans had their +fortress on the site, this eminence must have been regarded as the key +of Apulia. All round the outside of those turreted walls (they are +nearly a mile in circumference; the enclosure, they say, held sixty +thousand people) there runs a level space. This is my promenade, at all +hours of the day. Falcons are fluttering with wild cries overhead; down +below, a long unimpeded vista of velvety green, flecked by a few trees +and sullen streamlets and white farmhouses--the whole vision framed in a +ring of distant Apennines. The volcanic cone of Mount Vulture, land of +Horace, can be detected on clear days; it tempts me to explore those +regions. But eastward rises up the promontory of Mount Gargano, and on +the summit of its nearest hill one perceives a cheerful building, some +village or convent, that beckons imperiously across the intervening +lowlands. Yonder lies the venerable shrine of the archangel Michael, and +Manfred's town. . . . + +This castle being a _national monument,_ they have appointed a custodian +to take charge of it; a worthless old fellow, full of untruthful +information which he imparts with the hushed and conscience-stricken air +of a man who is selling State secrets. + +"That corner tower, sir, is the King's tower. It was built by the King." + +"But you said just now that it was the Queen's tower." + +"So it is. The Queen--she built it." + +"What Queen?" + +"What Queen? Why, the Queen--the Queen the German professor was talking +about three years ago. But I must show you some skulls which we found +_(sotto voce)_ in a subterranean crypt. They used to throw the poor dead +folk in here by hundreds; and under the Bourbons the criminals were +hanged here, thousands of them. The blessed times! And this tower is the +Queen's tower." + +"But you called it the King's tower just now." + +"Just so. That is because the King built it." + +"What King?" + +"Ah, sir, how can I remember the names of all those gentlemen? I haven't +so much as set eyes on them! But I must now show you some round +sling-stones which we excavated _(sotto voce)_ in a subterranean crypt----" + +One or two relics from this castle are preserved in the small municipal +museum, founded about five years ago. Here are also a respectable +collection of coins, a few prehistoric flints from Gargano, some quaint +early bronze figurines and mutilated busts of Roman celebrities carved +in marble or the recalcitrant local limestone. A dignified old lion--one +of a pair (the other was stolen) that adorned the tomb of Aurelius, +prastor of the Roman Colony of Luceria--has sought a refuge here, as +well as many inscriptions, lamps, vases, and a miscellaneous collection +of modern rubbish. A plaster cast of a Mussulman funereal stone, found +near Foggia, will attract your eye; contrasted with the fulsome epitaphs +of contemporary Christianity, it breathes a spirit of noble resignation:-- + +"In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. May God show +kindness to Mahomet and his kinsfolk, fostering them by his favours! +This is the tomb of the captain Jacchia Albosasso. God be merciful to +him. He passed away towards noon on Saturday in the five days of the +month Moharram of the year 745 (5th April, 1348). May Allah likewise +show mercy to him who reads." + +One cannot be at Lucera without thinking of that colony of twenty +thousand Saracens, the escort of Frederick and his son, who lived here +for nearly eighty years, and sheltered Manfred in his hour of danger. +The chronicler Spinelli [Footnote: These journals are now admitted to +have been manufactured in the sixteenth century by the historian +Costanze for certain genealogical purposes of his own. Professor +Bernhard doubted their authenticity in 1869, and his doubts have been +confirmed by Capasse.] has preserved an anecdote which shows Manfred's +infatuation for these loyal aliens. In the year 1252 and in the +sovereign's presence, a Saracen official gave a blow to a Neapolitan +knight--a blow which was immediately returned; there was a tumult, and +the upshot of it was that the Italian was condemned to lose his hand; +all that the Neapolitan nobles could obtain from Manfred was that his +left hand should be amputated instead of his right; the Arab, the cause +of all, was merely relieved of his office. Nowadays, all memory of +Saracens has been swept out of the land. In default of anything better, +they are printing a local halfpenny paper called "II Saraceno"--a very +innocuous pagan, to judge by a copy which I bought in a reckless moment. + +This museum also contains a buxom angel of stucco known as the "Genius +of Bourbonism." In the good old days it used to ornament the town hall, +fronting the entrance; but now, degraded to a museum curiosity, it +presents to the public its back of ample proportions, and the curator +intimated that he considered this attitude quite appropriate--historically +speaking, of course. Furthermore, they have carted +hither, from the Chamber of Deputies in Rome, the chair once +occupied by Ruggiero Bonghi. Dear Bonghi! From a sense of duty he used +to visit a certain dull and pompous house in the capital and forthwith +fall asleep on the nearest sofa; he slept sometimes for two hours at a +stretch, while all the other visitors were solemnly marched to the spot +to observe him--behold the great Bonghi: he slumbers! There is a statue +erected to him here, and a street has likewise been named after another +celebrity, Giovanni Bovio. If I informed the townsmen of my former +acquaintance with these two heroes, they would perhaps put up a marble +tablet commemorating the fact. For the place is infected with the +patriotic disease of monumentomania. The drawback is that with every +change of administration the streets are re-baptized and the statues +shifted to make room for new favourites; so the civic landmarks come and +go, with the swiftness of a cinematograph. + +Frederick II also has his street, and so has Pietjo Giannone. This +smacks of anti-clericalism. But to judge by the number of priests and +the daily hordes of devout and dirty pilgrims that pour into the town +from the fanatical fastnesses of the Abruzzi--picturesque, I suppose we +should call them--the country is sufficiently orthodox. Every +self-respecting family, they tell me, has its pet priest, who lives on +them in return for spiritual consolations. + +There was a religious festival some nights ago in honour of Saint +Espedito. No one could tell me more about this holy man than that he was +a kind of pilgrim-warrior, and that his cult here is of recent date; it +was imported or manufactured some four years ago by a rich merchant who, +tired of the old local saints, built a church in honour of this new one, +and thereby enrolled him among the city gods. + +On this occasion the square was seething with people: few +women, and the men mostly in dark clothes; we are already under Moorish +and Spanish influences. A young boy addressed me with the polite +question whether I could tell him the precise number of the population +of London. + +That depended, I said, on what one described as London. There was what +they called greater London-- + +It depended! That was what he had always been given to understand. . . . +And how did I like Lucera? Rather a dull little place, was it not? +Nothing like Paris, of course. Still, if I could delay my departure for +some days longer, they would have the trial of a man who had murdered +three people: it might be quite good fun. He was informed that they +hanged such persons in England, as they used to do hereabouts; it seemed +rather barbaric, because, naturally, nobody is ever responsible for his +actions; but in England, no doubt-- + +That is the normal attitude of these folks towards us and our +institutions. We are savages, hopeless savages; but a little savagery, +after all, is quite endurable. Everything is endurable if you have lots +of money, like these English. + +As for myself, wandering among that crowd of unshaven creatures, that +rustic population, fiercely gesticulating and dressed in slovenly hats +and garments, I realized once again what the average Anglo-Saxon would +ask himself: Are they _all_ brigands, or only some of them? That music, +too--what is it that makes this stuff so utterly unpalatable to a +civilized northerner? A soulless cult of rhythm, and then, when the +simplest of melodies emerges, they cling to it with the passionate +delight of a child who has discovered the moon. These men are still in +the age of platitudes, so far as music is concerned; an infantile aria +is to them what some foolish rhymed proverb is to the Arabs: a thing of +God, a portent, a joy for ever. + +You may visit the cathedral; there is a fine _verde antico_ column on +either side of the sumptuous main portal. I am weary, just now, of these +structures; the spirit of pagan Lucera--"Lucera dei Pagani" it used to +be called--has descended upon me; I feel inclined to echo Carducci's +"_Addio, nume semitico!_" One sees so many of these sombre churches, +and they are all alike in their stony elaboration of mysticism and +wrong-headedness; besides, they have been described, over and over +again, by enthusiastic connaisseurs who dwell lovingly upon their +artistic quaintnesses but forget the grovelling herd that reared them, +with the lash at their backs, or the odd type of humanity--the gargoyle +type--that has since grown up under their shadow and influence. +I prefer to return to the sun and stars, to my promenade beside +the castle walls. + +But for the absence of trees and hedges, one might take this to be some +English prospect of the drowsy Midland counties--so green it is, so +golden-grey the sky. The sunlight peers down dispersedly through windows +in this firmament of clouded amber, alighting on some mouldering tower, +some patch of ripening corn or distant city--Troia, lapped in Byzantine +slumber, or San Severo famed in war. This in spring. But what days of +glistering summer heat, when the earth is burnt to cinders under a +heavenly dome that glows like a brazier of molten copper! For this +country is the Sahara of Italy. + +One is glad, meanwhile, that the castle does not lie in the natal land +of the Hohenstaufen. The interior is quite deserted, to be sure; they +have built half the town of Lucera with its stones, even as Frederick +quarried them out of the early Roman citadel beneath; but it is at least +a harmonious desolation. There are no wire-fenced walks among the ruins, +no feeding-booths and cheap reconstructions of draw-bridges and +police-notices at every corner; no gaudy women scribbling to their +friends in the "Residenzstadt" post cards illustrative of the +"Burgruine," while their husbands perspire over mastodontic beer-jugs. +There is only peace. + +These are the delights of Lucera: to sit under those old walls and watch +the gracious cloud-shadows dappling the plain, oblivious of yonder +assemblage of barbers and politicians. As for those who can reconstruct +the vanished glories of such a place--happy they! I find the task +increasingly difficult. One outgrows the youthful age of hero-worship; +next, our really keen edges are so soon worn off by mundane trivialities +and vexations that one is glad to take refuge in simpler pleasures once +more--to return to primitive emotionalism. There are so many Emperors of +past days! And like the old custodian, I have not so much as set eyes on +them. + +Yet this Frederick is no dim figure; he looms grandly through the +intervening haze. How well one understands that craving for the East, +nowadays; how modern they were, he and his son the "Sultan of Lucera," +and their friends and counsellors, who planted this garden of exotic +culture! Was it some afterglow of the luminous world that had sunk below +the horizon, or a pale streak of the coming dawn? And if you now glance +down into this enclosure that once echoed with the song of minstrels +and the soft laughter of women, with the discourse of wits, artists and +philosophers, and the clang of arms--if you look, you will behold +nothing but a green lake, a waving field of grass. No matter. The +ambitions of these men are fairly realized, and every one of us may keep +a body-guard of pagans, an't please him; and a harem likewise--to judge +by the newspapers. + +For he took his Orientalism seriously; he had a harem, with eunuchs, +etc., all proper, and was pleased to give an Eastern colour to his +entertainments. Matthew Paris relates how Frederick's brother-in-law, +returning from the Holy Land, rested awhile at his Italian court, and +saw, among other diversions, "duas puellas Saracenicas formosas, quae in +pavimenti planitie binis globis insisterent, volutisque globis huo +illucque ferrentur canentes, cymbala manibus collidentes, corporaque +secundum modules motantes atque flectentes." I wish I had been there. . . . + +I walked to the castle yesterday evening on the chance of seeing an +eclipse of the moon which never came, having taken place at quite +another hour. A cloudless night, dripping with moisture, the electric +lights of distant Foggia gleaming in the plain. There are brick-kilns at +the foot of the incline, and from some pools in the neighbourhood issued +a loud croaking of frogs, while the pallid smoke of the furnaces, +pressed down by the evening dew, trailed earthward in a long twisted +wreath, like a dragon crawling sulkily to his den. But on the north side +one could hear the nightingales singing in the gardens below. The dark +mass of Mount Gargano rose up clearly in the moonlight, and I began to +sketch out some itinerary of my wanderings on that soil. There was Sant' +Angelo, the archangel's abode; and the forest region; and Lesina with +its lake; and Vieste the remote, the end of all things. . . . + +Then my thoughts wandered to the Hohenstaufen and the conspiracy whereby +their fate was avenged. The romantic figures of Manfred and Conradin; +their relentless enemy Charles; Costanza, her brow crowned with a poetic +nimbus (that melted, towards the end, into an aureole of bigotry); +Frangipani, huge in villainy; the princess Beatrix, tottering from the +dungeon where she had been confined for nearly twenty years; her +deliverer Roger de Lauria, without whose resourcefulness and audacity it +might have gone ill with Aragon; Popes and Palaso-logus--brilliant +colour effects; the king of England and Saint Louis of France; in the +background, dimly discernible, the colossal shades of Frederick and +Innocent, looked in deadly embrace; and the whole congress of figures +enlivened and interpenetrated as by some electric fluid--the personality +of John of Procida. That the element of farce might not be lacking, Fate +contrived that exquisite royal duel at Bordeaux where the two mighty +potentates, calling each other by a variety of unkingly epithets, +enacted a prodigiously fine piece of foolery for the delectation of +Europe. + +From this terrace one can overlook both Foggia and Castel +Fiorentino--the beginning and end of the drama; and one follows the +march of this magnificent retribution without a shred of compassion for +the gloomy papal hireling. Disaster follows disaster with mathematical +precision, till at last he perishes miserably, consumed by rage and +despair. Then our satisfaction is complete. + +No; not quite complete. For in one point the stupendous plot seems to +have been imperfectly achieved. Why did Roger de Lauria not profit by +his victory to insist upon the restitution of the young brothers of +Beatrix, of those unhappy princes who had been confined as infants in +1266, and whose very existence seems to have faded from the memory of +historians? Or why did Costanza, who might have dealt with her enemy's +son even as Conradin had been dealt with, not round her magnanimity by +claiming her own flesh and blood, the last scions of a great house? Why +were they not released during the subsequent peace, or at least in 1302? +The reason is as plain as it is unlovely; nobody knew what to do with +them. Political reasons counselled their effacement, their +non-existence. Horrible thought, that the sunny world should be too +small for three orphan children! In their Apulian fastness they +remained--in chains. A royal rescript of 1295 orders that they be freed +from their fetters. Thirty years in fetters! Their fate is unknown; the +night of medievalism closes in upon them once more. . . . + +Further musings were interrupted by the appearance of a shape which +approached from round the corner of one of the towers. It cams nearer +stealthily, pausing every now and then. Had I evoked, willy-nilly, some +phantom of the buried past? + +It was only the custodian, leading his dog Musolino. After a shower of +compliments and apologies, he gave me to understand that it was his +duty, among other things, to see that no one should endeavour to raise +the treasure which was hidden under these ruins; several people, he +explained, had already made the attempt by night. For the rest, I was +quite at liberty to take my pleisure about the castle at all hours. But +as to touching the buried hoard, it was _proibito_--forbidden! + +I was glad of the incident, which conjured up for me the Oriental mood +with its genii and subterranean wealth. Straightway this incongruous and +irresponsible old buffoon was invested with a new dignity; transformed +into a threatening Ifrit, the guardian of the gold, or--who +knows?--Iblis incarnate. The gods take wondrous shapes, sometimes. + + + + +II + +MANFRED'S TOWN + + +As the train moved from Lucera to Foggia and thence onwards, I had +enjoyed myself rationally, gazing at the emerald plain of Apulia, soon +to be scorched to ashes, but now richly dight with the yellow flowers of +the giant fennel, with patches of ruby-red poppy and asphodels pale and +shadowy, past their prime. I had thought upon the history of this +immense tract of country--upon all the floods of legislation and +theorizings to which its immemorial customs of pasturage have given +birth. . . . + +Then, suddenly, the aspect of life seemed to change. I felt unwell, and +so swift was the transition from health that I had wantonly thrown out +of the window, beyond recall, a burning cigar ere realizing that it was +only a little more than half smoked. We were crossing the Calendaro, a +sluggish stream which carefully collects all the waters of this region +only to lose them again in a swamp not far distant; and it was +positively as if some impish sprite had leapt out of those noisome +waves, boarded the train, and flung himself into me, after the fashion +of the "Horla" in the immortal tale. + +Doses of quinine such as would make an English doctor raise his eyebrows +have hitherto only succeeded in provoking the Calendaro microbe to more +virulent activity. Nevertheless, _on s'y fait._ I am studying him and, +despite his protean manifestations, have discovered three principal +ingredients: malaria, bronchitis and hay-fever--not your ordinary +hay-fever, oh, no! but such as a mammoth might conceivably catch, if +thrust back from his germless, frozen tundras into the damply blossoming +Miocene. + +The landlady of this establishment has a more commonplace name for the +distemper. She calls it "scirocco." And certainly this pest of the south +blows incessantly; the mountain-line of Gargano is veiled, the sea's +horizon veiled, the coast-lands of Apulia veiled by its tepid and +unwholesome breath. To cheer me up, she says that on clear days one can +see Castel del Monte, the Hohenstaufen eyrie, shining yonder above +Barletta, forty miles distant. It sounds rather improbable; still, +yesterday evening there arose a sudden vision of a white town in that +direction, remote and dream-like, far across the water. Was it Barletta? +Or Margherita? It lingered awhile, poised on an errant sunbeam; then +sank into the deep. + +From this window I look into the little harbour whose beach is dotted +with fishing-boats. Some twenty or thirty sailing-vessels are riding at +anchor; in the early morning they unfurl their canvas and sally forth, +in amicable couples, to scour the azure deep--it is greenish-yellow at +this moment--returning at nightfall with the spoils of ocean, mostly +young sharks, to judge by the display in the market. Their white sails +bear fabulous devices in golden colour of moons and crescents and +dolphins; some are marked like the "orange-tip" butterfly. A gunboat is +now stationed here on a mysterious errand connected with the Albanian +rising on the other side of the Adriatic. There has been whispered talk +of illicit volunteering among the youth on this side, which the +government is anxious to prevent. And to enliven the scene, a steamer +calls every now and then to take passengers to the Tremiti islands. One +would like to visit them, if only in memory of those martyrs of +Bourbonism, who were sent in hundreds to these rocks and cast into +dungeons to perish. I have seen such places; they are vast caverns +artificially excavated below the surface of the earth; into these the +unfortunates were lowered and left to crawl about and rot, the living +mingled with the dead. To this day they find mouldering skeletons, +loaded with heavy iron chains and ball-weights. + +A copious spring gushes up on this beach and flows into the sea. It is +sadly neglected. Were I tyrant of Manfredonia, I would build me a fair +marble fountain here, with a carven assemblage of nymphs and +sea-monsters spouting water from their lusty throats, and plashing in +its rivulets. It may well be that the existence of this fount helped to +decide Manfred in his choice of a site for his city; such springs are +rare in this waterless land. And from this same source, very likely, is +derived the local legend of Saint Lorenzo and the Dragon, which is quite +independent of that of Saint Michael the dragon-killer on the heights +above us. These venerable water-spirits, these _dracs,_ are interesting +beasts who went through many metamorphoses ere attaining their present +shape. + +Manfredonia lies on a plain sloping very gently seawards--practically +a dead level, and in one of the hottest districts of Italy. Yet, for +some obscure reason, there is no street along the sea itself; the +cross-roads end in abrupt squalor at the shore. One wonders what +considerations--political, aesthetic or hygienic--prevented the +designers of the town from carrying out its general principles of +construction and building a decent promenade by the waves, where the ten +thousand citizens could take the air in the breathless summer evenings, +instead of being cooped up, as they now are, within stifling hot walls. +The choice of Man-fredonia as a port does not testify to any great +foresight on the part of its founder--peace to his shade! It will for +ever slumber in its bay, while commerce passes beyond its reach; it will +for ever be malarious with the marshes of Sipontum at its edges. But +this particular defect of the place is not Manfred's fault, since the +city was razed to the ground by the Turks in 1620, and then built up +anew; built up, says Lenormant, according to the design of the old city. +Perhaps a fear of other Corsair raids induced the constructors to adhere +to the old plan, by which the place could be more easily defended. Not +much of Man-fredonia seems to have been completed when Pacicchelli's +view (1703) was engraved. + +Speaking of the weather, the landlady further told me that the wind blew +so hard three months ago--"during that big storm in the winter, don't +you remember?"--that it broke all the iron lamp-posts between the town +and the station. Now here was a statement sounding even more improbable +than her other one about Castel del Monte, but admitting of +verification. Wheezing and sneezing, I crawled forth, and found it +correct. It must have been a respectable gale, since the cast-iron +supports are snapped in half, every one of them. + +Those Turks, by the way, burnt the town on that memorable occasion. That +was a common occurrence in those days. Read any account of their +incursions into Italy during this and the preceding centuries, and you +will find that the corsairs burnt the towns whenever they had time to +set them alight. They could not burn them nowadays, and this points to a +total change in economic conditions. Wood was cut down so heedlessly +that it became too scarce for building purposes, and stone took its +place. This has altered domestic architecture; it has changed the +landscape, denuding the hill-sides that were once covered with timber; +it has impoverished the country by converting fruitful plains into +marshes or arid tracts of stone swept by irregular and intermittent +floods; it has modified, if I mistake not, the very character of +the people. The desiccation of the climate has entailed a desiccation +of national humour. + +Muratori has a passage somewhere in his "Antiquities" regarding the old +method of construction and the wooden shingles, _scandulae,_ in use for +roofing--I must look it up, if ever I reach civilized regions again. + +At the municipality, which occupies the spacious apartments of a former +Dominican convent, they will show you the picture of a young girl, one +of the Beccarmi family, who was carried off at a tender age in one of +these Turkish raids, and subsequently became "Sultana." Such captive +girls generally married sultans--or ought to have married them; the wish +being father to the thought. But the story is disputed; rightly, I +think. For the portrait is painted in the French manner, and it is +hardly likely that a harem-lady would have been exhibited to a European +artist. The legend goes on to say that she was afterwards liberated by +the Knights of Malta, together with her Turkish son who, as was meet and +proper, became converted to Christianity and died a monk. The Beccarmi +family (of Siena, I fancy) might find some traces of her in their +archives. _Ben trovato,_ at all events. When one looks at the pretty +portrait, one cannot blame any kind of "Sultan" for feeling +well-disposed towards the original. + +The weather has shown some signs of improvement and tempted me, despite +the persistent "scirocco" mood, to a few excursions into the +neighbourhood. But there seem to be no walks hereabouts, and the hills, +three miles distant, are too remote for my reduced vitality. The +intervening region is a plain of rock carved so smoothly, in places, as +to appear artificially levelled with the chisel; large tracts of it are +covered with the Indian fig (cactus). In the shade of these grotesque +growths lives a dainty flora: trembling grasses of many kinds, rue, +asphodel, thyme, the wild asparagus, a diminutive blue iris, as well as +patches of saxifrage that deck the stone with a brilliant enamel of red +and yellow. This wild beauty makes one think how much better the +graceful wrought-iron balconies of the town would look if enlivened with +blossoms, with pendent carnations or pelargonium; but there is no great +display of these things; the deficiency of water is a characteristic of +the place; it is a flowerless and songless city. The only good +drinking-water is that which is bottled at the mineral springs of Monte +Vulture and sold cheaply enough all over the country. And the mass of +the country people have small charm of feature. Their faces seem to have +been chopped with a hatchet into masks of sombre virility; a hard life +amid burning limestone deserts is reflected in their countenances. + +None the less, they have a public garden; even more immature than that +of Lucera, but testifying to greater taste. Its situation, covering a +forlorn semicircular tract of ground about the old Anjou castle, is _a +priori_ a good one. But when the trees are fully grown, it will be +impossible to see this fine ruin save at quite close quarters--just +across the moat. + +I lamented this fact to a solitary gentleman who was strolling about +here and who replied, upon due deliberation: + +"One cannot have everything." + +Then he added, as a suggestive afterthought: + +"Inasmuch as one thing sometimes excludes another." + +I pause, to observe parenthetically that this habit of uttering +platitudes in the grand manner as though disclosing an idea of vital +novelty (which Charles Lamb, poor fellow, thought peculiar to natives of +Scotland) is as common among Italians as among Englishmen. But veiled in +sonorous Latinisms, the staleness of such remarks assumes an air of +profundity. + +"For my part," he went on, warming to his theme, "I am thoroughly +satisfied. Who will complain of the trees? Only a few makers of bad +pictures. They can go elsewhere. Our country, dear sir, is _encrusted,_ +with old castles and other feudal absurdities, and if I had the +management of things----" + +The sentence was not concluded, for at that moment his hat was blown off +by a violent gust of wind, and flew merrily over beds of flowering +marguerites in the direction of the main street, while he raced after +it, vanishing in a cloud of dust. The chase must have been long and +arduous; he never returned. + +Wandering about the upper regions of this fortress whose chambers are +now used as a factory of cement goods and a refuge for some poor +families, I espied a good pre-renaissance relief of Saint Michael and +the dragon immured in the masonry, and overhung by the green leaves of +an exuberant wild fig that has thrust its roots into the sturdy old +walls. Here, at Manfredonia, we are already under the shadow of the holy +mountain and the archangel's wings, but the usual representations of him +are childishly emasculate--the negation of his divine and heroic +character. This one portrays a genuine warrior-angel of the old type: +grave and grim. Beyond this castle and the town-walls, which are best +preserved on the north side, nothing in Manfredonia is older than 1620. +There is a fine _campanile,_ but the cathedral looks like a shed for +disused omnibuses. + +Along the streets, little red flags are hanging out of the houses, at +frequent intervals: signals of harbourage for the parched wayfarer. +Within, you behold a picturesque confusion of rude chairs set among +barrels and vats full of dark red wine where, amid Rembrandtesque +surroundings, you can get as drunk as a lord for sixpence. Blithe oases! +It must be delightful, in summer, to while away the sultry hours in +their hospitable twilight; even at this season they seem to be extremely +popular resorts, throwing a new light on those allusions by classical +authors to "thirsty Apulia." + +But on many of the dwellings I noticed another symbol: an ominous blue +metal tablet with a red cross, bearing the white-lettered words +"VIGILANZA NOTTURNA." + +Was it some anti-burglary association? I enquired of a serious-looking +individual who happened to be passing. + +His answer did not help to clear up matters. + +"A pure job, _signore mio_, a pure job! There is a society in Cerignola +or somewhere, a society which persuades the various town +councils--_persuades_ them, you understand----" + +He ended abruptly, with the gesture of paying out money between his +finger and thumb. Then he sadly shook his head. + +I sought for more light on this cryptic utterance; in vain. What were +the facts, I persisted? Did certain householders subscribe to keep a +guardian on their premises at night--what had the municipalities to do +with it--was there much house-breaking in Manfredonia, and, if so, had +this association done anything to check it? And for how long had the +institution been established? + +But the mystery grew ever darker. After heaving a deep sigh, he +condescended to remark: + +"The usual camorra! Eat--eat; from father to son. Eat--eat! That's all +they think about, the brood of assassins. . . . Just look at them!" + +I glanced down the street and beheld a venerable gentleman of kindly +aspect who approached slowly, leaning on the arm of a fair-haired +youth--his grandson, I supposed. He wore a long white beard, and an air +of apostolic detachment from the affairs of this world. They came +nearer. The boy was listening, deferentially, to some remark of the +elder; his lips were parted in attention and his candid, sunny face +would have rejoiced the heart of della Robbia. They passed within a few +feet of me, lovingly engrossed in one another. + +"Well?" I queried, turning to my informant and anxious to learn what +misdeeds could be laid to the charge of such godlike types of humanity. + +But that person was no longer at my side. He had quietly withdrawn +himself, in the interval; he had evanesced, "moved on." + +An oracular and elusive citizen. ... + + + + +III + +THE ANGEL OF MANFREDONIA + + +Whoever looks at a map of the Gargano promontory will see that it is +besprinkled with Greek names of persons and places--Matthew, Mark, +Nikander, Onofrius, Pirgiano (Pyrgos) and so forth. Small wonder, for +these eastern regions were in touch with Constantinople from early days, +and the spirit of Byzance still hovers over them. It was on this +mountain that the archangel Michael, during his first flight to Western +Europe, deigned to appear to a Greek bishop of Sipontum, Laurentius by +name; and ever since that time a certain cavern, sanctified by the +presence of this winged messenger of God, has been the goal of millions +of pilgrims. + +The fastness of Sant' Angelo, metropolis of European angel-worship, has +grown up around this "devout and honourable cave"; on sunny days its +houses are clearly visible from Man-fredonia. They who wish to pay their +devotions at the shrine cannot do better than take with them +Gregorovius, as cicerone and mystagogue. + +Vainly I waited for a fine day to ascend the heights. At last I +determined to have done with the trip, be the weather what it might. A +coachman was summoned and negotiations entered upon for starting next +morning. + +Sixty-five francs, he began by telling me, was the price paid by an +Englishman last year for a day's visit to the sacred mountain. It may +well be true--foreigners will do anything, in Italy. Or perhaps it was +only said to "encourage" me. But I am rather hard to encourage, +nowadays. I reminded the man that there was a diligence service there +and back for a franc and a half, and even that price seemed rather +extortionate. I had seen so many holy grottos in my life! And who, after +all, was this Saint Michael? The Eternal Father, perchance? Nothing of +the kind: just an ordinary angel! We had dozens of them, in England. +Fortunately, I added, I had already received an offer to join one of the +private parties who drive up, fourteen or fifteen persons behind +one diminutive pony--and that, as he well knew, would be a matter of +only a few pence. And even then, the threatening sky . . . Yes, on +second thoughts, it was perhaps wisest to postpone the excursion +altogether. Another day, if God wills! Would he accept this cigar as a +recompense for his trouble in coming? + +In dizzy leaps and bounds his claims fell to eight francs. It was the +tobacco that worked the wonder; a gentleman who will give _something for +nothing_ (such was his logic)--well, you never know what you may not get +out of him. Agree to his price, and chance it! + +He consigned the cigar to his waistcoat pocket to smoke after dinner, +and departed--vanquished, but inwardly beaming with bright anticipation. + +A wretched morning was disclosed as I drew open the shutters--gusts of +rain and sleet beating against the window-panes. No matter: the carriage +stood below, and after that customary and hateful apology for breakfast +which suffices to turn the thoughts of the sanest man towards themes of +suicide and murder--when will southerners learn to eat a proper +breakfast at proper hours?--we started on our journey. The sun came out +in visions of tantalizing briefness, only to be swallowed up again in +driving murk, and of the route we traversed I noticed only the old stony +track that cuts across the twenty-one windings of the new carriage-road +here and there. I tried to picture to myself the Norman princes, the +emperors, popes, and other ten thousand pilgrims of celebrity crawling +up these rocky slopes--barefoot--on such a day as this. It must have +tried the patience even of Saint Francis of Assisi, who pilgrimaged with +the rest of them and, according to Pontanus, performed a little miracle +here _en passant,_ as was his wont. + +After about three hours' driving we reached the town of Sant' Angelo. It +was bitterly cold at this elevation of 800 metres. Acting on the advice +of the coachman, I at once descended into the sanctuary; it would be +warm down there, he thought. The great festival of 8 May was over, but +flocks of worshippers were still arriving, and picturesquely pagan they +looked in grimy, tattered garments--their staves tipped with +pine-branches and a scrip. + +In the massive bronze doors of the chapel, that were made at +Constantinople in 1076 for a rich citizen of Amalfi, metal rings are +inserted; these, like a true pilgrim, you must clash furiously, to call +the attention of the Powers within to your visit; and on issuing, you +must once more knock as hard as you can, in order that the consummation +of your act of worship may be duly reported: judging by the noise made, +the deity must be very hard of hearing. Strangely deaf they are, +sometimes. + +The twenty-four panels of these doors are naively encrusted with +representations, in enamel, of angel-apparitions of many kinds; some of +them are inscribed, and the following is worthy of note: + +"I beg and implore the priests of Saint Michael to cleanse these gates +once a year as I have now shown them, in order that they may be always +bright and shining." The recommendation has plainly not been carried out +for a good many years past. + +Having entered the portal, you climb down a long stairway amid swarms of +pious, foul clustering beggars to a vast cavern, the archangel's abode. +It is a natural recess in the rock, illuminated by candles. Here divine +service is proceeding to the accompaniment of cheerful operatic airs +from an asthmatic organ; the water drops ceaselessly from the rocky +vault on to the devout heads of kneeling worshippers that cover the +floor, lighted candle in hand, rocking themselves ecstatically and +droning and chanting. A weird scene, in truth. And the coachman was +quite right in his surmise as to the difference in temperature. It is +hot down here, damply hot, as in an orchid-house. But the aroma cannot +be described as a floral emanation: it is the _bouquet,_ rather, of +thirteen centuries of unwashed and perspiring pilgrims. "TERRIBILIS EST +LOCUS ISTE," says an inscription over the entrance of the shrine. Very +true. In places like this one understands the uses, and possibly the +origin, of incense. + +I lingered none the less, and my thoughts went back to the East, whence +these mysterious practices are derived. But an Oriental crowd of +worshippers does not move me like these European masses of fanaticism; I +can never bring myself to regard without a certain amount of disquietude +such passionate pilgrims. Give them their new Messiah, and all our +painfully accumulated art and knowledge, all that reconciles civilized +man to earthly existence, is blown to the winds. Society can deal with +its criminals. Not they, but fond enthusiasts such as these, are the +menace to its stability. Bitter reflections; but then--the drive upward +had chilled my human sympathies, and besides--that so-called breakfast. +. . . + +The grovelling herd was left behind. I ascended the stairs and, +profiting by a gleam of sunshine, climbed up to where, above the town, +there stands a proud aerial ruin known as the "Castle of +the Giant." On one of its stones is inscribed the date 1491--a certain +Queen of Naples, they say, was murdered within those now crumbling +walls. These sovereigns were murdered in so many castles that one +wonders how they ever found time to be alive at all. The structure is a +wreck and its gateway closed up; nor did I feel any great inclination, +in that icy blast of wind, to investigate the roofless interior. + +I was able to observe, however, that this "feudal absurdity" bears a +number like any inhabited house of Sant' Angelo--it is No. 3. + +This is the latest pastime of the Italian Government: to re-number +dwellings throughout the kingdom; and not only human habitations, but +walls, old ruins, stables, churches, as well as an occasional door-post +and window. They are having no end of fun over the game, which promises +to keep them amused for any length of time--in fact, until the next +craze is invented. Meanwhile, so long as the fit lasts, half a million +bright-eyed officials, burning with youthful ardour, are employed in +affixing these numerals, briskly entering them into ten times as many +note-books and registering them into thousands of municipal archives, +all over the country, for some inscrutable but hugely important +administrative purposes. "We have the employes," as a Roman deputy once +told me, "and therefore: they must find some occupation." + +Altogether, the weather this day sadly impaired my appetite for research +and exploration. On the way to the castle I had occasion to admire the +fine tower and to regret that there seemed to exist no coign of vantage +from which it could fairly be viewed; I was struck, also, by the number +of small figures of Saint Michael of an ultra-youthful, almost +infantile, type; and lastly, by certain clean-shaven old men of the +place. These venerable and decorative brigands--for such they would have +been, a few years ago--now stood peacefully at their thresholds, wearing +a most becoming cloak of thick brown wool, shaped like a burnous. The +garment interested me; it may be a legacy from the Arabs who dominated +this region for some little time, despoiling the holy sanctuary and +leaving their memory to be perpetuated by the neighbouring "Monte +Saraceno." The costume, on the other hand, may have come over from +Greece; it is figured on Tanagra statuettes and worn by modern Greek +shepherds. By Sardinians, too. ... It may well be a primordial form of +clothing with mankind. + +The view from this castle must be superb on clear days. Standing there, +I looked inland and remembered all the places I had intended to +see--Vieste, and Lesina with its lakes, and Selva Umbra, whose very name +is suggestive of dewy glades; how remote they were, under such +dispiriting clouds! I shall never see them. Spring hesitates to smile +upon these chill uplands; we are still in the grip of winter-- + + Aut aquilonibus + Querceti Gargani laborent + Et foliis viduantur orni-- + +so sang old Horace, of Garganian winds. I scanned the horizon, seeking +for his Mount Vulture, but all that region was enshrouded in a grey +curtain of vapour; only the Stagno Salso--a salt mere wherein Candelaro +forgets his mephitic waters--shone with a steady glow, like a sheet of +polished lead. + +Soon the rain fell once more and drove me to seek refuge among the +houses, where I glimpsed the familiar figure of my coachman, sitting +disconsolately under a porch. He looked up and remarked (for want of +something better to say) that he had been searching for me all over the +town, fearing that some mischief might have happened to me. I was +touched by these words; touched, that is, by his child-like simplicity +in imagining that he could bring me to believe a statement of such +radiant improbability; so touched, that I pressed a franc into his +reluctant palm and bade him buy with it something to eat. A whole franc. +. . . _Aha!_ he doubtless thought, _my theory of the gentleman: it +begins to work._ + +It was barely midday. Yet I was already surfeited with the angelic +metropolis, and my thoughts began to turn in the direction of +Manfredonia once more. At a corner of the street, however, certain +fluent vociferations in English and Italian, which nothing would induce +me to set down here, assailed my ears, coming up--apparently--out of the +bowels of the earth. I stopped to listen, shocked to hear ribald +language in a holy town like this; then, impelled by curiosity, +descended a long flight of steps and found myself in a subterranean +wine-cellar. There was drinking and card-playing going on here among a +party of emigrants--merry souls; a good half of them spoke English and, +despite certain irreverent phrases, they quickly won my heart with a +"Here! You drink _this,_ mister." + +This dim recess was an instructive pendant to the archangel's cavern. A +new type of pilgrim has been evolved; pilgrims who think no more of +crossing to Pittsburg than of a drive to Manfredonia. But their cave was +permeated with an odour of spilt wine and tobacco-smoke instead of the +subtle _Essence des pelerins_ _aes Abruzzes fleuris,_ and alas, the +object of their worship was not the Chaldean angel, but another and +equally ancient eastern shape: Mammon. They talked much of dollars; and +I also heard several unorthodox allusions to the "angel-business," which +was described as "played out," as well as a remark to the effect that +"only damn-fools stay in this country." In short, these men were at the +other end of the human scale; they were the strong, the energetic; the +ruthless, perhaps; but certainly--the intelligent. + +And all the while the cup circled round with genial iteration, and it +was universally agreed that, whatever the other drawbacks of Sant' +Angelo might be, there was nothing to be said against its native liquor. + +It was, indeed, a divine product; a _vino di montagna_ of noble +pedigree. So I thought, as I laboriously scrambled up the stairs once +more, solaced by this incident of the competition-grotto and slightly +giddy, from the tobacco-smoke. And here, leaning against the door-post, +stood the coachman who had divined my whereabouts by some dark masonic +intuition of sympathy. His face expanded into an inept smile, and I +quickly saw that instead of fortifying his constitution with sound food, +he had tried alcoholic methods of defence against the inclement weather. +Just a glass of wine, he explained. "But," he added, "the horse is +perfectly sober." + +That quadruped was equal to the emergency. Gloriously indifferent to our +fates, we glided down, in a vertiginous but masterly vol-plane, from the +somewhat objectionable mountain-town. + +An approving burst of sunshine greeted our arrival on the plain. + + + + +IV + +CAVE-WORSHIP + + +Why has the exalted archangel chosen for an abode this reeking cell, +rather than some well-built temple in the sunshine? "As symbolizing a +ray of light that penetrates into the gloom," so they will tell you. It +is more likely that he entered it as an extirpating warrior, to oust +that heathen shape which Strabo describes as dwelling in its dank +recesses, and to take possession of the cleft in the name of +Christianity. Sant' Angelo is one of many places where Michael has +performed the duty of Christian Hercules, cleanser of Augean stables. + +For the rest, this cave-worship is older than any god or devil. It is +the cult of the feminine principle--a relic of that aboriginal obsession +of mankind to shelter in some Cloven Rock of Ages, in the sacred womb of +Mother Earth who gives us food and receives us after death. +Grotto-apparitions, old and new, are but the popular explanations of +this dim primordial craving, and hierophants of all ages have understood +the commercial value of the holy shudder which penetrates in these +caverns to the heart of worshippers, attuning them to godly deeds. So +here, close beside the altar, the priests are selling fragments of the +so-called "Stone of Saint Michael." The trade is brisk. + +The statuette of the archangel preserved in this subterranean chapel is +a work of the late Renaissance. Though savouring of that mawkish +elaboration which then began to taint local art and literature and is +bound up with the name of the poet Marino, it is still a passably virile +figure. But those countless others, in churches or over house-doors--do +they indeed portray the dragon-killer, the martial prince of angels? +This amiable child with girlish features--can this be the Lucifer of +Christianity, the Sword of the Almighty? _Quis ut Deus!_ He could +hardly hurt a fly. + +The hoary winged genius of Chaldea who has absorbed the essence of so +many solemn deities has now, in extreme old age, entered upon a second +childhood and grown altogether too youthful for his _role,_ undergoing +a metimorphosis beyond the boundaries of legendary probability or common +sense; every trace of divinity and manly strength has been boiled out of +him. So young and earthly fair, he looks, rather, like some pretty boy +dressed up for a game with toy sword and helmet--one wants to have a +romp with him. No warrior this! _C'est beau, mais ce n'est pas la +guerre._ + +The gods, they say, are ever young, and a certain sensuous and fleshly +note is essential to those of Italy if they are to retain the love of +their worshippers. Granted. We do not need a scarred and hirsute +veteran; but we need, at least, a personage capable of wielding the +sword, a figure something like this:-- + +His starry helm unbuckled show'd his prime In manhood where youth ended; +by his side As in a glist'ring zodiac hung the sword, Satan's dire +dread, and in his hand the spear. . . . + +There! That is an archangel of the right kind. + +And the great dragon, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, has +suffered a similar transformation. He is shrunk into a poor little +reptile, the merest worm, hardly worth crushing. + +But how should a sublime conception like the apocalyptic hero appeal to +the common herd? These formidable shapes emerge from the dusk, offspring +of momentous epochs; they stand aloof at first, but presently their +luminous grandeur is dulled, their haughty contour sullied and +obliterated by attrition. They are dragged down to the level of their +lowest adorers, for the whole flock adapts its pace to that of the +weakest lamb. No self-respecting deity will endure this treatment--to be +popularized and made intelligible to a crowd. Divinity comprehended of +the masses ceases to be efficacious; the Egyptians and Brahmans +understood that. It is not giving gods a chance to interpret them in an +incongruous and unsportsmanlike fashion. But the vulgar have no idea of +propriety or fair play; they cannot keep at the proper distance; they +are for ever taking liberties. And, in the end, the proudest god is +forced to yield. + +We see this same fatality in the very word Cherub. How different an +image does this plump and futile infant evoke to the stately Minister of +the Lord, girt with a sword of flame! We see it in the Italian Madonna +of whom, whatever her mental acquirements may have been, a certain +gravity of demeanour is to be presupposed, and who, none the less, grows +more childishly smirking every day; in her Son who--hereabouts at +least--has doffed all the serious attributes of manhood and dwindled +into something not much better than a doll. It was the same in days of +old. Apollo (whom Saint Michael has supplanted), and Eros, and +Aphrodite--they all go through a process of saccharine deterioration. +Our fairest creatures, once they have passed their meridian vigour, are +liable to be assailed and undermined by an insidious diabetic tendency. + +It is this coddling instinct of mankind which has reduced Saint Michael +to his present state. And an extraneous influence has worked in the same +direction--the gradual softening of manners within historical times, +that demasculinization which is an inevitable concomitant of increasing +social security. Divinity reflects its human creators and their +environment; grandiose or warlike gods become superfluous, and finally +incomprehensible, in humdrum days of peace. In order to survive, our +deities (like the rest of us) must have a certain plasticity. If +recalcitrant, they are quietly relieved of their functions, and +forgotten. This is what has happened in Italy to God the Father and the +Holy Ghost, who have vanished from the vulgar Olympus; whereas the +devil, thanks to that unprincipled versatility for which he is famous, +remains ever young and popular. + +The art-notions of the Cinque-Cento are also to blame; indeed, so far as +the angelic shapes of south Italy are concerned, the influence of the +Renaissance has been wholly malefic. Aliens to the soil, they were at +first quite unknown--not one is pictured in the Neapolitan catacombs. +Next came the brief period of their artistic glory; then the syncretism +of the Renaissance, when these winged messengers were amalgamated with +pagan _amoretti_ and began to flutter in foolish baroque fashion about +the Queen of Heaven, after the pattern of the disreputable little genii +attendant upon a Venus of a bad school. That same instinct which +degraded a youthful Eros into the childish Cupid was the death-stroke to +the pristine dignity and holiness of angels. Nowadays, we see the +perversity of it all; we have come to our senses and can appraise the +much-belauded revival at its true worth; and our modern sculptors will +rear you a respectable angel, a grave adolescent, according to the best +canons of taste--should you still possess the faith that once +requisitioned such works of art. + +We travellers acquaint ourselves with the lineage of this celestial +Messenger, but it can hardly be supposed that the worshippers now +swarming at his shrine know much of these things. How shall one discover +their real feelings in regard to this great cave-saint and his life and +deeds? + +Well, some idea of this may be gathered from the literature sold on the +spot. I purchased three of these modern tracts printed respectively at +Bitonto, Molfetta and Naples. The "Popular Song in honour of St. Michael" +contains this verse: + + Nell' ora della morte + Ci salvi dal!' inferno + E a Regno Sempiterno + Ci guidi per pieta. + +_Ci guidi per pieta. . . ._ This is the Mercury-heritage. Next, the +"History and Miracles of St. Michael" opens with a rollicking dialogue +in verse between the archangel and the devil concerning a soul; it ends +with a goodly list, in twenty-five verses, of the miracles performed by +the angel, such as helping women in childbirth, curing the blind, and +other wonders that differ nothing from those wrought by humbler earthly +saints. Lastly, the "Novena in Onore di S. Michele Arcangelo," printed +in 1910 (third edition) with ecclesiastical approval, has the following +noteworthy paragraph on the + +"DEVOTION FOR THE SACRED STONES OF THE GROTTO OF ST. MICHAEL. + +"It is very salutary to hold in esteem the STONES which are taken from +the sacred cavern, partly because from immemorial times they have always +been held in veneration by the faithful and also because they have been +placed as relics of sepulchres and altars. Furthermore, it is known that +during the plague which afflicted the kingdom of Naples in the year +1656, Monsignor G. A. Puccini, archbishop of Manfredonia, recommended +every one to carry devoutly on his person a fragment of the sacred +STONE, whereby the majority were saved from the pestilence, and this +augmented the devotion bestowed on them." + +The cholera is on the increase, and this may account for the rapid sale +of the STONES at this moment. + +This pamphlet also contains a litany in which the titles of the +archangel are enumerated. He is, among other things, Secretary of God, +Liberator from Infernal Chains, Defender in the Hour of Death, Custodian +of the Pope, Spirit of Light, Wisest of Magistrates, Terror of Demons, +Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the Lord, Lash of Heresies, Adorer +of the Word Incarnate, Guide of Pilgrims, Conductor of Mortals: Mars, +Mercury, Hercules, Apollo, Mithra--what nobler ancestry can angel +desire? And yet, as if these complicated and responsible functions did +not suffice for his energies, he has twenty others, among them being +that of "Custodian of the Holy Family "--who apparently need a +protector, a Monsieur Paoli, like any mortal royalties. + +"Blasphemous rubbish!" I can hear some Methodist exclaiming. And one +may well be tempted to sneer at those pilgrims for the more enlightened +of whom such literature is printed. For they are unquestionably a +repulsive crowd: travel-stained old women, under-studies for the Witch +of Endor; dishevelled, anaemic and dazed-looking girls; boys, too weak +to handle a spade at home, pathetically uncouth, with mouths agape and +eyes expressing every grade of uncontrolled emotion--from wildest joy to +downright idiotcy. How one realizes, down in this cavern, the effect +upon some cultured ancient like Rutilius Namatianus of the +catacomb-worship among those early Christian converts, those _men who +shun the light,_ drawn as they were from the same social classes towards +the same dark underground rites! One can neither love nor respect such +people; and to affect pity for them would be more consonant with their +religion than with my own. + +But it is perfectly easy to understand them. For thirteen centuries this +pilgrim-movement has been going on. Thirteen centuries? No. This site +was an oracle in heathen days, and we know that such were frequented by +men not a whit less barbarous and bigoted than their modern +representatives--nothing is a greater mistake than to suppose that the +crowds of old Rome and Athens were more refined than our own +("Demosthenes, sir, was talking to an assembly of brutes"). For thirty +centuries then, let us say, a deity has attracted the faithful to his +shrine--Sant' Angelo has become a vacuum, as it were, which must be +periodically filled up from the surrounding country. These pilgrimages +are in the blood of the people: infants, they are carried there; adults, +they carry their own offspring; grey-beards, their tottering steps are +still supported by kindly and sturdier fellow-wanderers. + +Popes and emperors no longer scramble up these slopes; the spirit of +piety has abated among the great ones of the earth; so much is certain. +But the rays of light that strike the topmost branches have not yet +penetrated to the rank and seething undergrowth. And then--what else can +one offer to these Abruzzi mountain-folk? Their life is one of +miserable, revolting destitution. They have no games or sports, no +local racing, clubs, cattle-shows, fox-hunting, politics, rat-catching, +or any of those other joys that diversify the lives of our peasantry. No +touch of humanity reaches them, no kindly dames send them jellies or +blankets, no cheery doctor enquires for their children; they read no +newspapers or books, and lack even the mild excitements of church +_versus_ chapel, or the vicar's daughter's love-affair, or the squire's +latest row with his lady--nothing! Their existence is almost bestial in +its blankness. I know them--I have lived among them. For four months in +the year they are cooped up in damp dens, not to be called chambers, +where an Englishman would deem it infamous to keep a dog--cooped up amid +squalor that must be seen to be believed; for the rest of the time they +struggle, in the sweat of their brow, to wrest a few blades of corn from +the ungrateful limestone. Their visits to the archangel--these vernal +and autumnal picnics--are their sole form of amusement. + +The movement is said to have diminished since the early nineties, when +thirty thousand of them used to come here annually. It may well be the +case; but I imagine that this is due not so much to increasing +enlightenment as to the depopulation caused by America; many villages +have recently been reduced to half their former number of inhabitants. + +And here they kneel, candle in hand, on the wet flags of this foetid and +malodorous cave, gazing in rapture upon the blandly beaming idol, their +sensibilities tickled by resplendent priests reciting full-mouthed Latin +phrases, while the organ overhead plays wheezy extracts from "La Forza +del Destino" or the Waltz out of Boito's "Mefistofele"... for sure, it +must be a foretaste of Heaven! And likely enough, these are "the poor in +heart" for whom that kingdom is reserved. + +One may call this a debased form of Christianity. Whether it would have +been distasteful to the feelings of the founder of that cult is another +question, and, debased or not, it is at least alive and palpitating, +which is more than can be said of certain other varieties. But the +archangel, as was inevitable, has suffered a sad change. His fairest +attribute of Light-bringer, of Apollo, is no longer his own; it has been +claimed and appropriated by the "Light of the World," his new master. +One by one, his functions have been stripped from him, all save in name, +as happens to men and angels alike, when they take service under +"jealous" lords. + +What is now left of Saint Michael, the glittering hierarch? Can he still +endure the light of sun? Or has he not shrivelled into a spectral +Hermes, a grisly psychopomp, bowing his head in minished glory, and +leading men's souls no longer aloft but downwards--down to the pale +regions of things that have been? And will it be long ere he, too, is +thrust by some flaming Demogorgon into these same realms of Minos, into +that shadowy underworld where dwell Saturn, and Kronos, and other +cracked and shivered ideals? + +So I mused that afternoon, driving down the slopes from Sant' Angelo +comfortably sheltered against the storm, while the generous mountain +wine sped through my veins, warming my fancy. Then, at last, the sun +came out in a sudden burst of light, opening a rift in the vapours and +revealing the whole chain of the Apennines, together with the peaked +crater of Mount Vulture. + +The spectacle cheered me, and led me to think that such a day might +worthily be rounded off by a visit to Sipontum, which lies a few miles +beyond Manfredonia on the Foggia road. But I approached the subject +cautiously, fearing that the coachman might demur at this extra work. +Far from it. I had gained his affection, and he would conduct me +whithersoever I liked. Only to Sipontum? __Why not to Foggia, to Naples, +to the ends of the earth? As for the horse, he was none the worse for +the trip, not a bit the worse; he liked nothing better than running in +front of a carriage; besides, _e suo dovere--_ it was his duty. + +Sipontum is so ancient that it was founded, they say, by that legendary +Diomed who acted in the same capacity for Beneven-tum, Arpi, and other +cities. But this record does not satisfy Monsignor Sarnelli, its +historian, according to whom it was already a flourishing town when +Shem, first son of Noah, became its king. He reigned about the year 1770 +of the creation of the world. Two years after the deluge he was 100 +years old, and at that age begat a son Arfaxad, after whose birth he +lived yet another five hundred years. The second king of Sipontum was +Appulus, who ruled in the year 2213. . . . Later on, Saint Peter +sojourned here, and baptized a few people. + +Of Sipontum nothing is left; nothing save a church, and even that built +only yesterday--in the eleventh century; a far-famed church, in the +Pisan style, with wrought marble columns reposing on lions, sculptured +diamond ornaments, and other crafty stonework that gladdens the eye. It +used to be the seat of an archbishopric, and its fine episcopal chairs +are now preserved at Sant' Angelo; and you may still do homage to the +authentic Byzantine Madonna painted on wood by Saint Luke, +brown-complexioned, long-nosed, with staring eyes, and holding the +Infant on her left arm. Earthquakes and Saracen incursions ruined the +town, which became wholly abandoned when Man-fredonia was built with its +stones. + +Of pagan antiquity there are a few capitals lying about, as well as +granite columns in the curious old crypt. A pillar stands all forlorn in +a field; and quite close to the church are erected two others--the +larger of cipollino, beautified by a patina of golden lichen; a marble +well-head, worn half through with usage of ropes, may be found buried in +the rank grass. The plain whereon stood the great city of Sipus is +covered, now, with bristly herbage. The sea has retired from its old +beach, and half-wild cattle browse on the site of those lordly quays and +palaces. Not a stone is left. Malaria and desolation reign supreme. + +It is a profoundly melancholy spot. Yet I was glad of the brief vision. +I shall have fond and enduring memories of that sanctuary--the +travertine of its artfully carven fabric glowing orange-tawny in the +sunset; of the forsaken plain beyond, full of ghostly phantoms of the past. + +As for Manfredonia--it is a sad little place, when the south wind moans +and mountains are veiled in mists. + + + + +V + +LAND OF HORACE + + +Venosa, nowadays, lies off the beaten track. There are only three trains +a day from the little junction of Rocchetta, and they take over an hour +to traverse the thirty odd kilometres of sparsely inhabited land. It is +an uphill journey, for Venosa lies at a good elevation. They say that +German professors, bent on Horatian studies, occasionally descend from +those worn-out old railway carriages; but the ordinary travellers are +either peasant-folk or commercial gentlemen from north Italy. Worse than +malaria or brigandage, against both of which a man may protect himself, +there is no escaping from the companionship of these last-named--these +pathologically inquisitive, empty-headed, and altogether dreadful +people. They are the terror of the south. And it stands to reason that +only the most incapable and most disagreeable of their kind are sent to +out-of-the-way places like Venosa. + +One asks oneself whether this town has greatly changed since Roman +times. To be sure it has; domestic calamities and earthquakes (such as +the terrible one of 1456) have altered it beyond recognition. The +amphitheatre that seated ten thousand spectators is merged into the +earth, and of all the buildings of Roman date nothing is left save a +pile of masonry designated as the tomb of the Marcellus who was killed +here by Hannibal's soldiery, and a few reticulated walls of the second +century or thereabouts known as the "House of Horace"--as genuine as +that of Juliet in Verona or the Mansion of Loreto. Yet the tradition is +an old one, and the builder of the house, whoever he was, certainly +displayed some poetic taste in his selection of a fine view across the +valley. There is an indifferent statue of Horace in the marketplace. A +previous one, also described as Horace, was found to be the effigy of +somebody else. Thus much I learn from Lupoli's "Iter Venusinum." + +But there are ancient inscriptions galore, worked into the masonry of +buildings or lying about at random. Mommsen has collected numbers of +them in his _Corpus,_ and since that time some sixty new ones have been +discovered. And then--the stone lions of Roman days, couched forlornly +at street corners, in courtyards and at fountains, in every stage of +decrepitude, with broken jaws and noses, missing legs and tails! Venosa +is a veritable infirmary for mutilated antiques of this species. Now the +lion is doubtless a nobly decorative beast, but--_toujours perdrix!_ Why +not a few griffons or other ornaments? The Romans were not an +imaginative race. + +The country around must have looked different in olden days. Horace +describes it as covered with forests, and from a manuscript of the early +seventeenth century which has lately been printed one learns that the +surrounding regions were full of "hares, rabbits, foxes, roe deer, +wild boars, martens, porcupines, hedgehogs, tortoises and +wolves"--wood-loving creatures which have now, for the most part, deserted +Venosa. Still, there are left some stretches of oak at the back +of the town, and the main lines of the land cannot change. Yonder lies +the Horatian Forense and "Acherontia's nest"; further on, the glades of +Bantia (the modern Banzi); the long-drawn Garganian Mount, on which the +poet's eye must often have rested, emerges above the plain of Apulia +like an island (and such it is: an island of Austrian stone, stranded +upon the beach of Italy). Monte Vulture still dominates the landscape, +although at this nearness the crater loses its shapely conical outline +and assumes a serrated edge. On its summit I perceive a gigantic +cross--one of a number of such symbols which were erected by the +clericals at the time of the recent rationalist congress in Rome. + +From this chronicler I learn another interesting fact: that Venosa was +not malarious in the author's day. He calls it healthy, and says that +the only complaint from which the inhabitants suffered was "ponture" +(pleurisy). It is now within the infected zone. I dare say the +deforestation of the country, which prevented the downflow of the +rivers--choking up their beds with detritus and producing stagnant pools +favourable to the breeding of the mosquito--has helped to spread the +plague in many parts of Italy. In Horace's days Venosa was immune, +although Rome and certain rural districts were already malarious. +Ancient votive tablets to the fever-goddess Mephitis (malaria) have been +found not far from here, in the plain below the present city of Potenza. + +A good deal of old Roman blood and spirit seems to survive here. After +the noise of the Neapolitan provinces, where chattering takes the place +of thinking, it is a relief to find oneself in the company of these +grave self-respecting folks, who really converse, like the Scotch, in +disinterested and impersonal fashion. Their attitude towards religious +matters strikes me as peculiarly Horatian; it is not active scepticism, +but rather a bland tolerance or what one of them described as +"indifferentismo"--submission to acts of worship and all other usages +(whatever they may be) consecrated by time: the _pietas--_the +conservative, law-abiding Roman spirit. And if you walk towards sunset +along any of the roads leading into the country, you will meet the +peasants riding home from their field labours accompanied by their dogs, +pigs and goats; and among them you will recognize many types of Roman +physiognomies--faces of orators and statesmen--familiar from old coins. +About a third of the population are of the dark-fair complexion, with +blue or green eyes. But the women are not handsome, although the town +derives its name from Benoth (Venus). Some genuine Roman families have +continued to exist to this day, such as that of Cenna (Cinna). One of +them was the author of the chronicle above referred to; and there is an +antique bas-relief worked into the walls of the Trinita abbey, depicting +some earlier members of this local family. + +One is astonished how large a literature has grown up around this small +place--but indeed, the number of monographs dealing with every one of +these little Italian towns is a ceaseless source of surprise. Look below +the surface and you will find, in all of them, an undercurrent of keen +spirituality--a nucleus of half a dozen widely read and thoughtful men, +who foster the best traditions of the mind. You will not find them in +the town council or at the cafe. No newspapers commend their labours, no +millionaires or learned societies come to their assistance, and though +typography is cheap in this country, they often stint themselves of the +necessities of life in order to produce these treatises of calm +research. There is a deep gulf, here, between the mundane and the +intellectual life. These men are retiring in their habits; and one +cannot but revere their scholarly and almost ascetic spirit that +survives like a green oasis amid the desert of "politics," roguery and +municipal corruption. + +The City Fathers of Venosa are reputed rich beyond the dreams of +avarice. Yet their town is by no means a clean place--it is twice as +dirty as Lucera: a reposeful dirtiness, not vulgar or chaotic, but +testifying to time-honoured neglect, to a feudal contempt of +cleanliness. You crawl through narrow, ill-paved streets, looking down +into subterranean family bedrooms that must be insufferably damp in +winter, and filled, during the hot months, with an odour hard to +conceive. There is electric lighting, of course--a paternal government +having made the price of petroleum so prohibitive that the use of +electricity for street-lighting became quite common in the lowliest +places; but the crude glare only serves to show up the general squalor. +One reason for this state of affairs is that there are no quarries for +decent paving-stones in the neighbourhood. And another, that Venosa +possesses no large citizen class, properly so called. The inhabitants +are mostly peasant proprietors and field labourers, who leave the town +in the morning and return home at night with their beasts, having +learned by bitter experience to take up their domiciles in the towns +rather than in the country-side, which was infested with brigandage and +in an unsettled state up to a short time ago. The Cincinnatus note +dominates here, and with an agricultural population no city can be kept +clean. + +But Venosa has one inestimable advantage over Lucera and most Italian +towns: there is no octroi. + +Would it be believed that Naples is surrounded by a towering Chinese +wall, miles upon miles of it, crowned with a complicated apparatus of +alarm-bells and patrolled night and day by a horde of _doganieri_ armed +to the teeth--lest some peasant should throw a bundle of onions into the +sacred precincts of the town without paying the duty of half a farthing? +No nation with any sense of humour would endure this sort of thing. +Every one resents the airs of this army of official loafers who infest +the land, and would be far better employed themselves in planting onions +upon the many miles of Italy which now lie fallow; the results of the +system have been shown to be inadequate, "but," as my friend the Roman +deputy once asked me, "if we dismiss these fellows from their job, how +are we to employ them?" + +"Nothing is simpler," I replied. "Enrol them into the Town Council of +Naples. It already contains more _employes_ than all the government +offices of London put together; a few more will surely make no difference?" + +"By Bacchus," he cried, "you foreigners have ideas! We could dispose of +ten or fifteen thousand of them, at least, in the way you suggest. I'll +make a note of that, for our next session." + +And so he did. + +But the _Municipio_ of Naples, though extensive, is a purely local +charity, and I question whether its inmates will hear of any one save +their own cousins and brothers-in-law figuring as colleagues in office. + +Every attempt at innovation in agriculture, as in industry, is forthwith +discouraged by new and subtle impositions, which lie in wait for the +enterprising Italian and punish him for his ideas. There is, of course, +a prohibitive duty on every article or implement manufactured abroad; +there is the octroi, a relic of medisevalism, the most unscientific, +futile, and vexatious of taxes; there are municipal dues to be paid on +animals bought and animals sold, on animals kept and animals killed, on +milk and vine-props and bricks, on timber for scaffolding and lead and +tiles and wine--on every conceivable object which the peasant produces +or requires for his existence. And one should see the faces of the +municipal _employes_ who extort these tributes. God alone knows from +what classes of the populace they are recruited; certain it is that +their physiognomy reflects their miserable calling. One can endure the +militarism of Germany and the bureaucracy of Austria; but it is +revolting to see decent Italian countryfolk at the mercy of these +uncouth savages, veritable cave-men, whose only intelligible expression +is one of malice striving to break through a crust of congenital +cretinism. + +We hear much of the great artists and speculative philosophers of old +Italy. The artists of modern Italy are her bureaucrats who design and +elaborate the taxes; her philosophers, the peasants who pay them. + +In point of method, at least, there is nothing to choose between the +exactions of the municipal and governmental ruffians. I once saw an old +woman fined fifty francs for having in her possession a pound of +sea-salt. By what logic will you make it clear to ignorant people that +it is wrong to take salt out of the sea, whence every one takes fish +which are more valuable? The waste of time employed over red tape alone +on these occasions would lead to a revolution anywhere save among men +inured by long abuses to this particular form of tyranny. No wonder the +women of the country-side, rather than waste three precious hours in +arguments about a few cheeses, will smuggle them past the authorities +under the device of being _enceintes;_ no wonder their wisest old men +regard the paternal government as a successfully organized swindle, +which it is the citizen's bounden duty to frustrate whenever possible. +Have _you_ ever tried to convey--in legal fashion--a bottle of wine from +one town into another; or to import, by means of a sailing-boat, an old +frying-pan into some village by the sea? __It is a fine art, only to be +learnt by years of apprenticeship. The regulations on these subjects, +though ineffably childish, look simple enough on paper; they take no +account of that "personal element" which is everything in the south, of +the ruffled tempers of those gorgeous but inert creatures who, disturbed +in their siestas or mandolin-strummings, may keep you waiting half a +day while they fumble ominously over some dirty-looking scrap of paper. +For on such occasions they are liable to provoking fits of +conscientiousness. This is all very well, my dear sir, but--Ha! Where, +where is that certificate of origin, that stamp, that _lascia-passare?_ + +And all for one single sou! + +No wonder even Englishmen discover that law-breaking, in Italy, becomes +a necessity, a rule of life. + +And, soon enough, much more than a mere necessity. . . . + +For even as the traveller new to Borneo, when they offer him a +durian-fruit, is instantly brought to vomiting-point by its odour, but +after a few mouthfuls declares it to be the very apple of Paradise, and +marvels how he could have survived so long in the benighted lands where +such ambrosial fare is not; even as the true connaisseur who, beholding +some rare scarlet idol from the Tingo-Tango forests, at first casts it +aside and then, light dawning as he ponders over those monstrous +complexities, begins to realize that they, and they alone, contain the +quintessential formulae of all the fervent dreamings of Scopas and +Michelangelo; even as he who first, upon a peak in Darien, gazed +awestruck upon the grand Pacific slumbering at his feet, till presently +his senses reeled at the blissful prospect of fresh regions unrolling +themselves, boundless, past the fulfilment of his fondest hopes------ + +Even so, in Italy, the domesticated Englishman is amazed to find that he +possesses a sense hitherto unrevealed, opening up a new horizon, a new +zest in life--the sense of law-breaking. At first, being an honest man, +he is shocked at the thought of such a thing; next, like a sensible +person, reconciled to the inevitable; lastly, as befits his virile race, +he learns to play the game so well that the horrified officials +grudgingly admit (and it is their highest praise): + + Inglese italianizzato-- + Diavolo incarnato. + +Yes; slowly the charm of law-breaking grows upon the Italianated Saxon; +slowly, but surely. There is a neo-barbarism not only in matters of art. + + + + +VI + +AT VENOSA + + +There has always, no doubt, been a castle at Venosa. Frederick +Barbarossa lived here oftener than in Sicily; from these regions he +could look over to his beloved East, and the security of this particular +keep induced him to store his treasures therein. The indefatigable +Huillard Breholles has excavated some account of them from the +Hohen-staufen records. Thus we learn that here, at Venosa, the Emperor +deposited that marvel, that _tentorium,_ I mean, _mirifica arte +constructum, in quo imagines solis et lunce artificialiter motte, cursum +suum certis et debitis spatiis peragrant, et boras diei et noctis +in-fallibiliter indicant. Cuius tentorii valor viginti millium marcarum +pretium dicitur transcendisse._ It was given him by the Sultan of +Babylonia. Always the glowing Oriental background! + +The present castle, a picturesque block with moat and corner towers, was +built in 1470 by the redoubtable Pierro del Balzo. A church used to +occupy the site, but the warrior, recognizing its strategic advantages, +transplanted the holy edifice to some other part of the town. It is now +a ruin, the inhabitable portions of which have been converted into cheap +lodgings for sundry poor folk--a monetary speculation of some local +magnate, who paid 30,000 francs for the whole structure. You can climb +up into one of the shattered towers whereon reposes an old cannon amid a +wind-sown garden of shrubs and weeds. Here the jackdaws congregate at +nightfall, flying swiftly and noiselessly to their resting-place. Odd, +how quiet Italian jackdaws are, compared with those of England; they +have discarded their voices, which is the best thing they could have +done in a land where every one persecutes them. There is also a dungeon +at this castle, an underground recess with cunningly contrived +projections in its walls to prevent prisoners from climbing upwards; and +other horrors. + +The cathedral of Venosa contains a chapel with an unusually nne portal +of Renaissance work, but the chief architectural beauty of the town is +the decayed Benedictine abbey of La Trinita. The building is roofless; +it was never completed, and the ravages of time and of man have not +spared it; earthquakes, too, have played sad tricks with its arches and +columns, particularly that of 1851, which destroyed the neighbouring +town of Melfi. It stands beyond the more modern settlement on what is +now a grassy plain, and attached to it is a Norman chapel containing the +bones of Alberada, mother of Boemund, and others of her race. Little of +the original structure of this church is left, though its walls are +still adorned, in patches, with frescoes of genuine angels--attractive +creatures, as far removed from those bloodless Byzantine anatomies as +from the plethoric and insipid females of the _settecento._ There is +also a queenly portrait declared to represent Catherine of Siena. I +would prefer to follow those who think it is meant for Sigilgaita. + +Small as it is, this place--the church and the abbey--is not one for a +casual visit. Lenormant calls the Trinita a "_Musee epigra-phique"--_so +many are the Latin inscriptions which the monks have worked into its +masonry. They have encrusted the walls with them; and many antiquities +of other kinds have been deposited here since those days. The ruin is +strewn with columns and capitals of fantastic devices; the inevitable +lions, too, repose upon its grassy floor, as well as a pagan altar-stone +that once adorned the neighbouring amphitheatre. One thinks of the +labour expended in raising those prodigious blocks and fitting them +together without mortar in their present positions--they, also, came +from the amphitheatre, and the sturdy letterings engraved on some of +them formed, once upon a time, a sentence that ran round that building, +recording the names of its founders. + +Besides the Latin inscriptions, there are Hebrew funereal stones of +great interest, for a colony of Jews was established here between the +years 400 and 800; poor folks, for the most part; no one knows whence +they came or whither they went. One is apt to forget that south Italy +was swarming with Jews for centuries. The catacombs of Venosa were +discovered in 1853. Their entrance lies under a hill-side not far from +the modern railway station, and Professor Mueller, a lover of Venosa, +has been engaged for the last twenty-five years in writing a ponderous +tome on the subject. Unfortunately (so they say) there is not much +chance of its ever seeing the light, for just as he is on the verge of +publication, some new Jewish catacombs are discovered in another part of +the world which cause the Professor to revise all his previous theories. +The work must be written anew and brought up to date, and hardly is this +accomplished when fresh catacombs are found elsewhere, necessitating a +further revision. The Professor once more rewrites the whole. . . . + +You will find accounts of the Trinita in Bertaux, Schulz and other +writers. Italian ones tell us what sounds rather surprising, namely, +that the abbey was built after a Lombard model, and not a French one. Be +that as it may--and they certainly show good grounds for their +contention--the ruin is a place of rare charm. Not easily can one see +relics of Roman, Hebrew and Norman life crushed into so small a space, +welded together by the massive yet fair architecture of the +Benedictines, and interpenetrated, at the same time, with a +Mephistophelian spirit of modern indifference. Of cynical +_insouciance;_ for although this is a "national monument," nothing +whatever is done in the way of repairs. Never a month passes without +some richly carven block of stonework toppling down into the weeds, +[Footnote: The process of decay can be seen by comparing my photograph +of the east front with that taken to illustrate Giuseppe de Lorenzo's +monograph "Venosa e la Regione del Vulture" (Bergamo, 1906).] +and were it not for the zeal of a private citizen, the interior of the +building would long ago have become an impassable chaos of stones and +shrubbery. The Trinita cannot be _restored_ without enormous outlay; +nobody dreams of such a thing. A yearly expenditure of ten pounds, +however, would go far towards arresting its fall. But where shall the +money be found? This enthusiastic nation, so enamoured of all that is +exquisite in art, will spend sixty million francs on a new Ministry of +Justice which, barely completed, is already showing signs of disrupture; +it will cheerfully vote _(vide_ daily press) the small item of eighty +thousand francs to supply that institution with pens and ink--lucky +contractor!--while this and a hundred other buildings of singular beauty +are allowed to crumble to pieces, day by day. + +Not far from the abbey there stands a church dedicated to Saint Roque. +Go within, if you wish to see the difference between Benedictine dignity +and the buffoonery which subsequently tainted the Catholicism of the +youth. On its gable sits a strange emblem: a large stone dog, gazing +amiably at the landscape. The saint, during his earthly career, was +always accompanied by a dog, and now likes to have him on the roof of +his sanctuary. + +The Norman church attached to the Trinita lies at a lower level than +that building, having been constructed, says Lupoli, on the foundations +of a temple to Hymenaeus. It may be so; but one distrusts Lupoli. A +remarkable Norman capital, now wrought into a font, is preserved here, +and I was interested in watching the behaviour of a procession of female +pilgrims in regard to it. Trembling with emotion, they perambulated the +sacred stone, kissing every one of its corners; then they dipped their +hands into its basin, and kissed them devoutly. An old hag, the mistress +of the ceremonies, muttered: "tutti santi--tutti santi!" at each +osculation. Next, they prostrated themselves on the floor and licked +the cold stones, and after wallowing there awhile, rose up and began to +kiss a small fissure in the masonry of the wall, the old woman +whispering, "Santissimo!" A familiar spectacle, no doubt; but one which +never fails of its effect. This anti-hygienic crack in the wall, with +its suggestions of yoni-worship, attracted me so strongly that I begged +a priest to explain to me its mystical signification. But he only said, +with a touch of mediaeval contempt: + +"_Sono femine!_" + +He showed me, later on, a round Roman pillar near the entrance of the +church worn smooth by the bodies of females who press themselves between +it and the wall, in order to become mothers. The notion caused him some +amusement--he evidently thought this practice a speciality of Venosa. + +In my country, I said, pillars with a contrary effect would be more +popular among the fair sex. + +Lear gives another account of this phallic emblem. He says that +perambulating it hand in hand with another person, the two are sure to +remain friends for life. + +This is pre-eminently a "Victorian" version. + + + + +VII + +THE BANDUSIAN FOUNT + + +The traveller in these parts is everlastingly half-starved. Here, at +Venosa, the wine is good--excellent, in fact; but the food monotonous +and insufficient. This improper dieting is responsible for much +mischief; it induces a state of chronic exacerbation. Nobody would +believe how nobly I struggle, day and night, against its evil +suggestions. A man's worst enemy is his own empty stomach. None knew it +better than Horace. + +And yet he declared that lettuces and such-like stuff sufficed him. No +doubt, no doubt. "Olives nourish me." Just so! One does not grow up in +the school of Maecenas without learning the subtle delights of the +simple life. But I would wager that after a week of such feeding as I +have now undergone at his native place, he would quickly have remembered +some urgent business to be transacted in the capital--Caesar Augustus, +me-thinks, would have desired his company. And even so, I have suddenly +woke up to the fact that Taranto, my next resting-place, besides +possessing an agreeably warm climate, has some passable restaurants. I +will pack without delay. Mount Vulture must wait. The wind alone, the +Vulturnus or south-easterly wind, is quite enough to make one despair of +climbing hills. It has blown with objectionable persistency ever since +my arrival at Venosa. + +To escape from its attentions, I have been wandering about the secluded +valleys that seam this region. Streamlets meander here amid rustling +canes and a luxuriant growth of mares' tails and creepers; their banks +are shaded by elms and poplars--Horatian trees; the thickets are loud +with songs of nightingale, black-cap and oriole. These humid dells are a +different country from the uplands, wind-swept and thriftily cultivated. + +It was here, yesterday, that I came upon an unexpected sight--an army of +workmen engaged in burrowing furiously into the bowels of Mother Earth. +They told me that this tunnel would presently become one of the arteries +of that vast system, the Apulian Aqueduct. The discovery accorded with +my Roman mood, for the conception and execution alike of this grandiose +project are worthy of the Romans. Three provinces where, in years of +drought, wine is cheaper than water, are being irrigated--in the teeth +of great difficulties of engineering and finance. Among other things, +there are 213 kilometres of subterranean tunnellings to be built; eleven +thousand workmen are employed; the cost is estimated at 125 million +francs. The Italian government is erecting to its glory a monument more +durable than brass. This is their heritage from the Romans--this talent +for dealing with rocks and waters; for bridling a destructive +environment and making it subservient to purposes of human +intercourse. It is a part of that practical Roman genius for +"pacification." Wild nature, to the Latin, ever remains an obstacle to +be overcome--an enemy. + +Such was Horace's point of view. The fruitful fields and their hardy +brood of tillers appealed to him; [Footnote: See next chapter.] +the ocean and snowy Alps were beyond the range of his affections. His +love of nature was heartfelt, but his nature was not ours; it was nature +as we see it in those Roman landscapes at Pompeii; nature ancillary to +human needs, in her benignant and comfortable moods. Virgil's _lachrymae +rerum_ hints at mystic and extra-human yearnings; to the troubadours +nature was conventionally stereotyped--a scenic decoration to set off +sentiments more or less sincere; the roman-ticists wallow in her rugged +aspects. Horace never allowed phantasy to outrun intelligence; he kept +his feet on earth; man was the measure of his universe, and a sober mind +his highest attribute. Nature must be kept "in her place." Her +extrava-gances are not to be admired. This anthropocentric spirit has +made him what he is--the ideal anti-sentimentalist and anti-vulgarian. +For excess of sentiment, like all other intemperance, is the mark of +that unsober and unsteady beast--the crowd. + +Things have changed since those days; in proportion as the world has +grown narrower and the element of fear and mystery diluted, our +sympathies have broadened; the Goth, in particular, has learnt the knack +of detecting natural charm where the Latin, to this day, beholds nothing +but confusion and strife. + +On the spot, I observe, one is liable to return to the antique outlook; +to see the beauty of fields and rivers, yet only when subsidiary to +man's personal convenience; to appreciate a fair landscape--with a +shrewd worldly sense of its potential uses. "The garden that I love," +said an Italian once to me, "contains good vegetables." This utilitarian +flavour of the south has become very intelligible to me during the last +few days. I, too, am thinking less of calceolarias than of cauliflowers. + +A pilgrimage to the Bandusian Fount (if such it be) is no great +undertaking--a morning's trip. The village of San Gervasio is the next +station to Venosa, lying on an eminence only thirteen kilometres from +there. + +Here once ran a fountain which was known as late as the twelfth century +as the Fons Bandusinus, and Ughelli, in his "Italia Sacra," cites a deed +of the year 1103 speaking of a church "at the Bandusian Fount near +Venosa." Church and fountain have now disappeared; but the site of the +former, they say, is known, and close to it there once issued a copious +spring called "Fontana Grande." This is probably the Horatian one; and +is also, I doubt not, that referred to in Cenna's chronicle of Venosa: +"At Torre San Gervasio are the ruins of a castle and an abundant spring +of water colder than all the waters of Venosa," _Frigus amabile. . . ._ + +I could discover no one in the place to show me where this now vanished +church stood. I rather think it occupied the site of the present church +of Saint Anthony, the oldest in San Gervasio. + +As to the fountain--there are now two of them, at some considerable +distance from each other. Both of them are copious, and both lie near +the foot of the hill on which the village now stands. Capmartin de +Chaupy has reasons for believing that in former times San Gervasio did +not occupy its present exalted position (vol. iii, p. 538). + +One of them gushes out on the plain near the railway station, and has +been rebuilt within recent times. It goes by the name of "Fontana +rotta." The other, the "Fontana del Fico," lies on the high road to +Spinazzola; the water spouts out of seven mouths, and near at hand is a +plantation of young sycamores. The basin of this fount was also rebuilt +about ten years ago at no little expense, and has now a thoroughly +modern and businesslike aspect. But I was told that a complicated +network of subterranean pipes and passages, leading to "God knows +where," was unearthed during the process of reconstruction. It was +magnificent masonry, said my informant, who was an eye-witness of the +excavations but could tell me nothing more of interest. + +The problem how far either of these fountains fulfils the conditions +postulated in the last verse of Horace's ode may be solved by every one +according as he pleases. In fact, there is no other way of solving it. +In my professorial mood, I should cite the cavern and the "downward +leaping" waters against the hypothesis that the Bandusian Fount stood on +either of these modern sites; in favour of it, one might argue that the +conventional rhetoric of all Roman art may have added these embellishing +touches, and cite, in confirmation thereof, the last two lines of the +previous verse, mentioning animals that could hardly have slaked their +thirst with any convenience at a cavernous spring such as he describes. +Caverns, moreover, are not always near the summits of hills; they may be +at the foot of them; and water, even the Thames at London Bridge, always +leaps downhill--more or less. Of more importance is old Chaupy's +discovery of the northerly aspect of one of these springs--"thee the +fierce season of the blazing dog-star cannot touch." There may have been +a cave at the back of the "Fontana del Fico"; the "Fontana rotta" is +hopelessly uncavernous. + +For the rest, there is no reason why the fountain should not have +changed its position since ancient days. On the contrary, several things +might incline one to think that it has been forced to abandon the high +grounds and seek its present lower level. To begin with, the hill on +which the village stands is honeycombed by hives of caves which the +inhabitants have carved out of the loose conglomerate (which, by the +way, hardly corresponds with the poet's _saxum);_ and it may well be +that a considerable collapse of these earth-dwellings obstructed the +original source of the waters and obliged them to seek a vent lower down. + +Next, there are the notorious effects of deforestation. An old man told +me that in his early days the hill was covered with timber--indeed, this +whole land, now a stretch of rolling grassy downs, was decently wooded +up to a short time ago. I observed that the roof of the oldest of the +three churches, that of Saint Anthony, is formed of wooden rafters (a +rare material hereabouts). Deforestation would also cause the waters to +issue at a lower level. + +Lastly, and chiefly--the possible shatterings of earthquakes. +Catastrophes such as those which have damaged Venosa in days past may +have played havoc with the water-courses of this place by choking up +their old channels. My acquaintance with the habits of Apulian +earthquakes, with the science of hydrodynamics and the geological +formation of San Gervasio is not sufficiently extensive to allow me to +express a mature opinion. I will content myself with presenting to +future investigators the plausible theory--plausible because +conveniently difficult to refute--that some terrestrial upheaval in past +days is responsible for the present state of things. + +But these are merely three hypotheses. I proceed to mention three facts +which point in the same direction; i.e. that the water used to issue at +a higher level. Firstly, there is that significant name "Fontana +rotta"--"the broken fountain." . . . Does not this suggest that its flow +may have been interrupted, or intercepted, in former times? + +Next, if you climb up from this "Fontana rotta" to the village by the +footpath, you will observe, on your right hand as you ascend the slope, +at about a hundred yards below the Church of Saint Anthony, an old well +standing in a field of corn and shaded by three walnuts and an oak. This +well is still running, and was described to me as "molto antico." +Therefore an underground stream--in diminished volume, no doubt--still +descends from the heights. + +Thirdly, in the village you will notice an alley leading out of the +Corso Manfredi (one rejoices to find the name of Manfred surviving in +these lands)--an alley which is entitled "Vico Sirene." The name arrests +your attention, for what have the Sirens to do in these inland regions? +Nothing whatever, unless they existed as ornamental statuary: statuary +such as frequently gives names to streets in Italy, witness the "Street +of the Faun" in Ouida's novel, or that of the "Giant" in Naples (which +has now been re-christened). It strikes me as a humble but quite +scholarly speculation to infer that, the chief decorative uses of Sirens +being that of fountain deities, this obscure roadway keeps alive the +tradition of the old "Fontana Grande"--ornamented, we may suppose, with +marble Sirens--whose site is now forgotten, and whose very name has +faded from the memory of the countryfolk. + +What, then, does my ramble of two hours at San Gervasio amount to? It +shows that there is a possibility, at least, of a now vanished fountain +having existed on the heights where it might fulfil more accurately the +conditions of Horace's ode. If Ughelli's church "at the Bandusian Fount" +stood on this eminence--well, I shall be glad to corroborate, for once +in the way, old Ughelli, whose book contains a deal of dire nonsense. +And if the Abbe Chaupy's suggestion that the village lay at the foot of +the hill should ever prove to be wrong--well, his amiable ghost may be +pleased to think that even this does not necessitate the sacrifice of +his Venosa theory in favour of that of the scholiast Akron; there is +still a way out of the difficulty. + +But whether this at San Gervasio is the actual fountain hymned by +Horace--ah, that is quite another affair! Few poets, to be sure, have +clung more tenaciously to the memories of their childhood than did he +and Virgil. And yet, the whole scene may be a figment of his +imagination--the very word Bandusia may have been coined by him. Who can +tell? Then there is the Digentia hypothesis. I know it, I know it! I +have read some of its defenders, and consider _(entre nous)_ that they +have made out a pretty strong case. But I am not in the mood for +discussing their proposition--not just now. + +Here at San Gervasio I prefer to think only of the Roman singer, so +sanely jovial, and of these waters as they flowed, limpid and cool, in +the days when they fired his boyish fancy. Deliberately I refuse to hear +the charmer Boissier. Deliberately, moreover, I shut my eyes to the +present condition of affairs; to the herd of squabbling laundresses and +those other incongruities that spoil the antique scene. Why not? The +timid alone are scared by microscopic discords of time and place. The +sage can invest this prosaic water-trough with all its pristine dignity +and romance by an unfailing expedient. He closes an eye. It is an art he +learns early in life; a simple art, and one that greatly conduces to +happiness. The ever alert, the conscientiously wakeful--how many fine +things they fail to see! Horace knew the wisdom of being genially +unwise; of closing betimes an eye, or an ear; or both. _Desipere in +loco. . . ._ + + + + +VIII + +TILLERS OF THE SOIL + + +I remember watching an old man stubbornly digging a field by himself. He +toiled through the flaming hours, and what he lacked in strength was +made up in the craftiness, _malizia,_ born of long love of the soil. The +ground was baked hard; but there was still a chance of rain, and the +peasants were anxious not to miss it. Knowing this kind of labour, I +looked on from my vine-wreathed arbour with admiration, but without envy. + +I asked whether he had not children to work for him. + +"All dead--and health to you!" he replied, shaking his white head +dolefully. + +And no grandchildren? + +"All Americans (emigrants)." + +He spoke in dreamy fashion of years long ago when he, too, had +travelled, sailing to Africa for corals, to Holland and France; yes, and +to England also. But our dockyards and cities had faded from his mind; +he remembered only our men. + +"_Che bella gioventu--che bella gioventu!_" ("a sturdy brood"), he kept +on repeating. "And lately," he added, "America has been discovered." He +toiled fourteen hours a day, and he was 83 years old. + +Apart from that creature of fiction, the peasant _in fabula_ whom we all +know, I can find little to admire in this whole class of men, whose talk +and dreams are of the things of the soil, and who knows of nothing save +the regular interchange of summer and winter with their unvarying tasks +and rewards. None save a Cincinnatus or Garibaldi can be ennobled by the +spade. In spleenful moments, it seems to me that the most depraved of +city-dwellers has flashes of enthusiasm and self-abnegation never +experienced by this shifty, retrogressive and ungenerous brood, which +lives like the beasts of the field and has learnt all too much of their +logic. But they have a beast-virtue hereabouts which compels +respect--contentment in adversity. In this point they resemble the +Russian peasantry. And yet, who can pity the moujik? His cheeks are +altogether too round, and his morals too superbly bestial; he has +clearly been created to sing and starve by turns. But the Italian +peasant who speaks in the tongue of Homer and Virgil and Boccaccio is +easily invested with a halo of martyrdom; it is delightful to sympathize +with men who combine the manners of Louis Quatorze with the profiles of +Augustus or Plato, and who still recall, in many of their traits, the +pristine life of Odyssean days. Thus, they wear to-day the identical +"clouted leggings of oxhide, against the scratches of the thorns" which +old Laertes bound about his legs on the upland farm in Ithaka. They call +them "galandrine." + +On occasions of drought or flood there is not a word of complaint. I +have known these field-faring men and women for thirty years, and have +yet to hear a single one of them grumble at the weather. It is not +indifference; it is true philosophy--acquiescence in the inevitable. The +grievances of cultivators of lemons and wholesale agriculturalists, +whose speculations are often ruined by a single stroke of the human pen +in the shape of new regulations or tariffs, are a different thing; +_their_ curses are loud and long. But the bean-growers, dependent +chiefly on wind and weather, only speak of God's will. They have the +same forgiveness for the shortcomings of nature as for a wayward child. +And no wonder they are distrustful. Ages of oppression and misrule have +passed over their heads; sun and rain, with all their caprice, have been +kinder friends to them than their earthly masters. Some day, presumably, +the government will wake up to the fact that Italy is not an industrial +country, and that its farmers might profitably be taken into account again. + +But a change is upon the land. Types like this old man are becoming +extinct; for the patriarchal system of Coriolanus, the glory of southern +Italy, is breaking up. + +This is not the fault of conscription which, though it destroys old +dialects, beliefs and customs, widens the horizon by bringing fresh +ideas into the family, and generally sound ones. It does even more; it +teaches the conscripts to read and write, so that it is no longer as +dangerous to have dealings with a man who possesses these +accomplishments as in the days when they were the prerogative of +_avvocati_ and other questionable characters. A countryman, nowadays, +may read and write and yet be honest. + +What is shattering family life is the speculative spirit born of +emigration. A continual coming and going; two-thirds of the adolescent +and adult male population are at this moment in Argentina or the United +States--some as far afield as New Zealand. Men who formerly reckoned in +sous now talk of thousands of francs; parental authority over boys is +relaxed, and the girls, ever quick to grasp the advantages of money, +lose all discipline and steadiness. + +"My sons won't touch a spade," said a peasant to me; "and when I thrash +them, they complain to the police. They simply gamble and drink, waiting +their turn to sail. If I were to tell you the beatings _we_ used to get, +sir, you wouldn't believe me. You wouldn't believe me, not if I took my +oath, you wouldn't! I can feel them still--speaking with respect--here!" + +These emigrants generally stay away three or four years at a stretch, +and then return, spend their money, and go out again to make more. +Others remain for longer periods, coming back with huge incomes--twenty +to a hundred francs a day. Such examples produce the same effect as +those of the few lucky winners in the State lottery; every one talks of +them, and forgets the large number of less fortunate speculators. +Meanwhile the land suffers. The carob-tree is an instance. This +beautiful and almost eternal growth, the "hope of the southern +Apennines" as Professor Savastano calls it, whose pods constitute an +important article of commerce and whose thick-clustering leaves yield a +cool shelter, comparable to that of a rocky cave, in the noonday heat, +used to cover large tracts of south Italy. Indifferent to the scorching +rays of the sun, flourishing on the stoniest declivities, and sustaining +the soil in a marvellous manner, it was planted wherever nothing else +would grow--a distant but sure profit. Nowadays carobs are only cut +down. Although their produce rises in value every year, not one is +planted; nobody has time to wait for the fruit. [Footnote: There are a +few laudable exceptions, such as Prince Belmonte, who has covered large +stretches of bad land with this tree. (See Consular Reports, Italy, No. +431.) But he is not a peasant!] + +It is nothing short of a social revolution, depopulating the country of +its most laborious elements. 788,000 emigrants left in one year alone +(1906); in the province of Basilicata the exodus exceeds the birthrate. +I do not know the percentage of those who depart never to return, but it +must be considerable; the land is full of chronic grass-widows. + +Things will doubtless right themselves in due course; it stands to +reason that in this acute transitional stage the demoralizing effects of +the new system should be more apparent than its inevitable benefits. +Already these are not unseen; houses are springing up round villages, +and the emigrants return home with a disrespect for many of their +country's institutions which, under the circumstances, is neither +deplorable nor unjustifiable. A large family of boy-children, once a +dire calamity, is now the soundest of investments. Soon after their +arrival in America they begin sending home rations of money to their +parents; the old farm prospers once more, the daughters receive decent +dowries. I know farmers who receive over three pounds a month from their +sons in America--all under military age. + +"We work, yes," they will then tell you, "but we also smoke our pipe." + +Previous to this wholesale emigration, things had come to such a pass +that the landed proprietor could procure a labourer at a franc a day, +out of which he had to feed and clothe himself; it was little short of +slavery. The roles are now reversed, and while landlords are +impoverished, the rich emigrant buys up the farms or makes his own terms +for work to be done, wages being trebled. A new type of peasant is being +evolved, independent of family, fatherland or traditions--with a sure +haven of refuge across the water when life at home becomes intolerable. + +Yes; a change is at hand. + +And another of those things which emigration and the new order of +affairs are surely destroying is that ancient anthropomorphic way of +looking at nature, with its expressive turns of speech. A small boy, +whom I watched gathering figs last year, informed me that the fig-tree +was _innamorato delle pietre e cisterne--_enamoured of stones and +cisterns; meaning, that its roots are searchingly destructive to masonry +and display a fabulous intuition for the proximity of water. He also +told me, what was news to me, that there are more than two or three +varieties of figs. Will you have his list of them? Here it is: + +There is the _fico arnese,_ the smallest of all, and the _fico +santillo,_ both of which are best when dried; the _fico vollombola,_ +which is never dried, because it only makes the spring fruit; the _fico +molegnano,_ which ripens as late as the end of October and must be eaten +fresh; the _fico coretorto ("_ wry-heart "--from its shape), which has +the most leathery skin of all and is often destroyed by grubs after +rain; the _fico troiano;_ the _fico arzano;_ and the _fico vescovo,_ +which appears when all the others are over, and is eaten in February +(this may be the kind referred to in Stamer's "Dolce Napoli" as deriving +from Sorrento, where the first tree of its kind was discovered growing +out of the garden wall of the bishop's palace, whence the name). All +these are _neri--_black. + +Now for the white kinds. The _fico paradiso_ has a tender skin, but is +easily spoilt by rain and requires a ridiculous amount of sun to dry it; +ihe _fico vottato_ is also better fresh; the _fico pezzottolo_ is often +attacked by grubs, but grows to a large size every two or three years; +the _fico pascarello_ is good up till Christmas; the _fico natalino;_ +lastly, the _fico ----_, whose name I will not record, though it would +be an admirable illustration of that same anthropomorphic turn of mind. +The _santillo_ and _arnese,_ he added, are the varieties which are cut +into two and laid lengthwise upon each other and so dried (Query: Is not +this the "duplex ficus" of Horace?). + +"Of course there are other kinds," he said, "but I don't remember them +just now." When I asked whether he could tell these different fig-trees +apart by the leaves and stems alone and without the fruit, he said that +each kind, even in winter, retained its peculiar "faccia" (face), but +that some varieties are more easy to distinguish than others. I enquired +into the mysteries of caprification, and learned that artificial +ripening by means of a drop of oil is practised with some of them, +chiefly the _santillo, vollombola, pascarello_ and _natalino._ Then he +gave me an account of the prices for the different qualities and seasons +which would have astonished a grocer. + +All of which proves how easy it is to misjudge of folks who, although +they do not know that Paris is the capital of France, yet possess a +training adapted to their present needs. They are specialists for things +of the grain-giving earth; it is a pleasure to watch them grafting vines +and olives and lemons with the precision of a trained horticulturist. +They talk of "governing" _(governare)_ their soil; it is the word they +use in respect to a child. + +Now figs are neither white nor black, but such is the terminology. +Stones are white or black; prepared olives are white or black; wine +is white or black. Are they become colour-blind because impregnated, +from earliest infancy, with a perennial blaze of rainbow +hues--colour-blinded, in fact; or from negligence, attention to this +matter not bringing with it any material advantage? Excepting that +sign-language which is profoundly interesting from an artistic and +ethnological point of view--why does not some scholar bring old lorio's +"Mimica degli Antichi" up to date?--few things are more worthy of +investigation than the colour-sense of these people. Of blue they have +not the faintest conception, probably because there are so few blue +solids in nature; Max Mueller holds the idea of blue to be quite +a modern acquisition on the part of the human race. So a cloudless sky +is declared to be "quite white." I once asked a lad as to the colour +of the sea which, at the moment, was of the most brilliant sapphire hue. +He pondered awhile and then said: + +"Pare come fosse un colore morto" (a sort of dead colour). + +Green is a little better known, but still chiefly connected with things +not out of doors, as a green handkerchief. The reason may be that this +tint is too common in nature to be taken note of. Or perhaps because +their chain of association between green and grass is periodically +broken up--our fields are always verdant, but theirs turn brown in +summer. Trees they sometimes call yellow, as do some ancient writers; +but more generally "half-black" or "tree-colour." A beech in full leaf +has been described to me as black. _"Rosso"_ does not mean red, but +rather dun or dingy; earth is _rosso._ When our red is to be signified, +they will use the word "turco," which came in with the well-known +dye-stuff of which the Turks once monopolized the secret. Thus there are +"Turkish" apples and "Turkish" potatoes. But "turco" may also mean +black--in accordance with the tradition that the Turks, the Saracens, +were a black race. Snakes, generally greyish-brown in these parts, are +described as either white or black; an eagle-owl is half-black; a +kestrel _un quasi bianco._ The mixed colours of cloths or silks are +either beautiful or ugly, and there's an end of it. It is curious to +compare this state of affairs with that existing in the days of Homer, +who was, as it were, feeling his way in a new region, and the propriety +of whose colour epithets is better understood when one sees things on +the spot. Of course I am only speaking of the humble peasant whose +blindness, for the rest, is not incurable. + +One might enlarge the argument and deduce his odd insensibility to +delicate scents from the fact that he thrives in an atmosphere saturated +with violent odours of all kinds; his dullness in regard to finer shades +of sound--from the shrieks of squalling babies and other domestic +explosions in which he lives from the cradle to the grave. That is why +these people have no "nerves"; terrific bursts of din, such as the +pandemonium of Piedigrotta, stimulate them in the same way that others +might be stimulated by a quartette of Brahms. And if they who are so +concerned about the massacre of small birds in this country would devote +their energies to the invention of a noiseless and yet cheap powder, +their efforts would at last have some prospects of success. For it is +not so much the joy of killing, as the pleasurable noise of the gun, +which creates these local sportsmen; as the sagacious "Ultramontain" +observed long ago. "Le napolitain est pas-sionne pour la chasse," he +says, "parce que les coups de fusil flattent son oreille." [Footnote: +I have looked him up in Jos. Blanc's "Bibliographic." His name was C. +Haller.] This ingenuous love of noise may be connected, in some way, +with their rapid nervous discharges. + +I doubt whether intermediate convulsions have left much purity of Greek +blood in south Italy, although emotional travellers, fresh from the +north, are for ever discovering "classic Hellenic profiles" among the +people. There is certainly a scarce type which, for want of a better +hypothesis, might be called Greek: of delicate build and below the +average height, small-eared and straight-nosed, with curly hair that +varies from blonde to what Italians call _castagno chiaro._ It differs +not only from the robuster and yet fairer northern breed, but also from +the darker surrounding races. But so many contradictory theories have +lately been promulgated on this head, that I prefer to stop short at the +preliminary question--did a Hellenic type ever exist? No more, probably, +than that charming race which the artists of Japan have invented for our +delectation. + +Strains of Greek blood can be traced with certainty by their track of +folklore and poetry and song, such as still echoes among the vales of +Sparta and along the Bosphorus. Greek words are rather rare here, and +those that one hears--such as _sciusciello, caruso, crisommele,_ +etc.--have long ago been garnered by scholars like De Grandis, Moltedo, +and Salvatore Mele. So Naples is far more Hellenic in dialect, lore, +song and gesture than these regions, which are still rich in pure +latinisms of speech, such as surgere (to arise); scitare (excitare--to +arouse); e (est--yes); fetare (foetare); trasete (transitus--passage of +quails); titillare (to tickle); craje (cras--to-morrow); pastena (a +plantation of young vines; Ulpian has "pastinum instituere"). A woman is +called "muliera," a girl "figliola," and children speak of their fathers +as "tata" (see Martial, epig. I, 101). Only yesterday I added a +beautiful latinism to my collection, when an old woman, in whose cottage +I sometimes repose, remarked to me, "Non avete virtu oggi "--you are not +_up to the mark_ to-day. The real, antique virtue! I ought to have +embraced her. No wonder I have no "virtue" just now. This savage +Vulturnian wind--did it not sap the Roman virtue at Cannae? + +All those relics of older civilizations are disappearing under the +standardizing influence of conscription, emigration and national schooling. +And soon enough the _Contranome-_system __will become a thing of the +past. I shall be sorry to see it go, though it has often driven me +nearly crazy. + +What is a _contranome?_ + +The same as a _sopranome._ It is a nickname which, as with the Russian +peasants, takes the place of Christian and surname together. A man will +tell you: "My name is Luigi, but they call me, by _contranome,_ +O'Canzirro. I don't know my surname." Some of these nicknames are +intelligible, such as O'Sborramurella, which refers to the man's +profession of building those walls without mortar which are always +tumbling down and being repaired again; or O'Sciacquariello (acqua--a +leaking--one whose money leaks from his pocket--a spendthrift); or San +Pietro, from his saintly appearance; O'Civile, who is so uncivilized, or +Cristoforo Colombo, because he is so very wideawake. But eighty per cent +of them are quite obscure even to their owners, going back, as they do, +to some forgotten trick or incident during childhood or to some pet name +which even in the beginning meant nothing. Nearly every man and boy has +his contranome by which, and _by which alone,_ he is known in his +village; the women seldomer, unless they are conspicuous by some +peculiarity, such as A'Sbirra (the spy), or A'Paponnessa (the fat +one)--whose counterpart, in the male sex, would be O'Tripone. + +Conceive, now, what trouble it entails to find a man in a strange +village if you happen not to know his contranome (and how on earth are +you to discover it?), if his surname means nothing to the inhabitants, +and his Christian name is shared by a hundred others. For they have an +amazing lack of inventiveness in this matter; four or five Christian +names will include the whole population of the place. Ten to one you +will lose a day looking for him, unless something like this takes place: + +You set forth your business to a crowd of villagers that have collected +around. It is simple enough. You want to speak to Luigi So-and-so. A +good-natured individual, who seems particularly anxious to help, +summarizes affairs by saying: + +"The gentleman wants Luigi So-and-so." + +There is evidently some joke in the mere suggestion of such a thing; +they all smile. Then a confused murmur of voices goes up: + +"Luigi--Luigi. . . . Now which Luigi does he mean?" + +You repeat his surname in a loud voice. It produces no effect, beyond +that of increased hilarity. + +"Luigi--Luigi. . . ." + +"Perhaps O'Zoccolone?" + +"Perhaps O'Seticchio?" + +"Or the figlio d' O'Zibalocchio?" + +The good-natured individual volunteers to beat the surrounding district +and bring in all the Luigis he can find. After half an hour they begin +to arrive, one by one. He is not among them. Dismissed with cigars, as +compensation for loss of time. + +Meanwhile half the village has gathered around, vastly enjoying the fun, +which it hopes will last till bedtime. You are getting bewildered; new +people flock in from the fields to whom the mysterious joke about Luigi +must be explained. + +"Luigi--Luigi," they begin again. "Now, which of them can he mean?" + +"Perhaps O'Marzariello?" + +"Or O'Cuccolillo?" + +"I never thought of him," says the good-natured individual. "Here, boy, +run and tell O'Cuccolillo that a foreign gentleman wants to give him a +cigar." + +By the time O'Cuccolillo appears on the scene the crowd has thickened. +You explain the business for the fiftieth time; no--he is Luigi, of +course, but not the right Luigi, which he regrets considerably. Then the +joke is made clear to him, and he laughs again. You have lost all your +nerve, but the villagers are beginning to love you, + +"Can it be O'Sciabecchino?" + +"Or the figlio d' O'Chiappino?" + +"It might be O'Busciardiello (the liar)." + +"He's dead." + +"So he is. I quite forgot. Well, then it must be the husband of +A'Cicivetta (the flirt)." + +"He's in prison. But how about O'Caccianfierno?" + +Suddenly a withered hag croaks authoritatively: + +"I know! The gentleman wants O'Tentillo." + +Chorus of villagers: + +"Then why doesn't he say so?" + +O'Tentillo lives far, far away. An hour elapses; at last he comes, full +of bright expectations. No, this is not your Luigi, he is another Luigi. +You are ready to sink into the earth, but there is no escape. The crowd +surges all around, the news having evidently spread to neighbouring +hamlets. + +"Luigi--Luigi. . . . Let me see. It might be O'Rappo." + +"O'Massassillo, more likely." + +"I have it! It's O'Spennatiello." + +"I never thought of him," says a well-known voice. "Here, boy, run and +tell----" + +"Or O'Cicereniello." + +"O'Vergeniello." + +"O'Sciabolone. ..." + +"Never mind the G---- d---- son of b----," says a cheery person in +excellent English, who has just arrived on the scene. "See here, I live +fifteen years in Brooklyn; damn fine! 'Ave a glass of wine round my +place. Your Luigi's in America, sure. And if he isn't, send him to Hell." + +Sound advice, this. + +"What's his surname, anyhow?" he goes on. + +You explain once more. + +"Why, there's the very man you're looking for. There, standing right in +front of you! He's Luigi, and that's his surname right enough. He don't +know it himself, you bet." + +And he points to the good-natured individual. . . . + + +These countryfolk can fare on strange meats. A boy consumed a snake that +was lying dead by the roadside; a woman ate thirty raw eggs and then a +plate of maccheroni; a man swallowed six kilograms of the uncooked fat +of a freshly slaughtered pig (he was ill for a week afterwards); another +one devoured two small birds alive, with beaks, claws and feathers. Such +deeds are sternly reprobated as savagery; still, they occur, and nearly +always as the result of wagers. I wish I could couple them with equally +heroic achievements in the drinking line, but, alas! I have only heard +of one old man who was wont habitually to en-gulph twenty-two litres of +wine a day; eight are spoken of as "almost too much" in these degenerate +days. . . . + +Mice, says Movers, were sacrificially eaten by the Babylonians. Here, as +in England, they are cooked into a paste and given to children, to cure +a certain complaint. To take away the dread of the sea from young boys, +they mix into their food small fishes which have been devoured by larger +ones and taken from their stomachs--the underlying idea being that these +half-digested fry are thoroughly familiar with the storms and perils of +the deep, and will communicate these virtues to the boys who eat them. +It is the same principle as that of giving chamois blood to the +goat-boys of the Alps, to strengthen their nerves against +giddiness--pure sympathetic magic, of which there is this, at least, to +be said, that "its fundamental conception is identical with that of +modern science--a faith in the order or uniformity of nature." + +I have also met persons who claim to have been cured of rachitic +troubles in their youth by eating a puppy dog cooked in a saucepan. But +only one kind of dog is good for this purpose, to be procured from those +foundling hospitals whither hundreds of illegitimate infants are taken +as soon as possible after birth. The mothers, to relieve the discomfort +caused by this forcible separation from the new-born, buy a certain kind +of puppy there, bring them home, and nourish them _in loco infantis._ +These puppies cost a franc apiece, and are generally destroyed after +performing their duties; it is they who are cooked for curing the +scrofulous tendencies of other children. Swallows' hearts are also used +for another purpose; so is the blood of tortoises--for strengthening the +backs of children (the tortoise being a _hard_ animal). So is that of +snakes, who are held up by head and tail and pricked with needles; the +greater their pain, the more beneficial their blood, which is soaked up +with cotton-wool and applied as a liniment for swollen glands. In fact, +nearly every animal has been discovered to possess some medicinal property. + +But of the charm of such creatures the people know nothing. How +different from the days of old! These legendary and gracious beasts, +that inspired poets and artists and glyptic engravers--these things of +beauty have now descended into the realm of mere usefulness, into the +pharmacopoeia. + +The debasement is quite intelligible, when one remembers what +accumulated miseries these provinces have undergone. Memories of +refinement were starved out of the inhabitants by centuries of misrule, +when nothing was of interest or of value save what helped to fill the +belly. The work of bestialization was carried on by the despotism of +Spanish Viceroys and Bourbons. They, the Spaniards, fostered and perhaps +imported the Camorra, that monster of many heads which has established +itself in nearly every town of the south. Of the deterioration in taste +coincident with this period, I lately came across this little bit of +evidence, curious and conclusive:--In 1558 a number of the country-folk +were captured in one of the usual Corsair raids; they were afterwards +ransomed, and among the Christian names of the women I note: Livia, +Fiula, Cassandra, Aurelia, Lucrezia, Verginia, Medea, Violanta, Galizia, +Vittoria, Diamanta, etc. Where were these full-sounding noble names two +centuries later--where are they nowadays? Do they not testify to a state +of culture superior to that of the present time, when Maria, Lucia, and +about four others of the most obvious catholic saints exhaust the list +of all female Christian names hereabouts? + +All this is changing once more; a higher standard of comfort is being +evolved, though relics of this former state of insecurity may still be +found; such as the absence, even in houses of good families, of clocks +and watches, and convenient storage for clothes and domestic utensils; +their habits of living in penury and of buying their daily food by +farthings, as though one never knew what the next day might bring; their +dread of going out of doors by night (they have a proverb which runs, +_di notte, non parlar forte; di giorno, guardati attorno_), their lack +of humour. For humour is essentially a product of ease, and nobody can +be at ease in unquiet times. That is why so few poets are humorous; +their restlessly querulous nature has the same effect on their outlook +as an insecure environment. + +But it will be long ere these superstitions are eradicated. The magic of +south Italy deserves to be well studied, for the country is a cauldron +of demonology wherein Oriental beliefs--imported direct from Egypt, the +classic home of witchcraft--commingled with those of the West. A +foreigner is at an unfortunate disadvantage; if he asks questions, he +will only get answers dictated by suspicion or a deliberate desire to +mislead--prudent answers; whoso accepts these explanations in good +faith, might produce a wondrous contribution to ethnology. + +Wise women and wizards abound, but they are not to be compared with that +_santa_ near Naples whom I used to visit in the nineties, and who was so +successful in the magics that the Bishop of Pozzuoli, among hundreds of +other clients, was wont to drive up to her door once a week for a +consultation. These mostly occupy themselves with the manufacture of +charms for gaining lucky lottery numbers, and for deluding fond women +who wish to change their lovers. + +The lore of herbs is not much studied. For bruises, a slice of the +Opuntia is applied, or the cooling parietaria (known as "pareta" or +"paretene"); the camomile and other common remedies are in vogue; the +virtues of the male fern, the rue, sabina and (home-made) ergot of rye +are well known but not employed to the extent they are in Russia, where +a large progeny is a disaster. There is a certain respect for the +legitimate unborn, and even in cases of illegitimacy some neighbouring +foundling hospital, the house of the Madonna, is much more convenient. + +It is a true monk's expedient; it avoids the risk of criminal +prosecution; the only difference being that the Mother of God, and not +the natural mother of the infant, becomes responsible for its prompt and +almost inevitable destruction. [Footnote: The scandals that +occasionally arise in connection with that saintly institution, the +Foundling Hospital at Naples, are enough to make humanity shudder. Of +856 children living under its motherly care during 1895, 853 "died" in +the course of that one year-only three survived; a wholesale massacre. +These 853 murdered children were carried forward in the books as still +living, and the institution, which has a yearly revenue of over 600,000 +francs, was debited with their maintenance, while 42 doctors (instead of +the prescribed number of 19) continued to draw salaries for their +services to these innocents that had meanwhile been starved and tortured +to death. The official report on these horrors ends with the words: +"There is no reason to think that these facts are peculiar to the year +1895."] + +That the moon stands in sympathetic relations with living vegetation is +a fixed article of faith among the peasantry. They will prune their +plants only when the satellite is waxing--_al sottile detta luna,_ as +they say. Altogether, the moon plays a considerable part in their lore, +as might be expected in a country where she used to be worshipped under +so many forms. The dusky markings on her surface are explained by saying +that the moon used to be a woman and a baker of bread, her face gleaming +with the reflection of the oven, but one day she annoyed her mother, who +took up the brush they use for sweeping away the ashes, and smirched her +face. . . . + +Whoever reviews the religious observances of these people as a whole +will find them a jumble of contradictions and incongruities, lightly +held and as lightly dismissed. Theirs is the attitude of mind of little +children--of those, I mean, who have been so saturated with Bible +stories and fairy tales that they cease to care whether a thing be true +or false, if it only amuses for the moment. That is what makes them an +ideal prey for the quack physician. They will believe anything so long +as it is strange and complicated; a straightforward doctor is not +listened to; they want that mystery-making "priest-physician" +concerning whom a French writer--I forget his name--has wisely +discoursed. I once recommended a young woman who was bleeding at the +nose to try the homely remedy of a cold key. I thought she would have +died of laughing! The expedient was too absurdly simple to be efficacious. + +The attitude of the clergy in regard to popular superstitions is the +same here as elsewhere. They are too wise to believe them, and too +shrewd to discourage the belief in others; these things can be turned to +account for keeping the people at a conveniently low level of +intelligence. For the rest, these priests are mostly good fellows of the +live-and-let-live type, who would rather cultivate their own potatoes +than quarrel about vestments or the Trinity. Violently acquisitive, of +course, like most southerners. I know a parish priest, a son of poor +parents, who, by dint of sheer energy, has amassed a fortune of half a +million francs. He cannot endure idleness in any shape, and a fine +mediaeval scene may be witnessed when he suddenly appears round the +corner and catches his workmen wasting their time and his money-- + +"Ha, loafers, rogues, villains, vermin and sons of _bastardi cornuti!_ +If God had not given me these garments and thereby closed my lips to all +evil-speaking (seizing his cassock and displaying half a yard of purple +stocking)--wouldn't I just tell you, spawn of adulterous assassins, what +I think of you!" + +But under the new regime these priests are becoming mere decorative +survivals, that look well enough in the landscape, but are not taken +seriously save in their match-making and money-lending capacities. + +The intense realism of their religion is what still keeps it alive for +the poor in spirit. Their saints and devils are on the same familiar +footing towards mankind as were the old gods of Greece. Children do not +know the meaning of "Inferno"; they call it "casa del diavolo" (the +devil's house); and if they are naughty, the mother says, "La Madonna +strilla"--the Madonna will scold. Here is a legend of Saint Peter, +interesting for its realism and because it has been grafted upon a very +ancient _motif:--_ + +The apostle Peter was a dissatisfied sort of man, who was always +grumbling about things in general and suggesting improvements in the +world-scheme. He thought himself cleverer even than "N. S. G. C." One +day they were walking together in an olive orchard, and Peter said: + +"Just look at the trouble and time it takes to collect all those +miserable little olives. Let's have them the size of melons." + +"Very well. Have your way, friend Peter! But something awkward is bound +to happen. It always does, you know, with those improvements of yours." +And, sure enough, one of these enormous olives fell from the tree +straight on the saint's head, and ruined his new hat. + +"I told you so," said N. S. G. C. + +I remember a woman explaining to me that the saints in Heaven took their +food exactly as we do, and at the same hours. + +"The same food?" I asked. "Does the Madonna really eat beans?" + +"Beans? Not likely! But fried fish, and beefsteaks of veal." I tried to +picture the scene, but the effort was too much for my hereditary Puritan +leanings. Unable to rise to these heights of realism, I was rated a +pagan for my ill-timed spirituality. + +_Madame est servie. . . ._ + + + + +IX + +MOVING SOUTHWARDS + + +The train conveying me to Taranto was to halt for the night at the +second station beyond Venosa--at Spinaz-zola. Aware of this fact, I had +enquired about the place and received assuring reports as to its hotel +accommodation. But the fates were against me. On my arrival in the late +evening I learnt that the hotels were all closed long ago, the townsfolk +having gone to bed "with the chickens"; it was suggested that I had +better stay at the station, where the manageress of the restaurant kept +certain sleeping quarters specially provided for travellers in my +predicament. + +Presently the gentle dame lighted a dim lantern and led me across what +seemed to be a marsh (it was raining) to the door of a hut which was to +be my resting-place. At the entrance she paused, and after informing me +that a band of musicians had taken all the beds save one which was at my +disposal if I were good enough to pay her half a franc, she placed the +lantern in my hand and stumbled back into the darkness. + +I stepped into a low chamber, the beds of which were smothered under a +profusion of miscellaneous wraps. The air was warm--the place exhaled an +indescribable _esprit de corps._ Groping further, I reached another +apartment, vaulted and still lower than the last, an old-fashioned +cow-stable, possibly, converted into a bedroom. One glance sufficed me: +the couch was plainly not to be trusted. Thankful to be out of the rain +at least, I lit a pipe and prepared to pass the weary hours till 4 a.m. + +It was not long ere I discovered that there was another bed in this den, +opposite my own; and judging by certain undulatory and saltatory +movements within, it was occupied. Presently the head of a youth +emerged, with closed eyes and flushed features. He indulged in a series +of groans and spasmodic kicks, that subsided once more, only to +recommence. A flute projected from under his pillow. + +"This poor young man," I thought, "is plainly in bad case. On account of +illness, he has been left behind by the rest of the band, who have gone +to Spinazzola to play at some marriage festival. He is feverish, or +possibly subject to fits--to choriasis or who knows what disorder of the +nervous system. A cruel trick, to leave a suffering youngster alone in +this foul hovel." I mis-liked his symptoms--that anguished complexion +and delirious intermittent trembling, and began to run over the scanty +stock of household remedies contained in my bag, wondering which of them +might apply to his complaint. There was court plaster and boot polish, +quinine, corrosive sublimate and Worcester sauce (detestable stuff, but +indispensable hereabouts). + +Just as I had decided in favour of the last-named, he gave a more than +usually vigorous jerk, sat up in bed and, opening his eyes, remarked: + +"Those fleas!" + +This, then, was the malady. I enquired why he had not joined his +companions. + +He was tired, he said; tired of life in general, and of flute-playing in +particular. Tired, moreover, of certain animals; and with a tiger-like +spring he leapt out of bed. + +Once thoroughly awake, he proved an amiable talker, though oppressed +with an incurable melancholy which no amount of tobacco and Venosa wine +could dispel. In gravely boyish fashion he told me of his life and +ambitions. He had passed a high standard at school, but--what would +you?--every post was crowded. He liked music, and would gladly take it +up as a profession, if anything could be learnt with a band such as his; +he was sick, utterly sick, of everything. Above all things, he wished to +travel. Visions of America floated before his mind--where was the money +to come from? Besides, there was the military service looming close at +hand; and then, a widowed mother at home--the inevitable mother--with a +couple of little sisters; how shall a man desert his family? He was born +on a farm on the Murge, the watershed between this country and the +Adriatic. Thinking of the Murge, that shapeless and dismal range of +limestone hills whose name suggests its sad monotony, I began to +understand the origin of his pagan wistfulness. + +"Happy foreigners!"--such was his constant refrain--"happy foreigners, +who can always do exactly what they like! Tell me something about other +countries," he said. + +"Something true?" + +"Anything--anything!" + +To cheer him up, I replied with improbable tales of Indian life, of +rajahs and diamonds, of panthers whose eyes shine like moonbeams in the +dark jungle, of elephants huge as battleships, of sportive monkeys who +tie knots in each others' tails and build themselves huts among the +trees, where they brew iced lemonade, which they offer in friendliest +fashion to the thirsty wayfarer, together with other light +refreshment---- + +"Cigarettes as well?" + +"No. They are not allowed to cultivate tobacco." + +"Ah, that _monopolio,_ the curse of humanity!" + +He was almost smiling when, at 2.30 a.m., there resounded a furious +knocking at the door, and the rest of the band appeared from their +unknown quarters in the liveliest of spirits. Altogether, a memorable +night. But at four o'clock the lantern was extinguished and the cavern, +bereft of its Salvator-Rosa glamour, resolved itself into a prosaic and +infernally unclean hovel. Issuing from the door, I saw those murky +recesses invaded by the uncompromising light of dawn, and shuddered. . . . + +The railway journey soon dispelled the phantoms of the night. As the +train sped downhill, the sun rose in splendour behind the Murge hills, +devouring mists so thickly couched that, struck by the first beams, they +glistered like compact snow-fields, while their shaded portions might +have been mistaken for stretches of mysterious swamp, from which an +occasional clump of tree-tops emerged, black and island-like. These +dreamland effects lasted but a brief time, and soon the whole face of +the landscape was revealed. An arid region, not unlike certain parts of +northern Africa. + +Yet the line passes through places renowned in history. Who would not +like to spend a day at Altamura, if only in memory of its treatment by +the ferocious Cardinal Ruffo and his army of cut-throats? After a heroic +but vain resistance comparable only to that of Saguntum or Petelia, +during which every available metal, and even money, was converted into +bullets to repel the assailers, there followed a three days' slaughter +of young and old; then the cardinal blessed his army and pronounced, in +the blood-drenched streets, a general absolution. Even this man has +discovered apologists. No cause so vile, that some human being will not +be found to defend it. + +So much I called to mind that morning from the pages of Colletta, and +straightway formed a resolution to slip out of the carriage and arrest +my journey at Altamura for a couple of days. But I must have been asleep +while the train passed through the station, nor did I wake up again till +the blue Ionian was in sight. + +At Venosa one thinks of Roman legionaries fleeing from Hannibal, +of Horace, of Norman ambitions; Lucera and Manfredonia call up +Saracen memories and the ephemeral gleams of Hohen-staufen; Gargano +takes us back into Byzantine mysticism and monkery. And now from +Altamura with its dark record of Bourbon horrors, we glide into the +sunshine of Hellenic days when the wise Archytas, sage and lawgiver, +friend of Plato, ruled this ancient city of Tarentum. A wide sweep of +history! And if those Periclean times be not remote enough, yonder lies +Oria on its hilltop, the stronghold of pre-Hellenic and almost legendary +Messapians; while for such as desire more recent associations there is +the Albanian colony of San Giorgio, only a few miles distant, to recall +the glories of Scanderbeg and his adventurous bands. + +Herein lies the charm of travel in this land of multiple +civilizations--the ever-changing layers of culture one encounters, their +wondrous juxtaposition. + +My previous experiences of Taranto hotels counselled me to take a +private room overlooking the inland sea (the southern aspect is already +intolerably hot), and to seek my meals at restaurants. And in such a one +I have lived for the last ten days or so, reviving old memories. The +place has grown in the interval; indeed, if one may believe certain +persons, the population has increased from thirty to ninety thousand +in--I forget how few years. The arsenal brings movement into the town; +it has appropriated the lion's share of building sites in the "new" +town. Is it a ripple on the surface of things, or will it truly stir the +spirits of the city? So many arsenals have come and gone, at Taranto! + +This arsenal quarter is a fine example of the Italian mania of _fare +figura--_everything for effect. It is an agglomeration of dreary +streets, haunted by legions of clamorous black swifts, and constructed +on the rectangular principle dear to the Latin mind. Modern, and +surpassingly monotonous. Are such interminable rows of stuccoed barracks +artistic to look upon, are they really pleasant to inhabit? Is it +reasonable or even sanitary, in a climate of eight months' sunshine, to +build these enormous roadways and squares filled with glaring limestone +dust that blows into one's eyes and almost suffocates one; these Saharas +that even at the present season of the year (early June) cannot be +traversed comfortably unless one wears brown spectacles and goes veiled +like a Tuareg? This arsenal quarter must be a hell during the really not +season, which continues into October. + +For no trees whatever are planted to shade the walking population, as in +Paris or Cairo or any other sunlit city. + +And who could guess the reason? An Englishman, at least, would never +bring himself to believe what is nevertheless a fact, namely, that if +the streets are converted into shady boulevards, the rents of the houses +immediately fall. When trees are planted, the lodgers complain and +finally emigrate to other quarters; the experiment has been tried, at +Naples and elsewhere, and always with the same result. Up trees, down +rents. The tenants refuse to be deprived of their chief pleasure in +life--that of gazing at the street-passengers, who must be good enough +to walk in the sunshine for their delectation. But if you are of an +inquisitive turn of mind, you are quite at liberty to return the +compliment and to study from the outside the most intimate details of +the tenants' lives within. Take your fill of their domestic doings; +stare your hardest. They don't mind in the least, not they! That feeling +of privacy which the northerner fosters doggedly even in the centre of a +teeming city is alien to their hearts; they like to look and be looked +at; they live like fish in an aquarium. It is a result of the whole +palazzo-System that every one knows his neighbour's business better than +his own. What does it matter, in the end? Are we not all "Christians "? + +The municipality, meanwhile, is deeply indebted for the sky-piercing +ambitions which have culminated in the building of this new quarter. To +meet these obligations, the octroi prices have been raised to the +highest pitch by the City Fathers. This octroi is farmed out and +produces (they tell me) 120 pounds a day; there are some hundred +toll-collecting posts at the outskirts of the town, and the average +salary of their officials is three pounds a month. They are supposed to +be respectable and honest men, but it is difficult to see how a family +can be supported on that wage, when one knows how high the rents are, +and how severely the most ordinary commodities of life are taxed. + +I endeavoured to obtain photographs of the land as it looked ere it was +covered by the arsenal quarter, but in vain. Nobody seems to have +thought it worth while preserving what would surely be a notable +economic document for future generations. Out of sheer curiosity I also +tried to procure a plan of the old quarter, that labyrinth of +thick-clustering humanity, where the Streets are often so narrow that +two persons can barely squeeze past each other. I was informed that no +such plan had ever been drawn up; it was agreed that a map of this kind +might be interesting, and suggested, furthermore, that I might undertake +the task myself; the authorities would doubtless appreciate my labours. +We foreigners, be it understood, have ample means and unlimited leisure, +and like nothing better than doing unprofitable jobs of this kind. +[Footnote: here is a map of old Taranto in Lasor a Varea (Savonarola) +_Universus terrarum etc.,_ Vol. II, p. 552, and another in J. Blaev's +_Theatrum Civitatum_ (1663). He talks of the "rude houses" of this +town.] + +One is glad to leave the scintillating desert of this arsenal quarter, +and enter the cool stone-paved streets of the other, which remind one +somewhat of Malta. In the days of Salis-Marschlins this city possessed +only 18,000 inhabitants, and "outdid even the customary Italian filth, +being hardly passable on account of the excessive nastiness and stink." +It is now scrupulously clean--so absurdly clean, that it has quite +ceased to be picturesque. Not that its buildings are particularly +attractive to me; none, that is, save the antique "Trinita" column of +Doric gravity--sole survivor of Hellenic Taras, which looks wondrously +out of place in its modern environment. One of the finest of these +earlier monuments, the Orsini tower depicted in old prints of the place, +has now been demolished. + +Lovers of the baroque may visit the shrine of Saint Cataldo, a jovial +nightmare in stone. And they who desire a literary pendant to this +fantastic structure should read the life of the saint written by Morone +in 1642. Like the shrine, it is the quintessence of insipid exuberance; +there is something preposterous in its very title "Cataldiados," and +whoever reads through those six books of Latin hexameters will arise +from the perusal half-dazed. Somehow or other, it dislocates one's whole +sense of terrestrial values to see a frowsy old monk [Footnote: This +wandering Irish missionary is supposed to have died here in the seventh +century, and they who are not satisfied with his printed biographies +will find one in manuscript of 550 pages, compiled in 1766, in the Cuomo +Library at Naples.] treated in the heroic style and metre, as though he +were a new Achilles. As a _jeu d'esprit_ the book might pass; but it is +deadly serious. Single men will always be found to perpetrate +monstrosities of literature; the marvel is that an entire generation of +writers should have worked themselves into a state of mind which +solemnly approved of such freaks. + +Every one has heard of the strange position of this hoary island-citadel +(a metropolis, already, in neolithic days). It is of oval shape, the +broad sides washed by the Ionian Sea and an oyster-producing lagoon; +bridges connect it at one extremi-y with the arsenal or new town, and at +the other with the so-called commercial quarter. It is as if some +precious gem were set, in a ring, between two others of minor worth. Or, +to vary the simile, this acropolis, with its close-packed alleys, is the +throbbing heart of Taranto; the arsenal quarter--its head; and that +other one--well, its stomach; quite an insignificant stomach as compared +with the head and corroborative, in so far, of the views of +Metch-nikoff, who holds that this hitherto commendable organ ought now +to be reduced in size, if not abolished altogether. . . . + +From out of this window I gaze upon the purple lagoon flecked with +warships and sailing-boats; and beyond it, upon the venerable land of +Japygia, the heel of Italy, that rises in heliotrope-tinted undulations +towards the Adriatic watershed. At night-time an exquisite perfume of +flowers and ripe corn comes wafted into my room over the still waters, +and when the sun rises, white settlements begin to sparkle among its +olives and vineyards. My eyes often rest upon one of them; it is +Grottaglie, distant a few miles from Taranto on the Brindisi line. I +must visit Grottaglie, for it was here that the flying monk received his +education. + +The flying monk! + +The theme is not inappropriate at this moment, when the newspapers are +ringing with the Paris-Rome aviation contest and the achievements of +Beaumont, Garros and their colleagues. I have purposely brought his +biography with me, to re-peruse on the spot. But let me first explain +how I became acquainted with this seventeenth-century pioneer of aviation. + + +It was an odd coincidence. + +I had arrived in Naples, and was anxious to have news of the proceedings +at a certain aviation meeting in the north, where a rather inexperienced +friend of mine had insisted upon taking a part; the newspaper reports of +these entertainments are enough to disturb anybody. While admiring the +great achievements of modern science in this direction, I wished +devoutly, at that particular moment, that flying had never been +invented; and it was something of a coincidence, I say, that stumbling +in this frame of mind down one of the unspeakable little side-streets in +the neighbourhood of the University, my glance should have fallen upon +an eighteenth-century engraving in a bookseller's window which depicted +a man raised above the ground without any visible means of +support--flying, in short. He was a monk, floating before an altar. A +companion, near at hand, was portrayed as gazing in rapturous wonder at +this feat of levitation. I stepped within and demanded the volume to +which this was the frontispiece. + +The salesman, a hungry-looking old fellow with incredibly dirty hands +and face, began to explain. + +"The Flying Monk, sir, Joseph of Copertino. A mighty saint and conjuror! +Or perhaps you would like some other book? I have many, many lives of +_santi_ here. Look at this one of the great Egidio, for instance. I can +tell you all about him, for he raised my mother's grand-uncle from the +dead; yes, out of the grave, as one may say. You'll find out all about +it in this book; and it's only one of his thousand miracles. And here is +the biography of the renowned Giangiuseppe, a mighty saint and----" + +I was paying little heed; the flying monk had enthralled me. An +unsuspected pioneer of aviation . . . here was a discovery! + +"He flew?" I queried, my mind reverting to the much-vaunted triumphs of +modern science. + +"Why not? The only reason why people don't fly like that nowadays is +because--well, sir, because they can't. They fly with machines, and +think it something quite new and wonderful. And yet it's as old as the +hills! There was Iscariot, for example--Icarus, I mean----" + +"Pure legend, my good man." + +"Everything becomes legend, if the gentleman will have the goodness to +wait. And here is the biography of----" + +"How much for Joseph of Copertino?" Cost what it may, I said to myself, +that volume must be mine. + +He took it up and began to turn over the pages lovingly, as though +handling some priceless Book of Hours. + +"A fine engraving," he observed, _sotto voce._ "And this is the best of +many biographies of the flying monk. It is by Rossi, the +Minister-General of the Franciscan order to which our monk belonged; the +official biography, it might be called--dedicated, by permission, to His +Holiness Pope Clemens XIII, and based on the documents which led to the +saint's beatification. Altogether, a remarkable volume----" + +And he paused awhile. Then continued: + +"I possess a cheaper biography of him, also with a frontispiece, by +Montanari, which has the questionable advantage of being printed as +recently as 1853. And here is yet another one, by Antonio Basile--oh, he +has been much written about; a most celebrated _taumaturgo,_ +(wonder-worker)! As to this _Life_ of 1767, I could not, with a good +conscience, appraise it at less than five francs." + +"I respect your feelings. But--five francs! I have certain scruples of +my own, you know, and it irks my sense of rectitude to pay five francs +for the flying monk unless you can supply me with six or seven +additional books to be included in that sum. + +"Twelve _soldi_ (sous) apiece--that strikes me as the proper price of +such literature, for foreigners, at least. Therefore I'll have the great +Egidio as well, and Montanari's life of the flying monk, and that other +one by Basile, and Giangiuseppe, and----" + +"By all means! Pray take your choice." + +And so it came about that, relieved of a tenuous and very sticky +five-franc note, and loaded down with three biographies of the flying +monk, one of Egidio, two of Giangiuseppe--I had been hopelessly +swindled, but there! no man can bargain in a hurry, and my eagerness to +learn something of the life of this early airman had made me oblivious +of the natural values of things--and with sundry smaller volumes of +similar import bulging out of my pockets I turned in the direction of +the hotel, promising myself some new if not exactly light reading. + +But hardly had I proceeded twenty paces before the shopkeeper came +running after me with another formidable bundle under his arm. More +books! An ominous symptom--the clearest demonstration of my defeat; I +was already a marked man, a good customer. It was humiliating, after my +long years' experience of the south. + +And there resounded an unmistakable note of triumph in his voice, as he +said: + +"Some more biographies, sir. Read them at your leisure, and pay me what +you like. You cannot help being generous; I see it in your face." + +"I always try to encourage polite learning, if that is what you think to +decipher in my features. But it rains _santi_ this morning," I added, +rather sourly. + +"The gentleman is pleased to joke! May it rain _soldi_ tomorrow." + +"A little shower, possibly. But not a cloud-burst, like today. . . ." + + + + +X + +THE FLYING MONK + + +As to the flying monk, there is no doubt whatever that he deserved his +name. He flew. Being a monk, these feats of his were naturally confined +to convents and their immediate surroundings, but that does not alter +the facts of the case. + +Of the flights that he took in the little town of Copertino-alone, more +than seventy, says Father Rossi whom I follow throughout, are on record +in the depositions which were taken on oath from eye-witnesses after his +death. This is one of them, for example: + +"Stupendous likewise was the _ratto_ (flight or rapture) which he +exhibited on a night of Holy Thursday. . . . He suddenly flew towards +the altar in a straight line, leaving untouched all the ornaments of +that structure; and after some time, being called back by his superior, +returned flying to the spot whence he had set out." + +And another: + +"He flew similarly upon an olive tree . . . and there remained in +kneeling posture for the space of half an hour. A marvellous thing it +was to see the branch which sustained him swaying lightly, as though a +bird had alighted upon it." + +But Copertino is a remote little place, already famous in the annals of +miraculous occurrences. It can be urged that a kind of enthusiasm for +their distinguished brother-monk may have tempted the inmates of the +convent to exaggerate his rare gifts. Nothing of the kind. He performed +flights not only in Copertino, but in various large towns of Italy, such +as Naples, Rome, and Assisi. And the spectators were by no means an +assemblage of ignorant personages, but men whose rank and credibility +would have weight in any section of society. + +"While the Lord High Admiral of Castille, Ambassador of Spain at the +Vatican, was passing through Assisi in the year 1645, the custodian of +the convent commanded Joseph to descend from the room into the church, +where the Admiral's lady was waiting for him, desirous of seeing him. +and speaking to him; to whom Joseph replied, 'I will obey, but I do not +know whether I shall be able to speak to her.' And, as a matter of fact, +hardly had he entered the church and raised his eyes to a statue . . . +situated above the altar, when he threw himself into a flight in order +to embrace its feet at a distance of twelve paces, passing over the +heads of all the congregation; then, after remaining there some time, he +flew back over them with his usual cry, and immediately returned to his +cell. The Admiral was amazed, his wife fainted away, and all the +onlookers became piously terrified." + +And if this does not suffice to win credence, the following will +assuredly do so: + +"And since it was God's wish to render him marvellous even in the sight +of men of the highest sphere, He ordained that Joseph, having arrived in +Rome, should be conducted one day by the Father-General (of the +Franciscan Order) to kiss the feet of the High Pontiff, Urban the +Eighth; in which act, while contemplating Jesus Christ in the person of +His Vicar, he was ecstatically raised in air, and thus remained till +called back by the General, to whom His Holiness, highly astonished, +turned and said that 'if Joseph were to die during his pontificate, he +himself would bear witness to this _successo.'"_ + +But his most remarkable flights took place at Fossombrone, where once +"detaching himself in swiftest manner from the altar with a cry like +thunder, he went, like lightning, gyrating hither and thither about the +chapel, and with such an impetus that he made all the cells of the +dormitory tremble, so that the monks, issuing thence in consternation, +cried, 'An earthquake! An earthquake!'" Here, too, he cast a young sheep +into the air, and took flight after it to the height of the trees, where +he "remained in kneeling posture, ecstatic and with extended arms, for +more than two hours, to the extraordinary marvel of the clergy who +witnessed this." This would seem to have been his outdoor record--two +hours without descent to earth. + +Sometimes, furthermore, he took a passenger, if such a term can properly +be applied. + +So once, while the monks were at prayers, he was observed to rise up and +run swiftly towards the Confessor of the convent, and "seizing him by +the hand, he raised him from the ground by supernatural force, and with +jubilant rapture drew him along, turning him round and round in a +_violento ballo;_ the Confessor moved by Joseph, and Joseph by God." + +And what happened at Assisi is still more noteworthy, for here +was a gentleman, a suffering invalid, whom Joseph "snatched by the hair, +and, uttering his customary cry of 'oh!' raised himself from the earth, +while he drew the other after him by his hair, carrying him in this +fashion for a short while through the air, to the intensest admiration +of the spectators." The patient, whose name was Chevalier Baldassarre, +discovered, on touching earth again, that he had been cured by this +flight of a severe nervous malady which had hitherto afflicted him. . . . + +Searching in the biography for some other interesting traits of Saint +Joseph of Copertino, I find, in marked contrast to his heaven-soaring +virtues, a humility of the profoundest kind. Even as a full-grown man he +retained the exhilarating, childlike nature of the pure in heart. "_La +Mamma mia_"--thus he would speak, in playful-saintly fashion, of the +Mother of God--"_la Mamma mia_ is capricious. When I bring Her flowers, +She tells me She does not want them; when I bring Her candles, She also +does not want them; and when I ask Her what She wants, She says, 'I +want the heart, for I feed only on hearts.'" What wonder if the "mere +pronouncement of the name of Maria often sufficed to raise him from the +ground into the air"? + +Nevertheless, the arch-fiend was wont to creep into his cell at night +and to beat and torture him; and the monks of the convent were terrified +when they heard the hideous din of echoing blows and jangling chains. +"We were only having a little game," he would then say. This is +refreshingly boyish. He once induced a flock of sheep to enter the +chapel, and while he recited to them the litany, it was observed with +amazement that "they responded at the proper place to his verses--he +saying _Sancta Maria,_ and they answering, after their manner, _Bah!"_ + +I am not disguising from myself that an incident like the last-named may +smack of childishness to a certain austere type of northern Puritan. +Childishness! But to go into this question of the relative hilarity and +moroseness of religions would take us far afield; for aught I know it +may, at bottom, be a matter of climatic influences, and there we can +leave it. Under the sunny sky of Italy, who would not be disposed to see +the bright side of things? + +Saint Joseph of Copertino performed a variety of other miracles. He +multiplied bread and wine, calmed a tempest, drove out devils, caused +the lame to walk and the blind to see--all of which are duly attested by +eye-witnesses on oath. Though "illiterate," he had an innate knowledge +of ecclesiastical dogma; he detected persons of impure life by their +smell, and sinners were revealed to his eyes with faces of black colour +(the Turks believe that on judgment day the damned will be thus marked); +he enjoyed the company of two guardian angels, which were visible not +only to himself but to other people. And, like all too many saints, he +duly fell into the clutches of the Inquisition, ever on the look-out for +victims pious or otherwise. + +There is one little detail which it would be disingenuous to slur over. +It is this. We are told that Saint Joseph was awkward and backward in +his development. As a child his boy-comrades used to laugh at him for +his open-mouthed staring habits; they called him "bocca-aperta" +(gape-mouth), and in the frontispiece to Montanari's life of him, which +depicts him as a bearded man of forty or fifty, his mouth is still +agape; he was, moreover, difficult to teach, and Rossi says he profited +very little by his lessons and was of _niuna letteratura._ As a lad of +seventeen he could not distinguish white bread from brown, and he used +to spill water-cans, break vases and drop plates to such an extent that +the monks of the convent who employed him were obliged, after eight +months' probation, to dismiss him from their service. He was unable to +pass his examination as priest. At the age of twenty-five he was +ordained by the Bishop of Castro, without that formality. + +All this points to a certain weak-mindedness or arrested development, +and were this an isolated case one might be inclined to think that the +church had made Saint Joseph an object of veneration on the same +principles as do the Arabs, who elevate idiots, epileptics, and +otherwise deficient creatures to the rank of marabouts, and credit them +with supernatural powers. + +But it is not an isolated case. The majority of these southern saints +are distinguished from the vulgar herd by idiosyncrasies to which modern +physicians give singular names such as "gynophobia," "glossolalia" and +"demonomania"; [Footnote: Good examples of what Max Nordau calls +_Echolalie_ are to be found in this biography (p. 22).] even the founder +of the flying monk's order, the great Francis of Assisi, has been +accused of some strange-sounding mental disorder because, with touching +humility, he doffed his vestments and presented himself naked before his +Creator. What are we to conclude therefrom? + +The flying monk resembles Saint Francis in more than one feature. He, +too, removed his clothes and even his shirt, and exposed himself thus to +a crucifix, exclaiming, "Here I am, Lord, deprived of everything." He +followed his prototype, further, in that charming custom of introducing +the animal world into his ordinary talk ("Brother Wolf, Sister Swallow," +etc.). So Joseph used to speak of himself as _l'asinelio--_the little +ass; and a pathetic scene was witnessed on his death-bed when he was +heard to mutter: "_L'asinelio_ begins to climb the mountain; +_l'asinelio_ is half-way up; _l'asinelio_ has reached the summit; +_l'asinelio_ can go no further, and is about to leave his skin behind." + +It is to be noted, in this connection, that Saint Joseph of Coper-tino +was born in a stable. + +This looks like more than a mere coincidence. For the divine Saint +Francis was likewise born in a stable. + +But why should either of these holy men be born in stables? + +A reasonable explanation lies at hand. A certain Japanese statesman is +credited with that shrewd remark that the manifold excellencies and +diversities of Hellenic art are due to the fact that the Greeks had no +"old masters" to copy from--no "schools" which supplied their +imagination with ready-made models that limit and smother individual +initiative. And one marvels to think into what exotic beauties these +southern saints would have blossomed, had they been at liberty, like +those Greeks, freely to indulge their versatile genius--had they not +been bound to the wheels of inexorable precedent. If the flying monk, +for example, were an ordinary mortal, there was nothing to prevent him +from being born in an omnibus or some other of the thousand odd places +where ordinary mortals occasionally are born. But--no! As a Franciscan +saint, he was obliged to conform to the school of Bethlehem and Assisi. +He was obliged to select a stable. Such is the force of tradition. . . . + +Joseph of Copertino lived during the time of the Spanish viceroys, and +his fame spread not only over all Italy, but to France, Germany and +Poland. Among his intimates and admirers were no fewer than eight +cardinals, Prince Leopold of Tuscany, the Duke of Bouillon, Isabella of +Austria, the Infanta Maria of Savoy and the Duke of Brunswick, who, +during a visit to various courts of Europe in 1649, purposely went to +Assisi to see him, and was there converted from the Lutheran heresy by +the spectacle of one of his flights. Prince Casimir, heir to the throne +of Poland, was his particular friend, and kept up a correspondence with +him after the death of his father and his own succession to the throne. + +Towards the close of his life, the flying monk became so celebrated that +his superiors were obliged to shut him up in the convent of Osimo, in +close confinement, in order that his aerial voyages "should not be +disturbed by the concourse of the vulgar." And here he expired, in his +sixty-first year, on the 18th September, 1663. He had been suffering and +infirm for some little time previous to that event, but managed to take +a short flight on the very day preceding his demise. + +Forthwith the evidences of his miraculous deeds were collected and +submitted to the inspired examination of the Sacred Congregation of +Rites in Rome. Their conscientiousness in sifting and weighing the +depositions is sufficiently attested by the fact that ninety years were +allowed to elapse ere Joseph of Copertino was solemnly received into the +number of the Blessed. This occurred in 1753; and though the date may +have been accidentally chosen, some people will be inclined to detect +the hand of Providence in the ordering of the event, as a challenge to +Voltaire, who was just then disquieting Europe with certain doctrines of +a pernicious nature. + + + + +XI + +BY THE INLAND SEA + + +The railway line to Grottaglie skirts the shore of the inland sea for +two or three miles, and then turns away. Old Taranto glimmers in lordly +fashion across the tranquil waters; a sense of immemorial culture +pervades this region of russet tilth, and olives, and golden corn. + +They led me, at Grottaglie, to the only convent of males now in use, San +Francesco, recently acquired by the Jesuits. In the sacristy of its +church, where I was told to wait, a slender young priest was praying +rapturously before some image, and the clock that stood at hand recorded +the flight of twenty minutes ere his devotions were ended. Then he arose +slowly and turned upon me a pair of lustrous, dreamy eyes, as though +awakened from another world. + +This was quite a new convent, he explained; it could not possibly be the +one I was seeking. But there was another one, almost a ruin, and now +converted into a refuge for a flock of poor old women; he would gladly +show me the way. Was I a "Germanese"? [Footnote: _Germanese_ or +_Allemanno = a_ German. _Tedesco,_ hereabouts, signifies an Austrian--a +detested nationality, even at this distance of time. I have wondered, +since writing the above, whether this is really the place of which Rossi +speaks. He calls it Grottole (the difference in spelling would be of +little account), and says it lies not far distant from Copertino. But +there may be a place of this name still nearer; it is a common +appellation in these honeycombed limestone districts. This Grottaglie +_is_ certainly the birth-place of another religious hero, the +priest-brigand Ciro, who gave so much trouble to Sir R. Church.] No, I +replied; I came from Scotland. + +"A Calvinist," he remarked, without bitterness. + +"A Presbyterian," I gently corrected. + +"To be sure--a Presbyterian." + +As we walked along the street under the glowing beams of midday I set +forth the object of my visit. He had never heard of the flying monk--it +was astonishing, he said. He would look up the subject without delay. +The flying monk! That a Protestant should come all the way from "the +other end of the world" to enquire about a local Catholic saint of +whose existence he himself was unaware, seemed not so much to surprise +as positively to alarm him. + +Among other local curiosities, he pointed out the portal of the parish +church, a fine but dilapidated piece of work, with a large rosette +window overhead. The town, he told me, derives its name from certain +large grottoes wherein the inhabitants used to take refuge during +Saracen raids. This I already knew, from the pages of Swinburne and +Sanchez; and in my turn was able to inform him that a certain Frenchman, +Bertaux by name, had written about the Byzantine wall-paintings within +these caves. Yes, those old Greeks! he said. And that accounted for the +famous ceramics of the place, which preserved the Hellenic traditions in +extraordinary purity. I did not inform him that Hector Preconi, who +purposely visited Grottaglie to study these potteries, was considerably +disappointed. + +At the door of the decayed convent my guide left me, with sundry polite +expressions of esteem. I entered a spacious open courtyard; a well stood +in the centre of a bare enclosure whereon, in olden days, the monks may +have cultivated their fruit and vegetables; round this court there ran +an arched passage, its walls adorned with frescoes, now dim and faded, +depicting sacred subjects. The monastery itself was a sombre maze of +stairways and cells and corridors--all the free spaces, including the +very roof, encumbered with gleaming potteries of every shape and size, +that are made somewhere near the premises. + +I wandered about this sunless and cobwebby labyrinth, the old woman +pensioners flitting round me like bats in the twilight. I peered into +many dark closets; which of them was it--Joseph's famous +blood-bespattered cell? + +"He tormented his body so continuously and obstinately with pins, +needles and blades of steel, and with such effusion of blood, that even +now, after entire years, the walls of his cell and other places of +retirement are discoloured and actually encrusted with blood." Which of +them was it--the chamber that witnessed these atrocious macerations? It +was all so gloomy and forlorn. + +Then, pushing aside a door in these tenebrous regions, I suddenly found +myself bathed in dazzling light. A loggia opened here, with a view over +stretches of gnarled olives, shining all silvery under the immaculate +sky of noonday and bounded by the sapphire belt of the Ionian. Sunshine +and blue sea! Often must the monks have taken pleasure in this fair +prospect; and the wiser among them, watching the labourers returning +home at nightfall, the children at play, and all the happy life of a +world so alien to their own, may well have heaved a sigh. + +Meanwhile a crowd of citizens had assembled below, attracted by the +unusual novelty of a stranger in their town. The simple creatures +appeared to regard my investigations in the light of a good joke; they +had heard of begging monks, and thieving monks, and monks of another +variety whose peculiarities I dare not attempt to describe; but a flying +monk--no, never! + +"The Dark Ages," said one of them--the mayor, I dare say--with an air of +grave authority. "Believe me, dear sir, the days of such fabulous +monsters are over." + +So they seem to be, for the present. + +No picture or statue records the life of this flying wonder, this +masterpiece of Spanish priestcraft; no mural tablet--in this land of +commemorative stones--has been erected to perpetuate the glory of his +signal achievements; no street is called after him. It is as if he had +never existed. On the contrary, by a queer irony of fate, the roadway +leading past his convent evokes the memory of a misty heathen poet, +likewise native of these favoured regions, a man whose name Joseph of +Copertino had assuredly never heard--Ennius, of whom I can now recall +nothing save that one unforgettable line which begins "O Tite tute Tati +tibi----"; Ennius, who never so much as tried to fly, but contented +himself with singing, in rather bad Latin, of the things of this earth. + +_Via Ennio. . . ._ + +It is the swing of the pendulum. The old pagan, at this moment, may be +nearer to our ideals and aspirations than the flying monk who died only +yesterday, so to speak. + +But a few years hence--who can tell? + +A characteristic episode. I had carefully timed myself to catch the +returning train to Tarante. Great was my surprise when, half-way to the +station, I perceived the train swiftly approaching. I raced it, and +managed to jump into a carriage just as it drew out of the station. The +guard straightway demanded my ticket and a fine for entering the train +without one (return tickets, for weighty reasons of "internal +administration," are not sold). I looked at my watch, which showed that +we had left six minutes before the scheduled hour. He produced his; it +coincided with my own. "No matter," he said. "I am not responsible for +the eccentricities of the driver, who probably had some urgent private +affairs to settle at Taranto. The fine must be paid." A fellow-passenger +took a more charitable view of the case. He suggested that an inspector +of the line had been travelling along with us, and that the driver, +knowing this, was naturally ambitious to show how fast he could go. + +A mile or so before reaching Tarante the railway crosses a stream that +flows into the inland sea. One would be glad to believe those sages who +hold it to be the far-famed Galaesus. It rises near at hand in a marsh, +amid mighty tufts of reeds and odorous flowers, and the liquid bubbles +up in pools of crystalline transparency--deep and perfidious cauldrons +overhung by the trembling soil on which you stand. These fountains form +a respectable stream some four hundred yards in length; another copious +spring rises up in the sea near its mouth. But can this be the river +whose virtues are extolled by: Virgil, Horace, Martial, Statius, +Propertius, Strabo, Pliny, Varro and Coramella? What a constellation of +names around these short-lived waters! Truly, _minuit praesentia +famam,_ as Boccaccio says of the once-renowned Sebethus. + +Often have I visited this site and tried to reconstruct its vanished +glories. My enthusiasm even led me, some years ago, to the town hall, in +order to ascertain its true official name, and here they informed me +that "it is vulgarly called Citrezze; but the correct version is 'Le +Giadrezze,' which, as you are aware, sir, signifies _pleasantness"_ +This functionary was evidently ignorant of the fact that so long ago as +1771 the learned commentator (Carducci) of the "Delizie Tarentine" +already sneered at this popular etymology; adding, what is of greater +interest, that "in the time of our fathers" this region was covered with +woods and rich in game. In the days of Keppel Craven, the vale was +"scantily cultivated with cotton." Looking at it from above, it +certainly resembles an old river-bed of about five hundred yards in +breadth, and I hold it possible that the deforestation of the higher +lands may have suffocated the original sources with soil carried down +from thence, and forced them to seek a lower level, thus shortening the +stream and reducing its volume of water. + +But who shall decide? If we follow Polybius, another brook at the +further end of the inland sea has more valid claims to the title of +Galaesus. Virgil called it "black Galaesus "--a curious epithet, still +applied to water in Italy as well as in Greece (Mavromati, etc.). "For +me," says Gissing, "the Galaesus is the stream I found and tracked, +whose waters I heard mingle with the little sea." There is something to +be said for such an attitude, on the part of a dilettante traveller, +towards these desperate antiquarian controversies. + +It is an agreeable promenade from the Giadrezze rivulet to Taranto along +the shore of this inland sea. Its clay banks are full of shells and +potteries of every age, and the shallow waters planted with stakes +indicating the places where myriads of oysters and mussels are +bred--indeed, if you look at a map you will observe that the whole of +this lagoon, as though to shadow forth its signification, is split up +into two basins like an opened oyster. + +Here and there along this beach are fishermen's huts constructed of +tree-stems which are smothered under multitudinous ropes of grass, ropes +of all ages and in every stage of decomposition, some fairly fresh, +others dissolving once more into amorphous bundles of hay. There is a +smack of the stone ages, of primeval lake-dwellings, about these +shelters on the deserted shore; two or three large fetichistic stones +stand near their entrance; wickerwork objects of dark meaning strew the +ground; a few stakes emerge, hard by, out of the placid and oozy waters. +In such a cabin, methinks, dwelt those two old fishermen of +Theocritus--here they lived and slumbered side by side on a couch of sea +moss, among the rude implements of their craft. + +The habits of these fisherfolk are antique, because the incidents of +their calling have remained unchanged. Some people have detected traces +of "Greek" in the looks and language of these of Tarante. I can detect +nothing of the kind. + +And the same with the rest of the population. Hellenic traits have +disappeared from Tarante, as well they may have done, when one remembers +its history. It was completely latinized under Augustus, and though +Byzantines came hither under Nicephorus Phocas--Benjamin of Tudela says +the inhabitants are "Greeks"--they have long ago become merged into +the Italian element. Only the barbers seem to have preserved something +of the old traditions: grandiloquent and terrible talkers, like the +cooks in Athenasus. + +I witnessed an Aristophanic scene in one of their shops lately, when a +simple-minded stranger, a north Italian--some arsenal official--brought +a little boy to have his hair cut "not too short" and, on returning +from a brief visit to the tobacconist next door, found it cropped much +closer than he liked. + +"But, damn it," he said (or words to that effect), "I told you not to +cut the hair too short." + +The barber, immaculate and imperturbable, gave a preliminary bow. He was +collecting his thoughts, and his breath. + +"I say, I told you not to cut it too short. It looks horrible----" +"Horrible? That, sir--pardon my frankness!--is a matter of opinion. I +fully admit that you desired the child's hair to be cut not too short. +Those, in fact, were your very words. Notwithstanding, I venture to +think you will come round to my point of view, on due reflection, like +most of my esteemed customers. In the first place, there is the +ethnological aspect of the question. You are doubtless sufficiently +versed in history to know that under the late regime it was considered +improper, if not criminal, to wear a moustache. Well, nowadays we think +differently. Which proves that fashions change; yes, they change, sir; +and the wise man bends to them--up to a certain point, of course; up to +a certain reasonable point----" "But, damn it----" + +"And in favour of my contention that hair should be worn short nowadays, +I need only cite the case of His Majesty the King, whose august head, we +all know, is clipped like that of a racehorse. Horrible (as you call it) +or not, the system has momentarily the approval of royalty, and that +alone should suffice for all loyal subjects to deem it not unworthy of +imitation. Next, there are what one might describe as hygienic and +climatic considerations. Summer is approaching, sir, and apart from +certain unpleasant risks which I need not specify, you will surely agree +with me that the solstitial heat is a needlessly severe trial for a boy +with long hair. My own children are all cropped close, and I have reason +to think they are grateful for it. Why not yours? Boys may differ in +strength or complexion, in moral character and mental attainments, but +they are remarkably unanimous as to what constitutes personal comfort. +And it is obviously the duty of parents to consult the personal comfort +of their offspring--within certain reasonable limits, of course----" + +"But----" + +"Lastly, we come to the much-debated point: I mean the aesthetic side of +the matter. No doubt, to judge by some old pictures such as those of the +renowned Mantegna, there must have been a time when men thought long +hair in children rather beautiful than otherwise. And I am not so +rigorous as to deny a certain charm to these portraits--a charm which is +largely due I fancy, to the becoming costumes of the period. At the same +time----" + +The stranger did not trust himself to listen any longer. He threw down a +coin and walked out of the shop with his son, muttering something not +very complimentary to the barber's female relations. + +But the other was quite unmoved. "And after all," he continued, +addressing the half-opened door through which his visitor had fled, "the +true question is this: What is 'too short'? Don't cut it too short, +you said. _Che vuol dire?_ An ambiguous phrase! + +"Too short for one man may be too long for another. Everything is +relative. Yes, gentlemen" (turning to myself and his shop-assistant), +"everything on this earth is relative." + +With this sole exception, I have hitherto garnered no Hellenic traits in +Taranto. + +Visible even from Giadrezze, on the other side of the inland sea and +beyond the arsenal, there stands a tall, solitary palm. It is the last, +the very last, or almost the very last, of a race of giants that adorned +the gardens which have now been converted into the "New Quarter." I +imagine it is the highest existing palm in Italy, and am glad to have +taken a likeness of it, ere it shall have been cut down like the rest of +its fellows. Taranto was once celebrated for these queenly growths, +which the Saracens brought over from their flaming Africa. + +The same fate has overtaken the trees of the Villa Beaumont, which used +to be a shady retreat, but was bought by the municipality and forthwith +"pulizzato"--i.e. cleaned. This is in accordance with that +_mutilomania_ of the south: that love of torturing trees which causes +them to prune pines till they look like paint-brushes that had been out +all night, and which explains their infatuation for the much-enduring +robinia that allows itself to be teased into any pattern suggested by +their unhealthy phantasy. It is really as if there were something +offensive to the Latin mind in the sight of a well-grown tree, as if man +alone had the right of expanding normally. But I must not do the City +Fathers an injustice. They have planted two rows of cryp-tomerias. Will +people never learn that cryptomerias cannot flourish in south Italy? +Instead of this amateurish gardening, why not consult some competent +professional, who with bougain-villeas, hibiscus and fifty other such +plants would soon transform this favoured spot into a miniature paradise? + +The Villa Beaumont and the road along the Admiralty canal are now the +citizens' chief places of disport. Before the year 1869 the Corso +Vittorio Emmanuele, that skirts the sea on the south side of the old +town, was their sole promenade. And even this street was built only a +short time ago. Vainly one conjectures where the medieval Tarentines +took the air. It must have been like Manfredonia at the present day. + +This Corso, which has a most awkward pavement and is otherwise +disagreeable as looking due south, becomes interesting after sunset. +Here you may see the young bloods of Taranto leaning in rows against the +railing with their backs to the sea--they are looking across the road +whence, from balconies and windows, the fair sex are displaying their +charms. Never a word is spoken. They merely gaze at each other like +lovesick puppies; and after watching the performance for several +evenings, I decided in favour of robuster methods--I decided that +courtship, under conditions such as the Corso supplies, can only be +pursued by the very young or the hopelessly infatuated. But in the +south, this gazing is only part of a huge game. They are not really in +love at all, these excellent young men--not at all, at all; they know +better. They are only pretending, because it looks manly. + +We must revise our conceptions as to the love-passions of these +southerners; no people are more fundamentally sane in matters of the +heart; they have none of our obfuscated sentimentality; they are seldom +naively enamoured, save in early stages of life. It is then that small +girls of eight or ten may be seen furtively recording their feelings on +the white walls of their would-be lovers' houses; these archaic scrawls +go straight to the point, and are models of what love-letters may +ultimately become, in the time-saving communities of the future. But +when the adolescent and perfumed-pink-paper stage is reached, the +missives relapse into barbarous ambiguity; they grow allegorical and +wilfully exuberant as a Persian carpet, the effigy of a pierced heart at +the end, with enormous blood-drops oozing from it, alone furnishing a +key to the document. + +So far they are in earnest, and it is the girl who takes the lead; her +youthful _innamorato_ ties these letters into bundles and returns them +conscientiously, in due course, to their respective senders. Seldom does +a boy make overtures in love; he gets more of it than he knows what to +do with; he is still torpid, and slightly bored by all these attentions. + +But presently he wakes up to the fact that he is a man among men, and +the obsession of "looking manly" becomes a part of his future artificial +and rhetorical life-scheme. From henceforth he plays to the gallery. + +Reading the city papers, one would think that south Italian youths are +the most broken-hearted creatures in the world; they are always trying +to poison themselves for love. Sometimes they succeed, of course; but +sometimes--dear me, no! Suicides look manly, that is all. They are part +of the game. The more sensible youngsters know exactly how much +corrosive sublimate to take without immediate fatal consequences, +allowing for time to reach the nearest hospital. There, the kindly +physician and his stomach-pump will perform their duty, and the patient +wears a feather in his cap for the rest of his life. The majority of +these suicides are on a par with French duels--a harmless institution +whereby the protagonists honour themselves; they confer, as it were, a +patent of virility. The country people are as warmblooded as the +citizens, but they rarely indulge in suicides because--well, there are +no hospitals handy, and the doctor may be out on his rounds. It is too +risky by half. + +And a good proportion of these suicides are only simulated. The wily +victim buys some innocuous preparation which sends him into convulsions +with ghastly symptoms of poisoning, and, after treatment, remains the +enviable hero of a mysterious masculine passion. Ask any town +apothecary. A doctor friend of mine lately analysed the results of his +benevolent exertions upon a young man who had been seen to drink some +dreadful liquid out of a bottle, and was carried to his surgery, +writhing in most artistic agonies. He found not only no poison, but not +the slightest trace of any irritant whatever. + +The true courtship of these Don Giovannis of Tarante will be quite +another affair--a cash transaction, and no credit allowed. They will +select a life partner, upon the advice of _ma mere_ and a strong +committee of uncles and aunts, but not until the military service is +terminated. Everything in its proper time and place. + +Meanwhile they gaze and perhaps even serenade. This looks as if they +were furiously in love, and has therefore been included among the rules +of the game. Youth must keep up the poetic tradition of "fiery." +Besides, it is an inexpensive pastime--the cinematograph costs forty +centimes--and you really cannot sit in the barber's all night long. + +But catch them marrying the wrong girl! + +POSTSCRIPT.--Here are two samples of youthful love-letters from my +collection. + +1.--From a disappointed maiden, aged 13. Interesting, because +intermediate between the archaic and pink-paper stages: + +"IDOL OF MY HEART, + +"Do not the stars call you when you look to Heaven? Does not the moon +tell you, the black-cap on the willow when it says farewell to the sun? +The birds of nature, the dreary country sadly covered by a few flowers +that remain there? Once your look was passionate and pierced me like a +sunny ray, now it seems the flame of a day. Does nothing tell you of +imperishable love?" I love you and love you as (illegible) loves its +liberty, as the corn in the fields loves the sun, as the sailor loves +the sea tranquil or stormy. To you I would give my felicity, my future; +for one of your words I would spill my blood drop by drop. + +"Of all my lovers you are the only ideal consort _(consorto)_ to whom I +would give my love and all the expansion of my soul and youthful +enthusiasm _(intusiamo),_ the greatest enthusiasm _(co-tusiamo)_ my +heart has ever known. O cruel one who has deigned to put his sweet +poison in my heart to-day, while to-morrow you will pass me with +indifference. Cold, proud as ever, serious and disdainful--you +understand? However that may be, I send you the unrepenting cry of my +rebellious heart: I love you! + +"It is late at night, and I am still awake, and at this hour my soul is +sadder than ever in its great isolation _(insolamende);_ I look on my +past love and your dear image. Too much I love you and (illegible) +without your affection. + +"How sadly I remember your sweet words whispered on a pathetic evening +when everything around was fair and rosy. How happy I then was when life +seemed radiant with felicity and brightened by your love. And now +nothing more remains of it; everything is finished. How sad even to say +it. My heart is shipwrecked far, far away from that happiness which I +sought." + +(Three further pages of this.) + +2.--From a boy of 14 who takes the initiative; such letters are rare. +Note the business-like brevity. + +"DEAR MISS ANNE, + +"I write you these few lines to say that I have understood your character +_ (carattolo)._ Therefore, if I may have the honour of being your +sweetheart, you will let me know the answer at your pleasure. I salute +you, and remain, + +"Signing myself, "SALVATORE. + +"Prompt reply requested!" + + + + +XII + +MOLLE TARENTUM + + +One looks into the faces of these Tarentines and listens to their casual +conversations, trying to unravel what manner of life is theirs. But it +is difficult to avoid reading into their characters what history leads +one to think should be there. + +The upper classes, among whom I have some acquaintance, are mellow and +enlightened; it is really as if something of the honied spirit of those +old Greek sages still brooded over them. Their charm lies in the fact +that they are civilized without being commercialized. Their politeness +is unstrained, their suaveness congenital; they remind me of that New +England type which for Western self-assertion substitutes a yielding +graciousness of disposition. So it is with persistent gentle upbringing, +at Taranto and elsewhere. It tones the individual to reposeful +sweetness; one by one, his anfractuosities are worn off; he becomes as a +pebble tossed in the waters, smooth, burnished, and (to outward +appearances) indistinguishable from his fellows. + +But I do not care about the ordinary city folk. They have an air of +elaborate superciliousness which testifies to ages of systematic +half-culture. They seem to utter that hopeless word, _connu!_ And what, +as a matter of fact, do they know? They are only dreaming in their +little backwater, like the oysters of the lagoon, distrustful of +extraneous matter and oblivious of the movement in a world of men beyond +their shell. You hear next to nothing of "America," that fruitful source +of fresh notions; there is no emigration to speak of; the population is +not sufficiently energetic--they prefer to stay at home. Nor do they +care much about the politics of their own country: one sees less +newspapers here than in most Italian towns. "Our middle classes," said +my friend the Italian deputy of whom I have already spoken, "are like +our mules: to be endurable, they must be worked thirteen hours out of +the twelve." But these have no industries to keep them awake, no sports, +no ambitions; and this has gone on for long centuries, In Taranto it is +always afternoon. "The Tarentines," says Strabo, "have more holidays +than workdays in the year." + +And never was city-population more completely cut off from the country; +never was wider gulf between peasant and townsman. There are charming +walks beyond the New Quarter--a level region, with olives and figs and +almonds and pomegranates standing knee-deep in ripe odorous wheat; but +the citizens might be living at Timbuctu for all they know of these +things. It rains little here; on the occasion of my last visit not a +drop had fallen _for fourteen months;_ and consequently the country +roads are generally smothered in dust. Now, dusty boots are a scandal +and an offence in the eyes of the gentle burghers, who accordingly never +issue out of their town walls. They have forgotten the use of ordinary +appliances of country life, such as thick boots and walking-sticks; you +will not see them hereabouts. Unaware of this idiosyncrasy, I used to +carry a stick on my way through the streets into the surroundings, but +left it at home on learning that I was regarded as a kind of +perambulating earthquake. The spectacle of a man clattering through the +streets on horseback, such as one often sees at Venosa, would cause them +to barricade their doors and prepare for the last judgment. + +Altogether, essentially nice creatures, lotus-eaters, fearful of fuss or +novelty, and drowsily satisfied with themselves and life in general. The +breezy healthfulness of travel, the teachings of art or science, the +joys of rivers and green lanes--all these things are a closed book to +them. Their interests are narrowed down to the purely human: a case of +partial atrophy. For the purely human needs a corrective; it is not +sufficiently humbling, and that is exactly what makes them so +supercilious. We must take a little account of the Cosmos nowadays--it +helps to rectify our bearings. They have their history, no doubt. But +save for that one gleam of Periclean sunshine the record, though long +and varied, is sufficiently inglorious and does not testify to undue +exertions. + +A change is at hand. + +Gregorovius lamented the filthy condition of the old town. It is now +spotless. + +He deplored that Taranto possessed no museum. This again is changed, and +the provincial museum here is justly praised, though the traveller may +be annoyed at finding his favourite rooms temporarily closed (is there +any museum in Italy not "partially closed for alterations"?). New +accessions to its store are continually pouring in; so they lately +discovered, in a tomb, a Hellenistic statuette of Eros and Aphrodite, 30 +centimetres high, terra-cotta work of the third century. The goddess +stands, half-timidly, while Eros alights in airy fashion on her +shoulders and fans her with his wings--an exquisite little thing. + +He was grieved, likewise, that no public collection of books existed +here. But the newly founded municipal library is all that can be +desired. The stranger is cordially welcomed within its walls and may +peruse, at his leisure, old Galateus, Giovan Giovene, and the rest of them. + +Wandering among those shelves, I hit upon a recent volume (1910) which +gave me more food for thought than any of these ancients. It is called +"Cose di Puglie," and contains some dozen articles, all by writers of +this province of old Calabria, [Footnote: It included the heel of +Italy.] on matters of exclusively local interest--its history, +meteorology, dialects, classical references to the country, extracts +from old economic documents, notes on the development of Apulian +printing, examples of modern local caricature, descriptions of mediaeval +monuments; a kind of anthology, in short, of provincial lore. The +typography, paper and illustrations of this remarkable volume are beyond +all praise; they would do honour to the best firm in London or Paris. +What is this book? It is no commercial speculation at all; it is a +wedding present to a newly married couple--a bouquet of flowers, of +intellectual blossoms, culled from their native Apulian meadows. One +notes with pleasure that the happy pair are neither dukes nor princes. +There is no trace of snobbishness in the offering, which is simply a +spontaneous expression of good wishes on the part of a few friends. But +surely it testifies to most refined feelings. How immeasurably does this +permanent and yet immaterial feast differ from our gross wedding +banquets and ponderous gilt clocks and tea services! Such persons +cannot but have the highest reverence for things of the mind; such a +gift is the fairest efflorescence of civilization. And this is only +another aspect of that undercurrent of spirituality in south Italy of +whose existence the tourist, harassed by sordid preoccupations, remains +wholly unaware. + +This book was printed at Bari. Bari, not long ago, consisted of a dark +and tortuous old town, exactly like the citadel of Taranto. It has now +its glaring New Quarter, not a whit less disagreeable than the one here. +Why should Taranto not follow suit in the matter of culture? Heraclea, +Sybaris and all the Greek settlements along this coast have vanished +from earth; only Taranto and Cotrone have survived to carry on, if they +can, the old traditions. They have survived, thanks to peculiar physical +conditions that have safeguarded them from invaders. . . . + +But these very conditions have entailed certain drawbacks--drawbacks +which Buckle would have lovingly enumerated to prove their influence +upon the habits and disposition of the Tarentines. That marine situation +. . . only think of three thousand years of scirocco, summer and winter! +It is alone enough to explain _molle Tarentum--_ enough to drain the +energy out of a Newfoundland puppy! And then, the odious dust of the +country roadways--for it _is_ odious. Had the soil been granitic, or +even of the ordinary Apennine limestone, the population might have +remained in closer contact with wild things of nature, and retained a +perennial fountain of enjoyment and inspiration. A particular kind of +rock, therefore, has helped to make them sluggish and incurious. The +insularity of their citadel has worked in the same direction, by +focussing their interests upon the purely human. That inland sea, again: +were it not an ideal breeding-place for shell-fish, the Tarentines would +long ago have learnt to vary their diet. Thirty centuries of +mussel-eating cannot but impair the physical tone of a people. + +And had the inland sea not existed, the Government would not have been +tempted to establish that arsenal which has led to the erection of the +new town and consequent municipal exactions. "The arsenal," said a +grumbling old boatman to me, "was the beginning of our purgatory." A +milk diet would work wonders with the health and spirits of the +citizens. But since the building of the new quarter, such a diet has +become a luxury; cows and goats will soon be scarce as the megatherium. +There is a tax of a franc a day on every cow, and a herd of ten goats, +barely enough to keep a poor man alive, must pay annually 380 francs in +octroi. These and other legalized robberies, which among a more virile +populace would cause the mayor and town council to be forthwith attached +to the nearest lamp-post, are patiently borne. It is _imbelle +Tarentum--_ a race without grit. + +I would also recommend the burghers some vegetables, so desirable for +their sedentary habits, but there again! it seems to be a peculiarity of +the local soil to produce hardly a leaf of salad or cabbage. Potatoes +are plainly regarded as an exotic--they are the size of English peas, +and make me think of Ruskin's letter to those old ladies describing the +asparagus somewhere in Tuscany. And all this to the waiter's undisguised +astonishment. + +"The gentleman is rich enough to pay for meat. Why trouble about this +kind of food?"... + +And yet--a change is at hand. These southern regions are waking up from +their slumber of ages. Already some of Italy's acutest thinkers and most +brilliant politicians are drawn from these long-neglected shores. For we +must rid ourselves of that incubus of "immutable race characters": think +only of our Anglo-Saxon race! What has the Englishman of to-day in +common with that rather lovable fop, drunkard and bully who would faint +with ecstasy over Byron's _Parisina_ after pistolling his best friend +in a duel about a wench or a lap-dog? Such differences as exist between +races of men, exist only at a given moment. + +And what, I sometimes ask myself--what is now the distinguishing feature +between these southern men and ourselves? Briefly this, I think. In +mundane matters, where the personal equation dominates, their judgment +is apt to be turbid and perverse; but as one rises into questions of +pure intelligence, it becomes serenely impartial. We, on the other hand, +who are pre-eminently clear-sighted in worldly concerns of law and +government and in all subsidiary branches of mentality, cannot bring +ourselves to reason dispassionately on non-practical subjects. "L'esprit +aussi a sa pudeur," says Remy de Gourmont. Well, this _pudeur de +l'esprit,_ discouraged among the highest classes in England, is the +hall-mark of respectability hereabouts. A very real difference, at this +particular moment. . . . + +There is an end of philosophizing. + +They have ousted me from my pleasant quarters, the landlady's son and +daughter-in-law having returned unexpectedly and claiming their +apartments. I have taken refuge in a hotel. My peace is gone; my days in +Taranto are numbered. + +Loath to depart, I linger by the beach of the Ionian Sea beyond the new +town. It is littered with shells and holothurians, with antique tesserae +blue glass and marble fragments, with white mosaic pavements and +potteries of every age, from the glossy Greco-Roman ware whose +delicately embossed shell devices are emblematic of this sea-girt city, +down to the grosser products of yesterday. Of marbles I have found +_cipollino, pavonazzetto, giallo_ and _rosso antico,_ but no harder +materials such as porphyry or serpentine. This, and the fact that the +mosaics are pure white, suggests that the houses here must have dated, +at latest, from Augustan times. + +[Footnote: Nor is there any of the fashionable _verde_ _antico,_ and +this points in the same direction. Corsi says nothing as to the date of +its introduction, and I have not read the treatise of Silenziario, but +my own observations lead me to think that the _lapis_ _atracius_ can +hardly have been known under Tiberius. Not so those hard ones: they +imported wholesale by his predecessor Augustus, who was anxious to be +known as a scorner of luxury (a favourite pose with monarchs), yet spent +incalculable sums on ornamental stones both for public and private ends. +One is struck by a certain waste of material; either the expense was +deliberately disregarded or finer methods of working the stones were not +yet in vogue. A revolution in the technique of stone-cutting must have +set in soon after his death, for thenceforward we find the most +intractable rocks cut into slices thin as card-board: too thin for +pavements, and presumably for encrusting walls and colonnades. The +Augustans, unable to produce these effects naturally, attempted +imitation-stones, and with wonderful success. I have a fragment of their +plaster postiche copying the close-grained Egyptian granite; the oily +lustre of the quartz is so fresh and the peculiar structure of the rock, +with its mica scintillations, so admirably rendered as to deceive, after +two thousand years, the eye of a trained mineralogist.] + +Here I sit, on the tepid shingle, listening to the plash of the waves +and watching the sun as it sinks over the western mountains that are +veiled in mists during the full daylight, but loom up, at this sunset +hour, as from a fabulous world of gold. Yonder lies the Calabrian Sila +forest, the brigands' country. I will attack it by way of Rossano, and +thence wander, past Longobucco, across the whole region. It may be well, +after all, to come again into contact with streams and woodlands, after +this drenching of classical associations and formal civic life! + +Near me stands a shore-battery which used to be called "Batteria +Chianca." It was here they found, some twenty years ago, a fine marble +head described as a Venus, and now preserved in the local museum. I +observe that this fort has lately been re-christened "Batteria Archyta." +Can this be due to a burst of patriotism for the Greek warrior-sage who +ruled Taranto, or is it a subtle device to mislead the foreign spy? + +Here, too, are kilns where they burn the blue clay into tiles and vases. +I time a small boy at work shaping the former. His average output is +five tiles in four minutes, including the carrying to and fro of the +moist clay; his wages about a shilling a day. But if you wish to see the +manufacture of more complicated potteries, you must go to the unclean +quarter beyond the railway station. Once there, you will not soon weary +of that potter's wheel and the fair shapes that blossom forth under its +enchanted touch. This ware of Taranto is sent by sea to many parts of +south Italy, and you may see picturesque groups of it, here and there, +at the street corners. + +Hardly has the sun disappeared before the lighthouse in the east begins +to flash. The promontory on which it stands is called San Vito after one +of the musty saints, now almost forgotten, whose names survive along +these shores. Stoutly this venerable one defended his ancient worship +against the radiant and victorious Madonna; nor did she dislodge him +from a certain famous sanctuary save by the questionable expedient of +adopting his name: she called herself S. M. "della Vita." That settled +it. He came from Mazzara in Sicily, whither they still carry, to his +lonely shrine, epileptics and others distraught in mind. And were I in a +discursive mood, I would endeavour to trace some connection between his +establishment here and the tarantella--between St. Vitus' dance and that +other one which cured, they say, the bite of the Tarentine spider. + +But I am not inclined for such matters at present. The Cala-brian +uplands are still visible in the gathering twilight; they draw me +onwards, away from Taranto. It must be cool up there, among the firs and +beeches. + +And a land, moreover, of multiple memories and interests--this Calabria. +A land of great men. In 1737 the learned Aceti was able to enumerate +over two thousand celebrated Calabrians--athletes, generals, musicians, +centenarians, inventors, martyrs, ten popes, ten kings, as well as some +sixty conspicuous women. A land of thinkers. Old Zavarroni, born in +1705, gives us a list of seven hundred Calabrian writers; and I, for +one, would not care to bring his catalogue up to date. The recently +acquired _Biblioteca Calabra_ at Naples alone contains God knows how +many items, nearly all modern! + +And who shall recount its natural attractions? Says another old writer: + +"Here is all sorts of Corn, sundry Wines, and in great abundance, all +kinds of Fruits, Oyle, Hony, Wax, Saffron, Bombace, Annis and Coriander +seeds. There groweth Gum, Pitch, Turpentine and liquid Storax. In former +times it was never without Mettals, but at this present it doth much +abound, having in most parts divers sorts of Mines, as Gold, Silver, +Iron, Marble, Alabaster, Cristal, Marchesite, three sorts of white +Chaulk, Virmilion, Alume, Brimstone, and the Adamant stone, which being +in the fifth degree, draweth not Iron, and is in colour black. There +groweth hemp and flax of two sorts, the one called the male, the other +the female: there falleth Manna from heaven, truly a thing very rare; +and although there is not gathered such abundance of Silk, yet I dare +say there is not had so much in all _Italy_ besides. There are also +bathes, both hot, luke-warm, and cold, to cure many diseases. Near the +Seaside, and likewise on the Mediterrane are goodly Gardens full of +Oringes, Citrons, and Lemons of divers sorts. It is watered with many +Rivers. There are on the hils of the Apennine, thick Woods of high +Firrs, Holms, Platanes, Oaks, where grows the white odoriferous Mushrome +which shineth in the night. Here is bred the soft stone _Frigia,_ which +every month yields a delicate and wholesome Gum, and the stone +_Aetites,_ by us called the stone _Aquilina._ In this Province there is +excellent hunting of divers creatures, as wild Hoggs, Staggs, Goats, +Hares, Foxes, Porcupines, Marmosets. There are also ravenous beasts, as +Wolves, Bears, Luzards, which are quick-sighted, and have the hinder +parts spotted with divers colours. This kind of Beast was brought from +_France_ to _Rome_ in the sports of _Pompey_ the great, and Hunters +affirm this Beast to be of so frail a memory, that although he eateth +with hunger, if he chance to look back, remembreth no more his meat, and +departing searcheth for other." Who would not visit Calabria, if only on +the chance of beholding the speckled posterior of the absent-minded +Luzard? + + + + +XIII + +INTO THE JUNGLE + + +This short plunge into the jungle was a relief, after the all-too-human +experiences of Taranto. The forest of Policoro skirts the Ionian; the +railway line cleaves it into two unequal portions, the seaward tract +being the smaller. It is bounded on the west by the river Sinnc, and I +imagine the place has not changed much since the days when Keppel Craven +explored its recesses. + +Twilight reigns in this maze of tall deciduous trees. There is thick +undergrowth, too; and I measured an old lentiscus--a shrub, in +Italy--which was three metres in circumference. But the exotic feature +of the grove is its wealth of creeping vines that clamber up the trunks, +swinging from one tree-top to another, and allowing the merest threads +of sunlight to filter through their matted canopy. Policoro has the +tangled beauty of a tropical swamp. Rank odours arise from the decaying +leaves and moist earth; and once within that verdant labyrinth, you +might well fancy yourself in some primeval region of the globe, where +the foot of man has never penetrated. + +Yet long ago it resounded with the din of battle and the trumpeting of +elephants--in that furious first battle between Pyrrhus and the Romans. +And here, under the very soil on which you stand, lies buried, they say, +the ancient city of Siris. + +They have dug canals to drain off the moisture as much as possible, but +the ground is marshy in many places and often quite impassable, +especially in winter. None the less, winter is the time when a little +shooting is done here, chiefly wild boars and roe-deer. They are driven +down towards the sea, but only as far as the railway line. Those that +escape into the lower portions are safe for another year, as this is +never shot over but kept as a permanent preserve. I have been told that +red-deer were introduced, ut that the experiment failed; probably the +country was too not and damp. In his account of Calabria, Duret de Tavel +[Footnote: An English translation of his book appeared in 1832.] +sometimes speaks of killing the fallow-deer, an autochthonous +Tyrrhenian beast which is now extinct on the mainland in its wild state. +Nor can he be confounding it with the roe, since he mentions the two +together--for instance, in the following note from Corigliano (February, +1809), which must make the modern Calabrian's mouth water: + +"Game has multiplied to such an extent that the fields are ravaged, and +we are rendering a real service in destroying it. I question whether +there exists in Europe a country offering more varied species. . . . We +return home followed by carriages and mules loaded with wild boars, +roe-deer, fallow-deer, hares, pheasants, wild duck, wild geese--to say +nothing of foxes and wolves, of which we have already killed an immense +quantity." + +The pheasants seem to have likewise died out, save in royal preserves. +They were introduced into Calabria by that mighty hunter Frederick II. + +The parcelling out of many of these big properties has been followed by +a destruction of woodland and complete disappearance of game. It is +hailed as the beginning of a new era of prosperity; and so it well may +be, from a commercial point of view. But the traveller and lover of +nature will be glad to leave some of these wild districts in the hands +of their rich owners, who have no great interests in cultivating every +inch of ground, levelling rocky spaces, draining the land and hewing +down every tree that fails to bear fruit. Split into peasant +proprietorships, this forest would soon become a scientifically +irrigated campagna for the cultivation of tomatoes or what not, like the +"Colonia Elena," near the Pontine Marshes. The national exchequer would +profit, without a doubt. But I question whether we should all take the +economical point of view--whether it would be wise for humanity to do +so. There is a prosperity other than material. Some solitary artist or +poet, drawing inspiration from scenes like this, might have contributed +more to the happiness of mankind than a legion of narrow-minded, grimy +and litigious tomato-planters. + +To all appearances, Italy is infected just now with a laudable mania for +the "exploitation of natural resources"--at the expense, of course, of +wealthy landowners, who are described as withholding from the people +their due. The programme sounds reasonable enough; but one must not +forget that what one reads on this subject in the daily papers is +largely the campaign of a class of irresponsible pressmen and +politicians, who exploit the ignorance of weak people to fill their own +pockets. How one learns to loathe, in Italy and in England, that lovely +word _socialism,_ when one knows a little of the inner workings of the +cause and a few--just a few!--details of the private lives of these +unsavoury saviours of their country! + +The lot of the southern serfs was bad enough before America was +"discovered"; and quite unendurable in earlier times. There is a village +not many hours from Naples where, in 1789, only the personal attendants +of the feudal lord lived in ordinary houses; the two thousand +inhabitants, the serfs, took refuge in caves and shelters of straw. +Conceive the conditions in remote Calabria! Such was the anguished +poverty of the country-folk that up to the eighties of last century they +used to sell their children by regular contracts, duly attested before +the local mayors. But nowadays I listen to their complaints with +comparative indifference. + +"You are badly treated, my friend? I quite believe it; indeed, I can see +it. Well, go to Argentina and sell potatoes, or to the mines of +Pennsylvania. There you will grow rich, like the rest of your +compatriots. Then return and send your sons to the University; let them +become _avvocati_ and members of Parliament, who shall harass into +their graves these wicked owners of the soil." + +This, as a matter of fact, is the career of a considerable number of them. + +For the rest, the domain of Policoro--it is spelt _Pelicaro_ in older +maps like those of Magini and Rizzi-Zannone--seems to be well +administered, and would repay a careful study. I was not encouraged, +however, to undertake this study, the manager evidently suspecting some +ulterior motive to underlie my simple questions. He was not at all +responsive to friendly overtures. Restive at first, he soon waxed +ambiguous, and finally taciturn. Perhaps he thought I was a tax-gatherer +in disguise. A large structure combining the features of palace, +fortress and convent occupies an eminence, and is supposed by some to +stand on the site of old Heracleia; it was erected by the Jesuits; the +workpeople live in humble dwellings that cluster around it. Those that +are now engaged in cutting the corn receive a daily wage of two carlini +(eightpence)--the Bourbon coinage still survives in name. + +You walk to this building from the station along an avenue of eucalypti +planted some forty years ago. Detesting, as I do, the whole tribe of gum +trees, I never lose an opportunity of saying exactly what I think about +this particularly odious representative of the brood, this eyesore, this +grey-haired scarecrow, this reptile of a growth with which a pack of +misguided enthusiasts have disfigured the entire Mediterranean basin. +They have now realized that it is useless as a protection against +malaria. Soon enough they will learn that instead of preventing the +disease, it actually fosters it, by harbouring clouds of mosquitoes +under its scraggy so-called foliage. These abominations may look better +on their native heath: I sincerely hope they do. Judging by the "Dead +Heart of Australia"--a book which gave me a nightmare from which I shall +never recover--I should say that a varnished hop-pole would be an +artistic godsend out there. + +But from here the intruder should be expelled without mercy. A single +eucalyptus will ruin the fairest landscape. No plant on earth rustles in +such a horribly metallic fashion when the wind blows through those +everlastingly withered branches; the noise chills one to the marrow; it +is like the sibilant chattering of ghosts. Its oil is called "medicinal" +only because it happens to smell rather nasty; it is worthless as +timber, objectionable in form and hue--objectionable, above all things, +in its perverse, anti-human habits. What other tree would have the +effrontery to turn the sharp edges of its leaves--as if these were not +narrow enough already!--towards the sun, so as to be sure of giving at +all hours of the day the minimum of shade and maximum of discomfort to +mankind? + +But I confess that this avenue of Policoro almost reconciled me to the +existence of the anaemic Antipodeans. Almost; since for some reason or +other (perhaps on account of the insufferably foul nature of the soil) +their foliage is here thickly tufted; it glows like burnished bronze in +the sunshine, like enamelled scales of green and gold. These eucalypti +are unique in Italy. Gazing upon them, my heart softened and I almost +forgave the gums their manifold iniquities, their diabolical thirst, +their demoralizing aspect of precocious senility and vice, their peeling +bark suggestive of unmentionable skin diseases, and that system of +radication which is nothing short of a scandal on this side of the +globe. . . . + +In the exuberance of his joy at the prospect of getting rid of me, the +manager of the estate lent me a dog-cart to convey me to the forest's +edge, as well as a sleepy-looking boy for a guide, warning me, however, +not to put so much as the point of my nose inside the jungle, on account +of the malaria which has already begun to infect the district. One sees +all too many wan faces hereabouts. Visible from the intervening plain is +a large building on the summit of a hill; it is called Acinapura, and +this is the place I should have gone to, had time permitted, for the +sake of the fine view which it must afford over the whole Policoro region. + +Herds of buffaloes wallow in the mire. An old bull, reposing in solitary +grandeur, allowed me so near an approach that I was able to see two or +three frogs hopping about his back, and engaged in catching the +mosquitoes that troubled him. How useful, if something equally efficient +and inexpensive could be devised for humanity! + +We entered the darksome forest. The boy, who had hitherto confined +himself to monosyllables, suddenly woke up under its mysterious +influence; he became alert and affable; he related thrilling tales of +the outlaws who used to haunt these thickets, lamenting that those happy +days were over. There were the makings of a first-class brigand in +Paolo. I stimulated his brave fancy; and it was finally proposed that I +should establish myself permanently with the manager of the estate, so +that on Sundays we could have some brigand-sport together, on the sly. + +Then out again--into the broad and sunlit bed of the Sinno. The water +now ripples in bland content down a waste of shining pebbles. But its +wintry convulsions are terrific, and higher up the stream, where the +banks are steep, many lives are lost in those angry floods that rush +down from the hill-sides, filling the riverbed with a turmoil of crested +waves. At such moments, these torrents put on new faces. From placid +waterways they are transformed into living monsters, Aegirs or dragons, +that roll themselves seaward, out of their dark caverns, in tawny coils +of destruction. + + + + +XIV + +DRAGONS + + +And precisely this angry aspect of the waters has been acclaimed as one +of the origins of that river-dragon idea which used to be common in +south Italy, before the blight of Spaniardism fell upon the land and +withered up the pagan myth-making faculty. There are streams still +perpetuating this name--the rivulet Dragone, for instance, which falls +into the Ionian not far from Cape Colonne. + +A non-angry aspect of them has also been suggested as the origin: the +tortuous wanderings of rivers in the plains, like the Meander, that +recall the convolutions of the serpent. For serpent and dragon are apt +to be synonymous with the ancients. + +Both these explanations, I think, are late developments in the evolution +of the dragon-image. They leave one still puzzling as to what may be the +aboriginal conception underlying this legendary beast of earth and +clouds and waters. We must go further back. + +What is a dragon? An animal, one might say, which looks or regards +(Greek _drakon);_ so called, presumably, from its terrible eyes. Homer +has passages which bear out this interpretation: + +_[Greek: Smerdaleon de dedorken],_ etc. + +Now the Greeks were certainly sensitive to the expression of animal +eyes--witness "cow-eyed" Hera, or the opprobrious epithet "dog-eyed"; +altogether, the more we study what is left of their zoological +researches, the more we realize what close observers they were in +natural history. Aristotle, for instance, points out sexual differences +in the feet of the crawfish which were overlooked up to a short time +ago. And Hesiod also insists upon the dragon's eyes. Yet it is +significant that _ophis,_ the snake, is derived, like _drakon,_ from a +root meaning nothing more than to perceive or regard. There is no +connotation of ferocity in either of the words. Gesner long ago suspected +that the dragon was so called simply from its keen or rapid perception. + +One likes to search for some existing animal prototype of a fabled +creature like this, seeing that to invent such things out of sheer +nothing is a feat beyond human ingenuity--or, at least, beyond what the +history of others of their kind leads us to expect. It may well be that +the Homeric writer was acquainted with the Uromastix lizard that occurs +in Asia Minor, and whoever has watched this beast, as I have done, +cannot fail to have been impressed by its contemplative gestures, as if +it were gazing intently _(drakon)_ at something. It is, moreover, a +"dweller in rocky places," and more than this, a vegetarian--an "eater +of poisonous herbs" as Homer somewhere calls his dragon. So Aristotle +says: "When the dragon has eaten much fruit, he seeks the juice of the +bitter lettuce; he has been seen to do this." + +Are we tracking the dragon to his lair? Is this the aboriginal beast? +Not at all, I should say. On the contrary, this is a mere side-issue, to +follow which would lead us astray. The reptile-dragon was invented when +men had begun to forget what the arch-dragon was; it is the product of a +later stage--the materializing stage; that stage when humanity sought to +explain, in naturalistic fashion, the obscure traditions of the past. We +must delve still deeper. . . . + +My own dragon theory is far-fetched--perhaps necessarily so, dragons +being somewhat remote animals. The dragon, I hold, is the +personification of the life within the earth--of that life which, being +unknown and uncontrollable, is _eo ipso_ hostile to man. Let me explain +how this point is reached. + +The animal which _looks or regards. . . ._ Why--why an animal? Why not +_drakon =_ that which looks? + +Now, what looks? + +The eye. + +This is the key to the understanding of the problem, the key to the +subterranean dragon-world. + +The conceit of fountains or sources of water being things that see +_(drakon)_--that is, eyes--or bearing some resemblance to eyes, is common +to many races. In Italy, for example, two springs in the inland sea near +Taranto are called "Occhi"--eyes; Arabs speak of a watery fountain as an +eye; the notion exists in England top--in the "Blentarn" of Cumberland, +the blind tarn (tarn = a trickling of tears), which is "blind" because +dry and waterless, and therefore lacking the bright lustre of the open eye. + +There is an eye, then, in the fountain: an eye which looks or regards. +And inasmuch as an eye presupposes a head, and a head without body is +hard to conceive, a material existence was presently imputed to that +which looked upwards out of the liquid depths. This, I think, is the +primordial dragon, the archetype. He is of animistic descent and +survives all over the earth; and it is precisely this universality of +the dragon-idea which induces me to discard all theories of local origin +and to seek for some common cause. Fountains are ubiquitous, and so are +dragons. There are fountain dragons in Japan, in the superstitions of +Keltic races, in the Mediterranean basin. The dragon of Wantley lived in +a well; the Lambton Worm began life in fresh water, and only took to +dry land later on. I have elsewhere spoken of the Manfredonia legend of +Saint Lorenzo and the dragon, an indigenous fable connected, I suspect, +with the fountain near the harbour of that town, and quite independent +of the newly-imported legend of Saint Michael. Various springs in Greece +and Italy are called Dragoneria; there is a cave-fountain Dragonara on +Malta, and another of the same name near Cape Misenum--all are sources +of apposite lore. The water-drac. . . . + +So the dragon has grown into a subterranean monster, who peers up from +his dark abode wherever he can--out of fountains or caverns whence +fountains issue. It stands to reason that he is sleepless; all dragons +are "sleepless "; their eyes are eternally open, for the luminous +sparkle of living waters never waxes dim. And bold adventurers may well +be devoured by dragons when they fall into these watery rents, never to +appear again. + +Furthermore, since gold and other treasures dear to mankind lie hidden +in the stony bowels of the earth and are hard to attain, the jealous +dragon has been accredited with their guardianship--hence the plutonic +element in his nature. The dragon, whose "ever-open eye" protected the +garden of the Hesperides, was the _Son of Earth._ The earth or +cave-dragon. . . . Calabria has some of these dragons' caves; you can +read about them in the _Campania. Sotteranea_ of G. Sanchez. + +In volcanic regions there are fissures in the rocks exhaling pestiferous +emanations; these are the _spiracula,_ the breathing-holes, of the +dragon within. The dragon legends of Naples and Mondragone are probably +of this origin, and so is that of the Roman Campagna (1660) where the +dragon-killer died from the effects of this poisonous breath: Sometimes +the confined monster issues in a destructive lava-torrent--Bellerophon +and the Chimsera. The fire-dragon. ... Or floods of water suddenly +stream down from the hills and fountains are released. It is the hungry +dragon, rushing from his den in search of prey; the river-dragon. . . . +He rages among the mountains with such swiftness and impetuosity. + +This is chiefly the poets' work, though the theologians have added one +or two embellishing touches. But in whatever shape he appears, whether +his eyes have borrowed a more baleful fire from heathen basilisks, or +traits of moral evil are instilled into his pernicious physique by +amalgamation with the apocalyptic Beast, he remains the vindictive enemy +of man and his ordered ways. Of late--like the Saurian tribe in +general--he has somewhat degenerated. So in modern Greece, by that +process of stultified anthropomorphism which results from grafting +Christianity upon an alien mythopoesis, he dons human attributes, +talking and acting as a man (H. F. Tozer). And here, in Calabria, he +lingers in children's fables, as "sdrago," a mockery of his former self. + +To follow up his wondrous metamorphoses through medievalism would be a +pastime worthy of some leisured dilettante. How many noble shapes +acquired a tinge of absurdity in the Middle Ages! Switzerland alone, +with its mystery of untrodden crevices, used to be crammed with +dragons--particularly the calcareous (cavernous) province of Rhaetia. +Secondary dragons; for the good monks saw to it that no reminiscences of +the autochthonous beast survived. Modern scholars have devoted much +learning to the local Tazzelwurm and Bergstutz. But dragons of our +familiar kind were already well known to the chroniclers from whom old +Cysat extracted his twenty-fifth chapter (wherein, by the way, you will +learn something of Calabrian dragons); then came J. J. Wagner (1680); +then Scheuchzer, prince of dragon-finders, who informs us that _multorum +draconum historta mendax._ + +But it is rather a far cry from Calabria to the asthmatic Scheuchzer, +wiping the perspiration off his brow as he clambers among the Alps to +record truthful dragon yarns and untruthful barometrical observations; +or to China, dragon-land _par excellence;_ [Footnote: In Chinese +mythology the telluric element has remained untarnished. The dragon is +an earth-god, who controls the rain and thunder clouds.] or even to our +own Heralds' College, where these and other beasts have sought a refuge +from prying professors under such queer disguises that their own mothers +would hardly recognize them. + + + + +XV + +BYZANTINISM + + +Exhausted with the morning's walk at Policoro, a railway journey and a +long drive up nearly a thousand feet to Rossano in the heat of midday, I +sought refuge, contrary to my usual custom, in the chief hotel, +intending to rest awhile and then seek other quarters. The establishment +was described as "ganz ordentlich" in Baedeker. But, alas! I found +little peace or content. The bed on which I had hoped to repose was +already occupied by several other inmates. Prompted by curiosity, I +counted up to fifty-two of them; after that, my interest in the matter +faded away. It became too monotonous. They were all alike, save in point +of size (some were giants). A Swammerdam would have been grieved by +their lack of variety. + +And this, I said to myself, in a renowned city that has given birth to +poets and orators, to saints like the great Nilus, to two popes +and--last, but not least--one anti-pope! I will not particularize the +species beyond saying that they did not hop. Nor will I return to this +theme. Let the reader once and for all take _them_ for granted. +[Footnote: They have their uses, to be sure. Says Kircher: _Cunices +lectularii potens remedium contra quartanum est, si ab inscio aegro cum +vehiculo congrua potentur; mulierum morbis medentur et uterum prolapsum +solo odore in mum locum restituunt._] Let him note that most of the inns +of this region are quite uninhabitable, for this and other reasons, +unless he takes the most elaborate precautions. . . . + +Where, then, do I generally go for accommodation? + +Well, as a rule I begin by calling for advice at the chemist's shop, +where a fixed number of the older and wiser citizens congregate for a +little talk. The cafes and barbers and wine-shops are also +meeting-places of men; but those who gather here are not of the right +type--they are the young, or empty-headed, or merely thirsty. The other +is the true centre of the leisured class, the philosophers' rendezvous. +Your _speciale_ (apothecary) is himself an elderly and honoured man, +full of responsibility and local knowledge; he is altogether a superior +person, having been trained in a University. You enter the shop, +therefore, and purchase a pennyworth of vaseline. This act entitles you +to all the privileges of the club. Then is the moment to take a seat, +smiling affably at the assembled company, but without proffering a +syllable. If this etiquette is strictly adhered to, it will not be long +ere you are politely questioned as to your plans, your present +accommodation, and so forth; and soon several members will be vying with +each other to procure you a clean and comfortable room at half the price +charged in a hotel. + +Even when this end is accomplished, my connection with the pharmacy +coterie is not severed. I go there from time to time, ostensibly to +talk, but in reality to listen. Here one can feel the true pulse of the +place. Local questions are dispassionately discussed, with ample forms +of courtesy and in a language worthy of Cicero. It is the club of the +_elite._ + +In olden days I used to visit south Italy armed with introductions to +merchants, noblemen and landed proprietors. I have quite abandoned that +system, as these people, bless their hearts, have such cordial notions +of hospitality that from morning to night the traveller has not a moment +he can call his own. Letters to persons in authority, such as syndics or +police officers, are useless and worse than useless. Like Chinese +mandarins, these officials are so puffed up with their own importance +that it is sheer waste of time to call upon them. If wanted, they can +always be found; if not, they are best left alone. For besides being +usually the least enlightened and least amiable of the populace, they +are inordinately suspicious of political or commercial designs on the +part of strangers--God knows what visions are fermenting in their turbid +brains--and seldom let you out of their sight, once they have known you. + +Excepting at Cosenza, Cotrone and Catanzaro, an average white man will +seldom find, in any Calabrian hostelry, what he is accustomed to +consider as ordinary necessities of life. The thing is easily +explicable. These men are not yet in the habit of "handling" civilized +travellers; they fail to realize that hotel-keeping is a business to be +learnt, like tailoring or politics. They are still in the patriarchal +stage, wealthy proprietors for the most part, and quite independent of +your custom. They have not learnt the trick of Swiss servility. You must +therefore be prepared to put up with what looks like very bad treatment. +On your entrance nobody moves a step to enquire after your wants; you +must begin by foraging for yourself, and thank God if any notice is +taken of what you say; it is as if your presence were barely +tolerated. But once the stranger has learnt to pocket his pride and +treat his hosts in the same offhand fashion, he will find among them an +unconventional courtesy of the best kind. + +The establishment being run as a rule by the proprietor's own family, +gratuities with a view to exceptional treatment are refused with quiet +dignity, and even when accepted will not further your interests in the +least; on the contrary, you are thenceforward regarded as tactless and +weak in the head. Discreet praise of their native town or village is the +best way to win the hearts of the younger generation; for the parents a +little knowledge of American conditions is desirable, to prove that you +are a man of the world and worthy, a priori, of some respect. But if +there exists a man-cook, he is generally an importation and should be +periodically and liberally bribed, without knowledge of the family, from +the earliest moment. Wonderful, what a cook can do! + +It is customary here not to live _en pension_ or to pay a fixed price +for any meal, the smallest item, down to a piece of bread, being +conscientiously marked against you. My system, elaborated after +considerable experimentation, is to call for this bill every morning +and, for the first day or two after arrival, dispute in friendly fashion +every item, remorselessly cutting down some of them. Not that they +overcharge; their honesty is notorious, and no difference is made in +this respect between a foreigner and a native. It is a matter of +principle. By this system, which must not be overdone, your position in +the house gradually changes; from being a guest, you become a friend, a +brother. For it is your duty to show, above all things, that you are not +_scemo_--witless, soft-headed--the unforgivable sin in the south. You +may be a forger or cut-throat--why not? It is a vocation like any other, +a vocation for _men._ But whoever cannot take care of him-self--i.e. of +his money--is not to be trusted, in any walk of life; he is of no +account; he is no man. I have become firm friends with some of these +proprietors by the simple expedient of striking a few francs off their +bills; and should I ever wish to marry one or their daughters, the +surest way to predispose the whole family in my favour would be this +method of amiable but unsmiling contestation. + +Of course the inns are often dirty, and not only in their sleeping +accommodation. The reason is that, like Turks or Jews, their owners do +not see dirt (there is no word for dirt in the Hebrew language); they +think it odd when you draw their attention to it. I remember +complaining, in one of my fastidious moments, of a napkin, plainly not +my own, which had been laid at my seat. There was literally not a clean +spot left on its surface, and I insisted on a new one. I got it; but not +before hearing the proprietor mutter something about "the caprices of +pregnant women." . . . + +The view from these my new quarters at Rossano compensates for divers +other little drawbacks. Down a many-folded gorge of glowing red earth +decked with olives and cistus the eye wanders to the Ionian Sea shining +in deepest turquoise tints, and beautified by a glittering margin of +white sand. To my left, the water takes a noble sweep inland; there lies +the plain of Sybaris, traversed by the Crathis of old that has thrust a +long spit of fand into the waves. On this side the outlook is bounded by +the high range of Pollino and Dolcedorme, serrated peaks that are even +now (midsummer) displaying a few patches of snow. Clear-cut in the +morning light, these exquisite mountains evaporate, towards sunset, in +an amethystine haze. A restful prospect. + +But great was my amazement, on looking out of the window during the +night after my arrival, to observe the Polar star placed directly over +the Ionian Sea--the south, as I surely deemed it. A week has passed +since then, and in spite of the map I have not quite familiarized myself +with this spectacle, nor yet with that other one of the sun setting +apparently due east, over Monte Pollino. + +The glory of Rossano is the image of the Madonna Achiropita. +Bartholomaeus tells us, in his life of Saint Nilus, that in olden days +she was wont to appear, clothed in purple, and drive away with a divine +torch the Saracen invaders of this town. In more recent times, too, she +has often saved the citizens from locusts, cholera, and other calamitous +visitations. Unlike most of her kind, she was not painted by Saint Luke. +She is _acheiropoeta--_not painted by any human hands whatever, and in +so far resembles a certain old image of the Magna Mater, her prototype, +which was also of divine origin. It is generally supposed that this +picture is painted on wood. Not so, says Diehl; it is a fragment of a +fresco on stone. + +Hard by, in the clock-tower of the square, is a marble tablet erected to +the memory of the deputy Felice Cavalotti. We all remember Cavalotti, +the last--with Imbriani--of the republican giants, a blustering +rhetorician-journalist, annihilator of monarchs and popes; a fire-eating +duellist, who deserved his uncommon and unlovely fate. He provoked a +colleague to an encounter and, during a frenzied attack, received into +his open mouth the point of his adversary's sword, which sealed up for +ever that fountain of eloquence and vituperation. + +Cavalotti and the Virgin Achiropita--the new and the old. Really, with +such extreme ideals before his eyes, the burghers of Rossano must +sometimes wonder where righteousness lies. + +They call themselves Calabrians. _Noi siamo calabresi!_ they proudly +say, meaning that they are above suspicion of unfair dealing. As a +matter of fact, they are a muddled brood, and considerably given to +cheating when there is any prospect of success. You must watch the +peasants coming home at night from their field-work if you wish to see +the true Calabrian type--whiskered, short and wiry, and of dark +complexion. There is that indescribable mark of _race_ in these +countrymen; they are different in features and character from the +Italians; it is an ascetic, a Spanish type. Your Calabrian is strangely +scornful of luxury and even comfort; a creature of few but well-chosen +words, straightforward, indifferent to pain and suffering, and dwelling +by preference, when religiously minded, on the harsher aspects of his +faith. A note of unworldliness is discoverable in his outlook upon life. +Dealing with such men, one feels that they are well disposed not from +impulse, but from some dark sense of preordained obligation. Greek and +other strains have infused versatility and a more smiling exterior; but +the groundwork of the whole remains that old _homo ibericus_ of austere +gentlemanliness. + +Rossano was built by the Romans, says Procopius, and during Byzantine +days became a fortress of primary importance. An older settlement +probably lay by the seashore, and its harbour is marked as "good" so +late as the days of Edrisius. Like many of these old Calabrian ports, it +is now invaded by silt and sand, though a few ships still call there. +Wishful to learn something of the past glories of the town, I enquired +at the municipality for the public library, but was informed by the +supercilious and not over-polite secretary that this proud city +possesses no such institution. A certain priest, he added, would give me +all the desired information. + +Canonico Rizzo was a delightful old man, with snowy hair and candid blue +eyes. Nothing, it seemed, could have given him greater pleasure than my +appearance at that particular moment. He discoursed awhile, and sagely, +concerning England and English literature, and then we passed on, _via_ +Milton, to Calvin and the Puritan movement in Scotland; next, _via_ +Livingstone, to colonial enterprises in Africa; and finally, _via_ +Egypt, Abyssinia, and Prester John, to the early history of the eastern +churches. Byzantinism--Saint Nilus; that gave me the desired +opportunity, and I mentioned the object of my visit. + +"The history of Rossano? Well, well! The secretary of the municipality +does me too much honour. You must read the Book of Genesis and Hesiod +and Berosus and the rest of them. But stay! I have something of more +modern date, in which you will find these ancient authors conveniently +classified." + +From this book by de Rosis, printed in 1838, I gleaned two facts, +firstly, that the city of Rossano is now 3663 years old--quite a +respectable age, as towns go--and lastly, that in the year 1500 it had +its own academy of lettered men, who called themselves "I spensierati," +with the motto _Non alunt curai--_an echo, no doubt, of the Neapolitan +renaissance under Alfonso the Magnificent. The popes Urban VIII and +Benedict XIII belonged to this association of "thoughtless ones." The +work ends with a formidable list of local personages distinguished in +the past for their gentleness of birth and polite accomplishments. One +wonders how all these delicately nurtured creatures can have survived at +Rossano, if their sleeping accommodation---- + +You might live here some little time before realizing that this place, +which seems to slope gently downhill against a pleasing background of +wooded mountains, is capable of being strongly fortified. It lies, like +other inland Calabrian (and Etruscan) cities, on ground enclosed by +stream-beds, and one of these forms a deep gully above which Rossano +towers on a smooth and perpendicular precipice. The upper part of this +wall of rock is grey sandstone; the lower a bed of red granitic matter. +From this coloured stone, which crops up everywhere, the town may have +drawn its name of Rossano (rosso = red); not a very old settlement, +therefore; although certain patriotic philologers insist upon deriving +it from "rus sanum," healthy country. Its older names were Roscia, and +Ruscianum; it is not marked in Peutinger. Countless jackdaws and +kestrels nestle in this cliff, as well as clouds of swifts, both Alpine +and common. These swifts are the ornithological phenomenon of Rossano, +and I think the citizens have cause to be thankful for their existence; +to them I attribute the fact that there are so few flies, mosquitoes, +and other aerial plagues here. If only the amiable birds could be +induced to extend their attentions to the bedrooms as well! + +This shady glen at the back of the city, with its sparse tufts of +vegetation and monstrous blocks of deep red stone cloven into rifts and +ravines by the wild waters, has a charm of its own. There are undeniable +suggestions of Hell about the place. A pathway runs adown this vale of +Hinnom, and if you follow it upwards to the junction of the streams you +will reach a road that once more ascends to the town, past the old +church of Saint Mark, a most interesting building. It has five little +cupolas, but the interior, supported by eight columns, has been +whitewashed. The structure has now rightly been declared a "national +monument." It dates from the ninth or tenth century and, according to +Bertaux, has the same plan and the same dimensions as the famous +"Cattolica" at Stilo, which the artistic Lear, though he stayed some +time at that picturesque place, does not so much as mention. They say +that this chapel of Saint Mark was built by Euprassius, protos-padarius +of Calabria, and that in the days of Nilus it was dedicated to Saint +Anastasius. Here, at Rossano, we are once more _en plein Byzance._ + +Rossano was not only a political bulwark, the most formidable citadel of +this Byzantine province. It was a great intellectual centre, upon which +literature, theology and art converged. Among the many perverse +historical notions of which we are now ridding ourselves is this-that +Byzantinism in south Italy was a period of decay and torpid dreamings. +It needed, on the contrary, a resourceful activity to wipe out, as did +those colonists from the east, every trace of Roman culture and language +(Latin rule only revived at Rossano in the fifteenth century). There was +no lethargy in their social and political ambitions, in their military +achievements, which held the land against overwhelming numbers of +Saracens, Lombards and other intruders. And the life of those old monks +of Saint Basil, as we now know it, represented a veritable renaissance +of art and letters. + +Of the ten Basilean convents that grew up in the surroundings of Rossano +the most celebrated was that of S. M. del Patir. Together with the +others, it succeeded to a period of eremitism of solitary anchorites +whose dwellings honeycombed the warm slopes that confront the +Ionian.... + +The lives of some of these Greco-Calabrian hermits are valuable +documents. In the _Vitae Sanctorum Siculorum_ of O. Caietanus (1057) +the student will find a Latin translation of the biography of one of +them, Saint Elia Junior. He died in 903. It was written by a +contemporary monk, who tells us that the holy man performed many +miracles, among them that of walking over a river dryshod. And the +Bollandists _(Acta Sanctorum,_ 11th September) have reprinted the +biography of Saint Elia Spelaeotes-the cave-dweller, as composed in +Greek by a disciple. It is yet more interesting. He lived in a "honesta +spelunca" which he discovered in 864 by means of a flight of bats +issuing therefrom; he suffered persecutions from a woman, exactly after +the fashion of Joseph and Potiphar's wife; he grew to be 94 years old; +the Saracens vainly tried to burn his dead body, and the water in which +this corpse was subsequently washed was useful for curing another holy +man's toothache. Yet even these creatures were subject to gleams of +common sense. "Virtues," said this one, "are better than miracles." + +How are we to account for these rock-hermits and their inelegant habits? +How explain this poisoning of the sources of manly self-respect? + +Thus, I think: that under the influence of their creed they reverted +perforce to the more bestial traits of aboriginal humanity. They were +thrust back in their development. They became solitaries, animalesque +and shy--such as we may imagine our hairy progenitors to have been. +Hence their dirt and vermin, their horror of learning, their unkempt +hair, their ferocious independence, their distrust of sunshine and +ordered social life, their foul dieting, their dread of malign spirits, +their cave-dwelling propensities. All bestial characteristics! + +This atavistic movement, this retrogression towards primevalism, must +have possessed a certain charm, for it attracted vast multitudes; it was +only hemmed, at last, by a physical obstacle. + +The supply of caves ran out. + +Not till then were its votaries forced to congregate in those unhealthy +clusters which afterwards grew to be monasteries. Where many of them +were gathered together under one roof there imposed itself a certain +rudimentary discipline and subordination; yet they preserved as much as +they could of their savage traits, cave-like cells and hatred of +cleanliness, terror of demons, matted beards. + +Gradually the social habits of mundane fellow-creatures insinuated +themselves into these hives of squalor and idleness. The inmates began +to wash and to shave; they acquired property, they tilled the ground, +they learnt to read and write, and finally became connaisseurs of books +and pictures and wine and women. They were pleased to forget that the +eunuch and the beggar are the true Christian or Buddhist. In other +words, the allurements of rational life grew too strong for their +convictions; they became reasonable beings in spite of their creed. This +is how coenobitism grew out of eremitism not only in Calabria, but in +every part of the world which has been afflicted with these +eccentrics. Go to Mount Athos, if you wish to see specimens of all the +different stages conveniently arranged upon a small area. . . . + +This convent of Patir exercised a great local influence as early as the +tenth century; then, towards the end of the eleventh, it was completely +rebuilt without and reorganized within. The church underwent a thorough +restoration in 1672. But it was shattered, together with the rest of the +edifice, by the earthquake of 1836 which, Madonna Achiropita +notwithstanding, levelled to the ground one-half of the fifteen thousand +houses then standing at Rossano. + +These monastic establishments, as a general rule, were occupied later on +by the Benedictines, who ousted the Basileans and were supplanted, in +their turn, by popular orders of later days like the Theatines. Those +that are conveniently situated have now been turned into post offices, +municipalities, and other public buildings--such has been the common +procedure. But many of them, like this of Patir, are too decayed and +remote from the life of man. Fiore, who wrote in 1691, counts up 94 +dilapidated Basilean monasteries in Calabria out of a former total of +about two hundred; Patir and thirteen others he mentions as having, in +his day, their old rites still subsisting. Batiffol has recently gone +into the subject with his usual thoroughness. + +Nothing is uglier than a modern ruin, and the place would assuredly not +be worth the three hours' ride from Rossano were it not for the church, +which has been repaired, and for the wondrous view to be obtained from +its site. The journey, too, is charming, both by the ordinary track that +descends from Rossano and skirts the foot of the hills through olives +and pebbly stream-beds, ascending, finally, across an odorous tangle of +cistus, rosemary and myrtle to the platform on which the convent +stands--or by the alternative and longer route which I took on the +homeward way, and which follows the old water conduit built by the monks +into a forest of enormous chestnuts, oaks, hollies and Calabrian pines, +emerging out of an ocean of glittering bracken. + +I was pursued into the church of Patir by a bevy of country wenches who +frequented this region for purposes of haymaking. There is a miraculous +crucifix in this sanctuary, hidden behind a veil which, with infinite +ceremony, these females withdrew for my edification. There it was, sure +enough; but what, I wondered, would happen from the presence of these +impure creatures in such a place? Things have changed considerably since +the days of old, for such was the contamination to be expected from the +mere presence of a woman within these walls that even the Mother of God, +while visiting Saint Nilus--the builder, not the great saint--at work +upon the foundations, often conversed with him, but never ventured to +step within the area of the building itself. And later on it was a +well-authenticated phenomenon recorded by Beltrano and others, that if a +female entered the church, the heavens immediately became cloudy and +sent down thunders and lightnings and such-like signs of celestial +disapproval, which never ceased until the offending monster had left the +premises. + +From this ancient monastery comes, I fancy, the Achiropita image. +Montorio will tell you all about it; he learnt its history in June 1712 +from the local archbishop, who had extracted his information out of the +episcopal archives. Concerning another of these wonder-working +idols--that of S. M. del Patirion--you may read in the ponderous tomes +of Ughelli. + +Whether the celebrated Purple Codex of Rossano ever formed part of the +library of Patirion has not yet been determined. This wonderful +parchment--now preserved at Rossano--is mentioned for the first time by +Cesare Malpica, who wrote some interesting things about the Albanian and +Greek colonies in Calabria, but it was only discovered, in the right +sense of that word, in March 1879 by Gebhardt and Harnack. They +illustrated it in their _Evangeliorum Codex Graecus._ Haseloff also +described it in 1898 _(Codex Purpureus Rossanensis),_ and pointed out +that its iconographical value consists in the fact that it is the only +Greek Testament MS. containing pictures of the life of Christ before the +eighth-ninth century. These pictures are indeed marvellous--more +marvellous than beautiful, like so many Byzantine productions; their +value is such that the parchment has now been declared a "national +monument." It is sternly guarded, and if it is moved out of Rossano--as +happened lately when it was exhibited at Grottaferrata--it travels in +the company of armed carbineers. + +Still pursued by the flock of women, I took to examining the floor of +this church, which contains tesselated marble pavements depicting +centaurs, unicorns, lions, stags, and other beasts. But my contemplation +of these choice relics was disturbed by irrelevant remarks on the part +of the worldly females, who discovered in the head of the stag some +subtle peculiarity that stirred their sense of humour. + +"Look!" said one of them to her neighbour. "He has horns. Just like your +Pasquale." + +"Pasquale indeed! And how about Antonio?" + +I enquired whether they knew what kind of animals these were. + +"Beasts of the ancients. Beasts that nobody knows. Beasts that have +horns--like certain Christians. . . ." + +From the terrace of green sward that fronts this ruined monastery you +can see the little town of Corigliano, whose coquettish white houses lie +in a fold of the hills. Corigliano--[Greek: xorion __hellaion] (land of +olives): the derivation, if not correct, is at least appropriate, for it +lies embowered in a forest of these trees. A gay place it was, in +Bourbon times, with a ducal ruler of its own. Here, they say, the +remnants of the Sybarites took refuge after the destruction of their +city whose desolate plain lies at our feet, backed by the noble range of +Dolcedorme. Swinburne, like a sensible man, takes the Sybarites under +his protection; he defends their artificially shaded streets and those +other signs of voluptuousness which, to judge by certain modern +researches, seem to have been chiefly contrived for combating the demon +of malaria. Earthly welfare, the cult of material health and ease--such +was _their_ ideal. + +In sharpest contrast to these strivings stands the aim of those old +monks who scorned the body as a mere encumbrance, seeking spiritual +enlightenment and things not of this earth. + +And now, Sybarites and Basileans--alike in ruins! + +A man of to-day, asked which of the two civilizations he would wish +restored, would not hesitate long in deciding for the Hellenic one. +Readers of Lenormant will call to mind his glowing pages on the wonders +that might be found buried on the site of Sybaris. His plan of +excavation sounds feasible enough. But how remote it becomes, when one +remembers the case of Herculaneum! Here, to our certain knowledge, many +miracles of antique art and literature lie within a few feet of our +reach; yet nothing is done. These hidden monuments, which are the +heritage of all humanity, are withheld from our eyes by the +dog-in-the-manger policy of a country which, even without foreign +assistance, could easily accomplish the work, were it to employ thereon +only half the sum now spent in feeding, clothing and supervising a horde +of criminals, every one of whom ought to be hanged ten times over. +Meanwhile other nations are forbidden to co-operate; the fair-minded +German proposals were scornfully rejected; later on, those of Sir +Charles Waldstein. + +"What!" says the _Giornale d' Italia_, "are we to have international +excavation-committees thrust upon us? Are we to be treated like the Turks?" + +That, gentle sirs, is precisely the state of the case. + +The object of such committees is to do for the good of mankind what a +single nation is powerless or unwilling to do. Your behaviour at +Herculaneum is identical with that of the Turks at Nineveh. The system +adopted should likewise be the same. + +I shall never see that consummation. + +But I shall not forget a certain article in an American paper--"The New +York Times," I fancy--which gave me fresh food for thought, here at +Patirion, in the sight of that old Hellenic colony, and with the light +chatter of those women still ringing in my ears. Its writer, with whom +not all of us will agree, declared that first in importance of all the +antiquities buried in Italian soil come the lost poems of Sappho. The +lost poems of Sappho--a singular choice! In corroboration whereof he +quoted the extravagant praise of J. A. Symonds upon that amiable and +ambiguous young person. And he might have added Algernon Swinburne, who +calls her "the greatest poet who ever was at all." + +Sappho and these two Victorians, I said to myself. . . . Why just these +two? How keen is the cry of elective affinity athwart the ages! _The +soul,_ says Plato, _divines that which it seeks, and traces obscurely +the footsteps of its obscure desire._ + +The footsteps of its obscure desire---- + +So one stumbles, inadvertently, upon problems of the day concerning +which our sages profess to know nothing. And yet I do perceive a certain +Writing upon the Wall setting forth, in clearest language, that 1 + 1 = +3; a legend which it behoves them not to expunge, but to expound. For it +refuses to be expunged; and we do not need a German lady to tell us how +much the "synthetic" sex, the hornless but not brainless sex, has done +for the life of the spirit while those other two were reclaiming the +waste places of earth, and procreating, and fighting--as befits their +horned anatomy. + + + + +XVI + +REPOSING AT CASTROVILLARI + + +I remember asking my friend the Roman deputy of whom I have already +spoken, and whom I regard as a fountain of wisdom on matters Italian, +how it came about that the railway stations in his country were apt to +be so far distant from the towns they serve. Rocca Bernarda, I was +saying, lies 33 kilometres from its station; and even some of the +largest towns in the kingdom are inconveniently and unnecessarily remote +from the line. + +"True," he replied. "Very true! Inconveniently . . . but perhaps not +unnecessarily. . . ." He nodded his head, as he often does, when +revolving some deep problem in his mind. + +"Well, sir?" + +"Inasmuch as everything has its reasons, be they geographical, +sociological, or otherwise . . ." and he mused again. "Let me tell you +what I think as regards our respective English and Italian points of +view," he said at last. "And to begin with--a few generalities! We may +hold that success in modern life consists in correctly appreciating the +principles which underlie our experiences--in what may be called the +scientific attitude towards things in general. Now, do the English +cultivate this attitude? Not sufficiently. They are in the stage of +those mediaeval scholars who contentedly alleged separate primary causes +for each phenomenon, instead of seeking, by the investigation of +secondary ones, for the inevitable interdependence of the whole. In +other words, they do not subordinate facts; they co-ordinate them. Your +politicians and all your public men are guided by impulse--by +expediency, as they prefer to call it; they are empirical; they never +attempt to codify their conduct; they despise it as theorizing. What +happens? This old-fashioned hand-to-mouth system of theirs invariably +breaks down here and there. And then f Then they trust to some divine +interposition, some accident, to put things to rights again. The success +of the English is largely built up on such accidents--on the mistakes of +other people. Provi dence has favoured them so far, on the whole; but +one day it may leave them in the lurch, as it did the anti-scientific +Russians in their war with the Japanese. One day other people will +forget to make these pleasant mistakes." + +He paused, and I forbore to interrupt his eloquence. + +"To come now to the practical application--to this particular instance. +Tell me, does your English system testify to any constructive +forethought? In London, I am assured, the railway companies have built +stations at enormous expense in the very heart of the town. What will be +the consequence of this hand-to-mouth policy? This, that in fifty years +such structures will have become obsolete--stranded in slums at the back +of new quarters yet undreamed of. New depots will have to be built. +Whereas in Italy the now distant city will in fifty years have grown to +reach its station and, in another half-century, will have encircled it. +Thanks to our sagacity, the station will then be in its proper place, in +the centre of the town. Our progeny will be grateful; and that again, +you will admit, is a worthy aim for our politicians. Besides, what would +happen to our coachmen if nobody needed their services on arriving at +his destination? The poor men must not be allowed to starve! Cold head +and warm heart, you know; humanitarian considerations cannot be thrust +aside by a community that prides itself on being truly civilized. I +trust I have made myself intelligible?" + +"You always do. But why should I incommode myself to please your +progeny, or even my own? And I don't like the kind of warm heart that +subordinates my concerns to those of a cab-driver. You don't altogether +convince me, dear sir." + +"To speak frankly, I sometimes don't convince myself. My own country +station, for example, is curiously remote from the city, and it is +annoying on wintry nights to drive through six miles of level mud when +you are anxious to reach home and dinner; so much so that, in my +egoistical moments, I would have been glad if our administration had +adopted the more specious British method. But come now! You cannot raise +that objection against the terminus at Rome." + +"Not that one. But I can raise two others. The platforms are +inconveniently arranged, and a traveller will often find it impossible +to wash his hands and face there; as to hot water----" + +"Granting a certain deplorable disposition of the lines--why on earth, +pray, should a man cleanse himself at the station when there are +countless hotels and lodging-houses in the city? O you English originals!" + +"And supposing," I urged, "he is in a hurry to catch another train going +south, to Naples or Palermo?" + +"There I have you, my illustrious friend! _Nobody travels south of Rome."_ + +Nobody travels south of Rome. . . . + +Often have I thought upon those words. + +This conversation was forcibly recalled to my mind by the fact that it +took our creaky old diligence two and a half hours (one of the horses +had been bought the day before, for six pounds) to drive from the +station of Castrovillari to the entrance of the town, where we were +delayed another twenty minutes, while the octroi zealots searched +through every bag and parcel on the post-waggon. + +Many people have said bad things about this place. But my once +unpleasant impressions of it have been effaced by my reception at its +new and decent little hostelry. What a change after the sordid filth of +Rossano! Castrovillari, to be sure, has no background of hoary eld to +atone for such deficiencies. It was only built the other day, by the +Normans; or by the Romans, who called it Aprustum; or possibly by the +Greeks, who founded their Abystron on this particular site for the same +reasons that commended it in yet earlier times to certain bronze and +stone age primitives, whose weapons you may study in the British Museum +and elsewhere. [Footnote: Even so Taranto, Cumae, Paestum, Metapontum, +Monteleone and other southern towns were founded by the ancients on the +site of prehistoric stations.] + +But what are the stone ages compared with immortal and immutable +Rossano? An ecclesiastical writer has proved that Calabria was inhabited +before the Noachian flood; and Rossano, we may be sure, was one of the +favourite haunts of the antediluvians. None the less, it is good to rest +in a clean bed, for a change; and to feed off a clean plate. + +We are in the south. One sees it in sundry small ways--in the behaviour +of the cats, for instance. . . . + +The Tarentines, they say, imported the cat into Europe. If those of +south Italy still resemble their old Nubian ancestors, the beast would +assuredly not have been worth the trouble of acclimatizing. On entering +these regions, one of the first things that strikes me is the difference +between the appearance of cats and dogs hereabouts, and in England or +any northern country; and the difference in their temperaments. Our dogs +are alert in their movements and of wideawake features; here they are +arowsy and degraded mongrels, with expressionless eyes. Our cats are +sleek and slumberous; here they prowl about haggard, shifty and +careworn, their fur in patches and their ears a-tremble from nervous +anxiety. That domestic animals such as these should be fed at home does +not commend itself to the common people; they must forage for their food +abroad. Dogs eat offal, while the others hunt for lizards in the fields. +A lizard diet is supposed to reduce their weight (it would certainly +reduce mine); but I suspect that southern cats are emaciated not only +from this cause, but from systematic starvation. Many a kitten is born +that never tastes a drop of cow's milk from the cradle to the grave, and +little enough of its own mother's. + +To say that our English _zoophilomania--_our cult of lap-dogs--smacks of +degeneracy does not mean that I sympathize with the ill-treatment of +beasts which annoys many visitors to these parts and has been attributed +to "Saracenic" influences. Wrongly, of course; one might as well +attribute it to the old Greeks. [Footnote: Whose attitude towards +animals, by the way, was as far removed from callousness as from +sentimentalism. We know how those Hellenic oxen fared who had laboured +to draw up heavy blocks for the building of a temple--how, on the +completion of their task, they were led into green fields, there to +pasture unmolested for the rest of their lives. We know that the Greeks +were appreciative of the graces and virtues of canine nature--is not the +Homeric Argo still the finest dog-type in literature? Yet to them the +dog, even he of the tender Anthology, remained what he is: a tamed +beast. The Greeks, sitting at dinner, resented the insolence of a +creature that, watching every morsel as it disappeared into the mouth of +its master, plainly discovered by its physiognomy the desire, the +presumed right, to devour what he considered fit only for himself. +Whence that profound word [Greek: kunopes]--dog-eyed, shameless. In +contrast to this sanity, observe what an Englishman can read into a +dog's eye: + + That liquid, melancholy eye, + From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs + Seemed surging the Virgilian cry-- + The sense of tears in mortal things. . . . + +[That is how Matthew Arnold interprets the feelings of Fido, watching his +master at work upon a tender beefsteak. . . .] + +Poor Saracens! They are a sort of whipping-boy, all over the country. +The chief sinner in this respect is the Vatican, which has authorized +cruelty to animals by its official teaching. When Lord Odo-Russell +enquired of the Pope regarding the foundation of a society for the +prevention of cruelty to animals in Italy, the papal answer was: "Such +an association _could not be sanctioned_ by the Holy See, being founded +on a theological error, to wit, that Christians owed any duties to +animals." This language has the inestimable and rather unusual merit of +being perspicuous. Nevertheless, Ouida's flaming letters to "The Times" +inaugurated an era of truer humanity. . . . + +And the lateness of the dining-hour--another symptom of the south. It +was eleven o'clock when I sat down to dinner on the night of my arrival, +and habitues of the hotel, engineers and so forth, were still dropping +in for their evening meal. Appetite comes more slowly than ever, now +that the heats have begun. + +They have begun in earnest. The swoon of summer is upon the land, the +grass is cut, cicadas are chirping overhead. Despite its height of a +thousand feet, Castrovillari must be blazing in August, surrounded as it +is by parched fields and an amphitheatre of bare limestone hills that +exhale the sunny beams. You may stroll about these fields observing the +construction of the line which is to pass through Cassano, a pretty +place, famous for its wine and mineral springs; or studying the habits +of the gigantic grasshoppers that hang in clusters to the dried thistles +and start off, when scared, with the noise of a covey of partridges; or +watching how the cows are shod, at this season, to thresh the corn. Old +authors are unanimous in declaring that the town was embowered in oak +forests; as late as 1844 it was lamented that this "ancient barbarous +custom" of cutting them down had not yet been discontinued. The +mischief is now done, and it would be interesting to know the difference +between the present summer temperature and that of olden days. + +The manna ash used to be cultivated in these parts. I cannot tell +whether its purgative secretion is still in favour. The confusion +between this stuff and the biblical manna gave rise to the legends about +Calabria where "manna droppeth as dew from Heaven." Sandys says it was +prepared out of the mulberry. He copied assiduously, did old Sandys, and +yet found room for some original blunders of his own. R. Pococke, by the +way, is one of those who were dissatisfied with Castrovillari. He found +no accommodation save an empty house. "A poor town." . . . + +Driving through modern Castrovillari one might think the place flat and +undeserving of the name of _castrum._ But the old town is otherwise. It +occupies a proud eminence--the head of a promontory which overlooks the +junction of two streams; the newer settlement stands on the more level +ground at its back. This acropolis, once thronged with folk but now +well-nigh deserted, has all the macabre fascination of decay. A mildewy +spirit haunts those tortuous and uneven roadways; plaster drops unheeded +from the walls; the wild fig thrusts luxuriant arms through the windows +of palaces whose balconies are rusted and painted loggias crumbling to +earth ... a mournful and malarious agglomeration of ruins. + +There is a castle, of course. It was built, or rebuilt, by the +Aragonese, with four corner towers, one of which became infamous for a +scene that rivals the horrors of the Black Hole of Calcutta. Numbers of +confined brigands, uncared-for, perished miserably of starvation within +its walls. Says the historian Botta: + +"The abominable taint prevented the guards from approaching; the dead +bodies were not carried away. The pestilence increased; in pain and +exhaustion, the dying fell shuddering on the dead; the hale on the +dying; all tearing themselves like dogs with teeth and nails. The tower +of Castrovillari became a foul hole of corruption, and the stench was +spread abroad for a long season." + +This castle is now used as a place of confinement. Sentries warned me at +one point not to approach too near the walls; it was "forbidden." I had +no particular desire to disobey this injunction. Judging by the number +of rats that swarm about the place, it is not exactly a model prison. + +One of the streets in this dilapidated stronghold bears to this day the +inscription "Giudea," or Jewry. Southern Italy was well stocked with +those Hebrews concerning whom Mr. H. M. Adler has sagely discoursed. +They lived in separate districts, and seem to have borne a good +reputation. Those of Castrovillari, on being ejected by Ferdinand the +Catholic in 1511, obligingly made a donation of their school to the +town. But they returned anon, and claimed it again. Persecuted as they +were, they never suffered the martyrdom of the ill-starred Waldensian +colonies in Calabria. + +The houses of this Jewry overlook the Coscile river, the Sybaris of old, +and from a spot in the quarter a steep path descends to its banks. Here +you will find yourself in another climate, cool and moist. The livid +waters tumble gleefully towards the plain, amid penurious plots of beans +and tomatoes, and a fierce tangle of vegetation wherever the hand of man +has not made clearings. Then, mounting aloft once more, you will do well +to visit the far-famed chapel that sits at the apex of the promontory, +Santa Maria del Castello. There is a little platform where you may +repose and enjoy the view, as I have done for some evenings +past--letting the eye roam up-country towards Dolcedorme and its sister +peaks, and westwards over the undulating Sila lands whose highest point, +Botte Donato, is unmistakable even at this distance of forty miles, from +its peculiar shape. + +The Madonna picture preserved within the sanctuary has performed so many +miracles in ages past that I despair of giving any account of them. It +is high time, none the less, for a new sign from Heaven. Shattered by +earthquakes, the chapel is in a dis-ruptured and even menacing +condition. Will some returned emigrant from America come forward with +the necessary funds? + +That would be a miracle, too, in its way. But gone, for the present, are +the ages of Faith--the days when the peevishly-protestant J. H. Bartels +sojourned here and groaned as he counted up the seven monasteries of +Castrovillari (there used to be nearly twice that number), and viewed +the 130 priests, "fat-paunched rascals, loafing about the streets and +doorways." . . . + +From my window in the hotel I espy a small patch of snow on the hills. I +know the place; it is the so-called "Montagna del Principe" past which +the track winds into the Pollino regions. Thither I am bound; but so +complicated is life that even for a short three days' ramble among those +forests a certain amount of food and clothing must be provided--a mule +is plainly required. There seem to be none of these beasts available at +Castrovillari. + +"To Morano!" they tell me. "It is nearer the mountain, and there you +will find mules plentiful as blackberries. To Morano!" + +Morano lies a few miles higher up the valley on the great military road +to Lagonegro, which was built by Murat and cuts through the interior of +Basilicata, rising at Campo Tenese to a height of noo metres. They are +now running a public motor service along this beautiful stretch of 52 +kilometres, at the cheap rate of a sou per kilometre. + +_En route!_ + + +POSTSCRIPT.--Another symptom of the south: + +Once you have reached the latitude of Naples, the word _grazie_ (thank +you) vanishes from the vocabulary of all save the most cultured. But to +conclude therefrom that one is among a thankless race is not altogether +the right inference. They have a wholly different conception of the +affair. Our septentrional "thanks" is a complicated product in which +gratefulness for things received and for things to come are +unconsciously balanced; while their point of view differs in nothing +from that of the beau-ideal of Greek courtesy, of Achilles, whose mother +procured for him a suit of divine armour from Hephaistos, which he +received without a word of acknowledgment either for her or for the god +who had been put to some little trouble in the matter. A thing given +they regard as a thing found, a hermaion, a happy hit in the lottery of +life; the giver is the blind instrument of Fortune. This chill attitude +repels us; and our effusive expressions of thankfulness astonish these +people and the Orientals. + +A further difference is that the actual gift is viewed quite +extrinsically, intellectually, either in regard to what it would fetch +if bartered or sold, or, if to be kept, as to how far its possession may +raise the recipient in the eyes of other men. This is purely Homeric, +once more--Homeric or primordial, if you prefer. Odysseus told his kind +host Alkinoos, whom he was never to see again, that he would be glad to +receive farewell presents from him--to cherish as a friendly memory? +No, but "because they would make him look a finer fellow when he got +home." The idea of a keepsake, of an emotional value attaching to some +trifle, is a northern one. Here life is give and take, and lucky he who +takes more than he gives; it is what Professor Mahaffy calls the +"ingrained selfishness of the Greek character." Speaking of all below +the upper classes, I should say that disinterested benevolence is apt to +surpass their comprehension, a good-natured person being regarded as +weak in the head. + +Has this man, then, no family, that he should benefit strangers? Or is +he one of nature's unfortunates--soft-witted? Thus they argue. They will +do acts of spontaneous kindness towards their family, far oftener than +is customary with us. But outside that narrow sphere, _interesse_ +(Odyssean self-advantage) is the mainspring of their actions. Whence +their smooth and glozing manners towards the stranger, and those +protestations of undying affection which beguile the unwary--they wish +to be forever in your good graces, for sooner or later you may be of +use; and if perchance you do content them, they will marvel +(philosophically) at your grotesque generosity, your lack of +discrimination and restraint. Such _malizia_ (cleverness) is none the +more respectable for being childishly transparent. The profound and +unscrupulous northerner quickly familiarizes himself with its technique, +and turns it to his own profit. Lowering his moral notions, he soon--so +one of them expressed it to me--"walks round them without getting off +his chair" and, on the strength of his undeserved reputation for +simplicity and fair dealing, keeps them dangling a lifetime in a tremble +of obsequious amiability, cheered on by the hope of ultimately +over-reaching him. Idle dream, where a pliant and sanguine southerner is +pitted against the unswerving Saxon or Teuton! This accounts for the +success of foreign trading houses in the south. Business is business, +and the devil take the hindmost! By all means; but they who are not +rooted to the spot by commercial exigencies nor ready to adopt debased +standards of conduct will find that a prolonged residence in a centre +like Naples--the daily attrition of its ape-and-tiger elements--sullies +their homely candour and self-respect. + +For a tigerish flavour does exist in most of these southern towns. + +Camorra, the law of intimidation, rules the city. This is what Stendhal +meant when, speaking of the "simple and inoffensive" personages in the +_ Vicar of Wakefield,_ he remarked that "in the sombre Italy, a simple +and inoffensive creature would be quickly destroyed." It is not easy to +be inoffensive and yet respected in a land of teeth and claws, where a +man is reverenced in proportion as he can browbeat his fellows. So much +ferocity tinctures civic life, that had they not dwelt in towns while we +were still shivering in bogs, one would deem them not yet ripe for +herding together in large numbers; one would say that post-patriarchal +conditions evoked the worst qualities of the race. And we must revise +our conceptions of fat and lean men; we must pity Cassius, and dread +Falstaff. + +"What has happened"--you ask some enormous individual--"to your +adversary at law?" + +"To which one of them?" + +"Oh, Signor M----, the timber merchant." + +"_L'abbiamo mangiato!_" (I have eaten him.) + +Beware of the fat Neapolitan. He is fat from prosperity, from, dining +off his leaner brothers. + +Which reminds me of a supremely important subject, eating. + +The feeding here is saner than ours with its all-pervading animal grease +(even a boiled egg tastes of mutton fat in England), its stock-pot, +suet, and those other inventions of the devil whose awful effects we +only survive because we are continually counteracting or eliminating +them by the help of (1) pills, (2) athletics, and (3) alcohol. Saner as +regards material, but hopelessly irrational in method. Your ordinary +employe begins his day with a thimbleful of black coffee, nothing more. +What work shall be got out of him, under such anti-hygienic conditions? +Of course it takes ten men to do the work of one; and of course all ten +of them are sulky and irritable throughout the morning, thinking only of +their luncheon. Then indeed--then they make up for lost time; those few +favoured ones, at least, who can afford it. + +I once watched a young fellow, a clerk of some kind, in a restaurant at +midday. He began by informing the waiter that he had no appetite that +morning--_sangue di Dio!_ no appetite whatever; but at last allowed +himself to be persuaded into consuming a _hors d' oeuvres_ of anchovies +and olives. Then he was induced to try the maccheroni, because they were +"particularly good that morning"; he ate, or rather drank, an immense +plateful. After that came some slices of meat and a dish of green stuff +sufficient to satisfy a starving bullock. A little fish? asked the +waiter. Well, perhaps yes, just for form's sake--two fried mullets and +some nondescript fragments. Next, he devoured a couple of raw eggs "on +account of his miserably weak stomach," a bowl of salad and a goodly +lump of fresh cheese. Not without a secret feeling of envy I left him at +work upon his dessert, of which he had already consumed some six +peaches. Add to this (quite an ordinary repast) half a bottle of heavy +wine, a cup of black coffee and three glasses of water--what work shall +be got out of a man after such a boa-constrictor collation? He is as +exasperated and prone to take offence as in the morning--this time from +another cause. . . . + +That is why so many of them suffer from chronic troubles of the +digestive organs. The head of a hospital at Naples tells me that stomach +diseases are more prevalent there than in any other part of Europe, and +the stomach, whatever sentimentalists may say to the contrary, being the +true seat of the emotions, it follows that a judicious system of dieting +might work wonders upon their development. Nearly all Mediterranean +races have been misfed from early days; that is why they are so small. I +would undertake to raise the Italian standard of height by several +inches, if I had control of their nutrition for a few centuries. I would +undertake to alter their whole outlook upon life, to convert them from +utilitarians into romantics--were such a change desirable. For if +utilitarianism be the shadow of starvation, romance is nothing but the +vapour of repletion. + +And yet men still talk of race-characteristics as of something fixed and +immutable! The Jews, so long as they starved in Palestine, were the most +acrimonious bigots on earth. Now that they live and feed sensibly, they +have learnt to see things in their true perspective--they have become +rationalists. Their less fortunate fellow-Semites, the Arabs, have +continued to starve and to swear by the Koran--empty in body and empty +in mind. No poise or balance is possible to those who live in uneasy +conditions. The wisest of them can only attain to stoicism--a dumb +protest against the environment. There are no stoics among well-fed +people. The Romans made that discovery for themselves, when they +abandoned the cheese-paring habits of the Republic. + +In short, it seems to me that virtues and vices which cannot be +expressed in physiological terms are not worth talking about; that when +a morality refuses to derive its sanction from the laws which govern our +body, it loses the right to exist. This being so, what is the most +conspicuous native vice? + +Envy, without a doubt. + +Out of envy they pine away and die; out of envy they kill one another. +To produce a more placid race, [Footnote: By placid I do not mean +peace-loving and pitiful in the Christian sense. That doctrine of loving +and forgiving one's enemies is based on sheer funk; our pity for others +is dangerously akin to self-pity, most odious of vices. Catholic +teaching--in practice, if not in theory---glides artfully over the +desirability of these imported freak-virtues, knowing that they cannot +appeal to a masculine stock. By placid I mean steady, self-contained.] +to dilute envious thoughts and the acts to which they lead, is at bottom +a question of nutrition. One would like to know for how much black +brooding and for how many revengeful deeds that morning thimbleful of +black coffee is responsible. + +The very faces one sees in the streets would change. Envy is reflected +in all too many of those of the middle classes, while the poorest +citizens are often haggard and distraught from sheer hunger--hunger +which has not had time to be commuted into moral poison; college-taught +men, in responsible positions, being forced to live on salaries which a +London lift-boy would disdain. When that other local feature, that +respect for honourable poverty--the reverse of what we see in England +where, since the days of the arch-snob Pope, a slender income has grown +to be considered a subject of reproach. + +And yet another symptom of the south---- + +Enough! The clock points to 6.20; it is time for an evening walk--my +final one--to the terrace of S. M. del Castello. + + + + +XVII + +OLD MORANO + + +This Morano is a very ancient city; Tufarelli, writing in 1598, proves +that it was then exactly 3349 years old. Oddly enough, therefore, its +foundation almost coincides with that of Rossano. . . . + +There may be mules at Morano; indeed, there are. But they are illusive +beasts: phantom-mules. Despite the assistance of the captain of the +carbineers, the local innkeeper, the communal policeman, the secretary +of the municipality, an amiable canon of the church and several +non-official residents, I vainly endeavoured, for three days, to procure +one--flitting about, meanwhile, between this place and Castrovillari. +For Morano, notwithstanding its size (they say it is larger than the +other town) offers no accommodation or food in the septentrional sense +of those terms. + +Its situation, as you approach from Castrovillari, is striking. The +white houses stream in a cataract down one side of a steep conical hill +that dominates the landscape--on the summit sits the inevitable castle, +blue sky peering through its battered windows. But the interior is not +at all in keeping with this imposing aspect. Morano, so far as I was +able to explore it, is a labyrinth of sombre, tortuous and fetid alleys, +whexe black pigs wallow amid heaps 'of miscellaneous and malodorous +filth--in short, the town exemplifies that particular idea of civic +liberty which consists in everybody being free to throw their own +private refuse into the public street and leave it there, from +generation to generation. What says Lombroso? "The street-cleaning is +entrusted, in many towns, to the rains of heaven and, in their absence, +to the voracity of the pigs." None the less, while waiting for mules +that never came, I took to patrolling those alleys, at first out of +sheer boredom, but soon impelled by that subtle fascination which +emanates from the _ne plus ultra_ of anything--even of grotesque +dirtiness. On the second day, however, a case of cholera was announced, +which chilled my ardour for further investigations. It was on that +account that I failed to inspect what was afterwards described to me as +the chief marvel of the place--a carved wooden altar-piece in a certain +church. + +"It is prodigious and _antichissimo,"_ said an obliging citizen to +whom I applied for information. "There is nothing like it on earth, and +I have been six times to America, sir. The artist--a real artist, mind +you, not a common professor--spent his whole life in carving it. It was +for the church, you see, and he wanted to show what he could do in the +way of a masterpiece. Then, when it was finished and in its place, the +priests refused to pay for it. It was made not for them, they said, but +for the glory of God; the man's reward was sufficient. And besides, he +could have remission of sins for the rest of his life. He said he did +not care about remission of sins; he wanted money--money! But he got +nothing. Whereupon he began to brood and to grow yellow. Money--money! +That was all he ever said. And at last he became quite green and died. +After that, his son took up the quarrel, but he got as little out of the +priests as the father. It was fixed in the church, you understand, and +he could not take it away. He climbed through the window one night and +tried to burn it--the marks are there to this day--but they were too +sharp for him. And he took the business so much to heart that he also +soon died quite young! And quite green--like his father." + +The most characteristic item in the above history is that about growing +green. People are apt to put on this colour in the south from +disappointment or from envy. They have a proverb which runs "sfoga o +schiatta"--relieve yourself or burst; our vaunted ideal of +self-restraint, of dominating the reflexes, being thought not only +fanciful but injurious to health. Therefore, if relief is thwarted, +they either brood themselves into a green melancholy, or succumb to a +sudden "colpo di sangue," like a young woman of my acquaintance who, +considering herself beaten in a dispute with a tram-conductor about a +penny, forthwith had a "colpo di sangue," and was dead in a few hours. A +primeval assertion of the ego . . . + +Unable to perambulate the streets of Morano, I climbed to the ruined +fortress along the verdant slope at its back, and enjoyed a fair view +down the fertile valley, irrigated by streamlets and planted with +many-hued patches of culture, with mulberries, pomegranates and poplars. +Some boys were up here, engaged in fishing--fishing for young kestrels +in their nest above a shattered gateway. The tackle consisted of a rod +with a bent piece of wire fixed to one end, and it seemed to me a pretty +unpromising form of sport. But suddenly, amid wild vociferations, they +hooked one, and carried it off in triumph to supper. The mother bird, +meanwhile, sailed restlessly about the aether watching every movement, +as I could see by my glasses; at times she drifted quite near, then +swerved again and hovered, with vibrating pinions, directly overhead. It +was clear that she could not tear herself away from the scene, and +hardly had the marauders departed, when she alighted on the wall and +began to inspect what was left of her dwelling. It was probably rather +untidy. I felt sorry for her; yet such harebrained imprudence cannot go +unpunished. With so many hundred crannies in this old castle, why choose +one which any boy can reach with a stick? She will know better next season. + +Then an old shepherd scrambled up, and sat on the stone beside me. He +was short-sighted, asthmatic, and unable to work; the doctor had +recommended an evening walk up to the castle. We conversed awhile, and +he extracted a carnation out of his waistcoat pocket--unusual receptacle +for flowers--which he presented to me. I touched upon the all-absorbing +topic of mules. + +"Mules are very busy animals in Morano," he explained. _"Animali +occupatissimi."_ However, he promised to exert himself on my behalf; he +knew a man with a mule--two mules--he would send him round, if possible. + +Quite a feature in the landscape of Morano is the costume of the women, +with their home-dyed red skirts and ribbons of the same hue plaited into +their hair. It is a beautiful and reposeful shade of red, between +Pompeian and brick-colour, and the tint very closely resembles that of +the cloth worn by the beduin (married) women of Tunisia. Maybe it was +introduced by the Saracens. And it is they, I imagine, who imported that +love of red peppers (a favourite dish with most Orientals) which is +peculiar to these parts, where they eat them voraciously in every form, +particularly in that of red sausages seasoned with these fiery condiments. + +The whole country is full of Saracen memories. The name of Morano, they +say, is derived from _moro,_ [Footnote: This is all wrong, of course. +And equally wrong is the derivation from _moral,_ a mulberry--abundant +as these trees are. And more wrong still, if possible, is that which is +drawn from a saying of the mysterious Oenotrians--that useful +tribe--who, wandering in search of homesteads across these regions and +observing their beauty, are supposed to have remarked: _Hic moremur--_ +here let us stay! Morano (strange to say) is simply the Roman Muranum.] +a Moor; and in its little piazza--an irregular and picturesque spot, +shaded by a few grand old elms amid the sound of running waters--there +is a sculptured head of a Moor inserted into the wall, commemorative, I +was told, of some ancient anti-Saracen exploit. It is the escutcheon of +the town. This Moor wears a red fez, and his features are painted black +(this is _de rigueur,_ for "Saracens "); he bears the legend _Vivit +sub arbore morus._ Near at hand, too, lies the prosperous village +Saracena, celebrated of old for its muscatel wines. They are made from +the grape which the Saracens brought over from Maskat, and planted all +over Sicily. [Footnote: See next chapter.] + +The men of Morano emigrate to America; two-thirds of the adult and +adolescent male population are at this moment on the other side of the +Atlantic. But the oldsters, with their peaked hats (capello pizzuto) +shading gnarled and canny features, are well worth studying. At this +summer season they leave the town at 3.30 a.m. to cultivate their +fields, often far distant, returning at nightfall; and to observe these +really wonderful types, which will soon be extinct, you must take up a +stand on the Castrovillari road towards sunset and watch them riding +home on their donkeys, or walking, after the labours of the day. + +Poorly dressed, these peasants are none the less wealthy; the post +office deposit of Morano is said to have two million francs to its +credit, mostly the savings of these humble cultivators, who can discover +an astonishing amount of money when it is a question, for example, of +providing their daughters with a dowry. The bridal dress alone, a blaze +of blue silk and lace and gold embroidery, costs between six hundred and +a thousand francs. Altogether, Morano is a rich place, despite its +sordid appearance; it is also celebrated as the birthplace of various +learned men. The author of the "Calascione Scordato," a famous +Neapolitan poem of the seventeenth century, certainly lived here for +some time and has been acclaimed as a son of Morano, though he +distinctly speaks of Naples as his home. Among its elder literary +glories is that Leonardo Tufarelli, who thus apostrophizes his birthplace: + +"And to proceed--how many _letterati_ and _virtuosi_ have issued from +you in divers times? Among whom--not to name all of them--there has been +in our days Leopardo de l'Osso of happy memory, physician and most +excellent philosopher, singular in every science, of whom I dare say +that he attained to Pythagorean heights. How many are there to-day, +versed in every faculty, in theology, in the two laws, and in medicine? +How many historians, how many poets, grammarians, artists, actors?" + +The modern writer Nicola Leoni is likewise a child of Morano; his +voluminous "Della Magna Grecia e delle Tre Calabrie" appeared in +1844-1846. He, too, devotes much space to the praises of his natal city, +and to lamentations regarding the sad condition of Calabrian letters +during those dark years. + +"Closed for ever is the academy of Amantea! Closed for ever is +the academy of Rossano! Rare are the lectures in the academy of +Monteleone! Rare indeed the lectures in the academy of Catan-zaro! +Closed for ever is the public library of Monteleone! O ancient days! O +wisdom of our fathers! Where shall I find you? . . ." + +To live the intellectual life amid the ferociously squalid surroundings +of Morano argues an enviable philosophic calm--a detachment bordering on +insensibility. But perhaps we are too easily influenced by externals, in +these degenerate times. Or things may have been better in days of +old--who can tell? One always likes to think so, though the evidence +usually points to the contrary. + +When least I expected it, a possessor of mules presented himself. He was +a burly ruffian of northern extraction, with clear eyes, fair moustache, +and an insidious air of cheerfulness. + +Yes, he had a mule, he said; but as to climbing the mountain for three +or four days on end--ha, ha!--that was rather an undertaking, you know. +Was I aware that there were forests and snow up there? Had I ever been +up the mountain? Indeed! Well, then I must know that there was no food---- + +I pointed to my store of provisions from Castrovillari. His eye wandered +lovingly over the pile and reposed, finally, upon sundry odd bottles and +a capacious demijohn, holding twelve litres. + +"Wine of family," I urged. "None of your eating-house stuff." + +He thought he could manage it, after all. Yes; the trip could be +undertaken, with a little sacrifice. And he had a second mule, a +lady-mule, which it struck him I might like to ride now and then; a +pleasant beast and a companion, so to speak, for the other one. Two +mules and two Christians--that seemed appropriate. . . . And only four +francs a day more. + +Done! It was really cheap. So cheap, that I straightway grew suspicious +of the "lady-mule." + +We sealed the bargain in a glass of the local mixture, and I thereupon +demanded a _caparra--_ a monetary security that he would keep his word, +i.e. be round at my door with the animals at two in the morning, so as +to reach the uplands before the heat became oppressive. + +His face clouded--a good omen, indicating that he was beginning to +respect me. Then he pulled out his purse, and reluctantly laid two +francs on the table. + +The evening was spent in final preparations; I retired early to bed, and +tried to sleep. One o'clock came, and two o'clock, and three o'clock--no +mules! At four I went to the man's house, and woke him out of ambrosial +slumbers. + +"You come to see me so early in the morning?" he enquired, sitting up in +bed and rubbing his eyes. "Now that's really nice of you." + +One of the mules, he airily explained, had lost a shoe in the afternoon. +He would get it put right at once--at once. + +"You might have told me so yesterday evening, instead of keeping me +awake all night waiting for you." + +"True," he replied. "I thought of it at the time. But then I went to +bed, and slept. Ah, sir, it is good to sleep!" and he stretched himself +voluptuously. + +The beast was shod, and at 5 a.m. we left. + + + + +XVIII + +AFRICAN INTRUDERS + + +There is a type of physiognomy here which is undeniably Semitic--with +curly hair, dusky skin and hooked nose. We may take it to be of +Saracenic origin, since a Phoenician descent is out of the question, +while mediaeval Jews never intermarried with Christians. It is the same +class of face which one sees so abundantly at Palermo, the former +metropolis of these Africans. The accompanying likeness is that of a +native of Cosenza, a town that was frequently in their possession. +Eastern traits of character, too, have lingered among the populace. So +the humour of the peddling Semite who will allow himself to be called by +the most offensive epithets rather than lose a chance of gaining a sou; +who, eternally professing poverty, cannot bear to be twitted on his +notorious riches; their ceaseless talk of hidden treasures, their +secretiveness and so many other little Orientalisms that whoever has +lived in the East will be inclined to echo the observation of Edward +Lear's Greek servant: "These men are Arabs, but they have more clothes on." + +Many Saracenic words (chiefly of marine and commercial import) have +survived from this period; I could quote a hundred or more, partly in +the literary language (balio, dogana, etc.), partly in dialect (cala, +tavuto, etc.) and in place-names such as Tamborio (the Semitic Mount +Tabor), Kalat (Calatafimi), Marsa (Marsala). + +Dramatic plays with Saracen subjects are still popular with the lower +classes; you can see them acted in any of the coast towns. In fact, the +recollection of these intruders is very much alive to this day. They +have left a deep scar. + +Such being the case, it is odd to find local writers hardly referring to +the Saracenic period. Even a modern like l'Occaso, who describes the +Castrovillari region in a conscientious fashion, leaps directly from +Greco-Roman events into those of the Normans. But this is in accordance +with the time-honoured ideal of writing such works: to say nothing in +dispraise of your subject (an exception may be made in favour of +Spano-Bolani's History of Reggio). Malaria and earthquakes and Saracen +irruptions are awkward arguments when treating of the natural +attractions and historical glories of your native place. So the once +renowned descriptions of this province by Grano and the rest of them are +little more than rhetorical exercises; they are "Laus Calabria." And +then--their sources of information were limited and difficult of access. +Collective works like those of Muratori and du Chesne had not appeared +on the market; libraries were restricted to convents; and it was not to +be expected that they should know all the chroniclers of the Byzantines, +Latins, Lombards, Normans and Hohenstaufen--to say nothing of Arab +writers like Nowairi, Abulfeda, Ibn Chaldun and Ibn Alathir--who throw a +little light on those dark times, and are now easily accessible to +scholars. + +Dipping into this old-world literature of murders and prayers, we gather +that in pre-Saracenic times the southern towns were denuded of their +garrisons, and their fortresses fallen into disrepair. "Nec erat formido +aut metus bellorum, quoniam alta pace omnes gaudebant usque ad tempora +Saracenorum." In this part of Italy, as well as at Taranto and other +parts of old "Calabria," the invaders had an easy task before them, at +first. + +In 873, on their return from Salerno, they poured into Calabria, and by +884 already held several towns, such as Tropea and Amantea, but were +driven out temporarily. In 899 they ravaged, says Hepi-danus, the +country of the Lombards (? Calabria). In 900 they destroyed Reggio, and +renewed their incursions in 919, 923, 924, 925, 927, till the Greek +Emperor found it profitable to pay them an annual tribute. In 953, this +tribute not being forthcoming, they defeated the Greeks in Calabria, and +made further raids in 974, 975; 976, 977, carrying off a large store of +captives and wealth. In 981 Otto II repulsed them at Cotrone, but was +beaten the following year near Squillace, and narrowly escaped capture. +It was one of the most romantic incidents of these wars. During the +years 986, 988, 991, 994, 998, 1002, 1003 they were continually in the +country; indeed, nearly every year at the beginning of the eleventh +century is marked by some fresh inroad. In 1009 they took Cosenza for +the third or fourth time; in 1020 they were at Bisignano in the Crati +valley, and returned frequently into those parts, defeating, in 1025, a +Greek army under Orestes, and, in 1031, the assembled forces of the +Byzantine Catapan------ [Footnote: I have not seen Moscato's "Cronaca +dei Musulmani in Calabria," where these authorities might be +conveniently tabulated. It must be a rare book. Martorana deals only +with the Saracens of Sicily.] + +No bad record, from their point of view. + +But they never attained their end, the subjection of the mainland. And +their methods involved appalling and enduring evils. + +Yet the presumable intent or ambition of these aliens must be called +reasonable enough. They wished to establish a provincial government here +on the same lines as in Sicily, of which island it has been said that it +was never more prosperous than under their administration. + +Literature, trade, industry, and all the arts of peace are described as +flourishing there; in agriculture they paid especial attention to the +olive; they initiated, I believe, the art of terracing and irrigating +the hill-sides; they imported the date-palm, the lemon and sugar-cane +(making the latter suffice not only for home consumption, but for +export); their silk manufactures were unsurpassed. Older writers like +Mazzella speak of the abundant growth of sugar-cane in Calabria +(Capialbi, who wallowed in learning, has a treatise on the subject); +John Evelyn saw it cultivated near Naples; it is now extinct from +economical and possibly climatic causes. They also introduced the +papyrus into Sicily, as well as the cotton-plant, which used to be +common all over south Italy, where I have myself seen it growing. + +All this sounds praiseworthy, no doubt. But I see no reason why they +should have governed Sicily better than they did North Africa, which +crumbled into dust at their touch, and will take many long centuries to +recover its pre-Saracen prosperity. There is something flame-like and +anti-constructive in the Arab, with his pastoral habits and contempt of +forethought. In favour of their rule, much capital has been made out of +Benjamin of Tudela's account of Palermo. But it must not be forgotten +that his brief visit was made a hundred years after the Norman +occupation had begun. Palermo, he says, has about 1500 Jews and a large +number of Christians and Mohammedans; Sicily "contains all the pleasant +things of this world." Well, so it did in pre-Saracen times; so it does +to-day. Against the example of North Africa, no doubt, may be set their +activities in Spain. + +They have been accused of destroying the old temples of Magna Gracia +from religious or other motives. I do not believe it; this was against +their usual practice. They sacked monasteries, because these were +fortresses defended by political enemies and full of gold which they +coveted; but in their African possessions, during all this period, the +ruins of ancient civilizations were left untouched, while Byzantine +cults lingered peacefully side by side with Mos-lemism; why not here? +Their fanaticism has been much exaggerated. Weighing the balance between +conflicting writers, it would appear that Christian rites were tolerated +in Sicily during all their rule, though some governors were more bigoted +than others; the proof is this, that the Normans found resident +fellow-believers there, after 255 years of Arab domination. It was the +Christians rather, who with the best intentions set the example of +fanaticism during their crusades; these early Saracen raids had no more +religious colouring than our own raids into the Transvaal or elsewhere. +The Saracens were out for plunder and fresh lands, exactly like the +English. [Footnote: The behaviour of the Normans was wholly different +from that of the Arabs, immediately on their occupation of the country +they razed to the ground thousands of Arab temples and sanctuaries. Of +several hundred in Palermo alone, not a single one was left standing.] + +Nor were they tempted to destroy these monuments for decorative +purposes, since they possessed no palaces on the mainland like the +Palermitan Cuba or Zisa; and that sheer love of destructive-ness with +which they have been credited certainly spared the marbles of Paestum +which lay within a short distance of their strongholds, Agropoli and +Cetara. No. What earthquakes had left intact of these classic relics +was niched by the Christians, who ransacked every corner of Italy +for such treasures to adorn their own temples in Pisa, Rome and +Venice--displaying small veneration for antiquity, but considerable +taste. In Calabria, for instance, the twenty granite pillars of the +cathedral of Gerace were drawn from the ruins of old Locri; those of +Melito came from the ancient Hipponium (Monteleone). So Paestum, after +the Saracens, became a regular quarry for the Lombards and the rich +citizens of Amalfi when they built their cathedral; and above all, for +the shrewdly pious Robert Guiscard. Altogether, these Normans, dreaming +through the solstitial heats in pleasaunces like Ravello, developed a +nice taste in the matter of marbles, and were not particular where they +came from, so long as they came from somewhere. The antiquities remained +intact, at least, which was better than the subsequent system of Colonna +and Frangipani, who burnt them into lime. + +Whatever one may think of the condition of Sicily under Arab rule, the +proceedings of these strangers was wholly deplorable so far as the +mainland of Italy was concerned. They sacked and burnt wherever they +went; the sea-board of the Tyrrhenian, Ionian and Adriatic was +depopulated of its inhabitants, who fled inland; towns and villages +vanished from the face of the earth, and the richly cultivated land +became a desert; they took 17,000 prisoners from Reggio on a single +occasion--13,000 from Termula; they reduced Matera to such distress, +that a mother is said to have slaughtered and devoured her own child. +Such was their system on the mainland, where they swarmed. Their numbers +can be inferred from a letter written in 871 by the Emperor Ludwig II +to the Byzantine monarch, in which he complains that "Naples has become +a second Palermo, a second Africa," while three hundred years later, in +1196, the Chancellor Konrad von Hildesheim makes a noteworthy +observation, which begins: "In Naples I saw the Saracens, who with their +spittle destroy venomous beasts, and will briefly set forth how they +came by this virtue. . . ." [Footnote: He goes on to say, "Paulus +Apostolus naufragium passus, apud Capream insulam applicuit _[sic]_ quae +in Actibus Apostolorum Mitylene nuncupatur, et cum multis allis evadens, +ab indigenis tcrrae benigne acceptatus est." Then follows the episode of +the fire and of the serpent which Paul casts from him; whereupon the +Saracens, naturally enough, begin to adore him as a saint. In recompense +for this kind treatment Paul grants to them and their descendants the +power of killing poisonous animals in the manner aforesaid--i.e. with +their spittle--a superstition which is alive in south Italy to this day. +These gifted mortals are called Sanpaulari, or by the Greek word +Cerauli; they are men who are born either on St. Paul's night (24-25 +January) or on 29 June. Saint Paul, the "doctor of the Gentiles," is a +great wizard hereabouts, and an invocation to him runs as follows: +"Saint Paul, thou wonder-worker, kill this beast, which is hostile to +God; and save me, for I am a son of Maria."] + +It is therefore no exaggeration to say that the coastal regions of south +Italy were practically in Arab possession for centuries, and one is +tempted to dwell on their long semi-domination here because it has +affected to this day the vocabulary of the people, their lore, their +architecture, their very faces--and to a far greater extent than a +visitor unacquainted with Moslem countries and habits would believe. +Saracenism explains many anomalies in their mode of life and social +conduct. + +From these troublous times dates, I should say, that use of the word +_cristiano_ applied to natives of the country--as opposed to Mohammedan +enemies. + +"Saraceno" is still a common term of abuse. + +The fall of Luceria may be taken as a convenient time-boundary to mark +the end of the Saracenic period. A lull, but no complete repose from +attacks, occurs between that event and the fall of Granada. Then begins +the activity of the corsairs. There is this difference between them, +that the corsairs merely paid flying visits; a change of wind, the +appearance of an Italian sail, an unexpected resistance on the part of +the inhabitants, sufficed to unsettle their ephemeral plans. The +coast-lands were never in their possession; they only harried the +natives. The system of the Saracens on the mainland, though it seldom +attained the form of a provincial or even military government, was +different. They had the _animus manendi._ Where they dined, they slept. + +In point of destructiveness, I should think there was little to choose +between them. One thinks of the hundreds of villages the corsairs +devastated; the convents and precious archives they destroyed, +[Footnote: In this particular branch, again, the Christians surpassed +the unbeliever. More archives were destroyed in the so-called "Age of +Lead"--the closing period of Bour-bonism--than under Saracens and +Corsairs combined. It was quite the regular thing to sell them as +waste-paper to the shopkeepers. Some of them escaped this fate by the +veriest miracle--so those of the celebrated Certoza of San Lorenzo in +Padula. The historian Marincola, walking in the market of Salerno, +noticed a piece of cheese wrapped up in an old parchment. He elicited +the fact that it came from this Certosa, intercepted the records on +their way for sale in Salerno, and contrived by a small present to the +driver that next night two cartloads of parchments were deposited in the +library of La Cava.] the thousands of captives they carried +off--sometimes in such numbers that the ships threatened to sink till +the more unsaleable portion of the human freight had been cast +overboard. And it went on for centuries. Pirates and slave-hunters they +were; but not a whit more so than their Christian adversaries, on whose +national rivalries they thrived. African slaves, when not chained to the +galleys, were utilized on land; so the traveller Moore records that the +palace of Caserta was built by gangs of slaves, half of them Italian, +half Turkish. We have not much testimony as to whether these Arab slaves +enjoyed their lot in European countries; but many of the Christians in +Algiers certainly enjoyed theirs. A considerable number of them refused +to profit by Lord Exmouth's arrangement for their ransom. I myself knew +the descendant of a man who had been thus sent back to his relations +from captivity, and who soon enough returned to Africa, declaring that +the climate and religion of Europe were alike insupportable. + +In Saracen times the Venetians actually sold Christian slaves to the +Turks. Parrino cites the severe enactments which were issued in the +sixteenth century against Christian sailors who decoyed children on +board their boats and sold them as slaves to the Moslem. I question +whether the Turks were ever guilty of a corresponding infamy. + +This Parrino, by the way, is useful as showing the trouble to which the +Spanish viceroys were put by the perpetual inroads of these Oriental +pests. Local militia were organized, heavy contributions levied, towers +of refuge sprang up all along the coast--every respectable house had its +private tower as well (for the dates, see G. del Giudice, _Del Grande +Archivio di Napoli,_ 1871, p. 108). The daring of the pirates knew no +bounds; they actually landed a fleet at Naples itself, and carried off a +number of prisoners. The entire kingdom, save the inland parts, was +terrorized by their lightning-like descents. + +A particular literature grew up about this time--those "Lamenti" in +rime, which set forth the distress of the various places they afflicted. + +The saints had work to do. Each divine protector fought for his own town +or village, and sometimes we see the pleasing spectacle of two patrons +of different localities joining their forces to ward off a piratical +attack upon some threatened district by means of fiery hail, tempests, +apparitions and other celestial devices. A bellicose type of Madonna +emerges, such as S. M. della Libera and S. M. di Constantinopoli, who +distinguishes herself by a fierce martial courage in the face of the +enemy. There is no doubt that these inroads acted as a stimulus to the +Christian faith; that they helped to seat the numberless patron saints +of south Italy more firmly on their thrones. The Saracens as +saint-makers. . . . + +But despite occasional successes, the marine population suffered +increasingly. Historians like Summonte have left us descriptions of the +prodigious exodus of the country people from Calabria and elsewhere into +the safer capital, and how the polished citizens detested these new +arrivals. + +The ominous name "Torre di Guardia" (tower of outlook)--a cliff whence +the sea was scanned for the appearance of Turkish vessels--survives all +over the south. Barbarossa, too, has left his mark; many a hill, +fountain or castle has been named after him. In the two Barbarossas were +summed up the highest qualities of the pirates, and it is curious to +think that the names of those scourges of Christendom, Uruj and +Kheir-eddin, should have been contracted into the classical forms of +Horace and Ariadne. The picturesque Uruj was painted by Velasquez; the +other entertained a polite epistolatory correspondence with Aretino, and +died, to his regret, "like a coward" in bed. I never visit +Constantinople without paying my respects to that calm tomb at +Beshiktah, where, after life's fitful fever, sleeps the _Chief of the Sea._ + +And so things went on till recently. K. Ph. Moritz writes that King +Ferdinand of Naples, during his sporting excursions to the islands of +his dominions, was always accompanied by two cruisers, to forestall the +chance of his being carried off by these _Turchi._ But his loyal +subjects had no cruisers at their disposal; they lived _Turcarum +praedonibus semper obnoxii._ Who shall calculate the effects of this +long reign of terror on the national mind? + +For a thousand years--from 830 to 1830--from the days when the +Amalfitans won the proud title of "Defenders of the Faith" up to those +of the sentimental poet Waiblinger (1826), these shores were infested by +Oriental ruffians, whose activities were an unmitigated evil. It is all +very well for Admiral de la Graviere to speak of "Gallia Victrix"--the +Americans, too, might have something to say on that point. The fact is +that neither European nor American arms crushed the pest. But for the +invention of steam, the Barbary corsairs might still be with us. + + + + +XIX + +UPLANDS OF POLLINO + + +It has a pleasant signification, that word "Dolcedorme": it means +_Sweet slumber._ But no one could tell me how the mountain group came by +this name; they gave me a number of explanations, all fanciful and +unconvincing. Pollino, we are told, is derived from Apollo, and authors +of olden days sometimes write of it as "Monte Apollino." But Barrius +suggests an alternative etymology, equally absurd, and connected with +the medicinal herbs which are found there. _Pollino,_ he says, _a +polleo dictus, quod nobilibus herbis medelae commodis polleat. Pro-venit +enim ibi, ut ab herbariis accepi, tragium dictamnum Cretense, chamaeleon +bigenum, draucus, meum, nardus, celtica, anonides, anemone, peucedamum, +turbit, reubarbarum, pyrethrum, juniperus ubertim, stellarla, +imperatoria, cardus masticem fundens, dracagas, cythisus--_whence +likewise the magnificent cheeses; gold and the Phrygian stone, he adds, +are also found here. + +Unhappily Barrius--we all have a fling at this "Strabo and Pliny of +Calabria"! So jealous was he of his work that he procured a prohibition +from the Pope against all who might reprint it, and furthermore invoked +the curses of heaven and earth upon whoever should have the audacity to +translate it into Italian. Yet his shade ought to be appeased with the +monumental edition of 1737, and, as regards his infallibility, one must +not forget that among his contemporaries the more discerning had already +censured his _philopatria,_ his immoderate love of Calabria. And that is +the right way to judge of men who were not so much ignorant as unduly +zealous for the fair name of their natal land. To sneer at them is to +misjudge their period. It was the very spirit of the Renaissance to +press rhetorical learning into the service of patriotism. They made some +happy guesses and not a few mistakes; and when they lied deliberately, +it was done in what they held a just cause--as scholars and gentlemen. + +The _Calabria Illustrata_ of Fiore also fares badly at the hands of +critics. But I shall not repeat what they say; I confess to a sneaking +fondness for Father Fiore. + +Marafioti, a Calabrian monk, likewise dwells on these same herbs of +Pollino, and gives a long account of a medical secret which he learnt on +the spot from two Armenian botanists. Alas for Marafioti! Despite his +excellent index and seductively chaste Paduan type and paper, the +impartial Soria is driven to say that "to make his shop appear more rich +in foreign merchandise, he did not scruple to adorn it with books and +authors apocryphal, imaginary, and unknown to the whole human race." In +short, he belonged to the school of Pratilli, who wrote a wise and +edifying history of Capua on the basis of inscriptions which he himself +had previously forged; of Ligorio Pirro, prince of his tribe, who +manufactured thousands of coins, texts and marbles out of sheer +exuberance of creative artistry! + +Gone are those happy days of authorship, when the constructive +imagination was not yet blighted and withered. . . . + +Marching comfortably, it will take you nearly twelve hours to go from +Morano to the village of Terranova di Pollino, which I selected as my +first night-quarter. This includes a scramble up the peak of Pollino, +locally termed "telegrafo," from a pile of stones--? an old +signal-station--erected on the summit. But since decent accommodation +can only be obtained at Castrovillari, a start should be made from +there, and this adds another hour to the trip. Moreover, as the peak of +Pollino lies below that of Dolcedorme, which shuts oil a good deal of +its view seaward, this second mountain ought rather to be ascended, and +that will probably add yet another hour--fourteen altogether. The +natives, ever ready to say what they think will please you, call it a +six hours' excursion. As a matter of fact, although I spoke to numbers +of the population of Morano, I only met two men who had ever been to +Terranova, one of them being my muleteer; the majority had not so much +as heard its name. They dislike mountains and torrents and forests, not +only as an offence to the eye, but as hindrances to agriculture and +enemies of man and his ordered ways. "La montagna" is considerably +abused, all over Italy. + +It takes an hour to cross the valley and reach the slopes of the +opposite hills. Here, on the plain, lie the now faded blossoms of the +monstrous arum, the botanical glory of these regions. To see it in +flower, in early June, is alone almost worth the trouble of a journey to +Calabria. + +On a shady eminence at the foot of these mountains, in a most +picturesque site, there stands a large castellated building, a +monastery. It is called Colorito, and is now a ruin; the French, they +say, shelled it for harbouring the brigand-allies of Bourbonism. Nearly +all convents in the south, and even in Naples, were at one time or +another refuges of bandits, and this association of monks and robbers +used to give much trouble to conscientious politicians. It is a solitary +building, against the dark hill-side; a sombre and romantic pile such as +would have charmed Anne Radcliffe; one longs to explore its recesses. +But I dreaded the coming heats of midday. Leone da Morano, who died in +1645, belonged to this congregation, and was reputed an erudite +ecclesiastic. The life of one of its greatest luminaries, Fra Bernardo +da Rogliano, was described by Tufarelli in a volume which I have never +been able to catch sight of. It must be very rare, yet it certainly was +printed. [Footnote: Haym has no mention of this work. But it is fully +quoted in old Toppi's "Biblioteca" (p. 317), and also referred to in +Savonarola's "Universus Terrarum," etc. (1713, Vol. I, p. 216). Both say +it was printed at Cosenza; the first, in 1650; the second, in 1630.] + +The path ascends now through a long and wearisome limestone gap called +Valle di Gaudolino, only the last half-hour of the march being shaded by +trees. It was in this gully that an accidental encounter took place +between a detachment of French soldiers and part of the band of the +celebrated brigand Scarolla, whom they had been pursuing for months all +over the country. The brigands were sleeping when the others fell upon +them, killing numbers and carrying off a large booty; so rich it was, +that the soldiers were seen playing at "petis palets"--whatever that may +be--with quadruples of Spain--whatever _that_ may be. Scarolla escaped +wounded, but was afterwards handed over to justice, for a consideration +of a thousand ducats, by some shepherds with whom he had taken refuge; +and duly hanged. His band consisted of four thousand ruffians; it was +one of several that infested south Italy. This gives some idea of the +magnitude of the evil. + +It was my misfortune that after weeks of serene weather this particular +morning should be cloudy. There was sunshine in the valley below, but +wreaths of mist were skidding over the summit of Pollino; the view, I +felt sure, would be spoilt. And so it was. Through swiftly-careering +cloud-drifts I caught glimpses of the plain and the blue Ionian; of the +Sila range confronting me; of the peak of Dolcedorme to the left, and +the "Montagna del Principe" on the right; of the large forest region at +my back. Tantalizing visions! + +Viewed from below, this Pollino is shaped like a pyramid, and promises +rather a steep climb over bare limestone; but the ascent is quite easy. +No trees grow on the pyramid. The rock is covered with a profusion of +forget-me-nots and gay pansies; some mez-ereon and a few dwarfed +junipers--earthward-creeping--nearly reach the summit. When I passed +here on a former trip, on the 6th of June, this peak was shrouded in +snow. There are some patches of snow even now, one of them descending in +glacier fashion down the slope on the other side; they call it +"eternal," but I question whether it will survive the heats of autumn. +Beyond a brace of red-legged partridges, I saw no birds whatever. This +group of Pollino, descending its seven thousand feet in a precipitous +flight of terraces to the plain of Sibari, is an imposing _finale_ to +the Apennines that have run hitherward, without a break, from Genoa and +Bologna. Westward of this spot there are mountains galore; but no more +Apennines; no more limestone precipices. The boundary of the old +provinces of Calabria and Basilicata ran over this spot. . . . + +I was glad to descend once more, and to reach the _Altipiano di +Pollino--_an Alpine meadow with a little lake (the merest puddle), +bright with rare and beautiful flowers. It lies 1780 metres above +sea-level, and no one who visits these regions should omit to see this +exquisite tract encircled by mountain peaks, though it lies a little off +the usual paths. Strawberries, which I had eaten at Rossano, had not yet +opened their flowers here; the flora, boreal in parts, has been studied +by Terracciano and other Italian botanists. + +It was on this verdant, flower-enamelled mead that, fatigued with the +climb, I thought to try the powers of my riding mule. But the beast +proved vicious; there was no staying on her back. A piece of string +attached to her nose by way of guiding-rope was useless as a rein; she +had no mane wherewith I might have steadied myself in moments of danger, +and as to seizing her ears for that purpose, it was out of the question, +for hardly was I in the saddle before her head descended to the ground +and there remained, while her hinder feet essayed to touch the stars. +After a succession of ignominious and painful flights to earth, I +complained to her owner, who had been watching the proceedings with +quiet interest. + +"That lady-mule," he said, "is good at carrying loads. But she has never +had a Christian on her back till now. I was rather curious to see how +she would behave." + +"_Santo Dio!_ And do you expect me to pay four francs a day for having +my bones broken in this fashion?" + +"What would you, sir? She is still young--barely four years old. Only +wait! Wait till she is ten or twelve." + +To do him justice, however, he tried to make amends in other ways. And +he certainly knew the tracks. But he was a returned emigrant, and when +an Italian has once crossed the ocean he is useless for my purposes, he +has lost his savour--the virtue has gone out of him. True Italians will +soon be rare as the dodo in these parts. These _americani_ cast off +their ancient animistic traits and patriarchal disposition with the ease +of a serpent; a new creature emerges, of a wholly different +character--sophisticated, extortionate at times, often practical and in +so far useful; scorner of every tradition, infernally wideawake and +curiously deficient in what the Germans call "Gemuet" (one of those +words which we sadly need in our own language). Instead of being regaled +with tales of Saint Venus and fairies and the Evil Eye, I learnt a good +deal about the price of food in the Brazilian highlands. + +The only piece of local information I was able to draw from him +concerned a mysterious plant in the forest that "shines by night." I +dare say he meant the _dictamnus fraxinella,_ which is sometimes luminous. + +The finest part of the forest was traversed in the afternoon. It is +called Janace, and composed of firs and beeches. The botanist Tenore +says that firs 150 feet in height are "not difficult to find" here, and +some of the beeches, a forestal inspector assured me, attain the height +of 35 metres. They shoot up in straight silvery trunks; their roots are +often intertwined with those of the firs. The track is not level by any +means. There are torrents to be crossed; rocky ravines with splashing +waters where the sunshine pours down through a dense network of branches +upon a carpet of russet leaves and grey boulders--the envious beeches +allowing of no vegetation at their feet; occasional meadows, too, bright +with buttercups and orchids. No pines whatever grow in this forest. Yet +a few stunted ones are seen clinging to the precipices that descend into +the Coscile valley; their seeds may have been wafted across from the +Sila mountains. + +In olden days all this country was full of game; bears, stags and +fallow-deer are mentioned. Only wolves and a few roe-deer are now left. +The forest is sombre, but not gloomy, and one would like to spend some +time in these wooded regions, so rare in Italy, and to study their life +and character--but how set about it? The distances are great; there are +no houses, not even a shepherd's hut or a cave; the cold at night is +severe, and even in the height of midsummer one must be prepared for +spells of mist and rain. I shall be tempted, on another occasion, to +provide myself with a tent such as is supplied to military officers. +They are light and handy, and perhaps camping out with a man-cook of the +kind that one finds in the Abruzzi provinces would be altogether the +best way of seeing the remoter parts of south and central Italy. For +decent food-supplies can generally be obtained in the smallest places; +the drawback is that nobody can cook them. Dirty food by day and dirty +beds by night will daunt the most enterprising natures in the long run. + +These tracks are only traversed in summer. When I last walked through +this region--in the reverse direction, from Lagonegro over Latronico and +San Severino to Castrovillari--the ground was still covered with +stretches of snow, and many brooks were difficult to cross from the +swollen waters. This was in June. It was odd to see the beeches rising, +in full leaf, out of the deep snow. + +During this afternoon ramble I often wondered what the burghers of +Taranto would think of these sylvan solitudes. Doubtless they would +share the opinion of a genteel photographer of Morano who showed me some +coloured pictures of local brides in their appropriate costumes, such as +are sent to relatives in America after weddings. He possessed a good +camera, and I asked whether he had never made any pictures of this fine +forest scenery. No, he said; he had only once been to the festival of +the Madonna di Pollino, but he went alone--his companion, an +_avvocato,_ got frightened and failed to appear at the last moment. + +"So I went alone," he said, "and those forests, it must be confessed, +are too savage to be photographed. Now, if my friend had come, he might +have posed for me, sitting comically at the foot of a tree, with crossed +legs, and smoking a cigar, like this. ... Or he might have pretended to +be a wood-cutter, bending forwards and felling a tree . . . tac, tac, +tac . . . without his jacket, of course. That would have made a picture. +But those woods and mountains, all by themselves--no! The camera +revolts. In photography, as in all good art, the human element must +predominate." + +It is sad to think that in a few years' time nearly all these forests +will have ceased to exist; another generation will hardly recognize the +site of them. A society from Morbegno (Valtellina) has acquired rights +over the timber, and is hewing down as fast as it can. They import their +own workmen from north Italy, and have built at a cost of two million +francs (say the newspapers) a special funicular railway, 23 kilometres +long, to carry the trunks from the mountain to Francavilla at its foot, +where they are sawn up and conveyed to the railway station of Cerchiara, +near Sibari. This concession, I am told, extends to twenty-five +years--they have now been at work for two, and the results are already +apparent in some almost bare slopes once clothed with these huge +primeval trees. + +There are inspectors, some of them conscientious, to see that a due +proportion of the timber is left standing; but we all know what the +average Italian official is, and must be, considering his salary. One +could hardly blame them greatly if, as I have been assured is the case, +they often sell the wood which they are paid to protect. + +The same fate is about to overtake the extensive hill forests which lie +on the watershed between Morano and the Tyrrhenian. These, according to +a Castrovillari local paper, have lately been sold to a German firm for +exploitation. + +It is useless to lament the inevitable--this modern obsession of +"industrialism" which has infected a country purely agricultural. Nor is +it any great compensation to observe that certain small tracts of +hill-side behind Morano are being carefully reafforested by the +Government at this moment. Whoever wishes to see these beautiful +stretches of woodland ere their disappearance from earth--let him hasten! + +After leaving the forest region it is a downhill walk of nearly three +hours to reach Terranova di Pollino, which lies, only 910 metres above +sea-level, against the slope of a wide and golden amphitheatre of hills, +at whose entrance the river Sarmento has carved itself a prodigious +gateway through the rock. A dirty little place; the male inhabitants are +nearly all in America; the old women nearly all afflicted with goitre. I +was pleased to observe the Calabrian system of the house-doors, which +life in civilized places had made me forget. These doors are divided +into two portions, not vertically like ours, but horizontally. The upper +portion is generally open, in order that the housewife sitting within +may have light and air in her room, and an opportunity of gossiping with +her neighbours across the street; the lower part is closed, to prevent +the pigs in the daytime from entering the house (where they sleep at +night). The system testifies to social instincts and a certain sense of +refinement. + +The sights of Terranova are soon exhausted. They had spoken to me of a +house near the woods, about four hours distant, inhabited just now by +shepherds. Thither we started, next day, at about 3 p.m. + +The road climbs upwards through bare country till it reaches a dusky +pinnacle of rock, a conspicuous landmark, which looks volcanic but is +nothing of the kind. It bears the name of Pietra-Sasso--the explanation +of this odd pleonasm being, I suppose, that here the whole mass of rock, +generally decked with grass or shrubs, is as bare as any single stone. + +There followed a pleasant march through pastoral country of streamlets +and lush grass, with noble views downwards on our right, over +many-folded hills into the distant valley of the Sinno. To the left is +the forest region. But the fir trees are generally mutilated--their +lower branches lopped off; and the tree resents this treatment and often +dies, remaining a melancholy stump among the beeches. They take these +branches not for fuel, but as fodder for the cows. A curious kind of +fodder, one thinks; but Calabrian cows will eat anything, and their milk +tastes accordingly. No wonder the natives prefer even the greasy fluid +of their goats to that of cows. + +"How?" they will ask, "You Englishmen, with all your money--you drink +the milk of cows?" + +Goats are over-plentiful here, and the hollies, oaks and thorns along +the path have been gnawed by them into quaint patterns like the +topiarian work in old-fashioned gardens. If they find nothing to their +taste on the ground, they actually climb trees; I have seen them +browsing thus, at six feet above the ground. These miserable beasts are +the ruin of south Italy, as they are of the whole Mediterranean basin. +What malaria and the Barbary pirates have done to the sea-board, the +goats have accomplished for the regions further inland; and it is really +time that sterner legislation were introduced to limit their +grazing-places and incidentally reduce their numbers, as has been done +in parts of the Abruzzi, to the great credit of the authorities. But the +subject is a well-worn one. + +The solitary little house which now appeared before us is called +"Vitiello," presumably from its owner or builder, a proprietor of the +village of Noepoli. It stands in a charming site, with a background of +woodland whence rivulets trickle down--the immediate surroundings are +covered with pasture and bracken and wild pear trees smothered in +flowering dog-roses. I strolled about in the sunset amid tinkling herds +of sheep and goats that were presently milked and driven into their +enclosure of thorns for the night, guarded by four or five of those +savage white dogs of the Campagna breed. Despite these protectors, the +wolf carried off two sheep yesterday, in broad daylight. The flocks come +to these heights in the middle of June, and descend again in October. + +The shepherds offered us the only fare they possessed--the much-belauded +Pollino cheeses, the same that were made, long ago, by Polyphemus +himself. You can get them down at a pinch, on the principle of the +German proverb, "When the devil is hungry, he eats flies." Fortunately +our bags still contained a varied assortment, though my man had +developed an appetite and a thirst that did credit to his Berserker +ancestry. + +We retired early. But long after the rest of them were snoring hard I +continued awake, shivering under my blanket and choking with the acrid +smoke of a fire of green timber. The door had been left ajar to allow it +to escape, but the only result of this arrangement was that a glacial +blast of wind swept into the chamber from outside. The night was +bitterly cold, and the wooden floor on which I was reposing seemed to be +harder than the majority of its kind. I thought with regret of the tepid +nights of Taranto and Castrovillari, and cursed my folly for climbing +into these Arctic regions; wondering, as I have often done, what demon +of restlessness or perversity drives one to undertake such insane +excursions. + + + + +XX + +A MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL + + +Leaving the hospitable shepherds in the morning, we arrived after +midday, by devious woodland paths, at the Madonna di Pollino. This +solitary fane is perched, like an eagle's nest, on the edge of a cliff +overhanging the Frida torrent. Owing to this fact, and to its great +elevation, the views inland are wonderful; especially towards evening, +when crude daylight tints fade away and range after range of mountains +reveal themselves, their crests outlined against each other in tender +gradations of mauve and grey. The prospect is closed, at last, by the +lofty groups of Sirino and Alburno, many long leagues away. On all other +sides are forests, interspersed with rock. But near at hand lies a +spacious green meadow, at the foot of a precipice. This is now covered +with encampments in anticipation of to-morrow's festival, and the +bacchanal is already in full swing. + +Very few foreigners, they say, have attended this annual feast, which +takes place on the first Saturday and Sunday of July, and is worth +coming a long way to see. Here the old types, uncon-taminated by +modernism and emigration, are still gathered together. The whole +country-side is represented; the peasants have climbed up with their +entire households from thirty or forty villages of this thinly populated +land, some of them marching a two days' journey; the greater the +distance, the greater the "divozione" to the Mother of God. _Piety +conquers rough tracks,_ as old Bishop Paulinus sang, nearly fifteen +hundred years ago. + +It is a vast picnic in honour of the Virgin. Two thousand persons are +encamped about the chapel, amid a formidable army of donkeys and mules +whose braying mingles with the pastoral music of reeds and +bagpipes--bagpipes of two kinds, the common Calabrian variety and that +of Basilicata, much larger and with a resounding base key, which will +soon cease to exist. A heaving ebb and flow of humanity fills the eye; +fires are flickering before extempore shelters, and an ungodly amount of +food is being consumed, as traditionally prescribed for such +occasions--"si mangia per divozione." On all sides picturesque groups of +dancers indulge in the old peasants' measure, the _percorara,_ to the +droning of bagpipes--a demure kind of tarantella, the male capering +about with faun-like attitudes of invitation and snappings of fingers, +his partner evading the advances with downcast eyes. And the church +meanwhile, is filled to overflowing; orations and services follow one +another without interruption; the priests are having a busy time of it. + +The rocky pathway between this chapel and the meadow is obstructed by +folk and lined on either side with temporary booths of green branches, +whose owners vociferously extol the merits of their wares--cloths, +woollens, umbrellas, hot coffee, wine, fresh meat, fruit, vegetables +(the spectre of cholera is abroad, but no one heeds)--as well as gold +watches, rings and brooches, many of which will be bought ere to-morrow +morning, in memory of to-night's tender meetings. The most interesting +shops are those which display ex-votos, waxen reproductions of various +ailing parts of the body which have been miraculously cured by the +Virgin's intercession: arms, legs, fingers, breasts, eyes. There are +also entire infants of wax. Strangest of all of them is a many-tinted +and puzzling waxen symbol which sums up all the internal organs of the +abdomen in one bold effort of artistic condensation; a kind of heraldic, +materialized stomache-ache. I would have carried one away with me, had +there been the slightest chance of its remaining unbroken. [Footnote: A +good part of these, I dare say, arc intended to represent the enlarged +spleen of malaria. In old Greece, says Dr. W. H. D. Rouse, votives of +the trunk are commonest, after the eyes--malaria, again.] + +These are the votive offerings which catch the visitor's eye in southern +churches, and were beloved not only of heathendom, but of the neolithic +gentry; a large deposit has been excavated at Taranto; the British +Museum has some of marble, from Athens; others were of silver, but the +majority terra-cotta. The custom must have entered Christianity in early +ages, for already Theo-doret, who died in 427, says, "some bring images +of eyes, others of feet, others of hands; and sometimes they are made of +gold, sometimes of silver. These votive gifts testify to cure of +maladies." Nowadays, when they become too numerous, they are melted down +for candles; so Pericles, in some speech, talks of selling them for the +benefit of the commonwealth. + +One is struck with the feast of costumes here, by far the brightest +being those of the women who have come up from the seven or eight +Albanian villages that surround these hills. In their variegated array +of chocolate-brown and white, of emerald-green and gold and flashing +violet, these dames move about the sward like animated tropical flowers. +But the Albanian girls of Civita stand out for aristocratic +elegance--pleated black silk gowns, discreetly trimmed with gold and +white lace, and open at the breast. The women of Morano, too, make a +brave show. + +Night brings no respite; on the contrary, the din grows livelier than +ever; fires gleam brightly on the meadow and under the trees; the +dancers are unwearied, the bagpipers with their brazen lungs show no +signs of exhaustion. And presently the municipal music of Castrovillari, +specially hired for the occasion, ascends an improvised bandstand and +pours brisk strains into the night. Then the fireworks begin, +sensational fireworks, that have cost a mint of money; flaring wheels +and fiery devices that send forth a pungent odour; rockets of many hues, +lighting up the leafy recesses, and scaring the owls and wolves for +miles around. + +Certain persons have told me that if you are of a prying disposition, +now is the time to observe amorous couples walking hand in hand into the +gloom--passionate young lovers from different villages, who have looked +forward to this night of all the year on the chance of meeting, at last, +in a fervent embrace under the friendly beeches. These same stern men +(they are always men) declare that such nocturnal festivals are a +disgrace to civilization; that the Greek Comedy, long ago, reprobated +them as disastrous to the morals of females--that they were condemned by +the Council of Elvira, by Vigilantius of Marseilles and by the great +Saint Jerome, who wrote that on such occasions no virgin should wander a +hand's-breadth from her mother. They wish you to believe that on these +warm summer nights, when the pulses of nature are felt and senses +stirred with music and wine and dance, the _Gran Madre di Dio_ is adored +in a manner less becoming Christian youths and maidens, than heathens +celebrating mad orgies to _Magna Mater_ in Daphne, or the Babylonian +groves (where she was not worshipped at all--though she might have been). + +In fact, they insinuate that----- + +It may well be true. What were the moralists doing there? + +Festivals like this are relics of paganism, and have my cordial +approval. We English ought to have learnt by this time that the +repression of pleasure is a dangerous error. In these days when even +Italy, the grey-haired _cocotte,_ has become tainted with +Anglo-Pecksniffian principles, there is nothing like a little +time-honoured bestiality for restoring the circulation and putting +things to rights generally. On ethical grounds alone--as +safety-valves--such nocturnal feasts ought to be kept up in regions such +as these, where the country-folk have not our "facilities." Who would +grudge them these primordial joys, conducted under the indulgent +motherly eye of Madonna, and hallowed by antiquity and the starlit +heavens above? Every one is so happy and well-behaved. No bawling, no +quarrelsomeness, no staggering tipplers; a spirit of universal good +cheer broods over the assembly. Involuntarily, one thinks of the +drunkard-strewn field of battle at the close of our Highland games; one +thinks of God-fearing Glasgow on a Saturday evening, and of certain +other aspects of Glasgow life. . . . + +I accepted the kindly proffered invitation of the priests to share their +dinner; they held out hopes of some sort of sleeping accommodation as +well. It was a patriarchal hospitality before that fire of logs (the +night had grown chilly), and several other guests partook of it, +forestal inspectors and such-like notabilities--one lady among them who, +true to feudal traditions, hardly spoke a word the whole evening. I was +struck, as I have sometimes been, at the attainments of these country +priests; they certainly knew our Gargantuan novelists of the Victorian +epoch uncommonly well. Can it be that these great authors are more +readable in Italian translations than in the original? One of them took +to relating, in a strain of autumnal humour, experiences of his life in +the wilds of Bolivia, where he had spent many years among the Indians; +my neighbour, meanwhile, proved to be steeped in Horatian lore. It was +his pet theory, supported by a wealth of aptly cited lines, that Horace +was a "typical Italian countryman," and great was his delight on +discovering that I shared his view and could even add another--somewhat +improper--utterance of the poet's to his store of illustrative quotations. + +They belonged to the old school, these sable philosophers; to the days +when the priest was arbiter of life and death, and his mere word +sufficient to send a man to the galleys; when the cleverest boys of +wealthy and influential families were chosen for the secular career and +carefully, one might say liberally, trained to fulfil those responsible +functions. The type is becoming extinct, the responsibility is gone, the +profession has lost its glamour; and only the clever sons of pauper +families, or the dull ones of the rich, are now tempted to forsake the +worldly path. + +Regarding the origin of this festival, I learned that it was +"tradition." It had been suggested to me that the Virgin had appeared to +a shepherd in some cave near at hand--the usual Virgin, in the usual +cave; a cave which, in the present instance, no one was able to point +out to me. _Est traditio, ne quaeras amplius._ + +My hosts answered questions on this subject with benignant ambiguity, +and did not trouble to defend the divine apparition on the sophistical +lines laid down in Riccardi's "Santuari." The truth, I imagine, is that +they have very sensibly not concerned themselves with inventing an +original legend. The custom of congregating here on these fixed days +seems to be recent, and I am inclined to think that it has been called +into being by the zeal of some local men of standing. On the other hand, +a shrine may well have stood for many years on this spot, for it marks +the half-way house in the arduous two days' journey between San Severino +and Castro-villari, a summer _trek_ that must date from hoary antiquity. + +Our bedroom contained two rough couches which were to be shared between +four priests and myself. Despite the fact that I occupied the place of +honour between the two oldest and wisest of my ghostly entertainers, +sleep refused to come; the din outside had grown to a pandemonium. I lay +awake till, at 2.30 a.m., one of them arose and touched the others with +a whispered and half-jocular _oremus!_ They retired on tiptoe to the +next room, noiselessly closing the door, to prepare themselves for early +service. I could hear them splashing vigorously at their ablutions in +the icy water, and wondered dreamily how many Neapolitan priests would +indulge at that chill hour of the morning in such a lustrai rite, +prescribed as it is by the rules of decency and of their church. + +After that, I stretched forth at my ease and endeavoured to repose +seriously. There were occasional lulls, now, in the carnival, but +explosions of sound still broke the stillness, and phantoms of the +restless throng began to chase each other through my brain. The exotic +costumes of the Albanian girls in their green and gold wove themselves +into dreams and called up colours seen in Northern Africa during still +wilder festivals--negro festivals such as Fro-mentin loved to depict. In +spectral dance there flitted before my vision nightmarish throngs of +dusky women bedizened in that same green and gold; Arabs I saw, riding +tumultuously hither and thither with burnous flying in the wind; beggars +crawling about the hot sand and howling for alms; ribbons and flags +flying--a blaze of sunshine overhead, and on earth a seething orgy of +colour and sound; methought I heard the guttural yells of the +fruit-vendors, musketry firing, braying of asses, the demoniacal groans +of the camels---- + +Was it really a camel? No. It was something infinitely worse, and within +a few feet of my ears. I sprang out of bed. There, at the very window, +stood a youth extracting unearthly noises out of the Basilicata bagpipe. +To be sure! I remembered expressing an interest in this rare instrument +to one of my hosts who, with subtle delicacy, must have ordered the boy +to give me a taste of his quality--to perform a matutinal serenade, for +my especial benefit. How thoughtful these people are. It was not quite 4 +a.m. With some regret, I said farewell to sleep and stumbled out of +doors, where my friends of yesterday evening were already up and doing. +The eating, the dancing, the bagpipes--they were all in violent +activity, under the sober and passionless eye of morning. + +A gorgeous procession took place about midday. Like a many-coloured +serpent it wound out of the chapel, writhed through the intricacies of +the pathway, and then unrolled itself freely, in splendid convolutions, +about the sunlit meadow, saluted by the crash of mortars, bursts of +military music from the band, chanting priests and women, and all the +bagpipers congregated in a mass, each playing his own favourite tune. +The figure of the Madonna--a modern and unprepossessing image--was +carried aloft, surrounded by resplendent ecclesiastics and followed by a +picturesque string of women bearing their votive offerings of candles, +great and small. Several hundredweight of wax must have been brought up +on the heads of pious female pilgrims. These multi-coloured candles are +arranged in charming designs; they are fixed upright in a framework of +wood, to resemble baskets or bird-cages, and decked with bright ribbons +and paper flowers. + +Who settles the expenses of such a festival? The priests, in the first +place, have paid a good deal to make it attractive; they have improved +the chapel, constructed a number of permanent wooden shelters (rain +sometimes spoils the proceedings), as well as a capacious reservoir for +holding drinking water, which has to be transported in barrels from a +considerable distance. Then--as to the immediate outlay for music, +fireworks, and so forth--the Madonna-statue is "put up to auction": +_fanno l'incanto della Madonna,_ as they say; that is, the privilege of +helping to carry the idol from the church and back in the procession is +sold to the highest bidders. Inasmuch as She is put up for auction +several times during this short perambulation, fresh enthusiasts coming +forward gaily with bank-notes and shoulders--whole villages competing +against each other--a good deal of money is realized in this way. There +are also spontaneous gifts of money. Goats and sheep, too, decorated +with coloured rags, are led up by peasants who have "devoted" them to +the Mother of God; the butchers on the spot buy these beasts for +slaughter, and their price goes to swell the funds. + +This year's expenditure may have been a thousand francs or so, and the +proceeds are calculated at about two-thirds of that sum. + +No matter. If the priests do not make good the deficiency, some one else +will be kind enough to step forward. Better luck next year! The +festival, they hope, is to become more popular as time goes on, despite +the chilling prophecy of one of our friends: "It will finish, this +comedy!" The money, by the way, does not pass through the hands of the +clerics, but of two individuals called "Regolatore" and "Priore," who +mutually control each other. They are men of reputable families, who +burden themselves with the troublesome task for the honour of the thing, +and make up any deficiencies in the accounts out of their own pockets. +Cases of malversation are legendary. + +This procession marked the close of the religious gathering. Hardly was +it over before there began a frenzied scrimmage of departure. And soon +the woodlands echoed with the laughter and farewellings of pilgrims +returning homewards by divergent paths; the whole way through the +forest, we formed part of a jostling caravan along the +Castrovillari-Morano track--how different from the last time I had +traversed this route, when nothing broke the silence save a chaffinch +piping among the branches or the distant tap of some woodpecker! + +So ended the _festa._ Once in the year this mountain chapel is rudely +disquieted in its slumbers by a boisterous riot; then it sinks again +into tranquil oblivion, while autumn dyes the beeches to gold. And very +soon the long winter comes; chill tempests shake the trees and leaves +are scattered to earth; towards Yuletide some woodman of Viggianello +adventuring into these solitudes, and mindful of their green summer +revels, discovers his familiar sanctuary entombed up to the door-lintle +under a glittering sheet of snow. . . . + +There was a little episode in the late afternoon. We had reached the +foot of the Gaudolino valley and begun the crossing of the plain, when +there met us a woman with dishevelled hair, weeping bitterly and showing +other signs of distress; one would have thought she had been robbed or +badly hurt. Not at all! Like the rest of us, she had attended the feast +and, arriving home with the first party, had been stopped at the +entrance of the town, where they had insisted upon fumigating her +clothes as a precaution against cholera, and those of her companions. +That was all. But the indignity choked her--she had run back to warn the +rest of us, all of whom were to be treated to the same outrage. Every +approach to Morano, she declared, was watched by doctors, to prevent +wary pilgrims from entering by unsuspected paths. + +During her recital my muleteer had grown thoughtful. + +"What's to be done?" he asked. + +"I don't much mind fumigation," I replied. + +"Oh, but I do! I mind it very much. And these doctors are so dreadfully +distrustful. How shall we cheat them? ... I have it, I have it!" + +And he elaborated the following stratagem: + +"I go on ahead of you, alone, leading the two mules. You follow, out of +sight, behind. And what happens? When I reach the doctor, he asks slyly: +'Well, and how did you enjoy the festival this year?' Then I say: +'Not this year, doctor; alas, no festival for me! I've been with an +Englishman collecting beetles in the forest, and see? here's his riding +mule. He walks on behind--oh, quite harmless, doctor! a nice gentleman, +indeed--only, he prefers walking; he really _likes_ it, ha, ha, ha!----" + +"Why mention about my walking?" I interrupted. The lady-mule was still a +sore subject. + +"I mention about your not riding," he explained graciously, "because it +will seem to the doctor a sure sign that you are a little"--here he +touched his forehead with a significant gesture--"a little like some +other foreigners, you know. And that, in its turn, will account for your +collecting beetles. And that, in its turn, will account for your not +visiting the Madonna. You comprehend the argument: how it all hangs +together?" + +"I see. What next?" + +"Then you come up, holding one beetle in each hand, and pretend not to +know a word of Italian--not a word! You must smile at the doctor, in +friendly fashion; he'll like that. And besides, it will prove what I +said about----" (touching his forehead once more). "In fact, the truth +will be manifest. And there will be no fumigation for us." + +It seemed a needlessly circuitous method of avoiding such a slight +inconvenience. I would have put more faith in a truthful narrative by +myself, suffused with that ingratiating amiability which I would +perforce employ on such occasions. But the stronger mind, as usual, had +its way. + +"I'll smile," I agreed. "But you shall carry my beetles; it looks more +natural, somehow. Go ahead, and find them." + +He moved forwards with the beasts and, after destroying a considerable +tract of stone wall, procured a few specimens of native coleoptera, +which he carefully wrapped up in a piece of paper. I followed slowly. + +Unfortunately for him, that particular doctor happened to be +an _americana_ a snappy little fellow, lately returned from the States. + +"Glad to make your acquaintance, sir," he began, as I came up to where +the two were arguing together. "I've heard of your passing through the +other day. So you don't talk Italian? Well, then, see here: this man of +yours, this God-dam son of Satan, has been showing me a couple of bugs +and telling me a couple of hundred lies about them. Better move on right +away; lucky you struck _me!_ As for this son of a ----, you bet I'll +sulphur him, bugs and all, to hell!" + +I paid the crestfallen muleteer then and there; took down my bags, +greatly lightened, and departed with them. Glancing round near the +little bridge, I saw that the pair were still engaged in heated +discussion, my man clinging despairingly, as it seemed, to the +beetle-hypothesis; he looked at me with reproachful eyes, as though I +had deserted him in his hour of need. + +But what could I do, not knowing Italian? + +Moreover, I remembered the "lady-mule." + +Fifteen minutes later a light carriage took me to Castrovillari, whence, +after a bath and dinner that compensated for past hardships, I sped down +to the station and managed, by a miracle, to catch the night-train to +Cosenza. + + + + +XXI + +MILTON IN CALABRIA + + +You may spend pleasant days in this city of Cosenza, doing nothing +whatever. But I go there a for set purpose, and bristling with energy. I +go there to hunt for a book by a certain Salandra, which was printed on +the spot, and which I have not yet been able to find, although I once +discovered it in an old catalogue, priced at 80 _grani._ Gladly would I +give 8000 for it! + +The author was a contemporary of that Flying Monk of whom I spoke in +Chapter X, and he belonged to the same religious order. If, in what I +then said about the flying monk, there appears to be some trace of light +fooling in regard to this order and its methods, let amends be made by +what I have to tell about old Salandra, the discovery of whose book is +one of primary importance for the history of English letters. Thus I +thought at the time; and thus I still think, with all due deference to +certain grave and discerning gentlemen, the editors of various English +monthlies to whom I submitted a paper on this subject--a paper which +they promptly returned with thanks. No; that is not quite correct. One +of them has kept it; and as six years have passed over our heads, I +presume he has now acquired a title by "adverse possession." Much good +may it do him! + +Had the discovery been mine, I should have endeavoured to hide my light +under the proverbial bushel. But it is not mine, and therefore I make +bold to say that Mr. Bliss Perry, of the "Atlantic Monthly," knew better +than his English colleagues when he published the article from which I +take what follows. + +"Charles Dunster ('Considerations on Milton's Early Reading,' etc., +1810) traces the _prima stamina_ of 'Paradise Lost' to Sylvester's 'Du +Bartas.' Masenius, Cedmon, Vendei, and other older writers have also +been named in this connection, while the majority of Milton's English +commentators--and among foreigners Voltaire and Tiraboschi--are inclined +to regard the 'Adamus Exul' of Grotius or Andreini's sacred drama of +'Adamo' as the prototype." + +This latter can be consulted in the third volume of Cowper's 'Milton' +(1810). + +The matter is still unsettled, and in view of the number of recent +scholars who have interested themselves in it, one is really surprised +that no notice has yet been taken of an Italian article which goes far +towards deciding this question and proving that the chief source of +'Paradise Lost' is the 'Adamo Caduto,' a sacred tragedy by Serafino +della Salandra. The merit of this discovery belongs to Francesco Zicari, +whose paper, 'Sulla scoverta dell' originale italiano da cui Milton +trasse il suo poema del paradiso perduto,' is printed on pages 245 +to 276 in the 1845 volume of the Naples 'Album +scientifico-artistico-letterario' now lying before me. It is in the form +of a letter addressed to his friend Francesco Ruffa, a native of +Tropea in Calabria. [Footnote: Zicari contemplated another paper on +this subject, but I am unaware whether this was ever published. The +Neapolitan Minieri-Riccio, who wrote his 'Memorie Storiche' in 1844, +speaks of this article as having been already printed in 1832, but does +not say where. This is corroborated by N. Falcone ('Biblioteca +storica-topo-grafica della Calabria,' 2nd ed., Naples, 1846, pp. +151-154), who gives the same date, and adds that Zicari was the author +of a work on the district of Fuscaldo. He was born at Paola in Calabria, +of which he wrote a (manuscript) history, and died in 1846. In this +Milton article, he speaks of his name being 'unknown in the republic of +letters.'. He it mentioned by Nicola Leoni (' Della Magna Grecia,' vol. +ii, p. 153),] + +Salandra, it is true, is named among the writers of sacred tragedies in +Todd's 'Milton' (1809, vol. ii, p. 244), and also by Hayley, but neither +of them had the curiosity, or the opportunity, to examine his 'Adamo +Caduto'; Hayley expressly says that he has not seen it. More recent +works, such as that of Moers ('De fontibus Paradisi Amissi Miltoniani,' +Bonn, 1860), do not mention Salandra at all. Byse ('Milton on the +Continent,' 1903) merely hints at some possible motives for the Allegro +and the Penseroso. + +As to dates, there can be no doubt to whom the priority belongs. The +'Adamo' of Salandra was printed at Cosenza in 1647. Richardson thinks +that Milton entered upon his 'Paradise Lost' in 1654, and that it was +shown, as done, in 1665; D. Masson agrees with this, adding that 'it was +not published till two years afterwards.' The date 1665 is fixed, I +presume, by the Quaker Elwood's account of his visit to Milton in the +autumn of that year, when the poet gave him the manuscript to read; the +two years' delay in publication may possibly have been due to the +confusion occasioned by the great plague and fire of London. + +The castigation bestowed upon Lauder by Bishop Douglas, followed, as it +was, by a terrific 'back-hander' from the brawny arm of Samuel Johnson, +induces me to say that Salandra's 'Adamo Caduto,' though extremely +rare--so rare that neither the British Museum nor the Paris Bibliotheque +Nationale possesses a copy--is _not_ an imaginary book; I have had it in +my hands, and examined it at the Naples Biblioteca Nazionale; it is a +small octavo of 251 pages (not including twenty unnumbered ones, and +another one at the end for correction of misprints); badly printed and +bearing all the marks of genuineness, with the author's name and the +year and place of publication clearly set forth on the title-page. I +have carefully compared Zicari's references to it, and quotations from +it with the original. They are correct, save for a few insignificant +verbal discrepancies which, so far as I can judge, betray no indication +of an attempt on his part to mislead the reader, such as using the word +_tromba_ (trumpet) instead of Salandra's term _sambuca_ (sackbut). And +if further proof of authenticity be required, I may note that the 'Adamo +Caduto' of Salandra is already cited in old bibliographies like Toppi's +'Biblioteca Napoletana' (1678), or that of Joannes a S. Antonio +('Biblioteca universa Franciscana, etc.,' Madrid, 1732-1733, vol. iii, +p. 88). It appears to have been the only literary production of its +author, who was a Franciscan monk and is described as 'Preacher, Lector +and Definitor of the Reformed Province of Basilicata.' + +We may take it, then, that Salandra was a real person, who published a +mystery called 'Adamo Caduto' in 1647; and I will now, without further +preamble, extract from Zicari's article as much as may be sufficient to +show ground for his contention that Milton's 'Paradise Lost' is a +transfusion, in general and in particular, of this same mystery. + +Salandra's central theme is the Universe shattered by the disobedience +of the First Man, the origin of our unhappiness and sins. The same with +Milton. + +Salandra's chief personages are God and His angels; the first man and +woman; the serpent; Satan and his angels. The same with Milton. + +Salandra, at the opening of his poem (the prologue), sets forth his +argument, and dwells upon the Creative Omnipotence and his works. The +same with Milton. + +Salandra then describes the council of the rebel angels, their fall from +heaven into a desert and sulphurous region, their discourses. Man is +enviously spoken of, and his fall by means of stratagem decided upon; it +is resolved to reunite in council in Pandemonium or the Abyss, where +measures may be adopted to the end that man may become the enemy of God +and the prey of hell. The same with Milton. + +Salandra personifies Sin and Death, the latter being the child of the +former. The same with Milton. + +Salandra describes Omnipotence foreseeing the effects of the temptation +and fall of man, and preparing his redemption. The same with Milton. + +Salandra depicts the site of Paradise and the happy life there. The same +with Milton. + +Salandra sets forth the miraculous creation of the universe and of man, +and the virtues of the forbidden fruit. The same with Milton. + +Salandra reports the conversation between Eve and the Serpent; the +eating of the forbidden fruit and the despair of our first parents. The +same with Milton. + +Salandra describes the joy of Death at the discomfiture of Eve; the +rejoicings in hell; the grief of Adam; the flight of our first parents, +their shame and repentance. The same with Milton. + +Salandra anticipates the intercession of the Redeemer, and the overthrow +of Sin and Death; he dwells upon the wonders of the Creation, the murder +of Abel by his brother Cain, and other human ills; the vices of the +Antediluvians, due to the fall of Adam; the infernal gift of war. The +same with Milton. + +Salandra describes the passion of Jesus Christ, and the comforts which +Adam and Eve receive from the angel who announces the coming of the +Messiah; lastly, their departure from the earthly paradise. The same +with Milton. + +So much for the general scheme of both poems. And now for a few +particular points of resemblance, verbal and otherwise. + +The character of Milton's Satan, with the various facets of pride, envy, +vindictiveness, despair, and impenitence which go to form that +harmonious whole, are already clearly mapped out in the Lucifero of +Salandra. For this statement, which I find correct, Zicari gives chapter +and verse, but it would take far too long to set forth the matter in +this place. The speeches of Lucifero, to be sure, read rather like a +caricature--it must not be forgotten that Salandra was writing for +lower-class theatrical spectators, and not for refined readers--but the +elements which Milton has utilized are already there. + +Here is a coincidence: + +Here we may reign secure . . . + +Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. + +MILTON (i, 258) + +. . . . Qui propria voglia, Son capo, son qui duce, son +lor Prence. + +SALANDRA (p. 49). + +And another: + +. . . Whom shall we find Sufficient? +. . . This enterprise None shall +partake with me. +--MILTON (ii, 403, 465). + +A chi bastera l' anima di voi? +. . . certo che quest' affare +A la mia man s' aspetta. +--SALANDRA (p. 64). + +Milton's Terror is partially taken from the Megera of the Italian poet. +The 'grisly Terror' threatens Satan (ii, 699), and the office of Megera, +in Salandra's drama, is exactly the same--that is, to threaten and +chastise the rebellious spirit, which she does very effectually (pages +123-131). The identical monsters--Cerberus, Hydras, and Chimseras--are +found in their respective abodes, but Salandra does not content himself +with these three; his list includes such a mixed assemblage of creatures +as owls, basilisks, dragons, tigers, bears, crocodiles, sphynxes, +harpies, and panthers. Terror moves with dread rapidity: + +. . . and from his seat +The monster moving onward came as fast +With horrid strides. +--MILTON (ii, 675). + +and so does Megera: + +In atterir, in spaventar son . . . +Rapido si ch' ogni ripar e vano. +--SALANDRA (p. 59). + +Both Milton and Salandra use the names of the gods of antiquity for +their demons, but the narrative epic of the English poet naturally +permitted of far greater prolixity and variety in this respect. A most +curious parallelism exists between Milton's Belial and that of Salandra. +Both are described as luxurious, timorous, slothful, and scoffing, and +there is not the slightest doubt that Milton has taken over these mixed +attributes from the Italian. [Footnote: This is one of the occasions in +which Zicari appears, at first sight, to have stretched a point in order +to improve his case, because, in the reference he gives, it is Behemoth, +and not Belial, who speaks of himielf as cowardly _(imbelle)._ But in +another place Lucifer applies this designation to Belial as well,] + +The words of Milton's Beelzebub (ii, 368): + + Seduce them to our party, that their god + May prove their foe . . . + +are copied from those of the Italian Lucifero (p. 52): + + . . . Facciam Accio, che l' huom divenga + A Dio nemico . . . + +Regarding the creation of the world, Salandra asks (p. 11): + + Qual lingua puo di Dio, + Benche da Dio formato + Lodar di Dio le meraviglie estreme? + +which is thus echoed by Milton (vii, 112): + + . . . to recount almighty works + What words or tongue of Seraph can suffice? + +There is a considerable resemblance between the two poets in their +descriptions of Paradise and of its joys. In both poems, too, Adam warns +his spouse of her frailty, and in the episode of Eve's meeting with the +serpent there are no less than four verbal coincidences. Thus Salandra +writes (p. 68): + + Ravviso gli animal, ch' a schiera a schiera + Gia fanno humil e _reverente_ inclino . . . + Ravveggio il bel serpente _avvolto_ in giri; + O sei bello + Con tanta varieta che certo sembri + Altro stellato ciel, _smaltata_ terra. + O che sento, _tu parli?_ + +and Milton transcribes it as follows (ix, 517-554): + + . . . She minded not, as used + To such disport before her through the field + From every beast, more _duteous_ at her call . . . + Curled many a wanton _wreath_ in sight of Eve. + His turret crest and sleek _enamelled_ neck . . . + What may this mean? + Language of man _pronounced_ + By tongue of brute? + +Altogether, Zicari has observed that Rolli, although unacquainted with +the 'Adamo Caduto,' has sometimes inadvertently hit upon the same words +in his Italian translation of Milton which Salandra had used before him. + +Eve's altered complexion after the eating of the forbidden fruit is +noted by both poets: + +Torbata ne la faccia? Non sei quella + +Qual ti lasciai contenta . . .--SALANDRA (p. 89). + +Thus Eve with countenance blithe her story told; + +But in her cheek distemper flushing glowed. --MILTON (ix, 886). + +only with this difference, that the Italian Eve adds a half-lie by way +of explaining the change: + + . . . Forse cangiata (del che non mi avveggio) + Sono nel volto per la tua partenza.--(p. 89). + +In both poems Sin and Death reappear on the scene after the transgression. + +The flight of Innocence from earth; the distempered lust which dominates +over Adam and Eve after the Fall; the league of Sin and Death to rule +henceforward over the world; the pathetic lament of Adam regarding his +misfortune and the evils in store for his progeny; his noble sentiment, +that none can withdraw himself from the all-seeing eye of God--all these +are images which Milton has copied from Salandra. + +Adam's state of mind, after the fall, is compared by Salandra to a boat +tossed by impetuous winds (p. 228): + + Qual agitato legno d'Austro, e Noto, + Instabile incostante, non hai pace, + Tu vivi pur . . . + +which is thus paraphrased in Milton (ix, 1122): + + . . . High winds worse within + Began to rise . . . and shook sore + Their inward state of mind, calm region once + And full of peace, now tossed and turbulent. + +Here is a still more palpable adaptation: + + ... So God ordains: + God is thy law, thou mine. + --MILTON (iv, 636) + + . . . . Un voler sia d' entrambi, + E quel' uno di noi, di Dio sia tutto. + --SALANDRA (p. 42). + +After the Fall, according to Salandra, _vacillo la terra_ (i), _geme_ +(2), _e pianse_ (3), _rumoreggiano i tuoni_ (4), _accompagnati da +grandini_ (5), _e dense nevi_ (6), (pp. 138, 142, 218). Milton +translates this as follows: Earth trembled from her entrails (1), and +nature gave a second groan (2); sky loured and, muttering thunders (4), +some sad drops wept (3), the winds, armed with ice and snow (6) and hail +(5). ('Paradise Lost,' ix, 1000, x. 697). + +Here is another translation: + + . . . inclino il ciclo + Giu ne la terra, e questa al Ciel innalza. + --SALANDRA (p. 242). + + And Earth be changed to Heaven, and Heaven to Earth. + --MILTON (vii, 160). + +It is not to my purpose to do Zicari's work over again, as this would +entail a complete translation of his long article (it contains nearly +ten thousand words), to which, if the thing is to be done properly, must +be appended Salandra's 'Adamo,' in order that his quotations from it can +be tested. I will therefore refer to the originals those who wish to go +into the subject more fully, warning them, _en passant,_ that they may +find the task of verification more troublesome than it seems, owing to a +stupid mistake on Zicari's part. For in his references to Milton, he +claims (p. 252) to use an 1818 Venice translation of the 'Paradise Lost' +by Rolli. Now Rolli's 'Paradiso Perduto' is a well-known work which was +issued in many editions in London, Paris, and Italy throughout the +eighteenth century. But I cannot trace this particular one of Venice, +and application to many of the chief libraries of Italy has convinced me +that it does not exist, and that 1818 must be a misprint for some other +year. The error would be of no significance if Zicari had referred to +Rolli's 'Paradiso' by the usual system of cantos and lines, but he +refers to it by pages, and the pagination differs in every one of the +editions of Rolli which have passed through my hands. Despite every +effort, I have not been able to hit upon the precise one which Zicari +had in mind, and if future students are equally unfortunate, I wish them +joy of their labours. [Footnote: Let me take this opportunity of +expressing my best thanks to Baron E. Tortora Brayda, of the Naples +Biblioteca Nazionale, who has taken an infinity of trouble in this +matter.] + +These few extracts, however, will suffice to show that, without +Salandra's 'Adamo,' the 'Paradise Lost,' as we know it, would not be in +existence; and that Zicari's discovery is therefore one of primary +importance for English letters, although it would be easy to point out +divergencies between the two works--divergencies often due to the +varying tastes and feelings of a republican Englishman and an Italian +Catholic, and to the different conditions imposed by an epic and a +dramatic poem. Thus, in regard to this last point, Zicari has already +noted (p. 270) that Salandra's scenic acts were necessarily reproduced +in the form _of visions_ by Milton, who could not avail himself of the +mechanism of the drama for this purpose. Milton was a man of the world, +traveller, scholar, and politician; but it will not do for us to insist +too vehemently upon the probable mental inferiority of the Calabrian +monk, in view of the high opinion which Milton seems to have had of his +talents. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The 'Adamo +Caduto,' of course, is only one of a series of similar works concerning +which a large literature has now grown up, and it might not be difficult +to prove that Salandra was indebted to some previous writer for those +words and phrases which he passed on to the English poet. + +But where did Milton become acquainted with this tragedy? It was at +Naples, according to Cowper ('Milton,' vol. iii, p. 206), that the +English poet may first have entertained the idea of 'the loss of +paradise as a subject peculiarly fit for poetry.' He may well have +discussed sacred tragedies, like those of Andreini, with the Marquis +Manso. But Milton had returned to England long before Salandra's poem +was printed; nor can Manso have sent him a copy of it, for he died in +1645--two years before its publication--and Zicari is thus mistaken in +assuming (p. 245) that Milton became acquainted with it in the house of +the Neapolitan nobleman. Unless, therefore, we take for granted that +Manso was intimate with the author Salandra--he knew most of his +literary countrymen--and sent or gave to Milton a copy of the manuscript +of 'Adamo' before it was printed, or that Milton was personally +familiar with Salandra, we may conclude that the poem was forwarded to +him from Italy by some other friend, perhaps by some member of the +_Accademia, degli Oziosi_ which Manso had founded. + +A chance therefore seems to have decided Milton; Salandra's tragedy fell +into his hands, and was welded into the epic form which he had designed +for Arthur the Great, even as, in later years, a chance question on the +part of Elwood led to his writing 'Paradise Regained.' [Footnote: _Thou +hast said much of Paradise Lost, but what hast thou to say of Paradise +Found?_ He made no answer, but sat some time in a muse. . . .] + +For this poem there were not so many models handy as for the other, but +Milton has written too little to enable us to decide how far its +inferiority to the earlier epic is due to this fact, and how far to the +inherent inertia of its subject-matter. Little movement can be contrived +in a mere dialogue such as 'Paradise Regained '; it lacks the grandiose +_mise-en-scene_ and the shifting splendours of the greater epic; the +stupendous figure of the rebellious archangel, the true hero of +'Paradise Lost,' is here dwarfed into a puny, malignant sophist; nor is +the final issue in the later poem _even for a moment_ in doubt--a +serious defect from an artistic point of view. Jortin holds its peculiar +excellence to be 'artful sophistry, false reasoning, set off in the most +specious manner, and refuted by the Son of God with strong unaffected +eloquence'; merits for which Milton needed no original of any kind, as +his own lofty religious sentiments, his argumentative talents and long +experience of political pamphleteering, stood him in good stead. Most of +us must have wondered how it came about that Milton could not endure to +hear 'Paradise Lost' preferred to 'Paradise Regained,' in view of the +very apparent inferiority of the latter. If we had known what Milton +knew, namely, to how large an extent 'Paradise Lost' was not the child +of his own imagination, and therefore not so precious in his eyes as +'Paradise Regained,' we might have understood his prejudice. + +Certain parts of 'Paradise Lost' are drawn, as we all know, from other +Italian sources, from Sannazario, Ariosto, Guarini, Bojardo, and others. +Zicari who, it must be said, has made the best of his case, will have it +that the musterings and battles of the good and evil angels are copied +from the 'Angeleide' of Valvasone published at Milan in 1590. But G. +Polidori, who has reprinted the 'Angeleide' in his Italian version of +Milton (London, 1840), has gone into this matter and thinks otherwise. +These devil-and-angel combats were a popular theme at the time, and +there is no reason why the English poet should copy continental writers +in such descriptions, which necessarily have a common resemblance. The +Marquis Manso was very friendly with the poets Tasso and Marino, and it +is also to be remarked that entire passages in 'Paradise Lost' are +copied, _totidem verbis,_ from the writings of these two, Manso having +no doubt drawn Milton's attention to their beauties. In fact, I am +inclined to think that Manso's notorious enthusiasm for the _warlike_ +epic of Tasso may first of all have diverted Milton from purely pastoral +ideals and inflamed him with the desire of accomplishing a similar feat, +whence the well-known lines in Milton's Latin verses to this friend, +which contain the first indication of such a design on his part. Even +the familiar invocation, 'Hail, wedded Love,' is bodily drawn from one +of Tasso's letters (see Newton's 'Milton,' 1773, vol. i, pp. 312, 313). + +It has been customary to speak of these literary appropriations as +'imitations '; but whoever compares them with the originals will find +that many of them are more correctly termed translations. The case, from +a literary-moral point of view, is different as regards ancient writers, +and it is surely idle to accuse Milton, as has been done, of pilferings +from Aeschylus or Ovid. There is no such thing as robbing the classics. +They are our literary fathers, and what they have left behind them is +our common heritage; we may adapt, borrow, or steal from them as much as +will suit our purpose; to acknowledge such 'thefts' is sheer pedantry +and ostentation. But Salandra and the rest of them were Milton's +contemporaries. It is certainly an astonishing fact that no scholar of +the stamp of Thyer was acquainted with the 'Adamo Caduto'; and it says +much for the isolation of England that, at a period when poems on the +subject of paradise lost were being scattered broadcast in Italy and +elsewhere--when, in short, all Europe was ringing with the doleful +history of Adam and Eve--Milton could have ventured to speak of +his work as 'Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyma'--an amazing +verse which, by the way, is literally transcribed out of Ariosto +('Cosa, non detta in prosa mai, ne in rima'). But even now the +acquaintance of the British public with the productions of continental +writers is superficial and spasmodic, and such was the ignorance of +English scholars of this earlier period, that Birch maintained that +Milton's drafts, to be referred to presently, indicated his intention of +writing an _opera_ (!); while as late as 1776 the poet Mickle, +notwithstanding Voltaire's authority, questioned the very existence of +Andreini, who has written thirty different pieces. + +Some idea of the time when Salandra's tragedy reached Milton might be +gained if we knew the date of his manuscript projects for 'Paradise +Lost' and other writings which are preserved at Cambridge. R. Garnett +('Life of Milton,' 1890, p. 129) supposes these drafts to date from +about 1640 to 1642, and I am not sufficiently learned in Miltonian lore +to controvert or corroborate in a general way this assertion. But the +date must presumably be pushed further forward in the case of the +skeletons for 'Paradise Lost,' which are modelled to a great extent upon +Salandra's 'Adamo' of 1647, though other compositions may also have been +present before Milton's mind, such as that mentioned on page 234 of the +second volume of Todd's 'Milton,' from which he seems to have drawn the +hint of a 'prologue spoken by Moses.' + +Without going into the matter exhaustively, I will only say that from +these pieces it is clear that Milton's primary idea was to write, like +Salandra, a sacred tragedy upon this theme, and not an epic. These +drafts also contain a chorus, such as Salandra has placed in his drama, +and a great number of mutes, who do not figure in the English epic, but +who reappear in the 'Adamo Caduto' and all similar works. Even Satan is +here designated as Lucifer, in accordance with the Italian Lucifero; and +at the end of one of Milton's drafts we read 'at last appears Mercy, +comforts him, promises the Messiah, etc.,' which is exactly what +Salandra's Misericordia (Mercy) does in the same place. + +Milton no doubt kept on hand many loose passages of poetry, both +original and borrowed, ready to be worked up into larger pieces; all +poets are smothered in odd scraps of verse and lore which they 'fit in' +as occasion requires; and it is therefore quite possible that some +fragments now included in 'Paradise Lost' may have been complete before +the 'Adamo Caduto' was printed. I am referring, more especially, to +Satan's address to the sun, which Philips says was written before the +commencement of the epic. + +Admitting Philips to be correct, I still question whether this +invocation was composed before Milton's visit to Naples; and if it was, +the poet may well have intended it for some other of the multitudinous +works which these drafts show him to have been revolving in his mind, or +for none of them in particular. + +De Quincey rightly says that Addison gave the initial bias in favour of +'Paradise Lost' to the English national mind, which has thenceforward +shrunk, as Addison himself did, from a dispassionate contemplation of +its defects; the idea being, I presume, that a 'divine poem' in a manner +disarmed rational criticism. And, strange to say, even the few faults +which earlier scholars did venture to point out in Milton's poem will be +found in that of Salandra. There is the same superabundance of allegory; +the same confusion of spirit and matter among the supernatural persons; +the same lengthy astronomical treatise; the same personification of Sin +and Death; the same medley of Christian and pagan mythology; the same +tedious historico-theological disquisition at the end of both poems. + +For the rest, it is to be hoped that we have outgrown our fastidiousness +on some of these points. Theological fervour has abated, and in a work +of the pure imagination, as 'Paradise Lost' is now--is it +not?--considered to be, there is nothing incongruous or offensive in an +amiable commingling of Semitic and Hellenic deities after the approved +Italian recipe; nor do a few long words about geography or science +disquiet us any more. Milton was not writing for an uncivilized mob, and +his occasional displays of erudition will represent to a cultured person +only those breathing spaces so refreshing in all epic poetry. That +Milton's language is saturated with Latinisms and Italianisms is +perfectly true. His English may not have been good enough for his +contemporaries. But it is quite good enough for us. That 'grand manner' +which Matthew Arnold claimed for Milton, that sustained pitch of kingly +elaboration and fullness, is not wholly an affair of high moral tone; it +results in part from the humbler ministrations of words happily +chosen--from a felicitous alloy of Mediterranean grace and Saxon mettle. +For, whether consciously or not, we cannot but be influenced by the +_colour-effects_ of mere words, that arouse in us definite but +indefinable moods of mind. To complain of the foreign phraseology and +turns of thought in 'Paradise Lost' would be the blackest ingratitude +nowadays, seeing that our language has become enriched by steady gleams +of pomp and splendour due, in large part, to the peculiar _lustre_ of +Milton's comely importations. + + + + +XXII + +THE "GREEK" SILA + + +It was to be the Sila in earnest, this time. I would traverse the whole +country, from the Coscile valley to Catanzaro, at the other end. +Arriving from Cosenza the train deposited me, once more, at the unlovely +station of Castrovillari. I looked around the dusty square, half-dazed +by the sunlight--it was a glittering noonday in July--but the postal +waggon to Spezzano Albanese, my first resting-point, had not yet +arrived. Then a withered old man, sitting on a vehicle behind the sorry +skeleton of a horse, volunteered to take me there at once; we quickly +came to terms; it was too hot, we both agreed, to waste breath in +bargaining. With the end of his whip he pointed out the church of +Spezzano on its hilltop; a proud structure it looked at this distance, +though nearer acquaintance reduced it to extremely humble proportions. + +The Albanian Spezzano (Spezzano Grande is another place) lies on the +main road from Castrovillari to Cosenza, on the summit of a +long-stretched tongue of limestone which separates the Crati river from +the Esaro; this latter, after flowing into the Coscile, joins its waters +with the Crati, and so closes the promontory. An odd geographical +feature, this low stretch, viewed from the greater heights of Sila or +Pollino; one feels inclined to take a broom and sweep it into the sea, +so that the waters may mingle sooner. + +Our road ascended the thousand feet in a sinuous ribbon of white dust, +and an eternity seemed to pass as we crawled drowsily upwards to the +music of the cicadas, under the simmering blue sky. There was not a soul +in sight; a hush had fallen upon all things; great Pan was brooding over +the earth. At last we entered the village, and here, once more, +deathlike stillness reigned; it was the hour of post-prandial slumber. + +At our knocking the proprietor of the inn, situated in a side-street, +descended. But he was in bad humour, and held out no hopes of +refreshment. Certain doctors and government officials, he said, were +gathered together in his house, telegraphically summoned to consult +about a local case of cholera. As to edibles, the gentlemen had lunched, +and nothing was left, absolutely nothing; it had been _uno +sterminio--_an extermination--of all he possessed. The prospect of +walking about the burning streets till evening did not appeal to me, and +as this was the only inn at Spezzano I insisted, first gently, then +forcibly--in vain. There was not so much as a chair to sit upon, he +avowed; and therewith retired into his cool twilight. + +Despairing, I entered a small shop wherein I had observed the only signs +of life so far--an Albanian woman spinning in patriarchal fashion. It +was a low-ceilinged room, stocked with candles, seeds, and other +commodities which a humble householder might desire to purchase, +including certain of those water-gugglets of Corigliano ware in whose +shapely contours something of the artistic dreamings of old Sybaris +still seems to linger. The proprietress, clothed in gaudily picturesque +costume, greeted me with a smile and the easy familiarity which I have +since discovered to be natural to all these women. She had a room, she +said, where I could rest; there was also food, such as it was, cheese, +and wine, and---- + +"Fruit?" I queried. + +"Ah, you like fruit? Well, we may not so much as speak about it just +now--the cholera, the doctors, the policeman, the prison! I was going to +say _salami."_ + +Salami? I thanked her. I know Calabrian pigs and what they feed on, +though it would be hard to describe in the language of polite society. + +Despite the heat and the swarms of flies in that chamber, I felt little +desire for repose after her simple repast; the dame was so affable and +entertaining that we soon became great friends. I caused her some +amusement by my efforts to understand and pronounce her language--these +folk speak Albanian and Italian with equal facility--which seemed to my +unpractised ears as hopeless as Finnish. Very patiently, she gave me a +long lesson during which I thought to pick up a few words and phrases, +but the upshot of it all was: + +"You'll never learn it. You have begun a hundred years too late." + +I tried her with modern Greek, but among such fragments as remained on +my tongue after a lapse of over twenty years, only hit upon one word +that she could understand. + +"Quite right!" she said encouragingly. "Why don't you always speak +properly? And now, let me hear a little of your own language." + +I gave utterance to a few verses of Shakespeare, which caused +considerable merriment. + +"Do you mean to tell me," she asked, "that people really talk like that?" + +"Of course they do." + +"And pretend to understand what it means?" + +"Why, naturally." + +"Maybe they do," she agreed. "But only when they want to be thought +funny by their friends." + +The afternoon drew on apace, and at last the pitiless sun sank to rest. +I perambulated Spezzano in the gathering twilight; it was now fairly +alive with people. An unclean place; an epidemic of cholera would work +wonders here. . . . + +At 9.30 p.m. the venerable coachman presented himself, by appointment; +he was to drive me slowly (out of respect for his horse) through the +cool hours of the night as far as Vaccarizza, on the slopes of the Greek +Sila, where he expected to arrive early in the morning. (And so he did; +at half-past five.) Not without more mirth was my leave-taking from the +good shopwoman; something, apparently, was hopelessly wrong with the +Albanian words of farewell which I had carefully memorized from our +preceding lesson. She then pressed a paper parcel into my hand. + +"For the love of God," she whispered, "silence! Or we shall all be in +jail to-morrow." + +It contained a dozen pears. + +Driving along, I tried to enter into conversation with the coachman who, +judging by his face, was a mine of local lore. But I had come too late; +the poor old man was so weakened by age and infirmities that he cared +little for talk, his thoughts dwelling, as I charitably imagined, on his +wife and children, all dead and buried (so he said) many long years ago. +He mentioned, however, the _diluvio,_ the deluge, which I have heard +spoken of by older people, among whom it is a fixed article of faith. +This deluge is supposed to have affected the whole Crati valley, +submerging towns and villages. In proof, they say that if you dig near +Tarsia below the present river-level, you will pass through beds of silt +and ooze to traces of old walls and cultivated land. Tarsia used to lie +by the river-side, and was a flourishing place, according to the +descriptions of Leandro Alberti and other early writers; floods and +malaria have now forced it to climb the hills. + +The current of the Crati is more spasmodic and destructive than in +classical times when the river was "navigable"; and to one of its +inundations may be due this legend of the deluge; to the same +one, maybe, that affected the courses of this river and the Coscile, +mingling their waters which used to flow separately into the Ionian. Or +it may be a hazy memory of the artificial changing of the riverbed when +the town of Sybaris, lying between these two rivers, was destroyed. Yet +the streams are depicted as entering the sea apart in old maps such as +those of Magini, Fiore, Coronelli, and Cluver; and the latter writes +that "near the mouth of the Crati there flows into the same sea a river +vulgarly called Cochile." [Footnote: In the earlier part of +Rathgeber's astonishing "Grossgriechenland und Pythagoras" (1866) will +be found a good list of old maps of the country.] + +This is important. It remains to be seen whether this statement is the +result of a personal visit, or whether he simply repeated the old +geography. His text in many places indicates a personal acquaintance +with southern Italy--_Italian_, says Heinsius, _non semel +peragravit--_ and he may well have been tempted to investigate a site +like that of Sybaris. If so, the change in the river courses and +possibly this "deluge" has taken place since his day. + +Deprived of converse, I relapsed into a doze, but soon woke up with a +start. The carriage had stopped; it was nearly midnight; we were at +Terranova di Sibari, whose houses were lit up by the silvery beams of +the moon. + +Thurii--death-place of Herodotus! How one would like to see this place +by daylight. On the ancient site, which lies at a considerable distance, +they have excavated antiquities, a large number of which are in the +possession of the Marchese Galli at Castrovillari. I endeavoured to see +his museum, but found it inaccessible for "family reasons." The same +answer was given me in regard to a valuable private library at Rossano, +and annoying as it may be, one cannot severely blame such local +gentlemen for keeping their collections to themselves. What have they to +gain from the visits of inquisitive travellers? + +During these meditations on my part, the old man hobbled busily to and +fro with a bucket, bearing water from a fountain near at hand wherewith +to splash the carriage-wheels. He persisted in this singular occupation +for an unreasonably long time. Water was good for the wheels, he +explained; it kept them cool. + +At last we started, and I began to slumber once more. The carriage +seemed to be going down a steep incline; endlessly it descended, with a +pleasant swaying motion. . . . Then an icy shiver roused me from my +dreams. It was the Crati whose rapid waves, fraught with unhealthy +chills, rippled brightly in the moonlight. We crossed the malarious +valley, and once more touched the hills. + +From those treeless slopes there streamed forth deliciously warm +emanations stored up during the scorching hours of noon; the short scrub +that clothed them was redolent of that peculiar Calabrian odour which +haunts one like a melody--an odour of dried cistus and other aromatic +plants, balsamic by day, almost overpowering at this hour. To aid and +diversify the symphony of perfume, I lit a cigar, and then gave myself +up to contemplation of the heavenly bodies. We passed a solitary man, +walking swiftly with bowed head. What was he doing there? + +"Lupomanaro," said the driver. + +A werewolf. . . . + +I had always hoped to meet with a werewolf on his nocturnal rambles, and +now my wish was gratified. But it was disappointing to see him in human +garb--even werewolves, it seems, must march with the times. This +enigmatical growth of the human mind flourishes in Calabria, but is not +popular as a subject of conversation. The more old-fashioned werewolves +cling to the true _versipellis_ habits, and in that case only the pigs, +the inane Calabrian pigs, are dowered with the faculty of distinguishing +them in daytime, when they look like any other "Christian." There is a +record, in Fiore's book, of an epidemic of lycanthropy that attacked the +boys of Cassano. (Why only the boys?) It began on 31 July, 1210; and the +season of the year strikes me as significant. + +After that I fell asleep in good earnest, nor did I wake up again till +the sun was peering over the eastern hills. We were climbing up a long +slope; the Albanian settlements of Vaccarizza and San Giorgio lay before +us and, looking back, I still saw Spezzano on its ridge; it seemed so +close that a gunshot could have reached it. + +These non-Italian villages date from the centuries that followed the +death of Scanderbeg, when the Grand Signior consolidated his power. The +refugees arrived in flocks from over the sea, and were granted tracts of +wild land whereon to settle--some of them on this incline of the Sila, +which was accordingly called "Greek" Sila, the native confusing these +foreigners with the Byzantines whose dwellings, as regards Calabria, are +now almost exclusively confined to the distant region of Aspromonte. +Colonies of Albanians are scattered all over South Italy, chiefly in +Apulia, Calabria, Basilicata, and Sicily; a few are in the north and +centre--there is one on the Po, for instance, now reduced to 200 +inhabitants; most of these latter have become absorbed into the +surrounding Italian element. Angelo Masci (reprinted 1846) says +there are 59 villages of them, containing altogether 83,000 +inhabitants--exclusive of Sicily; Morelli (1842) gives their total +population for Italy and Sicily as 103,466. If these figures are +correct, the race must have multiplied latterly, for I am told there are +now some 200,000 Albanians in the kingdom, living in about 80 villages. +This gives approximately 2500 for each settlement--a likely number, if +it includes those who are at present emigrants in America. There is a +voluminous literature on the subject of these strangers, the authors of +which are nearly all Albanians themselves. The fullest account of older +conditions may well be that contained in the third volume of Rodota's +learned work (1758); the ponderous Francesco Tajani (1886) brings +affairs up to date, or nearly so. If only he had provided his book with +an index! + +There were troubles at first. Arriving, as they did, solely "with their +shirts and rhapsodies" (so one of them described it to me)--that is, +despoiled of everything, they indulged in robberies and depredations +somewhat too freely even for those free days, with the result that +ferocious edicts were issued against them, and whole clans wiped out. It +was a case of necessity knowing no law. But in proportion as the forests +were hewn down and crops sown, they became as respectable as their +hosts. They are bilingual from birth, one might almost say, and numbers +of the men also express themselves correctly in English, which they pick +up in the United States. + +These islands of alien culture have been hotbeds of Liberalism +throughout history. The Bourbons persecuted them savagely on that +account, exiling and hanging the people by scores. At this moment there +is a good deal of excitement going on in favour of the Albanian revolt +beyond the Adriatic, and it was proposed, among other things, to +organize a demonstration in Rome, where certain Roman ladies were to +dress themselves in Albanian costumes and thus work upon the sentiments +of the nation; but "the authorities" forbade this and every other +movement. None the less, there has been a good deal of clandestine +recruiting, and bitter recriminations against this turcophile attitude +on the part of Italy--this "reactionary rigorism against every +manifestation of sympathy for the Albanian cause." Patriotic +pamphleteers ask, rightly enough, why difficulties should be placed in +the way of recruiting for Albania, when, in the recent cases of Cuba and +Greece, the despatch of volunteers was actually encouraged by the +government? "Legality has ceased to exist here; we Albanians are watched +and suspected exactly as our compatriots now are by the Turks. . . . +They sequestrate our manifestos, they forbid meetings and conferences, +they pry into our postal correspondence. . . . Civil and military +authorities have conspired to prevent a single voice of help and comfort +reaching our brothers, who call to us from over the sea." A hard case, +indeed. But Vienna and Cettinje might be able to throw some light upon +it. [Footnote: This was written before the outbreak of the Balkan war.] + +The Albanian women, here as elsewhere, are the veriest beasts of burden; +unlike the Italians, they carry everything (babies, and wood, and water) +on their backs. Their crudely tinted costumes would be called more +strange than beautiful under any but a bright sunshiny sky. The fine +native dresses of the men have disappeared long ago; they even adopted, +in days past, the high-peaked Calabrian hat which is now only worn by +the older generation. Genuine Calabrians often settle in these foreign +villages, in order to profit by their anti-feudal institutions. For even +now the Italian cultivator is supposed to make, and actually does make, +"voluntary" presents to his landlord at certain seasons; gifts which are +always a source of irritation and, in bad years, a real hardship. The +Albanians opposed themselves from the very beginning against these +mediaeval practices. "They do not build houses," says an old writer, "so +as not to be subject to barons, dukes, princes, or other lords. And if +the owner of the land they inhabit ill-treats them, they set fire to +their huts and go elsewhere." An admirable system, even nowadays. + +One would like to be here at Easter time to see the _rusalet--_those +Pyrrhic dances where the young men group themselves in martial array, +and pass through the streets with song and chorus, since, soon enough, +America will have put an end to such customs. The old Albanian guitar of +nine strings has already died out, and the double tibia--_biforem dat +tibia cantum--_will presently follow suit. This instrument, familiar +from classical sculpture and lore, and still used in Sicily and +Sardinia, was once a favourite with the Sila shepherds, who called it +"fischietto a pariglia." But some years ago I vainly sought it in the +central Sila; the answer to my enquiries was everywhere the same: they +knew it quite well; so and so used to play it; certain persons in +certain villages still made it--they described it accurately enough, but +could not produce a specimen. Single pipes, yes; and bagpipes galore; +but the _tibia: pares_ were "out of fashion" wherever I asked for them. + +Here, in the Greek Sila, I was more fortunate. A boy at the village of +Macchia possessed a pair which he obligingly gave me, after first +playing a song--a farewell song--a plaintive ditty that required, none +the less, an excellent pair of lungs, on account of the two mouthpieces. +Melodies on this double flageolet are played principally at Christmas +time. The two reeds are about twenty-five centimetres in length, and +made of hollow cane; in my specimen, the left hand controls four, the +other six holes; the Albanian name of the instrument is "fiscarol." + +From a gentleman at Vaccarizza I received a still more valuable +present--two neolithic celts (aenolithic, I should be inclined to call +them) wrought in close-grained quartzite, and found not far from that +village. These implements must be rare in the uplands of Calabria, as I +have never come across them before, though they have been found, to my +knowledge, at Savelli in the central Sila. At Vaccarizza they call such +relics "pic"--they are supposed, as usual, to be thunderbolts, and I am +also told that a piece of string tied to one of them cannot be burnt in +fire. The experiment might be worth trying. + +Meanwhile, the day passed pleasantly at Vaccarizza. I became the guest +of a prosperous resident, and was treated to genuine Albanian +hospitality and excellent cheer. I only wish that all his compatriots +might enjoy one meal of this kind in their lifetime. For they are poor, +and their homes of miserable aspect. Like all too many villages in South +Italy, this one is depopulated of its male inhabitants, and otherwise +dirty and neglected. The impression one gains on first seeing one of +these places is more than that of Oriental decay; they are not merely +ragged at the edges. It is a deliberate and sinister chaos, a note of +downright anarchy--a contempt for those simple forms of refinement which +even the poorest can afford. Such persons, one thinks, cannot have much +sense of home and its hallowed associations; they seem to be +everlastingly ready to break with the existing state of things. How +different from England, where the humblest cottages, the roadways, the +very stones testify to immemorial love of order, to neighbourly feelings +and usages sanctioned by time! + +They lack the sense of home as a fixed and old-established topographical +point; as do the Arabs and Russians, neither of whom have a word +expressing our "home" or "Heimat." Here, the nearest equivalent is _la +famiglia._ We think of a particular house or village where we were born +and where we spent our impressionable days of childhood; these others +regard home not as a geographical but as a social centre, liable to +shift from place to place; they are at home everywhere, so long as their +clan is about them. That acquisitive sense which affectionately adorns +our meanest dwelling, slowly saturating it with memories, has been +crushed out of them--if it ever existed--by hard blows of fortune; it is +safer, they think, to transform the labour of their hands into gold, +which can be moved from place to place or hidden from the tyrant's eye. +They have none of our sentimentality in regard to inanimate objects. +Eliza Cook's feelings towards her "old arm-chair" would strike them as +savouring of childishness. Hence the unfinished look of their houses, +within and without. Why expend thought and wealth upon that which may be +abandoned to-morrow? + +The two churches of Vaccarizza, dark and unclean structures, stand side +by side, and I was shown through them by their respective priests, Greek +and Catholic, who walked arm in arm in friendly wise, and meekly smiled +at a running fire of sarcastic observations on the part of another +citizen directed against the "bottega" in general--the _shop,_ as the +church is sometimes irreverently called. The Greco-Catholic cult to +which these Albanians belong is a compromise between the Orthodox and +Roman; their priests may wear beards and marry wives, they use bread +instead of the wafer for sacramental purposes, and there are one or two +other little differences of grave import. + +Six Albanian settlements lie on these northern slopes of the Sila--San +Giorgio, Vaccarizza, San Cosimo, Macchia, San Demetrio Corone, and Santa +Sofia d' Epiro. San Demetrio is the largest of them, and thither, after +an undisturbed night's rest at the house of my kind host--the last, I +fear, for many days to come--I drove in the sunlit hours of next +morning. Along the road one can see how thoroughly the Albanians have +done their work; the land is all under cultivation, save for a dark belt +of trees overhead, to remind one of what once it was. Perhaps they have +eradicated the forest over-zealously, for I observe in San Demetrio that +the best drinking water has now to be fetched from a spring at a +considerable distance from the village; it is unlikely that this should +have been the original condition of affairs; deforestation has probably +diminished the water-supply. + +It was exhilarating to traverse these middle heights with their aerial +views over the Ionian and down olive-covered hill-sides towards the wide +valley of the Crati and the lofty Pollino range, now swimming in +midsummer haze. The road winds in and out of gullies where rivulets +descend from the mountains; they are clothed in cork-oak, ilex, and +other trees; golden orioles, jays, hoopoes and rollers flash among the +foliage. In winter these hills are swept by boreal blasts from the +Apennines, but at this season it is a delightful tract of land. + + + + +XXIII + +ALBANIANS AND THEIR COLLEGE + + +San Demetrio, famous for its Italo-Albanian College, lies on a fertile +incline sprinkled with olives and mulberries and chestnuts, fifteen +hundred feet above sea-level. They tell me that within the memory of +living man no Englishman has ever entered the town. This is quite +possible; I have not yet encountered a single English traveller, during +my frequent wanderings over South Italy. Gone are the days of Keppel +Craven and Swinburne, of Eustace and Brydone and Hoare! You will come +across sporadic Germans immersed in Hohenstaufen records, or searching +after Roman antiquities, butterflies, minerals, or landscapes to +paint--you will meet them in the most unexpected places; but never an +Englishman. The adventurous type of Anglo-Saxon probably thinks the +country too tame; scholars, too trite; ordinary tourists, too dirty. The +accommodation and food in San Demetrio leave much to be desired; its +streets are irregular lanes, ill-paved with cobbles of gneiss and +smothered under dust and refuse. None the less, what noble names have +been given to these alleys--names calculated to fire the ardent +imagination of young Albanian students, and prompt them to valorous and +patriotic deeds! Here are the streets of "Odysseus," of "Salamis" and +"Marathon" and "Thermopylae," telling of the glory that was Greece; "Via +Skanderbeg" and "Hypsilanti" awaken memories of more immediate renown; +"Corso Dante Alighieri" reminds them that their Italian hosts, too, have +done something in their day; the "Piazza Francesco Ferrer" causes their +ultra-liberal breasts to swell with mingled pride and indignation; while +the "Via dell' Industria" hints, not obscurely, at the great truth that +genius, without a capacity for taking pains, is an idle phrase. Such +appellations, without a doubt, are stimulating and glamorous. But if the +streets themselves have seen a scavenger's broom within the last +half-century, I am much mistaken. The goddess "Hygeia" dost not figure +among their names, nor yet that Byzantine Monarch whose infantile +exploit might be re-enacted in ripest maturity without attracting any +attention in San Demetrio. To the pure all things are pure. + +The town is exclusively Albanian; the Roman Catholic church has fallen +into disrepair, and is now used as a shed for timber. But at the door of +the Albanian sanctuary I was fortunate enough to intercept a native +wedding, just as the procession was about to enter the portal. Despite +the fact that the bride was considered the ugliest girl in the place, +she had been duly "robbed" by her bold or possibly blind lover--her +features were providentially veiled beneath her nuptial _flammeum,_ and +of her squat figure little could be discerned under the gorgeous +accoutrements of the occasion. She was ablaze with ornaments and +embroidery of gold, on neck and shoulders and wrist; a wide lace collar +fell over a bodice of purple silk; silken too, and of brightest green, +was her pleated skirt. The priest seemed ineffably bored with his task, +and mumbled through one or two pages of holy books in record time; there +were holdings of candles, interchange of rings, sacraments of bread and +wine and other solemn ceremonies--the most quaint being the +_stephanoma,_ or crowning, of the happy pair, and the moving of their +respective crowns from the head of one to that of the other. It ended +with a chanting perlustration of the church, led by the priest: this is +the so-called "pesatura." + +I endeavoured to attune my mind to the gravity of this marriage, to the +deep historico-ethnologico-poetical significance of its smallest detail. +Such rites, I said to myself, must be understood to be appreciated, and +had I not been reading certain native commentators on the subject that +very morning? Nevertheless, my attention was diverted from the main +issue--the bridegroom's face had fascinated me. The self-conscious male +is always at a disadvantage during grotesquely splendid buffooneries of +this kind; and never, in all my life, have I seen a man looking such a +sorry fool as this individual, never; especially during the +perambulation, when his absurd crown was supported on his head, from +behind, by the hand of his best man. + +Meanwhile a handful of boys, who seemed to share my private feelings in +regard to the performance, had entered the sacred precincts, their +pockets stuffed with living cicadas. These Albanian youngsters, like all +true connaisseurs, are aware of the idiosyncrasy of the classical insect +which, when pinched or tickled on a certain spot, emits its +characteristic and ear-piercing note--the "lily-soft voice" of the Greek +bard. The cicadas, therefore, were duly pinched and then let loose; like +squibs and rockets they careered among the congregation, dashing in our +faces and clinging to our garments; the church resounded like an +olive-copse at noon. A hot little hand conveyed one of these tremulously +throbbing creatures into my own, and obeying a whispered injunction of +"Let it fly, sir!" I had the joy of seeing the beast alight with a +violent buzz on the head of the bride--doubtless the happiest of +auguries. Such conduct, on the part of English boys, would be deemed +very naughty and almost irreverent; but here, one hopes, it may have its +origin in some obscure but pious credence such as that which prompts the +populace to liberate birds in churches, at Easter time. These escaping +cicadas, it may be, are symbolical of matrimony--the individual man and +woman freed, at last, from the dungeon-like horrors of celibate +existence; or, if that parallel be far-fetched, we may conjecture that +their liberation represents the afflatus of the human soul, aspiring +upwards to merge its essence into the Divine All. . . . + +The pride of San Demetrio is its college. You may read about it in +Professor Mazziotti's monograph; but whoever wishes to go to the +fountain-head must peruse the _Historia Erectionis Pontifici Collegi +Corsini Ullanensis, etc.,_ of old Zavarroni--an all-too-solid piece of +work. Founded under the auspices of Pope Clement XII in 1733 (or 1735) +at San Benedetto Ullano, it was moved hither in 1794, and between that +time and now has passed through fierce vicissitudes. Its president, +Bishop Bugliari, was murdered by the brigands in 1806; much of its lands +and revenues have been dissipated by maladministration; it was +persecuted for its Liberalism by the Bourbons, who called it a "workshop +of the devil." It distinguished itself during the anti-dynastic revolts +of 1799 and 1848 and, in 1860, was presented with twelve thousand ducats +by Garibaldi, "in consideration of the signal services rendered to the +national cause by the brave and generous Albanians." [Footnote: There +used to be regiments of these Albanians at Naples. In Filati de +Tassulo's sane study (1777) they are spoken of as highly prized.] Even +now the institution is honeycombed with Freemasonry--the surest path to +advancement in any career, in modern Italy. Times indeed have changed +since the "Inviolable Constitutions" laid it down that _nullus omnino +Alumnus in Collegio detineatur, cuius futura; Chris-tianae pietatis +significatio non extet._ But only since 1900 has it been placed on a +really sound and prosperous footing. An agricultural school has lately +been added, under the supervision of a trained expert. They who are +qualified to judge speak of the college as a beacon of learning--an +institution whose aims and results are alike deserving of high respect. +And certainly it can boast of a fine list of prominent men who have +issued from its walls. + +This little island of stern mental culture contains, besides twenty-five +teachers and as many servants, some three hundred scholars preparing for +a variety of secular professions. About fifty of them are +Italo-Albanians, ten or thereabouts are genuine Albanians from over the +water, the rest Italians, among them two dozen of those unhappy orphans +from. Reggio and Messina who flooded the country after the earthquake, +and were "dumped down" in colleges and private houses all over Italy. +Some of the boys come of wealthy families in distant parts, their +parents surmising that San Demetrio offers no temptations to youthful +folly and extravagance. In this, so far as I can judge, they are +perfectly correct. + +The heat of summer and the fact that the boys were in the throes of +their examinations may have helped to make the majority of them seem +pale and thin; they certainly complained of their food, and the cook was +the only prosperous-looking person whom I could discover in the +establishment--his percentages, one suspects, being considerable. The +average yearly payment of each scholar for board and tuition is only +twenty pounds (it used to be twenty ducats); how shall superfluities be +included in the bill of fare for such a sum? + +The class-rooms are modernized; the dormitories neither clean nor very +dirty; there is a rather scanty gymnasium as well as a physical +laboratory and museum of natural history. Among the recent acquisitions +of the latter is a vulture _(Gyps fulvus)_ which was shot here in the +spring of this year. The bird, they told me, has never been seen in +these regions before; it may have come over from the east, or from +Sardinia, where it still breeds. I ventured to suggest that they should +lose no time in securing a native porcupine, an interesting beast +concerning which I never fail to enquire on my rambles. They used to be +encountered in the Crati valley; two were shot near Corigliano a few +years ago, and another not far from Cotronei on the Neto; they still +occur in the forests near the "Pagliarelle" above Petilia Policastro; +but, judging by all indications, I should say that this animal is +rapidly approaching extinction not only here, but all over Italy. +Another very rare creature, the otter, was killed lately at Vaccarizza, +but unfortunately not preserved. + +Fencing and music are taught, but those athletic exercises which led to +the victories of Marathon and Salamis are not much in vogue--_mens sana +in corpare sana_ is clearly not the ideal of the place; fighting among +the boys is reprobated as "savagery," and corporal punishment forbidden. +There is no playground or workshop, and their sole exercise consists in +dull promenades along the high road under the supervision of one or more +teachers, during which the youngsters indulge in attempts at games by +the wayside which are truly pathetic. So the old "Inviolable +Constitutions" ordain that "the scholars must not play outside the +college, and if they meet any one, they should lower their voices." A +rule of recent introduction is that in this warm weather they must all +lie down to sleep for two hours after the midday meal; it may suit the +managers, but the boys consider it a great hardship and would prefer +being allowed to play. Altogether, whatever the intellectual results may +be, the moral tendency of such an upbringing is damaging to the spirit +of youth and must make for precocious frivolity and brutality. But the +pedagogues of Italy are like her legislators: theorists. They close +their eyes to the cardinal principles of all education--that the waste +products and toxins of the imagination are best eliminated by motor +activities, and that the immature stage of human development, far from +being artificially shortened, should be prolonged by every possible +means. . If the internal arrangement of this institution is not all it +might be as regards the healthy development of youth, the situation of +the college resembles the venerable structures of Oxford in that it is +too good, far too good, for mere youngsters. This building, in its +seclusion from the world, its pastoral surroundings and soul-inspiring +panorama, is an abode not for boys but for philosophers; a place to fill +with a wave of deep content the sage who has outgrown earthly ambitions. +Your eye embraces the snow-clad heights of Dolcedorme and the Ionian +Sea, wandering over forests, and villages, and rivers, and long reaches +of fertile country; but it is not the variety of the scene, nor yet the +historical memories of old Sybaris which kindle the imagination so much +as the spacious amplitude of the whole prospect. In England we think +something of a view of ten miles. Conceive, here, a grandiose valley +wider than from Dover to Calais, filled with an atmosphere of such +impeccable clarity that there are moments when one thinks to see every +stone and every bush on the mountains yonder, thirty miles distant. And +the cloud-effects, towards sunset, are such as would inspire the brush +of Turner or Claude Lorraine. . . . + +For the college, as befits its grave academic character, stands by +itself among fruitful fields and backed by a chestnut wood, at ten +minutes' walk from the crowded streets. It is an imposing edifice--the +Basilean convent of St. Adrian, with copious modern additions; the +founders may well have selected this particular site on account of its +fountain of fresh water, which flows on as in days of yore. One thinks +of those communities of monks in the Middle Ages, scattered over this +wild region and holding rare converse with one another by gloomy forest +paths--how remote their life and ideals! In the days of Fiore (1691) the +inmates of this convent still practised their old rites. + +The nucleus of the building is the old chapel, containing a remarkable +font; two antique columns sawn up (apparently for purposes of +transportation from some pagan temple by the shore)--one of them being +of African marble and the other of grey granite; there is also a +tessellated pavement with beast-patterns of leopards and serpents akin +to those of Patir. Bertaux gives a reproduction of this serpent; he +assimilates it, as regards technique and age, to that which lies before +the altar of Monte Cassino and was wrought by Greek artisans of the +abbot Desiderius. The church itself is held to be two centuries older +than that of Patir. + +The library, once celebrated, contains musty folios of classics and +their commentators, but nothing of value. It has been ransacked of its +treasures like that of Patir, whose _disjecta membra_ have been tracked +down by the patience and acumen of Monsignor Batiffol. + +Batiffol, Bertaux--Charles Diehl, Jules Gay (who has also written on San +Demetrio)--Huillard-Breholles--Luynes--Lenormant. . . here are a few +French scholars who have recently studied these regions and their +history. What have we English done in this direction? + +Nothing. Absolutely nothing. + +Such thoughts occur inevitably. + +It may be insinuated that researches of this kind are gleanings; that +our English genius lies rather in the spade-work of pioneers like Leake +or Layard. Granted. But a hard fact remains; the fact, namely, that +could any of our scholars have been capable of writing in the large and +profound manner of Bertaux or Gay, not one of our publishers would have +undertaken to print his work. Not one. They know their business; they +know that such a book would have been a dead loss. Therefore let us +frankly confess the truth: for things of the mind there is a smaller +market in England than in France. _How much smaller_ only they can tell, +who have familiarized themselves with other departments of French thought. + +Here, then, I have lived for the past few days, strolling among the +fields, and attempting to shape some picture of these Albanians from +their habits and such of their literature as has been placed at my +disposal. So far, my impression of them has not changed since the days +when I used to rest at their villages, in Greece. They remind me of the +Irish. Both races are scattered over the earth and seem to prosper best +outside their native country; they have the same songs and bards, the +same hero-chieftains, the same com-bativeness and frank hospitality; +both are sunk in bigotry and broils; they resemble one another in their +love of dirt, disorder and display, in their enthusiastic and +adventurous spirit, their versatile brilliance of mind, their incapacity +for self-government and general (Keltic) note of inspired inefficiency. +And both profess a frenzied allegiance to an obsolete tongue which, were +it really cultivated as they wish, would put a barrier of triple brass +between themselves and the rest of humanity. + +Even as the Irish despise the English as their worldly and effete +relatives, so the Albanians look down upon the Greeks--even those of +Pericles--with profoundest contempt. The Albanians, so says one of their +writers, are "the oldest people upon earth," and their language is the +"divine Pelasgic mother-tongue." I grew interested awhile in Stanislao +Marchiano's plausibly entrancing study on this language, as well as in a +pamphlet of de Rada's on the same subject; but my ardour has cooled +since learning, from another native grammarian, that these writers are +hopelessly in the wrong on nearly every point. So much is certain, that +the Albanian language already possesses more than _thirty different +alphabets_ (each of them with nearly fifty letters). Nevertheless they +have not yet, in these last four (or forty) thousand years, made up +their minds which of them to adopt, or whether it would not be wisest, +after all, to elaborate yet another one--a thirty-first. And so +difficult is their language with any of these alphabets that even after +a five days' residence on the spot I still find myself puzzled by such +simple passages as this: + + . . . Zilji, + mosse vet, ce asso mbremie + to ngcnrct me iljis, praa + gjith e miegculem, mhi siaarr + rriij i sgjuat. Nje voogh e keljbur + sorrevet te liosta + ndjej se i oxtenej + e pisseroghej. Zuu shiu + menes; ne mee se Ijinaar + chish Ijeen pa-shuatur + skiotta, e i ducheje per moon. + +I will only add that the translation of such a passage--it contains +twenty-eight accents which I have omitted--is mere child's play to its +pronunciation. + + + + +XXIV + +AN ALBANIAN SEER + + +Sometimes I find my way to the village of Macchia, distant about three +miles from San Demetrio. It is a dilapidated but picturesque cluster of +houses, situate on a projecting tongue of land which is terminated by a +little chapel to Saint Elias, the old sun-god Helios, lover of peaks and +promontories, whom in his Christian shape the rude Albanian colonists +brought hither from their fatherland, even as, centuries before, he had +accompanied the Byzantines on the same voyage and, fifteen centuries yet +earlier, the Greeks. + +At Macchia was born, in 1814, of an old and relatively wealthy family, +Girolamo de Rada, [Footnote: Thus his friend and compatriot, Dr. Michele +Marchiano, spells the name in a biography which I recommend to those who +think there is no intellectual movement in South Italy. But he himself, +at the very close of his life, in 1902, signs himself Ger. de Rhada. So +this village of Macchia is spelt indifferently by Albanians as Maki or +Makji. They have a fine Elizabethan contempt for orthography--as well +they may have, with their thirty alphabets.] a flame-like patriot in +whom the tempestuous aspirations of modern Albania took shape. The ideal +pursued during his long life was the regeneration of his country; and if +the attention of international congresses and linguists and folklorists +is now drawn to this little corner of the earth--if, in _1902,_ +twenty-one newspapers were devoted to the Albanian cause (eighteen in +Italy alone, and one even in London)--it was wholly his merit. + +He was the son of a Greco-Catholic priest. After a stern religious +upbringing under the paternal roof at Macchia and in the college of San +Demetrio, he was sent to Naples to complete his education. It is +characteristic of the man that even in the heyday of youth he cared +little for modern literature and speculations and all that makes for +exact knowledge, and that he fled from his Latin teacher, the celebrated +Puoti, on account of his somewhat exclusive love of grammatical rules. +None the less, though con-genitally averse to the materialistic and +subversive theories that were then seething in Naples, he became +entangled in the anti-Bourbon movements of the late thirties, and +narrowly avoided the death-penalty which struck down some of his +comrades. At other times his natural piety laid him open to the +accusation of reactionary monarchical leanings. + +He attributed his escape from this and every other peril to the hand of +God. Throughout life he was a zealous reader of the Bible, a firm and +even ascetic believer, forever preoccupied, in childlike simplicity of +soul, with first causes. His spirit moved majestically in a world of +fervent platitudes. The whole Cosmos lay serenely distended before his +mental vision; a benevolent God overhead, devising plans for the +prosperity of Albania; a malignant, ubiquitous and very real devil, +thwarting these His good intentions whenever possible; mankind on earth, +sowing and reaping in the sweat of their brow, as was ordained of old. +Like many poets, he never disabused his mind of this comfortable form of +anthropomorphism. He was a firm believer, too, in dreams. But his +guiding motive, his sun by day and star by night, was a belief in the +"mission" of the Pelasgian race now scattered about the shores of the +Inland Sea--in Italy, Sicily, Greece, Dalmatia, Roumania, Asia Minor, +Egypt--a belief as ardent and irresponsible as that which animates the +_Lost Tribe_ enthusiasts of England. He considered that the world hardly +realized how much it owed to his countryfolk; according to his views, +Achilles, Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great, Aristotle, Pyrrhus, +Diocletian, Julian the Apostate--they were all Albanians. Yet even +towards the end of his life he is obliged to confess:-- + +"But the evil demon who for over four thousand years has been hindering +the Pelasgian race from collecting itself into one state, is still +endeavouring by insidious means to thwart the work which would lead it +to that union." + +Disgusted with the clamorous and intriguing bustle of Naples, he +retired, at the early age of 34, to his natal village of Macchia, +throwing over one or two offers of lucrative worldly appointments. He +describes himself as wholly disenchanted with the "facile fatuity" of +Liberalism, the fact being, that he lacked what a French psychologist +has called the _function of the real;_ his temperament was not of the +kind to cope with actualities. This retirement is an epoch in his +life--it is the Grand Renunciation. Henceforward he loses personal touch +with thinking humanity. At Macchia he remained, brooding on Albanian +wrongs, devising remedies, corresponding with foreigners and +writing--ever writing; consuming his patrimony in the cause of Albania, +till the direst poverty dogged his footsteps. + +I have read some of his Italian works. They are curiously oracular, like +the whisperings of those fabled Dodonian oaks of his fatherland; they +heave with a darkly-virile mysticism. He shares Blake's ruggedness, his +torrential and confused utterance, his benevolence, his flashes of +luminous inspiration, his moral background. He resembles that visionary +in another aspect: he was a consistent and passionate adorer of the +_Ewig-weibliche._ Some of the female characters in his poems retain +their dewy freshness, their exquisite originality, even after passing +through the translator's crucible. + +At the age of 19 he wrote a poem on "Odysseus," which was published +under a pseudonym. Then, three years later, there appeared a collection +of rhapsodies entitled "Milosao," which he had garnered from the lips of +Albanian village maidens. It is his best-known work, and has been +translated into Italian more than once. After his return to Macchia +followed some years of apparent sterility, but later on, and especially +during the last twenty years of his life, his literary activity became +prodigious. Journalism, folklore, poetry, history, grammar, philology, +ethnology, aesthetics, politics, morals--nothing came amiss to his +gifted pen, and he was fruitful, say his admirers, even in his errors, +Like other men inflamed with one single idea, he boldly ventured into +domains of thought where specialists fear to tread. His biographer +enumerates forty-three different works from his pen. They all throb with +a resonant note of patriotism; they are "fragments of a heart," and +indeed, it has been said of him that he utilized even the grave science +of grammar as a battlefield whereon to defy the enemies of Albania. But +perhaps he worked most successfully as a journalist. His "Fiamuri +Arberit" (the Banner of Albania) became the rallying cry of his +countrymen in every corner of the earth. + +These multifarious writings--and doubtless the novelty of his central +theme--attracted the notice of German philologers and linguists, of all +lovers of freedom, folklore and verse. Leading Italian writers like +Cantupraised him highly; Lamartine, in 1844, wrote to him: "Je suis +bien-heureux de ce signe de fraternite poetique et politique entre vous +et moi. La poesie est venue de vos rivages et doit y retourner. . . ." +Hermann Buchholtz discovers scenic changes worthy of Shakespeare, and +passages of Aeschylean grandeur, in his tragedy "Sofonisba." Carnet +compares him with Dante, and the omniscient Mr. Gladstone wrote in +1880--a post card, presumably--belauding his disinterested efforts on +behalf of his country. He was made the subject of many articles and +pamphlets, and with reason. Up to his time, Albania had been a myth. He +it was who divined the relationship between the Albanian and Pelasgian +tongues; who created the literary language of his country, and +formulated its political ambitions. + +Whereas the hazy "Autobiologia" records complicated political intrigues +at Naples that are not connected with his chief strivings, the little +"Testamento politico," printed towards the end of his life, is more +interesting. It enunciates his favourite and rather surprising theory +that the Albanians cannot look for help and sympathy save only to their +_brothers,_ the Turks. Unlike many Albanians on either side of the +Adriatic, he was a pronounced Turco-phile, detesting the "stolid +perfidy" and "arrogant disloyalty" of the Greeks. Of Austria, the most +insidious enemy of his country's freedom, he seems to have thought well. +A year before his death he wrote to an Italian translator of "Milosao" +(I will leave the passage in the original, to show his cloudy language): + +"Ed un tempo propizio la accompagna: la ricostituzione dell' Epiro nei +suoi quattro vilayet autonomi quale e nei propri consigli e nei propri +desideri; ricostituzione, che pel suo Giornale, quello dell' ottimo A. +Lorecchio--cui precede il principe Nazionale Kastriota, Chini--si +annuncia fatale, e quasi fulcro della stabilita dello impero Ottomano, a +della pace Europea; preludio di quella diffusione del regno di Dio sulla +terra, che sara la Pace tra gli Uomini." + +Truly a remarkable utterance, and one that illustrates the disadvantages +of living at a distance from the centres of thought. Had he travelled +less with the spirit and more with the body, his opinions might have +been modified and corrected. But he did not even visit the Albanian +colonies in Italy and Sicily. Hence that vast confidence in his +mission--a confidence born of solitude, intellectual and geographical. +Hence that ultra-terrestrial yearning which tinges his apparently +practical aspirations. + +He remained at home, ever poor and industrious; wrapped in bland +exaltation and oblivious to contemporary movements of the human mind. +Not that his existence was without external activities. A chair of +Albanian literature at San Demetrio, instituted in 1849 but suppressed +after three years, was conferred on him in 1892 by the historian and +minister Pasquale Villari; for a considerable time, too, he was director +of the communal school at Corigliano, where, with characteristic energy, +he set up a printing press; violent journalistic campaigns succeeded one +another; in 1896 he arranged for the first congress of Albanian language +in that town, which brought together delegates from every part of Italy +and elicited a warm telegram of felicitation from the minister +Francesco Crispi, himself an Albanian. Again, in 1899, we find him +reading a paper before the twelfth international congress of +Orientalists at Rome. + +But best of all, he loved the seclusion of Macchia. + +Griefs clustered thickly about the closing years of this unworldly +dreamer. Blow succeeded blow. One by one, his friends dropped off; his +brothers, his beloved wife, his four sons--he survived them all; he +stood alone at last, a stricken figure, in tragic and sublime isolation. +Over eighty years old, he crawled thrice a week to deliver his lectures +at San Demetrio; he still cultivated a small patch of ground with +enfeebled arm, composing, for relaxation, poems and rhapsodies at the +patriarchal age of 88! They will show you the trees under which he was +wont to rest, the sunny views he loved, the very stones on which he sat; +they will tell you anecdotes of his poverty--of an indigence such as we +can scarcely credit. During the last months he was often thankful for a +crust of bread, in exchange for which he would bring a sack of acorns, +self-collected, to feed the giver's pigs. Destitution of this kind, +brought about by unswerving loyalty to an ideal, ceases to exist in its +sordid manifestations: it exalts the sufferer. And his life's work is +there. Hitherto there had been no "Albanian Question" to perplex the +chanceries of Europe. He applied the match to the tinder; he conjured up +that phantom which refuses to be laid. + +He died, in 1903, at San Demetrio; and there lies entombed in the +cemetery on the hill-side, among the oaks. + +But you will not easily find his grave. + +His biographer indulges a poetic fancy in sketching the fair monument +which a grateful country will presently rear to his memory on the snowy +Acroceraunian heights. It might be well, meanwhile, if some simple +commemorative stone were placed on the spot where he lies buried. Had he +succumbed at his natal Macchia, this would have been done; but death +overtook him in the alien parish of San Demetrio, and his remains were +mingled with those of its poorest citizens. A microcosmic illustration +of that clannish spirit of Albania which he had spent a lifetime in +endeavouring to direct to nobler ends! + +He was the Mazzini of his nation. + +A Garibaldi, when the crisis comes, may possibly emerge from that +tumultuous horde. + +Where is the Cavour? + + + + +XXV + +SCRAMBLING TO LONGOBUCCO + + +A driving road to connect San Demetrio with Acri whither I was now bound +was begun, they say, about twenty years ago; one can follow it for a +considerable distance beyond the Albanian College. Then, suddenly, it +ends. Walking to Acri, however, by the old track, one picks up, here and +there, conscientiously-engineered little stretches of it, already +overgrown with weeds; these, too, break off as abruptly as they began, +in the wild waste. For purposes of wheeled traffic these picturesque but +disconnected fragments are quite useless. + +Perhaps the whole undertaking will be completed some day--_speriamo!_ as +the natives say, when speaking of something rather beyond reasonable +expectation. But possibly not; and in that case--_pazienza!_ meaning, +that all hope may now be abandoned. There is seldom any great hurry, +with non-governmental works of this kind. + +It would be interesting if one could learn the inner history of these +abortive transactions. I have often tried, in vain. It is impossible for +an outsider to pierce the jungle of sordid mystery and intrigue which +surrounds them. So much I gathered: that the original contract was based +on the wages then current and that, the price of labour having more than +doubled in consequence of the "discovery" of America, no one will +undertake the job on the old terms. That is sufficiently intelligible. +But why operations proceeded so slowly at first, and why a new contract +cannot now be drawn up--who can tell! The persons interested blame the +contractor, who blames the engineer, who blames the dilatory and corrupt +administration of Cosenza. My private opinion is, that the last three +parties have agreed to share the swag between them. Meanwhile everybody +has just grounds of complaint against everybody else; the six or seven +inevitable lawsuits have sprung up and promise to last any length of +time, seeing that important documents have been lost or stolen and that +half the original contracting parties have died in the interval: nobody +knows what is going to happen in the end. It all depends upon whether +some patriotic person will step forward and grease the wheels in the +proper quarter. + +And even then, if he hails from Acri, they of San Demetrio will probably +work against the project, and vice versa. For no love is lost between +neighbouring communities--wonderful, with what venomous feudal animosity +they regard each other! United Italy means nothing to these people, +whose conceptions of national and public life are those of the cock on +his dung-hill. You will find in the smallest places intelligent and +broad-minded men, tradespeople or professionals or landed proprietors, +but they are seldom members of the _municipio;_ the municipal career is +also a money-making business, yes; but of another kind, and requiring +other qualifications. + +Foot-passengers like myself suffer no inconvenience by being obliged to +follow the shorter and time-honoured mule-track that joins the two +places. It rises steeply at first, then begins to wind in and out among +shady vales of chestnut and oak, affording unexpected glimpses now +towards distant Tarsia and now, through a glade on the right, on to the +ancient citadel of Bisignano, perched on its rock. + +I reached Acri after about two and a half hours' walking. It lies in a +theatrical situation and has a hotel; but the proprietor of that +establishment having been described to me as "the greatest brigand of +the Sila" I preferred to refresh myself at a small wineshop, whose +manageress cooked me an uncommonly good luncheon and served some of the +best wine I had tasted for long. Altogether, the better-class women here +are far more wideawake and civilized than those of the Neapolitan +province; a result of their stern patriarchal up-bringing and of their +possessing more or less sensible husbands. + +Thus fortified, I strolled about the streets. One would like to spend a +week or two in a place like this, so little known even to Italians, but +the hot weather and bad feeding had begun to affect me disagreeably and +I determined to push on without delay into cooler regions. It would +never do to be laid up at Acri with heatstroke, and to have one's last +drops of life drained away by copious blood-lettings, relic of +Hispano-Arabic practices and the favourite remedy for every complaint. +Acri is a large place, and its air of prosperity contrasts with the +slumberous decay of San Demetrio; there is silk-rearing, and so much +emigration into America that nearly every man I addressed replied in +English. New houses are rising up in all directions, and the place is +celebrated for its rich citizens. + +But these same wealthy men are in rather a dilemma. Some local +authority, I forget who, has deduced from the fact that there are so +many forges and smiths' shops here that this must be the spot to which +the over-sensitive inhabitants of Sybaris banished their workers in +metal and other noisy professions. Now the millionaires would like to be +thought Sybarites by descent, but it is hardly respectable to draw a +pedigree from these outcasts. + +They need not alarm themselves. For Acri, as Forbiger has shown, is the +old Acherontia; the river Acheron, the Mocone or Mucone of to-day, flows +at its foot, and from one point of the town I had a fine view into its +raging torrent. + +A wearisome climb of two hours brought me to the _Croce Greca,_ the +Greek Cross, which stands 1185 metres above sea-level. How hot it was, +in that blazing sun! I should be sorry to repeat the trip, under the +same conditions. A structure of stone may have stood here in olden days; +at present it is a diminutive wooden crucifix by the roadside. It marks, +none the less, an important geographical point: the boundary between the +"Greek" Sila which I was now leaving and the Sila Grande, the central +and largest region. Beyond this last-named lies the lesser Sila, or +"Sila Piccola "; and if you draw a line from Rogliano (near Cosenza) to +Cotrone you will approximately strike the watershed which divides the +Sila Grande from this last and most westerly of the three Sila +divisions. After that comes Catanzaro and the valley of the Corace, the +narrowest point of the Italian continent, and then the heights of Serra +and Aspromonte, the true "Italy" of old, that continue as far as Reggio. + +Though I passed through some noble groves of chestnut on the way up, the +country here was a treeless waste. Yet it must have been forest up to a +short time ago, for one could see the beautiful vegetable mould which +has not yet had time to be washed down the hill-sides. A driving road +passes the Croce Greca; it joins Acri with San Giovanni, the capital of +Sila Grande, and with Cosenza. + +It was another long hour's march, always uphill, before I reached a +spacious green meadow or upland with a few little buildings. The place +is called Verace and lies on the watershed between the upper Crati +valley and the Ionian; thenceforward my walk would be a descent along +the Trionto river, the Traeis of old, as far as Longo-bucco which +overlooks its flood. It was cool here at last, from the altitude and the +decline of day; and hay-making was going on, amid the pastoral din of +cow-bells and a good deal of blithe love-making and chattering. + +After some talk with these amiable folks, I passed on to where +the young Traeis bubbles up from the cavernous reservoirs of the earth. +Of those chill and roguish wavelets I took a draught, mindful of the day +when long ago, by these same waters, an irreparable catastrophe +overwhelmed our European civilization. For it was the Traeis near whose +estuary was fought the battle between 300,000 Sybarites (I refuse to +believe these figures) and the men of Croton conducted by their champion +Milo--a battle which led to the destruction of Sybaris and, +incidentally, of Hellenic culture throughout the mainland of Italy. This +was in the same fateful year 510 that witnessed the expulsion of the +Tarquins from Rome and the Pisistratidae from Athens. + +Pines, the characteristic tree of the Sila, now begin to appear. Passing +through Verace I had already observed, on the left, a high mountain +entirely decked with them. It is the ridge marked Pale-parto on the map; +the Trionto laves its foot. But the local pronunciation of this name is +Palepite, and I cannot help thinking that here we have a genuine old +Greek name perpetuated by the people and referring to this covering of +hoary pines--a name which the cartographers, arbitrary and ignorant as +they often are, have unconsciously disguised. (It occurs in some old +charts, however, as Paleparto.) An instructive map of Italy could be +drawn up, showing the sites and cities wrongly named from corrupt +etymology or falsified inscriptions, and those deliberately miscalled +out of principles of local patriotism. The whole country is full of +these inventions of _litterati_ which date, for the most part, from the +enthusiastic but undisciplined Cinque-Cento. + +The minute geographical triangle comprised between Cosenza, Longobucco +and San Demetrio which I was now traversing is one of the least known +corners of Italy, and full of dim Hellenic memories. The streamlet +"Calamo" flows through the valley I ascended from Acri, and at its side, +a little way out of the town, stands the fountain "Pompeio" where the +brigands, not long ago, used to lie in wait for women and children +coming to fetch water, and snatch them away for ransom. On the way up, I +had glimpses down a thousand feet or more into the Mucone or Acheron, +raging and foaming in its narrow valley. It rises among the mountains +called "Fallistro" and "Li Tartari"--unquestionably Greek names. + +On this river and somewhere above Acri stood, according to the scholarly +researches of Lenormant, the ancient city of Pandosia. I do not know if +its site has been determined since his day. It was "very strong" and +rich and at its highest prosperity in the fourth century B.C.; after the +fall of Sybaris it passed under the supremacy of Croton. The god Pan was +figured on some of its coins, and appropriately enough, considering its +sylvan surroundings; others bear the head of the nymph Pandosia with her +name and that of the river Crathis, under the guise of a young shepherd: +they who wish to learn his improper legend will find it in the pages of +Aelian, or in chapter xxxii of the twenty-fifth book of Rhodiginus, +beginning _Quae sit brutorum affectio,_ etc. [Footnote: _Brunii a +brutis moribus:_ so say certain spiteful writers, an accusation which +Strabo and Horace extend to all Calabrians. As to the site of Pandosia, +a good number of scholars, such as old Prosper Parisius and Luigi Maria +Greco, locate it at the village of Mendicino on the river Merenzata, +which was called Arconte (? Acheron) in the Middle Ages. So the Trionto +is not unquestionably the Traeis, and in Marincola Pistoia's good little +"Cose di Sibari" (1845) the distinction is claimed for one of four +rivers--the Lipuda, Colognati, Trionto, or Fiuminica.] + +We have here not the Greece of mediaeval Byzantine times, much less that +of the Albanians, but the sunny Hellas of the days when the world was +young, when these ardent colonists sailed westwards to perpetuate their +names and legends in the alien soil of Italy. + +The Mucone has always been known as a ferocious and pitiless torrent, +and maintains to this day its Tartarean reputation. Twenty persons a +year, they tell me, are devoured by its angry waters: _mangia venti +cristiani all' anno!_ This is as bad as the Amendolea near Reggio. But +none of its victims have attained the celebrity of Alexander of +Molossus, King of Epirus, who perished under the walls of Pandosia in +326 B.C. during an excursion against the Lucanians. He had been warned +by the oracle of Dodona to avoid the waters of Acheron and the town of +Pandosia; once in Italy, however, he paid small heed to these words, +thinking they referred to the river and town of the same name in +Thesprotia. But the gods willed otherwise, and you may read of his death +in the waters, and the laceration of his body by the Lucanians, in +Livy's history. + +It is a strange caprice that we should now possess what is in every +probability the very breastplate worn by the heroic monarch on that +occasion. It was found in 1820, and thereafter sold--some fragments of +it, at least--to the British Museum, where under the name of "Bronze of +Siris" it may still be admired: a marvellous piece of repoussee work, in +the style of Lysippus, depicting the combat of Ajax and the Amazons. . . . + +The streamlet Trionto, my companion to Longobucco, glides along between +stretches of flowery meadow-land--fit emblem of placid rural +contentment. But soon this lyric mood is spent. It enters a winding +gorge that shuts out the sunlight and the landscape abruptly assumes an +epic note; the water tumbles wildly downward, hemmed in by mountains +whose slopes are shrouded in dusky pines wherever a particle of soil +affords them foothold. The scenery in this valley is as romantic as any +in the Sila. Affluents descend on either side, while the swollen rivulet +writhes and screeches in its narrow bed, churning the boulders with +hideous din. The track, meanwhile, continues to run beside the water +till the passage becomes too difficult; it must perforce attack the +hill-side. Up it climbs, therefore, in never-ending ascension, and then +meanders at a great height above the valley, in and out of its tributary +glens. + +I was vastly enjoying this promenade--the shady pines, whose fragrance +mingled with that of a legion of tall aromatic plants in full +blossom--the views upon the river, shining far below me like the thread +of silver--when I observed with surprise that the whole mountain-side +which the track must manifestly cross had lately slipped down into the +abyss. A cloud-burst two or three days ago, as I afterwards learned, had +done the mischief. On arrival at the spot, the path was seen to be +interrupted--clean gone, in fact, and not a shred of earth or trees +left; there confronted me a bare scar, a wall of naked rock which not +even a chamois could negotiate. Here was a dilemma. I must either +retrace my steps along the weary road to Verace and there seek a night's +shelter with the gentle hay-makers, or clamber down into the ravine, +follow the river and--chance it! After anxious deliberation, the latter +alternative was chosen. + +But the Trionto was now grown into a formidable torrent of surging waves +and eddies, with a perverse inclination to dash from one side to the +other of its prison, so as to necessitate frequent fordings on my part. +These watery passages, which I shall long remember, were not without a +certain danger. The stream was still swollen with the recent rains, and +its bed, invisible under the discoloured element, sufficiently deep to +inspire respect and studded, furthermore, with slippery boulders of +every size, concealing insidious gulfs. Having only a short +walking-stick to support me through this raging flood, I could not but +picture to myself the surprise of the village maidens of Crepolati, +lower down, on returning to their laundry work by the river-side next +morning and discovering the battered anatomy of an Englishman--a rare +fish, in these waters--stranded upon their familiar beach. Murdered, of +course. What a galaxy of brigand legends would have clustered round my +memory! + +Evening was closing in, and I had traversed the stream so often and +stumbled so long amid this chaos of roaring waters and weirdly-tinted +rocks, that I began to wonder whether the existence of Longobucco was +not a myth. But suddenly, at a bend of the river, the whole town, still +distant, was revealed, upraised on high and framed in the yawning mouth +of the valley. After the solitary ramble of that afternoon, my eyes +familiarized to nothing save the wild things of nature, this unexpected +glimpse of complicated, civilized structures had all the improbability +of a mirage. Longo-bucco, at that moment, arose before me like those +dream-cities in the Arabian tale, conjured by enchantment out of the +desert waste. + +The vision, though it swiftly vanished again, cheered me on till after a +good deal more scrambling and wading, with boots torn to rags, lame, +famished and drenched to the skin, I reached the bridge of the Rossano +highway and limped upwards, in the twilight, to the far-famed "Hotel +Vittoria." + +Soon enough, be sure, I was enquiring as to supper. But the manageress +met my suggestions about eatables with a look of blank astonishment. + +Was there nothing in the house, then? No cheese, or meat, or maccheroni, +or eggs--no wine to drink? + +"Nothing!" she replied. "Why should you eat things at this hour? You +must find them yourself, if you really want them. I might perhaps +procure you some bread." + +_Avis aux voyageurs,_ as the French say. + +Undaunted, I went forth and threw myself upon the mercy of a citizen of +promising exterior, who listened attentively to my case. Though far too +polite to contradict, I could see that nothing in the world would induce +him to credit the tale of my walking from San Demetrio that day--it was +tacitly relegated to the regions of fable. With considerable tact, so as +not to wound my feelings, he avoided expressing any opinion on so +frivolous a topic; nor did the reason of his reluctance to discuss my +exploit dawn upon me till I realized, later on, that like many of the +inhabitants he had never heard of the track over Acri, and consequently +disbelieved its existence. They reach San Demetrio by a two or even +three days' drive over Rossano, Corigliano, and Vaccarizza. He became +convinced, however, that for some reason or other I was hungry, and +thereupon good-naturedly conducted me to various places where wine and +other necessities of life were procured. + +The landlady watched me devouring this fare, more astonished than +ever--indeed, astonishment seemed to be her chronic condition so long as +I was under her roof. But the promised bread was not forthcoming, for +the simple reason that there was none in the house. She had said that +she could procure it for me, not that she possessed it; now, since I had +given no orders to that effect, she had not troubled about it. + +Nobody travels south of Rome. . . . + +Strengthened beyond expectation by this repast, I sallied into the night +once more, and first of all attended an excellent performance at the +local cinematograph. After that, I was invited to a cup of coffee by +certain burghers, and we strolled about the piazza awhile, taking our +pleasure in the cool air of evening (the town lies 794 metres above +sea-level). Its streets are orderly and clean; there are no Albanians, +and no costumes of any kind. Here, firm-planted on the square, and +jutting at an angle from the body of the church, stands a massive +bell-tower overgrown from head to foot with pendent weeds and grasses +whose roots have found a home in the interstices of its masonry; a +grimly venerable pile, full of character. + +Weary but not yet satiated, I took leave of the citizens and +perambulated the more ignoble quarters, all of which are decently +lighted with electricity. Everywhere in these stiller regions was the +sound of running waters, and I soon discerned that Longobucco is an +improvement on the usual site affected by Calabrian hill-towns--the +Y-shaped enclosure, namely, at the junction of two rivers--inasmuch as +it has contrived to perch itself on a lofty platform protected by no +less than three streams that rush impetuously under its walls: the +Trionto and two of its affluents. On the flank inclined towards the +Ionian there is a veritable chasm; the Trionto side is equally difficult +of approach--the rear, of course, inaccessible. No wonder the brigands +chose it for their chief citadel. + +I am always on the look-out for modern epigraphical curiosities; +regarding the subject as one of profound social significance (postage +stamps, indeed!) I have assiduously formed a collection, the envy of +connaisseurs, about one-third of whose material, they tell me, might +possibly be printed at Brussels or Geneva. Well, here is a mural +_graffito_ secured in the course of this evening's walk: + +_Abaso [sic] questo paese sporco incivile:_ down with this dirty savage +country! + +There is food for thought in this inscription. For if some bilious +hyper-civilized stranger were its author, the sentiments might pass. But +coming from a native, to what depths of morbid discontent do they +testify! Considering the recent progress of these regions that has led +to a security and prosperity formerly undreamed of, one is driven to the +conjecture that these words can only have been penned by some +cantankerous churl of an emigrant returning to his native land after an +easeful life in New York and compelled--"for his sins," as he would put +it--to reside at the "Hotel Vittoria." + +Towards that delectable hostelry I now turned, somewhat regretfully, to +face a bedroom whose appearance had already inspired me with anything +but confidence. But hardly were the preliminary investigations begun, +when a furious noise in the street below drew me to the window once +more. Half the town was passing underneath in thronged procession, with +lighted torches and flags, headed by the municipal band discoursing +martial strains of music. + +Whither wending, at this midnight hour? + +To honour a young student, native of the place, now returning up the +Rossano road from Naples, where he had distinguished himself prominently +in some examination. I joined the crowd, and presently we were met by a +small carriage whence there emerged a pallid and frail adolescent with +burning eyes, who was borne aloft in triumph and cheered with that +vociferous, masculine heartiness which we Englishmen reserve for our +popular prize-fighters. And this in the classic land of brigandage and +bloodshed! + +The intellectual under-current. . . . + +It was an apt commentary on my _graffito._ And another, more personally +poignant, not to say piquant, was soon to follow: the bed. But no. I +will say nothing about the bed, nothing whatever; nothing beyond this, +that it yielded an entomological harvest which surpassed my wildest +expectations. + + + + +XXVI + +AMONG THE BRUTTIANS + + +Conspicuous among the wise men of Longobucco in olden days was the +physician Bruno, who "flourished" about the end of the thirteenth +century. He called himself _Longoburgensis Calaber,_ and his great +treatise on anatomical dissection, embodying much Greek and Arabic lore, +was printed many years after his death. Another was Francesco Maria +Labonia; he wrote, in 1664, "De vera loci urbis Timesinae situatione, +etc.," to prove, presumably, that his birthplace occupied the site +whence the Homeric ore of Temese was derived. There are modern writers +who support this view. + +The local silver mines were exploited in antiquity; first by Sybaris, +then by Croton. They are now abandoned, but a good deal has been written +about them. In the year 1200 a thousand miners were employed, and the +Anjous extracted a great deal of precious metal thence; the goldsmiths +of Longobucco were celebrated throughout Italy during the Middle Ages. +The industrious H. W. Schulz has unearthed a Royal rescript of 1274 +charging a certain goldsmith Johannes of Longobucco with researches into +the metal and salt resources of the whole kingdom of Naples. + +Writing from Longobucco in 1808 during a brigand-hunt, Duret de Tavel says: + +"The high wooded mountains which surround this horrible place spread +over it a sombre and savage tint which saddens the imagination. This +borough contains a hideous population of three thousand souls, composed +of nail-makers, of blacksmiths and charcoal-burners. The former +government employed them in working the silver mines situated in the +neighbourhood which are now abandoned." + +He tells a good deal about the brigandage that was then rife here, and +the atrocities which the repression of this pest entailed. Soon after +his arrival, for instance, four hundred soldiers were sent to a village +where the chiefs of the brigand "insurrection" were supposed to be +sheltered. The soldiers, he says, "poured into the streets like a +torrent in flood, and there began a horrible massacre, rendered +inevitable by the obstinacy of the insurgents, who fired from all the +houses. This unhappy village was sacked and burnt, suffering all the +horrors inseparable from a capture by assault." Two hundred dead were +found in the streets. But the brigand chiefs, the sole pretext of this +bloodshed, managed to escape. Perhaps they were not within fifty miles +of the place. + +Be that as it may, they were captured later on by their own compatriots, +after the French had waited a month at Longobucco. Their heads were +brought in, still bleeding, and "l'identite ayant ete suffisamment +constatee, la mort des principaux acteurs a termine cette sanglante +tragedie, et nous sommes sortis de ces catacombes apennines pour revoir +le plus brillant soleil." + +Wonderful tales are still told of the brigands in these forests. They +will show you notches on the trees, cut by such and such a brigand for +some particular purpose of communication with his friends; buried +treasure has been found, and even nowadays shepherds sometimes discover +rude shelters of bark and tree trunks built by them in the thickest part +of the woods. There are legends, too, of caverns wherein they hived +their booty--caverns with cleverly concealed entrances--caverns which +(many of them, at least) I regard as a pure invention modelled after the +authentic brigand caves of Salerno and Abruzzi, where the limestone rock +is of the kind to produce them. Bourbonism fostered the brood, and there +was a fierce recrudescence in the troubled sixties. They lived in bands, +_ squadrigli,_ burning and plundering with impunity. Whoever refused to +comply with their demands for food or money was sure to repent of it. +All this is over, for the time being; the brigands are extirpated, to +the intense relief of the country people, who were entirely at their +mercy, and whose boast it is that their district is now as safe as the +streets of Naples. Qualified praise, this. . . . [Footnote: See next +chapter.] + +It is an easy march of eight hours or less, through pleasing scenery and +by a good track, from Longobucco to San Giovanni in Fiore, the capital +of the Sila. The path leaves Longobucco at the rear of the town and, +climbing upward, enters a valley which it follows to its head. The +peasants have cultivated patches of ground along the stream; the slopes +are covered, first with chestnuts and then with hoary firs--a rare +growth, in these parts--from whose branches hangs the golden bough of +the mistletoe. And now the stream is ended and a dark ridge blocks the +way; it is overgrown with beeches, under whose shade you ascend in steep +curves. At the summit the vegetation changes once more, and you find +yourself among magnificent stretches of pines that continue as far as +the governmental domain of Galoppano, a forestal station, two hours' +walk from Longobucco. + +This pine is a particular variety _(Pinus lancio,_ var. _Calabra),_ +known as the "Pino della Sila"--it is found over this whole country, +and grows to a height of forty metres with a silvery-grey trunk, +exhaling a delicious aromatic fragrance. In youth, especially where the +soil is deep, it shoots up prim and demure as a Nuremberg toy; but in +old age grows monstrous. High-perched upon some lonely granite boulder, +with roots writhing over the bare stone like the arms of an octopus, it +sits firm and unmoved, deriding the tempest and flinging fantastic limbs +into the air--emblem of tenacity in desolation. From these trees, which +in former times must have covered the Sila region, was made that +Bruttian pitch mentioned by Strabo and other ancient writers; from them +the Athenians, the Syracusans, Tarentines and finally the Romans built +their fleets. Their timber was used in the construction of Caserta palace. + +A house stands here, inhabited by government officials the whole year +round--one may well puzzle how they pass the long winter, when snow lies +from October to May. So early did I arrive at this establishment that +the more civilized of its inhabitants were still asleep; by waiting, I +might have learnt something of the management of the estate, but gross +material preoccupations--the prospect of a passable luncheon at San +Giovanni after the "Hotel Vittoria" fare--tempted me to press forwards. +A boorish and unreliable-looking individual volunteered three pieces of +information--that the house was built thirty years ago, that a large +nursery for plants lies about ten kilometres distant, and that this +particular domain covers "two or four thousand hectares." A young +plantation of larches and silver birches--aliens to this region--seemed +to be doing well. + +Not far from here, along my track, lies Santa Barbara, two or three +huts, with corn still green--like Verace (above Acri) on the watershed +between the Ionian and upper Grati. Then follows a steep climb up the +slopes of Mount Pettinascura, whose summit lies 1708 metres above +sea-level. This is the typical landscape of the Sila Grande. There is +not a human habitation in sight; forests all around, with views down +many-folded vales into the sea and towards the distant and fairy-like +Apennines, a serrated edge, whose limestone precipices gleam like +crystals of amethyst between the blue sky and the dusky woodlands of the +foreground. + +Here I reposed awhile, watching the crossbills, wondrously tame, at work +among the branches overhead, and the emerald lizard peering out of the +bracken at my side. This _lucertone,_ as they call it, is a local beast, +very abundant in some spots (at Venosa and Patirion, for example); it is +elsewhere conspicuous by its absence. The natives are rather afraid of +it, and still more so of the harmless gecko, the "salamide," which is +reputed highly poisonous. + +Then up again, through dells and over uplands, past bubbling streams, +sometimes across sunlit meadows, but oftener in the leafy shelter of +maples and pines--a long but delightful track, winding always high above +the valleys of the Neto and Lese. At last, towards midday, I struck the +driving road that connects San Giovanni with Savelli, crossed a bridge +over the foaming Neto, and climbed into the populous and dirty streets +of the town--the "Siberia of Calabria," as it may well be, for seven +months of the year. + +At this season, thanks to its elevation of 1050 metres, the temperature +is all that could be desired, and the hotel, such as it is, compares +favourably indeed with the den at Longobucco. Instantly I felt at home +among these good people, who recognized me, and welcomed me with the +cordiality of old friends. + +"Well," they asked, "and have you found it at last?" + +They remembered my looking for the double flute, the _tibiae pares,_ +some years ago. + +It will not take you long to discover that the chief objects of interest +in San Giovanni are the women. Many Calabrian villages still possess +their distinctive costumes--Marcellinara and Cimi-gliano are celebrated +in this respect--but it would be difficult to find anywhere an equal +number of handsome women on such a restricted space. In olden days it +was dangerous to approach these attractive and mirthful creatures; they +were jealously guarded by brothers and husbands. But the brothers and +husbands, thank God, are now in America, and you may be as friendly with +them as ever you please, provided you confine your serious attentions to +not more than two or three. Secrecy in such matters is out of the +question, as with the Arabs; there is too much gossip, and too little +coyness about what is natural; your friendships are openly recognized, +and tacitly approved. The priests do not interfere; their hands are full. + +To see these women at their best one must choose a Sunday or a +feast-day; one must go, morever, to the favourite fountain of Santa +Lucia, which lies on the hill-side and irrigates some patches of corn +and vegetables. Their natural charms are enhanced by elaborate and +tasteful golden ornaments, and by a pretty mode of dressing the hair, +two curls of which are worn hanging down before their ears with an +irresistibly seductive air. Their features are regular; eyes black or +deep gentian blue; complexion pale; movements and attitudes impressed +with a stamp of rare distinction. Even the great-grandmothers have a +certain austere dignity--sinewy, indestructible old witches, with tawny +hide and eyes that glow like lamps. + +And yet San Giovanni is as dirty as can well be; it has the accumulated +filth of an Eastern town, while lacking all its glowing tints or +harmonious outlines. We are disposed to associate squalor with certain +artistic effects, but it may be said of this and many other Calabrian +places that they have solved the problem how to be ineffably squalid +without becoming in the least picturesque. Much of this sordid look is +due to the smoke which issues out of all the windows and blackens the +house walls, inside and out--the Calabrians persisting in a prehistoric +fashion of cooking on the floor. The buildings themselves look crude and +gaunt from their lack of plaster and their eyeless windows; black pigs +wallowing at every doorstep contribute to this slovenly _ensemble._ The +City Fathers have turned their backs upon civilization; I dare say the +magnitude of the task before them has paralysed their initiative. + +Nothing is done in the way of public hygiene, and one sees women washing +linen in water which is nothing more or less than an open drain. There +is no street-lighting whatever; a proposal on the part of a North +Italian firm to draw electric power from the Neto was scornfully +rejected; one single tawdry lamp, which was bought some years ago "as a +sample" in a moment of municipal recklessness, was lighted three times +in as many years, and on the very day when it was least necessary--to +wit, on midsummer eve, which happens to be the festival of their patron +saint (St. John). "It now hangs"--so I wrote some years ago--"at a +dangerous angle, and I doubt whether it will survive till its services +are requisitioned next June." Prophetic utterance! It was blown down +that same winter, and has not yet been replaced. This in a town of +20,000 (?) inhabitants--and in Italy, where the evening life of the +populace plays such an important role. No wonder North Italians, judging +by such external indications, regard all Calabrians as savages. + +Some trees have been planted in the piazza since my last stay here; a +newspaper has also been started--it is called "Co-operation: Organ of +the Interests of San Giovanni in Fiore," and its first and possibly +unique number contains a striking article on the public health, as +revealed in the report of two doctors who had been despatched by the +provincial sanitary authorities to take note of local conditions of +hygiene. "The illustrious scientists" (thus it runs) "were horrified at +the filth, mud and garbage which encumbered, and still encumbers, our +streets, sending forth in the warm weather a pestilential odour. . . . +They were likewise amazed at the vigorously expressed protest of our +mayor, who said: '_My people cannot live' without their pigs wallowing +in the streets. San Giovanni in Fiore is exempt from earthquakes and +epidemics because it is under the protection of Saint John the Baptist, +and because its provincial councillor is a saintly man.'_" Such +journalistic plain speaking, such lack of sweet reasonableness, cannot +expect to survive in a world governed by compromise, and if the gift of +prophecy has not deserted me, I should say that "Co-operation" has by +this time ended its useful mission upon earth. + +This place is unhealthy; its water-supply is not what it should be, and +such commodities as eggs and milk are rather dear, because "the invalids +eat everything" of that kind. Who are the invalids? Typhoid patients +and, above all, malarious subjects who descend to the plains as +agricultural labourers and return infected to the hills, where they +become partially cured, only to repeat the folly next year. It is the +same at Longobucco and other Sila towns. Altogether, San Giovanni has +grave drawbacks. The streets are too steep for comfort, and despite its +height, the prospect towards the Ionian is intercepted by a ridge; in +point of situation it cannot compare with Savelli or the neighbouring +Casino, which have impressive views both inland, and southward down +undulating slopes that descend in a stately procession of four thousand +feet to the sea, where sparkles the gleaming horn of Cotrone. And the +surroundings of the place are nowise representative of the Sila in a +good sense. The land has been so ruthlessly deforested that it has +become a desert of naked granite rocks; even now, in midsummer, the +citizens are already collecting fuel for their long winter from enormous +distances. As one crawls and skips among these unsavoury tenements, one +cannot help regretting that Saint John the Baptist, or the piety of a +provincial councillor, should have hindered the earthquakes from doing +their obvious duty. + +Were I sultan of San Giovanni, I would certainly begin by a general +bombardment. Little in the town is worth preserving from a cataclysm +save the women, and perhaps the old convent on the summit of the hill +where the French lodged during their brigand-wars, and that other one, +famous in the ecclesiastical annals of Calabria--the monastery of +Floriacense, founded at the end of the twelfth century, round which the +town gradually grew up. Its ponderous portal is much injured, having +been burnt, I was told, by the brigands in 1860. But the notary, who +kindly looked up the archives for me, has come to the conclusion that +the French are responsible for the damage. It contains, or contained, a +fabulous collection of pious lumber--teeth and thigh-bones and other +relics, the catalogue of which is one of my favourite sections of Father +Fiore's work. I would make an exception, also, in favour of the doorway +of the church, a finely proportioned structure of the Renaissance in +black stone, which looks ill at ease among its ignoble environment. A +priest, to whom I applied for information as to its history, told me +with the usual Calabrian frankness that he never bothered his head about +such things. + +San Giovanni was practically unknown to the outside world up to a few +years ago. I question whether Lenormant or any of them came here. +Pacicchelli did, however, in the seventeenth century, though he has left +us no description of the place. He crossed the whole Sila from the +Ionian to the other sea. I like this amiable and loquacious creature, +restlessly gadding about Europe, gloriously complacent, hopelessly, +absorbed in trivialities, and credulous beyond belief. In fact (as the +reader may have observed), I like all these old travellers, not so much +for what they actually say, as for their implicit outlook upon life. +This Pacicchelli was a fellow of our Royal Society, and his accounts of +England are worth reading; here, in Calabria (being a non-southerner) +his "Familiar Letters" and "Memoirs of Travel" act as a wholesome +corrective. Which of the local historians would have dared to speak of +Cosenza as "citta aperta, scomposta, e disordinata di fabbriche"? + +That these inhabitants of the Sila are Bruttians may be inferred from +the superior position occupied by their women-folk, who are quite +differently treated to those of the lowlands. There--all along the +coasts of South Italy--the _cow-woman_ is still found, unkempt and +uncivilized; there, the male is the exclusive bearer of culture. Such +things are not seen among the Bruttians of the Sila, any more than among +the grave Latins or Samnites. These non-Hellenic races are, generally +speaking, honest, dignified and incurious; they are bigoted, not to say +fanatical; and their women are not exclusively beasts of burden, being +better dressed, better looking, and often as intelligent as the men. +They are the fruits of a female selection. + +But wherever the mocking Ionic spirit has penetrated--and the Ionian +women occupied even a lower position than those of the Dorians and +Aeolians--it has resulted in a glorification of masculinity. Hand in +hand with this depreciation of the female sex go other characteristics +which point to Hellenic influences: lack of commercial morality, of +veracity, of seriousness in religious matters; a persistent, +light-hearted inquisitiveness; a levity (or sprightliness, if you prefer +it) of mind. The people are fetichistic, amulet-loving, rather than +devout. We may certainly suspect Greek or Saracen strains wherever women +are held in low estimation; wherever, as the god Apollo himself said, +"the mother is but the nurse." In the uplands of Calabria the mother is +a good deal more than the nurse. + +For the rest, it stands to reason that in proportion as the agricultural +stage supplants that of pasturage, the superior strength and utility of +boys over girls should become more apparent, and this in South Italy is +universally proclaimed by the fact that everything large and fine is +laughingly described as "maschio" (male), and by some odd superstitions +in disparagement of the female sex, such as these: that in giving +presents to women, uneven numbers should be selected, lest even ones "do +them more good than they deserve"; that to touch the hump of a female +hunchback brings no luck whatever; that if a woman be the first to drink +out of a new earthenware pitcher, the vessel may as well be thrown away +at once--it is tainted for ever. [Footnote: In Japan, says Hearn, the +first bucketful of water to be drawn out of a cleaned well must be drawn +by a man; for if a womsn first draw water, the well will always +hereafter remain muddy. Some of these prejudices seem to be based on +primordial misreadmgs of physiology. There is also a strong feeling in +favour of dark hair. No mother would entrust her infant to a fair +wet-nurse; the milk even of white cows is considered "lymphatic" and not +strengthening; perhaps the eggs of white hens are equally devoid of the +fortifying principle. There is something to be said for this since, in +proportion as we go south, the risk of irritation, photophobia, and +other com-plaints incidental to the xanthous complexion becomes +greater.] Yet the birth of a daughter is no Chinese calamity; even girls +are "Christians" and welcomed as such, the populace having never sunk +to the level of our theologians, who were wont to discuss _an faemina +sint monstra._ + +All over the Sila there is a large preponderance of women over men, +nearly the whole male section of the community, save the quite young and +the decrepit, being in America. This emigration brings much money into +the country and many new ideas; but the inhabitants have yet to learn +the proper use of their wealth, and to acquire a modern standard of +comfort. Together with the Sardinians, these Calabrians are the hardiest +of native races, and this is what makes them prefer the strenuous but +lucrative life in North American mines to the easier career in +Argentina, which Neapolitans favour. There they learn English. They +remember their families and the village that gave them birth, but their +patriotism towards Casa Savoia is of the slenderest. How could it be +otherwise? I have spoken to numbers of them, and this is what they say: + +"This country has done nothing for us; why should we fight its battles? +Not long ago we were almost devouring each other in our hunger; what did +they do to help us? If we have emerged from misery, it is due to our own +initiative and the work of our own hands; if we have decent clothes and +decent houses, it is because they drove us from our old homes with their +infamous misgovern-ment to seek work abroad." + +Perfectly true! They have redeemed themselves, though the new regime has +hardly had a fair trial. And the drawbacks of emigration (such as a +slight increase of tuberculosis and alcoholism) are nothing compared +with the unprecedented material prosperity and enlightenment. There has +also been--in these parts, at all events--a marked diminution of crime. +No wonder, seeing that three-quarters of the most energetic and +turbulent elements are at present in America, where they recruit the +Black Hand. That the Bruttian is not yet ripe for town life, that his +virtues are pastoral rather than civic, might have been expected; but +the Arab domination of much of his territory, one suspects, may have +infused fiercer strains into his character and helped to deserve for him +that epithet of _sanguinario_ by which he is proud to be known. + + + + +XXVII + +CALABRIAN BRIGANDAGE + + +The last genuine bandit of the Sila was Gaetano Ricca. On account of +some trivial misunderstanding with the authorities, this man was +compelled in the early eighties to take to the woods, where he lived a +wild life _(alla campagna; alla macchia)_ for some three years. A price +was set on his head, but his daring and knowledge of the country +intimidated every one. I should be sorry to believe in the number of +carbineers he is supposed to have killed during that period; no doubt +the truth came out during his subsequent trial. On one occasion he was +surrounded, and while the officer in command of his pursuers, who had +taken refuge behind a tree, ordered him to yield, Ricca waited patiently +till the point of his enemy's foot became visible, when he pierced his +ankle-bone with his last bullet and escaped. He afterwards surrendered +and was imprisoned for twenty years or so; then returned to the Sila, +where up to a short time ago he was enjoying a green old age in his home +at Parenti--Parenti, already celebrated in the annals of brigandage by +the exploit of the perfidious Francatripa (Giacomo Pisani), who, under +pretence of hospitality, enticed a French company into his clutches and +murdered its three officers and all the men, save seven. The memoirs of +such men might be as interesting as those of the Sardinian Giovanni Tolu +which have been printed. I would certainly have paid my respects to +Ricca had I been aware of his existence when, some years back, I passed +through Parenti on my way--a long day's march!--from Rogliano to San +Giovanni. He has died in the interval. + +But the case of Ricca is a sporadic one, such as may crop up anywhere +and at any time. It is like that of Musolino--the case of an isolated +outlaw, who finds the perplexed geographical configuration of the +country convenient for offensive and defensive purposes. Calabrian +brigandage, as a whole, has always worn a political character. + +The men who gave the French so much trouble were political brigands, +allies of Bourbonism. They were commanded by creatures like Mammone, an +anthropophagous monster whose boast it was that he had personally killed +455 persons with the greatest refinements of cruelty, and who wore at +his belt the skull of one of them, out of which he used to drink human +blood at mealtime; he drank his own blood as well; indeed, he "never +dined without having a bleeding human heart on the table." This was the +man whom King Ferdinand and his spouse loaded with gifts and +decorations, and addressed as "Our good Friend and General--the +faithful Support of the Throne." The numbers of these savages were +increased by shiploads of professional cut-throats sent over from Sicily +by the English to help their Bourbon friends. Some of these actually +wore the British uniform; one of the most ferocious was known as +"L'Inglese"--the Englishman. + +One must go to the fountain-head, to the archives, in order to gain some +idea of the sanguinary anarchy that desolated South Italy in those days. +The horrors of feudalism, aided by the earthquake of 1784 and by the +effects of Cardinal Ruffo's Holy Crusade, had converted the country into +a pandemonium. In a single year (1809) thirty-three thousand crimes were +recorded against the brigands of the Kingdom of Naples; in a single +month they are said to have committed 1200 murders in Calabria alone. +These were the bands who were described by British officers as "our +chivalrous brigand-allies." + +It is good to bear these facts in mind when judging of the present state +of this province, for the traces of such a reign of terror are not +easily expunged. Good, also, to remember that this was the period of the +highest spiritual eminence to which South Italy has ever attained. Its +population of four million inhabitants were then consoled by the +presence of no less than 120,000 holy persons--to wit, 22 archbishops, +116 bishops, 65,500 ordained priests, 31,800 monks, and 23,600 nuns. +Some of these ecclesiastics, like the Bishop of Capaccio, were notable +brigand-chiefs. + +It must be confessed that the French were sufficiently coldblooded in +their reprisals. Colletta himself saw, at Lagonegro, a man impaled by +order of a French colonel; and some account of their excesses may be +gleaned from Duret de Tavel, from Rivarol (rather a disappointing +author), and from the flamboyant epistles of P. L. Courier, a +soldier-scribe of rare charm, who lost everything in this campaign. +"J'ai perdu huit chevaux, mes habits, mon linge, mon manteau, mes +pistolets, mon argent (12,247 francs). . . . Je ne regrette que mon +Homere (a gift from the Abbe Barthelemy), et pour le ravoir, je +donnerais la seule chemise qui me reste." + +But even that did not destroy the plague. The situation called for a +genial and ruthless annihilator, a man like Sixtus V, who asked for +brigands' heads and got them so plentifully that they lay "thick as +melons in the market" under the walls of Rome, while the Castel Sant' +Angelo was tricked out like a Christmas tree with quartered corpses--a +man who told the authorities, when they complained of the insufferable +stench of the dead, that the smell of living iniquity was far worse. +Such a man was wanted. Therefore, in 1810, Murat gave _carte blanche_ +to General Manhes, the greatest brigand-catcher of modern times, to +extirpate the ruffians, root and branch. He had just distinguished +himself during a similar errand in the Abruzzi and, on arriving in +Calabria, issued proclamations of such inhuman severity that the +inhabitants looked upon them as a joke. They were quickly undeceived. +The general seems to have considered that the end justified the means, +and that the peace and happiness of a province was not to be disturbed +year after year by the malignity of a few thousand rascals; his threats +were carried out to the letter, and, whatever may be said against his +methods, he certainly succeeded. At the end of a few months' campaign, +every single brigand, and all their friends and relations, were wiped +off the face of the earth--together with a very considerable number of +innocent persons. The high roads were lined with decapitated bandits, +the town walls decked with their heads; some villages had to be +abandoned, on account of the stench; the Crati river was swollen with +corpses, and its banks whitened with bones. God alone knows the +cruelties which were enacted; Colletta confesses that he "lacks courage +to relate them." Here is his account of the fate of the brigand chief +Benincasa: + +"Betrayed and bound by his followers as he slept in the forest of +Cassano, Benincasa was brought to Cosenza, and General Manhes ordered +that both his hands be lopped off and that he be led, thus mutilated, to +his home in San Giovanni, and there hanged; a cruel sentence, which the +wretch received with a bitter smile. His right hand was first cut off +and the stump bound, not out of compassion or regard for his life, but +in order that all his blood might not flow out of the opened veins, +seeing that he was reserved for a more miserable death. Not a cry +escaped him, and when he saw that the first operation was over, he +voluntarily laid his left hand upon the block and coldly watched the +second mutilation, and saw his two amputated hands lying on the ground, +which were then tied together by the thumbs and hung round his neck; an +awful and piteous spectacle. This happened at Cosenza. On the same day +he began his march to San Giovanni in Fiore, the escort resting at +intervals; one of them offered the man food, which he accepted; +he ate and drank what was placed in his mouth, and not so much in order +to sustain life, as with real pleasure. He arrived at his home, and +slept through the following night; on the next day, as the hour of +execution approached, he refused the comforts of religion, ascended the +gallows neither swiftly nor slowly, and died admired for his brutal +intrepidity." [Footnote: This particular incident was flatly denied by +Manhes in a letter dated 1835, which is __quoted in the "Notizia storica +del Conte C. A. Manhes" (Naples, 1846)--one of a considerable number of +pro-Bourbon books that cropped up about this time. One is apt to have +quite a wrong impression of Manhes, that inexorable but incorruptible +scourge of evildoers. One pictures him a grey-haired veteran, scarred +and gloomy; and learns, on the contrary, that he was only thirty-two +years old at this time, gracious in manner and of surprising personal +beauty.] + +For the first time since long Calabria was purged. Ever since the +Bruttians, irreclaimable plunderers, had established themselves at +Cosenza, disquieting their old Hellenic neighbours, the recesses of this +country had been a favourite retreat of political malcontents. Here +Spartacus drew recruits for his band of rebels; here "King Marcene" +defied the oppressive Spanish Viceroys, and I blame neither him nor his +imitators, since the career of bandit was one of the very few that still +commended itself to decent folks, under that regime. + +During the interregnum of Bourbonism between Murat and Garibaldi the +mischief revived--again in a political form. Brigands drew pensions from +kings and popes, and the system gave rise to the most comical incidents; +the story of the pensioned malefactors living together at Monticello +reads like an extravaganza. It was the spirit of Offenbach, brooding +over Europe. One of the funniest episodes was a visit paid in 1865 by +the disconsolate Mrs. Moens to the ex-brigand Talarico, who was then +living in grand style on a government pension. Her husband had been +captured by the band of Manzi (another brigand), and expected to be +murdered every day, and the lady succeeded in procuring from the +chivalrous monster--"an extremely handsome man, very tall, with the +smallest and most delicate hands"--an exquisite letter to his colleague, +recommending him to be merciful to the Englishman and to emulate his own +conduct in that respect. The letter had no effect, apparently; but Moens +escaped at last, and wrote his memoirs, while Manzi was caught and +executed in 1868 after a trial occupying nearly a month, during which +the jury had to answer 311 questions. + +His villainies were manifold. But they were put in the shade by those of +others of his calling--of Caruso, for example, who was known to have +massacred in one month (September, 1863) two hundred persons with his +own hands. Then, as formerly, the Church favoured the malefactors, and I +am personally acquainted with priests who fought on the side of the +brigands. Francis II endeavoured to retrieve his kingdom by the help of +an army of scoundrels like those of Ruffo, but the troops shot them +down. Brigandage, as a governmental institution, came to an end. +Unquestionably the noblest figure in this reactionary movement was that +of Jose Borjes, a brave man engaged in an unworthy cause. You can read +his tragic journal in the pages of M. Monnier or Maffei. It has been +calculated that during these last years of Bourbonism the brigands +committed seven thousand homicides a year in the kingdom of Naples. + +Schools and emigration have now brought sounder ideas among the people, +and the secularization of convents with the abolition of ecclesiastical +right of asylum (Sixtus V had wisely done away with it) has broken up +the prosperous old bond between monks and malefactors. What the +government has done towards establishing decent communications in this +once lawless and pathless country ranks, in its small way, beside the +achievement of the French who, in Algeria, have built nearly ten +thousand miles of road. But it is well to note that even as the +mechanical appliance of steam destroyed the corsairs, the external +plague, so this hoary form of internal disorder could have been +permanently eradicated neither by humanity nor by severity. A scientific +invention, the electric telegraph, is the guarantee of peace against the +rascals. + +These brigand chiefs were often loaded with gold. On killing them, the +first thing the French used to do was to strip them. "On le depouilla." +Francatripa, for instance, possessed "a plume of white ostrich feathers, +clasped by a golden band and diamond Madonna" (a gift from Queen +Caroline)--Cerino and Manzi had "bunches of gold chains as thick as an +arm suspended across the breasts of their waistcoats, with gorgeous +brooches at each fastening." Some of their wealth now survives in +certain families who gave them shelter in the towns in winter time, or +when they were hard pressed. These _favoreggiatori_ or _manutengoli_ +(the terms are interconvertible, but the first is the legal one) were +sometimes benevolently inclined. But occasionally they conceived the +happy idea of being paid for their silence and services. The brigand, +then, was hoist with his own petard and forced to disgorge his +ill-gotten summer gains to these blood-suckers, who extorted heavy +blackmail under menaces of disclosure to the police, thriving on their +double infamy to such an extent that they acquired immense riches. One +of the wealthiest men in Italy descends from this class; his two hundred +million (?) francs are invested, mostly, in England; every one knows his +name, but the origin of his fortune is no longer mentioned, since +(thanks to this money) the family has been able to acquire not only +respectability but distinction. + + + + +XXVIII + +THE GREATER SILA + + +A great project is afoot. As I understand it, a reservoir is being +created by damming up the valley of the Ampollina; the artificial lake +thus formed will be enlarged by the additional waters of the Arvo, which +are to be led into it by means of a tunnel, about three miles long, +passing underneath Monte Nero. The basin, they tell me, will be some ten +kilometres in length; the work will cost forty million francs, and will +be completed in a couple of years; it will supply the Ionian lowlands +with pure water and with power for electric and other industries. + +And more than that. The lake is to revolutionize the Sila; to convert +these wildernesses into a fashionable watering-place. Enthusiasts +already see towns growing upon its shores--there are visions of gorgeous +hotels and flocks of summer visitors in elegant toilettes, +villa-residences, funicular railways up all the mountains, sailing +regattas, and motor-boat services. In the place of the desert there will +arise a "Lucerna di Calabria." + +A Calabrian Lucerne. H'm. ... + +It remains to be seen whether, by the time the lake is completed, there +will be any water left to flow into it. For the catchment basins are +being so conscientiously cleared of their timber that the two rivers +cannot but suffer a great diminution in volume. By 1896 already, says +Marincola San Fioro, the destruction of woodlands in the Sila had +resulted in a notable lack of moisture. Ever since then the vandalism +has been pursued with a zeal worthy of a better cause. One trembles to +think what these regions will be like in fifty years; a treeless and +waterless tableland--worse than the glaring limestone deserts of the +Apennines in so far as they, at least, are diversified in contour. + +So the healthfulness, beauty, and exchequer value of enormous tracts in +this country are being systematically impaired, day by day. Italy is +ready, said D'Azeglio, but where are the Italians? + +Let us give the government credit for any number of good ideas. It +actually plants bare spaces; it has instituted a "Festa degli alberi" +akin to the American Arbour Day, whereby it is hoped, though scarcely +believed, that the whole of Italy will ultimately be replenished with +trees; it encourages schools of forestry, supplies plants free of cost +to all who ask for them, despatches commissions and prints reports. +Above all, it talks prodigiously and very much to the purpose. + +But it omits to administer its own laws with becoming severity. A few +exemplary fines and imprisonments would have a more salutary effect than +the commissioning of a thousand inspectors whom nobody takes seriously, +and the printing of ten thousand reports which nobody reads. + +With a single stroke of the pen the municipalities could put an end to +the worst form of forest extirpation--that on the hill-sides--by +forbidding access to such tracts and placing them under the "vincolo +forestale." To denude slopes in the moist climate and deep soil of +England entails no risk; in this country it is the beginning of the end. +And herein lies the ineptitude of the Italian regulations, which entrust +the collective wisdom of rapacious farmers with measures of this kind, +taking no account of the destructively utilitarian character of the +native mind, of that canni-ness which overlooks a distant profit in its +eagerness to grasp the present--that beast avarice which Horace +recognized as the root of all evil. As if provisions like this of the +"vincolo forestale" were ever carried out! Peasants naturally prefer to +burn the wood in their own chimneys or to sell it; and if a landslide +then crashes down, wrecking houses and vineyards--let the government +compensate the victims! + +An ounce of fact-- + +In one year alone (1903), and in the sole province of Cosenza wherein +San Giovanni lies, there were 156 landslides; they destroyed 1940 +hectares of land, and their damage amounted to 432,738 francs. The two +other Calabrian provinces--Reggio and Catanzaro--doubtless also had +their full quota of these catastrophes, all due to mischievous +deforestation. So the bare rock is exposed, and every hope of planting +at an end. + +_Vox clamantis!_ The Normans, Anjou and Aragonese concerned themselves +with the proper administration of woodlands. Even the Spanish Viceroys, +that ineffable brood, issued rigorous enactments on the subject; while +the Bourbons (to give the devil his due) actually distinguished +themselves as conservators of forests. As to Napoleon--he was busy +enough, one would think, on this side of the Alps. Yet he found time to +frame wise regulations concerning trees which the present patriotic +parliament, during half a century of frenzied confabulation, has not yet +taken to heart. + +How a great man will leave his mark on minutiae! + +I passed through the basin of this future lake when, in accordance with +my project, I left San Giovanni to cross the remaining Sila in the +direction of Catanzaro. This getting up at 3.30 a.m., by the way, rather +upsets one's daily routine; at breakfast time I already find myself +enquiring anxiously for dinner. + +The Ampollina valley lies high; here, in the dewy grass, I enjoyed what +I well knew would be my last shiver for some time to come; then moved +for a few miles on the further bank of the rivulet along that driving +road which will soon be submerged under the waters of the lake, and +struck up a wooded glen called Barbarano. At its head lies the upland +Circilla. + +There is no rock scenery worth mentioning in all this Sila country; no +waterfalls or other Alpine features. It is a venerable granitic +tableland, that has stood here while the proud Apennines were still +slumbering in the oozy bed of ocean--[Footnote: Nissen says that "no +landscape of Italy has lost so little of its original appearance in the +course of history as Calabria." This may apply to the mountains; but the +lowlands have suffered hideous changes.] a region of gentle undulations, +the hill-tops covered with forest-growth, the valleys partly arable and +partly pasture. Were it not for the absence of heather with its peculiar +mauve tints, the traveller might well imagine himself in Scotland. There +is the same smiling alternation of woodland and meadow, the same huge +boulders of gneiss and granite which give a distinctive tone to the +landscape, the same exuberance of living waters. Water, indeed, is one +of the glories of the Sila--everywhere it bubbles forth in chill +rivulets among the stones and trickles down the hill-sides to join the +larger streams that wend their way to the forlorn and fever-stricken +coastlands of Magna Graecia. Often, as I refreshed myself at these icy +fountains, did I thank Providence for making the Sila of primitive rock, +and not of the thirsty Apennine limestone. + +"Much water in the Sila," an old shepherd once observed to me, "much +water! And little tobacco." + +One of the largest of these rivers is the Neto, the classic Neaithos +sung by Theocritus, which falls into the sea north of Cotrone; San +Giovanni overlooks its raging flood, and, with the help of a little +imagination here and there, its whole course can be traced from +eminences like that of Pettinascura. The very name of these +streams--Neto, Arvo, Lese, Ampollina--are redolent of pastoral life. All +of them are stocked with trout; they meander in their upper reaches +through valleys grazed by far-tinkling flocks of sheep and goats and +grey cattle--the experiment of acclimatizing Swiss cattle has proved a +failure, I know not why--and their banks are brilliant with blossoms. +Later on, in the autumn, the thistles begin to predominate--the finest +of them being a noble ground thistle of pale gold, of which they eat the +unopened bud; it is the counterpart of the silvery one of the Alps. The +air in these upper regions is keen. I remember, some years ago, that +during the last week of August a lump of snow, which a goat-boy produced +as his contribution to our luncheon, did not melt in the bright sunshine +on the summit of Monte Nero. + +From whichever side one climbs out of the surrounding lowlands into the +Sila plateau, the same succession of trees is encountered. To the +warmest zone of olives, lemons and carobs succeeds that of the +chestnuts, some of them of gigantic dimensions and yielding a sure +though moderate return in fruit, others cut down periodically as coppice +for vine-props and scaffoldings. Large tracts of these old chestnut +groves are now doomed; a French society in Cosenza, so they tell me, is +buying them up for the extraction out of their bark of some chemical or +medicine. The vine still flourishes at this height, though dwarfed in +size; soon the oaks begin to dominate, and after that we enter into the +third and highest region cf the pines and beeches. Those accustomed to +the stony deserts of nearly all South European mountain districts will +find these woodlands intensely refreshing. Their inaccessibility has +proved their salvation--up to a short time ago. + +Nearly all the cattle on the Sila, like the land itself, belongs to +large proprietors. These gentlemen are for the most part invisible; they +inhabit their palaces in the cities, and the very name of the Sila sends +a cold shudder through their bones; their revenues are collected from +the shepherds by agents who seem to do their work very conscientiously. +I once observed, in a hut, a small fragment of the skin of a newly +killed kid; the wolf had devoured the beast, and the shepherd was +keeping this _corpus delicti_ to prove to his superior, the agent, that +he was innocent of the murder. There was something naive in his +honesty--as if a shepherd could not eat a kid as well as any wolf, and +keep a portion of its skin! The agent, no doubt, would hand it on to his +lord, by way of _confirmation and verification._ Another time I saw the +debris of a goat hanging from a tree; it was the wolf again; the boy had +attached these remains to the tree in order that all who passed that way +might be his witnesses, if necessary, that the animal had not been sold +underhand. + +You may still find the legendary shepherds here--curly-haired +striplings, reclining _sub tegmine fagi_ in the best Theocritean style, +and piping wondrous melodies to their flocks. These have generally come +up for the summer season from the Ionian lowlands. Or you may encounter +yet more primitive creatures, forest boys, clad in leather, with wild +eyes and matted locks, that take an elvish delight in misdirecting you. +These are the Lucanians of old. "They bring them up from childhood in +the woods among the shepherds," says Justinus, "without servants, and +even without any clothes to cover them, or to lie upon, that from their +early years they may become inured to hardiness and frugality, and have +no intercourse with the city. They live upon game, and drink nothing but +water or milk." But the majority of modern Sila shepherds are shrewd +fellows of middle age (many of them have been to America), who keep +strict business accounts for their masters of every ounce of cheese and +butter produced. The local cheese, which Cassiodorus praises in one of +his letters, is the _cacciacavallo_ common all over South Italy; the +butter is of the kind which has been humorously, but quite wrongly, +described by various travellers. + +Although the old wolves are shot and killed by spring guns and dynamite +while the young ones are caught alive in steel traps and other +appliances, their numbers are still formidable enough to perturb the +pastoral folks. One is therefore surprised to see what a poor breed of +dogs they keep; scraggy mongrels that run for their lives at the mere +sight of a wolf who can, and often does, bite them into two pieces with +one snap of his jaws. They tell me that there is a government reward for +every wolf killed, but it is seldom paid; whoever has the good fortune +to slay one of these beasts, carries the skin as proof of his prowess +from door to door, and receives a small present everywhere--half a +franc, or a cheese, or a glass of wine. + +The goats show fight, and therefore the wolf prefers sheep. Shepherds +have told me that he comes up to them _delicatamente,_ and then, fixing +his teeth in the wool of their necks, pulls them onward, caressing their +sides with his tail. The sheep are fascinated with his gentle manners, +and generally allow themselves to be led up to the spot he has selected +for their execution; the truth being that he is too lazy to carry them, +if he can possibly avoid it. + +He will promptly kill his quarry and carry its carcase downhill on the +rare occasions when the flocks are grazing above his haunt; but if it is +an uphill walk, they must be good enough to use their own legs. +Incredible stories of his destructiveness are related. + +Fortunately, human beings are seldom attacked, a dog or a pig being +generally forthcoming when the usual prey is not to be found. Yet not +long ago a sad affair occurred; a she-wolf attacked a small boy before +the eyes of his parents, who pursued him, powerless to help--the head +and arms had already been torn off before a shot from a neighbour +despatched the monster. Truly, "a great family displeasure," as my +informant styled it. Milo of Croton, the famous athlete, is the most +renowned victim of these Sila wolves. Tradition has it that, relying on +his great strength, he tried to rend asunder a mighty log of wood which +closed, however, and caught his arms in its grip; thus helpless, he was +devoured alive by them. + +By keeping to the left of Circilla, I might have skirted the forest of +Gariglione. This tract lies at about four and a half hours' distance +from San Giovanni; I found it, some years ago, to be a region of real +"Urwald" or primary jungle; there was nothing like it, to my knowledge, +on this side of the Alps, nor yet in the Alps themselves; nothing of the +kind nearer than Russia. But the Russian jungles, apart from their +monotony of timber, foster feelings of sadness and gloom, whereas these +southern ones, as Hehn has well observed, are full of a luminous +beauty--their darkest recesses being enlivened by a sense of benignant +mystery. Gariglione was at that time a virgin forest, untouched by the +hand of man; a dusky ridge, visible from afar; an impenetrable tangle of +forest trees, chiefest among them being the "garigli" _(Quercus cerris)_ +whence it derives its name, as well as thousands of pines and bearded +firs and all that hoary indigenous vegetation struggling out of the +moist soil wherein their progenitors had lain decaying time out of mind. +In these solitudes, if anywhere, one might still have found the +absent-minded luzard (lynx) of the veracious historian; or that squirrel +whose "calabrere" fur, I strongly suspect, came from Russia; or, at any +rate, the Mushroom-stone _which shineth in the night_. [Footnote: As a +matter of fact, the mushroom-stone is a well-known commodity, being +still collected and eaten, for example, at Santo Stefano in Aspramente. +Older travellers tell us that it used to be exported to Naples and kept +in the cellars of the best houses for the enjoyment of its +fruit--sometimes in lumps measuring two feet in diameter which, being +soaked in water, produced these edible fungi. A stone yielding food--a +miracle! It is a porous tufa adapted, presumably, for sheltering and +fecundating vegetable spores. A little pamphlet by Professor A. Trotter +("Flora Montana della Calabria") gives some idea of the local plants and +contains a useful bibliography. A curious feature is the relative +abundance of boreal and Balkan-Oriental forms; another, the rapid spread +of _Genista anglica,_ which is probably an importation.] + +Well, I am glad my path to-day did not lead me to Gariglione, and so +destroy old memories of the place. For the domain, they tell me, has +been sold for 350,000 francs to a German company; its primeval silence +is now invaded by an army of 260 workmen, who have been cutting down the +timber as fast as they can. So vanishes another fair spot from earth! +And what is left of the Sila, once these forests are gone? Not even the +charm, such as it is, of Caithness. . . . + +After Circilla comes the watershed that separates the Sila Grande from +the westerly regions of Sila Piccola. Thenceforward it was downhill +walking, at first through forest lands, then across verdant stretches, +bereft of timber and simmering in the sunshine. The peculiar character +of this country is soon revealed--ferociously cloven ravines, utterly +different from the Sila Grande. + +With the improvidence of the true traveller I had consumed my stock of +provisions ere reaching the town of Taverna after a march of nine hours +or thereabouts. A place of this size and renown, I had argued, would +surely be able to provide a meal. But Taverna belies its name. The only +tavern discoverable was a composite hovel, half wine-shop, half +hen-house, whose proprietor, disturbed in his noonday nap, stoutly +refused to produce anything eatable. And there I stood in the blazing +sunshine, famished and un-befriended. Forthwith the strength melted out +of my bones; the prospect of walking to Catanzaro, so alluring with a +full stomach, faded out of the realm of possibility; and it seemed a +special dispensation of Providence when, at my lowest ebb of vitality, a +small carriage suddenly hove in sight. + +"How much to Catanzaro?" + +The owner eyed me critically, and then replied in English: + +"You can pay twenty dollars." + +Twenty dollars--a hundred francs! But it is useless trying to bargain +with an _americano_ (their time is too valuable). + +"A dollar a mile?" I protested. + +"That's so." + +"You be damned." + +"Same to you, mister." And he drove off. + +Such bold defiance of fate never goes unrewarded. A two-wheeled cart +conveying some timber overtook me shortly afterwards on my way from the +inhospitable Taverna. For a small consideration I was enabled to pass +the burning hours of the afternoon in an improvised couch among its load +of boards, admiring the scenery and the engineering feats that have +carried a road through such difficult country, and thinking out some +further polite remarks to be addressed to my twenty-dollar friend, in +the event of our meeting at Catanzaro. . . . + +One must have traversed the Sila in order to appreciate the manifold +charms of the mountain town--I have revelled in them since my arrival. +But it has one irremediable drawback: the sea lies at an inconvenient +distance. It takes forty-five minutes to reach the shore by means of two +railways in whose carriages the citizens descend after wild scrambles +for places, packed tight as sardines in the sweltering heat. Only a +genuine enthusiast will undertake the trip more than once. For the +Marina itself--at this season, at least--is an unappetizing spot; a +sordid agglomeration of houses, a few dirty fruit-stalls, ankle-deep +dust, swarms of flies. I prefer to sleep through the warm hours of the +day, and then take the air in that delightful public garden which, by +the way, has already become too small for the increasing population. + +At its entrance stands the civic museum, entrusted, just now, to the +care of a quite remarkably ignorant and slatternly woman. It contains +two rooms, whose exhibits are smothered in dust and cobwebs; as +neglected, in short, as her own brats that sprawl about its floor. I +enquired whether she possessed no catalogue to show where the objects, +bearing no labels, had been found. A catalogue was unnecessary, she +said; she knew everything--everything! + +And everything, apparently, hailed from "Stromboli." The Tiriolo helmet, +the Greek vases, all the rest of the real and sham treasures of this +establishment: they were all discovered at Stromboli. + +"Those coins--whence?" + +"Stromboli!" + +Noticing some neolithic celts similar to those I obtained at Vaccarizza, +I would gladly have learnt their place of origin. Promptly came the answer: + +"Stromboli!" + +"Nonsense, my good woman. I've been three times to Stromboli; it is an +island of black stones where the devil has a house, and such things are +not found there." (Of course she meant Strangoli, the ancient Petelia.) + +This vigorous assertion made her more circumspect. Thenceforward +everything was declared to come from the province--_dalla provincia;_ it +was safer. + +"That bad picture--whence?" + +"Dalla provincia!" + +"Have you really no catalogue?" + +"I know everything." + +"And this broken statue--whence?" + +"Dalla provincia!" + +"But the province is large," I objected. + +"So it is. Large, and old." + +I have also revisited Tiriolo, once celebrated for the "Sepulchres of +the Giants" (Greek tombs) that were unearthed here, and latterly for a +certain more valuable antiquarian discovery. Not long ago it was a +considerable undertaking to reach this little place, but nowadays a +public motor-car whirls you up and down the ravines at an alarming pace +and will deposit you, within a few hours, at remote Cosenza, once an +enormous drive. It is the same all over modern Calabria. The diligence +service, for instance, that used to take fourteen hours from San +Giovanni to Cosenza has been replaced by motors that cover the distance +in four or five. One is glad to save time, but this new element of +mechanical hurry has produced a corresponding kind of traveller--a +machine-made creature, devoid of the humanity of the old; it has done +away with the personal note of conviviality that reigned in the +post-carriages. What jocund friendships were made, what songs and tales +applauded, during those interminable hours in the lumbering chaise! + +You must choose Sunday for Tiriolo, on account of the girls, whose +pretty faces and costumes are worth coming any distance to see. A good +proportion of them have the fair hair which seems to have been +eliminated, in other parts of the country, through the action of malaria. + +Viewed from Catanzaro, one of the hills of Tiriolo looks like a broken +volcanic crater. It is a limestone ridge, decked with those +characteristic flowers like _Campanula fragilis_ which you will vainly +seek on the Sila. Out of the ruins of some massive old building they +have constructed, on the summit, a lonely weather-beaten fabric that +would touch the heart of Maeterlinck. They call it a seismological +station. I pity the people that have to depend for their warnings of +earthquakes upon the outfit of a place like this. I could see no signs +of life here; the windows were broken, the shutters decaying, an old +lightning-rod dangled disconsolately from the roof; it looked as +abandoned as any old tower in a tale. There is a noble view from this +point over both seas and into the riven complexities of Aspromonte, when +the peak is not veiled in mists, as it frequently is. For Tiriolo lies +on the watershed; there (to quote from a "Person of Quality ") "where +the Apennine is drawn into so narrow a point, that the rain-water which +descendeth from the ridge of some one house, falleth on the left in the +Terrene Sea, and on the right into the Adriatick. . . ." + +My visits to the provincial museum have become scandalously frequent +during the last few days. I cannot keep away from the place. I go there +not to study the specimens but to converse with their keeper, the woman +who, in her quiet way, has cast a sort of charm over me. Our relations +are the whispered talk of the town; I am suspected of matrimonial +designs upon a poor widow with the ulterior object of appropriating the +cream of the relics under her care. Regardless of the perils of the +situation, I persevere; for the sake of her company I forswear the +manifold seductions of Catan-zaro. She is a noteworthy person, neither +vicious nor vulgar, but simply the _dernier mot_ of incompetence. Her +dress, her looks, her children, her manners--they are all on an even +plane with her spiritual accomplishments; at no point does she sink, or +rise, beyond that level. They are not as common as they seem to be, +these harmoniously inefficient females. + +Why has she got this job in a progressive town containing so many folks +who could do it creditably? Oh, that is simple enough! She needs it. On +the platform of the Reggio station (long before the earthquake) I once +counted five station-masters and forty-eight other railway officials, +swaggering about with a magnificent air of incapacity. What were they +doing? Nothing whatever. They were like this woman: they needed a job. + +We are in a patriarchal country; work is pooled; it is given not to +those who can do it best, but to those who need it most--given, too, on +pretexts which sometimes strike one as inadequate, not to say recondite. +So the street-scavengering in a certain village has been entrusted to a +one-armed cripple, utterly unfit for the business--why? Because his +maternal grand-uncle is serving a long sentence in gaol. The poor family +must be helped! A brawny young fellow will be removed from a +landing-stage boat, and his place taken by some tottering old peasant +who has never handled an oar--why? The old man's nephew has married +again; the family must be helped. A secretarial appointment was +specially created for an acquaintance of mine who could barely sign his +own name, for the obvious reason that his cousin's sister was rheumatic. +One must help that family. + +A postman whom I knew delivered the letters only once every three days, +alleging, as unanswerable argument in his defence, that his brother's +wife had fifteen children. + +One must help that family! + +Somebody seems to have thought so, at all events. + + + + +XXIX + +CHAOS + + +I have never beheld the enchantment of the Straits of Messina, that Fata +Morgana, when, under certain conditions of weather, phantasmagoric +palaces of wondrous shape are cast upon the waters--not mirrored, but +standing upright; tangible, as it were; yet diaphanous as a veil of gauze. + +A Dominican monk and correspondent of the Naples Academy, Minasi by +name, friend of Sir W. Hamilton, wrote a dissertation upon this +atmospheric mockery. Many have seen and described it, among them Filati +de Tassulo; Nicola Leoni reproduces the narrative of an eye-witness +of 1643; another account appears in the book of A. Fortis +("Mineralogische Reisen, 1788"). The apparition is coy. Yet there are +pictures of it--in an article in "La Lettura" by Dr. Vittorio Boccara, +who therein refers to a scientific treatise by himself on the subject, +as well as in the little volume "Da Reggio a Metaponto" by Lupi-Crisafi, +which was printed at Gerace some years ago. I mention these writers for +the sake of any one who, luckier than myself, may be able to observe +this phenomenon and become interested in its history and origin. . . . + +The chronicles of Messina record the scarcely human feats of the diver +Cola Pesce (Nicholas the Fish). The dim submarine landscapes of the +Straits with their caves and tangled forests held no secrets from him; +his eyes were as familiar with sea-mysteries as those of any fish. Some +think that the legend dates from Frederick II, to whom he brought up +from the foaming gulf that golden goblet which has been immortalized in +Schiller's ballad. But Schneegans says there are Norman documents that +speak of him. And that other tale, according to which he took to his +watery life in pursuit of some beloved maiden who had been swallowed by +the waves, makes one think of old Glaucus as his prototype. + +Many are the fables connected with his name, but the most portentous is +this: One day, during his subaqueous wanderings, he discovered the +foundations of Messina. They were insecure! The city rested upon three +columns, one of them intact, another quite decayed away, the third +partially corroded and soon to crumble into ruin. He peered up from, his +blue depths, and in a fateful couplet of verses warned the townsmen of +their impending doom. In this prophetic utterance ascribed to the +fabulous Cola Pesce is echoed a popular apprehension that was only too +justified. + +F. Muenter--one of a band of travellers who explored these regions after +the earthquake of 1783--also gave voice to his fears that Messina had +not yet experienced the full measure of her calamities. . . . + +I remember a night in September of 1908, a Sunday night, fragrant with +the odours of withered rosemary and cistus and fennel that streamed in +aromatic showers from the scorched heights overhead--a starlit night, +tranquil and calm. Never had Messina appeared so attractive to me. +Arriving there generally in the daytime and from larger and sprightlier +centres of civilization, one is prone to notice only its defects. But +night, especially a southern night, has a wizard touch. It transforms +into objects of mysterious beauty all unsightly things, or hides them +clean away; while the nobler works of man, those facades and cornices +and full-bellied balconies of cunningly wrought iron rise up, under its +enchantment, ethereal as the palace of fairies. And coming, as I then +did, from the sun-baked river-beds of Calabria, this place, with its +broad and well-paved streets, its glittering cafes and demure throng of +evening idlers, seemed a veritable metropolis, a world-city. + +With deliberate slowness, _ritardando con molto sentimento,_ I worked my +way to the familiar restaurant. + +At last! At last, after an interminable diet of hard bread, onions and +goat's cheese, I was to enjoy the complicated menu mapped out weeks +beforehand, after elaborate consideration and balancing of merits; so +complicated, that its details have long ago lapsed from my memory. I +recollect only the sword-fish, a local speciality, and (as crowning +glory) the _cassata alla siciliana,_ a glacial symphony, a multicoloured +ice of commingling flavours, which requires far more time to describe +than to devour. Under the influence of this Sybaritic fare, helped down +with a crusted bottle of Calabrian wine--your Sicilian stuff is too +strong for me, too straightforward, uncompromising; I prefer to be +wheedled out of my faculties by inches, like a gentleman--under this +genial stimulus my extenuated frame was definitely restored; I became +mellow and companionable; the traveller's lot, I finally concluded, is +not the worst on earth. Everything was as it should be. As for +Messina--Messina was unquestionably a pleasant city. But why were all +the shops shut so early in the evening? + +"These Sicilians," said the waiter, an old Neapolitan acquaintance, in +reply to my enquiries, "are always playing some game. They are +pretending to be Englishmen at this moment; they have the Sunday-closing +obsession on the brain. Their attacks generally last a fortnight; it's +like the measles. Poor people." + +Playing at being Englishmen! + +They have invented a new game now, those that are left of them. They are +living in dolls' houses, and the fit is likely to last for some little +time. + +An engineer remarked to me, not long ago, among the ruins: + +"This _baracca,_ this wooden shelter, has an interior surface area of +less than thirty square metres. Thirty-three persons--men, women, and +children--have been living and sleeping in it for the last five months." + +"A little overcrowded?" I suggested. + +"Yes. Some of them are beginning to talk of overcrowding. It was all +very well in the winter months, but when August comes. . . . Well, we +shall see." + +No prophetic visions of the Messina of to-day, with its minute sheds +perched among a wilderness of ruins and haunted by scared shadows in +sable vestments of mourning, arose in my mind that evening as I sat at +the little marble table, sipping my coffee--overroasted, like all +Italian coffee, by exactly two minutes--and puffing contentedly at my +cigar, while the sober crowd floated hither and thither before my eyes. +Yes, everything was as it should be. And yet, what a chance! + +What a chance for some God, in this age of unbelief, to establish his +rule over mankind on the firm foundations of faith! We are always +complaining, nowadays, of an abatement of religious feeling. How easy +for such a one to send down an Isaiah to foretell the hour of the coming +catastrophe, and thus save those of its victims who were disposed to +hearken to the warning voice; to reanimate the flagging zeal of +worshippers, to straighten doubts and segregate the sheep from the +goats! Truly, He moves in a mysterious way, for no divine message came; +the just were entombed with the unjust amid a considerable deal of +telegraphing and heart-breaking. + +A few days after the disaster the Catholic papers explained matters by +saying that the people of Messina had not loved their Madonna +sufficiently well. But she loved them none the less, and sent the +earthquake as an admonishment. Rather a robust method of conciliating +their affection; not exactly the _suaviter in modo. . . ._ + +But if genuine prophets can only flourish among the malarious willow +swamps of old Babylon and such-like improbable spots, we might at least +have expected better things of our modern spiritualists. Why should +their apparitions content themselves with announcing the decease, at the +Antipodes, of profoundly uninteresting relatives? Alas! I begin to +perceive that spirits of the right kind, of the useful kind, have yet to +be discovered. Our present-day ghosts are like seismographs; they +chronicle the event after it has happened. Now, what we want is---- + +"The Signore smokes, and smokes, and smokes. Why not take the tram and +listen to the municipal music in the gardens?" + +"Music? Gardens? An excellent suggestion, Gennarino." + +Even as a small Italian town would be incomplete without its piazza +where streets converge and commercial pulses beat their liveliest +measure, so every larger one contrives to possess a public garden for +the evening disport of its citizens; night-life being the true life of +the south. Charming they are, most of them; none more delectable than +that of old Messina--a spacious pleasaunce, decked out with trim palms +and flower-beds and labyrinthine walks freshly watered, and cooled, that +evening, by stealthy breezes from the sea. The grounds were festively +illuminated, and as I sat down near the bandstand and watched the folk +meandering to and fro, I calculated that no fewer than thirty thousand +persons were abroad, taking their pleasure under the trees, in the bland +air of evening. An orderly, well-dressed crowd. We may smile when they +tell us that these people will stint themselves of the necessities of +life in order to wear fine clothes, but the effect, for an outsider, is +all that it should be. For the rest, the very urchins, gambolling about, +had an air of happy prosperity, different from the squalor of the north +with its pinched white faces, its over-breeding and under-feeding. + +And how well the sensuous Italian strains accord with such an hour and +scene! They were playing, if I remember rightly, the ever-popular Aida; +other items followed later--more ambitious ones; a Hungarian rhapsody, +Berlioz, a selection from Wagner. + +"_Musica filosofica"_ said my neighbour, alluding to the German +composer. He was a spare man of about sixty; a sunburnt, military +countenance, seamed by lines of suffering. "_Non va in Sicilia--_it +won't do in this country. Not that we fail to appreciate your great +thinkers," he added. "We read and admire your Schopenhauer, your +Spencer. They give passable representations of Wagner in Naples. But----" + +"The climate?" + +"Precisely. I have travelled, sir; and knowing your Berlin, and London, +and Boston, have been able to observe how ill our Italian architecture +looks under your grey skies, how ill our music sounds among the complex +appliances of your artificial life. It has made you earnest, this +climate of yours, and prone to take earnestly your very pastimes. +Music, for us, has remained what it was in the Golden Age--an +unburdening of the soul on a summer's night. They play well, these +fellows. Palermo, too, has a respectable band--Oh! a little too fast, +that _recitativo!"_ + +"The Signore is a musician?" + +"A _proprietario._ But I delight in music, and I beguiled myself with +the fiddle as a youngster. Nowadays--look here!" And he extended his +hand; it was crippled. "Rheumatism. I have it here, and here"--pointing +to various regions of his body--"_and_ here! Ah, these doctors! The +baths I have taken! The medicines--the ointments--the embrocations: a +perfect pharmacopceia! I can hardly crawl now, and without the help of +these two devoted boys even this harmless little diversion would have +been denied me. My nephews--orphans," he added, observing the direction +of my glance. + +They sat on his other side, handsome lads, who spoke neither too much +nor too little. Every now and then they rose with one accord and +strolled among the surging crowd to stretch their legs, returning after +five minutes to their uncle's side. His eyes always followed their +movements. + +"My young brother, had he lived, would have made men of them," he once +observed. + +The images revive, curiously pertinacious, with dim lapses and gulfs. I +can see them still, the two boys, their grave demeanour belied by mobile +lips and mischievous fair curls of Northern ancestry; the other, leaning +forward intent upon the music, and caressing his moustache with bent +fingers upon which glittered a jewel set in massive gold--some scarab or +intaglio, the spoil of old Magna Graecia. His conversation, during the +intervals, moved among the accepted formulas of cosmopolitanism with +easy flow, quickened at times by the individual emphasis of a man who +can forsake conventional tracks and think for himself. Among other +things, he had contrived an original project for reviving the lemon +industry of his country, which, though it involved a few tariff +modifications--"a mere detail"--struck me as amazingly effective and +ingenious. The local deputy, it seems, shared my view, for he had +undertaken to bring it before the notice of Parliament. + +What was it? + +I have forgotten! + +So we discussed the world, while the music played under the starlit +southern night. + +It must have been midnight ere a final frenzied galop on the part of the +indefatigable band announced the close of the entertainment. I walked a +few paces beside the lame "proprietor" who, supported on the arms of his +nephews, made his way to the spot where the cabs were waiting--his +rheumatism, he explained, obliging him to drive. How he had enjoyed +walking as a youth, and what pleasure it would now have given him to +protract, during a promenade to my hotel, our delightful conversation! +But infirmities teach us to curtail our pleasures, and many things that +seem natural to man's bodily configuration are found to be unattainable. +He seldom left his rooms; the stairs--the diabolical stairs! Would I at +least accept his card and rest assured how gladly he would receive me +and do all in his power to make my stay agreeable? + +That card has gone the way of numberless others which the traveller in +Southern Europe gathers about him. I have also forgotten the old man's +name. But the _palazzo_ in which he lived bore a certain historical +title which happened to be very familiar to me. I remember wondering how +it came to reach Messina. + +In the olden days, of course, the days of splendour. + +Will they ever return? + +It struck me that the sufferings of the survivors would be alleviated if +all the sheds in which they are living could be painted white or +pearl-grey in order to protect them, as far as possible, from the +burning rays of the sun. I mentioned the idea to an overseer. + +"We are painting as fast as we can," he replied. "An expensive matter, +however. The Villagio Elena alone has cost us, in this respect, twenty +thousand francs--with the greatest economy." + +This will give some notion of the scale on which things have to be done. +The settlement in question contains some two hundred sheds--two hundred +out of over ten thousand. + +But I was alluding not to these groups of hygienic bungalows erected by +public munificence and supplied with schools, laboratories, orphanages, +hospitals, and all that can make life endurable, but to the +others--those which the refugees built for themselves--ill-contrived +hovels, patched together with ropes, potato-sacks, petroleum cans and +miscellaneous odds and ends. A coat of whitewash, at least, inside and +out. ... I was thinking, too, of those still stranger dwellings, the +disused railway trucks which the government has placed at the disposal +of homeless families. At many Stations along the line may be seen +strings of these picturesque wigwams crowded with poor folk who have +installed themselves within, apparently for ever. They are cultivating +their favourite flowers and herbs in gaudy rows along the wooden +platforms of the carriages; the little children, all dressed in black, +play about in the shade underneath. The people will suffer in these +narrow tenements under the fierce southern sun, after their cool +courtyards and high-vaulted chambers! There will be diseases, too; +typhoids from the disturbed drainage and insufficient water-supply; eye +troubles, caused by the swarms of flies and tons of accumulated dust. +The ruins are also overrun with hordes of mangy cats and dogs which +ought to be exterminated without delay. + +If, as seems likely, those rudely improvised sheds are to be inhabited +indefinitely, we may look forward to an interesting phenomenon, a +reversion to a corresponding type of man. The lack of the most ordinary +appliances of civilization, such as linen, washing-basins and cooking +utensils, will reduce them to the condition of savages who view these +things with indifference or simple curiosity; they will forget that they +ever had any use for them. And life in these huts where human beings are +herded together after the manner of beasts--one might almost say _fitted +in,_ like the fragments of a mosaic pavement--cannot but be harmful to +the development of growing children. + +The Calabrians, I was told, distinguished themselves by unearthly +ferocity; Reggio was given over to a legion of fiends that descended +from the heights during the week of confusion. "They tore the rings and +brooches off the dead," said a young officiai to me. "They strangled the +wounded and dying, in order to despoil them more comfortably. Here, and +at Messina, the mutilated corpses were past computation; but the +Calabrians were the worst." + +Vampires, offspring of Night and Chaos. + +So Dolomieu, speaking of the _depravation incroyable des moeurs_ which +accompanied the earthquake of 1783, recounts the case of a householder +of Polistena who was pinned down under some masonry, his legs emerging +out of the ruins; his servant came and took the silver buckles off his +shoes and then fled, without attempting to free him. We have seen +something of this kind more recently at San Francisco. + +"After despoiling the corpses, they ransacked the dwellings. Five +thousand beds, sir, were carried up from Reggio into the mountains." + +"Five thousand beds! _Per Dio!_ It seems a considerable number." + +A young fellow, one of the survivors, attached himself to me in the +capacity of guide through the ruins of Reggio. He wore the +characteristic earthquake look, a dazed and bewildered expression of +countenance; he spoke in a singularly deliberate manner. Knowing the +country, I was soon bending my steps in the direction of the cemetery, +chiefly for the sake of the exquisite view from those windswept heights, +and to breathe more freely after the dust and desolation of the lower +parts. This burial-ground is in the same state as that of Messina, once +the pride of its citizens; the insane frolic of nature has not respected +the slumber of the dead or their commemorative shrines; it has made a +mockery of the place, twisting the solemn monuments into repulsive and +irreverential shapes. + +But who can recount the freaks of stone and iron during those +moments--the hair-breadth escapes? My companion's case was miraculous +enough. Awakened from sleep with the first shock, he saw, by the dim +light of the lamp which burns in all their bedrooms, the wall at his +bedside weirdly gaping asunder. He darted to reach the opening, but it +closed again and caught his arm in a stony grip. Hours seemed to +pass--the pain was past enduring; then the kindly cleft yawned once +more, allowing him to jump into the garden below. Simultaneously he +heard a crash as the inner rooms of the house fell; then climbed aloft, +and for four days wandered among the bleak, wet hills. Thousands were in +the same plight. + +I asked what he found to eat. + +"_Erba, Signore._ We all did. You could not touch property; a single +orange, and they would have killed you." + +Grass! + +He bore a name renowned in the past, but his home being turned into a +dust-heap under which his money, papers and furniture, his two parents +and brothers, are still lying, he now gains a livelihood by carrying +vegetables and fruit from the harbour to the collection of sheds +honoured by the name of market. Later in the day we happened to walk +past the very mansion, which lies near the quay. "Here is my house and +my family," he remarked, indicating, with a gesture of antique +resignation, a pile of wreckage. + +Hard by, among the ruins, there sat a young woman with dishevelled hair, +singing rapturously. "Her husband was crushed to death," he said, "and +it unhinged her wits. Strange, is it not, sir? They used to fight like +fiends, and now--she sings to him night and day to come back." + +Love--so the Greeks fabled--was the child of Chaos. + +In this part of the town stands the civic museum, which all readers of +Gissing's "Ionian Sea" will remember as the closing note of those +harmonious pages. It is shattered, like everything else that he visited +in Reggio; like the hotel where he lodged; like the cathedral whose +proud superscription _Circumlegentes devenimus Rhegium_ impressed him so +deeply; like that "singular bit of advanced civilization, which gave me +an odd sense of having strayed into the world of those romancers who +forecast the future--a public slaughter-house of tasteful architecture, +set in a grove of lemon trees and palms, suggesting the dreamy ideal of +some reformer whose palate shrinks from vegetarianism." We went the +round of all these places, not forgetting the house which bears the +tablet commemorating the death of a young soldier who fell fighting +against the Bourbons. From its contorted iron balcony there hangs a rope +by which the inmates may have tried to let themselves down. + +A friend of mine, Baron C---- of Stilo, is a member of that same +patriotic family, and gave me the following strange account. He was +absent from Reggio at the time of the catastrophe, but three others of +them were staying there. On the first shock they rushed together, +panic-stricken, into one room; the floor gave way, and they suddenly +found themselves sitting in their motor-car which happened to be placed +exactly below them. They escaped with a few cuts and bruises. + +An inscription on a neighbouring ruin runs to the effect that the +_mansion having been severely damaged in the earthquake of_ 1783, _its +owner had rebuilt it on lines calculated to defy future shattering!_ +Whether he would rebuild it yet again? + +Nevertheless, there seems to be some chance for the revival of Reggio; +its prognosis is not utterly hopeless. + +But Messina is in desperate case. + +That haughty sea-front, with its long line of imposing edifices--imagine +a painted theatre decoration of cardboard through which some sportive +behemoth has been jumping with frantic glee; there you have it. And +within, all is desolation; the wreckage reaches to the windows; you must +clamber over it as best you can. What an all-absorbing post-tertiary +deposit for future generations, for the crafty antiquarian who deciphers +the history of mankind out of kitchen-middens and deformed heaps of +forgotten trash! The whole social life of the citizens, their arts, +domestic economy, and pastimes, lies embedded in that rubbish. "A +musical race," he will conclude, observing the number of decayed +pianofortes, guitars, and mandolines. The climate of Messina, he will +further arene, must have been a wet one, inasmuch as there are umbrellas +everywhere, standing upright among the debris, leaning all forlorn +against the ruins, or peering dismally from under them. It rained much +during those awful days, and umbrellas were at a premium. Yet fifty of +them would not have purchased a loaf of bread. + +It was Goethe who, speaking of Pompeii, said that of the many +catastrophes which have afflicted mankind few have given greater +pleasure to posterity. The same will never be said of Messina, whose +relics, for the most part, are squalid and mean. The German poet, by the +way, visited this town shortly after the disaster of 1783, and describes +its _zackige Ruinenwueste_--words whose very sound is suggestive of +shatterings and dislocations. Nevertheless, the place revived again. + +But what was 1783? + +A mere rehearsal, an amateur performance. + +Wandering about in this world of ghosts, I passed the old restaurant +where the sword-fish had once tasted so good--an accumulation of stones +and mortar--and reached the cathedral. It is laid low, all save the +Gargantuan mosaic figures that stare down from behind the altar in +futile benediction of Chaos; inane, terrific. This, then, is the house +of that feudal lady of the _fortiter in re,_ who sent an earthquake and +called it love. Womanlike, she doted on gold and precious stones, and +they recovered her fabulous hoard, together with a copy of a Latin +letter she sent to the Christians of Messina by the hand of Saint Paul. + +And not long afterwards--how came it to pass?--my steps were guided amid +that wilderness towards a narrow street containing the ruins of a +_palazzo_ that bore, on a tablet over the ample doorway, an inscription +which arrested my attention. It was an historical title familiar to me; +and forthwith a train of memories, slumbering in the caverns of my mind, +was ignited. Yes; there was no doubt about it: the old "proprietor" and +his nephews, he of the municipal gardens. . . . + +I wondered how they had met their fate, on the chill wintry morning. For +assuredly, in that restricted space, not a soul can have escaped alive; +the wreckage, hitherto undisturbed, still covered their remains. + +And, remembering the old man and his humane converse that evening under +the trees, the true meaning of the catastrophe began to disentangle +itself from accidental and superficial aspects. For I confess that the +massacre of a myriad Chinamen leaves me cool and self-possessed; between +such creatures and ourselves there is hardly more than the frail bond of +a common descent from the ape; they are altogether too remote for our +narrow world-sympathies. I would as soon shed tears over the lost +Pleiad. But these others are our spiritual cousins; we have deep roots +in this warm soil of Italy, which brought forth a goodly tithe of what +is best in our own lives, in our arts and aspirations. + +And I thought of the two nephews, their decent limbs all distorted and +mangled under a heap of foul rubbish, waiting for a brutal disinterment +and a nameless grave. This is no legitimate death, this murderous +violation of life. How inconceivably hateful is such a leave-taking, and +all that follows after! To picture a fair young body, that divine +instrument of joy, crushed into an unsightly heap; once loved, now +loathed of all men, and thrust at last, with abhorrence, into some +common festering pit of abominations. . . . The Northern type--a mighty +bond, again; a tie of blood, this time, between our race and those +rulers of the South, whose exploits in this land of orange and myrtle +surpassed the dreamings of romance. + +Strange to reflect that, without the ephemeral friendship of that +evening, Messina of to-day might have represented to my mind a mere +spectacle, the hecatomb of its inhabitants extorting little more than a +conventional sigh. So it is. The human heart has been constructed on +somewhat ungenerous lines. Moralists, if any still exist on earth, may +generalize with eloquence from the masses, but our poets have long ago +succumbed to the pathos of single happenings; the very angels of Heaven, +they say, take more joy in one sinner that repenteth than in a hundred +righteous, which, duly apprehended, is only an application of the same +illiberal principle. + +A rope of bed-sheets knotted together dangled from one of the upper +windows, its end swaying in mid-air at the height of the second floor. +Many of them do, at Messina: a desperate expedient of escape. Some pots +of geranium and cactus, sadly flowering, adorned the other windows, +whose glass panes were unbroken. But for the ominous sunlight pouring +through them from _within,_ the building looked fairly intact on this +outer side. Its ponderous gateway, however, through which I had hoped to +enter, was choked up by internal debris, and I was obliged to climb, +with some little trouble, to the rear of the house. + +If a titanic blade had sheared through the _palazzo_ lengthwise, the +thing could not have been done more neatly. The whole interior had gone +down, save a portion of the rooms abutting on the street-front; these +were literally cut in half, so as to display an ideal section of +domestic architecture. The house with its inmates and all it contained +was lying among the high-piled wreckage within, under my feet; masonry +mostly--entire fragments of wall interspersed with crumbling mortar and +convulsed iron girders that writhed over the surface or plunged sullenly +into the depths; fetid rents and gullies in between, their flanks +affording glimpses of broken vases, candelabras, hats, bottles, +birdcages, writing-books, brass pipes, sofas, picture-frames, +tablecloths, and all the paltry paraphernalia of everyday life. No +attempt at stratification, horizontal, vertical, or inclined; it was as +if the objects had been thrown up by some playful volcano and allowed to +settle where they pleased. Two immense chiselled blocks of stone--one +lying prone at the bottom of a miniature ravine, the other proudly +erect, like a Druidical monument, in the upper regions--reminded me of +the existence of a staircase, a _diabolical_ staircase. + +Looking upwards, I endeavoured to reconstruct the habits of the inmates, +but found it impossible, the section that remained being too shallow. +Sky-blue seems to have been their favourite colour. The kitchen was +easily discernible, the hearth with its store of charcoal underneath, +copper vessels hanging in a neat row overhead, and an open cupboard full +of household goods; a neighbouring room (the communicating doors were +all gone), with lace window-curtains, a table, lamp, and book, and a +bedstead toppling over the abyss; another one, carpeted and hung with +pictures and a large faded mirror, below which ran a row of shelves that +groaned under a multitudinous collection of phials and bottles. + +The old man's embrocations. . . . + + + + +XXX + +THE SKIRTS OF MONTALTO + + +After such sights of suffering humanity--back to the fields and +mountains! Aspromonte, the wild region behind Reggio, was famous, not +long ago, for Garibaldi's battle. But the exploits of this warrior have +lately been eclipsed by those of the brigand Musolino, who infested the +country up to a few years ago, defying the soldiery and police of all +Italy. He would still be safe and unharmed had he remained in these +fastnesses. But he wandered away, wishful to leave Italy for good and +all, and was captured far from his home by some policemen who were +looking for another man, and who nearly fainted when he pronounced his +name. After a sensational trial, they sentenced him to thirty odd years' +imprisonment; he is now languishing in the fortress of Porto Longone on +Elba. Whoever has looked into this Spanish citadel will not envy him. Of +the lovely little bay, of the loadstone mountain, of the romantic +pathway to the hermitage of Monserrato or the glittering beach at +Rio--of all the charms of Porto Longone he knows nothing, despite a +lengthy residence on the spot. + +They say he has grown consumptive and witless during the long solitary +confinement which preceded his present punishment--an eternal night in a +narrow cell. No wonder. I have seen the condemned on their release from +these boxes of masonry at the island of Santo Stefano: dazed shadows, +tottering, with complexions the colour of parchment. These are the +survivors. But no one asks after the many who die in these dungeons +frenzied, or from battering their heads against the wall; no one knows +their number save the doctor and the governor, whose lips are sealed. . . . + +I decided upon a rear attack of Aspromonte. I would go by rail as far as +Bagnara on the Tyrrhenian, the station beyond Scylla of old renown; and +thence afoot via Sant' Eufemia [Footnote: Not to be confounded with the +railway station on the gulf of that name, near Maida.] to Sinopoli, +pushing on, if day permitted, as far as Delianuova, at the foot of +the mountain. Early next morning I would climb the summit and descend to +the shores of the Ionian, to Bova. It seemed a reasonable programme. + +All this Tyrrhenian coast-line is badly shattered; far more so than the +southern shore. But the scenery is finer. There is nothing on that side +to compare with the views from Nicastro, or Monte-leone, or Sant' Elia +near Palmi. It is also more smiling, more fertile, and far less +malarious. Not that cultivation of the land implies absence of +malaria--nothing is a commoner mistake! The Ionian shore is not +malarious because it is desert--it is desert because malarious. The +richest tracts in Greece are known to be very dangerous, and it is the +same in Italy. Malaria and intensive agriculture go uncommonly well +together. The miserable anopheles-mosquito loves the wells that are sunk +for the watering of the immense orange and lemon plantations in the +Reggio district; it displays a perverse predilection for the minute +puddles left by the artificial irrigation of the fields that are covered +with fruit and vegetables. This artificial watering, in fact, seems to +be partly responsible for the spread of the disease. It is doubtful +whether the custom goes back into remote antiquity, for the climate used +to be moister and could dispense with these practices. Certain products, +once grown in Calabria, no longer thrive there, on account of the +increased dryness and lack of rainfall. + +But there are some deadly regions, even along this Tyrrhenian shore. +Such is the plain of Maida, for instance, where stood not long ago the +forest of Sant' Eufemia, safe retreat of Parafante and other brigand +heroes. The level lands of Rosarno and Gioia are equally ill-reputed. A +French battalion stationed here in the summer of 1807 lost over sixty +men in fourteen days, besides leaving two hundred invalids in the +hospital at Monteleone. Gioia is so malarious that in summer every one +of the inhabitants who can afford the price of a ticket goes by the +evening train to Palmato sleep there. You will do well, by the way, to +see something of the oil industry of Palmi, if time permits. In good +years, 200,000 quintals of olive oil are manufactured in the regions of +which it is the commercial centre. Not long ago, before modern methods +of refining were introduced, most of this oil was exported to Russia, to +be burned in holy lamps; nowadays it goes for the most part to Lucca, to +be adulterated for foreign markets (the celebrated Lucca oil, which the +simple Englishman regards as pure); only the finest quality is sent +elsewhere, to Nice. From Gioia there runs a postal diligence once a day +to Delianuova of which I might have availed myself, had I not preferred +to traverse the country on foot. + +The journey from Reggio to Bagnara on this fair summer morning, along +the rippling Mediterranean, was short enough, but sufficiently long to +let me overhear the following conversation: + +A.--What a lovely sea! It is good, after all, to take three or four +baths a year. What think you? + +B.--I? No. For thirteen years I have taken no baths. But they are +considered good for children. + +The calamities that Bagnara has suffered in the past have been so +numerous, so fierce and so varied that, properly speaking, the town has +no right to exist any longer. It has enjoyed more than its full share of +earthquakes, having been shaken to the ground over and over again. Sir +William Hamilton reports that 3017 persons were killed in that of 1783. +The horrors of war, too, have not spared it, and a certain modern +exploit of the British arms here strikes me as so instructive that I +would gladly extract it from Grant's "Adventures of an Aide-de-Camp," +were it not too long to transcribe, and far too good to abbreviate. + +A characteristic story, further, is told of the methods of General +Manhes at Bagnara. It may well be an exaggeration when they say that the +entire road from Reggio to Naples was lined with the heads of +decapitated brigands; be that as it may, it stands to reason that +Bagnara, as befits an important place, was to be provided with an +appropriate display of these trophies. The heads were exhibited in +baskets, with strict injunctions to the authorities that they were not +to be touched, seeing that they served not only for decorative but also +moral purposes--as examples. Imagine, therefore, the General's feelings +on being told that one of these heads had been stolen; stolen, probably, +by some pious relative of the deceased rascal, who wished to give the +relic a decent Christian burial. + +"That's rather awkward," he said, quietly musing. "But of course the +specimen must be replaced. Let me see. . . . Suppose we put the head of +the mayor of Bagnara into the vacant basket? Shall we? Yes, we'll have +the mayor. It will make him more careful in future." And within half an +hour the basket was filled once more. + +There was a little hitch in starting from Bagnara. From the windings of +the carriage-road as portrayed by the map, I guessed that there must be +a number of short cuts into the uplands at the back of the town, +undiscoverable to myself, which would greatly shorten the journey. +Besides, there was my small bag to be carried. A porter familiar with +the tracks was plainly required, and soon enough I found a number of +lusty youths leaning against a wall and doing nothing in particular. +Yes, they would accompany me, they said, the whole lot of them, just for +the fun of the thing. + +"And my bag?" I asked. + +"A bag to be carried? Then we must get a woman." + +They unearthed a nondescript female who undertook to bear the burden as +far as Sinopoli for a reasonable consideration. So far good. But as we +proceeded, the boys began to drop off, till only a single one was left. +And then the woman suddenly vanished down a side street, declaring that +she must change her clothes. We waited for three-quarters of an hour, in +the glaring dust of the turnpike; she never emerged again, and the +remaining boy stoutly refused to handle her load. + +"No," he declared. "She must carry the bag. And I will keep you company." + +The precious morning hours were wearing away, and here we stood idly by +the side of the road. It never struck me that the time might have been +profitably employed in paying a flying visit to one of the most sacred +objects in Calabria and possibly in the whole world, one which Signor N. +Marcene describes as reposing at Bagnara in a rich reliquary--the +authentic Hat of the Mother of God. A lady tourist would not have missed +this chance of studying the fashions of those days. [Footnote: See next +chapter.] + +Finally, in desperation, I snatched up the wretched luggage and poured +my griefs with unwonted eloquence into the ears of a man driving a +bullock-cart down the road. So much was he moved, that he peremptorily +ordered his son to conduct me then and there to Sinopoli, to carry the +bag, and claim one franc by way of payment. The little man tumbled off +the cart, rather reluctantly. + +"Away with you!" cried the stern parent, and we began the long march, +climbing uphill in the blazing sunshine; winding, later on, through +shady chestnut woods and across broad tracts of cultivated land. It was +plain that the task was beyond his powers, and when we had reached a +spot where the strange-looking new village of Sant' Eufemia was +visible--it is built entirely of wooden shelters; the stone town was +greatly shaken in the late earthquake--he was obliged to halt, and +thenceforward stumbled slowly into the place. There he deposited the bag +on the ground, and faced me squarely. + +"No more of this!" he said, concentrating every ounce of his virility +into a look of uncompromising defiance. + +"Then I shall not pay you a single farthing, my son. And, moreover, I +will tell your father. You know what he commanded: to Sinopoli. This is +only Sant' Eufemia. Unless----" + +"You will tell my father? Unless----?" + +"Unless you discover some one who will carry the bag not only to +Sinopoli, but as far as Delianuova." I was not in the mood for repeating +the experiences of the morning. + +"It is difficult. But we will try." + +He went in search, and returned anon with a slender lad of unusual +comeliness--an earthquake orphan. "This big one," he explained, "walks +wherever you please and carries whatever you give him. And you will pay +him nothing at all, unless he deserves it. Such is the arrangement. Are +you content?" + +"You have acted like a man." + +The earthquake survivor set off at a swinging pace, and we soon reached +Sinopoli--new Sinopoli; the older settlement lies at a considerable +distance. Midday was past, and the long main street of the town--a +former fief of the terrible Ruffo family--stood deserted in the +trembling heat. None the less there was sufficient liveliness within the +houses; the whole place seemed in a state of jollification. It was +Sunday, the orphan explained; the country was duller than usual, +however, because of the high price of wine. There had been no murders to +speak of--no, not for a long time past. But the vintage of this year, he +added, promises well, and life will soon become normal again. + +The mule track from here to Delianuova traverses some pretty scenery, +both wild and pastoral. But the personal graces of my companion made me +take small heed of the landscape. He was aglow with animal spirits, and +his conversation naively brilliant and of uncommon import. Understanding +at a glance that he belonged to a type which is rather rare in Calabria, +that he was a classic (of a kind), I made every effort to be pleasant to +him; and I must have succeeded, for he was soon relating anecdotes which +would have been neither instructive, nor even intelligible, to the +_jeune fille;_ all this, with angelic serenity of conscience. + +This radiantly-vicious child was the embodiment of the joy of life, the +perfect immoralist. There was no cynicism in his nature, no cruelty, no +obliquity, no remorse; nothing but sunshine with a few clouds sailing +across the fathomless blue spaces--the sky of Hellas. _Nihil humani +alienum;_ and as I listened to those glad tales, I marvelled at the +many-tinted experiences that could be crammed into seventeen short +years; what a document the ad-verttures of such a frolicsome demon would +be, what a feast for the initiated, could some one be induced to make +them known! But such things are hopelessly out of the question. And that +is why so many of our wise people go into their graves without ever +learning what happens in this world. + +Among minor matters, he mentioned that he had already been three times +to prison for "certain little affairs of blood," while defending +"certain friends." Was it not dull, I asked, in prison? "The time passes +pleasantly anywhere," he answered, "when you are young. I always make +friends, even in prison." I could well believe it. His affinities were +with the blithe crew of the Liber Stratonis. He had a roving eye and the +mouth of Antinous; and his morals were those of a condescending tiger-cub. + +Arriving at Delianuova after sunset, he conceived the project of +accompanying me next morning up Montalto. I hesitated. In the first +place, I was going not only up that mountain, but to Bova on the distant +Ionian littoral---- + +"For my part," he broke in, "_ho pigliato confidenza._ If you mistrust +me, here! take my knife," an ugly blade, pointed, and two inches in +excess of the police regulation length. This act of quasi-filial +submission touched me; but it was not his knife I feared so much as that +of "certain friends." Some little difference of opinion might arise, +some question of money or other argument, and lo! the friends would be +at hand (they always are), and one more stranger might disappear among +the clefts and gullies of Montalto. Aspromonte, the roughest corner of +Italy, is no place for misunderstandings; the knife decides promptly who +is right or wrong, and only two weeks ago I was warned not to cross the +district without a carbineer on either side of me. + +But to have clothed my thoughts in words during his gracious mood would +have been supremely unethical. I contented myself with the trite but +pregnant remark that things sometimes looked different in the morning, +which provoked a pagan fit of laughter; farewelled him "with the +Madonna!" and watched as he withdrew under the trees, lithe and buoyant, +like a flame that is swallowed up in the night. + +Only then did the real business begin. I should be sorry to say into how +many houses and wine-shops the obliging owner of the local inn conducted +me, in search of a guide. We traversed all the lanes of this straggling +and fairly prosperous place, and even those of its suburb Paracorio, +evidently of Byzantine origin; the answer was everywhere the same: To +Montalto, yes; to Bova, no! Night drew on apace and, as a last resource, +he led the way to the dwelling of a gentleman of the old school--a +retired brigand, to wit, who, as I afterwards learned, had some ten or +twelve homicides to his account. Delianuova, and indeed the whole of +Aspromonte, has a bad reputation for crime. + +It was our last remaining chance. + +We found the patriarch sitting in a simple but tidy chamber, smoking his +pipe and playing with a baby; his daughter-in-law rose as we entered, +and discreetly moved into an adjoining room. The cheery cut-throat put +the baby down to crawl on the floor, and his eyes sparkled when he heard +of Bova. + +"Ah, one speaks of Bova!" he said. "A fine walk over the mountain!" He +much regretted that he was too old for the trip, but so-and-so, he +thought, might know something of the country. It pained him, too, that +he could not offer me a glass of wine. There was none in the house. In +his day, he added, it was not thought right to drink in the modern +fashion; this wine-bibbing was responsible for considerable mischief; it +troubled the brain, driving men to do things they afterwards repented. +He drank only milk, having become accustomed to it during a long life +among the hills. Milk cools the blood, he said, and steadies the hand, +and keeps a man's judgment undisturbed. + +The person he had named was found after some further search. He was a +bronzed, clean-shaven type of about fifty, who began by refusing his +services point-blank, but soon relented, on hearing the ex-brigand's +recommendation of his qualities. + + + + +XXXI + +SOUTHERN SAINTLINESS + + +Southern saints, like their worshippers, put on new faces and vestments +in the course of ages. Old ones die away; new ones take their place. +Several hundred of the older class of saint have clean faded from the +popular memory, and are now so forgotten that the wisest priest can tell +you nothing about them save, perhaps, that "he's in the +church"--meaning, that some fragment of his holy anatomy survives as a +relic amid a collection of similar antiques. But you can find their +histories in early literature, and their names linger on old maps where +they are given to promontories and other natural features which are +gradually being re-christened. + +Such saints were chiefly non-Italian: Byzantines or Africans who, by +miraculous intervention, protected the village or district of which they +were patrons from the manifold scourges of medi-aevalism; they took the +place of the classic tutelar deities. They were men; they could fight; +and in those troublous times that is exactly what saints were made for. + +With the softening of manners a new element appears. Male saints lost +their chief _raison d'etre,_ and these virile creatures were superseded +by pacific women. So, to give only one instance, Saint Rosalia in +Palermo displaced the former protector Saint Mark. Her sacred bones were +miraculously discovered in a cave; and have since been identified as +those of a goat. But it was not till the twelfth century that the cult +of female saints began to assume imposing dimensions. + +Of the Madonna no mention occurs in the songs of Bishop Paulinus (fourth +century); no monument exists in the Neapolitan catacombs. Thereafter her +cult begins to dominate. + +She supplied the natives with what orthodox Christianity did not give +them, but what they had possessed from early times--a female element in +religion. Those Greek settlers had their nymphs, their Venus, and so +forth; the Mother of God absorbed and continued their functions. There +is indeed only one of these female pagan divinities whose role she has +not endeavoured to usurp--Athene. Herein she reflects the minds of her +creators, the priests and common people, whose ideal woman contents +herself with the duties of motherhood. I doubt whether an +Athene-Madonna, an intellectual goddess, could ever have been evolved; +their attitude towards gods in general is too childlike and positive. + +South Italians, famous for abstractions in philosophy, cannot endure +them in religion. Unlike ourselves, they do not desire to learn anything +from their deities or to argue about them. They only wish to love and be +loved in return, reserving to themselves the right to punish them, when +they deserve it. Countless cases are on record where (pictures or +statues of) Madonnas and saints have been thrown into a ditch for not +doing what they were told, or for not keeping their share of a bargain. +During the Vesuvius eruption of 1906 a good number were subjected to +this "punishment," because they neglected to protect their worshippers +from the calamity according to contract (so many candles and festivals = +so much protection). + +For the same reason the adult Jesus--the teacher, the God--is +practically unknown. He is too remote from themselves and the ordinary +activities of their daily lives; he is not married, like his mother; he +has no trade, like his father (Mark calls him a carpenter); moreover, +the maxims of the Sermon on the Mount are so repugnant to the South +Italian as to be almost incomprehensible. In effigy, this period of +Christ's life is portrayed most frequently in the primitive monuments of +the catacombs, erected when tradition was purer. + +Three tangibly-human aspects of Christ's life figure here: the +_bambino-cult,_ which not only appeals to the people's love of babyhood +but also carries on the old traditions of the Lar Familiaris and of +Horus; next, the youthful Jesus, beloved of local female mystics; and +lastly the Crucified--that grim and gloomy image of suffering which was +imported, or at least furiously fostered, by the Spaniards. + +The engulfing of the saints by the Mother of God is due also to +political reasons. The Vatican, once centralized in its policy, began to +be disquieted by the persistent survival of Byzantinism (Greek cults and +language lingered up to the twelfth century); with the Tacitean _odium +fratrum_ she exercised more severity towards the sister-faith than +towards actual paganism. [Footnote: Greek and Egyptian anchorites were +established in south Italy by the fourth century. But paganism was still +flourishing, locally, in the sixth. There is some evidence that +Christians used to take part in pagan festivals.] + +The Madonna was a fit instrument for sweeping away the particularist +tendencies of the past; she attacked relic-worship and other outworn +superstitions; like a benignant whirlwind she careered over the land, +and these now enigmatical shapes and customs fell faster than leaves of +Vallombrosa. No sanctuary or cave so remote that she did not endeavour +to expel its male saint--its old presiding genius, whether Byzantine or +Roman. But saints have tough lives, and do not yield without a struggle; +they fought for their time-honoured privileges like the "daemons" they +were, and sometimes came off victorious. Those sanctuaries that proved +too strong to be taken by storm were sapped by an artful and determined +siege. The combat goes on to this day. This is what is happening to the +thrice-deposed and still triumphant Saint Januarius, who is hard pressed +by sheer force of numbers. Like those phagocytes which congregate from +all sides to assail some weakened cell in the body physical, even so +Madonna-cults--in frenzied competition with each other--cluster thickest +round some imperilled venerable of ancient lineage, bent on his +destruction. The Madonna dell' Arco, del Soccorso, and at least fifty +others (not forgetting the newly-invented Madonna di Pompei)--they have +all established themselves in the particular domain of St. Januarius; +they are all undermining his reputation, and claiming to possess his +special gifts. [Footnote: He is known to have quelled an outbreak of +Vesuvius in the fifth century, though his earliest church, I believe, +only dates from the ninth. His blood, famous for liquefaction, is not +mentioned till 1337.] + +Early monastic movements of the Roman Church also played their part in +obliterating old religious landmarks. Settling down in some remote place +with the Madonna as their leader or as their "second Mother," these +companies of holy men soon acquired such temporal and spiritual +influence as enabled them successfully to oppose their divinity to the +local saint, whose once bright glories began to pale before her +effulgence. Their labours in favour of the Mother of God were part of +that work of consolidating Papal power which was afterwards carried on +by the Jesuits. + +Perhaps what chiefly accounts for the spread of Madonna-worship is the +human craving for novelty. You can invent most easily where no fixed +legends are established. Now the saints have fixed legendary attributes +and histories, and as culture advances it becomes increasingly difficult +to manufacture new saints with fresh and original characters and yet +passable pedigrees (the experiment is tried, now and again); while the +old saints have been exploited and are now inefficient--worn out, like +old toys. Madonna, on the other hand, can subdivide with the ease of an +amoeba, and yet never lose her identity or credibility; moreover, thanks +to her divine character, anything can be accredited to her--anything +good, however wonderful; lastly, the traditions concerning her are so +conveniently vague that they actually foster the mythopoetic faculty. +Hence her success. Again: the man-saints were separatists; they fought +for their own towns against African intruders, and in those frequent and +bloody inter-communal battles which are a feature of Italian +medievalism. Nowadays it is hardly proper that neighbouring townsmen, +aided and abetted by their respective saints, should sally forth to cut +each others' throats. The Madonna, as cosmopolitan Nike, is a fitter +patroness for settled society. + +She also found a ready welcome in consequence of the pastoral +institutions of the country in which the mother plays such a conspicuous +role. So deeply are they ingrained here that if the Mother of God had +not existed, the group would have been deemed incomplete; a family +without a mother is to them like a tree without roots--a thing which +cannot be. This accounts for the fact that their Trinity is not ours; it +consists of the Mother, the Father (Saint Joseph), and the Child--with +Saint Anne looming in the background (the grandmother is an important +personage in the patriarchal family). The Creator of all things and the +Holy Ghost have evaporated; they are too intangible and non-human. + +But She never became a true cosmopolitan Nike, save in literature. The +decentralizing spirit of South Italy was too strong for her. She had to +conform to the old custom of geographical specialization. In all save in +name she doffed her essential character of Mother of God, and became a +local demi-god; an accessible wonder-worker attached to some particular +district. An inhabitant of village A would stand a poor chance of his +prayers being heard by the Madonna of village B; if you have a headache, +it is no use applying to the _Madonna of the Hens,_ who deals with +diseases of women; you will find yourself in a pretty fix if you expect +financial assistance from the Madonna of village C: she is a +weather-specialist. In short, these hundreds of Madonnas have taken up +the qualities of the saints they supplanted. + +They can often outdo them; and this is yet another reason for their +success. It is a well-ascertained fact, for example, that many holy men +have been nourished by the Milk of the Mother of God, "not," as a +Catholic writer says, "in a mystic or spiritual sense, but with their +actual lips"; Saint Bernard "among a hundred, a thousand, others." Nor +is this all, for in the year 1690, a painted image of the Madonna, not +far from the city of Carinola, was observed to "diffuse abundant milk" +for the edification of a great concourse of spectators--a miracle which +was recognized as such by the bishop of that diocese, Monsignor Paolo +Ayrola, who wrote a report on the subject. Some more of this authentic +milk is kept in a bottle in the convent of Mater Domini on Vesuvius, and +the chronicle of that establishment, printed in 1834, says: + +"Since Mary is the Mother and Co-redeemer of the Church, may she not +have left some drops of her precious milk as a gift to this Church, even +as we still possess some of the blood of Christ? In various churches +there exists some of this milk, by means of which many graces and +benefits are obtained. We find such relics, for example, in the church +of Saint Luigi in Naples, namely, two bottles full of the milk of the +Blessed Virgin; and this milk becomes fluid on feast-days of the +Madonna, as everybody can see. Also in this convent of Mater Domini the +milk sometimes liquefies." During eruptions of Vesuvius this bottle is +carried abroad in procession, and always dispels the danger. Saint +Januarius must indeed look to his laurels! Meanwhile it is interesting +to observe that the Mother of God has condescended to employ the method +of holy relics which she once combated so strenuously, her milk +competing with the blood of Saint John, the fat of Saint Laurence, and +those other physiological curios which are still preserved for the +edification of believers. + +All of which would pass if a subtle poison had not been creeping in to +taint religious institutions. Taken by themselves, these infantile +observances do not necessarily harm family life, the support of the +state; for a man can believe a considerable deal of nonsense, and yet go +about his daily work in a natural and cheerful manner. But when the body +is despised and tormented the mind loses its equilibrium, and when that +happens nonsense may assume a sinister shape. We have seen it in +England, where, during the ascetic movement of Puritanism, more witches +were burnt than in the whole period before and after. + +The virus of asceticism entered South Italy from three principal +sources. From early ages the country had stood in commercial relations +with the valley of the Nile; and even as its black magic is largely +tinged with Egyptian practices, so its magic of the white kind--its +saintly legends--bear the impress of the self-macerations and perverted +life-theories of those desert-lunatics who called themselves Christians. +[Footnote: These ascetics were here before Christianity (see Philo +Judaeus); in fact, there is not a single element in the new faith which +had not been independently developed by the pagans, many of whom, like +Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, were ripe for the most abject +self-abasement.] But this Orientalism fell at first upon unfruitful +soil; the Vatican was yet wavering, and Hellenic notions of +conduct still survived. It received a further rebuff at the hands of men +like Benedict, who set up sounder ideals of holiness, introducing a +gleam of sanity even in that insanest of institutions--the herding +together of idle men to the glory of God. + +But things became more centralized as the Papacy gainedground. The +strong Christian, the independent ruler or warrior or builder saint, was +tolerated only if he conformed to its precepts; and the inauspicious +rise of subservient ascetic orders like the Franciscans and Dominicans, +who quickly invaded the fair regions of the south, gave an evil tone to +their Christianity. + +There has always been a contrary tendency at work: the Ionic spirit, +heritage of the past. Monkish ideals of chastity and poverty have never +appealed to the hearts of people, priests or prelates of the south; they +will endure much fondness in their religion, but not those phenomena of +cruelty and pruriency which are inseparably connected with asceticism; +their notions have ever been akin to those of the sage Xenocrates, who +held that "happiness consists not only in the possession of human +virtues, but _in the accomplishment of natural acts."_ Among the latter +they include the acquisition of wealth and the satisfaction of carnal +needs. At this time, too, the old Hellenic curiosity was not wholly +dimmed; they took an intelligent interest in imported creeds like that +of Luther, which, if not convincing, at least satisfied their desire for +novelty. Theirs was exactly the attitude of the Athenians towards Paul's +"New God"; and Protestantism might have spread far in the south, had it +not been ferociously repressed. + +But after the brilliant humanistic period of the Aragons there followed +the third and fiercest reaction--that of the Spanish viceroys, whose +misrule struck at every one of the roots of national prosperity. It is +that "seicentismo" which a modern writer (A. Niceforo, "L'Italia +barbara," 1898) has recognized as the blight, the evil genius, of south +Italy. The Ionic spirit did not help the people much at this time. The +greatest of these viceroys, Don Pietro di Toledo, hanged 18,000 of them +in eight years, and then confessed, with a sigh, that "he did not know +what more he could do." What more _could_ he do? As a pious Spaniard he +was incapable of understanding that quarterings and breakings on the +rack were of less avail than the education of the populace in certain +secular notions of good conduct--notions which it was the business of +his Church not to teach. Reading through the legislation of the +viceregal period, one is astonished to find how little was done for the +common people, who lived like the veriest beasts of earth. + +Their civil rulers--scholars and gentlemen, most of them--really +believed that the example of half a million illiterate and vicious monks +was all the education they needed. And yet one notes with surprise that +the Government was perpetually at loggerheads with the ecclesiastical +authorities. True; but it is wonderful with what intuitive alacrity they +joined forces when it was a question of repelling their common +antagonist, enlightenment. + +From this rank soil there sprang up an exotic efflorescence of holiness. +If south Italy swarmed with sinners, as the experiences of Don Pietro +seemed to show, it also swarmed with saints. And hardly one of them +escaped the influence of the period, the love of futile ornamentation. +Their piety is overloaded with embellishing touches and needless +excrescences of virtue. It was the baroque period of saintliness, as of +architecture. + +I have already given some account of one of them, the Flying Monk +(Chapter X), and have perused the biographies of at least fifty others. +One cannot help observing a great uniformity in their lives--a kind of +family resemblance. This parallelism is due to the simple reason that +there is only one right for a thousand wrongs. One may well look in +vain, here, for those many-tinted perversions and aberrations which +disfigure the histories of average mankind. These saints are all +alike--monotonously alike, if one cares to say so--in their chastity and +other official virtues. But a little acquaintance with the subject will +soon show you that, so far as the range of their particular Christianity +allowed of it, there is a praiseworthy and even astonishing diversity +among them. Nearly all of them could fly, more or less; nearly all of +them could cure diseases and cause the clouds to rain; nearly all of +them were illiterate; and every one of them died in the odour of +sanctity--with roseate complexion, sweetly smelling corpse, and flexible +limbs. Yet each one has his particular gifts, his strong point. Joseph +of Copertino specialized in flying; others were conspicuous for their +heroism in sitting in hot baths, devouring ordure, tormenting themselves +with pins, and so forth. + +Here, for instance, is a good representative biography--the Life of +Saint Giangiuseppe della Croce (born 1654), reprinted for the occasion +of his solemn sanctification. [Footnote: "Vita di S. Giangiuseppe della +Croce . . . Scritta dal P. Fr. Diodato dell' Assunta per la +Beatificazione ed ora ristampata dal postulatore della causa P. Fr. +Giuseppe Rostoll in occasione della solenne Santificazione." Roma, +1839.] + +He resembled other saints in many points. He never allowed the "vermin +which generated in his bed" to be disturbed; he wore the same clothes +for sixty-four years on end; with women his behaviour was that of an +"animated statue," and during his long life he never looked any one in +the face (even his brother-monks were known to him only by their +voices); he could raise the dead, relieve a duchess of a devil in the +shape of a black dog, change chestnuts into apricots, and bad wine into +good; his flesh was encrusted with sores, the result of his fierce +scarifications; he was always half starved, and when delicate viands +were brought to him, he used to say to his body: "Have you seen them? +Have you smelt them? Then let that suffice for you." + +He, too, could fly a little. So once, when he was nowhere to be found, +the monks of the convent at last discovered him in the church, "raised +so high above the ground that his head touched the ceiling." This is not +a bad performance for a mere lad, as he then was. And how useful this +gift became in old age was seen when, being almost incapable of moving +his legs, and with body half paralysed, he was nevertheless enabled to +accompany a procession for the length of two miles on foot, walking, to +the stupefaction of thousands of spectators, at about a cubit's height +above the street, on air; after the fashion of those Hindu gods whose +feet--so the pagans fable--are too pure to touch mortal earth. + +His love of poverty, moreover, was so intense that even after his death +a picture of him, which his relatives had tried to attach to the wall in +loving remembrance, repeatedly fell down again, although nailed very +securely; nor did it remain fixed until they realized that its costly +gilt frame was objectionable to the saint in heaven, and accordingly +removed it. No wonder the infant Jesus was pleased to descend from the +breast of Mary and take rest for several hours in the arms of Saint +Giangiuseppe, who, on being disturbed by some priestly visitor, +exclaimed, "O how I have enjoyed holding the Holy Babe in my arms!" This +is an old and favourite motif; it occurs, for example, in the Fioretti +of Saint Francis; there are precedents, in fact, for all these divine +favours. + +But his distinguishing feature, his "dominating gift," was that of +prophecy, especially in foretelling the deaths of children, "which he +almost always accompanied with jocular words _(scherzi)_ on his lips." +He would enter a house and genially remark: "O, what an odour of +Paradise "; sooner or later one or more of the children of the family +would perish. To a boy of twelve he said, "Be good, Natale, for the +angels are coming to take you." These playful words seem to have weighed +considerably on the boy's mind and, sure enough, after a few years he +died. But even more charming--_piu grazioso,_ the biographer calls +it--was the incident when he once asked a father whether he would give +his son to Saint Pasquale. The fond parent agreed, thinking that the +words referred to the boy's future career in the Church. But the saint +meant something quite different--he meant a career in heaven! And in +less than a month the child died. To a little girl who was crying in the +street he said: "I don't want to hear you any more. Go and sing in +Paradise." And meeting her a short time after, he said, "What, are you +still here?" In a few days she was dead. + +The biography gives many instances of this pretty gift which would +hardly have contributed to the saint's popularity in England or any +other country save this, where--although the surviving youngsters are +described as "struck with terror at the mere name of the Servant of +God"--the parents were naturally glad to have one or two angels in the +family, to act as _avvocati_ (pleaders) for those that remained on earth. + +And the mention of the legal profession brings me to one really +instructive miracle. It is usually to be observed, after a saint has +been canonized, that heaven, by some further sign or signs, signifies +approval of this solemn act of the Vicar of God; indeed, to judge by +these biographies, such a course is not only customary but, to use a +worldly expression, _de rigueur._ And so it happened after the decree +relative to Saint Giangiuseppe had been pronounced in the Vatican +basilica by His Holiness Pius VI, in the presence of the assembled +cardinals. Innumerable celestial portents (their enumeration fills +eleven pages of the "Life") confirmed and ratified the great event, and +among them this: the notary, who had drawn up both the ordinary and the +apostolic _processi,_ was cured of a grievous apoplexy, survived for +four years, and finally died on the very anniversary of the death of the +saint. Involuntarily one contrasts this heavenly largesse with the +sordid guineas which would have contented an English lawyer. . . . + +Or glance into the biography of the Venerable Sister Orsola Benincasa. +She, too, could fly a little and raise men from the dead. She cured +diseases, foretold her own death and that of others, lived for a month +on the sole nourishment of a consecrated wafer; she could speak Latin +and Polish, although she had been taught nothing at all; wrought +miracles after death, and possessed to a heroic degree the virtues of +patience, humility, temperance, justice, etc. etc. So inflamed was she +with divine love, that almost every day thick steam issued out of her +mouth, which was observed to be destructive to articles of clothing; her +heated body, when ice was applied, used to hiss like a red-hot iron +under similar conditions. + +As a child, she already cried for other people's sins; she was always +hunting for her own and would gladly, at the end of her long and +blameless career, have exchanged her sins for those of the youthful +Duchess of Aquaro. An interesting phenomenon, by the way, the theory of +sinfulness which crops up at this particular period of history. For our +conception of sin is alien to the Latin mind. There is no "sin" in Italy +(and this is not the least of her many attractions); it is an article +manufactured exclusively for export. [Footnote: "Vita della Venerabile +Serva di Dio Suor Orsola Benincasa, Scritta da un cherico regolare," +Rome, 1796. There are, of course, much earlier biographies of all these +saints; concerning Sister Orsola we possess, for instance, the +remarkable pamphlet by Cesare d'Eboli ("Caesaris Aevoli Neapolitan! +Apologia pro Ursula Neapolitana quas ad urbem accessit MDLXXXIII," +Venice, 1589), which achieves the distinction of never mentioning Orsola +by name: she is only once referred to as "mulier de qua agitur." But I +prefer to quote from the more recent ones because they are +authoritative, in so far as they have been written on the basis of +miracles attested by eye-witnesses and accepted as veracious by the +Vatican tribunal. Sister Orsola, though born in 154.7, was only declared +Venerable by Pontifical decree of 1793. Biographies prior to that date +are therefore ex-parte statements and might conceivably contain errors +of fact. This is out of the question here, as is clearly shown by the +author on p. 178.] + +Orsola's speciality, however, were those frequent trance-like conditions +by reason of which, during her lifetime, she was created "Protectress of +the City of Naples." I cannot tell whether she was the first woman-saint +to obtain this honour. Certainly the "Seven Holy Protectors" concerning +whom Paolo Regio writes were all musty old males. . . . + +And here is quite another biography, that of Alfonso di Liguori (born +1696), the founder of the Redemptorist order and a canonized saint. He, +too, could fly a little and raise the dead to life; he suffered +devil-temptations, caused the clouds to rain, calmed an eruption of +Vesuvius, multiplied food, and so forth. Such was his bashfulness, that +even as an aged bishop he refused to be unrobed by his attendants; such +his instinct for moral cleanliness that once, when a messenger had +alighted at his convent accompanied by a soldier, he instantly detected, +under the military disguise, the lineaments of a young woman-friend. +Despite these divine gifts, he always needed a confessor. An enormous +batch of miracles accompanied his sanctification. + +But he only employed these divine graces by the way; he was by +profession not a _taumaturgo,_ but a clerical instructor, organizer, +and writer. The Vatican has conferred on him the rare title of "Doctor +Ecclesia," which he shares with Saint Augustine and some others. + +The biography from which I have drawn these details was printed in Rome +in 1839. It is valuable because it is modern and so far authentic; and +for two other reasons. In the first place, curiously enough, it barely +mentions the saint's life-work--his writings. Secondly, it is a good +example of what I call the pious palimpsest. It is over-scored with +contradictory matter. The author, for example, while accidentally +informing us that Alfonso kept a carriage, imputes to him a degrading, +Oriental love of dirt and tattered garments, in order (I presume) to +make his character conform to the grosser ideals of the mendicant +friars. I do not believe in these traits--in his hatred of soap and +clean apparel. From his works I deduce a different original. He was +refined and urbane; of a casuistical and prying disposition; like many +sensitive men, unduly preoccupied with the sexual life of youth; like a +true feudal aristocrat, ever ready to apply force where verbal +admonition proved unavailing. . . . + +In wonder-working capacities these saints were all put in the shade by +the Calabrian Francesco di Paola, who raised fifteen persons from the +dead in his boyhood. He used to perform a hundred miracles a day, and +"it was a miracle, when a day passed without a miracle." The index alone +of any one of his numerous biographies is enough to make one's head swim. + +The vast majority of saints of this period do not belong to that third +sex after which, according to some, the human race has ever striven--the +constructive and purposeful third sex. They are wholly sexless, unsocial +and futile beings, the negation of every masculine or feminine virtue. +Their independence fettered by the iron rules of the Vatican and of +their particular order, these creatures had _nothing to do;_ and like +the rest of us under such conditions, became vacuously introspective. +Those honourable saintly combats of the past with external enemies and +plagues and stormy seasons were transplanted from without into the +microcosm within, taking the shape of hallucinations and +demon-temptations. They were no longer actors, but sufferers; automata, +who attained a degree of inanity which would have made their old +Byzantine prototypes burst with envy. + +Yet they vary in their gifts; each one, as I have said, has his or her +strong point. Why? The reason of this diversity lies in the furious +competition between the various monastic orders of the time--in those +unedifying squabbles which led to never-ending litigation and complaints +to head-quarters in Rome. Every one of these saints, from the first +dawning of his divine talents, was surrounded by an atmosphere of +jealous hatred on the part of his co-religionists. If one order came out +with a flying wonder, another, in frantic emulation, would introduce +some new speciality to eclipse his fame--something in the fasting line, +it may be; or a female mystic whose palpitating letters to Jesus Christ +would melt all readers to pity. The Franciscans, for instance, dissected +the body of a certain holy Margaret and discovered in her heart the +symbols of the Trinity and of the Passion. This bold and original idea +would have gained them much credit, but for the rival Dominicans, who +promptly discovered, and dissected, another saintly Margaret, whose +heart contained three stones on which were engraven portraits of the +Virgin Mary. [Footnote: These and other details will be found in the +four volumes "Das Heidentum in der romischen Kirche" (Gotha, 1889-91), +by Theodor Trede, a late Protestant parson in Naples, strongly tinged +with anti-Catholicism, but whose facts may be relied upon. Indeed, he +gives chapter and verse for them.] So they ceaselessly unearthed fresh +saints with a view to disparaging each other--all of them waiting for a +favourable moment when the Vatican could be successfully approached to +consider their particular claims. For it stands to reason that a +Carmelite Pope would prefer a Carmelite saint to one of the Jesuits, and +so forth. + +And over all throned the Inquisition in Rome, alert, ever-suspicious; +testing the "irregularities" of the various orders and harassing their +respective saints with Olympic impartiality. + +I know that mystics such as Orsola Benincasa are supposed to have +another side to their character, an eminently practical side. It is +perfectly true--and we need not go out of England to learn it--that +piety is not necessarily inconsistent with nimbleness in worldly +affairs. But the mundane achievements, the monasteries and churches, of +nine-tenths of these southern ecstatics are the work of the confessor +and not of the saint. Trainers of performing animals are aware how these +differ in plasticity of disposition and amenability to discipline; the +spiritual adviser, who knows his business, must be quick to detect these +various qualities in the minds of his penitents and to utilize them to +the best advantage. It is inconceivable, for instance, that the +convent-foundress Orsola was other than a neuropathic nonentity--a blind +instrument in the hands of what we should call her backers, chiefest of +whom (in Naples) were two Spanish priests, Borii and Navarro, whose +local efforts were supported, at head-quarters, by the saintly Filippo +Neri and the learned Cardinal Baronius. + +This is noticeable. The earlier of these godly biographies are written +in Latin, and these are more restrained in their language; they were +composed, one imagines, for the priests and educated classes who could +dispense to a certain degree with prodigies. But the later ones, from +the viceregal period onwards, are in the vernacular and display a marked +deterioration; one must suppose that they were printed for such of the +common people as could still read (up to a few years ago, sixty-five per +cent of the populace were analphabetic). They are pervaded by the +characteristic of all contemporary literature and art: that deliberate +intention to _astound_ which originated with the poet Marino, who +declared such to have been his object and ideal. The miracles certainly +do astound; they are as _strepitosi_ (clamour-arousing) as the writers +claim them to be; how they ever came to occur must be left to the +consciences of those who swore on oath to the truth of them. + +During this period the Mother of God as a local saint increased in +popularity. There was a ceaseless flow of monographs dealing with +particular Madonnas, as well as a small library on what the Germans +would doubtless call the "Madonna as a Whole." Here is Serafino +Montorio's "Zodiaco di Maria," printed in 1715 on the lines of that +monster of a book by Gumppenberg. It treats of over two hundred +subspecies of Madonna worshipped in different parts of south Italy which +is divided, for these celestial purposes, into twelve regions, according +to the signs of the Zodiac. The book is dedicated by the author to his +"Sovereign Lady the _Gran Madre di Dio"_ and might, in truth, have been +written to the glory of that protean old Magna Mater by one of Juvenal's +"tonsured herd" possessed of much industry but little discrimination. +[Footnote: The Mater Dei was officially installed in the place of Magna +Mater at the Synod of Ephesus in 431.] Such as it is, it reflects the +crude mental status of the Dominican order to which the author belonged. +I warmly recommend this book to all Englishmen desirous of understanding +the south. It is pure, undiluted paganism--paganism of a bad school; one +would think it marked the lowest possible ebb of Christian spirituality. +But this is by no means the case, as I shall presently show. + +How different, from such straightforward unreason, are the etherealized, +saccharine effusions of the "Glories of Mary," by Alfonso di Liguori! +They represent the other pole of Mariolatry--the gentlemanly pole. And +under the influence of Mary-worship a new kind of saintly physiognomy +was elaborated, as we can see from contemporary prints and pictures. The +bearded men-saints were extinct; in the place of them this mawkish, +sub-sexual love for the Virgin developed a corresponding type of +adorer--clean-shaven, emasculate youths, posing in ecstatic attitudes +with a nauseous feminine smirk. Rather an unpleasant sort of saint. + +The unwholesome chastity-ideal, without which no holy man of the period +was "complete," naturally left its mark upon literature, notably on that +of certain Spanish theologians. But good specimens of what I mean may +also be found in the Theologia Moralis of Liguori; the kind of stuff, +that is, which would be classed as "curious" in catalogues and kept in a +locked cupboard by the most broad-minded paterfamilias. Reading these +elucubrations of Alfonso's, one feels that the saint has pondered long +and lovingly upon themes like _an et quando peccata sint oscula_ or _de +tactu et adspectu corporis;_ he writes with all the authority of an +expert whose richly-varied experiences in the confessional have been +amplified and irradiated by divine inspiration. I hesitate what to call +this literature, seeing that it was obviously written to the glory of +God and His Virgin Mother. The congregation of the Index, which was +severe in the matter of indecent publications and prohibited Boccaccio's +Decameron on these grounds, hailed with approval the appearance of such +treatises composed, as they were, for the guidance of young priests. + +Cruelty (in the shape of the Inquisition) and lasciviousness (as +exemplified by such pious filth)--these are the prime fruits of that +cult of asceticism which for centuries the Government strove to impose +upon south Italy. If the people were saved, it was due to that +substratum of sanity, of Greek _sophrosyne,_ which resisted the one and +derided the other. Whoever has saturated himself with the records will +marvel not so much that the inhabitants preserved some shreds of common +sense and decent feeling, as that they survived at all--he will marvel +that the once fair kingdom was not converted into a wilderness, saintly +but uninhabited, like Spain itself. + +For the movement continued in a vertiginous crescendo. Spaniardism +culminated in Bourbonism, and this, again, reached its climax in the +closing years of the eighteenth century, when the conditions of south +Italy baffled description. I have already (p. 212) given the formidable +number of its ecclesiastics; the number of saints was commensurate, +but--as often happens when the quantity is excessive--the quality +declined. This lazzaroni-period was the debacle of holiness. So true it +is that our gods reflect the hearts that make them. + +The Venerable Fra Egidio, a native of Taranto, is a good example of +contemporary godliness. My biography of him was printed in Naples in +1876, [Footnote: "Vita del Venerabile servo di Dio Fra Egidio da S. +Giuseppe laico professo alcantarino," Napoli, 1876.] and contains a +dedicatory epistle addressed to the Blessed Virgin by her "servant, +subject, and most loving son Rosario Frungillo"--a canon of the church +and the author of the book. + +This "taumaturgo" could perform all the ordinary feats; I will not +linger over them. What has made him popular to this day are those +wonders which appealed to the taste of the poorer people, such as, for +example, that miracle of the eels. A fisherman had brought fourteen +hundredweight of these for sale in the market. Judge of his +disappointment when he discovered that they had all died during the +journey (southerners will not pay for dead eels). Fortunately, he saw +the saint arriving in a little boat, who informed him that the eels were +"not dead, but only asleep," and who woke them up again by means of a +relic of Saint Pasquale which he always carried about with him, after a +quarter of an hour's devout praying, during which the perspiration oozed +from his forehead. The eels, says the writer, had been dead and slimy, +but now turned their bellies downwards once more and twisted about in +their usual spirals; there began a general weeping among the onlookers, +and the fame of the miracle immediately spread abroad. He could do the +same with lobsters, cows, and human beings. + +Thus a cow belonging to Fra Egidio's monastery was once stolen by an +impious butcher, and cut up into the usual joints with a view to a +clandestine sale of the meat. The saint discovered the beast's remains, +ordered that they should be laid together on the floor in the shape of a +living cow, with the entrails, head and so forth in their natural +positions; then, having made the sign of the cross with his cord upon +the slaughtered beast, and rousing up all his faith, he said: "In the +name of God and of Saint Pasquale, arise, Catherine!" (Catherine was the +cow's name.) "At these words the animal lowed, shook itself, and stood +up on its feet alive, whole and strong, even as it had been before it +was killed." + +In the case of one of the dead men whom he brought to life, the +undertakers were already about their sad task; but Fra Egidio, viewing +the corpse, remarked in his usual manner that the man was "not dead, but +only asleep," and after a few saintly manipulations, roused him from his +slumber. The most portentous of his wonders, however, are those which he +wrought _after his own death_ by means of his relics and otherwise; they +have been sworn to by many persons. Nor did his hand lose its old +cunning, in these posthumous manifestations, with the finny tribe. A +certain woman, Maria Scuotto, was enabled to resuscitate a number of +dead eels by means of an image of the deceased saint which she cast +among them. + +Every one of the statements in this biography is drawn from the +_processi_ to which I will presently refer; there were 202 witnesses who +deposed "under the rigour and sanctity of oath" to the truth of these +miracles; and among those who were personally convinced of the +Venerable's rare gifts was the Royal Family of Naples, the archbishop of +that town, as well as innumerable dukes and princes. An embittered +rationalist would note that the reading of Voltaire, at this period, was +punished with three years' galley-slavery and that several thousand +citizens were hanged for expressing liberal opinions; he will suggest +that belief in the supernatural, rejected by the thinking classes, finds +an abiding shelter among royalty and the proletariat. + +It occurs to me, a propos of Fra Egidio, to make the obvious statement +that an account of an occurrence is not necessarily true, because it +happened long ago. Credibility does not improve, like violins and port +wine, with lapse of years. This being the case, it will not be +considered objectionable to say that there are certain deeds attributed +to holy men of olden days which, to speak frankly, are open to doubt; or +at least not susceptible of proof. Who were these men, if they ever +existed? and who vouches for their prodigies? This makes me think that +Pope Gelasius showed no small penetration in excluding, as early as the +fifth century, some few _acta sanctorum_ from the use of the churches; +another step in the same direction was taken in the twelfth century when +the power of canonizing saints, which had hitherto been claimed by all +bishops, became vested in the Pope alone; and yet another, when Urban +VIII forbade the nomination of local patron saints by popular vote. +Pious legends are supposed to have their uses as an educative agency. So +be it. But such relations of imperfectly ascertained and therefore +questionable wonders suffer from one grave drawback: they tend to shake +our faith in the evidence of well-authenticated ones. Thus Saint Patrick +is also reported to have raised a cow from the dead--five cows, to be +quite accurate; but who will come forward and vouch for the fact? No +one. That is because Saint Patrick belongs to the legendary stage; he +died, it is presumed, about 490. + +Here, with Saint Egidio, we are on other ground; on the ground of bald +actuality. He expired in 1812, and the contemporaries who have attested +his miraculous deeds are not misty phantoms of the Thebais; they were +creatures of flesh and blood, human, historical personages, who were +dressed and nourished and educated after the fashion of our own +grandfathers. Yet it was meet and proper that the documentary evidence +as to his divine graces should be conscientiously examined. And only in +1888 was the crowning work accomplished. In that year His Holiness Leo +XIII and the Sacred Congregation of Cardinals solemnly approved the +evidence and inscribed the name of Egidio in the book of the Blessed. + +To touch upon a few minor matters--I observe that Fra Egidio, like the +Flying Monk, was "illiterate," and similarly preserved up to a decrepit +age "the odorous lily of purity, which made him appear in words and +deeds as a most innocent child." He was accustomed to worship before a +favourite picture of the Mother of God which he kept adorned with +candles; and whenever the supply of these ran out, he was wont to +address Her with infantile simplicity of heart and in the local dialect: +"Now there's no wax for You; so think about it Yourself; if not, You'll +have to go without." The playful-saintly note. . . . + +But there is this difference between him and earlier saints that whereas +they, all too often, suffered in solitude, misunderstood and rejected of +men, he enjoyed the highest popularity during his whole long life. +Wherever he went, his footsteps were pursued by crowds of admirers, +eager to touch his wonder-working body or to cut off shreds of his +clothing as amulets; hardly a day passed that he did not return home +with garments so lacerated that only half of them was left; every +evening they had to be patched up anew, although they were purposely +stitched full of wires and small chains of iron as a protection. The +same passionate sympathy continued after death, for while his body was +lying in state a certain Luigi Ascione, a surgeon, pushed through the +crowd and endeavoured to cut off one of his toe-nails with the flesh +attached to it; he admitted being driven to this act of pious +depredation by the pleading request of the Spanish Ambassador and a +Neapolitan princess, who held Fra Egidio in great veneration. + +This is not an isolated instance. Southerners love their saints, and do +not content themselves with chill verbal expressions of esteem. So the +biographer of Saint Giangiuseppe records that "one of the deceased +saint's toes was bitten off with most regret-able devotion by the teeth +of a man in the crowd, who wished to preserve it as a relic. And the +blood from the wound flowed so copiously and so freely that many pieces +of cloth were saturated with it; nor did it cease to flow till the +precious corpse was interred." It is hard to picture such proofs of +fervid popularity falling to the lot of English deans and bishops. + +He was modern, too, in this sense, that he did not torment himself with +penitences (decay of Spanish austerity); on the contrary, he even kept +chocolate, honey and suchlike delicacies in his cell. In short, he was +an up-to-date saint, who despised mediaeval practices and lived in a +manner befitting the age which gave him birth. In this respect he +resembles our English men of holiness, who exercise a laudable +self-denial in resisting the seductions of the ascetic life. + +Meanwhile, the cult of the Mother of God continued to wax in favour, and +those who are interested in its development should read the really +remarkable book by Antonio Cuomo, "Saggio apologetico della belezza +celeste e divina di Maria S.S. Madre di Dio" (Castellamare, 1863). It is +a diatribe against modernism by a champion of lost causes, an +exacerbated lover of the "Singular Virgin and fecund Mother of the +Verb." His argument, as I understand it, is the _consensus gentium_ +theory applied to the Virgin Mary. In defence of this thesis, the book +has been made to bristle with quotations; they stand out like quills +upon the porcupine, ready to impale the adventurous sceptic. Pliny and +Virgil and the Druids and Balaam's Ass are invoked as foretelling Her +birth; the Old Testament--that venerable sufferer, as Huxley called +it--is twisted into dire convulsions for the same purpose; much evidence +is also drawn from Hebrew observances and from the Church Fathers. But +the New Testamentary record is seldom invoked; the Saviour, on the rare +occasions when He is mentioned, being dismissed as "G. C." The volume +ends with a pyrotechnical display of invective against non-Catholic +heretics; a medley of threats and abuse worthy of those breezy days of +Erasmus, when theologians really said what they thought of each other. +The frank polytheism of Montorio is more to my taste. This outpouring of +papistical rhetoric gives me unwarrantable sensations--it makes me feel +positively Protestant. + +Another sign of increasing popularity is that the sacred bacchanals +connected with the "crowning" of various Madonnas were twice as +numerous, in Naples, in the nineteenth as in the eighteenth century. Why +an image of the Mother of God should be decked with this worldly symbol, +as a reward for services rendered, will be obscure only to those who +fail to appreciate the earthly-tangible complexion of southern religion. +Puerility is its key-note. The Italian is either puerile or adult; the +Englishman remains everlastingly adolescent. . . . + +Now of course it is open to any one to say that the pious records from +which I have quoted are a desolation of the spirit; that they possess +all the improbability of the "Arabian Nights," and none of their charm; +that all the distempered dreamings to which our poor humanity is subject +have given themselves a rendezvous in their pages. I am not for +disputing the point, and I can understand how one man may be saddened by +their perusal, while another extracts therefrom some gleams of mirth. +For my part, I merely verify this fact: the native has been fed with +this stuff for centuries, and if we desire to enter into his feelings, +we must feed ourselves likewise--up to a point. The past is the key to +the present. That is why I have dwelt at such length on the subject--in +the hope of clearing up the enigma in the national character: the +unpassable gulf, I mean, between the believing and the unbelieving +sections of the community. + +An Anglo-Saxon arriving at Bagnara and witnessing a procession in honour +of that Sacred Hat of the Mother of God which has led me into this +disquisition, would be shocked at the degree of bigotry implied. "The +Hat of the Virgin Mary," he would say--"what next?" Then, accosting some +ordinary citizen not in the procession--any butcher or baker--he would +receive a shock of another kind; he would be appalled at the man's +language of contemptuous derision towards everything which he, the +Anglo-Saxon, holds sacred in biblical tradition. There is no attempt, +here, at "reconciliation." The classes calling themselves enlightened +are making a clean sweep of the old gods in a fashion that bewilders us +who have accustomed ourselves to see a providential design in everything +that exists (possibly because our acquaintance with a +providentially-designed Holy Office is limited to an obsolete statute, the +genial _de haeretico comburendo)._ The others, the fetishists, have +remained on the spiritual level of their own saints. And there we stand +today. That section so numerous in England, the pseudo-pagans, +crypto-Christians, or whatever obscurantists like Messrs. A. J. Balfour +and Mallock like to call themselves (the men who, with disastrous +effects, transport into realms of pure intelligence the spirit of +compromise which should be restricted to practical concerns)--that +section has no representatives hereabouts. + +Fully to appreciate their attitude as opposed to ours, we must also +remember that the south Italian does not trouble himself about the +objective truth of any miracle whatever; his senses may be perverted, +but his intelligence remains outside the sphere of infection. This is +his saving grace. To the people here, the affair of Moses and the +Burning Bush, the raising of Lazarus, and Egidio's cow-revival, are on +the identical plane of authenticity; the Bible is one of a thousand +saints' books; its stories may be as true as theirs, or just as untrue; +in any case, what has that to do with his own worldly conduct? But the +Englishman with ingenuous ardour thinks to believe in the Burning Bush +wonder, and in so far his intelligence is infected; with equal ardour he +excludes the cow-performance from the range of possibility; and to him +it matters considerably which of the miracles are true and which are +false, seeing that his conduct is supposed to take colour from such +supernatural events. Ultra-credulous as to one set of narratives, he has +no credulity left for other sets; he concentrates his believing energies +upon a small space, whereas the Italian's are diffused, thinly, over a +wide area. It is the old story: Gothic intensity and Latin spaciousness. +So the Gothic believer takes his big dose of irrationalism on one fixed +day; the Latin, by attending Mass every morning, spreads it over the +whole week. And the sombre strenuousness of our northern character +expects a remuneration for this outlay of faith, while the other +contents himself with such sensuous enjoyment as he can momentarily +extract from his ceremonials. That is why our English religion has a +_democratic_ tinge distasteful to the Latin who, at bottom, is always a +philosopher; democratic because it relies for its success, like +democratic politicians, upon promises--promises that may or may not be +kept--promises that form no part (they are only an official appendage) +of the childlike paganism of the south. . . . + +Fifteen francs will buy you a reliable witness for a south Italian +lawsuit; you must pay a good deal more in England. Thence one might +argue that the cult of credulity implied by these saintly biographies is +responsible for this laxness, for the general disregard of veracity. I +doubt it. I am not inclined to blame the monkish saint-makers for this +particular trait; I suspect that for fifteen francs you could have +bought a first-class witness under Pericles. Southerners are not yet +pressed for time; and when people are not pressed for time, they do not +learn the time-saving value of honesty. Our respect for truth and fair +dealing, such as it is, derives from modern commerce; in the Middle Ages +nobody was concerned about honesty save a few trading companies like the +Hanseatic League, and the poor mediaeval devil (the only gentleman of +his age) who was generally pressed for time and could be relied upon to +keep his word. Even God, of whom they talked so much, was systematically +swindled. Where time counts for nothing, expeditious practices between +man and man are a drug in the market. Besides, it must be noted that +this churchly misteaching was only a fraction of that general shattering +which has disintegrated all the finer fibres of public life. It stands +to reason that the fragile tissues of culture are dislocated, and its +delicate edges defaced, by such persistive governmental brutalization as +the inhabitants have undergone. None but the grossest elements in a +people can withstand enduring misrule; none but a mendacious and servile +nature will survive its wear and tear. So it comes about that up to a +few years ago the nobler qualities which we associate with those old +Hellenic colonists--their intellectual curiosity, their candid outlook +upon life, their passionate sense of beauty, their love of nature--all +these things had been abraded, leaving, as residue, nothing save what +the Greeks shared with ruder races. There are indications that this +state of affairs is now ending. + +The position is this. The records show that the common people never took +their saints to heart in the northern fashion--as moral exemplars; from +beginning to end, they have only utilized them as a pretext for fun and +festivals, a means of brightening the cata-combic, the essentially +sunless, character of Christianity. So much for the popular saints, the +patrons and heroes. The others, the ecclesiastical ones, are an +artificial product of monkish institutions. These monkeries were +established in the land by virtue of civil authority. Their continued +existence, however, was contingent upon the goodwill of the Vatican. One +of the surest and cheapest methods of obtaining this goodwill was to +produce a satisfactory crop of saints whose beatification swelled the +Vatican treasury with the millions collected from a deluded populace for +that end. The monks paid nothing; they only furnished the saint and, in +due course, the people's money. Can we wonder that they discovered +saints galore? Can we wonder that the Popes were gratified by their +pious zeal? + +So things went on till yesterday. But now a large proportion of the ten +thousand (?) churches and monasteries of Naples are closed or actually +in ruins; wayside sanctuaries crumble to dust in picturesque fashion; +the price of holy books has fallen to zero, and the godly brethren have +emigrated to establish their saint-manufactories elsewhere. Not without +hope of success; for they will find purchasers of their wares wherever +mankind can be interested in that queer disrespect of the body which is +taught by the metaphysical ascetics of the East. + +It was Lewes, I believe, who compared metaphysics to ghosts by saying +that there was no killing either of them; one could only dissipate them +by throwing light into the dark places they love to inhabit--to show +that nothing is there. Spectres, likewise, are these saintly caricatures +of humanity, perambulating metaphysics, the application _in corpore +vili_ of Oriental fakirism. Nightmare-literature is the crazy recital of +their deeds and sufferings. Pathological phantoms! The state of mind +which engenders and cherishes such illusions is a disease, and it has +been well said that "you cannot refute a disease." You cannot nail +ghosts to the counter. + +But a ray of light . . . + + + + +XXXII + +ASPROMONTE, THE CLOUD-GATHERER + + +Day was barely dawning when we left Delianuova and began the long and +weary climb up Montalto. Chestnuts gave way to beeches, but the summit +receded ever further from us. And even before reaching the uplands, the +so-called Piano di Carmelia, we encountered a bank of bad weather. A +glance at the map will show that Montalto must be a cloud-gatherer, +drawing to its flanks every wreath of vapour that rises from Ionian and +Tyrrhenian; a west wind was blowing that morning, and thick fogs clung +to the skirts of the peak. We reached the summit (1956 metres) at last, +drenched in an icy bath of rain and sleet, and with fingers so numbed +that we could hardly hold our sticks. + +Of the superb view--for such it must be--nothing whatever was to be +seen; we were wrapped in a glacial mist. On the highest point stands a +figure of the Redeemer. It was dragged up in pieces from Delianuova some +seven years ago, but soon injured by frosts; it has lately been +refashioned. The original structure may be due to the same pious +stimulus as that which placed the crosses on Monte Vulture and other +peaks throughout the country--a counterblast to the rationalistic +congress at Rome in 1904, when Giordano Bruno became, for a while, the +hero of the country. This statue does not lack dignity. The Saviour's +regard turns towards Reggio, the capital of the province; and one hand +is upraised in calm and godlike benediction. + +Passing through magnificent groves of fir, we descended rapidly into +anothsr climate, into realms of golden sunshine. Among these trees I +espied what has become quite a rare bird in Italy--the common +wood-pigeon. The few that remain have been driven into the most secluded +recesses of the mountains; it was different in the days of Theocritus, +who sang of this amiable fowl when the climate was colder and the +woodlands reached as far as the now barren seashore. To the firs +succeeded long stretches of odorous pines interspersed with +Mediterranean heath (brayere), which here grows to a height of twelve +feet; one thinks of the number of briar pipes that could be cut out of +its knotty roots. A British Vice-Consul at Reggio, Mr. Kerrich, started +this industry about the year 1899; he collected the roots, which were +sawn into blocks and then sent to France and America to be made into +pipes. This Calabrian briar was considered superior to the French kind, +and Mr. Kerrich had large sales on both sides of the Atlantic; his chief +difficulty was want of labour owing to emigration. + +We passed, by the wayside, several rude crosses marking the site of +accidents or murders, as well as a large heap of stones, where-under lie +the bones of a man who attempted to traverse these mountains in +winter-time and was frozen to death. + +"They found him," the guide told me, "in spring, when the snow melted +from off his body. There he lay, all fresh and comely! It looked as if +he would presently wake up and continue his march; but he neither spoke +nor stirred. Then they knew he was dead. And they piled all these stones +over him, to prevent the wolves, you understand----" + +Aspromonte deserves its name. It is an incredibly harsh agglomeration of +hill and dale, and the geology of the district, as I learned long ago +from my friend Professor Cortese, reveals a perfect chaos of rocks of +every age, torn into gullies by earthquakes and other cataclysms of the +past--at one place, near Scido, is an old stream of lava. Once the +higher ground, the nucleus of the group, is left behind, the wanderer +finds himself lost in a maze of contorted ravines, winding about without +any apparent system of watershed. Does the liquid flow north or south? +Who can tell! The track crawls in and out of valleys, mounts upwards to +heights of sun-scorched bracken and cistus, descends once more into dewy +glades hemmed in by precipices and overhung by drooping fernery. It +crosses streams of crystal clearness, rises afresh in endless gyrations +under the pines only to vanish, yet again, into the twilight of deeper +abysses, where it skirts the rivulet along precarious ledges, until some +new obstruction blocks the way--so it writhes about for long, long +hours. . . . + +Here, on the spot, one can understand how an outlaw like Musolino was +enabled to defy justice, helped, as he was, by the fact that the vast +majority of the inhabitants were favourable to him, and that the officer +in charge of his pursuers was paid a fixed sum for every day he spent in +the chase and presumably found it convenient not to discover his +whereabouts. [Footnote: See next chapter.] + +We rested awhile, during these interminable meanderings, under the +shadow of a group of pines. + +"Do you see that square patch yonder?" said my man. "It is a cornfield. +There Musolino shot one of his enemies, whom he suspected of giving +information to the police. It was well done." + +"How many did he shoot, altogether?" + +"Only eighteen. And three of them recovered, more or less; enough to +limp about, at all events. Ah, if you could have seen him, sir! He was +young, with curly fair hair, and a face like a rose. God alone can tell +how many poor people he helped in their distress. And any young girl he +met in the mountains he would help with her load and accompany as far as +her home, right into her father's house, which none of us would have +risked, however much we might have liked it. But every one knew that he +was pure as an angel." + +"And there was a young fellow here," he went on, "who thought he could +profit by pretending to be Musolino. So one day he challenged a +proprietor with his gun, and took all his money. When it came to +Musolino's ears, he was furious--furious! He lay in wait for him, caught +him, and said: 'How dare you touch fathers of children? Where's that +money you took from Don Antonio?' Then the boy began to cry and tremble +for his life. 'Bring it,' said Musolino, 'every penny, at midday next +Monday, to such and such a spot, or else----' Of course he brought it. +Then he marched him straight into the proprietor's house. 'Here's this +wretched boy, who robbed you in my name. And here's the money: please +count it. Now, what shall we do with him?' So Don Antonio counted the +money. 'It's all there,' he said; 'let him off this time.' Then Musolino +turned to the lad: 'You have behaved like a mannerless puppy,' he said, +'without shame or knowledge of the world. Be reasonable in future, and +understand clearly: I will have no brigandage in these mountains. Leave +that to the syndics and judges in the towns.'" + +We did not traverse Musolino's natal village, Santo Stefano; indeed, we +passed through no villages at all. But after issuing from the labyrinth, +we saw a few of them, perched in improbable situations--Roccaforte and +Roghudi on our right; on the other side, Africo and Casalnuovo. Salis +Marschlins says that the inhabitants of these regions are so wild and +innocent that money is unknown; everything is done by barter. That comes +of copying without discrimination. For this statement he utilized the +report of a Government official, a certain Leoni, who was sent hither +after the earthquake of 1783, and found the use of money not unknown, +but forgotten, in consequence of this terrible catastrophe. + +These vales of Aspromonte are one of the last refuges of living +Byzantinism. Greek is still spoken in some places, such as Rocca-forte +and Roghudi. Earlier travellers confused the natives with the Albanians; +Niehbuhr, who had an obsession on the subject of Hellenism, imagined +they were relics of old Dorian and Achaean colonies. Scholars are +apparently not yet quite decided upon certain smaller matters. So +Lenormant (Vol. II, p. 433) thinks they came hither after the Turkish +conquest, as did the Albanians; Batiffol argues that they were chased +into Calabria from Sicily by the Arabs after the second half of the +seventh century; Morosi, who treats mostly of their Apulian settlements, +says that they came from the East between the sixth and tenth centuries. +Many students, such as Morelli and Comparetti, have garnered their +songs, language, customs and lore, and whoever wants a convenient resume +of these earlier researches will find it in Pellegrini's book which was +written in 1873 (printed 1880). He gives the number of Greek inhabitants +of these places--Roghudi, for example, had 535 in his day; he has also +noted down these villages, like Africo and Casalnuovo, in which the +Byzantine speech has lately been lost. Bova and Condofuri are now the +head-quarters of mediaeval Greek in these parts. + +From afar we had already descried a green range of hills that shut out +the seaward view. This we now began to climb, in wearisome ascension; it +is called _Pie d'lmpisa,_ because "your feet are all the time on a steep +incline." Telegraph wires here accompany the track, a survival of the +war between the Italian Government and Musolino. On the summit lies a +lonely Alp, Campo di Bova, where a herd of cattle were pasturing under +the care of a golden-haired youth who lay supine on the grass, gazing at +the clouds as they drifted in stately procession across the firmament. +Save for a dusky charcoal-burner crouching in a cave, this boy was the +only living person we encountered on our march--so deserted are these +mountain tracks. + +At Campo di Bova a path branches off to Staiti; the sea is visible once +more, and there are fine glimpses, on the left, towards Staiti (or is it +Ferruzzano?) and, down the right, into the destructive and dangerous +torrent of Amendolea. Far beyond it, rises the mountain peak of +Pentedattilo, a most singular landmark which looks exactly like a molar +tooth turned upside down, with fangs in air. The road passes through a +gateway in the rock whence, suddenly, a full view is disclosed of Bova +on its hill-top, the houses nestling among huge blocks of stone that +make one think of some cyclopean citadel of past ages. My guide stoutly +denied that this was Bova; the town, he declared, lay in quite another +direction. I imagine he had never been beyond the foot of the "Pie +d'Impisa." + +Here, once more, the late earthquake has done some damage, and there is +a row of trim wooden shelters near the entrance of the town. I may add, +as a picturesque detail, that about one-third of them have never been +inhabited, and are never likely to be. They were erected in the heat of +enthusiasm, and there they will stay, empty and abandoned, until some +energetic mayor shall pull them down and cook his maccheroni with their +timber. + +Evening was drawing on apace, and whether it was due to the joy of +having accomplished an arduous journey, or to inconsiderate potations of +the Bacchus of Bova, one of the most remarkable wines in Italy, I very +soon found myself on excellent terms with the chief citizens of this +rather sordid-looking little place. A good deal has been written +concerning Bova and its inhabitants, but I should say there is still a +mine of information to be exploited on the spot. They are bilingual, but +while clinging stubbornly to their old speech, they have now embraced +Catholicism. The town kept its Greek religious rites till the latter +half of the sixteenth century; and Rodota has described the "vigorous +resistance" that was made to the introduction of Romanism, and the +ceremonies which finally accompanied that event. + +Mine hostess obligingly sang me two or three songs in her native +language; the priest furnished me with curious statistics of folklore +and criminology; and the notary, with whom I conversed awhile on the +tiny piazza that overlooks the coastlands and distant Ionian, was a most +affable gentleman. Seeing that the Christian names of the populace are +purely Italian, I enquired as to their surnames, and learned what I +expected, namely, that a good many Greek family names survive among the +people. His own name, he said, was unquestionably Greek: _Condemi;_ if I +liked, he would go through the local archives and prepare me a list of +all such surnames as appeared to him to be non-Italian; we could thus +obtain some idea of the percentage of Greek families still living here. +My best thanks to the good Signor! + +After some further liquid refreshment, a youthful native volunteered to +guide me by short cuts to the remote railway station. We stepped +blithely into the twilight, and during the long descent I discoursed +with him, in fluent Byzantine Greek, of the affairs of his village. + +It is my theory that among a populace of this kind the words relative to +agricultural pursuits will be those which are least likely to suffer +change with lapse of years, or to be replaced by others. + +Acting on this principle, I put him through a catechism on the subject +as soon as we reached our destination, and was surprised at the relative +scarcity of Italian terms--barely 25 per cent I should say. Needless to +add, I omitted to note them down. Such as it is, be that my contribution +to the literature of these sporadic islets of mediaeval Hellenism, whose +outstanding features are being gnawed away by the waves of military +conscription, governmental schooling, and emigration. + +Caulonia, my next halting-place, lay far off the line. I had therefore +the choice of spending the night at Gerace (old Locri) or Rocella +Ionica--intermediate stations. Both of them, to my knowledge, possessing +indifferent accommodation, I chose the former as being the nearest, and +slept there, not amiss; far better than on a previous occasion, when +certain things occurred which need not be set down here. + +The trip from Delianuova over the summit of Montalto to Bova railway +station is by no means to be recommended to young boys or persons in +delicate health. Allowing for only forty-five minutes' rest, it took me +fourteen hours to walk to the town of Bova, and the railway station lies +nearly three hours apart from that place. There is hardly a level yard +of ground along the whole route, and though my "guide" twice took the +wrong track and thereby probably lost me some little time, I question +whether the best walker, provided (as I was) with the best maps, will be +able to traverse the distance in less than fifteen hours. + +Whoever he is, I wish him joy of his journey. Pleasant to recall, +assuredly; the scenery and the mountain flowers are wondrously +beautiful; but I have fully realized what the men of Delianuova meant, +when they said: + +"To Montalto, Yes; to Bova, No." + + + + +XXXIII + +MUSOLINO AND THE LAW + + +Musolino will remain a hero for many long years to come. "He did his +duty ": such is the popular verdict on his career. He was not a brigand, +but an unfortunate--a martyr, a victim of the law. So he is described +not only by his country-people, but by the writers of many hundred +serious pamphlets in every province of Italy. + +At any bookstall you may buy cheap illustrated tracts and poems setting +forth his achievements. In Cosenza I saw a play of which he was the +leading figure, depicted as a pale, long-suffering gentleman of the +"misunderstood" type--friend of the fatherless, champion of widows and +orphans, rectifier of all wrongs; in fact, as the embodiment of those +virtues which we are apt to associate with Prometheus or the founder of +Christianity. + +Only to those who know nothing of local conditions will it seem strange +to say that Italian law is one of the factors that contribute to the +disintegration of family life throughout the country, and to the +production of creatures like Musolino. There are few villages which do +not contain some notorious assassins who have escaped punishment under +sentimental pleas, and now terrorize the neighbourhood. This is one of +the evils which derange patriarchalism; the decent-minded living in fear +of their lives, the others with a conspicuous example before their eyes +of the advantages of evil-doing. And another is that the innocent often +suffer, country-bred lads being locked up for months and years in prison +on the flimsiest pretexts--often on the mere word of some malevolent +local policeman--among hardened habitual offenders. If they survive the +treatment, which is not always the case, they return home completely +demoralized and a source of infection to others. + +It is hardly surprising if, under such conditions, rich and poor alike +are ready to hide a picturesque fugitive from justice. A sad state of +affairs, but--as an unsavoury Italian proverb correctly says--_il pesce +puzza dal capo._ + +For the fault lies not only in the fundamental perversity of all Roman +Law. It lies also in the local administration of that law, which is +inefficient and marked by that elaborate brutality characteristic of all +"philosophic" and tender-hearted nations. One thinks of the Byzantines. +. . . That justices should be well-salaried gentlemen, cognizant of +their duties to society; that carbineers and other police-functionaries +should be civilly responsible for outrages upon the public; that a +so-called "habeas-corpus" Act might be as useful here as among certain +savages of the north; that the Baghdad system of delays leads to +corruption of underpaid officials and witnesses alike (not to speak of +judges)--in a word, that the method pursued hereabouts is calculated to +create rather than to repress crime: these are truths of too elementary +a nature to find their way into the brains of the megalomaniac +rhetoricians who control their country's fate. They will never endorse +that saying of Stendhal's: "In Italy, with the exception of Milan, the +death-penalty is the preface of all civilization." (To this day, the +proportion of murders is still 13 per cent higher in Palermo than in +Milan.) + +Speak to the wisest judges of the horrors of cellular confinement such +as Musolino was enduring up to a short time ago, as opposed to capital +punishment, and you will learn that they invoke the humanitarian +Beccaria in justification of it. Theorists! + +For less formidable criminals there exists that wondrous institution of +_domicilio coatto,_ which I have studied in the islands of Lipari and +Ponza. These evil-doers seldom try to escape; life is far too +comfortable, and the wine good and cheap; often, on completing their +sentences, they get themselves condemned anew, in order to return. The +hard-working man may well envy their lot, for they recuve free lodging +from the Government, a daily allowance of money, and two new suits of +clothes a year--they are not asked to do a stroke of work in return, but +may lie in bed all day long, if so disposed. The law-abiding citizen, +meanwhile, pays for the upkeep of this horde of malefactors, as well as +for the army of officials who are deputed to attend to their wants. This +institution of _domicilio coatto_ is one of those things which would be +incredible, were it not actually in existence. It is a school, a +State-fostered school, for the promotion of criminality. + +But what shall be expected? Where judges sob like children, and jurors +swoon away with emotionalism; where floods of bombast--go to the courts, +and listen!--take the place of cross-examination and duly-sworn +affidavits; where perjury is a humanly venial and almost praiseworthy +failing--how shall the code, defective as it is, be administered? +Rhetoric, and rhetoric alone, sways the decision of the courts. Scholars +are only now beginning to realize to what an extent the ancient sense of +veracity was tainted with this vice--how deeply all classical history is +permeated with elegant partisan non-truth. And this evil legacy from +Greco-Roman days has been augmented by the more recent teachings of +Jesuitry and the Catholic theory of "peccato veniale." Rhetoric alone +counts; rhetoric alone is "art." The rest is mere facts; and your +"penalista" has a constitutional horror of a bald fact, because _there +it is,_ and there is nothing to be done with it. It is too crude a thing +for cultured men to handle. If a local barrister were forced to state in +court a plain fact, without varnish, he would die of cerebral +congestion; the judge, of boredom. + +In early times, these provinces had a rough-and-ready cowboy justice +which answered simple needs, and when, in Bourbon days, things became +more centralized, there was still a never-failing expedient: each judge +having a fixed and publicly acknowledged tariff, the village elders, in +deserving cases, subscribed the requisite sum and released their +prisoner. But Italy is now paying the penalty of ambition. With one foot +in the ferocity of her past, and the other on a quicksand of +dream-nurtured idealism, she contrives to combine the disadvantages of +both. She, who was the light o' love of all Europe for long ages, and in +her poverty denied nothing to her clientele, has now laid aside a little +money, repenting of her frivolous and mercenary deeds (they sometimes +do), and becoming puritanically zealous of good works in her old +age--all this, however, as might have been expected from her antecedent +career, without much discrimination. + +It is certainly remarkable that a race of men who have been such ardent +opponents of many forms of tyranny in the past, should still endure a +system of criminal procedure worthy of Torquemada. High and low cry out +against it, but--_pazienza!_ Where shall grievances be ventilated? In +Parliament? A good joke, that! In the press? Better still! Italian +newspapers nowise reflect the opinions of civilized Italy; they are mere +cheese-wrappers; in the whole kingdom there are only three +self-respecting dailies. The people have learnt to despair of their +rulers--to regard them with cynical suspicion. Public opinion has been +crushed out of the country. What goes by that name is the gossip of the +town-concierge, or obscure village cabals and schemings. + +I am quite aware that the law-abiding spirit is the slow growth of ages, +and that a serious mischief like this cannot be repaired in a short +generation. I know that even now the Italian code of criminal procedure, +that tragic farce, is under revision. I know, moreover, that there are +stipendiary magistrates in south Italy whose discernment and integrity +would do honour to our British courts. But--take the case out of their +hands into a higher tribunal, and you may put your trust in God, or in +your purse. Justice hereabouts is in the same condition as it was in +Egypt at the time of Lord Dufferin's report: a mockery. + +It may be said that it does not concern aliens to make such criticism. A +fatuous observation! Everything concerns everybody. The foreigner in +Italy, if he is wise, will familiarize himself not only with the +cathedrals to be visited, but also, and primarily, with the technique of +legal bribery and subterfuge--with the methods locally employed for +escaping out of the meshes of the law. Otherwise he may find unpleasant +surprises in store for him. Had Mr. Mercer made it his business to +acquire some rudiments of this useful knowledge, he would never have +undergone that outrageous official ill-treatment which has become a +byword in the annals of international amenities. And if these strictures +be considered too severe, let us see what Italians themselves have to +say. In 1900 was published a book called "La Quistione Meridionale" +(What's Wrong with the South), that throws a flood of light upon local +conditions. It contains the views of twenty-seven of the most prominent +men in the country as to how south Italian problems should be faced and +solved. Nearly all of them deplore the lack of justice. Says Professor +Colajanni: "To heal the south, we require an honest, intelligent and +sagacious government, _which we have not got."_ And Lombroso: "In the +south it is necessary to introduce justice, _which does not exist, save +in favour of certain classes."_ + +I am tempted to linger on this subject, not without reason. These people +and their attitude towards life will remain an enigma to the traveller, +until he has acquainted himself with the law of the land and seen with +his own eyes something of the atrocious misery which its administration +involves. A murderer like Musolino, crowned with an aureole of +saintliness, would be an anomaly in England. We should think it rather +paradoxical to hear a respectable old farmer recommending his boys to +shoot a policeman, whenever they safely can. On the spot, things begin +to wear a different aspect. Musolino is no more to be blamed than a +child who has been systematically misguided by his parents; and if these +people, much as they love their homes and families, are all potential +Musolinos, they have good reasons for it--excellent reasons. + +No south Italian living at this present moment, be he of what social +class you please--be he of the gentlest blood or most refined +culture--is _a priori_ on the side of the policeman. No; not _a +priori._ The abuses of the executive are too terrific to warrant such an +attitude. Has not the entire police force of Naples, up to its very +head, been lately proved to be in the pay of the camorra; to say nothing +of its connection with what Messrs. King and Okey euphemistically call +"the unseen hand at Rome"--a hand which is held out for blackmail, and +not vainly, from the highest ministerial benches? Under such conditions, +the populace becomes profoundly distrustful of the powers that be, and +such distrust breeds bad citizens. But so things will remain, until the +bag-and-baggage policy is applied to the whole code of criminal +procedure, and to a good half of its present administrators. + +The best of law-systems, no doubt, is but a compromise. Science being +one thing, and public order another, the most enlightened of legislators +may well tremble to engraft the fruits of modern psychological research +upon the tree of law, lest the scion prove too vigorous for the aged +vegetable. But some compromises are better than others; and the Italian +code, which reads like a fairy tale and works like a Fury, is as bad a +one as human ingenuity can devise. If a prisoner escape punishment, it +is due not so much to his innocence as to some access of sanity or +benevolence on the part of the judge, who courageously twists the law in +his favour. Fortunately, such humane exponents of the code are common +enough; were it otherwise, the prisons, extensive as they are, would +have to be considerably enlarged. But that ideal judge who shall be paid +as befits his grave calling, who shall combine the honesty and common +sense of the north with the analytical acumen of the south, has yet to +be evolved. What interests the student of history is that things +hereabouts have not changed by a hair since the days of Demosthenes and +those preposterous old Hellenic tribunals. Not by a single hair! On the +one hand, we have a deluge of subtle disquisitions on "jurisprudence," +"personal responsibility" and so forth; on the other, the sinister +tomfoolery known as _law--_ that is, babble, corruption, palaeolithic +ideas of what constitutes evidence, and a court-procedure that reminds +one of Gilbert and Sullivan at their best. + +There was a report in the papers not long ago of the trial of an old +married couple, on the charge of murdering a young girl. The bench +dismissed the case, remarking that there was not a particle of evidence +against them; they had plainly been exemplary citizens all their long +lives. They had spent five years in prison awaiting trial. Five years, +and innocent! It stands to reason that such abuses disorganize the +family, especially in Italy, where the "family" means much more than it +does in England; the land lies barren, and savings are wasted in paying +lawyers and bribing greedy court officials. What are this worthy couple +to think of _Avanti, Savoia!_ once they have issued from their dungeon? + +I read, in yesterday's Parliamentary Proceedings, of an honourable +member (Aprile) rising to ask the Minister of Justice (Gallini) whether +the time has not come to proceed with the trial of "Signori Camerano and +their co-accused," who have been in prison for six years, charged with +voluntary homicide. Whereto His Excellency sagely replies that "la +magistratura ha avuto i suoi motivi"--the magistrates have had their +reasons. Six years in confinement, and perhaps innocent! Can one wonder, +under such circumstances, at the anarchist schools of Prato and +elsewhere? Can one wonder if even a vindictive and corrupt rag like the +socialistic "Avanti" occasionally prints frantic protests of +quasi-righteous indignation? And not a hundredth part of such accused +persons can cause a Minister of the Crown to be interpellated on their +behalf. The others suffer silently and often die, forgotten, in their +cells. + +And yet--how seriously we take this nation! Almost as seriously as we +take ourselves. The reason is that most of us come to Italy too +undiscerning, too reverent; in the pre-critical and pre-humorous stages. +We arrive here, stuffed with Renaissance ideals or classical lore, and +viewing the present through coloured spectacles. We arrive here, above +all things, too young; for youth loves to lean on tradition and to draw +inspiration from what has gone before; youth finds nothing more +difficult than to follow Goethe's advice about grasping that living life +which shifts and fluctuates about us. Few writers are sufficiently +detached to laugh at these people as they, together with ourselves, so +often and so richly deserve. I spoke of the buffoonery of Italian law; I +might have called it a burlesque. The trial of the ex-minister Nasi: +here was a _cause celebre_ conducted by the highest tribunal of the +land; and if it was not a burlesque--why, we must coin a new word for +what is. + + + + +XXXIV + +MALARIA + + +A black snake of alarming dimensions, one of the monsters that still +infest the Calabrian lowlands, glided across the roadway while I was +waiting for the post carriage to drive me to Caulonia from its +railway-station. Auspicious omen! It carried my thoughts from old +Aesculapius to his modern representatives--to that school of wise and +disinterested healers who are ridding these regions of their curse, and +with whom I was soon to have some nearer acquaintance. We started at +last, in the hot hours of the morning, and the road at first skirts the +banks of the Alaro, the Sagra of old, on whose banks was fought the +fabled battle between the men of Croton and Locri. Then it begins to +climb upwards. My companion was a poor peasant woman, nearly blind (from +malaria, possibly). Full of my impressions of yesterday, I promptly led +the conversation towards the subject of Musolino. She had never spoken +to him, she said, or even seen him. But she got ten francs from him, all +the same. In dire distress, some years ago, she had asked a friend in +the mountains to approach the brigand on her behalf. The money was long +in coming, she added, but of course it came in the end. He always helped +poor people, even those outside his own country. The site of the +original Caulonia is quite uncertain. Excavations now going on at +Monasterace, some ten miles further on, may decide that the town lay +there. Some are in favour of the miserable village of Foca, near at +hand; or of other sites. The name of Foca seems to point, rather, to a +settlement of the regenerator Nicephorus Phocas. Be that as it may, the +present town of Caulonia used to be called Castelvetere, and it +appropriated the Greek name in accordance with a custom which has been +largely followed hereabouts. [Footnote: It is represented with two +towers in Peutinger's Tables. But these, says an editor, should have +been given to the neighbouring Scilatio, for Caulon was in ruins at the +time of Pliny, and is not even mentioned by Ptolemy. Servius makes +another mistake; he confuses the Calabrian Caulon with a locality of the +same name near Capua.] It contains some ten thousand inhabitants, +amiable, intelligent and distinguished by a _philoxenia_ befitting the +traditions of men who sheltered Pythagoras in his hour of need. As at +Rossano, Catanzaro and many other Calabrian towns, there used to be a +ghetto of Jews here; the district is still called "La Giudeca"; their +synagogue was duly changed into a church of the Madonna. + +So much I learn from Montorio, who further informs me that the +ubiquitous Saint Peter preached here on his way to Rome, and converted +the people to Christianity; and that the town can boast of three +authentic portraits of the Mother of God painted by Saint Luke ("Lukas +me pinxit"). One is rather bewildered by the number of these +masterpieces in Italy, until one realizes, as an old ecclesiastical +writer has pointed out, that "the Saint, being excellent in his art, +could make several of them in a few days, to correspond to the great +devotion of those early Christians, fervent in their love to the Great +Mother of God. Whence we may believe that to satisfy their ardent +desires he was continually applying himself to this task of so much +glory to Mary and her blessed Son." But the sacristan of the church at +Caulonia, to whom I applied for information regarding these local +treasures, knew nothing about them, and his comments gave me the +impression that he has relapsed into a somewhat pagan way of regarding +such matters. + +You may obtain a fairly good view of Caulonia from the southeast; or +again, from the neighbouring hillock of San Vito. The town lies some 300 +metres above sea-level on a platform commanding the valleys of the Amusa +and Alaro. This position, which was clearly chosen for its strategic +value, unfortunately does not allow it to expand, and so the inhabitants +are deprived of that public garden which they amply deserve. At the +highest point lies a celebrated old castle wherein, according to +tradition, Campanella was imprisoned for a while. In the days of +Pacicchelli, it was a fine place--"magnifico nelle regole di Fortezza, +con cinque baloardi provveduti di cannoni di bronzo, ed una riccha +Armeria, degna habitazione di don Carlo Maria Carrafa, Prencipe della +Roccella, che se ne intitola Marchese." Mingled with the stones of its +old walls they have recently found skeletons--victims, possibly, of the +same macabre superstition to which the blood-drenched masonry of the +Tower of London bears witness. Here, too, have been unearthed +terra-cotta lamps and other antiquities. What are we to surmise from +this? That it was a Roman foundation? Or that the malaria in older times +forced Caulonia to wander towards healthier inland heights after the +example of Sybaris-Terranova, and that the Romans continued to occupy +this same site? Or, assuming Castelvetere to date only from mediaeval +times, that these ancient relics found their way into it accidentally? +The low-lying district of Foca, at this day, is certainly very +malarious, whereas the death-rate up here is only about 12 per 1000. + +Dr. Francesco Genovese of Caulonia, to whom I am indebted for much +kindness and who is himself a distinguished worker in the humanitarian +mission of combating malaria, has published, among other interesting +pamphlets, one which deals with this village of Foca, a small place of +about 200 inhabitants, surrounded by fertile orange and vine plantations +near the mouth of the Alaro. His researches into its vital statistics +for the half-century ending 1902 reveal an appalling state of affairs. +Briefly summarized, they amount to this, that during this period there +were 391 births and 516 deaths. In other words, the village, which in +1902 ought to have contained between 600 and 800 inhabitants, not only +failed to progress, but devoured its original population of 200; and not +only them, but also 125 fresh immigrants who had entered the region from +the healthy uplands, lured by the hope of gaining a little money during +the vintage season. + +A veritable Moloch! + +Had the old city of Caulonia, numbering perhaps 20,000 inhabitants, +stood here under such conditions of hygiene, it would have been expunged +off the face of the earth in fifty years. + +Yet--speaking of malaria in general--a good deal of evidence has been +brought together to show that the disease has been endemic in Magna +Grsecia for two thousand years, and the customs of the Sybarites seem to +prove that they had some acquaintance with marsh fever, and tried to +guard against it. "Whoever would live long," so ran their proverb, "must +see neither the rising nor the setting sun." A queer piece of advice, +intelligible only if the land was infested with malaria. Many of their +luxurious habits assume another import, on this hypothesis. Like the +inhabitants of the malarious Etruscan region, they were adepts at +draining, and their river is described, in one of the minor works +attributed to Galen, as "rendering men infertile"--a characteristic +result of malaria. What is still more significant is that their new town +Thurii, built on the heights, was soon infected, and though twice +repeopled, decayed away. And that they had chosen the heights for their +relative healthfulness we can infer from Strabo, who says that Paestum, +a colony from Sybaris, was removed further inland from the shore, on +account of the pestilential climate of the lowlands. + +But the Ionian shores cannot have been as deadly as they now are. We +calculate, for example, that the town walls of Croton measured eighteen +kilometres in circumference, a figure which the modern visitor to +Cotrone only brings himself to believe when he remembers what can be +actually proved of other Hellenic colonies, such as Syracuse. Well, the +populace of so large a city requires a surrounding district to supply it +with agricultural produce. The Marchesato, the vast tract bordering on +Cotrone, is now practically uninhabitable; the population (including the +town) has sunk to 45 to the square kilometre. That is malaria. + +Or rather, only one side of the evil. For these coastlands attract rural +labourers who descend from the mountains during the season of hay-making +or fruit-harvest, and then return infected to their homes. One single +malarious patient may inoculate an entire village, hitherto immune, +granted the anophelines are there to propagate the mischief. By means of +these annual migrations the scourge has spread, in the past. And so it +spreads to-day, whenever possible. Of forty labourers that left Caulonia +for Cotrone in 1908 all returned infected save two, who had made liberal +use of quinine as a prophylactic. Fortunately, there are no anophelines +at Caulonia. + +Greatly, indeed, must this country have changed since olden days; and +gleaning here and there among the ancients, Dr. Genovese has garnered +some interesting facts on this head. The coast-line, now unbroken sand, +is called _rocky,_ in several regions, by Strabo, Virgil and Persius +Flaccus; of the two harbours, of Locri, of that of Metapontum, Caulonia +and other cities, nothing remains; the promontory of Cocynthum +(Stilo)--described as the longest promontory in Italy--together with +other capes, has been washed away by the waves or submerged under silt +carried down from the hills; islands, like that of Calypso which is +described in Vincenzo Pascale's book (1796), and mentioned by G. +Castaidi (1842), have clean vanished from the map. + +The woodlands have retired far inland; yet here at Caulonia, says +Thucydides, was prepared the timber for the fleets of Athens. The +rivers, irregular and spasmodic torrents, must have flowed with more +equal and deeper current, since Pliny mentions five of them as +navigable; snow, very likely, covered the mountain tops; the rainfall +was clearly more abundant--one of the sights of Locri was its daily +rainbow; the cicadas of the territory of Reggio are said to have been +"dumb," on account of the dampness of the climate. They are anything but +dumb nowadays. + +Earth-movements, too, have tilted the coast-line up and down, and there +is evidence to show that while the Tyrrhenian shore has been raised by +these oscillations, the Ionian has sunk. Not long ago four columns were +found in the sea at Cotrone two hundred yards from the beach; old +sailors remember another group of columns visible at low tide near +Caulonia. It is quite possible that the Ionian used to be as rocky as +the other shore, and this gradual sinking of the coast must have +retarded the rapid outflow of the rivers, as it has done in the plain of +Paestum and in the Pontine marshes, favouring malarious conditions. +Earthquakes have helped in the work; that of 1908 lowered certain parts +of the Calabrian shore opposite Messina by about one metre. Indeed, +though earthquakes have been known to raise the soil and thereby improve +it, the Calabrian ones have generally had a contrary effect. The +terrific upheavals of 1783-1787 produced two hundred and fifteen lakes +in the country; they were drained away in a style most creditable to the +Bourbons, but there followed an epidemic of malaria which carried off +18,800 people! + +These Calabrian conditions are only part of a general change of climate +which seems to have taken place all over Italy; a change to which +Columella refers when, quoting Saserna, he says that formerly the vine +and olive could not prosper "by reason of the severe winter" in certain +places where they have since become abundant, "thanks to a milder +temperature." We never hear of the frozen Tiber nowadays, and many +remarks of the ancients as to the moist and cold climate seem strange to +us. Pliny praises the chestnuts of Tarentum; I question whether the tree +could survive the hot climate of to-day. Nobody could induce "splendid +beeches" to grow in the _lowlands_ of Latium, yet Theophrastus, a +botanist, says that they were drawn from this region for shipbuilding +purposes. This gradual desiccation has probably gone on for long ages; +so Signor Cavara has discovered old trunks of white fir in districts of +the Apennines where such a plant could not possibly grow to-day. + +A change to a dry and warm atmosphere is naturally propitious to +malaria, granted sufficient water remains to propagate the mosquito. And +the mosquito contents itself with very little--the merest teacup fui. + +Returning to old Calabria, we find the woods of Locri praised by +Proclus--woods that must have been of coniferous timber, since Virgil +lauds their resinous pitch. Now the Aleppo pine produces pitch, and +would still flourish there, as it does in the lowlands between Taranto +and Metaponto; the classical Sila pitch-trees, however, could not grow +at this level any more. Corroborative evidence can be drawn from +Theocritus, who mentions heath and arbutus as thriving in the marine +thickets near Cotrone--mountain shrubs, nowadays, that have taken refuge +in cooler uplands, together with the wood-pigeon which haunted the same +jungles. It is true that he hints at marshes near Cotrone, and, indeed, +large tracts of south Italy are described as marshy by the ancients; +they may well have harboured the anopheles mosquito from time +immemorial, but it does not follow that they were malarious. + +Much of the healthy physical conditions may have remained into the +Middle Ages or even later; it is strange to read, for example, in +Edrisius, of the pitch and tar that were exported to all parts from the +Bradano river, or of the torrential Sinno that "ships enter this +river--it offers excellent anchorage"; odd, too, to hear of coral +fisheries as late as the seventeenth century at Rocella Ionica, where +the waves now slumber on an even and sandy beach. + +But malaria had made insidious strides, meanwhile. Dr. Genovese thinks +that by the year 1691 the entire coast was malarious and abandoned like +now, though only within the last two centuries has man actively +co-operated in its dissemination. So long as the woodlands on the plains +are cut down or grazed by goats, relatively little damage is done; but +it spells ruin to denude, in a country like this, the steep slopes of +their timber. Whoever wishes to know what mischief the goats, those +picturesque but pernicious quadrupeds, can do to a mountainous country, +should study the history of St. Helena. [Footnote: By J. C. Melliss +(London, 1875).] Thanks to the goats, Maltese fever has lately been +introduced into Calabria. Man, with his charcoal-burning, has completed +the disaster. What happens? The friable rock, no longer sustained by +plant-life, crashes down with each thunderstorm, blocks up the valleys, +devastating large tracts of fertile land; it creates swamps in the +lowlands, and impedes the outflow of water to the sea. These ravenous +_fiumare_ have become a feature in Calabrian scenery; underneath one of +the most terrible of them lies the birthplace of Praxiteles. Dry or +half-dry during the warm months, and of formidable breadth, such +torrent-beds--the stagnant water at their skirts--are ideal +breeding-places for the anophelines from their mouth up to a height of +250 metres. So it comes about that, within recent times, rivers have +grown to be the main arteries of malaria. And there are rivers galore in +Calabria. The patriotic Barrius enumerates no of them--Father Fiore, +less learned, or more prudent, not quite so many. Deforestation and +malaria have gone hand in hand here, as in Greece, Asia Minor, North +Africa, and other countries. + +Thus year after year, from one cause or another, the conditions have +become more favourable for the disease to do its fatal work. + +That much of this harm has been done quite lately can often be +proved. At Caulonia, for instance, the woodlands are known to have +reached the shore a hundred years ago, and there are bare tracts of land +still bearing the name of "foresta." In a single summer (1807) a French +regiment stationed at Cosenza lost 800 men from fever, and when Rath +visited the town in 1871 it was described to him as a "vast hospital" +during the hot months; nevertheless, says he, the disease has only been +so destructive during the last two centuries, for up to that time the +forests touched the outskirts of the town and regulated the Crati-bed, +preventing the formation of marshes. The literary record of Cosenza is +one of exceptional brilliance; for acute and original thought this town +can hardly be surpassed by any other of its size on earth. Were +statistics available, I have not the slightest doubt that fever could be +shown to be largely responsible for the withering of its spiritual life. + +The same fate--the same relapse from prosperity to decay--and for the +same reasons, has overtaken many other riverside villages, among them +that of Tarsia, the Caprasia of the An tonine Itinerary. "It was +described to us," says Rath, "as the most miserable and dirty village in +Calabria; but we found it worse." It remains, to-day, a highly infected +and altogether pitiable place, concerning which I have made certain +modest researches that would require, none the less, a chapter to +themselves. . . . + +Perhaps I have already said over-much on the subject. An Englishman +unacquainted with malaria might think so, oblivious of the fact that Sir +Ronald Ross has called it "perhaps the most important of human +diseases." But let him go to a malarious country and see with his own +eyes something of the degradation it involves; how it stamps its +accursed imprimatur upon man and nature alike! It is the blight of +youth--the desert-maker. A well-known Italian senator has declared that +the story of south Italy is, was, and will be the story of malaria; and +the greater part of Calabria will certainly remain an enigma to the +traveller who ignores what is meant by this plague. + +Malaria is the key to a correct understanding of the landscape; it +explains the inhabitants, their mode of life, their habits, their history. + + + + +XXXV + +CAULONIA TO SERRA + + +"How do you treat your malaria patients?" I once enquired of a doctor in +India. A few good stiff doses, he said, when the attack is on; that +generally settles them. If not, they can begin again. To take quinine as +a prophylactic, he considered folly. It might grow into a habit; you +never know. . . . + +It is to be hoped that such types are extinct, out there. They are +extinct hereabouts. None but an ignorant person would now traverse +malarious tracts in summer without previous quininiza-tion; or, if +infected, deal with the disease otherwise than by an amply protracted +treatment of cure. Yet it is only quite lately that we have gained our +knowledge of a proper use of the drug; and this accounts for the great +mortality long after its specific effects had been recognized by the +profession. It was given both inefficiently and insufficiently. It was +sold at a prohibitive price. The country people were distrustful; +so-and-so had taken it for three or four days; he had improved, yes; but +the fever was on him once more. Why waste money on such experiments? + +I remember accosting a lad, anemic, shivering with the tertian, and +marked by that untimely senility which is the sign-manual of malaria. I +suggested quinine. + +"I don't take doctors' stuff," he said. "Even if I wanted to, my father +would not let me. And if he did, there's no money to pay for it. And if +there were, it would do no good. He's tried it himself." + +"Well, but how are you feeling?" + +"Oh, all right. There's nothing much the matter with me. Just the bad air." + +Such types, too, are practically extinct nowadays; the people are being +educated to recognize their peril and how to avoid it; they begin to +follow Professor Celli's advice in the matter of regarding quinine as +their "daily bread." For since the discovery of the anophelic origin of +malaria many devices have been put into execution to combat the disease, +not the least of them being a popularized teaching of its causes and +consequences by means of pamphlets, lectures to school-children, and so +forth. + +Now, you may either fight the anopheles--the vehicle, or the disease +itself. The first entails putting the country into such a state that the +mosquito finds it unpleasant to live there, a labour of Hercules. Yet +large sums are being expended in draining marshy tracts, regulating +river-beds and afforesting bare spaces; and if you are interested in +such works, you will do well to see what is going on at Metaponto at +this moment. (A considerable portion of the Government grant for these +purposes has lately been deflected for use in the Tripolitan war.) +Exemplary fines are also imposed for illicit timber-cutting and +grazing,--in those towns, at least, where the magistrate has sufficient +sense to perceive the ulterior benefits to be derived from what +certainly entails a good deal of temporary hardship on poor people. +Certain economic changes are helping in this work; so the wealth +imported from America helps to break up the big properties, those +latifundia which, says an Italian authority, "are synonymous with +malaria." The ideal condition--the extirpation of anophelines--will +never be attained; nor is it of vital importance that it should be. + +Far more pressing is the protection of man against their attacks. +Wonderful success has crowned the wire-netting of the windows--an +outcome of the classical experiments of 1899, in the Roman Campagna. + +But chiefest and most urgent of all is the cure of the infected +population. In this direction, results astonishing--results well-nigh +incredible--have attended the recently introduced governmental sale of +quinine. In the year 1895 there were 16,464 deaths from malaria +throughout Italy. By 1908 the number had sunk to 3463. Eloquent figures, +that require no comment! And, despite the fact that the drug is now sold +at a merely nominal rate or freely given away to the needy--nay, thrust +down the very throats of the afflicted peasantry by devoted gentlemen +who scour the plains with ambulances during the deadly season--despite +this, the yearly profits from its sale are amounting to about +three-quarters of a million francs. + +So these forlorn regions are at last beginning to revive. + +And returning to Foca, of whose dreadful condition up to 1902 (year of +the introduction of Government quinine) I have just spoken, we find that +a revolution has taken place. Between that year and 1908 the birth-rate +more than doubled the death-rate. In 1908 some two hundred poor folks +frequented the ambulance, nearly six kilogrammes of quinine being +gratuitously distributed; not one of the natives of the place was +attacked by the disease; and there was a single death--an old woman of +eighty, who succumbed to senile decay. [Footnote: Doctor Genovese's +statistical investigations have brought an interesting little fact to +light. In the debilitating pre-quinine period there was a surplus of +female births; now, with increased healthfulness, those of the males +preponderate.] + +This is an example of what the new quinine-policy has done for Italy, in +briefest space of time. Well may the nation be proud of the men who +conceived this genial and beneficial measure and carried it through +Parliament, and of those local doctors without whose enlightened zeal +such a triumph could not have been achieved. . . . + +Sir Ronald Ross's discovery, by the way, has been fruitful not only in +practical humanitarian results. For instance, it has reduced North's +laborious "Roman Fever" to something little better than a curiosity. And +here, on these deserted shores that were once resplendent with a great +civilization--here is the place to peruse Mr. W. M. Jones's studies on +this subject. I will not give even the shortest precis of his +conscientious researches nor attempt to picture their effect upon a mind +trained in the old school of thought; suffice to say, that the author +would persuade us that malaria is implicated, to an hitherto unsuspected +extent, in the decline of ancient Greece and Rome. And he succeeds. Yes; +a man accustomed to weigh evidence will admit, I think, that he has made +out a suggestively strong case. + +How puzzled we were to explain why the brilliant life of Magna Graecia +was snuffed out suddenly, like a candle, without any appreciably +efficient cause--how we listened to our preachers cackling about the +inevitable consequences of Sybaritic luxury, and to the warnings of sage +politicians concerning the dangers of mere town-patriotism as opposed to +worthier systems of confederation! How we drank it all in! And how it +warmed the cockles of our hearts to think that we were not vicious, +narrow-minded heathens, such as these! + +And now a vulgar gnat is declared to be at the bottom of the whole mystery. + +Crudely disconcerting, these scientific discoveries. Or is it not rather +hard to be dragged to earth in this callous fashion, while soaring +heavenward on the wings of our edifying reflections? For the rest--the +old, old story; a simple, physical explanation of what used to be an +enigma brimful of moral significance. + +That Mr. Jones's facts and arguments will be found applicable to +other decayed races in the old and new worlds is highly probable. +Meanwhile, it takes one's breath away quite sufficiently to realize that +they apply to Hellas and her old colonies on these shores. + +"'AUTOS. Strange! My interest waxes. Tell me then, what affliction, God +or Devil, wiped away the fair life upon the globe, the beasts, the +birds, the delectable plantations, and all the blithe millions of the +human race? What calamity fell upon them?' + +"'ESCHATA. A gnat.' + +"'AUTOS. A gnat?' + +"'ESCHATA. Even so.'" + +Thus I wrote, while yet unaware that such pests as anophelines existed +upon earth. . . . + +At the same time, I think we must be cautious in following certain +deductions of our author; that theory of brutality, for example, as +resulting from malaria. Speaking of Calabria, I would almost undertake +to prove, from the archives of law-courts, that certain of the most +malarial tracts are precisely those in which there is least brutality of +any kind. Cotrone, for instance. . . . The _delegato_ (head of the +police) of that town is so young--a mere boy--that I marvelled how he +could possibly have obtained a position which is usually filled by +seasoned and experienced officers. He was a "son of the white hen," they +told me; that is, a socially favoured individual, who was given this job +for the simple reason that there was hardly any serious work for him to +do. Cosenza, on the other hand, has a very different reputation +nowadays. And it is perfectly easy to explain how malaria might have +contributed to this end. For the disease--and herein lies its +curse--lowers both the physical and social standard of a people; it +breeds misery, poverty and ignorance--fit soil for callous rapacity. + +But how about his theory of "pessimism" infecting the outlook of +generations of malaria-weakened sages? I find no trace of pessimism +here, not even in its mild Buddhistic form. The most salient mental +trait of cultured Calabrians is a subtle detachment and contempt of +illusions--whence their time-honoured renown as abstract thinkers and +speculators. This derives from a philosophic view of life and entails, +naturally enough, the outward semblance of gravity--a Spanish gravity, +due not so much to a strong graft of Spanish blood and customs during +the viceregal period, as to actual affinities with the race of Spain. +But this gravity has nothing in common with pessimism, antagonistic +though it be to those outbursts of irresponsible optimism engendered +under northern skies by copious food, or beer. + +To reach the uplands of Fabbrizia and Serra, whither I was now bound, I +might have utilized the driving road from Gioioso, on the Reggio side of +Caulonia. But that was everybody's route. Or I might have gone _via_ +Stilo, on the other side. But Stilo with its memories of Campanella--a +Spanish type, this!--and of Otho II, its winding track into the +beech-clad heights of Ferdinandea, was already familiar to me. I elected +to penetrate straight inland by the shortest way; a capable muleteer at +once presented himself. + +We passed through one single village, Ragona; leaving those of S. Nicola +and Nardo di Pace on the right. The first of them is celebrated for its +annual miracle of the burning olive, when, armed to the teeth (for some +ancient reason), the populace repairs to the walls of a certain convent +out of which there grows an olive tree: at its foot is kindled a fire +whose flames are sufficient to scorch all the leaves, but behold! next +day the foliage is seen to glow more bravely green than ever. Perhaps +the roots of the tree are near some cistern. These mountain villages, +hidden under oaks and vines, with waters trickling through their lanes, +a fine climate and a soil that bears everything needful for life, must +be ideal habitations for simple folks. In some of them, the death-rate +is as low as 7: 1000. Malaria is unknown here: they seem to fulfil all +the conditions of a terrestrial paradise. + +There is a note of joyous vigour in this landscape. The mule-track winds +in and out among the heights, through flowery meadows grazed by cattle +and full of buzzing insects and butterflies, and along hill-sides +cunningly irrigated; it climbs up to heathery summits and down again +through glades of chestnut and ilex with mossy trunks, whose shadow +fosters strange sensations of chill and gloom. Then out again, into the +sunshine of waving corn and poppies. + +For a short while we stumbled along a torrent-bed, and I grew rather sad +to think that it might be the last I should see for some time to come, +my days in this country being now numbered. This one was narrow. But +there are others, interminable in length and breadth. Interminable! No +breeze stirs in those deep depressions through which the merest thread +of milky water trickles disconsolately. The sun blazes overhead and +hours pass, while you trudge through the fiery inferno; scintillations +of heat rise from the stones and still you crawl onwards, breathless and +footsore, till eyes are dazed and senses reel. One may well say bad +things of these torrid deserts of pebbles which, up till lately, were +the only highways from the lowlands into the mountainous parts. But they +are sweet in memory. One calls to mind the wild savours that hang in +the stagnant air; the cloven hill-sides, seamed with gorgeous patches of +russet and purple and green; the spectral tamarisks, and the glory of +coral-tinted oleanders rising in solitary tufts of beauty, or flaming +congregations, out of the pallid waste of boulders. + +After exactly six hours Fabbrizia was reached--a large place whose name, +like that of Borgia, Savelli, Carafa and other villages on these +southern hills, calls up associations utterly non-Calabrian; Fabbrizia, +with pretentious new church and fantastically dirty side-streets. It +lies at the respectable elevation of 900 metres, on the summit of a +monstrous landslide which has disfigured the country. + +While ascending along the flank of this deformity I was able to see how +the authorities have attempted to cope with the mischief and arrest +further collapses. This is what they have done. The minute channels of +water, that might contribute to the disintegration of the soil by +running into this gaping wound from the sides or above, have been +artfully diverted from their natural courses; trees and shrubs are +planted at its outskirts in order to uphold the earth at these spots by +their roots--they have been protected by barbed wire from the grazing of +cattle; furthermore, a multitude of wickerwork dykes are thrown across +the accessible portions of the scar, to collect the downward-rushing +material and tempt winged plant-seeds to establish themselves on the +ledges thus formed. To bridle this runaway mountain is no mean task, for +such _frane_ are like rodent ulcers, ever enlarging at the edges. With +the heat, with every shower of rain, with every breath of wind, the +earth crumbles away; there is an eternal trickling, day and night, until +some huge boulder is exposed which crashes down, loosening everything in +its wild career; a single tempest may disrupture what the patience and +ingenuity of years have contrived. + +Three more hours or thereabouts will take you to Serra San Bruno along +the backbone of southern Italy, through cultivated lands and pasture and +lonely stretches of bracken, once covered by woodlands. + +It may well be that the townlet has grown up around, or rather near, the +far-famed Carthusian monastery. I know nothing of its history save that +it has the reputation of being one of the most bigoted places in +Calabria--a fact of which the sagacious General Manhes availed himself +when he devised his original and effective plan of chastising the +inhabitants for a piece of atrocious conduct on their part. He caused +all the local priests to be arrested and imprisoned; the churches were +closed, and the town placed under what might be called an interdict. The +natives took it quietly at first, but soon the terror of the situation +dawned upon them. No religious marriages, no baptisms, no funerals--the +comforts of heaven refused to living and dead alike. . . . The strain +grew intolerable and, in a panic of remorse, the populace hunted down +their own brigand-relations and handed them over to Manhes, who duly +executed them, one and all. Then the interdict was taken off and the +priests set at liberty; and a certain writer tells us that the people +were so charmed with the General's humane and businesslike methods that +they forthwith christened him "Saint Manhes," a name which, he avers, +has clung to him ever since. + +The monastery lies about a mile distant; near at hand is a little +artificial lake and the renowned chapel of Santa Maria. There was a time +when I would have dilated lovingly upon this structure--a time when I +probably knew as much about Carthusian convents as is needful for any of +their inmates; when I studied Tromby's ponderous work and God knows how +many more--ay, and spent two precious weeks of my life in deciphering +certain crabbed MSS. of Tutini in the Brancacciana library--ay, and +tested the spleenful Perrey's "Ragioni del Regio Fisco, etc.," as to the +alleged land-grabbing propensities of this order--ay, and even +pilgrimaged to Rome to consult the present general of the Carthusians +(his predecessor, more likely) as to some administrative detail, +all-important, which has wholly escaped my memory. Gone are those days +of studious gropings into blind alleys! The current of zeal has slowed +down or turned aside, maybe, into other channels. They who wish, will +find a description of the pristine splendour of this monastery in +various books by Pacicchelli; the catastrophe of 1783 was described by +Keppel Craven and reported upon, with illustrations, by the Commission +of the Naples Academy; and if you are of a romantic turn of mind, you +will find a good story of the place, as it looked duringthe ruinous days +of desolation, in Misasi's "Calabrian Tales." + +It is now rebuilt on modern lines and not much of the original structure +remains upright. I wandered about the precincts in the company of two +white-robed French monks, endeavouring to reconstruct not the convent as +it was in its younger days, but _them._ That older one, especially--he +had known the world. . . . + +Meat being forbidden, the godly brethren have a contract for fish to be +brought up every day by the post-carriage from the distant Soverato. And +what happens, I asked, when none are caught? + +"Eh bien, nous mangeons des macaroni!" + +Such a diet would never suit me. Let me retire to a monkery where +carnivorous leanings may be indulged. Methinks I could pray more +cheerfully with the prospect of a rational _dejeuner a la fourchette_ +looming ahead. + +At the back of the monastery lies a majestic forest of white +firs--nothing but firs; a unique region, so far as south and central +Italy are concerned. I was there in the golden hour after sunset, and +yet again in the twilight of dew-drenched morning; and it seemed to me +that in this temple not made by hands there dwelt an enchantment more +elemental, and more holy, than in the cloistered aisles hard by. This +assemblage of solemn trees has survived, thanks to rare conditions of +soil and climate. The land lies high; the ground is perennially moist +and intersected by a horde of rills that join their waters to form the +river Ancinale; frequent showers descend from above. Serra San Bruno has +an uncommonly heavy rainfall. It lies in a vale occupying the site of a +pleistocene lake, and the forest, now restricted to one side of the +basin, encircled it entirely in olden days. At its margin they have +established a manufactory which converts the wood into paper--blissful +sight for the utilitarian. + +Finding little else of interest in Serra, and hungering for the +flesh-pots of Cotrone, I descended by the postal diligence to Soverato, +nearly a day's journey. Old Soverato is in ruins, but the new town seems +to thrive in spite of being surrounded by deserts of malaria. While +waiting for supper and the train to Cotrone, I strolled along the +beach, and soon found myself sitting beside the bleached anatomy of +some stranded leviathan, and gazing at the mountains of Squillace that +glowed in the soft lights of sunset. The shore was deserted save for +myself and a portly dogana-official who was playing with his little +son--trying to amuse him by elephantine gambols on the sand, regardless +of his uniform and manly dignity. Notwithstanding his rotundity, he was +an active and resourceful parent, and enjoyed himself vastly; the boy +pretending, as polite children sometimes do, to enter into the fun of +the game. + + + + +XXXVI + +MEMORIES OF GISSING + + +Two new hotels have recently sprung up at Cotrone. With laudable +patriotism, they are called after its great local champions, athletic +and spiritual, in ancient days--Hotel Milo and Hotel Pythagoras. As +such, they might be expected to make a strong appeal to the muscles and +brains of their respective clients. I rather fancy that the chief +customers of both are commercial travellers who have as little of the +one as of the other, and to whom these fine names are Greek. + +As for myself, I remain faithful to the "Concordia" which has twice +already sheltered me within its walls. + +The shade of George Gissing haunts these chambers and passages. It was +in 1897 that he lodged here with that worthy trio: Gibbon, Lenormant and +Cassiodorus. The chapters devoted to Cotrone are the most lively and +characteristic in his "Ionian Sea." Strangely does the description of +his arrival in the town, and his reception in the "Concordia," resemble +that in Bourget's "Sensations." + +The establishment has vastly improved since those days. The food is good +and varied, the charges moderate; the place is spotlessly clean in every +part--I could only wish that the hotels in some of our English country +towns were up to the standard of the "Concordia" in this respect. "One +cannot live without cleanliness," as the housemaid, assiduously +scrubbing, remarked to me. It is also enlarged; the old dining-room, +whose guests are so humorously described by him, is now my favourite +bedroom, while those wretched oil-lamps sputtering on the wall have been +replaced by a lavish use of electricity. One is hardly safe, however, in +praising these inns over-much; they are so apt to change hands. So long +as competition with the two others continues, the "Concordia" will +presumably keep to its present level. + +Of freaks in the dining-room, I have so far only observed one whom +Gissing might have added to his collection. He is a _director_ of some +kind, and his method of devouring maccheroni I unreservedly admire--it +displays that lack of all effort which distinguishes true art from +false. He does not eat them with deliberate mastication; he does not +even--like your ordinary amateur--drink them in separate gulps; but he +contrives, by some swiftly-adroit process of levitation, that the whole +plateful shall rise in a noiseless and unbroken flood from the table to +his mouth, whence it glides down his gullet with the relentless ease of +a river pouring into a cavern. Altogether, a series of films depicting +him at work upon a meal would make the fortune of a picture-show +company--in England. Not here, however; such types are too common to be +remarked, the reason being that boys are seldom sent to boarding schools +where stereotyped conventions of "good form" are held up for their +imitation, but brought up at home by adoring mothers who care little for +such externals or, if they do, have no great authority to enforce their +views. On entering the world, these eccentricities in manner are proudly +clung to, as a sign of manly independence. + +Death has made hideous gaps in the short interval. The kindly +Vice-Consul at Catanzaro is no more; the mayor of Cotrone, whose permit +enabled Gissing to visit that orchard by the riverside, has likewise +joined the majority; the housemaid of the "Concordia," the domestic serf +with dark and fiercely flashing eyes--dead! And dead is mine hostess, +"the stout, slatternly, sleepy woman, who seemed surprised at my demand +for food, but at length complied with it." + +But the little waiter is alive and now married; and Doctor Sculco still +resides in his aristocratic _palazzo_ up that winding way in the old +town, with the escutcheon of a scorpion--portentous emblem for a +doctor--over its entrance. He is a little greyer, no doubt; but the same +genial and alert personage as in those days. + +I called on this gentleman, hoping to obtain from him some reminiscences +of Gissing, whom he attended during a serious illness. + +"Yes," he replied, to my enquiries, "I remember him quite well; the +young English poet who was ill here. I prescribed for him. Yes--yes! He +wore his hair long." + +And that was all I could draw from him. I have noticed more than once +that Italian physicians have a stern conception of the Hippocratic oath: +the affairs of their patients, dead or alive, are a sacred trust in +perpetuity. + +The town, furthermore, has undergone manifold improvements in those few +years. Trees are being planted by the roadsides; electric light is +everywhere and, best of all, an excellent water-supply has been led down +from the cool heights of the Sila, bringing cleanliness, health and +prosperity in its train. And a stately cement-bridge is being built over +the Esaro, that "all but stagnant and wholly pestilential stream." The +Esaro _glides pleasantly,_ says the chronicler Noia Molisi. Perhaps it +really glided, in his day. + +One might do worse than spend a quiet month or two at Cotrone in the +spring, for the place grows upon one: it is so reposeful and orderly. +But not in winter. Gissing committed the common error of visiting south +Italy at that season when, even if the weather will pass, the country +and its inhabitants are not true to themselves. You must not come to +these parts in winter time. + +Nor yet in the autumn, for the surrounding district is highly malarious. +Thucydides already speaks of these coastlands as depopulated (relatively +speaking, I suppose), and under the Romans they recovered but little; +they have only begun to revive quite lately. [Footnote: Between +1815--1843, and in this single province of Catanzaro, there was an +actual decline in the population of thirty-six towns and villages. +Malaria!] Yet this town must have looked well enough in the twelfth +century, since it is described by Edrisius as "a very old city, +primitive and beautiful, prosperous and populated, in a smiling +position, with walls of defence and an ample port for anchorage." I +suspect that the history of Cotrone will be found to bear out Professor +Celli's theory of the periodical recrudescences and abatements of +malaria. However that may be, the place used to be in a deplorable +state. Riedesel (1771) calls it "la ville la plus affreuse de l'Italie, +et peut-etre du monde entier"; twenty years later, it is described as +"sehr ungesund ... so aermlich als moeglich"; in 1808 it was "reduite a +une population de trois mille habitants ronges par la misere, et les +maladies qu'occasionne la stagnation des eaux qui autrefois +fertilisaient ces belles campagnes." In 1828, says Vespoli, it contained +only 3932 souls. + +I rejoice to cite such figures. They show how vastly Cotrone, together +with the rest of Calabria, has improved since the Bourbons were ousted. +The sack of the town by their hero Cardinal Ruffo, described by Pepe and +others, must have left long traces. "Horrible was the carnage +perpetrated by these ferocious bands. Neither age nor sex nor condition +was spared. . . . After two days of pillage accompanied by a multitude +of excesses and cruelties, they erected, on the third day, a magnificent +altar in the middle of a large square"--and here the Cardinal, clothed +in his sacred purple, praised the good deeds of the past two days and +then, raising his arms, displayed a crucifix, absolving his crew from +the faults committed during the ardour of the sack, and blessed them. + +I shall be sorry to leave these regions for the north, as leave them I +must, in shortest time. The bathing alone would tempt me to prolong my +stay, were it possible. Whereas Taranto, despite its situation, +possesses no convenient beach, there are here, on either side of the +town, leagues of shimmering sand lapped by tepid and caressing waves; it +is a sunlit solitude; the land is your own, the sea your own, as far as +eye can reach. One may well become an amphibian, at Cotrone. + +The inhabitants of this town are well-mannered and devoid of the +"ineffable" air of the Tarentines. But they are not a handsome race. +Gissing says, a propos of the products of a local photographer, that it +was "a hideous exhibition; some of the visages attained an incredible +degree of vulgar ugliness." That is quite true. Old authors praise the +beauty of the women of Cotrone, Bagnara, and other southern towns; for +my part, I have seldom found good-looking women in the coastlands of +Calabria; the matrons, especially, seem to favour that ideal of the +Hottentot Venus which you may study in the Jardin des Plantes; they are +decidedly centripetal. Of the girls and boys one notices only those who +possess a peculiar trait: the eyebrows pencilled in a dead straight +line, which gives them an almost hieratic aspect. I cannot guess from +what race is derived this marked feature which fades away with age as +the brows wax thicker and irregular in contour. We may call it Hellenic +on the old-fashioned principle that everything attractive comes from the +Greeks, while its opposite is ascribed to those unfortunate "Arabs" who, +as a matter of fact, are a sufficiently fine-looking breed. + +And there must be very little Greek blood left here. The town--among +many similar vicissitudes--was peopled largely by Bruttians, after +Hannibal had established himself here. In the Viceregal period, again, +there was a great infusion of Spanish elements. A number of Spanish +surnames still linger on the spot. + +And what of Gissing's other friend, the amiable guardian of the +cemetery? "His simple good nature and intelligence greatly won upon me. +I like to think of him as still quietly happy amid his garden walls, +tending flowers that grow over the dead at Cotrone." + +Dead, like those whose graves he tended; like Gissing himself. He +expired in February 1901--the year of the publication of the "Ionian +Sea," and they showed me his tomb near the right side of the entrance; +_a._ poor little grave, with a wooden cross bearing a number, which will +soon be removed to make room for another one. + +This cemetery by the sea is a fair green spot, enclosed in a high wall +and set with flowering plants and comely cypresses that look well +against their background of barren clay-hills. Wandering here, I called +to mind the decent cemetery of Lucera, and that of Manfredonia, built in +a sleepy hollow at the back of the town which the monks in olden days +had utilized as their kitchen garden (it is one of the few localities +where deep soil can be found on that thirsty limestone plain); I +remembered the Venosa burial-ground near the site of the Roman +amphitheatre, among the tombs of which I had vainly endeavoured to find +proofs that the name of Horace is as common here as that of Manfred in +those other two towns; the Taranto cemetery, beyond the railway quarter, +somewhat overloaded with pretentious ornaments; I thought of many cities +of the dead, in places recently explored--that of Rossano, ill-kept +within, but splendidly situated on a projecting spur that dominates the +Ionian; of Caulonia, secluded among ravines at the back of the +town. . . . + +They are all full of character; a note in the landscape, with their +cypresses darkly towering amid the pale and lowly olives; one would +think the populace had thrown its whole poetic feeling into the choice +of these sites and their embellishments. But this is not the case; they +are chosen merely for convenience--not too far from habitations, and yet +on ground that is comparatively cheap. Nor are they truly venerable, +like ours. They date, for the most part, from the timewhen the +Government abolished the oldsystem of inhumation in churches--a system +which, for the rest, still survives; there are over six hundred of these +_fosse carnarie_ in use at this moment, most of them in churches. + +And a sad thought obtrudes itself in these oases of peace and verdure. +The Italian law requires that the body shall be buried within +twenty-four hours after decease (the French consider forty-eight hours +too short a term, and are thinking of modifying their regulations in +this respect): a doctor's certificate of death is necessary but often +impossible to procure, since some five hundred Italian communities +possess no medical man whatever. Add to this, the superstitions of +ignorant country people towards the dead, testified to by extraordinary +beliefs and customs which you will find in Pitre and other collectors of +native lore--their mingled fear and hatred of a corpse, which prompts +them to thrust it underground at the earliest possible opportunity. +. . . Premature burial must be all too frequent here. I will not +enlarge upon the theme of horror by relating what gravediggers +have seen with their own eyes on disturbing old coffins; if only half +what they tell me is true, it reveals a state of affairs not to be +contemplated without shuddering pity, and one that calls for prompt +legislation. Only last year a frightful case came to light in Sicily. +_Videant Consules._ + +Here, at the cemetery, the driving road abruptly ends; thenceforward +there is merely a track along the sea that leads, ultimately, to Capo +Nau, where stands a solitary column, last relic of the great temple of +Hera. I sometimes follow it as far as certain wells that are sunk, +Arab-fashion, into the sand, and dedicated to Saint Anne. Goats and cows +recline here after their meagre repast of scorched grasses, and the +shepherds in charge have voices so soft, and manners so gentle, as to +call up suggestions of the Golden Age. These pastoral folk are the +primitives of Cotrone. From father to son, for untold ages before +Theocritus hymned them, they have kept up their peculiar habits and +traditions; between them and the agricultural classes is a gulf as deep +as between these and the citizens. Conversing with them, one marvels how +the same occupation can produce creatures so unlike as these and the +goat-boys of Naples, the most desperate _camorristi._ + +The cows may well be descendants of the sacred cattle of Hera that +browsed under the pines which are known to have clothed the bleak +promontory. You may encounter them every day, wandering on the way to +the town which they supply with milk; to avoid the dusty road, they +march sedately through the soft wet sand at the water's edge, their +silvery bodies outlined against a cserulean flood of sky and sea. + +On this promenade I yesterday observed, slow-pacing beside the waves, a +meditative priest, who gave me some details regarding the ruined church +of which Gissing speaks. It lies in the direction of the cemetery, +outside the town; "its lonely position," he says, "made it interesting, +and the cupola of coloured tiles (like that of the cathedral of Amalfi) +remained intact, a bright spot against the grey hills behind." This +cupola has recently been removed, but part of the old walls serve as +foundation for a new sanctuary, a sordid-looking structure with +red-tiled roof: I am glad to have taken a view of it, some years ago, +ere its transformation. Its patroness is the Madonna del Carmine--the +same whose church in Naples is frequented by thieves and cut-throats, +who make a special cult of this Virgin Motherand invoke Her blessing on +their nefarious undertakings. + +The old church, he told me, was built in the middle of the seventeenth +century; this new one, he agreed, might have been constructed on more +ambitious lines, "but nowadays----" and he broke off, with eloquent +aposiopesis. + +It was the same, he went on, with the road to the cemetery; why should +it not be continued right up to the cape of the Column as in olden days, +over ground _dove ogni passo e una memoria:_ where every footstep is a +memory? + +"Rich Italians," he said, "sometimes give away money to benefit the +public. But the very rich--never! And at Cotrone, you must remember, +every one belongs to the latter class." + +We spoke of the Sila, which he had occasionally visited. + +"What?" he asked incredulously, "you have crossed the whole of that +country, where there is nothing to eat--nothing in the purest and most +literal sense of that word? My dear sir! You must feel like Hannibal, +after his passage of the Alps." + +Those barren clay-hills on our right of which Gissing speaks (they are +like the _baize_ of the Apennines) annoyed him considerably; they were +the malediction of the town, he declared. At the same time, they +supplied him with the groundwork of a theory for which there is a good +deal to be said. The old Greek city, he conjectured, must have been +largely built of bricks made from their clay, which is once more being +utilized for this purpose. How else account for its utter disappearance? +Much of the finer buildings were doubtless of stone, and these have been +worked into the fort, the harbour and _palazzi_ of new Cotrone; but this +would never account for the vanishing of a town nearly twelve miles in +circumference. Bricks, he said, would explain the mystery; they had +crumbled into dust ere yet the Romans rebuilt, with old Greek stones, +the city on the promontory now occupied by the new settlement. + +The modern palaces on the rising ground of the citadel are worthy of a +visit; they are inhabited by some half-dozen "millionaires" who have +given Cotrone the reputation of being the richest town of its size in +Italy. So far as I can judge, the histories of some of these wealthy +families would be curious reading. + +"Gentlemen," said the Shepherd, "if you have designs of Trading, you +must go another way; but if you're of the admired sort of Men, that have +the thriving qualifications of Lying and Cheating, you're in the direct +Path to Business; for in this City no Learning flourisheth; Eloquence +finds no room here; nor can Temperance, Good Manners, or any Vertue meet +with a Reward; assure yourselves of finding but two sorts of Men, and +those are the Cheated, and those that Cheat." + +If gossip at Naples and elsewhere is to be trusted, old Petronius seems +to have had a prophetic glimpse of the _dessus du panier_ of modern +Cotrone. + + + + +XXXVII + +COTRONE + + +The sun has entered the Lion. But the temperature at Cotrone is not +excessive--five degrees lower than Taranto or Milan or London. One grows +weary, none the less, of the deluge of implacable light that descends, +day after day, from the aether. The glistering streets are all but +deserted after the early hours of the morning. A few busy folks move +about till midday on the pavements; and so do I--in the water. But the +long hours following luncheon are consecrated to meditation and repose. + +A bundle of Italian newspapers has preceded me hither; upon these I +browse dispersedly, while awaiting the soft call to slumber. Here are +some provincial sheets--the "Movement" of Castro-villari--the "New +Rossano"--the "Bruttian" of Corigliano, with strong literary flavour. +Astonishing how decentralized Italy still is, how brimful of purely +local patriotism: what conception have these men of Rome as their +capital? These articles often reflect a lively turmoil of ideas, +well-expressed. Who pays for such journalistic ventures? Typography is +cheap, and contributors naturally content themselves with the ample +remuneration of appearing in print before their fellow-citizens; a +considerable number of copies are exported to America. Yet I question +whether the circulation of the "New Rossano," a fortnightly in its sixth +year, can exceed five hundred copies. + +But these venial and vapid Neapolitan dailies are my pet aversion. We +know them, _nous autres,_ with their odious personalities and playful +blackmailing tactics; many "distinguished foreigners," myself included, +could tell a tale anent that subject. Instead of descending to such +matters, let me copy--it is too good to translate--a thrilling item of +news from the chiefest of them, the _Mattino,_ which touches, +furthermore, upon the all-important subject of Calabrian progress. + +"CETRARO. Per le continuate premure ed insistenze di questo egregio +uffiziale postale Signor Rocca Francesco--che nulla lascia +pel bene avviamento del nostro uffizio--presso 1' on. Dirczione delle +poste di Cosenza, si e ottenuta una cassetta postale, che affissa lungo +il Corso Carlo Pancaso, ci da la bella commodita di imbucare le nostre +corrispondenze per essere rilevate tre volte al giorno non solo, quanto +ci evita persino la dolorosa e lunga via crucis che dovevamo percorrere +qualvolta si era costretti d' imbuccare una lettera, essendo il nostro +uffizio situato ali' estremita del paese. + +"Tributiamo percio sincera lode al nostro caro uffiziale postale Sig. +Rocca, e ci auguriamo che egli continui ancora al miglioramento deli' +uffizio istesso, e merce 1' opera sua costante ed indefessa siamo sicuri +che 1' uffizio postale di Cetraro assurgera fra non molto ad un' +importanza maggiore di quella che attualmente." + +The erection of a letter-box in the Street of a small place of which 80 +per cent of the readers have never so much as heard. ... I begin to +understand why the cultured Tarentines do not read these journals. + +By far the best part of all such papers is the richly-tinted personal +column, wherein lovers communicate with each other, or endeavour to do +so. I read it conscientiously from beginning to end, admiring, in my +physical capacity, the throbbing passion that prompts such public +outbursts of confidence and, from a literary point of view, their +lapidary style, model of condensation, impossible to render in English +and conditioned by the hard fact that every word costs two sous. Under +this painful material stress, indeed, the messages are sometimes crushed +into a conciseness which the females concerned must have some difficulty +in unperplexing: what on earth does the parsimonious _Flower_ mean by +his Delphic fourpenny worth, thus punctuated-- + +"(You have) not received. How. Safety." + +One cannot help smiling at this circuitous and unromantic method of +touching the hearts of ladies who take one's fancy; at the same time, it +testifies to a resourceful vitality, striving to break through the +barriers of Hispano-Arabic convention which surround the fair sex in +this country. They are nothing if not poetic, these love-sick swains. +_Arrow_ murmurs: "My soul lies on your pillow, caressing you softly"; +_Strawberry_ laments that "as bird outside nest, I am alone and lost. +What sadness," and _Star_ finds the "Days eternal, till Thursday." And +yet they often choose rather prosaic pseudonyms. Here is _Sahara_ who +"suffers from your silence," while _Asthma_ is "anticipating one endless +kiss," and _Old England_ observing, more ir sorrow than in anger, that +he "waited vainly one whole hour." + +But the sagacious _Cooked Lobster_ desires, before commiting himself +further, "a personal interview." He has perhaps been cooked once before. + +Letters and numbers are best, after all. So thinks F. N. 13, who is +utterly disgusted with his flame-- + +"Your silence speaks. Useless saying anything. Ca ira." And likewise +7776--B, a designing rogue and plainly a spendthrift, who wastes +ninepence in making it clear that he "wishes to marry rich young lady, +forgiving youthful errors." If I were the girl, I would prefer to take +my chances with "Cooked Lobster." + +_"Will much-admired young-lady cherries-in-black-hat indicate method +possible correspondence_ 10211, _Post-Office?"_ + +How many of these arrows, I wonder, reach their mark? + +Ah, here are politics and News of the World, at last. A promising +article on the "Direttissimo Roma-Napoli"--the railway line that is to +connect the two towns by way of the Pontine Marshes. . . . Dear me! This +reads very familiarly. . . . Why, to be sure, it is the identical +dissertation, with a few changes by the office-boy, that has cropped up +periodically in these pages for the last half-century, or whenever the +railway was first projected. The line, as usual, is being projected more +strenuously than before, and certain members of the government have +goneso far as to declare. . .. H'm! Let me try something else: "The +Feminist Movement in England" by Our London Correspondent (who lives in +a little side street off the Toledo); that sounds stimulating. . . . The +advanced English Feminists--so it runs--are taking the lead in +encouraging their torpid sisters on the Continent. . . . Hardly a day +passes, that some new manifestation of the Feminist Movement ... in +fact, it may be avowed that the Feminist Movement in England. . . . + +The air is cooler, as I awake, and looking out of the window I perceive +from the mellow light-effects that day is declining. + +Towards this sunset hour the unbroken dome of the sky often undergoes a +brief transformation. High-piled masses of cloud may then be seen +accumulating over the Sila heights and gathering auxiliaries from every +quarter; lightning is soon playing about the livid and murky +vapours--you can hear the thunders muttering, up yonder, to some +drenching downpour. But on the plain the sun continues to shine in +vacuously benevolent fashion; nothing is felt of the tempest save +unquiet breaths of wind that raise dust-eddies from the country roads +and lash the sea into a mock frenzy of crisp little waves. It is the +merest interlude. Soon the blue-black drifts have fled away from the +mountains that stand out, clear and refreshed, in the twilight. The wind +has died down, the storm is over and Cotrone thirsts, as ever, for rain +that never comes. Yet they have a Madonna-picture here--a celebrated +_black_ Madonna, painted by Saint Luke--who "always procures rain, when +prayed to." + +Once indeed the tail of a shower must have passed overhead, for there +fell a few sad drops. I hurried abroad, together with some other +citizens, to observe the phenomenon. There was no doubt about the +matter; it was genuine rain; the drops lay, at respectable intervals, on +the white dust of the station turnpike. A boy, who happened to be +passing in a cart, remarked that if the shower could have been collected +into a saucer or some other small receptacle, it might have sufficed to +quench the thirst of a puppy-dog. + +I usually take a final dip in the sea, at this time of the evening. +After that, it is advisable to absorb an ice or two--they are excellent, +at Cotrone--and a glass of Strega liqueur, to ward off the effects of +over-work. Next, a brief promenade through the clean, well-lighted +streets and now populous streets, or along the boulevard Margherita to +view the rank and fashion taking the air by the murmuring waves, under +the cliff-like battlements of Charles the Fifth's castle; and so to dinner. + +This meal marks the termination of my daily tasks; nothing serious is +allowed to engage my attention, once that repast is ended; I call for a +chair and sit down at one of the small marble-topped tables in the open +street and watch the crowd as it floats around me, smoking a Neapolitan +cigar and imbibing, alternately, ices and black coffee until, towards +midnight, a final bottle of _vino di Ciro_ is uncorked--fit seal for the +labours of the day. + +One might say much in praise of Calabrian wine. The land is full of +pleasant surprises for the cenophilist, and one of these days I hope to +embody my experiences in the publication of a wine-chart of the province +with descriptive text running alongside--the purchasers of which, if +few, will certainly be of the right kind. The good Dr. Barth--all praise +to him!--has already done something of the kind for certain parts of +Italy, but does not so much as mention Calabria. And yet here nearly +every village has its own type of wine and every self-respecting family +its own peculiar method of preparation, little known though they be +outside the place of production, on account of the octroi laws which +strangle internal trade and remove all stimulus to manufacture a good +article for export. This wine of Ciro, for instance, is purest nectar, +and so is that which grows still nearer at hand in the classical vale of +the Neto and was praised, long ago, by old Pliny; and so are at least +two dozen more. For even as Gregorovius says that the smallest Italian +community possesses its duly informed antiquarian, if you can but put +your hand upon him, so, I may be allowed to add, every little place +hereabouts can boast of at least one individual who will give you good +wine, provided--provided you go properly to work to find him. + +Now although, when young, the Calabrian Bacchus has a wild-eyed _beaute +du diable_ which appeals to one's expansive moods, he already begins to +totter, at seven years of age, in sour, decrepit eld. To pounce upon him +at the psychological moment, to discover in whose cool and cobwebby +cellar he is dreaming out his golden summer of manhood--that is what a +foreigner can never, never hope to achieve, without competent local aid. + +To this end, I generally apply to the priests; not because they are the +greatest drunkards (far from it; they are mildly epicurean, or even +abstemious) but by reason of their unrivalled knowledge of +personalities. They know exactly who has been able to keep his liquor of +such and such a year, and who has been obliged to sell or partially +adulterate it; they know, from the confessional of the wives, the why +and wherefore of all such private family affairs and share, with the +chemist, the gift of seeing furthest into the tangled web of home life. +They are "gialosi," however, of these acquirements, and must be +approached in the right spirit--a spirit of humility. But if you +tactfully lead up to the subject by telling of the manifold hardships of +travel in foreign lands, the discomfort of life in hostelries, the food +that leaves so much to be desired and, above all, the coarse wine that +is already beginning, you greatly fear, to injure your sensitive spleen +(an important organ, in Calabria), inducing a hypochondriacal tendency +to see all the beauties of this fair land in an odious and sombre +light--turning your day into night, as it were--it must be an odd +priest, indeed, who is not compassionately moved to impart the desired +information regarding the whereabouts of the best _vino di famiglia_ at +that moment obtainable. After all, it costs him nothing to do a double +favour--one to yourself and another to the proprietor of the wine, +doubtless an old friend of his, who will be able to sell his stuff to a +foreigner 20 per cent dearer than to a native. + +And failing the priests, I go to an elderly individual of that tribe of +red-nosed connaisseurs, the coachmen, ever thirsty and mercenary souls, +who for a small consideration may be able to disclose not only this +secret, but others far more mysterious. + +As to your host at the inn--he raises not the least objection to +your importing alien liquor into his house. His own wine, he tells you, +is last year's vintage and somewhat harsh (slightly watered, he might +add)--and why not? The ordinary customers are gentlemen of commerce who +don't care a fig what they eat and drink, so long as there is enough of +it. No horrible suggestions are proffered concerning corkage; on the +contrary, he tests your wine, smacks his lips, and thanks you for +communicating a valuable discovery. He thinks he will buy a bottle or +two for the use of himself and a few particular friends. . . . + +Midnight has come and gone. The street is emptying; the footsteps of +passengers begin to ring hollow. I arise, for my customary stroll in the +direction of the cemetery, to attune myself to repose by shaking off +those restlessly trivial images of humanity which might otherwise haunt +my slumbers. + +Town visions are soon left behind; it is very quiet here under the hot, +starlit heavens; nothing speaks of man save the lighthouse flashing in +ghostly activity--no, it is a fixed light--on the distant Cape of the +Column. And nothing breaks the stillness save the rhythmic breathing of +the waves, and a solitary cricket that has yet to finish his daily task +of instrumental music, far away, in some warm crevice of the hills. + +A suave odour rises up from the narrow patch of olives, and figs loaded +with fruit, and ripening vines, that skirts the path by the beach. _The +fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender +grape give a good smell._ + +And so I plough my way through the sand, in the darkness, encompassed by +tepid exhalations of earth and sea. Another spirit has fallen upon me--a +spirit of biblical calm. Here, then, stood _the rejoicing city that +dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none beside +me: how is she become a desolation!_ It is indeed hard to realize that a +town thronged with citizens covered all this area. Yet so it is. Every +footstep is a memory. Along this very track walked the sumptuous ladies +of Croton on their way to deposit their vain jewels before the goddess +Hera, at the bidding of Pythagoras. On this spot, maybe, stood that +public hall which was specially built for the delivery of his lectures. + +No doubt the townsfolk had been sunk in apathetic luxury; the time was +ripe for a Messiah. + +And lo! he appeared. + + + + +XXXVIII + +THE SAGE OF CROTON + + +The popularity of this sage at Croton offers no problem: the inhabitants +had become sufficiently civilized to appreciate the charm of being +regenerated. We all do. Renunciation has always exercised an +irresistible attraction for good society; it makes us feel so +comfortable, to be told we are going to hell--and Pythagoras was very +eloquent on the subject of Tartarus as a punishment. The Crotoniates +discovered in repentance of sins a new and subtle form of pleasure; +exactly as did the Florentines, when Savonarola appeared on the scene. + +Next: his doctrines found a ready soil in Magna Graecia which was +already impregnated with certain vague notions akin to those he +introduced. And then--he permitted and even encouraged the emotional sex +to participate in the mysteries; the same tactics that later on +materially helped the triumph of Christianity over the more exclusive +and rational cult of Mithra. Lastly, he came with a "message," like the +Apostle of the Gentiles; and in those times a preaching reformer was a +novelty. That added a zest. We know them a little better, nowadays. + +He enjoyed the specious and short-lived success that has attended, +elsewhere, such efforts to cultivate the _ego_ at the expense of its +environment. "A type of aspiring humanity," says Gissing, echoing the +sentiments of many of us, "a sweet and noble figure, moving as a dim +radiance through legendary Hellas." I fancy that the mist of centuries +of undiscriminating admiration has magnified this figure out of all +proportion and contrived, furthermore, to fix an iridescent nimbus of +sanctity about its head. Such things have been known to happen, in foggy +weather. + +Was Greece so very legendary, in those times? Why, on the contrary, it +was full of real personages, of true sages to whom it seemed as if no +secrets of heaven or earth were past fathoming; far from being +legendary, the countryhad never attained a higher plane of intellectual +curiosity than when Pythagoras made his appearance. And it cannot be +gainsaid that he and his disciples gave the impetus away from these wise +and beneficial researches into the arid regions of metaphysics. It is so +much more gentlemanly (and so much easier) to talk bland balderdash +about soul-migrations than to calculate an eclipse of the moon or bother +about the circulation of the blood. + +That a man of his speculative vigour, knowing so many extra-Hellenic +races, should have hit upon one or two good things adventitiously is +only to be expected. But they were mere by-products. One might as well +praise John Knox for creating the commons of Scotland with a view to the +future prosperity of that country--a consummation which his black +fanaticism assuredly never foresaw. + +The chief practical doctrine of Pythagoras, that mankind are to be +governed on the principle of a community of eastern monks, makes for the +disintegration of rational civic life. + +And his chief theoretical doctrines, of metempsychosis and the reduction +of everything to a system of numbers [Footnote: Vincenzo Dorsa, an +Albanian, has written two pamphlets on the survival of Greco-Roman +traditions in Calabria. They are difficult to procure, but whoever is +lucky enough to find them will be much helped in his understanding of +the common people. In one place, he speaks of the charm-formula of +_Otto-Nave!_ (Eight-Nine) It is considered meet and proper, in the +presence of a suckling infant, to spit thrice and then call out, three +times, Otto-Nove! This brings luck; and the practice, he thinks, is an +echo of the number-system of Pythagoras.]--these are sheer lunacy. + +Was it not something of a relapse, after the rigorous mental discipline +of old, to have a man gravely assuring his fellows that he is the son of +Hermes and the divinely appointed messenger of Apollo; treating +diseases, like an Eskimo Angekok, by incantation; recording veracious +incidents of his experiences during a previous life in Hell, which he +seems to have explored almost as thoroughly as Swedenborg; dabbling in +magic, and consulting dreams, birds and the smoke of incense as oracles? +And in the exotic conglomerate of his teachings are to be found the +_prima stamina_ of much that is worse: the theory of the pious fraud +which has infected Latin countries to this day; the Jesuitical maxim of +the end justifying the means; the insanity of preferring deductions to +facts which has degraded philosophy up to the days of Kant; mysticism, +demon-worship and much else of pernicious mettle--they are all there, +embryonically embedded in Pythagoras. + +We are told much of his charity; indeed, an English author has written a +learned work to prove that Pythagoreanism has close affinities with +Christianity. Charity has now been tried on an ample scale, and has +proved a dismal failure. To give, they say, is more blessed than to +receive. It is certainly far easier, for the most part, to give than to +refrain from giving. We are at last shaking off the form, of +self-indulgence called charity; we realize that if mankind is to profit, +sterner conceptions must prevail. The apotheosis of the god-favoured +loafer is drawing to a close. + +For the rest, there was the inevitable admixture of quackery about our +reforming sage; his warmest admirers cannot but admit that he savours +somewhat strongly of the holy impostor. Those charms and amulets, those +dark gnomic aphorisms which constitute the stock-in-trade of all +religious cheap-jacks, the bribe of future life, the sacerdotal tinge +with its complement of mendacity, the secrecy of doctrine, the +pretentiously-mysterious self-retirement, the "sacred quaternion," the +bean-humbug . . . + +He had the true maraboutic note. + +And for me, this regenerator crowned with a saintly aureole remains a +glorified marabout--an intellectual dissolvent; the importer of that +oriental introspectiveness which culminated in the idly-splendid +yearnings of Plato, paved the way for the quaint Alexandrian +_tutti-frutti_ known as Christianity, and tainted the well-springs of +honest research for two thousand years. By their works ye shall known +them. It was the Pythagoreans who, not content with a just victory over +the Sybarites, annihilated their city amid anathemas worthy of those old +Chaldeans (past masters in the art of pious cursings); a crime against +their common traditions and common interests; a piece of savagery which +wrecked Hellenic civilization in Italy. It is ever thus, when the soul +is appointed arbiter over reason. It is ever thus, when gentle, +god-fearing dreamers meddle with worldly affairs. Beware of the wrath of +the lamb! + +So rapidly did the virus act, that soon we find Plato declaring that all +the useful arts are _degrading;_ that "so long as a man tries to study +any sensible object, he can never be said to be learning anything"; in +other words, that the kind of person to whom one looks for common sense +should be excluded from the management of his most refined republic. It +needed courage of a rather droll kind to make such propositions in +Greece, under the shadow of the Parthenon. And hand in hand with this +feudalism in philosophy there began that unhealthy preoccupation with +the morals of our fellow-creatures, that miasma of puritanism, which has +infected life and literature up to this moment. + +The Renaissance brought many fine things to England. But the wicked +fairy was there with her gift: Pythagoras and Plato. We were not like +the Italians who, after the first rapture of discovery was over, soon +outgrew these distracted dialectics; we stuck fast in them. Hence our +Platonic touch: our _demi-vierge_ attitude in matters of the mind, our +academic horror of clean thinking. How Plato hated a fact! He could +find no place for it in his twilight world of abstractions. Was it not +he who wished to burn the works of Democritus of Abdera, most exact and +reasonable of old sages? + +They are all alike, these humanitarian lovers of first causes. Always +ready to burn something, or somebody; always ready with their cheerful +Hell-fire and gnashing of teeth. + +_Know thyself:_ to what depths of vain, egocentric brooding has that +dictum led! But we are discarding, now, such a mischievously narrow view +of the Cosmos, though our upbringing is still too rhetorical and +mediaeval to appraise its authors at their true worth. Youth is prone to +judge with the heart rather than the head; youth thrives on vaporous +ideas, and there was a time when I would have yielded to none in my +enthusiasm for these mellifluous babblers; one had a blind, sentimental +regard for their great names. It seems to me, now, that we take them +somewhat too seriously; that a healthy adult has nothing to learn from +their teachings, save by way of warning example. Plato is food for +adolescents. And a comfort, possibly, in old age, when the judicial +faculties of the mind are breaking up and primitive man, the visionary, +reasserts his ancient rights. For questioning moods grow burdensome with +years; after a strain of virile doubt we are glad to acquiesce once +more--to relapse into Platonic animism, the logic of valetudinarians. +The dog to his vomit. + +And after Plato--the deluge. Neo-platonism. . . . + +Yet it was quite good sport, while it lasted. To "make men better" by +choice dissertations about Utopias, to sit in marble halls and have a +fair and fondly ardent _jeunesse doree_ reclining about your knees while +you discourse, in rounded periods, concerning the salvation of their +souls by means of transcendental Love--it would suit me well enough, at +this present moment; far better than croaking, forlorn as the +night-raven, among the ruins of their radiant lives. + +Meanwhile, and despite our Universities, new conceptions are prevailing, +Aristotle is winning the day. A fresh kind of thinker has arisen, whose +chief idea of "virtue" is to investigate patiently the facts of life; +men of the type of Lister, any one of whom have done more to regenerate +mankind, and to increase the sum of human happiness, than a wilderness +of the amiably-hazy old doctrinaires who professed the same object. I +call to mind those physicians engaged in their malaria-campaign, and +wonder what Plato would have thought of them. Would he have recognized the +significance of their researches which, while allaying pain and misery, +are furthering the prosperity of the country, causing waters to flow in +dry places and villages to spring up in deserts--strengthening its +political resources, improving its very appearance? Not likely. Plato's +opinion of doctors was on a par with the rest of his mentality. Yet +these are the men who are taking up the thread where it was dropped, +perforce, by those veritable Greek sages, whelmed under turbid floods of +Pythagorean irrationalism. And are such things purely utilitarian? Are +they so grossly mundane? Is there really no "philosophy" in the choice +of such a healing career, no romance in its studious self-denial, no +beauty in its results? If so, we must revise that classic adage which +connects vigour with beauty--not to speak of several others. + + + + +XXXIX + +MIDDAY AT PETELIA + + +Day after day, I look across the six miles of sea to the Lacinian +promontory and its column. How reach it? The boatmen are eager for the +voyage: it all depends, they say, upon the wind. + +Day after day--a dead calm. + +"Two hours--three hours--four hours--according!" And they point to the +sky. A little breeze, they add, sometimes makes itself felt in the early +mornings; one might fix up a sail. + +"And for returning at midday?" + +"Three hours--four hours--five hours--according!" + +The prospect of rocking about for half a day in a small boat under a +blazing sky is not my ideal of enjoyment, the novelty of such an +experience having worn off a good many years ago. I decide to wait; to +make an attack, meanwhile, upon old Petelia--the "Stromboli" of my +lady-friend at the Catanzaro Museum.... + +It is an easy day's excursion from Cotrone to Strongoli, which is +supposed to lie on the site of that ancient, much-besieged town. It sits +upon a hill-top, and the diligence which awaits the traveller at the +little railway-station takes about two hours to reach the place, +climbing up the olive-covered slopes in ample loops and windings. + +Of Strangoli my memories, even at this short distance of time, are +confused and blurred. The drive up under the glowing beams of morning, +the great heat of the last few days, and two or three nights' +sleeplessness at Cotrone had considerably blunted my appetite for new +things. I remember seeing some Roman marbles in the church, and being +thence conducted into a castle. + +Afterwards I reposed awhile in the upper regions, under an olive, and +looked down towards the valley of the Neto, which flows not far from +here into the Ionian. I thought upon Theocritus, trying to picture this +vale of Neaithos as it appeared to him and his shepherds. The woodlands +are gone, and the rains of winter, streaming down the earthen slopes, +have remodelled the whole face of the country. + +Yet, be nature what it may, men will always turn to one who sings so +melodiously of eternal verities--of those human tasks and needs which no +lapse of years can change. How modern he reads to us, who have been +brought into contact with the true spirit by men like Johnson-Cory and +Lefroy! And how unbelievably remote is that Bartolozzi-Hellenism which +went before! What, for example--what of the renowned pseudo-Theocritus, +Salamon Gessner, who sang of this same vale of Neto in his "Daphnis"? +Alas, the good Salamon has gone the way of all derivative bores; he is +dead--deader than King Psammeticus; he is now moralizing in some +decorous Paradise amid flocks of Dresden-China sheep and sugar-watery +youths and maidens. Who can read his much-translated masterpiece without +unpleasant twinges? Dead as a doornail! + +So far as I can recollect, there is an infinity of kissing in "Daphnis." +It was an age of sentimentality, and the Greek pastoral ideal, +transfused into a Swiss environment of 1810, could not but end in +slobber and _Gefuehlsduselei._ True it is that shepherds have ample +opportunities of sporting with Amaryllis in the shade; opportunities +which, to my certain knowledge, they do not neglect. Theocritus knew it +well enough. But, in a general way, he is niggardly with the precious +commodity of kisses; he seems to have thought that in literature, if not +in real life, one can have too much of a good thing. Also, being a +southerner, he could not have trusted his young folks to remain +eternally at the kissing-stage, after the pattern of our fish-like +English lovers. Such behaviour would have struck him as improbable; +possibly immoral. . . . + +From where I sat one may trace a road that winds upwards into the Sila, +past Pallagorio. Along its sides are certain mounded heaps and the smoke +of refining works. These are mines of that dusky sulphur which I had +observed being drawn in carts through the streets of Cotrone. There are +some eight or ten of them, they tell me, discovered about thirty years +ago--this is all wrong: they are mentioned in 1571--and employing +several hundred workmen. It had been my intention to visit these +excavations. But now, in the heat of day, I wavered; the distance, even +to the nearest of them, seemed inordinately great; and just as I had +decided to look for a carnage with a view of being driven there (that +curse of conscientiousness!) an amiable citizen snatched me up as his +guest for luncheon. He led me, weakly resisting, to a vaulted chamber +where, amid a repast of rural delicacies and the converse of his spouse, +all such fond projects were straightway forgotten. Instead of +sulphur-statistics, I learnt a little piece of local history. + +"You were speaking about the emptiness of our streets of Strangoli," my +host said. "And yet, up to a short time ago, there was no emigration +from this place. Then a change came about: I'll tell you how it was. +There was a _guardia di finanze_ here--a miserable octroi official. To +keep up the name of his family, he married an heiress; not for the sake +of having progeny, but--well! He began buying up all the land round +about--slowly, systematically, cautiously--till, by dint of threats and +intrigues, he absorbed nearly all the surrounding country. Inch by inch, +he ate it up; with his wife's money. That was his idea of perpetuating +his memory. All the small proprietors were driven from their domains and +fled to America to escape starvation; immense tracts of well-cultivated +land are now almost desert. Look at the country! But some day he will +get his reward; under the ribs, you know." + +By this purposeful re-creation of those feudal conditions of olden, +days, this man has become the best-hated person in the district. + +Soon it was time to leave the friendly shelter and inspect in the +glaring sunshine the remaining antiquities of Petelia. Never have I felt +less inclined for such antiquarian exploits. How much better the hours +would have passed in some cool tavern! I went forth, none the less; and +was delighted to discover that there are practically no antiquities +left--nothing save a few walls standing near a now ruined convent, which +is largely built of Roman stone-blocks and bricks. Up to a few years +ago, the municipality carried on excavations here and unearthed a few +relics which were promptly dispersed. Perhaps some of these are what one +sees in the Catanzaro Museum. The paternal government, hearing of this +enterprise, claimed the site and sat down upon it; the exposed remains +were once more covered up with soil. + +A goat-boy, a sad little fellow, sprang out of the earth as I dutifully +wandered about here. He volunteered to show me not only Strongoli, but +all Calabria; in fact, his heart's desire was soon manifest: to escape +from home and find his way to America under my passport and protection. +Here was his chance--a foreigner (American) returning sooner or later to +his own country! He pressed the matter with naif forcefulness. Vainly I +told him that there were other lands on earth; that I was not going to +America. He shook his head and sagely remarked: + +"I have understood. You think my journey would cost too much. But you, +also, must understand. Once I get work there, I will repay you every +farthing." + +As a consolation, I offered him some cigarettes. He accepted one; +pensive, unresigned. + +The goat-herds had no such cravings--in the days of Theocritus. + + + + +XL + +THE COLUMN + + +"Two hours--three hours--four hours: according!" + +The boatmen are still eager for the voyage. It all depends, as before, +upon the wind. + +And day __after day __the Ionian lies before us--immaculate, immutable. + +I determined to approach the column by land. A mule was discovered, and +starting from the "Concordia" rather late in the morning, reached the +temple-ruin in two hours to the minute. I might have been tempted to +linger by the way but for the intense sunshine and for the fact that the +muleteer was an exceptionally dull dog--a dusky youth of the taciturn +and wooden-faced Spanish variety, whose anti-Hellenic profile irked me, +in that landscape. The driving road ends at the cemetery. Thence onward +a pathway skirts the sea at the foot of the clay-hills; passes the +sunken wells; climbs up and down steepish gradients and so attains the +plateau at whose extremity stands the lighthouse, the column, and a few +white bungalows--summer-residences of Cotrone citizens. + +A day of shimmering heat. . . . + +The ground is parched. Altogether, it is a poor and thinly peopled +stretch of land between Cotrone and Capo Rizzuto. No wonder the wolves +are famished. Nine days ago one of them actually ventured upon the road +near the cemetery, in daylight. + +Yet there is some plant-life, and I was pleased to see, emerging from +the bleak sand-dunes, the tufts of the well-known and conspicuous sea +lily in full flower. Wishful to obtain a few blossoms, I asked the boy +to descend from his mule, but he objected. + +"Non si toccano questi fiori," he said. These flowers are not to be +touched. + +Their odour displeased him. Like the Arab, the uncultivated Italian is +insensitive to certain smells that revolt us; while he cannot endure, on +the other hand, the scent of some flowers. I have seen a man professing +to feel faint at the odour of crushed geranium leaves. They are _fiori +di morti,_ he says: planted (sometimes) in graveyards. + +The last remarkable antiquity found at this site, to my knowledge, is a +stone vase, fished up some years ago out of the sea, into which it may +have fallen while being carried off by pious marauders for the purpose +of figuring as font in some church (unless, indeed, the land has sunk at +this point, as there is some evidence to show). I saw it, shortly after +its return to dry land, in a shed near the harbour of Cotrone; the +Taranto museum has now claimed it. It is a basin of purple-veined +pavonazzetto marble. Originally a monolith, it now consists of two +fragments; the third and smallest is still missing. This noble relic +stands about 85 centimetres in height and measures some 215 centimetres +in circumference; it was never completed, as can be seen by the rim, +which is still partially in the rough. A similar vessel is figured, I +believe, in Tischbein. + +The small villa-settlement on this promontory is deserted owing to lack +of water, every drop of which has to be brought hither by sea from +Cotrone. One wonders why they have not thought of building a cistern to +catch the winter rains, if there are any; for a respectable stone crops +up at this end of the peninsula. + +One often wonders at things. . . . + +The column has been underpinned and strengthened by a foundation of +cement; rains of centuries had begun to threaten its base, and there was +some risk of a catastrophe. Near at hand are a few ancient walls of +reticulated masonry in strangely leaning attitudes, peopled by black +goats; on the ground I picked up some chips of amphorse and vases, as +well as a fragment of the limb of a marble statue. The site of this +pillar, fronting the waves, is impressively forlorn. And it was rather +thoughtful, after all, of the despoiling Bishop Lucifero to leave two of +the forty-eight columns standing upright on the spot, as a sample of the +local Doric style. One has fallen to earth since his day. Nobody would +have complained at the time, if he had stolen all of them, instead of +only forty-six. I took a picture of the survivor; then wandered a little +apart, in the direction of the shore, and soon found myself in a +solitude of burning stones, a miniature Sahara. + +The temple has vanished, together with the sacred grove that once +embowered it; the island of Calypso, where Swinburne took his ease (if +such it was), has sunk into the purple realms of Glaucus; the corals and +sea-beasts that writhed among its crevices are en-gulphed under mounds +of submarine sand. There was life, once, at this promontory. Argosies +touched here, leaving priceless gifts; fountains flowed, and cornfields +waved in the genial sunshine. Doubtless there will be life again; earth +and sea are only waiting for the enchanter's wand. + +All now lies bare, swooning in summer stagnation. + +Calabria is not a land to traverse alone. It is too wistful and +stricken; too deficient in those externals that conduce to comfort. Its +charms do not appeal to the eye of romance, and the man who would +perambulate Magna Graecia as he does the Alps would soon regret his +choice. One needs something of that "human element" which delighted the +genteel photographer of Morano--comrades, in short; if only those sages, +like old Noia Molisi, who have fallen under the spell of its ancient +glories. The joys of Calabria are not to be bought, like those of +Switzerland, for gold. + +_Sir Giovati Battista di Noia Molisi, the last of his family and name, +having no sons and being come to old age without further hope of +offspring, has desired in the place of children to leave of himself an +eternal memory to mankind--_ to wit, this Chronicle of the most Ancient, +Magnificent, and Faithful City of Cotrone. A worthier effort at +self-perpetuation than that of Strangoli. . . . + +A sturgeon, he notes, was caught in 1593 by the Spanish Castellan of the +town. This nobleman, puzzling whom he could best honour with so rare a +dainty, despatched it by means of a man on horseback to the Duke of +Nocera. The Duke was no less surprised than pleased; he thought mighty +well of the sturgeon and of the respectful consideration which prompted +the gift; and then, by another horseman, sent it to Noia Molisi's own +uncle, accompanied, we may conjecture, by some ceremonious compliment +befitting the occasion. + +A man of parts, therefore, our author's uncle, to whom his Lordship of +Nocera sends table-delicacies by mounted messenger; and himself a mellow +comrade whom I am loath to leave; his pages are distinguished by a +pleasing absence of those saintly paraphernalia which hang like a fog +athwart the fair sky of the south. + +Yet to him and to all of them I must bid good-bye, here and now. At this +hour to-morrow I shall be far from Cotrone. + +Farewell to Capialbi, inspired bookworm! And to Lenormant. + +On a day like this, the scholar sailed at Bivona over a sea so unruffled +that the barque seemed to be suspended in air. The water's surface, he +tells us, is "unie comme une glace." He sees the vitreous depths invaded +by piercing sunbeams that light up its mysterious forests of algae, its +rock-headlands and silvery stretches of sand; he peers down into these +"prairies pelagiennes" and beholds all their wondrous fauna--the +urchins, the crabs, the floating fishes and translucent medusae +"semblables a des clochettes d'opale." Then, realizing how this +"population pullulante des petits animaux marins" must have impressed +the observing ancients, he goes on to touch--ever so lightly!--upon +those old local arts of ornamentation whereby sea-beasts and molluscs +and aquatic plants were reverently copied by master-hand, not from dead +specimens, but "pris sur le vif et observes au milieu des eaux"; he +explains how an entire school grew up, which drew its inspiration from +the dainty ... apes and movements of these frail creatures. This is _au +meilleur Lenormant._ His was a full-blooded yet discriminating zest of +knowledge. One wonders what more was fermenting in that restlessly +curious brain, when a miserable accident ended his short life, after 120 +days of suffering. + +So Italy proved fatal to him, as Greece to his father. But one of his +happiest moments must have been spent on the sea at Bivona, on that +clear summer day--a day such as this, when every nerve tingles with joy +of life. + +Meanwhile it is good to rest here, immovable but alert, in the +breathless hush of noon. Showers of benevolent heat stream down upon +this desolation; not the faintest wisp of vapour floats upon the +horizon; not a sail, not a ripple, disquiets the waters. The silence can +be felt. Slumber is brooding over the things of earth: + +Asleep are the peaks of the hills, and the vales, + +The promontories, the clefts, + +And all the creatures that move upon the black earth. . . . + +Such torrid splendour, drenching a land of austerut simplicity, +decomposes the mind into corresponding states of primal contentment and +resilience. There arises before our phantasy a new perspective of human +affairs; a suggestion of well-being wherein the futile complexities and +disharmonies of our age shall have no place. To discard these wrappings, +to claim kinship with some elemental and robust archetype, lover of +earth and sun---- + +How fair they are, these moments of golden equipoise! + +Yes; it is good to be merged awhile into these harshly-vibrant +surroundings, into the meridian glow of all things. This noontide is the +"heavy" hour of the Greeks, when temples are untrodden by priest or +worshipper. _Controra_ they now call it--the ominous hour. Man and +beast are fettered in sleep, while spirits walk abroad, as at midnight. +_Non timebis a timore noctuno: a sagitta volante in aie: a negotio +perambulante in tenebris: ab incursu et demonio meridiano._ The midday +demon--that southern Haunter of calm blue spaces. . . . + +So may some enchantment of kindlier intent have crept over Phaedrus and +his friend, at converse in the noontide under the whispering plane-tree. +And the genius dwelling about this old headland of the Column is candid +and benign. + +This corner of Magna Graecia is a severely parsimonious manifestation of +nature. Rocks and waters! But these rocks and waters are actualities; +the stuff whereof man is made. A landscape so luminous, so resolutely +scornful of accessories, hints at brave and simple forms of expression; +it brings us to the ground, where we belong; it medicines to the disease +of introspection and stimulates a capacity which we are in danger of +unlearning amid our morbid hyperborean gloom--the capacity for honest +contempt: contempt of that scarecrow of a theory which would have us +neglect what is earthly, tangible. What is life well lived but a blithe +discarding of primordial husks, of those comfortable intangibilities +that lurk about us, waiting for our weak moments? + +The sage, that perfect savage, will be the last to withdraw himself from +the influence of these radiant realities. He will strive to knit closer +the bond, and to devise a more durable and affectionate relationship +between himself and them. Let him open his eyes. For a reasonable +adjustment lies at his feet. From these brown stones that seam the +tranquil Ionian, from this gracious solitude, he can carve out, and bear +away into the cheerful din of cities, the rudiments of something clean +and veracious and wholly terrestrial--some tonic philosophy that shall +foster sunny mischiefs and farewell regret. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Calabria, by Norman Douglas + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD CALABRIA *** + +***** This file should be named 7385.txt or 7385.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/3/8/7385/ + +Produced by Eric Eldred + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Old Calabria + +Author: Norman Douglas + +Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7385] +[This file was first posted on April 23, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, OLD CALABRIA *** + + + + +Eric Eldred + + + +OLD CALABRIA + +BY NORMAN DOUGLAS + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + +I. SARACEN LUCERA +II. MANFRED'S TOWN +III. THE ANGEL OF MANFREDONIA +IV. CAVE-WORSHIP +V. LAND OF HORACE +VI. AT VENOSA +VII. THE BANDUSIAN FOUNT +VIII. TILLERS OF THE SOIL +IX. MOVING SOUTHWARDS +X. THE FLYING MONK +XI. BY THE INLAND SEA +XII. MOLLE TARENTUM +XIII. INTO THE JUNGLE +XIV. DRAGONS +XV. BYZANTINISM +XVI. REPOSING AT CASTROVILLARI +XVII. OLD MORANO +XVIII. AFRICAN INTRUDERS +XIX. UPLANDS OF POLLINO +XX. A MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL +XXI. MILTON IN CALABRIA +XXII. THE "GREEK" SILA +XXIII. ALBANIANS AND THEIR COLLEGE +XXIV. AN ALBANIAN SEER +XXV. SCRAMBLING TO LONGOBUCCO +XXVI. AMONG THE BRUTTIANS +XXVII. CALABRIAN BRIGANDAGE +XXVIII. THE GREATER SILA +XXIX. CHAOS +XXX. THE SKIRTS OF MONTALTO +XXXI. SOUTHERN SAINTLINESS +XXXII. ASPROMONTE, THE CLOUD-GATHERER +XXXIII. MUSOLINO AND THE LAW +XXXIV. MALARIA +XXXV. CAULONIA TO SERRA +XXXVI. MEMORIES OF GISSING +XXXVII. COTRONE +XXXVIII. THE SAGE OF CROTON +XXXIX. MIDDAY AT PETELIA +XL. THE COLUMN +INDEX. + + + + +OLD CALABRIA + +I + +SARACEN LUCERA + + +I find it hard to sum up in one word the character of Lucera--the effect +it produces on the mind; one sees so many towns that the freshness of +their images becomes blurred. The houses are low but not undignified; +the streets regular and clean; there is electric light and somewhat +indifferent accommodation for travellers; an infinity of barbers and +chemists. Nothing remarkable in all this. Yet the character is there, if +one could but seize upon it, since every place has its genius. Perhaps +it lies in a certain feeling of aloofness that never leaves one here. We +are on a hill--a mere wave of ground; a kind of spur, rather, rising up +from, the south--quite an absurd little hill, but sufficiently high to +dominate the wide Apulian plain. And the nakedness of the land +stimulates this aerial sense. There are some trees in the "Belvedere" or +public garden that lies on the highest part of the spur and affords a +fine view north and eastwards. But the greater part were only planted a +few years ago, and those stretches of brown earth, those half-finished +walks and straggling pigmy shrubs, give the place a crude and embryonic +appearance. One thinks that the designers might have done more in the +way of variety; there are no conifers excepting a few cryptomerias and +yews which will all be dead in a couple of years, and as for those +yuccas, beloved of Italian municipalities, they will have grown more +dyspeptic-looking than ever. None the less, the garden will be a +pleasant spot when the ilex shall have grown higher; even now it is the +favourite evening walk of the citizens. Altogether, these public parks, +which are now being planted all over south Italy, testify to renascent +taste; they and the burial-places are often the only spots where the +deafened and light-bedazzled stranger may find a little green +content; the content, respectively, of _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso._ +So the cemetery of Lucera, with its ordered walks drowned in the shade +of cypress--roses and gleaming marble monuments in between--is a +charming retreat, not only for the dead. + +The Belvedere, however, is not my promenade. My promenade lies yonder, +on the other side of the valley, where the grave old Suabian castle sits +on its emerald slope. It does not frown; it reposes firmly, with an air +of tranquil and assured domination; "it has found its place," as an +Italian observed to me. Long before Frederick Barbarossa made it the +centre of his southern dominions, long before the Romans had their +fortress on the site, this eminence must have been regarded as the key +of Apulia. All round the outside of those turreted walls (they are +nearly a mile in circumference; the enclosure, they say, held sixty +thousand people) there runs a level space. This is my promenade, at all +hours of the day. Falcons are fluttering with wild cries overhead; down +below, a long unimpeded vista of velvety green, flecked by a few trees +and sullen streamlets and white farmhouses--the whole vision framed in a +ring of distant Apennines. The volcanic cone of Mount Vulture, land of +Horace, can be detected on clear days; it tempts me to explore those +regions. But eastward rises up the promontory of Mount Gargano, and on +the summit of its nearest hill one perceives a cheerful building, some +village or convent, that beckons imperiously across the intervening +lowlands. Yonder lies the venerable shrine of the archangel Michael, and +Manfred's town. . . . + +This castle being a _national monument,_ they have appointed a custodian +to take charge of it; a worthless old fellow, full of untruthful +information which he imparts with the hushed and conscience-stricken air +of a man who is selling State secrets. + +"That corner tower, sir, is the King's tower. It was built by the King." + +"But you said just now that it was the Queen's tower." + +"So it is. The Queen--she built it." + +"What Queen?" + +"What Queen? Why, the Queen--the Queen the German professor was talking +about three years ago. But I must show you some skulls which we found +_(sotto voce)_ in a subterranean crypt. They used to throw the poor dead +folk in here by hundreds; and under the Bourbons the criminals were +hanged here, thousands of them. The blessed times! And this tower is the +Queen's tower." + +"But you called it the King's tower just now." + +"Just so. That is because the King built it." + +"What King?" + +"Ah, sir, how can I remember the names of all those gentlemen? I haven't +so much as set eyes on them! But I must now show you some round +sling-stones which we excavated _(sotto voce)_ in a subterranean crypt----" + +One or two relics from this castle are preserved in the small municipal +museum, founded about five years ago. Here are also a respectable +collection of coins, a few prehistoric flints from Gargano, some quaint +early bronze figurines and mutilated busts of Roman celebrities carved +in marble or the recalcitrant local limestone. A dignified old lion--one +of a pair (the other was stolen) that adorned the tomb of Aurelius, +prastor of the Roman Colony of Luceria--has sought a refuge here, as +well as many inscriptions, lamps, vases, and a miscellaneous collection +of modern rubbish. A plaster cast of a Mussulman funereal stone, found +near Foggia, will attract your eye; contrasted with the fulsome epitaphs +of contemporary Christianity, it breathes a spirit of noble resignation:-- + +"In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. May God show +kindness to Mahomet and his kinsfolk, fostering them by his favours! +This is the tomb of the captain Jacchia Albosasso. God be merciful to +him. He passed away towards noon on Saturday in the five days of the +month Moharram of the year 745 (5th April, 1348). May Allah likewise +show mercy to him who reads." + +One cannot be at Lucera without thinking of that colony of twenty +thousand Saracens, the escort of Frederick and his son, who lived here +for nearly eighty years, and sheltered Manfred in his hour of danger. +The chronicler Spinelli [Footnote: These journals are now admitted to +have been manufactured in the sixteenth century by the historian +Costanze for certain genealogical purposes of his own. Professor +Bernhard! doubted their authenticity in 1869, and his doubts have been +confirmed by Capasse.] has preserved an anecdote which shows Manfred's +infatuation for these loyal aliens. In the year 1252 and in the +sovereign's presence, a Saracen official gave a blow to a Neapolitan +knight--a blow which was immediately returned; there was a tumult, and +the upshot of it was that the Italian was condemned to lose his hand; +all that the Neapolitan nobles could obtain from Manfred was that his +left hand should be amputated instead of his right; the Arab, the cause +of all, was merely relieved of his office. Nowadays, all memory of +Saracens has been swept out of the land. In default of anything better, +they are printing a local halfpenny paper called "II Saraceno"--a very +innocuous pagan, to judge by a copy which I bought in a reckless moment. + +This museum also contains a buxom angel of stucco known as the "Genius +of Bourbonism." In the good old days it used to ornament the town hall, +fronting the entrance; but now, degraded to a museum curiosity, it +presents to the public its back of ample proportions, and the curator +intimated that he considered this attitude quite appropriate-- +historically speaking, of course. Furthermore, they have carted +hither, from the Chamber of Deputies in Rome, the chair once +occupied by Ruggiero Bonghi. Dear Bonghi! From a sense of duty he used +to visit a certain dull and pompous house in the capital and forthwith +fall asleep on the nearest sofa; he slept sometimes for two hours at a +stretch, while all the other visitors were solemnly marched to the spot +to observe him--behold the great Bonghi: he slumbers! There is a statue +erected to him here, and a street has likewise been named after another +celebrity, Giovanni Bovio. If I informed the townsmen of my former +acquaintance with these two heroes, they would perhaps put up a marble +tablet commemorating the fact. For the place is infected with the +patriotic disease of monumentomania. The drawback is that with every +change of administration the streets are re-baptized and the statues +shifted to make room for new favourites; so the civic landmarks come and +go, with the swiftness of a cinematograph. + +Frederick II also has his street, and so has Pietjo Giannone. This +smacks of anti-clericalism. But to judge by the number of priests and +the daily hordes of devout and dirty pilgrims that pour into the town +from the fanatical fastnesses of the Abruzzi--picturesque, I suppose we +should call them--the country is sufficiently orthodox. Every +self-respecting family, they tell me, has its pet priest, who lives on +them in return for spiritual consolations. + +There was a religious festival some nights ago in honour of Saint +Espedito. No one could tell me more about this holy man than that he was +a kind of pilgrim-warrior, and that his cult here is of recent date; it +was imported or manufactured some four years ago by a rich merchant who, +tired of the old local saints, built a church in honour of this new one, +and thereby enrolled him among the city gods. + +On this occasion the square was seething with people: few +women, and the men mostly in dark clothes; we are already under Moorish +and Spanish influences. A young boy addressed me with the polite +question whether I could tell him the precise number of the population +of London. + +That depended, I said, on what one described as London. There was what +they called greater London-- + +It depended! That was what he had always been given to understand. . . . +And how did I like Lucera? Rather a dull little place, was it not? +Nothing like Paris, of course. Still, if I could delay my departure for +some days longer, they would have the trial of a man who had murdered +three people: it might be quite good fun. He was informed that they +hanged such persons in England, as they used to do hereabouts; it seemed +rather barbaric, because, naturally, nobody is ever responsible for his +actions; but in England, no doubt-- + +That is the normal attitude of these folks towards us and our +institutions. We are savages, hopeless savages; but a little savagery, +after all, is quite endurable. Everything is endurable if you have lots +of money, like these English. + +As for myself, wandering among that crowd of unshaven creatures, that +rustic population, fiercely gesticulating and dressed in slovenly hats +and garments, I realized once again what the average Anglo-Saxon would +ask himself: Are they _all_ brigands, or only some of them? That music, +too--what is it that makes this stuff so utterly unpalatable to a +civilized northerner? A soulless cult of rhythm, and then, when the +simplest of melodies emerges, they cling to it with the passionate +delight of a child who has discovered the moon. These men are still in +the age of platitudes, so far as music is concerned; an infantile aria +is to them what some foolish rhymed proverb is to the Arabs: a thing of +God, a portent, a joy for ever. + +You may visit the cathedral; there is a fine _verde antico_ column on +either side of the sumptuous main portal. I am weary, just now, of these +structures; the spirit of pagan Lucera--"Lucera dei Pagani" it used to +be called--has descended upon me; I feel inclined to echo Carducci's +"_Addio, nume semitico!_" One sees so many of these sombre churches, +and they are all alike in their stony elaboration of mysticism and +wrong-headedness; besides, they have been described, over and over +again, by enthusiastic connaisseurs who dwell lovingly upon their +artistic quaintnesses but forget the grovelling herd that reared them, +with the lash at their backs, or the odd type of humanity--the gargoyle +type--that has since grown up under their shadow and influence. +I prefer to return to the sun and stars, to my promenade beside +the castle walls. + +But for the absence of trees and hedges, one might take this to be some +English prospect of the drowsy Midland counties--so green it is, so +golden-grey the sky. The sunlight peers down dispersedly through windows +in this firmament of clouded amber, alighting on some mouldering tower, +some patch of ripening corn or distant city--Troia, lapped in Byzantine +slumber, or San Severo famed in war. This in spring. But what days of +glistering summer heat, when the earth is burnt to cinders under a +heavenly dome that glows like a brazier of molten copper! For this +country is the Sahara of Italy. + +One is glad, meanwhile, that the castle does not lie in the natal land +of the Hohenstaufen. The interior is quite deserted, to be sure; they +have built half the town of Lucera with its stones, even as Frederick +quarried them out of the early Roman citadel beneath; but it is at least +a harmonious desolation. There are no wire-fenced walks among the ruins, +no feeding-booths and cheap reconstructions of draw-bridges and +police-notices at every corner; no gaudy women scribbling to their +friends in the "Residenzstadt" post cards illustrative of the +"Burgruine," while their husbands perspire over mastodontic beer-jugs. +There is only peace. + +These are the delights of Lucera: to sit under those old walls and watch +the gracious cloud-shadows dappling the plain, oblivious of yonder +assemblage of barbers and politicians. As for those who can reconstruct +the vanished glories of such a place--happy they! I find the task +increasingly difficult. One outgrows the youthful age of hero-worship; +next, our really keen edges are so soon worn off by mundane trivialities +and vexations that one is glad to take refuge in simpler pleasures once +more--to return to primitive emotionalism. There are so many Emperors of +past days! And like the old custodian, I have not so much as set eyes on +them. + +Yet this Frederick is no dim figure; he looms grandly through the +intervening haze. How well one understands that craving for the East, +nowadays; how modern they were, he and his son the "Sultan of Lucera," +and their friends and counsellors, who planted this garden of exotic +culture! Was it some afterglow of the luminous world that had sunk below +the horizon, or a pale streak of the coming dawn? And if you now glance +down into this enclosure that once echoed with the song of minstrels +and the soft laughter of women, with the discourse of wits, artists and +philosophers, and the clang of arms--if you look, you will behold +nothing but a green lake, a waving field of grass. No matter. The +ambitions of these men are fairly realized, and every one of us may keep +a body-guard of pagans, an't please him; and a harem likewise--to judge +by the newspapers. + +For he took his Orientalism seriously; he had a harem, with eunuchs, +etc., all proper, and was pleased to give an Eastern colour to his +entertainments. Matthew Paris relates how Frederick's brother-in-law, +returning from the Holy Land, rested awhile at his Italian court, and +saw, among other diversions, "duas puellas Saracenicas formosas, quae in +pavimenti planitie binis globis insisterent, volutisque globis huo +illucque ferrentur canentes, cymbala manibus collidentes, corporaque +secundum modules motantes atque flectentes." I wish I had been there. . . . + +I walked to the castle yesterday evening on the chance of seeing an +eclipse of the moon which never came, having taken place at quite +another hour. A cloudless night, dripping with moisture, the electric +lights of distant Foggia gleaming in the plain. There are brick-kilns at +the foot of the incline, and from some pools in the neighbourhood issued +a loud croaking of frogs, while the pallid smoke of the furnaces, +pressed down by the evening dew, trailed earthward in a long twisted +wreath, like a dragon crawling sulkily to his den. But on the north side +one could hear the nightingales singing in the gardens below. The dark +mass of Mount Gargano rose up clearly in the moonlight, and I began to +sketch out some itinerary of my wanderings on that soil. There was Sant' +Angelo, the archangel's abode; and the forest region; and Lesina with +its lake; and Vieste the remote, the end of all things. . . . + +Then my thoughts wandered to the Hohenstaufen and the conspiracy whereby +their fate was avenged. The romantic figures of Manfred and Conradin; +their relentless enemy Charles; Costanza, her brow crowned with a poetic +nimbus (that melted, towards the end, into an aureole of bigotry); +Frangipani, huge in villainy; the princess Beatrix, tottering from the +dungeon where she had been confined for nearly twenty years; her +deliverer Roger de Lauria, without whose resourcefulness and audacity it +might have gone ill with Aragon; Popes and Palaso-logus--brilliant +colour effects; the king of England and Saint Louis of France; in the +background, dimly discernible, the colossal shades of Frederick and +Innocent, looked in deadly embrace; and the whole congress of figures +enlivened and interpenetrated as by some electric fluid--the personality +of John of Procida. That the element of farce might not be lacking, Fate +contrived that exquisite royal duel at Bordeaux where the two mighty +potentates, calling each other by a variety of unkingly epithets, +enacted a prodigiously fine piece of foolery for the delectation of +Europe. + +From this terrace one can overlook both Foggia and Castel +Fiorentino--the beginning and end of the drama; and one follows the +march of this magnificent retribution without a shred of compassion for +the gloomy papal hireling. Disaster follows disaster with mathematical +precision, till at last he perishes miserably, consumed by rage and +despair. Then our satisfaction is complete. + +No; not quite complete. For in one point the stupendous plot seems to +have been imperfectly achieved. Why did Roger de Lauria not profit by +his victory to insist upon the restitution of the young brothers of +Beatrix, of those unhappy princes who had been confined as infants in +1266, and whose very existence seems to have faded from the memory of +historians? Or why did Costanza, who might have dealt with her enemy's +son even as Conradin had been dealt with, not round her magnanimity by +claiming her own flesh and blood, the last scions of a great house? Why +were they not released during the subsequent peace, or at least in 1302? +The reason is as plain as it is unlovely; nobody knew what to do with +them. Political reasons counselled their effacement, their +non-existence. Horrible thought, that the sunny world should be too +small for three orphan children! In their Apulian fastness they +remained--in chains. A royal rescript of 1295 orders that they be freed +from their fetters. Thirty years in fetters! Their fate is unknown; the +night of medievalism closes in upon them once more. . . . + +Further musings were interrupted by the appearance of a shape which +approached from round the corner of one of the towers. It cams nearer +stealthily, pausing every now and then. Had I evoked, willy-nilly, some +phantom of the buried past? + +It was only the custodian, leading his dog Musolino. After a shower of +compliments and apologies, he gave me to understand that it was his +duty, among other things, to see that no one should endeavour to raise +the treasure which was hidden under these ruins; several people, he +explained, had already made the attempt by night. For the rest, I was +quite at liberty to take my pleisure about the castle at all hours. But +as to touching the buried hoard, it was _proibito_--forbidden! + +I was glad of the incident, which conjured up for me the Oriental mood +with its genii and subterranean wealth. Straightway this incongruous and +irresponsible old buffoon was invested with a new dignity; transformed +into a threatening Ifrit, the guardian of the gold, or--who +knows?--Iblis incarnate. The gods take wondrous shapes, sometimes. + + + + +II + +MANFRED'S TOWN + + +As the train moved from Lucera to Foggia and thence onwards, I had +enjoyed myself rationally, gazing at the emerald plain of Apulia, soon +to be scorched to ashes, but now richly dight with the yellow flowers of +the giant fennel, with patches of ruby-red poppy and asphodels pale and +shadowy, past their prime. I had thought upon the history of this +immense tract of country--upon all the floods of legislation and +theorizings to which its immemorial customs of pasturage have given +birth. . . . + +Then, suddenly, the aspect of life seemed to change. I felt unwell, and +so swift was the transition from health that I had wantonly thrown out +of the window, beyond recall, a burning cigar ere realizing that it was +only a little more than half smoked. We were crossing the Calendaro, a +sluggish stream which carefully collects all the waters of this region +only to lose them again in a swamp not far distant; and it was +positively as if some impish sprite had leapt out of those noisome +waves, boarded the train, and flung himself into me, after the fashion +of the "Horla" in the immortal tale. + +Doses of quinine such as would make an English doctor raise his eyebrows +have hitherto only succeeded in provoking the Calendaro microbe to more +virulent activity. Nevertheless, _on s'y fait._ I am studying him and, +despite his protean manifestations, have discovered three principal +ingredients: malaria, bronchitis and hay-fever--not your ordinary +hay-fever, oh, no! but such as a mammoth might conceivably catch, if +thrust back from his germless, frozen tundras into the damply blossoming +Miocene. + +The landlady of this establishment has a more commonplace name for the +distemper. She calls it "scirocco." And certainly this pest of the south +blows incessantly; the mountain-line of Gargano is veiled, the sea's +horizon veiled, the coast-lands of Apulia veiled by its tepid and +unwholesome breath. To cheer me up, she says that on clear days one can +see Castel del Monte, the Hohenstaufen eyrie, shining yonder above +Barletta, forty miles distant. It sounds rather improbable; still, +yesterday evening there arose a sudden vision of a white town in that +direction, remote and dream-like, far across the water. Was it Barletta? +Or Margherita? It lingered awhile, poised on an errant sunbeam; then +sank into the deep. + +From this window I look into the little harbour whose beach is dotted +with fishing-boats. Some twenty or thirty sailing-vessels are riding at +anchor; in the early morning they unfurl their canvas and sally forth, +in amicable couples, to scour the azure deep--it is greenish-yellow at +this moment--returning at nightfall with the spoils of ocean, mostly +young sharks, to judge by the display in the market. Their white sails +bear fabulous devices in golden colour of moons and crescents and +dolphins; some are marked like the "orange-tip" butterfly. A gunboat is +now stationed here on a mysterious errand connected with the Albanian +rising on the other side of the Adriatic. There has been whispered talk +of illicit volunteering among the youth on this side, which the +government is anxious to prevent. And to enliven the scene, a steamer +calls every now and then to take passengers to the Tremiti islands. One +would like to visit them, if only in memory of those martyrs of +Bourbonism, who were sent in hundreds to these rocks and cast into +dungeons to perish. I have seen such places; they are vast caverns +artificially excavated below the surface of the earth; into these the +unfortunates were lowered and left to crawl about and rot, the living +mingled with the dead. To this day they find mouldering skeletons, +loaded with heavy iron chains and ball-weights. + +A copious spring gushes up on this beach and flows into the sea. It is +sadly neglected. Were I tyrant of Manfredonia, I would build me a fair +marble fountain here, with a carven assemblage of nymphs and +sea-monsters spouting water from their lusty throats, and plashing in +its rivulets. It may well be that the existence of this fount helped to +decide Manfred in his choice of a site for his city; such springs are +rare in this waterless land. And from this same source, very likely, is +derived the local legend of Saint Lorenzo and the Dragon, which is quite +independent of that of Saint Michael the dragon-killer on the heights +above us. These venerable water-spirits, these _dracs,_ are interesting +beasts who went through many metamorphoses ere attaining their present +shape. + +Manfredonia lies on a plain sloping very gently seawards--practically +a dead level, and in one of the hottest districts of Italy. Yet, for +some obscure reason, there is no street along the sea itself; the +cross-roads end in abrupt squalor at the shore. One wonders what +considerations--political, aesthetic or hygienic--prevented the +designers of the town from carrying out its general principles of +construction and building a decent promenade by the waves, where the ten +thousand citizens could take the air in the breathless summer evenings, +instead of being cooped up, as they now are, within stifling hot walls. +The choice of Man-fredonia as a port does not testify to any great +foresight on the part of its founder--peace to his shade! It will for +ever slumber in its bay, while commerce passes beyond its reach; it will +for ever be malarious with the marshes of Sipontum at its edges. But +this particular defect of the place is not Manfred's fault, since the +city was razed to the ground by the Turks in 1620, and then built up +anew; built up, says Lenormant, according to the design of the old city. +Perhaps a fear of other Corsair raids induced the constructors to adhere +to the old plan, by which the place could be more easily defended. Not +much of Man-fredonia seems to have been completed when Pacicchelli's +view (1703) was engraved. + +Speaking of the weather, the landlady further told me that the wind blew +so hard three months ago--"during that big storm in the winter, don't +you remember?"--that it broke all the iron lamp-posts between the town +and the station. Now here was a statement sounding even more improbable +than her other one about Castel del Monte, but admitting of +verification. Wheezing and sneezing, I crawled forth, and found it +correct. It must have been a respectable gale, since the cast-iron +supports are snapped in half, every one of them. + +Those Turks, by the way, burnt the town on that memorable occasion. That +was a common occurrence in those days. Read any account of their +incursions into Italy during this and the preceding centuries, and you +will find that the corsairs burnt the towns whenever they had time to +set them alight. They could not burn them nowadays, and this points to a +total change in economic conditions. Wood was cut down so heedlessly +that it became too scarce for building purposes, and stone took its +place. This has altered domestic architecture; it has changed the +landscape, denuding the hill-sides that were once covered with timber; +it has impoverished the country by converting fruitful plains into +marshes or arid tracts of stone swept by irregular and intermittent +floods; it has modified, if I mistake not, the very character of the +people. The desiccation of the climate has entailed a desiccation of +national humour. + +Muratori has a passage somewhere in his "Antiquities" regarding the old +method of construction and the wooden shingles, _scandulae,_ in use for +roofing--I must look it up, if ever I reach civilized regions again. + +At the municipality, which occupies the spacious apartments of a former +Dominican convent, they will show you the picture of a young girl, one +of the Beccarmi family, who was carried off at a tender age in one of +these Turkish raids, and subsequently became "Sultana." Such captive +girls generally married sultans--or ought to have married them; the wish +being father to the thought. But the story is disputed; rightly, I +think. For the portrait is painted in the French manner, and it is +hardly likely that a harem-lady would have been exhibited to a European +artist. The legend goes on to say that she was afterwards liberated by +the Knights of Malta, together with her Turkish son who, as was meet and +proper, became converted to Christianity and died a monk. The Beccarmi +family (of Siena, I fancy) might find some traces of her in their +archives. _Ben trovato,_ at all events. When one looks at the pretty +portrait, one cannot blame any kind of "Sultan" for feeling +well-disposed towards the original. + +The weather has shown some signs of improvement and tempted me, despite +the persistent "scirocco" mood, to a few excursions into the +neighbourhood. But there seem to be no walks hereabouts, and the hills, +three miles distant, are too remote for my reduced vitality. The +intervening region is a plain of rock carved so smoothly, in places, as +to appear artificially levelled with the chisel; large tracts of it are +covered with the Indian fig (cactus). In the shade of these grotesque +growths lives a dainty flora: trembling grasses of many kinds, rue, +asphodel, thyme, the wild asparagus, a diminutive blue iris, as well as +patches of saxifrage that deck the stone with a brilliant enamel of red +and yellow. This wild beauty makes one think how much better the +graceful wrought-iron balconies of the town would look if enlivened with +blossoms, with pendent carnations or pelargonium; but there is no great +display of these things; the deficiency of water is a characteristic of +the place; it is a flowerless and songless city. The only good +drinking-water is that which is bottled at the mineral springs of Monte +Vulture and sold cheaply enough all over the country. And the mass of +the country people have small charm of feature. Their faces seem to have +been chopped with a hatchet into masks of sombre virility; a hard life +amid burning limestone deserts is reflected in their countenances. + +None the less, they have a public garden; even more immature than that +of Lucera, but testifying to greater taste. Its situation, covering a +forlorn semicircular tract of ground about the old Anjou castle, is _a +priori_ a good one. But when the trees are fully grown, it will be +impossible to see this fine ruin save at quite close quarters--just +across the moat. + +I lamented this fact to a solitary gentleman who was strolling about +here and who replied, upon due deliberation: + +"One cannot have everything." + +Then he added, as a suggestive afterthought: + +"Inasmuch as one thing sometimes excludes another." + +I pause, to observe parenthetically that this habit of uttering +platitudes in the grand manner as though disclosing an idea of vital +novelty (which Charles Lamb, poor fellow, thought peculiar to natives of +Scotland) is as common among Italians as among Englishmen. But veiled in +sonorous Latinisms, the staleness of such remarks assumes an air of +profundity. + +"For my part," he went on, warming to his theme, "I am thoroughly +satisfied. Who will complain of the trees? Only a few makers of bad +pictures. They can go elsewhere. Our country, dear sir, is _encrusted,_ +with old castles and other feudal absurdities, and if I had the +management of things----" + +The sentence was not concluded, for at that moment his hat was blown off +by a violent gust of wind, and flew merrily over beds of flowering +marguerites in the direction of the main street, while he raced after +it, vanishing in a cloud of dust. The chase must have been long and +arduous; he never returned. + +Wandering about the upper regions of this fortress whose chambers are +now used as a factory of cement goods and a refuge for some poor +families, I espied a good pre-renaissance relief of Saint Michael and +the dragon immured in the masonry, and overhung by the green leaves of +an exuberant wild fig that has thrust its roots into the sturdy old +walls. Here, at Manfredonia, we are already under the shadow of the holy +mountain and the archangel's wings, but the usual representations of him +are childishly emasculate--the negation of his divine and heroic +character. This one portrays a genuine warrior-angel of the old type: +grave and grim. Beyond this castle and the town-walls, which are best +preserved on the north side, nothing in Manfredonia is older than 1620. +There is a fine _campanile,_ but the cathedral looks like a shed for +disused omnibuses. + +Along the streets, little red flags are hanging out of the houses, at +frequent intervals: signals of harbourage for the parched wayfarer. +Within, you behold a picturesque confusion of rude chairs set among +barrels and vats full of dark red wine where, amid Rembrandtesque +surroundings, you can get as drunk as a lord for sixpence. Blithe oases! +It must be delightful, in summer, to while away the sultry hours in +their hospitable twilight; even at this season they seem to be extremely +popular resorts, throwing a new light on those allusions by classical +authors to "thirsty Apulia." + +But on many of the dwellings I noticed another symbol: an ominous blue +metal tablet with a red cross, bearing the white-lettered words +"VIGILANZA NOTTURNA." + +Was it some anti-burglary association? I enquired of a serious-looking +individual who happened to be passing. + +His answer did not help to clear up matters. + +"A pure job, _signore mio_, a_ pure job! There is a society in Cerignola +or somewhere, a society which persuades the various town +councils--_persuades_ them, you understand----" + +He ended abruptly, with the gesture of paying out money between his +finger and thumb. Then he sadly shook his head. + +I sought for more light on this cryptic utterance; in vain. What were +the facts, I persisted? Did certain householders subscribe to keep a +guardian on their premises at night--what had the municipalities to do +with it--was there much house-breaking in Manfredonia, and, if so, had +this association done anything to check it? And for how long had the +institution been established? + +But the mystery grew ever darker. After heaving a deep sigh, he +condescended to remark: + +"The usual camorra! Eat--eat; from father to son. Eat--eat! That's all +they think about, the brood of assassins. . . . Just look at them!" + +I glanced down the street and beheld a venerable gentleman of kindly +aspect who approached slowly, leaning on the arm of a fair-haired +youth--his grandson, I supposed. He wore a long white beard, and an air +of apostolic detachment from the affairs of this world. They came +nearer. The boy was listening, deferentially, to some remark of the +elder; his lips were parted in attention and his candid, sunny face +would have rejoiced the heart of della Robbia. They passed within a few +feet of me, lovingly engrossed in one another. + +"Well?" I queried, turning to my informant and anxious to learn what +misdeeds could be laid to the charge of such godlike types of humanity. + +But that person was no longer at my side. He had quietly withdrawn +himself, in the interval; he had evanesced, "moved on." + +An oracular and elusive citizen. ... + + + + +III + +THE ANGEL OF MANFREDONIA + + +Whoever looks at a map of the Gargano promontory will see that it is +besprinkled with Greek names of persons and places--Matthew, Mark, +Nikander, Onofrius, Pirgiano (Pyrgos) and so forth. Small wonder, for +these eastern regions were in touch with Constantinople from early days, +and the spirit of Byzance still hovers over them. It was on this +mountain that the archangel Michael, during his first flight to Western +Europe, deigned to appear to a Greek bishop of Sipontum, Laurentius by +name; and ever since that time a certain cavern, sanctified by the +presence of this winged messenger of God, has been the goal of millions +of pilgrims. + +The fastness of Sant' Angelo, metropolis of European angel-worship, has +grown up around this "devout and honourable cave"; on sunny days its +houses are clearly visible from Man-fredonia. They who wish to pay their +devotions at the shrine cannot do better than take with them +Gregorovius, as cicerone and mystagogue. + +Vainly I waited for a fine day to ascend the heights. At last I +determined to have done with the trip, be the weather what it might. A +coachman was summoned and negotiations entered upon for starting next +morning. + +Sixty-five francs, he began by telling me, was the price paid by an +Englishman last year for a day's visit to the sacred mountain. It may +well be true--foreigners will do anything, in Italy. Or perhaps it was +only said to "encourage" me. But I am rather hard to encourage, +nowadays. I reminded the man that there was a diligence service there +and back for a franc and a half, and even that price seemed rather +extortionate. I had seen so many holy grottos in my life! And who, after +all, was this Saint Michael? The Eternal Father, perchance? Nothing of +the kind: just an ordinary angel! We had dozens of them, in England. +Fortunately, I added, I had already received an offer to join one of the +private parties who drive up, fourteen or fifteen persons behind +one diminutive pony--and that, as he well knew, would be a matter of +only a few pence. And even then, the threatening sky . . . Yes, on +second thoughts, it was perhaps wisest to postpone the excursion +altogether. Another day, if God wills! Would he accept this cigar as a +recompense for his trouble in coming? + +In dizzy leaps and bounds his claims fell to eight francs. It was the +tobacco that worked the wonder; a gentleman who will give _something for +nothing_ (such was his logic)--well, you never know what you may not get +out of him. Agree to his price, and chance it! + +He consigned the cigar to his waistcoat pocket to smoke after dinner, +and departed--vanquished, but inwardly beaming with bright anticipation. + +A wretched morning was disclosed as I drew open the shutters--gusts of +rain and sleet beating against the window-panes. No matter: the carriage +stood below, and after that customary and hateful apology for breakfast +which suffices to turn the thoughts of the sanest man towards themes of +suicide and murder--when will southerners learn to eat a proper +breakfast at proper hours?--we started on our journey. The sun came out +in visions of tantalizing briefness, only to be swallowed up again in +driving murk, and of the route we traversed I noticed only the old stony +track that cuts across the twenty-one windings of the new carriage-road +here and there. I tried to picture to myself the Norman princes, the +emperors, popes, and other ten thousand pilgrims of celebrity crawling +up these rocky slopes--barefoot--on such a day as this. It must have +tried the patience even of Saint Francis of Assisi, who pilgrimaged with +the rest of them and, according to Pontanus, performed a little miracle +here _en passant,_ as was his wont. + +After about three hours' driving we reached the town of Sant' Angelo. It +was bitterly cold at this elevation of 800 metres. Acting on the advice +of the coachman, I at once descended into the sanctuary; it would be +warm down there, he thought. The great festival of 8 May was over, but +flocks of worshippers were still arriving, and picturesquely pagan they +looked in grimy, tattered garments--their staves tipped with +pine-branches and a scrip. + +In the massive bronze doors of the chapel, that were made at +Constantinople in 1076 for a rich citizen of Amalfi, metal rings are +inserted; these, like a true pilgrim, you must clash furiously, to call +the attention of the Powers within to your visit; and on issuing, you +must once more knock as hard as you can, in order that the consummation +of your act of worship may be duly reported: judging by the noise made, +the deity must be very hard of hearing. Strangely deaf they are, +sometimes. + +The twenty-four panels of these doors are naively encrusted with +representations, in enamel, of angel-apparitions of many kinds; some of +them are inscribed, and the following is worthy of note: + +"I beg and implore the priests of Saint Michael to cleanse these gates +once a year as I have now shown them, in order that they may be always +bright and shining." The recommendation has plainly not been carried out +for a good many years past. + +Having entered the portal, you climb down a long stairway amid swarms of +pious, foul clustering beggars to a vast cavern, the archangel's abode. +It is a natural recess in the rock, illuminated by candles. Here divine +service is proceeding to the accompaniment of cheerful operatic airs +from an asthmatic organ; the water drops ceaselessly from the rocky +vault on to the devout heads of kneeling worshippers that cover the +floor, lighted candle in hand, rocking themselves ecstatically and +droning and chanting. A weird scene, in truth. And the coachman was +quite right in his surmise as to the difference in temperature. It is +hot down here, damply hot, as in an orchid-house. But the aroma cannot +be described as a floral emanation: it is the _bouquet,_ rather, of +thirteen centuries of unwashed and perspiring pilgrims. "TERRIBILIS EST +LOCUS ISTE," says an inscription over the entrance of the shrine. Very +true. In places like this one understands the uses, and possibly the +origin, of incense. + +I lingered none the less, and my thoughts went back to the East, whence +these mysterious practices are derived. But an Oriental crowd of +worshippers does not move me like these European masses of fanaticism; I +can never bring myself to regard without a certain amount of disquietude +such passionate pilgrims. Give them their new Messiah, and all our +painfully accumulated art and knowledge, all that reconciles civilized +man to earthly existence, is blown to the winds. Society can deal with +its criminals. Not they, but fond enthusiasts such as these, are the +menace to its stability. Bitter reflections; but then--the drive upward +had chilled my human sympathies, and besides--that so-called breakfast. +. . . + +The grovelling herd was left behind. I ascended the stairs and, +profiting by a gleam of sunshine, climbed up to where, above the town, +there stands a proud aerial ruin known as the "Castle of +the Giant." On one of its stones is inscribed the date 1491--a certain +Queen of Naples, they say, was murdered within those now crumbling +walls. These sovereigns were murdered in so many castles that one +wonders how they ever found time to be alive at all. The structure is a +wreck and its gateway closed up; nor did I feel any great inclination, +in that icy blast of wind, to investigate the roofless interior. + +I was able to observe, however, that this "feudal absurdity" bears a +number like any inhabited house of Sant' Angelo--it is No. 3. + +This is the latest pastime of the Italian Government: to re-number +dwellings throughout the kingdom; and not only human habitations, but +walls, old ruins, stables, churches, as well as an occasional door-post +and window. They are having no end of fun over the game, which promises +to keep them amused for any length of time--in fact, until the next +craze is invented. Meanwhile, so long as the fit lasts, half a million +bright-eyed officials, burning with youthful ardour, are employed in +affixing these numerals, briskly entering them into ten times as many +note-books and registering them into thousands of municipal archives, +all over the country, for some inscrutable but hugely important +administrative purposes. "We have the employes," as a Roman deputy once +told me, "and therefore: they must find some occupation." + +Altogether, the weather this day sadly impaired my appetite for research +and exploration. On the way to the castle I had occasion to admire the +fine tower and to regret that there seemed to exist no coign of vantage +from which it could fairly be viewed; I was struck, also, by the number +of small figures of Saint Michael of an ultra-youthful, almost +infantile, type; and lastly, by certain clean-shaven old men of the +place. These venerable and decorative brigands--for such they would have +been, a few years ago--now stood peacefully at their thresholds, wearing +a most becoming cloak of thick brown wool, shaped like a burnous. The +garment interested me; it may be a legacy from the Arabs who dominated +this region for some little time, despoiling the holy sanctuary and +leaving their memory to be perpetuated by the neighbouring "Monte +Saraceno." The costume, on the other hand, may have come over from +Greece; it is figured on Tanagra statuettes and worn by modern Greek +shepherds. By Sardinians, too. ... It may well be a primordial form of +clothing with mankind. + +The view from this castle must be superb on clear days. Standing there, +I looked inland and remembered all the places I had intended to +see--Vieste, and Lesina with its lakes, and Selva Umbra, whose very name +is suggestive of dewy glades; how remote they were, under such +dispiriting clouds! I shall never see them. Spring hesitates to smile +upon these chill uplands; we are still in the grip of winter-- + + Aut aquilonibus + Querceti Gargani laborent + Et foliis viduantur orni-- + +so sang old Horace, of Garganian winds. I scanned the horizon, seeking +for his Mount Vulture, but all that region was enshrouded in a grey +curtain of vapour; only the Stagno Salso--a salt mere wherein Candelaro +forgets his mephitic waters--shone with a steady glow, like a sheet of +polished lead. + +Soon the rain fell once more and drove me to seek refuge among the +houses, where I glimpsed the familiar figure of my coachman, sitting +disconsolately under a porch. He looked up and remarked (for want of +something better to say) that he had been searching for me all over the +town, fearing that some mischief might have happened to me. I was +touched by these words; touched, that is, by his child-like simplicity +in imagining that he could bring me to believe a statement of such +radiant improbability; so touched, that I pressed a franc into his +reluctant palm and bade him buy with it something to eat. A whole franc. +. . . _Aha!_ he doubtless thought, _my theory of the gentleman: it +begins to work._ + +It was barely midday. Yet I was already surfeited with the angelic +metropolis, and my thoughts began to turn in the direction of +Manfredonia once more. At a corner of the street, however, certain +fluent vociferations in English and Italian, which nothing would induce +me to set down here, assailed my ears, coming up--apparently--out of the +bowels of the earth. I stopped to listen, shocked to hear ribald +language in a holy town like this; then, impelled by curiosity, +descended a long flight of steps and found myself in a subterranean +wine-cellar. There was drinking and card-playing going on here among a +party of emigrants--merry souls; a good half of them spoke English and, +despite certain irreverent phrases, they quickly won my heart with a +"Here! You drink _this,_ mister." + +This dim recess was an instructive pendant to the archangel's cavern. A +new type of pilgrim has been evolved; pilgrims who think no more of +crossing to Pittsburg than of a drive to Manfredonia. But their cave was +permeated with an odour of spilt wine and tobacco-smoke instead of the +subtle _Essence des pelerins_ _aes Abruzzes fleuris,_ and alas, the +object of their worship was not the Chaldean angel, but another and +equally ancient eastern shape: Mammon. They talked much of dollars; and +I also heard several unorthodox allusions to the "angel-business," which +was described as "played out," as well as a remark to the effect that +"only damn-fools stay in this country." In short, these men were at the +other end of the human scale; they were the strong, the energetic; the +ruthless, perhaps; but certainly--the intelligent. + +And all the while the cup circled round with genial iteration, and it +was universally agreed that, whatever the other drawbacks of Sant' +Angelo might be, there was nothing to be said against its native liquor. + +It was, indeed, a divine product; a _vino di montagna_ of noble +pedigree. So I thought, as I laboriously scrambled up the stairs once +more, solaced by this incident of the competition-grotto and slightly +giddy, from the tobacco-smoke. And here, leaning against the door-post, +stood the coachman who had divined my whereabouts by some dark masonic +intuition of sympathy. His face expanded into an inept smile, and I +quickly saw that instead of fortifying his constitution with sound food, +he had tried alcoholic methods of defence against the inclement weather. +Just a glass of wine, he explained. "But," he added, "the horse is +perfectly sober." + +That quadruped was equal to the emergency. Gloriously indifferent to our +fates, we glided down, in a vertiginous but masterly vol-plane, from the +somewhat objectionable mountain-town. + +An approving burst of sunshine greeted our arrival on the plain. + + + + +IV + +CAVE-WORSHIP + + +Why has the exalted archangel chosen for an abode this reeking cell, +rather than some well-built temple in the sunshine? "As symbolizing a +ray of light that penetrates into the gloom," so they will tell you. It +is more likely that he entered it as an extirpating warrior, to oust +that heathen shape which Strabo describes as dwelling in its dank +recesses, and to take possession of the cleft in the name of +Christianity. Sant' Angelo is one of many places where Michael has +performed the duty of Christian Hercules, cleanser of Augean stables. + +For the rest, this cave-worship is older than any god or devil. It is +the cult of the feminine principle--a relic of that aboriginal obsession +of mankind to shelter in some Cloven Rock of Ages, in the sacred womb of +Mother Earth who gives us food and receives us after death. +Grotto-apparitions, old and new, are but the popular explanations of +this dim primordial craving, and hierophants of all ages have understood +the commercial value of the holy shudder which penetrates in these +caverns to the heart of worshippers, attuning them to godly deeds. So +here, close beside the altar, the priests are selling fragments of the +so-called "Stone of Saint Michael." The trade is brisk. + +The statuette of the archangel preserved in this subterranean chapel is +a work of the late Renaissance. Though savouring of that mawkish +elaboration which then began to taint local art and literature and is +bound up with the name of the poet Marino, it is still a passably virile +figure. But those countless others, in churches or over house-doors--do +they indeed portray the dragon-killer, the martial prince of angels? +This amiable child with girlish features--can this be the Lucifer of +Christianity, the Sword of the Almighty? _Quis ut Deus!_ He could +hardly hurt a fly. + +The hoary winged genius of Chaldea who has absorbed the essence of so +many solemn deities has now, in extreme old age, entered upon a second +childhood and grown altogether too youthful for his _role,_ undergoing +a metimorphosis beyond the boundaries of legendary probability or common +sense; every trace of divinity and manly strength has been boiled out of +him. So young and earthly fair, he looks, rather, like some pretty boy +dressed up for a game with toy sword and helmet--one wants to have a +romp with him. No warrior this! _C'est beau, mais ce n'est pas la +guerre._ + +The gods, they say, are ever young, and a certain sensuous and fleshly +note is essential to those of Italy if they are to retain the love of +their worshippers. Granted. We do not need a scarred and hirsute +veteran; but we need, at least, a personage capable of wielding the +sword, a figure something like this:-- + +His starry helm unbuckled show'd his prime In manhood where youth ended; +by his side As in a glist'ring zodiac hung the sword, Satan's dire +dread, and in his hand the spear. . . . + +There! That is an archangel of the right kind. + +And the great dragon, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, has +suffered a similar transformation. He is shrunk into a poor little +reptile, the merest worm, hardly worth crushing. + +But how should a sublime conception like the apocalyptic hero appeal to +the common herd? These formidable shapes emerge from the dusk, offspring +of momentous epochs; they stand aloof at first, but presently their +luminous grandeur is dulled, their haughty contour sullied and +obliterated by attrition. They are dragged down to the level of their +lowest adorers, for the whole flock adapts its pace to that of the +weakest lamb. No self-respecting deity will endure this treatment--to be +popularized and made intelligible to a crowd. Divinity comprehended of +the masses ceases to be efficacious; the Egyptians and Brahmans +understood that. It is not giving gods a chance to interpret them in an +incongruous and unsportsmanlike fashion. But the vulgar have no idea of +propriety or fair play; they cannot keep at the proper distance; they +are for ever taking liberties. And, in the end, the proudest god is +forced to yield. + +We see this same fatality in the very word Cherub. How different an +image does this plump and futile infant evoke to the stately Minister of +the Lord, girt with a sword of flame! We see it in the Italian Madonna +of whom, whatever her mental acquirements may have been, a certain +gravity of demeanour is to be presupposed, and who, none the less, grows +more childishly smirking every day; in her Son who--hereabouts at +least--has doffed all the serious attributes of manhood and dwindled +into something not much better than a doll. It was the same in days of +old. Apollo (whom Saint Michael has supplanted), and Eros, and +Aphrodite--they all go through a process of saccharine deterioration. +Our fairest creatures, once they have passed their meridian vigour, are +liable to be assailed and undermined by an insidious diabetic tendency. + +It is this coddling instinct of mankind which has reduced Saint Michael +to his present state. And an extraneous influence has worked in the same +direction--the gradual softening of manners within historical times, +that demasculinization which is an inevitable concomitant of increasing +social security. Divinity reflects its human creators and their +environment; grandiose or warlike gods become superfluous, and finally +incomprehensible, in humdrum days of peace. In order to survive, our +deities (like the rest of us) must have a certain plasticity. If +recalcitrant, they are quietly relieved of their functions, and +forgotten. This is what has happened in Italy to God the Father and the +Holy Ghost, who have vanished from the vulgar Olympus; whereas the +devil, thanks to that unprincipled versatility for which he is famous, +remains ever young and popular. + +The art-notions of the Cinque-Cento are also to blame; indeed, so far as +the angelic shapes of south Italy are concerned, the influence of the +Renaissance has been wholly malefic. Aliens to the soil, they were at +first quite unknown--not one is pictured in the Neapolitan catacombs. +Next came the brief period of their artistic glory; then the syncretism +of the Renaissance, when these winged messengers were amalgamated with +pagan _amoretti_ and began to flutter in foolish baroque fashion about +the Queen of Heaven, after the pattern of the disreputable little genii +attendant upon a Venus of a bad school. That same instinct which +degraded a youthful Eros into the childish Cupid was the death-stroke to +the pristine dignity and holiness of angels. Nowadays, we see the +perversity of it all; we have come to our senses and can appraise the +much-belauded revival at its true worth; and our modern sculptors will +rear you a respectable angel, a grave adolescent, according to the best +canons of taste--should you still possess the faith that once +requisitioned such works of art. + +We travellers acquaint ourselves with the lineage of this celestial +Messenger, but it can hardly be supposed that the worshippers now +swarming at his shrine know much of these things. How shall one discover +their real feelings in regard to this great cave-saint and his life and +deeds? + +Well, some idea of this may be gathered from the literature sold on the +spot. I purchased three of these modern tracts printed respectively at +Bitonto, Molfetta and Naples. The "Popular Song in honour of St. Michael +" contains this verse: + + Nell' ora della morte + Ci salvi dal!' inferno + E a Regno Sempiterno + Ci guidi per pieta. + +_Ci guidi per pieta. . . ._ This is the Mercury-heritage. Next, the +"History and Miracles of St. Michael" opens with a rollicking dialogue +in verse between the archangel and the devil concerning a soul; it ends +with a goodly list, in twenty-five verses, of the miracles performed by +the angel, such as helping women in childbirth, curing the blind, and +other wonders that differ nothing from those wrought by humbler earthly +saints. Lastly, the "Novena in Onore di S. Michele Arcangelo," printed +in 1910 (third edition) with ecclesiastical approval, has the following +noteworthy paragraph on the + +"DEVOTION FOR THE SACRED STONES OF THE GROTTO OF ST. MICHAEL. + +"It is very salutary to hold in esteem the STONES which are taken from +the sacred cavern, partly because from immemorial times they have always +been held in veneration by the faithful and also because they have been +placed as relics of sepulchres and altars. Furthermore, it is known that +during the plague which afflicted the kingdom of Naples in the year +1656, Monsignor G. A. Puccini, archbishop of Manfredonia, recommended +every one to carry devoutly on his person a fragment of the sacred +STONE, whereby the majority were saved from the pestilence, and this +augmented the devotion bestowed on them." + +The cholera is on the increase, and this may account for the rapid sale +of the STONES at this moment. + +This pamphlet also contains a litany in which the titles of the +archangel are enumerated. He is, among other things, Secretary of God, +Liberator from Infernal Chains, Defender in the Hour of Death, Custodian +of the Pope, Spirit of Light, Wisest of Magistrates, Terror of Demons, +Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the Lord, Lash of Heresies, Adorer +of the Word Incarnate, Guide of Pilgrims, Conductor of Mortals: Mars, +Mercury, Hercules, Apollo, Mithra--what nobler ancestry can angel +desire? And yet, as if these complicated and responsible functions did +not suffice for his energies, he has twenty others, among them being +that of "Custodian of the Holy Family "--who apparently need a +protector, a Monsieur Paoli, like any mortal royalties. + +"Blasphemous rubbish!" I can hear some Methodist exclaiming. And one +may well be tempted to sneer at those pilgrims for the more enlightened +of whom such literature is printed. For they are unquestionably a +repulsive crowd: travel-stained old women, under-studies for the Witch +of Endor; dishevelled, anaemic and dazed-looking girls; boys, too weak +to handle a spade at home, pathetically uncouth, with mouths agape and +eyes expressing every grade of uncontrolled emotion--from wildest joy to +downright idiotcy. How one realizes, down in this cavern, the effect +upon some cultured ancient like Rutilius Namatianus of the +catacomb-worship among those early Christian converts, those _men who +shun the light,_ drawn as they were from the same social classes towards +the same dark underground rites! One can neither love nor respect such +people; and to affect pity for them would be more consonant with their +religion than with my own. + +But it is perfectly easy to understand them. For thirteen centuries this +pilgrim-movement has been going on. Thirteen centuries? No. This site +was an oracle in heathen days, and we know that such were frequented by +men not a whit less barbarous and bigoted than their modern +representatives--nothing is a greater mistake than to suppose that the +crowds of old Rome and Athens were more refined than our own +("Demosthenes, sir, was talking to an assembly of brutes"). For thirty +centuries then, let us say, a deity has attracted the faithful to his +shrine--Sant' Angelo has become a vacuum, as it were, which must be +periodically filled up from the surrounding country. These pilgrimages +are in the blood of the people: infants, they are carried there; adults, +they carry their own offspring; grey-beards, their tottering steps are +still supported by kindly and sturdier fellow-wanderers. + +Popes and emperors no longer scramble up these slopes; the spirit of +piety has abated among the great ones of the earth; so much is certain. +But the rays of light that strike the topmost branches have not yet +penetrated to the rank and seething undergrowth. And then--what else can +one offer to these Abruzzi mountain-folk? Their life is one of +miserable, revolting destitution. They have no games or sports, no +local racing, clubs, cattle-shows, fox-hunting, politics, rat-catching, +or any of those other joys that diversify the lives of our peasantry. No +touch of humanity reaches them, no kindly dames send them jellies or +blankets, no cheery doctor enquires for their children; they read no +newspapers or books, and lack even the mild excitements of church +_versus_ chapel, or the vicar's daughter's love-affair, or the squire's +latest row with his lady--nothing! Their existence is almost bestial in +its blankness. I know them--I have lived among them. For four months in +the year they are cooped up in damp dens, not to be called chambers, +where an Englishman would deem it infamous to keep a dog--cooped up amid +squalor that must be seen to be believed; for the rest of the time they +struggle, in the sweat of their brow, to wrest a few blades of corn from +the ungrateful limestone. Their visits to the archangel--these vernal +and autumnal picnics--are their sole form of amusement. + +The movement is said to have diminished since the early nineties, when +thirty thousand of them used to come here annually. It may well be the +case; but I imagine that this is due not so much to increasing +enlightenment as to the depopulation caused by America; many villages +have recently been reduced to half their former number of inhabitants. + +And here they kneel, candle in hand, on the wet flags of this foetid and +malodorous cave, gazing in rapture upon the blandly beaming idol, their +sensibilities tickled by resplendent priests reciting full-mouthed Latin +phrases, while the organ overhead plays wheezy extracts from "La Forza +del Destino" or the Waltz out of Boito's "Mefistofele"... for sure, it +must be a foretaste of Heaven! And likely enough, these are "the poor in +heart" for whom that kingdom is reserved. + +One may call this a debased form of Christianity. Whether it would have +been distasteful to the feelings of the founder of that cult is another +question, and, debased or not, it is at least alive and palpitating, +which is more than can be said of certain other varieties. But the +archangel, as was inevitable, has suffered a sad change. His fairest +attribute of Light-bringer, of Apollo, is no longer his own; it has been +claimed and appropriated by the "Light of the World," his new master. +One by one, his functions have been stripped from him, all save in name, +as happens to men and angels alike, when they take service under +"jealous" lords. + +What is now left of Saint Michael, the glittering hierarch? Can he still +endure the light of sun? Or has he not shrivelled into a spectral +Hermes, a grisly psychopomp, bowing his head in minished glory, and +leading men's souls no longer aloft but downwards--down to the pale +regions of things that have been? And will it be long ere he, too, is +thrust by some flaming Demogorgon into these same realms of Minos, into +that shadowy underworld where dwell Saturn, and Kronos, and other +cracked and shivered ideals? + +So I mused that afternoon, driving down the slopes from Sant' Angelo +comfortably sheltered against the storm, while the generous mountain +wine sped through my veins, warming my fancy. Then, at last, the sun +came out in a sudden burst of light, opening a rift in the vapours and +revealing the whole chain of the Apennines, together with the peaked +crater of Mount Vulture. + +The spectacle cheered me, and led me to think that such a day might +worthily be rounded off by a visit to Sipontum, which lies a few miles +beyond Manfredonia on the Foggia road. But I approached the subject +cautiously, fearing that the coachman might demur at this extra work. +Far from it. I had gained his affection, and he would conduct me +whithersoever I liked. Only to Sipontum? __Why not to Foggia, to Naples, +to the ends of the earth? As for the horse, he was none the worse for +the trip, not a bit the worse; he liked nothing better than running in +front of a carriage; besides, _e suo dovere--_ it was his duty. + +Sipontum is so ancient that it was founded, they say, by that legendary +Diomed who acted in the same capacity for Beneven-tum, Arpi, and other +cities. But this record does not satisfy Monsignor Sarnelli, its +historian, according to whom it was already a flourishing town when +Shem, first son of Noah, became its king. He reigned about the year 1770 +of the creation of the world. Two years after the deluge he was 100 +years old, and at that age begat a son Arfaxad, after whose birth he +lived yet another five hundred years. The second king of Sipontum was +Appulus, who ruled in the year 2213. . . . Later on, Saint Peter +sojourned here, and baptized a few people. + +Of Sipontum nothing is left; nothing save a church, and even that built +only yesterday--in the eleventh century; a far-famed church, in the +Pisan style, with wrought marble columns reposing on lions, sculptured +diamond ornaments, and other crafty stonework that gladdens the eye. It +used to be the seat of an archbishopric, and its fine episcopal chairs +are now preserved at Sant' Angelo; and you may still do homage to the +authentic Byzantine Madonna painted on wood by Saint Luke, +brown-complexioned, long-nosed, with staring eyes, and holding the +Infant on her left arm. Earthquakes and Saracen incursions ruined the +town, which became wholly abandoned when Man-fredonia was built with its +stones. + +Of pagan antiquity there are a few capitals lying about, as well as +granite columns in the curious old crypt. A pillar stands all forlorn in +a field; and quite close to the church are erected two others--the +larger of cipollino, beautified by a patina of golden lichen; a marble +well-head, worn half through with usage of ropes, may be found buried in +the rank grass. The plain whereon stood the great city of Sipus is +covered, now, with bristly herbage. The sea has retired from its old +beach, and half-wild cattle browse on the site of those lordly quays and +palaces. Not a stone is left. Malaria and desolation reign supreme. + +It is a profoundly melancholy spot. Yet I was glad of the brief vision. +I shall have fond and enduring memories of that sanctuary--the +travertine of its artfully carven fabric glowing orange-tawny in the +sunset; of the forsaken plain beyond, full of ghostly phantoms of the past. + +As for Manfredonia--it is a sad little place, when the south wind moans +and mountains are veiled in mists. + + + + +V + +LAND OF HORACE + + +Venosa, nowadays, lies off the beaten track. There are only three trains +a day from the little junction of Rocchetta, and they take over an hour +to traverse the thirty odd kilometres of sparsely inhabited land. It is +an uphill journey, for Venosa lies at a good elevation. They say that +German professors, bent on Horatian studies, occasionally descend from +those worn-out old railway carriages; but the ordinary travellers are +either peasant-folk or commercial gentlemen from north Italy. Worse than +malaria or brigandage, against both of which a man may protect himself, +there is no escaping from the companionship of these last-named--these +pathologically inquisitive, empty-headed, and altogether dreadful +people. They are the terror of the south. And it stands to reason that +only the most incapable and most disagreeable of their kind are sent to +out-of-the-way places like Venosa. + +One asks oneself whether this town has greatly changed since Roman +times. To be sure it has; domestic calamities and earthquakes (such as +the terrible one of 1456) have altered it beyond recognition. The +amphitheatre that seated ten thousand spectators is merged into the +earth, and of all the buildings of Roman date nothing is left save a +pile of masonry designated as the tomb of the Marcellus who was killed +here by Hannibal's soldiery, and a few reticulated walls of the second +century or thereabouts known as the "House of Horace"--as genuine as +that of Juliet in Verona or the Mansion of Loreto. Yet the tradition is +an old one, and the builder of the house, whoever he was, certainly +displayed some poetic taste in his selection of a fine view across the +valley. There is an indifferent statue of Horace in the marketplace. A +previous one, also described as Horace, was found to be the effigy of +somebody else. Thus much I learn from Lupoli's "Iter Venusinum." + +But there are ancient inscriptions galore, worked into the masonry of +buildings or lying about at random. Mommsen has collected numbers of +them in his _Corpus,_ and since that time some sixty new ones have been +discovered. And then--the stone lions of Roman days, couched forlornly +at street corners, in courtyards and at fountains, in every stage of +decrepitude, with broken jaws and noses, missing legs and tails! Venosa +is a veritable infirmary for mutilated antiques of this species. Now the +lion is doubtless a nobly decorative beast, but--_toujours perdrix!_ Why +not a few griffons or other ornaments? The Romans were not an +imaginative race. + +The country around must have looked different in olden days. Horace +describes it as covered with forests, and from a manuscript of the early +seventeenth century which has lately been printed one learns that the +surrounding regions were full of "hares, rabbits, foxes, roe deer, +wild boars, martens, porcupines, hedgehogs, tortoises and wolves"-- +wood-loving creatures which have now, for the most part, deserted +Venosa. Still, there are left some stretches of oak at the back +of the town, and the main lines of the land cannot change. Yonder lies +the Horatian Forense and "Acherontia's nest"; further on, the glades of +Bantia (the modern Banzi); the long-drawn Garganian Mount, on which the +poet's eye must often have rested, emerges above the plain of Apulia +like an island (and such it is: an island of Austrian stone, stranded +upon the beach of Italy). Monte Vulture still dominates the landscape, +although at this nearness the crater loses its shapely conical outline +and assumes a serrated edge. On its summit I perceive a gigantic +cross--one of a number of such symbols which were erected by the +clericals at the time of the recent rationalist congress in Rome. + +From this chronicler I learn another interesting fact: that Venosa was +not malarious in the author's day. He calls it healthy, and says that +the only complaint from which the inhabitants suffered was "ponture" +(pleurisy). It is now within the infected zone. I dare say the +deforestation of the country, which prevented the downflow of the +rivers--choking up their beds with detritus and producing stagnant pools +favourable to the breeding of the mosquito--has helped to spread the +plague in many parts of Italy. In Horace's days Venosa was immune, +although Rome and certain rural districts were already malarious. +Ancient votive tablets to the fever-goddess Mephitis (malaria) have been +found not far from here, in the plain below the present city of Potenza. + +A good deal of old Roman blood and spirit seems to survive here. After +the noise of the Neapolitan provinces, where chattering takes the place +of thinking, it is a relief to find oneself in the company of these +grave self-respecting folks, who really converse, like the Scotch, in +disinterested and impersonal fashion. Their attitude towards religious +matters strikes me as peculiarly Horatian; it is not active scepticism, +but rather a bland tolerance or what one of them described as +"indifferentismo"--submission to acts of worship and all other usages +(whatever they may be) consecrated by time: the _pietas--_the +conservative, law-abiding Roman spirit. And if you walk towards sunset +along any of the roads leading into the country, you will meet the +peasants riding home from their field labours accompanied by their dogs, +pigs and goats; and among them you will recognize many types of Roman +physiognomies--faces of orators and statesmen--familiar from old coins. +About a third of the population are of the dark-fair complexion, with +blue or green eyes. But the women are not handsome, although the town +derives its name from Benoth (Venus). Some genuine Roman families have +continued to exist to this day, such as that of Cenna (Cinna). One of +them was the author of the chronicle above referred to; and there is an +antique bas-relief worked into the walls of the Trinita abbey, depicting +some earlier members of this local family. + +One is astonished how large a literature has grown up around this small +place--but indeed, the number of monographs dealing with every one of +these little Italian towns is a ceaseless source of surprise. Look below +the surface and you will find, in all of them, an undercurrent of keen +spirituality--a nucleus of half a dozen widely read and thoughtful men, +who foster the best traditions of the mind. You will not find them in +the town council or at the cafe. No newspapers commend their labours, no +millionaires or learned societies come to their assistance, and though +typography is cheap in this country, they often stint themselves of the +necessities of life in order to produce these treatises of calm +research. There is a deep gulf, here, between the mundane and the +intellectual life. These men are retiring in their habits; and one +cannot but revere their scholarly and almost ascetic spirit that +survives like a green oasis amid the desert of "politics," roguery and +municipal corruption. + +The City Fathers of Venosa are reputed rich beyond the dreams of +avarice. Yet their town is by no means a clean place--it is twice as +dirty as Lucera: a reposeful dirtiness, not vulgar or chaotic, but +testifying to time-honoured neglect, to a feudal contempt of +cleanliness. You crawl through narrow, ill-paved streets, looking down +into subterranean family bedrooms that must be insufferably damp in +winter, and filled, during the hot months, with an odour hard to +conceive. There is electric lighting, of course--a paternal government +having made the price of petroleum so prohibitive that the use of +electricity for street-lighting became quite common in the lowliest +places; but the crude glare only serves to show up the general squalor. +One reason for this state of affairs is that there are no quarries for +decent paving-stones in the neighbourhood. And another, that Venosa +possesses no large citizen class, properly so called. The inhabitants +are mostly peasant proprietors and field labourers, who leave the town +in the morning and return home at night with their beasts, having +learned by bitter experience to take up their domiciles in the towns +rather than in the country-side, which was infested with brigandage and +in an unsettled state up to a short time ago. The Cincinnatus note +dominates here, and with an agricultural population no city can be kept +clean. + +But Venosa has one inestimable advantage over Lucera and most Italian +towns: there is no octroi. + +Would it be believed that Naples is surrounded by a towering Chinese +wall, miles upon miles of it, crowned with a complicated apparatus of +alarm-bells and patrolled night and day by a horde of _doganieri_ armed +to the teeth--lest some peasant should throw a bundle of onions into the +sacred precincts of the town without paying the duty of half a farthing? +No nation with any sense of humour would endure this sort of thing. +Every one resents the airs of this army of official loafers who infest +the land, and would be far better employed themselves in planting onions +upon the many miles of Italy which now lie fallow; the results of the +system have been shown to be inadequate, "but," as my friend the Roman +deputy once asked me, "if we dismiss these fellows from their job, how +are we to employ them?" + +"Nothing is simpler," I replied. "Enrol them into the Town Council of +Naples. It already contains more _employes_ than all the government +offices of London put together; a few more will surely make no difference?" + +"By Bacchus," he cried, "you foreigners have ideas! We could dispose of +ten or fifteen thousand of them, at least, in the way you suggest. I'll +make a note of that, for our next session." + +And so he did. + +But the _Municipio_ of Naples, though extensive, is a purely local +charity, and I question whether its inmates will hear of any one save +their own cousins and brothers-in-law figuring as colleagues in office. + +Every attempt at innovation in agriculture, as in industry, is forthwith +discouraged by new and subtle impositions, which lie in wait for the +enterprising Italian and punish him for his ideas. There is, of course, +a prohibitive duty on every article or implement manufactured abroad; +there is the octroi, a relic of medisevalism, the most unscientific, +futile, and vexatious of taxes; there are municipal dues to be paid on +animals bought and animals sold, on animals kept and animals killed, on +milk and vine-props and bricks, on timber for scaffolding and lead and +tiles and wine--on every conceivable object which the peasant produces +or requires for his existence. And one should see the faces of the +municipal _employes_ who extort these tributes. God alone knows from +what classes of the populace they are recruited; certain it is that +their physiognomy reflects their miserable calling. One can endure the +militarism of Germany and the bureaucracy of Austria; but it is +revolting to see decent Italian countryfolk at the mercy of these +uncouth savages, veritable cave-men, whose only intelligible expression +is one of malice striving to break through a crust of congenital +cretinism. + +We hear much of the great artists and speculative philosophers of old +Italy. The artists of modern Italy are her bureaucrats who design and +elaborate the taxes; her philosophers, the peasants who pay them. + +In point of method, at least, there is nothing to choose between the +exactions of the municipal and governmental ruffians. I once saw an old +woman fined fifty francs for having in her possession a pound of +sea-salt. By what logic will you make it clear to ignorant people that +it is wrong to take salt out of the sea, whence every one takes fish +which are more valuable? The waste of time employed over red tape alone +on these occasions would lead to a revolution anywhere save among men +inured by long abuses to this particular form of tyranny. No wonder the +women of the country-side, rather than waste three precious hours in +arguments about a few cheeses, will smuggle them past the authorities +under the device of being _enceintes;_ no wonder their wisest old men +regard the paternal government as a successfully organized swindle, +which it is the citizen's bounden duty to frustrate whenever possible. +Have _you_ ever tried to convey--in legal fashion--a bottle of wine from +one town into another; or to import, by means of a sailing-boat, an old +frying-pan into some village by the sea? __It is a fine art, only to be +learnt by years of apprenticeship. The regulations on these subjects, +though ineffably childish, look simple enough on paper; they take no +account of that "personal element" which is everything in the south, of +the ruffled tempers of those gorgeous but inert creatures who, disturbed +in their siestas or mandolin-strummings, may keep you waiting half a +day while they fumble ominously over some dirty-looking scrap of paper. +For on such occasions they are liable to provoking fits of +conscientiousness. This is all very well, my dear sir, but--Ha! Where, +where is that certificate of origin, that stamp, that _lascia-passare?_ + +And all for one single sou! + +No wonder even Englishmen discover that law-breaking, in Italy, becomes +a necessity, a rule of life. + +And, soon enough, much more than a mere necessity. . . . + +For even as the traveller new to Borneo, when they offer him a +durian-fruit, is instantly brought to vomiting-point by its odour, but +after a few mouthfuls declares it to be the very apple of Paradise, and +marvels how he could have survived so long in the benighted lands where +such ambrosial fare is not; even as the true connaisseur who, beholding +some rare scarlet idol from the Tingo-Tango forests, at first casts it +aside and then, light dawning as he ponders over those monstrous +complexities, begins to realize that they, and they alone, contain the +quintessential formulae of all the fervent dreamings of Scopas and +Michelangelo; even as he who first, upon a peak in Darien, gazed +awestruck upon the grand Pacific slumbering at his feet, till presently +his senses reeled at the blissful prospect of fresh regions unrolling +themselves, boundless, past the fulfilment of his fondest hopes------ + +Even so, in Italy, the domesticated Englishman is amazed to find that he +possesses a sense hitherto unrevealed, opening up a new horizon, a new +zest in life--the sense of law-breaking. At first, being an honest man, +he is shocked at the thought of such a thing; next, like a sensible +person, reconciled to the inevitable; lastly, as befits his virile race, +he learns to play the game so well that the horrified officials +grudgingly admit (and it is their highest praise): + + Inglese italianizzato-- + Diavolo incarnato. + +Yes; slowly the charm of law-breaking grows upon the Italianated Saxon; +slowly, but surely. There is a neo-barbarism not only in matters of art. + + + + +VI + +AT VENOSA + + +There has always, no doubt, been a castle at Venosa. Frederick +Barbarossa lived here oftener than in Sicily; from these regions he +could look over to his beloved East, and the security of this particular +keep induced him to store his treasures therein. The indefatigable +Huillard Breholles has excavated some account of them from the +Hohen-staufen records. Thus we learn that here, at Venosa, the Emperor +deposited that marvel, that _tentorium,_ I mean, _mirifica arte +constructum, in quo imagines solis et lunce artificialiter motte, cursum +suum certis et debitis spatiis peragrant, et boras diei et noctis +in-fallibiliter indicant. Cuius tentorii valor viginti millium marcarum +pretium dicitur transcendisse._ It was given him by the Sultan of +Babylonia. Always the glowing Oriental background! + +The present castle, a picturesque block with moat and corner towers, was +built in 1470 by the redoubtable Pierro del Balzo. A church used to +occupy the site, but the warrior, recognizing its strategic advantages, +transplanted the holy edifice to some other part of the town. It is now +a ruin, the inhabitable portions of which have been converted into cheap +lodgings for sundry poor folk--a monetary speculation of some local +magnate, who paid 30,000 francs for the whole structure. You can climb +up into one of the shattered towers whereon reposes an old cannon amid a +wind-sown garden of shrubs and weeds. Here the jackdaws congregate at +nightfall, flying swiftly and noiselessly to their resting-place. Odd, +how quiet Italian jackdaws are, compared with those of England; they +have discarded their voices, which is the best thing they could have +done in a land where every one persecutes them. There is also a dungeon +at this castle, an underground recess with cunningly contrived +projections in its walls to prevent prisoners from climbing upwards; and +other horrors. + +The cathedral of Venosa contains a chapel with an unusually nne portal +of Renaissance work, but the chief architectural beauty of the town is +the decayed Benedictine abbey of La Trinita. The building is roofless; +it was never completed, and the ravages of time and of man have not +spared it; earthquakes, too, have played sad tricks with its arches and +columns, particularly that of 1851, which destroyed the neighbouring +town of Melfi. It stands beyond the more modern settlement on what is +now a grassy plain, and attached to it is a Norman chapel containing the +bones of Alberada, mother of Boemund, and others of her race. Little of +the original structure of this church is left, though its walls are +still adorned, in patches, with frescoes of genuine angels--attractive +creatures, as far removed from those bloodless Byzantine anatomies as +from the plethoric and insipid females of the _settecento._ There is +also a queenly portrait declared to represent Catherine of Siena. I +would prefer to follow those who think it is meant for Sigilgaita. + +Small as it is, this place--the church and the abbey--is not one for a +casual visit. Lenormant calls the Trinita a "_Musee epigra-phique"--_so +many are the Latin inscriptions which the monks have worked into its +masonry. They have encrusted the walls with them; and many antiquities +of other kinds have been deposited here since those days. The ruin is +strewn with columns and capitals of fantastic devices; the inevitable +lions, too, repose upon its grassy floor, as well as a pagan altar-stone +that once adorned the neighbouring amphitheatre. One thinks of the +labour expended in raising those prodigious blocks and fitting them +together without mortar in their present positions--they, also, came +from the amphitheatre, and the sturdy letterings engraved on some of +them formed, once upon a time, a sentence that ran round that building, +recording the names of its founders. + +Besides the Latin inscriptions, there are Hebrew funereal stones of +great interest, for a colony of Jews was established here between the +years 400 and 800; poor folks, for the most part; no one knows whence +they came or whither they went. One is apt to forget that south Italy +was swarming with Jews for centuries. The catacombs of Venosa were +discovered in 1853. Their entrance lies under a hill-side not far from +the modern railway station, and Professor Mueller, a lover of Venosa, +has been engaged for the last twenty-five years in writing a ponderous +tome on the subject. Unfortunately (so they say) there is not much +chance of its ever seeing the light, for just as he is on the verge of +publication, some new Jewish catacombs are discovered in another part of +the world which cause the Professor to revise all his previous theories. +The work must be written anew and brought up to date, and hardly is this +accomplished when fresh catacombs are found elsewhere, necessitating a +further revision. The Professor once more rewrites the whole. . . . + +You will find accounts of the Trinita in Bertaux, Schulz and other +writers. Italian ones tell us what sounds rather surprising, namely, +that the abbey was built after a Lombard model, and not a French one. Be +that as it may--and they certainly show good grounds for their +contention--the ruin is a place of rare charm. Not easily can one see +relics of Roman, Hebrew and Norman life crushed into so small a space, +welded together by the massive yet fair architecture of the +Benedictines, and interpenetrated, at the same time, with a +Mephistophelian spirit of modern indifference. Of cynical +_insouciance;_ for although this is a "national monument," nothing +whatever is done in the way of repairs. Never a month passes without +some richly carven block of stonework toppling down into the weeds, +[Footnote: The process of decay can be seen by comparing my photograph +of the east front with that taken to illustrate Giuseppe de Lorenzo's +monograph "Venosa e la Regione del Vulture" (Bergamo, 1906).] +and were it not for the zeal of a private citizen, the interior of the +building would long ago have become an impassable chaos of stones and +shrubbery. The Trinita cannot be _restored_ without enormous outlay; +nobody dreams of such a thing. A yearly expenditure of ten pounds, +however, would go far towards arresting its fall. But where shall the +money be found? This enthusiastic nation, so enamoured of all that is +exquisite in art, will spend sixty million francs on a new Ministry of +Justice which, barely completed, is already showing signs of disrupture; +it will cheerfully vote _(vide_ daily press) the small item of eighty +thousand francs to supply that institution with pens and ink--lucky +contractor!--while this and a hundred other buildings of singular beauty +are allowed to crumble to pieces, day by day. + +Not far from the abbey there stands a church dedicated to Saint Roque. +Go within, if you wish to see the difference between Benedictine dignity +and the buffoonery which subsequently tainted the Catholicism of the +youth. On its gable sits a strange emblem: a large stone dog, gazing +amiably at the landscape. The saint, during his earthly career, was +always accompanied by a dog, and now likes to have him on the roof of +his sanctuary. + +The Norman church attached to the Trinita lies at a lower level than +that building, having been constructed, says Lupoli, on the foundations +of a temple to Hymenaeus. It may be so; but one distrusts Lupoli. A +remarkable Norman capital, now wrought into a font, is preserved here, +and I was interested in watching the behaviour of a procession of female +pilgrims in regard to it. Trembling with emotion, they perambulated the +sacred stone, kissing every one of its corners; then they dipped their +hands into its basin, and kissed them devoutly. An old hag, the mistress +of the ceremonies, muttered: "tutti santi--tutti santi!" at each +osculation. Next, they prostrated themselves on the floor and licked +the cold stones, and after wallowing there awhile, rose up and began to +kiss a small fissure in the masonry of the wall, the old woman +whispering, "Santissimo!" A familiar spectacle, no doubt; but one which +never fails of its effect. This anti-hygienic crack in the wall, with +its suggestions of yoni-worship, attracted me so strongly that I begged +a priest to explain to me its mystical signification. But he only said, +with a touch of mediaeval contempt: + +"_Sono femine!_" + +He showed me, later on, a round Roman pillar near the entrance of the +church worn smooth by the bodies of females who press themselves between +it and the wall, in order to become mothers. The notion caused him some +amusement--he evidently thought this practice a speciality of Venosa. + +In my country, I said, pillars with a contrary effect would be more +popular among the fair sex. + +Lear gives another account of this phallic emblem. He says that +perambulating it hand in hand with another person, the two are sure to +remain friends for life. + +This is pre-eminently a "Victorian" version. + + + + +VII + +THE BANDUSIAN FOUNT + + +The traveller in these parts is everlastingly half-starved. Here, at +Venosa, the wine is good--excellent, in fact; but the food monotonous +and insufficient. This improper dieting is responsible for much +mischief; it induces a state of chronic exacerbation. Nobody would +believe how nobly I struggle, day and night, against its evil +suggestions. A man's worst enemy is his own empty stomach. None knew it +better than Horace. + +And yet he declared that lettuces and such-like stuff sufficed him. No +doubt, no doubt. "Olives nourish me." Just so! One does not grow up in +the school of Maecenas without learning the subtle delights of the +simple life. But I would wager that after a week of such feeding as I +have now undergone at his native place, he would quickly have remembered +some urgent business to be transacted in the capital--Caesar Augustus, +me-thinks, would have desired his company. And even so, I have suddenly +woke up to the fact that Taranto, my next resting-place, besides +possessing an agreeably warm climate, has some passable restaurants. I +will pack without delay. Mount Vulture must wait. The wind alone, the +Vulturnus or south-easterly wind, is quite enough to make one despair of +climbing hills. It has blown with objectionable persistency ever since +my arrival at Venosa. + +To escape from its attentions, I have been wandering about the secluded +valleys that seam this region. Streamlets meander here amid rustling +canes and a luxuriant growth of mares' tails and creepers; their banks +are shaded by elms and poplars--Horatian trees; the thickets are loud +with songs of nightingale, black-cap and oriole. These humid dells are a +different country from the uplands, wind-swept and thriftily cultivated. + +It was here, yesterday, that I came upon an unexpected sight--an army of +workmen engaged in burrowing furiously into the bowels of Mother Earth. +They told me that this tunnel would presently become one of the arteries +of that vast system, the Apulian Aqueduct. The discovery accorded with +my Roman mood, for the conception and execution alike of this grandiose +project are worthy of the Romans. Three provinces where, in years of +drought, wine is cheaper than water, are being irrigated--in the teeth +of great difficulties of engineering and finance. Among other things, +there are 213 kilometres of subterranean tunnellings to be built; eleven +thousand workmen are employed; the cost is estimated at 125 million +francs. The Italian government is erecting to its glory a monument more +durable than brass. This is their heritage from the Romans--this talent +for dealing with rocks and waters; for bridling a destructive +environment and making it subservient to purposes of human +intercourse. It is a part of that practical Roman genius for +"pacification." Wild nature, to the Latin, ever remains an obstacle to +be overcome--an enemy. + +Such was Horace's point of view. The fruitful fields and their hardy +brood of tillers appealed to him; [Footnote: See next chapter.] +the ocean and snowy Alps were beyond the range of his affections. His +love of nature was heartfelt, but his nature was not ours; it was nature +as we see it in those Roman landscapes at Pompeii; nature ancillary to +human needs, in her benignant and comfortable moods. Virgil's _lachrymae +rerum_ hints at mystic and extra-human yearnings; to the troubadours +nature was conventionally stereotyped--a scenic decoration to set off +sentiments more or less sincere; the roman-ticists wallow in her rugged +aspects. Horace never allowed phantasy to outrun intelligence; he kept +his feet on earth; man was the measure of his universe, and a sober mind +his highest attribute. Nature must be kept "in her place." Her +extrava-gances are not to be admired. This anthropocentric spirit has +made him what he is--the ideal anti-sentimentalist and anti-vulgarian. +For excess of sentiment, like all other intemperance, is the mark of +that unsober and unsteady beast--the crowd. + +Things have changed since those days; in proportion as the world has +grown narrower and the element of fear and mystery diluted, our +sympathies have broadened; the Goth, in particular, has learnt the knack +of detecting natural charm where the Latin, to this day, beholds nothing +but confusion and strife. + +On the spot, I observe, one is liable to return to the antique outlook; +to see the beauty of fields and rivers, yet only when subsidiary to +man's personal convenience; to appreciate a fair landscape--with a +shrewd worldly sense of its potential uses. "The garden that I love," +said an Italian once to me, "contains good vegetables." This utilitarian +flavour of the south has become very intelligible to me during the last +few days. I, too, am thinking less of calceolarias than of cauliflowers. + +A pilgrimage to the Bandusian Fount (if such it be) is no great +undertaking--a morning's trip. The village of San Gervasio is the next +station to Venosa, lying on an eminence only thirteen kilometres from +there. + +Here once ran a fountain which was known as late as the twelfth century +as the Fons Bandusinus, and Ughelli, in his "Italia Sacra," cites a deed +of the year 1103 speaking of a church "at the Bandusian Fount near +Venosa." Church and fountain have now disappeared; but the site of the +former, they say, is known, and close to it there once issued a copious +spring called "Fontana Grande." This is probably the Horatian one; and +is also, I doubt not, that referred to in Cenna's chronicle of Venosa: +"At Torre San Gervasio are the ruins of a castle and an abundant spring +of water colder than all the waters of Venosa," _Frigus amabile. . . ._ + +I could discover no one in the place to show me where this now vanished +church stood. I rather think it occupied the site of the present church +of Saint Anthony, the oldest in San Gervasio. + +As to the fountain--there are now two of them, at some considerable +distance from each other. Both of them are copious, and both lie near +the foot of the hill on which the village now stands. Capmartin de +Chaupy has reasons for believing that in former times San Gervasio did +not occupy its present exalted position (vol. iii, p. 538). + +One of them gushes out on the plain near the railway station, and has +been rebuilt within recent times. It goes by the name of "Fontana +rotta." The other, the "Fontana del Fico," lies on the high road to +Spinazzola; the water spouts out of seven mouths, and near at hand is a +plantation of young sycamores. The basin of this fount was also rebuilt +about ten years ago at no little expense, and has now a thoroughly +modern and businesslike aspect. But I was told that a complicated +network of subterranean pipes and passages, leading to "God knows +where," was unearthed during the process of reconstruction. It was +magnificent masonry, said my informant, who was an eye-witness of the +excavations but could tell me nothing more of interest. + +The problem how far either of these fountains fulfils the conditions +postulated in the last verse of Horace's ode may be solved by every one +according as he pleases. In fact, there is no other way of solving it. +In my professorial mood, I should cite the cavern and the "downward +leaping" waters against the hypothesis that the Bandusian Fount stood on +either of these modern sites; in favour of it, one might argue that the +conventional rhetoric of all Roman art may have added these embellishing +touches, and cite, in confirmation thereof, the last two lines of the +previous verse, mentioning animals that could hardly have slaked their +thirst with any convenience at a cavernous spring such as he describes. +Caverns, moreover, are not always near the summits of hills; they may be +at the foot of them; and water, even the Thames at London Bridge, always +leaps downhill--more or less. Of more importance is old Chaupy's +discovery of the northerly aspect of one of these springs--"thee the +fierce season of the blazing dog-star cannot touch." There may have been +a cave at the back of the "Fontana del Fico"; the "Fontana rotta" is +hopelessly uncavernous. + +For the rest, there is no reason why the fountain should not have +changed its position since ancient days. On the contrary, several things +might incline one to think that it has been forced to abandon the high +grounds and seek its present lower level. To begin with, the hill on +which the village stands is honeycombed by hives of caves which the +inhabitants have carved out of the loose conglomerate (which, by the +way, hardly corresponds with the poet's _saxum);_ and it may well be +that a considerable collapse of these earth-dwellings obstructed the +original source of the waters and obliged them to seek a vent lower down. + +Next, there are the notorious effects of deforestation. An old man told +me that in his early days the hill was covered with timber--indeed, this +whole land, now a stretch of rolling grassy downs, was decently wooded +up to a short time ago. I observed that the roof of the oldest of the +three churches, that of Saint Anthony, is formed of wooden rafters (a +rare material hereabouts). Deforestation would also cause the waters to +issue at a lower level. + +Lastly, and chiefly--the possible shatterings of earthquakes. +Catastrophes such as those which have damaged Venosa in days past may +have played havoc with the water-courses of this place by choking up +their old channels. My acquaintance with the habits of Apulian +earthquakes, with the science of hydrodynamics and the geological +formation of San Gervasio is not sufficiently extensive to allow me to +express a mature opinion. I will content myself with presenting to +future investigators the plausible theory--plausible because +conveniently difficult to refute--that some terrestrial upheaval in past +days is responsible for the present state of things. + +But these are merely three hypotheses. I proceed to mention three facts +which point in the same direction; i.e. that the water used to issue at +a higher level. Firstly, there is that significant name "Fontana +rotta"--"the broken fountain." . . . Does not this suggest that its flow +may have been interrupted, or intercepted, in former times? + +Next, if you climb up from this "Fontana rotta" to the village by the +footpath, you will observe, on your right hand as you ascend the slope, +at about a hundred yards below the Church of Saint Anthony, an old well +standing in a field of corn and shaded by three walnuts and an oak. This +well is still running, and was described to me as "molto antico." +Therefore an underground stream--in diminished volume, no doubt--still +descends from the heights. + +Thirdly, in the village you will notice an alley leading out of the +Corso Manfredi (one rejoices to find the name of Manfred surviving in +these lands)--an alley which is entitled "Vico Sirene." The name arrests +your attention, for what have the Sirens to do in these inland regions? +Nothing whatever, unless they existed as ornamental statuary: statuary +such as frequently gives names to streets in Italy, witness the "Street +of the Faun" in Ouida's novel, or that of the "Giant" in Naples (which +has now been re-christened). It strikes me as a humble but quite +scholarly speculation to infer that, the chief decorative uses of Sirens +being that of fountain deities, this obscure roadway keeps alive the +tradition of the old "Fontana Grande"--ornamented, we may suppose, with +marble Sirens--whose site is now forgotten, and whose very name has +faded from the memory of the countryfolk. + +What, then, does my ramble of two hours at San Gervasio amount to? It +shows that there is a possibility, at least, of a now vanished fountain +having existed on the heights where it might fulfil more accurately the +conditions of Horace's ode. If Ughelli's church "at the Bandusian Fount" +stood on this eminence--well, I shall be glad to corroborate, for once +in the way, old Ughelli, whose book contains a deal of dire nonsense. +And if the Abbe Chaupy's suggestion that the village lay at the foot of +the hill should ever prove to be wrong--well, his amiable ghost may be +pleased to think that even this does not necessitate the sacrifice of +his Venosa theory in favour of that of the scholiast Akron; there is +still a way out of the difficulty. + +But whether this at San Gervasio is the actual fountain hymned by +Horace--ah, that is quite another affair! Few poets, to be sure, have +clung more tenaciously to the memories of their childhood than did he +and Virgil. And yet, the whole scene may be a figment of his +imagination--the very word Bandusia may have been coined by him. Who can +tell? Then there is the Digentia hypothesis. I know it, I know it! I +have read some of its defenders, and consider _(entre nous)_ that they +have made out a pretty strong case. But I am not in the mood for +discussing their proposition--not just now. + +Here at San Gervasio I prefer to think only of the Roman singer, so +sanely jovial, and of these waters as they flowed, limpid and cool, in +the days when they fired his boyish fancy. Deliberately I refuse to hear +the charmer Boissier. Deliberately, moreover, I shut my eyes to the +present condition of affairs; to the herd of squabbling laundresses and +those other incongruities that spoil the antique scene. Why not? The +timid alone are scared by microscopic discords of time and place. The +sage can invest this prosaic water-trough with all its pristine dignity +and romance by an unfailing expedient. He closes an eye. It is an art he +learns early in life; a simple art, and one that greatly conduces to +happiness. The ever alert, the conscientiously wakeful--how many fine +things they fail to see! Horace knew the wisdom of being genially +unwise; of closing betimes an eye, or an ear; or both. _Desipere in +loco. . . ._ + + + + +VIII + +TILLERS OF THE SOIL + + +I remember watching an old man stubbornly digging a field by himself. He +toiled through the flaming hours, and what he lacked in strength was +made up in the craftiness, _malizia,_ born of long love of the soil. The +ground was baked hard; but there was still a chance of rain, and the +peasants were anxious not to miss it. Knowing this kind of labour, I +looked on from my vine-wreathed arbour with admiration, but without envy. + +I asked whether he had not children to work for him. + +"All dead--and health to you!" he replied, shaking his white head +dolefully. + +And no grandchildren? + +"All Americans (emigrants)." + +He spoke in dreamy fashion of years long ago when he, too, had +travelled, sailing to Africa for corals, to Holland and France; yes, and +to England also. But our dockyards and cities had faded from his mind; +he remembered only our men. + +"_Che bella gioventu--che bella gioventu!_" ("a sturdy brood"), he kept +on repeating. "And lately," he added, "America has been discovered." He +toiled fourteen hours a day, and he was 83 years old. + +Apart from that creature of fiction, the peasant _in fabula_ whom we all +know, I can find little to admire in this whole class of men, whose talk +and dreams are of the things of the soil, and who knows of nothing save +the regular interchange of summer and winter with their unvarying tasks +and rewards. None save a Cincinnatus or Garibaldi can be ennobled by the +spade. In spleenful moments, it seems to me that the most depraved of +city-dwellers has flashes of enthusiasm and self-abnegation never +experienced by this shifty, retrogressive and ungenerous brood, which +lives like the beasts of the field and has learnt all too much of their +logic. But they have a beast-virtue hereabouts which compels +respect--contentment in adversity. In this point they resemble the +Russian peasantry. And yet, who can pity the moujik? His cheeks are +altogether too round, and his morals too superbly bestial; he has +clearly been created to sing and starve by turns. But the Italian +peasant who speaks in the tongue of Homer and Virgil and Boccaccio is +easily invested with a halo of martyrdom; it is delightful to sympathize +with men who combine the manners of Louis Quatorze with the profiles of +Augustus or Plato, and who still recall, in many of their traits, the +pristine life of Odyssean days. Thus, they wear to-day the identical +"clouted leggings of oxhide, against the scratches of the thorns" which +old Laertes bound about his legs on the upland farm in Ithaka. They call +them "galandrine." + +On occasions of drought or flood there is not a word of complaint. I +have known these field-faring men and women for thirty years, and have +yet to hear a single one of them grumble at the weather. It is not +indifference; it is true philosophy--acquiescence in the inevitable. The +grievances of cultivators of lemons and wholesale agriculturalists, +whose speculations are often ruined by a single stroke of the human pen +in the shape of new regulations or tariffs, are a different thing; +_their_ curses are loud and long. But the bean-growers, dependent +chiefly on wind and weather, only speak of God's will. They have the +same forgiveness for the shortcomings of nature as for a wayward child. +And no wonder they are distrustful. Ages of oppression and misrule have +passed over their heads; sun and rain, with all their caprice, have been +kinder friends to them than their earthly masters. Some day, presumably, +the government will wake up to the fact that Italy is not an industrial +country, and that its farmers might profitably be taken into account again. + +But a change is upon the land. Types like this old man are becoming +extinct; for the patriarchal system of Coriolanus, the glory of southern +Italy, is breaking up. + +This is not the fault of conscription which, though it destroys old +dialects, beliefs and customs, widens the horizon by bringing fresh +ideas into the family, and generally sound ones. It does even more; it +teaches the conscripts to read and write, so that it is no longer as +dangerous to have dealings with a man who possesses these +accomplishments as in the days when they were the prerogative of +_avvocati_ and other questionable characters. A countryman, nowadays, +may read and write and yet be honest. + +What is shattering family life is the speculative spirit born of +emigration. A continual coming and going; two-thirds of the adolescent +and adult male population are at this moment in Argentina or the United +States--some as far afield as New Zealand. Men who formerly reckoned in +sous now talk of thousands of francs; parental authority over boys is +relaxed, and the girls, ever quick to grasp the advantages of money, +lose all discipline and steadiness. + +"My sons won't touch a spade," said a peasant to me; "and when I thrash +them, they complain to the police. They simply gamble and drink, waiting +their turn to sail. If I were to tell you the beatings _we_ used to get, +sir, you wouldn't believe me. You wouldn't believe me, not if I took my +oath, you wouldn't! I can feel them still--speaking with respect--here!" + +These emigrants generally stay away three or four years at a stretch, +and then return, spend their money, and go out again to make more. +Others remain for longer periods, coming back with huge incomes--twenty +to a hundred francs a day. Such examples produce the same effect as +those of the few lucky winners in the State lottery; every one talks of +them, and forgets the large number of less fortunate speculators. +Meanwhile the land suffers. The carob-tree is an instance. This +beautiful and almost eternal growth, the "hope of the southern +Apennines" as Professor Savastano calls it, whose pods constitute an +important article of commerce and whose thick-clustering leaves yield a +cool shelter, comparable to that of a rocky cave, in the noonday heat, +used to cover large tracts of south Italy. Indifferent to the scorching +rays of the sun, flourishing on the stoniest declivities, and sustaining +the soil in a marvellous manner, it was planted wherever nothing else +would grow--a distant but sure profit. Nowadays carobs are only cut +down. Although their produce rises in value every year, not one is +planted; nobody has time to wait for the fruit. [Footnote: There are a +few laudable exceptions, such as Prince Belmonte, who has covered large +stretches of bad land with this tree. (See Consular Reports, Italy, No. +431.) But he is not a peasant!] + +It is nothing short of a social revolution, depopulating the country of +its most laborious elements. 788,000 emigrants left in one year alone +(1906); in the province of Basilicata the exodus exceeds the birthrate. +I do not know the percentage of those who depart never to return, but it +must be considerable; the land is full of chronic grass-widows. + +Things will doubtless right themselves in due course; it stands to +reason that in this acute transitional stage the demoralizing effects of +the new system should be more apparent than its inevitable benefits. +Already these are not unseen; houses are springing up round villages, +and the emigrants return home with a disrespect for many of their +country's institutions which, under the circumstances, is neither +deplorable nor unjustifiable. A large family of boy-children, once a +dire calamity, is now the soundest of investments. Soon after their +arrival in America they begin sending home rations of money to their +parents; the old farm prospers once more, the daughters receive decent +dowries. I know farmers who receive over three pounds a month from their +sons in America--all under military age. + +"We work, yes," they will then tell you, "but we also smoke our pipe." + +Previous to this wholesale emigration, things had come to such a pass +that the landed proprietor could procure a labourer at a franc a day, +out of which he had to feed and clothe himself; it was little short of +slavery. The roles are now reversed, and while landlords are +impoverished, the rich emigrant buys up the farms or makes his own terms +for work to be done, wages being trebled. A new type of peasant is being +evolved, independent of family, fatherland or traditions--with a sure +haven of refuge across the water when life at home becomes intolerable. + +Yes; a change is at hand. + +And another of those things which emigration and the new order of +affairs are surely destroying is that ancient anthropomorphic way of +looking at nature, with its expressive turns of speech. A small boy, +whom I watched gathering figs last year, informed me that the fig-tree +was _innamorato delle pietre e cisterne--_enamoured of stones and +cisterns; meaning, that its roots are searchingly destructive to masonry +and display a fabulous intuition for the proximity of water. He also +told me, what was news to me, that there are more than two or three +varieties of figs. Will you have his list of them? Here it is: + +There is the _fico arnese,_ the smallest of all, and the _fico +santillo,_ both of which are best when dried; the _fico vollombola,_ +which is never dried, because it only makes the spring fruit; the _fico +molegnano,_ which ripens as late as the end of October and must be eaten +fresh; the _fico coretorto ("_ wry-heart "--from its shape), which has +the most leathery skin of all and is often destroyed by grubs after +rain; the _fico troiano;_ the _fico arzano;_ and the _fico vescovo,_ +which appears when all the others are over, and is eaten in February +(this may be the kind referred to in Stamer's "Dolce Napoli" as deriving +from Sorrento, where the first tree of its kind was discovered growing +out of the garden wall of the bishop's palace, whence the name). All +these are _neri--_black. + +Now for the white kinds. The _fico paradiso_ has a tender skin, but is +easily spoilt by rain and requires a ridiculous amount of sun to dry it; +ihe _fico vottato_ is also better fresh; the _fico pezzottolo_ is often +attacked by grubs, but grows to a large size every two or three years; +the _fico pascarello_ is good up till Christmas; the _fico natalino;_ +lastly, the _fico ----_, whose name I will not record, though it would +be an admirable illustration of that same anthropomorphic turn of mind. +The _santillo_ and _arnese,_ he added, are the varieties which are cut +into two and laid lengthwise upon each other and so dried (Query: Is not +this the "duplex ficus" of Horace?). + +"Of course there are other kinds," he said, "but I don't remember them +just now." When I asked whether he could tell these different fig-trees +apart by the leaves and stems alone and without the fruit, he said that +each kind, even in winter, retained its peculiar "faccia" (face), but +that some varieties are more easy to distinguish than others. I enquired +into the mysteries of caprification, and learned that artificial +ripening by means of a drop of oil is practised with some of them, +chiefly the _santillo, vollombola, pascarello_ and _natalino._ Then he +gave me an account of the prices for the different qualities and seasons +which would have astonished a grocer. + +All of which proves how easy it is to misjudge of folks who, although +they do not know that Paris is the capital of France, yet possess a +training adapted to their present needs. They are specialists for things +of the grain-giving earth; it is a pleasure to watch them grafting vines +and olives and lemons with the precision of a trained horticulturist. +They talk of "governing" _(governare)_ their soil; it is the word they +use in respect to a child. + +Now figs are neither white nor black, but such is the terminology. +Stones are white or black; prepared olives are white or black; wine is +white or black. Are they become colour-blind because impregnated, +from earliest infancy, with a perennial blaze of rainbow hues-- +colour-blinded, in fact; or from negligence, attention to this +matter not bringing with it any material advantage? Excepting that +sign-language which is profoundly interesting from an artistic and +ethnological point of view--why does not some scholar bring old lorio's +"Mimica degli Antichi" up to date?--few things are more worthy of +investigation than the colour-sense of these people. Of blue they have +not the faintest conception, probably because there are so few blue +solids in nature; Max Mueller holds the idea of blue to be quite +a modern acquisition on the part of the human race. So a cloudless sky +is declared to be "quite white." I once asked a lad as to the colour +of the sea which, at the moment, was of the most brilliant sapphire hue. +He pondered awhile and then said: + +"Pare come fosse un colore morto" (a sort of dead colour). + +Green is a little better known, but still chiefly connected with things +not out of doors, as a green handkerchief. The reason may be that this +tint is too common in nature to be taken note of. Or perhaps because +their chain of association between green and grass is periodically +broken up--our fields are always verdant, but theirs turn brown in +summer. Trees they sometimes call yellow, as do some ancient writers; +but more generally "half-black" or "tree-colour." A beech in full leaf +has been described to me as black. _"Rosso"_ does not mean red, but +rather dun or dingy; earth is _rosso._ When our red is to be signified, +they will use the word "turco," which came in with the well-known +dye-stuff of which the Turks once monopolized the secret. Thus there are +"Turkish" apples and "Turkish" potatoes. But "turco" may also mean +black--in accordance with the tradition that the Turks, the Saracens, +were a black race. Snakes, generally greyish-brown in these parts, are +described as either white or black; an eagle-owl is half-black; a +kestrel _un quasi bianco._ The mixed colours of cloths or silks are +either beautiful or ugly, and there's an end of it. It is curious to +compare this state of affairs with that existing in the days of Homer, +who was, as it were, feeling his way in a new region, and the propriety +of whose colour epithets is better understood when one sees things on +the spot. Of course I am only speaking of the humble peasant whose +blindness, for the rest, is not incurable. + +One might enlarge the argument and deduce his odd insensibility to +delicate scents from the fact that he thrives in an atmosphere saturated +with violent odours of all kinds; his dullness in regard to finer shades +of sound--from the shrieks of squalling babies and other domestic +explosions in which he lives from the cradle to the grave. That is why +these people have no "nerves"; terrific bursts of din, such as the +pandemonium of Piedigrotta, stimulate them in the same way that others +might be stimulated by a quartette of Brahms. And if they who are so +concerned about the massacre of small birds in this country would devote +their energies to the invention of a noiseless and yet cheap powder, +their efforts would at last have some prospects of success. For it is +not so much the joy of killing, as the pleasurable noise of the gun, +which creates these local sportsmen; as the sagacious "Ultramontain" +observed long ago. "Le napolitain est pas-sionne pour la chasse," he +says, "parce que les coups de fusil flattent son oreille." [Footnote: +I have looked him up in Jos. Blanc's "Bibliographic." His name was C. +Haller.] This ingenuous love of noise may be connected, in some way, +with their rapid nervous discharges. + +I doubt whether intermediate convulsions have left much purity of Greek +blood in south Italy, although emotional travellers, fresh from the +north, are for ever discovering "classic Hellenic profiles" among the +people. There is certainly a scarce type which, for want of a better +hypothesis, might be called Greek: of delicate build and below the +average height, small-eared and straight-nosed, with curly hair that +varies from blonde to what Italians call _castagno chiaro._ It differs +not only from the robuster and yet fairer northern breed, but also from +the darker surrounding races. But so many contradictory theories have +lately been promulgated on this head, that I prefer to stop short at the +preliminary question--did a Hellenic type ever exist? No more, probably, +than that charming race which the artists of Japan have invented for our +delectation. + +Strains of Greek blood can be traced with certainty by their track of +folklore and poetry and song, such as still echoes among the vales of +Sparta and along the Bosphorus. Greek words are rather rare here, and +those that one hears--such as _sciusciello, caruso, crisommele,_ +etc.--have long ago been garnered by scholars like De Grandis, Moltedo, +and Salvatore Mele. So Naples is far more Hellenic in dialect, lore, +song and gesture than these regions, which are still rich in pure +latinisms of speech, such as surgere (to arise); scitare (excitare--to +arouse); e (est--yes); fetare (foetare); trasete (transitus--passage of +quails); titillare (to tickle); craje (cras--to-morrow); pastena (a +plantation of young vines; Ulpian has "pastinum instituere"). A woman is +called "muliera," a girl "figliola," and children speak of their fathers +as "tata" (see Martial, epig. I, 101). Only yesterday I added a +beautiful latinism to my collection, when an old woman, in whose cottage +I sometimes repose, remarked to me, "Non avete virtu oggi "--you are not +_up to the mark_ to-day. The real, antique virtue! I ought to have +embraced her. No wonder I have no "virtue" just now. This savage +Vulturnian wind--did it not sap the Roman virtue at Cannae? + +All those relics of older civilizations are disappearing under the +standardizing influence of conscription, emigration and national schooling. +And soon enough the _Contranome-_system __will become a thing of the +past. I shall be sorry to see it go, though it has often driven me +nearly crazy. + +What is a _contranome?_ + +The same as a _sopranome._ It is a nickname which, as with the Russian +peasants, takes the place of Christian and surname together. A man will +tell you: "My name is Luigi, but they call me, by _contranome,_ +O'Canzirro. I don't know my surname." Some of these nicknames are +intelligible, such as O'Sborramurella, which refers to the man's +profession of building those walls without mortar which are always +tumbling down and being repaired again; or O'Sciacquariello (acqua--a +leaking--one whose money leaks from his pocket--a spendthrift); or San +Pietro, from his saintly appearance; O'Civile, who is so uncivilized, or +Cristoforo Colombo, because he is so very wideawake. But eighty per cent +of them are quite obscure even to their owners, going back, as they do, +to some forgotten trick or incident during childhood or to some pet name +which even in the beginning meant nothing. Nearly every man and boy has +his contranome by which, and _by which alone,_ he is known in his +village; the women seldomer, unless they are conspicuous by some +peculiarity, such as A'Sbirra (the spy), or A'Paponnessa (the fat +one)--whose counterpart, in the male sex, would be O'Tripone. + +Conceive, now, what trouble it entails to find a man in a strange +village if you happen not to know his contranome (and how on earth are +you to discover it?), if his surname means nothing to the inhabitants, +and his Christian name is shared by a hundred others. For they have an +amazing lack of inventiveness in this matter; four or five Christian +names will include the whole population of the place. Ten to one you +will lose a day looking for him, unless something like this takes place: + +You set forth your business to a crowd of villagers that have collected +around. It is simple enough. You want to speak to Luigi So-and-so. A +good-natured individual, who seems particularly anxious to help, +summarizes affairs by saying: + +"The gentleman wants Luigi So-and-so." + +There is evidently some joke in the mere suggestion of such a thing; +they all smile. Then a confused murmur of voices goes up: + +"Luigi--Luigi. . . . Now which Luigi does he mean?" + +You repeat his surname in a loud voice. It produces no effect, beyond +that of increased hilarity. + +"Luigi--Luigi. . . ." + +"Perhaps O'Zoccolone?" + +"Perhaps O'Seticchio?" + +"Or the figlio d' O'Zibalocchio?" + +The good-natured individual volunteers to beat the surrounding district +and bring in all the Luigis he can find. After half an hour they begin +to arrive, one by one. He is not among them. Dismissed with cigars, as +compensation for loss of time. + +Meanwhile half the village has gathered around, vastly enjoying the fun, +which it hopes will last till bedtime. You are getting bewildered; new +people flock in from the fields to whom the mysterious joke about Luigi +must be explained. + +"Luigi--Luigi," they begin again. "Now, which of them can he mean?" + +"Perhaps O'Marzariello?" + +"Or O'Cuccolillo?" + +"I never thought of him," says the good-natured individual. "Here, boy, +run and tell O'Cuccolillo that a foreign gentleman wants to give him a +cigar." + +By the time O'Cuccolillo appears on the scene the crowd has thickened. +You explain the business for the fiftieth time; no--he is Luigi, of +course, but not the right Luigi, which he regrets considerably. Then the +joke is made clear to him, and he laughs again. You have lost all your +nerve, but the villagers are beginning to love you, + +"Can it be O'Sciabecchino?" + +"Or the figlio d' O'Chiappino?" + +"It might be O'Busciardiello (the liar)." + +"He's dead." + +"So he is. I quite forgot. Well, then it must be the husband of +A'Cicivetta (the flirt)." + +"He's in prison. But how about O'Caccianfierno?" + +Suddenly a withered hag croaks authoritatively: + +"I know! The gentleman wants O'Tentillo." + +Chorus of villagers: + +"Then why doesn't he say so?" + +O'Tentillo lives far, far away. An hour elapses; at last he comes, full +of bright expectations. No, this is not your Luigi, he is another Luigi. +You are ready to sink into the earth, but there is no escape. The crowd +surges all around, the news having evidently spread to neighbouring +hamlets. + +"Luigi--Luigi. . . . Let me see. It might be O'Rappo." + +"O'Massassillo, more likely." + +"I have it! It's O'Spennatiello." + +"I never thought of him," says a well-known voice. "Here, boy, run and +tell----" + +"Or O'Cicereniello." + +"O'Vergeniello." + +"O'Sciabolone. ..." + +"Never mind the G---- d---- son of b----," says a cheery person in +excellent English, who has just arrived on the scene. "See here, I live +fifteen years in Brooklyn; damn fine! 'Ave a glass of wine round my +place. Your Luigi's in America, sure. And if he isn't, send him to Hell." + +Sound advice, this. + +"What's his surname, anyhow?" he goes on. + +You explain once more. + +"Why, there's the very man you're looking for. There, standing right in +front of you! He's Luigi, and that's his surname right enough. He don't +know it himself, you bet." + +And he points to the good-natured individual. . . . + + +These countryfolk can fare on strange meats. A boy consumed a snake that +was lying dead by the roadside; a woman ate thirty raw eggs and then a +plate of maccheroni; a man swallowed six kilograms of the uncooked fat +of a freshly slaughtered pig (he was ill for a week afterwards); another +one devoured two small birds alive, with beaks, claws and feathers. Such +deeds are sternly reprobated as savagery; still, they occur, and nearly +always as the result of wagers. I wish I could couple them with equally +heroic achievements in the drinking line, but, alas! I have only heard +of one old man who was wont habitually to en-gulph twenty-two litres of +wine a day; eight are spoken of as "almost too much" in these degenerate +days. . . . + +Mice, says Movers, were sacrificially eaten by the Babylonians. Here, as +in England, they are cooked into a paste and given to children, to cure +a certain complaint. To take away the dread of the sea from young boys, +they mix into their food small fishes which have been devoured by larger +ones and taken from their stomachs--the underlying idea being that these +half-digested fry are thoroughly familiar with the storms and perils of +the deep, and will communicate these virtues to the boys who eat them. +It is the same principle as that of giving chamois blood to the +goat-boys of the Alps, to strengthen their nerves against +giddiness--pure sympathetic magic, of which there is this, at least, to +be said, that "its fundamental conception is identical with that of +modern science--a faith in the order or uniformity of nature." + +I have also met persons who claim to have been cured of rachitic +troubles in their youth by eating a puppy dog cooked in a saucepan. But +only one kind of dog is good for this purpose, to be procured from those +foundling hospitals whither hundreds of illegitimate infants are taken +as soon as possible after birth. The mothers, to relieve the discomfort +caused by this forcible separation from the new-born, buy a certain kind +of puppy there, bring them home, and nourish them _in loco infantis._ +These puppies cost a franc apiece, and are generally destroyed after +performing their duties; it is they who are cooked for curing the +scrofulous tendencies of other children. Swallows' hearts are also used +for another purpose; so is the blood of tortoises--for strengthening the +backs of children (the tortoise being a _hard_ animal). So is that of +snakes, who are held up by head and tail and pricked with needles; the +greater their pain, the more beneficial their blood, which is soaked up +with cotton-wool and applied as a liniment for swollen glands. In fact, +nearly every animal has been discovered to possess some medicinal property. + +But of the charm of such creatures the people know nothing. How +different from the days of old! These legendary and gracious beasts, +that inspired poets and artists and glyptic engravers--these things of +beauty have now descended into the realm of mere usefulness, into the +pharmacopoeia. + +The debasement is quite intelligible, when one remembers what +accumulated miseries these provinces have undergone. Memories of +refinement were starved out of the inhabitants by centuries of misrule, +when nothing was of interest or of value save what helped to fill the +belly. The work of bestialization was carried on by the despotism of +Spanish Viceroys and Bourbons. They, the Spaniards, fostered and perhaps +imported the Camorra, that monster of many heads which has established +itself in nearly every town of the south. Of the deterioration in taste +coincident with this period, I lately came across this little bit of +evidence, curious and conclusive:--In 1558 a number of the country-folk +were captured in one of the usual Corsair raids; they were afterwards +ransomed, and among the Christian names of the women I note: Livia, +Fiula, Cassandra, Aurelia, Lucrezia, Verginia, Medea, Violanta, Galizia, +Vittoria, Diamanta, etc. Where were these full-sounding noble names two +centuries later--where are they nowadays? Do they not testify to a state +of culture superior to that of the present time, when Maria, Lucia, and +about four others of the most obvious catholic saints exhaust the list +of all female Christian names hereabouts? + +All this is changing once more; a higher standard of comfort is being +evolved, though relics of this former state of insecurity may still be +found; such as the absence, even in houses of good families, of clocks +and watches, and convenient storage for clothes and domestic utensils; +their habits of living in penury and of buying their daily food by +farthings, as though one never knew what the next day might bring; their +dread of going out of doors by night (they have a proverb which runs, +_di notte, non parlar forte; di giorno, guardati attorno_), their lack +of humour. For humour is essentially a product of ease, and nobody can +be at ease in unquiet times. That is why so few poets are humorous; +their restlessly querulous nature has the same effect on their outlook +as an insecure environment. + +But it will be long ere these superstitions are eradicated. The magic of +south Italy deserves to be well studied, for the country is a cauldron +of demonology wherein Oriental beliefs--imported direct from Egypt, the +classic home of witchcraft--commingled with those of the West. A +foreigner is at an unfortunate disadvantage; if he asks questions, he +will only get answers dictated by suspicion or a deliberate desire to +mislead--prudent answers; whoso accepts these explanations in good +faith, might produce a wondrous contribution to ethnology. + +Wise women and wizards abound, but they are not to be compared with that +_santa_ near Naples whom I used to visit in the nineties, and who was so +successful in the magics that the Bishop of Pozzuoli, among hundreds of +other clients, was wont to drive up to her door once a week for a +consultation. These mostly occupy themselves with the manufacture of +charms for gaining lucky lottery numbers, and for deluding fond women +who wish to change their lovers. + +The lore of herbs is not much studied. For bruises, a slice of the +Opuntia is applied, or the cooling parietaria (known as "pareta" or +"paretene"); the camomile and other common remedies are in vogue; the +virtues of the male fern, the rue, sabina and (home-made) ergot of rye +are well known but not employed to the extent they are in Russia, where +a large progeny is a disaster. There is a certain respect for the +legitimate unborn, and even in cases of illegitimacy some neighbouring +foundling hospital, the house of the Madonna, is much more convenient. + +It is a true monk's expedient; it avoids the risk of criminal +prosecution; the only difference being that the Mother of God, and not +the natural mother of the infant, becomes responsible for its prompt and +almost inevitable destruction. [Footnote: The scandals that +occasionally arise in connection with that saintly institution, the +Foundling Hospital at Naples, are enough to make humanity shudder. Of +856 children living under its motherly care during 1895, 853 "died" in +the course of that one year-only three survived; a wholesale massacre. +These 853 murdered children were carried forward in the books as still +living, and the institution, which has a yearly revenue of over 600,000 +francs, was debited with their maintenance, while 42 doctors (instead of +the prescribed number of 19) continued to draw salaries for their +services to these innocents that had meanwhile been starved and tortured +to death. The official report on these horrors ends with the words: +"There is no reason to think that these facts are peculiar to the year +1895."] + +That the moon stands in sympathetic relations with living vegetation is +a fixed article of faith among the peasantry. They will prune their +plants only when the satellite is waxing--_al sottile detta luna,_ as +they say. Altogether, the moon plays a considerable part in their lore, +as might be expected in a country where she used to be worshipped under +so many forms. The dusky markings on her surface are explained by saying +that the moon used to be a woman and a baker of bread, her face gleaming +with the reflection of the oven, but one day she annoyed her mother, who +took up the brush they use for sweeping away the ashes, and smirched her +face. . . . + +Whoever reviews the religious observances of these people as a whole +will find them a jumble of contradictions and incongruities, lightly +held and as lightly dismissed. Theirs is the attitude of mind of little +children--of those, I mean, who have been so saturated with Bible +stories and fairy tales that they cease to care whether a thing be true +or false, if it only amuses for the moment. That is what makes them an +ideal prey for the quack physician. They will believe anything so long +as it is strange and complicated; a straightforward doctor is not +listened to; they want that mystery-making "priest-physician" +concerning whom a French writer--I forget his name--has wisely +discoursed. I once recommended a young woman who was bleeding at the +nose to try the homely remedy of a cold key. I thought she would have +died of laughing! The expedient was too absurdly simple to be efficacious. + +The attitude of the clergy in regard to popular superstitions is the +same here as elsewhere. They are too wise to believe them, and too +shrewd to discourage the belief in others; these things can be turned to +account for keeping the people at a conveniently low level of +intelligence. For the rest, these priests are mostly good fellows of the +live-and-let-live type, who would rather cultivate their own potatoes +than quarrel about vestments or the Trinity. Violently acquisitive, of +course, like most southerners. I know a parish priest, a son of poor +parents, who, by dint of sheer energy, has amassed a fortune of half a +million francs. He cannot endure idleness in any shape, and a fine +mediaeval scene may be witnessed when he suddenly appears round the +corner and catches his workmen wasting their time and his money-- + +"Ha, loafers, rogues, villains, vermin and sons of _bastardi cornuti!_ +If God had not given me these garments and thereby closed my lips to all +evil-speaking (seizing his cassock and displaying half a yard of purple +stocking)--wouldn't I just tell you, spawn of adulterous assassins, what +I think of you!" + +But under the new regime these priests are becoming mere decorative +survivals, that look well enough in the landscape, but are not taken +seriously save in their match-making and money-lending capacities. + +The intense realism of their religion is what still keeps it alive for +the poor in spirit. Their saints and devils are on the same familiar +footing towards mankind as were the old gods of Greece. Children do not +know the meaning of "Inferno"; they call it "casa del diavolo" (the +devil's house); and if they are naughty, the mother says, "La Madonna +strilla"--the Madonna will scold. Here is a legend of Saint Peter, +interesting for its realism and because it has been grafted upon a very +ancient _motif:--_ + +The apostle Peter was a dissatisfied sort of man, who was always +grumbling about things in general and suggesting improvements in the +world-scheme. He thought himself cleverer even than "N. S. G. C." One +day they were walking together in an olive orchard, and Peter said: + +"Just look at the trouble and time it takes to collect all those +miserable little olives. Let's have them the size of melons." + +"Very well. Have your way, friend Peter! But something awkward is bound +to happen. It always does, you know, with those improvements of yours." +And, sure enough, one of these enormous olives fell from the tree +straight on the saint's head, and ruined his new hat. + +"I told you so," said N. S. G. C. + +I remember a woman explaining to me that the saints in Heaven took their +food exactly as we do, and at the same hours. + +"The same food?" I asked. "Does the Madonna really eat beans?" + +"Beans? Not likely! But fried fish, and beefsteaks of veal." I tried to +picture the scene, but the effort was too much for my hereditary Puritan +leanings. Unable to rise to these heights of realism, I was rated a +pagan for my ill-timed spirituality. + +_Madame est servie. . . ._ + + + + +IX + +MOVING SOUTHWARDS + + +The train conveying me to Taranto was to halt for the night at the +second station beyond Venosa--at Spinaz-zola. Aware of this fact, I had +enquired about the place and received assuring reports as to its hotel +accommodation. But the fates were against me. On my arrival in the late +evening I learnt that the hotels were all closed long ago, the townsfolk +having gone to bed "with the chickens"; it was suggested that I had +better stay at the station, where the manageress of the restaurant kept +certain sleeping quarters specially provided for travellers in my +predicament. + +Presently the gentle dame lighted a dim lantern and led me across what +seemed to be a marsh (it was raining) to the door of a hut which was to +be my resting-place. At the entrance she paused, and after informing me +that a band of musicians had taken all the beds save one which was at my +disposal if I were good enough to pay her half a franc, she placed the +lantern in my hand and stumbled back into the darkness. + +I stepped into a low chamber, the beds of which were smothered under a +profusion of miscellaneous wraps. The air was warm--the place exhaled an +indescribable _esprit de corps._ Groping further, I reached another +apartment, vaulted and still lower than the last, an old-fashioned +cow-stable, possibly, converted into a bedroom. One glance sufficed me: +the couch was plainly not to be trusted. Thankful to be out of the rain +at least, I lit a pipe and prepared to pass the weary hours till 4 a.m. + +It was not long ere I discovered that there was another bed in this den, +opposite my own; and judging by certain undulatory and saltatory +movements within, it was occupied. Presently the head of a youth +emerged, with closed eyes and flushed features. He indulged in a series +of groans and spasmodic kicks, that subsided once more, only to +recommence. A flute projected from under his pillow. + +"This poor young man," I thought, "is plainly in bad case. On account of +illness, he has been left behind by the rest of the band, who have gone +to Spinazzola to play at some marriage festival. He is feverish, or +possibly subject to fits--to choriasis or who knows what disorder of the +nervous system. A cruel trick, to leave a suffering youngster alone in +this foul hovel." I mis-liked his symptoms--that anguished complexion +and delirious intermittent trembling, and began to run over the scanty +stock of household remedies contained in my bag, wondering which of them +might apply to his complaint. There was court plaster and boot polish, +quinine, corrosive sublimate and Worcester sauce (detestable stuff, but +indispensable hereabouts). + +Just as I had decided in favour of the last-named, he gave a more than +usually vigorous jerk, sat up in bed and, opening his eyes, remarked: + +"Those fleas!" + +This, then, was the malady. I enquired why he had not joined his +companions. + +He was tired, he said; tired of life in general, and of flute-playing in +particular. Tired, moreover, of certain animals; and with a tiger-like +spring he leapt out of bed. + +Once thoroughly awake, he proved an amiable talker, though oppressed +with an incurable melancholy which no amount of tobacco and Venosa wine +could dispel. In gravely boyish fashion he told me of his life and +ambitions. He had passed a high standard at school, but--what would +you?--every post was crowded. He liked music, and would gladly take it +up as a profession, if anything could be learnt with a band such as his; +he was sick, utterly sick, of everything. Above all things, he wished to +travel. Visions of America floated before his mind--where was the money +to come from? Besides, there was the military service looming close at +hand; and then, a widowed mother at home--the inevitable mother--with a +couple of little sisters; how shall a man desert his family? He was born +on a farm on the Murge, the watershed between this country and the +Adriatic. Thinking of the Murge, that shapeless and dismal range of +limestone hills whose name suggests its sad monotony, I began to +understand the origin of his pagan wistfulness. + +"Happy foreigners!"--such was his constant refrain--"happy foreigners, +who can always do exactly what they like! Tell me something about other +countries," he said. + +"Something true?" + +"Anything--anything!" + +To cheer him up, I replied with improbable tales of Indian life, of +rajahs and diamonds, of panthers whose eyes shine like moonbeams in the +dark jungle, of elephants huge as battleships, of sportive monkeys who +tie knots in each others' tails and build themselves huts among the +trees, where they brew iced lemonade, which they offer in friendliest +fashion to the thirsty wayfarer, together with other light +refreshment---- + +"Cigarettes as well?" + +"No. They are not allowed to cultivate tobacco." + +"Ah, that _monopolio,_ the curse of humanity!" + +He was almost smiling when, at 2.30 a.m., there resounded a furious +knocking at the door, and the rest of the band appeared from their +unknown quarters in the liveliest of spirits. Altogether, a memorable +night. But at four o'clock the lantern was extinguished and the cavern, +bereft of its Salvator-Rosa glamour, resolved itself into a prosaic and +infernally unclean hovel. Issuing from the door, I saw those murky +recesses invaded by the uncompromising light of dawn, and shuddered. . . . + +The railway journey soon dispelled the phantoms of the night. As the +train sped downhill, the sun rose in splendour behind the Murge hills, +devouring mists so thickly couched that, struck by the first beams, they +glistered like compact snow-fields, while their shaded portions might +have been mistaken for stretches of mysterious swamp, from which an +occasional clump of tree-tops emerged, black and island-like. These +dreamland effects lasted but a brief time, and soon the whole face of +the landscape was revealed. An arid region, not unlike certain parts of +northern Africa. + +Yet the line passes through places renowned in history. Who would not +like to spend a day at Altamura, if only in memory of its treatment by +the ferocious Cardinal Ruffo and his army of cut-throats? After a heroic +but vain resistance comparable only to that of Saguntum or Petelia, +during which every available metal, and even money, was converted into +bullets to repel the assailers, there followed a three days' slaughter +of young and old; then the cardinal blessed his army and pronounced, in +the blood-drenched streets, a general absolution. Even this man has +discovered apologists. No cause so vile, that some human being will not +be found to defend it. + +So much I called to mind that morning from the pages of Colletta, and +straightway formed a resolution to slip out of the carriage and arrest +my journey at Altamura for a couple of days. But I must have been asleep +while the train passed through the station, nor did I wake up again till +the blue Ionian was in sight. + +At Venosa one thinks of Roman legionaries fleeing from Hannibal, +of Horace, of Norman ambitions; Lucera and Manfredonia call up +Saracen memories and the ephemeral gleams of Hohen-staufen; Gargano +takes us back into Byzantine mysticism and monkery. And now from +Altamura with its dark record of Bourbon horrors, we glide into the +sunshine of Hellenic days when the wise Archytas, sage and lawgiver, +friend of Plato, ruled this ancient city of Tarentum. A wide sweep of +history! And if those Periclean times be not remote enough, yonder lies +Oria on its hilltop, the stronghold of pre-Hellenic and almost legendary +Messapians; while for such as desire more recent associations there is +the Albanian colony of San Giorgio, only a few miles distant, to recall +the glories of Scanderbeg and his adventurous bands. + +Herein lies the charm of travel in this land of multiple +civilizations--the ever-changing layers of culture one encounters, their +wondrous juxtaposition. + +My previous experiences of Taranto hotels counselled me to take a +private room overlooking the inland sea (the southern aspect is already +intolerably hot), and to seek my meals at restaurants. And in such a one +I have lived for the last ten days or so, reviving old memories. The +place has grown in the interval; indeed, if one may believe certain +persons, the population has increased from thirty to ninety thousand +in--I forget how few years. The arsenal brings movement into the town; +it has appropriated the lion's share of building sites in the "new" +town. Is it a ripple on the surface of things, or will it truly stir the +spirits of the city? So many arsenals have come and gone, at Taranto! + +This arsenal quarter is a fine example of the Italian mania of _fare +figura--_everything for effect. It is an agglomeration of dreary +streets, haunted by legions of clamorous black swifts, and constructed +on the rectangular principle dear to the Latin mind. Modern, and +surpassingly monotonous. Are such interminable rows of stuccoed barracks +artistic to look upon, are they really pleasant to inhabit? Is it +reasonable or even sanitary, in a climate of eight months' sunshine, to +build these enormous roadways and squares filled with glaring limestone +dust that blows into one's eyes and almost suffocates one; these Saharas +that even at the present season of the year (early June) cannot be +traversed comfortably unless one wears brown spectacles and goes veiled +like a Tuareg? This arsenal quarter must be a hell during the really not +season, which continues into October. + +For no trees whatever are planted to shade the walking population, as in +Paris or Cairo or any other sunlit city. + +And who could guess the reason? An Englishman, at least, would never +bring himself to believe what is nevertheless a fact, namely, that if +the streets are converted into shady boulevards, the rents of the houses +immediately fall. When trees are planted, the lodgers complain and +finally emigrate to other quarters; the experiment has been tried, at +Naples and elsewhere, and always with the same result. Up trees, down +rents. The tenants refuse to be deprived of their chief pleasure in +life--that of gazing at the street-passengers, who must be good enough +to walk in the sunshine for their delectation. But if you are of an +inquisitive turn of mind, you are quite at liberty to return the +compliment and to study from the outside the most intimate details of +the tenants' lives within. Take your fill of their domestic doings; +stare your hardest. They don't mind in the least, not they! That feeling +of privacy which the northerner fosters doggedly even in the centre of a +teeming city is alien to their hearts; they like to look and be looked +at; they live like fish in an aquarium. It is a result of the whole +palazzo-System that every one knows his neighbour's business better than +his own. What does it matter, in the end? Are we not all "Christians "? + +The municipality, meanwhile, is deeply indebted for the sky-piercing +ambitions which have culminated in the building of this new quarter. To +meet these obligations, the octroi prices have been raised to the +highest pitch by the City Fathers. This octroi is farmed out and +produces (they tell me) 120 pounds a day; there are some hundred +toll-collecting posts at the outskirts of the town, and the average +salary of their officials is three pounds a month. They are supposed to +be respectable and honest men, but it is difficult to see how a family +can be supported on that wage, when one knows how high the rents are, +and how severely the most ordinary commodities of life are taxed. + +I endeavoured to obtain photographs of the land as it looked ere it was +covered by the arsenal quarter, but in vain. Nobody seems to have +thought it worth while preserving what would surely be a notable +economic document for future generations. Out of sheer curiosity I also +tried to procure a plan of the old quarter, that labyrinth of +thick-clustering humanity, where the Streets are often so narrow that +two persons can barely squeeze past each other. I was informed that no +such plan had ever been drawn up; it was agreed that a map of this kind +might be interesting, and suggested, furthermore, that I might undertake +the task myself; the authorities would doubtless appreciate my labours. +We foreigners, be it understood, have ample means and unlimited leisure, +and like nothing better than doing unprofitable jobs of this kind. +[Footnote: here is a map of old Taranto in Lasor a Varea (Savonarola) +_Universus terrarum etc.,_ Vol. II, p. 552, and another in J. Blaev's +_Theatrum Civitatum_ (1663). He talks of the "rude houses" of this +town.] + +One is glad to leave the scintillating desert of this arsenal quarter, +and enter the cool stone-paved streets of the other, which remind one +somewhat of Malta. In the days of Salis-Marschlins this city possessed +only 18,000 inhabitants, and "outdid even the customary Italian filth, +being hardly passable on account of the excessive nastiness and stink." +It is now scrupulously clean--so absurdly clean, that it has quite +ceased to be picturesque. Not that its buildings are particularly +attractive to me; none, that is, save the antique "Trinita" column of +Doric gravity--sole survivor of Hellenic Taras, which looks wondrously +out of place in its modern environment. One of the finest of these +earlier monuments, the Orsini tower depicted in old prints of the place, +has now been demolished. + +Lovers of the baroque may visit the shrine of Saint Cataldo, a jovial +nightmare in stone. And they who desire a literary pendant to this +fantastic structure should read the life of the saint written by Morone +in 1642. Like the shrine, it is the quintessence of insipid exuberance; +there is something preposterous in its very title "Cataldiados," and +whoever reads through those six books of Latin hexameters will arise +from the perusal half-dazed. Somehow or other, it dislocates one's whole +sense of terrestrial values to see a frowsy old monk [Footnote: This +wandering Irish missionary is supposed to have died here in the seventh +century, and they who are not satisfied with his printed biographies +will find one in manuscript of 550 pages, compiled in 1766, in the Cuomo +Library at Naples.] treated in the heroic style and metre, as though he +were a new Achilles. As a _jeu d'esprit_ the book might pass; but it is +deadly serious. Single men will always be found to perpetrate +monstrosities of literature; the marvel is that an entire generation of +writers should have worked themselves into a state of mind which +solemnly approved of such freaks. + +Every one has heard of the strange position of this hoary island-citadel +(a metropolis, already, in neolithic days). It is of oval shape, the +broad sides washed by the Ionian Sea and an oyster-producing lagoon; +bridges connect it at one extremi-y with the arsenal or new town, and at +the other with the so-called commercial quarter. It is as if some +precious gem were set, in a ring, between two others of minor worth. Or, +to vary the simile, this acropolis, with its close-packed alleys, is the +throbbing heart of Taranto; the arsenal quarter--its head; and that +other one--well, its stomach; quite an insignificant stomach as compared +with the head and corroborative, in so far, of the views of +Metch-nikoff, who holds that this hitherto commendable organ ought now +to be reduced in size, if not abolished altogether. . . . + +From out of this window I gaze upon the purple lagoon flecked with +warships and sailing-boats; and beyond it, upon the venerable land of +Japygia, the heel of Italy, that rises in heliotrope-tinted undulations +towards the Adriatic watershed. At night-time an exquisite perfume of +flowers and ripe corn comes wafted into my room over the still waters, +and when the sun rises, white settlements begin to sparkle among its +olives and vineyards. My eyes often rest upon one of them; it is +Grottaglie, distant a few miles from Taranto on the Brindisi line. I +must visit Grottaglie, for it was here that the flying monk received his +education. + +The flying monk! + +The theme is not inappropriate at this moment, when the newspapers are +ringing with the Paris-Rome aviation contest and the achievements of +Beaumont, Garros and their colleagues. I have purposely brought his +biography with me, to re-peruse on the spot. But let me first explain +how I became acquainted with this seventeenth-century pioneer of aviation. + + +It was an odd coincidence. + +I had arrived in Naples, and was anxious to have news of the proceedings +at a certain aviation meeting in the north, where a rather inexperienced +friend of mine had insisted upon taking a part; the newspaper reports of +these entertainments are enough to disturb anybody. While admiring the +great achievements of modern science in this direction, I wished +devoutly, at that particular moment, that flying had never been +invented; and it was something of a coincidence, I say, that stumbling +in this frame of mind down one of the unspeakable little side-streets in +the neighbourhood of the University, my glance should have fallen upon +an eighteenth-century engraving in a bookseller's window which depicted +a man raised above the ground without any visible means of +support--flying, in short. He was a monk, floating before an altar. A +companion, near at hand, was portrayed as gazing in rapturous wonder at +this feat of levitation. I stepped within and demanded the volume to +which this was the frontispiece. + +The salesman, a hungry-looking old fellow with incredibly dirty hands +and face, began to explain. + +"The Flying Monk, sir, Joseph of Copertino. A mighty saint and conjuror! +Or perhaps you would like some other book? I have many, many lives of +_santi_ here. Look at this one of the great Egidio, for instance. I can +tell you all about him, for he raised my mother's grand-uncle from the +dead; yes, out of the grave, as one may say. You'll find out all about +it in this book; and it's only one of his thousand miracles. And here is +the biography of the renowned Giangiuseppe, a mighty saint and----" + +I was paying little heed; the flying monk had enthralled me. An +unsuspected pioneer of aviation . . . here was a discovery! + +"He flew?" I queried, my mind reverting to the much-vaunted triumphs of +modern science. + +"Why not? The only reason why people don't fly like that nowadays is +because--well, sir, because they can't. They fly with machines, and +think it something quite new and wonderful. And yet it's as old as the +hills! There was Iscariot, for example--Icarus, I mean----" + +"Pure legend, my good man." + +"Everything becomes legend, if the gentleman will have the goodness to +wait. And here is the biography of----" + +"How much for Joseph of Copertino?" Cost what it may, I said to myself, +that volume must be mine. + +He took it up and began to turn over the pages lovingly, as though +handling some priceless Book of Hours. + +"A fine engraving," he observed, _sotto voce._ "And this is the best of +many biographies of the flying monk. It is by Rossi, the +Minister-General of the Franciscan order to which our monk belonged; the +official biography, it might be called--dedicated, by permission, to His +Holiness Pope Clemens XIII, and based on the documents which led to the +saint's beatification. Altogether, a remarkable volume----" + +And he paused awhile. Then continued: + +"I possess a cheaper biography of him, also with a frontispiece, by +Montanari, which has the questionable advantage of being printed as +recently as 1853. And here is yet another one, by Antonio Basile--oh, he +has been much written about; a most celebrated _taumaturgo,_ +(wonder-worker)! As to this _Life_ of 1767, I could not, with a good +conscience, appraise it at less than five francs." + +"I respect your feelings. But--five francs! I have certain scruples of +my own, you know, and it irks my sense of rectitude to pay five francs +for the flying monk unless you can supply me with six or seven +additional books to be included in that sum. + +"Twelve _soldi_ (sous) apiece--that strikes me as the proper price of +such literature, for foreigners, at least. Therefore I'll have the great +Egidio as well, and Montanari's life of the flying monk, and that other +one by Basile, and Giangiuseppe, and----" + +"By all means! Pray take your choice." + +And so it came about that, relieved of a tenuous and very sticky +five-franc note, and loaded down with three biographies of the flying +monk, one of Egidio, two of Giangiuseppe--I had been hopelessly +swindled, but there! no man can bargain in a hurry, and my eagerness to +learn something of the life of this early airman had made me oblivious +of the natural values of things--and with sundry smaller volumes of +similar import bulging out of my pockets I turned in the direction of +the hotel, promising myself some new if not exactly light reading. + +But hardly had I proceeded twenty paces before the shopkeeper came +running after me with another formidable bundle under his arm. More +books! An ominous symptom--the clearest demonstration of my defeat; I +was already a marked man, a good customer. It was humiliating, after my +long years' experience of the south. + +And there resounded an unmistakable note of triumph in his voice, as he +said: + +"Some more biographies, sir. Read them at your leisure, and pay me what +you like. You cannot help being generous; I see it in your face." + +"I always try to encourage polite learning, if that is what you think to +decipher in my features. But it rains _santi_ this morning," I added, +rather sourly. + +"The gentleman is pleased to joke! May it rain _soldi_ tomorrow." + +"A little shower, possibly. But not a cloud-burst, like today. . . ." + + + + +X + +THE FLYING MONK + + +As to the flying monk, there is no doubt whatever that he deserved his +name. He flew. Being a monk, these feats of his were naturally confined +to convents and their immediate surroundings, but that does not alter +the facts of the case. + +Of the flights that he took in the little town of Copertino-alone, more +than seventy, says Father Rossi whom I follow throughout, are on record +in the depositions which were taken on oath from eye-witnesses after his +death. This is one of them, for example: + +"Stupendous likewise was the _ratto_ (flight or rapture) which he +exhibited on a night of Holy Thursday. . . . He suddenly flew towards +the altar in a straight line, leaving untouched all the ornaments of +that structure; and after some time, being called back by his superior, +returned flying to the spot whence he had set out." + +And another: + +"He flew similarly upon an olive tree . . . and there remained in +kneeling posture for the space of half an hour. A marvellous thing it +was to see the branch which sustained him swaying lightly, as though a +bird had alighted upon it." + +But Copertino is a remote little place, already famous in the annals of +miraculous occurrences. It can be urged that a kind of enthusiasm for +their distinguished brother-monk may have tempted the inmates of the +convent to exaggerate his rare gifts. Nothing of the kind. He performed +flights not only in Copertino, but in various large towns of Italy, such +as Naples, Rome, and Assisi. And the spectators were by no means an +assemblage of ignorant personages, but men whose rank and credibility +would have weight in any section of society. + +"While the Lord High Admiral of Castille, Ambassador of Spain at the +Vatican, was passing through Assisi in the year 1645, the custodian of +the convent commanded Joseph to descend from the room into the church, +where the Admiral's lady was waiting for him, desirous of seeing him. +and speaking to him; to whom Joseph replied, 'I will obey, but I do not +know whether I shall be able to speak to her.' And, as a matter of fact, +hardly had he entered the church and raised his eyes to a statue . . . +situated above the altar, when he threw himself into a flight in order +to embrace its feet at a distance of twelve paces, passing over the +heads of all the congregation; then, after remaining there some time, he +flew back over them with his usual cry, and immediately returned to his +cell. The Admiral was amazed, his wife fainted away, and all the +onlookers became piously terrified." + +And if this does not suffice to win credence, the following will +assuredly do so: + +"And since it was God's wish to render him marvellous even in the sight +of men of the highest sphere, He ordained that Joseph, having arrived in +Rome, should be conducted one day by the Father-General (of the +Franciscan Order) to kiss the feet of the High Pontiff, Urban the +Eighth; in which act, while contemplating Jesus Christ in the person of +His Vicar, he was ecstatically raised in air, and thus remained till +called back by the General, to whom His Holiness, highly astonished, +turned and said that 'if Joseph were to die during his pontificate, he +himself would bear witness to this _successo.'"_ + +But his most remarkable flights took place at Fossombrone, where once +"detaching himself in swiftest manner from the altar with a cry like +thunder, he went, like lightning, gyrating hither and thither about the +chapel, and with such an impetus that he made all the cells of the +dormitory tremble, so that the monks, issuing thence in consternation, +cried, 'An earthquake! An earthquake!'" Here, too, he cast a young sheep +into the air, and took flight after it to the height of the trees, where +he "remained in kneeling posture, ecstatic and with extended arms, for +more than two hours, to the extraordinary marvel of the clergy who +witnessed this." This would seem to have been his outdoor record--two +hours without descent to earth. + +Sometimes, furthermore, he took a passenger, if such a term can properly +be applied. + +So once, while the monks were at prayers, he was observed to rise up and +run swiftly towards the Confessor of the convent, and "seizing him by +the hand, he raised him from the ground by supernatural force, and with +jubilant rapture drew him along, turning him round and round in a +_violento ballo;_ the Confessor moved by Joseph, and Joseph by God." + +And what happened at Assisi is still more noteworthy, for here +was a gentleman, a suffering invalid, whom Joseph "snatched by the hair, +and, uttering his customary cry of 'oh!' raised himself from the earth, +while he drew the other after him by his hair, carrying him in this +fashion for a short while through the air, to the intensest admiration +of the spectators." The patient, whose name was Chevalier Baldassarre, +discovered, on touching earth again, that he had been cured by this +flight of a severe nervous malady which had hitherto afflicted him. . . . + +Searching in the biography for some other interesting traits of Saint +Joseph of Copertino, I find, in marked contrast to his heaven-soaring +virtues, a humility of the profoundest kind. Even as a full-grown man he +retained the exhilarating, childlike nature of the pure in heart. "_La +Mamma mia_"--thus he would speak, in playful-saintly fashion, of the +Mother of God--"_la Mamma mia_ is capricious. When I bring Her flowers, +She tells me She does not want them; when I bring Her candles, She also +does not want them; and when I ask Her what She wants, She says, 'I +want the heart, for I feed only on hearts.'" What wonder if the "mere +pronouncement of the name of Maria often sufficed to raise him from the +ground into the air"? + +Nevertheless, the arch-fiend was wont to creep into his cell at night +and to beat and torture him; and the monks of the convent were terrified +when they heard the hideous din of echoing blows and jangling chains. +"We were only having a little game," he would then say. This is +refreshingly boyish. He once induced a flock of sheep to enter the +chapel, and while he recited to them the litany, it was observed with +amazement that "they responded at the proper place to his verses--he +saying _Sancta Maria,_ and they answering, after their manner, _Bah!"_ + +I am not disguising from myself that an incident like the last-named may +smack of childishness to a certain austere type of northern Puritan. +Childishness! But to go into this question of the relative hilarity and +moroseness of religions would take us far afield; for aught I know it +may, at bottom, be a matter of climatic influences, and there we can +leave it. Under the sunny sky of Italy, who would not be disposed to see +the bright side of things? + +Saint Joseph of Copertino performed a variety of other miracles. He +multiplied bread and wine, calmed a tempest, drove out devils, caused +the lame to walk and the blind to see--all of which are duly attested by +eye-witnesses on oath. Though "illiterate," he had an innate knowledge +of ecclesiastical dogma; he detected persons of impure life by their +smell, and sinners were revealed to his eyes with faces of black colour +(the Turks believe that on judgment day the damned will be thus marked); +he enjoyed the company of two guardian angels, which were visible not +only to himself but to other people. And, like all too many saints, he +duly fell into the clutches of the Inquisition, ever on the look-out for +victims pious or otherwise. + +There is one little detail which it would be disingenuous to slur over. +It is this. We are told that Saint Joseph was awkward and backward in +his development. As a child his boy-comrades used to laugh at him for +his open-mouthed staring habits; they called him "bocca-aperta" +(gape-mouth), and in the frontispiece to Montanari's life of him, which +depicts him as a bearded man of forty or fifty, his mouth is still +agape; he was, moreover, difficult to teach, and Rossi says he profited +very little by his lessons and was of _niuna letteratura._ As a lad of +seventeen he could not distinguish white bread from brown, and he used +to spill water-cans, break vases and drop plates to such an extent that +the monks of the convent who employed him were obliged, after eight +months' probation, to dismiss him from their service. He was unable to +pass his examination as priest. At the age of twenty-five he was +ordained by the Bishop of Castro, without that formality. + +All this points to a certain weak-mindedness or arrested development, +and were this an isolated case one might be inclined to think that the +church had made Saint Joseph an object of veneration on the same +principles as do the Arabs, who elevate idiots, epileptics, and +otherwise deficient creatures to the rank of marabouts, and credit them +with supernatural powers. + +But it is not an isolated case. The majority of these southern saints +are distinguished from the vulgar herd by idiosyncrasies to which modern +physicians give singular names such as "gynophobia," "glossolalia" and +"demonomania"; [Footnote: Good examples of what Max Nordau calls +_Echolalie_ are to be found in this biography (p. 22).] even the founder +of the flying monk's order, the great Francis of Assisi, has been +accused of some strange-sounding mental disorder because, with touching +humility, he doffed his vestments and presented himself naked before his +Creator. What are we to conclude therefrom? + +The flying monk resembles Saint Francis in more than one feature. He, +too, removed his clothes and even his shirt, and exposed himself thus to +a crucifix, exclaiming, "Here I am, Lord, deprived of everything." He +followed his prototype, further, in that charming custom of introducing +the animal world into his ordinary talk ("Brother Wolf, Sister Swallow," +etc.). So Joseph used to speak of himself as _l'asinelio--_the little +ass; and a pathetic scene was witnessed on his death-bed when he was +heard to mutter: "_L'asinelio_ begins to climb the mountain; +_l'asinelio_ is half-way up; _l'asinelio_ has reached the summit; +_l'asinelio_ can go no further, and is about to leave his skin behind." + +It is to be noted, in this connection, that Saint Joseph of Coper-tino +was born in a stable. + +This looks like more than a mere coincidence. For the divine Saint +Francis was likewise born in a stable. + +But why should either of these holy men be born in stables? + +A reasonable explanation lies at hand. A certain Japanese statesman is +credited with that shrewd remark that the manifold excellencies and +diversities of Hellenic art are due to the fact that the Greeks had no +"old masters" to copy from--no "schools" which supplied their +imagination with ready-made models that limit and smother individual +initiative. And one marvels to think into what exotic beauties these +southern saints would have blossomed, had they been at liberty, like +those Greeks, freely to indulge their versatile genius--had they not +been bound to the wheels of inexorable precedent. If the flying monk, +for example, were an ordinary mortal, there was nothing to prevent him +from being born in an omnibus or some other of the thousand odd places +where ordinary mortals occasionally are born. But--no! As a Franciscan +saint, he was obliged to conform to the school of Bethlehem and Assisi. +He was obliged to select a stable. Such is the force of tradition. . . . + +Joseph of Copertino lived during the time of the Spanish viceroys, and +his fame spread not only over all Italy, but to France, Germany and +Poland. Among his intimates and admirers were no fewer than eight +cardinals, Prince Leopold of Tuscany, the Duke of Bouillon, Isabella of +Austria, the Infanta Maria of Savoy and the Duke of Brunswick, who, +during a visit to various courts of Europe in 1649, purposely went to +Assisi to see him, and was there converted from the Lutheran heresy by +the spectacle of one of his flights. Prince Casimir, heir to the throne +of Poland, was his particular friend, and kept up a correspondence with +him after the death of his father and his own succession to the throne. + +Towards the close of his life, the flying monk became so celebrated that +his superiors were obliged to shut him up in the convent of Osimo, in +close confinement, in order that his aerial voyages "should not be +disturbed by the concourse of the vulgar." And here he expired, in his +sixty-first year, on the 18th September, 1663. He had been suffering and +infirm for some little time previous to that event, but managed to take +a short flight on the very day preceding his demise. + +Forthwith the evidences of his miraculous deeds were collected and +submitted to the inspired examination of the Sacred Congregation of +Rites in Rome. Their conscientiousness in sifting and weighing the +depositions is sufficiently attested by the fact that ninety years were +allowed to elapse ere Joseph of Copertino was solemnly received into the +number of the Blessed. This occurred in 1753; and though the date may +have been accidentally chosen, some people will be inclined to detect +the hand of Providence in the ordering of the event, as a challenge to +Voltaire, who was just then disquieting Europe with certain doctrines of +a pernicious nature. + + + + +XI + +BY THE INLAND SEA + + +The railway line to Grottaglie skirts the shore of the inland sea for +two or three miles, and then turns away. Old Taranto glimmers in lordly +fashion across the tranquil waters; a sense of immemorial culture +pervades this region of russet tilth, and olives, and golden corn. + +They led me, at Grottaglie, to the only convent of males now in use, San +Francesco, recently acquired by the Jesuits. In the sacristy of its +church, where I was told to wait, a slender young priest was praying +rapturously before some image, and the clock that stood at hand recorded +the flight of twenty minutes ere his devotions were ended. Then he arose +slowly and turned upon me a pair of lustrous, dreamy eyes, as though +awakened from another world. + +This was quite a new convent, he explained; it could not possibly be the +one I was seeking. But there was another one, almost a ruin, and now +converted into a refuge for a flock of poor old women; he would gladly +show me the way. Was I a "Germanese"? [Footnote: Germanese_ or +_Allemanno = a_ German. _Tedesco,_ hereabouts, signifies an Austrian--a +detested nationality, even at this distance of time. I have wondered, +since writing the above, whether this is really the place of which Rossi +speaks. He calls it Grottole (the difference in spelling would be of +little account), and says it lies not far distant from Copertino. But +there may be a place of this name still nearer; it is a common +appellation in these honeycombed limestone districts. This Grottaglie +_is_ certainly the birth-place of another religious hero, the +priest-brigand Ciro, who gave so much trouble to Sir R. Church.] No, I +replied; I came from Scotland. + +"A Calvinist," he remarked, without bitterness. + +"A Presbyterian," I gently corrected. + +"To be sure--a Presbyterian." + +As we walked along the street under the glowing beams of midday I set +forth the object of my visit. He had never heard of the flying monk--it +was astonishing, he said. He would look up the subject without delay. +The flying monk! That a Protestant should come all the way from "the +other end of the world" to enquire about a local Catholic saint of +whose existence he himself was unaware, seemed not so much to surprise +as positively to alarm him. + +Among other local curiosities, he pointed out the portal of the parish +church, a fine but dilapidated piece of work, with a large rosette +window overhead. The town, he told me, derives its name from certain +large grottoes wherein the inhabitants used to take refuge during +Saracen raids. This I already knew, from the pages of Swinburne and +Sanchez; and in my turn was able to inform him that a certain Frenchman, +Bertaux by name, had written about the Byzantine wall-paintings within +these caves. Yes, those old Greeks! he said. And that accounted for the +famous ceramics of the place, which preserved the Hellenic traditions in +extraordinary purity. I did not inform him that Hector Preconi, who +purposely visited Grottaglie to study these potteries, was considerably +disappointed. + +At the door of the decayed convent my guide left me, with sundry polite +expressions of esteem. I entered a spacious open courtyard; a well stood +in the centre of a bare enclosure whereon, in olden days, the monks may +have cultivated their fruit and vegetables; round this court there ran +an arched passage, its walls adorned with frescoes, now dim and faded, +depicting sacred subjects. The monastery itself was a sombre maze of +stairways and cells and corridors--all the free spaces, including the +very roof, encumbered with gleaming potteries of every shape and size, +that are made somewhere near the premises. + +I wandered about this sunless and cobwebby labyrinth, the old woman +pensioners flitting round me like bats in the twilight. I peered into +many dark closets; which of them was it--Joseph's famous +blood-bespattered cell? + +"He tormented his body so continuously and obstinately with pins, +needles and blades of steel, and with such effusion of blood, that even +now, after entire years, the walls of his cell and other places of +retirement are discoloured and actually encrusted with blood." Which of +them was it--the chamber that witnessed these atrocious macerations? It +was all so gloomy and forlorn. + +Then, pushing aside a door in these tenebrous regions, I suddenly found +myself bathed in dazzling light. A loggia opened here, with a view over +stretches of gnarled olives, shining all silvery under the immaculate +sky of noonday and bounded by the sapphire belt of the Ionian. Sunshine +and blue sea! Often must the monks have taken pleasure in this fair +prospect; and the wiser among them, watching the labourers returning +home at nightfall, the children at play, and all the happy life of a +world so alien to their own, may well have heaved a sigh. + +Meanwhile a crowd of citizens had assembled below, attracted by the +unusual novelty of a stranger in their town. The simple creatures +appeared to regard my investigations in the light of a good joke; they +had heard of begging monks, and thieving monks, and monks of another +variety whose peculiarities I dare not attempt to describe; but a flying +monk--no, never! + +"The Dark Ages," said one of them--the mayor, I dare say--with an air of +grave authority. "Believe me, dear sir, the days of such fabulous +monsters are over." + +So they seem to be, for the present. + +No picture or statue records the life of this flying wonder, this +masterpiece of Spanish priestcraft; no mural tablet--in this land of +commemorative stones--has been erected to perpetuate the glory of his +signal achievements; no street is called after him. It is as if he had +never existed. On the contrary, by a queer irony of fate, the roadway +leading past his convent evokes the memory of a misty heathen poet, +likewise native of these favoured regions, a man whose name Joseph of +Copertino had assuredly never heard--Ennius, of whom I can now recall +nothing save that one unforgettable line which begins "O Tite tute Tati +tibi----"; Ennius, who never so much as tried to fly, but contented +himself with singing, in rather bad Latin, of the things of this earth. + +_Via Ennio. . . ._ + +It is the swing of the pendulum. The old pagan, at this moment, may be +nearer to our ideals and aspirations than the flying monk who died only +yesterday, so to speak. + +But a few years hence--who can tell? + +A characteristic episode. I had carefully timed myself to catch the +returning train to Tarante. Great was my surprise when, half-way to the +station, I perceived the train swiftly approaching. I raced it, and +managed to jump into a carriage just as it drew out of the station. The +guard straightway demanded my ticket and a fine for entering the train +without one (return tickets, for weighty reasons of "internal +administration," are not sold). I looked at my watch, which showed that +we had left six minutes before the scheduled hour. He produced his; it +coincided with my own. "No matter," he said. "I am not responsible for +the eccentricities of the driver, who probably had some urgent private +affairs to settle at Taranto. The fine must be paid." A fellow-passenger +took a more charitable view of the case. He suggested that an inspector +of the line had been travelling along with us, and that the driver, +knowing this, was naturally ambitious to show how fast he could go. + +A mile or so before reaching Tarante the railway crosses a stream that +flows into the inland sea. One would be glad to believe those sages who +hold it to be the far-famed Galaesus. It rises near at hand in a marsh, +amid mighty tufts of reeds and odorous flowers, and the liquid bubbles +up in pools of crystalline transparency--deep and perfidious cauldrons +overhung by the trembling soil on which you stand. These fountains form +a respectable stream some four hundred yards in length; another copious +spring rises up in the sea near its mouth. But can this be the river +whose virtues are extolled by: Virgil, Horace, Martial, Statius, +Propertius, Strabo, Pliny, Varro and Coramella? What a constellation of +names around these short-lived waters! Truly, _minuit praesentia +famam,_ as Boccaccio says of the once-renowned Sebethus. + +Often have I visited this site and tried to reconstruct its vanished +glories. My enthusiasm even led me, some years ago, to the town hall, in +order to ascertain its true official name, and here they informed me +that "it is vulgarly called Citrezze; but the correct version is 'Le +Giadrezze,' which, as you are aware, sir, signifies _pleasantness"_ +This functionary was evidently ignorant of the fact that so long ago as +1771 the learned commentator (Carducci) of the "Delizie Tarentine" +already sneered at this popular etymology; adding, what is of greater +interest, that "in the time of our fathers" this region was covered with +woods and rich in game. In the days of Keppel Craven, the vale was +"scantily cultivated with cotton." Looking at it from above, it +certainly resembles an old river-bed of about five hundred yards in +breadth, and I hold it possible that the deforestation of the higher +lands may have suffocated the original sources with soil carried down +from thence, and forced them to seek a lower level, thus shortening the +stream and reducing its volume of water. + +But who shall decide? If we follow Polybius, another brook at the +further end of the inland sea has more valid claims to the title of +Galaesus. Virgil called it "black Galaesus "--a curious epithet, still +applied to water in Italy as well as in Greece (Mavromati, etc.). "For +me," says Gissing, "the Galaesus is the stream I found and tracked, +whose waters I heard mingle with the little sea." There is something to +be said for such an attitude, on the part of a dilettante traveller, +towards these desperate antiquarian controversies. + +It is an agreeable promenade from the Giadrezze rivulet to Taranto along +the shore of this inland sea. Its clay banks are full of shells and +potteries of every age, and the shallow waters planted with stakes +indicating the places where myriads of oysters and mussels are +bred--indeed, if you look at a map you will observe that the whole of +this lagoon, as though to shadow forth its signification, is split up +into two basins like an opened oyster. + +Here and there along this beach are fishermen's huts constructed of +tree-stems which are smothered under multitudinous ropes of grass, ropes +of all ages and in every stage of decomposition, some fairly fresh, +others dissolving once more into amorphous bundles of hay. There is a +smack of the stone ages, of primeval lake-dwellings, about these +shelters on the deserted shore; two or three large fetichistic stones +stand near their entrance; wickerwork objects of dark meaning strew the +ground; a few stakes emerge, hard by, out of the placid and oozy waters. +In such a cabin, methinks, dwelt those two old fishermen of +Theocritus--here they lived and slumbered side by side on a couch of sea +moss, among the rude implements of their craft. + +The habits of these fisherfolk are antique, because the incidents of +their calling have remained unchanged. Some people have detected traces +of "Greek" in the looks and language of these of Tarante. I can detect +nothing of the kind. + +And the same with the rest of the population. Hellenic traits have +disappeared from Tarante, as well they may have done, when one remembers +its history. It was completely latinized under Augustus, and though +Byzantines came hither under Nicephorus Phocas--Benjamin of Tudela says +the inhabitants are "Greeks"--they have long ago become merged into +the Italian element. Only the barbers seem to have preserved something +of the old traditions: grandiloquent and terrible talkers, like the +cooks in Athenasus. + +I witnessed an Aristophanic scene in one of their shops lately, when a +simple-minded stranger, a north Italian--some arsenal official--brought +a little boy to have his hair cut "not too short" and, on returning +from a brief visit to the tobacconist next door, found it cropped much +closer than he liked. + +"But, damn it," he said (or words to that effect), "I told you not to +cut the hair too short." + +The barber, immaculate and imperturbable, gave a preliminary bow. He was +collecting his thoughts, and his breath. + +"I say, I told you not to cut it too short. It looks horrible----" +"Horrible? That, sir--pardon my frankness!--is a matter of opinion. I +fully admit that you desired the child's hair to be cut not too short. +Those, in fact, were your very words. Notwithstanding, I venture to +think you will come round to my point of view, on due reflection, like +most of my esteemed customers. In the first place, there is the +ethnological aspect of the question. You are doubtless sufficiently +versed in history to know that under the late regime it was considered +improper, if not criminal, to wear a moustache. Well, nowadays we think +differently. Which proves that fashions change; yes, they change, sir; +and the wise man bends to them--up to a certain point, of course; up to +a certain reasonable point----" "But, damn it----" + +"And in favour of my contention that hair should be worn short nowadays, +I need only cite the case of His Majesty the King, whose august head, we +all know, is clipped like that of a racehorse. Horrible (as you call it) +or not, the system has momentarily the approval of royalty, and that +alone should suffice for all loyal subjects to deem it not unworthy of +imitation. Next, there are what one might describe as hygienic and +climatic considerations. Summer is approaching, sir, and apart from +certain unpleasant risks which I need not specify, you will surely agree +with me that the solstitial heat is a needlessly severe trial for a boy +with long hair. My own children are all cropped close, and I have reason +to think they are grateful for it. Why not yours? Boys may differ in +strength or complexion, in moral character and mental attainments, but +they are remarkably unanimous as to what constitutes personal comfort. +And it is obviously the duty of parents to consult the personal comfort +of their offspring--within certain reasonable limits, of course----" + +"But----" + +"Lastly, we come to the much-debated point: I mean the aesthetic side of +the matter. No doubt, to judge by some old pictures such as those of the +renowned Mantegna, there must have been a time when men thought long +hair in children rather beautiful than otherwise. And I am not so +rigorous as to deny a certain charm to these portraits--a charm which is +largely due I fancy, to the becoming costumes of the period. At the same +time----" + +The stranger did not trust himself to listen any longer. He threw down a +coin and walked out of the shop with his son, muttering something not +very complimentary to the barber's female relations. + +But the other was quite unmoved. "And after all," he continued, +addressing the half-opened door through which his visitor had fled, "the +true question is this: What is 'too short'? Don't cut it too short, +you said. _Che vuol dire?_ An ambiguous phrase! + +"Too short for one man may be too long for another. Everything is +relative. Yes, gentlemen" (turning to myself and his shop-assistant), +"everything on this earth is relative." + +With this sole exception, I have hitherto garnered no Hellenic traits in +Taranto. + +Visible even from Giadrezze, on the other side of the inland sea and +beyond the arsenal, there stands a tall, solitary palm. It is the last, +the very last, or almost the very last, of a race of giants that adorned +the gardens which have now been converted into the "New Quarter." I +imagine it is the highest existing palm in Italy, and am glad to have +taken a likeness of it, ere it shall have been cut down like the rest of +its fellows. Taranto was once celebrated for these queenly growths, +which the Saracens brought over from their flaming Africa. + +The same fate has overtaken the trees of the Villa Beaumont, which used +to be a shady retreat, but was bought by the municipality and forthwith +"pulizzato"--i.e. cleaned. This is in accordance with that +_mutilomania_ of the south: that love of torturing trees which causes +them to prune pines till they look like paint-brushes that had been out +all night, and which explains their infatuation for the much-enduring +robinia that allows itself to be teased into any pattern suggested by +their unhealthy phantasy. It is really as if there were something +offensive to the Latin mind in the sight of a well-grown tree, as if man +alone had the right of expanding normally. But I must not do the City +Fathers an injustice. They have planted two rows of cryp-tomerias. Will +people never learn that cryptomerias cannot flourish in south Italy? +Instead of this amateurish gardening, why not consult some competent +professional, who with bougain-villeas, hibiscus and fifty other such +plants would soon transform this favoured spot into a miniature paradise? + +The Villa Beaumont and the road along the Admiralty canal are now the +citizens' chief places of disport. Before the year 1869 the Corso +Vittorio Emmanuele, that skirts the sea on the south side of the old +town, was their sole promenade. And even this street was built only a +short time ago. Vainly one conjectures where the medieval Tarentines +took the air. It must have been like Manfredonia at the present day. + +This Corso, which has a most awkward pavement and is otherwise +disagreeable as looking due south, becomes interesting after sunset. +Here you may see the young bloods of Taranto leaning in rows against the +railing with their backs to the sea--they are looking across the road +whence, from balconies and windows, the fair sex are displaying their +charms. Never a word is spoken. They merely gaze at each other like +lovesick puppies; and after watching the performance for several +evenings, I decided in favour of robuster methods--I decided that +courtship, under conditions such as the Corso supplies, can only be +pursued by the very young or the hopelessly infatuated. But in the +south, this gazing is only part of a huge game. They are not really in +love at all, these excellent young men--not at all, at all; they know +better. They are only pretending, because it looks manly. + +We must revise our conceptions as to the love-passions of these +southerners; no people are more fundamentally sane in matters of the +heart; they have none of our obfuscated sentimentality; they are seldom +naively enamoured, save in early stages of life. It is then that small +girls of eight or ten may be seen furtively recording their feelings on +the white walls of their would-be lovers' houses; these archaic scrawls +go straight to the point, and are models of what love-letters may +ultimately become, in the time-saving communities of the future. But +when the adolescent and perfumed-pink-paper stage is reached, the +missives relapse into barbarous ambiguity; they grow allegorical and +wilfully exuberant as a Persian carpet, the effigy of a pierced heart at +the end, with enormous blood-drops oozing from it, alone furnishing a +key to the document. + +So far they are in earnest, and it is the girl who takes the lead; her +youthful _innamorato_ ties these letters into bundles and returns them +conscientiously, in due course, to their respective senders. Seldom does +a boy make overtures in love; he gets more of it than he knows what to +do with; he is still torpid, and slightly bored by all these attentions. + +But presently he wakes up to the fact that he is a man among men, and +the obsession of "looking manly" becomes a part of his future artificial +and rhetorical life-scheme. From henceforth he plays to the gallery. + +Reading the city papers, one would think that south Italian youths are +the most broken-hearted creatures in the world; they are always trying +to poison themselves for love. Sometimes they succeed, of course; but +sometimes--dear me, no! Suicides look manly, that is all. They are part +of the game. The more sensible youngsters know exactly how much +corrosive sublimate to take without immediate fatal consequences, +allowing for time to reach the nearest hospital. There, the kindly +physician and his stomach-pump will perform their duty, and the patient +wears a feather in his cap for the rest of his life. The majority of +these suicides are on a par with French duels--a harmless institution +whereby the protagonists honour themselves; they confer, as it were, a +patent of virility. The country people are as warmblooded as the +citizens, but they rarely indulge in suicides because--well, there are +no hospitals handy, and the doctor may be out on his rounds. It is too +risky by half. + +And a good proportion of these suicides are only simulated. The wily +victim buys some innocuous preparation which sends him into convulsions +with ghastly symptoms of poisoning, and, after treatment, remains the +enviable hero of a mysterious masculine passion. Ask any town +apothecary. A doctor friend of mine lately analysed the results of his +benevolent exertions upon a young man who had been seen to drink some +dreadful liquid out of a bottle, and was carried to his surgery, +writhing in most artistic agonies. He found not only no poison, but not +the slightest trace of any irritant whatever. + +The true courtship of these Don Giovannis of Tarante will be quite +another affair--a cash transaction, and no credit allowed. They will +select a life partner, upon the advice of _ma mere_ and a strong +committee of uncles and aunts, but not until the military service is +terminated. Everything in its proper time and place. + +Meanwhile they gaze and perhaps even serenade. This looks as if they +were furiously in love, and has therefore been included among the rules +of the game. Youth must keep up the poetic tradition of "fiery." +Besides, it is an inexpensive pastime--the cinematograph costs forty +centimes--and you really cannot sit in the barber's all night long. + +But catch them marrying the wrong girl! + +POSTSCRIPT.--Here are two samples of youthful love-letters from my +collection. + +1.--From a disappointed maiden, aged 13. Interesting, because +intermediate between the archaic and pink-paper stages: + +"IDOL OF MY HEART, + +"Do not the stars call you when you look to Heaven? Does not the moon +tell you, the black-cap on the willow when it says farewell to the sun? +The birds of nature, the dreary country sadly covered by a few flowers +that remain there? Once your look was passionate and pierced me like a +sunny ray, now it seems the flame of a day. Does nothing tell you of +imperishable love?" I love you and love you as (illegible) loves its +liberty, as the corn in the fields loves the sun, as the sailor loves +the sea tranquil or stormy. To you I would give my felicity, my future; +for one of your words I would spill my blood drop by drop. + +"Of all my lovers you are the only ideal consort _(consorto)_ to whom I +would give my love and all the expansion of my soul and youthful +enthusiasm _(intusiamo),_ the greatest enthusiasm _(co-tusiamo)_ my +heart has ever known. O cruel one who has deigned to put his sweet +poison in my heart to-day, while to-morrow you will pass me with +indifference. Cold, proud as ever, serious and disdainful--you +understand? However that may be, I send you the unrepenting cry of my +rebellious heart: I love you! + +"It is late at night, and I am still awake, and at this hour my soul is +sadder than ever in its great isolation _(insolamende);_ I look on my +past love and your dear image. Too much I love you and (illegible) +without your affection. + +"How sadly I remember your sweet words whispered on a pathetic evening +when everything around was fair and rosy. How happy I then was when life +seemed radiant with felicity and brightened by your love. And now +nothing more remains of it; everything is finished. How sad even to say +it. My heart is shipwrecked far, far away from that happiness which I +sought." + +(Three further pages of this.) + +2.--From a boy of 14 who takes the initiative; such letters are rare. +Note the business-like brevity. + +"DEAR MISS ANNE, + +"I write you these few lines to say that I have understood your character +_ (carattolo)._ Therefore, if I may have the honour of being your +sweetheart, you will let me know the answer at your pleasure. I salute +you, and remain, + +"Signing myself, "SALVATORE. + +"Prompt reply requested!" + + + + +XII + +MOLLE TARENTUM + + +One looks into the faces of these Tarentines and listens to their casual +conversations, trying to unravel what manner of life is theirs. But it +is difficult to avoid reading into their characters what history leads +one to think should be there. + +The upper classes, among whom I have some acquaintance, are mellow and +enlightened; it is really as if something of the honied spirit of those +old Greek sages still brooded over them. Their charm lies in the fact +that they are civilized without being commercialized. Their politeness +is unstrained, their suaveness congenital; they remind me of that New +England type which for Western self-assertion substitutes a yielding +graciousness of disposition. So it is with persistent gentle upbringing, +at Taranto and elsewhere. It tones the individual to reposeful +sweetness; one by one, his anfractuosities are worn off; he becomes as a +pebble tossed in the waters, smooth, burnished, and (to outward +appearances) indistinguishable from his fellows. + +But I do not care about the ordinary city folk. They have an air of +elaborate superciliousness which testifies to ages of systematic +half-culture. They seem to utter that hopeless word, _connu!_ And what, +as a matter of fact, do they know? They are only dreaming in their +little backwater, like the oysters of the lagoon, distrustful of +extraneous matter and oblivious of the movement in a world of men beyond +their shell. You hear next to nothing of "America," that fruitful source +of fresh notions; there is no emigration to speak of; the population is +not sufficiently energetic--they prefer to stay at home. Nor do they +care much about the politics of their own country: one sees less +newspapers here than in most Italian towns. "Our middle classes," said +my friend the Italian deputy of whom I have already spoken, "are like +our mules: to be endurable, they must be worked thirteen hours out of +the twelve." But these have no industries to keep them awake, no sports, +no ambitions; and this has gone on for long centuries, In Taranto it is +always afternoon. "The Tarentines," says Strabo, "have more holidays +than workdays in the year." + +And never was city-population more completely cut off from the country; +never was wider gulf between peasant and townsman. There are charming +walks beyond the New Quarter--a level region, with olives and figs and +almonds and pomegranates standing knee-deep in ripe odorous wheat; but +the citizens might be living at Timbuctu for all they know of these +things. It rains little here; on the occasion of my last visit not a +drop had fallen _for fourteen months;_ and consequently the country +roads are generally smothered in dust. Now, dusty boots are a scandal +and an offence in the eyes of the gentle burghers, who accordingly never +issue out of their town walls. They have forgotten the use of ordinary +appliances of country life, such as thick boots and walking-sticks; you +will not see them hereabouts. Unaware of this idiosyncrasy, I used to +carry a stick on my way through the streets into the surroundings, but +left it at home on learning that I was regarded as a kind of +perambulating earthquake. The spectacle of a man clattering through the +streets on horseback, such as one often sees at Venosa, would cause them +to barricade their doors and prepare for the last judgment. + +Altogether, essentially nice creatures, lotus-eaters, fearful of fuss or +novelty, and drowsily satisfied with themselves and life in general. The +breezy healthfulness of travel, the teachings of art or science, the +joys of rivers and green lanes--all these things are a closed book to +them. Their interests are narrowed down to the purely human: a case of +partial atrophy. For the purely human needs a corrective; it is not +sufficiently humbling, and that is exactly what makes them so +supercilious. We must take a little account of the Cosmos nowadays--it +helps to rectify our bearings. They have their history, no doubt. But +save for that one gleam of Periclean sunshine the record, though long +and varied, is sufficiently inglorious and does not testify to undue +exertions. + +A change is at hand. + +Gregorovius lamented the filthy condition of the old town. It is now +spotless. + +He deplored that Taranto possessed no museum. This again is changed, and +the provincial museum here is justly praised, though the traveller may +be annoyed at finding his favourite rooms temporarily closed (is there +any museum in Italy not "partially closed for alterations"?). New +accessions to its store are continually pouring in; so they lately +discovered, in a tomb, a Hellenistic statuette of Eros and Aphrodite, 30 +centimetres high, terra-cotta work of the third century. The goddess +stands, half-timidly, while Eros alights in airy fashion on her +shoulders and fans her with his wings--an exquisite little thing. + +He was grieved, likewise, that no public collection of books existed +here. But the newly founded municipal library is all that can be +desired. The stranger is cordially welcomed within its walls and may +peruse, at his leisure, old Galateus, Giovan Giovene, and the rest of them. + +Wandering among those shelves, I hit upon a recent volume (1910) which +gave me more food for thought than any of these ancients. It is called +"Cose di Puglie," and contains some dozen articles, all by writers of +this province of old Calabria, [Footnote: It included the heel of +Italy.] on matters of exclusively local interest--its history, +meteorology, dialects, classical references to the country, extracts +from old economic documents, notes on the development of Apulian +printing, examples of modern local caricature, descriptions of mediaeval +monuments; a kind of anthology, in short, of provincial lore. The +typography, paper and illustrations of this remarkable volume are beyond +all praise; they would do honour to the best firm in London or Paris. +What is this book? It is no commercial speculation at all; it is a +wedding present to a newly married couple--a bouquet of flowers, of +intellectual blossoms, culled from their native Apulian meadows. One +notes with pleasure that the happy pair are neither dukes nor princes. +There is no trace of snobbishness in the offering, which is simply a +spontaneous expression of good wishes on the part of a few friends. But +surely it testifies to most refined feelings. How immeasurably does this +permanent and yet immaterial feast differ from our gross wedding +banquets and ponderous gilt clocks and tea services! Such persons +cannot but have the highest reverence for things of the mind; such a +gift is the fairest efflorescence of civilization. And this is only +another aspect of that undercurrent of spirituality in south Italy of +whose existence the tourist, harassed by sordid preoccupations, remains +wholly unaware. + +This book was printed at Bari. Bari, not long ago, consisted of a dark +and tortuous old town, exactly like the citadel of Taranto. It has now +its glaring New Quarter, not a whit less disagreeable than the one here. +Why should Taranto not follow suit in the matter of culture? Heraclea, +Sybaris and all the Greek settlements along this coast have vanished +from earth; only Taranto and Cotrone have survived to carry on, if they +can, the old traditions. They have survived, thanks to peculiar physical +conditions that have safeguarded them from invaders. . . . + +But these very conditions have entailed certain drawbacks--drawbacks +which Buckle would have lovingly enumerated to prove their influence +upon the habits and disposition of the Tarentines. That marine situation +. . . only think of three thousand years of scirocco, summer and winter! +It is alone enough to explain _molle Tarentum--_ enough to drain the +energy out of a Newfoundland puppy! And then, the odious dust of the +country roadways--for it _is_ odious. Had the soil been granitic, or +even of the ordinary Apennine limestone, the population might have +remained in closer contact with wild things of nature, and retained a +perennial fountain of enjoyment and inspiration. A particular kind of +rock, therefore, has helped to make them sluggish and incurious. The +insularity of their citadel has worked in the same direction, by +focussing their interests upon the purely human. That inland sea, again: +were it not an ideal breeding-place for shell-fish, the Tarentines would +long ago have learnt to vary their diet. Thirty centuries of +mussel-eating cannot but impair the physical tone of a people. + +And had the inland sea not existed, the Government would not have been +tempted to establish that arsenal which has led to the erection of the +new town and consequent municipal exactions. "The arsenal," said a +grumbling old boatman to me, "was the beginning of our purgatory." A +milk diet would work wonders with the health and spirits of the +citizens. But since the building of the new quarter, such a diet has +become a luxury; cows and goats will soon be scarce as the megatherium. +There is a tax of a franc a day on every cow, and a herd of ten goats, +barely enough to keep a poor man alive, must pay annually 380 francs in +octroi. These and other legalized robberies, which among a more virile +populace would cause the mayor and town council to be forthwith attached +to the nearest lamp-post, are patiently borne. It is _imbelle +Tarentum--_ a race without grit. + +I would also recommend the burghers some vegetables, so desirable for +their sedentary habits, but there again! it seems to be a peculiarity of +the local soil to produce hardly a leaf of salad or cabbage. Potatoes +are plainly regarded as an exotic--they are the size of English peas, +and make me think of Ruskin's letter to those old ladies describing the +asparagus somewhere in Tuscany. And all this to the waiter's undisguised +astonishment. + +"The gentleman is rich enough to pay for meat. Why trouble about this +kind of food?"... + +And yet--a change is at hand. These southern regions are waking up from +their slumber of ages. Already some of Italy's acutest thinkers and most +brilliant politicians are drawn from these long-neglected shores. For we +must rid ourselves of that incubus of "immutable race characters": think +only of our Anglo-Saxon race! What has the Englishman of to-day in +common with that rather lovable fop, drunkard and bully who would faint +with ecstasy over Byron's _Parisina_ after pistolling his best friend +in a duel about a wench or a lap-dog? Such differences as exist between +races of men, exist only at a given moment. + +And what, I sometimes ask myself--what is now the distinguishing feature +between these southern men and ourselves? Briefly this, I think. In +mundane matters, where the personal equation dominates, their judgment +is apt to be turbid and perverse; but as one rises into questions of +pure intelligence, it becomes serenely impartial. We, on the other hand, +who are pre-eminently clear-sighted in worldly concerns of law and +government and in all subsidiary branches of mentality, cannot bring +ourselves to reason dispassionately on non-practical subjects. "L'esprit +aussi a sa pudeur," says Remy de Gourmont. Well, this _pudeur de +l'esprit,_ discouraged among the highest classes in England, is the +hall-mark of respectability hereabouts. A very real difference, at this +particular moment. . . . + +There is an end of philosophizing. + +They have ousted me from my pleasant quarters, the landlady's son and +daughter-in-law having returned unexpectedly and claiming their +apartments. I have taken refuge in a hotel. My peace is gone; my days in +Taranto are numbered. + +Loath to depart, I linger by the beach of the Ionian Sea beyond the new +town. It is littered with shells and holothurians, with antique tesserae +of blue glass and marble fragments, with white mosaic pavements and +potteries of every age, from the glossy Greco-Roman ware whose +delicately embossed shell devices are emblematic of this sea-girt city, +down to the grosser products of yesterday. Of marbles I have found +_cipollino, pavonazzetto, giallo_ and _rosso antico,_ but no harder +materials such as porphyry or serpentine. This, and the fact that the +mosaics are pure white, suggests that the houses here must have dated, +at latest, from Augustan times. + +[Footnote: Nor is there any of the fashionable _verde_ _antico,_ and +this points in the same direction. Corsi says nothing as to the date of +its introduction, and I have not read the treatise of Silenziario, but +my own observations lead me to think that the _lapis_ _atracius_ can +hardly have been known under Tiberius. Not so those hard ones: they +imported wholesale by his predecessor Augustus, who was anxious to be +known as a scorner of luxury (a favourite pose with monarchs), yet spent +incalculable sums on ornamental stones both for public and private ends. +One is struck by a certain waste of material; either the expense was +deliberately disregarded or finer methods of working the stones were not +yet in vogue. A revolution in the technique of stone-cutting must have +set in soon after his death, for thenceforward we find the most +intractable rocks cut into slices thin as card-board: too thin for +pavements, and presumably for encrusting walls and colonnades. The +Augustans, unable to produce these effects naturally, attempted +imitation-stones, and with wonderful success. I have a fragment of their +plaster postiche copying the close-grained Egyptian granite; the oily +lustre of the quartz is so fresh and the peculiar structure of the rock, +with its mica scintillations, so admirably rendered as to deceive, after +two thousand years, the eye of a trained mineralogist.] + +Here I sit, on the tepid shingle, listening to the plash of the waves +and watching the sun as it sinks over the western mountains that are +veiled in mists during the full daylight, but loom up, at this sunset +hour, as from a fabulous world of gold. Yonder lies the Calabrian Sila +forest, the brigands' country. I will attack it by way of Rossano, and +thence wander, past Longobucco, across the whole region. It may be well, +after all, to come again into contact with streams and woodlands, after +this drenching of classical associations and formal civic life! + +Near me stands a shore-battery which used to be called "Batteria +Chianca." It was here they found, some twenty years ago, a fine marble +head described as a Venus, and now preserved in the local museum. I +observe that this fort has lately been re-christened "Batteria Archyta." +Can this be due to a burst of patriotism for the Greek warrior-sage who +ruled Taranto, or is it a subtle device to mislead the foreign spy? + +Here, too, are kilns where they burn the blue clay into tiles and vases. +I time a small boy at work shaping the former. His average output is +five tiles in four minutes, including the carrying to and fro of the +moist clay; his wages about a shilling a day. But if you wish to see the +manufacture of more complicated potteries, you must go to the unclean +quarter beyond the railway station. Once there, you will not soon weary +of that potter's wheel and the fair shapes that blossom forth under its +enchanted touch. This ware of Taranto is sent by sea to many parts of +south Italy, and you may see picturesque groups of it, here and there, +at the street corners. + +Hardly has the sun disappeared before the lighthouse in the east begins +to flash. The promontory on which it stands is called San Vito after one +of the musty saints, now almost forgotten, whose names survive along +these shores. Stoutly this venerable one defended his ancient worship +against the radiant and victorious Madonna; nor did she dislodge him +from a certain famous sanctuary save by the questionable expedient of +adopting his name: she called herself S. M. "della Vita." That settled +it. He came from Mazzara in Sicily, whither they still carry, to his +lonely shrine, epileptics and others distraught in mind. And were I in a +discursive mood, I would endeavour to trace some connection between his +establishment here and the tarantella--between St. Vitus' dance and that +other one which cured, they say, the bite of the Tarentine spider. + +But I am not inclined for such matters at present. The Cala-brian +uplands are still visible in the gathering twilight; they draw me +onwards, away from Taranto. It must be cool up there, among the firs and +beeches. + +And a land, moreover, of multiple memories and interests--this Calabria. +A land of great men. In 1737 the learned Aceti was able to enumerate +over two thousand celebrated Calabrians--athletes, generals, musicians, +centenarians, inventors, martyrs, ten popes, ten kings, as well as some +sixty conspicuous women. A land of thinkers. Old Zavarroni, born in +1705, gives us a list of seven hundred Calabrian writers; and I, for +one, would not care to bring his catalogue up to date. The recently +acquired _Biblioteca Calabra_ at Naples alone contains God knows how +many items, nearly all modern! + +And who shall recount its natural attractions? Says another old writer: + +"Here is all sorts of Corn, sundry Wines, and in great abundance, all +kinds of Fruits, Oyle, Hony, Wax, Saffron, Bombace, Annis and Coriander +seeds. There groweth Gum, Pitch, Turpentine and liquid Storax. In former +times it was never without Mettals, but at this present it doth much +abound, having in most parts divers sorts of Mines, as Gold, Silver, +Iron, Marble, Alabaster, Cristal, Marchesite, three sorts of white +Chaulk, Virmilion, Alume, Brimstone, and the Adamant stone, which being +in the fifth degree, draweth not Iron, and is in colour black. There +groweth hemp and flax of two sorts, the one called the male, the other +the female: there falleth Manna from heaven, truly a thing very rare; +and although there is not gathered such abundance of Silk, yet I dare +say there is not had so much in all _Italy_ besides. There are also +bathes, both hot, luke-warm, and cold, to cure many diseases. Near the +Seaside, and likewise on the Mediterrane are goodly Gardens full of +Oringes, Citrons, and Lemons of divers sorts. It is watered with many +Rivers. There are on the hils of the Apennine, thick Woods of high +Firrs, Holms, Platanes, Oaks, where grows the white odoriferous Mushrome +which shineth in the night. Here is bred the soft stone _Frigia,_ which +every month yields a delicate and wholesome Gum, and the stone +_Aetites,_ by us called the stone _Aquilina._ In this Province there is +excellent hunting of divers creatures, as wild Hoggs, Staggs, Goats, +Hares, Foxes, Porcupines, Marmosets. There are also ravenous beasts, as +Wolves, Bears, Luzards, which are quick-sighted, and have the hinder +parts spotted with divers colours. This kind of Beast was brought from +_France_ to _Rome_ in the sports of _Pompey_ the great, and Hunters +affirm this Beast to be of so frail a memory, that although he eateth +with hunger, if he chance to look back, remembreth no more his meat, and +departing searcheth for other." Who would not visit Calabria, if only on +the chance of beholding the speckled posterior of the absent-minded +Luzard? + + + + +XIII + +INTO THE JUNGLE + + +This short plunge into the jungle was a relief, after the all-too-human +experiences of Taranto. The forest of Policoro skirts the Ionian; the +railway line cleaves it into two unequal portions, the seaward tract +being the smaller. It is bounded on the west by the river Sinnc, and I +imagine the place has not changed much since the days when Keppel Craven +explored its recesses. + +Twilight reigns in this maze of tall deciduous trees. There is thick +undergrowth, too; and I measured an old lentiscus--a shrub, in +Italy--which was three metres in circumference. But the exotic feature +of the grove is its wealth of creeping vines that clamber up the trunks, +swinging from one tree-top to another, and allowing the merest threads +of sunlight to filter through their matted canopy. Policoro has the +tangled beauty of a tropical swamp. Rank odours arise from the decaying +leaves and moist earth; and once within that verdant labyrinth, you +might well fancy yourself in some primeval region of the globe, where +the foot of man has never penetrated. + +Yet long ago it resounded with the din of battle and the trumpeting of +elephants--in that furious first battle between Pyrrhus and the Romans. +And here, under the very soil on which you stand, lies buried, they say, +the ancient city of Siris. + +They have dug canals to drain off the moisture as much as possible, but +the ground is marshy in many places and often quite impassable, +especially in winter. None the less, winter is the time when a little +shooting is done here, chiefly wild boars and roe-deer. They are driven +down towards the sea, but only as far as the railway line. Those that +escape into the lower portions are safe for another year, as this is +never shot over but kept as a permanent preserve. I have been told that +red-deer were introduced, ut that the experiment failed; probably the +country was too not and damp. In his account of Calabria, Duret de Tavel +[Footnote: An English translation of his book appeared in 1832.] +sometimes speaks of killing the fallow-deer, an autochthonous +Tyrrhenian beast which is now extinct on the mainland in its wild state. +Nor can he be confounding it with the roe, since he mentions the two +together--for instance, in the following note from Corigliano (February, +1809), which must make the modern Calabrian's mouth water: + +"Game has multiplied to such an extent that the fields are ravaged, and +we are rendering a real service in destroying it. I question whether +there exists in Europe a country offering more varied species. . . . We +return home followed by carriages and mules loaded with wild boars, +roe-deer, fallow-deer, hares, pheasants, wild duck, wild geese--to say +nothing of foxes and wolves, of which we have already killed an immense +quantity." + +The pheasants seem to have likewise died out, save in royal preserves. +They were introduced into Calabria by that mighty hunter Frederick II. + +The parcelling out of many of these big properties has been followed by +a destruction of woodland and complete disappearance of game. It is +hailed as the beginning of a new era of prosperity; and so it well may +be, from a commercial point of view. But the traveller and lover of +nature will be glad to leave some of these wild districts in the hands +of their rich owners, who have no great interests in cultivating every +inch of ground, levelling rocky spaces, draining the land and hewing +down every tree that fails to bear fruit. Split into peasant +proprietorships, this forest would soon become a scientifically +irrigated campagna for the cultivation of tomatoes or what not, like the +"Colonia Elena," near the Pontine Marshes. The national exchequer would +profit, without a doubt. But I question whether we should all take the +economical point of view--whether it would be wise for humanity to do +so. There is a prosperity other than material. Some solitary artist or +poet, drawing inspiration from scenes like this, might have contributed +more to the happiness of mankind than a legion of narrow-minded, grimy +and litigious tomato-planters. + +To all appearances, Italy is infected just now with a laudable mania for +the "exploitation of natural resources"--at the expense, of course, of +wealthy landowners, who are described as withholding from the people +their due. The programme sounds reasonable enough; but one must not +forget that what one reads on this subject in the daily papers is +largely the campaign of a class of irresponsible pressmen and +politicians, who exploit the ignorance of weak people to fill their own +pockets. How one learns to loathe, in Italy and in England, that lovely +word _socialism,_ when one knows a little of the inner workings of the +cause and a few--just a few!--details of the private lives of these +unsavoury saviours of their country! + +The lot of the southern serfs was bad enough before America was +"discovered"; and quite unendurable in earlier times. There is a village +not many hours from Naples where, in 1789, only the personal attendants +of the feudal lord lived in ordinary houses; the two thousand +inhabitants, the serfs, took refuge in caves and shelters of straw. +Conceive the conditions in remote Calabria! Such was the anguished +poverty of the country-folk that up to the eighties of last century they +used to sell their children by regular contracts, duly attested before +the local mayors. But nowadays I listen to their complaints with +comparative indifference. + +"You are badly treated, my friend? I quite believe it; indeed, I can see +it. Well, go to Argentina and sell potatoes, or to the mines of +Pennsylvania. There you will grow rich, like the rest of your +compatriots. Then return and send your sons to the University; let them +become _avvocati_ and members of Parliament, who shall harass into +their graves these wicked owners of the soil." + +This, as a matter of fact, is the career of a considerable number of them. + +For the rest, the domain of Policoro--it is spelt _Pelicaro_ in older +maps like those of Magini and Rizzi-Zannone--seems to be well +administered, and would repay a careful study. I was not encouraged, +however, to undertake this study, the manager evidently suspecting some +ulterior motive to underlie my simple questions. He was not at all +responsive to friendly overtures. Restive at first, he soon waxed +ambiguous, and finally taciturn. Perhaps he thought I was a tax-gatherer +in disguise. A large structure combining the features of palace, +fortress and convent occupies an eminence, and is supposed by some to +stand on the site of old Heracleia; it was erected by the Jesuits; the +workpeople live in humble dwellings that cluster around it. Those that +are now engaged in cutting the corn receive a daily wage of two carlini +(eightpence)--the Bourbon coinage still survives in name. + +You walk to this building from the station along an avenue of eucalypti +planted some forty years ago. Detesting, as I do, the whole tribe of gum +trees, I never lose an opportunity of saying exactly what I think about +this particularly odious representative of the brood, this eyesore, this +grey-haired scarecrow, this reptile of a growth with which a pack of +misguided enthusiasts have disfigured the entire Mediterranean basin. +They have now realized that it is useless as a protection against +malaria. Soon enough they will learn that instead of preventing the +disease, it actually fosters it, by harbouring clouds of mosquitoes +under its scraggy so-called foliage. These abominations may look better +on their native heath: I sincerely hope they do. Judging by the "Dead +Heart of Australia"--a book which gave me a nightmare from which I shall +never recover--I should say that a varnished hop-pole would be an +artistic godsend out there. + +But from here the intruder should be expelled without mercy. A single +eucalyptus will ruin the fairest landscape. No plant on earth rustles in +such a horribly metallic fashion when the wind blows through those +everlastingly withered branches; the noise chills one to the marrow; it +is like the sibilant chattering of ghosts. Its oil is called "medicinal" +only because it happens to smell rather nasty; it is worthless as +timber, objectionable in form and hue--objectionable, above all things, +in its perverse, anti-human habits. What other tree would have the +effrontery to turn the sharp edges of its leaves--as if these were not +narrow enough already!--towards the sun, so as to be sure of giving at +all hours of the day the minimum of shade and maximum of discomfort to +mankind? + +But I confess that this avenue of Policoro almost reconciled me to the +existence of the anaemic Antipodeans. Almost; since for some reason or +other (perhaps on account of the insufferably foul nature of the soil) +their foliage is here thickly tufted; it glows like burnished bronze in +the sunshine, like enamelled scales of green and gold. These eucalypti +are unique in Italy. Gazing upon them, my heart softened and I almost +forgave the gums their manifold iniquities, their diabolical thirst, +their demoralizing aspect of precocious senility and vice, their peeling +bark suggestive of unmentionable skin diseases, and that system of +radication which is nothing short of a scandal on this side of the +globe. . . . + +In the exuberance of his joy at the prospect of getting rid of me, the +manager of the estate lent me a dog-cart to convey me to the forest's +edge, as well as a sleepy-looking boy for a guide, warning me, however, +not to put so much as the point of my nose inside the jungle, on account +of the malaria which has already begun to infect the district. One sees +all too many wan faces hereabouts. Visible from the intervening plain is +a large building on the summit of a hill; it is called Acinapura, and +this is the place I should have gone to, had time permitted, for the +sake of the fine view which it must afford over the whole Policoro region. + +Herds of buffaloes wallow in the mire. An old bull, reposing in solitary +grandeur, allowed me so near an approach that I was able to see two or +three frogs hopping about his back, and engaged in catching the +mosquitoes that troubled him. How useful, if something equally efficient +and inexpensive could be devised for humanity! + +We entered the darksome forest. The boy, who had hitherto confined +himself to monosyllables, suddenly woke up under its mysterious +influence; he became alert and affable; he related thrilling tales of +the outlaws who used to haunt these thickets, lamenting that those happy +days were over. There were the makings of a first-class brigand in +Paolo. I stimulated his brave fancy; and it was finally proposed that I +should establish myself permanently with the manager of the estate, so +that on Sundays we could have some brigand-sport together, on the sly. + +Then out again--into the broad and sunlit bed of the Sinno. The water +now ripples in bland content down a waste of shining pebbles. But its +wintry convulsions are terrific, and higher up the stream, where the +banks are steep, many lives are lost in those angry floods that rush +down from the hill-sides, filling the riverbed with a turmoil of crested +waves. At such moments, these torrents put on new faces. From placid +waterways they are transformed into living monsters, Aegirs or dragons, +that roll themselves seaward, out of their dark caverns, in tawny coils +of destruction. + + + + +XIV + +DRAGONS + + +And precisely this angry aspect of the waters has been acclaimed as one +of the origins of that river-dragon idea which used to be common in +south Italy, before the blight of Spaniardism fell upon the land and +withered up the pagan myth-making faculty. There are streams still +perpetuating this name--the rivulet Dragone, for instance, which falls +into the Ionian not far from Cape Colonne. + +A non-angry aspect of them has also been suggested as the origin: the +tortuous wanderings of rivers in the plains, like the Meander, that +recall the convolutions of the serpent. For serpent and dragon are apt +to be synonymous with the ancients. + +Both these explanations, I think, are late developments in the evolution +of the dragon-image. They leave one still puzzling as to what may be the +aboriginal conception underlying this legendary beast of earth and +clouds and waters. We must go further back. + +What is a dragon? An animal, one might say, which looks or regards +(Greek _drakon);_ so called, presumably, from its terrible eyes. Homer +has passages which bear out this interpretation: + +_[Greek: Smerdaleon de dedorken],_ etc. + +Now the Greeks were certainly sensitive to the expression of animal +eyes--witness "cow-eyed" Hera, or the opprobrious epithet "dog-eyed"; +altogether, the more we study what is left of their zoological +researches, the more we realize what close observers they were in +natural history. Aristotle, for instance, points out sexual differences +in the feet of the crawfish which were overlooked up to a short time +ago. And Hesiod also insists upon the dragon's eyes. Yet it is +significant that _ophis,_ the snake, is derived, like _drakon,_ from a +root meaning nothing more than to perceive or regard. There is no +connotation of ferocity in either of the words. Gesner long ago suspected +that the dragon was so called simply from its keen or rapid perception. + +One likes to search for some existing animal prototype of a fabled +creature like this, seeing that to invent such things out of sheer +nothing is a feat beyond human ingenuity--or, at least, beyond what the +history of others of their kind leads us to expect. It may well be that +the Homeric writer was acquainted with the Uromastix lizard that occurs +in Asia Minor, and whoever has watched this beast, as I have done, +cannot fail to have been impressed by its contemplative gestures, as if +it were gazing intently _(drakon)_ at something. It is, moreover, a +"dweller in rocky places," and more than this, a vegetarian--an "eater +of poisonous herbs" as Homer somewhere calls his dragon. So Aristotle +says: "When the dragon has eaten much fruit, he seeks the juice of the +bitter lettuce; he has been seen to do this." + +Are we tracking the dragon to his lair? Is this the aboriginal beast? +Not at all, I should say. On the contrary, this is a mere side-issue, to +follow which would lead us astray. The reptile-dragon was invented when +men had begun to forget what the arch-dragon was; it is the product of a +later stage--the materializing stage; that stage when humanity sought to +explain, in naturalistic fashion, the obscure traditions of the past. We +must delve still deeper. . . . + +My own dragon theory is far-fetched--perhaps necessarily so, dragons +being somewhat remote animals. The dragon, I hold, is the +personification of the life within the earth--of that life which, being +unknown and uncontrollable, is _eo ipso_ hostile to man. Let me explain +how this point is reached. + +The animal which _looks or regards. . . ._ Why--why an animal? Why not +_drakon =_ that which looks? + +Now, what looks? + +The eye. + +This is the key to the understanding of the problem, the key to the +subterranean dragon-world. + +The conceit of fountains or sources of water being things that see +_(drakon)_--that is, eyes--or bearing some resemblance to eyes, is common +to many races. In Italy, for example, two springs in the inland sea near +Taranto are called "Occhi"--eyes; Arabs speak of a watery fountain as an +eye; the notion exists in England top--in the "Blentarn" of Cumberland, +the blind tarn (tarn = a trickling of tears), which is "blind" because +dry and waterless, and therefore lacking the bright lustre of the open eye. + +There is an eye, then, in the fountain: an eye which looks or regards. +And inasmuch as an eye presupposes a head, and a head without body is +hard to conceive, a material existence was presently imputed to that +which looked upwards out of the liquid depths. This, I think, is the +primordial dragon, the archetype. He is of animistic descent and +survives all over the earth; and it is precisely this universality of +the dragon-idea which induces me to discard all theories of local origin +and to seek for some common cause. Fountains are ubiquitous, and so are +dragons. There are fountain dragons in Japan, in the superstitions of +Keltic races, in the Mediterranean basin. The dragon of Wantley lived in +a well; the Lambton Worm began life in fresh water, and only took to +dry land later on. I have elsewhere spoken of the Manfredonia legend of +Saint Lorenzo and the dragon, an indigenous fable connected, I suspect, +with the fountain near the harbour of that town, and quite independent +of the newly-imported legend of Saint Michael. Various springs in Greece +and Italy are called Dragoneria; there is a cave-fountain Dragonara on +Malta, and another of the same name near Cape Misenum--all are sources +of apposite lore. The water-drac. . . . + +So the dragon has grown into a subterranean monster, who peers up from +his dark abode wherever he can--out of fountains or caverns whence +fountains issue. It stands to reason that he is sleepless; all dragons +are "sleepless "; their eyes are eternally open, for the luminous +sparkle of living waters never waxes dim. And bold adventurers may well +be devoured by dragons when they fall into these watery rents, never to +appear again. + +Furthermore, since gold and other treasures dear to mankind lie hidden +in the stony bowels of the earth and are hard to attain, the jealous +dragon has been accredited with their guardianship--hence the plutonic +element in his nature. The dragon, whose "ever-open eye" protected the +garden of the Hesperides, was the _Son of Earth._ The earth or +cave-dragon. . . . Calabria has some of these dragons' caves; you can +read about them in the _Campania. Sotteranea_ of G. Sanchez. + +In volcanic regions there are fissures in the rocks exhaling pestiferous +emanations; these are the _spiracula,_ the breathing-holes, of the +dragon within. The dragon legends of Naples and Mondragone are probably +of this origin, and so is that of the Roman Campagna (1660) where the +dragon-killer died from the effects of this poisonous breath: Sometimes +the confined monster issues in a destructive lava-torrent--Bellerophon +and the Chimsera. The fire-dragon. ... Or floods of water suddenly +stream down from the hills and fountains are released. It is the hungry +dragon, rushing from his den in search of prey; the river-dragon. . . . +He rages among the mountains with such swiftness and impetuosity. + +This is chiefly the poets' work, though the theologians have added one +or two embellishing touches. But in whatever shape he appears, whether +his eyes have borrowed a more baleful fire from heathen basilisks, or +traits of moral evil are instilled into his pernicious physique by +amalgamation with the apocalyptic Beast, he remains the vindictive enemy +of man and his ordered ways. Of late--like the Saurian tribe in +general--he has somewhat degenerated. So in modern Greece, by that +process of stultified anthropomorphism which results from grafting +Christianity upon an alien mythopoesis, he dons human attributes, +talking and acting as a man (H. F. Tozer). And here, in Calabria, he +lingers in children's fables, as "sdrago," a mockery of his former self. + +To follow up his wondrous metamorphoses through medievalism would be a +pastime worthy of some leisured dilettante. How many noble shapes +acquired a tinge of absurdity in the Middle Ages! Switzerland alone, +with its mystery of untrodden crevices, used to be crammed with +dragons--particularly the calcareous (cavernous) province of Rhaetia. +Secondary dragons; for the good monks saw to it that no reminiscences of +the autochthonous beast survived. Modern scholars have devoted much +learning to the local Tazzelwurm and Bergstutz. But dragons of our +familiar kind were already well known to the chroniclers from whom old +Cysat extracted his twenty-fifth chapter (wherein, by the way, you will +learn something of Calabrian dragons); then came J. J. Wagner (1680); +then Scheuchzer, prince of dragon-finders, who informs us that _multorum +draconum historta mendax._ + +But it is rather a far cry from Calabria to the asthmatic Scheuchzer, +wiping the perspiration off his brow as he clambers among the Alps to +record truthful dragon yarns and untruthful barometrical observations; +or to China, dragon-land _par excellence;_ [Footnote: In Chinese +mythology the telluric element has remained untarnished. The dragon is +an earth-god, who controls the rain and thunder clouds.] or even to our +own Heralds' College, where these and other beasts have sought a refuge +from prying professors under such queer disguises that their own mothers +would hardly recognize them. + + + + +XV + +BYZANTINISM + + +Exhausted with the morning's walk at Policoro, a railway journey and a +long drive up nearly a thousand feet to Rossano in the heat of midday, I +sought refuge, contrary to my usual custom, in the chief hotel, +intending to rest awhile and then seek other quarters. The establishment +was described as "ganz ordentlich" in Baedeker. But, alas! I found +little peace or content. The bed on which I had hoped to repose was +already occupied by several other inmates. Prompted by curiosity, I +counted up to fifty-two of them; after that, my interest in the matter +faded away. It became too monotonous. They were all alike, save in point +of size (some were giants). A Swammerdam would have been grieved by +their lack of variety. + +And this, I said to myself, in a renowned city that has given birth to +poets and orators, to saints like the great Nilus, to two popes +and--last, but not least--one anti-pope! I will not particularize the +species beyond saying that they did not hop. Nor will I return to this +theme. Let the reader once and for all take _them_ for granted. +[Footnote: They have their uses, to be sure. Says Kircher: _Cunices +lectularii potens remedium contra quartanum est, si ab inscio aegro cum +vehiculo congrua potentur; mulierum morbis medentur et uterum prolapsum +solo odore in mum locum restituunt._] Let him note that most of the inns +of this region are quite uninhabitable, for this and other reasons, +unless he takes the most elaborate precautions. . . . + +Where, then, do I generally go for accommodation? + +Well, as a rule I begin by calling for advice at the chemist's shop, +where a fixed number of the older and wiser citizens congregate for a +little talk. The cafes and barbers and wine-shops are also +meeting-places of men; but those who gather here are not of the right +type--they are the young, or empty-headed, or merely thirsty. The other +is the true centre of the leisured class, the philosophers' rendezvous. +Your _speciale_ (apothecary) is himself an elderly and honoured man, +full of responsibility and local knowledge; he is altogether a superior +person, having been trained in a University. You enter the shop, +therefore, and purchase a pennyworth of vaseline. This act entitles you +to all the privileges of the club. Then is the moment to take a seat, +smiling affably at the assembled company, but without proffering a +syllable. If this etiquette is strictly adhered to, it will not be long +ere you are politely questioned as to your plans, your present +accommodation, and so forth; and soon several members will be vying with +each other to procure you a clean and comfortable room at half the price +charged in a hotel. + +Even when this end is accomplished, my connection with the pharmacy +coterie is not severed. I go there from time to time, ostensibly to +talk, but in reality to listen. Here one can feel the true pulse of the +place. Local questions are dispassionately discussed, with ample forms +of courtesy and in a language worthy of Cicero. It is the club of the +_elite._ + +In olden days I used to visit south Italy armed with introductions to +merchants, noblemen and landed proprietors. I have quite abandoned that +system, as these people, bless their hearts, have such cordial notions +of hospitality that from morning to night the traveller has not a moment +he can call his own. Letters to persons in authority, such as syndics or +police officers, are useless and worse than useless. Like Chinese +mandarins, these officials are so puffed up with their own importance +that it is sheer waste of time to call upon them. If wanted, they can +always be found; if not, they are best left alone. For besides being +usually the least enlightened and least amiable of the populace, they +are inordinately suspicious of political or commercial designs on the +part of strangers--God knows what visions are fermenting in their turbid +brains--and seldom let you out of their sight, once they have known you. + +Excepting at Cosenza, Cotrone and Catanzaro, an average white man will +seldom find, in any Calabrian hostelry, what he is accustomed to +consider as ordinary necessities of life. The thing is easily +explicable. These men are not yet in the habit of "handling" civilized +travellers; they fail to realize that hotel-keeping is a business to be +learnt, like tailoring or politics. They are still in the patriarchal +stage, wealthy proprietors for the most part, and quite independent of +your custom. They have not learnt the trick of Swiss servility. You must +therefore be prepared to put up with what looks like very bad treatment. +On your entrance nobody moves a step to enquire after your wants; you +must begin by foraging for yourself, and thank God if any notice is +taken of what you say; it is as if your presence were barely +tolerated. But once the stranger has learnt to pocket his pride and +treat his hosts in the same offhand fashion, he will find among them an +unconventional courtesy of the best kind. + +The establishment being run as a rule by the proprietor's own family, +gratuities with a view to exceptional treatment are refused with quiet +dignity, and even when accepted will not further your interests in the +least; on the contrary, you are thenceforward regarded as tactless and +weak in the head. Discreet praise of their native town or village is the +best way to win the hearts of the younger generation; for the parents a +little knowledge of American conditions is desirable, to prove that you +are a man of the world and worthy, a priori, of some respect. But if +there exists a man-cook, he is generally an importation and should be +periodically and liberally bribed, without knowledge of the family, from +the earliest moment. Wonderful, what a cook can do! + +It is customary here not to live _en pension_ or to pay a fixed price +for any meal, the smallest item, down to a piece of bread, being +conscientiously marked against you. My system, elaborated after +considerable experimentation, is to call for this bill every morning +and, for the first day or two after arrival, dispute in friendly fashion +every item, remorselessly cutting down some of them. Not that they +overcharge; their honesty is notorious, and no difference is made in +this respect between a foreigner and a native. It is a matter of +principle. By this system, which must not be overdone, your position in +the house gradually changes; from being a guest, you become a friend, a +brother. For it is your duty to show, above all things, that you are not +_scemo_--witless, soft-headed--the unforgivable sin in the south. You +may be a forger or cut-throat--why not? It is a vocation like any other, +a vocation for _men._ But whoever cannot take care of him-self--i.e. of +his money--is not to be trusted, in any walk of life; he is of no +account; he is no man. I have become firm friends with some of these +proprietors by the simple expedient of striking a few francs off their +bills; and should I ever wish to marry one or their daughters, the +surest way to predispose the whole family in my favour would be this +method of amiable but unsmiling contestation. + +Of course the inns are often dirty, and not only in their sleeping +accommodation. The reason is that, like Turks or Jews, their owners do +not see dirt (there is no word for dirt in the Hebrew language); they +think it odd when you draw their attention to it. I remember +complaining, in one of my fastidious moments, of a napkin, plainly not +my own, which had been laid at my seat. There was literally not a clean +spot left on its surface, and I insisted on a new one. I got it; but not +before hearing the proprietor mutter something about "the caprices of +pregnant women." . . . + +The view from these my new quarters at Rossano compensates for divers +other little drawbacks. Down a many-folded gorge of glowing red earth +decked with olives and cistus the eye wanders to the Ionian Sea shining +in deepest turquoise tints, and beautified by a glittering margin of +white sand. To my left, the water takes a noble sweep inland; there lies +the plain of Sybaris, traversed by the Crathis of old that has thrust a +long spit of fand into the waves. On this side the outlook is bounded by +the high range of Pollino and Dolcedorme, serrated peaks that are even +now (midsummer) displaying a few patches of snow. Clear-cut in the +morning light, these exquisite mountains evaporate, towards sunset, in +an amethystine haze. A restful prospect. + +But great was my amazement, on looking out of the window during the +night after my arrival, to observe the Polar star placed directly over +the Ionian Sea--the south, as I surely deemed it. A week has passed +since then, and in spite of the map I have not quite familiarized myself +with this spectacle, nor yet with that other one of the sun setting +apparently due east, over Monte Pollino. + +The glory of Rossano is the image of the Madonna Achiropita. +Bartholomaeus tells us, in his life of Saint Nilus, that in olden days +she was wont to appear, clothed in purple, and drive away with a divine +torch the Saracen invaders of this town. In more recent times, too, she +has often saved the citizens from locusts, cholera, and other calamitous +visitations. Unlike most of her kind, she was not painted by Saint Luke. +She is _acheiropoeta--_not painted by any human hands whatever, and in +so far resembles a certain old image of the Magna Mater, her prototype, +which was also of divine origin. It is generally supposed that this +picture is painted on wood. Not so, says Diehl; it is a fragment of a +fresco on stone. + +Hard by, in the clock-tower of the square, is a marble tablet erected to +the memory of the deputy Felice Cavalotti. We all remember Cavalotti, +the last--with Imbriani--of the republican giants, a blustering +rhetorician-journalist, annihilator of monarchs and popes; a fire-eating +duellist, who deserved his uncommon and unlovely fate. He provoked a +colleague to an encounter and, during a frenzied attack, received into +his open mouth the point of his adversary's sword, which sealed up for +ever that fountain of eloquence and vituperation. + +Cavalotti and the Virgin Achiropita--the new and the old. Really, with +such extreme ideals before his eyes, the burghers of Rossano must +sometimes wonder where righteousness lies. + +They call themselves Calabrians. _Noi siamo calabresi!_ they proudly +say, meaning that they are above suspicion of unfair dealing. As a +matter of fact, they are a muddled brood, and considerably given to +cheating when there is any prospect of success. You must watch the +peasants coming home at night from their field-work if you wish to see +the true Calabrian type--whiskered, short and wiry, and of dark +complexion. There is that indescribable mark of _race_ in these +countrymen; they are different in features and character from the +Italians; it is an ascetic, a Spanish type. Your Calabrian is strangely +scornful of luxury and even comfort; a creature of few but well-chosen +words, straightforward, indifferent to pain and suffering, and dwelling +by preference, when religiously minded, on the harsher aspects of his +faith. A note of unworldliness is discoverable in his outlook upon life. +Dealing with such men, one feels that they are well disposed not from +impulse, but from some dark sense of preordained obligation. Greek and +other strains have infused versatility and a more smiling exterior; but +the groundwork of the whole remains that old _homo ibericus_ of austere +gentlemanliness. + +Rossano was built by the Romans, says Procopius, and during Byzantine +days became a fortress of primary importance. An older settlement +probably lay by the seashore, and its harbour is marked as "good" so +late as the days of Edrisius. Like many of these old Calabrian ports, it +is now invaded by silt and sand, though a few ships still call there. +Wishful to learn something of the past glories of the town, I enquired +at the municipality for the public library, but was informed by the +supercilious and not over-polite secretary that this proud city +possesses no such institution. A certain priest, he added, would give me +all the desired information. + +Canonico Rizzo was a delightful old man, with snowy hair and candid blue +eyes. Nothing, it seemed, could have given him greater pleasure than my +appearance at that particular moment. He discoursed awhile, and sagely, +concerning England and English literature, and then we passed on, _via_ +Milton, to Calvin and the Puritan movement in Scotland; next, _via_ +Livingstone, to colonial enterprises in Africa; and finally, _via_ +Egypt, Abyssinia, and Prester John, to the early history of the eastern +churches. Byzantinism--Saint Nilus; that gave me the desired +opportunity, and I mentioned the object of my visit. + +"The history of Rossano? Well, well! The secretary of the municipality +does me too much honour. You must read the Book of Genesis and Hesiod +and Berosus and the rest of them. But stay! I have something of more +modern date, in which you will find these ancient authors conveniently +classified." + +From this book by de Rosis, printed in 1838, I gleaned two facts, +firstly, that the city of Rossano is now 3663 years old--quite a +respectable age, as towns go--and lastly, that in the year 1500 it had +its own academy of lettered men, who called themselves "I spensierati," +with the motto _Non alunt curai--_an echo, no doubt, of the Neapolitan +renaissance under Alfonso the Magnificent. The popes Urban VIII and +Benedict XIII belonged to this association of "thoughtless ones." The +work ends with a formidable list of local personages distinguished in +the past for their gentleness of birth and polite accomplishments. One +wonders how all these delicately nurtured creatures can have survived at +Rossano, if their sleeping accommodation---- + +You might live here some little time before realizing that this place, +which seems to slope gently downhill against a pleasing background of +wooded mountains, is capable of being strongly fortified. It lies, like +other inland Calabrian (and Etruscan) cities, on ground enclosed by +stream-beds, and one of these forms a deep gully above which Rossano +towers on a smooth and perpendicular precipice. The upper part of this +wall of rock is grey sandstone; the lower a bed of red granitic matter. +From this coloured stone, which crops up everywhere, the town may have +drawn its name of Rossano (rosso = red); not a very old settlement, +therefore; although certain patriotic philologers insist upon deriving +it from "rus sanum," healthy country. Its older names were Roscia, and +Ruscianum; it is not marked in Peutinger. Countless jackdaws and +kestrels nestle in this cliff, as well as clouds of swifts, both Alpine +and common. These swifts are the ornithological phenomenon of Rossano, +and I think the citizens have cause to be thankful for their existence; +to them I attribute the fact that there are so few flies, mosquitoes, +and other aerial plagues here. If only the amiable birds could be +induced to extend their attentions to the bedrooms as well! + +This shady glen at the back of the city, with its sparse tufts of +vegetation and monstrous blocks of deep red stone cloven into rifts and +ravines by the wild waters, has a charm of its own. There are undeniable +suggestions of Hell about the place. A pathway runs adown this vale of +Hinnom, and if you follow it upwards to the junction of the streams you +will reach a road that once more ascends to the town, past the old +church of Saint Mark, a most interesting building. It has five little +cupolas, but the interior, supported by eight columns, has been +whitewashed. The structure has now rightly been declared a "national +monument." It dates from the ninth or tenth century and, according to +Bertaux, has the same plan and the same dimensions as the famous +"Cattolica" at Stilo, which the artistic Lear, though he stayed some +time at that picturesque place, does not so much as mention. They say +that this chapel of Saint Mark was built by Euprassius, protos-padarius +of Calabria, and that in the days of Nilus it was dedicated to Saint +Anastasius. Here, at Rossano, we are once more _en plein Byzance._ + +Rossano was not only a political bulwark, the most formidable citadel of +this Byzantine province. It was a great intellectual centre, upon which +literature, theology and art converged. Among the many perverse +historical notions of which we are now ridding ourselves is this-that +Byzantinism in south Italy was a period of decay and torpid dreamings. +It needed, on the contrary, a resourceful activity to wipe out, as did +those colonists from the east, every trace of Roman culture and language +(Latin rule only revived at Rossano in the fifteenth century). There was +no lethargy in their social and political ambitions, in their military +achievements, which held the land against overwhelming numbers of +Saracens, Lombards and other intruders. And the life of those old monks +of Saint Basil, as we now know it, represented a veritable renaissance +of art and letters. + +Of the ten Basilean convents that grew up in the surroundings of Rossano +the most celebrated was that of S. M. del Patir. Together with the +others, it succeeded to a period of eremitism of solitary anchorites +whose dwellings honeycombed the warm slopes that confront the +Ionian.... + +The lives of some of these Greco-Calabrian hermits are valuable +documents. In the _Vitae Sanctorum Siculorum_ of O. Caietanus (1057) +the student will find a Latin translation of the biography of one of +them, Saint Elia Junior. He died in 903. It was written by a +contemporary monk, who tells us that the holy man performed many +miracles, among them that of walking over a river dryshod. And the +Bollandists _(Acta Sanctorum,_ 11th September) have reprinted the +biography of Saint Elia Spelaeotes-the cave-dweller, as composed in +Greek by a disciple. It is yet more interesting. He lived in a "honesta +spelunca" which he discovered in 864 by means of a flight of bats +issuing therefrom; he suffered persecutions from a woman, exactly after +the fashion of Joseph and Potiphar's wife; he grew to be 94 years old; +the Saracens vainly tried to burn his dead body, and the water in which +this corpse was subsequently washed was useful for curing another holy +man's toothache. Yet even these creatures were subject to gleams of +common sense. "Virtues," said this one, "are better than miracles." + +How are we to account for these rock-hermits and their inelegant habits? +How explain this poisoning of the sources of manly self-respect? + +Thus, I think: that under the influence of their creed they reverted +perforce to the more bestial traits of aboriginal humanity. They were +thrust back in their development. They became solitaries, animalesque +and shy--such as we may imagine our hairy progenitors to have been. +Hence their dirt and vermin, their horror of learning, their unkempt +hair, their ferocious independence, their distrust of sunshine and +ordered social life, their foul dieting, their dread of malign spirits, +their cave-dwelling propensities. All bestial characteristics! + +This atavistic movement, this retrogression towards primevalism, must +have possessed a certain charm, for it attracted vast multitudes; it was +only hemmed, at last, by a physical obstacle. + +The supply of caves ran out. + +Not till then were its votaries forced to congregate in those unhealthy +clusters which afterwards grew to be monasteries. Where many of them +were gathered together under one roof there imposed itself a certain +rudimentary discipline and subordination; yet they preserved as much as +they could of their savage traits, cave-like cells and hatred of +cleanliness, terror of demons, matted beards. + +Gradually the social habits of mundane fellow-creatures insinuated +themselves into these hives of squalor and idleness. The inmates began +to wash and to shave; they acquired property, they tilled the ground, +they learnt to read and write, and finally became connaisseurs of books +and pictures and wine and women. They were pleased to forget that the +eunuch and the beggar are the true Christian or Buddhist. In other +words, the allurements of rational life grew too strong for their +convictions; they became reasonable beings in spite of their creed. This +is how coenobitism grew out of eremitism not only in Calabria, but in +every part of the world which has been afflicted with these +eccentrics. Go to Mount Athos, if you wish to see specimens of all the +different stages conveniently arranged upon a small area. . . . + +This convent of Patir exercised a great local influence as early as the +tenth century; then, towards the end of the eleventh, it was completely +rebuilt without and reorganized within. The church underwent a thorough +restoration in 1672. But it was shattered, together with the rest of the +edifice, by the earthquake of 1836 which, Madonna Achiropita +notwithstanding, levelled to the ground one-half of the fifteen thousand +houses then standing at Rossano. + +These monastic establishments, as a general rule, were occupied later on +by the Benedictines, who ousted the Basileans and were supplanted, in +their turn, by popular orders of later days like the Theatines. Those +that are conveniently situated have now been turned into post offices, +municipalities, and other public buildings--such has been the common +procedure. But many of them, like this of Patir, are too decayed and +remote from the life of man. Fiore, who wrote in 1691, counts up 94 +dilapidated Basilean monasteries in Calabria out of a former total of +about two hundred; Patir and thirteen others he mentions as having, in +his day, their old rites still subsisting. Batiffol has recently gone +into the subject with his usual thoroughness. + +Nothing is uglier than a modern ruin, and the place would assuredly not +be worth the three hours' ride from Rossano were it not for the church, +which has been repaired, and for the wondrous view to be obtained from +its site. The journey, too, is charming, both by the ordinary track that +descends from Rossano and skirts the foot of the hills through olives +and pebbly stream-beds, ascending, finally, across an odorous tangle of +cistus, rosemary and myrtle to the platform on which the convent +stands--or by the alternative and longer route which I took on the +homeward way, and which follows the old water conduit built by the monks +into a forest of enormous chestnuts, oaks, hollies and Calabrian pines, +emerging out of an ocean of glittering bracken. + +I was pursued into the church of Patir by a bevy of country wenches who +frequented this region for purposes of haymaking. There is a miraculous +crucifix in this sanctuary, hidden behind a veil which, with infinite +ceremony, these females withdrew for my edification. There it was, sure +enough; but what, I wondered, would happen from the presence of these +impure creatures in such a place? Things have changed considerably since +the days of old, for such was the contamination to be expected from the +mere presence of a woman within these walls that even the Mother of God, +while visiting Saint Nilus--the builder, not the great saint--at work +upon the foundations, often conversed with him, but never ventured to +step within the area of the building itself. And later on it was a +well-authenticated phenomenon recorded by Beltrano and others, that if a +female entered the church, the heavens immediately became cloudy and +sent down thunders and lightnings and such-like signs of celestial +disapproval, which never ceased until the offending monster had left the +premises. + +From this ancient monastery comes, I fancy, the Achiropita image. +Montorio will tell you all about it; he learnt its history in June 1712 +from the local archbishop, who had extracted his information out of the +episcopal archives. Concerning another of these wonder-working +idols--that of S. M. del Patirion--you may read in the ponderous tomes +of Ughelli. + +Whether the celebrated Purple Codex of Rossano ever formed part of the +library of Patirion has not yet been determined. This wonderful +parchment--now preserved at Rossano--is mentioned for the first time by +Cesare Malpica, who wrote some interesting things about the Albanian and +Greek colonies in Calabria, but it was only discovered, in the right +sense of that word, in March 1879 by Gebhardt and Harnack. They +illustrated it in their _Evangeliorum Codex Graecus._ Haseloff also +described it in 1898 _(Codex Purpureus Rossanensis),_ and pointed out +that its iconographical value consists in the fact that it is the only +Greek Testament MS. containing pictures of the life of Christ before the +eighth-ninth century. These pictures are indeed marvellous--more +marvellous than beautiful, like so many Byzantine productions; their +value is such that the parchment has now been declared a "national +monument." It is sternly guarded, and if it is moved out of Rossano--as +happened lately when it was exhibited at Grottaferrata--it travels in +the company of armed carbineers. + +Still pursued by the flock of women, I took to examining the floor of +this church, which contains tesselated marble pavements depicting +centaurs, unicorns, lions, stags, and other beasts. But my contemplation +of these choice relics was disturbed by irrelevant remarks on the part +of the worldly females, who discovered in the head of the stag some +subtle peculiarity that stirred their sense of humour. + +"Look!" said one of them to her neighbour. "He has horns. Just like your +Pasquale." + +"Pasquale indeed! And how about Antonio?" + +I enquired whether they knew what kind of animals these were. + +"Beasts of the ancients. Beasts that nobody knows. Beasts that have +horns--like certain Christians. . . ." + +From the terrace of green sward that fronts this ruined monastery you +can see the little town of Corigliano, whose coquettish white houses lie +in a fold of the hills. Corigliano--[Greek: xorion __hellaion] (land of +olives): the derivation, if not correct, is at least appropriate, for it +lies embowered in a forest of these trees. A gay place it was, in +Bourbon times, with a ducal ruler of its own. Here, they say, the +remnants of the Sybarites took refuge after the destruction of their +city whose desolate plain lies at our feet, backed by the noble range of +Dolcedorme. Swinburne, like a sensible man, takes the Sybarites under +his protection; he defends their artificially shaded streets and those +other signs of voluptuousness which, to judge by certain modern +researches, seem to have been chiefly contrived for combating the demon +of malaria. Earthly welfare, the cult of material health and ease--such +was _their_ ideal. + +In sharpest contrast to these strivings stands the aim of those old +monks who scorned the body as a mere encumbrance, seeking spiritual +enlightenment and things not of this earth. + +And now, Sybarites and Basileans--alike in ruins! + +A man of to-day, asked which of the two civilizations he would wish +restored, would not hesitate long in deciding for the Hellenic one. +Readers of Lenormant will call to mind his glowing pages on the wonders +that might be found buried on the site of Sybaris. His plan of +excavation sounds feasible enough. But how remote it becomes, when one +remembers the case of Herculaneum! Here, to our certain knowledge, many +miracles of antique art and literature lie within a few feet of our +reach; yet nothing is done. These hidden monuments, which are the +heritage of all humanity, are withheld from our eyes by the +dog-in-the-manger policy of a country which, even without foreign +assistance, could easily accomplish the work, were it to employ thereon +only half the sum now spent in feeding, clothing and supervising a horde +of criminals, every one of whom ought to be hanged ten times over. +Meanwhile other nations are forbidden to co-operate; the fair-minded +German proposals were scornfully rejected; later on, those of Sir +Charles Waldstein. + +"What!" says the _Giornale d' Italia_, "are we to have international +excavation-committees thrust upon us? Are we to be treated like the Turks?" + +That, gentle sirs, is precisely the state of the case. + +The object of such committees is to do for the good of mankind what a +single nation is powerless or unwilling to do. Your behaviour at +Herculaneum is identical with that of the Turks at Nineveh. The system +adopted should likewise be the same. + +I shall never see that consummation. + +But I shall not forget a certain article in an American paper--"The New +York Times," I fancy--which gave me fresh food for thought, here at +Patirion, in the sight of that old Hellenic colony, and with the light +chatter of those women still ringing in my ears. Its writer, with whom +not all of us will agree, declared that first in importance of all the +antiquities buried in Italian soil come the lost poems of Sappho. The +lost poems of Sappho--a singular choice! In corroboration whereof he +quoted the extravagant praise of J. A. Symonds upon that amiable and +ambiguous young person. And he might have added Algernon Swinburne, who +calls her "the greatest poet who ever was at all." + +Sappho and these two Victorians, I said to myself. . . . Why just these +two? How keen is the cry of elective affinity athwart the ages! _The +soul,_ says Plato, _divines that which it seeks, and traces obscurely +the footsteps of its obscure desire._ + +The footsteps of its obscure desire---- + +So one stumbles, inadvertently, upon problems of the day concerning +which our sages profess to know nothing. And yet I do perceive a certain +Writing upon the Wall setting forth, in clearest language, that 1 + 1 = +3; a legend which it behoves them not to expunge, but to expound. For it +refuses to be expunged; and we do not need a German lady to tell us how +much the "synthetic" sex, the hornless but not brainless sex, has done +for the life of the spirit while those other two were reclaiming the +waste places of earth, and procreating, and fighting--as befits their +horned anatomy. + + + + +XVI + +REPOSING AT CASTROVILLARI + + +I remember asking my friend the Roman deputy of whom I have already +spoken, and whom I regard as a fountain of wisdom on matters Italian, +how it came about that the railway stations in his country were apt to +be so far distant from the towns they serve. Rocca Bernarda, I was +saying, lies 33 kilometres from its station; and even some of the +largest towns in the kingdom are inconveniently and unnecessarily remote +from the line. + +"True," he replied. "Very true! Inconveniently . . . but perhaps not +unnecessarily. . . ." He nodded his head, as he often does, when +revolving some deep problem in his mind. + +"Well, sir?" + +"Inasmuch as everything has its reasons, be they geographical, +sociological, or otherwise . . ." and he mused again. "Let me tell you +what I think as regards our respective English and Italian points of +view," he said at last. "And to begin with--a few generalities! We may +hold that success in modern life consists in correctly appreciating the +principles which underlie our experiences--in what may be called the +scientific attitude towards things in general. Now, do the English +cultivate this attitude? Not sufficiently. They are in the stage of +those mediaeval scholars who contentedly alleged separate primary causes +for each phenomenon, instead of seeking, by the investigation of +secondary ones, for the inevitable interdependence of the whole. In +other words, they do not subordinate facts; they co-ordinate them. Your +politicians and all your public men are guided by impulse--by +expediency, as they prefer to call it; they are empirical; they never +attempt to codify their conduct; they despise it as theorizing. What +happens? This old-fashioned hand-to-mouth system of theirs invariably +breaks down here and there. And then f Then they trust to some divine +interposition, some accident, to put things to rights again. The success +of the English is largely built up on such accidents--on the mistakes of +other people. Provi dence has favoured them so far, on the whole; but +one day it may leave them in the lurch, as it did the anti-scientific +Russians in their war with the Japanese. One day other people will +forget to make these pleasant mistakes." + +He paused, and I forbore to interrupt his eloquence. + +"To come now to the practical application--to this particular instance. +Tell me, does your English system testify to any constructive +forethought? In London, I am assured, the railway companies have built +stations at enormous expense in the very heart of the town. What will be +the consequence of this hand-to-mouth policy? This, that in fifty years +such structures will have become obsolete--stranded in slums at the back +of new quarters yet undreamed of. New depots will have to be built. +Whereas in Italy the now distant city will in fifty years have grown to +reach its station and, in another half-century, will have encircled it. +Thanks to our sagacity, the station will then be in its proper place, in +the centre of the town. Our progeny will be grateful; and that again, +you will admit, is a worthy aim for our politicians. Besides, what would +happen to our coachmen if nobody needed their services on arriving at +his destination? The poor men must not be allowed to starve! Cold head +and warm heart, you know; humanitarian considerations cannot be thrust +aside by a community that prides itself on being truly civilized. I +trust I have made myself intelligible?" + +"You always do. But why should I incommode myself to please your +progeny, or even my own? And I don't like the kind of warm heart that +subordinates my concerns to those of a cab-driver. You don't altogether +convince me, dear sir." + +"To speak frankly, I sometimes don't convince myself. My own country +station, for example, is curiously remote from the city, and it is +annoying on wintry nights to drive through six miles of level mud when +you are anxious to reach home and dinner; so much so that, in my +egoistical moments, I would have been glad if our administration had +adopted the more specious British method. But come now! You cannot raise +that objection against the terminus at Rome." + +"Not that one. But I can raise two others. The platforms are +inconveniently arranged, and a traveller will often find it impossible +to wash his hands and face there; as to hot water----" + +"Granting a certain deplorable disposition of the lines--why on earth, +pray, should a man cleanse himself at the station when there are +countless hotels and lodging-houses in the city? O you English originals!" + +"And supposing," I urged, "he is in a hurry to catch another train going +south, to Naples or Palermo?" + +"There I have you, my illustrious friend! _Nobody travels south of Rome."_ + +Nobody travels south of Rome. . . . + +Often have I thought upon those words. + +This conversation was forcibly recalled to my mind by the fact that it +took our creaky old diligence two and a half hours (one of the horses +had been bought the day before, for six pounds) to drive from the +station of Castrovillari to the entrance of the town, where we were +delayed another twenty minutes, while the octroi zealots searched +through every bag and parcel on the post-waggon. + +Many people have said bad things about this place. But my once +unpleasant impressions of it have been effaced by my reception at its +new and decent little hostelry. What a change after the sordid filth of +Rossano! Castrovillari, to be sure, has no background of hoary eld to +atone for such deficiencies. It was only built the other day, by the +Normans; or by the Romans, who called it Aprustum; or possibly by the +Greeks, who founded their Abystron on this particular site for the same +reasons that commended it in yet earlier times to certain bronze and +stone age primitives, whose weapons you may study in the British Museum +and elsewhere. [Footnote: Even so Taranto, Cumae, Paestum, Metapontum, +Monteleone and other southern towns were founded by the ancients on the +site of prehistoric stations.] + +But what are the stone ages compared with immortal and immutable +Rossano? An ecclesiastical writer has proved that Calabria was inhabited +before the Noachian flood; and Rossano, we may be sure, was one of the +favourite haunts of the antediluvians. None the less, it is good to rest +in a clean bed, for a change; and to feed off a clean plate. + +We are in the south. One sees it in sundry small ways--in the behaviour +of the cats, for instance. . . . + +The Tarentines, they say, imported the cat into Europe. If those of +south Italy still resemble their old Nubian ancestors, the beast would +assuredly not have been worth the trouble of acclimatizing. On entering +these regions, one of the first things that strikes me is the difference +between the appearance of cats and dogs hereabouts, and in England or +any northern country; and the difference in their temperaments. Our dogs +are alert in their movements and of wideawake features; here they are +arowsy and degraded mongrels, with expressionless eyes. Our cats are +sleek and slumberous; here they prowl about haggard, shifty and +careworn, their fur in patches and their ears a-tremble from nervous +anxiety. That domestic animals such as these should be fed at home does +not commend itself to the common people; they must forage for their food +abroad. Dogs eat offal, while the others hunt for lizards in the fields. +A lizard diet is supposed to reduce their weight (it would certainly +reduce mine); but I suspect that southern cats are emaciated not only +from this cause, but from systematic starvation. Many a kitten is born +that never tastes a drop of cow's milk from the cradle to the grave, and +little enough of its own mother's. + +To say that our English _zoophilomania--_our cult of lap-dogs--smacks of +degeneracy does not mean that I sympathize with the ill-treatment of +beasts which annoys many visitors to these parts and has been attributed +to "Saracenic" influences. Wrongly, of course; one might as well +attribute it to the old Greeks. [Footnote: Whose attitude towards +animals, by the way, was as far removed from callousness as from +sentimentalism. We know how those Hellenic oxen fared who had laboured +to draw up heavy blocks for the building of a temple--how, on the +completion of their task, they were led into green fields, there to +pasture unmolested for the rest of their lives. We know that the Greeks +were appreciative of the graces and virtues of canine nature--is not the +Homeric Argo still the finest dog-type in literature? Yet to them the +dog, even he of the tender Anthology, remained what he is: a tamed +beast. The Greeks, sitting at dinner, resented the insolence of a +creature that, watching every morsel as it disappeared into the mouth of +its master, plainly discovered by its physiognomy the desire, the +presumed right, to devour what he considered fit only for himself. +Whence that profound word [Greek: kunopes]--dog-eyed, shameless. In +contrast to this sanity, observe what an Englishman can read into a +dog's eye: + + That liquid, melancholy eye, + From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs + Seemed surging the Virgilian cry-- + The sense of tears in mortal things. . . . + +[That is how Matthew Arnold interprets the feelings of Fido, watching his +master at work upon a tender beefsteak. . . .] + +Poor Saracens! They are a sort of whipping-boy, all over the country. +The chief sinner in this respect is the Vatican, which has authorized +cruelty to animals by its official teaching. When Lord Odo-Russell +enquired of the Pope regarding the foundation of a society for the +prevention of cruelty to animals in Italy, the papal answer was: "Such +an association _could not be sanctioned_ by the Holy See, being founded +on a theological error, to wit, that Christians owed any duties to +animals." This language has the inestimable and rather unusual merit of +being perspicuous. Nevertheless, Ouida's flaming letters to "The Times" +inaugurated an era of truer humanity. . . . + +And the lateness of the dining-hour--another symptom of the south. It +was eleven o'clock when I sat down to dinner on the night of my arrival, +and habitues of the hotel, engineers and so forth, were still dropping +in for their evening meal. Appetite comes more slowly than ever, now +that the heats have begun. + +They have begun in earnest. The swoon of summer is upon the land, the +grass is cut, cicadas are chirping overhead. Despite its height of a +thousand feet, Castrovillari must be blazing in August, surrounded as it +is by parched fields and an amphitheatre of bare limestone hills that +exhale the sunny beams. You may stroll about these fields observing the +construction of the line which is to pass through Cassano, a pretty +place, famous for its wine and mineral springs; or studying the habits +of the gigantic grasshoppers that hang in clusters to the dried thistles +and start off, when scared, with the noise of a covey of partridges; or +watching how the cows are shod, at this season, to thresh the corn. Old +authors are unanimous in declaring that the town was embowered in oak +forests; as late as 1844 it was lamented that this "ancient barbarous +custom" of cutting them down had not yet been discontinued. The +mischief is now done, and it would be interesting to know the difference +between the present summer temperature and that of olden days. + +The manna ash used to be cultivated in these parts. I cannot tell +whether its purgative secretion is still in favour. The confusion +between this stuff and the biblical manna gave rise to the legends about +Calabria where "manna droppeth as dew from Heaven." Sandys says it was +prepared out of the mulberry. He copied assiduously, did old Sandys, and +yet found room for some original blunders of his own. R. Pococke, by the +way, is one of those who were dissatisfied with Castrovillari. He found +no accommodation save an empty house. "A poor town." . . . + +Driving through modern Castrovillari one might think the place flat and +undeserving of the name of _castrum._ But the old town is otherwise. It +occupies a proud eminence--the head of a promontory which overlooks the +junction of two streams; the newer settlement stands on the more level +ground at its back. This acropolis, once thronged with folk but now +well-nigh deserted, has all the macabre fascination of decay. A mildewy +spirit haunts those tortuous and uneven roadways; plaster drops unheeded +from the walls; the wild fig thrusts luxuriant arms through the windows +of palaces whose balconies are rusted and painted loggias crumbling to +earth ... a mournful and malarious agglomeration of ruins. + +There is a castle, of course. It was built, or rebuilt, by the +Aragonese, with four corner towers, one of which became infamous for a +scene that rivals the horrors of the Black Hole of Calcutta. Numbers of +confined brigands, uncared-for, perished miserably of starvation within +its walls. Says the historian Botta: + +"The abominable taint prevented the guards from approaching; the dead +bodies were not carried away. The pestilence increased; in pain and +exhaustion, the dying fell shuddering on the dead; the hale on the +dying; all tearing themselves like dogs with teeth and nails. The tower +of Castrovillari became a foul hole of corruption, and the stench was +spread abroad for a long season." + +This castle is now used as a place of confinement. Sentries warned me at +one point not to approach too near the walls; it was "forbidden." I had +no particular desire to disobey this injunction. Judging by the number +of rats that swarm about the place, it is not exactly a model prison. + +One of the streets in this dilapidated stronghold bears to this day the +inscription "Giudea," or Jewry. Southern Italy was well stocked with +those Hebrews concerning whom Mr. H. M. Adler has sagely discoursed. +They lived in separate districts, and seem to have borne a good +reputation. Those of Castrovillari, on being ejected by Ferdinand the +Catholic in 1511, obligingly made a donation of their school to the +town. But they returned anon, and claimed it again. Persecuted as they +were, they never suffered the martyrdom of the ill-starred Waldensian +colonies in Calabria. + +The houses of this Jewry overlook the Coscile river, the Sybaris of old, +and from a spot in the quarter a steep path descends to its banks. Here +you will find yourself in another climate, cool and moist. The livid +waters tumble gleefully towards the plain, amid penurious plots of beans +and tomatoes, and a fierce tangle of vegetation wherever the hand of man +has not made clearings. Then, mounting aloft once more, you will do well +to visit the far-famed chapel that sits at the apex of the promontory, +Santa Maria del Castello. There is a little platform where you may +repose and enjoy the view, as I have done for some evenings +past--letting the eye roam up-country towards Dolcedorme and its sister +peaks, and westwards over the undulating Sila lands whose highest point, +Botte Donato, is unmistakable even at this distance of forty miles, from +its peculiar shape. + +The Madonna picture preserved within the sanctuary has performed so many +miracles in ages past that I despair of giving any account of them. It +is high time, none the less, for a new sign from Heaven. Shattered by +earthquakes, the chapel is in a dis-ruptured and even menacing +condition. Will some returned emigrant from America come forward with +the necessary funds? + +That would be a miracle, too, in its way. But gone, for the present, are +the ages of Faith--the days when the peevishly-protestant J. H. Bartels +sojourned here and groaned as he counted up the seven monasteries of +Castrovillari (there used to be nearly twice that number), and viewed +the 130 priests, "fat-paunched rascals, loafing about the streets and +doorways." . . . + +From my window in the hotel I espy a small patch of snow on the hills. I +know the place; it is the so-called "Montagna del Principe" past which +the track winds into the Pollino regions. Thither I am bound; but so +complicated is life that even for a short three days' ramble among those +forests a certain amount of food and clothing must be provided--a mule +is plainly required. There seem to be none of these beasts available at +Castrovillari. + +"To Morano!" they tell me. "It is nearer the mountain, and there you +will find mules plentiful as blackberries. To Morano!" + +Morano lies a few miles higher up the valley on the great military road +to Lagonegro, which was built by Murat and cuts through the interior of +Basilicata, rising at Campo Tenese to a height of noo metres. They are +now running a public motor service along this beautiful stretch of 52 +kilometres, at the cheap rate of a sou per kilometre. + +_En route!_ + + +POSTSCRIPT.--Another symptom of the south: + +Once you have reached the latitude of Naples, the word _grazie_ (thank +you) vanishes from the vocabulary of all save the most cultured. But to +conclude therefrom that one is among a thankless race is not altogether +the right inference. They have a wholly different conception of the +affair. Our septentrional "thanks" is a complicated product in which +gratefulness for things received and for things to come are +unconsciously balanced; while their point of view differs in nothing +from that of the beau-ideal of Greek courtesy, of Achilles, whose mother +procured for him a suit of divine armour from Hephaistos, which he +received without a word of acknowledgment either for her or for the god +who had been put to some little trouble in the matter. A thing given +they regard as a thing found, a hermaion, a happy hit in the lottery of +life; the giver is the blind instrument of Fortune. This chill attitude +repels us; and our effusive expressions of thankfulness astonish these +people and the Orientals. + +A further difference is that the actual gift is viewed quite +extrinsically, intellectually, either in regard to what it would fetch +if bartered or sold, or, if to be kept, as to how far its possession may +raise the recipient in the eyes of other men. This is purely Homeric, +once more--Homeric or primordial, if you prefer. Odysseus told his kind +host Alkinoos, whom he was never to see again, that he would be glad to +receive farewell presents from him--to cherish as a friendly memory? +No, but "because they would make him look a finer fellow when he got +home." The idea of a keepsake, of an emotional value attaching to some +trifle, is a northern one. Here life is give and take, and lucky he who +takes more than he gives; it is what Professor Mahaffy calls the +"ingrained selfishness of the Greek character." Speaking of all below +the upper classes, I should say that disinterested benevolence is apt to +surpass their comprehension, a good-natured person being regarded as +weak in the head. + +Has this man, then, no family, that he should benefit strangers? Or is +he one of nature's unfortunates--soft-witted? Thus they argue. They will +do acts of spontaneous kindness towards their family, far oftener than +is customary with us. But outside that narrow sphere, _interesse_ +(Odyssean self-advantage) is the mainspring of their actions. Whence +their smooth and glozing manners towards the stranger, and those +protestations of undying affection which beguile the unwary--they wish +to be forever in your good graces, for sooner or later you may be of +use; and if perchance you do content them, they will marvel +(philosophically) at your grotesque generosity, your lack of +discrimination and restraint. Such _malizia_ (cleverness) is none the +more respectable for being childishly transparent. The profound and +unscrupulous northerner quickly familiarizes himself with its technique, +and turns it to his own profit. Lowering his moral notions, he soon--so +one of them expressed it to me--"walks round them without getting off +his chair" and, on the strength of his undeserved reputation for +simplicity and fair dealing, keeps them dangling a lifetime in a tremble +of obsequious amiability, cheered on by the hope of ultimately +over-reaching him. Idle dream, where a pliant and sanguine southerner is +pitted against the unswerving Saxon or Teuton! This accounts for the +success of foreign trading houses in the south. Business is business, +and the devil take the hindmost! By all means; but they who are not +rooted to the spot by commercial exigencies nor ready to adopt debased +standards of conduct will find that a prolonged residence in a centre +like Naples--the daily attrition of its ape-and-tiger elements--sullies +their homely candour and self-respect. + +For a tigerish flavour does exist in most of these southern towns. + +Camorra, the law of intimidation, rules the city. This is what Stendhal +meant when, speaking of the "simple and inoffensive" personages in the +_ Vicar of Wakefield,_ he remarked that "in the sombre Italy, a simple +and inoffensive creature would be quickly destroyed." It is not easy to +be inoffensive and yet respected in a land of teeth and claws, where a +man is reverenced in proportion as he can browbeat his fellows. So much +ferocity tinctures civic life, that had they not dwelt in towns while we +were still shivering in bogs, one would deem them not yet ripe for +herding together in large numbers; one would say that post-patriarchal +conditions evoked the worst qualities of the race. And we must revise +our conceptions of fat and lean men; we must pity Cassius, and dread +Falstaff. + +"What has happened"--you ask some enormous individual--"to your +adversary at law?" + +"To which one of them?" + +"Oh, Signor M----, the timber merchant." + +"_L'abbiamo mangiato!_" (I have eaten him.) + +Beware of the fat Neapolitan. He is fat from prosperity, from, dining +off his leaner brothers. + +Which reminds me of a supremely important subject, eating. + +The feeding here is saner than ours with its all-pervading animal grease +(even a boiled egg tastes of mutton fat in England), its stock-pot, +suet, and those other inventions of the devil whose awful effects we +only survive because we are continually counteracting or eliminating +them by the help of (1) pills, (2) athletics, and (3) alcohol. Saner as +regards material, but hopelessly irrational in method. Your ordinary +employe begins his day with a thimbleful of black coffee, nothing more. +What work shall be got out of him under such anti-hygienic conditions? +Of course it takes ten men to do the work of one; and of course all ten +of them are sulky and irritable throughout the morning, thinking only of +their luncheon. Then indeed--then they make up for lost time; those few +favoured ones, at least, who can afford it. + +I once watched a young fellow, a clerk of some kind, in a restaurant at +midday. He began by informing the waiter that he had no appetite that +morning--_sangue di Dio!_ no appetite whatever; but at last allowed +himself to be persuaded into consuming a _hors d' oeuvres_ of anchovies +and olives. Then he was induced to try the maccheroni, because they were +"particularly good that morning"; he ate, or rather drank, an immense +plateful. After that came some slices of meat and a dish of green stuff +sufficient to satisfy a starving bullock. A little fish? asked the +waiter. Well, perhaps yes, just for form's sake--two fried mullets and +some nondescript fragments. Next, he devoured a couple of raw eggs "on +account of his miserably weak stomach," a bowl of salad and a goodly +lump of fresh cheese. Not without a secret feeling of envy I left him at +work upon his dessert, of which he had already consumed some six +peaches. Add to this (quite an ordinary repast) half a bottle of heavy +wine, a cup of black coffee and three glasses of water--what work shall +be got out of a man after such a boa-constrictor collation? He is as +exasperated and prone to take offence as in the morning--this time from +another cause. . . . + +That is why so many of them suffer from chronic troubles of the +digestive organs. The head of a hospital at Naples tells me that stomach +diseases are more prevalent there than in any other part of Europe, and +the stomach, whatever sentimentalists may say to the contrary, being the +true seat of the emotions, it follows that a judicious system of dieting +might work wonders upon their development. Nearly all Mediterranean +races have been misfed from early days; that is why they are so small. I +would undertake to raise the Italian standard of height by several +inches, if I had control of their nutrition for a few centuries. I would +undertake to alter their whole outlook upon life, to convert them from +utilitarians into romantics--were such a change desirable. For if +utilitarianism be the shadow of starvation, romance is nothing but the +vapour of repletion. + +And yet men still talk of race-characteristics as of something fixed and +immutable! The Jews, so long as they starved in Palestine, were the most +acrimonious bigots on earth. Now that they live and feed sensibly, they +have learnt to see things in their true perspective--they have become +rationalists. Their less fortunate fellow-Semites, the Arabs, have +continued to starve and to swear by the Koran--empty in body and empty +in mind. No poise or balance is possible to those who live in uneasy +conditions. The wisest of them can only attain to stoicism--a dumb +protest against the environment. There are no stoics among well-fed +people. The Romans made that discovery for themselves, when they +abandoned the cheese-paring habits of the Republic. + +In short, it seems to me that virtues and vices which cannot be +expressed in physiological terms are not worth talking about; that when +a morality refuses to derive its sanction from the laws which govern our +body, it loses the right to exist. This being so, what is the most +conspicuous native vice? + +Envy, without a doubt. + +Out of envy they pine away and die; out of envy they kill one another. +To produce a more placid race, [Footnote: By placid I do not mean +peace-loving and pitiful in the Christian sense. That doctrine of loving +and forgiving one's enemies is based on sheer funk; our pity for others +is dangerously akin to self-pity, most odious of vices. Catholic +teaching--in practice, if not in theory---glides artfully over the +desirability of these imported freak-virtues, knowing that they cannot +appeal to a masculine stock. By placid I mean steady, self-contained.] +to dilute envious thoughts and the acts to which they lead, is at bottom +a question of nutrition. One would like to know for how much black +brooding and for how many revengeful deeds that morning thimbleful of +black coffee is responsible. + +The very faces one sees in the streets would change. Envy is reflected +in all too many of those of the middle classes, while the poorest +citizens are often haggard and distraught from sheer hunger--hunger +which has not had time to be commuted into moral poison; college-taught +men, in responsible positions, being forced to live on salaries which a +London lift-boy would disdain. When that other local feature, that +respect for honourable poverty--the reverse of what we see in England +where, since the days of the arch-snob Pope, a slender income has grown +to be considered a subject of reproach. + +And yet another symptom of the south---- + +Enough! The clock points to 6.20; it is time for an evening walk--my +final one--to the terrace of S. M. del Castello. + + + + +XVII + +OLD MORANO + + +This Morano is a very ancient city; Tufarelli, writing in 1598, proves +that it was then exactly 3349 years old. Oddly enough, therefore, its +foundation almost coincides with that of Rossano. . . . + +There may be mules at Morano; indeed, there are. But they are illusive +beasts: phantom-mules. Despite the assistance of the captain of the +carbineers, the local innkeeper, the communal policeman, the secretary +of the municipality, an amiable canon of the church and several +non-official residents, I vainly endeavoured, for three days, to procure +one--flitting about, meanwhile, between this place and Castrovillari. +For Morano, notwithstanding its size (they say it is larger than the +other town) offers no accommodation or food in the septentrional sense +of those terms. + +Its situation, as you approach from Castrovillari, is striking. The +white houses stream in a cataract down one side of a steep conical hill +that dominates the landscape--on the summit sits the inevitable castle, +blue sky peering through its battered windows. But the interior is not +at all in keeping with this imposing aspect. Morano, so far as I was +able to explore it, is a labyrinth of sombre, tortuous and fetid alleys, +whexe black pigs wallow amid heaps 'of miscellaneous and malodorous +filth--in short, the town exemplifies that particular idea of civic +liberty which consists in everybody being free to throw their own +private refuse into the public street and leave it there, from +generation to generation. What says Lombroso? "The street-cleaning is +entrusted, in many towns, to the rains of heaven and, in their absence, +to the voracity of the pigs." None the less, while waiting for mules +that never came, I took to patrolling those alleys, at first out of +sheer boredom, but soon impelled by that subtle fascination which +emanates from the _ne plus ultra_ of anything--even of grotesque +dirtiness. On the second day, however, a case of cholera was announced, +which chilled my ardour for further investigations. It was on that +account that I failed to inspect what was afterwards described to me as +the chief marvel of the place--a carved wooden altar-piece in a certain +church. + +"It is prodigious and _antichissimo,"_ said an obliging citizen to +whom I applied for information. "There is nothing like it on earth, and +I have been six times to America, sir. The artist--a real artist, mind +you, not a common professor--spent his whole life in carving it. It was +for the church, you see, and he wanted to show what he could do in the +way of a masterpiece. Then, when it was finished and in its place, the +priests refused to pay for it. It was made not for them, they said, but +for the glory of God; the man's reward was sufficient. And besides, he +could have remission of sins for the rest of his life. He said he did +not care about remission of sins; he wanted money--money! But he got +nothing. Whereupon he began to brood and to grow yellow. Money--money! +That was all he ever said. And at last he became quite green and died. +After that, his son took up the quarrel, but he got as little out of the +priests as the father. It was fixed in the church, you understand, and +he could not take it away. He climbed through the window one night and +tried to burn it--the marks are there to this day--but they were too +sharp for him. And he took the business so much to heart that he also +soon died quite young! And quite green--like his father." + +The most characteristic item in the above history is that about growing +green. People are apt to put on this colour in the south from +disappointment or from envy. They have a proverb which runs "sfoga o +schiatta"--relieve yourself or burst; our vaunted ideal of +self-restraint, of dominating the reflexes, being thought not only +fanciful but injurious to health. Therefore, if relief is thwarted, +they either brood themselves into a green melancholy, or succumb to a +sudden "colpo di sangue," like a young woman of my acquaintance who, +considering herself beaten in a dispute with a tram-conductor about a +penny, forthwith had a "colpo di sangue," and was dead in a few hours. A +primeval assertion of the ego . . . + +Unable to perambulate the streets of Morano, I climbed to the ruined +fortress along the verdant slope at its back, and enjoyed a fair view +down the fertile valley, irrigated by streamlets and planted with +many-hued patches of culture, with mulberries, pomegranates and poplars. +Some boys were up here, engaged in fishing--fishing for young kestrels +in their nest above a shattered gateway. The tackle consisted of a rod +with a bent piece of wire fixed to one end, and it seemed to me a pretty +unpromising form of sport. But suddenly, amid wild vociferations, they +hooked one, and carried it off in triumph to supper. The mother bird, +meanwhile, sailed restlessly about the aether watching every movement, +as I could see by my glasses; at times she drifted quite near, then +swerved again and hovered, with vibrating pinions, directly overhead. It +was clear that she could not tear herself away from the scene, and +hardly had the marauders departed, when she alighted on the wall and +began to inspect what was left of her dwelling. It was probably rather +untidy. I felt sorry for her; yet such harebrained imprudence cannot go +unpunished. With so many hundred crannies in this old castle, why choose +one which any boy can reach with a stick? She will know better next season. + +Then an old shepherd scrambled up, and sat on the stone beside me. He +was short-sighted, asthmatic, and unable to work; the doctor had +recommended an evening walk up to the castle. We conversed awhile, and +he extracted a carnation out of his waistcoat pocket--unusual receptacle +for flowers--which he presented to me. I touched upon the all-absorbing +topic of mules. + +"Mules are very busy animals in Morano," he explained. _"Animali +occupatissimi."_ However, he promised to exert himself on my behalf; he +knew a man with a mule--two mules--he would send him round, if possible. + +Quite a feature in the landscape of Morano is the costume of the women, +with their home-dyed red skirts and ribbons of the same hue plaited into +their hair. It is a beautiful and reposeful shade of red, between +Pompeian and brick-colour, and the tint very closely resembles that of +the cloth worn by the beduin (married) women of Tunisia. Maybe it was +introduced by the Saracens. And it is they, I imagine, who imported that +love of red peppers (a favourite dish with most Orientals) which is +peculiar to these parts, where they eat them voraciously in every form, +particularly in that of red sausages seasoned with these fiery condiments. + +The whole country is full of Saracen memories. The name of Morano, they +say, is derived from _moro,_ [Footnote: This is all wrong, of course. +And equally wrong is the derivation from _moral,_ a mulberry--abundant +as these trees are. And more wrong still, if possible, is that which is +drawn from a saying of the mysterious Oenotrians--that useful +tribe--who, wandering in search of homesteads across these regions and +observing their beauty, are supposed to have remarked: _Hic moremur--_ +here let us stay! Morano (strange to say) is simply the Roman Muranum.] +a Moor; and in its little piazza--an irregular and picturesque spot, +shaded by a few grand old elms amid the sound of running waters--there +is a sculptured head of a Moor inserted into the wall, commemorative, I +was told, of some ancient anti-Saracen exploit. It is the escutcheon of +the town. This Moor wears a red fez, and his features are painted black +(this is _de rigueur,_ for "Saracens "); he bears the legend _Vivit +sub arbore morus._ Near at hand, too, lies the prosperous village +Saracena, celebrated of old for its muscatel wines. They are made from +the grape which the Saracens brought over from Maskat, and planted all +over Sicily. [Footnote: See next chapter.] + +The men of Morano emigrate to America; two-thirds of the adult and +adolescent male population are at this moment on the other side of the +Atlantic. But the oldsters, with their peaked hats (capello pizzuto) +shading gnarled and canny features, are well worth studying. At this +summer season they leave the town at 3.30 a.m. to cultivate their +fields, often far distant, returning at nightfall; and to observe these +really wonderful types, which will soon be extinct, you must take up a +stand on the Castrovillari road towards sunset and watch them riding +home on their donkeys, or walking, after the labours of the day. + +Poorly dressed, these peasants are none the less wealthy; the post +office deposit of Morano is said to have two million francs to its +credit, mostly the savings of these humble cultivators, who can discover +an astonishing amount of money when it is a question, for example, of +providing their daughters with a dowry. The bridal dress alone, a blaze +of blue silk and lace and gold embroidery, costs between six hundred and +a thousand francs. Altogether, Morano is a rich place, despite its +sordid appearance; it is also celebrated as the birthplace of various +learned men. The author of the "Calascione Scordato," a famous +Neapolitan poem of the seventeenth century, certainly lived here for +some time and has been acclaimed as a son of Morano, though he +distinctly speaks of Naples as his home. Among its elder literary +glories is that Leonardo Tufarelli, who thus apostrophizes his birthplace: + +"And to proceed--how many _letterati_ and _virtuosi_ have issued from +you in divers times? Among whom--not to name all of them--there has been +in our days Leopardo de l'Osso of happy memory, physician and most +excellent philosopher, singular in every science, of whom I dare say +that he attained to Pythagorean heights. How many are there to-day, +versed in every faculty, in theology, in the two laws, and in medicine? +How many historians, how many poets, grammarians, artists, actors?" + +The modern writer Nicola Leoni is likewise a child of Morano; his +voluminous "Della Magna Grecia e delle Tre Calabrie" appeared in +1844-1846. He, too, devotes much space to the praises of his natal city, +and to lamentations regarding the sad condition of Calabrian letters +during those dark years. + +"Closed for ever is the academy of Amantea! Closed for ever is +the academy of Rossano! Rare are the lectures in the academy of +Monteleone! Rare indeed the lectures in the academy of Catan-zaro! +Closed for ever is the public library of Monteleone! O ancient days! O +wisdom of our fathers! Where shall I find you?. . ." + +To live the intellectual life amid the ferociously squalid surroundings +of Morano argues an enviable philosophic calm--a detachment bordering on +insensibility. But perhaps we are too easily influenced by externals, in +these degenerate times. Or things may have been better in days of +old--who can tell? One always likes to think so, though the evidence +usually points to the contrary. + +When least I expected it, a possessor of mules presented himself. He was +a burly ruffian of northern extraction, with clear eyes, fair moustache, +and an insidious air of cheerfulness. + +Yes, he had a mule, he said; but as to climbing the mountain for three +or four days on end--ha, ha!--that was rather an undertaking, you know. +Was I aware that there were forests and snow up there? Had I ever been +up the mountain? Indeed! Well, then I must know that there was no food---- + +I pointed to my store of provisions from Castrovillari. His eye wandered +lovingly over the pile and reposed, finally, upon sundry odd bottles and +a capacious demijohn, holding twelve litres. + +"Wine of family," I urged. "None of your eating-house stuff." + +He thought he could manage it, after all. Yes; the trip could be +undertaken, with a little sacrifice. And he had a second mule, a +lady-mule, which it struck him I might like to ride now and then; a +pleasant beast and a companion, so to speak, for the other one. Two +mules and two Christians--that seemed appropriate. . . . And only four +francs a day more. + +Done! It was really cheap. So cheap, that I straightway grew suspicious +of the "lady-mule." + +We sealed the bargain in a glass of the local mixture, and I thereupon +demanded a _caparra--_ a monetary security that he would keep his word, +i.e. be round at my door with the animals at two in the morning, so as +to reach the uplands before the heat became oppressive. + +His face clouded--a good omen, indicating that he was beginning to +respect me. Then he pulled out his purse, and reluctantly laid two +francs on the table. + +The evening was spent in final preparations; I retired early to bed, and +tried to sleep. One o'clock came, and two o'clock, and three o'clock--no +mules! At four I went to the man's house, and woke him out of ambrosial +slumbers. + +"You come to see me so early in the morning?" he enquired, sitting up in +bed and rubbing his eyes. "Now that's really nice of you." + +One of the mules, he airily explained, had lost a shoe in the afternoon. +He would get it put right at once--at once. + +"You might have told me so yesterday evening, instead of keeping me +awake all night waiting for you." + +"True," he replied. "I thought of it at the time. But then I went to +bed, and slept. Ah, sir, it is good to sleep!" and he stretched himself +voluptuously. + +The beast was shod, and at 5 a.m. we left. + + + + +XVIII + +AFRICAN INTRUDERS + + +There is a type of physiognomy here which is undeniably Semitic--with +curly hair, dusky skin and hooked nose. We may take it to be of +Saracenic origin, since a Phoenician descent is out of the question, +while mediaeval Jews never intermarried with Christians. It is the same +class of face which one sees so abundantly at Palermo, the former +metropolis of these Africans. The accompanying likeness is that of a +native of Cosenza, a town that was frequently in their possession. +Eastern traits of character, too, have lingered among the populace. So +the humour of the peddling Semite who will allow himself to be called by +the most offensive epithets rather than lose a chance of gaining a sou; +who, eternally professing poverty, cannot bear to be twitted on his +notorious riches; their ceaseless talk of hidden treasures, their +secretiveness and so many other little Orientalisms that whoever has +lived in the East will be inclined to echo the observation of Edward +Lear's Greek servant: "These men are Arabs, but they have more clothes on." + +Many Saracenic words (chiefly of marine and commercial import) have +survived from this period; I could quote a hundred or more, partly in +the literary language (balio, dogana, etc.), partly in dialect (cala, +tavuto, etc.) and in place-names such as Tamborio (the Semitic Mount +Tabor), Kalat (Calatafimi), Marsa (Marsala). + +Dramatic plays with Saracen subjects are still popular with the lower +classes; you can see them acted in any of the coast towns. In fact, the +recollection of these intruders is very much alive to this day. They +have left a deep scar. + +Such being the case, it is odd to find local writers hardly referring to +the Saracenic period. Even a modern like l'Occaso, who describes the +Castrovillari region in a conscientious fashion, leaps directly from +Greco-Roman events into those of the Normans. But this is in accordance +with the time-honoured ideal of writing such works: to say nothing in +dispraise of your subject (an exception may be made in favour of +Spano-Bolani's History of Reggio). Malaria and earthquakes and Saracen +irruptions are awkward arguments when treating of the natural +attractions and historical glories of your native place. So the once +renowned descriptions of this province by Grano and the rest of them are +little more than rhetorical exercises; they are "Laus Calabria." And +then--their sources of information were limited and difficult of access. +Collective works like those of Muratori and du Chesne had not appeared +on the market; libraries were restricted to convents; and it was not to +be expected that they should know all the chroniclers of the Byzantines, +Latins, Lombards, Normans and Hohenstaufen--to say nothing of Arab +writers like Nowairi, Abulfeda, Ibn Chaldun and Ibn Alathir--who throw a +little light on those dark times, and are now easily accessible to +scholars. + +Dipping into this old-world literature of murders and prayers, we gather +that in pre-Saracenic times the southern towns were denuded of their +garrisons, and their fortresses fallen into disrepair. "Nec erat formido +aut metus bellorum, quoniam alta pace omnes gaudebant usque ad tempora +Saracenorum." In this part of Italy, as well as at Taranto and other +parts of old "Calabria," the invaders had an easy task before them, at +first. + +In 873, on their return from Salerno, they poured into Calabria, and by +884 already held several towns, such as Tropea and Amantea, but were +driven out temporarily. In 899 they ravaged, says Hepi-danus, the +country of the Lombards (? Calabria). In 900 they destroyed Reggio, and +renewed their incursions in 919, 923, 924, 925, 927, till the Greek +Emperor found it profitable to pay them an annual tribute. In 953, this +tribute not being forthcoming, they defeated the Greeks in Calabria, and +made further raids in 974, 975; 976, 977, carrying off a large store of +captives and wealth. In 981 Otto II repulsed them at Cotrone, but was +beaten the following year near Squillace, and narrowly escaped capture. +It was one of the most romantic incidents of these wars. During the +years 986, 988, 991, 994, 998, 1002, 1003 they were continually in the +country; indeed, nearly every year at the beginning of the eleventh +century is marked by some fresh inroad. In 1009 they took Cosenza for +the third or fourth time; in 1020 they were at Bisignano in the Crati +valley, and returned frequently into those parts, defeating, in 1025, a +Greek army under Orestes, and, in 1031, the assembled forces of the +Byzantine Catapan------ [Footnote: I have not seen Moscato's "Cronaca +dei Musulmani in Calabria," where these authorities might be +conveniently tabulated. It must be a rare book. Martorana deals only +with the Saracens of Sicily.] + +No bad record, from their point of view. + +But they never attained their end, the subjection of the mainland. And +their methods involved appalling and enduring evils. + +Yet the presumable intent or ambition of these aliens must be called +reasonable enough. They wished to establish a provincial government here +on the same lines as in Sicily, of which island it has been said that it +was never more prosperous than under their administration. + +Literature, trade, industry, and all the arts of peace are described as +flourishing there; in agriculture they paid especial attention to the +olive; they initiated, I believe, the art of terracing and irrigating +the hill-sides; they imported the date-palm, the lemon and sugar-cane +(making the latter suffice not only for home consumption, but for +export); their silk manufactures were unsurpassed. Older writers like +Mazzella speak of the abundant growth of sugar-cane in Calabria +(Capialbi, who wallowed in learning, has a treatise on the subject); +John Evelyn saw it cultivated near Naples; it is now extinct from +economical and possibly climatic causes. They also introduced the +papyrus into Sicily, as well as the cotton-plant, which used to be +common all over south Italy, where I have myself seen it growing. + +All this sounds praiseworthy, no doubt. But I see no reason why they +should have governed Sicily better than they did North Africa, which +crumbled into dust at their touch, and will take many long centuries to +recover its pre-Saracen prosperity. There is something flame-like and +anti-constructive in the Arab, with his pastoral habits and contempt of +forethought. In favour of their rule, much capital has been made out of +Benjamin of Tudela's account of Palermo. But it must not be forgotten +that his brief visit was made a hundred years after the Norman +occupation had begun. Palermo, he says, has about 1500 Jews and a large +number of Christians and Mohammedans; Sicily "contains all the pleasant +things of this world." Well, so it did in pre-Saracen times; so it does +to-day. Against the example of North Africa, no doubt, may be set their +activities in Spain. + +They have been accused of destroying the old temples of Magna Gracia +from religious or other motives. I do not believe it; this was against +their usual practice. They sacked monasteries, because these were +fortresses defended by political enemies and full of gold which they +coveted; but in their African possessions, during all this period, the +ruins of ancient civilizations were left untouched, while Byzantine +cults lingered peacefully side by side with Mos-lemism; why not here? +Their fanaticism has been much exaggerated. Weighing the balance between +conflicting writers, it would appear that Christian rites were tolerated +in Sicily during all their rule, though some governors were more bigoted +than others; the proof is this, that the Normans found resident +fellow-believers there, after 255 years of Arab domination. It was the +Christians rather, who with the best intentions set the example of +fanaticism during their crusades; these early Saracen raids had no more +religious colouring than our own raids into the Transvaal or elsewhere. +The Saracens were out for plunder and fresh lands, exactly like the +English. [Footnote: The behaviour of the Normans was wholly different +from that of the Arabs, immediately on their occupation of the country +they razed to the ground thousands of Arab temples and sanctuaries. Of +several hundred in Palermo alone, not a single one was left standing.] + +Nor were they tempted to destroy these monuments for decorative +purposes, since they possessed no palaces on the mainland like the +Palermitan Cuba or Zisa; and that sheer love of destructive-ness with +which they have been credited certainly spared the marbles of Paestum +which lay within a short distance of their strongholds, Agropoli and +Cetara. No. What earthquakes had left intact of these classic relics was +niched by the Christians, who ransacked every corner of Italy for +such treasures to adorn their own temples in Pisa, Rome and Venice-- +displaying small veneration for antiquity, but considerable taste. +In Calabria, for instance, the twenty granite pillars of the +cathedral of Gerace were drawn from the ruins of old Locri; those of +Melito came from the ancient Hipponium (Monteleone). So Paestum, after +the Saracens, became a regular quarry for the Lombards and the rich +citizens of Amalfi when they built their cathedral; and above all, for +the shrewdly pious Robert Guiscard. Altogether, these Normans, dreaming +through the solstitial heats in pleasaunces like Ravello, developed a +nice taste in the matter of marbles, and were not particular where they +came from, so long as they came from somewhere. The antiquities remained +intact, at least, which was better than the subsequent system of Colonna +and Frangipani, who burnt them into lime. + +Whatever one may think of the condition of Sicily under Arab rule, the +proceedings of these strangers was wholly deplorable so far as the +mainland of Italy was concerned. They sacked and burnt wherever they +went; the sea-board of the Tyrrhenian, Ionian and Adriatic was +depopulated of its inhabitants, who fled inland; towns and villages +vanished from the face of the earth, and the richly cultivated land +became a desert; they took 17,000 prisoners from Reggio on a single +occasion--13,000 from Termula; they reduced Matera to such distress, +that a mother is said to have slaughtered and devoured her own child. +Such was their system on the mainland, where they swarmed. Their numbers +can be inferred from a letter written in 871 by the Emperor Ludwig II +to the Byzantine monarch, in which he complains that "Naples has become +a second Palermo, a second Africa," while three hundred years later, in +1196, the Chancellor Konrad von Hildesheim makes a noteworthy +observation, which begins: "In Naples I saw the Saracens, who with their +spittle destroy venomous beasts, and will briefly set forth how they +came by this virtue. . . ." [Footnote: He goes on to say, "Paulus +Apostolus naufragium passus, apud Capream insulam applicuit _[sic]_ quae +in Actibus Apostolorum Mitylene nuncupatur, et cum multis allis evadens, +ab indigenis tcrrae benigne acceptatus est." Then follows the episode of +the fire and of the serpent which Paul casts from him; whereupon the +Saracens, naturally enough, begin to adore him as a saint. In recompense +for this kind treatment Paul grants to them and their descendants the +power of killing poisonous animals in the manner aforesaid--i.e. with +their spittle--a superstition which is alive in south Italy to this day. +These gifted mortals are called Sanpaulari, or by the Greek word +Cerauli; they are men who are born either on St. Paul's night (24-25 +January) or on 29 June. Saint Paul, the "doctor of the Gentiles," is a +great wizard hereabouts, and an invocation to him runs as follows: +"Saint Paul, thou wonder-worker, kill this beast, which is hostile to +God; and save me, for I am a son of Maria."] + +It is therefore no exaggeration to say that the coastal regions of south +Italy were practically in Arab possession for centuries, and one is +tempted to dwell on their long semi-domination here because it has +affected to this day the vocabulary of the people, their lore, their +architecture, their very faces--and to a far greater extent than a +visitor unacquainted with Moslem countries and habits would believe. +Saracenism explains many anomalies in their mode of life and social +conduct. + +From these troublous times dates, I should say, that use of the word +_cristiano_ applied to natives of the country--as opposed to Mohammedan +enemies. + +"Saraceno" is still a common term of abuse. + +The fall of Luceria may be taken as a convenient time-boundary to mark +the end of the Saracenic period. A lull, but no complete repose from +attacks, occurs between that event and the fall of Granada. Then begins +the activity of the corsairs. There is this difference between them, +that the corsairs merely paid flying visits; a change of wind, the +appearance of an Italian sail, an unexpected resistance on the part of +the inhabitants, sufficed to unsettle their ephemeral plans. The +coast-lands were never in their possession; they only harried the +natives. The system of the Saracens on the mainland, though it seldom +attained the form of a provincial or even military government, was +different. They had the _animus manendi._ Where they dined, they slept. + +In point of destructiveness, I should think there was little to choose +between them. One thinks of the hundreds of villages the corsairs +devastated; the convents and precious archives they destroyed, +[Footnote: In this particular branch, again, the Christians surpassed +the unbeliever. More archives were destroyed in the so-called "Age of +Lead"--the closing period of Bour-bonism--than under Saracens and +Corsairs combined. It was quite the regular thing to sell them as +waste-paper to the shopkeepers. Some of them escaped this fate by the +veriest miracle--so those of the celebrated Certoza of San Lorenzo in +Padula. The historian Marincola, walking in the market of Salerno, +noticed a piece of cheese wrapped up in an old parchment. He elicited +the fact that it came from this Certosa, intercepted the records on +their way for sale in Salerno, and contrived by a small present to the +driver that next night two cartloads of parchments were deposited in the +library of La Cava.] the thousands of captives they carried +off--sometimes in such numbers that the ships threatened to sink till +the more unsaleable portion of the human freight had been cast +overboard. And it went on for centuries. Pirates and slave-hunters they +were; but not a whit more so than their Christian adversaries, on whose +national rivalries they thrived. African slaves, when not chained to the +galleys, were utilized on land; so the traveller Moore records that the +palace of Caserta was built by gangs of slaves, half of them Italian, +half Turkish. We have not much testimony as to whether these Arab slaves +enjoyed their lot in European countries; but many of the Christians in +Algiers certainly enjoyed theirs. A considerable number of them refused +to profit by Lord Exmouth's arrangement for their ransom. I myself knew +the descendant of a man who had been thus sent back to his relations +from captivity, and who soon enough returned to Africa, declaring that +the climate and religion of Europe were alike insupportable. + +In Saracen times the Venetians actually sold Christian slaves to the +Turks. Parrino cites the severe enactments which were issued in the +sixteenth century against Christian sailors who decoyed children on +board their boats and sold them as slaves to the Moslem. I question +whether the Turks were ever guilty of a corresponding infamy. + +This Parrino, by the way, is useful as showing the trouble to which the +Spanish viceroys were put by the perpetual inroads of these Oriental +pests. Local militia were organized, heavy contributions levied, towers +of refuge sprang up all along the coast--every respectable house had its +private tower as well (for the dates, see G. del Giudice, _Del Grande +Archivio di Napoli,_ 1871, p. 108). The daring of the pirates knew no +bounds; they actually landed a fleet at Naples itself, and carried off a +number of prisoners. The entire kingdom, save the inland parts, was +terrorized by their lightning-like descents. + +A particular literature grew up about this time--those "Lamenti" in +rime, which set forth the distress of the various places they afflicted. + +The saints had work to do. Each divine protector fought for his own town +or village, and sometimes we see the pleasing spectacle of two patrons +of different localities joining their forces to ward off a piratical +attack upon some threatened district by means of fiery hail, tempests, +apparitions and other celestial devices. A bellicose type of Madonna +emerges, such as S. M. della Libera and S. M. di Constantinopoli, who +distinguishes herself by a fierce martial courage in the face of the +enemy. There is no doubt that these inroads acted as a stimulus to the +Christian faith; that they helped to seat the numberless patron saints +of south Italy more firmly on their thrones. The Saracens as +saint-makers. . . . + +But despite occasional successes, the marine population suffered +increasingly. Historians like Summonte have left us descriptions of the +prodigious exodus of the country people from Calabria and elsewhere into +the safer capital, and how the polished citizens detested these new +arrivals. + +The ominous name "Torre di Guardia" (tower of outlook)--a cliff whence +the sea was scanned for the appearance of Turkish vessels--survives all +over the south. Barbarossa, too, has left his mark; many a hill, +fountain or castle has been named after him. In the two Barbarossas were +summed up the highest qualities of the pirates, and it is curious to +think that the names of those scourges of Christendom, Uruj and +Kheir-eddin, should have been contracted into the classical forms of +Horace and Ariadne. The picturesque Uruj was painted by Velasquez; the +other entertained a polite epistolatory correspondence with Aretino, and +died, to his regret, "like a coward" in bed. I never visit +Constantinople without paying my respects to that calm tomb at +Beshiktah, where, after life's fitful fever, sleeps the _Chief of the Sea._ + +And so things went on till recently. K. Ph. Moritz writes that King +Ferdinand of Naples, during his sporting excursions to the islands of +his dominions, was always accompanied by two cruisers, to forestall the +chance of his being carried off by these _Turchi._ But his loyal +subjects had no cruisers at their disposal; they lived _Turcarum +praedonibus semper obnoxii._ Who shall calculate the effects of this +long reign of terror on the national mind? + +For a thousand years--from 830 to 1830--from the days when the +Amalfitans won the proud title of "Defenders of the Faith" up to those +of the sentimental poet Waiblinger (1826), these shores were infested by +Oriental ruffians, whose activities were an unmitigated evil. It is all +very well for Admiral de la Graviere to speak of "Gallia Victrix"--the +Americans, too, might have something to say on that point. The fact is +that neither European nor American arms crushed the pest. But for the +invention of steam, the Barbary corsairs might still be with us. + + + + +XIX + +UPLANDS OF POLLINO + + +It has a pleasant signification, that word "Dolcedorme": it means +_Sweet slumber._ But no one could tell me how the mountain group came by +this name; they gave me a number of explanations, all fanciful and +unconvincing. Pollino, we are told, is derived from Apollo, and authors +of olden days sometimes write of it as "Monte Apollino." But Barrius +suggests an alternative etymology, equally absurd, and connected with +the medicinal herbs which are found there. _Pollino,_ he says, _a +polleo dictus, quod nobilibus herbis medelae commodis polleat. Pro-venit +enim ibi, ut ab herbariis accepi, tragium dictamnum Cretense, chamaeleon +bigenum, draucus, meum, nardus, celtica, anonides, anemone, peucedamum, +turbit, reubarbarum, pyrethrum, juniperus ubertim, stellarla, +imperatoria, cardus masticem fundens, dracagas, cythisus--_whence +likewise the magnificent cheeses; gold and the Phrygian stone, he adds, +are also found here. + +Unhappily Barrius--we all have a fling at this "Strabo and Pliny of +Calabria"! So jealous was he of his work that he procured a prohibition +from the Pope against all who might reprint it, and furthermore invoked +the curses of heaven and earth upon whoever should have the audacity to +translate it into Italian. Yet his shade ought to be appeased with the +monumental edition of 1737, and, as regards his infallibility, one must +not forget that among his contemporaries the more discerning had already +censured his _philopatria,_ his immoderate love of Calabria. And that is +the right way to judge of men who were not so much ignorant as unduly +zealous for the fair name of their natal land. To sneer at them is to +misjudge their period. It was the very spirit of the Renaissance to +press rhetorical learning into the service of patriotism. They made some +happy guesses and not a few mistakes; and when they lied deliberately, +it was done in what they held a just cause--as scholars and gentlemen. + +The _Calabria Illustrata_ of Fiore also fares badly at the hands of +critics. But I shall not repeat what they say; I confess to a sneaking +fondness for Father Fiore. + +Marafioti, a Calabrian monk, likewise dwells on these same herbs of +Pollino, and gives a long account of a medical secret which he learnt on +the spot from two Armenian botanists. Alas for Marafioti! Despite his +excellent index and seductively chaste Paduan type and paper, the +impartial Soria is driven to say that "to make his shop appear more rich +in foreign merchandise, he did not scruple to adorn it with books and +authors apocryphal, imaginary, and unknown to the whole human race." In +short, he belonged to the school of Pratilli, who wrote a wise and +edifying history of Capua on the basis of inscriptions which he himself +had previously forged; of Ligorio Pirro, prince of his tribe, who +manufactured thousands of coins, texts and marbles out of sheer +exuberance of creative artistry! + +Gone are those happy days of authorship, when the constructive +imagination was not yet blighted and withered. . . . + +Marching comfortably, it will take you nearly twelve hours to go from +Morano to the village of Terranova di Pollino, which I selected as my +first night-quarter. This includes a scramble up the peak of Pollino, +locally termed "telegrafo," from a pile of stones--? an old +signal-station--erected on the summit. But since decent accommodation +can only be obtained at Castrovillari, a start should be made from +there, and this adds another hour to the trip. Moreover, as the peak of +Pollino lies below that of Dolcedorme, which shuts oil a good deal of +its view seaward, this second mountain ought rather to be ascended, and +that will probably add yet another hour--fourteen altogether. The +natives, ever ready to say what they think will please you, call it a +six hours' excursion. As a matter of fact, although I spoke to numbers +of the population of Morano, I only met two men who had ever been to +Terranova, one of them being my muleteer; the majority had not so much +as heard its name. They dislike mountains and torrents and forests, not +only as an offence to the eye, but as hindrances to agriculture and +enemies of man and his ordered ways. "La montagna" is considerably +abused, all over Italy. + +It takes an hour to cross the valley and reach the slopes of the +opposite hills. Here, on the plain, lie the now faded blossoms of the +monstrous arum, the botanical glory of these regions. To see it in +flower, in early June, is alone almost worth the trouble of a journey to +Calabria. + +On a shady eminence at the foot of these mountains, in a most +picturesque site, there stands a large castellated building, a +monastery. It is called Colorito, and is now a ruin; the French, they +say, shelled it for harbouring the brigand-allies of Bourbonism. Nearly +all convents in the south, and even in Naples, were at one time or +another refuges of bandits, and this association of monks and robbers +used to give much trouble to conscientious politicians. It is a solitary +building, against the dark hill-side; a sombre and romantic pile such as +would have charmed Anne Radcliffe; one longs to explore its recesses. +But I dreaded the coming heats of midday. Leone da Morano, who died in +1645, belonged to this congregation, and was reputed an erudite +ecclesiastic. The life of one of its greatest luminaries, Fra Bernardo +da Rogliano, was described by Tufarelli in a volume which I have never +been able to catch sight of. It must be very rare, yet it certainly was +printed. [Footnote: Haym has no mention of this work. But it is fully +quoted in old Toppi's "Biblioteca" (p. 317), and also referred to in +Savonarola's "Universus Terrarum," etc. (1713, Vol. I, p. 216). Both say +it was printed at Cosenza; the first, in 1650; the second, in 1630.] + +The path ascends now through a long and wearisome limestone gap called +Valle di Gaudolino, only the last half-hour of the march being shaded by +trees. It was in this gully that an accidental encounter took place +between a detachment of French soldiers and part of the band of the +celebrated brigand Scarolla, whom they had been pursuing for months all +over the country. The brigands were sleeping when the others fell upon +them, killing numbers and carrying off a large booty; so rich it was, +that the soldiers were seen playing at "petis palets"--whatever that may +be--with quadruples of Spain--whatever _that_ may be. Scarolla escaped +wounded, but was afterwards handed over to justice, for a consideration +of a thousand ducats, by some shepherds with whom he had taken refuge; +and duly hanged. His band consisted of four thousand ruffians; it was +one of several that infested south Italy. This gives some idea of the +magnitude of the evil. + +It was my misfortune that after weeks of serene weather this particular +morning should be cloudy. There was sunshine in the valley below, but +wreaths of mist were skidding over the summit of Pollino; the view, I +felt sure, would be spoilt. And so it was. Through swiftly-careering +cloud-drifts I caught glimpses of the plain and the blue Ionian; of the +Sila range confronting me; of the peak of Dolcedorme to the left, and +the "Montagna del Principe" on the right; of the large forest region at +my back. Tantalizing visions! + +Viewed from below, this Pollino is shaped like a pyramid, and promises +rather a steep climb over bare limestone; but the ascent is quite easy. +No trees grow on the pyramid. The rock is covered with a profusion of +forget-me-nots and gay pansies; some mez-ereon and a few dwarfed +junipers--earthward-creeping--nearly reach the summit. When I passed +here on a former trip, on the 6th of June, this peak was shrouded in +snow. There are some patches of snow even now, one of them descending in +glacier fashion down the slope on the other side; they call it +"eternal," but I question whether it will survive the heats of autumn. +Beyond a brace of red-legged partridges, I saw no birds whatever. This +group of Pollino, descending its seven thousand feet in a precipitous +flight of terraces to the plain of Sibari, is an imposing _finale_ to +the Apennines that have run hitherward, without a break, from Genoa and +Bologna. Westward of this spot there are mountains galore; but no more +Apennines; no more limestone precipices. The boundary of the old +provinces of Calabria and Basilicata ran over this spot. . . . + +I was glad to descend once more, and to reach the _Altipiano di +Pollino--_an Alpine meadow with a little lake (the merest puddle), +bright with rare and beautiful flowers. It lies 1780 metres above +sea-level, and no one who visits these regions should omit to see this +exquisite tract encircled by mountain peaks, though it lies a little off +the usual paths. Strawberries, which I had eaten at Rossano, had not yet +opened their flowers here; the flora, boreal in parts, has been studied +by Terracciano and other Italian botanists. + +It was on this verdant, flower-enamelled mead that, fatigued with the +climb, I thought to try the powers of my riding mule. But the beast +proved vicious; there was no staying on her back. A piece of string +attached to her nose by way of guiding-rope was useless as a rein; she +had no mane wherewith I might have steadied myself in moments of danger, +and as to seizing her ears for that purpose, it was out of the question, +for hardly was I in the saddle before her head descended to the ground +and there remained, while her hinder feet essayed to touch the stars. +After a succession of ignominious and painful flights to earth, I +complained to her owner, who had been watching the proceedings with +quiet interest. + +"That lady-mule," he said, "is good at carrying loads. But she has never +had a Christian on her back till now. I was rather curious to see how +she would behave." + +"_Santo Dio!_ And do you expect me to pay four francs a day for having +my bones broken in this fashion?" + +"What would you, sir? She is still young--barely four years old. Only +wait! Wait till she is ten or twelve." + +To do him justice, however, he tried to make amends in other ways. And +he certainly knew the tracks. But he was a returned emigrant, and when +an Italian has once crossed the ocean he is useless for my purposes, he +has lost his savour--the virtue has gone out of him. True Italians will +soon be rare as the dodo in these parts. These _americani_ cast off +their ancient animistic traits and patriarchal disposition with the ease +of a serpent; a new creature emerges, of a wholly different +character--sophisticated, extortionate at times, often practical and in +so far useful; scorner of every tradition, infernally wideawake and +curiously deficient in what the Germans call "Gemuet" (one of those +words which we sadly need in our own language). Instead of being regaled +with tales of Saint Venus and fairies and the Evil Eye, I learnt a good +deal about the price of food in the Brazilian highlands. + +The only piece of local information I was able to draw from him +concerned a mysterious plant in the forest that "shines by night." I +dare say he meant the _dictamnus fraxinella,_ which is sometimes luminous. + +The finest part of the forest was traversed in the afternoon. It is +called Janace, and composed of firs and beeches. The botanist Tenore +says that firs 150 feet in height are "not difficult to find" here, and +some of the beeches, a forestal inspector assured me, attain the height +of 35 metres. They shoot up in straight silvery trunks; their roots are +often intertwined with those of the firs. The track is not level by any +means. There are torrents to be crossed; rocky ravines with splashing +waters where the sunshine pours down through a dense network of branches +upon a carpet of russet leaves and grey boulders--the envious beeches +allowing of no vegetation at their feet; occasional meadows, too, bright +with buttercups and orchids. No pines whatever grow in this forest. Yet +a few stunted ones are seen clinging to the precipices that descend into +the Coscile valley; their seeds may have been wafted across from the +Sila mountains. + +In olden days all this country was full of game; bears, stags and +fallow-deer are mentioned. Only wolves and a few roe-deer are now left. +The forest is sombre, but not gloomy, and one would like to spend some +time in these wooded regions, so rare in Italy, and to study their life +and character--but how set about it? The distances are great; there are +no houses, not even a shepherd's hut or a cave; the cold at night is +severe, and even in the height of midsummer one must be prepared for +spells of mist and rain. I shall be tempted, on another occasion, to +provide myself with a tent such as is supplied to military officers. +They are light and handy, and perhaps camping out with a man-cook of the +kind that one finds in the Abruzzi provinces would be altogether the +best way of seeing the remoter parts of south and central Italy. For +decent food-supplies can generally be obtained in the smallest places; +the drawback is that nobody can cook them. Dirty food by day and dirty +beds by night will daunt the most enterprising natures in the long run. + +These tracks are only traversed in summer. When I last walked through +this region--in the reverse direction, from Lagonegro over Latronico and +San Severino to Castrovillari--the ground was still covered with +stretches of snow, and many brooks were difficult to cross from the +swollen waters. This was in June. It was odd to see the beeches rising, +in full leaf, out of the deep snow. + +During this afternoon ramble I often wondered what the burghers of +Taranto would think of these sylvan solitudes. Doubtless they would +share the opinion of a genteel photographer of Morano who showed me some +coloured pictures of local brides in their appropriate costumes, such as +are sent to relatives in America after weddings. He possessed a good +camera, and I asked whether he had never made any pictures of this fine +forest scenery. No, he said; he had only once been to the festival of +the Madonna di Pollino, but he went alone--his companion, an +_avvocato,_ got frightened and failed to appear at the last moment. + +"So I went alone," he said, "and those forests, it must be confessed, +are too savage to be photographed. Now, if my friend had come, he might +have posed for me, sitting comically at the foot of a tree, with crossed +legs, and smoking a cigar, like this. ... Or he might have pretended to +be a wood-cutter, bending forwards and felling a tree . . . tac, tac, +tac . . . without his jacket, of course. That would have made a picture. +But those woods and mountains, all by themselves--no! The camera +revolts. In photography, as in all good art, the human element must +predominate." + +It is sad to think that in a few years' time nearly all these forests +will have ceased to exist; another generation will hardly recognize the +site of them. A society from Morbegno (Valtellina) has acquired rights +over the timber, and is hewing down as fast as it can. They import their +own workmen from north Italy, and have built at a cost of two million +francs (say the newspapers) a special funicular railway, 23 kilometres +long, to carry the trunks from the mountain to Francavilla at its foot, +where they are sawn up and conveyed to the railway station of Cerchiara, +near Sibari. This concession, I am told, extends to twenty-five +years--they have now been at work for two, and the results are already +apparent in some almost bare slopes once clothed with these huge +primeval trees. + +There are inspectors, some of them conscientious, to see that a due +proportion of the timber is left standing; but we all know what the +average Italian official is, and must be, considering his salary. One +could hardly blame them greatly if, as I have been assured is the case, +they often sell the wood which they are paid to protect. + +The same fate is about to overtake the extensive hill forests which lie +on the watershed between Morano and the Tyrrhenian. These, according to +a Castrovillari local paper, have lately been sold to a German firm for +exploitation. + +It is useless to lament the inevitable--this modern obsession of +"industrialism" which has infected a country purely agricultural. Nor is +it any great compensation to observe that certain small tracts of +hill-side behind Morano are being carefully reafforested by the +Government at this moment. Whoever wishes to see these beautiful +stretches of woodland ere their disappearance from earth--let him hasten! + +After leaving the forest region it is a downhill walk of nearly three +hours to reach Terranova di Pollino, which lies, only 910 metres above +sea-level, against the slope of a wide and golden amphitheatre of hills, +at whose entrance the river Sarmento has carved itself a prodigious +gateway through the rock. A dirty little place; the male inhabitants are +nearly all in America; the old women nearly all afflicted with goitre. I +was pleased to observe the Calabrian system of the house-doors, which +life in civilized places had made me forget. These doors are divided +into two portions, not vertically like ours, but horizontally. The upper +portion is generally open, in order that the housewife sitting within +may have light and air in her room, and an opportunity of gossiping with +her neighbours across the street; the lower part is closed, to prevent +the pigs in the daytime from entering the house (where they sleep at +night). The system testifies to social instincts and a certain sense of +refinement. + +The sights of Terranova are soon exhausted. They had spoken to me of a +house near the woods, about four hours distant, inhabited just now by +shepherds. Thither we started, next day, at about 3 p.m. + +The road climbs upwards through bare country till it reaches a dusky +pinnacle of rock, a conspicuous landmark, which looks volcanic but is +nothing of the kind. It bears the name of Pietra-Sasso--the explanation +of this odd pleonasm being, I suppose, that here the whole mass of rock, +generally decked with grass or shrubs, is as bare as any single stone. + +There followed a pleasant march through pastoral country of streamlets +and lush grass, with noble views downwards on our right, over +many-folded hills into the distant valley of the Sinno. To the left is +the forest region. But the fir trees are generally mutilated--their +lower branches lopped off; and the tree resents this treatment and often +dies, remaining a melancholy stump among the beeches. They take these +branches not for fuel, but as fodder for the cows. A curious kind of +fodder, one thinks; but Calabrian cows will eat anything, and their milk +tastes accordingly. No wonder the natives prefer even the greasy fluid +of their goats to that of cows. + +"How?" they will ask, "You Englishmen, with all your money--you drink +the milk of cows?" + +Goats are over-plentiful here, and the hollies, oaks and thorns along +the path have been gnawed by them into quaint patterns like the +topiarian work in old-fashioned gardens. If they find nothing to their +taste on the ground, they actually climb trees; I have seen them +browsing thus, at six feet above the ground. These miserable beasts are +the ruin of south Italy, as they are of the whole Mediterranean basin. +What malaria and the Barbary pirates have done to the sea-board, the +goats have accomplished for the regions further inland; and it is really +time that sterner legislation were introduced to limit their +grazing-places and incidentally reduce their numbers, as has been done +in parts of the Abruzzi, to the great credit of the authorities. But the +subject is a well-worn one. + +The solitary little house which now appeared before us is called +"Vitiello," presumably from its owner or builder, a proprietor of the +village of Noepoli. It stands in a charming site, with a background of +woodland whence rivulets trickle down--the immediate surroundings are +covered with pasture and bracken and wild pear trees smothered in +flowering dog-roses. I strolled about in the sunset amid tinkling herds +of sheep and goats that were presently milked and driven into their +enclosure of thorns for the night, guarded by four or five of those +savage white dogs of the Campagna breed. Despite these protectors, the +wolf carried off two sheep yesterday, in broad daylight. The flocks come +to these heights in the middle of June, and descend again in October. + +The shepherds offered us the only fare they possessed--the much-belauded +Pollino cheeses, the same that were made, long ago, by Polyphemus +himself. You can get them down at a pinch, on the principle of the +German proverb, "When the devil is hungry, he eats flies." Fortunately +our bags still contained a varied assortment, though my man had +developed an appetite and a thirst that did credit to his Berserker +ancestry. + +We retired early. But long after the rest of them were snoring hard I +continued awake, shivering under my blanket and choking with the acrid +smoke of a fire of green timber. The door had been left ajar to allow it +to escape, but the only result of this arrangement was that a glacial +blast of wind swept into the chamber from outside. The night was +bitterly cold, and the wooden floor on which I was reposing seemed to be +harder than the majority of its kind. I thought with regret of the tepid +nights of Taranto and Castrovillari, and cursed my folly for climbing +into these Arctic regions; wondering, as I have often done, what demon +of restlessness or perversity drives one to undertake such insane +excursions. + + + + +XX + +A MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL + + +Leaving the hospitable shepherds in the morning, we arrived after +midday, by devious woodland paths, at the Madonna di Pollino. This +solitary fane is perched, like an eagle's nest, on the edge of a cliff +overhanging the Frida torrent. Owing to this fact, and to its great +elevation, the views inland are wonderful; especially towards evening, +when crude daylight tints fade away and range after range of mountains +reveal themselves, their crests outlined against each other in tender +gradations of mauve and grey. The prospect is closed, at last, by the +lofty groups of Sirino and Alburno, many long leagues away. On all other +sides are forests, interspersed with rock. But near at hand lies a +spacious green meadow, at the foot of a precipice. This is now covered +with encampments in anticipation of to-morrow's festival, and the +bacchanal is already in full swing. + +Very few foreigners, they say, have attended this annual feast, which +takes place on the first Saturday and Sunday of July, and is worth +coming a long way to see. Here the old types, uncon-taminated by +modernism and emigration, are still gathered together. The whole +country-side is represented; the peasants have climbed up with their +entire households from thirty or forty villages of this thinly populated +land, some of them marching a two days' journey; the greater the +distance, the greater the "divozione" to the Mother of God. _Piety +conquers rough tracks,_ as old Bishop Paulinus sang, nearly fifteen +hundred years ago. + +It is a vast picnic in honour of the Virgin. Two thousand persons are +encamped about the chapel, amid a formidable army of donkeys and mules +whose braying mingles with the pastoral music of reeds and +bagpipes--bagpipes of two kinds, the common Calabrian variety and that +of Basilicata, much larger and with a resounding base key, which will +soon cease to exist. A heaving ebb and flow of humanity fills the eye; +fires are flickering before extempore shelters, and an ungodly amount of +food is being consumed, as traditionally prescribed for such +occasions--"si mangia per divozione." On all sides picturesque groups of +dancers indulge in the old peasants' measure, the _percorara,_ to the +droning of bagpipes--a demure kind of tarantella, the male capering +about with faun-like attitudes of invitation and snappings of fingers, +his partner evading the advances with downcast eyes. And the church +meanwhile, is filled to overflowing; orations and services follow one +another without interruption; the priests are having a busy time of it. + +The rocky pathway between this chapel and the meadow is obstructed by +folk and lined on either side with temporary booths of green branches, +whose owners vociferously extol the merits of their wares--cloths, +woollens, umbrellas, hot coffee, wine, fresh meat, fruit, vegetables +(the spectre of cholera is abroad, but no one heeds)--as well as gold +watches, rings and brooches, many of which will be bought ere to-morrow +morning, in memory of to-night's tender meetings. The most interesting +shops are those which display ex-votos, waxen reproductions of various +ailing parts of the body which have been miraculously cured by the +Virgin's intercession: arms, legs, fingers, breasts, eyes. There are +also entire infants of wax. Strangest of all of them is a many-tinted +and puzzling waxen symbol which sums up all the internal organs of the +abdomen in one bold effort of artistic condensation; a kind of heraldic, +materialized stomache-ache. I would have carried one away with me, had +there been the slightest chance of its remaining unbroken. [Footnote: A +good part of these, I dare say, arc intended to represent the enlarged +spleen of malaria. In old Greece, says Dr. W. H. D. Rouse, votives of +the trunk are commonest, after the eyes--malaria, again.] + +These are the votive offerings which catch the visitor's eye in southern +churches, and were beloved not only of heathendom, but of the neolithic +gentry; a large deposit has been excavated at Taranto; the British +Museum has some of marble, from Athens; others were of silver, but the +majority terra-cotta. The custom must have entered Christianity in early +ages, for already Theo-doret, who died in 427, says, "some bring images +of eyes, others of feet, others of hands; and sometimes they are made of +gold, sometimes of silver. These votive gifts testify to cure of +maladies." Nowadays, when they become too numerous, they are melted down +for candles; so Pericles, in some speech, talks of selling them for the +benefit of the commonwealth. + +One is struck with the feast of costumes here, by far the brightest +being those of the women who have come up from the seven or eight +Albanian villages that surround these hills. In their variegated array +of chocolate-brown and white, of emerald-green and gold and flashing +violet, these dames move about the sward like animated tropical flowers. +But the Albanian girls of Civita stand out for aristocratic +elegance--pleated black silk gowns, discreetly trimmed with gold and +white lace, and open at the breast. The women of Morano, too, make a +brave show. + +Night brings no respite; on the contrary, the din grows livelier than +ever; fires gleam brightly on the meadow and under the trees; the +dancers are unwearied, the bagpipers with their brazen lungs show no +signs of exhaustion. And presently the municipal music of Castrovillari, +specially hired for the occasion, ascends an improvised bandstand and +pours brisk strains into the night. Then the fireworks begin, +sensational fireworks, that have cost a mint of money; flaring wheels +and fiery devices that send forth a pungent odour; rockets of many hues, +lighting up the leafy recesses, and scaring the owls and wolves for +miles around. + +Certain persons have told me that if you are of a prying disposition, +now is the time to observe amorous couples walking hand in hand into the +gloom--passionate young lovers from different villages, who have looked +forward to this night of all the year on the chance of meeting, at last, +in a fervent embrace under the friendly beeches. These same stern men +(they are always men) declare that such nocturnal festivals are a +disgrace to civilization; that the Greek Comedy, long ago, reprobated +them as disastrous to the morals of females--that they were condemned by +the Council of Elvira, by Vigilantius of Marseilles and by the great +Saint Jerome, who wrote that on such occasions no virgin should wander a +hand's-breadth from her mother. They wish you to believe that on these +warm summer nights, when the pulses of nature are felt and senses +stirred with music and wine and dance, the _Gran Madre di Dio_ is adored +in a manner less becoming Christian youths and maidens, than heathens +celebrating mad orgies to _Magna Mater_ in Daphne, or the Babylonian +groves (where she was not worshipped at all--though she might have been). + +In fact, they insinuate that----- + +It may well be true. What were the moralists doing there? + +Festivals like this are relics of paganism, and have my cordial +approval. We English ought to have learnt by this time that the +repression of pleasure is a dangerous error. In these days when even +Italy, the grey-haired _cocotte,_ has become tainted with +Anglo-Pecksniffian principles, there is nothing like a little +time-honoured bestiality for restoring the circulation and putting +things to rights generally. On ethical grounds alone--as +safety-valves--such nocturnal feasts ought to be kept up in regions such +as these, where the country-folk have not our "facilities." Who would +grudge them these primordial joys, conducted under the indulgent +motherly eye of Madonna, and hallowed by antiquity and the starlit +heavens above? Every one is so happy and well-behaved. No bawling, no +quarrelsomeness, no staggering tipplers; a spirit of universal good +cheer broods over the assembly. Involuntarily, one thinks of the +drunkard-strewn field of battle at the close of our Highland games; one +thinks of God-fearing Glasgow on a Saturday evening, and of certain +other aspects of Glasgow life. . . . + +I accepted the kindly proffered invitation of the priests to share their +dinner; they held out hopes of some sort of sleeping accommodation as +well. It was a patriarchal hospitality before that fire of logs (the +night had grown chilly), and several other guests partook of it, +forestal inspectors and such-like notabilities--one lady among them who, +true to feudal traditions, hardly spoke a word the whole evening. I was +struck, as I have sometimes been, at the attainments of these country +priests; they certainly knew our Gargantuan novelists of the Victorian +epoch uncommonly well. Can it be that these great authors are more +readable in Italian translations than in the original? One of them took +to relating, in a strain of autumnal humour, experiences of his life in +the wilds of Bolivia, where he had spent many years among the Indians; +my neighbour, meanwhile, proved to be steeped in Horatian lore. It was +his pet theory, supported by a wealth of aptly cited lines, that Horace +was a "typical Italian countryman," and great was his delight on +discovering that I shared his view and could even add another--somewhat +improper--utterance of the poet's to his store of illustrative quotations. + +They belonged to the old school, these sable philosophers; to the days +when the priest was arbiter of life and death, and his mere word +sufficient to send a man to the galleys; when the cleverest boys of +wealthy and influential families were chosen for the secular career and +carefully, one might say liberally, trained to fulfil those responsible +functions. The type is becoming extinct, the responsibility is gone, the +profession has lost its glamour; and only the clever sons of pauper +families, or the dull ones of the rich, are now tempted to forsake the +worldly path. + +Regarding the origin of this festival, I learned that it was +"tradition." It had been suggested to me that the Virgin had appeared to +a shepherd in some cave near at hand--the usual Virgin, in the usual +cave; a cave which, in the present instance, no one was able to point +out to me. _Est traditio, ne quaeras amplius._ + +My hosts answered questions on this subject with benignant ambiguity, +and did not trouble to defend the divine apparition on the sophistical +lines laid down in Riccardi's "Santuari." The truth, I imagine, is that +they have very sensibly not concerned themselves with inventing an +original legend. The custom of congregating here on these fixed days +seems to be recent, and I am inclined to think that it has been called +into being by the zeal of some local men of standing. On the other hand, +a shrine may well have stood for many years on this spot, for it marks +the half-way house in the arduous two days' journey between San Severino +and Castro-villari, a summer _trek_ that must date from hoary antiquity. + +Our bedroom contained two rough couches which were to be shared between +four priests and myself. Despite the fact that I occupied the place of +honour between the two oldest and wisest of my ghostly entertainers, +sleep refused to come; the din outside had grown to a pandemonium. I lay +awake till, at 2.30 a.m., one of them arose and touched the others with +a whispered and half-jocular _oremus!_ They retired on tiptoe to the +next room, noiselessly closing the door, to prepare themselves for early +service. I could hear them splashing vigorously at their ablutions in +the icy water, and wondered dreamily how many Neapolitan priests would +indulge at that chill hour of the morning in such a lustrai rite, +prescribed as it is by the rules of decency and of their church. + +After that, I stretched forth at my ease and endeavoured to repose +seriously. There were occasional lulls, now, in the carnival, but +explosions of sound still broke the stillness, and phantoms of the +restless throng began to chase each other through my brain. The exotic +costumes of the Albanian girls in their green and gold wove themselves +into dreams and called up colours seen in Northern Africa during still +wilder festivals--negro festivals such as Fro-mentin loved to depict. In +spectral dance there flitted before my vision nightmarish throngs of +dusky women bedizened in that same green and gold; Arabs I saw, riding +tumultuously hither and thither with burnous flying in the wind; beggars +crawling about the hot sand and howling for alms; ribbons and flags +flying--a blaze of sunshine overhead, and on earth a seething orgy of +colour and sound; methought I heard the guttural yells of the +fruit-vendors, musketry firing, braying of asses, the demoniacal groans +of the camels---- + +Was it really a camel? No. It was something infinitely worse, and within +a few feet of my ears. I sprang out of bed. There, at the very window, +stood a youth extracting unearthly noises out of the Basilicata bagpipe. +To be sure! I remembered expressing an interest in this rare instrument +to one of my hosts who, with subtle delicacy, must have ordered the boy +to give me a taste of his quality--to perform a matutinal serenade, for +my especial benefit. How thoughtful these people are. It was not quite 4 +a.m. With some regret, I said farewell to sleep and stumbled out of +doors, where my friends of yesterday evening were already up and doing. +The eating, the dancing, the bagpipes--they were all in violent +activity, under the sober and passionless eye of morning. + +A gorgeous procession took place about midday. Like a many-coloured +serpent it wound out of the chapel, writhed through the intricacies of +the pathway, and then unrolled itself freely, in splendid convolutions, +about the sunlit meadow, saluted by the crash of mortars, bursts of +military music from the band, chanting priests and women, and all the +bagpipers congregated in a mass, each playing his own favourite tune. +The figure of the Madonna--a modern and unprepossessing image--was +carried aloft, surrounded by resplendent ecclesiastics and followed by a +picturesque string of women bearing their votive offerings of candles, +great and small. Several hundredweight of wax must have been brought up +on the heads of pious female pilgrims. These multi-coloured candles are +arranged in charming designs; they are fixed upright in a framework of +wood, to resemble baskets or bird-cages, and decked with bright ribbons +and paper flowers. + +Who settles the expenses of such a festival? The priests, in the first +place, have paid a good deal to make it attractive; they have improved +the chapel, constructed a number of permanent wooden shelters (rain +sometimes spoils the proceedings), as well as a capacious reservoir for +holding drinking water, which has to be transported in barrels from a +considerable distance. Then--as to the immediate outlay for music, +fireworks, and so forth--the Madonna-statue is "put up to auction": +_fanno l'incanto della Madonna,_ as they say; that is, the privilege of +helping to carry the idol from the church and back in the procession is +sold to the highest bidders. Inasmuch as She is put up for auction +several times during this short perambulation, fresh enthusiasts coming +forward gaily with bank-notes and shoulders--whole villages competing +against each other--a good deal of money is realized in this way. There +are also spontaneous gifts of money. Goats and sheep, too, decorated +with coloured rags, are led up by peasants who have "devoted" them to +the Mother of God; the butchers on the spot buy these beasts for +slaughter, and their price goes to swell the funds. + +This year's expenditure may have been a thousand francs or so, and the +proceeds are calculated at about two-thirds of that sum. + +No matter. If the priests do not make good the deficiency, some one else +will be kind enough to step forward. Better luck next year! The +festival, they hope, is to become more popular as time goes on, despite +the chilling prophecy of one of our friends: "It will finish, this +comedy!" The money, by the way, does not pass through the hands of the +clerics, but of two individuals called "Regolatore" and "Priore," who +mutually control each other. They are men of reputable families, who +burden themselves with the troublesome task for the honour of the thing, +and make up any deficiencies in the accounts out of their own pockets. +Cases of malversation are legendary. + +This procession marked the close of the religious gathering. Hardly was +it over before there began a frenzied scrimmage of departure. And soon +the woodlands echoed with the laughter and farewellings of pilgrims +returning homewards by divergent paths; the whole way through the +forest, we formed part of a jostling caravan along the +Castrovillari-Morano track--how different from the last time I had +traversed this route, when nothing broke the silence save a chaffinch +piping among the branches or the distant tap of some woodpecker! + +So ended the _festa._ Once in the year this mountain chapel is rudely +disquieted in its slumbers by a boisterous riot; then it sinks again +into tranquil oblivion, while autumn dyes the beeches to gold. And very +soon the long winter comes; chill tempests shake the trees and leaves +are scattered to earth; towards Yuletide some woodman of Viggianello +adventuring into these solitudes, and mindful of their green summer +revels, discovers his familiar sanctuary entombed up to the door-lintle +under a glittering sheet of snow. . . . + +There was a little episode in the late afternoon. We had reached the +foot of the Gaudolino valley and begun the crossing of the plain, when +there met us a woman with dishevelled hair, weeping bitterly and showing +other signs of distress; one would have thought she had been robbed or +badly hurt. Not at all! Like the rest of us, she had attended the feast +and, arriving home with the first party, had been stopped at the +entrance of the town, where they had insisted upon fumigating her +clothes as a precaution against cholera, and those of her companions. +That was all. But the indignity choked her--she had run back to warn the +rest of us, all of whom were to be treated to the same outrage. Every +approach to Morano, she declared, was watched by doctors, to prevent +wary pilgrims from entering by unsuspected paths. + +During her recital my muleteer had grown thoughtful. + +"What's to be done?" he asked. + +"I don't much mind fumigation," I replied. + +"Oh, but I do! I mind it very much. And these doctors are so dreadfully +distrustful. How shall we cheat them? ... I have it, I have it!" + +And he elaborated the following stratagem: + +"I go on ahead of you, alone, leading the two mules. You follow, out of +sight, behind. And what happens? When I reach the doctor, he asks slyly: +'Well, and how did you enjoy the festival this year?' Then I say: +'Not this year, doctor; alas, no festival for me! I've been with an +Englishman collecting beetles in the forest, and see? here's his riding +mule. He walks on behind--oh, quite harmless, doctor! a nice gentleman, +indeed--only, he prefers walking; he really _likes_ it, ha, ha, ha!----" + +"Why mention about my walking?" I interrupted. The lady-mule was still a +sore subject. + +"I mention about your not riding," he explained graciously, "because it +will seem to the doctor a sure sign that you are a little"--here he +touched his forehead with a significant gesture--"a little like some +other foreigners, you know. And that, in its turn, will account for your +collecting beetles. And that, in its turn, will account for your not +visiting the Madonna. You comprehend the argument: how it all hangs +together?" + +"I see. What next?" + +"Then you come up, holding one beetle in each hand, and pretend not to +know a word of Italian--not a word! You must smile at the doctor, in +friendly fashion; he'll like that. And besides, it will prove what I +said about----" (touching his forehead once more). "In fact, the truth +will be manifest. And there will be no fumigation for us." + +It seemed a needlessly circuitous method of avoiding such a slight +inconvenience. I would have put more faith in a truthful narrative by +myself, suffused with that ingratiating amiability which I would +perforce employ on such occasions. But the stronger mind, as usual, had +its way. + +"I'll smile," I agreed. "But you shall carry my beetles; it looks more +natural, somehow. Go ahead, and find them." + +He moved forwards with the beasts and, after destroying a considerable +tract of stone wall, procured a few specimens of native coleoptera, +which he carefully wrapped up in a piece of paper. I followed slowly. + +Unfortunately for him, that particular doctor happened to be +an _americana_ a snappy little fellow, lately returned from the States. + +"Glad to make your acquaintance, sir," he began, as I came up to where +the two were arguing together. "I've heard of your passing through the +other day. So you don't talk Italian? Well, then, see here: this man of +yours, this God-dam son of Satan, has been showing me a couple of bugs +and telling me a couple of hundred lies about them. Better move on right +away; lucky you struck _me!_ As for this son of a ----, you bet I'll +sulphur him, bugs and all, to hell!" + +I paid the crestfallen muleteer then and there; took down my bags, +greatly lightened, and departed with them. Glancing round near the +little bridge, I saw that the pair were still engaged in heated +discussion, my man clinging despairingly, as it seemed, to the +beetle-hypothesis; he looked at me with reproachful eyes, as though I +had deserted him in his hour of need. + +But what could I do, not knowing Italian? + +Moreover, I remembered the "lady-mule." + +Fifteen minutes later a light carriage took me to Castrovillari, whence, +after a bath and dinner that compensated for past hardships, I sped down +to the station and managed, by a miracle, to catch the night-train to +Cosenza. + + + + +XXI + +MILTON IN CALABRIA + + +You may spend pleasant days in this city of Cosenza, doing nothing +whatever. But I go there a for set purpose, and bristling with energy. I +go there to hunt for a book by a certain Salandra, which was printed on +the spot, and which I have not yet been able to find, although I once +discovered it in an old catalogue, priced at 80 _grani._ Gladly would I +give 8000 for it! + +The author was a contemporary of that Flying Monk of whom I spoke in +Chapter X, and he belonged to the same religious order. If, in what I +then said about the flying monk, there appears to be some trace of light +fooling in regard to this order and its methods, let amends be made by +what I have to tell about old Salandra, the discovery of whose book is +one of primary importance for the history of English letters. Thus I +thought at the time; and thus I still think, with all due deference to +certain grave and discerning gentlemen, the editors of various English +monthlies to whom I submitted a paper on this subject--a paper which +they promptly returned with thanks. No; that is not quite correct. One +of them has kept it; and as six years have passed over our heads, I +presume he has now acquired a title by "adverse possession." Much good +may it do him! + +Had the discovery been mine, I should have endeavoured to hide my light +under the proverbial bushel. But it is not mine, and therefore I make +bold to say that Mr. Bliss Perry, of the "Atlantic Monthly," knew better +than his English colleagues when he published the article from which I +take what follows. + +"Charles Dunster ('Considerations on Milton's Early Reading,' etc., +1810) traces the _prima stamina_ of 'Paradise Lost' to Sylvester's 'Du +Bartas.' Masenius, Cedmon, Vendei, and other older writers have also +been named in this connection, while the majority of Milton's English +commentators--and among foreigners Voltaire and Tiraboschi--are inclined +to regard the 'Adamus Exul' of Grotius or Andreini's sacred drama of +'Adamo' as the prototype." + +This latter can be consulted in the third volume of Cowper's 'Milton' +(1810). + +The matter is still unsettled, and in view of the number of recent +scholars who have interested themselves in it, one is really surprised +that no notice has yet been taken of an Italian article which goes far +towards deciding this question and proving that the chief source of +'Paradise Lost' is the 'Adamo Caduto,' a sacred tragedy by Serafino +della Salandra. The merit of this discovery belongs to Francesco Zicari, +whose paper, 'Sulla scoverta dell' originale italiano da cui Milton +trasse il suo poema del paradiso perduto,' is printed on pages 245 +to 276 in the 1845 volume of the Naples 'Album scientifico- +artistico-letterario' now lying before me. It is in the form of +a letter addressed to his friend Francesco Ruffa, a native of +Tropea in Calabria. [Footnote: Zicari contemplated another paper on +this subject, but I am unaware whether this was ever published. The +Neapolitan Minieri-Riccio, who wrote his 'Memorie Storiche' in 1844, +speaks of this article as having been already printed in 1832, but does +not say where. This is corroborated by N. Falcone ('Biblioteca +storica-topo-grafica della Calabria,' 2nd ed., Naples, 1846, pp. +151-154), who gives the same date, and adds that Zicari was the author +of a work on the district of Fuscaldo. He was born at Paola in Calabria, +of which he wrote a (manuscript) history, and died in 1846. In this +Milton article, he speaks of his name being 'unknown in the republic of +letters.'. He it mentioned by Nicola Leoni (' Della Magna Grecia,' vol. +ii, p. 153),] + +Salandra, it is true, is named among the writers of sacred tragedies in +Todd's 'Milton' (1809, vol. ii, p. 244), and also by Hayley, but neither +of them had the curiosity, or the opportunity, to examine his 'Adamo +Caduto'; Hayley expressly says that he has not seen it. More recent +works, such as that of Moers ('De fontibus Paradisi Amissi Miltoniani,' +Bonn, 1860), do not mention Salandra at all. Byse ('Milton on the +Continent,' 1903) merely hints at some possible motives for the Allegro +and the Penseroso. + +As to dates, there can be no doubt to whom the priority belongs. The +'Adamo' of Salandra was printed at Cosenza in 1647. Richardson thinks +that Milton entered upon his 'Paradise Lost' in 1654, and that it was +shown, as done, in 1665; D. Masson agrees with this, adding that 'it was +not published till two years afterwards.' The date 1665 is fixed, I +presume, by the Quaker Elwood's account of his visit to Milton in the +autumn of that year, when the poet gave him the manuscript to read; the +two years' delay in publication may possibly have been due to the +confusion occasioned by the great plague and fire of London. + +The castigation bestowed upon Lauder by Bishop Douglas, followed, as it +was, by a terrific 'back-hander' from the brawny arm of Samuel Johnson, +induces me to say that Salandra's 'Adamo Caduto,' though extremely +rare--so rare that neither the British Museum nor the Paris Bibliotheque +Nationale possesses a copy--is _not_ an imaginary book; I have had it in +my hands, and examined it at the Naples Biblioteca Nazionale; it is a +small octavo of 251 pages (not including twenty unnumbered ones, and +another one at the end for correction of misprints); badly printed and +bearing all the marks of genuineness, with the author's name and the +year and place of publication clearly set forth on the title-page. I +have carefully compared Zicari's references to it, and quotations from +it with the original. They are correct, save for a few insignificant +verbal discrepancies which, so far as I can judge, betray no indication +of an attempt on his part to mislead the reader, such as using the word +_tromba_ (trumpet) instead of Salandra's term _sambuca_ (sackbut). And +if further proof of authenticity be required, I may note that the 'Adamo +Caduto' of Salandra is already cited in old bibliographies like Toppi's +'Biblioteca Napoletana' (1678), or that of Joannes a S. Antonio +('Biblioteca universa Franciscana, etc.,' Madrid, 1732-1733, vol. iii, +p. 88). It appears to have been the only literary production of its +author, who was a Franciscan monk and is described as 'Preacher, Lector +and Definitor of the Reformed Province of Basilicata.' + +We may take it, then, that Salandra was a real person, who published a +mystery called 'Adamo Caduto' in 1647; and I will now, without further +preamble, extract from Zicari's article as much as may be sufficient to +show ground for his contention that Milton's 'Paradise Lost' is a +transfusion, in general and in particular, of this same mystery. + +Salandra's central theme is the Universe shattered by the disobedience +of the First Man, the origin of our unhappiness and sins. The same with +Milton. + +Salandra's chief personages are God and His angels; the first man and +woman; the serpent; Satan and his angels. The same with Milton. + +Salandra, at the opening of his poem (the prologue), sets forth his +argument, and dwells upon the Creative Omnipotence and his works. The +same with Milton. + +Salandra then describes the council of the rebel angels, their fall from +heaven into a desert and sulphurous region, their discourses. Man is +enviously spoken of, and his fall by means of stratagem decided upon; it +is resolved to reunite in council in Pandemonium or the Abyss, where +measures may be adopted to the end that man may become the enemy of God +and the prey of hell. The same with Milton. + +Salandra personifies Sin and Death, the latter being the child of the +former. The same with Milton. + +Salandra describes Omnipotence foreseeing the effects of the temptation +and fall of man, and preparing his redemption. The same with Milton. + +Salandra depicts the site of Paradise and the happy life there. The same +with Milton. + +Salandra sets forth the miraculous creation of the universe and of man, +and the virtues of the forbidden fruit. The same with Milton. + +Salandra reports the conversation between Eve and the Serpent; the +eating of the forbidden fruit and the despair of our first parents. The +same with Milton. + +Salandra describes the joy of Death at the discomfiture of Eve; the +rejoicings in hell; the grief of Adam; the flight of our first parents, +their shame and repentance. The same with Milton. + +Salandra anticipates the intercession of the Redeemer, and the overthrow +of Sin and Death; he dwells upon the wonders of the Creation, the murder +of Abel by his brother Cain, and other human ills; the vices of the +Antediluvians, due to the fall of Adam; the infernal gift of war. The +same with Milton. + +Salandra describes the passion of Jesus Christ, and the comforts which +Adam and Eve receive from the angel who announces the coming of the +Messiah; lastly, their departure from the earthly paradise. The same +with Milton. + +So much for the general scheme of both poems. And now for a few +particular points of resemblance, verbal and otherwise. + +The character of Milton's Satan, with the various facets of pride, envy, +vindictiveness, despair, and impenitence which go to form that +harmonious whole, are already clearly mapped out in the Lucifero of +Salandra. For this statement, which I find correct, Zicari gives chapter +and verse, but it would take far too long to set forth the matter in +this place. The speeches of Lucifero, to be sure, read rather like a +caricature--it must not be forgotten that Salandra was writing for +lower-class theatrical spectators, and not for refined readers--but the +elements which Milton has utilized are already there. + +Here is a coincidence: + +Here we may reign secure . . . + +Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. + +MILTON (i, 258) + +. . . . Qui propria voglia, Son capo, son qui duce, son +lor Prence. + +SALANDRA (p. 49). + +And another: + +. . . Whom shall we find Sufficient? +. . . This enterprise None shall +partake with me. +--MILTON (ii, 403, 465). + +A chi bastera l' anima di voi? +. . . certo che quest' affare +A la mia man s' aspetta. +--SALANDRA (p. 64). + +Milton's Terror is partially taken from the Megera of the Italian poet. +The 'grisly Terror' threatens Satan (ii, 699), and the office of Megera, +in Salandra's drama, is exactly the same--that is, to threaten and +chastise the rebellious spirit, which she does very effectually (pages +123-131). The identical monsters--Cerberus, Hydras, and Chimseras--are +found in their respective abodes, but Salandra does not content himself +with these three; his list includes such a mixed assemblage of creatures +as owls, basilisks, dragons, tigers, bears, crocodiles, sphynxes, +harpies, and panthers. Terror moves with dread rapidity: + +. . . and from his seat +The monster moving onward came as fast +With horrid strides. +--MILTON (ii, 675). + +and so does Megera: + +In atterir, in spaventar son . . . +Rapido si ch' ogni ripar e vano. +--SALANDRA (p. 59). + +Both Milton and Salandra use the names of the gods of antiquity for +their demons, but the narrative epic of the English poet naturally +permitted of far greater prolixity and variety in this respect. A most +curious parallelism exists between Milton's Belial and that of Salandra. +Both are described as luxurious, timorous, slothful, and scoffing, and +there is not the slightest doubt that Milton has taken over these mixed +attributes from the Italian. [Footnote: This is one of the occasions in +which Zicari appears, at first sight, to have stretched a point in order +to improve his case, because, in the reference he gives, it is Behemoth, +and not Belial, who speaks of himielf as cowardly _(imbelle)._ But in +another place Lucifer applies this designation to Belial as well,] + +The words of Milton's Beelzebub (ii, 368): + + Seduce them to our party, that their god + May prove their foe . . . + +are copied from those of the Italian Lucifero (p. 52): + + . . . Facciam Accio, che l' huom divenga + A Dio nemico . . . + +Regarding the creation of the world, Salandra asks (p. 11): + + Qual lingua puo di Dio, + Benche da Dio formato + Lodar di Dio le meraviglie estreme? + +which is thus echoed by Milton (vii, 112): + + . . . to recount almighty works + What words or tongue of Seraph can suffice? + +There is a considerable resemblance between the two poets in their +descriptions of Paradise and of its joys. In both poems, too, Adam warns +his spouse of her frailty, and in the episode of Eve's meeting with the +serpent there are no less than four verbal coincidences. Thus Salandra +writes (p. 68): + + Ravviso gli animal, ch' a schiera a schiera + Gia fanno humil e _reverente_ inclino . . . + Ravveggio il bel serpente _avvolto_ in giri; + O sei bello + Con tanta varieta che certo sembri + Altro stellato ciel, _smaltata_ terra. + O che sento, _tu parli?_ + +and Milton transcribes it as follows (ix, 517-554): + + . . . She minded not, as used + To such disport before her through the field + From every beast, more _duteous_ at her call . . . + Curled many a wanton _wreath_ in sight of Eve. + His turret crest and sleek _enamelled_ neck . . . + What may this mean? + Language of man _pronounced_ + By tongue of brute? + +Altogether, Zicari has observed that Rolli, although unacquainted with +the 'Adamo Caduto,' has sometimes inadvertently hit upon the same words +in his Italian translation of Milton which Salandra had used before him. + +Eve's altered complexion after the eating of the forbidden fruit is +noted by both poets: + +Torbata ne la faccia? Non sei quella + +Qual ti lasciai contenta . . .--SALANDRA (p. 89). + +Thus Eve with countenance blithe her story told; + +But in her cheek distemper flushing glowed. --MILTON (ix, 886). + +only with this difference, that the Italian Eve adds a half-lie by way +of explaining the change: + + . . . Forse cangiata (del che non mi avveggio) + Sono nel volto per la tua partenza.--(p. 89). + +In both poems Sin and Death reappear on the scene after the transgression. + +The flight of Innocence from earth; the distempered lust which dominates +over Adam and Eve after the Fall; the league of Sin and Death to rule +henceforward over the world; the pathetic lament of Adam regarding his +misfortune and the evils in store for his progeny; his noble sentiment, +that none can withdraw himself from the all-seeing eye of God--all these +are images which Milton has copied from Salandra. + +Adam's state of mind, after the fall, is compared by Salandra to a boat +tossed by impetuous winds (p. 228): + + Qual agitato legno d'Austro, e Noto, + Instabile incostante, non hai pace, + Tu vivi pur . . . + +which is thus paraphrased in Milton (ix, 1122): + + . . . High winds worse within + Began to rise . . . and shook sore + Their inward state of mind, calm region once + And full of peace, now tossed and turbulent. + +Here is a still more palpable adaptation: + + ... So God ordains: + God is thy law, thou mine. + --MILTON (iv, 636) + + . . . . Un voler sia d' entrambi, + E quel' uno di noi, di Dio sia tutto. + --SALANDRA (p. 42). + +After the Fall, according to Salandra, _vacillo la terra_ (i), _geme_ +(2), _e pianse_ (3), _rumoreggiano i tuoni_ (4), _accompagnati da +grandini_ (5), _e dense nevi_ (6), (pp. 138, 142, 218). Milton +translates this as follows: Earth trembled from her entrails (1), and +nature gave a second groan (2); sky loured and, muttering thunders (4), +some sad drops wept (3), the winds, armed with ice and snow (6) and hail +(5). ('Paradise Lost,' ix, 1000, x. 697). + +Here is another translation: + + . . . inclino il ciclo + Giu ne la terra, e questa al Ciel innalza. + --SALANDRA (p. 242). + + And Earth be changed to Heaven, and Heaven to Earth. + --MILTON (vii, 160). + +It is not to my purpose to do Zicari's work over again, as this would +entail a complete translation of his long article (it contains nearly +ten thousand words), to which, if the thing is to be done properly, must +be appended Salandra's 'Adamo,' in order that his quotations from it can +be tested. I will therefore refer to the originals those who wish to go +into the subject more fully, warning them, _en passant,_ that they may +find the task of verification more troublesome than it seems, owing to a +stupid mistake on Zicari's part. For in his references to Milton, he +claims (p. 252) to use an 1818 Venice translation of the 'Paradise Lost' +by Rolli. Now Rolli's 'Paradiso Perduto' is a well-known work which was +issued in many editions in London, Paris, and Italy throughout the +eighteenth century. But I cannot trace this particular one of Venice, +and application to many of the chief libraries of Italy has convinced me +that it does not exist, and that 1818 must be a misprint for some other +year. The error would be of no significance if Zicari had referred to +Rolli's 'Paradiso' by the usual system of cantos and lines, but he +refers to it by pages, and the pagination differs in every one of the +editions of Rolli which have passed through my hands. Despite every +effort, I have not been able to hit upon the precise one which Zicari +had in mind, and if future students are equally unfortunate, I wish them +joy of their labours. [Footnote: Let me take this opportunity of +expressing my best thanks to Baron E. Tortora Brayda, of the Naples +Biblioteca Nazionale, who has taken an infinity of trouble in this +matter.] + +These few extracts, however, will suffice to show that, without +Salandra's 'Adamo,' the 'Paradise Lost,' as we know it, would not be in +existence; and that Zicari's discovery is therefore one of primary +importance for English letters, although it would be easy to point out +divergencies between the two works--divergencies often due to the +varying tastes and feelings of a republican Englishman and an Italian +Catholic, and to the different conditions imposed by an epic and a +dramatic poem. Thus, in regard to this last point, Zicari has already +noted (p. 270) that Salandra's scenic acts were necessarily reproduced +in the form _of visions_ by Milton, who could not avail himself of the +mechanism of the drama for this purpose. Milton was a man of the world, +traveller, scholar, and politician; but it will not do for us to insist +too vehemently upon the probable mental inferiority of the Calabrian +monk, in view of the high opinion which Milton seems to have had of his +talents. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The 'Adamo +Caduto,' of course, is only one of a series of similar works concerning +which a large literature has now grown up, and it might not be difficult +to prove that Salandra was indebted to some previous writer for those +words and phrases which he passed on to the English poet. + +But where did Milton become acquainted with this tragedy? It was at +Naples, according to Cowper ('Milton,' vol. iii, p. 206), that the +English poet may first have entertained the idea of 'the loss of +paradise as a subject peculiarly fit for poetry.' He may well have +discussed sacred tragedies, like those of Andreini, with the Marquis +Manso. But Milton had returned to England long before Salandra's poem +was printed; nor can Manso have sent him a copy of it, for he died in +1645--two years before its publication--and Zicari is thus mistaken in +assuming (p. 245) that Milton became acquainted with it in the house of +the Neapolitan nobleman. Unless, therefore, we take for granted that +Manso was intimate with the author Salandra--he knew most of his +literary countrymen--and sent or gave to Milton a copy of the manuscript +of 'Adamo' before it was printed, or that Milton was personally +familiar with Salandra, we may conclude that the poem was forwarded to +him from Italy by some other friend, perhaps by some member of the +_Accademia, degli Oziosi_ which Manso had founded. + +A chance therefore seems to have decided Milton; Salandra's tragedy fell +into his hands, and was welded into the epic form which he had designed +for Arthur the Great, even as, in later years, a chance question on the +part of Elwood led to his writing 'Paradise Regained.' [Footnote: _Thou +hast said much of Paradise Lost, but what hast thou to say of Paradise +Found?_ He made no answer, but sat some time in a muse. . . .] + +For this poem there were not so many models handy as for the other, but +Milton has written too little to enable us to decide how far its +inferiority to the earlier epic is due to this fact, and how far to the +inherent inertia of its subject-matter. Little movement can be contrived +in a mere dialogue such as 'Paradise Regained '; it lacks the grandiose +_mise-en-scene_ and the shifting splendours of the greater epic; the +stupendous figure of the rebellious archangel, the true hero of +'Paradise Lost,' is here dwarfed into a puny, malignant sophist; nor is +the final issue in the later poem _even for a moment_ in doubt--a +serious defect from an artistic point of view. Jortin holds its peculiar +excellence to be 'artful sophistry, false reasoning, set off in the most +specious manner, and refuted by the Son of God with strong unaffected +eloquence'; merits for which Milton needed no original of any kind, as +his own lofty religious sentiments, his argumentative talents and long +experience of political pamphleteering, stood him in good stead. Most of +us must have wondered how it came about that Milton could not endure to +hear 'Paradise Lost' preferred to 'Paradise Regained,' in view of the +very apparent inferiority of the latter. If we had known what Milton +knew, namely, to how large an extent 'Paradise Lost' was not the child +of his own imagination, and therefore not so precious in his eyes as +'Paradise Regained,' we might have understood his prejudice. + +Certain parts of 'Paradise Lost' are drawn, as we all know, from other +Italian sources, from Sannazario, Ariosto, Guarini, Bojardo, and others. +Zicari who, it must be said, has made the best of his case, will have it +that the musterings and battles of the good and evil angels are copied +from the 'Angeleide' of Valvasone published at Milan in 1590. But G. +Polidori, who has reprinted the 'Angeleide' in his Italian version of +Milton (London, 1840), has gone into this matter and thinks otherwise. +These devil-and-angel combats were a popular theme at the time, and +there is no reason why the English poet should copy continental writers +in such descriptions, which necessarily have a common resemblance. The +Marquis Manso was very friendly with the poets Tasso and Marino, and it +is also to be remarked that entire passages in 'Paradise Lost' are +copied, _totidem verbis,_ from the writings of these two, Manso having +no doubt drawn Milton's attention to their beauties. In fact, I am +inclined to think that Manso's notorious enthusiasm for the _warlike_ +epic of Tasso may first of all have diverted Milton from purely pastoral +ideals and inflamed him with the desire of accomplishing a similar feat, +whence the well-known lines in Milton's Latin verses to this friend, +which contain the first indication of such a design on his part. Even +the familiar invocation, 'Hail, wedded Love,' is bodily drawn from one +of Tasso's letters (see Newton's 'Milton,' 1773, vol. i, pp. 312, 313). + +It has been customary to speak of these literary appropriations as +'imitations '; but whoever compares them with the originals will find +that many of them are more correctly termed translations. The case, from +a literary-moral point of view, is different as regards ancient writers, +and it is surely idle to accuse Milton, as has been done, of pilferings +from Aeschylus or Ovid. There is no such thing as robbing the classics. +They are our literary fathers, and what they have left behind them is +our common heritage; we may adapt, borrow, or steal from them as much as +will suit our purpose; to acknowledge such 'thefts' is sheer pedantry +and ostentation. But Salandra and the rest of them were Milton's +contemporaries. It is certainly an astonishing fact that no scholar of +the stamp of Thyer was acquainted with the 'Adamo Caduto'; and it says +much for the isolation of England that, at a period when poems on the +subject of paradise lost were being scattered broadcast in Italy and +elsewhere--when, in short, all Europe was ringing with the doleful +history of Adam and Eve--Milton could have ventured to speak of +his work as 'Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyma'--an amazing +verse which, by the way, is literally transcribed out of Ariosto +('Cosa, non detta in prosa mai, ne in rima'). But even now the +acquaintance of the British public with the productions of continental +writers is superficial and spasmodic, and such was the ignorance of +English scholars of this earlier period, that Birch maintained that +Milton's drafts, to be referred to presently, indicated his intention of +writing an _opera_ (!); while as late as 1776 the poet Mickle, +notwithstanding Voltaire's authority, questioned the very existence of +Andreini, who has written thirty different pieces. + +Some idea of the time when Salandra's tragedy reached Milton might be +gained if we knew the date of his manuscript projects for 'Paradise +Lost' and other writings which are preserved at Cambridge. R. Garnett +('Life of Milton,' 1890, p. 129) supposes these drafts to date from +about 1640 to 1642, and I am not sufficiently learned in Miltonian lore +to controvert or corroborate in a general way this assertion. But the +date must presumably be pushed further forward in the case of the +skeletons for 'Paradise Lost,' which are modelled to a great extent upon +Salandra's 'Adamo' of 1647, though other compositions may also have been +present before Milton's mind, such as that mentioned on page 234 of the +second volume of Todd's 'Milton,' from which he seems to have drawn the +hint of a 'prologue spoken by Moses.' + +Without going into the matter exhaustively, I will only say that from +these pieces it is clear that Milton's primary idea was to write, like +Salandra, a sacred tragedy upon this theme, and not an epic. These +drafts also contain a chorus, such as Salandra has placed in his drama, +and a great number of mutes, who do not figure in the English epic, but +who reappear in the 'Adamo Caduto' and all similar works. Even Satan is +here designated as Lucifer, in accordance with the Italian Lucifero; and +at the end of one of Milton's drafts we read 'at last appears Mercy, +comforts him, promises the Messiah, etc.,' which is exactly what +Salandra's Misericordia (Mercy) does in the same place. + +Milton no doubt kept on hand many loose passages of poetry, both +original and borrowed, ready to be worked up into larger pieces; all +poets are smothered in odd scraps of verse and lore which they 'fit in' +as occasion requires; and it is therefore quite possible that some +fragments now included in 'Paradise Lost' may have been complete before +the 'Adamo Caduto' was printed. I am referring, more especially, to +Satan's address to the sun, which Philips says was written before the +commencement of the epic. + +Admitting Philips to be correct, I still question whether this +invocation was composed before Milton's visit to Naples; and if it was, +the poet may well have intended it for some other of the multitudinous +works which these drafts show him to have been revolving in his mind, or +for none of them in particular. + +De Quincey rightly says that Addison gave the initial bias in favour of +'Paradise Lost' to the English national mind, which has thenceforward +shrunk, as Addison himself did, from a dispassionate contemplation of +its defects; the idea being, I presume, that a 'divine poem' in a manner +disarmed rational criticism. And, strange to say, even the few faults +which earlier scholars did venture to point out in Milton's poem will be +found in that of Salandra. There is the same superabundance of allegory; +the same confusion of spirit and matter among the supernatural persons; +the same lengthy astronomical treatise; the same personification of Sin +and Death; the same medley of Christian and pagan mythology; the same +tedious historico-theological disquisition at the end of both poems. + +For the rest, it is to be hoped that we have outgrown our fastidiousness +on some of these points. Theological fervour has abated, and in a work +of the pure imagination, as 'Paradise Lost' is now--is it +not?--considered to be, there is nothing incongruous or offensive in an +amiable commingling of Semitic and Hellenic deities after the approved +Italian recipe; nor do a few long words about geography or science +disquiet us any more. Milton was not writing for an uncivilized mob, and +his occasional displays of erudition will represent to a cultured person +only those breathing spaces so refreshing in all epic poetry. That +Milton's language is saturated with Latinisms and Italianisms is +perfectly true. His English may not have been good enough for his +contemporaries. But it is quite good enough for us. That 'grand manner' +which Matthew Arnold claimed for Milton, that sustained pitch of kingly +elaboration and fullness, is not wholly an affair of high moral tone; it +results in part from the humbler ministrations of words happily +chosen--from a felicitous alloy of Mediterranean grace and Saxon mettle. +For, whether consciously or not, we cannot but be influenced by the +_colour-effects_ of mere words, that arouse in us definite but +indefinable moods of mind. To complain of the foreign phraseology and +turns of thought in 'Paradise Lost' would be the blackest ingratitude +nowadays, seeing that our language has become enriched by steady gleams +of pomp and splendour due, in large part, to the peculiar _lustre_ of +Milton's comely importations. + + + + +XXII + +THE "GREEK" SILA + + +It was to be the Sila in earnest, this time. I would traverse the whole +country, from the Coscile valley to Catanzaro, at the other end. +Arriving from Cosenza the train deposited me, once more, at the unlovely +station of Castrovillari. I looked around the dusty square, half-dazed +by the sunlight--it was a glittering noonday in July--but the postal +waggon to Spezzano Albanese, my first resting-point, had not yet +arrived. Then a withered old man, sitting on a vehicle behind the sorry +skeleton of a horse, volunteered to take me there at once; we quickly +came to terms; it was too hot, we both agreed, to waste breath in +bargaining. With the end of his whip he pointed out the church of +Spezzano on its hilltop; a proud structure it looked at this distance, +though nearer acquaintance reduced it to extremely humble proportions. + +The Albanian Spezzano (Spezzano Grande is another place) lies on the +main road from Castrovillari to Cosenza, on the summit of a +long-stretched tongue of limestone which separates the Crati river from +the Esaro; this latter, after flowing into the Coscile, joins its waters +with the Crati, and so closes the promontory. An odd geographical +feature, this low stretch, viewed from the greater heights of Sila or +Pollino; one feels inclined to take a broom and sweep it into the sea, +so that the waters may mingle sooner. + +Our road ascended the thousand feet in a sinuous ribbon of white dust, +and an eternity seemed to pass as we crawled drowsily upwards to the +music of the cicadas, under the simmering blue sky. There was not a soul +in sight; a hush had fallen upon all things; great Pan was brooding over +the earth. At last we entered the village, and here, once more, +deathlike stillness reigned; it was the hour of post-prandial slumber. + +At our knocking the proprietor of the inn, situated in a side-street, +descended. But he was in bad humour, and held out no hopes of +refreshment. Certain doctors and government officials, he said, were +gathered together in his house, telegraphically summoned to consult +about a local case of cholera. As to edibles, the gentlemen had lunched, +and nothing was left, absolutely nothing; it had been _uno +sterminio--_an extermination--of all he possessed. The prospect of +walking about the burning streets till evening did not appeal to me, and +as this was the only inn at Spezzano I insisted, first gently, then +forcibly--in vain. There was not so much as a chair to sit upon, he +avowed; and therewith retired into his cool twilight. + +Despairing, I entered a small shop wherein I had observed the only signs +of life so far--an Albanian woman spinning in patriarchal fashion. It +was a low-ceilinged room, stocked with candles, seeds, and other +commodities which a humble householder might desire to purchase, +including certain of those water-gugglets of Corigliano ware in whose +shapely contours something of the artistic dreamings of old Sybaris +still seems to linger. The proprietress, clothed in gaudily picturesque +costume, greeted me with a smile and the easy familiarity which I have +since discovered to be natural to all these women. She had a room, she +said, where I could rest; there was also food, such as it was, cheese, +and wine, and---- + +"Fruit?" I queried. + +"Ah, you like fruit? Well, we may not so much as speak about it just +now--the cholera, the doctors, the policeman, the prison! I was going to +say _salami."_ + +Salami? I thanked her. I know Calabrian pigs and what they feed on, +though it would be hard to describe in the language of polite society. + +Despite the heat and the swarms of flies in that chamber, I felt little +desire for repose after her simple repast; the dame was so affable and +entertaining that we soon became great friends. I caused her some +amusement by my efforts to understand and pronounce her language--these +folk speak Albanian and Italian with equal facility--which seemed to my +unpractised ears as hopeless as Finnish. Very patiently, she gave me a +long lesson during which I thought to pick up a few words and phrases, +but the upshot of it all was: + +"You'll never learn it. You have begun a hundred years too late." + +I tried her with modern Greek, but among such fragments as remained on +my tongue after a lapse of over twenty years, only hit upon one word +that she could understand. + +"Quite right!" she said encouragingly. "Why don't you always speak +properly? And now, let me hear a little of your own language." + +I gave utterance to a few verses of Shakespeare, which caused +considerable merriment. + +"Do you mean to tell me," she asked, "that people really talk like that?" + +"Of course they do." + +"And pretend to understand what it means?" + +"Why, naturally." + +"Maybe they do," she agreed. "But only when they want to be thought +funny by their friends." + +The afternoon drew on apace, and at last the pitiless sun sank to rest. +I perambulated Spezzano in the gathering twilight; it was now fairly +alive with people. An unclean place; an epidemic of cholera would work +wonders here. . . . + +At 9.30 p.m. the venerable coachman presented himself, by appointment; +he was to drive me slowly (out of respect for his horse) through the +cool hours of the night as far as Vaccarizza, on the slopes of the Greek +Sila, where he expected to arrive early in the morning. (And so he did; +at half-past five.) Not without more mirth was my leave-taking from the +good shopwoman; something, apparently, was hopelessly wrong with the +Albanian words of farewell which I had carefully memorized from our +preceding lesson. She then pressed a paper parcel into my hand. + +"For the love of God," she whispered, "silence! Or we shall all be in +jail to-morrow." + +It contained a dozen pears. + +Driving along, I tried to enter into conversation with the coachman who, +judging by his face, was a mine of local lore. But I had come too late; +the poor old man was so weakened by age and infirmities that he cared +little for talk, his thoughts dwelling, as I charitably imagined, on his +wife and children, all dead and buried (so he said) many long years ago. +He mentioned, however, the _diluvio,_ the deluge, which I have heard +spoken of by older people, among whom it is a fixed article of faith. +This deluge is supposed to have affected the whole Crati valley, +submerging towns and villages. In proof, they say that if you dig near +Tarsia below the present river-level, you will pass through beds of silt +and ooze to traces of old walls and cultivated land. Tarsia used to lie +by the river-side, and was a flourishing place, according to the +descriptions of Leandro Alberti and other early writers; floods and +malaria have now forced it to climb the hills. + +The current of the Crati is more spasmodic and destructive than in +classical times when the river was "navigable"; and to one of its +inundations may be due this legend of the deluge; to the same +one, maybe, that affected the courses of this river and the Coscile, +mingling their waters which used to flow separately into the Ionian. Or +it may be a hazy memory of the artificial changing of the riverbed when +the town of Sybaris, lying between these two rivers, was destroyed. Yet +the streams are depicted as entering the sea apart in old maps such as +those of Magini, Fiore, Coronelli, and Cluver; and the latter writes +that "near the mouth of the Crati there flows into the same sea a river +vulgarly called Cochile." [Footnote: In the earlier part of +Rathgeber's astonishing "Grossgriechenland und Pythagoras" (1866) will +be found a good list of old maps of the country.] + +This is important. It remains to be seen whether this statement is the +result of a personal visit, or whether he simply repeated the old +geography. His text in many places indicates a personal acquaintance +with southern Italy--_Italian_, says Heinsius, _non semel +peragravit--_ and he may well have been tempted to investigate a site +like that of Sybaris. If so, the change in the river courses and +possibly this "deluge" has taken place since his day. + +Deprived of converse, I relapsed into a doze, but soon woke up with a +start. The carriage had stopped; it was nearly midnight; we were at +Terranova di Sibari, whose houses were lit up by the silvery beams of +the moon. + +Thurii--death-place of Herodotus! How one would like to see this place +by daylight. On the ancient site, which lies at a considerable distance, +they have excavated antiquities, a large number of which are in the +possession of the Marchese Galli at Castrovillari. I endeavoured to see +his museum, but found it inaccessible for "family reasons." The same +answer was given me in regard to a valuable private library at Rossano, +and annoying as it may be, one cannot severely blame such local +gentlemen for keeping their collections to themselves. What have they to +gain from the visits of inquisitive travellers? + +During these meditations on my part, the old man hobbled busily to and +fro with a bucket, bearing water from a fountain near at hand wherewith +to splash the carriage-wheels. He persisted in this singular occupation +for an unreasonably long time. Water was good for the wheels, he +explained; it kept them cool. + +At last we started, and I began to slumber once more. The carriage +seemed to be going down a steep incline; endlessly it descended, with a +pleasant swaying motion. . . . Then an icy shiver roused me from my +dreams. It was the Crati whose rapid waves, fraught with unhealthy +chills, rippled brightly in the moonlight. We crossed the malarious +valley, and once more touched the hills. + +From those treeless slopes there streamed forth deliciously warm +emanations stored up during the scorching hours of noon; the short scrub +that clothed them was redolent of that peculiar Calabrian odour which +haunts one like a melody--an odour of dried cistus and other aromatic +plants, balsamic by day, almost overpowering at this hour. To aid and +diversify the symphony of perfume, I lit a cigar, and then gave myself +up to contemplation of the heavenly bodies. We passed a solitary man, +walking swiftly with bowed head. What was he doing there? + +"Lupomanaro," said the driver. + +A werewolf. . . . + +I had always hoped to meet with a werewolf on his nocturnal rambles, and +now my wish was gratified. But it was disappointing to see him in human +garb--even werewolves, it seems, must march with the times. This +enigmatical growth of the human mind flourishes in Calabria, but is not +popular as a subject of conversation. The more old-fashioned werewolves +cling to the true _versipellis_ habits, and in that case only the pigs, +the inane Calabrian pigs, are dowered with the faculty of distinguishing +them in daytime, when they look like any other "Christian." There is a +record, in Fiore's book, of an epidemic of lycanthropy that attacked the +boys of Cassano. (Why only the boys?) It began on 31 July, 1210; and the +season of the year strikes me as significant. + +After that I fell asleep in good earnest, nor did I wake up again till +the sun was peering over the eastern hills. We were climbing up a long +slope; the Albanian settlements of Vaccarizza and San Giorgio lay before +us and, looking back, I still saw Spezzano on its ridge; it seemed so +close that a gunshot could have reached it. + +These non-Italian villages date from the centuries that followed the +death of Scanderbeg, when the Grand Signior consolidated his power. The +refugees arrived in flocks from over the sea, and were granted tracts of +wild land whereon to settle--some of them on this incline of the Sila, +which was accordingly called "Greek" Sila, the native confusing these +foreigners with the Byzantines whose dwellings, as regards Calabria, are +now almost exclusively confined to the distant region of Aspromonte. +Colonies of Albanians are scattered all over South Italy, chiefly in +Apulia, Calabria, Basilicata, and Sicily; a few are in the north and +centre--there is one on the Po, for instance, now reduced to 200 +inhabitants; most of these latter have become absorbed into the +surrounding Italian element. Angelo Masci (reprinted 1846) says there +are 59 villages of them, containing altogether 83,000 inhabitants-- +exclusive of Sicily; Morelli (1842) gives their total population +for Italy and Sicily as 103,466. If these figures are correct, +the race must have multiplied latterly, for I am told there are +now some 200,000 Albanians in the kingdom, living in about 80 villages. +This gives approximately 2500 for each settlement--a likely number, if +it includes those who are at present emigrants in America. There is a +voluminous literature on the subject of these strangers, the authors of +which are nearly all Albanians themselves. The fullest account of older +conditions may well be that contained in the third volume of Rodota's +learned work (1758); the ponderous Francesco Tajani (1886) brings +affairs up to date, or nearly so. If only he had provided his book with +an index! + +There were troubles at first. Arriving, as they did, solely "with their +shirts and rhapsodies" (so one of them described it to me)--that is, +despoiled of everything, they indulged in robberies and depredations +somewhat too freely even for those free days, with the result that +ferocious edicts were issued against them, and whole clans wiped out. It +was a case of necessity knowing no law. But in proportion as the forests +were hewn down and crops sown, they became as respectable as their +hosts. They are bilingual from birth, one might almost say, and numbers +of the men also express themselves correctly in English, which they pick +up in the United States. + +These islands of alien culture have been hotbeds of Liberalism +throughout history. The Bourbons persecuted them savagely on that +account, exiling and hanging the people by scores. At this moment there +is a good deal of excitement going on in favour of the Albanian revolt +beyond the Adriatic, and it was proposed, among other things, to +organize a demonstration in Rome, where certain Roman ladies were to +dress themselves in Albanian costumes and thus work upon the sentiments +of the nation; but "the authorities" forbade this and every other +movement. None the less, there has been a good deal of clandestine +recruiting, and bitter recriminations against this turcophile attitude +on the part of Italy--this "reactionary rigorism against every +manifestation of sympathy for the Albanian cause." Patriotic +pamphleteers ask, rightly enough, why difficulties should be placed in +the way of recruiting for Albania, when, in the recent cases of Cuba and +Greece, the despatch of volunteers was actually encouraged by the +government? "Legality has ceased to exist here; we Albanians are watched +and suspected exactly as our compatriots now are by the Turks. . . . +They sequestrate our manifestos, they forbid meetings and conferences, +they pry into our postal correspondence. . . . Civil and military +authorities have conspired to prevent a single voice of help and comfort +reaching our brothers, who call to us from over the sea." A hard case, +indeed. But Vienna and Cettinje might be able to throw some light upon +it. [Footnote: This was written before the outbreak of the Balkan war.] + +The Albanian women, here as elsewhere, are the veriest beasts of burden; +unlike the Italians, they carry everything (babies, and wood, and water) +on their backs. Their crudely tinted costumes would be called more +strange than beautiful under any but a bright sunshiny sky. The fine +native dresses of the men have disappeared long ago; they even adopted, +in days past, the high-peaked Calabrian hat which is now only worn by +the older generation. Genuine Calabrians often settle in these foreign +villages, in order to profit by their anti-feudal institutions. For even +now the Italian cultivator is supposed to make, and actually does make, +"voluntary" presents to his landlord at certain seasons; gifts which are +always a source of irritation and, in bad years, a real hardship. The +Albanians opposed themselves from the very beginning against these +mediaeval practices. "They do not build houses," says an old writer, "so +as not to be subject to barons, dukes, princes, or other lords. And if +the owner of the land they inhabit ill-treats them, they set fire to +their huts and go elsewhere." An admirable system, even nowadays. + +One would like to be here at Easter time to see the _rusalet--_those +Pyrrhic dances where the young men group themselves in martial array, +and pass through the streets with song and chorus, since, soon enough, +America will have put an end to such customs. The old Albanian guitar of +nine strings has already died out, and the double tibia--_biforem dat +tibia cantum--_will presently follow suit. This instrument, familiar +from classical sculpture and lore, and still used in Sicily and +Sardinia, was once a favourite with the Sila shepherds, who called it +"fischietto a pariglia." But some years ago I vainly sought it in the +central Sila; the answer to my enquiries was everywhere the same: they +knew it quite well; so and so used to play it; certain persons in +certain villages still made it--they described it accurately enough, but +could not produce a specimen. Single pipes, yes; and bagpipes galore; +but the _tibia: pares_ were "out of fashion" wherever I asked for them. + +Here, in the Greek Sila, I was more fortunate. A boy at the village of +Macchia possessed a pair which he obligingly gave me, after first +playing a song--a farewell song--a plaintive ditty that required, none +the less, an excellent pair of lungs, on account of the two mouthpieces. +Melodies on this double flageolet are played principally at Christmas +time. The two reeds are about twenty-five centimetres in length, and +made of hollow cane; in my specimen, the left hand controls four, the +other six holes; the Albanian name of the instrument is "fiscarol." + +From a gentleman at Vaccarizza I received a still more valuable +present--two neolithic celts (aenolithic, I should be inclined to call +them) wrought in close-grained quartzite, and found not far from that +village. These implements must be rare in the uplands of Calabria, as I +have never come across them before, though they have been found, to my +knowledge, at Savelli in the central Sila. At Vaccarizza they call such +relics "pic"--they are supposed, as usual, to be thunderbolts, and I am +also told that a piece of string tied to one of them cannot be burnt in +fire. The experiment might be worth trying. + +Meanwhile, the day passed pleasantly at Vaccarizza. I became the guest +of a prosperous resident, and was treated to genuine Albanian +hospitality and excellent cheer. I only wish that all his compatriots +might enjoy one meal of this kind in their lifetime. For they are poor, +and their homes of miserable aspect. Like all too many villages in South +Italy, this one is depopulated of its male inhabitants, and otherwise +dirty and neglected. The impression one gains on first seeing one of +these places is more than that of Oriental decay; they are not merely +ragged at the edges. It is a deliberate and sinister chaos, a note of +downright anarchy--a contempt for those simple forms of refinement which +even the poorest can afford. Such persons, one thinks, cannot have much +sense of home and its hallowed associations; they seem to be +everlastingly ready to break with the existing state of things. How +different from England, where the humblest cottages, the roadways, the +very stones testify to immemorial love of order, to neighbourly feelings +and usages sanctioned by time! + +They lack the sense of home as a fixed and old-established topographical +point; as do the Arabs and Russians, neither of whom have a word +expressing our "home" or "Heimat." Here, the nearest equivalent is _la +famiglia._ We think of a particular house or village where we were born +and where we spent our impressionable days of childhood; these others +regard home not as a geographical but as a social centre, liable to +shift from place to place; they are at home everywhere, so long as their +clan is about them. That acquisitive sense which affectionately adorns +our meanest dwelling, slowly saturating it with memories, has been +crushed out of them--if it ever existed--by hard blows of fortune; it is +safer, they think, to transform the labour of their hands into gold, +which can be moved from place to place or hidden from the tyrant's eye. +They have none of our sentimentality in regard to inanimate objects. +Eliza Cook's feelings towards her "old arm-chair" would strike them as +savouring of childishness. Hence the unfinished look of their houses, +within and without. Why expend thought and wealth upon that which may be +abandoned to-morrow? + +The two churches of Vaccarizza, dark and unclean structures, stand side +by side, and I was shown through them by their respective priests, Greek +and Catholic, who walked arm in arm in friendly wise, and meekly smiled +at a running fire of sarcastic observations on the part of another +citizen directed against the "bottega" in general--the _shop,_ as the +church is sometimes irreverently called. The Greco-Catholic cult to +which these Albanians belong is a compromise between the Orthodox and +Roman; their priests may wear beards and marry wives, they use bread +instead of the wafer for sacramental purposes, and there are one or two +other little differences of grave import. + +Six Albanian settlements lie on these northern slopes of the Sila--San +Giorgio, Vaccarizza, San Cosimo, Macchia, San Demetrio Corone, and Santa +Sofia d' Epiro. San Demetrio is the largest of them, and thither, after +an undisturbed night's rest at the house of my kind host--the last, I +fear, for many days to come--I drove in the sunlit hours of next +morning. Along the road one can see how thoroughly the Albanians have +done their work; the land is all under cultivation, save for a dark belt +of trees overhead, to remind one of what once it was. Perhaps they have +eradicated the forest over-zealously, for I observe in San Demetrio that +the best drinking water has now to be fetched from a spring at a +considerable distance from the village; it is unlikely that this should +have been the original condition of affairs; deforestation has probably +diminished the water-supply. + +It was exhilarating to traverse these middle heights with their aerial +views over the Ionian and down olive-covered hill-sides towards the wide +valley of the Crati and the lofty Pollino range, now swimming in +midsummer haze. The road winds in and out of gullies where rivulets +descend from the mountains; they are clothed in cork-oak, ilex, and +other trees; golden orioles, jays, hoopoes and rollers flash among the +foliage. In winter these hills are swept by boreal blasts from the +Apennines, but at this season it is a delightful tract of land. + + + + +XXIII + +ALBANIANS AND THEIR COLLEGE + + +San Demetrio, famous for its Italo-Albanian College, lies on a fertile +incline sprinkled with olives and mulberries and chestnuts, fifteen +hundred feet above sea-level. They tell me that within the memory of +living man no Englishman has ever entered the town. This is quite +possible; I have not yet encountered a single English traveller, during +my frequent wanderings over South Italy. Gone are the days of Keppel +Craven and Swinburne, of Eustace and Brydone and Hoare! You will come +across sporadic Germans immersed in Hohenstaufen records, or searching +after Roman antiquities, butterflies, minerals, or landscapes to +paint--you will meet them in the most unexpected places; but never an +Englishman. The adventurous type of Anglo-Saxon probably thinks the +country too tame; scholars, too trite; ordinary tourists, too dirty. The +accommodation and food in San Demetrio leave much to be desired; its +streets are irregular lanes, ill-paved with cobbles of gneiss and +smothered under dust and refuse. None the less, what noble names have +been given to these alleys--names calculated to fire the ardent +imagination of young Albanian students, and prompt them to valorous and +patriotic deeds! Here are the streets of "Odysseus," of "Salamis" and +"Marathon" and "Thermopylae," telling of the glory that was Greece; "Via +Skanderbeg" and "Hypsilanti" awaken memories of more immediate renown; +"Corso Dante Alighieri" reminds them that their Italian hosts, too, have +done something in their day; the "Piazza Francesco Ferrer" causes their +ultra-liberal breasts to swell with mingled pride and indignation; while +the "Via dell' Industria" hints, not obscurely, at the great truth that +genius, without a capacity for taking pains, is an idle phrase. Such +appellations, without a doubt, are stimulating and glamorous. But if the +streets themselves have seen a scavenger's broom within the last +half-century, I am much mistaken. The goddess "Hygeia" dost not figure +among their names, nor yet that Byzantine Monarch whose infantile +exploit might be re-enacted in ripest maturity without attracting any +attention in San Demetrio. To the pure all things are pure. + +The town is exclusively Albanian; the Roman Catholic church has fallen +into disrepair, and is now used as a shed for timber. But at the door of +the Albanian sanctuary I was fortunate enough to intercept a native +wedding, just as the procession was about to enter the portal. Despite +the fact that the bride was considered the ugliest girl in the place, +she had been duly "robbed" by her bold or possibly blind lover--her +features were providentially veiled beneath her nuptial _flammeum,_ and +of her squat figure little could be discerned under the gorgeous +accoutrements of the occasion. She was ablaze with ornaments and +embroidery of gold, on neck and shoulders and wrist; a wide lace collar +fell over a bodice of purple silk; silken too, and of brightest green, +was her pleated skirt. The priest seemed ineffably bored with his task, +and mumbled through one or two pages of holy books in record time; there +were holdings of candles, interchange of rings, sacraments of bread and +wine and other solemn ceremonies--the most quaint being the +_stephanoma,_ or crowning, of the happy pair, and the moving of their +respective crowns from the head of one to that of the other. It ended +with a chanting perlustration of the church, led by the priest: this is +the so-called "pesatura." + +I endeavoured to attune my mind to the gravity of this marriage, to the +deep historico-ethnologico-poetical significance of its smallest detail. +Such rites, I said to myself, must be understood to be appreciated, and +had I not been reading certain native commentators on the subject that +very morning? Nevertheless, my attention was diverted from the main +issue--the bridegroom's face had fascinated me. The self-conscious male +is always at a disadvantage during grotesquely splendid buffooneries of +this kind; and never, in all my life, have I seen a man looking such a +sorry fool as this individual, never; especially during the +perambulation, when his absurd crown was supported on his head, from +behind, by the hand of his best man. + +Meanwhile a handful of boys, who seemed to share my private feelings in +regard to the performance, had entered the sacred precincts, their +pockets stuffed with living cicadas. These Albanian youngsters, like all +true connaisseurs, are aware of the idiosyncrasy of the classical insect +which, when pinched or tickled on a certain spot, emits its +characteristic and ear-piercing note--the "lily-soft voice" of the Greek +bard. The cicadas, therefore, were duly pinched and then let loose; like +squibs and rockets they careered among the congregation, dashing in our +faces and clinging to our garments; the church resounded like an +olive-copse at noon. A hot little hand conveyed one of these tremulously +throbbing creatures into my own, and obeying a whispered injunction of +"Let it fly, sir!" I had the joy of seeing the beast alight with a +violent buzz on the head of the bride--doubtless the happiest of +auguries. Such conduct, on the part of English boys, would be deemed +very naughty and almost irreverent; but here, one hopes, it may have its +origin in some obscure but pious credence such as that which prompts the +populace to liberate birds in churches, at Easter time. These escaping +cicadas, it may be, are symbolical of matrimony--the individual man and +woman freed, at last, from the dungeon-like horrors of celibate +existence; or, if that parallel be far-fetched, we may conjecture that +their liberation represents the afflatus of the human soul, aspiring +upwards to merge its essence into the Divine All. . . . + +The pride of San Demetrio is its college. You may read about it in +Professor Mazziotti's monograph; but whoever wishes to go to the +fountain-head must peruse the _Historia Erectionis Pontifici Collegi +Corsini Ullanensis, etc.,_ of old Zavarroni--an all-too-solid piece of +work. Founded under the auspices of Pope Clement XII in 1733 (or 1735) +at San Benedetto Ullano, it was moved hither in 1794, and between that +time and now has passed through fierce vicissitudes. Its president, +Bishop Bugliari, was murdered by the brigands in 1806; much of its lands +and revenues have been dissipated by maladministration; it was +persecuted for its Liberalism by the Bourbons, who called it a "workshop +of the devil." It distinguished itself during the anti-dynastic revolts +of 1799 and 1848 and, in 1860, was presented with twelve thousand ducats +by Garibaldi, "in consideration of the signal services rendered to the +national cause by the brave and generous Albanians." [Footnote: There +used to be regiments of these Albanians at Naples. In Filati de +Tassulo's sane study (1777) they are spoken of as highly prized.] Even +now the institution is honeycombed with Freemasonry--the surest path to +advancement in any career, in modern Italy. Times indeed have changed +since the "Inviolable Constitutions" laid it down that _nullus omnino +Alumnus in Collegio detineatur, cuius futura; Chris-tianae pietatis +significatio non extet._ But only since 1900 has it been placed on a +really sound and prosperous footing. An agricultural school has lately +been added, under the supervision of a trained expert. They who are +qualified to judge speak of the college as a beacon of learning--an +institution whose aims and results are alike deserving of high respect. +And certainly it can boast of a fine list of prominent men who have +issued from its walls. + +This little island of stern mental culture contains, besides twenty-five +teachers and as many servants, some three hundred scholars preparing for +a variety of secular professions. About fifty of them are +Italo-Albanians, ten or thereabouts are genuine Albanians from over the +water, the rest Italians, among them two dozen of those unhappy orphans +from. Reggio and Messina who flooded the country after the earthquake, +and were "dumped down" in colleges and private houses all over Italy. +Some of the boys come of wealthy families in distant parts, their +parents surmising that San Demetrio offers no temptations to youthful +folly and extravagance. In this, so far as I can judge, they are +perfectly correct. + +The heat of summer and the fact that the boys were in the throes of +their examinations may have helped to make the majority of them seem +pale and thin; they certainly complained of their food, and the cook was +the only prosperous-looking person whom I could discover in the +establishment--his percentages, one suspects, being considerable. The +average yearly payment of each scholar for board and tuition is only +twenty pounds (it used to be twenty ducats); how shall superfluities be +included in the bill of fare for such a sum? + +The class-rooms are modernized; the dormitories neither clean nor very +dirty; there is a rather scanty gymnasium as well as a physical +laboratory and museum of natural history. Among the recent acquisitions +of the latter is a vulture _(Gyps fulvus)_ which was shot here in the +spring of this year. The bird, they told me, has never been seen in +these regions before; it may have come over from the east, or from +Sardinia, where it still breeds. I ventured to suggest that they should +lose no time in securing a native porcupine, an interesting beast +concerning which I never fail to enquire on my rambles. They used to be +encountered in the Crati valley; two were shot near Corigliano a few +years ago, and another not far from Cotronei on the Neto; they still +occur in the forests near the "Pagliarelle" above Petilia Policastro; +but, judging by all indications, I should say that this animal is +rapidly approaching extinction not only here, but all over Italy. +Another very rare creature, the otter, was killed lately at Vaccarizza, +but unfortunately not preserved. + +Fencing and music are taught, but those athletic exercises which led to +the victories of Marathon and Salamis are not much in vogue--_mens sana +in corpare sana_ is clearly not the ideal of the place; fighting among +the boys is reprobated as "savagery," and corporal punishment forbidden. +There is no playground or workshop, and their sole exercise consists in +dull promenades along the high road under the supervision of one or more +teachers, during which the youngsters indulge in attempts at games by +the wayside which are truly pathetic. So the old "Inviolable +Constitutions" ordain that "the scholars must not play outside the +college, and if they meet any one, they should lower their voices." A +rule of recent introduction is that in this warm weather they must all +lie down to sleep for two hours after the midday meal; it may suit the +managers, but the boys consider it a great hardship and would prefer +being allowed to play. Altogether, whatever the intellectual results may +be, the moral tendency of such an upbringing is damaging to the spirit +of youth and must make for precocious frivolity and brutality. But the +pedagogues of Italy are like her legislators: theorists. They close +their eyes to the cardinal principles of all education--that the waste +products and toxins of the imagination are best eliminated by motor +activities, and that the immature stage of human development, far from +being artificially shortened, should be prolonged by every possible +means. . If the internal arrangement of this institution is not all it +might be as regards the healthy development of youth, the situation of +the college resembles the venerable structures of Oxford in that it is +too good, far too good, for mere youngsters. This building, in its +seclusion from the world, its pastoral surroundings and soul-inspiring +panorama, is an abode not for boys but for philosophers; a place to fill +with a wave of deep content the sage who has outgrown earthly ambitions. +Your eye embraces the snow-clad heights of Dolcedorme and the Ionian +Sea, wandering over forests, and villages, and rivers, and long reaches +of fertile country; but it is not the variety of the scene, nor yet the +historical memories of old Sybaris which kindle the imagination so much +as the spacious amplitude of the whole prospect. In England we think +something of a view of ten miles. Conceive, here, a grandiose valley +wider than from Dover to Calais, filled with an atmosphere of such +impeccable clarity that there are moments when one thinks to see every +stone and every bush on the mountains yonder, thirty miles distant. And +the cloud-effects, towards sunset, are such as would inspire the brush +of Turner or Claude Lorraine. . . . + +For the college, as befits its grave academic character, stands by +itself among fruitful fields and backed by a chestnut wood, at ten +minutes' walk from the crowded streets. It is an imposing edifice--the +Basilean convent of St. Adrian, with copious modern additions; the +founders may well have selected this particular site on account of its +fountain of fresh water, which flows on as in days of yore. One thinks +of those communities of monks in the Middle Ages, scattered over this +wild region and holding rare converse with one another by gloomy forest +paths--how remote their life and ideals! In the days of Fiore (1691) the +inmates of this convent still practised their old rites. + +The nucleus of the building is the old chapel, containing a remarkable +font; two antique columns sawn up (apparently for purposes of +transportation from some pagan temple by the shore)--one of them being +of African marble and the other of grey granite; there is also a +tessellated pavement with beast-patterns of leopards and serpents akin +to those of Patir. Bertaux gives a reproduction of this serpent; he +assimilates it, as regards technique and age, to that which lies before +the altar of Monte Cassino and was wrought by Greek artisans of the +abbot Desiderius. The church itself is held to be two centuries older +than that of Patir. + +The library, once celebrated, contains musty folios of classics and +their commentators, but nothing of value. It has been ransacked of its +treasures like that of Patir, whose _disjecta membra_ have been tracked +down by the patience and acumen of Monsignor Batiffol. + +Batiffol, Bertaux--Charles Diehl, Jules Gay (who has also written on San +Demetrio)--Huillard-Breholles--Luynes--Lenormant. . . here are a few +French scholars who have recently studied these regions and their +history. What have we English done in this direction? + +Nothing. Absolutely nothing. + +Such thoughts occur inevitably. + +It may be insinuated that researches of this kind are gleanings; that +our English genius lies rather in the spade-work of pioneers like Leake +or Layard. Granted. But a hard fact remains; the fact, namely, that +could any of our scholars have been capable of writing in the large and +profound manner of Bertaux or Gay, not one of our publishers would have +undertaken to print his work. Not one. They know their business; they +know that such a book would have been a dead loss. Therefore let us +frankly confess the truth: for things of the mind there is a smaller +market in England than in France. _How much smaller_ only they can tell, +who have familiarized themselves with other departments of French thought. + +Here, then, I have lived for the past few days, strolling among the +fields, and attempting to shape some picture of these Albanians from +their habits and such of their literature as has been placed at my +disposal. So far, my impression of them has not changed since the days +when I used to rest at their villages, in Greece. They remind me of the +Irish. Both races are scattered over the earth and seem to prosper best +outside their native country; they have the same songs and bards, the +same hero-chieftains, the same com-bativeness and frank hospitality; +both are sunk in bigotry and broils; they resemble one another in their +love of dirt, disorder and display, in their enthusiastic and +adventurous spirit, their versatile brilliance of mind, their incapacity +for self-government and general (Keltic) note of inspired inefficiency. +And both profess a frenzied allegiance to an obsolete tongue which, were +it really cultivated as they wish, would put a barrier of triple brass +between themselves and the rest of humanity. + +Even as the Irish despise the English as their worldly and effete +relatives, so the Albanians look down upon the Greeks--even those of +Pericles--with profoundest contempt. The Albanians, so says one of their +writers, are "the oldest people upon earth," and their language is the +"divine Pelasgic mother-tongue." I grew interested awhile in Stanislao +Marchiano's plausibly entrancing study on this language, as well as in a +pamphlet of de Rada's on the same subject; but my ardour has cooled +since learning, from another native grammarian, that these writers are +hopelessly in the wrong on nearly every point. So much is certain, that +the Albanian language already possesses more than _thirty different +alphabets_ (each of them with nearly fifty letters). Nevertheless they +have not yet, in these last four (or forty) thousand years, made up +their minds which of them to adopt, or whether it would not be wisest, +after all, to elaborate yet another one--a thirty-first. And so +difficult is their language with any of these alphabets that even after +a five days' residence on the spot I still find myself puzzled by such +simple passages as this: + + . . . Zilji, + mosse vet, ce asso mbremie + to ngcnrct me iljis, praa + gjith e miegculem, mhi siaarr + rriij i sgjuat. Nje voogh e keljbur + sorrevet te liosta + ndjej se i oxtenej + e pisseroghej. Zuu shiu + menes; ne mee se Ijinaar + chish Ijeen pa-shuatur + skiotta, e i ducheje per moon. + +I will only add that the translation of such a passage--it contains +twenty-eight accents which I have omitted--is mere child's play to its +pronunciation. + + + + +XXIV + +AN ALBANIAN SEER + + +Sometimes I find my way to the village of Macchia, distant about three +miles from San Demetrio. It is a dilapidated but picturesque cluster of +houses, situate on a projecting tongue of land which is terminated by a +little chapel to Saint Elias, the old sun-god Helios, lover of peaks and +promontories, whom in his Christian shape the rude Albanian colonists +brought hither from their fatherland, even as, centuries before, he had +accompanied the Byzantines on the same voyage and, fifteen centuries yet +earlier, the Greeks. + +At Macchia was born, in 1814, of an old and relatively wealthy family, +Girolamo de Rada, [Footnote: Thus his friend and compatriot, Dr. Michele +Marchiano, spells the name in a biography which I recommend to those who +think there is no intellectual movement in South Italy. But he himself, +at the very close of his life, in 1902, signs himself Ger. de Rhada. So +this village of Macchia is spelt indifferently by Albanians as Maki or +Makji. They have a fine Elizabethan contempt for orthography--as well +they may have, with their thirty alphabets.] a flame-like patriot in +whom the tempestuous aspirations of modern Albania took shape. The ideal +pursued during his long life was the regeneration of his country; and if +the attention of international congresses and linguists and folklorists +is now drawn to this little corner of the earth--if, in _1902,_ +twenty-one newspapers were devoted to the Albanian cause (eighteen in +Italy alone, and one even in London)--it was wholly his merit. + +He was the son of a Greco-Catholic priest. After a stern religious +upbringing under the paternal roof at Macchia and in the college of San +Demetrio, he was sent to Naples to complete his education. It is +characteristic of the man that even in the heyday of youth he cared +little for modern literature and speculations and all that makes for +exact knowledge, and that he fled from his Latin teacher, the celebrated +Puoti, on account of his somewhat exclusive love of grammatical rules. +None the less, though con-genitally averse to the materialistic and +subversive theories that were then seething in Naples, he became +entangled in the anti-Bourbon movements of the late thirties, and +narrowly avoided the death-penalty which struck down some of his +comrades. At other times his natural piety laid him open to the +accusation of reactionary monarchical leanings. + +He attributed his escape from this and every other peril to the hand of +God. Throughout life he was a zealous reader of the Bible, a firm and +even ascetic believer, forever preoccupied, in childlike simplicity of +soul, with first causes. His spirit moved majestically in a world of +fervent platitudes. The whole Cosmos lay serenely distended before his +mental vision; a benevolent God overhead, devising plans for the +prosperity of Albania; a malignant, ubiquitous and very real devil, +thwarting these His good intentions whenever possible; mankind on earth, +sowing and reaping in the sweat of their brow, as was ordained of old. +Like many poets, he never disabused his mind of this comfortable form of +anthropomorphism. He was a firm believer, too, in dreams. But his +guiding motive, his sun by day and star by night, was a belief in the +"mission" of the Pelasgian race now scattered about the shores of the +Inland Sea--in Italy, Sicily, Greece, Dalmatia, Roumania, Asia Minor, +Egypt--a belief as ardent and irresponsible as that which animates the +_Lost Tribe_ enthusiasts of England. He considered that the world hardly +realized how much it owed to his countryfolk; according to his views, +Achilles, Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great, Aristotle, Pyrrhus, +Diocletian, Julian the Apostate--they were all Albanians. Yet even +towards the end of his life he is obliged to confess:-- + +"But the evil demon who for over four thousand years has been hindering +the Pelasgian race from collecting itself into one state, is still +endeavouring by insidious means to thwart the work which would lead it +to that union." + +Disgusted with the clamorous and intriguing bustle of Naples, he +retired, at the early age of 34, to his natal village of Macchia, +throwing over one or two offers of lucrative worldly appointments. He +describes himself as wholly disenchanted with the "facile fatuity" of +Liberalism, the fact being, that he lacked what a French psychologist +has called the _function of the real;_ his temperament was not of the +kind to cope with actualities. This retirement is an epoch in his +life--it is the Grand Renunciation. Henceforward he loses personal touch +with thinking humanity. At Macchia he remained, brooding on Albanian +wrongs, devising remedies, corresponding with foreigners and +writing--ever writing; consuming his patrimony in the cause of Albania, +till the direst poverty dogged his footsteps. + +I have read some of his Italian works. They are curiously oracular, like +the whisperings of those fabled Dodonian oaks of his fatherland; they +heave with a darkly-virile mysticism. He shares Blake's ruggedness, his +torrential and confused utterance, his benevolence, his flashes of +luminous inspiration, his moral background. He resembles that visionary +in another aspect: he was a consistent and passionate adorer of the +_Ewig-weibliche._ Some of the female characters in his poems retain +their dewy freshness, their exquisite originality, even after passing +through the translator's crucible. + +At the age of 19 he wrote a poem on "Odysseus," which was published +under a pseudonym. Then, three years later, there appeared a collection +of rhapsodies entitled "Milosao," which he had garnered from the lips of +Albanian village maidens. It is his best-known work, and has been +translated into Italian more than once. After his return to Macchia +followed some years of apparent sterility, but later on, and especially +during the last twenty years of his life, his literary activity became +prodigious. Journalism, folklore, poetry, history, grammar, philology, +ethnology, aesthetics, politics, morals--nothing came amiss to his +gifted pen, and he was fruitful, say his admirers, even in his errors, +Like other men inflamed with one single idea, he boldly ventured into +domains of thought where specialists fear to tread. His biographer +enumerates forty-three different works from his pen. They all throb with +a resonant note of patriotism; they are "fragments of a heart," and +indeed, it has been said of him that he utilized even the grave science +of grammar as a battlefield whereon to defy the enemies of Albania. But +perhaps he worked most successfully as a journalist. His "Fiamuri +Arberit" (the Banner of Albania) became the rallying cry of his +countrymen in every corner of the earth. + +These multifarious writings--and doubtless the novelty of his central +theme--attracted the notice of German philologers and linguists, of all +lovers of freedom, folklore and verse. Leading Italian writers like +Cantupraised him highly; Lamartine, in 1844, wrote to him: "Je suis +bien-heureux de ce signe de fraternite poetique et politique entre vous +et moi. La poesie est venue de vos rivages et doit y retourner. . . ." +Hermann Buchholtz discovers scenic changes worthy of Shakespeare, and +passages of Aeschylean grandeur, in his tragedy "Sofonisba." Carnet +compares him with Dante, and the omniscient Mr. Gladstone wrote in +1880--a post card, presumably--belauding his disinterested efforts on +behalf of his country. He was made the subject of many articles and +pamphlets, and with reason. Up to his time, Albania had been a myth. He +it was who divined the relationship between the Albanian and Pelasgian +tongues; who created the literary language of his country, and +formulated its political ambitions. + +Whereas the hazy "Autobiologia" records complicated political intrigues +at Naples that are not connected with his chief strivings, the little +"Testamento politico," printed towards the end of his life, is more +interesting. It enunciates his favourite and rather surprising theory +that the Albanians cannot look for help and sympathy save only to their +_brothers,_ the Turks. Unlike many Albanians on either side of the +Adriatic, he was a pronounced Turco-phile, detesting the "stolid +perfidy" and "arrogant disloyalty" of the Greeks. Of Austria, the most +insidious enemy of his country's freedom, he seems to have thought well. +A year before his death he wrote to an Italian translator of "Milosao" +(I will leave the passage in the original, to show his cloudy language): + +"Ed un tempo propizio la accompagna: la ricostituzione dell' Epiro nei +suoi quattro vilayet autonomi quale e nei propri consigli e nei propri +desideri; ricostituzione, che pel suo Giornale, quello dell' ottimo A. +Lorecchio--cui precede il principe Nazionale Kastriota, Chini--si +annuncia fatale, e quasi fulcro della stabilita dello impero Ottomano, a +della pace Europea; preludio di quella diffusione del regno di Dio sulla +terra, che sara la Pace tra gli Uomini." + +Truly a remarkable utterance, and one that illustrates the disadvantages +of living at a distance from the centres of thought. Had he travelled +less with the spirit and more with the body, his opinions might have +been modified and corrected. But he did not even visit the Albanian +colonies in Italy and Sicily. Hence that vast confidence in his +mission--a confidence born of solitude, intellectual and geographical. +Hence that ultra-terrestrial yearning which tinges his apparently +practical aspirations. + +He remained at home, ever poor and industrious; wrapped in bland +exaltation and oblivious to contemporary movements of the human mind. +Not that his existence was without external activities. A chair of +Albanian literature at San Demetrio, instituted in 1849 but suppressed +after three years, was conferred on him in 1892 by the historian and +minister Pasquale Villari; for a considerable time, too, he was director +of the communal school at Corigliano, where, with characteristic energy, +he set up a printing press; violent journalistic campaigns succeeded one +another; in 1896 he arranged for the first congress of Albanian language +in that town, which brought together delegates from every part of Italy +and elicited a warm telegram of felicitation from the minister +Francesco Crispi, himself an Albanian. Again, in 1899, we find him +reading a paper before the twelfth international congress of +Orientalists at Rome. + +But best of all, he loved the seclusion of Macchia. + +Griefs clustered thickly about the closing years of this unworldly +dreamer. Blow succeeded blow. One by one, his friends dropped off; his +brothers, his beloved wife, his four sons--he survived them all; he +stood alone at last, a stricken figure, in tragic and sublime isolation. +Over eighty years old, he crawled thrice a week to deliver his lectures +at San Demetrio; he still cultivated a small patch of ground with +enfeebled arm, composing, for relaxation, poems and rhapsodies at the +patriarchal age of 88! They will show you the trees under which he was +wont to rest, the sunny views he loved, the very stones on which he sat; +they will tell you anecdotes of his poverty--of an indigence such as we +can scarcely credit. During the last months he was often thankful for a +crust of bread, in exchange for which he would bring a sack of acorns, +self-collected, to feed the giver's pigs. Destitution of this kind, +brought about by unswerving loyalty to an ideal, ceases to exist in its +sordid manifestations: it exalts the sufferer. And his life's work is +there. Hitherto there had been no "Albanian Question" to perplex the +chanceries of Europe. He applied the match to the tinder; he conjured up +that phantom which refuses to be laid. + +He died, in 1903, at San Demetrio; and there lies entombed in the +cemetery on the hill-side, among the oaks. + +But you will not easily find his grave. + +His biographer indulges a poetic fancy in sketching the fair monument +which a grateful country will presently rear to his memory on the snowy +Acroceraunian heights. It might be well, meanwhile, if some simple +commemorative stone were placed on the spot where he lies buried. Had he +succumbed at his natal Macchia, this would have been done; but death +overtook him in the alien parish of San Demetrio, and his remains were +mingled with those of its poorest citizens. A microcosmic illustration +of that clannish spirit of Albania which he had spent a lifetime in +endeavouring to direct to nobler ends! + +He was the Mazzini of his nation. + +A Garibaldi, when the crisis comes, may possibly emerge from that +tumultuous horde. + +Where is the Cavour? + + + + +XXV + +SCRAMBLING TO LONGOBUCCO + + +A driving road to connect San Demetrio with Acri whither I was now bound +was begun, they say, about twenty years ago; one can follow it for a +considerable distance beyond the Albanian College. Then, suddenly, it +ends. Walking to Acri, however, by the old track, one picks up, here and +there, conscientiously-engineered little stretches of it, already +overgrown with weeds; these, too, break off as abruptly as they began, +in the wild waste. For purposes of wheeled traffic these picturesque but +disconnected fragments are quite useless. + +Perhaps the whole undertaking will be completed some day--_speriamo!_ as +the natives say, when speaking of something rather beyond reasonable +expectation. But possibly not; and in that case--_pazienza!_ meaning, +that all hope may now be abandoned. There is seldom any great hurry, +with non-governmental works of this kind. + +It would be interesting if one could learn the inner history of these +abortive transactions. I have often tried, in vain. It is impossible for +an outsider to pierce the jungle of sordid mystery and intrigue which +surrounds them. So much I gathered: that the original contract was based +on the wages then current and that, the price of labour having more than +doubled in consequence of the "discovery" of America, no one will +undertake the job on the old terms. That is sufficiently intelligible. +But why operations proceeded so slowly at first, and why a new contract +cannot now be drawn up--who can tell! The persons interested blame the +contractor, who blames the engineer, who blames the dilatory and corrupt +administration of Cosenza. My private opinion is, that the last three +parties have agreed to share the swag between them. Meanwhile everybody +has just grounds of complaint against everybody else; the six or seven +inevitable lawsuits have sprung up and promise to last any length of +time, seeing that important documents have been lost or stolen and that +half the original contracting parties have died in the interval: nobody +knows what is going to happen in the end. It all depends upon whether +some patriotic person will step forward and grease the wheels in the +proper quarter. + +And even then, if he hails from Acri, they of San Demetrio will probably +work against the project, and vice versa. For no love is lost between +neighbouring communities--wonderful, with what venomous feudal animosity +they regard each other! United Italy means nothing to these people, +whose conceptions of national and public life are those of the cock on +his dung-hill. You will find in the smallest places intelligent and +broad-minded men, tradespeople or professionals or landed proprietors, +but they are seldom members of the _municipio;_ the municipal career is +also a money-making business, yes; but of another kind, and requiring +other qualifications. + +Foot-passengers like myself suffer no inconvenience by being obliged to +follow the shorter and time-honoured mule-track that joins the two +places. It rises steeply at first, then begins to wind in and out among +shady vales of chestnut and oak, affording unexpected glimpses now +towards distant Tarsia and now, through a glade on the right, on to the +ancient citadel of Bisignano, perched on its rock. + +I reached Acri after about two and a half hours' walking. It lies in a +theatrical situation and has a hotel; but the proprietor of that +establishment having been described to me as "the greatest brigand of +the Sila" I preferred to refresh myself at a small wineshop, whose +manageress cooked me an uncommonly good luncheon and served some of the +best wine I had tasted for long. Altogether, the better-class women here +are far more wideawake and civilized than those of the Neapolitan +province; a result of their stern patriarchal up-bringing and of their +possessing more or less sensible husbands. + +Thus fortified, I strolled about the streets. One would like to spend a +week or two in a place like this, so little known even to Italians, but +the hot weather and bad feeding had begun to affect me disagreeably and +I determined to push on without delay into cooler regions. It would +never do to be laid up at Acri with heatstroke, and to have one's last +drops of life drained away by copious blood-lettings, relic of +Hispano-Arabic practices and the favourite remedy for every complaint. +Acri is a large place, and its air of prosperity contrasts with the +slumberous decay of San Demetrio; there is silk-rearing, and so much +emigration into America that nearly every man I addressed replied in +English. New houses are rising up in all directions, and the place is +celebrated for its rich citizens. + +But these same wealthy men are in rather a dilemma. Some local +authority, I forget who, has deduced from the fact that there are so +many forges and smiths' shops here that this must be the spot to which +the over-sensitive inhabitants of Sybaris banished their workers in +metal and other noisy professions. Now the millionaires would like to be +thought Sybarites by descent, but it is hardly respectable to draw a +pedigree from these outcasts. + +They need not alarm themselves. For Acri, as Forbiger has shown, is the +old Acherontia; the river Acheron, the Mocone or Mucone of to-day, flows +at its foot, and from one point of the town I had a fine view into its +raging torrent. + +A wearisome climb of two hours brought me to the _Croce Greca,_ the +Greek Cross, which stands 1185 metres above sea-level. How hot it was, +in that blazing sun! I should be sorry to repeat the trip, under the +same conditions. A structure of stone may have stood here in olden days; +at present it is a diminutive wooden crucifix by the roadside. It marks, +none the less, an important geographical point: the boundary between the +"Greek" Sila which I was now leaving and the Sila Grande, the central +and largest region. Beyond this last-named lies the lesser Sila, or +"Sila Piccola "; and if you draw a line from Rogliano (near Cosenza) to +Cotrone you will approximately strike the watershed which divides the +Sila Grande from this last and most westerly of the three Sila +divisions. After that comes Catanzaro and the valley of the Corace, the +narrowest point of the Italian continent, and then the heights of Serra +and Aspromonte, the true "Italy" of old, that continue as far as Reggio. + +Though I passed through some noble groves of chestnut on the way up, the +country here was a treeless waste. Yet it must have been forest up to a +short time ago, for one could see the beautiful vegetable mould which +has not yet had time to be washed down the hill-sides. A driving road +passes the Croce Greca; it joins Acri with San Giovanni, the capital of +Sila Grande, and with Cosenza. + +It was another long hour's march, always uphill, before I reached a +spacious green meadow or upland with a few little buildings. The place +is called Verace and lies on the watershed between the upper Crati +valley and the Ionian; thenceforward my walk would be a descent along +the Trionto river, the Traeis of old, as far as Longo-bucco which +overlooks its flood. It was cool here at last, from the altitude and the +decline of day; and hay-making was going on, amid the pastoral din of +cow-bells and a good deal of blithe love-making and chattering. + +After some talk with these amiable folks, I passed on to where +the young Traeis bubbles up from the cavernous reservoirs of the earth. +Of those chill and roguish wavelets I took a draught, mindful of the day +when long ago, by these same waters, an irreparable catastrophe +overwhelmed our European civilization. For it was the Traeis near whose +estuary was fought the battle between 300,000 Sybarites (I refuse to +believe these figures) and the men of Croton conducted by their champion +Milo--a battle which led to the destruction of Sybaris and, +incidentally, of Hellenic culture throughout the mainland of Italy. This +was in the same fateful year 510 that witnessed the expulsion of the +Tarquins from Rome and the Pisistratidae from Athens. + +Pines, the characteristic tree of the Sila, now begin to appear. Passing +through Verace I had already observed, on the left, a high mountain +entirely decked with them. It is the ridge marked Pale-parto on the map; +the Trionto laves its foot. But the local pronunciation of this name is +Palepite, and I cannot help thinking that here we have a genuine old +Greek name perpetuated by the people and referring to this covering of +hoary pines--a name which the cartographers, arbitrary and ignorant as +they often are, have unconsciously disguised. (It occurs in some old +charts, however, as Paleparto.) An instructive map of Italy could be +drawn up, showing the sites and cities wrongly named from corrupt +etymology or falsified inscriptions, and those deliberately miscalled +out of principles of local patriotism. The whole country is full of +these inventions of _litterati_ which date, for the most part, from the +enthusiastic but undisciplined Cinque-Cento. + +The minute geographical triangle comprised between Cosenza, Longobucco +and San Demetrio which I was now traversing is one of the least known +corners of Italy, and full of dim Hellenic memories. The streamlet +"Calamo" flows through the valley I ascended from Acri, and at its side, +a little way out of the town, stands the fountain "Pompeio" where the +brigands, not long ago, used to lie in wait for women and children +coming to fetch water, and snatch them away for ransom. On the way up, I +had glimpses down a thousand feet or more into the Mucone or Acheron, +raging and foaming in its narrow valley. It rises among the mountains +called "Fallistro" and "Li Tartari"--unquestionably Greek names. + +On this river and somewhere above Acri stood, according to the scholarly +researches of Lenormant, the ancient city of Pandosia. I do not know if +its site has been determined since his day. It was "very strong" and +rich and at its highest prosperity in the fourth century B.C.; after the +fall of Sybaris it passed under the supremacy of Croton. The god Pan was +figured on some of its coins, and appropriately enough, considering its +sylvan surroundings; others bear the head of the nymph Pandosia with her +name and that of the river Crathis, under the guise of a young shepherd: +they who wish to learn his improper legend will find it in the pages of +Aelian, or in chapter xxxii of the twenty-fifth book of Rhodiginus, +beginning _Quae sit brutorum affectio,_ etc. [Footnote: _Brunii a +brutis moribus:_ so say certain spiteful writers, an accusation which +Strabo and Horace extend to all Calabrians. As to the site of Pandosia, +a good number of scholars, such as old Prosper Parisius and Luigi Maria +Greco, locate it at the village of Mendicino on the river Merenzata, +which was called Arconte (? Acheron) in the Middle Ages. So the Trionto +is not unquestionably the Traeis, and in Marincola Pistoia's good little +"Cose di Sibari" (1845) the distinction is claimed for one of four +rivers--the Lipuda, Colognati, Trionto, or Fiuminica.] + +We have here not the Greece of mediaeval Byzantine times, much less that +of the Albanians, but the sunny Hellas of the days when the world was +young, when these ardent colonists sailed westwards to perpetuate their +names and legends in the alien soil of Italy. + +The Mucone has always been known as a ferocious and pitiless torrent, +and maintains to this day its Tartarean reputation. Twenty persons a +year, they tell me, are devoured by its angry waters: _mangia venti +cristiani all' anno!_ This is as bad as the Amendolea near Reggio. But +none of its victims have attained the celebrity of Alexander of +Molossus, King of Epirus, who perished under the walls of Pandosia in +326 B.C. during an excursion against the Lucanians. He had been warned +by the oracle of Dodona to avoid the waters of Acheron and the town of +Pandosia; once in Italy, however, he paid small heed to these words, +thinking they referred to the river and town of the same name in +Thesprotia. But the gods willed otherwise, and you may read of his death +in the waters, and the laceration of his body by the Lucanians, in +Livy's history. + +It is a strange caprice that we should now possess what is in every +probability the very breastplate worn by the heroic monarch on that +occasion. It was found in 1820, and thereafter sold--some fragments of +it, at least--to the British Museum, where under the name of "Bronze of +Siris" it may still be admired: a marvellous piece of repoussee work, in +the style of Lysippus, depicting the combat of Ajax and the Amazons. . . . + +The streamlet Trionto, my companion to Longobucco, glides along between +stretches of flowery meadow-land--fit emblem of placid rural +contentment. But soon this lyric mood is spent. It enters a winding +gorge that shuts out the sunlight and the landscape abruptly assumes an +epic note; the water tumbles wildly downward, hemmed in by mountains +whose slopes are shrouded in dusky pines wherever a particle of soil +affords them foothold. The scenery in this valley is as romantic as any +in the Sila. Affluents descend on either side, while the swollen rivulet +writhes and screeches in its narrow bed, churning the boulders with +hideous din. The track, meanwhile, continues to run beside the water +till the passage becomes too difficult; it must perforce attack the +hill-side. Up it climbs, therefore, in never-ending ascension, and then +meanders at a great height above the valley, in and out of its tributary +glens. + +I was vastly enjoying this promenade--the shady pines, whose fragrance +mingled with that of a legion of tall aromatic plants in full +blossom--the views upon the river, shining far below me like the thread +of silver--when I observed with surprise that the whole mountain-side +which the track must manifestly cross had lately slipped down into the +abyss. A cloud-burst two or three days ago, as I afterwards learned, had +done the mischief. On arrival at the spot, the path was seen to be +interrupted--clean gone, in fact, and not a shred of earth or trees +left; there confronted me a bare scar, a wall of naked rock which not +even a chamois could negotiate. Here was a dilemma. I must either +retrace my steps along the weary road to Verace and there seek a night's +shelter with the gentle hay-makers, or clamber down into the ravine, +follow the river and--chance it! After anxious deliberation, the latter +alternative was chosen. + +But the Trionto was now grown into a formidable torrent of surging waves +and eddies, with a perverse inclination to dash from one side to the +other of its prison, so as to necessitate frequent fordings on my part. +These watery passages, which I shall long remember, were not without a +certain danger. The stream was still swollen with the recent rains, and +its bed, invisible under the discoloured element, sufficiently deep to +inspire respect and studded, furthermore, with slippery boulders of +every size, concealing insidious gulfs. Having only a short +walking-stick to support me through this raging flood, I could not but +picture to myself the surprise of the village maidens of Crepolati, +lower down, on returning to their laundry work by the river-side next +morning and discovering the battered anatomy of an Englishman--a rare +fish, in these waters--stranded upon their familiar beach. Murdered, of +course. What a galaxy of brigand legends would have clustered round my +memory! + +Evening was closing in, and I had traversed the stream so often and +stumbled so long amid this chaos of roaring waters and weirdly-tinted +rocks, that I began to wonder whether the existence of Longobucco was +not a myth. But suddenly, at a bend of the river, the whole town, still +distant, was revealed, upraised on high and framed in the yawning mouth +of the valley. After the solitary ramble of that afternoon, my eyes +familiarized to nothing save the wild things of nature, this unexpected +glimpse of complicated, civilized structures had all the improbability +of a mirage. Longo-bucco, at that moment, arose before me like those +dream-cities in the Arabian tale, conjured by enchantment out of the +desert waste. + +The vision, though it swiftly vanished again, cheered me on till after a +good deal more scrambling and wading, with boots torn to rags, lame, +famished and drenched to the skin, I reached the bridge of the Rossano +highway and limped upwards, in the twilight, to the far-famed "Hotel +Vittoria." + +Soon enough, be sure, I was enquiring as to supper. But the manageress +met my suggestions about eatables with a look of blank astonishment. + +Was there nothing in the house, then? No cheese, or meat, or maccheroni, +or eggs--no wine to drink? + +"Nothing!" she replied. "Why should you eat things at this hour? You +must find them yourself, if you really want them. I might perhaps +procure you some bread." + +_Avis aux voyageurs,_ as the French say. + +Undaunted, I went forth and threw myself upon the mercy of a citizen of +promising exterior, who listened attentively to my case. Though far too +polite to contradict, I could see that nothing in the world would induce +him to credit the tale of my walking from San Demetrio that day--it was +tacitly relegated to the regions of fable. With considerable tact, so as +not to wound my feelings, he avoided expressing any opinion on so +frivolous a topic; nor did the reason of his reluctance to discuss my +exploit dawn upon me till I realized, later on, that like many of the +inhabitants he had never heard of the track over Acri, and consequently +disbelieved its existence. They reach San Demetrio by a two or even +three days' drive over Rossano, Corigliano, and Vaccarizza. He became +convinced, however, that for some reason or other I was hungry, and +thereupon good-naturedly conducted me to various places where wine and +other necessities of life were procured. + +The landlady watched me devouring this fare, more astonished than +ever--indeed, astonishment seemed to be her chronic condition so long as +I was under her roof. But the promised bread was not forthcoming, for +the simple reason that there was none in the house. She had said that +she could procure it for me, not that she possessed it; now, since I had +given no orders to that effect, she had not troubled about it. + +Nobody travels south of Rome. . . . + +Strengthened beyond expectation by this repast, I sallied into the night +once more, and first of all attended an excellent performance at the +local cinematograph. After that, I was invited to a cup of coffee by +certain burghers, and we strolled about the piazza awhile, taking our +pleasure in the cool air of evening (the town lies 794 metres above +sea-level). Its streets are orderly and clean; there are no Albanians, +and no costumes of any kind. Here, firm-planted on the square, and +jutting at an angle from the body of the church, stands a massive +bell-tower overgrown from head to foot with pendent weeds and grasses +whose roots have found a home in the interstices of its masonry; a +grimly venerable pile, full of character. + +Weary but not yet satiated, I took leave of the citizens and +perambulated the more ignoble quarters, all of which are decently +lighted with electricity. Everywhere in these stiller regions was the +sound of running waters, and I soon discerned that Longobucco is an +improvement on the usual site affected by Calabrian hill-towns--the +Y-shaped enclosure, namely, at the junction of two rivers--inasmuch as +it has contrived to perch itself on a lofty platform protected by no +less than three streams that rush impetuously under its walls: the +Trionto and two of its affluents. On the flank inclined towards the +Ionian there is a veritable chasm; the Trionto side is equally difficult +of approach--the rear, of course, inaccessible. No wonder the brigands +chose it for their chief citadel. + +I am always on the look-out for modern epigraphical curiosities; +regarding the subject as one of profound social significance (postage +stamps, indeed!) I have assiduously formed a collection, the envy of +connaisseurs, about one-third of whose material, they tell me, might +possibly be printed at Brussels or Geneva. Well, here is a mural +_graffito_ secured in the course of this evening's walk: + +_Abaso [sic] questo paese sporco incivile:_ down with this dirty savage +country! + +There is food for thought in this inscription. For if some bilious +hyper-civilized stranger were its author, the sentiments might pass. But +coming from a native, to what depths of morbid discontent do they +testify! Considering the recent progress of these regions that has led +to a security and prosperity formerly undreamed of, one is driven to the +conjecture that these words can only have been penned by some +cantankerous churl of an emigrant returning to his native land after an +easeful life in New York and compelled--"for his sins," as he would put +it--to reside at the "Hotel Vittoria." + +Towards that delectable hostelry I now turned, somewhat regretfully, to +face a bedroom whose appearance had already inspired me with anything +but confidence. But hardly were the preliminary investigations begun, +when a furious noise in the street below drew me to the window once +more. Half the town was passing underneath in thronged procession, with +lighted torches and flags, headed by the municipal band discoursing +martial strains of music. + +Whither wending, at this midnight hour? + +To honour a young student, native of the place, now returning up the +Rossano road from Naples, where he had distinguished himself prominently +in some examination. I joined the crowd, and presently we were met by a +small carriage whence there emerged a pallid and frail adolescent with +burning eyes, who was borne aloft in triumph and cheered with that +vociferous, masculine heartiness which we Englishmen reserve for our +popular prize-fighters. And this in the classic land of brigandage and +bloodshed! + +The intellectual under-current. . . . + +It was an apt commentary on my _graffito._ And another, more personally +poignant, not to say piquant, was soon to follow: the bed. But no. I +will say nothing about the bed, nothing whatever; nothing beyond this, +that it yielded an entomological harvest which surpassed my wildest +expectations. + + + + +XXVI + +AMONG THE BRUTTIANS + + +Conspicuous among the wise men of Longobucco in olden days was the +physician Bruno, who "flourished" about the end of the thirteenth +century. He called himself _Longoburgensis Calaber,_ and his great +treatise on anatomical dissection, embodying much Greek and Arabic lore, +was printed many years after his death. Another was Francesco Maria +Labonia; he wrote, in 1664, "De vera loci urbis Timesinae situatione, +etc.," to prove, presumably, that his birthplace occupied the site +whence the Homeric ore of Temese was derived. There are modern writers +who support this view. + +The local silver mines were exploited in antiquity; first by Sybaris, +then by Croton. They are now abandoned, but a good deal has been written +about them. In the year 1200 a thousand miners were employed, and the +Anjous extracted a great deal of precious metal thence; the goldsmiths +of Longobucco were celebrated throughout Italy during the Middle Ages. +The industrious H. W. Schulz has unearthed a Royal rescript of 1274 +charging a certain goldsmith Johannes of Longobucco with researches into +the metal and salt resources of the whole kingdom of Naples. + +Writing from Longobucco in 1808 during a brigand-hunt, Duret de Tavel says: + +"The high wooded mountains which surround this horrible place spread +over it a sombre and savage tint which saddens the imagination. This +borough contains a hideous population of three thousand souls, composed +of nail-makers, of blacksmiths and charcoal-burners. The former +government employed them in working the silver mines situated in the +neighbourhood which are now abandoned." + +He tells a good deal about the brigandage that was then rife here, and +the atrocities which the repression of this pest entailed. Soon after +his arrival, for instance, four hundred soldiers were sent to a village +where the chiefs of the brigand "insurrection" were supposed to be +sheltered. The soldiers, he says, "poured into the streets like a +torrent in flood, and there began a horrible massacre, rendered +inevitable by the obstinacy of the insurgents, who fired from all the +houses. This unhappy village was sacked and burnt, suffering all the +horrors inseparable from a capture by assault." Two hundred dead were +found in the streets. But the brigand chiefs, the sole pretext of this +bloodshed, managed to escape. Perhaps they were not within fifty miles +of the place. + +Be that as it may, they were captured later on by their own compatriots, +after the French had waited a month at Longobucco. Their heads were +brought in, still bleeding, and "l'identite ayant ete suffisamment +constatee, la mort des principaux acteurs a termine cette sanglante +tragedie, et nous sommes sortis de ces catacombes apennines pour revoir +le plus brillant soleil." + +Wonderful tales are still told of the brigands in these forests. They +will show you notches on the trees, cut by such and such a brigand for +some particular purpose of communication with his friends; buried +treasure has been found, and even nowadays shepherds sometimes discover +rude shelters of bark and tree trunks built by them in the thickest part +of the woods. There are legends, too, of caverns wherein they hived +their booty--caverns with cleverly concealed entrances--caverns which +(many of them, at least) I regard as a pure invention modelled after the +authentic brigand caves of Salerno and Abruzzi, where the limestone rock +is of the kind to produce them. Bourbonism fostered the brood, and there +was a fierce recrudescence in the troubled sixties. They lived in bands, +_ squadrigli,_ burning and plundering with impunity. Whoever refused to +comply with their demands for food or money was sure to repent of it. +All this is over, for the time being; the brigands are extirpated, to +the intense relief of the country people, who were entirely at their +mercy, and whose boast it is that their district is now as safe as the +streets of Naples. Qualified praise, this. . . . [Footnote: See next +chapter.] + +It is an easy march of eight hours or less, through pleasing scenery and +by a good track, from Longobucco to San Giovanni in Fiore, the capital +of the Sila. The path leaves Longobucco at the rear of the town and, +climbing upward, enters a valley which it follows to its head. The +peasants have cultivated patches of ground along the stream; the slopes +are covered, first with chestnuts and then with hoary firs--a rare +growth, in these parts--from whose branches hangs the golden bough of +the mistletoe. And now the stream is ended and a dark ridge blocks the +way; it is overgrown with beeches, under whose shade you ascend in steep +curves. At the summit the vegetation changes once more, and you find +yourself among magnificent stretches of pines that continue as far as +the governmental domain of Galoppano, a forestal station, two hours' +walk from Longobucco. + +This pine is a particular variety _(Pinus lancio,_ var. _Calabra),_ +known as the "Pino della Sila"--it is found over this whole country, +and grows to a height of forty metres with a silvery-grey trunk, +exhaling a delicious aromatic fragrance. In youth, especially where the +soil is deep, it shoots up prim and demure as a Nuremberg toy; but in +old age grows monstrous. High-perched upon some lonely granite boulder, +with roots writhing over the bare stone like the arms of an octopus, it +sits firm and unmoved, deriding the tempest and flinging fantastic limbs +into the air--emblem of tenacity in desolation. From these trees, which +in former times must have covered the Sila region, was made that +Bruttian pitch mentioned by Strabo and other ancient writers; from them +the Athenians, the Syracusans, Tarentines and finally the Romans built +their fleets. Their timber was used in the construction of Caserta palace. + +A house stands here, inhabited by government officials the whole year +round--one may well puzzle how they pass the long winter, when snow lies +from October to May. So early did I arrive at this establishment that +the more civilized of its inhabitants were still asleep; by waiting, I +might have learnt something of the management of the estate, but gross +material preoccupations--the prospect of a passable luncheon at San +Giovanni after the "Hotel Vittoria" fare--tempted me to press forwards. +A boorish and unreliable-looking individual volunteered three pieces of +information--that the house was built thirty years ago, that a large +nursery for plants lies about ten kilometres distant, and that this +particular domain covers "two or four thousand hectares." A young +plantation of larches and silver birches--aliens to this region--seemed +to be doing well. + +Not far from here, along my track, lies Santa Barbara, two or three +huts, with corn still green--like Verace (above Acri) on the watershed +between the Ionian and upper Grati. Then follows a steep climb up the +slopes of Mount Pettinascura, whose summit lies 1708 metres above +sea-level. This is the typical landscape of the Sila Grande. There is +not a human habitation in sight; forests all around, with views down +many-folded vales into the sea and towards the distant and fairy-like +Apennines, a serrated edge, whose limestone precipices gleam like +crystals of amethyst between the blue sky and the dusky woodlands of the +foreground. + +Here I reposed awhile, watching the crossbills, wondrously tame, at work +among the branches overhead, and the emerald lizard peering out of the +bracken at my side. This _lucertone,_ as they call it, is a local beast, +very abundant in some spots (at Venosa and Patirion, for example); it is +elsewhere conspicuous by its absence. The natives are rather afraid of +it, and still more so of the harmless gecko, the "salamide," which is +reputed highly poisonous. + +Then up again, through dells and over uplands, past bubbling streams, +sometimes across sunlit meadows, but oftener in the leafy shelter of +maples and pines--a long but delightful track, winding always high above +the valleys of the Neto and Lese. At last, towards midday, I struck the +driving road that connects San Giovanni with Savelli, crossed a bridge +over the foaming Neto, and climbed into the populous and dirty streets +of the town--the "Siberia of Calabria," as it may well be, for seven +months of the year. + +At this season, thanks to its elevation of 1050 metres, the temperature +is all that could be desired, and the hotel, such as it is, compares +favourably indeed with the den at Longobucco. Instantly I felt at home +among these good people, who recognized me, and welcomed me with the +cordiality of old friends. + +"Well," they asked, "and have you found it at last?" + +They remembered my looking for the double flute, the _tibiae pares,_ +some years ago. + +It will not take you long to discover that the chief objects of interest +in San Giovanni are the women. Many Calabrian villages still possess +their distinctive costumes--Marcellinara and Cimi-gliano are celebrated +in this respect--but it would be difficult to find anywhere an equal +number of handsome women on such a restricted space. In olden days it +was dangerous to approach these attractive and mirthful creatures; they +were jealously guarded by brothers and husbands. But the brothers and +husbands, thank God, are now in America, and you may be as friendly with +them as ever you please, provided you confine your serious attentions to +not more than two or three. Secrecy in such matters is out of the +question, as with the Arabs; there is too much gossip, and too little +coyness about what is natural; your friendships are openly recognized, +and tacitly approved. The priests do not interfere; their hands are full. + +To see these women at their best one must choose a Sunday or a +feast-day; one must go, morever, to the favourite fountain of Santa +Lucia, which lies on the hill-side and irrigates some patches of corn +and vegetables. Their natural charms are enhanced by elaborate and +tasteful golden ornaments, and by a pretty mode of dressing the hair, +two curls of which are worn hanging down before their ears with an +irresistibly seductive air. Their features are regular; eyes black or +deep gentian blue; complexion pale; movements and attitudes impressed +with a stamp of rare distinction. Even the great-grandmothers have a +certain austere dignity--sinewy, indestructible old witches, with tawny +hide and eyes that glow like lamps. + +And yet San Giovanni is as dirty as can well be; it has the accumulated +filth of an Eastern town, while lacking all its glowing tints or +harmonious outlines. We are disposed to associate squalor with certain +artistic effects, but it may be said of this and many other Calabrian +places that they have solved the problem how to be ineffably squalid +without becoming in the least picturesque. Much of this sordid look is +due to the smoke which issues out of all the windows and blackens the +house walls, inside and out--the Calabrians persisting in a prehistoric +fashion of cooking on the floor. The buildings themselves look crude and +gaunt from their lack of plaster and their eyeless windows; black pigs +wallowing at every doorstep contribute to this slovenly _ensemble._ The +City Fathers have turned their backs upon civilization; I dare say the +magnitude of the task before them has paralysed their initiative. + +Nothing is done in the way of public hygiene, and one sees women washing +linen in water which is nothing more or less than an open drain. There +is no street-lighting whatever; a proposal on the part of a North +Italian firm to draw electric power from the Neto was scornfully +rejected; one single tawdry lamp, which was bought some years ago "as a +sample" in a moment of municipal recklessness, was lighted three times +in as many years, and on the very day when it was least necessary--to +wit, on midsummer eve, which happens to be the festival of their patron +saint (St. John). "It now hangs"--so I wrote some years ago--"at a +dangerous angle, and I doubt whether it will survive till its services +are requisitioned next June." Prophetic utterance! It was blown down +that same winter, and has not yet been replaced. This in a town of +20,000 (?) inhabitants--and in Italy, where the evening life of the +populace plays such an important role. No wonder North Italians, judging +by such external indications, regard all Calabrians as savages. + +Some trees have been planted in the piazza since my last stay here; a +newspaper has also been started--it is called "Co-operation: Organ of +the Interests of San Giovanni in Fiore," and its first and possibly +unique number contains a striking article on the public health, as +revealed in the report of two doctors who had been despatched by the +provincial sanitary authorities to take note of local conditions of +hygiene. "The illustrious scientists" (thus it runs) "were horrified at +the filth, mud and garbage which encumbered, and still encumbers, our +streets, sending forth in the warm weather a pestilential odour. . . . +They were likewise amazed at the vigorously expressed protest of our +mayor, who said: '_My people cannot live' without their pigs wallowing +in the streets. San Giovanni in Fiore is exempt from earthquakes and +epidemics because it is under the protection of Saint John the Baptist, +and because its provincial councillor is a saintly man.'_" Such +journalistic plain speaking, such lack of sweet reasonableness, cannot +expect to survive in a world governed by compromise, and if the gift of +prophecy has not deserted me, I should say that "Co-operation" has by +this time ended its useful mission upon earth. + +This place is unhealthy; its water-supply is not what it should be, and +such commodities as eggs and milk are rather dear, because "the invalids +eat everything" of that kind. Who are the invalids? Typhoid patients +and, above all, malarious subjects who descend to the plains as +agricultural labourers and return infected to the hills, where they +become partially cured, only to repeat the folly next year. It is the +same at Longobucco and other Sila towns. Altogether, San Giovanni has +grave drawbacks. The streets are too steep for comfort, and despite its +height, the prospect towards the Ionian is intercepted by a ridge; in +point of situation it cannot compare with Savelli or the neighbouring +Casino, which have impressive views both inland, and southward down +undulating slopes that descend in a stately procession of four thousand +feet to the sea, where sparkles the gleaming horn of Cotrone. And the +surroundings of the place are nowise representative of the Sila in a +good sense. The land has been so ruthlessly deforested that it has +become a desert of naked granite rocks; even now, in midsummer, the +citizens are already collecting fuel for their long winter from enormous +distances. As one crawls and skips among these unsavoury tenements, one +cannot help regretting that Saint John the Baptist, or the piety of a +provincial councillor, should have hindered the earthquakes from doing +their obvious duty. + +Were I sultan of San Giovanni, I would certainly begin by a general +bombardment. Little in the town is worth preserving from a cataclysm +save the women, and perhaps the old convent on the summit of the hill +where the French lodged during their brigand-wars, and that other one, +famous in the ecclesiastical annals of Calabria--the monastery of +Floriacense, founded at the end of the twelfth century, round which the +town gradually grew up. Its ponderous portal is much injured, having +been burnt, I was told, by the brigands in 1860. But the notary, who +kindly looked up the archives for me, has come to the conclusion that +the French are responsible for the damage. It contains, or contained, a +fabulous collection of pious lumber--teeth and thigh-bones and other +relics, the catalogue of which is one of my favourite sections of Father +Fiore's work. I would make an exception, also, in favour of the doorway +of the church, a finely proportioned structure of the Renaissance in +black stone, which looks ill at ease among its ignoble environment. A +priest, to whom I applied for information as to its history, told me +with the usual Calabrian frankness that he never bothered his head about +such things. + +San Giovanni was practically unknown to the outside world up to a few +years ago. I question whether Lenormant or any of them came here. +Pacicchelli did, however, in the seventeenth century, though he has left +us no description of the place. He crossed the whole Sila from the +Ionian to the other sea. I like this amiable and loquacious creature, +restlessly gadding about Europe, gloriously complacent, hopelessly, +absorbed in trivialities, and credulous beyond belief. In fact (as the +reader may have observed), I like all these old travellers, not so much +for what they actually say, as for their implicit outlook upon life. +This Pacicchelli was a fellow of our Royal Society, and his accounts of +England are worth reading; here, in Calabria (being a non-southerner) +his "Familiar Letters" and "Memoirs of Travel" act as a wholesome +corrective. Which of the local historians would have dared to speak of +Cosenza as "citta aperta, scomposta, e disordinata di fabbriche"? + +That these inhabitants of the Sila are Bruttians may be inferred from +the superior position occupied by their women-folk, who are quite +differently treated to those of the lowlands. There--all along the +coasts of South Italy--the _cow-woman_ is still found, unkempt and +uncivilized; there, the male is the exclusive bearer of culture. Such +things are not seen among the Bruttians of the Sila, any more than among +the grave Latins or Samnites. These non-Hellenic races are, generally +speaking, honest, dignified and incurious; they are bigoted, not to say +fanatical; and their women are not exclusively beasts of burden, being +better dressed, better looking, and often as intelligent as the men. +They are the fruits of a female selection. + +But wherever the mocking Ionic spirit has penetrated--and the Ionian +women occupied even a lower position than those of the Dorians and +Aeolians--it has resulted in a glorification of masculinity. Hand in +hand with this depreciation of the female sex go other characteristics +which point to Hellenic influences: lack of commercial morality, of +veracity, of seriousness in religious matters; a persistent, +light-hearted inquisitiveness; a levity (or sprightliness, if you prefer +it) of mind. The people are fetichistic, amulet-loving, rather than +devout. We may certainly suspect Greek or Saracen strains wherever women +are held in low estimation; wherever, as the god Apollo himself said, +"the mother is but the nurse." In the uplands of Calabria the mother is +a good deal more than the nurse. + +For the rest, it stands to reason that in proportion as the agricultural +stage supplants that of pasturage, the superior strength and utility of +boys over girls should become more apparent, and this in South Italy is +universally proclaimed by the fact that everything large and fine is +laughingly described as "maschio" (male), and by some odd superstitions +in disparagement of the female sex, such as these: that in giving +presents to women, uneven numbers should be selected, lest even ones "do +them more good than they deserve"; that to touch the hump of a female +hunchback brings no luck whatever; that if a woman be the first to drink +out of a new earthenware pitcher, the vessel may as well be thrown away +at once--it is tainted for ever. [Footnote: In Japan, says Hearn, the +first bucketful of water to be drawn out of a cleaned well must be drawn +by a man; for if a womsn first draw water, the well will always +hereafter remain muddy. Some of these prejudices seem to be based on +primordial misreadmgs of physiology. There is also a strong feeling in +favour of dark hair. No mother would entrust her infant to a fair +wet-nurse; the milk even of white cows is considered "lymphatic" and not +strengthening; perhaps the eggs of white hens are equally devoid of the +fortifying principle. There is something to be said for this since, in +proportion as we go south, the risk of irritation, photophobia, and +other com-plaints incidental to the xanthous complexion becomes +greater.] Yet the birth of a daughter is no Chinese calamity; even girls +are "Christians" and welcomed as such, the populace having never sunk +to the level of our theologians, who were wont to discuss _an faemina +sint monstra._ + +All over the Sila there is a large preponderance of women over men, +nearly the whole male section of the community, save the quite young and +the decrepit, being in America. This emigration brings much money into +the country and many new ideas; but the inhabitants have yet to learn +the proper use of their wealth, and to acquire a modern standard of +comfort. Together with the Sardinians, these Calabrians are the hardiest +of native races, and this is what makes them prefer the strenuous but +lucrative life in North American mines to the easier career in +Argentina, which Neapolitans favour. There they learn English. They +remember their families and the village that gave them birth, but their +patriotism towards Casa Savoia is of the slenderest. How could it be +otherwise? I have spoken to numbers of them, and this is what they say: + +"This country has done nothing for us; why should we fight its battles? +Not long ago we were almost devouring each other in our hunger; what did +they do to help us? If we have emerged from misery, it is due to our own +initiative and the work of our own hands; if we have decent clothes and +decent houses, it is because they drove us from our old homes with their +infamous misgovern-ment to seek work abroad." + +Perfectly true! They have redeemed themselves, though the new regime has +hardly had a fair trial. And the drawbacks of emigration (such as a +slight increase of tuberculosis and alcoholism) are nothing compared +with the unprecedented material prosperity and enlightenment. There has +also been--in these parts, at all events--a marked diminution of crime. +No wonder, seeing that three-quarters of the most energetic and +turbulent elements are at present in America, where they recruit the +Black Hand. That the Bruttian is not yet ripe for town life, that his +virtues are pastoral rather than civic, might have been expected; but +the Arab domination of much of his territory, one suspects, may have +infused fiercer strains into his character and helped to deserve for him +that epithet of _sanguinario_ by which he is proud to be known. + + + + +XXVII + +CALABRIAN BRIGANDAGE + + +The last genuine bandit of the Sila was Gaetano Ricca. On account of +some trivial misunderstanding with the authorities, this man was +compelled in the early eighties to take to the woods, where he lived a +wild life _(alla campagna; alla macchia)_ for some three years. A price +was set on his head, but his daring and knowledge of the country +intimidated every one. I should be sorry to believe in the number of +carbineers he is supposed to have killed during that period; no doubt +the truth came out during his subsequent trial. On one occasion he was +surrounded, and while the officer in command of his pursuers, who had +taken refuge behind a tree, ordered him to yield, Ricca waited patiently +till the point of his enemy's foot became visible, when he pierced his +ankle-bone with his last bullet and escaped. He afterwards surrendered +and was imprisoned for twenty years or so; then returned to the Sila, +where up to a short time ago he was enjoying a green old age in his home +at Parenti--Parenti, already celebrated in the annals of brigandage by +the exploit of the perfidious Francatripa (Giacomo Pisani), who, under +pretence of hospitality, enticed a French company into his clutches and +murdered its three officers and all the men, save seven. The memoirs of +such men might be as interesting as those of the Sardinian Giovanni Tolu +which have been printed. I would certainly have paid my respects to +Ricca had I been aware of his existence when, some years back, I passed +through Parenti on my way--a long day's march!--from Rogliano to San +Giovanni. He has died in the interval. + +But the case of Ricca is a sporadic one, such as may crop up anywhere +and at any time. It is like that of Musolino--the case of an isolated +outlaw, who finds the perplexed geographical configuration of the +country convenient for offensive and defensive purposes. Calabrian +brigandage, as a whole, has always worn a political character. + +The men who gave the French so much trouble were political brigands, +allies of Bourbonism. They were commanded by creatures like Mammone, an +anthropophagous monster whose boast it was that he had personally killed +455 persons with the greatest refinements of cruelty, and who wore at +his belt the skull of one of them, out of which he used to drink human +blood at mealtime; he drank his own blood as well; indeed, he "never +dined without having a bleeding human heart on the table." This was the +man whom King Ferdinand and his spouse loaded with gifts and +decorations, and addressed as "Our good Friend and General--the +faithful Support of the Throne." The numbers of these savages were +increased by shiploads of professional cut-throats sent over from Sicily +by the English to help their Bourbon friends. Some of these actually +wore the British uniform; one of the most ferocious was known as +"L'Inglese"--the Englishman. + +One must go to the fountain-head, to the archives, in order to gain some +idea of the sanguinary anarchy that desolated South Italy in those days. +The horrors of feudalism, aided by the earthquake of 1784 and by the +effects of Cardinal Ruffo's Holy Crusade, had converted the country into +a pandemonium. In a single year (1809) thirty-three thousand crimes were +recorded against the brigands of the Kingdom of Naples; in a single +month they are said to have committed 1200 murders in Calabria alone. +These were the bands who were described by British officers as "our +chivalrous brigand-allies." + +It is good to bear these facts in mind when judging of the present state +of this province, for the traces of such a reign of terror are not +easily expunged. Good, also, to remember that this was the period of the +highest spiritual eminence to which South Italy has ever attained. Its +population of four million inhabitants were then consoled by the +presence of no less than 120,000 holy persons--to wit, 22 archbishops, +116 bishops, 65,500 ordained priests, 31,800 monks, and 23,600 nuns. +Some of these ecclesiastics, like the Bishop of Capaccio, were notable +brigand-chiefs. + +It must be confessed that the French were sufficiently coldblooded in +their reprisals. Colletta himself saw, at Lagonegro, a man impaled by +order of a French colonel; and some account of their excesses may be +gleaned from Duret de Tavel, from Rivarol (rather a disappointing +author), and from the flamboyant epistles of P. L. Courier, a +soldier-scribe of rare charm, who lost everything in this campaign. +"J'ai perdu huit chevaux, mes habits, mon linge, mon manteau, mes +pistolets, mon argent (12,247 francs). . . . Je ne regrette que mon +Homere (a gift from the Abbe Barthelemy), et pour le ravoir, je +donnerais la seule chemise qui me reste." + +But even that did not destroy the plague. The situation called for a +genial and ruthless annihilator, a man like Sixtus V, who asked for +brigands' heads and got them so plentifully that they lay "thick as +melons in the market" under the walls of Rome, while the Castel Sant' +Angelo was tricked out like a Christmas tree with quartered corpses--a +man who told the authorities, when they complained of the insufferable +stench of the dead, that the smell of living iniquity was far worse. +Such a man was wanted. Therefore, in 1810, Murat gave _carte blanche_ +to General Manhes, the greatest brigand-catcher of modern times, to +extirpate the ruffians, root and branch. He had just distinguished +himself during a similar errand in the Abruzzi and, on arriving in +Calabria, issued proclamations of such inhuman severity that the +inhabitants looked upon them as a joke. They were quickly undeceived. +The general seems to have considered that the end justified the means, +and that the peace and happiness of a province was not to be disturbed +year after year by the malignity of a few thousand rascals; his threats +were carried out to the letter, and, whatever may be said against his +methods, he certainly succeeded. At the end of a few months' campaign, +every single brigand, and all their friends and relations, were wiped +off the face of the earth--together with a very considerable number of +innocent persons. The high roads were lined with decapitated bandits, +the town walls decked with their heads; some villages had to be +abandoned, on account of the stench; the Crati river was swollen with +corpses, and its banks whitened with bones. God alone knows the +cruelties which were enacted; Colletta confesses that he "lacks courage +to relate them." Here is his account of the fate of the brigand chief +Benincasa: + +"Betrayed and bound by his followers as he slept in the forest of +Cassano, Benincasa was brought to Cosenza, and General Manhes ordered +that both his hands be lopped off and that he be led, thus mutilated, to +his home in San Giovanni, and there hanged; a cruel sentence, which the +wretch received with a bitter smile. His right hand was first cut off +and the stump bound, not out of compassion or regard for his life, but +in order that all his blood might not flow out of the opened veins, +seeing that he was reserved for a more miserable death. Not a cry +escaped him, and when he saw that the first operation was over, he +voluntarily laid his left hand upon the block and coldly watched the +second mutilation, and saw his two amputated hands lying on the ground, +which were then tied together by the thumbs and hung round his neck; an +awful and piteous spectacle. This happened at Cosenza. On the same day +he began his march to San Giovanni in Fiore, the escort resting at +intervals; one of them offered the man food, which he accepted; +he ate and drank what was placed in his mouth, and not so much in order +to sustain life, as with real pleasure. He arrived at his home, and +slept through the following night; on the next day, as the hour of +execution approached, he refused the comforts of religion, ascended the +gallows neither swiftly nor slowly, and died admired for his brutal +intrepidity." [Footnote: This particular incident was flatly denied by +Manhes in a letter dated 1835, which is __quoted in the "Notizia storica +del Conte C. A. Manhes" (Naples, 1846)--one of a considerable number of +pro-Bourbon books that cropped up about this time. One is apt to have +quite a wrong impression of Manhes, that inexorable but incorruptible +scourge of evildoers. One pictures him a grey-haired veteran, scarred +and gloomy; and learns, on the contrary, that he was only thirty-two +years old at this time, gracious in manner and of surprising personal +beauty.] + +For the first time since long Calabria was purged. Ever since the +Bruttians, irreclaimable plunderers, had established themselves at +Cosenza, disquieting their old Hellenic neighbours, the recesses of this +country had been a favourite retreat of political malcontents. Here +Spartacus drew recruits for his band of rebels; here "King Marcene" +defied the oppressive Spanish Viceroys, and I blame neither him nor his +imitators, since the career of bandit was one of the very few that still +commended itself to decent folks, under that regime. + +During the interregnum of Bourbonism between Murat and Garibaldi the +mischief revived--again in a political form. Brigands drew pensions from +kings and popes, and the system gave rise to the most comical incidents; +the story of the pensioned malefactors living together at Monticello +reads like an extravaganza. It was the spirit of Offenbach, brooding +over Europe. One of the funniest episodes was a visit paid in 1865 by +the disconsolate Mrs. Moens to the ex-brigand Talarico, who was then +living in grand style on a government pension. Her husband had been +captured by the band of Manzi (another brigand), and expected to be +murdered every day, and the lady succeeded in procuring from the +chivalrous monster--"an extremely handsome man, very tall, with the +smallest and most delicate hands"--an exquisite letter to his colleague, +recommending him to be merciful to the Englishman and to emulate his own +conduct in that respect. The letter had no effect, apparently; but Moens +escaped at last, and wrote his memoirs, while Manzi was caught and +executed in 1868 after a trial occupying nearly a month, during which +the jury had to answer 311 questions. + +His villainies were manifold. But they were put in the shade by those of +others of his calling--of Caruso, for example, who was known to have +massacred in one month (September, 1863) two hundred persons with his +own hands. Then, as formerly, the Church favoured the malefactors, and I +am personally acquainted with priests who fought on the side of the +brigands. Francis II endeavoured to retrieve his kingdom by the help of +an army of scoundrels like those of Ruffo, but the troops shot them +down. Brigandage, as a governmental institution, came to an end. +Unquestionably the noblest figure in this reactionary movement was that +of Jose Borjes, a brave man engaged in an unworthy cause. You can read +his tragic journal in the pages of M. Monnier or Maffei. It has been +calculated that during these last years of Bourbonism the brigands +committed seven thousand homicides a year in the kingdom of Naples. + +Schools and emigration have now brought sounder ideas among the people, +and the secularization of convents with the abolition of ecclesiastical +right of asylum (Sixtus V had wisely done away with it) has broken up +the prosperous old bond between monks and malefactors. What the +government has done towards establishing decent communications in this +once lawless and pathless country ranks, in its small way, beside the +achievement of the French who, in Algeria, have built nearly ten +thousand miles of road. But it is well to note that even as the +mechanical appliance of steam destroyed the corsairs, the external +plague, so this hoary form of internal disorder could have been +permanently eradicated neither by humanity nor by severity. A scientific +invention, the electric telegraph, is the guarantee of peace against the +rascals. + +These brigand chiefs were often loaded with gold. On killing them, the +first thing the French used to do was to strip them. "On le depouilla." +Francatripa, for instance, possessed "a plume of white ostrich feathers, +clasped by a golden band and diamond Madonna" (a gift from Queen +Caroline)--Cerino and Manzi had "bunches of gold chains as thick as an +arm suspended across the breasts of their waistcoats, with gorgeous +brooches at each fastening." Some of their wealth now survives in +certain families who gave them shelter in the towns in winter time, or +when they were hard pressed. These _favoreggiatori_ or _manutengoli_ +(the terms are interconvertible, but the first is the legal one) were +sometimes benevolently inclined. But occasionally they conceived the +happy idea of being paid for their silence and services. The brigand, +then, was hoist with his own petard and forced to disgorge his +ill-gotten summer gains to these blood-suckers, who extorted heavy +blackmail under menaces of disclosure to the police, thriving on their +double infamy to such an extent that they acquired immense riches. One +of the wealthiest men in Italy descends from this class; his two hundred +million (?) francs are invested, mostly, in England; every one knows his +name, but the origin of his fortune is no longer mentioned, since +(thanks to this money) the family has been able to acquire not only +respectability but distinction. + + + + +XXVIII + +THE GREATER SILA + + +A great project is afoot. As I understand it, a reservoir is being +created by damming up the valley of the Ampollina; the artificial lake +thus formed will be enlarged by the additional waters of the Arvo, which +are to be led into it by means of a tunnel, about three miles long, +passing underneath Monte Nero. The basin, they tell me, will be some ten +kilometres in length; the work will cost forty million francs, and will +be completed in a couple of years; it will supply the Ionian lowlands +with pure water and with power for electric and other industries. + +And more than that. The lake is to revolutionize the Sila; to convert +these wildernesses into a fashionable watering-place. Enthusiasts +already see towns growing upon its shores--there are visions of gorgeous +hotels and flocks of summer visitors in elegant toilettes, +villa-residences, funicular railways up all the mountains, sailing +regattas, and motor-boat services. In the place of the desert there will +arise a "Lucerna di Calabria." + +A Calabrian Lucerne. H'm. ... + +It remains to be seen whether, by the time the lake is completed, there +will be any water left to flow into it. For the catchment basins are +being so conscientiously cleared of their timber that the two rivers +cannot but suffer a great diminution in volume. By 1896 already, says +Marincola San Fioro, the destruction of woodlands in the Sila had +resulted in a notable lack of moisture. Ever since then the vandalism +has been pursued with a zeal worthy of a better cause. One trembles to +think what these regions will be like in fifty years; a treeless and +waterless tableland--worse than the glaring limestone deserts of the +Apennines in so far as they, at least, are diversified in contour. + +So the healthfulness, beauty, and exchequer value of enormous tracts in +this country are being systematically impaired, day by day. Italy is +ready, said D'Azeglio, but where are the Italians? + +Let us give the government credit for any number of good ideas. It +actually plants bare spaces; it has instituted a "Festa degli alberi" +akin to the American Arbour Day, whereby it is hoped, though scarcely +believed, that the whole of Italy will ultimately be replenished with +trees; it encourages schools of forestry, supplies plants free of cost +to all who ask for them, despatches commissions and prints reports. +Above all, it talks prodigiously and very much to the purpose. + +But it omits to administer its own laws with becoming severity. A few +exemplary fines and imprisonments would have a more salutary effect than +the commissioning of a thousand inspectors whom nobody takes seriously, +and the printing of ten thousand reports which nobody reads. + +With a single stroke of the pen the municipalities could put an end to +the worst form of forest extirpation--that on the hill-sides--by +forbidding access to such tracts and placing them under the "vincolo +forestale." To denude slopes in the moist climate and deep soil of +England entails no risk; in this country it is the beginning of the end. +And herein lies the ineptitude of the Italian regulations, which entrust +the collective wisdom of rapacious farmers with measures of this kind, +taking no account of the destructively utilitarian character of the +native mind, of that canni-ness which overlooks a distant profit in its +eagerness to grasp the present--that beast avarice which Horace +recognized as the root of all evil. As if provisions like this of the +"vincolo forestale" were ever carried out! Peasants naturally prefer to +burn the wood in their own chimneys or to sell it; and if a landslide +then crashes down, wrecking houses and vineyards--let the government +compensate the victims! + +An ounce of fact-- + +In one year alone (1903), and in the sole province of Cosenza wherein +San Giovanni lies, there were 156 landslides; they destroyed 1940 +hectares of land, and their damage amounted to 432,738 francs. The two +other Calabrian provinces--Reggio and Catanzaro--doubtless also had +their full quota of these catastrophes, all due to mischievous +deforestation. So the bare rock is exposed, and every hope of planting +at an end. + +_Vox clamantis!_ The Normans, Anjou and Aragonese concerned themselves +with the proper administration of woodlands. Even the Spanish Viceroys, +that ineffable brood, issued rigorous enactments on the subject; while +the Bourbons (to give the devil his due) actually distinguished +themselves as conservators of forests. As to Napoleon--he was busy +enough, one would think, on this side of the Alps. Yet he found time to +frame wise regulations concerning trees which the present patriotic +parliament, during half a century of frenzied confabulation, has not yet +taken to heart. + +How a great man will leave his mark on minutiae! + +I passed through the basin of this future lake when, in accordance with +my project, I left San Giovanni to cross the remaining Sila in the +direction of Catanzaro. This getting up at 3.30 a.m., by the way, rather +upsets one's daily routine; at breakfast time I already find myself +enquiring anxiously for dinner. + +The Ampollina valley lies high; here, in the dewy grass, I enjoyed what +I well knew would be my last shiver for some time to come; then moved +for a few miles on the further bank of the rivulet along that driving +road which will soon be submerged under the waters of the lake, and +struck up a wooded glen called Barbarano. At its head lies the upland +Circilla. + +There is no rock scenery worth mentioning in all this Sila country; no +waterfalls or other Alpine features. It is a venerable granitic +tableland, that has stood here while the proud Apennines were still +slumbering in the oozy bed of ocean--[Footnote: Nissen says that "no +landscape of Italy has lost so little of its original appearance in the +course of history as Calabria." This may apply to the mountains; but the +lowlands have suffered hideous changes.] a region of gentle undulations, +the hill-tops covered with forest-growth, the valleys partly arable and +partly pasture. Were it not for the absence of heather with its peculiar +mauve tints, the traveller might well imagine himself in Scotland. There +is the same smiling alternation of woodland and meadow, the same huge +boulders of gneiss and granite which give a distinctive tone to the +landscape, the same exuberance of living waters. Water, indeed, is one +of the glories of the Sila--everywhere it bubbles forth in chill +rivulets among the stones and trickles down the hill-sides to join the +larger streams that wend their way to the forlorn and fever-stricken +coastlands of Magna Graecia. Often, as I refreshed myself at these icy +fountains, did I thank Providence for making the Sila of primitive rock, +and not of the thirsty Apennine limestone. + +"Much water in the Sila," an old shepherd once observed to me, "much +water! And little tobacco." + +One of the largest of these rivers is the Neto, the classic Neaithos +sung by Theocritus, which falls into the sea north of Cotrone; San +Giovanni overlooks its raging flood, and, with the help of a little +imagination here and there, its whole course can be traced from +eminences like that of Pettinascura. The very name of these +streams--Neto, Arvo, Lese, Ampollina--are redolent of pastoral life. All +of them are stocked with trout; they meander in their upper reaches +through valleys grazed by far-tinkling flocks of sheep and goats and +grey cattle--the experiment of acclimatizing Swiss cattle has proved a +failure, I know not why--and their banks are brilliant with blossoms. +Later on, in the autumn, the thistles begin to predominate--the finest +of them being a noble ground thistle of pale gold, of which they eat the +unopened bud; it is the counterpart of the silvery one of the Alps. The +air in these upper regions is keen. I remember, some years ago, that +during the last week of August a lump of snow, which a goat-boy produced +as his contribution to our luncheon, did not melt in the bright sunshine +on the summit of Monte Nero. + +From whichever side one climbs out of the surrounding lowlands into the +Sila plateau, the same succession of trees is encountered. To the +warmest zone of olives, lemons and carobs succeeds that of the +chestnuts, some of them of gigantic dimensions and yielding a sure +though moderate return in fruit, others cut down periodically as coppice +for vine-props and scaffoldings. Large tracts of these old chestnut +groves are now doomed; a French society in Cosenza, so they tell me, is +buying them up for the extraction out of their bark of some chemical or +medicine. The vine still flourishes at this height, though dwarfed in +size; soon the oaks begin to dominate, and after that we enter into the +third and highest region cf the pines and beeches. Those accustomed to +the stony deserts of nearly all South European mountain districts will +find these woodlands intensely refreshing. Their inaccessibility has +proved their salvation--up to a short time ago. + +Nearly all the cattle on the Sila, like the land itself, belongs to +large proprietors. These gentlemen are for the most part invisible; they +inhabit their palaces in the cities, and the very name of the Sila sends +a cold shudder through their bones; their revenues are collected from +the shepherds by agents who seem to do their work very conscientiously. +I once observed, in a hut, a small fragment of the skin of a newly +killed kid; the wolf had devoured the beast, and the shepherd was +keeping this _corpus delicti_ to prove to his superior, the agent, that +he was innocent of the murder. There was something naive in his +honesty--as if a shepherd could not eat a kid as well as any wolf, and +keep a portion of its skin! The agent, no doubt, would hand it on to his +lord, by way of _confirmation and verification._ Another time I saw the +debris of a goat hanging from a tree; it was the wolf again; the boy had +attached these remains to the tree in order that all who passed that way +might be his witnesses, if necessary, that the animal had not been sold +underhand. + +You may still find the legendary shepherds here--curly-haired +striplings, reclining _sub tegmine fagi_ in the best Theocritean style, +and piping wondrous melodies to their flocks. These have generally come +up for the summer season from the Ionian lowlands. Or you may encounter +yet more primitive creatures, forest boys, clad in leather, with wild +eyes and matted locks, that take an elvish delight in misdirecting you. +These are the Lucanians of old. "They bring them up from childhood in +the woods among the shepherds," says Justinus, "without servants, and +even without any clothes to cover them, or to lie upon, that from their +early years they may become inured to hardiness and frugality, and have +no intercourse with the city. They live upon game, and drink nothing but +water or milk." But the majority of modern Sila shepherds are shrewd +fellows of middle age (many of them have been to America), who keep +strict business accounts for their masters of every ounce of cheese and +butter produced. The local cheese, which Cassiodorus praises in one of +his letters, is the _cacciacavallo_ common all over South Italy; the +butter is of the kind which has been humorously, but quite wrongly, +described by various travellers. + +Although the old wolves are shot and killed by spring guns and dynamite +while the young ones are caught alive in steel traps and other +appliances, their numbers are still formidable enough to perturb the +pastoral folks. One is therefore surprised to see what a poor breed of +dogs they keep; scraggy mongrels that run for their lives at the mere +sight of a wolf who can, and often does, bite them into two pieces with +one snap of his jaws. They tell me that there is a government reward for +every wolf killed, but it is seldom paid; whoever has the good fortune +to slay one of these beasts, carries the skin as proof of his prowess +from door to door, and receives a small present everywhere--half a +franc, or a cheese, or a glass of wine. + +The goats show fight, and therefore the wolf prefers sheep. Shepherds +have told me that he comes up to them _delicatamente,_ and then, fixing +his teeth in the wool of their necks, pulls them onward, caressing their +sides with his tail. The sheep are fascinated with his gentle manners, +and generally allow themselves to be led up to the spot he has selected +for their execution; the truth being that he is too lazy to carry them, +if he can possibly avoid it. + +He will promptly kill his quarry and carry its carcase downhill on the +rare occasions when the flocks are grazing above his haunt; but if it is +an uphill walk, they must be good enough to use their own legs. +Incredible stories of his destructiveness are related. + +Fortunately, human beings are seldom attacked, a dog or a pig being +generally forthcoming when the usual prey is not to be found. Yet not +long ago a sad affair occurred; a she-wolf attacked a small boy before +the eyes of his parents, who pursued him, powerless to help--the head +and arms had already been torn off before a shot from a neighbour +despatched the monster. Truly, "a great family displeasure," as my +informant styled it. Milo of Croton, the famous athlete, is the most +renowned victim of these Sila wolves. Tradition has it that, relying on +his great strength, he tried to rend asunder a mighty log of wood which +closed, however, and caught his arms in its grip; thus helpless, he was +devoured alive by them. + +By keeping to the left of Circilla, I might have skirted the forest of +Gariglione. This tract lies at about four and a half hours' distance +from San Giovanni; I found it, some years ago, to be a region of real +"Urwald" or primary jungle; there was nothing like it, to my knowledge, +on this side of the Alps, nor yet in the Alps themselves; nothing of the +kind nearer than Russia. But the Russian jungles, apart from their +monotony of timber, foster feelings of sadness and gloom, whereas these +southern ones, as Hehn has well observed, are full of a luminous +beauty--their darkest recesses being enlivened by a sense of benignant +mystery. Gariglione was at that time a virgin forest, untouched by the +hand of man; a dusky ridge, visible from afar; an impenetrable tangle of +forest trees, chiefest among them being the "garigli" _(Quercus cerris)_ +whence it derives its name, as well as thousands of pines and bearded +firs and all that hoary indigenous vegetation struggling out of the +moist soil wherein their progenitors had lain decaying time out of mind. +In these solitudes, if anywhere, one might still have found the +absent-minded luzard (lynx) of the veracious historian; or that squirrel +whose "calabrere" fur, I strongly suspect, came from Russia; or, at any +rate, the Mushroom-stone _which shineth in the night_. [Footnote: As a +matter of fact, the mushroom-stone is a well-known commodity, being +still collected and eaten, for example, at Santo Stefano in Aspramente. +Older travellers tell us that it used to be exported to Naples and kept +in the cellars of the best houses for the enjoyment of its +fruit--sometimes in lumps measuring two feet in diameter which, being +soaked in water, produced these edible fungi. A stone yielding food--a +miracle! It is a porous tufa adapted, presumably, for sheltering and +fecundating vegetable spores. A little pamphlet by Professor A. Trotter +("Flora Montana della Calabria") gives some idea of the local plants and +contains a useful bibliography. A curious feature is the relative +abundance of boreal and Balkan-Oriental forms; another, the rapid spread +of _Genista anglica,_ which is probably an importation.] + +Well, I am glad my path to-day did not lead me to Gariglione, and so +destroy old memories of the place. For the domain, they tell me, has +been sold for 350,000 francs to a German company; its primeval silence +is now invaded by an army of 260 workmen, who have been cutting down the +timber as fast as they can. So vanishes another fair spot from earth! +And what is left of the Sila, once these forests are gone? Not even the +charm, such as it is, of Caithness. . . . + +After Circilla comes the watershed that separates the Sila Grande from +the westerly regions of Sila Piccola. Thenceforward it was downhill +walking, at first through forest lands, then across verdant stretches, +bereft of timber and simmering in the sunshine. The peculiar character +of this country is soon revealed--ferociously cloven ravines, utterly +different from the Sila Grande. + +With the improvidence of the true traveller I had consumed my stock of +provisions ere reaching the town of Taverna after a march of nine hours +or thereabouts. A place of this size and renown, I had argued, would +surely be able to provide a meal. But Taverna belies its name. The only +tavern discoverable was a composite hovel, half wine-shop, half +hen-house, whose proprietor, disturbed in his noonday nap, stoutly +refused to produce anything eatable. And there I stood in the blazing +sunshine, famished and un-befriended. Forthwith the strength melted out +of my bones; the prospect of walking to Catanzaro, so alluring with a +full stomach, faded out of the realm of possibility; and it seemed a +special dispensation of Providence when, at my lowest ebb of vitality, a +small carriage suddenly hove in sight. + +"How much to Catanzaro?" + +The owner eyed me critically, and then replied in English: + +"You can pay twenty dollars." + +Twenty dollars--a hundred francs! But it is useless trying to bargain +with an _americano_ (their time is too valuable). + +"A dollar a mile?" I protested. + +"That's so." + +"You be damned." + +"Same to you, mister." And he drove off. + +Such bold defiance of fate never goes unrewarded. A two-wheeled cart +conveying some timber overtook me shortly afterwards on my way from the +inhospitable Taverna. For a small consideration I was enabled to pass +the burning hours of the afternoon in an improvised couch among its load +of boards, admiring the scenery and the engineering feats that have +carried a road through such difficult country, and thinking out some +further polite remarks to be addressed to my twenty-dollar friend, in +the event of our meeting at Catanzaro. . . . + +One must have traversed the Sila in order to appreciate the manifold +charms of the mountain town--I have revelled in them since my arrival. +But it has one irremediable drawback: the sea lies at an inconvenient +distance. It takes forty-five minutes to reach the shore by means of two +railways in whose carriages the citizens descend after wild scrambles +for places, packed tight as sardines in the sweltering heat. Only a +genuine enthusiast will undertake the trip more than once. For the +Marina itself--at this season, at least--is an unappetizing spot; a +sordid agglomeration of houses, a few dirty fruit-stalls, ankle-deep +dust, swarms of flies. I prefer to sleep through the warm hours of the +day, and then take the air in that delightful public garden which, by +the way, has already become too small for the increasing population. + +At its entrance stands the civic museum, entrusted, just now, to the +care of a quite remarkably ignorant and slatternly woman. It contains +two rooms, whose exhibits are smothered in dust and cobwebs; as +neglected, in short, as her own brats that sprawl about its floor. I +enquired whether she possessed no catalogue to show where the objects, +bearing no labels, had been found. A catalogue was unnecessary, she +said; she knew everything--everything! + +And everything, apparently, hailed from "Stromboli." The Tiriolo helmet, +the Greek vases, all the rest of the real and sham treasures of this +establishment: they were all discovered at Stromboli. + +"Those coins--whence?" + +"Stromboli!" + +Noticing some neolithic celts similar to those I obtained at Vaccarizza, +I would gladly have learnt their place of origin. Promptly came the answer: + +"Stromboli!" + +"Nonsense, my good woman. I've been three times to Stromboli; it is an +island of black stones where the devil has a house, and such things are +not found there." (Of course she meant Strangoli, the ancient Petelia.) + +This vigorous assertion made her more circumspect. Thenceforward +everything was declared to come from the province--_dalla provincia;_ it +was safer. + +"That bad picture--whence?" + +"Dalla provincia!" + +"Have you really no catalogue?" + +"I know everything." + +"And this broken statue--whence?" + +"Dalla provincia!" + +"But the province is large," I objected. + +"So it is. Large, and old." + +I have also revisited Tiriolo, once celebrated for the "Sepulchres of +the Giants" (Greek tombs) that were unearthed here, and latterly for a +certain more valuable antiquarian discovery. Not long ago it was a +considerable undertaking to reach this little place, but nowadays a +public motor-car whirls you up and down the ravines at an alarming pace +and will deposit you, within a few hours, at remote Cosenza, once an +enormous drive. It is the same all over modern Calabria. The diligence +service, for instance, that used to take fourteen hours from San +Giovanni to Cosenza has been replaced by motors that cover the distance +in four or five. One is glad to save time, but this new element of +mechanical hurry has produced a corresponding kind of traveller--a +machine-made creature, devoid of the humanity of the old; it has done +away with the personal note of conviviality that reigned in the +post-carriages. What jocund friendships were made, what songs and tales +applauded, during those interminable hours in the lumbering chaise! + +You must choose Sunday for Tiriolo, on account of the girls, whose +pretty faces and costumes are worth coming any distance to see. A good +proportion of them have the fair hair which seems to have been +eliminated, in other parts of the country, through the action of malaria. + +Viewed from Catanzaro, one of the hills of Tiriolo looks like a broken +volcanic crater. It is a limestone ridge, decked with those +characteristic flowers like _Campanula fragilis_ which you will vainly +seek on the Sila. Out of the ruins of some massive old building they +have constructed, on the summit, a lonely weather-beaten fabric that +would touch the heart of Maeterlinck. They call it a seismological +station. I pity the people that have to depend for their warnings of +earthquakes upon the outfit of a place like this. I could see no signs +of life here; the windows were broken, the shutters decaying, an old +lightning-rod dangled disconsolately from the roof; it looked as +abandoned as any old tower in a tale. There is a noble view from this +point over both seas and into the riven complexities of Aspromonte, when +the peak is not veiled in mists, as it frequently is. For Tiriolo lies +on the watershed; there (to quote from a "Person of Quality ") "where +the Apennine is drawn into so narrow a point, that the rain-water which +descendeth from the ridge of some one house, falleth on the left in the +Terrene Sea, and on the right into the Adriatick. . . ." + +My visits to the provincial museum have become scandalously frequent +during the last few days. I cannot keep away from the place. I go there +not to study the specimens but to converse with their keeper, the woman +who, in her quiet way, has cast a sort of charm over me. Our relations +are the whispered talk of the town; I am suspected of matrimonial +designs upon a poor widow with the ulterior object of appropriating the +cream of the relics under her care. Regardless of the perils of the +situation, I persevere; for the sake of her company I forswear the +manifold seductions of Catan-zaro. She is a noteworthy person, neither +vicious nor vulgar, but simply the _dernier mot_ of incompetence. Her +dress, her looks, her children, her manners--they are all on an even +plane with her spiritual accomplishments; at no point does she sink, or +rise, beyond that level. They are not as common as they seem to be, +these harmoniously inefficient females. + +Why has she got this job in a progressive town containing so many folks +who could do it creditably? Oh, that is simple enough! She needs it. On +the platform of the Reggio station (long before the earthquake) I once +counted five station-masters and forty-eight other railway officials, +swaggering about with a magnificent air of incapacity. What were they +doing? Nothing whatever. They were like this woman: they needed a job. + +We are in a patriarchal country; work is pooled; it is given not to +those who can do it best, but to those who need it most--given, too, on +pretexts which sometimes strike one as inadequate, not to say recondite. +So the street-scavengering in a certain village has been entrusted to a +one-armed cripple, utterly unfit for the business--why? Because his +maternal grand-uncle is serving a long sentence in gaol. The poor family +must be helped! A brawny young fellow will be removed from a +landing-stage boat, and his place taken by some tottering old peasant +who has never handled an oar--why? The old man's nephew has married +again; the family must be helped. A secretarial appointment was +specially created for an acquaintance of mine who could barely sign his +own name, for the obvious reason that his cousin's sister was rheumatic. +One must help that family. + +A postman whom I knew delivered the letters only once every three days, +alleging, as unanswerable argument in his defence, that his brother's +wife had fifteen children. + +One must help that family! + +Somebody seems to have thought so, at all events. + + + + +XXIX + +CHAOS + + +I have never beheld the enchantment of the Straits of Messina, that Fata +Morgana, when, under certain conditions of weather, phantasmagoric +palaces of wondrous shape are cast upon the waters--not mirrored, but +standing upright; tangible, as it were; yet diaphanous as a veil of gauze. + +A Dominican monk and correspondent of the Naples Academy, Minasi by +name, friend of Sir W. Hamilton, wrote a dissertation upon this +atmospheric mockery. Many have seen and described it, among them Filati +de Tassulo; Nicola Leoni reproduces the narrative of an eye-witness +of 1643; another account appears in the book of A. Fortis +("Mineralogische Reisen, 1788"). The apparition is coy. Yet there are +pictures of it--in an article in "La Lettura" by Dr. Vittorio Boccara, +who therein refers to a scientific treatise by himself on the subject, +as well as in the little volume "Da Reggio a Metaponto" by Lupi-Crisafi, +which was printed at Gerace some years ago. I mention these writers for +the sake of any one who, luckier than myself, may be able to observe +this phenomenon and become interested in its history and origin. . . . + +The chronicles of Messina record the scarcely human feats of the diver +Cola Pesce (Nicholas the Fish). The dim submarine landscapes of the +Straits with their caves and tangled forests held no secrets from him; +his eyes were as familiar with sea-mysteries as those of any fish. Some +think that the legend dates from Frederick II, to whom he brought up +from the foaming gulf that golden goblet which has been immortalized in +Schiller's ballad. But Schneegans says there are Norman documents that +speak of him. And that other tale, according to which he took to his +watery life in pursuit of some beloved maiden who had been swallowed by +the waves, makes one think of old Glaucus as his prototype. + +Many are the fables connected with his name, but the most portentous is +this: One day, during his subaqueous wanderings, he discovered the +foundations of Messina. They were insecure! The city rested upon three +columns, one of them intact, another quite decayed away, the third +partially corroded and soon to crumble into ruin. He peered up from, his +blue depths, and in a fateful couplet of verses warned the townsmen of +their impending doom. In this prophetic utterance ascribed to the +fabulous Cola Pesce is echoed a popular apprehension that was only too +justified. + +F. Muenter--one of a band of travellers who explored these regions after +the earthquake of 1783--also gave voice to his fears that Messina had +not yet experienced the full measure of her calamities. . . . + +I remember a night in September of 1908, a Sunday night, fragrant with +the odours of withered rosemary and cistus and fennel that streamed in +aromatic showers from the scorched heights overhead--a starlit night, +tranquil and calm. Never had Messina appeared so attractive to me. +Arriving there generally in the daytime and from larger and sprightlier +centres of civilization, one is prone to notice only its defects. But +night, especially a southern night, has a wizard touch. It transforms +into objects of mysterious beauty all unsightly things, or hides them +clean away; while the nobler works of man, those facades and cornices +and full-bellied balconies of cunningly wrought iron rise up, under its +enchantment, ethereal as the palace of fairies. And coming, as I then +did, from the sun-baked river-beds of Calabria, this place, with its +broad and well-paved streets, its glittering cafes and demure throng of +evening idlers, seemed a veritable metropolis, a world-city. + +With deliberate slowness, _ritardando con molto sentimento,_ I worked my +way to the familiar restaurant. + +At last! At last, after an interminable diet of hard bread, onions and +goat's cheese, I was to enjoy the complicated menu mapped out weeks +beforehand, after elaborate consideration and balancing of merits; so +complicated, that its details have long ago lapsed from my memory. I +recollect only the sword-fish, a local speciality, and (as crowning +glory) the _cassata alla siciliana,_ a glacial symphony, a multicoloured +ice of commingling flavours, which requires far more time to describe +than to devour. Under the influence of this Sybaritic fare, helped down +with a crusted bottle of Calabrian wine--your Sicilian stuff is too +strong for me, too straightforward, uncompromising; I prefer to be +wheedled out of my faculties by inches, like a gentleman--under this +genial stimulus my extenuated frame was definitely restored; I became +mellow and companionable; the traveller's lot, I finally concluded, is +not the worst on earth. Everything was as it should be. As for +Messina--Messina was unquestionably a pleasant city. But why were all +the shops shut so early in the evening? + +"These Sicilians," said the waiter, an old Neapolitan acquaintance, in +reply to my enquiries, "are always playing some game. They are +pretending to be Englishmen at this moment; they have the Sunday-closing +obsession on the brain. Their attacks generally last a fortnight; it's +like the measles. Poor people." + +Playing at being Englishmen! + +They have invented a new game now, those that are left of them. They are +living in dolls' houses, and the fit is likely to last for some little +time. + +An engineer remarked to me, not long ago, among the ruins: + +"This _baracca,_ this wooden shelter, has an interior surface area of +less than thirty square metres. Thirty-three persons--men, women, and +children--have been living and sleeping in it for the last five months." + +"A little overcrowded?" I suggested. + +"Yes. Some of them are beginning to talk of overcrowding. It was all +very well in the winter months, but when August comes. . . . Well, we +shall see." + +No prophetic visions of the Messina of to-day, with its minute sheds +perched among a wilderness of ruins and haunted by scared shadows in +sable vestments of mourning, arose in my mind that evening as I sat at +the little marble table, sipping my coffee--overroasted, like all +Italian coffee, by exactly two minutes--and puffing contentedly at my +cigar, while the sober crowd floated hither and thither before my eyes. +Yes, everything was as it should be. And yet, what a chance! + +What a chance for some God, in this age of unbelief, to establish his +rule over mankind on the firm foundations of faith! We are always +complaining, nowadays, of an abatement of religious feeling. How easy +for such a one to send down an Isaiah to foretell the hour of the coming +catastrophe, and thus save those of its victims who were disposed to +hearken to the warning voice; to reanimate the flagging zeal of +worshippers, to straighten doubts and segregate the sheep from the +goats! Truly, He moves in a mysterious way, for no divine message came; +the just were entombed with the unjust amid a considerable deal of +telegraphing and heart-breaking. + +A few days after the disaster the Catholic papers explained matters by +saying that the people of Messina had not loved their Madonna +sufficiently well. But she loved them none the less, and sent the +earthquake as an admonishment. Rather a robust method of conciliating +their affection; not exactly the _suaviter in modo. . . ._ + +But if genuine prophets can only flourish among the malarious willow +swamps of old Babylon and such-like improbable spots, we might at least +have expected better things of our modern spiritualists. Why should +their apparitions content themselves with announcing the decease, at the +Antipodes, of profoundly uninteresting relatives? Alas! I begin to +perceive that spirits of the right kind, of the useful kind, have yet to +be discovered. Our present-day ghosts are like seismographs; they +chronicle the event after it has happened. Now, what we want is---- + +"The Signore smokes, and smokes, and smokes. Why not take the tram and +listen to the municipal music in the gardens?" + +"Music? Gardens? An excellent suggestion, Gennarino." + +Even as a small Italian town would be incomplete without its piazza +where streets converge and commercial pulses beat their liveliest +measure, so every larger one contrives to possess a public garden for +the evening disport of its citizens; night-life being the true life of +the south. Charming they are, most of them; none more delectable than +that of old Messina--a spacious pleasaunce, decked out with trim palms +and flower-beds and labyrinthine walks freshly watered, and cooled, that +evening, by stealthy breezes from the sea. The grounds were festively +illuminated, and as I sat down near the bandstand and watched the folk +meandering to and fro, I calculated that no fewer than thirty thousand +persons were abroad, taking their pleasure under the trees, in the bland +air of evening. An orderly, well-dressed crowd. We may smile when they +tell us that these people will stint themselves of the necessities of +life in order to wear fine clothes, but the effect, for an outsider, is +all that it should be. For the rest, the very urchins, gambolling about, +had an air of happy prosperity, different from the squalor of the north +with its pinched white faces, its over-breeding and under-feeding. + +And how well the sensuous Italian strains accord with such an hour and +scene! They were playing, if I remember rightly, the ever-popular Aida; +other items followed later--more ambitious ones; a Hungarian rhapsody, +Berlioz, a selection from Wagner. + +"_Musica filosofica"_ said my neighbour, alluding to the German +composer. He was a spare man of about sixty; a sunburnt, military +countenance, seamed by lines of suffering. "_Non va in Sicilia--_it +won't do in this country. Not that we fail to appreciate your great +thinkers," he added. "We read and admire your Schopenhauer, your +Spencer. They give passable representations of Wagner in Naples. But----" + +"The climate?" + +"Precisely. I have travelled, sir; and knowing your Berlin, and London, +and Boston, have been able to observe how ill our Italian architecture +looks under your grey skies, how ill our music sounds among the complex +appliances of your artificial life. It has made you earnest, this +climate of yours, and prone to take earnestly your very pastimes. +Music, for us, has remained what it was in the Golden Age--an +unburdening of the soul on a summer's night. They play well, these +fellows. Palermo, too, has a respectable band--Oh! a little too fast, +that _recitativo!"_ + +"The Signore is a musician?" + +"A _proprietario._ But I delight in music, and I beguiled myself with +the fiddle as a youngster. Nowadays--look here!" And he extended his +hand; it was crippled. "Rheumatism. I have it here, and here"--pointing +to various regions of his body--"_and_ here! Ah, these doctors! The +baths I have taken! The medicines--the ointments--the embrocations: a +perfect pharmacopceia! I can hardly crawl now, and without the help of +these two devoted boys even this harmless little diversion would have +been denied me. My nephews--orphans," he added, observing the direction +of my glance. + +They sat on his other side, handsome lads, who spoke neither too much +nor too little. Every now and then they rose with one accord and +strolled among the surging crowd to stretch their legs, returning after +five minutes to their uncle's side. His eyes always followed their +movements. + +"My young brother, had he lived, would have made men of them," he once +observed. + +The images revive, curiously pertinacious, with dim lapses and gulfs. I +can see them still, the two boys, their grave demeanour belied by mobile +lips and mischievous fair curls of Northern ancestry; the other, leaning +forward intent upon the music, and caressing his moustache with bent +fingers upon which glittered a jewel set in massive gold--some scarab or +intaglio, the spoil of old Magna Graecia. His conversation, during the +intervals, moved among the accepted formulas of cosmopolitanism with +easy flow, quickened at times by the individual emphasis of a man who +can forsake conventional tracks and think for himself. Among other +things, he had contrived an original project for reviving the lemon +industry of his country, which, though it involved a few tariff +modifications--"a mere detail"--struck me as amazingly effective and +ingenious. The local deputy, it seems, shared my view, for he had +undertaken to bring it before the notice of Parliament. + +What was it? + +I have forgotten! + +So we discussed the world, while the music played under the starlit +southern night. + +It must have been midnight ere a final frenzied galop on the part of the +indefatigable band announced the close of the entertainment. I walked a +few paces beside the lame "proprietor" who, supported on the arms of his +nephews, made his way to the spot where the cabs were waiting--his +rheumatism, he explained, obliging him to drive. How he had enjoyed +walking as a youth, and what pleasure it would now have given him to +protract, during a promenade to my hotel, our delightful conversation! +But infirmities teach us to curtail our pleasures, and many things that +seem natural to man's bodily configuration are found to be unattainable. +He seldom left his rooms; the stairs--the diabolical stairs! Would I at +least accept his card and rest assured how gladly he would receive me +and do all in his power to make my stay agreeable? + +That card has gone the way of numberless others which the traveller in +Southern Europe gathers about him. I have also forgotten the old man's +name. But the _palazzo_ in which he lived bore a certain historical +title which happened to be very familiar to me. I remember wondering how +it came to reach Messina. + +In the olden days, of course, the days of splendour. + +Will they ever return? + +It struck me that the sufferings of the survivors would be alleviated if +all the sheds in which they are living could be painted white or +pearl-grey in order to protect them, as far as possible, from the +burning rays of the sun. I mentioned the idea to an overseer. + +"We are painting as fast as we can," he replied. "An expensive matter, +however. The Villagio Elena alone has cost us, in this respect, twenty +thousand francs--with the greatest economy." + +This will give some notion of the scale on which things have to be done. +The settlement in question contains some two hundred sheds--two hundred +out of over ten thousand. + +But I was alluding not to these groups of hygienic bungalows erected by +public munificence and supplied with schools, laboratories, orphanages, +hospitals, and all that can make life endurable, but to the +others--those which the refugees built for themselves--ill-contrived +hovels, patched together with ropes, potato-sacks, petroleum cans and +miscellaneous odds and ends. A coat of whitewash, at least, inside and +out. ... I was thinking, too, of those still stranger dwellings, the +disused railway trucks which the government has placed at the disposal +of homeless families. At many Stations along the line may be seen +strings of these picturesque wigwams crowded with poor folk who have +installed themselves within, apparently for ever. They are cultivating +their favourite flowers and herbs in gaudy rows along the wooden +platforms of the carriages; the little children, all dressed in black, +play about in the shade underneath. The people will suffer in these +narrow tenements under the fierce southern sun, after their cool +courtyards and high-vaulted chambers! There will be diseases, too; +typhoids from the disturbed drainage and insufficient water-supply; eye +troubles, caused by the swarms of flies and tons of accumulated dust. +The ruins are also overrun with hordes of mangy cats and dogs which +ought to be exterminated without delay. + +If, as seems likely, those rudely improvised sheds are to be inhabited +indefinitely, we may look forward to an interesting phenomenon, a +reversion to a corresponding type of man. The lack of the most ordinary +appliances of civilization, such as linen, washing-basins and cooking +utensils, will reduce them to the condition of savages who view these +things with indifference or simple curiosity; they will forget that they +ever had any use for them. And life in these huts where human beings are +herded together after the manner of beasts--one might almost say _fitted +in,_ like the fragments of a mosaic pavement--cannot but be harmful to +the development of growing children. + +The Calabrians, I was told, distinguished themselves by unearthly +ferocity; Reggio was given over to a legion of fiends that descended +from the heights during the week of confusion. "They tore the rings and +brooches off the dead," said a young officiai to me. "They strangled the +wounded and dying, in order to despoil them more comfortably. Here, and +at Messina, the mutilated corpses were past computation; but the +Calabrians were the worst." + +Vampires, offspring of Night and Chaos. + +So Dolomieu, speaking of the _depravation incroyable des moeurs_ which +accompanied the earthquake of 1783, recounts the case of a householder +of Polistena who was pinned down under some masonry, his legs emerging +out of the ruins; his servant came and took the silver buckles off his +shoes and then fled, without attempting to free him. We have seen +something of this kind more recently at San Francisco. + +"After despoiling the corpses, they ransacked the dwellings. Five +thousand beds, sir, were carried up from Reggio into the mountains." + +"Five thousand beds! _Per Dio!_ It seems a considerable number." + +A young fellow, one of the survivors, attached himself to me in the +capacity of guide through the ruins of Reggio. He wore the +characteristic earthquake look, a dazed and bewildered expression of +countenance; he spoke in a singularly deliberate manner. Knowing the +country, I was soon bending my steps in the direction of the cemetery, +chiefly for the sake of the exquisite view from those windswept heights, +and to breathe more freely after the dust and desolation of the lower +parts. This burial-ground is in the same state as that of Messina, once +the pride of its citizens; the insane frolic of nature has not respected +the slumber of the dead or their commemorative shrines; it has made a +mockery of the place, twisting the solemn monuments into repulsive and +irreverential shapes. + +But who can recount the freaks of stone and iron during those +moments--the hair-breadth escapes? My companion's case was miraculous +enough. Awakened from sleep with the first shock, he saw, by the dim +light of the lamp which burns in all their bedrooms, the wall at his +bedside weirdly gaping asunder. He darted to reach the opening, but it +closed again and caught his arm in a stony grip. Hours seemed to +pass--the pain was past enduring; then the kindly cleft yawned once +more, allowing him to jump into the garden below. Simultaneously he +heard a crash as the inner rooms of the house fell; then climbed aloft, +and for four days wandered among the bleak, wet hills. Thousands were in +the same plight. + +I asked what he found to eat. + +"_Erba, Signore._ We all did. You could not touch property; a single +orange, and they would have killed you." + +Grass! + +He bore a name renowned in the past, but his home being turned into a +dust-heap under which his money, papers and furniture, his two parents +and brothers, are still lying, he now gains a livelihood by carrying +vegetables and fruit from the harbour to the collection of sheds +honoured by the name of market. Later in the day we happened to walk +past the very mansion, which lies near the quay. "Here is my house and +my family," he remarked, indicating, with a gesture of antique +resignation, a pile of wreckage. + +Hard by, among the ruins, there sat a young woman with dishevelled hair, +singing rapturously. "Her husband was crushed to death," he said, "and +it unhinged her wits. Strange, is it not, sir? They used to fight like +fiends, and now--she sings to him night and day to come back." + +Love--so the Greeks fabled--was the child of Chaos. + +In this part of the town stands the civic museum, which all readers of +Gissing's "Ionian Sea" will remember as the closing note of those +harmonious pages. It is shattered, like everything else that he visited +in Reggio; like the hotel where he lodged; like the cathedral whose +proud superscription _Circumlegentes devenimus Rhegium_ impressed him so +deeply; like that "singular bit of advanced civilization, which gave me +an odd sense of having strayed into the world of those romancers who +forecast the future--a public slaughter-house of tasteful architecture, +set in a grove of lemon trees and palms, suggesting the dreamy ideal of +some reformer whose palate shrinks from vegetarianism." We went the +round of all these places, not forgetting the house which bears the +tablet commemorating the death of a young soldier who fell fighting +against the Bourbons. From its contorted iron balcony there hangs a rope +by which the inmates may have tried to let themselves down. + +A friend of mine, Baron C---- of Stilo, is a member of that same +patriotic family, and gave me the following strange account. He was +absent from Reggio at the time of the catastrophe, but three others of +them were staying there. On the first shock they rushed together, +panic-stricken, into one room; the floor gave way, and they suddenly +found themselves sitting in their motor-car which happened to be placed +exactly below them. They escaped with a few cuts and bruises. + +An inscription on a neighbouring ruin runs to the effect that the +_mansion having been severely damaged in the earthquake of_ 1783, _its +owner had rebuilt it on lines calculated to defy future shattering!_ +Whether he would rebuild it yet again? + +Nevertheless, there seems to be some chance for the revival of Reggio; +its prognosis is not utterly hopeless. + +But Messina is in desperate case. + +That haughty sea-front, with its long line of imposing edifices--imagine +a painted theatre decoration of cardboard through which some sportive +behemoth has been jumping with frantic glee; there you have it. And +within, all is desolation; the wreckage reaches to the windows; you must +clamber over it as best you can. What an all-absorbing post-tertiary +deposit for future generations, for the crafty antiquarian who deciphers +the history of mankind out of kitchen-middens and deformed heaps of +forgotten trash! The whole social life of the citizens, their arts, +domestic economy, and pastimes, lies embedded in that rubbish. "A +musical race," he will conclude, observing the number of decayed +pianofortes, guitars, and mandolines. The climate of Messina, he will +further arene, must have been a wet one, inasmuch as there are umbrellas +everywhere, standing upright among the debris, leaning all forlorn +against the ruins, or peering dismally from under them. It rained much +during those awful days, and umbrellas were at a premium. Yet fifty of +them would not have purchased a loaf of bread. + +It was Goethe who, speaking of Pompeii, said that of the many +catastrophes which have afflicted mankind few have given greater +pleasure to posterity. The same will never be said of Messina, whose +relics, for the most part, are squalid and mean. The German poet, by the +way, visited this town shortly after the disaster of 1783, and describes +its _zackige Ruinenwueste_--words whose very sound is suggestive of +shatterings and dislocations. Nevertheless, the place revived again. + +But what was 1783? + +A mere rehearsal, an amateur performance. + +Wandering about in this world of ghosts, I passed the old restaurant +where the sword-fish had once tasted so good--an accumulation of stones +and mortar--and reached the cathedral. It is laid low, all save the +Gargantuan mosaic figures that stare down from behind the altar in +futile benediction of Chaos; inane, terrific. This, then, is the house +of that feudal lady of the _fortiter in re,_ who sent an earthquake and +called it love. Womanlike, she doted on gold and precious stones, and +they recovered her fabulous hoard, together with a copy of a Latin +letter she sent to the Christians of Messina by the hand of Saint Paul. + +And not long afterwards--how came it to pass?--my steps were guided amid +that wilderness towards a narrow street containing the ruins of a +_palazzo_ that bore, on a tablet over the ample doorway, an inscription +which arrested my attention. It was an historical title familiar to me; +and forthwith a train of memories, slumbering in the caverns of my mind, +was ignited. Yes; there was no doubt about it: the old "proprietor" and +his nephews, he of the municipal gardens. . . . + +I wondered how they had met their fate, on the chill wintry morning. For +assuredly, in that restricted space, not a soul can have escaped alive; +the wreckage, hitherto undisturbed, still covered their remains. + +And, remembering the old man and his humane converse that evening under +the trees, the true meaning of the catastrophe began to disentangle +itself from accidental and superficial aspects. For I confess that the +massacre of a myriad Chinamen leaves me cool and self-possessed; between +such creatures and ourselves there is hardly more than the frail bond of +a common descent from the ape; they are altogether too remote for our +narrow world-sympathies. I would as soon shed tears over the lost +Pleiad. But these others are our spiritual cousins; we have deep roots +in this warm soil of Italy, which brought forth a goodly tithe of what +is best in our own lives, in our arts and aspirations. + +And I thought of the two nephews, their decent limbs all distorted and +mangled under a heap of foul rubbish, waiting for a brutal disinterment +and a nameless grave. This is no legitimate death, this murderous +violation of life. How inconceivably hateful is such a leave-taking, and +all that follows after! To picture a fair young body, that divine +instrument of joy, crushed into an unsightly heap; once loved, now +loathed of all men, and thrust at last, with abhorrence, into some +common festering pit of abominations. . . . The Northern type--a mighty +bond, again; a tie of blood, this time, between our race and those +rulers of the South, whose exploits in this land of orange and myrtle +surpassed the dreamings of romance. + +Strange to reflect that, without the ephemeral friendship of that +evening, Messina of to-day might have represented to my mind a mere +spectacle, the hecatomb of its inhabitants extorting little more than a +conventional sigh. So it is. The human heart has been constructed on +somewhat ungenerous lines. Moralists, if any still exist on earth, may +generalize with eloquence from the masses, but our poets have long ago +succumbed to the pathos of single happenings; the very angels of Heaven, +they say, take more joy in one sinner that repenteth than in a hundred +righteous, which, duly apprehended, is only an application of the same +illiberal principle. + +A rope of bed-sheets knotted together dangled from one of the upper +windows, its end swaying in mid-air at the height of the second floor. +Many of them do, at Messina: a desperate expedient of escape. Some pots +of geranium and cactus, sadly flowering, adorned the other windows, +whose glass panes were unbroken. But for the ominous sunlight pouring +through them from _within,_ the building looked fairly intact on this +outer side. Its ponderous gateway, however, through which I had hoped to +enter, was choked up by internal debris, and I was obliged to climb, +with some little trouble, to the rear of the house. + +If a titanic blade had sheared through the _palazzo_ lengthwise, the +thing could not have been done more neatly. The whole interior had gone +down, save a portion of the rooms abutting on the street-front; these +were literally cut in half, so as to display an ideal section of +domestic architecture. The house with its inmates and all it contained +was lying among the high-piled wreckage within, under my feet; masonry +mostly--entire fragments of wall interspersed with crumbling mortar and +convulsed iron girders that writhed over the surface or plunged sullenly +into the depths; fetid rents and gullies in between, their flanks +affording glimpses of broken vases, candelabras, hats, bottles, +birdcages, writing-books, brass pipes, sofas, picture-frames, +tablecloths, and all the paltry paraphernalia of everyday life. No +attempt at stratification, horizontal, vertical, or inclined; it was as +if the objects had been thrown up by some playful volcano and allowed to +settle where they pleased. Two immense chiselled blocks of stone--one +lying prone at the bottom of a miniature ravine, the other proudly +erect, like a Druidical monument, in the upper regions--reminded me of +the existence of a staircase, a _diabolical_ staircase. + +Looking upwards, I endeavoured to reconstruct the habits of the inmates, +but found it impossible, the section that remained being too shallow. +Sky-blue seems to have been their favourite colour. The kitchen was +easily discernible, the hearth with its store of charcoal underneath, +copper vessels hanging in a neat row overhead, and an open cupboard full +of household goods; a neighbouring room (the communicating doors were +all gone), with lace window-curtains, a table, lamp, and book, and a +bedstead toppling over the abyss; another one, carpeted and hung with +pictures and a large faded mirror, below which ran a row of shelves that +groaned under a multitudinous collection of phials and bottles. + +The old man's embrocations. . . . + + + + +XXX + +THE SKIRTS OF MONTALTO + + +After such sights of suffering humanity--back to the fields and +mountains! Aspromonte, the wild region behind Reggio, was famous, not +long ago, for Garibaldi's battle. But the exploits of this warrior have +lately been eclipsed by those of the brigand Musolino, who infested the +country up to a few years ago, defying the soldiery and police of all +Italy. He would still be safe and unharmed had he remained in these +fastnesses. But he wandered away, wishful to leave Italy for good and +all, and was captured far from his home by some policemen who were +looking for another man, and who nearly fainted when he pronounced his +name. After a sensational trial, they sentenced him to thirty odd years' +imprisonment; he is now languishing in the fortress of Porto Longone on +Elba. Whoever has looked into this Spanish citadel will not envy him. Of +the lovely little bay, of the loadstone mountain, of the romantic +pathway to the hermitage of Monserrato or the glittering beach at +Rio--of all the charms of Porto Longone he knows nothing, despite a +lengthy residence on the spot. + +They say he has grown consumptive and witless during the long solitary +confinement which preceded his present punishment--an eternal night in a +narrow cell. No wonder. I have seen the condemned on their release from +these boxes of masonry at the island of Santo Stefano: dazed shadows, +tottering, with complexions the colour of parchment. These are the +survivors. But no one asks after the many who die in these dungeons +frenzied, or from battering their heads against the wall; no one knows +their number save the doctor and the governor, whose lips are sealed. . . . + +I decided upon a rear attack of Aspromonte. I would go by rail as far as +Bagnara on the Tyrrhenian, the station beyond Scylla of old renown; and +thence afoot via Sant' Eufemia [Footnote: Not to be confounded with the +railway station on the gulf of that name, near Maida.] to Sinopoli, +pushing on, if day permitted, as far as Delianuova, at the foot of +the mountain. Early next morning I would climb the summit and descend to +the shores of the Ionian, to Bova. It seemed a reasonable programme. + +All this Tyrrhenian coast-line is badly shattered; far more so than the +southern shore. But the scenery is finer. There is nothing on that side +to compare with the views from Nicastro, or Monte-leone, or Sant' Elia +near Palmi. It is also more smiling, more fertile, and far less +malarious. Not that cultivation of the land implies absence of +malaria--nothing is a commoner mistake! The Ionian shore is not +malarious because it is desert--it is desert because malarious. The +richest tracts in Greece are known to be very dangerous, and it is the +same in Italy. Malaria and intensive agriculture go uncommonly well +together. The miserable anopheles-mosquito loves the wells that are sunk +for the watering of the immense orange and lemon plantations in the +Reggio district; it displays a perverse predilection for the minute +puddles left by the artificial irrigation of the fields that are covered +with fruit and vegetables. This artificial watering, in fact, seems to +be partly responsible for the spread of the disease. It is doubtful +whether the custom goes back into remote antiquity, for the climate used +to be moister and could dispense with these practices. Certain products, +once grown in Calabria, no longer thrive there, on account of the +increased dryness and lack of rainfall. + +But there are some deadly regions, even along this Tyrrhenian shore. +Such is the plain of Maida, for instance, where stood not long ago the +forest of Sant' Eufemia, safe retreat of Parafante and other brigand +heroes. The level lands of Rosarno and Gioia are equally ill-reputed. A +French battalion stationed here in the summer of 1807 lost over sixty +men in fourteen days, besides leaving two hundred invalids in the +hospital at Monteleone. Gioia is so malarious that in summer every one +of the inhabitants who can afford the price of a ticket goes by the +evening train to Palmato sleep there. You will do well, by the way, to +see something of the oil industry of Palmi, if time permits. In good +years, 200,000 quintals of olive oil are manufactured in the regions of +which it is the commercial centre. Not long ago, before modern methods +of refining were introduced, most of this oil was exported to Russia, to +be burned in holy lamps; nowadays it goes for the most part to Lucca, to +be adulterated for foreign markets (the celebrated Lucca oil, which the +simple Englishman regards as pure); only the finest quality is sent +elsewhere, to Nice. From Gioia there runs a postal diligence once a day +to Delianuova of which I might have availed myself, had I not preferred +to traverse the country on foot. + +The journey from Reggio to Bagnara on this fair summer morning, along +the rippling Mediterranean, was short enough, but sufficiently long to +let me overhear the following conversation: + +A.--What a lovely sea! It is good, after all, to take three or four +baths a year. What think you? + +B.--I? No. For thirteen years I have taken no baths. But they are +considered good for children. + +The calamities that Bagnara has suffered in the past have been so +numerous, so fierce and so varied that, properly speaking, the town has +no right to exist any longer. It has enjoyed more than its full share of +earthquakes, having been shaken to the ground over and over again. Sir +William Hamilton reports that 3017 persons were killed in that of 1783. +The horrors of war, too, have not spared it, and a certain modern +exploit of the British arms here strikes me as so instructive that I +would gladly extract it from Grant's "Adventures of an Aide-de-Camp," +were it not too long to transcribe, and far too good to abbreviate. + +A characteristic story, further, is told of the methods of General +Manhes at Bagnara. It may well be an exaggeration when they say that the +entire road from Reggio to Naples was lined with the heads of +decapitated brigands; be that as it may, it stands to reason that +Bagnara, as befits an important place, was to be provided with an +-appropriate display of these trophies. The heads were exhibited in +baskets, with strict injunctions to the authorities that they were not +to be touched, seeing that they served not only for decorative but also +moral purposes--as examples. Imagine, therefore, the General's feelings +on being told that one of these heads had been stolen; stolen, probably, +by some pious relative of the deceased rascal, who wished to give the +relic a decent Christian burial. + +"That's rather awkward," he said, quietly musing. "But of course the +specimen must be replaced. Let me see. . . . Suppose we put the head of +the mayor of Bagnara into the vacant basket? Shall we? Yes, we'll have +the mayor. It will make him more careful in future." And within half an +hour the basket was filled once more. + +There was a little hitch in starting from Bagnara. From the windings of +the carriage-road as portrayed by the map, I guessed that there must be +a number of short cuts into the uplands at the back of the town, +undiscoverable to myself, which would greatly shorten the journey. +Besides, there was my small bag to be carried. A porter familiar with +the tracks was plainly required, and soon enough I found a number of +lusty youths leaning against a wall and doing nothing in particular. +Yes, they would accompany me, they said, the whole lot of them, just for +the fun of the thing. + +"And my bag?" I asked. + +"A bag to be carried? Then we must get a woman." + +They unearthed a nondescript female who undertook to bear the burden as +far as Sinopoli for a reasonable consideration. So far good. But as we +proceeded, the boys began to drop off, till only a single one was left. +And then the woman suddenly vanished down a side street, declaring that +she must change her clothes. We waited for three-quarters of an hour, in +the glaring dust of the turnpike; she never emerged again, and the +remaining boy stoutly refused to handle her load. + +"No," he declared. "She must carry the bag. And I will keep you company." + +The precious morning hours were wearing away, and here we stood idly by +the side of the road. It never struck me that the time might have been +profitably employed in paying a flying visit to one of the most sacred +objects in Calabria and possibly in the whole world, one which Signor N. +Marcene describes as reposing at Bagnara in a rich reliquary--the +authentic Hat of the Mother of God. A lady tourist would not have missed +this chance of studying the fashions of those days. [Footnote: See next +chapter.] + +Finally, in desperation, I snatched up the wretched luggage and poured +my griefs with unwonted eloquence into the ears of a man driving a +bullock-cart down the road. So much was he moved, that he peremptorily +ordered his son to conduct me then and there to Sinopoli, to carry the +bag, and claim one franc by way of payment. The little man tumbled off +the cart, rather reluctantly. + +"Away with you!" cried the stern parent, and we began the long march, +climbing uphill in the blazing sunshine; winding, later on, through +shady chestnut woods and across broad tracts of cultivated land. It was +plain that the task was beyond his powers, and when we had reached a +spot where the strange-looking new village of Sant' Eufemia was +visible--it is built entirely of wooden shelters; the stone town was +greatly shaken in the late earthquake--he was obliged to halt, and +thenceforward stumbled slowly into the place. There he deposited the bag +on the ground, and faced me squarely. + +"No more of this!" he said, concentrating every ounce of his virility +into a look of uncompromising defiance. + +"Then I shall not pay you a single farthing, my son. And, moreover, I +will tell your father. You know what he commanded: to Sinopoli. This is +only Sant' Eufemia. Unless----" + +"You will tell my father? Unless----?" + +"Unless you discover some one who will carry the bag not only to +Sinopoli, but as far as Delianuova." I was not in the mood for repeating +the experiences of the morning. + +"It is difficult. But we will try." + +He went in search, and returned anon with a slender lad of unusual +comeliness--an earthquake orphan. "This big one," he explained, "walks +wherever you please and carries whatever you give him. And you will pay +him nothing at all, unless he deserves it. Such is the arrangement. Are +you content?" + +"You have acted like a man." + +The earthquake survivor set off at a swinging pace, and we soon reached +Sinopoli--new Sinopoli; the older settlement lies at a considerable +distance. Midday was past, and the long main street of the town--a +former fief of the terrible Ruffo family--stood deserted in the +trembling heat. None the less there was sufficient liveliness within the +houses; the whole place seemed in a state of jollification. It was +Sunday, the orphan explained; the country was duller than usual, +however, because of the high price of wine. There had been no murders to +speak of--no, not for a long time past. But the vintage of this year, he +added, promises well, and life will soon become normal again. + +The mule track from here to Delianuova traverses some pretty scenery, +both wild and pastoral. But the personal graces of my companion made me +take small heed of the landscape. He was aglow with animal spirits, and +his conversation naively brilliant and of uncommon import. Understanding +at a glance that he belonged to a type which is rather rare in Calabria, +that he was a classic (of a kind), I made every effort to be pleasant to +him; and I must have succeeded, for he was soon relating anecdotes which +would have been neither instructive, nor even intelligible, to the +_jeune fille;_ all this, with angelic serenity of conscience. + +This radiantly-vicious child was the embodiment of the joy of life, the +perfect immoralist. There was no cynicism in his nature, no cruelty, no +obliquity, no remorse; nothing but sunshine with a few clouds sailing +across the fathomless blue spaces--the sky of Hellas. _Nihil humani +alienum;_ and as I listened to those glad tales, I marvelled at the +many-tinted experiences that could be crammed into seventeen short +years; what a document the ad-verttures of such a frolicsome demon would +be, what a feast for the initiated, could some one be induced to make +them known! But such things are hopelessly out of the question. And that +is why so many of our wise people go into their graves without ever +learning what happens in this world. + +Among minor matters, he mentioned that he had already been three times +to prison for "certain little affairs of blood," while defending +"certain friends." Was it not dull, I asked, in prison? "The time passes +pleasantly anywhere," he answered, "when you are young. I always make +friends, even in prison." I could well believe it. His affinities were +with the blithe crew of the Liber Stratonis. He had a roving eye and the +mouth of Antinous; and his morals were those of a condescending tiger-cub. + +Arriving at Delianuova after sunset, he conceived the project of +accompanying me next morning up Montalto. I hesitated. In the first +place, I was going not only up that mountain, but to Bova on the distant +Ionian littoral---- + +"For my part," he broke in, "_ho pigliato confidenza._ If you mistrust +me, here! take my knife," an ugly blade, pointed, and two inches in +excess of the police regulation length. This act of quasi-filial +submission touched me; but it was not his knife I feared so much as that +of "certain friends." Some little difference of opinion might arise, +some question of money or other argument, and lo! the friends would be +at hand (they always are), and one more stranger might disappear among +the clefts and gullies of Montalto. Aspromonte, the roughest corner of +Italy, is no place for misunderstandings; the knife decides promptly who +is right or wrong, and only two weeks ago I was warned not to cross the +district without a carbineer on either side of me. + +But to have clothed my thoughts in words during his gracious mood would +have been supremely unethical. I contented myself with the trite but +pregnant remark that things sometimes looked different in the morning, +which provoked a pagan fit of laughter; farewelled him "with the +Madonna!" and watched as he withdrew under the trees, lithe and buoyant, +like a flame that is swallowed up in the night. + +Only then did the real business begin. I should be sorry to say into how +many houses and wine-shops the obliging owner of the local inn conducted +me, in search of a guide. We traversed all the lanes of this straggling +and fairly prosperous place, and even those of its suburb Paracorio, +evidently of Byzantine origin; the answer was everywhere the same: To +Montalto, yes; to Bova, no! Night drew on apace and, as a last resource, +he led the way to the dwelling of a gentleman of the old school--a +retired brigand, to wit, who, as I afterwards learned, had some ten or +twelve homicides to his account. Delianuova, and indeed the whole of +Aspromonte, has a bad reputation for crime. + +It was our last remaining chance. + +We found the patriarch sitting in a simple but tidy chamber, smoking his +pipe and playing with a baby; his daughter-in-law rose as we entered, +and discreetly moved into an adjoining room. The cheery cut-throat put +the baby down to crawl on the floor, and his eyes sparkled when he heard +of Bova. + +"Ah, one speaks of Bova!" he said. "A fine walk over the mountain!" He +much regretted that he was too old for the trip, but so-and-so, he +thought, might know something of the country. It pained him, too, that +he could not offer me a glass of wine. There was none in the house. In +his day, he added, it was not thought right to drink in the modern +fashion; this wine-bibbing was responsible for considerable mischief; it +troubled the brain, driving men to do things they afterwards repented. +He drank only milk, having become accustomed to it during a long life +among the hills. Milk cools the blood, he said, and steadies the hand, +and keeps a man's judgment undisturbed. + +The person he had named was found after some further search. He was a +bronzed, clean-shaven type of about fifty, who began by refusing his +services point-blank, but soon relented, on hearing the ex-brigand's +recommendation of his qualities. + + + + +XXXI + +SOUTHERN SAINTLINESS + + +Southern saints, like their worshippers, put on new faces and vestments +in the course of ages. Old ones die away; new ones take their place. +Several hundred of the older class of saint have clean faded from the +popular memory, and are now so forgotten that the wisest priest can tell +you nothing about them save, perhaps, that "he's in the +church"--meaning, that some fragment of his holy anatomy survives as a +relic amid a collection of similar antiques. But you can find their +histories in early literature, and their names linger on old maps where +they are given to promontories and other natural features which are +gradually being re-christened. + +Such saints were chiefly non-Italian: Byzantines or Africans who, by +miraculous intervention, protected the village or district of which they +were patrons from the manifold scourges of medi-aevalism; they took the +place of the classic tutelar deities. They were men; they could fight; +and in those troublous times that is exactly what saints were made for. + +With the softening of manners a new element appears. Male saints lost +their chief _raison d'etre,_ and these virile creatures were superseded +by pacific women. So, to give only one instance, Saint Rosalia in +Palermo displaced the former protector Saint Mark. Her sacred bones were +miraculously discovered in a cave; and have since been identified as +those of a goat. But it was not till the twelfth century that the cult +of female saints began to assume imposing dimensions. + +Of the Madonna no mention occurs in the songs of Bishop Paulinus (fourth +century); no monument exists in the Neapolitan catacombs. Thereafter her +cult begins to dominate. + +She supplied the natives with what orthodox Christianity did not give +them, but what they had possessed from early times--a female element in +religion. Those Greek settlers had their nymphs, their Venus, and so +forth; the Mother of God absorbed and continued their functions. There +is indeed only one of these female pagan divinities whose role she has +not endeavoured to usurp--Athene. Herein she reflects the minds of her +creators, the priests and common people, whose ideal woman contents +herself with the duties of motherhood. I doubt whether an +Athene-Madonna, an intellectual goddess, could ever have been evolved; +their attitude towards gods in general is too childlike and positive. + +South Italians, famous for abstractions in philosophy, cannot endure +them in religion. Unlike ourselves, they do not desire to learn anything +from their deities or to argue about them. They only wish to love and be +loved in return, reserving to themselves the right to punish them, when +they deserve it. Countless cases are on record where (pictures or +statues of) Madonnas and saints have been thrown into a ditch for not +doing what they were told, or for not keeping their share of a bargain. +During the Vesuvius eruption of 1906 a good number were subjected to +this "punishment," because they neglected to protect their worshippers +from the calamity according to contract (so many candles and festivals = +so much protection). + +For the same reason the adult Jesus--the teacher, the God--is +practically unknown. He is too remote from themselves and the ordinary +activities of their daily lives; he is not married, like his mother; he +has no trade, like his father (Mark calls him a carpenter); moreover, +the maxims of the Sermon on the Mount are so repugnant to the South +Italian as to be almost incomprehensible. In effigy, this period of +Christ's life is portrayed most frequently in the primitive monuments of +the catacombs, erected when tradition was purer. + +Three tangibly-human aspects of Christ's life figure here: the +_bambino-cult,_ which not only appeals to the people's love of babyhood +but also carries on the old traditions of the Lar Familiaris and of +Horus; next, the youthful Jesus, beloved of local female mystics; and +lastly the Crucified--that grim and gloomy image of suffering which was +imported, or at least furiously fostered, by the Spaniards. + +The engulfing of the saints by the Mother of God is due also to +political reasons. The Vatican, once centralized in its policy, began to +be disquieted by the persistent survival of Byzantinism (Greek cults and +language lingered up to the twelfth century); with the Tacitean _odium +fratrum_ she exercised more severity towards the sister-faith than +towards actual paganism. [Footnote: Greek and Egyptian anchorites were +established in south Italy by the fourth century. But paganism was still +flourishing, locally, in the sixth. There is some evidence that +Christians used to take part in pagan festivals.] + +The Madonna was a fit instrument for sweeping away the particularist +tendencies of the past; she attacked relic-worship and other outworn +superstitions; like a benignant whirlwind she careered over the land, +and these now enigmatical shapes and customs fell faster than leaves of +Vallombrosa. No sanctuary or cave so remote that she did not endeavour +to expel its male saint--its old presiding genius, whether Byzantine or +Roman. But saints have tough lives, and do not yield without a struggle; +they fought for their time-honoured privileges like the "daemons" they +were, and sometimes came off victorious. Those sanctuaries that proved +too strong to be taken by storm were sapped by an artful and determined +siege. The combat goes on to this day. This is what is happening to the +thrice-deposed and still triumphant Saint Januarius, who is hard pressed +by sheer force of numbers. Like those phagocytes which congregate from +all sides to assail some weakened cell in the body physical, even so +Madonna-cults--in frenzied competition with each other--cluster thickest +round some imperilled venerable of ancient lineage, bent on his +destruction. The Madonna dell' Arco, del Soccorso, and at least fifty +others (not forgetting the newly-invented Madonna di Pompei)--they have +all established themselves in the particular domain of St. Januarius; +they are all undermining his reputation, and claiming to possess his +special gifts. [Footnote: He is known to have quelled an outbreak of +Vesuvius in the fifth century, though his earliest church, I believe, +only dates from the ninth. His blood, famous for liquefaction, is not +mentioned till 1337.] + +Early monastic movements of the Roman Church also played their part in +obliterating old religious landmarks. Settling down in some remote place +with the Madonna as their leader or as their "second Mother," these +companies of holy men soon acquired such temporal and spiritual +influence as enabled them successfully to oppose their divinity to the +local saint, whose once bright glories began to pale before her +effulgence. Their labours in favour of the Mother of God were part of +that work of consolidating Papal power which was afterwards carried on +by the Jesuits. + +Perhaps what chiefly accounts for the spread of Madonna-worship is the +human craving for novelty. You can invent most easily where no fixed +legends are established. Now the saints have fixed legendary attributes +and histories, and as culture advances it becomes increasingly difficult +to manufacture new saints with fresh and original characters and yet +passable pedigrees (the experiment is tried, now and again); while the +old saints have been exploited and are now inefficient--worn out, like +old toys. Madonna, on the other hand, can subdivide with the ease of an +amoeba, and yet never lose her identity or credibility; moreover, thanks +to her divine character, anything can be accredited to her--anything +good, however wonderful; lastly, the traditions concerning her are so +conveniently vague that they actually foster the mythopoetic faculty. +Hence her success. Again: the man-saints were separatists; they fought +for their own towns against African intruders, and in those frequent and +bloody inter-communal battles which are a feature of Italian +medievalism. Nowadays it is hardly proper that neighbouring townsmen, +aided and abetted by their respective saints, should sally forth to cut +each others' throats. The Madonna, as cosmopolitan Nike, is a fitter +patroness for settled society. + +She also found a ready welcome in consequence of the pastoral +institutions of the country in which the mother plays such a conspicuous +role. So deeply are they ingrained here that if the Mother of God had +not existed, the group would have been deemed incomplete; a family +without a mother is to them like a tree without roots--a thing which +cannot be. This accounts for the fact that their Trinity is not ours; it +consists of the Mother, the Father (Saint Joseph), and the Child--with +Saint Anne looming in the background (the grandmother is an important +personage in the patriarchal family). The Creator of all things and the +Holy Ghost have evaporated; they are too intangible and non-human. + +But She never became a true cosmopolitan Nike, save in literature. The +decentralizing spirit of South Italy was too strong for her. She had to +conform to the old custom of geographical specialization. In all save in +name she doffed her essential character of Mother of God, and became a +local demi-god; an accessible wonder-worker attached to some particular +district. An inhabitant of village A would stand a poor chance of his +prayers being heard by the Madonna of village B; if you have a headache, +it is no use applying to the _Madonna of the Hens,_ who deals with +diseases of women; you will find yourself in a pretty fix if you expect +financial assistance from the Madonna of village C: she is a +weather-specialist. In short, these hundreds of Madonnas have taken up +the qualities of the saints they supplanted. + +They can often outdo them; and this is yet another reason for their +success. It is a well-ascertained fact, for example, that many holy men +have been nourished by the Milk of the Mother of God, "not," as a +Catholic writer says, "in a mystic or spiritual sense, but with their +actual lips"; Saint Bernard "among a hundred, a thousand, others." Nor +is this all, for in the year 1690, a painted image of the Madonna, not +far from the city of Carinola, was observed to "diffuse abundant milk" +for the edification of a great concourse of spectators--a miracle which +was recognized as such by the bishop of that diocese, Monsignor Paolo +Ayrola, who wrote a report on the subject. Some more of this authentic +milk is kept in a bottle in the convent of Mater Domini on Vesuvius, and +the chronicle of that establishment, printed in 1834, says: + +"Since Mary is the Mother and Co-redeemer of the Church, may she not +have left some drops of her precious milk as a gift to this Church, even +as we still possess some of the blood of Christ? In various churches +there exists some of this milk, by means of which many graces and +benefits are obtained. We find such relics, for example, in the church +of Saint Luigi in Naples, namely, two bottles full of the milk of the +Blessed Virgin; and this milk becomes fluid on feast-days of the +Madonna, as everybody can see. Also in this convent of Mater Domini the +milk sometimes liquefies." During eruptions of Vesuvius this bottle is +carried abroad in procession, and always dispels the danger. Saint +Januarius must indeed look to his laurels! Meanwhile it is interesting +to observe that the Mother of God has condescended to employ the method +of holy relics which she once combated so strenuously, her milk +competing with the blood of Saint John, the fat of Saint Laurence, and +those other physiological curios which are still preserved for the +edification of believers. + +All of which would pass if a subtle poison had not been creeping in to +taint religious institutions. Taken by themselves, these infantile +observances do not necessarily harm family life, the support of the +state; for a man can believe a considerable deal of nonsense, and yet go +about his daily work in a natural and cheerful manner. But when the body +is despised and tormented the mind loses its equilibrium, and when that +happens nonsense may assume a sinister shape. We have seen it in +England, where, during the ascetic movement of Puritanism, more witches +were burnt than in the whole period before and after. + +The virus of asceticism entered South Italy from three principal +sources. From early ages the country had stood in commercial relations +with the valley of the Nile; and even as its black magic is largely +tinged with Egyptian practices, so its magic of the white kind--its +saintly legends--bear the impress of the self-macerations and perverted +life-theories of those desert-lunatics who called themselves Christians. +[Footnote: These ascetics were here before Christianity (see Philo +Judaeus); in fact, there is not a single element in the new faith which +had not been independently developed by the pagans, many of whom, like +Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, were ripe for the most abject +self-abasement.] But this Orientalism fell at first upon unfruitful +soil; the Vatican was yet wavering, and Hellenic notions of +conduct still survived. It received a further rebuff at the hands of men +like Benedict, who set up sounder ideals of holiness, introducing a +gleam of sanity even in that insanest of institutions--the herding +together of idle men to the glory of God. + +But things became more centralized as the Papacy gainedground. The +strong Christian, the independent ruler or warrior or builder saint, was +tolerated only if he conformed to its precepts; and the inauspicious +rise of subservient ascetic orders like the Franciscans and Dominicans, +who quickly invaded the fair regions of the south, gave an evil tone to +their Christianity. + +There has always been a contrary tendency at work: the Ionic spirit, +heritage of the past. Monkish ideals of chastity and poverty have never +appealed to the hearts of people, priests or prelates of the south; they +will endure much fondness in their religion, but not those phenomena of +cruelty and pruriency which are inseparably connected with asceticism; +their notions have ever been akin to those of the sage Xenocrates, who +held that "happiness consists not only in the possession of human +virtues, but _in the accomplishment of natural acts."_ Among the latter +they include the acquisition of wealth and the satisfaction of carnal +needs. At this time, too, the old Hellenic curiosity was not wholly +dimmed; they took an intelligent interest in imported creeds like that +of Luther, which, if not convincing, at least satisfied their desire for +novelty. Theirs was exactly the attitude of the Athenians towards Paul's +"New God"; and Protestantism might have spread far in the south, had it +not been ferociously repressed. + +But after the brilliant humanistic period of the Aragons there followed +the third and fiercest reaction--that of the Spanish viceroys, whose +misrule struck at every one of the roots of national prosperity. It is +that "seicentismo" which a modern writer (A. Niceforo, "L'Italia +barbara," 1898) has recognized as the blight, the evil genius, of south +Italy. The Ionic spirit did not help the people much at this time. The +greatest of these viceroys, Don Pietro di Toledo, hanged 18,000 of them +in eight years, and then confessed, with a sigh, that "he did not know +what more he could do." What more _could_ he do? As a pious Spaniard he +was incapable of understanding that quarterings and breakings on the +rack were of less avail than the education of the populace in certain +secular notions of good conduct--notions which it was the business of +his Church not to teach. Reading through the legislation of the +viceregal period, one is astonished to find how little was done for the +common people, who lived like the veriest beasts of earth. + +Their civil rulers--scholars and gentlemen, most of them--really +believed that the example of half a million illiterate and vicious monks +was all the education they needed. And yet one notes with surprise that +the Government was perpetually at loggerheads with the ecclesiastical +authorities. True; but it is wonderful with what intuitive alacrity they +joined forces when it was a question of repelling their common +antagonist, enlightenment. + +From this rank soil there sprang up an exotic efflorescence of holiness. +If south Italy swarmed with sinners, as the experiences of Don Pietro +seemed to show, it also swarmed with saints. And hardly one of them +escaped the influence of the period, the love of futile ornamentation. +Their piety is overloaded with embellishing touches and needless +excrescences of virtue. It was the baroque period of saintliness, as of +architecture. + +I have already given some account of one of them, the Flying Monk +(Chapter X), and have perused the biographies of at least fifty others. +One cannot help observing a great uniformity in their lives--a kind of +family resemblance. This parallelism is due to the simple reason that +there is only one right for a thousand wrongs. One may well look in +vain, here, for those many-tinted perversions and aberrations which +disfigure the histories of average mankind. These saints are all +alike--monotonously alike, if one cares to say so--in their chastity and +other official virtues. But a little acquaintance with the subject will +soon show you that, so far as the range of their particular Christianity +allowed of it, there is a praiseworthy and even astonishing diversity +among them. Nearly all of them could fly, more or less; nearly all of +them could cure diseases and cause the clouds to rain; nearly all of +them were illiterate; and every one of them died in the odour of +sanctity--with roseate complexion, sweetly smelling corpse, and flexible +limbs. Yet each one has his particular gifts, his strong point. Joseph +of Copertino specialized in flying; others were conspicuous for their +heroism in sitting in hot baths, devouring ordure, tormenting themselves +with pins, and so forth. + +Here, for instance, is a good representative biography--the Life of +Saint Giangiuseppe della Croce (born 1654), reprinted for the occasion +of his solemn sanctification. [Footnote: "Vita di S. Giangiuseppe della +Croce . . . Scritta dal P. Fr. Diodato dell' Assunta per la +Beatificazione ed ora ristampata dal postulatore della causa P. Fr. +Giuseppe Rostoll in occasione della solenne Santificazione." Roma, +1839.] + +He resembled other saints in many points. He never allowed the "vermin +which generated in his bed" to be disturbed; he wore the same clothes +for sixty-four years on end; with women his behaviour was that of an +"animated statue," and during his long life he never looked any one in +the face (even his brother-monks were known to him only by their +voices); he could raise the dead, relieve a duchess of a devil in the +shape of a black dog, change chestnuts into apricots, and bad wine into +good; his flesh was encrusted with sores, the result of his fierce +scarifications; he was always half starved, and when delicate viands +were brought to him, he used to say to his body: "Have you seen them? +Have you smelt them? Then let that suffice for you." + +He, too, could fly a little. So once, when he was nowhere to be found, +the monks of the convent at last discovered him in the church, "raised +so high above the ground that his head touched the ceiling." This is not +a bad performance for a mere lad, as he then was. And how useful this +gift became in old age was seen when, being almost incapable of moving +his legs, and with body half paralysed, he was nevertheless enabled to +accompany a procession for the length of two miles on foot, walking, to +the stupefaction of thousands of spectators, at about a cubit's height +above the street, on air; after the fashion of those Hindu gods whose +feet--so the pagans fable--are too pure to touch mortal earth. + +His love of poverty, moreover, was so intense that even after his death +a picture of him, which his relatives had tried to attach to the wall in +loving remembrance, repeatedly fell down again, although nailed very +securely; nor did it remain fixed until they realized that its costly +gilt frame was objectionable to the saint in heaven, and accordingly +removed it. No wonder the infant Jesus was pleased to descend from the +breast of Mary and take rest for several hours in the arms of Saint +Giangiuseppe, who, on being disturbed by some priestly visitor, +exclaimed, "O how I have enjoyed holding the Holy Babe in my arms!" This +is an old and favourite motif; it occurs, for example, in the Fioretti +of Saint Francis; there are precedents, in fact, for all these divine +favours. + +But his distinguishing feature, his "dominating gift," was that of +prophecy, especially in foretelling the deaths of children, "which he +almost always accompanied with jocular words _(scherzi)_ on his lips." +He would enter a house and genially remark: "O, what an odour of +Paradise "; sooner or later one or more of the children of the family +would perish. To a boy of twelve he said, "Be good, Natale, for the +angels are coming to take you." These playful words seem to have weighed +considerably on the boy's mind and, sure enough, after a few years he +died. But even more charming--_piu grazioso,_ the biographer calls +it--was the incident when he once asked a father whether he would give +his son to Saint Pasquale. The fond parent agreed, thinking that the +words referred to the boy's future career in the Church. But the saint +meant something quite different--he meant a career in heaven! And in +less than a month the child died. To a little girl who was crying in the +street he said: "I don't want to hear you any more. Go and sing in +Paradise." And meeting her a short time after, he said, "What, are you +still here?" In a few days she was dead. + +The biography gives many instances of this pretty gift which would +hardly have contributed to the saint's popularity in England or any +other country save this, where--although the surviving youngsters are +described as "struck with terror at the mere name of the Servant of +God"--the parents were naturally glad to have one or two angels in the +family, to act as _avvocati_ (pleaders) for those that remained on earth. + +And the mention of the legal profession brings me to one really +instructive miracle. It is usually to be observed, after a saint has +been canonized, that heaven, by some further sign or signs, signifies +approval of this solemn act of the Vicar of God; indeed, to judge by +these biographies, such a course is not only customary but, to use a +worldly expression, _de rigueur._ And so it happened after the decree +relative to Saint Giangiuseppe had been pronounced in the Vatican +basilica by His Holiness Pius VI, in the presence of the assembled +cardinals. Innumerable celestial portents (their enumeration fills +eleven pages of the "Life") confirmed and ratified the great event, and +among them this: the notary, who had drawn up both the ordinary and the +apostolic _processi,_ was cured of a grievous apoplexy, survived for +four years, and finally died on the very anniversary of the death of the +saint. Involuntarily one contrasts this heavenly largesse with the +sordid guineas which would have contented an English lawyer. . . . + +Or glance into the biography of the Venerable Sister Orsola Benincasa. +She, too, could fly a little and raise men from the dead. She cured +diseases, foretold her own death and that of others, lived for a month +on the sole nourishment of a consecrated wafer; she could speak Latin +and Polish, although she had been taught nothing at all; wrought +miracles after death, and possessed to a heroic degree the virtues of +patience, humility, temperance, justice, etc. etc. So inflamed was she +with divine love, that almost every day thick steam issued out of her +mouth, which was observed to be destructive to articles of clothing; her +heated body, when ice was applied, used to hiss like a red-hot iron +under similar conditions. + +As a child, she already cried for other people's sins; she was always +hunting for her own and would gladly, at the end of her long and +blameless career, have exchanged her sins for those of the youthful +Duchess of Aquaro. An interesting phenomenon, by the way, the theory of +sinfulness which crops up at this particular period of history. For our +conception of sin is alien to the Latin mind. There is no "sin" in Italy +(and this is not the least of her many attractions); it is an article +manufactured exclusively for export. [Footnote: "Vita della Venerabile +Serva di Dio Suor Orsola Benincasa, Scritta da un cherico regolare," +Rome, 1796. There are, of course, much earlier biographies of all these +saints; concerning Sister Orsola we possess, for instance, the +remarkable pamphlet by Cesare d'Eboli ("Caesaris Aevoli Neapolitan! +Apologia pro Ursula Neapolitana quas ad urbem accessit MDLXXXIII," +Venice, 1589), which achieves the distinction of never mentioning Orsola +by name: she is only once referred to as "mulier de qua agitur." But I +prefer to quote from the more recent ones because they are +authoritative, in so far as they have been written on the basis of +miracles attested by eye-witnesses and accepted as veracious by the +Vatican tribunal. Sister Orsola, though born in 154.7, was only declared +Venerable by Pontifical decree of 1793. Biographies prior to that date +are therefore ex-parte statements and might conceivably contain errors +of fact. This is out of the question here, as is clearly shown by the +author on p. 178.] + +Orsola's speciality, however, were those frequent trance-like conditions +by reason of which, during her lifetime, she was created "Protectress of +the City of Naples." I cannot tell whether she was the first woman-saint +to obtain this honour. Certainly the "Seven Holy Protectors" concerning +whom Paolo Regio writes were all musty old males. . . . + +And here is quite another biography, that of Alfonso di Liguori (born +1696), the founder of the Redemptorist order and a canonized saint. He, +too, could fly a little and raise the dead to life; he suffered +devil-temptations, caused the clouds to rain, calmed an eruption of +Vesuvius, multiplied food, and so forth. Such was his bashfulness, that +even as an aged bishop he refused to be unrobed by his attendants; such +his instinct for moral cleanliness that once, when a messenger had +alighted at his convent accompanied by a soldier, he instantly detected, +under the military disguise, the lineaments of a young woman-friend. +Despite these divine gifts, he always needed a confessor. An enormous +batch of miracles accompanied his sanctification. + +But he only employed these divine graces by the way; he was by +profession not a _taumaturgo,_ but a clerical instructor, organizer, +and writer. The Vatican has conferred on him the rare title of "Doctor +Ecclesia," which he shares with Saint Augustine and some others. + +The biography from which I have drawn these details was printed in Rome +in 1839. It is valuable because it is modern and so far authentic; and +for two other reasons. In the first place, curiously enough, it barely +mentions the saint's life-work--his writings. Secondly, it is a good +example of what I call the pious palimpsest. It is over-scored with +contradictory matter. The author, for example, while accidentally +informing us that Alfonso kept a carriage, imputes to him a degrading, +Oriental love of dirt and tattered garments, in order (I presume) to +make his character conform to the grosser ideals of the mendicant +friars. I do not believe in these traits--in his hatred of soap and +clean apparel. From his works I deduce a different original. He was +refined and urbane; of a casuistical and prying disposition; like many +sensitive men, unduly preoccupied with the sexual life of youth; like a +true feudal aristocrat, ever ready to apply force where verbal +admonition proved unavailing. . . . + +In wonder-working capacities these saints were all put in the shade by +the Calabrian Francesco di Paola, who raised fifteen persons from the +dead in his boyhood. He used to perform a hundred miracles a day, and +"it was a miracle, when a day passed without a miracle." The index alone +of any one of his numerous biographies is enough to make one's head swim. + +The vast majority of saints of this period do not belong to that third +sex after which, according to some, the human race has ever striven--the +constructive and purposeful third sex. They are wholly sexless, unsocial +and futile beings, the negation of every masculine or feminine virtue. +Their independence fettered by the iron rules of the Vatican and of +their particular order, these creatures had _nothing to do;_ and like +the rest of us under such conditions, became vacuously introspective. +Those honourable saintly combats of the past with external enemies and +plagues and stormy seasons were transplanted from without into the +microcosm within, taking the shape of hallucinations and +demon-temptations. They were no longer actors, but sufferers; automata, +who attained a degree of inanity which would have made their old +Byzantine prototypes burst with envy. + +Yet they vary in their gifts; each one, as I have said, has his or her +strong point. Why? The reason of this diversity lies in the furious +competition between the various monastic orders of the time--in those +unedifying squabbles which led to never-ending litigation and complaints +to head-quarters in Rome. Every one of these saints, from the first +dawning of his divine talents, was surrounded by an atmosphere of +jealous hatred on the part of his co-religionists. If one order came out +with a flying wonder, another, in frantic emulation, would introduce +some new speciality to eclipse his fame--something in the fasting line, +it may be; or a female mystic whose palpitating letters to Jesus Christ +would melt all readers to pity. The Franciscans, for instance, dissected +the body of a certain holy Margaret and discovered in her heart the +symbols of the Trinity and of the Passion. This bold and original idea +would have gained them much credit, but for the rival Dominicans, who +promptly discovered, and dissected, another saintly Margaret, whose +heart contained three stones on which were engraven portraits of the +Virgin Mary. [Footnote: These and other details will be found in the +four volumes "Das Heidentum in der romischen Kirche" (Gotha, 1889-91), +by Theodor Trede, a late Protestant parson in Naples, strongly tinged +with anti-Catholicism, but whose facts may be relied upon. Indeed, he +gives chapter and verse for them.] So they ceaselessly unearthed fresh +saints with a view to disparaging each other--all of them waiting for a +favourable moment when the Vatican could be successfully approached to +consider their particular claims. For it stands to reason that a +Carmelite Pope would prefer a Carmelite saint to one of the Jesuits, and +so forth. + +And over all throned the Inquisition in Rome, alert, ever-suspicious; +testing the "irregularities" of the various orders and harassing their +respective saints with Olympic impartiality. + +I know that mystics such as Orsola Benincasa are supposed to have +another side to their character, an eminently practical side. It is +perfectly true--and we need not go out of England to learn it--that +piety is not necessarily inconsistent with nimbleness in worldly +affairs. But the mundane achievements, the monasteries and churches, of +nine-tenths of these southern ecstatics are the work of the confessor +and not of the saint. Trainers of performing animals are aware how these +differ in plasticity of disposition and amenability to discipline; the +spiritual adviser, who knows his business, must be quick to detect these +various qualities in the minds of his penitents and to utilize them to +the best advantage. It is inconceivable, for instance, that the +convent-foundress Orsola was other than a neuropathic nonentity--a blind +instrument in the hands of what we should call her backers, chiefest of +whom (in Naples) were two Spanish priests, Borii and Navarro, whose +local efforts were supported, at head-quarters, by the saintly Filippo +Neri and the learned Cardinal Baronius. + +This is noticeable. The earlier of these godly biographies are written +in Latin, and these are more restrained in their language; they were +composed, one imagines, for the priests and educated classes who could +dispense to a certain degree with prodigies. But the later ones, from +the viceregal period onwards, are in the vernacular and display a marked +deterioration; one must suppose that they were printed for such of the +common people as could still read (up to a few years ago, sixty-five per +cent of the populace were analphabetic). They are pervaded by the +characteristic of all contemporary literature and art: that deliberate +intention to _astound_ which originated with the poet Marino, who +declared such to have been his object and ideal. The miracles certainly +do astound; they are as _strepitosi_ (clamour-arousing) as the writers +claim them to be; how they ever came to occur must be left to the +consciences of those who swore on oath to the truth of them. + +During this period the Mother of God as a local saint increased in +popularity. There was a ceaseless flow of monographs dealing with +particular Madonnas, as well as a small library on what the Germans +would doubtless call the "Madonna as a Whole." Here is Serafino +Montorio's "Zodiaco di Maria," printed in 1715 on the lines of that +monster of a book by Gumppenberg. It treats of over two hundred +subspecies of Madonna worshipped in different parts of south Italy which +is divided, for these celestial purposes, into twelve regions, according +to the signs of the Zodiac. The book is dedicated by the author to his +"Sovereign Lady the _Gran Madre di Dio"_ and might, in truth, have been +written to the glory of that protean old Magna Mater by one of Juvenal's +"tonsured herd" possessed of much industry but little discrimination. +[Footnote: The Mater Dei was officially installed in the place of Magna +Mater at the Synod of Ephesus in 431.] Such as it is, it reflects the +crude mental status of the Dominican order to which the author belonged. +I warmly recommend this book to all Englishmen desirous of understanding +the south. It is pure, undiluted paganism--paganism of a bad school; one +would think it marked the lowest possible ebb of Christian spirituality. +But this is by no means the case, as I shall presently show. + +How different, from such straightforward unreason, are the etherealized, +saccharine effusions of the "Glories of Mary," by Alfonso di Liguori! +They represent the other pole of Mariolatry--the gentlemanly pole. And +under the influence of Mary-worship a new kind of saintly physiognomy +was elaborated, as we can see from contemporary prints and pictures. The +bearded men-saints were extinct; in the place of them this mawkish, +sub-sexual love for the Virgin developed a corresponding type of +adorer--clean-shaven, emasculate youths, posing in ecstatic attitudes +with a nauseous feminine smirk. Rather an unpleasant sort of saint. + +The unwholesome chastity-ideal, without which no holy man of the period +was "complete," naturally left its mark upon literature, notably on that +of certain Spanish theologians. But good specimens of what I mean may +also be found in the Theologia Moralis of Liguori; the kind of stuff, +that is, which would be classed as "curious" in catalogues and kept in a +locked cupboard by the most broad-minded paterfamilias. Reading these +elucubrations of Alfonso's, one feels that the saint has pondered long +and lovingly upon themes like _an et quando peccata sint oscula_ or _de +tactu et adspectu corporis;_ he writes with all the authority of an +expert whose richly-varied experiences in the confessional have been +amplified and irradiated by divine inspiration. I hesitate what to call +this literature, seeing that it was obviously written to the glory of +God and His Virgin Mother. The congregation of the Index, which was +severe in the matter of indecent publications and prohibited Boccaccio's +Decameron on these grounds, hailed with approval the appearance of such +treatises composed, as they were, for the guidance of young priests. + +Cruelty (in the shape of the Inquisition) and lasciviousness (as +exemplified by such pious filth)--these are the prime fruits of that +cult of asceticism which for centuries the Government strove to impose +upon south Italy. If the people were saved, it was due to that +substratum of sanity, of Greek _sophrosyne,_ which resisted the one and +derided the other. Whoever has saturated himself with the records will +marvel not so much that the inhabitants preserved some shreds of common +sense and decent feeling, as that they survived at all--he will marvel +that the once fair kingdom was not converted into a wilderness, saintly +but uninhabited, like Spain itself. + +For the movement continued in a vertiginous crescendo. Spaniardism +culminated in Bourbonism, and this, again, reached its climax in the +closing years of the eighteenth century, when the conditions of south +Italy baffled description. I have already (p. 212) given the formidable +number of its ecclesiastics; the number of saints was commensurate, +but--as often happens when the quantity is excessive--the quality +declined. This lazzaroni-period was the debacle of holiness. So true it +is that our gods reflect the hearts that make them. + +The Venerable Fra Egidio, a native of Taranto, is a good example of +contemporary godliness. My biography of him was printed in Naples in +1876, [Footnote: "Vita del Venerabile servo di Dio Fra Egidio da S. +Giuseppe laico professo alcantarino," Napoli, 1876.] and contains a +dedicatory epistle addressed to the Blessed Virgin by her "servant, +subject, and most loving son Rosario Frungillo"--a canon of the church +and the author of the book. + +This "taumaturgo" could perform all the ordinary feats; I will not +linger over them. What has made him popular to this day are those +wonders which appealed to the taste of the poorer people, such as, for +example, that miracle of the eels. A fisherman had brought fourteen +hundredweight of these for sale in the market. Judge of his +disappointment when he discovered that they had all died during the +journey (southerners will not pay for dead eels). Fortunately, he saw +the saint arriving in a little boat, who informed him that the eels were +"not dead, but only asleep," and who woke them up again by means of a +relic of Saint Pasquale which he always carried about with him, after a +quarter of an hour's devout praying, during which the perspiration oozed +from his forehead. The eels, says the writer, had been dead and slimy, +but now turned their bellies downwards once more and twisted about in +their usual spirals; there began a general weeping among the onlookers, +and the fame of the miracle immediately spread abroad. He could do the +same with lobsters, cows, and human beings. + +Thus a cow belonging to Fra Egidio's monastery was once stolen by an +impious butcher, and cut up into the usual joints with a view to a +clandestine sale of the meat. The saint discovered the beast's remains, +ordered that they should be laid together on the floor in the shape of a +living cow, with the entrails, head and so forth in their natural +positions; then, having made the sign of the cross with his cord upon +the slaughtered beast, and rousing up all his faith, he said: "In the +name of God and of Saint Pasquale, arise, Catherine!" (Catherine was the +cow's name.) "At these words the animal lowed, shook itself, and stood +up on its feet alive, whole and strong, even as it had been before it +was killed." + +In the case of one of the dead men whom he brought to life, the +undertakers were already about their sad task; but Fra Egidio, viewing +the corpse, remarked in his usual manner that the man was "not dead, but +only asleep," and after a few saintly manipulations, roused him from his +slumber. The most portentous of his wonders, however, are those which he +wrought _after his own death_ by means of his relics and otherwise; they +have been sworn to by many persons. Nor did his hand lose its old +cunning, in these posthumous manifestations, with the finny tribe. A +certain woman, Maria Scuotto, was enabled to resuscitate a number of +dead eels by means of an image of the deceased saint which she cast +among them. + +Every one of the statements in this biography is drawn from the +_processi_ to which I will presently refer; there were 202 witnesses who +deposed "under the rigour and sanctity of oath" to the truth of these +miracles; and among those who were personally convinced of the +Venerable's rare gifts was the Royal Family of Naples, the archbishop of +that town, as well as innumerable dukes and princes. An embittered +rationalist would note that the reading of Voltaire, at this period, was +punished with three years' galley-slavery and that several thousand +citizens were hanged for expressing liberal opinions; he will suggest +that belief in the supernatural, rejected by the thinking classes, finds +an abiding shelter among royalty and the proletariat. + +It occurs to me, a propos of Fra Egidio, to make the obvious statement +that an account of an occurrence is not necessarily true, because it +happened long ago. Credibility does not improve, like violins and port +wine, with lapse of years. This being the case, it will not be +considered objectionable to say that there are certain deeds attributed +to holy men of olden days which, to speak frankly, are open to doubt; or +at least not susceptible of proof. Who were these men, if they ever +existed? and who vouches for their prodigies? This makes me think that +Pope Gelasius showed no small penetration in excluding, as early as the +fifth century, some few _acta sanctorum_ from the use of the churches; +another step in the same direction was taken in the twelfth century when +the power of canonizing saints, which had hitherto been claimed by all +bishops, became vested in the Pope alone; and yet another, when Urban +VIII forbade the nomination of local patron saints by popular vote. +Pious legends are supposed to have their uses as an educative agency. So +be it. But such relations of imperfectly ascertained and therefore +questionable wonders suffer from one grave drawback: they tend to shake +our faith in the evidence of well-authenticated ones. Thus Saint Patrick +is also reported to have raised a cow from the dead--five cows, to be +quite accurate; but who will come forward and vouch for the fact? No +one. That is because Saint Patrick belongs to the legendary stage; he +died, it is presumed, about 490. + +Here, with Saint Egidio, we are on other ground; on the ground of bald +actuality. He expired in 1812, and the contemporaries who have attested +his miraculous deeds are not misty phantoms of the Thebais; they were +creatures of flesh and blood, human, historical personages, who were +dressed and nourished and educated after the fashion of our own +grandfathers. Yet it was meet and proper that the documentary evidence +as to his divine graces should be conscientiously examined. And only in +1888 was the crowning work accomplished. In that year His Holiness Leo +XIII and the Sacred Congregation of Cardinals solemnly approved the +evidence and inscribed the name of Egidio in the book of the Blessed. + +To touch upon a few minor matters--I observe that Fra Egidio, like the +Flying Monk, was "illiterate," and similarly preserved up to a decrepit +age "the odorous lily of purity, which made him appear in words and +deeds as a most innocent child." He was accustomed to worship before a +favourite picture of the Mother of God which he kept adorned with +candles; and whenever the supply of these ran out, he was wont to +address Her with infantile simplicity of heart and in the local dialect: +"Now there's no wax for You; so think about it Yourself; if not, You'll +have to go without." The playful-saintly note. . . . + +But there is this difference between him and earlier saints that whereas +they, all too often, suffered in solitude, misunderstood and rejected of +men, he enjoyed the highest popularity during his whole long life. +Wherever he went, his footsteps were pursued by crowds of admirers, +eager to touch his wonder-working body or to cut off shreds of his +clothing as amulets; hardly a day passed that he did not return home +with garments so lacerated that only half of them was left; every +evening they had to be patched up anew, although they were purposely +stitched full of wires and small chains of iron as a protection. The +same passionate sympathy continued after death, for while his body was +lying in state a certain Luigi Ascione, a surgeon, pushed through the +crowd and endeavoured to cut off one of his toe-nails with the flesh +attached to it; he admitted being driven to this act of pious +depredation by the pleading request of the Spanish Ambassador and a +Neapolitan princess, who held Fra Egidio in great veneration. + +This is not an isolated instance. Southerners love their saints, and do +not content themselves with chill verbal expressions of esteem. So the +biographer of Saint Giangiuseppe records that "one of the deceased +saint's toes was bitten off with most regret-able devotion by the teeth +of a man in the crowd, who wished to preserve it as a relic. And the +blood from the wound flowed so copiously and so freely that many pieces +of cloth were saturated with it; nor did it cease to flow till the +precious corpse was interred." It is hard to picture such proofs of +fervid popularity falling to the lot of English deans and bishops. + +He was modern, too, in this sense, that he did not torment himself with +penitences (decay of Spanish austerity); on the contrary, he even kept +chocolate, honey and suchlike delicacies in his cell. In short, he was +an up-to-date saint, who despised mediaeval practices and lived in a +manner befitting the age which gave him birth. In this respect he +resembles our English men of holiness, who exercise a laudable +self-denial in resisting the seductions of the ascetic life. + +Meanwhile, the cult of the Mother of God continued to wax in favour, and +those who are interested in its development should read the really +remarkable book by Antonio Cuomo, "Saggio apologetico della belezza +celeste e divina di Maria S.S. Madre di Dio" (Castellamare, 1863). It is +a diatribe against modernism by a champion of lost causes, an +exacerbated lover of the "Singular Virgin and fecund Mother of the +Verb." His argument, as I understand it, is the _consensus gentium_ +theory applied to the Virgin Mary. In defence of this thesis, the book +has been made to bristle with quotations; they stand out like quills +upon the porcupine, ready to impale the adventurous sceptic. Pliny and +Virgil and the Druids and Balaam's Ass are invoked as foretelling Her +birth; the Old Testament--that venerable sufferer, as Huxley called +it--is twisted into dire convulsions for the same purpose; much evidence +is also drawn from Hebrew observances and from the Church Fathers. But +the New Testamentary record is seldom invoked; the Saviour, on the rare +occasions when He is mentioned, being dismissed as "G. C." The volume +ends with a pyrotechnical display of invective against non-Catholic +heretics; a medley of threats and abuse worthy of those breezy days of +Erasmus, when theologians really said what they thought of each other. +The frank polytheism of Montorio is more to my taste. This outpouring of +papistical rhetoric gives me unwarrantable sensations--it makes me feel +positively Protestant. + +Another sign of increasing popularity is that the sacred bacchanals +connected with the "crowning" of various Madonnas were twice as +numerous, in Naples, in the nineteenth as in the eighteenth century. Why +an image of the Mother of God should be decked with this worldly symbol, +as a reward for services rendered, will be obscure only to those who +fail to appreciate the earthly-tangible complexion of southern religion. +Puerility is its key-note. The Italian is either puerile or adult; the +Englishman remains everlastingly adolescent. . . . + +Now of course it is open to any one to say that the pious records from +which I have quoted are a desolation of the spirit; that they possess +all the improbability of the "Arabian Nights," and none of their charm; +that all the distempered dreamings to which our poor humanity is subject +have given themselves a rendezvous in their pages. I am not for +disputing the point, and I can understand how one man may be saddened by +their perusal, while another extracts therefrom some gleams of mirth. +For my part, I merely verify this fact: the native has been fed with +this stuff for centuries, and if we desire to enter into his feelings, +we must feed ourselves likewise--up to a point. The past is the key to +the present. That is why I have dwelt at such length on the subject--in +the hope of clearing up the enigma in the national character: the +unpassable gulf, I mean, between the believing and the unbelieving +sections of the community. + +An Anglo-Saxon arriving at Bagnara and witnessing a procession in honour +of that Sacred Hat of the Mother of God which has led me into this +disquisition, would be shocked at the degree of bigotry implied. "The +Hat of the Virgin Mary," he would say--"what next?" Then, accosting some +ordinary citizen not in the procession--any butcher or baker--he would +receive a shock of another kind; he would be appalled at the man's +language of contemptuous derision towards everything which he, the +Anglo-Saxon, holds sacred in biblical tradition. There is no attempt, +here, at "reconciliation." The classes calling themselves enlightened +are making a clean sweep of the old gods in a fashion that bewilders us +who have accustomed ourselves to see a providential design in everything +that exists (possibly because our acquaintance with a providentially- +designed Holy Office is limited to an obsolete statute, the genial +_de haeretico comburendo)._ The others, the fetishists, have +remained on the spiritual level of their own saints. And there we stand +today. That section so numerous in England, the pseudo-pagans, +crypto-Christians, or whatever obscurantists like Messrs. A. J. Balfour +and Mallock like to call themselves (the men who, with disastrous +effects, transport into realms of pure intelligence the spirit of +compromise which should be restricted to practical concerns)--that +section has no representatives hereabouts. + +Fully to appreciate their attitude as opposed to ours, we must also +remember that the south Italian does not trouble himself about the +objective truth of any miracle whatever; his senses may be perverted, +but his intelligence remains outside the sphere of infection. This is +his saving grace. To the people here, the affair of Moses and the +Burning Bush, the raising of Lazarus, and Egidio's cow-revival, are on +the identical plane of authenticity; the Bible is one of a thousand +saints' books; its stories may be as true as theirs, or just as untrue; +in any case, what has that to do with his own worldly conduct? But the +Englishman with ingenuous ardour thinks to believe in the Burning Bush +wonder, and in so far his intelligence is infected; with equal ardour he +excludes the cow-performance from the range of possibility; and to him +it matters considerably which of the miracles are true and which are +false, seeing that his conduct is supposed to take colour from such +supernatural events. Ultra-credulous as to one set of narratives, he has +no credulity left for other sets; he concentrates his believing energies +upon a small space, whereas the Italian's are diffused, thinly, over a +wide area. It is the old story: Gothic intensity and Latin spaciousness. +So the Gothic believer takes his big dose of irrationalism on one fixed +day; the Latin, by attending Mass every morning, spreads it over the +whole week. And the sombre strenuousness of our northern character +expects a remuneration for this outlay of faith, while the other +contents himself with such sensuous enjoyment as he can momentarily +extract from his ceremonials. That is why our English religion has a +_democratic_ tinge distasteful to the Latin who, at bottom, is always a +philosopher; democratic because it relies for its success, like +democratic politicians, upon promises--promises that may or may not be +kept--promises that form no part (they are only an official appendage) +of the childlike paganism of the south. . . . + +Fifteen francs will buy you a reliable witness for a south Italian +lawsuit; you must pay a good deal more in England. Thence one might +argue that the cult of credulity implied by these saintly biographies is +responsible for this laxness, for the general disregard of veracity. I +doubt it. I am not inclined to blame the monkish saint-makers for this +particular trait; I suspect that for fifteen francs you could have +bought a first-class witness under Pericles. Southerners are not yet +pressed for time; and when people are not pressed for time, they do not +learn the time-saving value of honesty. Our respect for truth and fair +dealing, such as it is, derives from modern commerce; in the Middle Ages +nobody was concerned about honesty save a few trading companies like the +Hanseatic League, and the poor mediaeval devil (the only gentleman of +his age) who was generally pressed for time and could be relied upon to +keep his word. Even God, of whom they talked so much, was systematically +swindled. Where time counts for nothing, expeditious practices between +man and man are a drug in the market. Besides, it must be noted that +this churchly misteaching was only a fraction of that general shattering +which has disintegrated all the finer fibres of public life. It stands +to reason that the fragile tissues of culture are dislocated, and its +delicate edges defaced, by such persistive governmental brutalization as +the inhabitants have undergone. None but the grossest elements in a +people can withstand enduring misrule; none but a mendacious and servile +nature will survive its wear and tear. So it comes about that up to a +few years ago the nobler qualities which we associate with those old +Hellenic colonists--their intellectual curiosity, their candid outlook +upon life, their passionate sense of beauty, their love of nature--all +these things had been abraded, leaving, as residue, nothing save what +the Greeks shared with ruder races. There are indications that this +state of affairs is now ending. + +The position is this. The records show that the common people never took +their saints to heart in the northern fashion--as moral exemplars; from +beginning to end, they have only utilized them as a pretext for fun and +festivals, a means of brightening the cata-combic, the essentially +sunless, character of Christianity. So much for the popular saints, the +patrons and heroes. The others, the ecclesiastical ones, are an +artificial product of monkish institutions. These monkeries were +established in the land by virtue of civil authority. Their continued +existence, however, was contingent upon the goodwill of the Vatican. One +of the surest and cheapest methods of obtaining this goodwill was to +produce a satisfactory crop of saints whose beatification swelled the +Vatican treasury with the millions collected from a deluded populace for +that end. The monks paid nothing; they only furnished the saint and, in +due course, the people's money. Can we wonder that they discovered +saints galore? Can we wonder that the Popes were gratified by their +pious zeal? + +So things went on till yesterday. But now a large proportion of the ten +thousand (?) churches and monasteries of Naples are closed or actually +in ruins; wayside sanctuaries crumble to dust in picturesque fashion; +the price of holy books has fallen to zero, and the godly brethren have +emigrated to establish their saint-manufactories elsewhere. Not without +hope of success; for they will find purchasers of their wares wherever +mankind can be interested in that queer disrespect of the body which is +taught by the metaphysical ascetics of the East. + +It was Lewes, I believe, who compared metaphysics to ghosts by saying +that there was no killing either of them; one could only dissipate them +by throwing light into the dark places they love to inhabit--to show +that nothing is there. Spectres, likewise, are these saintly caricatures +of humanity, perambulating metaphysics, the application _in corpore +vili_ of Oriental fakirism. Nightmare-literature is the crazy recital of +their deeds and sufferings. Pathological phantoms! The state of mind +which engenders and cherishes such illusions is a disease, and it has +been well said that "you cannot refute a disease." You cannot nail +ghosts to the counter. + +But a ray of light . . . + + + + +XXXII + +ASPROMONTE, THE CLOUD-GATHERER + + +Day was barely dawning when we left Delianuova and began the long and +weary climb up Montalto. Chestnuts gave way to beeches, but the summit +receded ever further from us. And even before reaching the uplands, the +so-called Piano di Carmelia, we encountered a bank of bad weather. A +glance at the map will show that Montalto must be a cloud-gatherer, +drawing to its flanks every wreath of vapour that rises from Ionian and +Tyrrhenian; a west wind was blowing that morning, and thick fogs clung +to the skirts of the peak. We reached the summit (1956 metres) at last, +drenched in an icy bath of rain and sleet, and with fingers so numbed +that we could hardly hold our sticks. + +Of the superb view--for such it must be--nothing whatever was to be +seen; we were wrapped in a glacial mist. On the highest point stands a +figure of the Redeemer. It was dragged up in pieces from Delianuova some +seven years ago, but soon injured by frosts; it has lately been +refashioned. The original structure may be due to the same pious +stimulus as that which placed the crosses on Monte Vulture and other +peaks throughout the country--a counterblast to the rationalistic +congress at Rome in 1904, when Giordano Bruno became, for a while, the +hero of the country. This statue does not lack dignity. The Saviour's +regard turns towards Reggio, the capital of the province; and one hand +is upraised in calm and godlike benediction. + +Passing through magnificent groves of fir, we descended rapidly into +anothsr climate, into realms of golden sunshine. Among these trees I +espied what has become quite a rare bird in Italy--the common +wood-pigeon. The few that remain have been driven into the most secluded +recesses of the mountains; it was different in the days of Theocritus, +who sang of this amiable fowl when the climate was colder and the +woodlands reached as far as the now barren seashore. To the firs +succeeded long stretches of odorous pines interspersed with +Mediterranean heath (brayere), which here grows to a height of twelve +feet; one thinks of the number of briar pipes that could be cut out of +its knotty roots. A British Vice-Consul at Reggio, Mr. Kerrich, started +this industry about the year 1899; he collected the roots, which were +sawn into blocks and then sent to France and America to be made into +pipes. This Calabrian briar was considered superior to the French kind, +and Mr. Kerrich had large sales on both sides of the Atlantic; his chief +difficulty was want of labour owing to emigration. + +We passed, by the wayside, several rude crosses marking the site of +accidents or murders, as well as a large heap of stones, where-under lie +the bones of a man who attempted to traverse these mountains in +winter-time and was frozen to death. + +"They found him," the guide told me, "in spring, when the snow melted +from off his body. There he lay, all fresh and comely! It looked as if +he would presently wake up and continue his march; but he neither spoke +nor stirred. Then they knew he was dead. And they piled all these stones +over him, to prevent the wolves, you understand----" + +Aspromonte deserves its name. It is an incredibly harsh agglomeration of +hill and dale, and the geology of the district, as I learned long ago +from my friend Professor Cortese, reveals a perfect chaos of rocks of +every age, torn into gullies by earthquakes and other cataclysms of the +past--at one place, near Scido, is an old stream of lava. Once the +higher ground, the nucleus of the group, is left behind, the wanderer +finds himself lost in a maze of contorted ravines, winding about without +any apparent system of watershed. Does the liquid flow north or south? +Who can tell! The track crawls in and out of valleys, mounts upwards to +heights of sun-scorched bracken and cistus, descends once more into dewy +glades hemmed in by precipices and overhung by drooping fernery. It +crosses streams of crystal clearness, rises afresh in endless gyrations +under the pines only to vanish, yet again, into the twilight of deeper +abysses, where it skirts the rivulet along precarious ledges, until some +new obstruction blocks the way--so it writhes about for long, long +hours. . . . + +Here, on the spot, one can understand how an outlaw like Musolino was +enabled to defy justice, helped, as he was, by the fact that the vast +majority of the inhabitants were favourable to him, and that the officer +in charge of his pursuers was paid a fixed sum for every day he spent in +the chase and presumably found it convenient not to discover his +whereabouts. [Footnote: See next chapter.] + +We rested awhile, during these interminable meanderings, under the +shadow of a group of pines. + +"Do you see that square patch yonder?" said my man. "It is a cornfield. +There Musolino shot one of his enemies, whom he suspected of giving +information to the police. It was well done." + +"How many did he shoot, altogether?" + +"Only eighteen. And three of them recovered, more or less; enough to +limp about, at all events. Ah, if you could have seen him, sir! He was +young, with curly fair hair, and a face like a rose. God alone can tell +how many poor people he helped in their distress. And any young girl he +met in the mountains he would help with her load and accompany as far as +her home, right into her father's house, which none of us would have +risked, however much we might have liked it. But every one knew that he +was pure as an angel." + +"And there was a young fellow here," he went on, "who thought he could +profit by pretending to be Musolino. So one day he challenged a +proprietor with his gun, and took all his money. When it came to +Musolino's ears, he was furious--furious! He lay in wait for him, caught +him, and said: 'How dare you touch fathers of children? Where's that +money you took from Don Antonio?' Then the boy began to cry and tremble +for his life. 'Bring it,' said Musolino, 'every penny, at midday next +Monday, to such and such a spot, or else----' Of course he brought it. +Then he marched him straight into the proprietor's house. 'Here's this +wretched boy, who robbed you in my name. And here's the money: please +count it. Now, what shall we do with him?' So Don Antonio counted the +money. 'It's all there,' he said; 'let him off this time.' Then Musolino +turned to the lad: 'You have behaved like a mannerless puppy,' he said, +'without shame or knowledge of the world. Be reasonable in future, and +understand clearly: I will have no brigandage in these mountains. Leave +that to the syndics and judges in the towns.'" + +We did not traverse Musolino's natal village, Santo Stefano; indeed, we +passed through no villages at all. But after issuing from the labyrinth, +we saw a few of them, perched in improbable situations--Roccaforte and +Roghudi on our right; on the other side, Africo and Casalnuovo. Salis +Marschlins says that the inhabitants of these regions are so wild and +innocent that money is unknown; everything is done by barter. That comes +of copying without discrimination. For this statement he utilized the +report of a Government official, a certain Leoni, who was sent hither +after the earthquake of 1783, and found the use of money not unknown, +but forgotten, in consequence of this terrible catastrophe. + +These vales of Aspromonte are one of the last refuges of living +Byzantinism. Greek is still spoken in some places, such as Rocca-forte +and Roghudi. Earlier travellers confused the natives with the Albanians; +Niehbuhr, who had an obsession on the subject of Hellenism, imagined +they were relics of old Dorian and Achaean colonies. Scholars are +apparently not yet quite decided upon certain smaller matters. So +Lenormant (Vol. II, p. 433) thinks they came hither after the Turkish +conquest, as did the Albanians; Batiffol argues that they were chased +into Calabria from Sicily by the Arabs after the second half of the +seventh century; Morosi, who treats mostly of their Apulian settlements, +says that they came from the East between the sixth and tenth centuries. +Many students, such as Morelli and Comparetti, have garnered their +songs, language, customs and lore, and whoever wants a convenient resume +of these earlier researches will find it in Pellegrini's book which was +written in 1873 (printed 1880). He gives the number of Greek inhabitants +of these places--Roghudi, for example, had 535 in his day; he has also +noted down these villages, like Africo and Casalnuovo, in which the +Byzantine speech has lately been lost. Bova and Condofuri are now the +head-quarters of mediaeval Greek in these parts. + +From afar we had already descried a green range of hills that shut out +the seaward view. This we now began to climb, in wearisome ascension; it +is called _Pie d'lmpisa,_ because "your feet are all the time on a steep +incline." Telegraph wires here accompany the track, a survival of the +war between the Italian Government and Musolino. On the summit lies a +lonely Alp, Campo di Bova, where a herd of cattle were pasturing under +the care of a golden-haired youth who lay supine on the grass, gazing at +the clouds as they drifted in stately procession across the firmament. +Save for a dusky charcoal-burner crouching in a cave, this boy was the +only living person we encountered on our march--so deserted are these +mountain tracks. + +At Campo di Bova a path branches off to Staiti; the sea is visible once +more, and there are fine glimpses, on the left, towards Staiti (or is it +Ferruzzano?) and, down the right, into the destructive and dangerous +torrent of Amendolea. Far beyond it, rises the mountain peak of +Pentedattilo, a most singular landmark which looks exactly like a molar +tooth turned upside down, with fangs in air. The road passes through a +gateway in the rock whence, suddenly, a full view is disclosed of Bova +on its hill-top, the houses nestling among huge blocks of stone that +make one think of some cyclopean citadel of past ages. My guide stoutly +denied that this was Bova; the town, he declared, lay in quite another +direction. I imagine he had never been beyond the foot of the "Pie +d'Impisa." + +Here, once more, the late earthquake has done some damage, and there is +a row of trim wooden shelters near the entrance of the town. I may add, +as a picturesque detail, that about one-third of them have never been +inhabited, and are never likely to be. They were erected in the heat of +enthusiasm, and there they will stay, empty and abandoned, until some +energetic mayor shall pull them down and cook his maccheroni with their +timber. + +Evening was drawing on apace, and whether it was due to the joy of +having accomplished an arduous journey, or to inconsiderate potations of +the Bacchus of Bova, one of the most remarkable wines in Italy, I very +soon found myself on excellent terms with the chief citizens of this +rather sordid-looking little place. A good deal has been written +concerning Bova and its inhabitants, but I should say there is still a +mine of information to be exploited on the spot. They are bilingual, but +while clinging stubbornly to their old speech, they have now embraced +Catholicism. The town kept its Greek religious rites till the latter +half of the sixteenth century; and Rodota has described the "vigorous +resistance" that was made to the introduction of Romanism, and the +ceremonies which finally accompanied that event. + +Mine hostess obligingly sang me two or three songs in her native +language; the priest furnished me with curious statistics of folklore +and criminology; and the notary, with whom I conversed awhile on the +tiny piazza that overlooks the coastlands and distant Ionian, was a most +affable gentleman. Seeing that the Christian names of the populace are +purely Italian, I enquired as to their surnames, and learned what I +expected, namely, that a good many Greek family names survive among the +people. His own name, he said, was unquestionably Greek: _Condemi;_ if I +liked, he would go through the local archives and prepare me a list of +all such surnames as appeared to him to be non-Italian; we could thus +obtain some idea of the percentage of Greek families still living here. +My best thanks to the good Signor! + +After some further liquid refreshment, a youthful native volunteered to +guide me by short cuts to the remote railway station. We stepped +blithely into the twilight, and during the long descent I discoursed +with him, in fluent Byzantine Greek, of the affairs of his village. + +It is my theory that among a populace of this kind the words relative to +agricultural pursuits will be those which are least likely to suffer +change with lapse of years, or to be replaced by others. + +Acting on this principle, I put him through a catechism on the subject +as soon as we reached our destination, and was surprised at the relative +scarcity of Italian terms--barely 25 per cent I should say. Needless to +add, I omitted to note them down. Such as it is, be that my contribution +to the literature of these sporadic islets of mediaeval Hellenism, whose +outstanding features are being gnawed away by the waves of military +conscription, governmental schooling, and emigration. + +Caulonia, my next halting-place, lay far off the line. I had therefore +the choice of spending the night at Gerace (old Locri) or Rocella +Ionica--intermediate stations. Both of them, to my knowledge, possessing +indifferent accommodation, I chose the former as being the nearest, and +slept there, not amiss; far better than on a previous occasion, when +certain things occurred which need not be set down here. + +The trip from Delianuova over the summit of Montalto to Bova railway +station is by no means to be recommended to young boys or persons in +delicate health. Allowing for only forty-five minutes' rest, it took me +fourteen hours to walk to the town of Bova, and the railway station lies +nearly three hours apart from that place. There is hardly a level yard +of ground along the whole route, and though my "guide" twice took the +wrong track and thereby probably lost me some little time, I question +whether the best walker, provided (as I was) with the best maps, will be +able to traverse the distance in less than fifteen hours. + +Whoever he is, I wish him joy of his journey. Pleasant to recall, +assuredly; the scenery and the mountain flowers are wondrously +beautiful; but I have fully realized what the men of Delianuova meant, +when they said: + +"To Montalto, Yes; to Bova, No." + + + + +XXXIII + +MUSOLINO AND THE LAW + + +Musolino will remain a hero for many long years to come. "He did his +duty ": such is the popular verdict on his career. He was not a brigand, +but an unfortunate--a martyr, a victim of the law. So he is described +not only by his country-people, but by the writers of many hundred +serious pamphlets in every province of Italy. + +At any bookstall you may buy cheap illustrated tracts and poems setting +forth his achievements. In Cosenza I saw a play of which he was the +leading figure, depicted as a pale, long-suffering gentleman of the +"misunderstood" type--friend of the fatherless, champion of widows and +orphans, rectifier of all wrongs; in fact, as the embodiment of those +virtues which we are apt to associate with Prometheus or the founder of +Christianity. + +Only to those who know nothing of local conditions will it seem strange +to say that Italian law is one of the factors that contribute to the +disintegration of family life throughout the country, and to the +production of creatures like Musolino. There are few villages which do +not contain some notorious assassins who have escaped punishment under +sentimental pleas, and now terrorize the neighbourhood. This is one of +the evils which derange patriarchalism; the decent-minded living in fear +of their lives, the others with a conspicuous example before their eyes +of the advantages of evil-doing. And another is that the innocent often +suffer, country-bred lads being locked up for months and years in prison +on the flimsiest pretexts--often on the mere word of some malevolent +local policeman--among hardened habitual offenders. If they survive the +treatment, which is not always the case, they return home completely +demoralized and a source of infection to others. + +It is hardly surprising if, under such conditions, rich and poor alike +are ready to hide a picturesque fugitive from justice. A sad state of +affairs, but--as an unsavoury Italian proverb correctly says--_il pesce +puzza dal capo._ + +For the fault lies not only in the fundamental perversity of all Roman +Law. It lies also in the local administration of that law, which is +inefficient and marked by that elaborate brutality characteristic of all +"philosophic" and tender-hearted nations. One thinks of the Byzantines. +. . . That justices should be well-salaried gentlemen, cognizant of +their duties to society; that carbineers and other police-functionaries +should be civilly responsible for outrages upon the public; that a +so-called "habeas-corpus" Act might be as useful here as among certain +savages of the north; that the Baghdad system of delays leads to +corruption of underpaid officials and witnesses alike (not to speak of +judges)--in a word, that the method pursued hereabouts is calculated to +create rather than to repress crime: these are truths of too elementary +a nature to find their way into the brains of the megalomaniac +rhetoricians who control their country's fate. They will never endorse +that saying of Stendhal's: "In Italy, with the exception of Milan, the +death-penalty is the preface of all civilization." (To this day, the +proportion of murders is still 13 per cent higher in Palermo than in +Milan.) + +Speak to the wisest judges of the horrors of cellular confinement such +as Musolino was enduring up to a short time ago, as opposed to capital +punishment, and you will learn that they invoke the humanitarian +Beccaria in justification of it. Theorists! + +For less formidable criminals there exists that wondrous institution of +_domicilio coatto,_ which I have studied in the islands of Lipari and +Ponza. These evil-doers seldom try to escape; life is far too +comfortable, and the wine good and cheap; often, on completing their +sentences, they get themselves condemned anew, in order to return. The +hard-working man may well envy their lot, for they recuve free lodging +from the Government, a daily allowance of money, and two new suits of +clothes a year--they are not asked to do a stroke of work in return, but +may lie in bed all day long, if so disposed. The law-abiding citizen, +meanwhile, pays for the upkeep of this horde of malefactors, as well as +for the army of officials who are deputed to attend to their wants. This +institution of _domicilio coatto_ is one of those things which would be +incredible, were it not actually in existence. It is a school, a +State-fostered school, for the promotion of criminality. + +But what shall be expected? Where judges sob like children, and jurors +swoon away with emotionalism; where floods of bombast--go to the courts, +and listen!--take the place of cross-examination and duly-sworn +affidavits; where perjury is a humanly venial and almost praiseworthy +failing--how shall the code, defective as it is, be administered? +Rhetoric, and rhetoric alone, sways the decision of the courts. Scholars +are only now beginning to realize to what an extent the ancient sense of +veracity was tainted with this vice--how deeply all classical history is +permeated with elegant partisan non-truth. And this evil legacy from +Greco-Roman days has been augmented by the more recent teachings of +Jesuitry and the Catholic theory of "peccato veniale." Rhetoric alone +counts; rhetoric alone is "art." The rest is mere facts; and your +"penalista" has a constitutional horror of a bald fact, because _there +it is,_ and there is nothing to be done with it. It is too crude a thing +for cultured men to handle. If a local barrister were forced to state in +court a plain fact, without varnish, he would die of cerebral +congestion; the judge, of boredom. + +In early times, these provinces had a rough-and-ready cowboy justice +which answered simple needs, and when, in Bourbon days, things became +more centralized, there was still a never-failing expedient: each judge +having a fixed and publicly acknowledged tariff, the village elders, in +deserving cases, subscribed the requisite sum and released their +prisoner. But Italy is now paying the penalty of ambition. With one foot +in the ferocity of her past, and the other on a quicksand of +dream-nurtured idealism, she contrives to combine the disadvantages of +both. She, who was the light o' love of all Europe for long ages, and in +her poverty denied nothing to her clientele, has now laid aside a little +money, repenting of her frivolous and mercenary deeds (they sometimes +do), and becoming puritanically zealous of good works in her old +age--all this, however, as might have been expected from her antecedent +career, without much discrimination. + +It is certainly remarkable that a race of men who have been such ardent +opponents of many forms of tyranny in the past, should still endure a +system of criminal procedure worthy of Torquemada. High and low cry out +against it, but--_pazienza!_ Where shall grievances be ventilated? In +Parliament? A good joke, that! In the press? Better still! Italian +newspapers nowise reflect the opinions of civilized Italy; they are mere +cheese-wrappers; in the whole kingdom there are only three +self-respecting dailies. The people have learnt to despair of their +rulers--to regard them with cynical suspicion. Public opinion has been +crushed out of the country. What goes by that name is the gossip of the +town-concierge, or obscure village cabals and schemings. + +I am quite aware that the law-abiding spirit is the slow growth of ages, +and that a serious mischief like this cannot be repaired in a short +generation. I know that even now the Italian code of criminal procedure, +that tragic farce, is under revision. I know, moreover, that there are +stipendiary magistrates in south Italy whose discernment and integrity +would do honour to our British courts. But--take the case out of their +hands into a higher tribunal, and you may put your trust in God, or in +your purse. Justice hereabouts is in the same condition as it was in +Egypt at the time of Lord Dufferin's report: a mockery. + +It may be said that it does not concern aliens to make such criticism. A +fatuous observation! Everything concerns everybody. The foreigner in +Italy, if he is wise, will familiarize himself not only with the +cathedrals to be visited, but also, and primarily, with the technique of +legal bribery and subterfuge--with the methods locally employed for +escaping out of the meshes of the law. Otherwise he may find unpleasant +surprises in store for him. Had Mr. Mercer made it his business to +acquire some rudiments of this useful knowledge, he would never have +undergone that outrageous official ill-treatment which has become a +byword in the annals of international amenities. And if these strictures +be considered too severe, let us see what Italians themselves have to +say. In 1900 was published a book called "La Quistione Meridionale" +(What's Wrong with the South), that throws a flood of light upon local +conditions. It contains the views of twenty-seven of the most prominent +men in the country as to how south Italian problems should be faced and +solved. Nearly all of them deplore the lack of justice. Says Professor +Colajanni: "To heal the south, we require an honest, intelligent and +sagacious government, _which we have not got."_ And Lombroso: "In the +south it is necessary to introduce justice, _which does not exist, save +in favour of certain classes."_ + +I am tempted to linger on this subject, not without reason. These people +and their attitude towards life will remain an enigma to the traveller, +until he has acquainted himself with the law of the land and seen with +his own eyes something of the atrocious misery which its administration +involves. A murderer like Musolino, crowned with an aureole of +saintliness, would be an anomaly in England. We should think it rather +paradoxical to hear a respectable old farmer recommending his boys to +shoot a policeman, whenever they safely can. On the spot, things begin +to wear a different aspect. Musolino is no more to be blamed than a +child who has been systematically misguided by his parents; and if these +people, much as they love their homes and families, are all potential +Musolinos, they have good reasons for it--excellent reasons. + +No south Italian living at this present moment, be he of what social +class you please--be he of the gentlest blood or most refined +culture--is _a priori_ on the side of the policeman. No; not _a +priori._ The abuses of the executive are too terrific to warrant such an +attitude. Has not the entire police force of Naples, up to its very +head, been lately proved to be in the pay of the camorra; to say nothing +of its connection with what Messrs. King and Okey euphemistically call +"the unseen hand at Rome"--a hand which is held out for blackmail, and +not vainly, from the highest ministerial benches? Under such conditions, +the populace becomes profoundly distrustful of the powers that be, and +such distrust breeds bad citizens. But so things will remain, until the +bag-and-baggage policy is applied to the whole code of criminal +procedure, and to a good half of its present administrators. + +The best of law-systems, no doubt, is but a compromise. Science being +one thing, and public order another, the most enlightened of legislators +may well tremble to engraft the fruits of modern psychological research +upon the tree of law, lest the scion prove too vigorous for the aged +vegetable. But some compromises are better than others; and the Italian +code, which reads like a fairy tale and works like a Fury, is as bad a +one as human ingenuity can devise. If a prisoner escape punishment, it +is due not so much to his innocence as to some access of sanity or +benevolence on the part of the judge, who courageously twists the law in +his favour. Fortunately, such humane exponents of the code are common +enough; were it otherwise, the prisons, extensive as they are, would +have to be considerably enlarged. But that ideal judge who shall be paid +as befits his grave calling, who shall combine the honesty and common +sense of the north with the analytical acumen of the south, has yet to +be evolved. What interests the student of history is that things +hereabouts have not changed by a hair since the days of Demosthenes and +those preposterous old Hellenic tribunals. Not by a single hair! On the +one hand, we have a deluge of subtle disquisitions on "jurisprudence," +"personal responsibility" and so forth; on the other, the sinister +tomfoolery known as _law--_ that is, babble, corruption, palaeolithic +ideas of what constitutes evidence, and a court-procedure that reminds +one of Gilbert and Sullivan at their best. + +There was a report in the papers not long ago of the trial of an old +married couple, on the charge of murdering a young girl. The bench +dismissed the case, remarking that there was not a particle of evidence +against them; they had plainly been exemplary citizens all their long +lives. They had spent five years in prison awaiting trial. Five years, +and innocent! It stands to reason that such abuses disorganize the +family, especially in Italy, where the "family" means much more than it +does in England; the land lies barren, and savings are wasted in paying +lawyers and bribing greedy court officials. What are this worthy couple +to think of _Avanti, Savoia!_ once they have issued from their dungeon? + +I read, in yesterday's Parliamentary Proceedings, of an honourable +member (Aprile) rising to ask the Minister of Justice (Gallini) whether +the time has not come to proceed with the trial of "Signori Camerano and +their co-accused," who have been in prison for six years, charged with +voluntary homicide. Whereto His Excellency sagely replies that "la +magistratura ha avuto i suoi motivi"--the magistrates have had their +reasons. Six years in confinement, and perhaps innocent! Can one wonder, +under such circumstances, at the anarchist schools of Prato and +elsewhere? Can one wonder if even a vindictive and corrupt rag like the +socialistic "Avanti" occasionally prints frantic protests of +quasi-righteous indignation? And not a hundredth part of such accused +persons can cause a Minister of the Crown to be interpellated on their +behalf. The others suffer silently and often die, forgotten, in their +cells. + +And yet--how seriously we take this nation! Almost as seriously as we +take ourselves. The reason is that most of us come to Italy too +undiscerning, too reverent; in the pre-critical and pre-humorous stages. +We arrive here, stuffed with Renaissance ideals or classical lore, and +viewing the present through coloured spectacles. We arrive here, above +all things, too young; for youth loves to lean on tradition and to draw +inspiration from what has gone before; youth finds nothing more +difficult than to follow Goethe's advice about grasping that living life +which shifts and fluctuates about us. Few writers are sufficiently +detached to laugh at these people as they, together with ourselves, so +often and so richly deserve. I spoke of the buffoonery of Italian law; I +might have called it a burlesque. The trial of the ex-minister Nasi: +here was a _cause celebre_ conducted by the highest tribunal of the +land; and if it was not a burlesque--why, we must coin a new word for +what is. + + + + +XXXIV + +MALARIA + + +A black snake of alarming dimensions, one of the monsters that still +infest the Calabrian lowlands, glided across the roadway while I was +waiting for the post carriage to drive me to Caulonia from its +railway-station. Auspicious omen! It carried my thoughts from old +Aesculapius to his modern representatives--to that school of wise and +disinterested healers who are ridding these regions of their curse, and +with whom I was soon to have some nearer acquaintance. We started at +last, in the hot hours of the morning, and the road at first skirts the +banks of the Alaro, the Sagra of old, on whose banks was fought the +fabled battle between the men of Croton and Locri. Then it begins to +climb upwards. My companion was a poor peasant woman, nearly blind (from +malaria, possibly). Full of my impressions of yesterday, I promptly led +the conversation towards the subject of Musolino. She had never spoken +to him, she said, or even seen him. But she got ten francs from him, all +the same. In dire distress, some years ago, she had asked a friend in +the mountains to approach the brigand on her behalf. The money was long +in coming, she added, but of course it came in the end. He always helped +poor people, even those outside his own country. The site of the +original Caulonia is quite uncertain. Excavations now going on at +Monasterace, some ten miles further on, may decide that the town lay +there. Some are in favour of the miserable village of Foca, near at +hand; or of other sites. The name of Foca seems to point, rather, to a +settlement of the regenerator Nicephorus Phocas. Be that as it may, the +present town of Caulonia used to be called Castelvetere, and it +appropriated the Greek name in accordance with a custom which has been +largely followed hereabouts. [Footnote: It is represented with two +towers in Peutinger's Tables. But these, says an editor, should have +been given to the neighbouring Scilatio, for Caulon was in ruins at the +time of Pliny, and is not even mentioned by Ptolemy. Servius makes +another mistake; he confuses the Calabrian Caulon with a locality of the +same name near Capua.] It contains some ten thousand inhabitants, +amiable, intelligent and distinguished by a _philoxenia_ befitting the +traditions of men who sheltered Pythagoras in his hour of need. As at +Rossano, Catanzaro and many other Calabrian towns, there used to be a +ghetto of Jews here; the district is still called "La Giudeca"; their +synagogue was duly changed into a church of the Madonna. + +So much I learn from Montorio, who further informs me that the +ubiquitous Saint Peter preached here on his way to Rome, and converted +the people to Christianity; and that the town can boast of three +authentic portraits of the Mother of God painted by Saint Luke ("Lukas +me pinxit"). One is rather bewildered by the number of these +masterpieces in Italy, until one realizes, as an old ecclesiastical +writer has pointed out, that "the Saint, being excellent in his art, +could make several of them in a few days, to correspond to the great +devotion of those early Christians, fervent in their love to the Great +Mother of God. Whence we may believe that to satisfy their ardent +desires he was continually applying himself to this task of so much +glory to Mary and her blessed Son." But the sacristan of the church at +Caulonia, to whom I applied for information regarding these local +treasures, knew nothing about them, and his comments gave me the +impression that he has relapsed into a somewhat pagan way of regarding +such matters. + +You may obtain a fairly good view of Caulonia from the southeast; or +again, from the neighbouring hillock of San Vito. The town lies some 300 +metres above sea-level on a platform commanding the valleys of the Amusa +and Alaro. This position, which was clearly chosen for its strategic +value, unfortunately does not allow it to expand, and so the inhabitants +are deprived of that public garden which they amply deserve. At the +highest point lies a celebrated old castle wherein, according to +tradition, Campanella was imprisoned for a while. In the days of +Pacicchelli, it was a fine place--"magnifico nelle regole di Fortezza, +con cinque baloardi provveduti di cannoni di bronzo, ed una riccha +Armeria, degna habitazione di don Carlo Maria Carrafa, Prencipe della +Roccella, che se ne intitola Marchese." Mingled with the stones of its +old walls they have recently found skeletons--victims, possibly, of the +same macabre superstition to which the blood-drenched masonry of the +Tower of London bears witness. Here, too, have been unearthed +terra-cotta lamps and other antiquities. What are we to surmise from +this? That it was a Roman foundation? Or that the malaria in older times +forced Caulonia to wander towards healthier inland heights after the +example of Sybaris-Terranova, and that the Romans continued to occupy +this same site? Or, assuming Castelvetere to date only from mediaeval +times, that these ancient relics found their way into it accidentally? +The low-lying district of Foca, at this day, is certainly very +malarious, whereas the death-rate up here is only about 12 per 1000. + +Dr. Francesco Genovese of Caulonia, to whom I am indebted for much +kindness and who is himself a distinguished worker in the humanitarian +mission of combating malaria, has published, among other interesting +pamphlets, one which deals with this village of Foca, a small place of +about 200 inhabitants, surrounded by fertile orange and vine plantations +near the mouth of the Alaro. His researches into its vital statistics +for the half-century ending 1902 reveal an appalling state of affairs. +Briefly summarized, they amount to this, that during this period there +were 391 births and 516 deaths. In other words, the village, which in +1902 ought to have contained between 600 and 800 inhabitants, not only +failed to progress, but devoured its original population of 200; and not +only them, but also 125 fresh immigrants who had entered the region from +the healthy uplands, lured by the hope of gaining a little money during +the vintage season. + +A veritable Moloch! + +Had the old city of Caulonia, numbering perhaps 20,000 inhabitants, +stood here under such conditions of hygiene, it would have been expunged +off the face of the earth in fifty years. + +Yet--speaking of malaria in general--a good deal of evidence has been +brought together to show that the disease has been endemic in Magna +Grsecia for two thousand years, and the customs of the Sybarites seem to +prove that they had some acquaintance with marsh fever, and tried to +guard against it. "Whoever would live long," so ran their proverb, "must +see neither the rising nor the setting sun." A queer piece of advice, +intelligible only if the land was infested with malaria. Many of their +luxurious habits assume another import, on this hypothesis. Like the +inhabitants of the malarious Etruscan region, they were adepts at +draining, and their river is described, in one of the minor works +attributed to Galen, as "rendering men infertile"--a characteristic +result of malaria. What is still more significant is that their new town +Thurii, built on the heights, was soon infected, and though twice +repeopled, decayed away. And that they had chosen the heights for their +relative healthfulness we can infer from Strabo, who says that Paestum, +a colony from Sybaris, was removed further inland from the shore, on +account of the pestilential climate of the lowlands. + +But the Ionian shores cannot have been as deadly as they now are. We +calculate, for example, that the town walls of Croton measured eighteen +kilometres in circumference, a figure which the modern visitor to +Cotrone only brings himself to believe when he remembers what can be +actually proved of other Hellenic colonies, such as Syracuse. Well, the +populace of so large a city requires a surrounding district to supply it +with agricultural produce. The Marchesato, the vast tract bordering on +Cotrone, is now practically uninhabitable; the population (including the +town) has sunk to 45 to the square kilometre. That is malaria. + +Or rather, only one side of the evil. For these coastlands attract rural +labourers who descend from the mountains during the season of hay-making +or fruit-harvest, and then return infected to their homes. One single +malarious patient may inoculate an entire village, hitherto immune, +granted the anophelines are there to propagate the mischief. By means of +these annual migrations the scourge has spread, in the past. And so it +spreads to-day, whenever possible. Of forty labourers that left Caulonia +for Cotrone in 1908 all returned infected save two, who had made liberal +use of quinine as a prophylactic. Fortunately, there are no anophelines +at Caulonia. + +Greatly, indeed, must this country have changed since olden days; and +gleaning here and there among the ancients, Dr. Genovese has garnered +some interesting facts on this head. The coast-line, now unbroken sand, +is called _rocky,_ in several regions, by Strabo, Virgil and Persius +Flaccus; of the two harbours, of Locri, of that of Metapontum, Caulonia +and other cities, nothing remains; the promontory of Cocynthum +(Stilo)--described as the longest promontory in Italy--together with +other capes, has been washed away by the waves or submerged under silt +carried down from the hills; islands, like that of Calypso which is +described in Vincenzo Pascale's book (1796), and mentioned by G. +Castaidi (1842), have clean vanished from the map. + +The woodlands have retired far inland; yet here at Caulonia, says +Thucydides, was prepared the timber for the fleets of Athens. The +rivers, irregular and spasmodic torrents, must have flowed with more +equal and deeper current, since Pliny mentions five of them as +navigable; snow, very likely, covered the mountain tops; the rainfall +was clearly more abundant--one of the sights of Locri was its daily +rainbow; the cicadas of the territory of Reggio are said to have been +"dumb," on account of the dampness of the climate. They are anything but +dumb nowadays. + +Earth-movements, too, have tilted the coast-line up and down, and there +is evidence to show that while the Tyrrhenian shore has been raised by +these oscillations, the Ionian has sunk. Not long ago four columns were +found in the sea at Cotrone two hundred yards from the beach; old +sailors remember another group of columns visible at low tide near +Caulonia. It is quite possible that the Ionian used to be as rocky as +the other shore, and this gradual sinking of the coast must have +retarded the rapid outflow of the rivers, as it has done in the plain of +Paestum and in the Pontine marshes, favouring malarious conditions. +Earthquakes have helped in the work; that of 1908 lowered certain parts +of the Calabrian shore opposite Messina by about one metre. Indeed, +though earthquakes have been known to raise the soil and thereby improve +it, the Calabrian ones have generally had a contrary effect. The +terrific upheavals of 1783-1787 produced two hundred and fifteen lakes +in the country; they were drained away in a style most creditable to the +Bourbons, but there followed an epidemic of malaria which carried off +18,800 people! + +These Calabrian conditions are only part of a general change of climate +which seems to have taken place all over Italy; a change to which +Columella refers when, quoting Saserna, he says that formerly the vine +and olive could not prosper "by reason of the severe winter" in certain +places where they have since become abundant, "thanks to a milder +temperature." We never hear of the frozen Tiber nowadays, and many +remarks of the ancients as to the moist and cold climate seem strange to +us. Pliny praises the chestnuts of Tarentum; I question whether the tree +could survive the hot climate of to-day. Nobody could induce "splendid +beeches" to grow in the _lowlands_ of Latium, yet Theophrastus, a +botanist, says that they were drawn from this region for shipbuilding +purposes. This gradual desiccation has probably gone on for long ages; +so Signor Cavara has discovered old trunks of white fir in districts of +the Apennines where such a plant could not possibly grow to-day. + +A change to a dry and warm atmosphere is naturally propitious to +malaria, granted sufficient water remains to propagate the mosquito. And +the mosquito contents itself with very little--the merest teacup fui. + +Returning to old Calabria, we find the woods of Locri praised by +Proclus--woods that must have been of coniferous timber, since Virgil +lauds their resinous pitch. Now the Aleppo pine produces pitch, and +would still flourish there, as it does in the lowlands between Taranto +and Metaponto; the classical Sila pitch-trees, however, could not grow +at this level any more. Corroborative evidence can be drawn from +Theocritus, who mentions heath and arbutus as thriving in the marine +thickets near Cotrone--mountain shrubs, nowadays, that have taken refuge +in cooler uplands, together with the wood-pigeon which haunted the same +jungles. It is true that he hints at marshes near Cotrone, and, indeed, +large tracts of south Italy are described as marshy by the ancients; +they may well have harboured the anopheles mosquito from time +immemorial, but it does not follow that they were malarious. + +Much of the healthy physical conditions may have remained into the +Middle Ages or even later; it is strange to read, for example, in +Edrisius, of the pitch and tar that were exported to all parts from the +Bradano river, or of the torrential Sinno that "ships enter this +river--it offers excellent anchorage"; odd, too, to hear of coral +fisheries as late as the seventeenth century at Rocella Ionica, where +the waves now slumber on an even and sandy beach. + +But malaria had made insidious strides, meanwhile. Dr. Genovese thinks +that by the year 1691 the entire coast was malarious and abandoned like +now, though only within the last two centuries has man actively +co-operated in its dissemination. So long as the woodlands on the plains +are cut down or grazed by goats, relatively little damage is done; but +it spells ruin to denude, in a country like this, the steep slopes of +their timber. Whoever wishes to know what mischief the goats, those +picturesque but pernicious quadrupeds, can do to a mountainous country, +should study the history of St. Helena. [Footnote: By J. C. Melliss +(London, 1875).] Thanks to the goats, Maltese fever has lately been +introduced into Calabria. Man, with his charcoal-burning, has completed +the disaster. What happens? The friable rock, no longer sustained by +plant-life, crashes down with each thunderstorm, blocks up the valleys, +devastating large tracts of fertile land; it creates swamps in the +lowlands, and impedes the outflow of water to the sea. These ravenous +_fiumare_ have become a feature in Calabrian scenery; underneath one of +the most terrible of them lies the birthplace of Praxiteles. Dry or +half-dry during the warm months, and of formidable breadth, such +torrent-beds--the stagnant water at their skirts--are ideal +breeding-places for the anophelines from their mouth up to a height of +250 metres. So it comes about that, within recent times, rivers have +grown to be the main arteries of malaria. And there are rivers galore in +Calabria. The patriotic Barrius enumerates no of them--Father Fiore, +less learned, or more prudent, not quite so many. Deforestation and +malaria have gone hand in hand here, as in Greece, Asia Minor, North +Africa, and other countries. + +Thus year after year, from one cause or another, the conditions have +become more favourable for the disease to do its fatal work. + +That much of this harm has been done quite lately can often be +proved. At Caulonia, for instance, the woodlands are known to have +reached the shore a hundred years ago, and there are bare tracts of land +still bearing the name of "foresta." In a single summer (1807) a French +regiment stationed at Cosenza lost 800 men from fever, and when Rath +visited the town in 1871 it was described to him as a "vast hospital" +during the hot months; nevertheless, says he, the disease has only been +so destructive during the last two centuries, for up to that time the +forests touched the outskirts of the town and regulated the Crati-bed, +preventing the formation of marshes. The literary record of Cosenza is +one of exceptional brilliance; for acute and original thought this town +can hardly be surpassed by any other of its size on earth. Were +statistics available, I have not the slightest doubt that fever could be +shown to be largely responsible for the withering of its spiritual life. + +The same fate--the same relapse from prosperity to decay--and for the +same reasons, has overtaken many other riverside villages, among them +that of Tarsia, the Caprasia of the An tonine Itinerary. "It was +described to us," says Rath, "as the most miserable and dirty village in +Calabria; but we found it worse." It remains, to-day, a highly infected +and altogether pitiable place, concerning which I have made certain +modest researches that would require, none the less, a chapter to +themselves. . . . + +Perhaps I have already said over-much on the subject. An Englishman +unacquainted with malaria might think so, oblivious of the fact that Sir +Ronald Ross has called it "perhaps the most important of human +diseases." But let him go to a malarious country and see with his own +eyes something of the degradation it involves; how it stamps its +accursed imprimatur upon man and nature alike! It is the blight of +youth--the desert-maker. A well-known Italian senator has declared that +the story of south Italy is, was, and will be the story of malaria; and +the greater part of Calabria will certainly remain an enigma to the +traveller who ignores what is meant by this plague. + +Malaria is the key to a correct understanding of the landscape; it +explains the inhabitants, their mode of life, their habits, their history. + + + + +XXXV + +CAULONIA TO SERRA + + +"How do you treat your malaria patients?" I once enquired of a doctor in +India. A few good stiff doses, he said, when the attack is on; that +generally settles them. If not, they can begin again. To take quinine as +a prophylactic, he considered folly. It might grow into a habit; you +never know. . . . + +It is to be hoped that such types are extinct, out there. They are +extinct hereabouts. None but an ignorant person would now traverse +malarious tracts in summer without previous quininiza-tion; or, if +infected, deal with the disease otherwise than by an amply protracted +treatment of cure. Yet it is only quite lately that we have gained our +knowledge of a proper use of the drug; and this accounts for the great +mortality long after its specific effects had been recognized by the +profession. It was given both inefficiently and insufficiently. It was +sold at a prohibitive price. The country people were distrustful; +so-and-so had taken it for three or four days; he had improved, yes; but +the fever was on him once more. Why waste money on such experiments? + +I remember accosting a lad, anemic, shivering with the tertian, and +marked by that untimely senility which is the sign-manual of malaria. I +suggested quinine. + +"I don't take doctors' stuff," he said. "Even if I wanted to, my father +would not let me. And if he did, there's no money to pay for it. And if +there were, it would do no good. He's tried it himself." + +"Well, but how are you feeling?" + +"Oh, all right. There's nothing much the matter with me. Just the bad air." + +Such types, too, are practically extinct nowadays; the people are being +educated to recognize their peril and how to avoid it; they begin to +follow Professor Celli's advice in the matter of regarding quinine as +their "daily bread." For since the discovery of the anophelic origin of +malaria many devices have been put into execution to combat the disease, +not the least of them being a popularized teaching of its causes and +consequences by means of pamphlets, lectures to school-children, and so +forth. + +Now, you may either fight the anopheles--the vehicle, or the disease +itself. The first entails putting the country into such a state that the +mosquito finds it unpleasant to live there, a labour of Hercules. Yet +large sums are being expended in draining marshy tracts, regulating +river-beds and afforesting bare spaces; and if you are interested in +such works, you will do well to see what is going on at Metaponto at +this moment. (A considerable portion of the Government grant for these +purposes has lately been deflected for use in the Tripolitan war.) +Exemplary fines are also imposed for illicit timber-cutting and +grazing,--in those towns, at least, where the magistrate has sufficient +sense to perceive the ulterior benefits to be derived from what +certainly entails a good deal of temporary hardship on poor people. +Certain economic changes are helping in this work; so the wealth +imported from America helps to break up the big properties, those +latifundia which, says an Italian authority, "are synonymous with +malaria." The ideal condition--the extirpation of anophelines--will +never be attained; nor is it of vital importance that it should be. + +Far more pressing is the protection of man against their attacks. +Wonderful success has crowned the wire-netting of the windows--an +outcome of the classical experiments of 1899, in the Roman Campagna. + +But chiefest and most urgent of all is the cure of the infected +population. In this direction, results astonishing--results well-nigh +incredible--have attended the recently introduced governmental sale of +quinine. In the year 1895 there were 16,464 deaths from malaria +throughout Italy. By 1908 the number had sunk to 3463. Eloquent figures, +that require no comment! And, despite the fact that the drug is now sold +at a merely nominal rate or freely given away to the needy--nay, thrust +down the very throats of the afflicted peasantry by devoted gentlemen +who scour the plains with ambulances during the deadly season--despite +this, the yearly profits from its sale are amounting to about +three-quarters of a million francs. + +So these forlorn regions are at last beginning to revive. + +And returning to Foca, of whose dreadful condition up to 1902 (year of +the introduction of Government quinine) I have just spoken, we find that +a revolution has taken place. Between that year and 1908 the birth-rate +more than doubled the death-rate. In 1908 some two hundred poor folks +frequented the ambulance, nearly six kilogrammes of quinine being +gratuitously distributed; not one of the natives of the place was +attacked by the disease; and there was a single death--an old woman of +eighty, who succumbed to senile decay. [Footnote: Doctor Genovese's +statistical investigations have brought an interesting little fact to +light. In the debilitating pre-quinine period there was a surplus of +female births; now, with increased healthfulness, those of the males +preponderate.] + +This is an example of what the new quinine-policy has done for Italy, in +briefest space of time. Well may the nation be proud of the men who +conceived this genial and beneficial measure and carried it through +Parliament, and of those local doctors without whose enlightened zeal +such a triumph could not have been achieved. . . . + +Sir Ronald Ross's discovery, by the way, has been fruitful not only in +practical humanitarian results. For instance, it has reduced North's +laborious "Roman Fever" to something little better than a curiosity. And +here, on these deserted shores that were once resplendent with a great +civilization--here is the place to peruse Mr. W. M. Jones's studies on +this subject. I will not give even the shortest precis of his +conscientious researches nor attempt to picture their effect upon a mind +trained in the old school of thought; suffice to say, that the author +would persuade us that malaria is implicated, to an hitherto unsuspected +extent, in the decline of ancient Greece and Rome. And he succeeds. Yes; +a man accustomed to weigh evidence will admit, I think, that he has made +out a suggestively strong case. + +How puzzled we were to explain why the brilliant life of Magna Graecia +was snuffed out suddenly, like a candle, without any appreciably +efficient cause--how we listened to our preachers cackling about the +inevitable consequences of Sybaritic luxury, and to the warnings of sage +politicians concerning the dangers of mere town-patriotism as opposed to +worthier systems of confederation! How we drank it all in! And how it +warmed the cockles of our hearts to think that we were not vicious, +narrow-minded heathens, such as these! + +And now a vulgar gnat is declared to be at the bottom of the whole mystery. + +Crudely disconcerting, these scientific discoveries. Or is it not rather +hard to be dragged to earth in this callous fashion, while soaring +heavenward on the wings of our edifying reflections? For the rest--the +old, old story; a simple, physical explanation of what used to be an +enigma brimful of moral significance. + +That Mr. Jones's facts and arguments will be found applicable to +other decayed races in the old and new worlds is highly probable. +Meanwhile, it takes one's breath away quite sufficiently to realize that +they apply to Hellas and her old colonies on these shores. + +"'AUTOS. Strange! My interest waxes. Tell me then, what affliction, God +or Devil, wiped away the fair life upon the globe, the beasts, the +birds, the delectable plantations, and all the blithe millions of the +human race? What calamity fell upon them?' + +"'ESCHATA. A gnat.' + +"'AUTOS. A gnat?' + +"'ESCHATA. Even so.'" + +Thus I wrote, while yet unaware that such pests as anophelines existed +upon earth. . . . + +At the same time, I think we must be cautious in following certain +deductions of our author; that theory of brutality, for example, as +resulting from malaria. Speaking of Calabria, I would almost undertake +to prove, from the archives of law-courts, that certain of the most +malarial tracts are precisely those in which there is least brutality of +any kind. Cotrone, for instance. . . . The _delegato_ (head of the +police) of that town is so young--a mere boy--that I marvelled how he +could possibly have obtained a position which is usually filled by +seasoned and experienced officers. He was a "son of the white hen," they +told me; that is, a socially favoured individual, who was given this job +for the simple reason that there was hardly any serious work for him to +do. Cosenza, on the other hand, has a very different reputation +nowadays. And it is perfectly easy to explain how malaria might have +contributed to this end. For the disease--and herein lies its +curse--lowers both the physical and social standard of a people; it +breeds misery, poverty and ignorance--fit soil for callous rapacity. + +But how about his theory of "pessimism" infecting the outlook of +generations of malaria-weakened sages? I find no trace of pessimism +here, not even in its mild Buddhistic form. The most salient mental +trait of cultured Calabrians is a subtle detachment and contempt of +illusions--whence their time-honoured renown as abstract thinkers and +speculators. This derives from a philosophic view of life and entails, +naturally enough, the outward semblance of gravity--a Spanish gravity, +due not so much to a strong graft of Spanish blood and customs during +the viceregal period, as to actual affinities with the race of Spain. +But this gravity has nothing in common with pessimism, antagonistic +though it be to those outbursts of irresponsible optimism engendered +under northern skies by copious food, or beer. + +To reach the uplands of Fabbrizia and Serra, whither I was now bound, I +might have utilized the driving road from Gioioso, on the Reggio side of +Caulonia. But that was everybody's route. Or I might have gone _via_ +Stilo, on the other side. But Stilo with its memories of Campanella--a +Spanish type, this!--and of Otho II, its winding track into the +beech-clad heights of Ferdinandea, was already familiar to me. I elected +to penetrate straight inland by the shortest way; a capable muleteer at +once presented himself. + +We passed through one single village, Ragona; leaving those of S. Nicola +and Nardo di Pace on the right. The first of them is celebrated for its +annual miracle of the burning olive, when, armed to the teeth (for some +ancient reason), the populace repairs to the walls of a certain convent +out of which there grows an olive tree: at its foot is kindled a fire +whose flames are sufficient to scorch all the leaves, but behold! next +day the foliage is seen to glow more bravely green than ever. Perhaps +the roots of the tree are near some cistern. These mountain villages, +hidden under oaks and vines, with waters trickling through their lanes, +a fine climate and a soil that bears everything needful for life, must +be ideal habitations for simple folks. In some of them, the death-rate +is as low as 7: 1000. Malaria is unknown here: they seem to fulfil all +the conditions of a terrestrial paradise. + +There is a note of joyous vigour in this landscape. The mule-track winds +in and out among the heights, through flowery meadows grazed by cattle +and full of buzzing insects and butterflies, and along hill-sides +cunningly irrigated; it climbs up to heathery summits and down again +through glades of chestnut and ilex with mossy trunks, whose shadow +fosters strange sensations of chill and gloom. Then out again, into the +sunshine of waving corn and poppies. + +For a short while we stumbled along a torrent-bed, and I grew rather sad +to think that it might be the last I should see for some time to come, +my days in this country being now numbered. This one was narrow. But +there are others, interminable in length and breadth. Interminable! No +breeze stirs in those deep depressions through which the merest thread +of milky water trickles disconsolately. The sun blazes overhead and +hours pass, while you trudge through the fiery inferno; scintillations +of heat rise from the stones and still you crawl onwards, breathless and +footsore, till eyes are dazed and senses reel. One may well say bad +things of these torrid deserts of pebbles which, up till lately, were +the only highways from the lowlands into the mountainous parts. But they +are sweet in memory. One calls to mind the wild savours that hang in +the stagnant air; the cloven hill-sides, seamed with gorgeous patches of +russet and purple and green; the spectral tamarisks, and the glory of +coral-tinted oleanders rising in solitary tufts of beauty, or flaming +congregations, out of the pallid waste of boulders. + +After exactly six hours Fabbrizia was reached--a large place whose name, +like that of Borgia, Savelli, Carafa and other villages on these +southern hills, calls up associations utterly non-Calabrian; Fabbrizia, +with pretentious new church and fantastically dirty side-streets. It +lies at the respectable elevation of 900 metres, on the summit of a +monstrous landslide which has disfigured the country. + +While ascending along the flank of this deformity I was able to see how +the authorities have attempted to cope with the mischief and arrest +further collapses. This is what they have done. The minute channels of +water, that might contribute to the disintegration of the soil by +running into this gaping wound from the sides or above, have been +artfully diverted from their natural courses; trees and shrubs are +planted at its outskirts in order to uphold the earth at these spots by +their roots--they have been protected by barbed wire from the grazing of +cattle; furthermore, a multitude of wickerwork dykes are thrown across +the accessible portions of the scar, to collect the downward-rushing +material and tempt winged plant-seeds to establish themselves on the +ledges thus formed. To bridle this runaway mountain is no mean task, for +such _frane_ are like rodent ulcers, ever enlarging at the edges. With +the heat, with every shower of rain, with every breath of wind, the +earth crumbles away; there is an eternal trickling, day and night, until +some huge boulder is exposed which crashes down, loosening everything in +its wild career; a single tempest may disrupture what the patience and +ingenuity of years have contrived. + +Three more hours or thereabouts will take you to Serra San Bruno along +the backbone of southern Italy, through cultivated lands and pasture and +lonely stretches of bracken, once covered by woodlands. + +It may well be that the townlet has grown up around, or rather near, the +far-famed Carthusian monastery. I know nothing of its history save that +it has the reputation of being one of the most bigoted places in +Calabria--a fact of which the sagacious General Manhes availed himself +when he devised his original and effective plan of chastising the +inhabitants for a piece of atrocious conduct on their part. He caused +all the local priests to be arrested and imprisoned; the churches were +closed, and the town placed under what might be called an interdict. The +natives took it quietly at first, but soon the terror of the situation +dawned upon them. No religious marriages, no baptisms, no funerals--the +comforts of heaven refused to living and dead alike. . . . The strain +grew intolerable and, in a panic of remorse, the populace hunted down +their own brigand-relations and handed them over to Manhes, who duly +executed them, one and all. Then the interdict was taken off and the +priests set at liberty; and a certain writer tells us that the people +were so charmed with the General's humane and businesslike methods that +they forthwith christened him "Saint Manhes," a name which, he avers, +has clung to him ever since. + +The monastery lies about a mile distant; near at hand is a little +artificial lake and the renowned chapel of Santa Maria. There was a time +when I would have dilated lovingly upon this structure--a time when I +probably knew as much about Carthusian convents as is needful for any of +their inmates; when I studied Tromby's ponderous work and God knows how +many more--ay, and spent two precious weeks of my life in deciphering +certain crabbed MSS. of Tutini in the Brancacciana library--ay, and +tested the spleenful Perrey's "Ragioni del Regio Fisco, etc.," as to the +alleged land-grabbing propensities of this order--ay, and even +pilgrimaged to Rome to consult the present general of the Carthusians +(his predecessor, more likely) as to some administrative detail, +all-important, which has wholly escaped my memory. Gone are those days +of studious gropings into blind alleys! The current of zeal has slowed +down or turned aside, maybe, into other channels. They who wish, will +find a description of the pristine splendour of this monastery in +various books by Pacicchelli; the catastrophe of 1783 was described by +Keppel Craven and reported upon, with illustrations, by the Commission +of the Naples Academy; and if you are of a romantic turn of mind, you +will find a good story of the place, as it looked duringthe ruinous days +of desolation, in Misasi's "Calabrian Tales." + +It is now rebuilt on modern lines and not much of the original structure +remains upright. I wandered about the precincts in the company of two +white-robed French monks, endeavouring to reconstruct not the convent as +it was in its younger days, but _them._ That older one, especially--he +had known the world. . . . + +Meat being forbidden, the godly brethren have a contract for fish to be +brought up every day by the post-carriage from the distant Soverato. And +what happens, I asked, when none are caught? + +"Eh bien, nous mangeons des macaroni!" + +Such a diet would never suit me. Let me retire to a monkery where +carnivorous leanings may be indulged. Methinks I could pray more +cheerfully with the prospect of a rational _dejeuner a la fourchette_ +looming ahead. + +At the back of the monastery lies a majestic forest of white +firs--nothing but firs; a unique region, so far as south and central +Italy are concerned. I was there in the golden hour after sunset, and +yet again in the twilight of dew-drenched morning; and it seemed to me +that in this temple not made by hands there dwelt an enchantment more +elemental, and more holy, than in the cloistered aisles hard by. This +assemblage of solemn trees has survived, thanks to rare conditions of +soil and climate. The land lies high; the ground is perennially moist +and intersected by a horde of rills that join their waters to form the +river Ancinale; frequent showers descend from above. Serra San Bruno has +an uncommonly heavy rainfall. It lies in a vale occupying the site of a +pleistocene lake, and the forest, now restricted to one side of the +basin, encircled it entirely in olden days. At its margin they have +established a manufactory which converts the wood into paper--blissful +sight for the utilitarian. + +Finding little else of interest in Serra, and hungering for the +flesh-pots of Cotrone, I descended by the postal diligence to Soverato, +nearly a day's journey. Old Soverato is in ruins, but the new town seems +to thrive in spite of being surrounded by deserts of malaria. While +waiting for supper and the train to Cotrone, I strolled along the +beach, and soon found myself sitting beside the bleached anatomy of +some stranded leviathan, and gazing at the mountains of Squillace that +glowed in the soft lights of sunset. The shore was deserted save for +myself and a portly dogana-official who was playing with his little +son--trying to amuse him by elephantine gambols on the sand, regardless +of his uniform and manly dignity. Notwithstanding his rotundity, he was +an active and resourceful parent, and enjoyed himself vastly; the boy +pretending, as polite children sometimes do, to enter into the fun of +the game. + + + + +XXXVI + +MEMORIES OF GISSING + + +Two new hotels have recently sprung up at Cotrone. With laudable +patriotism, they are called after its great local champions, athletic +and spiritual, in ancient days--Hotel Milo and Hotel Pythagoras. As +such, they might be expected to make a strong appeal to the muscles and +brains of their respective clients. I rather fancy that the chief +customers of both are commercial travellers who have as little of the +one as of the other, and to whom these fine names are Greek. + +As for myself, I remain faithful to the "Concordia" which has twice +already sheltered me within its walls. + +The shade of George Gissing haunts these chambers and passages. It was +in 1897 that he lodged here with that worthy trio: Gibbon, Lenormant and +Cassiodorus. The chapters devoted to Cotrone are the most lively and +characteristic in his "Ionian Sea." Strangely does the description of +his arrival in the town, and his reception in the "Concordia," resemble +that in Bourget's "Sensations." + +The establishment has vastly improved since those days. The food is good +and varied, the charges moderate; the place is spotlessly clean in every +part--I could only wish that the hotels in some of our English country +towns were up to the standard of the "Concordia" in this respect. "One +cannot live without cleanliness," as the housemaid, assiduously +scrubbing, remarked to me. It is also enlarged; the old dining-room, +whose guests are so humorously described by him, is now my favourite +bedroom, while those wretched oil-lamps sputtering on the wall have been +replaced by a lavish use of electricity. One is hardly safe, however, in +praising these inns over-much; they are so apt to change hands. So long +as competition with the two others continues, the "Concordia" will +presumably keep to its present level. + +Of freaks in the dining-room, I have so far only observed one whom +Gissing might have added to his collection. He is a _director_ of some +kind, and his method of devouring maccheroni I unreservedly admire--it +displays that lack of all effort which distinguishes true art from +false. He does not eat them with deliberate mastication; he does not +even--like your ordinary amateur--drink them in separate gulps; but he +contrives, by some swiftly-adroit process of levitation, that the whole +plateful shall rise in a noiseless and unbroken flood from the table to +his mouth, whence it glides down his gullet with the relentless ease of +a river pouring into a cavern. Altogether, a series of films depicting +him at work upon a meal would make the fortune of a picture-show +company--in England. Not here, however; such types are too common to be +remarked, the reason being that boys are seldom sent to boarding schools +where stereotyped conventions of "good form" are held up for their +imitation, but brought up at home by adoring mothers who care little for +such externals or, if they do, have no great authority to enforce their +views. On entering the world, these eccentricities in manner are proudly +clung to, as a sign of manly independence. + +Death has made hideous gaps in the short interval. The kindly +Vice-Consul at Catanzaro is no more; the mayor of Cotrone, whose permit +enabled Gissing to visit that orchard by the riverside, has likewise +joined the majority; the housemaid of the "Concordia," the domestic serf +with dark and fiercely flashing eyes--dead! And dead is mine hostess, +"the stout, slatternly, sleepy woman, who seemed surprised at my demand +for food, but at length complied with it." + +But the little waiter is alive and now married; and Doctor Sculco still +resides in his aristocratic _palazzo_ up that winding way in the old +town, with the escutcheon of a scorpion--portentous emblem for a +doctor--over its entrance. He is a little greyer, no doubt; but the same +genial and alert personage as in those days. + +I called on this gentleman, hoping to obtain from him some reminiscences +of Gissing, whom he attended during a serious illness. + +"Yes," he replied, to my enquiries, "I remember him quite well; the +young English poet who was ill here. I prescribed for him. Yes--yes! He +wore his hair long." + +And that was all I could draw from him. I have noticed more than once +that Italian physicians have a stern conception of the Hippocratic oath: +the affairs of their patients, dead or alive, are a sacred trust in +perpetuity. + +The town, furthermore, has undergone manifold improvements in those few +years. Trees are being planted by the roadsides; electric light is +everywhere and, best of all, an excellent water-supply has been led down +from the cool heights of the Sila, bringing cleanliness, health and +prosperity in its train. And a stately cement-bridge is being built over +the Esaro, that "all but stagnant and wholly pestilential stream." The +Esaro _glides pleasantly,_ says the chronicler Noia Molisi. Perhaps it +really glided, in his day. + +One might do worse than spend a quiet month or two at Cotrone in the +spring, for the place grows upon one: it is so reposeful and orderly. +But not in winter. Gissing committed the common error of visiting south +Italy at that season when, even if the weather will pass, the country +and its inhabitants are not true to themselves. You must not come to +these parts in winter time. + +Nor yet in the autumn, for the surrounding district is highly malarious. +Thucydides already speaks of these coastlands as depopulated (relatively +speaking, I suppose), and under the Romans they recovered but little; +they have only begun to revive quite lately. [Footnote: Between +1815--1843, and in this single province of Catanzaro, there was an +actual decline in the population of thirty-six towns and villages. +Malaria!] Yet this town must have looked well enough in the twelfth +century, since it is described by Edrisius as "a very old city, +primitive and beautiful, prosperous and populated, in a smiling +position, with walls of defence and an ample port for anchorage." I +suspect that the history of Cotrone will be found to bear out Professor +Celli's theory of the periodical recrudescences and abatements of +malaria. However that may be, the place used to be in a deplorable +state. Riedesel (1771) calls it "la ville la plus affreuse de l'Italie, +et peut-etre du monde entier"; twenty years later, it is described as +"sehr ungesund ... so aermlich als moeglich"; in 1808 it was "reduite a +une population de trois mille habitants ronges par la misere, et les +maladies qu'occasionne la stagnation des eaux qui autrefois +fertilisaient ces belles campagnes." In 1828, says Vespoli, it contained +only 3932 souls. + +I rejoice to cite such figures. They show how vastly Cotrone, together +with the rest of Calabria, has improved since the Bourbons were ousted. +The sack of the town by their hero Cardinal Ruffo, described by Pepe and +others, must have left long traces. "Horrible was the carnage +perpetrated by these ferocious bands. Neither age nor sex nor condition +was spared. . . . After two days of pillage accompanied by a multitude +of excesses and cruelties, they erected, on the third day, a magnificent +altar in the middle of a large square"--and here the Cardinal, clothed +in his sacred purple, praised the good deeds of the past two days and +then, raising his arms, displayed a crucifix, absolving his crew from +the faults committed during the ardour of the sack, and blessed them. + +I shall be sorry to leave these regions for the north, as leave them I +must, in shortest time. The bathing alone would tempt me to prolong my +stay, were it possible. Whereas Taranto, despite its situation, +possesses no convenient beach, there are here, on either side of the +town, leagues of shimmering sand lapped by tepid and caressing waves; it +is a sunlit solitude; the land is your own, the sea your own, as far as +eye can reach. One may well become an amphibian, at Cotrone. + +The inhabitants of this town are well-mannered and devoid of the +"ineffable" air of the Tarentines. But they are not a handsome race. +Gissing says, a propos of the products of a local photographer, that it +was "a hideous exhibition; some of the visages attained an incredible +degree of vulgar ugliness." That is quite true. Old authors praise the +beauty of the women of Cotrone, Bagnara, and other southern towns; for +my part, I have seldom found good-looking women in the coastlands of +Calabria; the matrons, especially, seem to favour that ideal of the +Hottentot Venus which you may study in the Jardin des Plantes; they are +decidedly centripetal. Of the girls and boys one notices only those who +possess a peculiar trait: the eyebrows pencilled in a dead straight +line, which gives them an almost hieratic aspect. I cannot guess from +what race is derived this marked feature which fades away with age as +the brows wax thicker and irregular in contour. We may call it Hellenic +on the old-fashioned principle that everything attractive comes from the +Greeks, while its opposite is ascribed to those unfortunate "Arabs" who, +as a matter of fact, are a sufficiently fine-looking breed. + +And there must be very little Greek blood left here. The town--among +many similar vicissitudes--was peopled largely by Bruttians, after +Hannibal had established himself here. In the Viceregal period, again, +there was a great infusion of Spanish elements. A number of Spanish +surnames still linger on the spot. + +And what of Gissing's other friend, the amiable guardian of the +cemetery? "His simple good nature and intelligence greatly won upon me. +I like to think of him as still quietly happy amid his garden walls, +tending flowers that grow over the dead at Cotrone." + +Dead, like those whose graves he tended; like Gissing himself. He +expired in February 1901--the year of the publication of the "Ionian +Sea," and they showed me his tomb near the right side of the entrance; +_a._ poor little grave, with a wooden cross bearing a number, which will +soon be removed to make room for another one. + +This cemetery by the sea is a fair green spot, enclosed in a high wall +and set with flowering plants and comely cypresses that look well +against their background of barren clay-hills. Wandering here, I called +to mind the decent cemetery of Lucera, and that of Manfredonia, built in +a sleepy hollow at the back of the town which the monks in olden days +had utilized as their kitchen garden (it is one of the few localities +where deep soil can be found on that thirsty limestone plain); I +remembered the Venosa burial-ground near the site of the Roman +amphitheatre, among the tombs of which I had vainly endeavoured to find +proofs that the name of Horace is as common here as that of Manfred in +those other two towns; the Taranto cemetery, beyond the railway quarter, +somewhat overloaded with pretentious ornaments; I thought of many cities +of the dead, in places recently explored--that of Rossano, ill-kept +within, but splendidly situated on a projecting spur that dominates the +Ionian; of Caulonia, secluded among ravines at the back of the +town. . . . + +They are all full of character; a note in the landscape, with their +cypresses darkly towering amid the pale and lowly olives; one would +think the populace had thrown its whole poetic feeling into the choice +of these sites and their embellishments. But this is not the case; they +are chosen merely for convenience--not too far from habitations, and yet +on ground that is comparatively cheap. Nor are they truly venerable, +like ours. They date, for the most part, from the timewhen the +Government abolished the oldsystem of inhumation in churches--a system +which, for the rest, still survives; there are over six hundred of these +_fosse carnarie_ in use at this moment, most of them in churches. + +And a sad thought obtrudes itself in these oases of peace and verdure. +The Italian law requires that the body shall be buried within +twenty-four hours after decease (the French consider forty-eight hours +too short a term, and are thinking of modifying their regulations in +this respect): a doctor's certificate of death is necessary but often +impossible to procure, since some five hundred Italian communities +possess no medical man whatever. Add to this, the superstitions of +ignorant country people towards the dead, testified to by extraordinary +beliefs and customs which you will find in Pitre and other collectors of +native lore--their mingled fear and hatred of a corpse, which prompts +them to thrust it underground at the earliest possible opportunity. +. . . Premature burial must be all too frequent here. I will not +enlarge upon the theme of horror by relating what gravediggers +have seen with their own eyes on disturbing old coffins; if only half +what they tell me is true, it reveals a state of affairs not to be +contemplated without shuddering pity, and one that calls for prompt +legislation. Only last year a frightful case came to light in Sicily. +_Videant Consules._ + +Here, at the cemetery, the driving road abruptly ends; thenceforward +there is merely a track along the sea that leads, ultimately, to Capo +Nau, where stands a solitary column, last relic of the great temple of +Hera. I sometimes follow it as far as certain wells that are sunk, +Arab-fashion, into the sand, and dedicated to Saint Anne. Goats and cows +recline here after their meagre repast of scorched grasses, and the +shepherds in charge have voices so soft, and manners so gentle, as to +call up suggestions of the Golden Age. These pastoral folk are the +primitives of Cotrone. From father to son, for untold ages before +Theocritus hymned them, they have kept up their peculiar habits and +traditions; between them and the agricultural classes is a gulf as deep +as between these and the citizens. Conversing with them, one marvels how +the same occupation can produce creatures so unlike as these and the +goat-boys of Naples, the most desperate _camorristi._ + +The cows may well be descendants of the sacred cattle of Hera that +browsed under the pines which are known to have clothed the bleak +promontory. You may encounter them every day, wandering on the way to +the town which they supply with milk; to avoid the dusty road, they +march sedately through the soft wet sand at the water's edge, their +silvery bodies outlined against a cserulean flood of sky and sea. + +On this promenade I yesterday observed, slow-pacing beside the waves, a +meditative priest, who gave me some details regarding the ruined church +of which Gissing speaks. It lies in the direction of the cemetery, +outside the town; "its lonely position," he says, "made it interesting, +and the cupola of coloured tiles (like that of the cathedral of Amalfi) +remained intact, a bright spot against the grey hills behind." This +cupola has recently been removed, but part of the old walls serve as +foundation for a new sanctuary, a sordid-looking structure with +red-tiled roof: I am glad to have taken a view of it, some years ago, +ere its transformation. Its patroness is the Madonna del Carmine--the +same whose church in Naples is frequented by thieves and cut-throats, +who make a special cult of this Virgin Motherand invoke Her blessing on +their nefarious undertakings. + +The old church, he told me, was built in the middle of the seventeenth +century; this new one, he agreed, might have been constructed on more +ambitious lines, "but nowadays----" and he broke off, with eloquent +aposiopesis. + +It was the same, he went on, with the road to the cemetery; why should +it not be continued right up to the cape of the Column as in olden days, +over ground _dove ogni passo e una memoria:_ where every footstep is a +memory? + +"Rich Italians," he said, "sometimes give away money to benefit the +public. But the very rich--never! And at Cotrone, you must remember, +every one belongs to the latter class." + +We spoke of the Sila, which he had occasionally visited. + +"What?" he asked incredulously, "you have crossed the whole of that +country, where there is nothing to eat--nothing in the purest and most +literal sense of that word? My dear sir! You must feel like Hannibal, +after his passage of the Alps." + +Those barren clay-hills on our right of which Gissing speaks (they are +like the _baize_ of the Apennines) annoyed him considerably; they were +the malediction of the town, he declared. At the same time, they +supplied him with the groundwork of a theory for which there is a good +deal to be said. The old Greek city, he conjectured, must have been +largely built of bricks made from their clay, which is once more being +utilized for this purpose. How else account for its utter disappearance? +Much of the finer buildings were doubtless of stone, and these have been +worked into the fort, the harbour and _palazzi_ of new Cotrone; but this +would never account for the vanishing of a town nearly twelve miles in +circumference. Bricks, he said, would explain the mystery; they had +crumbled into dust ere yet the Romans rebuilt, with old Greek stones, +the city on the promontory now occupied by the new settlement. + +The modern palaces on the rising ground of the citadel are worthy of a +visit; they are inhabited by some half-dozen "millionaires" who have +given Cotrone the reputation of being the richest town of its size in +Italy. So far as I can judge, the histories of some of these wealthy +families would be curious reading. + +"Gentlemen," said the Shepherd, "if you have designs of Trading, you +must go another way; but if you're of the admired sort of Men, that have +the thriving qualifications of Lying and Cheating, you're in the direct +Path to Business; for in this City no Learning flourisheth; Eloquence +finds no room here; nor can Temperance, Good Manners, or any Vertue meet +with a Reward; assure yourselves of finding but two sorts of Men, and +those are the Cheated, and those that Cheat." + +If gossip at Naples and elsewhere is to be trusted, old Petronius seems +to have had a prophetic glimpse of the _dessus du panier_ of modern +Cotrone. + + + + +XXXVII + +COTRONE + + +The sun has entered the Lion. But the temperature at Cotrone is not +excessive--five degrees lower than Taranto or Milan or London. One grows +weary, none the less, of the deluge of implacable light that descends, +day after day, from the aether. The glistering streets are all but +deserted after the early hours of the morning. A few busy folks move +about till midday on the pavements; and so do I--in the water. But the +long hours following luncheon are consecrated to meditation and repose. + +A bundle of Italian newspapers has preceded me hither; upon these I +browse dispersedly, while awaiting the soft call to slumber. Here are +some provincial sheets--the "Movement" of Castro-villari--the "New +Rossano"--the "Bruttian" of Corigliano, with strong literary flavour. +Astonishing how decentralized Italy still is, how brimful of purely +local patriotism: what conception have these men of Rome as their +capital? These articles often reflect a lively turmoil of ideas, +well-expressed. Who pays for such journalistic ventures? Typography is +cheap, and contributors naturally content themselves with the ample +remuneration of appearing in print before their fellow-citizens; a +considerable number of copies are exported to America. Yet I question +whether the circulation of the "New Rossano," a fortnightly in its sixth +year, can exceed five hundred copies. + +But these venial and vapid Neapolitan dailies are my pet aversion. We +know them, _nous autres,_ with their odious personalities and playful +blackmailing tactics; many "distinguished foreigners," myself included, +could tell a tale anent that subject. Instead of descending to such +matters, let me copy--it is too good to translate--a thrilling item of +news from the chiefest of them, the _Mattino,_ which touches, +furthermore, upon the all-important subject of Calabrian progress. + +"CETRARO. Per le continuate premure ed insistenze di questo egregio +uffiziale postale Signor Rocca Francesco--che nulla lascia +pel bene avviamento del nostro uffizio--presso 1' on. Dirczione delle +poste di Cosenza, si e ottenuta una cassetta postale, che affissa lungo +il Corso Carlo Pancaso, ci da la bella commodita di imbucare le nostre +corrispondenze per essere rilevate tre volte al giorno non solo, quanto +ci evita persino la dolorosa e lunga via crucis che dovevamo percorrere +qualvolta si era costretti d' imbuccare una lettera, essendo il nostro +uffizio situato ali' estremita del paese. + +"Tributiamo percio sincera lode al nostro caro uffiziale postale Sig. +Rocca, e ci auguriamo che egli continui ancora al miglioramento deli' +uffizio istesso, e merce 1' opera sua costante ed indefessa siamo sicuri +che 1' uffizio postale di Cetraro assurgera fra non molto ad un' +importanza maggiore di quella che attualmente." + +The erection of a letter-box in the Street of a small place of which 80 +per cent of the readers have never so much as heard. ... I begin to +understand why the cultured Tarentines do not read these journals. + +By far the best part of all such papers is the richly-tinted personal +column, wherein lovers communicate with each other, or endeavour to do +so. I read it conscientiously from beginning to end, admiring, in my +physical capacity, the throbbing passion that prompts such public +outbursts of confidence and, from a literary point of view, their +lapidary style, model of condensation, impossible to render in English +and conditioned by the hard fact that every word costs two sous. Under +this painful material stress, indeed, the messages are sometimes crushed +into a conciseness which the females concerned must have some difficulty +in unperplexing: what on earth does the parsimonious _Flower_ mean by +his Delphic fourpenny worth, thus punctuated-- + +"(You have) not received. How. Safety." + +One cannot help smiling at this circuitous and unromantic method of +touching the hearts of ladies who take one's fancy; at the same time, it +testifies to a resourceful vitality, striving to break through the +barriers of Hispano-Arabic convention which surround the fair sex in +this country. They are nothing if not poetic, these love-sick swains. +_Arrow_ murmurs: "My soul lies on your pillow, caressing you softly"; +_Strawberry_ laments that "as bird outside nest, I am alone and lost. +What sadness," and _Star_ finds the "Days eternal, till Thursday." And +yet they often choose rather prosaic pseudonyms. Here is _Sahara_ who +"suffers from your silence," while _Asthma_ is "anticipating one endless +kiss," and _Old England_ observing, more ir sorrow than in anger, that +he "waited vainly one whole hour." + +But the sagacious _Cooked Lobster_ desires, before commiting himself +further, "a personal interview." He has perhaps been cooked once before. + +Letters and numbers are best, after all. So thinks F. N. 13, who is +utterly disgusted with his flame-- + +"Your silence speaks. Useless saying anything. Ca ira." And likewise +7776--B, a designing rogue and plainly a spendthrift, who wastes +ninepence in making it clear that he "wishes to marry rich young lady, +forgiving youthful errors." If I were the girl, I would prefer to take +my chances with "Cooked Lobster." + +_"Will much-admired young-lady cherries-in-black-hat indicate method +possible correspondence_ 10211, _Post-Office?"_ + +How many of these arrows, I wonder, reach their mark? + +Ah, here are politics and News of the World, at last. A promising +article on the "Direttissimo Roma-Napoli"--the railway line that is to +connect the two towns by way of the Pontine Marshes. . . . Dear me! This +reads very familiarly. . . . Why, to be sure, it is the identical +dissertation, with a few changes by the office-boy, that has cropped up +periodically in these pages for the last half-century, or whenever the +railway was first projected. The line, as usual, is being projected more +strenuously than before, and certain members of the government have +goneso far as to declare. . .. H'm! Let me try something else: "The +Feminist Movement in England" by Our London Correspondent (who lives in +a little side street off the Toledo); that sounds stimulating. . . . The +advanced English Feminists--so it runs--are taking the lead in +encouraging their torpid sisters on the Continent. . . . Hardly a day +passes, that some new manifestation of the Feminist Movement ... in +fact, it may be avowed that the Feminist Movement in England. . . . + +The air is cooler, as I awake, and looking out of the window I perceive +from the mellow light-effects that day is declining. + +Towards this sunset hour the unbroken dome of the sky often undergoes a +brief transformation. High-piled masses of cloud may then be seen +accumulating over the Sila heights and gathering auxiliaries from every +quarter; lightning is soon playing about the livid and murky +vapours--you can hear the thunders muttering, up yonder, to some +drenching downpour. But on the plain the sun continues to shine in +vacuously benevolent fashion; nothing is felt of the tempest save +unquiet breaths of wind that raise dust-eddies from the country roads +and lash the sea into a mock frenzy of crisp little waves. It is the +merest interlude. Soon the blue-black drifts have fled away from the +mountains that stand out, clear and refreshed, in the twilight. The wind +has died down, the storm is over and Cotrone thirsts, as ever, for rain +that never comes. Yet they have a Madonna-picture here--a celebrated +_black_ Madonna, painted by Saint Luke--who "always procures rain, when +prayed to." + +Once indeed the tail of a shower must have passed overhead, for there +fell a few sad drops. I hurried abroad, together with some other +citizens, to observe the phenomenon. There was no doubt about the +matter; it was genuine rain; the drops lay, at respectable intervals, on +the white dust of the station turnpike. A boy, who happened to be +passing in a cart, remarked that if the shower could have been collected +into a saucer or some other small receptacle, it might have sufficed to +quench the thirst of a puppy-dog. + +I usually take a final dip in the sea, at this time of the evening. +After that, it is advisable to absorb an ice or two--they are excellent, +at Cotrone--and a glass of Strega liqueur, to ward off the effects of +over-work. Next, a brief promenade through the clean, well-lighted +streets and now populous streets, or along the boulevard Margherita to +view the rank and fashion taking the air by the murmuring waves, under +the cliff-like battlements of Charles the Fifth's castle; and so to dinner. + +This meal marks the termination of my daily tasks; nothing serious is +allowed to engage my attention, once that repast is ended; I call for a +chair and sit down at one of the small marble-topped tables in the open +street and watch the crowd as it floats around me, smoking a Neapolitan +cigar and imbibing, alternately, ices and black coffee until, towards +midnight, a final bottle of _vino di Ciro_ is uncorked--fit seal for the +labours of the day. + +One might say much in praise of Calabrian wine. The land is full of +pleasant surprises for the cenophilist, and one of these days I hope to +embody my experiences in the publication of a wine-chart of the province +with descriptive text running alongside--the purchasers of which, if +few, will certainly be of the right kind. The good Dr. Barth--all praise +to him!--has already done something of the kind for certain parts of +Italy, but does not so much as mention Calabria. And yet here nearly +every village has its own type of wine and every self-respecting family +its own peculiar method of preparation, little known though they be +outside the place of production, on account of the octroi laws which +strangle internal trade and remove all stimulus to manufacture a good +article for export. This wine of Ciro, for instance, is purest nectar, +and so is that which grows still nearer at hand in the classical vale of +the Neto and was praised, long ago, by old Pliny; and so are at least +two dozen more. For even as Gregorovius says that the smallest Italian +community possesses its duly informed antiquarian, if you can but put +your hand upon him, so, I may be allowed to add, every little place +hereabouts can boast of at least one individual who will give you good +wine, provided--provided you go properly to work to find him. + +Now although, when young, the Calabrian Bacchus has a wild-eyed _beaute +du diable_ which appeals to one's expansive moods, he already begins to +totter, at seven years of age, in sour, decrepit eld. To pounce upon him +at the psychological moment, to discover in whose cool and cobwebby +cellar he is dreaming out his golden summer of manhood--that is what a +foreigner can never, never hope to achieve, without competent local aid. + +To this end, I generally apply to the priests; not because they are the +greatest drunkards (far from it; they are mildly epicurean, or even +abstemious) but by reason of their unrivalled knowledge of +personalities. They know exactly who has been able to keep his liquor of +such and such a year, and who has been obliged to sell or partially +adulterate it; they know, from the confessional of the wives, the why +and wherefore of all such private family affairs and share, with the +chemist, the gift of seeing furthest into the tangled web of home life. +They are "gialosi," however, of these acquirements, and must be +approached in the right spirit--a spirit of humility. But if you +tactfully lead up to the subject by telling of the manifold hardships of +travel in foreign lands, the discomfort of life in hostelries, the food +that leaves so much to be desired and, above all, the coarse wine that +is already beginning, you greatly fear, to injure your sensitive spleen +(an important organ, in Calabria), inducing a hypochondriacal tendency +to see all the beauties of this fair land in an odious and sombre +light--turning your day into night, as it were--it must be an odd +priest, indeed, who is not compassionately moved to impart the desired +information regarding the whereabouts of the best _vino di famiglia_ at +that moment obtainable. After all, it costs him nothing to do a double +favour--one to yourself and another to the proprietor of the wine, +doubtless an old friend of his, who will be able to sell his stuff to a +foreigner 20 per cent dearer than to a native. + +And failing the priests, I go to an elderly individual of that tribe of +red-nosed connaisseurs, the coachmen, ever thirsty and mercenary souls, +who for a small consideration may be able to disclose not only this +secret, but others far more mysterious. + +As to your host at the inn--he raises not the least objection to +your importing alien liquor into his house. His own wine, he tells you, +is last year's vintage and somewhat harsh (slightly watered, he might +add)--and why not? The ordinary customers are gentlemen of commerce who +don't care a fig what they eat and drink, so long as there is enough of +it. No horrible suggestions are proffered concerning corkage; on the +contrary, he tests your wine, smacks his lips, and thanks you for +communicating a valuable discovery. He thinks he will buy a bottle or +two for the use of himself and a few particular friends. . . . + +Midnight has come and gone. The street is emptying; the footsteps of +passengers begin to ring hollow. I arise, for my customary stroll in the +direction of the cemetery, to attune myself to repose by shaking off +those restlessly trivial images of humanity which might otherwise haunt +my slumbers. + +Town visions are soon left behind; it is very quiet here under the hot, +starlit heavens; nothing speaks of man save the lighthouse flashing in +ghostly activity--no, it is a fixed light--on the distant Cape of the +Column. And nothing breaks the stillness save the rhythmic breathing of +the waves, and a solitary cricket that has yet to finish his daily task +of instrumental music, far away, in some warm crevice of the hills. + +A suave odour rises up from the narrow patch of olives, and figs loaded +with fruit, and ripening vines, that skirts the path by the beach. _The +fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender +grape give a good smell._ + +And so I plough my way through the sand, in the darkness, encompassed by +tepid exhalations of earth and sea. Another spirit has fallen upon me--a +spirit of biblical calm. Here, then, stood _the rejoicing city that +dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none beside +me: how is she become a desolation!_ It is indeed hard to realize that a +town thronged with citizens covered all this area. Yet so it is. Every +footstep is a memory. Along this very track walked the sumptuous ladies +of Croton on their way to deposit their vain jewels before the goddess +Hera, at the bidding of Pythagoras. On this spot, maybe, stood that +public hall which was specially built for the delivery of his lectures. + +No doubt the townsfolk had been sunk in apathetic luxury; the time was +ripe for a Messiah. + +And lo! he appeared. + + + + +XXXVIII + +THE SAGE OF CROTON + + +The popularity of this sage at Croton offers no problem: the inhabitants +had become sufficiently civilized to appreciate the charm of being +regenerated. We all do. Renunciation has always exercised an +irresistible attraction for good society; it makes us feel so +comfortable, to be told we are going to hell--and Pythagoras was very +eloquent on the subject of Tartarus as a punishment. The Crotoniates +discovered in repentance of sins a new and subtle form of pleasure; +exactly as did the Florentines, when Savonarola appeared on the scene. + +Next: his doctrines found a ready soil in Magna Graecia which was +already impregnated with certain vague notions akin to those he +introduced. And then--he permitted and even encouraged the emotional sex +to participate in the mysteries; the same tactics that later on +materially helped the triumph of Christianity over the more exclusive +and rational cult of Mithra. Lastly, he came with a "message," like the +Apostle of the Gentiles; and in those times a preaching reformer was a +novelty. That added a zest. We know them a little better, nowadays. + +He enjoyed the specious and short-lived success that has attended, +elsewhere, such efforts to cultivate the _ego_ at the expense of its +environment. "A type of aspiring humanity," says Gissing, echoing the +sentiments of many of us, "a sweet and noble figure, moving as a dim +radiance through legendary Hellas." I fancy that the mist of centuries +of undiscriminating admiration has magnified this figure out of all +proportion and contrived, furthermore, to fix an iridescent nimbus of +sanctity about its head. Such things have been known to happen, in foggy +weather. + +Was Greece so very legendary, in those times? Why, on the contrary, it +was full of real personages, of true sages to whom it seemed as if no +secrets of heaven or earth were past fathoming; far from being +legendary, the countryhad never attained a higher plane of intellectual +curiosity than when Pythagoras made his appearance. And it cannot be +gainsaid that he and his disciples gave the impetus away from these wise +and beneficial researches into the arid regions of metaphysics. It is so +much more gentlemanly (and so much easier) to talk bland balderdash +about soul-migrations than to calculate an eclipse of the moon or bother +about the circulation of the blood. + +That a man of his speculative vigour, knowing so many extra-Hellenic +races, should have hit upon one or two good things adventitiously is +only to be expected. But they were mere by-products. One might as well +praise John Knox for creating the commons of Scotland with a view to the +future prosperity of that country--a consummation which his black +fanaticism assuredly never foresaw. + +The chief practical doctrine of Pythagoras, that mankind are to be +governed on the principle of a community of eastern monks, makes for the +disintegration of rational civic life. + +And his chief theoretical doctrines, of metempsychosis and the reduction +of everything to a system of numbers [Footnote: Vincenzo Dorsa, an +Albanian, has written two pamphlets on the survival of Greco-Roman +traditions in Calabria. They are difficult to procure, but whoever is +lucky enough to find them will be much helped in his understanding of +the common people. In one place, he speaks of the charm-formula of +_Otto-Nave!_ (Eight-Nine) It is considered meet and proper, in the +presence of a suckling infant, to spit thrice and then call out, three +times, Otto-Nove! This brings luck; and the practice, he thinks, is an +echo of the number-system of Pythagoras.]--these are sheer lunacy. + +Was it not something of a relapse, after the rigorous mental discipline +of old, to have a man gravely assuring his fellows that he is the son of +Hermes and the divinely appointed messenger of Apollo; treating +diseases, like an Eskimo Angekok, by incantation; recording veracious +incidents of his experiences during a previous life in Hell, which he +seems to have explored almost as thoroughly as Swedenborg; dabbling in +magic, and consulting dreams, birds and the smoke of incense as oracles? +And in the exotic conglomerate of his teachings are to be found the +_prima stamina_ of much that is worse: the theory of the pious fraud +which has infected Latin countries to this day; the Jesuitical maxim of +the end justifying the means; the insanity of preferring deductions to +facts which has degraded philosophy up to the days of Kant; mysticism, +demon-worship and much else of pernicious mettle--they are all there, +embryonically embedded in Pythagoras. + +We are told much of his charity; indeed, an English author has written a +learned work to prove that Pythagoreanism has close affinities with +Christianity. Charity has now been tried on an ample scale, and has +proved a dismal failure. To give, they say, is more blessed than to +receive. It is certainly far easier, for the most part, to give than to +refrain from giving. We are at last shaking off the form, of +self-indulgence called charity; we realize that if mankind is to profit, +sterner conceptions must prevail. The apotheosis of the god-favoured +loafer is drawing to a close. + +For the rest, there was the inevitable admixture of quackery about our +reforming sage; his warmest admirers cannot but admit that he savours +somewhat strongly of the holy impostor. Those charms and amulets, those +dark gnomic aphorisms which constitute the stock-in-trade of all +religious cheap-jacks, the bribe of future life, the sacerdotal tinge +with its complement of mendacity, the secrecy of doctrine, the +pretentiously-mysterious self-retirement, the "sacred quaternion," the +bean-humbug . . . + +He had the true maraboutic note. + +And for me, this regenerator crowned with a saintly aureole remains a +glorified marabout--an intellectual dissolvent; the importer of that +oriental introspectiveness which culminated in the idly-splendid +yearnings of Plato, paved the way for the quaint Alexandrian +_tutti-frutti_ known as Christianity, and tainted the well-springs of +honest research for two thousand years. By their works ye shall known +them. It was the Pythagoreans who, not content with a just victory over +the Sybarites, annihilated their city amid anathemas worthy of those old +Chaldeans (past masters in the art of pious cursings); a crime against +their common traditions and common interests; a piece of savagery which +wrecked Hellenic civilization in Italy. It is ever thus, when the soul +is appointed arbiter over reason. It is ever thus, when gentle, +god-fearing dreamers meddle with worldly affairs. Beware of the wrath of +the lamb! + +So rapidly did the virus act, that soon we find Plato declaring that all +the useful arts are _degrading;_ that "so long as a man tries to study +any sensible object, he can never be said to be learning anything"; in +other words, that the kind of person to whom one looks for common sense +should be excluded from the management of his most refined republic. It +needed courage of a rather droll kind to make such propositions in +Greece, under the shadow of the Parthenon. And hand in hand with this +feudalism in philosophy there began that unhealthy preoccupation with +the morals of our fellow-creatures, that miasma of puritanism, which has +infected life and literature up to this moment. + +The Renaissance brought many fine things to England. But the wicked +fairy was there with her gift: Pythagoras and Plato. We were not like +the Italians who, after the first rapture of discovery was over, soon +outgrew these distracted dialectics; we stuck fast in them. Hence our +Platonic touch: our _demi-vierge_ attitude in matters of the mind, our +academic horror of clean thinking. How Plato hated a fact! He could +find no place for it in his twilight world of abstractions. Was it not +he who wished to burn the works of Democritus of Abdera, most exact and +reasonable of old sages? + +They are all alike, these humanitarian lovers of first causes. Always +ready to burn something, or somebody; always ready with their cheerful +Hell-fire and gnashing of teeth. + +_Know thyself:_ to what depths of vain, egocentric brooding has that +dictum led! But we are discarding, now, such a mischievously narrow view +of the Cosmos, though our upbringing is still too rhetorical and +mediaeval to appraise its authors at their true worth. Youth is prone to +judge with the heart rather than the head; youth thrives on vaporous +ideas, and there was a time when I would have yielded to none in my +enthusiasm for these mellifluous babblers; one had a blind, sentimental +regard for their great names. It seems to me, now, that we take them +somewhat too seriously; that a healthy adult has nothing to learn from +their teachings, save by way of warning example. Plato is food for +adolescents. And a comfort, possibly, in old age, when the judicial +faculties of the mind are breaking up and primitive man, the visionary, +reasserts his ancient rights. For questioning moods grow burdensome with +years; after a strain of virile doubt we are glad to acquiesce once +more--to relapse into Platonic animism, the logic of valetudinarians. +The dog to his vomit. + +And after Plato--the deluge. Neo-platonism. . . . + +Yet it was quite good sport, while it lasted. To "make men better" by +choice dissertations about Utopias, to sit in marble halls and have a +fair and fondly ardent _jeunesse doree_ reclining about your knees while +you discourse, in rounded periods, concerning the salvation of their +souls by means of transcendental Love--it would suit me well enough, at +this present moment; far better than croaking, forlorn as the +night-raven, among the ruins of their radiant lives. + +Meanwhile, and despite our Universities, new conceptions are prevailing, +Aristotle is winning the day. A fresh kind of thinker has arisen, whose +chief idea of "virtue" is to investigate patiently the facts of life; +men of the type of Lister, any one of whom have done more to regenerate +mankind, and to increase the sum of human happiness, than a wilderness +of the amiably-hazy old doctrinaires who professed the same object. I +call to mind those physicians engaged in their malaria-campaign, and +wonder what Plato would have thought of them. Would he have recognized the +significance of their researches which, while allaying pain and misery, +are furthering the prosperity of the country, causing waters to flow in +dry places and villages to spring up in deserts--strengthening its +political resources, improving its very appearance? Not likely. Plato's +opinion of doctors was on a par with the rest of his mentality. Yet +these are the men who are taking up the thread where it was dropped, +perforce, by those veritable Greek sages, whelmed under turbid floods of +Pythagorean irrationalism. And are such things purely utilitarian? Are +they so grossly mundane? Is there really no "philosophy" in the choice +of such a healing career, no romance in its studious self-denial, no +beauty in its results? If so, we must revise that classic adage which +connects vigour with beauty--not to speak of several others. + + + + +XXXIX + +MIDDAY AT PETELIA + + +Day after day, I look across the six miles of sea to the Lacinian +promontory and its column. How reach it? The boatmen are eager for the +voyage: it all depends, they say, upon the wind. + +Day after day--a dead calm. + +"Two hours--three hours--four hours--according!" And they point to the +sky. A little breeze, they add, sometimes makes itself felt in the early +mornings; one might fix up a sail. + +"And for returning at midday?" + +"Three hours--four hours--five hours--according!" + +The prospect of rocking about for half a day in a small boat under a +blazing sky is not my ideal of enjoyment, the novelty of such an +experience having worn off a good many years ago. I decide to wait; to +make an attack, meanwhile, upon old Petelia--the "Stromboli" of my +lady-friend at the Catanzaro Museum.... + +It is an easy day's excursion from Cotrone to Strongoli, which is +supposed to lie on the site of that ancient, much-besieged town. It sits +upon a hill-top, and the diligence which awaits the traveller at the +little railway-station takes about two hours to reach the place, +climbing up the olive-covered slopes in ample loops and windings. + +Of Strangoli my memories, even at this short distance of time, are +confused and blurred. The drive up under the glowing beams of morning, +the great heat of the last few days, and two or three nights' +sleeplessness at Cotrone had considerably blunted my appetite for new +things. I remember seeing some Roman marbles in the church, and being +thence conducted into a castle. + +Afterwards I reposed awhile in the upper regions, under an olive, and +looked down towards the valley of the Neto, which flows not far from +here into the Ionian. I thought upon Theocritus, trying to picture this +vale of Neaithos as it appeared to him and his shepherds. The woodlands +are gone, and the rains of winter, streaming down the earthen slopes, +have remodelled the whole face of the country. + +Yet, be nature what it may, men will always turn to one who sings so +melodiously of eternal verities--of those human tasks and needs which no +lapse of years can change. How modern he reads to us, who have been +brought into contact with the true spirit by men like Johnson-Cory and +Lefroy! And how unbelievably remote is that Bartolozzi-Hellenism which +went before! What, for example--what of the renowned pseudo-Theocritus, +Salamon Gessner, who sang of this same vale of Neto in his "Daphnis"? +Alas, the good Salamon has gone the way of all derivative bores; he is +dead--deader than King Psammeticus; he is now moralizing in some +decorous Paradise amid flocks of Dresden-China sheep and sugar-watery +youths and maidens. Who can read his much-translated masterpiece without +unpleasant twinges? Dead as a doornail! + +So far as I can recollect, there is an infinity of kissing in "Daphnis." +It was an age of sentimentality, and the Greek pastoral ideal, +transfused into a Swiss environment of 1810, could not but end in +slobber and _Gefuehlsduselei._ True it is that shepherds have ample +opportunities of sporting with Amaryllis in the shade; opportunities +which, to my certain knowledge, they do not neglect. Theocritus knew it +well enough. But, in a general way, he is niggardly with the precious +commodity of kisses; he seems to have thought that in literature, if not +in real life, one can have too much of a good thing. Also, being a +southerner, he could not have trusted his young folks to remain +eternally at the kissing-stage, after the pattern of our fish-like +English lovers. Such behaviour would have struck him as improbable; +possibly immoral. . . . + +From where I sat one may trace a road that winds upwards into the Sila, +past Pallagorio. Along its sides are certain mounded heaps and the smoke +of refining works. These are mines of that dusky sulphur which I had +observed being drawn in carts through the streets of Cotrone. There are +some eight or ten of them, they tell me, discovered about thirty years +ago--this is all wrong: they are mentioned in 1571--and employing +several hundred workmen. It had been my intention to visit these +excavations. But now, in the heat of day, I wavered; the distance, even +to the nearest of them, seemed inordinately great; and just as I had +decided to look for a carnage with a view of being driven there (that +curse of conscientiousness!) an amiable citizen snatched me up as his +guest for luncheon. He led me, weakly resisting, to a vaulted chamber +where, amid a repast of rural delicacies and the converse of his spouse, +all such fond projects were straightway forgotten. Instead of +sulphur-statistics, I learnt a little piece of local history. + +"You were speaking about the emptiness of our streets of Strangoli," my +host said. "And yet, up to a short time ago, there was no emigration +from this place. Then a change came about: I'll tell you how it was. +There was a _guardia di finanze_ here--a miserable octroi official. To +keep up the name of his family, he married an heiress; not for the sake +of having progeny, but--well! He began buying up all the land round +about--slowly, systematically, cautiously--till, by dint of threats and +intrigues, he absorbed nearly all the surrounding country. Inch by inch, +he ate it up; with his wife's money. That was his idea of perpetuating +his memory. All the small proprietors were driven from their domains and +fled to America to escape starvation; immense tracts of well-cultivated +land are now almost desert. Look at the country! But some day he will +get his reward; under the ribs, you know." + +By this purposeful re-creation of those feudal conditions of olden, +days, this man has become the best-hated person in the district. + +Soon it was time to leave the friendly shelter and inspect in the +glaring sunshine the remaining antiquities of Petelia. Never have I felt +less inclined for such antiquarian exploits. How much better the hours +would have passed in some cool tavern! I went forth, none the less; and +was delighted to discover that there are practically no antiquities +left--nothing save a few walls standing near a now ruined convent, which +is largely built of Roman stone-blocks and bricks. Up to a few years +ago, the municipality carried on excavations here and unearthed a few +relics which were promptly dispersed. Perhaps some of these are what one +sees in the Catanzaro Museum. The paternal government, hearing of this +enterprise, claimed the site and sat down upon it; the exposed remains +were once more covered up with soil. + +A goat-boy, a sad little fellow, sprang out of the earth as I dutifully +wandered about here. He volunteered to show me not only Strongoli, but +all Calabria; in fact, his heart's desire was soon manifest: to escape +from home and find his way to America under my passport and protection. +Here was his chance--a foreigner (American) returning sooner or later to +his own country! He pressed the matter with naif forcefulness. Vainly I +told him that there were other lands on earth; that I was not going to +America. He shook his head and sagely remarked: + +"I have understood. You think my journey would cost too much. But you, +also, must understand. Once I get work there, I will repay you every +farthing." + +As a consolation, I offered him some cigarettes. He accepted one; +pensive, unresigned. + +The goat-herds had no such cravings--in the days of Theocritus. + + + + +XL + +THE COLUMN + + +"Two hours--three hours--four hours: according!" + +The boatmen are still eager for the voyage. It all depends, as before, +upon the wind. + +And day __after day __the Ionian lies before us--immaculate, immutable. + +I determined to approach the column by land. A mule was discovered, and +starting from the "Concordia" rather late in the morning, reached the +temple-ruin in two hours to the minute. I might have been tempted to +linger by the way but for the intense sunshine and for the fact that the +muleteer was an exceptionally dull dog--a dusky youth of the taciturn +and wooden-faced Spanish variety, whose anti-Hellenic profile irked me, +in that landscape. The driving road ends at the cemetery. Thence onward +a pathway skirts the sea at the foot of the clay-hills; passes the +sunken wells; climbs up and down steepish gradients and so attains the +plateau at whose extremity stands the lighthouse, the column, and a few +white bungalows--summer-residences of Cotrone citizens. + +A day of shimmering heat. . . . + +The ground is parched. Altogether, it is a poor and thinly peopled +stretch of land between Cotrone and Capo Rizzuto. No wonder the wolves +are famished. Nine days ago one of them actually ventured upon the road +near the cemetery, in daylight. + +Yet there is some plant-life, and I was pleased to see, emerging from +the bleak sand-dunes, the tufts of the well-known and conspicuous sea +lily in full flower. Wishful to obtain a few blossoms, I asked the boy +to descend from his mule, but he objected. + +"Non si toccano questi fiori," he said. These flowers are not to be +touched. + +Their odour displeased him. Like the Arab, the uncultivated Italian is +insensitive to certain smells that revolt us; while he cannot endure, on +the other hand, the scent of some flowers. I have seen a man professing +to feel faint at the odour of crushed geranium leaves. They are _fiori +di morti,_ he says: planted (sometimes) in graveyards. + +The last remarkable antiquity found at this site, to my knowledge, is a +stone vase, fished up some years ago out of the sea, into which it may +have fallen while being carried off by pious marauders for the purpose +of figuring as font in some church (unless, indeed, the land has sunk at +this point, as there is some evidence to show). I saw it, shortly after +its return to dry land, in a shed near the harbour of Cotrone; the +Taranto museum has now claimed it. It is a basin of purple-veined +pavonazzetto marble. Originally a monolith, it now consists of two +fragments; the third and smallest is still missing. This noble relic +stands about 85 centimetres in height and measures some 215 centimetres +in circumference; it was never completed, as can be seen by the rim, +which is still partially in the rough. A similar vessel is figured, I +believe, in Tischbein. + +The small villa-settlement on this promontory is deserted owing to lack +of water, every drop of which has to be brought hither by sea from +Cotrone. One wonders why they have not thought of building a cistern to +catch the winter rains, if there are any; for a respectable stone crops +up at this end of the peninsula. + +One often wonders at things. . . . + +The column has been underpinned and strengthened by a foundation of +cement; rains of centuries had begun to threaten its base, and there was +some risk of a catastrophe. Near at hand are a few ancient walls of +reticulated masonry in strangely leaning attitudes, peopled by black +goats; on the ground I picked up some chips of amphorse and vases, as +well as a fragment of the limb of a marble statue. The site of this +pillar, fronting the waves, is impressively forlorn. And it was rather +thoughtful, after all, of the despoiling Bishop Lucifero to leave two of +the forty-eight columns standing upright on the spot, as a sample of the +local Doric style. One has fallen to earth since his day. Nobody would +have complained at the time, if he had stolen all of them, instead of +only forty-six. I took a picture of the survivor; then wandered a little +apart, in the direction of the shore, and soon found myself in a +solitude of burning stones, a miniature Sahara. + +The temple has vanished, together with the sacred grove that once +embowered it; the island of Calypso, where Swinburne took his ease (if +such it was), has sunk into the purple realms of Glaucus; the corals and +sea-beasts that writhed among its crevices are en-gulphed under mounds +of submarine sand. There was life, once, at this promontory. Argosies +touched here, leaving priceless gifts; fountains flowed, and cornfields +waved in the genial sunshine. Doubtless there will be life again; earth +and sea are only waiting for the enchanter's wand. + +All now lies bare, swooning in summer stagnation. + +Calabria is not a land to traverse alone. It is too wistful and +stricken; too deficient in those externals that conduce to comfort. Its +charms do not appeal to the eye of romance, and the man who would +perambulate Magna Graecia as he does the Alps would soon regret his +choice. One needs something of that "human element" which delighted the +genteel photographer of Morano--comrades, in short; if only those sages, +like old Noia Molisi, who have fallen under the spell of its ancient +glories. The joys of Calabria are not to be bought, like those of +Switzerland, for gold. + +_Sir Giovati Battista di Noia Molisi, the last of his family and name, +having no sons and being come to old age without further hope of +offspring, has desired in the place of children to leave of himself an +eternal memory to mankind--_ to wit, this Chronicle of the most Ancient, +Magnificent, and Faithful City of Cotrone. A worthier effort at +self-perpetuation than that of Strangoli. . . . + +A sturgeon, he notes, was caught in 1593 by the Spanish Castellan of the +town. This nobleman, puzzling whom he could best honour with so rare a +dainty, despatched it by means of a man on horseback to the Duke of +Nocera. The Duke was no less surprised than pleased; he thought mighty +well of the sturgeon and of the respectful consideration which prompted +the gift; and then, by another horseman, sent it to Noia Molisi's own +uncle, accompanied, we may conjecture, by some ceremonious compliment +befitting the occasion. + +A man of parts, therefore, our author's uncle, to whom his Lordship of +Nocera sends table-delicacies by mounted messenger; and himself a mellow +comrade whom I am loath to leave; his pages are distinguished by a +pleasing absence of those saintly paraphernalia which hang like a fog +athwart the fair sky of the south. + +Yet to him and to all of them I must bid good-bye, here and now. At this +hour to-morrow I shall be far from Cotrone. + +Farewell to Capialbi, inspired bookworm! And to Lenormant. + +On a day like this, the scholar sailed at Bivona over a sea so unruffled +that the barque seemed to be suspended in air. The water's surface, he +tells us, is "unie comme une glace." He sees the vitreous depths invaded +by piercing sunbeams that light up its mysterious forests of algae, its +rock-headlands and silvery stretches of sand; he peers down into these +"prairies pelagiennes" and beholds all their wondrous fauna--the +urchins, the crabs, the floating fishes and translucent medusae +"semblables a des clochettes d'opale." Then, realizing how this +"population pullulante des petits animaux marins" must have impressed +the observing ancients, he goes on to touch--ever so lightly!--upon +those old local arts of ornamentation whereby sea-beasts and molluscs +and aquatic plants were reverently copied by master-hand, not from dead +specimens, but "pris sur le vif et observes au milieu des eaux"; he +explains how an entire school grew up, which drew its inspiration from +the dainty ... apes and movements of these frail creatures. This is _au +meilleur Lenormant._ His was a full-blooded yet discriminating zest of +knowledge. One wonders what more was fermenting in that restlessly +curious brain, when a miserable accident ended his short life, after 120 +days of suffering. + +So Italy proved fatal to him, as Greece to his father. But one of his +happiest moments must have been spent on the sea at Bivona, on that +clear summer day--a day such as this, when every nerve tingles with joy +of life. + +Meanwhile it is good to rest here, immovable but alert, in the +breathless hush of noon. Showers of benevolent heat stream down upon +this desolation; not the faintest wisp of vapour floats upon the +horizon; not a sail, not a ripple, disquiets the waters. The silence can +be felt. Slumber is brooding over the things of earth: + +Asleep are the peaks of the hills, and the vales, + +The promontories, the clefts, + +And all the creatures that move upon the black earth. . . . + +Such torrid splendour, drenching a land of austerut simplicity, +decomposes the mind into corresponding states of primal contentment and +resilience. There arises before our phantasy a new perspective of human +affairs; a suggestion of well-being wherein the futile complexities and +disharmonies of our age shall have no place. To discard these wrappings, +to claim kinship with some elemental and robust archetype, lover of +earth and sun---- + +How fair they are, these moments of golden equipoise! + +Yes; it is good to be merged awhile into these harshly-vibrant +surroundings, into the meridian glow of all things. This noontide is the +"heavy" hour of the Greeks, when temples are untrodden by priest or +worshipper. _Controra_ they now call it--the ominous hour. Man and +beast are fettered in sleep, while spirits walk abroad, as at midnight. +_Non timebis a timore noctuno: a sagitta volante in aie: a negotio +perambulante in tenebris: ab incursu et demonio meridiano._ The midday +demon--that southern Haunter of calm blue spaces. . . . + +So may some enchantment of kindlier intent have crept over Phaedrus and +his friend, at converse in the noontide under the whispering plane-tree. +And the genius dwelling about this old headland of the Column is candid +and benign. + +This corner of Magna Graecia is a severely parsimonious manifestation of +nature. Rocks and waters! But these rocks and waters are actualities; +the stuff whereof man is made. A landscape so luminous, so resolutely +scornful of accessories, hints at brave and simple forms of expression; +it brings us to the ground, where we belong; it medicines to the disease +of introspection and stimulates a capacity which we are in danger of +unlearning amid our morbid hyperborean gloom--the capacity for honest +contempt: contempt of that scarecrow of a theory which would have us +neglect what is earthly, tangible. What is life well lived but a blithe +discarding of primordial husks, of those comfortable intangibilities +that lurk about us, waiting for our weak moments? + +The sage, that perfect savage, will be the last to withdraw himself from +the influence of these radiant realities. He will strive to knit closer +the bond, and to devise a more durable and affectionate relationship +between himself and them. Let him open his eyes. For a reasonable +adjustment lies at his feet. From these brown stones that seam the +tranquil Ionian, from this gracious solitude, he can carve out, and bear +away into the cheerful din of cities, the rudiments of something clean +and veracious and wholly terrestrial--some tonic philosophy that shall +foster sunny mischiefs and farewell regret. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, OLD CALABRIA *** + +This file should be named 7ocal10.txt or 7ocal10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7ocal11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7ocal10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Old Calabria + +Author: Norman Douglas + +Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7385] +[This file was first posted on April 23, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, OLD CALABRIA *** + + + + +Eric Eldred + + + +OLD CALABRIA + +BY NORMAN DOUGLAS + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + +I. SARACEN LUCERA +II. MANFRED'S TOWN +III. THE ANGEL OF MANFREDONIA +IV. CAVE-WORSHIP +V. LAND OF HORACE +VI. AT VENOSA +VII. THE BANDUSIAN FOUNT +VIII. TILLERS OF THE SOIL +IX. MOVING SOUTHWARDS +X. THE FLYING MONK +XI. BY THE INLAND SEA +XII. MOLLE TARENTUM +XIII. INTO THE JUNGLE +XIV. DRAGONS +XV. BYZANTINISM +XVI. REPOSING AT CASTROVILLARI +XVII. OLD MORANO +XVIII. AFRICAN INTRUDERS +XIX. UPLANDS OF POLLINO +XX. A MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL +XXI. MILTON IN CALABRIA +XXII. THE "GREEK" SILA +XXIII. ALBANIANS AND THEIR COLLEGE +XXIV. AN ALBANIAN SEER +XXV. SCRAMBLING TO LONGOBUCCO +XXVI. AMONG THE BRUTTIANS +XXVII. CALABRIAN BRIGANDAGE +XXVIII. THE GREATER SILA +XXIX. CHAOS +XXX. THE SKIRTS OF MONTALTO +XXXI. SOUTHERN SAINTLINESS +XXXII. ASPROMONTE, THE CLOUD-GATHERER +XXXIII. MUSOLINO AND THE LAW +XXXIV. MALARIA +XXXV. CAULONIA TO SERRA +XXXVI. MEMORIES OF GISSING +XXXVII. COTRONE +XXXVIII. THE SAGE OF CROTON +XXXIX. MIDDAY AT PETELIA +XL. THE COLUMN +INDEX. + + + + +OLD CALABRIA + +I + +SARACEN LUCERA + + +I find it hard to sum up in one word the character of Lucera--the effect +it produces on the mind; one sees so many towns that the freshness of +their images becomes blurred. The houses are low but not undignified; +the streets regular and clean; there is electric light and somewhat +indifferent accommodation for travellers; an infinity of barbers and +chemists. Nothing remarkable in all this. Yet the character is there, if +one could but seize upon it, since every place has its genius. Perhaps +it lies in a certain feeling of aloofness that never leaves one here. We +are on a hill--a mere wave of ground; a kind of spur, rather, rising up +from, the south--quite an absurd little hill, but sufficiently high to +dominate the wide Apulian plain. And the nakedness of the land +stimulates this aerial sense. There are some trees in the "Belvedere" or +public garden that lies on the highest part of the spur and affords a +fine view north and eastwards. But the greater part were only planted a +few years ago, and those stretches of brown earth, those half-finished +walks and straggling pigmy shrubs, give the place a crude and embryonic +appearance. One thinks that the designers might have done more in the +way of variety; there are no conifers excepting a few cryptomerias and +yews which will all be dead in a couple of years, and as for those +yuccas, beloved of Italian municipalities, they will have grown more +dyspeptic-looking than ever. None the less, the garden will be a +pleasant spot when the ilex shall have grown higher; even now it is the +favourite evening walk of the citizens. Altogether, these public parks, +which are now being planted all over south Italy, testify to renascent +taste; they and the burial-places are often the only spots where the +deafened and light-bedazzled stranger may find a little green +content; the content, respectively, of _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso._ +So the cemetery of Lucera, with its ordered walks drowned in the shade +of cypress--roses and gleaming marble monuments in between--is a +charming retreat, not only for the dead. + +The Belvedere, however, is not my promenade. My promenade lies yonder, +on the other side of the valley, where the grave old Suabian castle sits +on its emerald slope. It does not frown; it reposes firmly, with an air +of tranquil and assured domination; "it has found its place," as an +Italian observed to me. Long before Frederick Barbarossa made it the +centre of his southern dominions, long before the Romans had their +fortress on the site, this eminence must have been regarded as the key +of Apulia. All round the outside of those turreted walls (they are +nearly a mile in circumference; the enclosure, they say, held sixty +thousand people) there runs a level space. This is my promenade, at all +hours of the day. Falcons are fluttering with wild cries overhead; down +below, a long unimpeded vista of velvety green, flecked by a few trees +and sullen streamlets and white farmhouses--the whole vision framed in a +ring of distant Apennines. The volcanic cone of Mount Vulture, land of +Horace, can be detected on clear days; it tempts me to explore those +regions. But eastward rises up the promontory of Mount Gargano, and on +the summit of its nearest hill one perceives a cheerful building, some +village or convent, that beckons imperiously across the intervening +lowlands. Yonder lies the venerable shrine of the archangel Michael, and +Manfred's town. . . . + +This castle being a _national monument,_ they have appointed a custodian +to take charge of it; a worthless old fellow, full of untruthful +information which he imparts with the hushed and conscience-stricken air +of a man who is selling State secrets. + +"That corner tower, sir, is the King's tower. It was built by the King." + +"But you said just now that it was the Queen's tower." + +"So it is. The Queen--she built it." + +"What Queen?" + +"What Queen? Why, the Queen--the Queen the German professor was talking +about three years ago. But I must show you some skulls which we found +_(sotto voce)_ in a subterranean crypt. They used to throw the poor dead +folk in here by hundreds; and under the Bourbons the criminals were +hanged here, thousands of them. The blessed times! And this tower is the +Queen's tower." + +"But you called it the King's tower just now." + +"Just so. That is because the King built it." + +"What King?" + +"Ah, sir, how can I remember the names of all those gentlemen? I haven't +so much as set eyes on them! But I must now show you some round +sling-stones which we excavated _(sotto voce)_ in a subterranean crypt----" + +One or two relics from this castle are preserved in the small municipal +museum, founded about five years ago. Here are also a respectable +collection of coins, a few prehistoric flints from Gargano, some quaint +early bronze figurines and mutilated busts of Roman celebrities carved +in marble or the recalcitrant local limestone. A dignified old lion--one +of a pair (the other was stolen) that adorned the tomb of Aurelius, +prastor of the Roman Colony of Luceria--has sought a refuge here, as +well as many inscriptions, lamps, vases, and a miscellaneous collection +of modern rubbish. A plaster cast of a Mussulman funereal stone, found +near Foggia, will attract your eye; contrasted with the fulsome epitaphs +of contemporary Christianity, it breathes a spirit of noble resignation:-- + +"In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. May God show +kindness to Mahomet and his kinsfolk, fostering them by his favours! +This is the tomb of the captain Jacchia Albosasso. God be merciful to +him. He passed away towards noon on Saturday in the five days of the +month Moharram of the year 745 (5th April, 1348). May Allah likewise +show mercy to him who reads." + +One cannot be at Lucera without thinking of that colony of twenty +thousand Saracens, the escort of Frederick and his son, who lived here +for nearly eighty years, and sheltered Manfred in his hour of danger. +The chronicler Spinelli [Footnote: These journals are now admitted to +have been manufactured in the sixteenth century by the historian +Costanze for certain genealogical purposes of his own. Professor +Bernhard! doubted their authenticity in 1869, and his doubts have been +confirmed by Capasse.] has preserved an anecdote which shows Manfred's +infatuation for these loyal aliens. In the year 1252 and in the +sovereign's presence, a Saracen official gave a blow to a Neapolitan +knight--a blow which was immediately returned; there was a tumult, and +the upshot of it was that the Italian was condemned to lose his hand; +all that the Neapolitan nobles could obtain from Manfred was that his +left hand should be amputated instead of his right; the Arab, the cause +of all, was merely relieved of his office. Nowadays, all memory of +Saracens has been swept out of the land. In default of anything better, +they are printing a local halfpenny paper called "II Saraceno"--a very +innocuous pagan, to judge by a copy which I bought in a reckless moment. + +This museum also contains a buxom angel of stucco known as the "Genius +of Bourbonism." In the good old days it used to ornament the town hall, +fronting the entrance; but now, degraded to a museum curiosity, it +presents to the public its back of ample proportions, and the curator +intimated that he considered this attitude quite appropriate-- +historically speaking, of course. Furthermore, they have carted +hither, from the Chamber of Deputies in Rome, the chair once +occupied by Ruggiero Bonghi. Dear Bonghi! From a sense of duty he used +to visit a certain dull and pompous house in the capital and forthwith +fall asleep on the nearest sofa; he slept sometimes for two hours at a +stretch, while all the other visitors were solemnly marched to the spot +to observe him--behold the great Bonghi: he slumbers! There is a statue +erected to him here, and a street has likewise been named after another +celebrity, Giovanni Bovio. If I informed the townsmen of my former +acquaintance with these two heroes, they would perhaps put up a marble +tablet commemorating the fact. For the place is infected with the +patriotic disease of monumentomania. The drawback is that with every +change of administration the streets are re-baptized and the statues +shifted to make room for new favourites; so the civic landmarks come and +go, with the swiftness of a cinematograph. + +Frederick II also has his street, and so has Pietjo Giannone. This +smacks of anti-clericalism. But to judge by the number of priests and +the daily hordes of devout and dirty pilgrims that pour into the town +from the fanatical fastnesses of the Abruzzi--picturesque, I suppose we +should call them--the country is sufficiently orthodox. Every +self-respecting family, they tell me, has its pet priest, who lives on +them in return for spiritual consolations. + +There was a religious festival some nights ago in honour of Saint +Espedito. No one could tell me more about this holy man than that he was +a kind of pilgrim-warrior, and that his cult here is of recent date; it +was imported or manufactured some four years ago by a rich merchant who, +tired of the old local saints, built a church in honour of this new one, +and thereby enrolled him among the city gods. + +On this occasion the square was seething with people: few +women, and the men mostly in dark clothes; we are already under Moorish +and Spanish influences. A young boy addressed me with the polite +question whether I could tell him the precise number of the population +of London. + +That depended, I said, on what one described as London. There was what +they called greater London-- + +It depended! That was what he had always been given to understand. . . . +And how did I like Lucera? Rather a dull little place, was it not? +Nothing like Paris, of course. Still, if I could delay my departure for +some days longer, they would have the trial of a man who had murdered +three people: it might be quite good fun. He was informed that they +hanged such persons in England, as they used to do hereabouts; it seemed +rather barbaric, because, naturally, nobody is ever responsible for his +actions; but in England, no doubt-- + +That is the normal attitude of these folks towards us and our +institutions. We are savages, hopeless savages; but a little savagery, +after all, is quite endurable. Everything is endurable if you have lots +of money, like these English. + +As for myself, wandering among that crowd of unshaven creatures, that +rustic population, fiercely gesticulating and dressed in slovenly hats +and garments, I realized once again what the average Anglo-Saxon would +ask himself: Are they _all_ brigands, or only some of them? That music, +too--what is it that makes this stuff so utterly unpalatable to a +civilized northerner? A soulless cult of rhythm, and then, when the +simplest of melodies emerges, they cling to it with the passionate +delight of a child who has discovered the moon. These men are still in +the age of platitudes, so far as music is concerned; an infantile aria +is to them what some foolish rhymed proverb is to the Arabs: a thing of +God, a portent, a joy for ever. + +You may visit the cathedral; there is a fine _verde antico_ column on +either side of the sumptuous main portal. I am weary, just now, of these +structures; the spirit of pagan Lucera--"Lucera dei Pagani" it used to +be called--has descended upon me; I feel inclined to echo Carducci's +"_Addio, nume semitico!_" One sees so many of these sombre churches, +and they are all alike in their stony elaboration of mysticism and +wrong-headedness; besides, they have been described, over and over +again, by enthusiastic connaisseurs who dwell lovingly upon their +artistic quaintnesses but forget the grovelling herd that reared them, +with the lash at their backs, or the odd type of humanity--the gargoyle +type--that has since grown up under their shadow and influence. +I prefer to return to the sun and stars, to my promenade beside +the castle walls. + +But for the absence of trees and hedges, one might take this to be some +English prospect of the drowsy Midland counties--so green it is, so +golden-grey the sky. The sunlight peers down dispersedly through windows +in this firmament of clouded amber, alighting on some mouldering tower, +some patch of ripening corn or distant city--Troia, lapped in Byzantine +slumber, or San Severo famed in war. This in spring. But what days of +glistering summer heat, when the earth is burnt to cinders under a +heavenly dome that glows like a brazier of molten copper! For this +country is the Sahara of Italy. + +One is glad, meanwhile, that the castle does not lie in the natal land +of the Hohenstaufen. The interior is quite deserted, to be sure; they +have built half the town of Lucera with its stones, even as Frederick +quarried them out of the early Roman citadel beneath; but it is at least +a harmonious desolation. There are no wire-fenced walks among the ruins, +no feeding-booths and cheap reconstructions of draw-bridges and +police-notices at every corner; no gaudy women scribbling to their +friends in the "Residenzstadt" post cards illustrative of the +"Burgruine," while their husbands perspire over mastodontic beer-jugs. +There is only peace. + +These are the delights of Lucera: to sit under those old walls and watch +the gracious cloud-shadows dappling the plain, oblivious of yonder +assemblage of barbers and politicians. As for those who can reconstruct +the vanished glories of such a place--happy they! I find the task +increasingly difficult. One outgrows the youthful age of hero-worship; +next, our really keen edges are so soon worn off by mundane trivialities +and vexations that one is glad to take refuge in simpler pleasures once +more--to return to primitive emotionalism. There are so many Emperors of +past days! And like the old custodian, I have not so much as set eyes on +them. + +Yet this Frederick is no dim figure; he looms grandly through the +intervening haze. How well one understands that craving for the East, +nowadays; how modern they were, he and his son the "Sultan of Lucera," +and their friends and counsellors, who planted this garden of exotic +culture! Was it some afterglow of the luminous world that had sunk below +the horizon, or a pale streak of the coming dawn? And if you now glance +down into this enclosure that once echoed with the song of minstrels +and the soft laughter of women, with the discourse of wits, artists and +philosophers, and the clang of arms--if you look, you will behold +nothing but a green lake, a waving field of grass. No matter. The +ambitions of these men are fairly realized, and every one of us may keep +a body-guard of pagans, an't please him; and a harem likewise--to judge +by the newspapers. + +For he took his Orientalism seriously; he had a harem, with eunuchs, +etc., all proper, and was pleased to give an Eastern colour to his +entertainments. Matthew Paris relates how Frederick's brother-in-law, +returning from the Holy Land, rested awhile at his Italian court, and +saw, among other diversions, "duas puellas Saracenicas formosas, quae in +pavimenti planitie binis globis insisterent, volutisque globis huo +illucque ferrentur canentes, cymbala manibus collidentes, corporaque +secundum modules motantes atque flectentes." I wish I had been there. . . . + +I walked to the castle yesterday evening on the chance of seeing an +eclipse of the moon which never came, having taken place at quite +another hour. A cloudless night, dripping with moisture, the electric +lights of distant Foggia gleaming in the plain. There are brick-kilns at +the foot of the incline, and from some pools in the neighbourhood issued +a loud croaking of frogs, while the pallid smoke of the furnaces, +pressed down by the evening dew, trailed earthward in a long twisted +wreath, like a dragon crawling sulkily to his den. But on the north side +one could hear the nightingales singing in the gardens below. The dark +mass of Mount Gargano rose up clearly in the moonlight, and I began to +sketch out some itinerary of my wanderings on that soil. There was Sant' +Angelo, the archangel's abode; and the forest region; and Lesina with +its lake; and Vieste the remote, the end of all things. . . . + +Then my thoughts wandered to the Hohenstaufen and the conspiracy whereby +their fate was avenged. The romantic figures of Manfred and Conradin; +their relentless enemy Charles; Costanza, her brow crowned with a poetic +nimbus (that melted, towards the end, into an aureole of bigotry); +Frangipani, huge in villainy; the princess Beatrix, tottering from the +dungeon where she had been confined for nearly twenty years; her +deliverer Roger de Lauria, without whose resourcefulness and audacity it +might have gone ill with Aragon; Popes and Palaso-logus--brilliant +colour effects; the king of England and Saint Louis of France; in the +background, dimly discernible, the colossal shades of Frederick and +Innocent, looked in deadly embrace; and the whole congress of figures +enlivened and interpenetrated as by some electric fluid--the personality +of John of Procida. That the element of farce might not be lacking, Fate +contrived that exquisite royal duel at Bordeaux where the two mighty +potentates, calling each other by a variety of unkingly epithets, +enacted a prodigiously fine piece of foolery for the delectation of +Europe. + +From this terrace one can overlook both Foggia and Castel +Fiorentino--the beginning and end of the drama; and one follows the +march of this magnificent retribution without a shred of compassion for +the gloomy papal hireling. Disaster follows disaster with mathematical +precision, till at last he perishes miserably, consumed by rage and +despair. Then our satisfaction is complete. + +No; not quite complete. For in one point the stupendous plot seems to +have been imperfectly achieved. Why did Roger de Lauria not profit by +his victory to insist upon the restitution of the young brothers of +Beatrix, of those unhappy princes who had been confined as infants in +1266, and whose very existence seems to have faded from the memory of +historians? Or why did Costanza, who might have dealt with her enemy's +son even as Conradin had been dealt with, not round her magnanimity by +claiming her own flesh and blood, the last scions of a great house? Why +were they not released during the subsequent peace, or at least in 1302? +The reason is as plain as it is unlovely; nobody knew what to do with +them. Political reasons counselled their effacement, their +non-existence. Horrible thought, that the sunny world should be too +small for three orphan children! In their Apulian fastness they +remained--in chains. A royal rescript of 1295 orders that they be freed +from their fetters. Thirty years in fetters! Their fate is unknown; the +night of medievalism closes in upon them once more. . . . + +Further musings were interrupted by the appearance of a shape which +approached from round the corner of one of the towers. It cams nearer +stealthily, pausing every now and then. Had I evoked, willy-nilly, some +phantom of the buried past? + +It was only the custodian, leading his dog Musolino. After a shower of +compliments and apologies, he gave me to understand that it was his +duty, among other things, to see that no one should endeavour to raise +the treasure which was hidden under these ruins; several people, he +explained, had already made the attempt by night. For the rest, I was +quite at liberty to take my pleisure about the castle at all hours. But +as to touching the buried hoard, it was _proibito_--forbidden! + +I was glad of the incident, which conjured up for me the Oriental mood +with its genii and subterranean wealth. Straightway this incongruous and +irresponsible old buffoon was invested with a new dignity; transformed +into a threatening Ifrit, the guardian of the gold, or--who +knows?--Iblis incarnate. The gods take wondrous shapes, sometimes. + + + + +II + +MANFRED'S TOWN + + +As the train moved from Lucera to Foggia and thence onwards, I had +enjoyed myself rationally, gazing at the emerald plain of Apulia, soon +to be scorched to ashes, but now richly dight with the yellow flowers of +the giant fennel, with patches of ruby-red poppy and asphodels pale and +shadowy, past their prime. I had thought upon the history of this +immense tract of country--upon all the floods of legislation and +theorizings to which its immemorial customs of pasturage have given +birth. . . . + +Then, suddenly, the aspect of life seemed to change. I felt unwell, and +so swift was the transition from health that I had wantonly thrown out +of the window, beyond recall, a burning cigar ere realizing that it was +only a little more than half smoked. We were crossing the Calendaro, a +sluggish stream which carefully collects all the waters of this region +only to lose them again in a swamp not far distant; and it was +positively as if some impish sprite had leapt out of those noisome +waves, boarded the train, and flung himself into me, after the fashion +of the "Horla" in the immortal tale. + +Doses of quinine such as would make an English doctor raise his eyebrows +have hitherto only succeeded in provoking the Calendaro microbe to more +virulent activity. Nevertheless, _on s'y fait._ I am studying him and, +despite his protean manifestations, have discovered three principal +ingredients: malaria, bronchitis and hay-fever--not your ordinary +hay-fever, oh, no! but such as a mammoth might conceivably catch, if +thrust back from his germless, frozen tundras into the damply blossoming +Miocene. + +The landlady of this establishment has a more commonplace name for the +distemper. She calls it "scirocco." And certainly this pest of the south +blows incessantly; the mountain-line of Gargano is veiled, the sea's +horizon veiled, the coast-lands of Apulia veiled by its tepid and +unwholesome breath. To cheer me up, she says that on clear days one can +see Castel del Monte, the Hohenstaufen eyrie, shining yonder above +Barletta, forty miles distant. It sounds rather improbable; still, +yesterday evening there arose a sudden vision of a white town in that +direction, remote and dream-like, far across the water. Was it Barletta? +Or Margherita? It lingered awhile, poised on an errant sunbeam; then +sank into the deep. + +From this window I look into the little harbour whose beach is dotted +with fishing-boats. Some twenty or thirty sailing-vessels are riding at +anchor; in the early morning they unfurl their canvas and sally forth, +in amicable couples, to scour the azure deep--it is greenish-yellow at +this moment--returning at nightfall with the spoils of ocean, mostly +young sharks, to judge by the display in the market. Their white sails +bear fabulous devices in golden colour of moons and crescents and +dolphins; some are marked like the "orange-tip" butterfly. A gunboat is +now stationed here on a mysterious errand connected with the Albanian +rising on the other side of the Adriatic. There has been whispered talk +of illicit volunteering among the youth on this side, which the +government is anxious to prevent. And to enliven the scene, a steamer +calls every now and then to take passengers to the Tremiti islands. One +would like to visit them, if only in memory of those martyrs of +Bourbonism, who were sent in hundreds to these rocks and cast into +dungeons to perish. I have seen such places; they are vast caverns +artificially excavated below the surface of the earth; into these the +unfortunates were lowered and left to crawl about and rot, the living +mingled with the dead. To this day they find mouldering skeletons, +loaded with heavy iron chains and ball-weights. + +A copious spring gushes up on this beach and flows into the sea. It is +sadly neglected. Were I tyrant of Manfredonia, I would build me a fair +marble fountain here, with a carven assemblage of nymphs and +sea-monsters spouting water from their lusty throats, and plashing in +its rivulets. It may well be that the existence of this fount helped to +decide Manfred in his choice of a site for his city; such springs are +rare in this waterless land. And from this same source, very likely, is +derived the local legend of Saint Lorenzo and the Dragon, which is quite +independent of that of Saint Michael the dragon-killer on the heights +above us. These venerable water-spirits, these _dracs,_ are interesting +beasts who went through many metamorphoses ere attaining their present +shape. + +Manfredonia lies on a plain sloping very gently seawards--practically +a dead level, and in one of the hottest districts of Italy. Yet, for +some obscure reason, there is no street along the sea itself; the +cross-roads end in abrupt squalor at the shore. One wonders what +considerations--political, aesthetic or hygienic--prevented the +designers of the town from carrying out its general principles of +construction and building a decent promenade by the waves, where the ten +thousand citizens could take the air in the breathless summer evenings, +instead of being cooped up, as they now are, within stifling hot walls. +The choice of Man-fredonia as a port does not testify to any great +foresight on the part of its founder--peace to his shade! It will for +ever slumber in its bay, while commerce passes beyond its reach; it will +for ever be malarious with the marshes of Sipontum at its edges. But +this particular defect of the place is not Manfred's fault, since the +city was razed to the ground by the Turks in 1620, and then built up +anew; built up, says Lenormant, according to the design of the old city. +Perhaps a fear of other Corsair raids induced the constructors to adhere +to the old plan, by which the place could be more easily defended. Not +much of Man-fredonia seems to have been completed when Pacicchelli's +view (1703) was engraved. + +Speaking of the weather, the landlady further told me that the wind blew +so hard three months ago--"during that big storm in the winter, don't +you remember?"--that it broke all the iron lamp-posts between the town +and the station. Now here was a statement sounding even more improbable +than her other one about Castel del Monte, but admitting of +verification. Wheezing and sneezing, I crawled forth, and found it +correct. It must have been a respectable gale, since the cast-iron +supports are snapped in half, every one of them. + +Those Turks, by the way, burnt the town on that memorable occasion. That +was a common occurrence in those days. Read any account of their +incursions into Italy during this and the preceding centuries, and you +will find that the corsairs burnt the towns whenever they had time to +set them alight. They could not burn them nowadays, and this points to a +total change in economic conditions. Wood was cut down so heedlessly +that it became too scarce for building purposes, and stone took its +place. This has altered domestic architecture; it has changed the +landscape, denuding the hill-sides that were once covered with timber; +it has impoverished the country by converting fruitful plains into +marshes or arid tracts of stone swept by irregular and intermittent +floods; it has modified, if I mistake not, the very character of +the people. The desiccation of the climate has entailed a desiccation +of national humour. + +Muratori has a passage somewhere in his "Antiquities" regarding the old +method of construction and the wooden shingles, _scandulae,_ in use for +roofing--I must look it up, if ever I reach civilized regions again. + +At the municipality, which occupies the spacious apartments of a former +Dominican convent, they will show you the picture of a young girl, one +of the Beccarmi family, who was carried off at a tender age in one of +these Turkish raids, and subsequently became "Sultana." Such captive +girls generally married sultans--or ought to have married them; the wish +being father to the thought. But the story is disputed; rightly, I +think. For the portrait is painted in the French manner, and it is +hardly likely that a harem-lady would have been exhibited to a European +artist. The legend goes on to say that she was afterwards liberated by +the Knights of Malta, together with her Turkish son who, as was meet and +proper, became converted to Christianity and died a monk. The Beccarmi +family (of Siena, I fancy) might find some traces of her in their +archives. _Ben trovato,_ at all events. When one looks at the pretty +portrait, one cannot blame any kind of "Sultan" for feeling +well-disposed towards the original. + +The weather has shown some signs of improvement and tempted me, despite +the persistent "scirocco" mood, to a few excursions into the +neighbourhood. But there seem to be no walks hereabouts, and the hills, +three miles distant, are too remote for my reduced vitality. The +intervening region is a plain of rock carved so smoothly, in places, as +to appear artificially levelled with the chisel; large tracts of it are +covered with the Indian fig (cactus). In the shade of these grotesque +growths lives a dainty flora: trembling grasses of many kinds, rue, +asphodel, thyme, the wild asparagus, a diminutive blue iris, as well as +patches of saxifrage that deck the stone with a brilliant enamel of red +and yellow. This wild beauty makes one think how much better the +graceful wrought-iron balconies of the town would look if enlivened with +blossoms, with pendent carnations or pelargonium; but there is no great +display of these things; the deficiency of water is a characteristic of +the place; it is a flowerless and songless city. The only good +drinking-water is that which is bottled at the mineral springs of Monte +Vulture and sold cheaply enough all over the country. And the mass of +the country people have small charm of feature. Their faces seem to have +been chopped with a hatchet into masks of sombre virility; a hard life +amid burning limestone deserts is reflected in their countenances. + +None the less, they have a public garden; even more immature than that +of Lucera, but testifying to greater taste. Its situation, covering a +forlorn semicircular tract of ground about the old Anjou castle, is _a +priori_ a good one. But when the trees are fully grown, it will be +impossible to see this fine ruin save at quite close quarters--just +across the moat. + +I lamented this fact to a solitary gentleman who was strolling about +here and who replied, upon due deliberation: + +"One cannot have everything." + +Then he added, as a suggestive afterthought: + +"Inasmuch as one thing sometimes excludes another." + +I pause, to observe parenthetically that this habit of uttering +platitudes in the grand manner as though disclosing an idea of vital +novelty (which Charles Lamb, poor fellow, thought peculiar to natives of +Scotland) is as common among Italians as among Englishmen. But veiled in +sonorous Latinisms, the staleness of such remarks assumes an air of +profundity. + +"For my part," he went on, warming to his theme, "I am thoroughly +satisfied. Who will complain of the trees? Only a few makers of bad +pictures. They can go elsewhere. Our country, dear sir, is _encrusted,_ +with old castles and other feudal absurdities, and if I had the +management of things----" + +The sentence was not concluded, for at that moment his hat was blown off +by a violent gust of wind, and flew merrily over beds of flowering +marguerites in the direction of the main street, while he raced after +it, vanishing in a cloud of dust. The chase must have been long and +arduous; he never returned. + +Wandering about the upper regions of this fortress whose chambers are +now used as a factory of cement goods and a refuge for some poor +families, I espied a good pre-renaissance relief of Saint Michael and +the dragon immured in the masonry, and overhung by the green leaves of +an exuberant wild fig that has thrust its roots into the sturdy old +walls. Here, at Manfredonia, we are already under the shadow of the holy +mountain and the archangel's wings, but the usual representations of him +are childishly emasculate--the negation of his divine and heroic +character. This one portrays a genuine warrior-angel of the old type: +grave and grim. Beyond this castle and the town-walls, which are best +preserved on the north side, nothing in Manfredonia is older than 1620. +There is a fine _campanile,_ but the cathedral looks like a shed for +disused omnibuses. + +Along the streets, little red flags are hanging out of the houses, at +frequent intervals: signals of harbourage for the parched wayfarer. +Within, you behold a picturesque confusion of rude chairs set among +barrels and vats full of dark red wine where, amid Rembrandtesque +surroundings, you can get as drunk as a lord for sixpence. Blithe oases! +It must be delightful, in summer, to while away the sultry hours in +their hospitable twilight; even at this season they seem to be extremely +popular resorts, throwing a new light on those allusions by classical +authors to "thirsty Apulia." + +But on many of the dwellings I noticed another symbol: an ominous blue +metal tablet with a red cross, bearing the white-lettered words +"VIGILANZA NOTTURNA." + +Was it some anti-burglary association? I enquired of a serious-looking +individual who happened to be passing. + +His answer did not help to clear up matters. + +"A pure job, _signore mio_, a_ pure job! There is a society in Cerignola +or somewhere, a society which persuades the various town +councils--_persuades_ them, you understand----" + +He ended abruptly, with the gesture of paying out money between his +finger and thumb. Then he sadly shook his head. + +I sought for more light on this cryptic utterance; in vain. What were +the facts, I persisted? Did certain householders subscribe to keep a +guardian on their premises at night--what had the municipalities to do +with it--was there much house-breaking in Manfredonia, and, if so, had +this association done anything to check it? And for how long had the +institution been established? + +But the mystery grew ever darker. After heaving a deep sigh, he +condescended to remark: + +"The usual camorra! Eat--eat; from father to son. Eat--eat! That's all +they think about, the brood of assassins. . . . Just look at them!" + +I glanced down the street and beheld a venerable gentleman of kindly +aspect who approached slowly, leaning on the arm of a fair-haired +youth--his grandson, I supposed. He wore a long white beard, and an air +of apostolic detachment from the affairs of this world. They came +nearer. The boy was listening, deferentially, to some remark of the +elder; his lips were parted in attention and his candid, sunny face +would have rejoiced the heart of della Robbia. They passed within a few +feet of me, lovingly engrossed in one another. + +"Well?" I queried, turning to my informant and anxious to learn what +misdeeds could be laid to the charge of such godlike types of humanity. + +But that person was no longer at my side. He had quietly withdrawn +himself, in the interval; he had evanesced, "moved on." + +An oracular and elusive citizen. ... + + + + +III + +THE ANGEL OF MANFREDONIA + + +Whoever looks at a map of the Gargano promontory will see that it is +besprinkled with Greek names of persons and places--Matthew, Mark, +Nikander, Onofrius, Pirgiano (Pyrgos) and so forth. Small wonder, for +these eastern regions were in touch with Constantinople from early days, +and the spirit of Byzance still hovers over them. It was on this +mountain that the archangel Michael, during his first flight to Western +Europe, deigned to appear to a Greek bishop of Sipontum, Laurentius by +name; and ever since that time a certain cavern, sanctified by the +presence of this winged messenger of God, has been the goal of millions +of pilgrims. + +The fastness of Sant' Angelo, metropolis of European angel-worship, has +grown up around this "devout and honourable cave"; on sunny days its +houses are clearly visible from Man-fredonia. They who wish to pay their +devotions at the shrine cannot do better than take with them +Gregorovius, as cicerone and mystagogue. + +Vainly I waited for a fine day to ascend the heights. At last I +determined to have done with the trip, be the weather what it might. A +coachman was summoned and negotiations entered upon for starting next +morning. + +Sixty-five francs, he began by telling me, was the price paid by an +Englishman last year for a day's visit to the sacred mountain. It may +well be true--foreigners will do anything, in Italy. Or perhaps it was +only said to "encourage" me. But I am rather hard to encourage, +nowadays. I reminded the man that there was a diligence service there +and back for a franc and a half, and even that price seemed rather +extortionate. I had seen so many holy grottos in my life! And who, after +all, was this Saint Michael? The Eternal Father, perchance? Nothing of +the kind: just an ordinary angel! We had dozens of them, in England. +Fortunately, I added, I had already received an offer to join one of the +private parties who drive up, fourteen or fifteen persons behind +one diminutive pony--and that, as he well knew, would be a matter of +only a few pence. And even then, the threatening sky . . . Yes, on +second thoughts, it was perhaps wisest to postpone the excursion +altogether. Another day, if God wills! Would he accept this cigar as a +recompense for his trouble in coming? + +In dizzy leaps and bounds his claims fell to eight francs. It was the +tobacco that worked the wonder; a gentleman who will give _something for +nothing_ (such was his logic)--well, you never know what you may not get +out of him. Agree to his price, and chance it! + +He consigned the cigar to his waistcoat pocket to smoke after dinner, +and departed--vanquished, but inwardly beaming with bright anticipation. + +A wretched morning was disclosed as I drew open the shutters--gusts of +rain and sleet beating against the window-panes. No matter: the carriage +stood below, and after that customary and hateful apology for breakfast +which suffices to turn the thoughts of the sanest man towards themes of +suicide and murder--when will southerners learn to eat a proper +breakfast at proper hours?--we started on our journey. The sun came out +in visions of tantalizing briefness, only to be swallowed up again in +driving murk, and of the route we traversed I noticed only the old stony +track that cuts across the twenty-one windings of the new carriage-road +here and there. I tried to picture to myself the Norman princes, the +emperors, popes, and other ten thousand pilgrims of celebrity crawling +up these rocky slopes--barefoot--on such a day as this. It must have +tried the patience even of Saint Francis of Assisi, who pilgrimaged with +the rest of them and, according to Pontanus, performed a little miracle +here _en passant,_ as was his wont. + +After about three hours' driving we reached the town of Sant' Angelo. It +was bitterly cold at this elevation of 800 metres. Acting on the advice +of the coachman, I at once descended into the sanctuary; it would be +warm down there, he thought. The great festival of 8 May was over, but +flocks of worshippers were still arriving, and picturesquely pagan they +looked in grimy, tattered garments--their staves tipped with +pine-branches and a scrip. + +In the massive bronze doors of the chapel, that were made at +Constantinople in 1076 for a rich citizen of Amalfi, metal rings are +inserted; these, like a true pilgrim, you must clash furiously, to call +the attention of the Powers within to your visit; and on issuing, you +must once more knock as hard as you can, in order that the consummation +of your act of worship may be duly reported: judging by the noise made, +the deity must be very hard of hearing. Strangely deaf they are, +sometimes. + +The twenty-four panels of these doors are naively encrusted with +representations, in enamel, of angel-apparitions of many kinds; some of +them are inscribed, and the following is worthy of note: + +"I beg and implore the priests of Saint Michael to cleanse these gates +once a year as I have now shown them, in order that they may be always +bright and shining." The recommendation has plainly not been carried out +for a good many years past. + +Having entered the portal, you climb down a long stairway amid swarms of +pious, foul clustering beggars to a vast cavern, the archangel's abode. +It is a natural recess in the rock, illuminated by candles. Here divine +service is proceeding to the accompaniment of cheerful operatic airs +from an asthmatic organ; the water drops ceaselessly from the rocky +vault on to the devout heads of kneeling worshippers that cover the +floor, lighted candle in hand, rocking themselves ecstatically and +droning and chanting. A weird scene, in truth. And the coachman was +quite right in his surmise as to the difference in temperature. It is +hot down here, damply hot, as in an orchid-house. But the aroma cannot +be described as a floral emanation: it is the _bouquet,_ rather, of +thirteen centuries of unwashed and perspiring pilgrims. "TERRIBILIS EST +LOCUS ISTE," says an inscription over the entrance of the shrine. Very +true. In places like this one understands the uses, and possibly the +origin, of incense. + +I lingered none the less, and my thoughts went back to the East, whence +these mysterious practices are derived. But an Oriental crowd of +worshippers does not move me like these European masses of fanaticism; I +can never bring myself to regard without a certain amount of disquietude +such passionate pilgrims. Give them their new Messiah, and all our +painfully accumulated art and knowledge, all that reconciles civilized +man to earthly existence, is blown to the winds. Society can deal with +its criminals. Not they, but fond enthusiasts such as these, are the +menace to its stability. Bitter reflections; but then--the drive upward +had chilled my human sympathies, and besides--that so-called breakfast. +. . . + +The grovelling herd was left behind. I ascended the stairs and, +profiting by a gleam of sunshine, climbed up to where, above the town, +there stands a proud aerial ruin known as the "Castle of +the Giant." On one of its stones is inscribed the date 1491--a certain +Queen of Naples, they say, was murdered within those now crumbling +walls. These sovereigns were murdered in so many castles that one +wonders how they ever found time to be alive at all. The structure is a +wreck and its gateway closed up; nor did I feel any great inclination, +in that icy blast of wind, to investigate the roofless interior. + +I was able to observe, however, that this "feudal absurdity" bears a +number like any inhabited house of Sant' Angelo--it is No. 3. + +This is the latest pastime of the Italian Government: to re-number +dwellings throughout the kingdom; and not only human habitations, but +walls, old ruins, stables, churches, as well as an occasional door-post +and window. They are having no end of fun over the game, which promises +to keep them amused for any length of time--in fact, until the next +craze is invented. Meanwhile, so long as the fit lasts, half a million +bright-eyed officials, burning with youthful ardour, are employed in +affixing these numerals, briskly entering them into ten times as many +note-books and registering them into thousands of municipal archives, +all over the country, for some inscrutable but hugely important +administrative purposes. "We have the employes," as a Roman deputy once +told me, "and therefore: they must find some occupation." + +Altogether, the weather this day sadly impaired my appetite for research +and exploration. On the way to the castle I had occasion to admire the +fine tower and to regret that there seemed to exist no coign of vantage +from which it could fairly be viewed; I was struck, also, by the number +of small figures of Saint Michael of an ultra-youthful, almost +infantile, type; and lastly, by certain clean-shaven old men of the +place. These venerable and decorative brigands--for such they would have +been, a few years ago--now stood peacefully at their thresholds, wearing +a most becoming cloak of thick brown wool, shaped like a burnous. The +garment interested me; it may be a legacy from the Arabs who dominated +this region for some little time, despoiling the holy sanctuary and +leaving their memory to be perpetuated by the neighbouring "Monte +Saraceno." The costume, on the other hand, may have come over from +Greece; it is figured on Tanagra statuettes and worn by modern Greek +shepherds. By Sardinians, too. ... It may well be a primordial form of +clothing with mankind. + +The view from this castle must be superb on clear days. Standing there, +I looked inland and remembered all the places I had intended to +see--Vieste, and Lesina with its lakes, and Selva Umbra, whose very name +is suggestive of dewy glades; how remote they were, under such +dispiriting clouds! I shall never see them. Spring hesitates to smile +upon these chill uplands; we are still in the grip of winter-- + + Aut aquilonibus + Querceti Gargani laborent + Et foliis viduantur orni-- + +so sang old Horace, of Garganian winds. I scanned the horizon, seeking +for his Mount Vulture, but all that region was enshrouded in a grey +curtain of vapour; only the Stagno Salso--a salt mere wherein Candelaro +forgets his mephitic waters--shone with a steady glow, like a sheet of +polished lead. + +Soon the rain fell once more and drove me to seek refuge among the +houses, where I glimpsed the familiar figure of my coachman, sitting +disconsolately under a porch. He looked up and remarked (for want of +something better to say) that he had been searching for me all over the +town, fearing that some mischief might have happened to me. I was +touched by these words; touched, that is, by his child-like simplicity +in imagining that he could bring me to believe a statement of such +radiant improbability; so touched, that I pressed a franc into his +reluctant palm and bade him buy with it something to eat. A whole franc. +. . . _Aha!_ he doubtless thought, _my theory of the gentleman: it +begins to work._ + +It was barely midday. Yet I was already surfeited with the angelic +metropolis, and my thoughts began to turn in the direction of +Manfredonia once more. At a corner of the street, however, certain +fluent vociferations in English and Italian, which nothing would induce +me to set down here, assailed my ears, coming up--apparently--out of the +bowels of the earth. I stopped to listen, shocked to hear ribald +language in a holy town like this; then, impelled by curiosity, +descended a long flight of steps and found myself in a subterranean +wine-cellar. There was drinking and card-playing going on here among a +party of emigrants--merry souls; a good half of them spoke English and, +despite certain irreverent phrases, they quickly won my heart with a +"Here! You drink _this,_ mister." + +This dim recess was an instructive pendant to the archangel's cavern. A +new type of pilgrim has been evolved; pilgrims who think no more of +crossing to Pittsburg than of a drive to Manfredonia. But their cave was +permeated with an odour of spilt wine and tobacco-smoke instead of the +subtle _Essence des pèlerins_ _àes Abruzzes fleuris,_ and alas, the +object of their worship was not the Chaldean angel, but another and +equally ancient eastern shape: Mammon. They talked much of dollars; and +I also heard several unorthodox allusions to the "angel-business," which +was described as "played out," as well as a remark to the effect that +"only damn-fools stay in this country." In short, these men were at the +other end of the human scale; they were the strong, the energetic; the +ruthless, perhaps; but certainly--the intelligent. + +And all the while the cup circled round with genial iteration, and it +was universally agreed that, whatever the other drawbacks of Sant' +Angelo might be, there was nothing to be said against its native liquor. + +It was, indeed, a divine product; a _vino di montagna_ of noble +pedigree. So I thought, as I laboriously scrambled up the stairs once +more, solaced by this incident of the competition-grotto and slightly +giddy, from the tobacco-smoke. And here, leaning against the door-post, +stood the coachman who had divined my whereabouts by some dark masonic +intuition of sympathy. His face expanded into an inept smile, and I +quickly saw that instead of fortifying his constitution with sound food, +he had tried alcoholic methods of defence against the inclement weather. +Just a glass of wine, he explained. "But," he added, "the horse is +perfectly sober." + +That quadruped was equal to the emergency. Gloriously indifferent to our +fates, we glided down, in a vertiginous but masterly vol-plane, from the +somewhat objectionable mountain-town. + +An approving burst of sunshine greeted our arrival on the plain. + + + + +IV + +CAVE-WORSHIP + + +Why has the exalted archangel chosen for an abode this reeking cell, +rather than some well-built temple in the sunshine? "As symbolizing a +ray of light that penetrates into the gloom," so they will tell you. It +is more likely that he entered it as an extirpating warrior, to oust +that heathen shape which Strabo describes as dwelling in its dank +recesses, and to take possession of the cleft in the name of +Christianity. Sant' Angelo is one of many places where Michael has +performed the duty of Christian Hercules, cleanser of Augean stables. + +For the rest, this cave-worship is older than any god or devil. It is +the cult of the feminine principle--a relic of that aboriginal obsession +of mankind to shelter in some Cloven Rock of Ages, in the sacred womb of +Mother Earth who gives us food and receives us after death. +Grotto-apparitions, old and new, are but the popular explanations of +this dim primordial craving, and hierophants of all ages have understood +the commercial value of the holy shudder which penetrates in these +caverns to the heart of worshippers, attuning them to godly deeds. So +here, close beside the altar, the priests are selling fragments of the +so-called "Stone of Saint Michael." The trade is brisk. + +The statuette of the archangel preserved in this subterranean chapel is +a work of the late Renaissance. Though savouring of that mawkish +elaboration which then began to taint local art and literature and is +bound up with the name of the poet Marino, it is still a passably virile +figure. But those countless others, in churches or over house-doors--do +they indeed portray the dragon-killer, the martial prince of angels? +This amiable child with girlish features--can this be the Lucifer of +Christianity, the Sword of the Almighty? _Quis ut Déus!_ He could +hardly hurt a fly. + +The hoary winged genius of Chaldea who has absorbed the essence of so +many solemn deities has now, in extreme old age, entered upon a second +childhood and grown altogether too youthful for his _role,_ undergoing +a metimorphosis beyond the boundaries of legendary probability or common +sense; every trace of divinity and manly strength has been boiled out of +him. So young and earthly fair, he looks, rather, like some pretty boy +dressed up for a game with toy sword and helmet--one wants to have a +romp with him. No warrior this! _C'est beau, mais ce n'est pas la +guerre._ + +The gods, they say, are ever young, and a certain sensuous and fleshly +note is essential to those of Italy if they are to retain the love of +their worshippers. Granted. We do not need a scarred and hirsute +veteran; but we need, at least, a personage capable of wielding the +sword, a figure something like this:-- + +His starry helm unbuckled show'd his prime In manhood where youth ended; +by his side As in a glist'ring zodiac hung the sword, Satan's dire +dread, and in his hand the spear. . . . + +There! That is an archangel of the right kind. + +And the great dragon, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, has +suffered a similar transformation. He is shrunk into a poor little +reptile, the merest worm, hardly worth crushing. + +But how should a sublime conception like the apocalyptic hero appeal to +the common herd? These formidable shapes emerge from the dusk, offspring +of momentous epochs; they stand aloof at first, but presently their +luminous grandeur is dulled, their haughty contour sullied and +obliterated by attrition. They are dragged down to the level of their +lowest adorers, for the whole flock adapts its pace to that of the +weakest lamb. No self-respecting deity will endure this treatment--to be +popularized and made intelligible to a crowd. Divinity comprehended of +the masses ceases to be efficacious; the Egyptians and Brahmans +understood that. It is not giving gods a chance to interpret them in an +incongruous and unsportsmanlike fashion. But the vulgar have no idea of +propriety or fair play; they cannot keep at the proper distance; they +are for ever taking liberties. And, in the end, the proudest god is +forced to yield. + +We see this same fatality in the very word Cherub. How different an +image does this plump and futile infant evoke to the stately Minister of +the Lord, girt with a sword of flame! We see it in the Italian Madonna +of whom, whatever her mental acquirements may have been, a certain +gravity of demeanour is to be presupposed, and who, none the less, grows +more childishly smirking every day; in her Son who--hereabouts at +least--has doffed all the serious attributes of manhood and dwindled +into something not much better than a doll. It was the same in days of +old. Apollo (whom Saint Michael has supplanted), and Eros, and +Aphrodite--they all go through a process of saccharine deterioration. +Our fairest creatures, once they have passed their meridian vigour, are +liable to be assailed and undermined by an insidious diabetic tendency. + +It is this coddling instinct of mankind which has reduced Saint Michael +to his present state. And an extraneous influence has worked in the same +direction--the gradual softening of manners within historical times, +that demasculinization which is an inevitable concomitant of increasing +social security. Divinity reflects its human creators and their +environment; grandiose or warlike gods become superfluous, and finally +incomprehensible, in humdrum days of peace. In order to survive, our +deities (like the rest of us) must have a certain plasticity. If +recalcitrant, they are quietly relieved of their functions, and +forgotten. This is what has happened in Italy to God the Father and the +Holy Ghost, who have vanished from the vulgar Olympus; whereas the +devil, thanks to that unprincipled versatility for which he is famous, +remains ever young and popular. + +The art-notions of the Cinque-Cento are also to blame; indeed, so far as +the angelic shapes of south Italy are concerned, the influence of the +Renaissance has been wholly malefic. Aliens to the soil, they were at +first quite unknown--not one is pictured in the Neapolitan catacombs. +Next came the brief period of their artistic glory; then the syncretism +of the Renaissance, when these winged messengers were amalgamated with +pagan _amoretti_ and began to flutter in foolish baroque fashion about +the Queen of Heaven, after the pattern of the disreputable little genii +attendant upon a Venus of a bad school. That same instinct which +degraded a youthful Eros into the childish Cupid was the death-stroke to +the pristine dignity and holiness of angels. Nowadays, we see the +perversity of it all; we have come to our senses and can appraise the +much-belauded revival at its true worth; and our modern sculptors will +rear you a respectable angel, a grave adolescent, according to the best +canons of taste--should you still possess the faith that once +requisitioned such works of art. + +We travellers acquaint ourselves with the lineage of this celestial +Messenger, but it can hardly be supposed that the worshippers now +swarming at his shrine know much of these things. How shall one discover +their real feelings in regard to this great cave-saint and his life and +deeds? + +Well, some idea of this may be gathered from the literature sold on the +spot. I purchased three of these modern tracts printed respectively at +Bitonto, Molfetta and Naples. The "Popular Song in honour of St. Michael +" contains this verse: + + Nell' ora della morte + Ci salvi dal!' inferno + E a Regno Sempiterno + Ci guidi per pietà. + +_Ci guidi per pietà. . . ._ This is the Mercury-heritage. Next, the +"History and Miracles of St. Michael" opens with a rollicking dialogue +in verse between the archangel and the devil concerning a soul; it ends +with a goodly list, in twenty-five verses, of the miracles performed by +the angel, such as helping women in childbirth, curing the blind, and +other wonders that differ nothing from those wrought by humbler earthly +saints. Lastly, the "Novena in Onore di S. Michele Arcangelo," printed +in 1910 (third edition) with ecclesiastical approval, has the following +noteworthy paragraph on the + +"DEVOTION FOR THE SACRED STONES OF THE GROTTO OF ST. MICHAEL. + +"It is very salutary to hold in esteem the STONES which are taken from +the sacred cavern, partly because from immemorial times they have always +been held in veneration by the faithful and also because they have been +placed as relics of sepulchres and altars. Furthermore, it is known that +during the plague which afflicted the kingdom of Naples in the year +1656, Monsignor G. A. Puccini, archbishop of Manfredonia, recommended +every one to carry devoutly on his person a fragment of the sacred +STONE, whereby the majority were saved from the pestilence, and this +augmented the devotion bestowed on them." + +The cholera is on the increase, and this may account for the rapid sale +of the STONES at this moment. + +This pamphlet also contains a litany in which the titles of the +archangel are enumerated. He is, among other things, Secretary of God, +Liberator from Infernal Chains, Defender in the Hour of Death, Custodian +of the Pope, Spirit of Light, Wisest of Magistrates, Terror of Demons, +Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the Lord, Lash of Heresies, Adorer +of the Word Incarnate, Guide of Pilgrims, Conductor of Mortals: Mars, +Mercury, Hercules, Apollo, Mithra--what nobler ancestry can angel +desire? And yet, as if these complicated and responsible functions did +not suffice for his energies, he has twenty others, among them being +that of "Custodian of the Holy Family "--who apparently need a +protector, a Monsieur Paoli, like any mortal royalties. + +"Blasphemous rubbish!" I can hear some Methodist exclaiming. And one +may well be tempted to sneer at those pilgrims for the more enlightened +of whom such literature is printed. For they are unquestionably a +repulsive crowd: travel-stained old women, under-studies for the Witch +of Endor; dishevelled, anaemic and dazed-looking girls; boys, too weak +to handle a spade at home, pathetically uncouth, with mouths agape and +eyes expressing every grade of uncontrolled emotion--from wildest joy to +downright idiotcy. How one realizes, down in this cavern, the effect +upon some cultured ancient like Rutilius Namatianus of the +catacomb-worship among those early Christian converts, those _men who +shun the light,_ drawn as they were from the same social classes towards +the same dark underground rites! One can neither love nor respect such +people; and to affect pity for them would be more consonant with their +religion than with my own. + +But it is perfectly easy to understand them. For thirteen centuries this +pilgrim-movement has been going on. Thirteen centuries? No. This site +was an oracle in heathen days, and we know that such were frequented by +men not a whit less barbarous and bigoted than their modern +representatives--nothing is a greater mistake than to suppose that the +crowds of old Rome and Athens were more refined than our own +("Demosthenes, sir, was talking to an assembly of brutes"). For thirty +centuries then, let us say, a deity has attracted the faithful to his +shrine--Sant' Angelo has become a vacuum, as it were, which must be +periodically filled up from the surrounding country. These pilgrimages +are in the blood of the people: infants, they are carried there; adults, +they carry their own offspring; grey-beards, their tottering steps are +still supported by kindly and sturdier fellow-wanderers. + +Popes and emperors no longer scramble up these slopes; the spirit of +piety has abated among the great ones of the earth; so much is certain. +But the rays of light that strike the topmost branches have not yet +penetrated to the rank and seething undergrowth. And then--what else can +one offer to these Abruzzi mountain-folk? Their life is one of +miserable, revolting destitution. They have no games or sports, no +local racing, clubs, cattle-shows, fox-hunting, politics, rat-catching, +or any of those other joys that diversify the lives of our peasantry. No +touch of humanity reaches them, no kindly dames send them jellies or +blankets, no cheery doctor enquires for their children; they read no +newspapers or books, and lack even the mild excitements of church +_versus_ chapel, or the vicar's daughter's love-affair, or the squire's +latest row with his lady--nothing! Their existence is almost bestial in +its blankness. I know them--I have lived among them. For four months in +the year they are cooped up in damp dens, not to be called chambers, +where an Englishman would deem it infamous to keep a dog--cooped up amid +squalor that must be seen to be believed; for the rest of the time they +struggle, in the sweat of their brow, to wrest a few blades of corn from +the ungrateful limestone. Their visits to the archangel--these vernal +and autumnal picnics--are their sole form of amusement. + +The movement is said to have diminished since the early nineties, when +thirty thousand of them used to come here annually. It may well be the +case; but I imagine that this is due not so much to increasing +enlightenment as to the depopulation caused by America; many villages +have recently been reduced to half their former number of inhabitants. + +And here they kneel, candle in hand, on the wet flags of this foetid and +malodorous cave, gazing in rapture upon the blandly beaming idol, their +sensibilities tickled by resplendent priests reciting full-mouthed Latin +phrases, while the organ overhead plays wheezy extracts from "La Forza +del Destino" or the Waltz out of Boito's "Mefistofele"... for sure, it +must be a foretaste of Heaven! And likely enough, these are "the poor in +heart" for whom that kingdom is reserved. + +One may call this a debased form of Christianity. Whether it would have +been distasteful to the feelings of the founder of that cult is another +question, and, debased or not, it is at least alive and palpitating, +which is more than can be said of certain other varieties. But the +archangel, as was inevitable, has suffered a sad change. His fairest +attribute of Light-bringer, of Apollo, is no longer his own; it has been +claimed and appropriated by the* "Light of the World," his new master. +One by one, his functions have been stripped from him, all save in name, +as happens to men and angels alike, when they take service under +"jealous" lords. + +What is now left of Saint Michael, the glittering hierarch? Can he still +endure the light of sun? Or has he not shrivelled into a spectral +Hermes, a grisly psychopomp, bowing his head in minished glory, and +leading men's souls no longer aloft but downwards--down to the pale +regions of things that have been? And will it be long ere he, too, is +thrust by some flaming Demogorgon into these same realms of Minos, into +that shadowy underworld where dwell Saturn, and Kronos, and other +cracked and shivered ideals? + +So I mused that afternoon, driving down the slopes from Sant' Angelo +comfortably sheltered against the storm, while the generous mountain +wine sped through my veins, warming my fancy. Then, at last, the sun +came out in a sudden burst of light, opening a rift in the vapours and +revealing the whole chain of the Apennines, together with the peaked +crater of Mount Vulture. + +The spectacle cheered me, and led me to think that such a day might +worthily be rounded off by a visit to Sipontum, which lies a few miles +beyond Manfredonia on the Foggia road. But I approached the subject +cautiously, fearing that the coachman might demur at this extra work. +Far from it. I had gained his affection, and he would conduct me +whithersoever I liked. Only to Sipontum? __Why not to Foggia, to Naples, +to the ends of the earth? As for the horse, he was none the worse for +the trip, not a bit the worse; he liked nothing better than running in +front of a carriage; besides, _è suo dovere--_ it was his duty. + +Sipontum is so ancient that it was founded, they say, by that legendary +Diomed who acted in the same capacity for Beneven-tum, Arpi, and other +cities. But this record does not satisfy Monsignor Sarnelli, its +historian, according to whom it was already a flourishing town when +Shem, first son of Noah, became its king. He reigned about the year 1770 +of the creation of the world. Two years after the deluge he was 100 +years old, and at that age begat a son Arfaxad, after whose birth he +lived yet another five hundred years. The second king of Sipontum was +Appulus, who ruled in the year 2213. . . . Later on, Saint Peter +sojourned here, and baptized a few people. + +Of Sipontum nothing is left; nothing save a church, and even that built +only yesterday--in the eleventh century; a far-famed church, in the +Pisan style, with wrought marble columns reposing on lions, sculptured +diamond ornaments, and other crafty stonework that gladdens the eye. It +used to be the seat of an archbishopric, and its fine episcopal chairs +are now preserved at Sant' Angelo; and you may still do homage to the +authentic Byzantine Madonna painted on wood by Saint Luke, +brown-complexioned, long-nosed, with staring eyes, and holding the +Infant on her left arm. Earthquakes and Saracen incursions ruined the +town, which became wholly abandoned when Man-fredonia was built with its +stones. + +Of pagan antiquity there are a few capitals lying about, as well as +granite columns in the curious old crypt. A pillar stands all forlorn in +a field; and quite close to the church are erected two others--the +larger of cipollino, beautified by a patina of golden lichen; a marble +well-head, worn half through with usage of ropes, may be found buried in +the rank grass. The plain whereon stood the great city of Sipus is +covered, now, with bristly herbage. The sea has retired from its old +beach, and half-wild cattle browse on the site of those lordly quays and +palaces. Not a stone is left. Malaria and desolation reign supreme. + +It is a profoundly melancholy spot. Yet I was glad of the brief vision. +I shall have fond and enduring memories of that sanctuary--the +travertine of its artfully carven fabric glowing orange-tawny in the +sunset; of the forsaken plain beyond, full of ghostly phantoms of the past. + +As for Manfredonia--it is a sad little place, when the south wind moans +and mountains are veiled in mists. + + + + +V + +LAND OF HORACE + + +Venosa, nowadays, lies off the beaten track. There are only three trains +a day from the little junction of Rocchetta, and they take over an hour +to traverse the thirty odd kilometres of sparsely inhabited land. It is +an uphill journey, for Venosa lies at a good elevation. They say that +German professors, bent on Horatian studies, occasionally descend from +those worn-out old railway carriages; but the ordinary travellers are +either peasant-folk or commercial gentlemen from north Italy. Worse than +malaria or brigandage, against both of which a man may protect himself, +there is no escaping from the companionship of these last-named--these +pathologically inquisitive, empty-headed, and altogether dreadful +people. They are the terror of the south. And it stands to reason that +only the most incapable and most disagreeable of their kind are sent to +out-of-the-way places like Venosa. + +One asks oneself whether this town has greatly changed since Roman +times. To be sure it has; domestic calamities and earthquakes (such as +the terrible one of 1456) have altered it beyond recognition. The +amphitheatre that seated ten thousand spectators is merged into the +earth, and of all the buildings of Roman date nothing is left save a +pile of masonry designated as the tomb of the Marcellus who was killed +here by Hannibal's soldiery, and a few reticulated walls of the second +century or thereabouts known as the "House of Horace"--as genuine as +that of Juliet in Verona or the Mansion of Loreto. Yet the tradition is +an old one, and the builder of the house, whoever he was, certainly +displayed some poetic taste in his selection of a fine view across the +valley. There is an indifferent statue of Horace in the marketplace. A +previous one, also described as Horace, was found to be the effigy of +somebody else. Thus much I learn from Lupoli's "Iter Venusinum." + +But there are ancient inscriptions galore, worked into the masonry of +buildings or lying about at random. Mommsen has collected numbers of +them in his _Corpus,_ and since that time some sixty new ones have been +discovered. And then--the stone lions of Roman days, couched forlornly +at street corners, in courtyards and at fountains, in every stage of +decrepitude, with broken jaws and noses, missing legs and tails! Venosa +is a veritable infirmary for mutilated antiques of this species. Now the +lion is doubtless a nobly decorative beast, but--_toujours perdrix!_ Why +not a few griffons or other ornaments? The Romans were not an +imaginative race. + +The country around must have looked different in olden days. Horace +describes it as covered with forests, and from a manuscript of the early +seventeenth century which has lately been printed one learns that the +surrounding regions were full of "hares, rabbits, foxes, roe deer, +wild boars, martens, porcupines, hedgehogs, tortoises and wolves"-- +wood-loving creatures which have now, for the most part, deserted +Venosa. Still, there are left some stretches of oak at the back +of the town, and the main lines of the land cannot change. Yonder lies +the Horatian Forense and "Acherontia's nest"; further on, the glades of +Bantia (the modern Banzi); the long-drawn Garganian Mount, on which the +poet's eye must often have rested, emerges above the plain of Apulia +like an island (and such it is: an island of Austrian stone, stranded +upon the beach of Italy). Monte Vulture still dominates the landscape, +although at this nearness the crater loses its shapely conical outline +and assumes a serrated edge. On its summit I perceive a gigantic +cross--one of a number of such symbols which were erected by the +clericals at the time of the recent rationalist congress in Rome. + +From this chronicler I learn another interesting fact: that Venosa was +not malarious in the author's day. He calls it healthy, and says that +the only complaint from which the inhabitants suffered was "ponture" +(pleurisy). It is now within the infected zone. I dare say the +deforestation of the country, which prevented the downflow of the +rivers--choking up their beds with detritus and producing stagnant pools +favourable to the breeding of the mosquito--has helped to spread the +plague in many parts of Italy. In Horace's days Venosa was immune, +although Rome and certain rural districts were already malarious. +Ancient votive tablets to the fever-goddess Mephitis (malaria) have been +found not far from here, in the plain below the present city of Potenza. + +A good deal of old Roman blood and spirit seems to survive here. After +the noise of the Neapolitan provinces, where chattering takes the place +of thinking, it is a relief to find oneself in the company of these +grave self-respecting folks, who really converse, like the Scotch, in +disinterested and impersonal fashion. Their attitude towards religious +matters strikes me as peculiarly Horatian; it is not active scepticism, +but rather a bland tolerance or what one of them described as +"indifferentismo"--submission to acts of worship and all other usages +(whatever they may be) consecrated by time: the _pietàs--_the +conservative, law-abiding Roman spirit. And if you walk towards sunset +along any of the roads leading into the country, you will meet the +peasants riding home from their field labours accompanied by their dogs, +pigs and goats; and among them you will recognize many types of Roman +physiognomies--faces of orators and statesmen--familiar from old coins. +About a third of the population are of the dark-fair complexion, with +blue or green eyes. But the women are not handsome, although the town +derives its name from Benoth (Venus). Some genuine Roman families have +continued to exist to this day, such as that of Cenna (Cinna). One of +them was the author of the chronicle above referred to; and there is an +antique bas-relief worked into the walls of the Trinità abbey, depicting +some earlier members of this local family. + +One is astonished how large a literature has grown up around this small +place--but indeed, the number of monographs dealing with every one of +these little Italian towns is a ceaseless source of surprise. Look below +the surface and you will find, in all of them, an undercurrent of keen +spirituality--a nucleus of half a dozen widely read and thoughtful men, +who foster the best traditions of the mind. You will not find them in +the town council or at the café. No newspapers commend their labours, no +millionaires or learned societies come to their assistance, and though +typography is cheap in this country, they often stint themselves of the +necessities of life in order to produce these treatises of calm +research. There is a deep gulf, here, between the mundane and the +intellectual life. These men are retiring in their habits; and one +cannot but revere their scholarly and almost ascetic spirit that +survives like a green oasis amid the desert of "politics," roguery and +municipal corruption. + +The City Fathers of Venosa are reputed rich beyond the dreams of +avarice. Yet their town is by no means a clean place--it is twice as +dirty as Lucera: a reposeful dirtiness, not vulgar or chaotic, but +testifying to time-honoured neglect, to a feudal contempt of +cleanliness. You crawl through narrow, ill-paved streets, looking down +into subterranean family bedrooms that must be insufferably damp in +winter, and filled, during the hot months, with an odour hard to +conceive. There is electric lighting, of course--a paternal government +having made the price of petroleum so prohibitive that the use of +electricity for street-lighting became quite common in the lowliest +places; but the crude glare only serves to show up the general squalor. +One reason for this state of affairs is that there are no quarries for +decent paving-stones in the neighbourhood. And another, that Venosa +possesses no large citizen class, properly so called. The inhabitants +are mostly peasant proprietors and field labourers, who leave the town +in the morning and return home at night with their beasts, having +learned by bitter experience to take up their domiciles in the towns +rather than in the country-side, which was infested with brigandage and +in an unsettled state up to a short time ago. The Cincinnatus note +dominates here, and with an agricultural population no city can be kept +clean. + +But Venosa has one inestimable advantage over Lucera and most Italian +towns: there is no octroi. + +Would it be believed that Naples is surrounded by a towering Chinese +wall, miles upon miles of it, crowned with a complicated apparatus of +alarm-bells and patrolled night and day by a horde of _doganieri_ armed +to the teeth--lest some peasant should throw a bundle of onions into the +sacred precincts of the town without paying the duty of half a farthing? +No nation with any sense of humour would endure this sort of thing. +Every one resents the airs of this army of official loafers who infest +the land, and would be far better employed themselves in planting onions +upon the many miles of Italy which now lie fallow; the results of the +system have been shown to be inadequate, "but," as my friend the Roman +deputy once asked me, "if we dismiss these fellows from their job, how +are we to employ them?" + +"Nothing is simpler," I replied. "Enrol them into the Town Council of +Naples. It already contains more _employes_ than all the government +offices of London put together; a few more will surely make no difference?" + +"By Bacchus," he cried, "you foreigners have ideas! We could dispose of +ten or fifteen thousand of them, at least, in the way you suggest. I'll +make a note of that, for our next session." + +And so he did. + +But the _Municipio_ of Naples, though extensive, is a purely local +charity, and I question whether its inmates will hear of any one save +their own cousins and brothers-in-law figuring as colleagues in office. + +Every attempt at innovation in agriculture, as in industry, is forthwith +discouraged by new and subtle impositions, which lie in wait for the +enterprising Italian and punish him for his ideas. There is, of course, +a prohibitive duty on every article or implement manufactured abroad; +there is the octroi, a relic of medisevalism, the most unscientific, +futile, and vexatious of taxes; there are municipal dues to be paid on +animals bought and animals sold, on animals kept and animals killed, on +milk and vine-props and bricks, on timber for scaffolding and lead and +tiles and wine--on every conceivable object which the peasant produces +or requires for his existence. And one should see the faces of the +municipal _employes_ who extort these tributes. God alone knows from +what classes of the populace they are recruited; certain it is that +their physiognomy reflects their miserable calling. One can endure the +militarism of Germany and the bureaucracy of Austria; but it is +revolting to see decent Italian countryfolk at the mercy of these +uncouth savages, veritable cave-men, whose only intelligible expression +is one of malice striving to break through a crust of congenital +cretinism. + +We hear much of the great artists and speculative philosophers of old +Italy. The artists of modern Italy are her bureaucrats who design and +elaborate the taxes; her philosophers, the peasants who pay them. + +In point of method, at least, there is nothing to choose between the +exactions of the municipal and governmental ruffians. I once saw an old +woman fined fifty francs for having in her possession a pound of +sea-salt. By what logic will you make it clear to ignorant people that +it is wrong to take salt out of the sea, whence every one takes fish +which are more valuable? The waste of time employed over red tape alone +on these occasions would lead to a revolution anywhere save among men +inured by long abuses to this particular form of tyranny. No wonder the +women of the country-side, rather than waste three precious hours in +arguments about a few cheeses, will smuggle them past the authorities +under the device of being _enceintes;_ no wonder their wisest old men +regard the paternal government as a successfully organized swindle, +which it is the citizen's bounden duty to frustrate whenever possible. +Have _you_ ever tried to convey--in legal fashion--a bottle of wine from +one town into another; or to import, by means of a sailing-boat, an old +frying-pan into some village by the sea? __It is a fine art, only to be +learnt by years of apprenticeship. The regulations on these subjects, +though ineffably childish, look simple enough on paper; they take no +account of that "personal element" which is everything in the south, of +the ruffled tempers of those gorgeous but inert creatures who, disturbed +in their siestas or mandolin-strummings, may keep you waiting half a +day while they fumble ominously over some dirty-looking scrap of paper. +For on such occasions they are liable to provoking fits of +conscientiousness. This is all very well, my dear sir, but--Ha! Where, +where is that certificate of origin, that stamp, that _lascia-passare?_ + +And all for one single sou! + +No wonder even Englishmen discover that law-breaking, in Italy, becomes +a necessity, a rule of life. + +And, soon enough, much more than a mere necessity. . . . + +For even as the traveller new to Borneo, when they offer him a +durian-fruit, is instantly brought to vomiting-point by its odour, but +after a few mouthfuls declares it to be the very apple of Paradise, and +marvels how he could have survived so long in the benighted lands where +such ambrosial fare is not; even as the true connaisseur who, beholding +some rare scarlet idol from the Tingo-Tango forests, at first casts it +aside and then, light dawning as he ponders over those monstrous +complexities, begins to realize that they, and they alone, contain the +quintessential formulae of all the fervent dreamings of Scopas and +Michelangelo; even as he who first, upon a peak in Darien, gazed +awestruck upon the grand Pacific slumbering at his feet, till presently +his senses reeled at the blissful prospect of fresh regions unrolling +themselves, boundless, past the fulfilment of his fondest hopes------ + +Even so, in Italy, the domesticated Englishman is amazed to find that he +possesses a sense hitherto unrevealed, opening up a new horizon, a new +zest in life--the sense of law-breaking. At first, being an honest man, +he is shocked at the thought of such a thing; next, like a sensible +person, reconciled to the inevitable; lastly, as befits his virile race, +he learns to play the game so well that the horrified officials +grudgingly admit (and it is their highest praise): + + Inglese italianizzato-- + Diavolo incarnato. + +Yes; slowly the charm of law-breaking grows upon the Italianated Saxon; +slowly, but surely. There is a neo-barbarism not only in matters of art. + + + + +VI + +AT VENOSA + + +There has always, no doubt, been a castle at Venosa. Frederick +Barbarossa lived here oftener than in Sicily; from these regions he +could look over to his beloved East, and the security of this particular +keep induced him to store his treasures therein. The indefatigable +Huillard Bréholles has excavated some account of them from the +Hohen-staufen records. Thus we learn that here, at Venosa, the Emperor +deposited that marvel, that _tentorium,_ I mean, _mirifica arte +constructum, in quo imagines solis et lunce artificialiter motte, cursum +suum certis et debitis spatiis peragrant, et boras diei et noctis +in-fallibiliter indicant. Cuius tentorii valor viginti millium marcarum +pretium dicitur transcendisse._ It was given him by the Sultan of +Babylonia. Always the glowing Oriental background! + +The present castle, a picturesque block with moat and corner towers, was +built in 1470 by the redoubtable Pierro del Balzo. A church used to +occupy the site, but the warrior, recognizing its strategic advantages, +transplanted the holy edifice to some other part of the town. It is now +a ruin, the inhabitable portions of which have been converted into cheap +lodgings for sundry poor folk--a monetary speculation of some local +magnate, who paid 30,000 francs for the whole structure. You can climb +up into one of the shattered towers whereon reposes an old cannon amid a +wind-sown garden of shrubs and weeds. Here the jackdaws congregate at +nightfall, flying swiftly and noiselessly to their resting-place. Odd, +how quiet Italian jackdaws are, compared with those of England; they +have discarded their voices, which is the best thing they could have +done in a land where every one persecutes them. There is also a dungeon +at this castle, an underground recess with cunningly contrived +projections in its walls to prevent prisoners from climbing upwards; and +other horrors. + +The cathedral of Venosa contains a chapel with an unusually nne portal +of Renaissance work, but the chief architectural beauty of the town is +the decayed Benedictine abbey of La Trinità. The building is roofless; +it was never completed, and the ravages of time and of man have not +spared it; earthquakes, too, have played sad tricks with its arches and +columns, particularly that of 1851, which destroyed the neighbouring +town of Melfi. It stands beyond the more modern settlement on what is +now a grassy plain, and attached to it is a Norman chapel containing the +bones of Alberada, mother of Boemund, and others of her race. Little of +the original structure of this church is left, though its walls are +still adorned, in patches, with frescoes of genuine angels--attractive +creatures, as far removed from those bloodless Byzantine anatomies as +from the plethoric and insipid females of the _settecento._ There is +also a queenly portrait declared to represent Catherine of Siena. I +would prefer to follow those who think it is meant for Sigilgaita. + +Small as it is, this place--the church and the abbey--is not one for a +casual visit. Lenormant calls the Trinità a "_Musée épigra-phique"--_so +many are the Latin inscriptions which the monks have worked into its +masonry. They have encrusted the walls with them; and many antiquities +of other kinds have been deposited here since those days. The ruin is +strewn with columns and capitals of fantastic devices; the inevitable +lions, too, repose upon its grassy floor, as well as a pagan altar-stone +that once adorned the neighbouring amphitheatre. One thinks of the +labour expended in raising those prodigious blocks and fitting them +together without mortar in their present positions--they, also, came +from the amphitheatre, and the sturdy letterings engraved on some of +them formed, once upon a time, a sentence that ran round that building, +recording the names of its founders. + +Besides the Latin inscriptions, there are Hebrew funereal stones of +great interest, for a colony of Jews was established here between the +years 400 and 800; poor folks, for the most part; no one knows whence +they came or whither they went. One is apt to forget that south Italy +was swarming with Jews for centuries. The catacombs of Venosa were +discovered in 1853. Their entrance lies under a hill-side not far from +the modern railway station, and Professor Mueller, a lover of Venosa, +has been engaged for the last twenty-five years in writing a ponderous +tome on the subject. Unfortunately (so they say) there is not much +chance of its ever seeing the light, for just as he is on the verge of +publication, some new Jewish catacombs are discovered in another part of +the world which cause the Professor to revise all his previous theories. +The work must be written anew and brought up to date, and hardly is this +accomplished when fresh catacombs are found elsewhere, necessitating a +further revision. The Professor once more rewrites the whole. . . . + +You will find accounts of the Trinità in Bertaux, Schulz and other +writers. Italian ones tell us what sounds rather surprising, namely, +that the abbey was built after a Lombard model, and not a French one. Be +that as it may--and they certainly show good grounds for their +contention--the ruin is a place of rare charm. Not easily can one see +relics of Roman, Hebrew and Norman life crushed into so small a space, +welded together by the massive yet fair architecture of the +Benedictines, and interpenetrated, at the same time, with a +Mephistophelian spirit of modern indifference. Of cynical +_insouciance;_ for although this is a "national monument," nothing +whatever is done in the way of repairs. Never a month passes without +some richly carven block of stonework toppling down into the weeds, +[Footnote: The process of decay can be seen by comparing my photograph +of the east front with that taken to illustrate Giuseppe de Lorenzo's +monograph "Venosa e la Regione del Vulture" (Bergamo, 1906).] +and were it not for the zeal of a private citizen, the interior of the +building would long ago have become an impassable chaos of stones and +shrubbery. The Trinità cannot be _restored_ without enormous outlay; +nobody dreams of such a thing. A yearly expenditure of ten pounds, +however, would go far towards arresting its fall. But where shall the +money be found? This enthusiastic nation, so enamoured of all that is +exquisite in art, will spend sixty million francs on a new Ministry of +Justice which, barely completed, is already showing signs of disrupture; +it will cheerfully vote _(vide_ daily press) the small item of eighty +thousand francs to supply that institution with pens and ink--lucky +contractor!--while this and a hundred other buildings of singular beauty +are allowed to crumble to pieces, day by day. + +Not far from the abbey there stands a church dedicated to Saint Roque. +Go within, if you wish to see the difference between Benedictine dignity +and the buffoonery which subsequently tainted the Catholicism of the +youth. On its gable sits a strange emblem: a large stone dog, gazing +amiably at the landscape. The saint, during his earthly career, was +always accompanied by a dog, and now likes to have him on the roof of +his sanctuary. + +The Norman church attached to the Trinità lies at a lower level than +that building, having been constructed, says Lupoli, on the foundations +of a temple to Hymenaeus. It may be so; but one distrusts Lupoli. A +remarkable Norman capital, now wrought into a font, is preserved here, +and I was interested in watching the behaviour of a procession of female +pilgrims in regard to it. Trembling with emotion, they perambulated the +sacred stone, kissing every one of its corners; then they dipped their +hands into its basin, and kissed them devoutly. An old hag, the mistress +of the ceremonies, muttered: "tutti santi--tutti santi!" at each +osculation. Next, they prostrated themselves on the floor and licked +the cold stones, and after wallowing there awhile, rose up and began to +kiss a small fissure in the masonry of the wall, the old woman +whispering, "Santissimo!" A familiar spectacle, no doubt; but one which +never fails of its effect. This anti-hygienic crack in the wall, with +its suggestions of yoni-worship, attracted me so strongly that I begged +a priest to explain to me its mystical signification. But he only said, +with a touch of mediaeval contempt: + +"_Sono femine!_" + +He showed me, later on, a round Roman pillar near the entrance of the +church worn smooth by the bodies of females who press themselves between +it and the wall, in order to become mothers. The notion caused him some +amusement--he evidently thought this practice a speciality of Venosa. + +In my country, I said, pillars with a contrary effect would be more +popular among the fair sex. + +Lear gives another account of this phallic emblem. He says that +perambulating it hand in hand with another person, the two are sure to +remain friends for life. + +This is pre-eminently a "Victorian" version. + + + + +VII + +THE BANDUSIAN FOUNT + + +The traveller in these parts is everlastingly half-starved. Here, at +Venosa, the wine is good--excellent, in fact; but the food monotonous +and insufficient. This improper dieting is responsible for much +mischief; it induces a state of chronic exacerbation. Nobody would +believe how nobly I struggle, day and night, against its evil +suggestions. A man's worst enemy is his own empty stomach. None knew it +better than Horace. + +And yet he declared that lettuces and such-like stuff sufficed him. No +doubt, no doubt. "Olives nourish me." Just so! One does not grow up in +the school of Maecenas without learning the subtle delights of the +simple life. But I would wager that after a week of such feeding as I +have now undergone at his native place, he would quickly have remembered +some urgent business to be transacted in the capital--Caesar Augustus, +me-thinks, would have desired his company. And even so, I have suddenly +woke up to the fact that Taranto, my next resting-place, besides +possessing an agreeably warm climate, has some passable restaurants. I +will pack without delay. Mount Vulture must wait. The wind alone, the +Vulturnus or south-easterly wind, is quite enough to make one despair of +climbing hills. It has blown with objectionable persistency ever since +my arrival at Venosa. + +To escape from its attentions, I have been wandering about the secluded +valleys that seam this region. Streamlets meander here amid rustling +canes and a luxuriant growth of mares' tails and creepers; their banks +are shaded by elms and poplars--Horatian trees; the thickets are loud +with songs of nightingale, black-cap and oriole. These humid dells are a +different country from the uplands, wind-swept and thriftily cultivated. + +It was here, yesterday, that I came upon an unexpected sight--an army of +workmen engaged in burrowing furiously into the bowels of Mother Earth. +They told me that this tunnel would presently become one of the arteries +of that vast system, the Apulian Aqueduct. The discovery accorded with +my Roman mood, for the conception and execution alike of this grandiose +project are worthy of the Romans. Three provinces where, in years of +drought, wine is cheaper than water, are being irrigated--in the teeth +of great difficulties of engineering and finance. Among other things, +there are 213 kilometres of subterranean tunnellings to be built; eleven +thousand workmen are employed; the cost is estimated at 125 million +francs. The Italian government is erecting to its glory a monument more +durable than brass. This is their heritage from the Romans--this talent +for dealing with rocks and waters; for bridling a destructive +environment and making it subservient to purposes of human +intercourse. It is a part of that practical Roman genius for +"pacification." Wild nature, to the Latin, ever remains an obstacle to +be overcome--an enemy. + +Such was Horace's point of view. The fruitful fields and their hardy +brood of tillers appealed to him; [Footnote: See next chapter.] +the ocean and snowy Alps were beyond the range of his affections. His +love of nature was heartfelt, but his nature was not ours; it was nature +as we see it in those Roman landscapes at Pompeii; nature ancillary to +human needs, in her benignant and comfortable moods. Virgil's _lachrymae +rerum_ hints at mystic and extra-human yearnings; to the troubadours +nature was conventionally stereotyped--a scenic decoration to set off +sentiments more or less sincere; the roman-ticists wallow in her rugged +aspects. Horace never allowed phantasy to outrun intelligence; he kept +his feet on earth; man was the measure of his universe, and a sober mind +his highest attribute. Nature must be kept "in her place." Her +extrava-gances are not to be admired. This anthropocentric spirit has +made him what he is--the ideal anti-sentimentalist and anti-vulgarian. +For excess of sentiment, like all other intemperance, is the mark of +that unsober and unsteady beast--the crowd. + +Things have changed since those days; in proportion as the world has +grown narrower and the element of fear and mystery diluted, our +sympathies have broadened; the Goth, in particular, has learnt the knack +of detecting natural charm where the Latin, to this day, beholds nothing +but confusion and strife. + +On the spot, I observe, one is liable to return to the antique outlook; +to see the beauty of fields and rivers, yet only when subsidiary to +man's personal convenience; to appreciate a fair landscape--with a +shrewd worldly sense of its potential uses. "The garden that I love," +said an Italian once to me, "contains good vegetables." This utilitarian +flavour of the south has become very intelligible to me during the last +few days. I, too, am thinking less of calceolarias than of cauliflowers. + +A pilgrimage to the Bandusian Fount (if such it be) is no great +undertaking--a morning's trip. The village of San Gervasio is the next +station to Venosa, lying on an eminence only thirteen kilometres from +there. + +Here once ran a fountain which was known as late as the twelfth century +as the Fons Bandusinus, and Ughelli, in his "Italia Sacra," cites a deed +of the year 1103 speaking of a church "at the Bandusian Fount near +Venosa." Church and fountain have now disappeared; but the site of the +former, they say, is known, and close to it there once issued a copious +spring called "Fontana Grande." This is probably the Horatian one; and +is also, I doubt not, that referred to in Cenna's chronicle of Venosa: +"At Torre San Gervasio are the ruins of a castle and an abundant spring +of water colder than all the waters of Venosa," _Frigus amabile. . . ._ + +I could discover no one in the place to show me where this now vanished +church stood. I rather think it occupied the site of the present church +of Saint Anthony, the oldest in San Gervasio. + +As to the fountain--there are now two of them, at some considerable +distance from each other. Both of them are copious, and both lie near +the foot of the hill on which the village now stands. Capmartin de +Chaupy has reasons for believing that in former times San Gervasio did +not occupy its present exalted position (vol. iii, p. 538). + +One of them gushes out on the plain near the railway station, and has +been rebuilt within recent times. It goes by the name of "Fontana +rotta." The other, the "Fontana del Fico," lies on the high road to +Spinazzola; the water spouts out of seven mouths, and near at hand is a +plantation of young sycamores. The basin of this fount was also rebuilt +about ten years ago at no little expense, and has now a thoroughly +modern and businesslike aspect. But I was told that a complicated +network of subterranean pipes and passages, leading to "God knows +where," was unearthed during the process of reconstruction. It was +magnificent masonry, said my informant, who was an eye-witness of the +excavations but could tell me nothing more of interest. + +The problem how far either of these fountains fulfils the conditions +postulated in the last verse of Horace's ode may be solved by every one +according as he pleases. In fact, there is no other way of solving it. +In my professorial mood, I should cite the cavern and the "downward +leaping" waters against the hypothesis that the Bandusian Fount stood on +either of these modern sites; in favour of it, one might argue that the +conventional rhetoric of all Roman art may have added these embellishing +touches, and cite, in confirmation thereof, the last two lines of the +previous verse, mentioning animals that could hardly have slaked their +thirst with any convenience at a cavernous spring such as he describes. +Caverns, moreover, are not always near the summits of hills; they may be +at the foot of them; and water, even the Thames at London Bridge, always +leaps downhill--more or less. Of more importance is old Chaupy's +discovery of the northerly aspect of one of these springs--"thee the +fierce season of the blazing dog-star cannot touch." There may have been +a cave at the back of the "Fontana del Fico"; the "Fontana rotta" is +hopelessly uncavernous. + +For the rest, there is no reason why the fountain should not have +changed its position since ancient days. On the contrary, several things +might incline one to think that it has been forced to abandon the high +grounds and seek its present lower level. To begin with, the hill on +which the village stands is honeycombed by hives of caves which the +inhabitants have carved out of the loose conglomerate (which, by the +way, hardly corresponds with the poet's _saxum);_ and it may well be +that a considerable collapse of these earth-dwellings obstructed the +original source of the waters and obliged them to seek a vent lower down. + +Next, there are the notorious effects of deforestation. An old man told +me that in his early days the hill was covered with timber--indeed, this +whole land, now a stretch of rolling grassy downs, was decently wooded +up to a short time ago. I observed that the roof of the oldest of the +three churches, that of Saint Anthony, is formed of wooden rafters (a +rare material hereabouts). Deforestation would also cause the waters to +issue at a lower level. + +Lastly, and chiefly--the possible shatterings of earthquakes. +Catastrophes such as those which have damaged Venosa in days past may +have played havoc with the water-courses of this place by choking up +their old channels. My acquaintance with the habits of Apulian +earthquakes, with the science of hydrodynamics and the geological +formation of San Gervasio is not sufficiently extensive to allow me to +express a mature opinion. I will content myself with presenting to +future investigators the plausible theory--plausible because +conveniently difficult to refute--that some terrestrial upheaval in past +days is responsible for the present state of things. + +But these are merely three hypotheses. I proceed to mention three facts +which point in the same direction; i.e. that the water used to issue at +a higher level. Firstly, there is that significant name "Fontana +rotta"--"the broken fountain." . . . Does not this suggest that its flow +may have been interrupted, or intercepted, in former times? + +Next, if you climb up from this "Fontana rotta" to the village by the +footpath, you will observe, on your right hand as you ascend the slope, +at about a hundred yards below the Church of Saint Anthony, an old well +standing in a field of corn and shaded by three walnuts and an oak. This +well is still running, and was described to me as "molto antico." +Therefore an underground stream--in diminished volume, no doubt--still +descends from the heights. + +Thirdly, in the village you will notice an alley leading out of the +Corso Manfredi (one rejoices to find the name of Manfred surviving in +these lands)--an alley which is entitled "Vico Sirene." The name arrests +your attention, for what have the Sirens to do in these inland regions? +Nothing whatever, unless they existed as ornamental statuary: statuary +such as frequently gives names to streets in Italy, witness the "Street +of the Faun" in Ouida's novel, or that of the "Giant" in Naples (which +has now been re-christened). It strikes me as a humble but quite +scholarly speculation to infer that, the chief decorative uses of Sirens +being that of fountain deities, this obscure roadway keeps alive the +tradition of the old "Fontana Grande"--ornamented, we may suppose, with +marble Sirens--whose site is now forgotten, and whose very name has +faded from the memory of the countryfolk. + +What, then, does my ramble of two hours at San Gervasio amount to? It +shows that there is a possibility, at least, of a now vanished fountain +having existed on the heights where it might fulfil more accurately the +conditions of Horace's ode. If Ughelli's church "at the Bandusian Fount" +stood on this eminence--well, I shall be glad to corroborate, for once +in the way, old Ughelli, whose book contains a deal of dire nonsense. +And if the Abbe Chaupy's suggestion that the village lay at the foot of +the hill should ever prove to be wrong--well, his amiable ghost may be +pleased to think that even this does not necessitate the sacrifice of +his Venosa theory in favour of that of the scholiast Akron; there is +still a way out of the difficulty. + +But whether this at San Gervasio is the actual fountain hymned by +Horace--ah, that is quite another affair! Few poets, to be sure, have +clung more tenaciously to the memories of their childhood than did he +and Virgil. And yet, the whole scene may be a figment of his +imagination--the very word Bandusia may have been coined by him. Who can +tell? Then there is the Digentia hypothesis. I know it, I know it! I +have read some of its defenders, and consider _(entre nous)_ that they +have made out a pretty strong case. But I am not in the mood for +discussing their proposition--not just now. + +Here at San Gervasio I prefer to think only of the Roman singer, so +sanely jovial, and of these waters as they flowed, limpid and cool, in +the days when they fired his boyish fancy. Deliberately I refuse to hear +the charmer Boissier. Deliberately, moreover, I shut my eyes to the +present condition of affairs; to the herd of squabbling laundresses and +those other incongruities that spoil the antique scene. Why not? The +timid alone are scared by microscopic discords of time and place. The +sage can invest this prosaic water-trough with all its pristine dignity +and romance by an unfailing expedient. He closes an eye. It is an art he +learns early in life; a simple art, and one that greatly conduces to +happiness. The ever alert, the conscientiously wakeful--how many fine +things they fail to see! Horace knew the wisdom of being genially +unwise; of closing betimes an eye, or an ear; or both. _Desipere in +loco. . . ._ + + + + +VIII + +TILLERS OF THE SOIL + + +I remember watching an old man stubbornly digging a field by himself. He +toiled through the flaming hours, and what he lacked in strength was +made up in the craftiness, _malizia,_ born of long love of the soil. The +ground was baked hard; but there was still a chance of rain, and the +peasants were anxious not to miss it. Knowing this kind of labour, I +looked on from my vine-wreathed arbour with admiration, but without envy. + +I asked whether he had not children to work for him. + +"All dead--and health to you!" he replied, shaking his white head +dolefully. + +And no grandchildren? + +"All Americans (emigrants)." + +He spoke in dreamy fashion of years long ago when he, too, had +travelled, sailing to Africa for corals, to Holland and France; yes, and +to England also. But our dockyards and cities had faded from his mind; +he remembered only our men. + +"_Che bella gioventù--che bella gioventù!_" ("a sturdy brood"), he kept +on repeating. "And lately," he added, "America has been discovered." He +toiled fourteen hours a day, and he was 83 years old. + +Apart from that creature of fiction, the peasant _in fabula_ whom we all +know, I can find little to admire in this whole class of men, whose talk +and dreams are of the things of the soil, and who knows of nothing save +the regular interchange of summer and winter with their unvarying tasks +and rewards. None save a Cincinnatus or Garibaldi can be ennobled by the +spade. In spleenful moments, it seems to me that the most depraved of +city-dwellers has flashes of enthusiasm and self-abnegation never +experienced by this shifty, retrogressive and ungenerous brood, which +lives like the beasts of the field and has learnt all too much of their +logic. But they have a beast-virtue hereabouts which compels +respect--contentment in adversity. In this point they resemble the +Russian peasantry. And yet, who can pity the moujik? His cheeks are +altogether too round, and his morals too superbly bestial; he has +clearly been created to sing and starve by turns. But the Italian +peasant who speaks in the tongue of Homer and Virgil and Boccaccio is +easily invested with a halo of martyrdom; it is delightful to sympathize +with men who combine the manners of Louis Quatorze with the profiles of +Augustus or Plato, and who still recall, in many of their traits, the +pristine life of Odyssean days. Thus, they wear to-day the identical +"clouted leggings of oxhide, against the scratches of the thorns" which +old Laertes bound about his legs on the upland farm in Ithaka. They call +them "galandrine." + +On occasions of drought or flood there is not a word of complaint. I +have known these field-faring men and women for thirty years, and have +yet to hear a single one of them grumble at the weather. It is not +indifference; it is true philosophy--acquiescence in the inevitable. The +grievances of cultivators of lemons and wholesale agriculturalists, +whose speculations are often ruined by a single stroke of the human pen +in the shape of new regulations or tariffs, are a different thing; +_their_ curses are loud and long. But the bean-growers, dependent +chiefly on wind and weather, only speak of God's will. They have the +same forgiveness for the shortcomings of nature as for a wayward child. +And no wonder they are distrustful. Ages of oppression and misrule have +passed over their heads; sun and rain, with all their caprice, have been +kinder friends to them than their earthly masters. Some day, presumably, +the government will wake up to the fact that Italy is not an industrial +country, and that its farmers might profitably be taken into account again. + +But a change is upon the land. Types like this old man are becoming +extinct; for the patriarchal system of Coriolanus, the glory of southern +Italy, is breaking up. + +This is not the fault of conscription which, though it destroys old +dialects, beliefs and customs, widens the horizon by bringing fresh +ideas into the family, and generally sound ones. It does even more; it +teaches the conscripts to read and write, so that it is no longer as +dangerous to have dealings with a man who possesses these +accomplishments as in the days when they were the prerogative of +_avvocati_ and other questionable characters. A countryman, nowadays, +may read and write and yet be honest. + +What is shattering family life is the speculative spirit born of +emigration. A continual coming and going; two-thirds of the adolescent +and adult male population are at this moment in Argentina or the United +States--some as far afield as New Zealand. Men who formerly reckoned in +sous now talk of thousands of francs; parental authority over boys is +relaxed, and the girls, ever quick to grasp the advantages of money, +lose all discipline and steadiness. + +"My sons won't touch a spade," said a peasant to me; "and when I thrash +them, they complain to the police. They simply gamble and drink, waiting +their turn to sail. If I were to tell you the beatings _we_ used to get, +sir, you wouldn't believe me. You wouldn't believe me, not if I took my +oath, you wouldn't! I can feel them still--speaking with respect--here!" + +These emigrants generally stay away three or four years at a stretch, +and then return, spend their money, and go out again to make more. +Others remain for longer periods, coming back with huge incomes--twenty +to a hundred francs a day. Such examples produce the same effect as +those of the few lucky winners in the State lottery; every one talks of +them, and forgets the large number of less fortunate speculators. +Meanwhile the land suffers. The carob-tree is an instance. This +beautiful and almost eternal growth, the "hope of the southern +Apennines" as Professor Savastano calls it, whose pods constitute an +important article of commerce and whose thick-clustering leaves yield a +cool shelter, comparable to that of a rocky cave, in the noonday heat, +used to cover large tracts of south Italy. Indifferent to the scorching +rays of the sun, flourishing on the stoniest declivities, and sustaining +the soil in a marvellous manner, it was planted wherever nothing else +would grow--a distant but sure profit. Nowadays carobs are only cut +down. Although their produce rises in value every year, not one is +planted; nobody has time to wait for the fruit. [Footnote: There are a +few laudable exceptions, such as Prince Belmonte, who has covered large +stretches of bad land with this tree. (See Consular Reports, Italy, No. +431.) But he is not a peasant!] + +It is nothing short of a social revolution, depopulating the country of +its most laborious elements. 788,000 emigrants left in one year alone +(1906); in the province of Basilicata the exodus exceeds the birthrate. +I do not know the percentage of those who depart never to return, but it +must be considerable; the land is full of chronic grass-widows. + +Things will doubtless right themselves in due course; it stands to +reason that in this acute transitional stage the demoralizing effects of +the new system should be more apparent than its inevitable benefits. +Already these are not unseen; houses are springing up round villages, +and the emigrants return home with a disrespect for many of their +country's institutions which, under the circumstances, is neither +deplorable nor unjustifiable. A large family of boy-children, once a +dire calamity, is now the soundest of investments. Soon after their +arrival in America they begin sending home rations of money to their +parents; the old farm prospers once more, the daughters receive decent +dowries. I know farmers who receive over three pounds a month from their +sons in America--all under military age. + +"We work, yes," they will then tell you, "but we also smoke our pipe." + +Previous to this wholesale emigration, things had come to such a pass +that the landed proprietor could procure a labourer at a franc a day, +out of which he had to feed and clothe himself; it was little short of +slavery. The roles are now reversed, and while landlords are +impoverished, the rich emigrant buys up the farms or makes his own terms +for work to be done, wages being trebled. A new type of peasant is being +evolved, independent of family, fatherland or traditions--with a sure +haven of refuge across the water when life at home becomes intolerable. + +Yes; a change is at hand. + +And another of those things which emigration and the new order of +affairs are surely destroying is that ancient anthropomorphic way of +looking at nature, with its expressive turns of speech. A small boy, +whom I watched gathering figs last year, informed me that the fig-tree +was _innamorato delle pietre e cisterne--_enamoured of stones and +cisterns; meaning, that its roots are searchingly destructive to masonry +and display a fabulous intuition for the proximity of water. He also +told me, what was news to me, that there are more than two or three +varieties of figs. Will you have his list of them? Here it is: + +There is the _fico arnese,_ the smallest of all, and the _fico +santillo,_ both of which are best when dried; the _fico vollombola,_ +which is never dried, because it only makes the spring fruit; the _fico +molegnano,_ which ripens as late as the end of October and must be eaten +fresh; the _fico coretorto ("_ wry-heart "--from its shape), which has +the most leathery skin of all and is often destroyed by grubs after +rain; the _fico troiano;_ the _fico arzano;_ and the _fico vescovo,_ +which appears when all the others are over, and is eaten in February +(this may be the kind referred to in Stamer's "Dolce Napoli" as deriving +from Sorrento, where the first tree of its kind was discovered growing +out of the garden wall of the bishop's palace, whence the name). All +these are _neri--_black. + +Now for the white kinds. The _fico paradiso_ has a tender skin, but is +easily spoilt by rain and requires a ridiculous amount of sun to dry it; +ihe _fico vottato_ is also better fresh; the _fico pezzottolo_ is often +attacked by grubs, but grows to a large size every two or three years; +the _fico pascarello_ is good up till Christmas; the _fico natalino;_ +lastly, the _fico ----_, whose name I will not record, though it would +be an admirable illustration of that same anthropomorphic turn of mind. +The _santillo_ and _arnese,_ he added, are the varieties which are cut +into two and laid lengthwise upon each other and so dried (Query: Is not +this the "duplex ficus" of Horace?). + +"Of course there are other kinds," he said, "but I don't remember them +just now." When I asked whether he could tell these different fig-trees +apart by the leaves and stems alone and without the fruit, he said that +each kind, even in winter, retained its peculiar "faccia" (face), but +that some varieties are more easy to distinguish than others. I enquired +into the mysteries of caprification, and learned that artificial +ripening by means of a drop of oil is practised with some of them, +chiefly the _santillo, vollombola, pascarello_ and _natalino._ Then he +gave me an account of the prices for the different qualities and seasons +which would have astonished a grocer. + +All of which proves how easy it is to misjudge of folks who, although +they do not know that Paris is the capital of France, yet possess a +training adapted to their present needs. They are specialists for things +of the grain-giving earth; it is a pleasure to watch them grafting vines +and olives and lemons with the precision of a trained horticulturist. +They talk of "governing" _(governare)_ their soil; it is the word they +use in respect to a child. + +Now figs are neither white nor black, but such is the terminology. +Stones are white or black; prepared olives are white or black; wine +is white or black. Are they become colour-blind because impregnated, +from earliest infancy, with a perennial blaze of rainbow hues-- +colour-blinded, in fact; or from negligence, attention to this +matter not bringing with it any material advantage? Excepting that +sign-language which is profoundly interesting from an artistic and +ethnological point of view--why does not some scholar bring old lorio's +"Mimica degli Antichi" up to date?--few things are more worthy of +investigation than the colour-sense of these people. Of blue they have +not the faintest conception, probably because there are so few blue +solids in nature; Max Mueller holds the idea of blue to be quite +a modern acquisition on the part of the human race. So a cloudless sky +is declared to be "quite white." I once asked a lad as to the colour +of the sea which, at the moment, was of the most brilliant sapphire hue. +He pondered awhile and then said: + +"Pare come fosse un colore morto" (a sort of dead colour). + +Green is a little better known, but still chiefly connected with things +not out of doors, as a green handkerchief. The reason may be that this +tint is too common in nature to be taken note of. Or perhaps because +their chain of association between green and grass is periodically +broken up--our fields are always verdant, but theirs turn brown in +summer. Trees they sometimes call yellow, as do some ancient writers; +but more generally "half-black" or "tree-colour." A beech in full leaf +has been described to me as black. _"Rosso"_ does not mean red, but +rather dun or dingy; earth is _rosso._ When our red is to be signified, +they will use the word "turco," which came in with the well-known +dye-stuff of which the Turks once monopolized the secret. Thus there are +"Turkish" apples and "Turkish" potatoes. But "turco" may also mean +black--in accordance with the tradition that the Turks, the Saracens, +were a black race. Snakes, generally greyish-brown in these parts, are +described as either white or black; an eagle-owl is half-black; a +kestrel _un quasi bianco._ The mixed colours of cloths or silks are +either beautiful or ugly, and there's an end of it. It is curious to +compare this state of affairs with that existing in the days of Homer, +who was, as it were, feeling his way in a new region, and the propriety +of whose colour epithets is better understood when one sees things on +the spot. Of course I am only speaking of the humble peasant whose +blindness, for the rest, is not incurable. + +One might enlarge the argument and deduce his odd insensibility to +delicate scents from the fact that he thrives in an atmosphere saturated +with violent odours of all kinds; his dullness in regard to finer shades +of sound--from the shrieks of squalling babies and other domestic +explosions in which he lives from the cradle to the grave. That is why +these people have no "nerves"; terrific bursts of din, such as the +pandemonium of Piedigrotta, stimulate them in the same way that others +might be stimulated by a quartette of Brahms. And if they who are so +concerned about the massacre of small birds in this country would devote +their energies to the invention of a noiseless and yet cheap powder, +their efforts would at last have some prospects of success. For it is +not so much the joy of killing, as the pleasurable noise of the gun, +which creates these local sportsmen; as the sagacious "Ultramontain" +observed long ago. "Le napolitain est pas-sionné pour la chasse," he +says, "parce que les coups de fusil flattent son oreille." [Footnote: +I have looked him up in Jos. Blanc's "Bibliographic." His name was C. +Haller.] This ingenuous love of noise may be connected, in some way, +with their rapid nervous discharges. + +I doubt whether intermediate convulsions have left much purity of Greek +blood in south Italy, although emotional travellers, fresh from the +north, are for ever discovering "classic Hellenic profiles" among the +people. There is certainly a scarce type which, for want of a better +hypothesis, might be called Greek: of delicate build and below the +average height, small-eared and straight-nosed, with curly hair that +varies from blonde to what Italians call _castagno chiaro._ It differs +not only from the robuster and yet fairer northern breed, but also from +the darker surrounding races. But so many contradictory theories have +lately been promulgated on this head, that I prefer to stop short at the +preliminary question--did a Hellenic type ever exist? No more, probably, +than that charming race which the artists of Japan have invented for our +delectation. + +Strains of Greek blood can be traced with certainty by their track of +folklore and poetry and song, such as still echoes among the vales of +Sparta and along the Bosphorus. Greek words are rather rare here, and +those that one hears--such as _sciusciello, caruso, crisommele,_ +etc.--have long ago been garnered by scholars like De Grandis, Moltedo, +and Salvatore Mele. So Naples is far more Hellenic in dialect, lore, +song and gesture than these regions, which are still rich in pure +latinisms of speech, such as surgere (to arise); scitare (excitare--to +arouse); è (est--yes); fetare (foetare); trasete (transitus--passage of +quails); titillare (to tickle); craje (cras--to-morrow); pastena (a +plantation of young vines; Ulpian has "pastinum instituere"). A woman is +called "muliera," a girl "figliola," and children speak of their fathers +as "tata" (see Martial, epig. I, 101). Only yesterday I added a +beautiful latinism to my collection, when an old woman, in whose cottage +I sometimes repose, remarked to me, "Non avete virtù oggi "--you are not +_up to the mark_ to-day. The real, antique virtue! I ought to have +embraced her. No wonder I have no "virtue" just now. This savage +Vulturnian wind--did it not sap the Roman virtue at Cannae? + +All those relics of older civilizations are disappearing under the +standardizing influence of conscription, emigration and national schooling. +And soon enough the _Contranome-_system __will become a thing of the +past. I shall be sorry to see it go, though it has often driven me +nearly crazy. + +What is a _contranome?_ + +The same as a _sopranome._ It is a nickname which, as with the Russian +peasants, takes the place of Christian and surname together. A man will +tell you: "My name is Luigi, but they call me, by _contranome,_ +O'Canzirro. I don't know my surname." Some of these nicknames are +intelligible, such as O'Sborramurella, which refers to the man's +profession of building those walls without mortar which are always +tumbling down and being repaired again; or O'Sciacquariello (acqua--a +leaking--one whose money leaks from his pocket--a spendthrift); or San +Pietro, from his saintly appearance; O'Civile, who is so uncivilized, or +Cristoforo Colombo, because he is so very wideawake. But eighty per cent +of them are quite obscure even to their owners, going back, as they do, +to some forgotten trick or incident during childhood or to some pet name +which even in the beginning meant nothing. Nearly every man and boy has +his contranome by which, and _by which alone,_ he is known in his +village; the women seldomer, unless they are conspicuous by some +peculiarity, such as A'Sbirra (the spy), or A'Paponnessa (the fat +one)--whose counterpart, in the male sex, would be O'Tripone. + +Conceive, now, what trouble it entails to find a man in a strange +village if you happen not to know his contranome (and how on earth are +you to discover it?), if his surname means nothing to the inhabitants, +and his Christian name is shared by a hundred others. For they have an +amazing lack of inventiveness in this matter; four or five Christian +names will include the whole population of the place. Ten to one you +will lose a day looking for him, unless something like this takes place: + +You set forth your business to a crowd of villagers that have collected +around. It is simple enough. You want to speak to Luigi So-and-so. A +good-natured individual, who seems particularly anxious to help, +summarizes affairs by saying: + +"The gentleman wants Luigi So-and-so." + +There is evidently some joke in the mere suggestion of such a thing; +they all smile. Then a confused murmur of voices goes up: + +"Luigi--Luigi. . . . Now which Luigi does he mean?" + +You repeat his surname in a loud voice. It produces no effect, beyond +that of increased hilarity. + +"Luigi--Luigi. . . ." + +"Perhaps O'Zoccolone?" + +"Perhaps O'Seticchio?" + +"Or the figlio d' O'Zibalocchio?" + +The good-natured individual volunteers to beat the surrounding district +and bring in all the Luigis he can find. After half an hour they begin +to arrive, one by one. He is not among them. Dismissed with cigars, as +compensation for loss of time. + +Meanwhile half the village has gathered around, vastly enjoying the fun, +which it hopes will last till bedtime. You are getting bewildered; new +people flock in from the fields to whom the mysterious joke about Luigi +must be explained. + +"Luigi--Luigi," they begin again. "Now, which of them can he mean?" + +"Perhaps O'Marzariello?" + +"Or O'Cuccolillo?" + +"I never thought of him," says the good-natured individual. "Here, boy, +run and tell O'Cuccolillo that a foreign gentleman wants to give him a +cigar." + +By the time O'Cuccolillo appears on the scene the crowd has thickened. +You explain the business for the fiftieth time; no--he is Luigi, of +course, but not the right Luigi, which he regrets considerably. Then the +joke is made clear to him, and he laughs again. You have lost all your +nerve, but the villagers are beginning to love you, + +"Can it be O'Sciabecchino?" + +"Or the figlio d' O'Chiappino?" + +"It might be O'Busciardiello (the liar)." + +"He's dead." + +"So he is. I quite forgot. Well, then it must be the husband of +A'Cicivetta (the flirt)." + +"He's in prison. But how about O'Caccianfierno?" + +Suddenly a withered hag croaks authoritatively: + +"I know! The gentleman wants O'Tentillo." + +Chorus of villagers: + +"Then why doesn't he say so?" + +O'Tentillo lives far, far away. An hour elapses; at last he comes, full +of bright expectations. No, this is not your Luigi, he is another Luigi. +You are ready to sink into the earth, but there is no escape. The crowd +surges all around, the news having evidently spread to neighbouring +hamlets. + +"Luigi--Luigi. . . . Let me see. It might be O'Rappo." + +"O'Massassillo, more likely." + +"I have it! It's O'Spennatiello." + +"I never thought of him," says a well-known voice. "Here, boy, run and +tell----" + +"Or O'Cicereniello." + +"O'Vergeniello." + +"O'Sciabolone. ..." + +"Never mind the G---- d---- son of b----," says a cheery person in +excellent English, who has just arrived on the scene. "See here, I live +fifteen years in Brooklyn; damn fine! 'Ave a glass of wine round my +place. Your Luigi's in America, sure. And if he isn't, send him to Hell." + +Sound advice, this. + +"What's his surname, anyhow?" he goes on. + +You explain once more. + +"Why, there's the very man you're looking for. There, standing right in +front of you! He's Luigi, and that's his surname right enough. He don't +know it himself, you bet." + +And he points to the good-natured individual. . . . + + +These countryfolk can fare on strange meats. A boy consumed a snake that +was lying dead by the roadside; a woman ate thirty raw eggs and then a +plate of maccheroni; a man swallowed six kilograms of the uncooked fat +of a freshly slaughtered pig (he was ill for a week afterwards); another +one devoured two small birds alive, with beaks, claws and feathers. Such +deeds are sternly reprobated as savagery; still, they occur, and nearly +always as the result of wagers. I wish I could couple them with equally +heroic achievements in the drinking line, but, alas! I have only heard +of one old man who was wont habitually to en-gulph twenty-two litres of +wine a day; eight are spoken of as "almost too much" in these degenerate +days. . . . + +Mice, says Movers, were sacrificially eaten by the Babylonians. Here, as +in England, they are cooked into a paste and given to children, to cure +a certain complaint. To take away the dread of the sea from young boys, +they mix into their food small fishes which have been devoured by larger +ones and taken from their stomachs--the underlying idea being that these +half-digested fry are thoroughly familiar with the storms and perils of +the deep, and will communicate these virtues to the boys who eat them. +It is the same principle as that of giving chamois blood to the +goat-boys of the Alps, to strengthen their nerves against +giddiness--pure sympathetic magic, of which there is this, at least, to +be said, that "its fundamental conception is identical with that of +modern science--a faith in the order or uniformity of nature." + +I have also met persons who claim to have been cured of rachitic +troubles in their youth by eating a puppy dog cooked in a saucepan. But +only one kind of dog is good for this purpose, to be procured from those +foundling hospitals whither hundreds of illegitimate infants are taken +as soon as possible after birth. The mothers, to relieve the discomfort +caused by this forcible separation from the new-born, buy a certain kind +of puppy there, bring them home, and nourish them _in loco infantis._ +These puppies cost a franc apiece, and are generally destroyed after +performing their duties; it is they who are cooked for curing the +scrofulous tendencies of other children. Swallows' hearts are also used +for another purpose; so is the blood of tortoises--for strengthening the +backs of children (the tortoise being a _hard_ animal). So is that of +snakes, who are held up by head and tail and pricked with needles; the +greater their pain, the more beneficial their blood, which is soaked up +with cotton-wool and applied as a liniment for swollen glands. In fact, +nearly every animal has been discovered to possess some medicinal property. + +But of the charm of such creatures the people know nothing. How +different from the days of old! These legendary and gracious beasts, +that inspired poets and artists and glyptic engravers--these things of +beauty have now descended into the realm of mere usefulness, into the +pharmacopoeia. + +The debasement is quite intelligible, when one remembers what +accumulated miseries these provinces have undergone. Memories of +refinement were starved out of the inhabitants by centuries of misrule, +when nothing was of interest or of value save what helped to fill the +belly. The work of bestialization was carried on by the despotism of +Spanish Viceroys and Bourbons. They, the Spaniards, fostered and perhaps +imported the Camorra, that monster of many heads which has established +itself in nearly every town of the south. Of the deterioration in taste +coincident with this period, I lately came across this little bit of +evidence, curious and conclusive:--In 1558 a number of the country-folk +were captured in one of the usual Corsair raids; they were afterwards +ransomed, and among the Christian names of the women I note: Livia, +Fiula, Cassandra, Aurelia, Lucrezia, Verginia, Medea, Violanta, Galizia, +Vittoria, Diamanta, etc. Where were these full-sounding noble names two +centuries later--where are they nowadays? Do they not testify to a state +of culture superior to that of the present time, when Maria, Lucia, and +about four others of the most obvious catholic saints exhaust the list +of all female Christian names hereabouts? + +All this is changing once more; a higher standard of comfort is being +evolved, though relics of this former state of insecurity may still be +found; such as the absence, even in houses of good families, of clocks +and watches, and convenient storage for clothes and domestic utensils; +their habits of living in penury and of buying their daily food by +farthings, as though one never knew what the next day might bring; their +dread of going out of doors by night (they have a proverb which runs, +_di notte, non parlar forte; di giorno, guardati attorno_), their lack +of humour. For humour is essentially a product of ease, and nobody can +be at ease in unquiet times. That is why so few poets are humorous; +their restlessly querulous nature has the same effect on their outlook +as an insecure environment. + +But it will be long ere these superstitions are eradicated. The magic of +south Italy deserves to be well studied, for the country is a cauldron +of demonology wherein Oriental beliefs--imported direct from Egypt, the +classic home of witchcraft--commingled with those of the West. A +foreigner is at an unfortunate disadvantage; if he asks questions, he +will only get answers dictated by suspicion or a deliberate desire to +mislead--prudent answers; whoso accepts these explanations in good +faith, might produce a wondrous contribution to ethnology. + +Wise women and wizards abound, but they are not to be compared with that +_santa_ near Naples whom I used to visit in the nineties, and who was so +successful in the magics that the Bishop of Pozzuoli, among hundreds of +other clients, was wont to drive up to her door once a week for a +consultation. These mostly occupy themselves with the manufacture of +charms for gaining lucky lottery numbers, and for deluding fond women +who wish to change their lovers. + +The lore of herbs is not much studied. For bruises, a slice of the +Opuntia is applied, or the cooling parietaria (known as "pareta" or +"paretene"); the camomile and other common remedies are in vogue; the +virtues of the male fern, the rue, sabina and (home-made) ergot of rye +are well known but not employed to the extent they are in Russia, where +a large progeny is a disaster. There is a certain respect for the +legitimate unborn, and even in cases of illegitimacy some neighbouring +foundling hospital, the house of the Madonna, is much more convenient. + +It is a true monk's expedient; it avoids the risk of criminal +prosecution; the only difference being that the Mother of God, and not +the natural mother of the infant, becomes responsible for its prompt and +almost inevitable destruction. [Footnote: The scandals that +occasionally arise in connection with that saintly institution, the +Foundling Hospital at Naples, are enough to make humanity shudder. Of +856 children living under its motherly care during 1895, 853 "died" in +the course of that one year-only three survived; a wholesale massacre. +These 853 murdered children were carried forward in the books as still +living, and the institution, which has a yearly revenue of over 600,000 +francs, was debited with their maintenance, while 42 doctors (instead of +the prescribed number of 19) continued to draw salaries for their +services to these innocents that had meanwhile been starved and tortured +to death. The official report on these horrors ends with the words: +"There is no reason to think that these facts are peculiar to the year +1895."] + +That the moon stands in sympathetic relations with living vegetation is +a fixed article of faith among the peasantry. They will prune their +plants only when the satellite is waxing--_al sottile detta luna,_ as +they say. Altogether, the moon plays a considerable part in their lore, +as might be expected in a country where she used to be worshipped under +so many forms. The dusky markings on her surface are explained by saying +that the moon used to be a woman and a baker of bread, her face gleaming +with the reflection of the oven, but one day she annoyed her mother, who +took up the brush they use for sweeping away the ashes, and smirched her +face. . . . + +Whoever reviews the religious observances of these people as a whole +will find them a jumble of contradictions and incongruities, lightly +held and as lightly dismissed. Theirs is the attitude of mind of little +children--of those, I mean, who have been so saturated with Bible +stories and fairy tales that they cease to care whether a thing be true +or false, if it only amuses for the moment. That is what makes them an +ideal prey for the quack physician. They will believe anything so long +as it is strange and complicated; a straightforward doctor is not +listened to; they want that mystery-making "priest-physician" +concerning whom a French writer--I forget his name--has wisely +discoursed. I once recommended a young woman who was bleeding at the +nose to try the homely remedy of a cold key. I thought she would have +died of laughing! The expedient was too absurdly simple to be efficacious. + +The attitude of the clergy in regard to popular superstitions is the +same here as elsewhere. They are too wise to believe them, and too +shrewd to discourage the belief in others; these things can be turned to +account for keeping the people at a conveniently low level of +intelligence. For the rest, these priests are mostly good fellows of the +live-and-let-live type, who would rather cultivate their own potatoes +than quarrel about vestments or the Trinity. Violently acquisitive, of +course, like most southerners. I know a parish priest, a son of poor +parents, who, by dint of sheer energy, has amassed a fortune of half a +million francs. He cannot endure idleness in any shape, and a fine +mediaeval scene may be witnessed when he suddenly appears round the +corner and catches his workmen wasting their time and his money-- + +"Ha, loafers, rogues, villains, vermin and sons of _bastardi cornuti!_ +If God had not given me these garments and thereby closed my lips to all +evil-speaking (seizing his cassock and displaying half a yard of purple +stocking)--wouldn't I just tell you, spawn of adulterous assassins, what +I think of you!" + +But under the new regime these priests are becoming mere decorative +survivals, that look well enough in the landscape, but are not taken +seriously save in their match-making and money-lending capacities. + +The intense realism of their religion is what still keeps it alive for +the poor in spirit. Their saints and devils are on the same familiar +footing towards mankind as were the old gods of Greece. Children do not +know the meaning of "Inferno"; they call it "casa del diavolo" (the +devil's house); and if they are naughty, the mother says, "La Madonna +strilla"--the Madonna will scold. Here is a legend of Saint Peter, +interesting for its realism and because it has been grafted upon a very +ancient _motif:--_ + +The apostle Peter was a dissatisfied sort of man, who was always +grumbling about things in general and suggesting improvements in the +world-scheme. He thought himself cleverer even than "N. S. G. C." One +day they were walking together in an olive orchard, and Peter said: + +"Just look at the trouble and time it takes to collect all those +miserable little olives. Let's have them the size of melons." + +"Very well. Have your way, friend Peter! But something awkward is bound +to happen. It always does, you know, with those improvements of yours." +And, sure enough, one of these enormous olives fell from the tree +straight on the saint's head, and ruined his new hat. + +"I told you so," said N. S. G. C. + +I remember a woman explaining to me that the saints in Heaven took their +food exactly as we do, and at the same hours. + +"The same food?" I asked. "Does the Madonna really eat beans?" + +"Beans? Not likely! But fried fish, and beefsteaks of veal." I tried to +picture the scene, but the effort was too much for my hereditary Puritan +leanings. Unable to rise to these heights of realism, I was rated a +pagan for my ill-timed spirituality. + +_Madame est servie. . . ._ + + + + +IX + +MOVING SOUTHWARDS + + +The train conveying me to Taranto was to halt for the night at the +second station beyond Venosa--at Spinaz-zola. Aware of this fact, I had +enquired about the place and received assuring reports as to its hotel +accommodation. But the fates were against me. On my arrival in the late +evening I learnt that the hotels were all closed long ago, the townsfolk +having gone to bed "with the chickens"; it was suggested that I had +better stay at the station, where the manageress of the restaurant kept +certain sleeping quarters specially provided for travellers in my +predicament. + +Presently the gentle dame lighted a dim lantern and led me across what +seemed to be a marsh (it was raining) to the door of a hut which was to +be my resting-place. At the entrance she paused, and after informing me +that a band of musicians had taken all the beds save one which was at my +disposal if I were good enough to pay her half a franc, she placed the +lantern in my hand and stumbled back into the darkness. + +I stepped into a low chamber, the beds of which were smothered under a +profusion of miscellaneous wraps. The air was warm--the place exhaled an +indescribable _esprit de corps._ Groping further, I reached another +apartment, vaulted and still lower than the last, an old-fashioned +cow-stable, possibly, converted into a bedroom. One glance sufficed me: +the couch was plainly not to be trusted. Thankful to be out of the rain +at least, I lit a pipe and prepared to pass the weary hours till 4 a.m. + +It was not long ere I discovered that there was another bed in this den, +opposite my own; and judging by certain undulatory and saltatory +movements within, it was occupied. Presently the head of a youth +emerged, with closed eyes and flushed features. He indulged in a series +of groans and spasmodic kicks, that subsided once more, only to +recommence. A flute projected from under his pillow. + +"This poor young man," I thought, "is plainly in bad case. On account of +illness, he has been left behind by the rest of the band, who have gone +to Spinazzola to play at some marriage festival. He is feverish, or +possibly subject to fits--to choriasis or who knows what disorder of the +nervous system. A cruel trick, to leave a suffering youngster alone in +this foul hovel." I mis-liked his symptoms--that anguished complexion +and delirious intermittent trembling, and began to run over the scanty +stock of household remedies contained in my bag, wondering which of them +might apply to his complaint. There was court plaster and boot polish, +quinine, corrosive sublimate and Worcester sauce (detestable stuff, but +indispensable hereabouts). + +Just as I had decided in favour of the last-named, he gave a more than +usually vigorous jerk, sat up in bed and, opening his eyes, remarked: + +"Those fleas!" + +This, then, was the malady. I enquired why he had not joined his +companions. + +He was tired, he said; tired of life in general, and of flute-playing in +particular. Tired, moreover, of certain animals; and with a tiger-like +spring he leapt out of bed. + +Once thoroughly awake, he proved an amiable talker, though oppressed +with an incurable melancholy which no amount of tobacco and Venosa wine +could dispel. In gravely boyish fashion he told me of his life and +ambitions. He had passed a high standard at school, but--what would +you?--every post was crowded. He liked music, and would gladly take it +up as a profession, if anything could be learnt with a band such as his; +he was sick, utterly sick, of everything. Above all things, he wished to +travel. Visions of America floated before his mind--where was the money +to come from? Besides, there was the military service looming close at +hand; and then, a widowed mother at home--the inevitable mother--with a +couple of little sisters; how shall a man desert his family? He was born +on a farm on the Murge, the watershed between this country and the +Adriatic. Thinking of the Murge, that shapeless and dismal range of +limestone hills whose name suggests its sad monotony, I began to +understand the origin of his pagan wistfulness. + +"Happy foreigners!"--such was his constant refrain--"happy foreigners, +who can always do exactly what they like! Tell me something about other +countries," he said. + +"Something true?" + +"Anything--anything!" + +To cheer him up, I replied with improbable tales of Indian life, of +rajahs and diamonds, of panthers whose eyes shine like moonbeams in the +dark jungle, of elephants huge as battleships, of sportive monkeys who +tie knots in each others' tails and build themselves huts among the +trees, where they brew iced lemonade, which they offer in friendliest +fashion to the thirsty wayfarer, together with other light +refreshment---- + +"Cigarettes as well?" + +"No. They are not allowed to cultivate tobacco." + +"Ah, that _monopolio,_ the curse of humanity!" + +He was almost smiling when, at 2.30 a.m., there resounded a furious +knocking at the door, and the rest of the band appeared from their +unknown quarters in the liveliest of spirits. Altogether, a memorable +night. But at four o'clock the lantern was extinguished and the cavern, +bereft of its Salvator-Rosa glamour, resolved itself into a prosaic and +infernally unclean hovel. Issuing from the door, I saw those murky +recesses invaded by the uncompromising light of dawn, and shuddered. . . . + +The railway journey soon dispelled the phantoms of the night. As the +train sped downhill, the sun rose in splendour behind the Murge hills, +devouring mists so thickly couched that, struck by the first beams, they +glistered like compact snow-fields, while their shaded portions might +have been mistaken for stretches of mysterious swamp, from which an +occasional clump of tree-tops emerged, black and island-like. These +dreamland effects lasted but a brief time, and soon the whole face of +the landscape was revealed. An arid region, not unlike certain parts of +northern Africa. + +Yet the line passes through places renowned in history. Who would not +like to spend a day at Altamura, if only in memory of its treatment by +the ferocious Cardinal Ruffo and his army of cut-throats? After a heroic +but vain resistance comparable only to that of Saguntum or Petelia, +during which every available metal, and even money, was converted into +bullets to repel the assailers, there followed a three days' slaughter +of young and old; then the cardinal blessed his army and pronounced, in +the blood-drenched streets, a general absolution. Even this man has +discovered apologists. No cause so vile, that some human being will not +be found to defend it. + +So much I called to mind that morning from the pages of Colletta, and +straightway formed a resolution to slip out of the carriage and arrest +my journey at Altamura for a couple of days. But I must have been asleep +while the train passed through the station, nor did I wake up again till +the blue Ionian was in sight. + +At Venosa one thinks of Roman legionaries fleeing from Hannibal, +of Horace, of Norman ambitions; Lucera and Manfredonia call up +Saracen memories and the ephemeral gleams of Hohen-staufen; Gargano +takes us back into Byzantine mysticism and monkery. And now from +Altamura with its dark record of Bourbon horrors, we glide into the +sunshine of Hellenic days when the wise Archytas, sage and lawgiver, +friend of Plato, ruled this ancient city of Tarentum. A wide sweep of +history! And if those Periclean times be not remote enough, yonder lies +Oria on its hilltop, the stronghold of pre-Hellenic and almost legendary +Messapians; while for such as desire more recent associations there is +the Albanian colony of San Giorgio, only a few miles distant, to recall +the glories of Scanderbeg and his adventurous bands. + +Herein lies the charm of travel in this land of multiple +civilizations--the ever-changing layers of culture one encounters, their +wondrous juxtaposition. + +My previous experiences of Taranto hotels counselled me to take a +private room overlooking the inland sea (the southern aspect is already +intolerably hot), and to seek my meals at restaurants. And in such a one +I have lived for the last ten days or so, reviving old memories. The +place has grown in the interval; indeed, if one may believe certain +persons, the population has increased from thirty to ninety thousand +in--I forget how few years. The arsenal brings movement into the town; +it has appropriated the lion's share of building sites in the "new" +town. Is it a ripple on the surface of things, or will it truly stir the +spirits of the city? So many arsenals have come and gone, at Taranto! + +This arsenal quarter is a fine example of the Italian mania of _fare +figura--_everything for effect. It is an agglomeration of dreary +streets, haunted by legions of clamorous black swifts, and constructed +on the rectangular principle dear to the Latin mind. Modern, and +surpassingly monotonous. Are such interminable rows of stuccoed barracks +artistic to look upon, are they really pleasant to inhabit? Is it +reasonable or even sanitary, in a climate of eight months' sunshine, to +build these enormous roadways and squares filled with glaring limestone +dust that blows into one's eyes and almost suffocates one; these Saharas +that even at the present season of the year (early June) cannot be +traversed comfortably unless one wears brown spectacles and goes veiled +like a Tuareg? This arsenal quarter must be a hell during the really not +season, which continues into October. + +For no trees whatever are planted to shade the walking population, as in +Paris or Cairo or any other sunlit city. + +And who could guess the reason? An Englishman, at least, would never +bring himself to believe what is nevertheless a fact, namely, that if +the streets are converted into shady boulevards, the rents of the houses +immediately fall. When trees are planted, the lodgers complain and +finally emigrate to other quarters; the experiment has been tried, at +Naples and elsewhere, and always with the same result. Up trees, down +rents. The tenants refuse to be deprived of their chief pleasure in +life--that of gazing at the street-passengers, who must be good enough +to walk in the sunshine for their delectation. But if you are of an +inquisitive turn of mind, you are quite at liberty to return the +compliment and to study from the outside the most intimate details of +the tenants' lives within. Take your fill of their domestic doings; +stare your hardest. They don't mind in the least, not they! That feeling +of privacy which the northerner fosters doggedly even in the centre of a +teeming city is alien to their hearts; they like to look and be looked +at; they live like fish in an aquarium. It is a result of the whole +palazzo-System that every one knows his neighbour's business better than +his own. What does it matter, in the end? Are we not all "Christians "? + +The municipality, meanwhile, is deeply indebted for the sky-piercing +ambitions which have culminated in the building of this new quarter. To +meet these obligations, the octroi prices have been raised to the +highest pitch by the City Fathers. This octroi is farmed out and +produces (they tell me) 120 pounds a day; there are some hundred +toll-collecting posts at the outskirts of the town, and the average +salary of their officials is three pounds a month. They are supposed to +be respectable and honest men, but it is difficult to see how a family +can be supported on that wage, when one knows how high the rents are, +and how severely the most ordinary commodities of life are taxed. + +I endeavoured to obtain photographs of the land as it looked ere it was +covered by the arsenal quarter, but in vain. Nobody seems to have +thought it worth while preserving what would surely be a notable +economic document for future generations. Out of sheer curiosity I also +tried to procure a plan of the old quarter, that labyrinth of +thick-clustering humanity, where the Streets are often so narrow that +two persons can barely squeeze past each other. I was informed that no +such plan had ever been drawn up; it was agreed that a map of this kind +might be interesting, and suggested, furthermore, that I might undertake +the task myself; the authorities would doubtless appreciate my labours. +We foreigners, be it understood, have ample means and unlimited leisure, +and like nothing better than doing unprofitable jobs of this kind. +[Footnote: here is a map of old Taranto in Lasor a Varea (Savonarola) +_Universus terrarum etc.,_ Vol. II, p. 552, and another in J. Blaev's +_Theatrum Civitatum_ (1663). He talks of the "rude houses" of this +town.] + +One is glad to leave the scintillating desert of this arsenal quarter, +and enter the cool stone-paved streets of the other, which remind one +somewhat of Malta. In the days of Salis-Marschlins this city possessed +only 18,000 inhabitants, and "outdid even the customary Italian filth, +being hardly passable on account of the excessive nastiness and stink." +It is now scrupulously clean--so absurdly clean, that it has quite +ceased to be picturesque. Not that its buildings are particularly +attractive to me; none, that is, save the antique "Trinità" column of +Doric gravity--sole survivor of Hellenic Taras, which looks wondrously +out of place in its modern environment. One of the finest of these +earlier monuments, the Orsini tower depicted in old prints of the place, +has now been demolished. + +Lovers of the baroque may visit the shrine of Saint Cataldo, a jovial +nightmare in stone. And they who desire a literary pendant to this +fantastic structure should read the life of the saint written by Morone +in 1642. Like the shrine, it is the quintessence of insipid exuberance; +there is something preposterous in its very title "Cataldiados," and +whoever reads through those six books of Latin hexameters will arise +from the perusal half-dazed. Somehow or other, it dislocates one's whole +sense of terrestrial values to see a frowsy old monk [Footnote: This +wandering Irish missionary is supposed to have died here in the seventh +century, and they who are not satisfied with his printed biographies +will find one in manuscript of 550 pages, compiled in 1766, in the Cuomo +Library at Naples.] treated in the heroic style and metre, as though he +were a new Achilles. As a _jeu d'esprit_ the book might pass; but it is +deadly serious. Single men will always be found to perpetrate +monstrosities of literature; the marvel is that an entire generation of +writers should have worked themselves into a state of mind which +solemnly approved of such freaks. + +Every one has heard of the strange position of this hoary island-citadel +(a metropolis, already, in neolithic days). It is of oval shape, the +broad sides washed by the Ionian Sea and an oyster-producing lagoon; +bridges connect it at one extremi-y with the arsenal or new town, and at +the other with the so-called commercial quarter. It is as if some +precious gem were set, in a ring, between two others of minor worth. Or, +to vary the simile, this acropolis, with its close-packed alleys, is the +throbbing heart of Taranto; the arsenal quarter--its head; and that +other one--well, its stomach; quite an insignificant stomach as compared +with the head and corroborative, in so far, of the views of +Metch-nikoff, who holds that this hitherto commendable organ ought now +to be reduced in size, if not abolished altogether. . . . + +From out of this window I gaze upon the purple lagoon flecked with +warships and sailing-boats; and beyond it, upon the venerable land of +Japygia, the heel of Italy, that rises in heliotrope-tinted undulations +towards the Adriatic watershed. At night-time an exquisite perfume of +flowers and ripe corn comes wafted into my room over the still waters, +and when the sun rises, white settlements begin to sparkle among its +olives and vineyards. My eyes often rest upon one of them; it is +Grottaglie, distant a few miles from Taranto on the Brindisi line. I +must visit Grottaglie, for it was here that the flying monk received his +education. + +The flying monk! + +The theme is not inappropriate at this moment, when the newspapers are +ringing with the Paris-Rome aviation contest and the achievements of +Beaumont, Garros and their colleagues. I have purposely brought his +biography with me, to re-peruse on the spot. But let me first explain +how I became acquainted with this seventeenth-century pioneer of aviation. + + +It was an odd coincidence. + +I had arrived in Naples, and was anxious to have news of the proceedings +at a certain aviation meeting in the north, where a rather inexperienced +friend of mine had insisted upon taking a part; the newspaper reports of +these entertainments are enough to disturb anybody. While admiring the +great achievements of modern science in this direction, I wished +devoutly, at that particular moment, that flying had never been +invented; and it was something of a coincidence, I say, that stumbling +in this frame of mind down one of the unspeakable little side-streets in +the neighbourhood of the University, my glance should have fallen upon +an eighteenth-century engraving in a bookseller's window which depicted +a man raised above the ground without any visible means of +support--flying, in short. He was a monk, floating before an altar. A +companion, near at hand, was portrayed as gazing in rapturous wonder at +this feat of levitation. I stepped within and demanded the volume to +which this was the frontispiece. + +The salesman, a hungry-looking old fellow with incredibly dirty hands +and face, began to explain. + +"The Flying Monk, sir, Joseph of Copertino. A mighty saint and conjuror! +Or perhaps you would like some other book? I have many, many lives of +_santi_ here. Look at this one of the great Egidio, for instance. I can +tell you all about him, for he raised my mother's grand-uncle from the +dead; yes, out of the grave, as one may say. You'll find out all about +it in this book; and it's only one of his thousand miracles. And here is +the biography of the renowned Giangiuseppe, a mighty saint and----" + +I was paying little heed; the flying monk had enthralled me. An +unsuspected pioneer of aviation . . . here was a discovery! + +"He flew?" I queried, my mind reverting to the much-vaunted triumphs of +modern science. + +"Why not? The only reason why people don't fly like that nowadays is +because--well, sir, because they can't. They fly with machines, and +think it something quite new and wonderful. And yet it's as old as the +hills! There was Iscariot, for example--Icarus, I mean----" + +"Pure legend, my good man." + +"Everything becomes legend, if the gentleman will have the goodness to +wait. And here is the biography of----" + +"How much for Joseph of Copertino?" Cost what it may, I said to myself, +that volume must be mine. + +He took it up and began to turn over the pages lovingly, as though +handling some priceless Book of Hours. + +"A fine engraving," he observed, _sotto voce._ "And this is the best of +many biographies of the flying monk. It is by Rossi, the +Minister-General of the Franciscan order to which our monk belonged; the +official biography, it might be called--dedicated, by permission, to His +Holiness Pope Clemens XIII, and based on the documents which led to the +saint's beatification. Altogether, a remarkable volume----" + +And he paused awhile. Then continued: + +"I possess a cheaper biography of him, also with a frontispiece, by +Montanari, which has the questionable advantage of being printed as +recently as 1853. And here is yet another one, by Antonio Basile--oh, he +has been much written about; a most celebrated _taumaturgo,_ +(wonder-worker)! As to this _Life_ of 1767, I could not, with a good +conscience, appraise it at less than five francs." + +"I respect your feelings. But--five francs! I have certain scruples of +my own, you know, and it irks my sense of rectitude to pay five francs +for the flying monk unless you can supply me with six or seven +additional books to be included in that sum. + +"Twelve _soldi_ (sous) apiece--that strikes me as the proper price of +such literature, for foreigners, at least. Therefore I'll have the great +Egidio as well, and Montanari's life of the flying monk, and that other +one by Basile, and Giangiuseppe, and----" + +"By all means! Pray take your choice." + +And so it came about that, relieved of a tenuous and very sticky +five-franc note, and loaded down with three biographies of the flying +monk, one of Egidio, two of Giangiuseppe--I had been hopelessly +swindled, but there! no man can bargain in a hurry, and my eagerness to +learn something of the life of this early airman had made me oblivious +of the natural values of things--and with sundry smaller volumes of +similar import bulging out of my pockets I turned in the direction of +the hotel, promising myself some new if not exactly light reading. + +But hardly had I proceeded twenty paces before the shopkeeper came +running after me with another formidable bundle under his arm. More +books! An ominous symptom--the clearest demonstration of my defeat; I +was already a marked man, a good customer. It was humiliating, after my +long years' experience of the south. + +And there resounded an unmistakable note of triumph in his voice, as he +said: + +"Some more biographies, sir. Read them at your leisure, and pay me what +you like. You cannot help being generous; I see it in your face." + +"I always try to encourage polite learning, if that is what you think to +decipher in my features. But it rains _santi_ this morning," I added, +rather sourly. + +"The gentleman is pleased to joke! May it rain _soldi_ tomorrow." + +"A little shower, possibly. But not a cloud-burst, like today. . . ." + + + + +X + +THE FLYING MONK + + +As to the flying monk, there is no doubt whatever that he deserved his +name. He flew. Being a monk, these feats of his were naturally confined +to convents and their immediate surroundings, but that does not alter +the facts of the case. + +Of the flights that he took in the little town of Copertino-alone, more +than seventy, says Father Rossi whom I follow throughout, are on record +in the depositions which were taken on oath from eye-witnesses after his +death. This is one of them, for example: + +"Stupendous likewise was the _ratto_ (flight or rapture) which he +exhibited on a night of Holy Thursday. . . . He suddenly flew towards +the altar in a straight line, leaving untouched all the ornaments of +that structure; and after some time, being called back by his superior, +returned flying to the spot whence he had set out." + +And another: + +"He flew similarly upon an olive tree . . . and there remained in +kneeling posture for the space of half an hour. A marvellous thing it +was to see the branch which sustained him swaying lightly, as though a +bird had alighted upon it." + +But Copertino is a remote little place, already famous in the annals of +miraculous occurrences. It can be urged that a kind of enthusiasm for +their distinguished brother-monk may have tempted the inmates of the +convent to exaggerate his rare gifts. Nothing of the kind. He performed +flights not only in Copertino, but in various large towns of Italy, such +as Naples, Rome, and Assisi. And the spectators were by no means an +assemblage of ignorant personages, but men whose rank and credibility +would have weight in any section of society. + +"While the Lord High Admiral of Castille, Ambassador of Spain at the +Vatican, was passing through Assisi in the year 1645, the custodian of +the convent commanded Joseph to descend from the room into the church, +where the Admiral's lady was waiting for him, desirous of seeing him. +and speaking to him; to whom Joseph replied, 'I will obey, but I do not +know whether I shall be able to speak to her.' And, as a matter of fact, +hardly had he entered the church and raised his eyes to a statue . . . +situated above the altar, when he threw himself into a flight in order +to embrace its feet at a distance of twelve paces, passing over the +heads of all the congregation; then, after remaining there some time, he +flew back over them with his usual cry, and immediately returned to his +cell. The Admiral was amazed, his wife fainted away, and all the +onlookers became piously terrified." + +And if this does not suffice to win credence, the following will +assuredly do so: + +"And since it was God's wish to render him marvellous even in the sight +of men of the highest sphere, He ordained that Joseph, having arrived in +Rome, should be conducted one day by the Father-General (of the +Franciscan Order) to kiss the feet of the High Pontiff, Urban the +Eighth; in which act, while contemplating Jesus Christ in the person of +His Vicar, he was ecstatically raised in air, and thus remained till +called back by the General, to whom His Holiness, highly astonished, +turned and said that 'if Joseph were to die during his pontificate, he +himself would bear witness to this _successo.'"_ + +But his most remarkable flights took place at Fossombrone, where once +"detaching himself in swiftest manner from the altar with a cry like +thunder, he went, like lightning, gyrating hither and thither about the +chapel, and with such an impetus that he made all the cells of the +dormitory tremble, so that the monks, issuing thence in consternation, +cried, 'An earthquake! An earthquake!'" Here, too, he cast a young sheep +into the air, and took flight after it to the height of the trees, where +he "remained in kneeling posture, ecstatic and with extended arms, for +more than two hours, to the extraordinary marvel of the clergy who +witnessed this." This would seem to have been his outdoor record--two +hours without descent to earth. + +Sometimes, furthermore, he took a passenger, if such a term can properly +be applied. + +So once, while the monks were at prayers, he was observed to rise up and +run swiftly towards the Confessor of the convent, and "seizing him by +the hand, he raised him from the ground by supernatural force, and with +jubilant rapture drew him along, turning him round and round in a +_violento ballo;_ the Confessor moved by Joseph, and Joseph by God." + +And what happened at Assisi is still more noteworthy, for here +was a gentleman, a suffering invalid, whom Joseph "snatched by the hair, +and, uttering his customary cry of 'oh!' raised himself from the earth, +while he drew the other after him by his hair, carrying him in this +fashion for a short while through the air, to the intensest admiration +of the spectators." The patient, whose name was Chevalier Baldassarre, +discovered, on touching earth again, that he had been cured by this +flight of a severe nervous malady which had hitherto afflicted him. . . . + +Searching in the biography for some other interesting traits of Saint +Joseph of Copertino, I find, in marked contrast to his heaven-soaring +virtues, a humility of the profoundest kind. Even as a full-grown man he +retained the exhilarating, childlike nature of the pure in heart. "_La +Mamma mia_"--thus he would speak, in playful-saintly fashion, of the +Mother of God--"_la Mamma mia_ is capricious. When I bring Her flowers, +She tells me She does not want them; when I bring Her candles, She also +does not want them; and when I ask Her what She wants, She says, 'I +want the heart, for I feed only on hearts.'" What wonder if the "mere +pronouncement of the name of Maria often sufficed to raise him from the +ground into the air"? + +Nevertheless, the arch-fiend was wont to creep into his cell at night +and to beat and torture him; and the monks of the convent were terrified +when they heard the hideous din of echoing blows and jangling chains. +"We were only having a little game," he would then say. This is +refreshingly boyish. He once induced a flock of sheep to enter the +chapel, and while he recited to them the litany, it was observed with +amazement that "they responded at the proper place to his verses--he +saying _Sancta Maria,_ and they answering, after their manner, _Bah!"_ + +I am not disguising from myself that an incident like the last-named may +smack of childishness to a certain austere type of northern Puritan. +Childishness! But to go into this question of the relative hilarity and +moroseness of religions would take us far afield; for aught I know it +may, at bottom, be a matter of climatic influences, and there we can +leave it. Under the sunny sky of Italy, who would not be disposed to see +the bright side of things? + +Saint Joseph of Copertino performed a variety of other miracles. He +multiplied bread and wine, calmed a tempest, drove out devils, caused +the lame to walk and the blind to see--all of which are duly attested by +eye-witnesses on oath. Though "illiterate," he had an innate knowledge +of ecclesiastical dogma; he detected persons of impure life by their +smell, and sinners were revealed to his eyes with faces of black colour +(the Turks believe that on judgment day the damned will be thus marked); +he enjoyed the company of two guardian angels, which were visible not +only to himself but to other people. And, like all too many saints, he +duly fell into the clutches of the Inquisition, ever on the look-out for +victims pious or otherwise. + +There is one little detail which it would be disingenuous to slur over. +It is this. We are told that Saint Joseph was awkward and backward in +his development. As a child his boy-comrades used to laugh at him for +his open-mouthed staring habits; they called him "bocca-aperta" +(gape-mouth), and in the frontispiece to Montanari's life of him, which +depicts him as a bearded man of forty or fifty, his mouth is still +agape; he was, moreover, difficult to teach, and Rossi says he profited +very little by his lessons and was of _niuna letteratura._ As a lad of +seventeen he could not distinguish white bread from brown, and he used +to spill water-cans, break vases and drop plates to such an extent that +the monks of the convent who employed him were obliged, after eight +months' probation, to dismiss him from their service. He was unable to +pass his examination as priest. At the age of twenty-five he was +ordained by the Bishop of Castro, without that formality. + +All this points to a certain weak-mindedness or arrested development, +and were this an isolated case one might be inclined to think that the +church had made Saint Joseph an object of veneration on the same +principles as do the Arabs, who elevate idiots, epileptics, and +otherwise deficient creatures to the rank of marabouts, and credit them +with supernatural powers. + +But it is not an isolated case. The majority of these southern saints +are distinguished from the vulgar herd by idiosyncrasies to which modern +physicians give singular names such as "gynophobia," "glossolalia" and +"demonomania"; [Footnote: Good examples of what Max Nordau calls +_Echolalie_ are to be found in this biography (p. 22).] even the founder +of the flying monk's order, the great Francis of Assisi, has been +accused of some strange-sounding mental disorder because, with touching +humility, he doffed his vestments and presented himself naked before his +Creator. What are we to conclude therefrom? + +The flying monk resembles Saint Francis in more than one feature. He, +too, removed his clothes and even his shirt, and exposed himself thus to +a crucifix, exclaiming, "Here I am, Lord, deprived of everything." He +followed his prototype, further, in that charming custom of introducing +the animal world into his ordinary talk ("Brother Wolf, Sister Swallow," +etc.). So Joseph used to speak of himself as _l'asinelio--_the little +ass; and a pathetic scene was witnessed on his death-bed when he was +heard to mutter: "_L'asinelio_ begins to climb the mountain; +_l'asinelio_ is half-way up; _l'asinelio_ has reached the summit; +_l'asinelio_ can go no further, and is about to leave his skin behind." + +It is to be noted, in this connection, that Saint Joseph of Coper-tino +was born in a stable. + +This looks like more than a mere coincidence. For the divine Saint +Francis was likewise born in a stable. + +But why should either of these holy men be born in stables? + +A reasonable explanation lies at hand. A certain Japanese statesman is +credited with that shrewd remark that the manifold excellencies and +diversities of Hellenic art are due to the fact that the Greeks had no +"old masters" to copy from--no "schools" which supplied their +imagination with ready-made models that limit and smother individual +initiative. And one marvels to think into what exotic beauties these +southern saints would have blossomed, had they been at liberty, like +those Greeks, freely to indulge their versatile genius--had they not +been bound to the wheels of inexorable precedent. If the flying monk, +for example, were an ordinary mortal, there was nothing to prevent him +from being born in an omnibus or some other of the thousand odd places +where ordinary mortals occasionally are born. But--no! As a Franciscan +saint, he was obliged to conform to the school of Bethlehem and Assisi. +He was obliged to select a stable. Such is the force of tradition. . . . + +Joseph of Copertino lived during the time of the Spanish viceroys, and +his fame spread not only over all Italy, but to France, Germany and +Poland. Among his intimates and admirers were no fewer than eight +cardinals, Prince Leopold of Tuscany, the Duke of Bouillon, Isabella of +Austria, the Infanta Maria of Savoy and the Duke of Brunswick, who, +during a visit to various courts of Europe in 1649, purposely went to +Assisi to see him, and was there converted from the Lutheran heresy by +the spectacle of one of his flights. Prince Casimir, heir to the throne +of Poland, was his particular friend, and kept up a correspondence with +him after the death of his father and his own succession to the throne. + +Towards the close of his life, the flying monk became so celebrated that +his superiors were obliged to shut him up in the convent of Osimo, in +close confinement, in order that his aerial voyages "should not be +disturbed by the concourse of the vulgar." And here he expired, in his +sixty-first year, on the 18th September, 1663. He had been suffering and +infirm for some little time previous to that event, but managed to take +a short flight on the very day preceding his demise. + +Forthwith the evidences of his miraculous deeds were collected and +submitted to the inspired examination of the Sacred Congregation of +Rites in Rome. Their conscientiousness in sifting and weighing the +depositions is sufficiently attested by the fact that ninety years were +allowed to elapse ere Joseph of Copertino was solemnly received into the +number of the Blessed. This occurred in 1753; and though the date may +have been accidentally chosen, some people will be inclined to detect +the hand of Providence in the ordering of the event, as a challenge to +Voltaire, who was just then disquieting Europe with certain doctrines of +a pernicious nature. + + + + +XI + +BY THE INLAND SEA + + +The railway line to Grottaglie skirts the shore of the inland sea for +two or three miles, and then turns away. Old Taranto glimmers in lordly +fashion across the tranquil waters; a sense of immemorial culture +pervades this region of russet tilth, and olives, and golden corn. + +They led me, at Grottaglie, to the only convent of males now in use, San +Francesco, recently acquired by the Jesuits. In the sacristy of its +church, where I was told to wait, a slender young priest was praying +rapturously before some image, and the clock that stood at hand recorded +the flight of twenty minutes ere his devotions were ended. Then he arose +slowly and turned upon me a pair of lustrous, dreamy eyes, as though +awakened from another world. + +This was quite a new convent, he explained; it could not possibly be the +one I was seeking. But there was another one, almost a ruin, and now +converted into a refuge for a flock of poor old women; he would gladly +show me the way. Was I a "Germanese"? [Footnote: Germanese_ or +_Allemanno = a_ German. _Tedesco,_ hereabouts, signifies an Austrian--a +detested nationality, even at this distance of time. I have wondered, +since writing the above, whether this is really the place of which Rossi +speaks. He calls it Grottole (the difference in spelling would be of +little account), and says it lies not far distant from Copertino. But +there may be a place of this name still nearer; it is a common +appellation in these honeycombed limestone districts. This Grottaglie +_is_ certainly the birth-place of another religious hero, the +priest-brigand Ciro, who gave so much trouble to Sir R. Church.] No, I +replied; I came from Scotland. + +"A Calvinist," he remarked, without bitterness. + +"A Presbyterian," I gently corrected. + +"To be sure--a Presbyterian." + +As we walked along the street under the glowing beams of midday I set +forth the object of my visit. He had never heard of the flying monk--it +was astonishing, he said. He would look up the subject without delay. +The flying monk! That a Protestant should come all the way from "the +other end of the world" to enquire about a local Catholic saint of +whose existence he himself was unaware, seemed not so much to surprise +as positively to alarm him. + +Among other local curiosities, he pointed out the portal of the parish +church, a fine but dilapidated piece of work, with a large rosette +window overhead. The town, he told me, derives its name from certain +large grottoes wherein the inhabitants used to take refuge during +Saracen raids. This I already knew, from the pages of Swinburne and +Sanchez; and in my turn was able to inform him that a certain Frenchman, +Bertaux by name, had written about the Byzantine wall-paintings within +these caves. Yes, those old Greeks! he said. And that accounted for the +famous ceramics of the place, which preserved the Hellenic traditions in +extraordinary purity. I did not inform him that Hector Preconi, who +purposely visited Grottaglie to study these potteries, was considerably +disappointed. + +At the door of the decayed convent my guide left me, with sundry polite +expressions of esteem. I entered a spacious open courtyard; a well stood +in the centre of a bare enclosure whereon, in olden days, the monks may +have cultivated their fruit and vegetables; round this court there ran +an arched passage, its walls adorned with frescoes, now dim and faded, +depicting sacred subjects. The monastery itself was a sombre maze of +stairways and cells and corridors--all the free spaces, including the +very roof, encumbered with gleaming potteries of every shape and size, +that are made somewhere near the premises. + +I wandered about this sunless and cobwebby labyrinth, the old woman +pensioners flitting round me like bats in the twilight. I peered into +many dark closets; which of them was it--Joseph's famous +blood-bespattered cell? + +"He tormented his body so continuously and obstinately with pins, +needles and blades of steel, and with such effusion of blood, that even +now, after entire years, the walls of his cell and other places of +retirement are discoloured and actually encrusted with blood." Which of +them was it--the chamber that witnessed these atrocious macerations? It +was all so gloomy and forlorn. + +Then, pushing aside a door in these tenebrous regions, I suddenly found +myself bathed in dazzling light. A loggia opened here, with a view over +stretches of gnarled olives, shining all silvery under the immaculate +sky of noonday and bounded by the sapphire belt of the Ionian. Sunshine +and blue sea! Often must the monks have taken pleasure in this fair +prospect; and the wiser among them, watching the labourers returning +home at nightfall, the children at play, and all the happy life of a +world so alien to their own, may well have heaved a sigh. + +Meanwhile a crowd of citizens had assembled below, attracted by the +unusual novelty of a stranger in their town. The simple creatures +appeared to regard my investigations in the light of a good joke; they +had heard of begging monks, and thieving monks, and monks of another +variety whose peculiarities I dare not attempt to describe; but a flying +monk--no, never! + +"The Dark Ages," said one of them--the mayor, I dare say--with an air of +grave authority. "Believe me, dear sir, the days of such fabulous +monsters are over." + +So they seem to be, for the present. + +No picture or statue records the life of this flying wonder, this +masterpiece of Spanish priestcraft; no mural tablet--in this land of +commemorative stones--has been erected to perpetuate the glory of his +signal achievements; no street is called after him. It is as if he had +never existed. On the contrary, by a queer irony of fate, the roadway +leading past his convent evokes the memory of a misty heathen poet, +likewise native of these favoured regions, a man whose name Joseph of +Copertino had assuredly never heard--Ennius, of whom I can now recall +nothing save that one unforgettable line which begins "O Tite tute Tati +tibi----"; Ennius, who never so much as tried to fly, but contented +himself with singing, in rather bad Latin, of the things of this earth. + +_Via Ennio. . . ._ + +It is the swing of the pendulum. The old pagan, at this moment, may be +nearer to our ideals and aspirations than the flying monk who died only +yesterday, so to speak. + +But a few years hence--who can tell? + +A characteristic episode. I had carefully timed myself to catch the +returning train to Tarante. Great was my surprise when, half-way to the +station, I perceived the train swiftly approaching. I raced it, and +managed to jump into a carriage just as it drew out of the station. The +guard straightway demanded my ticket and a fine for entering the train +without one (return tickets, for weighty reasons of "internal +administration," are not sold). I looked at my watch, which showed that +we had left six minutes before the scheduled hour. He produced his; it +coincided with my own. "No matter," he said. "I am not responsible for +the eccentricities of the driver, who probably had some urgent private +affairs to settle at Taranto. The fine must be paid." A fellow-passenger +took a more charitable view of the case. He suggested that an inspector +of the line had been travelling along with us, and that the driver, +knowing this, was naturally ambitious to show how fast he could go. + +A mile or so before reaching Tarante the railway crosses a stream that +flows into the inland sea. One would be glad to believe those sages who +hold it to be the far-famed Galaesus. It rises near at hand in a marsh, +amid mighty tufts of reeds and odorous flowers, and the liquid bubbles +up in pools of crystalline transparency--deep and perfidious cauldrons +overhung by the trembling soil on which you stand. These fountains form +a respectable stream some four hundred yards in length; another copious +spring rises up in the sea near its mouth. But can this be the river +whose virtues are extolled by: Virgil, Horace, Martial, Statius, +Propertius, Strabo, Pliny, Varrò and Coramella? What a constellation of +names around these short-lived waters! Truly, _minuit praesentia +famam,_ as Boccaccio says of the once-renowned Sebethus. + +Often have I visited this site and tried to reconstruct its vanished +glories. My enthusiasm even led me, some years ago, to the town hall, in +order to ascertain its true official name, and here they informed me +that "it is vulgarly called Citrezze; but the correct version is 'Le +Giadrezze,' which, as you are aware, sir, signifies _pleasantness"_ +This functionary was evidently ignorant of the fact that so long ago as +1771 the learned commentator (Carducci) of the "Delizie Tarentine" +already sneered at this popular etymology; adding, what is of greater +interest, that "in the time of our fathers" this region was covered with +woods and rich in game. In the days of Keppel Craven, the vale was +"scantily cultivated with cotton." Looking at it from above, it +certainly resembles an old river-bed of about five hundred yards in +breadth, and I hold it possible that the deforestation of the higher +lands may have suffocated the original sources with soil carried down +from thence, and forced them to seek a lower level, thus shortening the +stream and reducing its volume of water. + +But who shall decide? If we follow Polybius, another brook at the +further end of the inland sea has more valid claims to the title of +Galaesus. Virgil called it "black Galaesus "--a curious epithet, still +applied to water in Italy as well as in Greece (Mavromati, etc.). "For +me," says Gissing, "the Galaesus is the stream I found and tracked, +whose waters I heard mingle with the little sea." There is something to +be said for such an attitude, on the part of a dilettante traveller, +towards these desperate antiquarian controversies. + +It is an agreeable promenade from the Giadrezze rivulet to Taranto along +the shore of this inland sea. Its clay banks are full of shells and +potteries of every age, and the shallow waters planted with stakes +indicating the places where myriads of oysters and mussels are +bred--indeed, if you look at a map you will observe that the whole of +this lagoon, as though to shadow forth its signification, is split up +into two basins like an opened oyster. + +Here and there along this beach are fishermen's huts constructed of +tree-stems which are smothered under multitudinous ropes of grass, ropes +of all ages and in every stage of decomposition, some fairly fresh, +others dissolving once more into amorphous bundles of hay. There is a +smack of the stone ages, of primeval lake-dwellings, about these +shelters on the deserted shore; two or three large fetichistic stones +stand near their entrance; wickerwork objects of dark meaning strew the +ground; a few stakes emerge, hard by, out of the placid and oozy waters. +In such a cabin, methinks, dwelt those two old fishermen of +Theocritus--here they lived and slumbered side by side on a couch of sea +moss, among the rude implements of their craft. + +The habits of these fisherfolk are antique, because the incidents of +their calling have remained unchanged. Some people have detected traces +of "Greek" in the looks and language of these of Tarante. I can detect +nothing of the kind. + +And the same with the rest of the population. Hellenic traits have +disappeared from Tarante, as well they may have done, when one remembers +its history. It was completely latinized under Augustus, and though +Byzantines came hither under Nicephorus Phocas--Benjamin of Tudela says +the inhabitants are "Greeks"--they have long ago become merged into +the Italian element. Only the barbers seem to have preserved something +of the old traditions: grandiloquent and terrible talkers, like the +cooks in Athenasus. + +I witnessed an Aristophanic scene in one of their shops lately, when a +simple-minded stranger, a north Italian--some arsenal official--brought +a little boy to have his hair cut "not too short" and, on returning +from a brief visit to the tobacconist next door, found it cropped much +closer than he liked. + +"But, damn it," he said (or words to that effect), "I told you not to +cut the hair too short." + +The barber, immaculate and imperturbable, gave a preliminary bow. He was +collecting his thoughts, and his breath. + +"I say, I told you not to cut it too short. It looks horrible----" +"Horrible? That, sir--pardon my frankness!--is a matter of opinion. I +fully admit that you desired the child's hair to be cut not too short. +Those, in fact, were your very words. Notwithstanding, I venture to +think you will come round to my point of view, on due reflection, like +most of my esteemed customers. In the first place, there is the +ethnological aspect of the question. You are doubtless sufficiently +versed in history to know that under the late regime it was considered +improper, if not criminal, to wear a moustache. Well, nowadays we think +differently. Which proves that fashions change; yes, they change, sir; +and the wise man bends to them--up to a certain point, of course; up to +a certain reasonable point----" "But, damn it----" + +"And in favour of my contention that hair should be worn short nowadays, +I need only cite the case of His Majesty the King, whose august head, we +all know, is clipped like that of a racehorse. Horrible (as you call it) +or not, the system has momentarily the approval of royalty, and that +alone should suffice for all loyal subjects to deem it not unworthy of +imitation. Next, there are what one might describe as hygienic and +climatic considerations. Summer is approaching, sir, and apart from +certain unpleasant risks which I need not specify, you will surely agree +with me that the solstitial heat is a needlessly severe trial for a boy +with long hair. My own children are all cropped close, and I have reason +to think they are grateful for it. Why not yours? Boys may differ in +strength or complexion, in moral character and mental attainments, but +they are remarkably unanimous as to what constitutes personal comfort. +And it is obviously the duty of parents to consult the personal comfort +of their offspring--within certain reasonable limits, of course----" + +"But----" + +"Lastly, we come to the much-debated point: I mean the aesthetic side of +the matter. No doubt, to judge by some old pictures such as those of the +renowned Mantegna, there must have been a time when men thought long +hair in children rather beautiful than otherwise. And I am not so +rigorous as to deny a certain charm to these portraits--a charm which is +largely due I fancy, to the becoming costumes of the period. At the same +time----" + +The stranger did not trust himself to listen any longer. He threw down a +coin and walked out of the shop with his son, muttering something not +very complimentary to the barber's female relations. + +But the other was quite unmoved. "And after all," he continued, +addressing the half-opened door through which his visitor had fled, "the +true question is this: What is 'too short'? Don't cut it too short, +you said. _Che vuol dire?_ An ambiguous phrase! + +"Too short for one man may be too long for another. Everything is +relative. Yes, gentlemen" (turning to myself and his shop-assistant), +"everything on this earth is relative." + +With this sole exception, I have hitherto garnered no Hellenic traits in +Taranto. + +Visible even from Giadrezze, on the other side of the inland sea and +beyond the arsenal, there stands a tall, solitary palm. It is the last, +the very last, or almost the very last, of a race of giants that adorned +the gardens which have now been converted into the "New Quarter." I +imagine it is the highest existing palm in Italy, and am glad to have +taken a likeness of it, ere it shall have been cut down like the rest of +its fellows. Taranto was once celebrated for these queenly growths, +which the Saracens brought over from their flaming Africa. + +The same fate has overtaken the trees of the Villa Beaumont, which used +to be a shady retreat, but was bought by the municipality and forthwith +"pulizzato"--i.e. cleaned. This is in accordance with that +_mutilomania_ of the south: that love of torturing trees which causes +them to prune pines till they look like paint-brushes that had been out +all night, and which explains their infatuation for the much-enduring +robinia that allows itself to be teased into any pattern suggested by +their unhealthy phantasy. It is really as if there were something +offensive to the Latin mind in the sight of a well-grown tree, as if man +alone had the right of expanding normally. But I must not do the City +Fathers an injustice. They have planted two rows of cryp-tomerias. Will +people never learn that cryptomerias cannot flourish in south Italy? +Instead of this amateurish gardening, why not consult some competent +professional, who with bougain-villeas, hibiscus and fifty other such +plants would soon transform this favoured spot into a miniature paradise? + +The Villa Beaumont and the road along the Admiralty canal are now the +citizens' chief places of disport. Before the year 1869 the Corso +Vittorio Emmanuele, that skirts the sea on the south side of the old +town, was their sole promenade. And even this street was built only a +short time ago. Vainly one conjectures where the medieval Tarentines +took the air. It must have been like Manfredonia at the present day. + +This Corso, which has a most awkward pavement and is otherwise +disagreeable as looking due south, becomes interesting after sunset. +Here you may see the young bloods of Taranto leaning in rows against the +railing with their backs to the sea--they are looking across the road +whence, from balconies and windows, the fair sex are displaying their +charms. Never a word is spoken. They merely gaze at each other like +lovesick puppies; and after watching the performance for several +evenings, I decided in favour of robuster methods--I decided that +courtship, under conditions such as the Corso supplies, can only be +pursued by the very young or the hopelessly infatuated. But in the +south, this gazing is only part of a huge game. They are not really in +love at all, these excellent young men--not at all, at all; they know +better. They are only pretending, because it looks manly. + +We must revise our conceptions as to the love-passions of these +southerners; no people are more fundamentally sane in matters of the +heart; they have none of our obfuscated sentimentality; they are seldom +naively enamoured, save in early stages of life. It is then that small +girls of eight or ten may be seen furtively recording their feelings on +the white walls of their would-be lovers' houses; these archaic scrawls +go straight to the point, and are models of what love-letters may +ultimately become, in the time-saving communities of the future. But +when the adolescent and perfumed-pink-paper stage is reached, the +missives relapse into barbarous ambiguity; they grow allegorical and +wilfully exuberant as a Persian carpet, the effigy of a pierced heart at +the end, with enormous blood-drops oozing from it, alone furnishing a +key to the document. + +So far they are in earnest, and it is the girl who takes the lead; her +youthful _innamorato_ ties these letters into bundles and returns them +conscientiously, in due course, to their respective senders. Seldom does +a boy make overtures in love; he gets more of it than he knows what to +do with; he is still torpid, and slightly bored by all these attentions. + +But presently he wakes up to the fact that he is a man among men, and +the obsession of "looking manly" becomes a part of his future artificial +and rhetorical life-scheme. From henceforth he plays to the gallery. + +Reading the city papers, one would think that south Italian youths are +the most broken-hearted creatures in the world; they are always trying +to poison themselves for love. Sometimes they succeed, of course; but +sometimes--dear me, no! Suicides look manly, that is all. They are part +of the game. The more sensible youngsters know exactly how much +corrosive sublimate to take without immediate fatal consequences, +allowing for time to reach the nearest hospital. There, the kindly +physician and his stomach-pump will perform their duty, and the patient +wears a feather in his cap for the rest of his life. The majority of +these suicides are on a par with French duels--a harmless institution +whereby the protagonists honour themselves; they confer, as it were, a +patent of virility. The country people are as warmblooded as the +citizens, but they rarely indulge in suicides because--well, there are +no hospitals handy, and the doctor may be out on his rounds. It is too +risky by half. + +And a good proportion of these suicides are only simulated. The wily +victim buys some innocuous preparation which sends him into convulsions +with ghastly symptoms of poisoning, and, after treatment, remains the +enviable hero of a mysterious masculine passion. Ask any town +apothecary. A doctor friend of mine lately analysed the results of his +benevolent exertions upon a young man who had been seen to drink some +dreadful liquid out of a bottle, and was carried to his surgery, +writhing in most artistic agonies. He found not only no poison, but not +the slightest trace of any irritant whatever. + +The true courtship of these Don Giovannis of Tarante will be quite +another affair--a cash transaction, and no credit allowed. They will +select a life partner, upon the advice of _ma mere_ and a strong +committee of uncles and aunts, but not until the military service is +terminated. Everything in its proper time and place. + +Meanwhile they gaze and perhaps even serenade. This looks as if they +were furiously in love, and has therefore been included among the rules +of the game. Youth must keep up the poetic tradition of "fiery." +Besides, it is an inexpensive pastime--the cinematograph costs forty +centimes--and you really cannot sit in the barber's all night long. + +But catch them marrying the wrong girl! + +POSTSCRIPT.--Here are two samples of youthful love-letters from my +collection. + +1.--From a disappointed maiden, aged 13. Interesting, because +intermediate between the archaic and pink-paper stages: + +"IDOL OF MY HEART, + +"Do not the stars call you when you look to Heaven? Does not the moon +tell you, the black-cap on the willow when it says farewell to the sun? +The birds of nature, the dreary country sadly covered by a few flowers +that remain there? Once your look was passionate and pierced me like a +sunny ray, now it seems the flame of a day. Does nothing tell you of +imperishable love?" I love you and love you as (illegible) loves its +liberty, as the corn in the fields loves the sun, as the sailor loves +the sea tranquil or stormy. To you I would give my felicity, my future; +for one of your words I would spill my blood drop by drop. + +"Of all my lovers you are the only ideal consort _(consorto)_ to whom I +would give my love and all the expansion of my soul and youthful +enthusiasm _(intusiamo),_ the greatest enthusiasm _(co-tusiamo)_ my +heart has ever known. O cruel one who has deigned to put his sweet +poison in my heart to-day, while to-morrow you will pass me with +indifference. Cold, proud as ever, serious and disdainful--you +understand? However that may be, I send you the unrepenting cry of my +rebellious heart: I love you! + +"It is late at night, and I am still awake, and at this hour my soul is +sadder than ever in its great isolation _(insolamende);_ I look on my +past love and your dear image. Too much I love you and (illegible) +without your affection. + +"How sadly I remember your sweet words whispered on a pathetic evening +when everything around was fair and rosy. How happy I then was when life +seemed radiant with felicity and brightened by your love. And now +nothing more remains of it; everything is finished. How sad even to say +it. My heart is shipwrecked far, far away from that happiness which I +sought." + +(Three further pages of this.) + +2.--From a boy of 14 who takes the initiative; such letters are rare. +Note the business-like brevity. + +"DEAR MISS ANNE, + +"I write you these few lines to say that I have understood your character +_ (carattolo)._ Therefore, if I may have the honour of being your +sweetheart, you will let me know the answer at your pleasure. I salute +you, and remain, + +"Signing myself, "SALVATORE. + +"Prompt reply requested!" + + + + +XII + +MOLLE TARENTUM + + +One looks into the faces of these Tarentines and listens to their casual +conversations, trying to unravel what manner of life is theirs. But it +is difficult to avoid reading into their characters what history leads +one to think should be there. + +The upper classes, among whom I have some acquaintance, are mellow and +enlightened; it is really as if something of the honied spirit of those +old Greek sages still brooded over them. Their charm lies in the fact +that they are civilized without being commercialized. Their politeness +is unstrained, their suaveness congenital; they remind me of that New +England type which for Western self-assertion substitutes a yielding +graciousness of disposition. So it is with persistent gentle upbringing, +at Taranto and elsewhere. It tones the individual to reposeful +sweetness; one by one, his anfractuosities are worn off; he becomes as a +pebble tossed in the waters, smooth, burnished, and (to outward +appearances) indistinguishable from his fellows. + +But I do not care about the ordinary city folk. They have an air of +elaborate superciliousness which testifies to ages of systematic +half-culture. They seem to utter that hopeless word, _connu!_ And what, +as a matter of fact, do they know? They are only dreaming in their +little backwater, like the oysters of the lagoon, distrustful of +extraneous matter and oblivious of the movement in a world of men beyond +their shell. You hear next to nothing of "America," that fruitful source +of fresh notions; there is no emigration to speak of; the population is +not sufficiently energetic--they prefer to stay at home. Nor do they +care much about the politics of their own country: one sees less +newspapers here than in most Italian towns. "Our middle classes," said +my friend the Italian deputy of whom I have already spoken, "are like +our mules: to be endurable, they must be worked thirteen hours out of +the twelve." But these have no industries to keep them awake, no sports, +no ambitions; and this has gone on for long centuries, In Taranto it is +always afternoon. "The Tarentines," says Strabo, "have more holidays +than workdays in the year." + +And never was city-population more completely cut off from the country; +never was wider gulf between peasant and townsman. There are charming +walks beyond the New Quarter--a level region, with olives and figs and +almonds and pomegranates standing knee-deep in ripe odorous wheat; but +the citizens might be living at Timbuctu for all they know of these +things. It rains little here; on the occasion of my last visit not a +drop had fallen _for fourteen months;_ and consequently the country +roads are generally smothered in dust. Now, dusty boots are a scandal +and an offence in the eyes of the gentle burghers, who accordingly never +issue out of their town walls. They have forgotten the use of ordinary +appliances of country life, such as thick boots and walking-sticks; you +will not see them hereabouts. Unaware of this idiosyncrasy, I used to +carry a stick on my way through the streets into the surroundings, but +left it at home on learning that I was regarded as a kind of +perambulating earthquake. The spectacle of a man clattering through the +streets on horseback, such as one often sees at Venosa, would cause them +to barricade their doors and prepare for the last judgment. + +Altogether, essentially nice creatures, lotus-eaters, fearful of fuss or +novelty, and drowsily satisfied with themselves and life in general. The +breezy healthfulness of travel, the teachings of art or science, the +joys of rivers and green lanes--all these things are a closed book to +them. Their interests are narrowed down to the purely human: a case of +partial atrophy. For the purely human needs a corrective; it is not +sufficiently humbling, and that is exactly what makes them so +supercilious. We must take a little account of the Cosmos nowadays--it +helps to rectify our bearings. They have their history, no doubt. But +save for that one gleam of Periclean sunshine the record, though long +and varied, is sufficiently inglorious and does not testify to undue +exertions. + +A change is at hand. + +Gregorovius lamented the filthy condition of the old town. It is now +spotless. + +He deplored that Taranto possessed no museum. This again is changed, and +the provincial museum here is justly praised, though the traveller may +be annoyed at finding his favourite rooms temporarily closed (is there +any museum in Italy not "partially closed for alterations"?). New +accessions to its store are continually pouring in; so they lately +discovered, in a tomb, a Hellenistic statuette of Eros and Aphrodite, 30 +centimetres high, terra-cotta work of the third century. The goddess +stands, half-timidly, while Eros alights in airy fashion on her +shoulders and fans her with his wings--an exquisite little thing. + +He was grieved, likewise, that no public collection of books existed +here. But the newly founded municipal library is all that can be +desired. The stranger is cordially welcomed within its walls and may +peruse, at his leisure, old Galateus, Giovan Giovene, and the rest of them. + +Wandering among those shelves, I hit upon a recent volume (1910) which +gave me more food for thought than any of these ancients. It is called +"Cose di Puglie," and contains some dozen articles, all by writers of +this province of old Calabria, [Footnote: It included the heel of +Italy.] on matters of exclusively local interest--its history, +meteorology, dialects, classical references to the country, extracts +from old economic documents, notes on the development of Apulian +printing, examples of modern local caricature, descriptions of mediaeval +monuments; a kind of anthology, in short, of provincial lore. The +typography, paper and illustrations of this remarkable volume are beyond +all praise; they would do honour to the best firm in London or Paris. +What is this book? It is no commercial speculation at all; it is a +wedding present to a newly married couple--a bouquet of flowers, of +intellectual blossoms, culled from their native Apulian meadows. One +notes with pleasure that the happy pair are neither dukes nor princes. +There is no trace of snobbishness in the offering, which is simply a +spontaneous expression of good wishes on the part of a few friends. But +surely it testifies to most refined feelings. How immeasurably does this +permanent and yet immaterial feast differ from our gross wedding +banquets and ponderous gilt clocks and tea services! Such persons +cannot but have the highest reverence for things of the mind; such a +gift is the fairest efflorescence of civilization. And this is only +another aspect of that undercurrent of spirituality in south Italy of +whose existence the tourist, harassed by sordid preoccupations, remains +wholly unaware. + +This book was printed at Bari. Bari, not long ago, consisted of a dark +and tortuous old town, exactly like the citadel of Taranto. It has now +its glaring New Quarter, not a whit less disagreeable than the one here. +Why should Taranto not follow suit in the matter of culture? Heraclea, +Sybaris and all the Greek settlements along this coast have vanished +from earth; only Taranto and Cotrone have survived to carry on, if they +can, the old traditions. They have survived, thanks to peculiar physical +conditions that have safeguarded them from invaders. . . . + +But these very conditions have entailed certain drawbacks--drawbacks +which Buckle would have lovingly enumerated to prove their influence +upon the habits and disposition of the Tarentines. That marine situation +. . . only think of three thousand years of scirocco, summer and winter! +It is alone enough to explain _molle Tarentum--_ enough to drain the +energy out of a Newfoundland puppy! And then, the odious dust of the +country roadways--for it _is_ odious. Had the soil been granitic, or +even of the ordinary Apennine limestone, the population might have +remained in closer contact with wild things of nature, and retained a +perennial fountain of enjoyment and inspiration. A particular kind of +rock, therefore, has helped to make them sluggish and incurious. The +insularity of their citadel has worked in the same direction, by +focussing their interests upon the purely human. That inland sea, again: +were it not an ideal breeding-place for shell-fish, the Tarentines would +long ago have learnt to vary their diet. Thirty centuries of +mussel-eating cannot but impair the physical tone of a people. + +And had the inland sea not existed, the Government would not have been +tempted to establish that arsenal which has led to the erection of the +new town and consequent municipal exactions. "The arsenal," said a +grumbling old boatman to me, "was the beginning of our purgatory." A +milk diet would work wonders with the health and spirits of the +citizens. But since the building of the new quarter, such a diet has +become a luxury; cows and goats will soon be scarce as the megatherium. +There is a tax of a franc a day on every cow, and a herd of ten goats, +barely enough to keep a poor man alive, must pay annually 380 francs in +octroi. These and other legalized robberies, which among a more virile +populace would cause the mayor and town council to be forthwith attached +to the nearest lamp-post, are patiently borne. It is _imbelle +Tarentum--_ a race without grit. + +I would also recommend the burghers some vegetables, so desirable for +their sedentary habits, but there again! it seems to be a peculiarity of +the local soil to produce hardly a leaf of salad or cabbage. Potatoes +are plainly regarded as an exotic--they are the size of English peas, +and make me think of Ruskin's letter to those old ladies describing the +asparagus somewhere in Tuscany. And all this to the waiter's undisguised +astonishment. + +"The gentleman is rich enough to pay for meat. Why trouble about this +kind of food?"... + +And yet--a change is at hand. These southern regions are waking up from +their slumber of ages. Already some of Italy's acutest thinkers and most +brilliant politicians are drawn from these long-neglected shores. For we +must rid ourselves of that incubus of "immutable race characters": think +only of our Anglo-Saxon race! What has the Englishman of to-day in +common with that rather lovable fop, drunkard and bully who would faint +with ecstasy over Byron's _Parisina_ after pistolling his best friend +in a duel about a wench or a lap-dog? Such differences as exist between +races of men, exist only at a given moment. + +And what, I sometimes ask myself--what is now the distinguishing feature +between these southern men and ourselves? Briefly this, I think. In +mundane matters, where the personal equation dominates, their judgment +is apt to be turbid and perverse; but as one rises into questions of +pure intelligence, it becomes serenely impartial. We, on the other hand, +who are pre-eminently clear-sighted in worldly concerns of law and +government and in all subsidiary branches of mentality, cannot bring +ourselves to reason dispassionately on non-practical subjects. "L'esprit +aussi a sa pudeur," says Remy de Gourmont. Well, this _pudeur de +l'esprit,_ discouraged among the highest classes in England, is the +hall-mark of respectability hereabouts. A very real difference, at this +particular moment. . . . + +There is an end of philosophizing. + +They have ousted me from my pleasant quarters, the landlady's son and +daughter-in-law having returned unexpectedly and claiming their +apartments. I have taken refuge in a hotel. My peace is gone; my days in +Taranto are numbered. + +Loath to depart, I linger by the beach of the Ionian Sea beyond the new +town. It is littered with shells and holothurians, with antique tesserae +blue glass and marble fragments, with white mosaic pavements and +potteries of every age, from the glossy Greco-Roman ware whose +delicately embossed shell devices are emblematic of this sea-girt city, +down to the grosser products of yesterday. Of marbles I have found +_cipollino, pavonazzetto, giallo_ and _rosso antico,_ but no harder +materials such as porphyry or serpentine. This, and the fact that the +mosaics are pure white, suggests that the houses here must have dated, +at latest, from Augustan times. + +[Footnote: Nor is there any of the fashionable _verde_ _antico,_ and +this points in the same direction. Corsi says nothing as to the date of +its introduction, and I have not read the treatise of Silenziario, but +my own observations lead me to think that the _lapis_ _atracius_ can +hardly have been known under Tiberius. Not so those hard ones: they +imported wholesale by his predecessor Augustus, who was anxious to be +known as a scorner of luxury (a favourite pose with monarchs), yet spent +incalculable sums on ornamental stones both for public and private ends. +One is struck by a certain waste of material; either the expense was +deliberately disregarded or finer methods of working the stones were not +yet in vogue. A revolution in the technique of stone-cutting must have +set in soon after his death, for thenceforward we find the most +intractable rocks cut into slices thin as card-board: too thin for +pavements, and presumably for encrusting walls and colonnades. The +Augustans, unable to produce these effects naturally, attempted +imitation-stones, and with wonderful success. I have a fragment of their +plaster postiche copying the close-grained Egyptian granite; the oily +lustre of the quartz is so fresh and the peculiar structure of the rock, +with its mica scintillations, so admirably rendered as to deceive, after +two thousand years, the eye of a trained mineralogist.] + +Here I sit, on the tepid shingle, listening to the plash of the waves +and watching the sun as it sinks over the western mountains that are +veiled in mists during the full daylight, but loom up, at this sunset +hour, as from a fabulous world of gold. Yonder lies the Calabrian Sila +forest, the brigands' country. I will attack it by way of Rossano, and +thence wander, past Longobucco, across the whole region. It may be well, +after all, to come again into contact with streams and woodlands, after +this drenching of classical associations and formal civic life! + +Near me stands a shore-battery which used to be called "Batteria +Chianca." It was here they found, some twenty years ago, a fine marble +head described as a Venus, and now preserved in the local museum. I +observe that this fort has lately been re-christened "Batteria Archyta." +Can this be due to a burst of patriotism for the Greek warrior-sage who +ruled Taranto, or is it a subtle device to mislead the foreign spy? + +Here, too, are kilns where they burn the blue clay into tiles and vases. +I time a small boy at work shaping the former. His average output is +five tiles in four minutes, including the carrying to and fro of the +moist clay; his wages about a shilling a day. But if you wish to see the +manufacture of more complicated potteries, you must go to the unclean +quarter beyond the railway station. Once there, you will not soon weary +of that potter's wheel and the fair shapes that blossom forth under its +enchanted touch. This ware of Taranto is sent by sea to many parts of +south Italy, and you may see picturesque groups of it, here and there, +at the street corners. + +Hardly has the sun disappeared before the lighthouse in the east begins +to flash. The promontory on which it stands is called San Vito after one +of the musty saints, now almost forgotten, whose names survive along +these shores. Stoutly this venerable one defended his ancient worship +against the radiant and victorious Madonna; nor did she dislodge him +from a certain famous sanctuary save by the questionable expedient of +adopting his name: she called herself S. M. "della Vita." That settled +it. He came from Mazzara in Sicily, whither they still carry, to his +lonely shrine, epileptics and others distraught in mind. And were I in a +discursive mood, I would endeavour to trace some connection between his +establishment here and the tarantella--between St. Vitus' dance and that +other one which cured, they say, the bite of the Tarentine spider. + +But I am not inclined for such matters at present. The Cala-brian +uplands are still visible in the gathering twilight; they draw me +onwards, away from Taranto. It must be cool up there, among the firs and +beeches. + +And a land, moreover, of multiple memories and interests--this Calabria. +A land of great men. In 1737 the learned Aceti was able to enumerate +over two thousand celebrated Calabrians--athletes, generals, musicians, +centenarians, inventors, martyrs, ten popes, ten kings, as well as some +sixty conspicuous women. A land of thinkers. Old Zavarroni, born in +1705, gives us a list of seven hundred Calabrian writers; and I, for +one, would not care to bring his catalogue up to date. The recently +acquired _Biblioteca Calabra_ at Naples alone contains God knows how +many items, nearly all modern! + +And who shall recount its natural attractions? Says another old writer: + +"Here is all sorts of Corn, sundry Wines, and in great abundance, all +kinds of Fruits, Oyle, Hony, Wax, Saffron, Bombace, Annis and Coriander +seeds. There groweth Gum, Pitch, Turpentine and liquid Storax. In former +times it was never without Mettals, but at this present it doth much +abound, having in most parts divers sorts of Mines, as Gold, Silver, +Iron, Marble, Alabaster, Cristal, Marchesite, three sorts of white +Chaulk, Virmilion, Alume, Brimstone, and the Adamant stone, which being +in the fifth degree, draweth not Iron, and is in colour black. There +groweth hemp and flax of two sorts, the one called the male, the other +the female: there falleth Manna from heaven, truly a thing very rare; +and although there is not gathered such abundance of Silk, yet I dare +say there is not had so much in all _Italy_ besides. There are also +bathes, both hot, luke-warm, and cold, to cure many diseases. Near the +Seaside, and likewise on the Mediterrane are goodly Gardens full of +Oringes, Citrons, and Lemons of divers sorts. It is watered with many +Rivers. There are on the hils of the Apennine, thick Woods of high +Firrs, Holms, Platanes, Oaks, where grows the white odoriferous Mushrome +which shineth in the night. Here is bred the soft stone _Frigia,_ which +every month yields a delicate and wholesome Gum, and the stone +_Aetites,_ by us called the stone _Aquilina._ In this Province there is +excellent hunting of divers creatures, as wild Hoggs, Staggs, Goats, +Hares, Foxes, Porcupines, Marmosets. There are also ravenous beasts, as +Wolves, Bears, Luzards, which are quick-sighted, and have the hinder +parts spotted with divers colours. This kind of Beast was brought from +_France_ to _Rome_ in the sports of _Pompey_ the great, and Hunters +affirm this Beast to be of so frail a memory, that although he eateth +with hunger, if he chance to look back, remembreth no more his meat, and +departing searcheth for other." Who would not visit Calabria, if only on +the chance of beholding the speckled posterior of the absent-minded +Luzard? + + + + +XIII + +INTO THE JUNGLE + + +This short plunge into the jungle was a relief, after the all-too-human +experiences of Taranto. The forest of Policoro skirts the Ionian; the +railway line cleaves it into two unequal portions, the seaward tract +being the smaller. It is bounded on the west by the river Sinnc, and I +imagine the place has not changed much since the days when Keppel Craven +explored its recesses. + +Twilight reigns in this maze of tall deciduous trees. There is thick +undergrowth, too; and I measured an old lentiscus--a shrub, in +Italy--which was three metres in circumference. But the exotic feature +of the grove is its wealth of creeping vines that clamber up the trunks, +swinging from one tree-top to another, and allowing the merest threads +of sunlight to filter through their matted canopy. Policoro has the +tangled beauty of a tropical swamp. Rank odours arise from the decaying +leaves and moist earth; and once within that verdant labyrinth, you +might well fancy yourself in some primeval region of the globe, where +the foot of man has never penetrated. + +Yet long ago it resounded with the din of battle and the trumpeting of +elephants--in that furious first battle between Pyrrhus and the Romans. +And here, under the very soil on which you stand, lies buried, they say, +the ancient city of Siris. + +They have dug canals to drain off the moisture as much as possible, but +the ground is marshy in many places and often quite impassable, +especially in winter. None the less, winter is the time when a little +shooting is done here, chiefly wild boars and roe-deer. They are driven +down towards the sea, but only as far as the railway line. Those that +escape into the lower portions are safe for another year, as this is +never shot over but kept as a permanent preserve. I have been told that +red-deer were introduced, ut that the experiment failed; probably the +country was too not and damp. In his account of Calabria, Duret de Tavel +[Footnote: An English translation of his book appeared in 1832.] +sometimes speaks of killing the fallow-deer, an autochthonous +Tyrrhenian beast which is now extinct on the mainland in its wild state. +Nor can he be confounding it with the roe, since he mentions the two +together--for instance, in the following note from Corigliano (February, +1809), which must make the modern Calabrian's mouth water: + +"Game has multiplied to such an extent that the fields are ravaged, and +we are rendering a real service in destroying it. I question whether +there exists in Europe a country offering more varied species. . . . We +return home followed by carriages and mules loaded with wild boars, +roe-deer, fallow-deer, hares, pheasants, wild duck, wild geese--to say +nothing of foxes and wolves, of which we have already killed an immense +quantity." + +The pheasants seem to have likewise died out, save in royal preserves. +They were introduced into Calabria by that mighty hunter Frederick II. + +The parcelling out of many of these big properties has been followed by +a destruction of woodland and complete disappearance of game. It is +hailed as the beginning of a new era of prosperity; and so it well may +be, from a commercial point of view. But the traveller and lover of +nature will be glad to leave some of these wild districts in the hands +of their rich owners, who have no great interests in cultivating every +inch of ground, levelling rocky spaces, draining the land and hewing +down every tree that fails to bear fruit. Split into peasant +proprietorships, this forest would soon become a scientifically +irrigated campagna for the cultivation of tomatoes or what not, like the +"Colonia Elena," near the Pontine Marshes. The national exchequer would +profit, without a doubt. But I question whether we should all take the +economical point of view--whether it would be wise for humanity to do +so. There is a prosperity other than material. Some solitary artist or +poet, drawing inspiration from scenes like this, might have contributed +more to the happiness of mankind than a legion of narrow-minded, grimy +and litigious tomato-planters. + +To all appearances, Italy is infected just now with a laudable mania for +the "exploitation of natural resources"--at the expense, of course, of +wealthy landowners, who are described as withholding from the people +their due. The programme sounds reasonable enough; but one must not +forget that what one reads on this subject in the daily papers is +largely the campaign of a class of irresponsible pressmen and +politicians, who exploit the ignorance of weak people to fill their own +pockets. How one learns to loathe, in Italy and in England, that lovely +word _socialism,_ when one knows a little of the inner workings of the +cause and a few--just a few!--details of the private lives of these +unsavoury saviours of their country! + +The lot of the southern serfs was bad enough before America was +"discovered"; and quite unendurable in earlier times. There is a village +not many hours from Naples where, in 1789, only the personal attendants +of the feudal lord lived in ordinary houses; the two thousand +inhabitants, the serfs, took refuge in caves and shelters of straw. +Conceive the conditions in remote Calabria! Such was the anguished +poverty of the country-folk that up to the eighties of last century they +used to sell their children by regular contracts, duly attested before +the local mayors. But nowadays I listen to their complaints with +comparative indifference. + +"You are badly treated, my friend? I quite believe it; indeed, I can see +it. Well, go to Argentina and sell potatoes, or to the mines of +Pennsylvania. There you will grow rich, like the rest of your +compatriots. Then return and send your sons to the University; let them +become _avvocati_ and members of Parliament, who shall harass into +their graves these wicked owners of the soil." + +This, as a matter of fact, is the career of a considerable number of them. + +For the rest, the domain of Policoro--it is spelt _Pelicaro_ in older +maps like those of Magini and Rizzi-Zannone--seems to be well +administered, and would repay a careful study. I was not encouraged, +however, to undertake this study, the manager evidently suspecting some +ulterior motive to underlie my simple questions. He was not at all +responsive to friendly overtures. Restive at first, he soon waxed +ambiguous, and finally taciturn. Perhaps he thought I was a tax-gatherer +in disguise. A large structure combining the features of palace, +fortress and convent occupies an eminence, and is supposed by some to +stand on the site of old Heracleia; it was erected by the Jesuits; the +workpeople live in humble dwellings that cluster around it. Those that +are now engaged in cutting the corn receive a daily wage of two carlini +(eightpence)--the Bourbon coinage still survives in name. + +You walk to this building from the station along an avenue of eucalypti +planted some forty years ago. Detesting, as I do, the whole tribe of gum +trees, I never lose an opportunity of saying exactly what I think about +this particularly odious representative of the brood, this eyesore, this +grey-haired scarecrow, this reptile of a growth with which a pack of +misguided enthusiasts have disfigured the entire Mediterranean basin. +They have now realized that it is useless as a protection against +malaria. Soon enough they will learn that instead of preventing the +disease, it actually fosters it, by harbouring clouds of mosquitoes +under its scraggy so-called foliage. These abominations may look better +on their native heath: I sincerely hope they do. Judging by the "Dead +Heart of Australia"--a book which gave me a nightmare from which I shall +never recover--I should say that a varnished hop-pole would be an +artistic godsend out there. + +But from here the intruder should be expelled without mercy. A single +eucalyptus will ruin the fairest landscape. No plant on earth rustles in +such a horribly metallic fashion when the wind blows through those +everlastingly withered branches; the noise chills one to the marrow; it +is like the sibilant chattering of ghosts. Its oil is called "medicinal" +only because it happens to smell rather nasty; it is worthless as +timber, objectionable in form and hue--objectionable, above all things, +in its perverse, anti-human habits. What other tree would have the +effrontery to turn the sharp edges of its leaves--as if these were not +narrow enough already!--towards the sun, so as to be sure of giving at +all hours of the day the minimum of shade and maximum of discomfort to +mankind? + +But I confess that this avenue of Policoro almost reconciled me to the +existence of the anaemic Antipodeans. Almost; since for some reason or +other (perhaps on account of the insufferably foul nature of the soil) +their foliage is here thickly tufted; it glows like burnished bronze in +the sunshine, like enamelled scales of green and gold. These eucalypti +are unique in Italy. Gazing upon them, my heart softened and I almost +forgave the gums their manifold iniquities, their diabolical thirst, +their demoralizing aspect of precocious senility and vice, their peeling +bark suggestive of unmentionable skin diseases, and that system of +radication which is nothing short of a scandal on this side of the +globe. . . . + +In the exuberance of his joy at the prospect of getting rid of me, the +manager of the estate lent me a dog-cart to convey me to the forest's +edge, as well as a sleepy-looking boy for a guide, warning me, however, +not to put so much as the point of my nose inside the jungle, on account +of the malaria which has already begun to infect the district. One sees +all too many wan faces hereabouts. Visible from the intervening plain is +a large building on the summit of a hill; it is called Acinapura, and +this is the place I should have gone to, had time permitted, for the +sake of the fine view which it must afford over the whole Policoro region. + +Herds of buffaloes wallow in the mire. An old bull, reposing in solitary +grandeur, allowed me so near an approach that I was able to see two or +three frogs hopping about his back, and engaged in catching the +mosquitoes that troubled him. How useful, if something equally efficient +and inexpensive could be devised for humanity! + +We entered the darksome forest. The boy, who had hitherto confined +himself to monosyllables, suddenly woke up under its mysterious +influence; he became alert and affable; he related thrilling tales of +the outlaws who used to haunt these thickets, lamenting that those happy +days were over. There were the makings of a first-class brigand in +Paolo. I stimulated his brave fancy; and it was finally proposed that I +should establish myself permanently with the manager of the estate, so +that on Sundays we could have some brigand-sport together, on the sly. + +Then out again--into the broad and sunlit bed of the Sinno. The water +now ripples in bland content down a waste of shining pebbles. But its +wintry convulsions are terrific, and higher up the stream, where the +banks are steep, many lives are lost in those angry floods that rush +down from the hill-sides, filling the riverbed with a turmoil of crested +waves. At such moments, these torrents put on new faces. From placid +waterways they are transformed into living monsters, Aegirs or dragons, +that roll themselves seaward, out of their dark caverns, in tawny coils +of destruction. + + + + +XIV + +DRAGONS + + +And precisely this angry aspect of the waters has been acclaimed as one +of the origins of that river-dragon idea which used to be common in +south Italy, before the blight of Spaniardism fell upon the land and +withered up the pagan myth-making faculty. There are streams still +perpetuating this name--the rivulet Dragone, for instance, which falls +into the Ionian not far from Cape Colonne. + +A non-angry aspect of them has also been suggested as the origin: the +tortuous wanderings of rivers in the plains, like the Meander, that +recall the convolutions of the serpent. For serpent and dragon are apt +to be synonymous with the ancients. + +Both these explanations, I think, are late developments in the evolution +of the dragon-image. They leave one still puzzling as to what may be the +aboriginal conception underlying this legendary beast of earth and +clouds and waters. We must go further back. + +What is a dragon? An animal, one might say, which looks or regards +(Greek _drakon);_ so called, presumably, from its terrible eyes. Homer +has passages which bear out this interpretation: + +_[Greek: Smerdaleon de dedorken],_ etc. + +Now the Greeks were certainly sensitive to the expression of animal +eyes--witness "cow-eyed" Hera, or the opprobrious epithet "dog-eyed"; +altogether, the more we study what is left of their zoological +researches, the more we realize what close observers they were in +natural history. Aristotle, for instance, points out sexual differences +in the feet of the crawfish which were overlooked up to a short time +ago. And Hesiod also insists upon the dragon's eyes. Yet it is +significant that _ophis,_ the snake, is derived, like _drakon,_ from a +root meaning nothing more than to perceive or regard. There is no +connotation of ferocity in either of the words. Gesner long ago suspected +that the dragon was so called simply from its keen or rapid perception. + +One likes to search for some existing animal prototype of a fabled +creature like this, seeing that to invent such things out of sheer +nothing is a feat beyond human ingenuity--or, at least, beyond what the +history of others of their kind leads us to expect. It may well be that +the Homeric writer was acquainted with the Uromastix lizard that occurs +in Asia Minor, and whoever has watched this beast, as I have done, +cannot fail to have been impressed by its contemplative gestures, as if +it were gazing intently _(drakon)_ at something. It is, moreover, a +"dweller in rocky places," and more than this, a vegetarian--an "eater +of poisonous herbs" as Homer somewhere calls his dragon. So Aristotle +says: "When the dragon has eaten much fruit, he seeks the juice of the +bitter lettuce; he has been seen to do this." + +Are we tracking the dragon to his lair? Is this the aboriginal beast? +Not at all, I should say. On the contrary, this is a mere side-issue, to +follow which would lead us astray. The reptile-dragon was invented when +men had begun to forget what the arch-dragon was; it is the product of a +later stage--the materializing stage; that stage when humanity sought to +explain, in naturalistic fashion, the obscure traditions of the past. We +must delve still deeper. . . . + +My own dragon theory is far-fetched--perhaps necessarily so, dragons +being somewhat remote animals. The dragon, I hold, is the +personification of the life within the earth--of that life which, being +unknown and uncontrollable, is _eo ipso_ hostile to man. Let me explain +how this point is reached. + +The animal which _looks or regards. . . ._ Why--why an animal? Why not +_drakon =_ that which looks? + +Now, what looks? + +The eye. + +This is the key to the understanding of the problem, the key to the +subterranean dragon-world. + +The conceit of fountains or sources of water being things that see +_(drakon)_--that is, eyes--or bearing some resemblance to eyes, is common +to many races. In Italy, for example, two springs in the inland sea near +Taranto are called "Occhi"--eyes; Arabs speak of a watery fountain as an +eye; the notion exists in England top--in the "Blentarn" of Cumberland, +the blind tarn (tarn = a trickling of tears), which is "blind" because +dry and waterless, and therefore lacking the bright lustre of the open eye. + +There is an eye, then, in the fountain: an eye which looks or regards. +And inasmuch as an eye presupposes a head, and a head without body is +hard to conceive, a material existence was presently imputed to that +which looked upwards out of the liquid depths. This, I think, is the +primordial dragon, the archetype. He is of animistic descent and +survives all over the earth; and it is precisely this universality of +the dragon-idea which induces me to discard all theories of local origin +and to seek for some common cause. Fountains are ubiquitous, and so are +dragons. There are fountain dragons in Japan, in the superstitions of +Keltic races, in the Mediterranean basin. The dragon of Wantley lived in +a well; the Lambton Worm began life in fresh water, and only took to +dry land later on. I have elsewhere spoken of the Manfredonia legend of +Saint Lorenzo and the dragon, an indigenous fable connected, I suspect, +with the fountain near the harbour of that town, and quite independent +of the newly-imported legend of Saint Michael. Various springs in Greece +and Italy are called Dragoneria; there is a cave-fountain Dragonara on +Malta, and another of the same name near Cape Misenum--all are sources +of apposite lore. The water-drac. . . . + +So the dragon has grown into a subterranean monster, who peers up from +his dark abode wherever he can--out of fountains or caverns whence +fountains issue. It stands to reason that he is sleepless; all dragons +are "sleepless "; their eyes are eternally open, for the luminous +sparkle of living waters never waxes dim. And bold adventurers may well +be devoured by dragons when they fall into these watery rents, never to +appear again. + +Furthermore, since gold and other treasures dear to mankind lie hidden +in the stony bowels of the earth and are hard to attain, the jealous +dragon has been accredited with their guardianship--hence the plutonic +element in his nature. The dragon, whose "ever-open eye" protected the +garden of the Hesperides, was the _Son of Earth._ The earth or +cave-dragon. . . . Calabria has some of these dragons' caves; you can +read about them in the _Campania. Sotteranea_ of G. Sanchez. + +In volcanic regions there are fissures in the rocks exhaling pestiferous +emanations; these are the _spiracula,_ the breathing-holes, of the +dragon within. The dragon legends of Naples and Mondragone are probably +of this origin, and so is that of the Roman Campagna (1660) where the +dragon-killer died from the effects of this poisonous breath: Sometimes +the confined monster issues in a destructive lava-torrent--Bellerophon +and the Chimsera. The fire-dragon. ... Or floods of water suddenly +stream down from the hills and fountains are released. It is the hungry +dragon, rushing from his den in search of prey; the river-dragon. . . . +He rages among the mountains with such swiftness and impetuosity. + +This is chiefly the poets' work, though the theologians have added one +or two embellishing touches. But in whatever shape he appears, whether +his eyes have borrowed a more baleful fire from heathen basilisks, or +traits of moral evil are instilled into his pernicious physique by +amalgamation with the apocalyptic Beast, he remains the vindictive enemy +of man and his ordered ways. Of late--like the Saurian tribe in +general--he has somewhat degenerated. So in modern Greece, by that +process of stultified anthropomorphism which results from grafting +Christianity upon an alien mythopoesis, he dons human attributes, +talking and acting as a man (H. F. Tozer). And here, in Calabria, he +lingers in children's fables, as "sdrago," a mockery of his former self. + +To follow up his wondrous metamorphoses through medievalism would be a +pastime worthy of some leisured dilettante. How many noble shapes +acquired a tinge of absurdity in the Middle Ages! Switzerland alone, +with its mystery of untrodden crevices, used to be crammed with +dragons--particularly the calcareous (cavernous) province of Rhaetia. +Secondary dragons; for the good monks saw to it that no reminiscences of +the autochthonous beast survived. Modern scholars have devoted much +learning to the local Tazzelwurm and Bergstutz. But dragons of our +familiar kind were already well known to the chroniclers from whom old +Cysat extracted his twenty-fifth chapter (wherein, by the way, you will +learn something of Calabrian dragons); then came J. J. Wagner (1680); +then Scheuchzer, prince of dragon-finders, who informs us that _multorum +draconum historta mendax._ + +But it is rather a far cry from Calabria to the asthmatic Scheuchzer, +wiping the perspiration off his brow as he clambers among the Alps to +record truthful dragon yarns and untruthful barometrical observations; +or to China, dragon-land _par excellence;_ [Footnote: In Chinese +mythology the telluric element has remained untarnished. The dragon is +an earth-god, who controls the rain and thunder clouds.] or even to our +own Heralds' College, where these and other beasts have sought a refuge +from prying professors under such queer disguises that their own mothers +would hardly recognize them. + + + + +XV + +BYZANTINISM + + +Exhausted with the morning's walk at Policoro, a railway journey and a +long drive up nearly a thousand feet to Rossano in the heat of midday, I +sought refuge, contrary to my usual custom, in the chief hotel, +intending to rest awhile and then seek other quarters. The establishment +was described as "ganz ordentlich" in Baedeker. But, alas! I found +little peace or content. The bed on which I had hoped to repose was +already occupied by several other inmates. Prompted by curiosity, I +counted up to fifty-two of them; after that, my interest in the matter +faded away. It became too monotonous. They were all alike, save in point +of size (some were giants). A Swammerdam would have been grieved by +their lack of variety. + +And this, I said to myself, in a renowned city that has given birth to +poets and orators, to saints like the great Nilus, to two popes +and--last, but not least--one anti-pope! I will not particularize the +species beyond saying that they did not hop. Nor will I return to this +theme. Let the reader once and for all take _them_ for granted. +[Footnote: They have their uses, to be sure. Says Kircher: _Cunices +lectularii potens remedium contra quartanum est, si ab inscio aegro cum +vehiculo congrua potentur; mulierum morbis medentur et uterum prolapsum +solo odore in mum locum restituunt._] Let him note that most of the inns +of this region are quite uninhabitable, for this and other reasons, +unless he takes the most elaborate precautions. . . . + +Where, then, do I generally go for accommodation? + +Well, as a rule I begin by calling for advice at the chemist's shop, +where a fixed number of the older and wiser citizens congregate for a +little talk. The cafés and barbers and wine-shops are also +meeting-places of men; but those who gather here are not of the right +type--they are the young, or empty-headed, or merely thirsty. The other +is the true centre of the leisured class, the philosophers' rendezvous. +Your _speciale_ (apothecary) is himself an elderly and honoured man, +full of responsibility and local knowledge; he is altogether a superior +person, having been trained in a University. You enter the shop, +therefore, and purchase a pennyworth of vaseline. This act entitles you +to all the privileges of the club. Then is the moment to take a seat, +smiling affably at the assembled company, but without proffering a +syllable. If this etiquette is strictly adhered to, it will not be long +ere you are politely questioned as to your plans, your present +accommodation, and so forth; and soon several members will be vying with +each other to procure you a clean and comfortable room at half the price +charged in a hotel. + +Even when this end is accomplished, my connection with the pharmacy +coterie is not severed. I go there from time to time, ostensibly to +talk, but in reality to listen. Here one can feel the true pulse of the +place. Local questions are dispassionately discussed, with ample forms +of courtesy and in a language worthy of Cicero. It is the club of the +_élite._ + +In olden days I used to visit south Italy armed with introductions to +merchants, noblemen and landed proprietors. I have quite abandoned that +system, as these people, bless their hearts, have such cordial notions +of hospitality that from morning to night the traveller has not a moment +he can call his own. Letters to persons in authority, such as syndics or +police officers, are useless and worse than useless. Like Chinese +mandarins, these officials are so puffed up with their own importance +that it is sheer waste of time to call upon them. If wanted, they can +always be found; if not, they are best left alone. For besides being +usually the least enlightened and least amiable of the populace, they +are inordinately suspicious of political or commercial designs on the +part of strangers--God knows what visions are fermenting in their turbid +brains--and seldom let you out of their sight, once they have known you. + +Excepting at Cosenza, Cotrone and Catanzaro, an average white man will +seldom find, in any Calabrian hostelry, what he is accustomed to +consider as ordinary necessities of life. The thing is easily +explicable. These men are not yet in the habit of "handling" civilized +travellers; they fail to realize that hotel-keeping is a business to be +learnt, like tailoring or politics. They are still in the patriarchal +stage, wealthy proprietors for the most part, and quite independent of +your custom. They have not learnt the trick of Swiss servility. You must +therefore be prepared to put up with what looks like very bad treatment. +On your entrance nobody moves a step to enquire after your wants; you +must begin by foraging for yourself, and thank God if any notice is +taken of what you say; it is as if your presence were barely +tolerated. But once the stranger has learnt to pocket his pride and +treat his hosts in the same offhand fashion, he will find among them an +unconventional courtesy of the best kind. + +The establishment being run as a rule by the proprietor's own family, +gratuities with a view to exceptional treatment are refused with quiet +dignity, and even when accepted will not further your interests in the +least; on the contrary, you are thenceforward regarded as tactless and +weak in the head. Discreet praise of their native town or village is the +best way to win the hearts of the younger generation; for the parents a +little knowledge of American conditions is desirable, to prove that you +are a man of the world and worthy, a priori, of some respect. But if +there exists a man-cook, he is generally an importation and should be +periodically and liberally bribed, without knowledge of the family, from +the earliest moment. Wonderful, what a cook can do! + +It is customary here not to live _en pension_ or to pay a fixed price +for any meal, the smallest item, down to a piece of bread, being +conscientiously marked against you. My system, elaborated after +considerable experimentation, is to call for this bill every morning +and, for the first day or two after arrival, dispute in friendly fashion +every item, remorselessly cutting down some of them. Not that they +overcharge; their honesty is notorious, and no difference is made in +this respect between a foreigner and a native. It is a matter of +principle. By this system, which must not be overdone, your position in +the house gradually changes; from being a guest, you become a friend, a +brother. For it is your duty to show, above all things, that you are not +_scemo_--witless, soft-headed--the unforgivable sin in the south. You +may be a forger or cut-throat--why not? It is a vocation like any other, +a vocation for _men._ But whoever cannot take care of him-self--i.e. of +his money--is not to be trusted, in any walk of life; he is of no +account; he is no man. I have become firm friends with some of these +proprietors by the simple expedient of striking a few francs off their +bills; and should I ever wish to marry one or their daughters, the +surest way to predispose the whole family in my favour would be this +method of amiable but unsmiling contestation. + +Of course the inns are often dirty, and not only in their sleeping +accommodation. The reason is that, like Turks or Jews, their owners do +not see dirt (there is no word for dirt in the Hebrew language); they +think it odd when you draw their attention to it. I remember +complaining, in one of my fastidious moments, of a napkin, plainly not +my own, which had been laid at my seat. There was literally not a clean +spot left on its surface, and I insisted on a new one. I got it; but not +before hearing the proprietor mutter something about "the caprices of +pregnant women." . . . + +The view from these my new quarters at Rossano compensates for divers +other little drawbacks. Down a many-folded gorge of glowing red earth +decked with olives and cistus the eye wanders to the Ionian Sea shining +in deepest turquoise tints, and beautified by a glittering margin of +white sand. To my left, the water takes a noble sweep inland; there lies +the plain of Sybaris, traversed by the Crathis of old that has thrust a +long spit of fand into the waves. On this side the outlook is bounded by +the high range of Pollino and Dolcedorme, serrated peaks that are even +now (midsummer) displaying a few patches of snow. Clear-cut in the +morning light, these exquisite mountains evaporate, towards sunset, in +an amethystine haze. A restful prospect. + +But great was my amazement, on looking out of the window during the +night after my arrival, to observe the Polar star placed directly over +the Ionian Sea--the south, as I surely deemed it. A week has passed +since then, and in spite of the map I have not quite familiarized myself +with this spectacle, nor yet with that other one of the sun setting +apparently due east, over Monte Pollino. + +The glory of Rossano is the image of the Madonna Achiropita. +Bartholomaeus tells us, in his life of Saint Nilus, that in olden days +she was wont to appear, clothed in purple, and drive away with a divine +torch the Saracen invaders of this town. In more recent times, too, she +has often saved the citizens from locusts, cholera, and other calamitous +visitations. Unlike most of her kind, she was not painted by Saint Luke. +She is _acheiropoeta--_not painted by any human hands whatever, and in +so far resembles a certain old image of the Magna Mater, her prototype, +which was also of divine origin. It is generally supposed that this +picture is painted on wood. Not so, says Diehl; it is a fragment of a +fresco on stone. + +Hard by, in the clock-tower of the square, is a marble tablet erected to +the memory of the deputy Felice Cavalotti. We all remember Cavalotti, +the last--with Imbriani--of the republican giants, a blustering +rhetorician-journalist, annihilator of monarchs and popes; a fire-eating +duellist, who deserved his uncommon and unlovely fate. He provoked a +colleague to an encounter and, during a frenzied attack, received into +his open mouth the point of his adversary's sword, which sealed up for +ever that fountain of eloquence and vituperation. + +Cavalotti and the Virgin Achiropita--the new and the old. Really, with +such extreme ideals before his eyes, the burghers of Rossano must +sometimes wonder where righteousness lies. + +They call themselves Calabrians. _Noi siamo calabresi!_ they proudly +say, meaning that they are above suspicion of unfair dealing. As a +matter of fact, they are a muddled brood, and considerably given to +cheating when there is any prospect of success. You must watch the +peasants coming home at night from their field-work if you wish to see +the true Calabrian type--whiskered, short and wiry, and of dark +complexion. There is that indescribable mark of _race_ in these +countrymen; they are different in features and character from the +Italians; it is an ascetic, a Spanish type. Your Calabrian is strangely +scornful of luxury and even comfort; a creature of few but well-chosen +words, straightforward, indifferent to pain and suffering, and dwelling +by preference, when religiously minded, on the harsher aspects of his +faith. A note of unworldliness is discoverable in his outlook upon life. +Dealing with such men, one feels that they are well disposed not from +impulse, but from some dark sense of preordained obligation. Greek and +other strains have infused versatility and a more smiling exterior; but +the groundwork of the whole remains that old _homo ibericus_ of austere +gentlemanliness. + +Rossano was built by the Romans, says Procopius, and during Byzantine +days became a fortress of primary importance. An older settlement +probably lay by the seashore, and its harbour is marked as "good" so +late as the days of Edrisius. Like many of these old Calabrian ports, it +is now invaded by silt and sand, though a few ships still call there. +Wishful to learn something of the past glories of the town, I enquired +at the municipality for the public library, but was informed by the +supercilious and not over-polite secretary that this proud city +possesses no such institution. A certain priest, he added, would give me +all the desired information. + +Canonico Rizzo was a delightful old man, with snowy hair and candid blue +eyes. Nothing, it seemed, could have given him greater pleasure than my +appearance at that particular moment. He discoursed awhile, and sagely, +concerning England and English literature, and then we passed on, _via_ +Milton, to Calvin and the Puritan movement in Scotland; next, _via_ +Livingstone, to colonial enterprises in Africa; and finally, _via_ +Egypt, Abyssinia, and Prester John, to the early history of the eastern +churches. Byzantinism--Saint Nilus; that gave me the desired +opportunity, and I mentioned the object of my visit. + +"The history of Rossano? Well, well! The secretary of the municipality +does me too much honour. You must read the Book of Genesis and Hesiod +and Berosus and the rest of them. But stay! I have something of more +modern date, in which you will find these ancient authors conveniently +classified." + +From this book by de Rosis, printed in 1838, I gleaned two facts, +firstly, that the city of Rossano is now 3663 years old--quite a +respectable age, as towns go--and lastly, that in the year 1500 it had +its own academy of lettered men, who called themselves "I spensierati," +with the motto _Non alunt curai--_an echo, no doubt, of the Neapolitan +renaissance under Alfonso the Magnificent. The popes Urban VIII and +Benedict XIII belonged to this association of "thoughtless ones." The +work ends with a formidable list of local personages distinguished in +the past for their gentleness of birth and polite accomplishments. One +wonders how all these delicately nurtured creatures can have survived at +Rossano, if their sleeping accommodation---- + +You might live here some little time before realizing that this place, +which seems to slope gently downhill against a pleasing background of +wooded mountains, is capable of being strongly fortified. It lies, like +other inland Calabrian (and Etruscan) cities, on ground enclosed by +stream-beds, and one of these forms a deep gully above which Rossano +towers on a smooth and perpendicular precipice. The upper part of this +wall of rock is grey sandstone; the lower a bed of red granitic matter. +From this coloured stone, which crops up everywhere, the town may have +drawn its name of Rossano (rosso = red); not a very old settlement, +therefore; although certain patriotic philologers insist upon deriving +it from "rus sanum," healthy country. Its older names were Roscia, and +Ruscianum; it is not marked in Peutinger. Countless jackdaws and +kestrels nestle in this cliff, as well as clouds of swifts, both Alpine +and common. These swifts are the ornithological phenomenon of Rossano, +and I think the citizens have cause to be thankful for their existence; +to them I attribute the fact that there are so few flies, mosquitoes, +and other aerial plagues here. If only the amiable birds could be +induced to extend their attentions to the bedrooms as well! + +This shady glen at the back of the city, with its sparse tufts of +vegetation and monstrous blocks of deep red stone cloven into rifts and +ravines by the wild waters, has a charm of its own. There are undeniable +suggestions of Hell about the place. A pathway runs adown this vale of +Hinnom, and if you follow it upwards to the junction of the streams you +will reach a road that once more ascends to the town, past the old +church of Saint Mark, a most interesting building. It has five little +cupolas, but the interior, supported by eight columns, has been +whitewashed. The structure has now rightly been declared a "national +monument." It dates from the ninth or tenth century and, according to +Bertaux, has the same plan and the same dimensions as the famous +"Cattolica" at Stilo, which the artistic Lear, though he stayed some +time at that picturesque place, does not so much as mention. They say +that this chapel of Saint Mark was built by Euprassius, protos-padarius +of Calabria, and that in the days of Nilus it was dedicated to Saint +Anastasius. Here, at Rossano, we are once more _en plein Byzance._ + +Rossano was not only a political bulwark, the most formidable citadel of +this Byzantine province. It was a great intellectual centre, upon which +literature, theology and art converged. Among the many perverse +historical notions of which we are now ridding ourselves is this-that +Byzantinism in south Italy was a period of decay and torpid dreamings. +It needed, on the contrary, a resourceful activity to wipe out, as did +those colonists from the east, every trace of Roman culture and language +(Latin rule only revived at Rossano in the fifteenth century). There was +no lethargy in their social and political ambitions, in their military +achievements, which held the land against overwhelming numbers of +Saracens, Lombards and other intruders. And the life of those old monks +of Saint Basil, as we now know it, represented a veritable renaissance +of art and letters. + +Of the ten Basilean convents that grew up in the surroundings of Rossano +the most celebrated was that of S. M. del Patir. Together with the +others, it succeeded to a period of eremitism of solitary anchorites +whose dwellings honeycombed the warm slopes that confront the +Ionian.... + +The lives of some of these Greco-Calabrian hermits are valuable +documents. In the _Vitae Sanctorum Siculorum_ of O. Caietanus (1057) +the student will find a Latin translation of the biography of one of +them, Saint Elia Junior. He died in 903. It was written by a +contemporary monk, who tells us that the holy man performed many +miracles, among them that of walking over a river dryshod. And the +Bollandists _(Acta Sanctorum,_ 11th September) have reprinted the +biography of Saint Elia Spelaeotes-the cave-dweller, as composed in +Greek by a disciple. It is yet more interesting. He lived in a "honesta +spelunca" which he discovered in 864 by means of a flight of bats +issuing therefrom; he suffered persecutions from a woman, exactly after +the fashion of Joseph and Potiphar's wife; he grew to be 94 years old; +the Saracens vainly tried to burn his dead body, and the water in which +this corpse was subsequently washed was useful for curing another holy +man's toothache. Yet even these creatures were subject to gleams of +common sense. "Virtues," said this one, "are better than miracles." + +How are we to account for these rock-hermits and their inelegant habits? +How explain this poisoning of the sources of manly self-respect? + +Thus, I think: that under the influence of their creed they reverted +perforce to the more bestial traits of aboriginal humanity. They were +thrust back in their development. They became solitaries, animalesque +and shy--such as we may imagine our hairy progenitors to have been. +Hence their dirt and vermin, their horror of learning, their unkempt +hair, their ferocious independence, their distrust of sunshine and +ordered social life, their foul dieting, their dread of malign spirits, +their cave-dwelling propensities. All bestial characteristics! + +This atavistic movement, this retrogression towards primevalism, must +have possessed a certain charm, for it attracted vast multitudes; it was +only hemmed, at last, by a physical obstacle. + +The supply of caves ran out. + +Not till then were its votaries forced to congregate in those unhealthy +clusters which afterwards grew to be monasteries. Where many of them +were gathered together under one roof there imposed itself a certain +rudimentary discipline and subordination; yet they preserved as much as +they could of their savage traits, cave-like cells and hatred of +cleanliness, terror of demons, matted beards. + +Gradually the social habits of mundane fellow-creatures insinuated +themselves into these hives of squalor and idleness. The inmates began +to wash and to shave; they acquired property, they tilled the ground, +they learnt to read and write, and finally became connaisseurs of books +and pictures and wine and women. They were pleased to forget that the +eunuch and the beggar are the true Christian or Buddhist. In other +words, the allurements of rational life grew too strong for their +convictions; they became reasonable beings in spite of their creed. This +is how coenobitism grew out of eremitism not only in Calabria, but in +every part of the world which has been afflicted with these +eccentrics. Go to Mount Athos, if you wish to see specimens of all the +different stages conveniently arranged upon a small area. . . . + +This convent of Patir exercised a great local influence as early as the +tenth century; then, towards the end of the eleventh, it was completely +rebuilt without and reorganized within. The church underwent a thorough +restoration in 1672. But it was shattered, together with the rest of the +edifice, by the earthquake of 1836 which, Madonna Achiropita +notwithstanding, levelled to the ground one-half of the fifteen thousand +houses then standing at Rossano. + +These monastic establishments, as a general rule, were occupied later on +by the Benedictines, who ousted the Basileans and were supplanted, in +their turn, by popular orders of later days like the Theatines. Those +that are conveniently situated have now been turned into post offices, +municipalities, and other public buildings--such has been the common +procedure. But many of them, like this of Patir, are too decayed and +remote from the life of man. Fiore, who wrote in 1691, counts up 94 +dilapidated Basilean monasteries in Calabria out of a former total of +about two hundred; Patir and thirteen others he mentions as having, in +his day, their old rites still subsisting. Batiffol has recently gone +into the subject with his usual thoroughness. + +Nothing is uglier than a modern ruin, and the place would assuredly not +be worth the three hours' ride from Rossano were it not for the church, +which has been repaired, and for the wondrous view to be obtained from +its site. The journey, too, is charming, both by the ordinary track that +descends from Rossano and skirts the foot of the hills through olives +and pebbly stream-beds, ascending, finally, across an odorous tangle of +cistus, rosemary and myrtle to the platform on which the convent +stands--or by the alternative and longer route which I took on the +homeward way, and which follows the old water conduit built by the monks +into a forest of enormous chestnuts, oaks, hollies and Calabrian pines, +emerging out of an ocean of glittering bracken. + +I was pursued into the church of Patir by a bevy of country wenches who +frequented this region for purposes of haymaking. There is a miraculous +crucifix in this sanctuary, hidden behind a veil which, with infinite +ceremony, these females withdrew for my edification. There it was, sure +enough; but what, I wondered, would happen from the presence of these +impure creatures in such a place? Things have changed considerably since +the days of old, for such was the contamination to be expected from the +mere presence of a woman within these walls that even the Mother of God, +while visiting Saint Nilus--the builder, not the great saint--at work +upon the foundations, often conversed with him, but never ventured to +step within the area of the building itself. And later on it was a +well-authenticated phenomenon recorded by Beltrano and others, that if a +female entered the church, the heavens immediately became cloudy and +sent down thunders and lightnings and such-like signs of celestial +disapproval, which never ceased until the offending monster had left the +premises. + +From this ancient monastery comes, I fancy, the Achiropita image. +Montorio will tell you all about it; he learnt its history in June 1712 +from the local archbishop, who had extracted his information out of the +episcopal archives. Concerning another of these wonder-working +idols--that of S. M. del Patirion--you may read in the ponderous tomes +of Ughelli. + +Whether the celebrated Purple Codex of Rossano ever formed part of the +library of Patirion has not yet been determined. This wonderful +parchment--now preserved at Rossano--is mentioned for the first time by +Cesare Malpica, who wrote some interesting things about the Albanian and +Greek colonies in Calabria, but it was only discovered, in the right +sense of that word, in March 1879 by Gebhardt and Harnack. They +illustrated it in their _Evangeliorum Codex Graecus._ Haseloff also +described it in 1898 _(Codex Purpureus Rossanensis),_ and pointed out +that its iconographical value consists in the fact that it is the only +Greek Testament MS. containing pictures of the life of Christ before the +eighth-ninth century. These pictures are indeed marvellous--more +marvellous than beautiful, like so many Byzantine productions; their +value is such that the parchment has now been declared a "national +monument." It is sternly guarded, and if it is moved out of Rossano--as +happened lately when it was exhibited at Grottaferrata--it travels in +the company of armed carbineers. + +Still pursued by the flock of women, I took to examining the floor of +this church, which contains tesselated marble pavements depicting +centaurs, unicorns, lions, stags, and other beasts. But my contemplation +of these choice relics was disturbed by irrelevant remarks on the part +of the worldly females, who discovered in the head of the stag some +subtle peculiarity that stirred their sense of humour. + +"Look!" said one of them to her neighbour. "He has horns. Just like your +Pasquale." + +"Pasquale indeed! And how about Antonio?" + +I enquired whether they knew what kind of animals these were. + +"Beasts of the ancients. Beasts that nobody knows. Beasts that have +horns--like certain Christians. . . ." + +From the terrace of green sward that fronts this ruined monastery you +can see the little town of Corigliano, whose coquettish white houses lie +in a fold of the hills. Corigliano--[Greek: xorion __hellaion] (land of +olives): the derivation, if not correct, is at least appropriate, for it +lies embowered in a forest of these trees. A gay place it was, in +Bourbon times, with a ducal ruler of its own. Here, they say, the +remnants of the Sybarites took refuge after the destruction of their +city whose desolate plain lies at our feet, backed by the noble range of +Dolcedorme. Swinburne, like a sensible man, takes the Sybarites under +his protection; he defends their artificially shaded streets and those +other signs of voluptuousness which, to judge by certain modern +researches, seem to have been chiefly contrived for combating the demon +of malaria. Earthly welfare, the cult of material health and ease--such +was _their_ ideal. + +In sharpest contrast to these strivings stands the aim of those old +monks who scorned the body as a mere encumbrance, seeking spiritual +enlightenment and things not of this earth. + +And now, Sybarites and Basileans--alike in ruins! + +A man of to-day, asked which of the two civilizations he would wish +restored, would not hesitate long in deciding for the Hellenic one. +Readers of Lenormant will call to mind his glowing pages on the wonders +that might be found buried on the site of Sybaris. His plan of +excavation sounds feasible enough. But how remote it becomes, when one +remembers the case of Herculaneum! Here, to our certain knowledge, many +miracles of antique art and literature lie within a few feet of our +reach; yet nothing is done. These hidden monuments, which are the +heritage of all humanity, are withheld from our eyes by the +dog-in-the-manger policy of a country which, even without foreign +assistance, could easily accomplish the work, were it to employ thereon +only half the sum now spent in feeding, clothing and supervising a horde +of criminals, every one of whom ought to be hanged ten times over. +Meanwhile other nations are forbidden to co-operate; the fair-minded +German proposals were scornfully rejected; later on, those of Sir +Charles Waldstein. + +"What!" says the _Giornale d' Italia_, "are we to have international +excavation-committees thrust upon us? Are we to be treated like the Turks?" + +That, gentle sirs, is precisely the state of the case. + +The object of such committees is to do for the good of mankind what a +single nation is powerless or unwilling to do. Your behaviour at +Herculaneum is identical with that of the Turks at Nineveh. The system +adopted should likewise be the same. + +I shall never see that consummation. + +But I shall not forget a certain article in an American paper--"The New +York Times," I fancy--which gave me fresh food for thought, here at +Patirion, in the sight of that old Hellenic colony, and with the light +chatter of those women still ringing in my ears. Its writer, with whom +not all of us will agree, declared that first in importance of all the +antiquities buried in Italian soil come the lost poems of Sappho. The +lost poems of Sappho--a singular choice! In corroboration whereof he +quoted the extravagant praise of J. A. Symonds upon that amiable and +ambiguous young person. And he might have added Algernon Swinburne, who +calls her "the greatest poet who ever was at all." + +Sappho and these two Victorians, I said to myself. . . . Why just these +two? How keen is the cry of elective affinity athwart the ages! _The +soul,_ says Plato, _divines that which it seeks, and traces obscurely +the footsteps of its obscure desire._ + +The footsteps of its obscure desire---- + +So one stumbles, inadvertently, upon problems of the day concerning +which our sages profess to know nothing. And yet I do perceive a certain +Writing upon the Wall setting forth, in clearest language, that 1 + 1 = +3; a legend which it behoves them not to expunge, but to expound. For it +refuses to be expunged; and we do not need a German lady to tell us how +much the "synthetic" sex, the hornless but not brainless sex, has done +for the life of the spirit while those other two were reclaiming the +waste places of earth, and procreating, and fighting--as befits their +horned anatomy. + + + + +XVI + +REPOSING AT CASTROVILLARI + + +I remember asking my friend the Roman deputy of whom I have already +spoken, and whom I regard as a fountain of wisdom on matters Italian, +how it came about that the railway stations in his country were apt to +be so far distant from the towns they serve. Rocca Bernarda, I was +saying, lies 33 kilometres from its station; and even some of the +largest towns in the kingdom are inconveniently and unnecessarily remote +from the line. + +"True," he replied. "Very true! Inconveniently . . . but perhaps not +unnecessarily. . . ." He nodded his head, as he often does, when +revolving some deep problem in his mind. + +"Well, sir?" + +"Inasmuch as everything has its reasons, be they geographical, +sociological, or otherwise . . ." and he mused again. "Let me tell you +what I think as regards our respective English and Italian points of +view," he said at last. "And to begin with--a few generalities! We may +hold that success in modern life consists in correctly appreciating the +principles which underlie our experiences--in what may be called the +scientific attitude towards things in general. Now, do the English +cultivate this attitude? Not sufficiently. They are in the stage of +those mediaeval scholars who contentedly alleged separate primary causes +for each phenomenon, instead of seeking, by the investigation of +secondary ones, for the inevitable interdependence of the whole. In +other words, they do not subordinate facts; they co-ordinate them. Your +politicians and all your public men are guided by impulse--by +expediency, as they prefer to call it; they are empirical; they never +attempt to codify their conduct; they despise it as theorizing. What +happens? This old-fashioned hand-to-mouth system of theirs invariably +breaks down here and there. And then f Then they trust to some divine +interposition, some accident, to put things to rights again. The success +of the English is largely built up on such accidents--on the mistakes of +other people. Provi dence has favoured them so far, on the whole; but +one day it may leave them in the lurch, as it did the anti-scientific +Russians in their war with the Japanese. One day other people will +forget to make these pleasant mistakes." + +He paused, and I forbore to interrupt his eloquence. + +"To come now to the practical application--to this particular instance. +Tell me, does your English system testify to any constructive +forethought? In London, I am assured, the railway companies have built +stations at enormous expense in the very heart of the town. What will be +the consequence of this hand-to-mouth policy? This, that in fifty years +such structures will have become obsolete--stranded in slums at the back +of new quarters yet undreamed of. New depots will have to be built. +Whereas in Italy the now distant city will in fifty years have grown to +reach its station and, in another half-century, will have encircled it. +Thanks to our sagacity, the station will then be in its proper place, in +the centre of the town. Our progeny will be grateful; and that again, +you will admit, is a worthy aim for our politicians. Besides, what would +happen to our coachmen if nobody needed their services on arriving at +his destination? The poor men must not be allowed to starve! Cold head +and warm heart, you know; humanitarian considerations cannot be thrust +aside by a community that prides itself on being truly civilized. I +trust I have made myself intelligible?" + +"You always do. But why should I incommode myself to please your +progeny, or even my own? And I don't like the kind of warm heart that +subordinates my concerns to those of a cab-driver. You don't altogether +convince me, dear sir." + +"To speak frankly, I sometimes don't convince myself. My own country +station, for example, is curiously remote from the city, and it is +annoying on wintry nights to drive through six miles of level mud when +you are anxious to reach home and dinner; so much so that, in my +egoistical moments, I would have been glad if our administration had +adopted the more specious British method. But come now! You cannot raise +that objection against the terminus at Rome." + +"Not that one. But I can raise two others. The platforms are +inconveniently arranged, and a traveller will often find it impossible +to wash his hands and face there; as to hot water----" + +"Granting a certain deplorable disposition of the lines--why on earth, +pray, should a man cleanse himself at the station when there are +countless hotels and lodging-houses in the city? O you English originals!" + +"And supposing," I urged, "he is in a hurry to catch another train going +south, to Naples or Palermo?" + +"There I have you, my illustrious friend! _Nobody travels south of Rome."_ + +Nobody travels south of Rome. . . . + +Often have I thought upon those words. + +This conversation was forcibly recalled to my mind by the fact that it +took our creaky old diligence two and a half hours (one of the horses +had been bought the day before, for six pounds) to drive from the +station of Castrovillari to the entrance of the town, where we were +delayed another twenty minutes, while the octroi zealots searched +through every bag and parcel on the post-waggon. + +Many people have said bad things about this place. But my once +unpleasant impressions of it have been effaced by my reception at its +new and decent little hostelry. What a change after the sordid filth of +Rossano! Castrovillari, to be sure, has no background of hoary eld to +atone for such deficiencies. It was only built the other day, by the +Normans; or by the Romans, who called it Aprustum; or possibly by the +Greeks, who founded their Abystron on this particular site for the same +reasons that commended it in yet earlier times to certain bronze and +stone age primitives, whose weapons you may study in the British Museum +and elsewhere. [Footnote: Even so Taranto, Cumae, Paestum, Metapontum, +Monteleone and other southern towns were founded by the ancients on the +site of prehistoric stations.] + +But what are the stone ages compared with immortal and immutable +Rossano? An ecclesiastical writer has proved that Calabria was inhabited +before the Noachian flood; and Rossano, we may be sure, was one of the +favourite haunts of the antediluvians. None the less, it is good to rest +in a clean bed, for a change; and to feed off a clean plate. + +We are in the south. One sees it in sundry small ways--in the behaviour +of the cats, for instance. . . . + +The Tarentines, they say, imported the cat into Europe. If those of +south Italy still resemble their old Nubian ancestors, the beast would +assuredly not have been worth the trouble of acclimatizing. On entering +these regions, one of the first things that strikes me is the difference +between the appearance of cats and dogs hereabouts, and in England or +any northern country; and the difference in their temperaments. Our dogs +are alert in their movements and of wideawake features; here they are +arowsy and degraded mongrels, with expressionless eyes. Our cats are +sleek and slumberous; here they prowl about haggard, shifty and +careworn, their fur in patches and their ears a-tremble from nervous +anxiety. That domestic animals such as these should be fed at home does +not commend itself to the common people; they must forage for their food +abroad. Dogs eat offal, while the others hunt for lizards in the fields. +A lizard diet is supposed to reduce their weight (it would certainly +reduce mine); but I suspect that southern cats are emaciated not only +from this cause, but from systematic starvation. Many a kitten is born +that never tastes a drop of cow's milk from the cradle to the grave, and +little enough of its own mother's. + +To say that our English _zoophilomania--_our cult of lap-dogs--smacks of +degeneracy does not mean that I sympathize with the ill-treatment of +beasts which annoys many visitors to these parts and has been attributed +to "Saracenic" influences. Wrongly, of course; one might as well +attribute it to the old Greeks. [Footnote: Whose attitude towards +animals, by the way, was as far removed from callousness as from +sentimentalism. We know how those Hellenic oxen fared who had laboured +to draw up heavy blocks for the building of a temple--how, on the +completion of their task, they were led into green fields, there to +pasture unmolested for the rest of their lives. We know that the Greeks +were appreciative of the graces and virtues of canine nature--is not the +Homeric Argo still the finest dog-type in literature? Yet to them the +dog, even he of the tender Anthology, remained what he is: a tamed +beast. The Greeks, sitting at dinner, resented the insolence of a +creature that, watching every morsel as it disappeared into the mouth of +its master, plainly discovered by its physiognomy the desire, the +presumed right, to devour what he considered fit only for himself. +Whence that profound word [Greek: kunopes]--dog-eyed, shameless. In +contrast to this sanity, observe what an Englishman can read into a +dog's eye: + + That liquid, melancholy eye, + From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs + Seemed surging the Virgilian cry-- + The sense of tears in mortal things. . . . + +[That is how Matthew Arnold interprets the feelings of Fido, watching his +master at work upon a tender beefsteak. . . .] + +Poor Saracens! They are a sort of whipping-boy, all over the country. +The chief sinner in this respect is the Vatican, which has authorized +cruelty to animals by its official teaching. When Lord Odo-Russell +enquired of the Pope regarding the foundation of a society for the +prevention of cruelty to animals in Italy, the papal answer was: "Such +an association _could not be sanctioned_ by the Holy See, being founded +on a theological error, to wit, that Christians owed any duties to +animals." This language has the inestimable and rather unusual merit of +being perspicuous. Nevertheless, Ouida's flaming letters to "The Times" +inaugurated an era of truer humanity. . . . + +And the lateness of the dining-hour--another symptom of the south. It +was eleven o'clock when I sat down to dinner on the night of my arrival, +and habitues of the hotel, engineers and so forth, were still dropping +in for their evening meal. Appetite comes more slowly than ever, now +that the heats have begun. + +They have begun in earnest. The swoon of summer is upon the land, the +grass is cut, cicadas are chirping overhead. Despite its height of a +thousand feet, Castrovillari must be blazing in August, surrounded as it +is by parched fields and an amphitheatre of bare limestone hills that +exhale the sunny beams. You may stroll about these fields observing the +construction of the line which is to pass through Cassano, a pretty +place, famous for its wine and mineral springs; or studying the habits +of the gigantic grasshoppers that hang in clusters to the dried thistles +and start off, when scared, with the noise of a covey of partridges; or +watching how the cows are shod, at this season, to thresh the corn. Old +authors are unanimous in declaring that the town was embowered in oak +forests; as late as 1844 it was lamented that this "ancient barbarous +custom" of cutting them down had not yet been discontinued. The +mischief is now done, and it would be interesting to know the difference +between the present summer temperature and that of olden days. + +The manna ash used to be cultivated in these parts. I cannot tell +whether its purgative secretion is still in favour. The confusion +between this stuff and the biblical manna gave rise to the legends about +Calabria where "manna droppeth as dew from Heaven." Sandys says it was +prepared out of the mulberry. He copied assiduously, did old Sandys, and +yet found room for some original blunders of his own. R. Pococke, by the +way, is one of those who were dissatisfied with Castrovillari. He found +no accommodation save an empty house. "A poor town." . . . + +Driving through modern Castrovillari one might think the place flat and +undeserving of the name of _castrum._ But the old town is otherwise. It +occupies a proud eminence--the head of a promontory which overlooks the +junction of two streams; the newer settlement stands on the more level +ground at its back. This acropolis, once thronged with folk but now +well-nigh deserted, has all the macabre fascination of decay. A mildewy +spirit haunts those tortuous and uneven roadways; plaster drops unheeded +from the walls; the wild fig thrusts luxuriant arms through the windows +of palaces whose balconies are rusted and painted loggias crumbling to +earth ... a mournful and malarious agglomeration of ruins. + +There is a castle, of course. It was built, or rebuilt, by the +Aragonese, with four corner towers, one of which became infamous for a +scene that rivals the horrors of the Black Hole of Calcutta. Numbers of +confined brigands, uncared-for, perished miserably of starvation within +its walls. Says the historian Botta: + +"The abominable taint prevented the guards from approaching; the dead +bodies were not carried away. The pestilence increased; in pain and +exhaustion, the dying fell shuddering on the dead; the hale on the +dying; all tearing themselves like dogs with teeth and nails. The tower +of Castrovillari became a foul hole of corruption, and the stench was +spread abroad for a long season." + +This castle is now used as a place of confinement. Sentries warned me at +one point not to approach too near the walls; it was "forbidden." I had +no particular desire to disobey this injunction. Judging by the number +of rats that swarm about the place, it is not exactly a model prison. + +One of the streets in this dilapidated stronghold bears to this day the +inscription "Giudea," or Jewry. Southern Italy was well stocked with +those Hebrews concerning whom Mr. H. M. Adler has sagely discoursed. +They lived in separate districts, and seem to have borne a good +reputation. Those of Castrovillari, on being ejected by Ferdinand the +Catholic in 1511, obligingly made a donation of their school to the +town. But they returned anon, and claimed it again. Persecuted as they +were, they never suffered the martyrdom of the ill-starred Waldensian +colonies in Calabria. + +The houses of this Jewry overlook the Coscile river, the Sybaris of old, +and from a spot in the quarter a steep path descends to its banks. Here +you will find yourself in another climate, cool and moist. The livid +waters tumble gleefully towards the plain, amid penurious plots of beans +and tomatoes, and a fierce tangle of vegetation wherever the hand of man +has not made clearings. Then, mounting aloft once more, you will do well +to visit the far-famed chapel that sits at the apex of the promontory, +Santa Maria del Castello. There is a little platform where you may +repose and enjoy the view, as I have done for some evenings +past--letting the eye roam up-country towards Dolcedorme and its sister +peaks, and westwards over the undulating Sila lands whose highest point, +Botte Donato, is unmistakable even at this distance of forty miles, from +its peculiar shape. + +The Madonna picture preserved within the sanctuary has performed so many +miracles in ages past that I despair of giving any account of them. It +is high time, none the less, for a new sign from Heaven. Shattered by +earthquakes, the chapel is in a dis-ruptured and even menacing +condition. Will some returned emigrant from America come forward with +the necessary funds? + +That would be a miracle, too, in its way. But gone, for the present, are +the ages of Faith--the days when the peevishly-protestant J. H. Bartels +sojourned here and groaned as he counted up the seven monasteries of +Castrovillari (there used to be nearly twice that number), and viewed +the 130 priests, "fat-paunched rascals, loafing about the streets and +doorways." . . . + +From my window in the hotel I espy a small patch of snow on the hills. I +know the place; it is the so-called "Montagna del Principe" past which +the track winds into the Pollino regions. Thither I am bound; but so +complicated is life that even for a short three days' ramble among those +forests a certain amount of food and clothing must be provided--a mule +is plainly required. There seem to be none of these beasts available at +Castrovillari. + +"To Morano!" they tell me. "It is nearer the mountain, and there you +will find mules plentiful as blackberries. To Morano!" + +Morano lies a few miles higher up the valley on the great military road +to Lagonegro, which was built by Murat and cuts through the interior of +Basilicata, rising at Campo Tenese to a height of noo metres. They are +now running a public motor service along this beautiful stretch of 52 +kilometres, at the cheap rate of a sou per kilometre. + +_En route!_ + + +POSTSCRIPT.--Another symptom of the south: + +Once you have reached the latitude of Naples, the word _grazie_ (thank +you) vanishes from the vocabulary of all save the most cultured. But to +conclude therefrom that one is among a thankless race is not altogether +the right inference. They have a wholly different conception of the +affair. Our septentrional "thanks" is a complicated product in which +gratefulness for things received and for things to come are +unconsciously balanced; while their point of view differs in nothing +from that of the beau-ideal of Greek courtesy, of Achilles, whose mother +procured for him a suit of divine armour from Hephaistos, which he +received without a word of acknowledgment either for her or for the god +who had been put to some little trouble in the matter. A thing given +they regard as a thing found, a hermaion, a happy hit in the lottery of +life; the giver is the blind instrument of Fortune. This chill attitude +repels us; and our effusive expressions of thankfulness astonish these +people and the Orientals. + +A further difference is that the actual gift is viewed quite +extrinsically, intellectually, either in regard to what it would fetch +if bartered or sold, or, if to be kept, as to how far its possession may +raise the recipient in the eyes of other men. This is purely Homeric, +once more--Homeric or primordial, if you prefer. Odysseus told his kind +host Alkinoos, whom he was never to see again, that he would be glad to +receive farewell presents from him--to cherish as a friendly memory? +No, but "because they would make him look a finer fellow when he got +home." The idea of a keepsake, of an emotional value attaching to some +trifle, is a northern one. Here life is give and take, and lucky he who +takes more than he gives; it is what Professor Mahaffy calls the +"ingrained selfishness of the Greek character." Speaking of all below +the upper classes, I should say that disinterested benevolence is apt to +surpass their comprehension, a good-natured person being regarded as +weak in the head. + +Has this man, then, no family, that he should benefit strangers? Or is +he one of nature's unfortunates--soft-witted? Thus they argue. They will +do acts of spontaneous kindness towards their family, far oftener than +is customary with us. But outside that narrow sphere, _interesse_ +(Odyssean self-advantage) is the mainspring of their actions. Whence +their smooth and glozing manners towards the stranger, and those +protestations of undying affection which beguile the unwary--they wish +to be forever in your good graces, for sooner or later you may be of +use; and if perchance you do content them, they will marvel +(philosophically) at your grotesque generosity, your lack of +discrimination and restraint. Such _malizia_ (cleverness) is none the +more respectable for being childishly transparent. The profound and +unscrupulous northerner quickly familiarizes himself with its technique, +and turns it to his own profit. Lowering his moral notions, he soon--so +one of them expressed it to me--"walks round them without getting off +his chair" and, on the strength of his undeserved reputation for +simplicity and fair dealing, keeps them dangling a lifetime in a tremble +of obsequious amiability, cheered on by the hope of ultimately +over-reaching him. Idle dream, where a pliant and sanguine southerner is +pitted against the unswerving Saxon or Teuton! This accounts for the +success of foreign trading houses in the south. Business is business, +and the devil take the hindmost! By all means; but they who are not +rooted to the spot by commercial exigencies nor ready to adopt debased +standards of conduct will find that a prolonged residence in a centre +like Naples--the daily attrition of its ape-and-tiger elements--sullies +their homely candour and self-respect. + +For a tigerish flavour does exist in most of these southern towns. + +Camorra, the law of intimidation, rules the city. This is what Stendhal +meant when, speaking of the "simple and inoffensive" personages in the +_ Vicar of Wakefield,_ he remarked that "in the sombre Italy, a simple +and inoffensive creature would be quickly destroyed." It is not easy to +be inoffensive and yet respected in a land of teeth and claws, where a +man is reverenced in proportion as he can browbeat his fellows. So much +ferocity tinctures civic life, that had they not dwelt in towns while we +were still shivering in bogs, one would deem them not yet ripe for +herding together in large numbers; one would say that post-patriarchal +conditions evoked the worst qualities of the race. And we must revise +our conceptions of fat and lean men; we must pity Cassius, and dread +Falstaff. + +"What has happened"--you ask some enormous individual--"to your +adversary at law?" + +"To which one of them?" + +"Oh, Signor M----, the timber merchant." + +"_L'abbiamo mangiato!_" (I have eaten him.) + +Beware of the fat Neapolitan. He is fat from prosperity, from, dining +off his leaner brothers. + +Which reminds me of a supremely important subject, eating. + +The feeding here is saner than ours with its all-pervading animal grease +(even a boiled egg tastes of mutton fat in England), its stock-pot, +suet, and those other inventions of the devil whose awful effects we +only survive because we are continually counteracting or eliminating +them by the help of (1) pills, (2) athletics, and (3) alcohol. Saner as +regards material, but hopelessly irrational in method. Your ordinary +employe begins his day with a thimbleful of black coffee, nothing more. +What work shall be got out of him, under such anti-hygienic conditions? +Of course it takes ten men to do the work of one; and of course all ten +of them are sulky and irritable throughout the morning, thinking only of +their luncheon. Then indeed--then they make up for lost time; those few +favoured ones, at least, who can afford it. + +I once watched a young fellow, a clerk of some kind, in a restaurant at +midday. He began by informing the waiter that he had no appetite that +morning--_sangue di Dio!_ no appetite whatever; but at last allowed +himself to be persuaded into consuming a _hors d' oeuvres_ of anchovies +and olives. Then he was induced to try the maccheroni, because they were +"particularly good that morning"; he ate, or rather drank, an immense +plateful. After that came some slices of meat and a dish of green stuff +sufficient to satisfy a starving bullock. A little fish? asked the +waiter. Well, perhaps yes, just for form's sake--two fried mullets and +some nondescript fragments. Next, he devoured a couple of raw eggs "on +account of his miserably weak stomach," a bowl of salad and a goodly +lump of fresh cheese. Not without a secret feeling of envy I left him at +work upon his dessert, of which he had already consumed some six +peaches. Add to this (quite an ordinary repast) half a bottle of heavy +wine, a cup of black coffee and three glasses of water--what work shall +be got out of a man after such a boa-constrictor collation? He is as +exasperated and prone to take offence as in the morning--this time from +another cause. . . . + +That is why so many of them suffer from chronic troubles of the +digestive organs. The head of a hospital at Naples tells me that stomach +diseases are more prevalent there than in any other part of Europe, and +the stomach, whatever sentimentalists may say to the contrary, being the +true seat of the emotions, it follows that a judicious system of dieting +might work wonders upon their development. Nearly all Mediterranean +races have been misfed from early days; that is why they are so small. I +would undertake to raise the Italian standard of height by several +inches, if I had control of their nutrition for a few centuries. I would +undertake to alter their whole outlook upon life, to convert them from +utilitarians into romantics--were such a change desirable. For if +utilitarianism be the shadow of starvation, romance is nothing but the +vapour of repletion. + +And yet men still talk of race-characteristics as of something fixed and +immutable! The Jews, so long as they starved in Palestine, were the most +acrimonious bigots on earth. Now that they live and feed sensibly, they +have learnt to see things in their true perspective--they have become +rationalists. Their less fortunate fellow-Semites, the Arabs, have +continued to starve and to swear by the Koran--empty in body and empty +in mind. No poise or balance is possible to those who live in uneasy +conditions. The wisest of them can only attain to stoicism--a dumb +protest against the environment. There are no stoics among well-fed +people. The Romans made that discovery for themselves, when they +abandoned the cheese-paring habits of the Republic. + +In short, it seems to me that virtues and vices which cannot be +expressed in physiological terms are not worth talking about; that when +a morality refuses to derive its sanction from the laws which govern our +body, it loses the right to exist. This being so, what is the most +conspicuous native vice? + +Envy, without a doubt. + +Out of envy they pine away and die; out of envy they kill one another. +To produce a more placid race, [Footnote: By placid I do not mean +peace-loving and pitiful in the Christian sense. That doctrine of loving +and forgiving one's enemies is based on sheer funk; our pity for others +is dangerously akin to self-pity, most odious of vices. Catholic +teaching--in practice, if not in theory---glides artfully over the +desirability of these imported freak-virtues, knowing that they cannot +appeal to a masculine stock. By placid I mean steady, self-contained.] +to dilute envious thoughts and the acts to which they lead, is at bottom +a question of nutrition. One would like to know for how much black +brooding and for how many revengeful deeds that morning thimbleful of +black coffee is responsible. + +The very faces one sees in the streets would change. Envy is reflected +in all too many of those of the middle classes, while the poorest +citizens are often haggard and distraught from sheer hunger--hunger +which has not had time to be commuted into moral poison; college-taught +men, in responsible positions, being forced to live on salaries which a +London lift-boy would disdain. When that other local feature, that +respect for honourable poverty--the reverse of what we see in England +where, since the days of the arch-snob Pope, a slender income has grown +to be considered a subject of reproach. + +And yet another symptom of the south---- + +Enough! The clock points to 6.20; it is time for an evening walk--my +final one--to the terrace of S. M. del Castello. + + + + +XVII + +OLD MORANO + + +This Morano is a very ancient city; Tufarelli, writing in 1598, proves +that it was then exactly 3349 years old. Oddly enough, therefore, its +foundation almost coincides with that of Rossano. . . . + +There may be mules at Morano; indeed, there are. But they are illusive +beasts: phantom-mules. Despite the assistance of the captain of the +carbineers, the local innkeeper, the communal policeman, the secretary +of the municipality, an amiable canon of the church and several +non-official residents, I vainly endeavoured, for three days, to procure +one--flitting about, meanwhile, between this place and Castrovillari. +For Morano, notwithstanding its size (they say it is larger than the +other town) offers no accommodation or food in the septentrional sense +of those terms. + +Its situation, as you approach from Castrovillari, is striking. The +white houses stream in a cataract down one side of a steep conical hill +that dominates the landscape--on the summit sits the inevitable castle, +blue sky peering through its battered windows. But the interior is not +at all in keeping with this imposing aspect. Morano, so far as I was +able to explore it, is a labyrinth of sombre, tortuous and fetid alleys, +whexe black pigs wallow amid heaps 'of miscellaneous and malodorous +filth--in short, the town exemplifies that particular idea of civic +liberty which consists in everybody being free to throw their own +private refuse into the public street and leave it there, from +generation to generation. What says Lombroso? "The street-cleaning is +entrusted, in many towns, to the rains of heaven and, in their absence, +to the voracity of the pigs." None the less, while waiting for mules +that never came, I took to patrolling those alleys, at first out of +sheer boredom, but soon impelled by that subtle fascination which +emanates from the _ne plus ultra_ of anything--even of grotesque +dirtiness. On the second day, however, a case of cholera was announced, +which chilled my ardour for further investigations. It was on that +account that I failed to inspect what was afterwards described to me as +the chief marvel of the place--a carved wooden altar-piece in a certain +church. + +"It is prodigious and _antichissimo,"_ said an obliging citizen to +whom I applied for information. "There is nothing like it on earth, and +I have been six times to America, sir. The artist--a real artist, mind +you, not a common professor--spent his whole life in carving it. It was +for the church, you see, and he wanted to show what he could do in the +way of a masterpiece. Then, when it was finished and in its place, the +priests refused to pay for it. It was made not for them, they said, but +for the glory of God; the man's reward was sufficient. And besides, he +could have remission of sins for the rest of his life. He said he did +not care about remission of sins; he wanted money--money! But he got +nothing. Whereupon he began to brood and to grow yellow. Money--money! +That was all he ever said. And at last he became quite green and died. +After that, his son took up the quarrel, but he got as little out of the +priests as the father. It was fixed in the church, you understand, and +he could not take it away. He climbed through the window one night and +tried to burn it--the marks are there to this day--but they were too +sharp for him. And he took the business so much to heart that he also +soon died quite young! And quite green--like his father." + +The most characteristic item in the above history is that about growing +green. People are apt to put on this colour in the south from +disappointment or from envy. They have a proverb which runs "sfoga o +schiatta"--relieve yourself or burst; our vaunted ideal of +self-restraint, of dominating the reflexes, being thought not only +fanciful but injurious to health. Therefore, if relief is thwarted, +they either brood themselves into a green melancholy, or succumb to a +sudden "colpo di sangue," like a young woman of my acquaintance who, +considering herself beaten in a dispute with a tram-conductor about a +penny, forthwith had a "colpo di sangue," and was dead in a few hours. A +primeval assertion of the ego . . . + +Unable to perambulate the streets of Morano, I climbed to the ruined +fortress along the verdant slope at its back, and enjoyed a fair view +down the fertile valley, irrigated by streamlets and planted with +many-hued patches of culture, with mulberries, pomegranates and poplars. +Some boys were up here, engaged in fishing--fishing for young kestrels +in their nest above a shattered gateway. The tackle consisted of a rod +with a bent piece of wire fixed to one end, and it seemed to me a pretty +unpromising form of sport. But suddenly, amid wild vociferations, they +hooked one, and carried it off in triumph to supper. The mother bird, +meanwhile, sailed restlessly about the aether watching every movement, +as I could see by my glasses; at times she drifted quite near, then +swerved again and hovered, with vibrating pinions, directly overhead. It +was clear that she could not tear herself away from the scene, and +hardly had the marauders departed, when she alighted on the wall and +began to inspect what was left of her dwelling. It was probably rather +untidy. I felt sorry for her; yet such harebrained imprudence cannot go +unpunished. With so many hundred crannies in this old castle, why choose +one which any boy can reach with a stick? She will know better next season. + +Then an old shepherd scrambled up, and sat on the stone beside me. He +was short-sighted, asthmatic, and unable to work; the doctor had +recommended an evening walk up to the castle. We conversed awhile, and +he extracted a carnation out of his waistcoat pocket--unusual receptacle +for flowers--which he presented to me. I touched upon the all-absorbing +topic of mules. + +"Mules are very busy animals in Morano," he explained. _"Animali +occupatissimi."_ However, he promised to exert himself on my behalf; he +knew a man with a mule--two mules--he would send him round, if possible. + +Quite a feature in the landscape of Morano is the costume of the women, +with their home-dyed red skirts and ribbons of the same hue plaited into +their hair. It is a beautiful and reposeful shade of red, between +Pompeian and brick-colour, and the tint very closely resembles that of +the cloth worn by the beduin (married) women of Tunisia. Maybe it was +introduced by the Saracens. And it is they, I imagine, who imported that +love of red peppers (a favourite dish with most Orientals) which is +peculiar to these parts, where they eat them voraciously in every form, +particularly in that of red sausages seasoned with these fiery condiments. + +The whole country is full of Saracen memories. The name of Morano, they +say, is derived from _moro,_ [Footnote: This is all wrong, of course. +And equally wrong is the derivation from _moral,_ a mulberry--abundant +as these trees are. And more wrong still, if possible, is that which is +drawn from a saying of the mysterious Oenotrians--that useful +tribe--who, wandering in search of homesteads across these regions and +observing their beauty, are supposed to have remarked: _Hic moremur--_ +here let us stay! Morano (strange to say) is simply the Roman Muranum.] +a Moor; and in its little piazza--an irregular and picturesque spot, +shaded by a few grand old elms amid the sound of running waters--there +is a sculptured head of a Moor inserted into the wall, commemorative, I +was told, of some ancient anti-Saracen exploit. It is the escutcheon of +the town. This Moor wears a red fez, and his features are painted black +(this is _de rigueur,_ for "Saracens "); he bears the legend _Vivit +sub arbore morus._ Near at hand, too, lies the prosperous village +Saracena, celebrated of old for its muscatel wines. They are made from +the grape which the Saracens brought over from Maskat, and planted all +over Sicily. [Footnote: See next chapter.] + +The men of Morano emigrate to America; two-thirds of the adult and +adolescent male population are at this moment on the other side of the +Atlantic. But the oldsters, with their peaked hats (capello pizzuto) +shading gnarled and canny features, are well worth studying. At this +summer season they leave the town at 3.30 a.m. to cultivate their +fields, often far distant, returning at nightfall; and to observe these +really wonderful types, which will soon be extinct, you must take up a +stand on the Castrovillari road towards sunset and watch them riding +home on their donkeys, or walking, after the labours of the day. + +Poorly dressed, these peasants are none the less wealthy; the post +office deposit of Morano is said to have two million francs to its +credit, mostly the savings of these humble cultivators, who can discover +an astonishing amount of money when it is a question, for example, of +providing their daughters with a dowry. The bridal dress alone, a blaze +of blue silk and lace and gold embroidery, costs between six hundred and +a thousand francs. Altogether, Morano is a rich place, despite its +sordid appearance; it is also celebrated as the birthplace of various +learned men. The author of the "Calascione Scordato," a famous +Neapolitan poem of the seventeenth century, certainly lived here for +some time and has been acclaimed as a son of Morano, though he +distinctly speaks of Naples as his home. Among its elder literary +glories is that Leonardo Tufarelli, who thus apostrophizes his birthplace: + +"And to proceed--how many _letterati_ and _virtuosi_ have issued from +you in divers times? Among whom--not to name all of them--there has been +in our days Leopardo de l'Osso of happy memory, physician and most +excellent philosopher, singular in every science, of whom I dare say +that he attained to Pythagorean heights. How many are there to-day, +versed in every faculty, in theology, in the two laws, and in medicine? +How many historians, how many poets, grammarians, artists, actors?" + +The modern writer Nicola Leoni is likewise a child of Morano; his +voluminous "Della Magna Grecia e delle Tre Calabrie" appeared in +1844-1846. He, too, devotes much space to the praises of his natal city, +and to lamentations regarding the sad condition of Calabrian letters +during those dark years. + +"Closed for ever is the academy of Amantea! Closed for ever is +the academy of Rossano! Rare are the lectures in the academy of +Monteleone! Rare indeed the lectures in the academy of Catan-zaro! +Closed for ever is the public library of Monteleone! O ancient days! O +wisdom of our fathers! Where shall I find you? . . ." + +To live the intellectual life amid the ferociously squalid surroundings +of Morano argues an enviable philosophic calm--a detachment bordering on +insensibility. But perhaps we are too easily influenced by externals, in +these degenerate times. Or things may have been better in days of +old--who can tell? One always likes to think so, though the evidence +usually points to the contrary. + +When least I expected it, a possessor of mules presented himself. He was +a burly ruffian of northern extraction, with clear eyes, fair moustache, +and an insidious air of cheerfulness. + +Yes, he had a mule, he said; but as to climbing the mountain for three +or four days on end--ha, ha!--that was rather an undertaking, you know. +Was I aware that there were forests and snow up there? Had I ever been +up the mountain? Indeed! Well, then I must know that there was no food---- + +I pointed to my store of provisions from Castrovillari. His eye wandered +lovingly over the pile and reposed, finally, upon sundry odd bottles and +a capacious demijohn, holding twelve litres. + +"Wine of family," I urged. "None of your eating-house stuff." + +He thought he could manage it, after all. Yes; the trip could be +undertaken, with a little sacrifice. And he had a second mule, a +lady-mule, which it struck him I might like to ride now and then; a +pleasant beast and a companion, so to speak, for the other one. Two +mules and two Christians--that seemed appropriate. . . . And only four +francs a day more. + +Done! It was really cheap. So cheap, that I straightway grew suspicious +of the "lady-mule." + +We sealed the bargain in a glass of the local mixture, and I thereupon +demanded a _caparra--_ a monetary security that he would keep his word, +i.e. be round at my door with the animals at two in the morning, so as +to reach the uplands before the heat became oppressive. + +His face clouded--a good omen, indicating that he was beginning to +respect me. Then he pulled out his purse, and reluctantly laid two +francs on the table. + +The evening was spent in final preparations; I retired early to bed, and +tried to sleep. One o'clock came, and two o'clock, and three o'clock--no +mules! At four I went to the man's house, and woke him out of ambrosial +slumbers. + +"You come to see me so early in the morning?" he enquired, sitting up in +bed and rubbing his eyes. "Now that's really nice of you." + +One of the mules, he airily explained, had lost a shoe in the afternoon. +He would get it put right at once--at once. + +"You might have told me so yesterday evening, instead of keeping me +awake all night waiting for you." + +"True," he replied. "I thought of it at the time. But then I went to +bed, and slept. Ah, sir, it is good to sleep!" and he stretched himself +voluptuously. + +The beast was shod, and at 5 a.m. we left. + + + + +XVIII + +AFRICAN INTRUDERS + + +There is a type of physiognomy here which is undeniably Semitic--with +curly hair, dusky skin and hooked nose. We may take it to be of +Saracenic origin, since a Phoenician descent is out of the question, +while mediaeval Jews never intermarried with Christians. It is the same +class of face which one sees so abundantly at Palermo, the former +metropolis of these Africans. The accompanying likeness is that of a +native of Cosenza, a town that was frequently in their possession. +Eastern traits of character, too, have lingered among the populace. So +the humour of the peddling Semite who will allow himself to be called by +the most offensive epithets rather than lose a chance of gaining a sou; +who, eternally professing poverty, cannot bear to be twitted on his +notorious riches; their ceaseless talk of hidden treasures, their +secretiveness and so many other little Orientalisms that whoever has +lived in the East will be inclined to echo the observation of Edward +Lear's Greek servant: "These men are Arabs, but they have more clothes on." + +Many Saracenic words (chiefly of marine and commercial import) have +survived from this period; I could quote a hundred or more, partly in +the literary language (balio, dogana, etc.), partly in dialect (cala, +tavuto, etc.) and in place-names such as Tamborio (the Semitic Mount +Tabor), Kalat (Calatafimi), Marsa (Marsala). + +Dramatic plays with Saracen subjects are still popular with the lower +classes; you can see them acted in any of the coast towns. In fact, the +recollection of these intruders is very much alive to this day. They +have left a deep scar. + +Such being the case, it is odd to find local writers hardly referring to +the Saracenic period. Even a modern like l'Occaso, who describes the +Castrovillari region in a conscientious fashion, leaps directly from +Greco-Roman events into those of the Normans. But this is in accordance +with the time-honoured ideal of writing such works: to say nothing in +dispraise of your subject (an exception may be made in favour of +Spano-Bolani's History of Reggio). Malaria and earthquakes and Saracen +irruptions are awkward arguments when treating of the natural +attractions and historical glories of your native place. So the once +renowned descriptions of this province by Grano and the rest of them are +little more than rhetorical exercises; they are "Laus Calabria." And +then--their sources of information were limited and difficult of access. +Collective works like those of Muratori and du Chesne had not appeared +on the market; libraries were restricted to convents; and it was not to +be expected that they should know all the chroniclers of the Byzantines, +Latins, Lombards, Normans and Hohenstaufen--to say nothing of Arab +writers like Nowairi, Abulfeda, Ibn Chaldun and Ibn Alathir--who throw a +little light on those dark times, and are now easily accessible to +scholars. + +Dipping into this old-world literature of murders and prayers, we gather +that in pre-Saracenic times the southern towns were denuded of their +garrisons, and their fortresses fallen into disrepair. "Nec erat formido +aut metus bellorum, quoniam alta pace omnes gaudebant usque ad tempora +Saracenorum." In this part of Italy, as well as at Taranto and other +parts of old "Calabria," the invaders had an easy task before them, at +first. + +In 873, on their return from Salerno, they poured into Calabria, and by +884 already held several towns, such as Tropea and Amantea, but were +driven out temporarily. In 899 they ravaged, says Hepi-danus, the +country of the Lombards (? Calabria). In 900 they destroyed Reggio, and +renewed their incursions in 919, 923, 924, 925, 927, till the Greek +Emperor found it profitable to pay them an annual tribute. In 953, this +tribute not being forthcoming, they defeated the Greeks in Calabria, and +made further raids in 974, 975; 976, 977, carrying off a large store of +captives and wealth. In 981 Otto II repulsed them at Cotrone, but was +beaten the following year near Squillace, and narrowly escaped capture. +It was one of the most romantic incidents of these wars. During the +years 986, 988, 991, 994, 998, 1002, 1003 they were continually in the +country; indeed, nearly every year at the beginning of the eleventh +century is marked by some fresh inroad. In 1009 they took Cosenza for +the third or fourth time; in 1020 they were at Bisignano in the Crati +valley, and returned frequently into those parts, defeating, in 1025, a +Greek army under Orestes, and, in 1031, the assembled forces of the +Byzantine Catapan------ [Footnote: I have not seen Moscato's "Cronaca +dei Musulmani in Calabria," where these authorities might be +conveniently tabulated. It must be a rare book. Martorana deals only +with the Saracens of Sicily.] + +No bad record, from their point of view. + +But they never attained their end, the subjection of the mainland. And +their methods involved appalling and enduring evils. + +Yet the presumable intent or ambition of these aliens must be called +reasonable enough. They wished to establish a provincial government here +on the same lines as in Sicily, of which island it has been said that it +was never more prosperous than under their administration. + +Literature, trade, industry, and all the arts of peace are described as +flourishing there; in agriculture they paid especial attention to the +olive; they initiated, I believe, the art of terracing and irrigating +the hill-sides; they imported the date-palm, the lemon and sugar-cane +(making the latter suffice not only for home consumption, but for +export); their silk manufactures were unsurpassed. Older writers like +Mazzella speak of the abundant growth of sugar-cane in Calabria +(Capialbi, who wallowed in learning, has a treatise on the subject); +John Evelyn saw it cultivated near Naples; it is now extinct from +economical and possibly climatic causes. They also introduced the +papyrus into Sicily, as well as the cotton-plant, which used to be +common all over south Italy, where I have myself seen it growing. + +All this sounds praiseworthy, no doubt. But I see no reason why they +should have governed Sicily better than they did North Africa, which +crumbled into dust at their touch, and will take many long centuries to +recover its pre-Saracen prosperity. There is something flame-like and +anti-constructive in the Arab, with his pastoral habits and contempt of +forethought. In favour of their rule, much capital has been made out of +Benjamin of Tudela's account of Palermo. But it must not be forgotten +that his brief visit was made a hundred years after the Norman +occupation had begun. Palermo, he says, has about 1500 Jews and a large +number of Christians and Mohammedans; Sicily "contains all the pleasant +things of this world." Well, so it did in pre-Saracen times; so it does +to-day. Against the example of North Africa, no doubt, may be set their +activities in Spain. + +They have been accused of destroying the old temples of Magna Gracia +from religious or other motives. I do not believe it; this was against +their usual practice. They sacked monasteries, because these were +fortresses defended by political enemies and full of gold which they +coveted; but in their African possessions, during all this period, the +ruins of ancient civilizations were left untouched, while Byzantine +cults lingered peacefully side by side with Mos-lemism; why not here? +Their fanaticism has been much exaggerated. Weighing the balance between +conflicting writers, it would appear that Christian rites were tolerated +in Sicily during all their rule, though some governors were more bigoted +than others; the proof is this, that the Normans found resident +fellow-believers there, after 255 years of Arab domination. It was the +Christians rather, who with the best intentions set the example of +fanaticism during their crusades; these early Saracen raids had no more +religious colouring than our own raids into the Transvaal or elsewhere. +The Saracens were out for plunder and fresh lands, exactly like the +English. [Footnote: The behaviour of the Normans was wholly different +from that of the Arabs, immediately on their occupation of the country +they razed to the ground thousands of Arab temples and sanctuaries. Of +several hundred in Palermo alone, not a single one was left standing.] + +Nor were they tempted to destroy these monuments for decorative +purposes, since they possessed no palaces on the mainland like the +Palermitan Cuba or Zisa; and that sheer love of destructive-ness with +which they have been credited certainly spared the marbles of Paestum +which lay within a short distance of their strongholds, Agropoli and +Cetara. No. What earthquakes had left intact of these classic relics +was niched by the Christians, who ransacked every corner of Italy +for such treasures to adorn their own temples in Pisa, Rome and +Venice--displaying small veneration for antiquity, but considerable +taste. In Calabria, for instance, the twenty granite pillars of the +cathedral of Gerace were drawn from the ruins of old Locri; those of +Melito came from the ancient Hipponium (Monteleone). So Paestum, after +the Saracens, became a regular quarry for the Lombards and the rich +citizens of Amalfi when they built their cathedral; and above all, for +the shrewdly pious Robert Guiscard. Altogether, these Normans, dreaming +through the solstitial heats in pleasaunces like Ravello, developed a +nice taste in the matter of marbles, and were not particular where they +came from, so long as they came from somewhere. The antiquities remained +intact, at least, which was better than the subsequent system of Colonna +and Frangipani, who burnt them into lime. + +Whatever one may think of the condition of Sicily under Arab rule, the +proceedings of these strangers was wholly deplorable so far as the +mainland of Italy was concerned. They sacked and burnt wherever they +went; the sea-board of the Tyrrhenian, Ionian and Adriatic was +depopulated of its inhabitants, who fled inland; towns and villages +vanished from the face of the earth, and the richly cultivated land +became a desert; they took 17,000 prisoners from Reggio on a single +occasion--13,000 from Termula; they reduced Matera to such distress, +that a mother is said to have slaughtered and devoured her own child. +Such was their system on the mainland, where they swarmed. Their numbers +can be inferred from a letter written in 871 by the Emperor Ludwig II +to the Byzantine monarch, in which he complains that "Naples has become +a second Palermo, a second Africa," while three hundred years later, in +1196, the Chancellor Konrad von Hildesheim makes a noteworthy +observation, which begins: "In Naples I saw the Saracens, who with their +spittle destroy venomous beasts, and will briefly set forth how they +came by this virtue. . . ." [Footnote: He goes on to say, "Paulus +Apostolus naufragium passus, apud Capream insulam applicuit _[sic]_ quae +in Actibus Apostolorum Mitylene nuncupatur, et cum multis allis evadens, +ab indigenis tcrrae benigne acceptatus est." Then follows the episode of +the fire and of the serpent which Paul casts from him; whereupon the +Saracens, naturally enough, begin to adore him as a saint. In recompense +for this kind treatment Paul grants to them and their descendants the +power of killing poisonous animals in the manner aforesaid--i.e. with +their spittle--a superstition which is alive in south Italy to this day. +These gifted mortals are called Sanpaulari, or by the Greek word +Cerauli; they are men who are born either on St. Paul's night (24-25 +January) or on 29 June. Saint Paul, the "doctor of the Gentiles," is a +great wizard hereabouts, and an invocation to him runs as follows: +"Saint Paul, thou wonder-worker, kill this beast, which is hostile to +God; and save me, for I am a son of Maria."] + +It is therefore no exaggeration to say that the coastal regions of south +Italy were practically in Arab possession for centuries, and one is +tempted to dwell on their long semi-domination here because it has +affected to this day the vocabulary of the people, their lore, their +architecture, their very faces--and to a far greater extent than a +visitor unacquainted with Moslem countries and habits would believe. +Saracenism explains many anomalies in their mode of life and social +conduct. + +From these troublous times dates, I should say, that use of the word +_cristiano_ applied to natives of the country--as opposed to Mohammedan +enemies. + +"Saraceno" is still a common term of abuse. + +The fall of Luceria may be taken as a convenient time-boundary to mark +the end of the Saracenic period. A lull, but no complete repose from +attacks, occurs between that event and the fall of Granada. Then begins +the activity of the corsairs. There is this difference between them, +that the corsairs merely paid flying visits; a change of wind, the +appearance of an Italian sail, an unexpected resistance on the part of +the inhabitants, sufficed to unsettle their ephemeral plans. The +coast-lands were never in their possession; they only harried the +natives. The system of the Saracens on the mainland, though it seldom +attained the form of a provincial or even military government, was +different. They had the _animus manendi._ Where they dined, they slept. + +In point of destructiveness, I should think there was little to choose +between them. One thinks of the hundreds of villages the corsairs +devastated; the convents and precious archives they destroyed, +[Footnote: In this particular branch, again, the Christians surpassed +the unbeliever. More archives were destroyed in the so-called "Age of +Lead"--the closing period of Bour-bonism--than under Saracens and +Corsairs combined. It was quite the regular thing to sell them as +waste-paper to the shopkeepers. Some of them escaped this fate by the +veriest miracle--so those of the celebrated Certoza of San Lorenzo in +Padula. The historian Marincola, walking in the market of Salerno, +noticed a piece of cheese wrapped up in an old parchment. He elicited +the fact that it came from this Certosa, intercepted the records on +their way for sale in Salerno, and contrived by a small present to the +driver that next night two cartloads of parchments were deposited in the +library of La Cava.] the thousands of captives they carried +off--sometimes in such numbers that the ships threatened to sink till +the more unsaleable portion of the human freight had been cast +overboard. And it went on for centuries. Pirates and slave-hunters they +were; but not a whit more so than their Christian adversaries, on whose +national rivalries they thrived. African slaves, when not chained to the +galleys, were utilized on land; so the traveller Moore records that the +palace of Caserta was built by gangs of slaves, half of them Italian, +half Turkish. We have not much testimony as to whether these Arab slaves +enjoyed their lot in European countries; but many of the Christians in +Algiers certainly enjoyed theirs. A considerable number of them refused +to profit by Lord Exmouth's arrangement for their ransom. I myself knew +the descendant of a man who had been thus sent back to his relations +from captivity, and who soon enough returned to Africa, declaring that +the climate and religion of Europe were alike insupportable. + +In Saracen times the Venetians actually sold Christian slaves to the +Turks. Parrino cites the severe enactments which were issued in the +sixteenth century against Christian sailors who decoyed children on +board their boats and sold them as slaves to the Moslem. I question +whether the Turks were ever guilty of a corresponding infamy. + +This Parrino, by the way, is useful as showing the trouble to which the +Spanish viceroys were put by the perpetual inroads of these Oriental +pests. Local militia were organized, heavy contributions levied, towers +of refuge sprang up all along the coast--every respectable house had its +private tower as well (for the dates, see G. del Giudice, _Del Grande +Archivio di Napoli,_ 1871, p. 108). The daring of the pirates knew no +bounds; they actually landed a fleet at Naples itself, and carried off a +number of prisoners. The entire kingdom, save the inland parts, was +terrorized by their lightning-like descents. + +A particular literature grew up about this time--those "Lamenti" in +rime, which set forth the distress of the various places they afflicted. + +The saints had work to do. Each divine protector fought for his own town +or village, and sometimes we see the pleasing spectacle of two patrons +of different localities joining their forces to ward off a piratical +attack upon some threatened district by means of fiery hail, tempests, +apparitions and other celestial devices. A bellicose type of Madonna +emerges, such as S. M. della Libera and S. M. di Constantinopoli, who +distinguishes herself by a fierce martial courage in the face of the +enemy. There is no doubt that these inroads acted as a stimulus to the +Christian faith; that they helped to seat the numberless patron saints +of south Italy more firmly on their thrones. The Saracens as +saint-makers. . . . + +But despite occasional successes, the marine population suffered +increasingly. Historians like Summonte have left us descriptions of the +prodigious exodus of the country people from Calabria and elsewhere into +the safer capital, and how the polished citizens detested these new +arrivals. + +The ominous name "Torre di Guardia" (tower of outlook)--a cliff whence +the sea was scanned for the appearance of Turkish vessels--survives all +over the south. Barbarossa, too, has left his mark; many a hill, +fountain or castle has been named after him. In the two Barbarossas were +summed up the highest qualities of the pirates, and it is curious to +think that the names of those scourges of Christendom, Uruj and +Kheir-eddin, should have been contracted into the classical forms of +Horace and Ariadne. The picturesque Uruj was painted by Velasquez; the +other entertained a polite epistolatory correspondence with Aretino, and +died, to his regret, "like a coward" in bed. I never visit +Constantinople without paying my respects to that calm tomb at +Beshiktah, where, after life's fitful fever, sleeps the _Chief of the Sea._ + +And so things went on till recently. K. Ph. Moritz writes that King +Ferdinand of Naples, during his sporting excursions to the islands of +his dominions, was always accompanied by two cruisers, to forestall the +chance of his being carried off by these _Turchi._ But his loyal +subjects had no cruisers at their disposal; they lived _Turcarum +praedonibus semper obnoxii._ Who shall calculate the effects of this +long reign of terror on the national mind? + +For a thousand years--from 830 to 1830--from the days when the +Amalfitans won the proud title of "Defenders of the Faith" up to those +of the sentimental poet Waiblinger (1826), these shores were infested by +Oriental ruffians, whose activities were an unmitigated evil. It is all +very well for Admiral de la Gravière to speak of "Gallia Victrix"--the +Americans, too, might have something to say on that point. The fact is +that neither European nor American arms crushed the pest. But for the +invention of steam, the Barbary corsairs might still be with us. + + + + +XIX + +UPLANDS OF POLLINO + + +It has a pleasant signification, that word "Dolcedorme": it means +_Sweet slumber._ But no one could tell me how the mountain group came by +this name; they gave me a number of explanations, all fanciful and +unconvincing. Pollino, we are told, is derived from Apollo, and authors +of olden days sometimes write of it as "Monte Apollino." But Barrius +suggests an alternative etymology, equally absurd, and connected with +the medicinal herbs which are found there. _Pollino,_ he says, _a +polleo dictus, quod nobilibus herbis medelae commodis polleat. Pro-venit +enim ibi, ut ab herbariis accepi, tragium dictamnum Cretense, chamaeleon +bigenum, draucus, meum, nardus, celtica, anonides, anemone, peucedamum, +turbit, reubarbarum, pyrethrum, juniperus ubertim, stellarla, +imperatoria, cardus masticem fundens, dracagas, cythisus--_whence +likewise the magnificent cheeses; gold and the Phrygian stone, he adds, +are also found here. + +Unhappily Barrius--we all have a fling at this "Strabo and Pliny of +Calabria"! So jealous was he of his work that he procured a prohibition +from the Pope against all who might reprint it, and furthermore invoked +the curses of heaven and earth upon whoever should have the audacity to +translate it into Italian. Yet his shade ought to be appeased with the +monumental edition of 1737, and, as regards his infallibility, one must +not forget that among his contemporaries the more discerning had already +censured his _philopatria,_ his immoderate love of Calabria. And that is +the right way to judge of men who were not so much ignorant as unduly +zealous for the fair name of their natal land. To sneer at them is to +misjudge their period. It was the very spirit of the Renaissance to +press rhetorical learning into the service of patriotism. They made some +happy guesses and not a few mistakes; and when they lied deliberately, +it was done in what they held a just cause--as scholars and gentlemen. + +The _Calabria Illustrata_ of Fiore also fares badly at the hands of +critics. But I shall not repeat what they say; I confess to a sneaking +fondness for Father Fiore. + +Marafioti, a Calabrian monk, likewise dwells on these same herbs of +Pollino, and gives a long account of a medical secret which he learnt on +the spot from two Armenian botanists. Alas for Marafioti! Despite his +excellent index and seductively chaste Paduan type and paper, the +impartial Soria is driven to say that "to make his shop appear more rich +in foreign merchandise, he did not scruple to adorn it with books and +authors apocryphal, imaginary, and unknown to the whole human race." In +short, he belonged to the school of Pratilli, who wrote a wise and +edifying history of Capua on the basis of inscriptions which he himself +had previously forged; of Ligorio Pirro, prince of his tribe, who +manufactured thousands of coins, texts and marbles out of sheer +exuberance of creative artistry! + +Gone are those happy days of authorship, when the constructive +imagination was not yet blighted and withered. . . . + +Marching comfortably, it will take you nearly twelve hours to go from +Morano to the village of Terranova di Pollino, which I selected as my +first night-quarter. This includes a scramble up the peak of Pollino, +locally termed "telegrafo," from a pile of stones--? an old +signal-station--erected on the summit. But since decent accommodation +can only be obtained at Castrovillari, a start should be made from +there, and this adds another hour to the trip. Moreover, as the peak of +Pollino lies below that of Dolcedorme, which shuts oil a good deal of +its view seaward, this second mountain ought rather to be ascended, and +that will probably add yet another hour--fourteen altogether. The +natives, ever ready to say what they think will please you, call it a +six hours' excursion. As a matter of fact, although I spoke to numbers +of the population of Morano, I only met two men who had ever been to +Terranova, one of them being my muleteer; the majority had not so much +as heard its name. They dislike mountains and torrents and forests, not +only as an offence to the eye, but as hindrances to agriculture and +enemies of man and his ordered ways. "La montagna" is considerably +abused, all over Italy. + +It takes an hour to cross the valley and reach the slopes of the +opposite hills. Here, on the plain, lie the now faded blossoms of the +monstrous arum, the botanical glory of these regions. To see it in +flower, in early June, is alone almost worth the trouble of a journey to +Calabria. + +On a shady eminence at the foot of these mountains, in a most +picturesque site, there stands a large castellated building, a +monastery. It is called Colorito, and is now a ruin; the French, they +say, shelled it for harbouring the brigand-allies of Bourbonism. Nearly +all convents in the south, and even in Naples, were at one time or +another refuges of bandits, and this association of monks and robbers +used to give much trouble to conscientious politicians. It is a solitary +building, against the dark hill-side; a sombre and romantic pile such as +would have charmed Anne Radcliffe; one longs to explore its recesses. +But I dreaded the coming heats of midday. Leone da Morano, who died in +1645, belonged to this congregation, and was reputed an erudite +ecclesiastic. The life of one of its greatest luminaries, Fra Bernardo +da Rogliano, was described by Tufarelli in a volume which I have never +been able to catch sight of. It must be very rare, yet it certainly was +printed. [Footnote: Haym has no mention of this work. But it is fully +quoted in old Toppi's "Biblioteca" (p. 317), and also referred to in +Savonarola's "Universus Terrarum," etc. (1713, Vol. I, p. 216). Both say +it was printed at Cosenza; the first, in 1650; the second, in 1630.] + +The path ascends now through a long and wearisome limestone gap called +Valle di Gaudolino, only the last half-hour of the march being shaded by +trees. It was in this gully that an accidental encounter took place +between a detachment of French soldiers and part of the band of the +celebrated brigand Scarolla, whom they had been pursuing for months all +over the country. The brigands were sleeping when the others fell upon +them, killing numbers and carrying off a large booty; so rich it was, +that the soldiers were seen playing at "petis palets"--whatever that may +be--with quadruples of Spain--whatever _that_ may be. Scarolla escaped +wounded, but was afterwards handed over to justice, for a consideration +of a thousand ducats, by some shepherds with whom he had taken refuge; +and duly hanged. His band consisted of four thousand ruffians; it was +one of several that infested south Italy. This gives some idea of the +magnitude of the evil. + +It was my misfortune that after weeks of serene weather this particular +morning should be cloudy. There was sunshine in the valley below, but +wreaths of mist were skidding over the summit of Pollino; the view, I +felt sure, would be spoilt. And so it was. Through swiftly-careering +cloud-drifts I caught glimpses of the plain and the blue Ionian; of the +Sila range confronting me; of the peak of Dolcedorme to the left, and +the "Montagna del Principe" on the right; of the large forest region at +my back. Tantalizing visions! + +Viewed from below, this Pollino is shaped like a pyramid, and promises +rather a steep climb over bare limestone; but the ascent is quite easy. +No trees grow on the pyramid. The rock is covered with a profusion of +forget-me-nots and gay pansies; some mez-ereon and a few dwarfed +junipers--earthward-creeping--nearly reach the summit. When I passed +here on a former trip, on the 6th of June, this peak was shrouded in +snow. There are some patches of snow even now, one of them descending in +glacier fashion down the slope on the other side; they call it +"eternal," but I question whether it will survive the heats of autumn. +Beyond a brace of red-legged partridges, I saw no birds whatever. This +group of Pollino, descending its seven thousand feet in a precipitous +flight of terraces to the plain of Sibari, is an imposing _finale_ to +the Apennines that have run hitherward, without a break, from Genoa and +Bologna. Westward of this spot there are mountains galore; but no more +Apennines; no more limestone precipices. The boundary of the old +provinces of Calabria and Basilicata ran over this spot. . . . + +I was glad to descend once more, and to reach the _Altipiano di +Pollino--_an Alpine meadow with a little lake (the merest puddle), +bright with rare and beautiful flowers. It lies 1780 metres above +sea-level, and no one who visits these regions should omit to see this +exquisite tract encircled by mountain peaks, though it lies a little off +the usual paths. Strawberries, which I had eaten at Rossano, had not yet +opened their flowers here; the flora, boreal in parts, has been studied +by Terracciano and other Italian botanists. + +It was on this verdant, flower-enamelled mead that, fatigued with the +climb, I thought to try the powers of my riding mule. But the beast +proved vicious; there was no staying on her back. A piece of string +attached to her nose by way of guiding-rope was useless as a rein; she +had no mane wherewith I might have steadied myself in moments of danger, +and as to seizing her ears for that purpose, it was out of the question, +for hardly was I in the saddle before her head descended to the ground +and there remained, while her hinder feet essayed to touch the stars. +After a succession of ignominious and painful flights to earth, I +complained to her owner, who had been watching the proceedings with +quiet interest. + +"That lady-mule," he said, "is good at carrying loads. But she has never +had a Christian on her back till now. I was rather curious to see how +she would behave." + +"_Santo Dio!_ And do you expect me to pay four francs a day for having +my bones broken in this fashion?" + +"What would you, sir? She is still young--barely four years old. Only +wait! Wait till she is ten or twelve." + +To do him justice, however, he tried to make amends in other ways. And +he certainly knew the tracks. But he was a returned emigrant, and when +an Italian has once crossed the ocean he is useless for my purposes, he +has lost his savour--the virtue has gone out of him. True Italians will +soon be rare as the dodo in these parts. These _americani_ cast off +their ancient animistic traits and patriarchal disposition with the ease +of a serpent; a new creature emerges, of a wholly different +character--sophisticated, extortionate at times, often practical and in +so far useful; scorner of every tradition, infernally wideawake and +curiously deficient in what the Germans call "Gemuet" (one of those +words which we sadly need in our own language). Instead of being regaled +with tales of Saint Venus and fairies and the Evil Eye, I learnt a good +deal about the price of food in the Brazilian highlands. + +The only piece of local information I was able to draw from him +concerned a mysterious plant in the forest that "shines by night." I +dare say he meant the _dictamnus fraxinella,_ which is sometimes luminous. + +The finest part of the forest was traversed in the afternoon. It is +called Janace, and composed of firs and beeches. The botanist Tenore +says that firs 150 feet in height are "not difficult to find" here, and +some of the beeches, a forestal inspector assured me, attain the height +of 35 metres. They shoot up in straight silvery trunks; their roots are +often intertwined with those of the firs. The track is not level by any +means. There are torrents to be crossed; rocky ravines with splashing +waters where the sunshine pours down through a dense network of branches +upon a carpet of russet leaves and grey boulders--the envious beeches +allowing of no vegetation at their feet; occasional meadows, too, bright +with buttercups and orchids. No pines whatever grow in this forest. Yet +a few stunted ones are seen clinging to the precipices that descend into +the Coscile valley; their seeds may have been wafted across from the +Sila mountains. + +In olden days all this country was full of game; bears, stags and +fallow-deer are mentioned. Only wolves and a few roe-deer are now left. +The forest is sombre, but not gloomy, and one would like to spend some +time in these wooded regions, so rare in Italy, and to study their life +and character--but how set about it? The distances are great; there are +no houses, not even a shepherd's hut or a cave; the cold at night is +severe, and even in the height of midsummer one must be prepared for +spells of mist and rain. I shall be tempted, on another occasion, to +provide myself with a tent such as is supplied to military officers. +They are light and handy, and perhaps camping out with a man-cook of the +kind that one finds in the Abruzzi provinces would be altogether the +best way of seeing the remoter parts of south and central Italy. For +decent food-supplies can generally be obtained in the smallest places; +the drawback is that nobody can cook them. Dirty food by day and dirty +beds by night will daunt the most enterprising natures in the long run. + +These tracks are only traversed in summer. When I last walked through +this region--in the reverse direction, from Lagonegro over Latronico and +San Severino to Castrovillari--the ground was still covered with +stretches of snow, and many brooks were difficult to cross from the +swollen waters. This was in June. It was odd to see the beeches rising, +in full leaf, out of the deep snow. + +During this afternoon ramble I often wondered what the burghers of +Taranto would think of these sylvan solitudes. Doubtless they would +share the opinion of a genteel photographer of Morano who showed me some +coloured pictures of local brides in their appropriate costumes, such as +are sent to relatives in America after weddings. He possessed a good +camera, and I asked whether he had never made any pictures of this fine +forest scenery. No, he said; he had only once been to the festival of +the Madonna di Pollino, but he went alone--his companion, an +_avvocato,_ got frightened and failed to appear at the last moment. + +"So I went alone," he said, "and those forests, it must be confessed, +are too savage to be photographed. Now, if my friend had come, he might +have posed for me, sitting comically at the foot of a tree, with crossed +legs, and smoking a cigar, like this. ... Or he might have pretended to +be a wood-cutter, bending forwards and felling a tree . . . tac, tac, +tac . . . without his jacket, of course. That would have made a picture. +But those woods and mountains, all by themselves--no! The camera +revolts. In photography, as in all good art, the human element must +predominate." + +It is sad to think that in a few years' time nearly all these forests +will have ceased to exist; another generation will hardly recognize the +site of them. A society from Morbegno (Valtellina) has acquired rights +over the timber, and is hewing down as fast as it can. They import their +own workmen from north Italy, and have built at a cost of two million +francs (say the newspapers) a special funicular railway, 23 kilometres +long, to carry the trunks from the mountain to Francavilla at its foot, +where they are sawn up and conveyed to the railway station of Cerchiara, +near Sibari. This concession, I am told, extends to twenty-five +years--they have now been at work for two, and the results are already +apparent in some almost bare slopes once clothed with these huge +primeval trees. + +There are inspectors, some of them conscientious, to see that a due +proportion of the timber is left standing; but we all know what the +average Italian official is, and must be, considering his salary. One +could hardly blame them greatly if, as I have been assured is the case, +they often sell the wood which they are paid to protect. + +The same fate is about to overtake the extensive hill forests which lie +on the watershed between Morano and the Tyrrhenian. These, according to +a Castrovillari local paper, have lately been sold to a German firm for +exploitation. + +It is useless to lament the inevitable--this modern obsession of +"industrialism" which has infected a country purely agricultural. Nor is +it any great compensation to observe that certain small tracts of +hill-side behind Morano are being carefully reafforested by the +Government at this moment. Whoever wishes to see these beautiful +stretches of woodland ere their disappearance from earth--let him hasten! + +After leaving the forest region it is a downhill walk of nearly three +hours to reach Terranova di Pollino, which lies, only 910 metres above +sea-level, against the slope of a wide and golden amphitheatre of hills, +at whose entrance the river Sarmento has carved itself a prodigious +gateway through the rock. A dirty little place; the male inhabitants are +nearly all in America; the old women nearly all afflicted with goitre. I +was pleased to observe the Calabrian system of the house-doors, which +life in civilized places had made me forget. These doors are divided +into two portions, not vertically like ours, but horizontally. The upper +portion is generally open, in order that the housewife sitting within +may have light and air in her room, and an opportunity of gossiping with +her neighbours across the street; the lower part is closed, to prevent +the pigs in the daytime from entering the house (where they sleep at +night). The system testifies to social instincts and a certain sense of +refinement. + +The sights of Terranova are soon exhausted. They had spoken to me of a +house near the woods, about four hours distant, inhabited just now by +shepherds. Thither we started, next day, at about 3 p.m. + +The road climbs upwards through bare country till it reaches a dusky +pinnacle of rock, a conspicuous landmark, which looks volcanic but is +nothing of the kind. It bears the name of Pietra-Sasso--the explanation +of this odd pleonasm being, I suppose, that here the whole mass of rock, +generally decked with grass or shrubs, is as bare as any single stone. + +There followed a pleasant march through pastoral country of streamlets +and lush grass, with noble views downwards on our right, over +many-folded hills into the distant valley of the Sinno. To the left is +the forest region. But the fir trees are generally mutilated--their +lower branches lopped off; and the tree resents this treatment and often +dies, remaining a melancholy stump among the beeches. They take these +branches not for fuel, but as fodder for the cows. A curious kind of +fodder, one thinks; but Calabrian cows will eat anything, and their milk +tastes accordingly. No wonder the natives prefer even the greasy fluid +of their goats to that of cows. + +"How?" they will ask, "You Englishmen, with all your money--you drink +the milk of cows?" + +Goats are over-plentiful here, and the hollies, oaks and thorns along +the path have been gnawed by them into quaint patterns like the +topiarian work in old-fashioned gardens. If they find nothing to their +taste on the ground, they actually climb trees; I have seen them +browsing thus, at six feet above the ground. These miserable beasts are +the ruin of south Italy, as they are of the whole Mediterranean basin. +What malaria and the Barbary pirates have done to the sea-board, the +goats have accomplished for the regions further inland; and it is really +time that sterner legislation were introduced to limit their +grazing-places and incidentally reduce their numbers, as has been done +in parts of the Abruzzi, to the great credit of the authorities. But the +subject is a well-worn one. + +The solitary little house which now appeared before us is called +"Vitiello," presumably from its owner or builder, a proprietor of the +village of Noepoli. It stands in a charming site, with a background of +woodland whence rivulets trickle down--the immediate surroundings are +covered with pasture and bracken and wild pear trees smothered in +flowering dog-roses. I strolled about in the sunset amid tinkling herds +of sheep and goats that were presently milked and driven into their +enclosure of thorns for the night, guarded by four or five of those +savage white dogs of the Campagna breed. Despite these protectors, the +wolf carried off two sheep yesterday, in broad daylight. The flocks come +to these heights in the middle of June, and descend again in October. + +The shepherds offered us the only fare they possessed--the much-belauded +Pollino cheeses, the same that were made, long ago, by Polyphemus +himself. You can get them down at a pinch, on the principle of the +German proverb, "When the devil is hungry, he eats flies." Fortunately +our bags still contained a varied assortment, though my man had +developed an appetite and a thirst that did credit to his Berserker +ancestry. + +We retired early. But long after the rest of them were snoring hard I +continued awake, shivering under my blanket and choking with the acrid +smoke of a fire of green timber. The door had been left ajar to allow it +to escape, but the only result of this arrangement was that a glacial +blast of wind swept into the chamber from outside. The night was +bitterly cold, and the wooden floor on which I was reposing seemed to be +harder than the majority of its kind. I thought with regret of the tepid +nights of Taranto and Castrovillari, and cursed my folly for climbing +into these Arctic regions; wondering, as I have often done, what demon +of restlessness or perversity drives one to undertake such insane +excursions. + + + + +XX + +A MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL + + +Leaving the hospitable shepherds in the morning, we arrived after +midday, by devious woodland paths, at the Madonna di Pollino. This +solitary fane is perched, like an eagle's nest, on the edge of a cliff +overhanging the Frida torrent. Owing to this fact, and to its great +elevation, the views inland are wonderful; especially towards evening, +when crude daylight tints fade away and range after range of mountains +reveal themselves, their crests outlined against each other in tender +gradations of mauve and grey. The prospect is closed, at last, by the +lofty groups of Sirino and Alburno, many long leagues away. On all other +sides are forests, interspersed with rock. But near at hand lies a +spacious green meadow, at the foot of a precipice. This is now covered +with encampments in anticipation of to-morrow's festival, and the +bacchanal is already in full swing. + +Very few foreigners, they say, have attended this annual feast, which +takes place on the first Saturday and Sunday of July, and is worth +coming a long way to see. Here the old types, uncon-taminated by +modernism and emigration, are still gathered together. The whole +country-side is represented; the peasants have climbed up with their +entire households from thirty or forty villages of this thinly populated +land, some of them marching a two days' journey; the greater the +distance, the greater the "divozione" to the Mother of God. _Piety +conquers rough tracks,_ as old Bishop Paulinus sang, nearly fifteen +hundred years ago. + +It is a vast picnic in honour of the Virgin. Two thousand persons are +encamped about the chapel, amid a formidable army of donkeys and mules +whose braying mingles with the pastoral music of reeds and +bagpipes--bagpipes of two kinds, the common Calabrian variety and that +of Basilicata, much larger and with a resounding base key, which will +soon cease to exist. A heaving ebb and flow of humanity fills the eye; +fires are flickering before extempore shelters, and an ungodly amount of +food is being consumed, as traditionally prescribed for such +occasions--"si mangia per divozione." On all sides picturesque groups of +dancers indulge in the old peasants' measure, the _percorara,_ to the +droning of bagpipes--a demure kind of tarantella, the male capering +about with faun-like attitudes of invitation and snappings of fingers, +his partner evading the advances with downcast eyes. And the church +meanwhile, is filled to overflowing; orations and services follow one +another without interruption; the priests are having a busy time of it. + +The rocky pathway between this chapel and the meadow is obstructed by +folk and lined on either side with temporary booths of green branches, +whose owners vociferously extol the merits of their wares--cloths, +woollens, umbrellas, hot coffee, wine, fresh meat, fruit, vegetables +(the spectre of cholera is abroad, but no one heeds)--as well as gold +watches, rings and brooches, many of which will be bought ere to-morrow +morning, in memory of to-night's tender meetings. The most interesting +shops are those which display ex-votos, waxen reproductions of various +ailing parts of the body which have been miraculously cured by the +Virgin's intercession: arms, legs, fingers, breasts, eyes. There are +also entire infants of wax. Strangest of all of them is a many-tinted +and puzzling waxen symbol which sums up all the internal organs of the +abdomen in one bold effort of artistic condensation; a kind of heraldic, +materialized stomache-ache. I would have carried one away with me, had +there been the slightest chance of its remaining unbroken. [Footnote: A +good part of these, I dare say, arc intended to represent the enlarged +spleen of malaria. In old Greece, says Dr. W. H. D. Rouse, votives of +the trunk are commonest, after the eyes--malaria, again.] + +These are the votive offerings which catch the visitor's eye in southern +churches, and were beloved not only of heathendom, but of the neolithic +gentry; a large deposit has been excavated at Taranto; the British +Museum has some of marble, from Athens; others were of silver, but the +majority terra-cotta. The custom must have entered Christianity in early +ages, for already Theo-doret, who died in 427, says, "some bring images +of eyes, others of feet, others of hands; and sometimes they are made of +gold, sometimes of silver. These votive gifts testify to cure of +maladies." Nowadays, when they become too numerous, they are melted down +for candles; so Pericles, in some speech, talks of selling them for the +benefit of the commonwealth. + +One is struck with the feast of costumes here, by far the brightest +being those of the women who have come up from the seven or eight +Albanian villages that surround these hills. In their variegated array +of chocolate-brown and white, of emerald-green and gold and flashing +violet, these dames move about the sward like animated tropical flowers. +But the Albanian girls of Cività stand out for aristocratic +elegance--pleated black silk gowns, discreetly trimmed with gold and +white lace, and open at the breast. The women of Morano, too, make a +brave show. + +Night brings no respite; on the contrary, the din grows livelier than +ever; fires gleam brightly on the meadow and under the trees; the +dancers are unwearied, the bagpipers with their brazen lungs show no +signs of exhaustion. And presently the municipal music of Castrovillari, +specially hired for the occasion, ascends an improvised bandstand and +pours brisk strains into the night. Then the fireworks begin, +sensational fireworks, that have cost a mint of money; flaring wheels +and fiery devices that send forth a pungent odour; rockets of many hues, +lighting up the leafy recesses, and scaring the owls and wolves for +miles around. + +Certain persons have told me that if you are of a prying disposition, +now is the time to observe amorous couples walking hand in hand into the +gloom--passionate young lovers from different villages, who have looked +forward to this night of all the year on the chance of meeting, at last, +in a fervent embrace under the friendly beeches. These same stern men +(they are always men) declare that such nocturnal festivals are a +disgrace to civilization; that the Greek Comedy, long ago, reprobated +them as disastrous to the morals of females--that they were condemned by +the Council of Elvira, by Vigilantius of Marseilles and by the great +Saint Jerome, who wrote that on such occasions no virgin should wander a +hand's-breadth from her mother. They wish you to believe that on these +warm summer nights, when the pulses of nature are felt and senses +stirred with music and wine and dance, the _Gran Madre di Dio_ is adored +in a manner less becoming Christian youths and maidens, than heathens +celebrating mad orgies to _Magna Mater_ in Daphne, or the Babylonian +groves (where she was not worshipped at all--though she might have been). + +In fact, they insinuate that----- + +It may well be true. What were the moralists doing there? + +Festivals like this are relics of paganism, and have my cordial +approval. We English ought to have learnt by this time that the +repression of pleasure is a dangerous error. In these days when even +Italy, the grey-haired _cocotte,_ has become tainted with +Anglo-Pecksniffian principles, there is nothing like a little +time-honoured bestiality for restoring the circulation and putting +things to rights generally. On ethical grounds alone--as +safety-valves--such nocturnal feasts ought to be kept up in regions such +as these, where the country-folk have not our "facilities." Who would +grudge them these primordial joys, conducted under the indulgent +motherly eye of Madonna, and hallowed by antiquity and the starlit +heavens above? Every one is so happy and well-behaved. No bawling, no +quarrelsomeness, no staggering tipplers; a spirit of universal good +cheer broods over the assembly. Involuntarily, one thinks of the +drunkard-strewn field of battle at the close of our Highland games; one +thinks of God-fearing Glasgow on a Saturday evening, and of certain +other aspects of Glasgow life. . . . + +I accepted the kindly proffered invitation of the priests to share their +dinner; they held out hopes of some sort of sleeping accommodation as +well. It was a patriarchal hospitality before that fire of logs (the +night had grown chilly), and several other guests partook of it, +forestal inspectors and such-like notabilities--one lady among them who, +true to feudal traditions, hardly spoke a word the whole evening. I was +struck, as I have sometimes been, at the attainments of these country +priests; they certainly knew our Gargantuan novelists of the Victorian +epoch uncommonly well. Can it be that these great authors are more +readable in Italian translations than in the original? One of them took +to relating, in a strain of autumnal humour, experiences of his life in +the wilds of Bolivia, where he had spent many years among the Indians; +my neighbour, meanwhile, proved to be steeped in Horatian lore. It was +his pet theory, supported by a wealth of aptly cited lines, that Horace +was a "typical Italian countryman," and great was his delight on +discovering that I shared his view and could even add another--somewhat +improper--utterance of the poet's to his store of illustrative quotations. + +They belonged to the old school, these sable philosophers; to the days +when the priest was arbiter of life and death, and his mere word +sufficient to send a man to the galleys; when the cleverest boys of +wealthy and influential families were chosen for the secular career and +carefully, one might say liberally, trained to fulfil those responsible +functions. The type is becoming extinct, the responsibility is gone, the +profession has lost its glamour; and only the clever sons of pauper +families, or the dull ones of the rich, are now tempted to forsake the +worldly path. + +Regarding the origin of this festival, I learned that it was +"tradition." It had been suggested to me that the Virgin had appeared to +a shepherd in some cave near at hand--the usual Virgin, in the usual +cave; a cave which, in the present instance, no one was able to point +out to me. _Est traditio, ne quaeras amplius._ + +My hosts answered questions on this subject with benignant ambiguity, +and did not trouble to defend the divine apparition on the sophistical +lines laid down in Riccardi's "Santuari." The truth, I imagine, is that +they have very sensibly not concerned themselves with inventing an +original legend. The custom of congregating here on these fixed days +seems to be recent, and I am inclined to think that it has been called +into being by the zeal of some local men of standing. On the other hand, +a shrine may well have stood for many years on this spot, for it marks +the half-way house in the arduous two days' journey between San Severino +and Castro-villari, a summer _trek_ that must date from hoary antiquity. + +Our bedroom contained two rough couches which were to be shared between +four priests and myself. Despite the fact that I occupied the place of +honour between the two oldest and wisest of my ghostly entertainers, +sleep refused to come; the din outside had grown to a pandemonium. I lay +awake till, at 2.30 a.m., one of them arose and touched the others with +a whispered and half-jocular _oremus!_ They retired on tiptoe to the +next room, noiselessly closing the door, to prepare themselves for early +service. I could hear them splashing vigorously at their ablutions in +the icy water, and wondered dreamily how many Neapolitan priests would +indulge at that chill hour of the morning in such a lustrai rite, +prescribed as it is by the rules of decency and of their church. + +After that, I stretched forth at my ease and endeavoured to repose +seriously. There were occasional lulls, now, in the carnival, but +explosions of sound still broke the stillness, and phantoms of the +restless throng began to chase each other through my brain. The exotic +costumes of the Albanian girls in their green and gold wove themselves +into dreams and called up colours seen in Northern Africa during still +wilder festivals--negro festivals such as Fro-mentin loved to depict. In +spectral dance there flitted before my vision nightmarish throngs of +dusky women bedizened in that same green and gold; Arabs I saw, riding +tumultuously hither and thither with burnous flying in the wind; beggars +crawling about the hot sand and howling for alms; ribbons and flags +flying--a blaze of sunshine overhead, and on earth a seething orgy of +colour and sound; methought I heard the guttural yells of the +fruit-vendors, musketry firing, braying of asses, the demoniacal groans +of the camels---- + +Was it really a camel? No. It was something infinitely worse, and within +a few feet of my ears. I sprang out of bed. There, at the very window, +stood a youth extracting unearthly noises out of the Basilicata bagpipe. +To be sure! I remembered expressing an interest in this rare instrument +to one of my hosts who, with subtle delicacy, must have ordered the boy +to give me a taste of his quality--to perform a matutinal serenade, for +my especial benefit. How thoughtful these people are. It was not quite 4 +a.m. With some regret, I said farewell to sleep and stumbled out of +doors, where my friends of yesterday evening were already up and doing. +The eating, the dancing, the bagpipes--they were all in violent +activity, under the sober and passionless eye of morning. + +A gorgeous procession took place about midday. Like a many-coloured +serpent it wound out of the chapel, writhed through the intricacies of +the pathway, and then unrolled itself freely, in splendid convolutions, +about the sunlit meadow, saluted by the crash of mortars, bursts of +military music from the band, chanting priests and women, and all the +bagpipers congregated in a mass, each playing his own favourite tune. +The figure of the Madonna--a modern and unprepossessing image--was +carried aloft, surrounded by resplendent ecclesiastics and followed by a +picturesque string of women bearing their votive offerings of candles, +great and small. Several hundredweight of wax must have been brought up +on the heads of pious female pilgrims. These multi-coloured candles are +arranged in charming designs; they are fixed upright in a framework of +wood, to resemble baskets or bird-cages, and decked with bright ribbons +and paper flowers. + +Who settles the expenses of such a festival? The priests, in the first +place, have paid a good deal to make it attractive; they have improved +the chapel, constructed a number of permanent wooden shelters (rain +sometimes spoils the proceedings), as well as a capacious reservoir for +holding drinking water, which has to be transported in barrels from a +considerable distance. Then--as to the immediate outlay for music, +fireworks, and so forth--the Madonna-statue is "put up to auction": +_fanno l'incanto della Madonna,_ as they say; that is, the privilege of +helping to carry the idol from the church and back in the procession is +sold to the highest bidders. Inasmuch as She is put up for auction +several times during this short perambulation, fresh enthusiasts coming +forward gaily with bank-notes and shoulders--whole villages competing +against each other--a good deal of money is realized in this way. There +are also spontaneous gifts of money. Goats and sheep, too, decorated +with coloured rags, are led up by peasants who have "devoted" them to +the Mother of God; the butchers on the spot buy these beasts for +slaughter, and their price goes to swell the funds. + +This year's expenditure may have been a thousand francs or so, and the +proceeds are calculated at about two-thirds of that sum. + +No matter. If the priests do not make good the deficiency, some one else +will be kind enough to step forward. Better luck next year! The +festival, they hope, is to become more popular as time goes on, despite +the chilling prophecy of one of our friends: "It will finish, this +comedy!" The money, by the way, does not pass through the hands of the +clerics, but of two individuals called "Regolatore" and "Priore," who +mutually control each other. They are men of reputable families, who +burden themselves with the troublesome task for the honour of the thing, +and make up any deficiencies in the accounts out of their own pockets. +Cases of malversation are legendary. + +This procession marked the close of the religious gathering. Hardly was +it over before there began a frenzied scrimmage of departure. And soon +the woodlands echoed with the laughter and farewellings of pilgrims +returning homewards by divergent paths; the whole way through the +forest, we formed part of a jostling caravan along the +Castrovillari-Morano track--how different from the last time I had +traversed this route, when nothing broke the silence save a chaffinch +piping among the branches or the distant tap of some woodpecker! + +So ended the _festa._ Once in the year this mountain chapel is rudely +disquieted in its slumbers by a boisterous riot; then it sinks again +into tranquil oblivion, while autumn dyes the beeches to gold. And very +soon the long winter comes; chill tempests shake the trees and leaves +are scattered to earth; towards Yuletide some woodman of Viggianello +adventuring into these solitudes, and mindful of their green summer +revels, discovers his familiar sanctuary entombed up to the door-lintle +under a glittering sheet of snow. . . . + +There was a little episode in the late afternoon. We had reached the +foot of the Gaudolino valley and begun the crossing of the plain, when +there met us a woman with dishevelled hair, weeping bitterly and showing +other signs of distress; one would have thought she had been robbed or +badly hurt. Not at all! Like the rest of us, she had attended the feast +and, arriving home with the first party, had been stopped at the +entrance of the town, where they had insisted upon fumigating her +clothes as a precaution against cholera, and those of her companions. +That was all. But the indignity choked her--she had run back to warn the +rest of us, all of whom were to be treated to the same outrage. Every +approach to Morano, she declared, was watched by doctors, to prevent +wary pilgrims from entering by unsuspected paths. + +During her recital my muleteer had grown thoughtful. + +"What's to be done?" he asked. + +"I don't much mind fumigation," I replied. + +"Oh, but I do! I mind it very much. And these doctors are so dreadfully +distrustful. How shall we cheat them? ... I have it, I have it!" + +And he elaborated the following stratagem: + +"I go on ahead of you, alone, leading the two mules. You follow, out of +sight, behind. And what happens? When I reach the doctor, he asks slyly: +'Well, and how did you enjoy the festival this year?' Then I say: +'Not this year, doctor; alas, no festival for me! I've been with an +Englishman collecting beetles in the forest, and see? here's his riding +mule. He walks on behind--oh, quite harmless, doctor! a nice gentleman, +indeed--only, he prefers walking; he really _likes_ it, ha, ha, ha!----" + +"Why mention about my walking?" I interrupted. The lady-mule was still a +sore subject. + +"I mention about your not riding," he explained graciously, "because it +will seem to the doctor a sure sign that you are a little"--here he +touched his forehead with a significant gesture--"a little like some +other foreigners, you know. And that, in its turn, will account for your +collecting beetles. And that, in its turn, will account for your not +visiting the Madonna. You comprehend the argument: how it all hangs +together?" + +"I see. What next?" + +"Then you come up, holding one beetle in each hand, and pretend not to +know a word of Italian--not a word! You must smile at the doctor, in +friendly fashion; he'll like that. And besides, it will prove what I +said about----" (touching his forehead once more). "In fact, the truth +will be manifest. And there will be no fumigation for us." + +It seemed a needlessly circuitous method of avoiding such a slight +inconvenience. I would have put more faith in a truthful narrative by +myself, suffused with that ingratiating amiability which I would +perforce employ on such occasions. But the stronger mind, as usual, had +its way. + +"I'll smile," I agreed. "But you shall carry my beetles; it looks more +natural, somehow. Go ahead, and find them." + +He moved forwards with the beasts and, after destroying a considerable +tract of stone wall, procured a few specimens of native coleoptera, +which he carefully wrapped up in a piece of paper. I followed slowly. + +Unfortunately for him, that particular doctor happened to be +an _americana_ a snappy little fellow, lately returned from the States. + +"Glad to make your acquaintance, sir," he began, as I came up to where +the two were arguing together. "I've heard of your passing through the +other day. So you don't talk Italian? Well, then, see here: this man of +yours, this God-dam son of Satan, has been showing me a couple of bugs +and telling me a couple of hundred lies about them. Better move on right +away; lucky you struck _me!_ As for this son of a ----, you bet I'll +sulphur him, bugs and all, to hell!" + +I paid the crestfallen muleteer then and there; took down my bags, +greatly lightened, and departed with them. Glancing round near the +little bridge, I saw that the pair were still engaged in heated +discussion, my man clinging despairingly, as it seemed, to the +beetle-hypothesis; he looked at me with reproachful eyes, as though I +had deserted him in his hour of need. + +But what could I do, not knowing Italian? + +Moreover, I remembered the "lady-mule." + +Fifteen minutes later a light carriage took me to Castrovillari, whence, +after a bath and dinner that compensated for past hardships, I sped down +to the station and managed, by a miracle, to catch the night-train to +Cosenza. + + + + +XXI + +MILTON IN CALABRIA + + +You may spend pleasant days in this city of Cosenza, doing nothing +whatever. But I go there a for set purpose, and bristling with energy. I +go there to hunt for a book by a certain Salandra, which was printed on +the spot, and which I have not yet been able to find, although I once +discovered it in an old catalogue, priced at 80 _grani._ Gladly would I +give 8000 for it! + +The author was a contemporary of that Flying Monk of whom I spoke in +Chapter X, and he belonged to the same religious order. If, in what I +then said about the flying monk, there appears to be some trace of light +fooling in regard to this order and its methods, let amends be made by +what I have to tell about old Salandra, the discovery of whose book is +one of primary importance for the history of English letters. Thus I +thought at the time; and thus I still think, with all due deference to +certain grave and discerning gentlemen, the editors of various English +monthlies to whom I submitted a paper on this subject--a paper which +they promptly returned with thanks. No; that is not quite correct. One +of them has kept it; and as six years have passed over our heads, I +presume he has now acquired a title by "adverse possession." Much good +may it do him! + +Had the discovery been mine, I should have endeavoured to hide my light +under the proverbial bushel. But it is not mine, and therefore I make +bold to say that Mr. Bliss Perry, of the "Atlantic Monthly," knew better +than his English colleagues when he published the article from which I +take what follows. + +"Charles Dunster ('Considerations on Milton's Early Reading,' etc., +1810) traces the _prima stamina_ of 'Paradise Lost' to Sylvester's 'Du +Bartas.' Masenius, Cedmon, Vendei, and other older writers have also +been named in this connection, while the majority of Milton's English +commentators--and among foreigners Voltaire and Tiraboschi--are inclined +to regard the 'Adamus Exul' of Grotius or Andreini's sacred drama of +'Adamo' as the prototype." + +This latter can be consulted in the third volume of Cowper's 'Milton' +(1810). + +The matter is still unsettled, and in view of the number of recent +scholars who have interested themselves in it, one is really surprised +that no notice has yet been taken of an Italian article which goes far +towards deciding this question and proving that the chief source of +'Paradise Lost' is the 'Adamo Caduto,' a sacred tragedy by Serafino +della Salandra. The merit of this discovery belongs to Francesco Zicari, +whose paper, 'Sulla scoverta dell' originale italiano da cui Milton +trasse il suo poema del paradiso perduto,' is printed on pages 245 +to 276 in the 1845 volume of the Naples 'Album scientifico- +artistico-letterario' now lying before me. It is in the form of +a letter addressed to his friend Francesco Ruffa, a native of +Tropea in Calabria. [Footnote: Zicari contemplated another paper on +this subject, but I am unaware whether this was ever published. The +Neapolitan Minieri-Riccio, who wrote his 'Memorie Storiche' in 1844, +speaks of this article as having been already printed in 1832, but does +not say where. This is corroborated by N. Falcone ('Biblioteca +storica-topo-grafica della Calabria,' 2nd ed., Naples, 1846, pp. +151-154), who gives the same date, and adds that Zicari was the author +of a work on the district of Fuscaldo. He was born at Paola in Calabria, +of which he wrote a (manuscript) history, and died in 1846. In this +Milton article, he speaks of his name being 'unknown in the republic of +letters.'. He it mentioned by Nicola Leoni (' Della Magna Grecia,' vol. +ii, p. 153),] + +Salandra, it is true, is named among the writers of sacred tragedies in +Todd's 'Milton' (1809, vol. ii, p. 244), and also by Hayley, but neither +of them had the curiosity, or the opportunity, to examine his 'Adamo +Caduto'; Hayley expressly says that he has not seen it. More recent +works, such as that of Moers ('De fontibus Paradisi Amissi Miltoniani,' +Bonn, 1860), do not mention Salandra at all. Byse ('Milton on the +Continent,' 1903) merely hints at some possible motives for the Allegro +and the Penseroso. + +As to dates, there can be no doubt to whom the priority belongs. The +'Adamo' of Salandra was printed at Cosenza in 1647. Richardson thinks +that Milton entered upon his 'Paradise Lost' in 1654, and that it was +shown, as done, in 1665; D. Masson agrees with this, adding that 'it was +not published till two years afterwards.' The date 1665 is fixed, I +presume, by the Quaker Elwood's account of his visit to Milton in the +autumn of that year, when the poet gave him the manuscript to read; the +two years' delay in publication may possibly have been due to the +confusion occasioned by the great plague and fire of London. + +The castigation bestowed upon Lauder by Bishop Douglas, followed, as it +was, by a terrific 'back-hander' from the brawny arm of Samuel Johnson, +induces me to say that Salandra's 'Adamo Caduto,' though extremely +rare--so rare that neither the British Museum nor the Paris Bibliothèque +Nationale possesses a copy--is _not_ an imaginary book; I have had it in +my hands, and examined it at the Naples Biblioteca Nazionale; it is a +small octavo of 251 pages (not including twenty unnumbered ones, and +another one at the end for correction of misprints); badly printed and +bearing all the marks of genuineness, with the author's name and the +year and place of publication clearly set forth on the title-page. I +have carefully compared Zicari's references to it, and quotations from +it with the original. They are correct, save for a few insignificant +verbal discrepancies which, so far as I can judge, betray no indication +of an attempt on his part to mislead the reader, such as using the word +_tromba_ (trumpet) instead of Salandra's term _sambuca_ (sackbut). And +if further proof of authenticity be required, I may note that the 'Adamo +Caduto' of Salandra is already cited in old bibliographies like Toppi's +'Biblioteca Napoletana' (1678), or that of Joannes a S. Antonio +('Biblioteca universa Franciscana, etc.,' Madrid, 1732-1733, vol. iii, +p. 88). It appears to have been the only literary production of its +author, who was a Franciscan monk and is described as 'Preacher, Lector +and Definitor of the Reformed Province of Basilicata.' + +We may take it, then, that Salandra was a real person, who published a +mystery called 'Adamo Caduto' in 1647; and I will now, without further +preamble, extract from Zicari's article as much as may be sufficient to +show ground for his contention that Milton's 'Paradise Lost' is a +transfusion, in general and in particular, of this same mystery. + +Salandra's central theme is the Universe shattered by the disobedience +of the First Man, the origin of our unhappiness and sins. The same with +Milton. + +Salandra's chief personages are God and His angels; the first man and +woman; the serpent; Satan and his angels. The same with Milton. + +Salandra, at the opening of his poem (the prologue), sets forth his +argument, and dwells upon the Creative Omnipotence and his works. The +same with Milton. + +Salandra then describes the council of the rebel angels, their fall from +heaven into a desert and sulphurous region, their discourses. Man is +enviously spoken of, and his fall by means of stratagem decided upon; it +is resolved to reunite in council in Pandemonium or the Abyss, where +measures may be adopted to the end that man may become the enemy of God +and the prey of hell. The same with Milton. + +Salandra personifies Sin and Death, the latter being the child of the +former. The same with Milton. + +Salandra describes Omnipotence foreseeing the effects of the temptation +and fall of man, and preparing his redemption. The same with Milton. + +Salandra depicts the site of Paradise and the happy life there. The same +with Milton. + +Salandra sets forth the miraculous creation of the universe and of man, +and the virtues of the forbidden fruit. The same with Milton. + +Salandra reports the conversation between Eve and the Serpent; the +eating of the forbidden fruit and the despair of our first parents. The +same with Milton. + +Salandra describes the joy of Death at the discomfiture of Eve; the +rejoicings in hell; the grief of Adam; the flight of our first parents, +their shame and repentance. The same with Milton. + +Salandra anticipates the intercession of the Redeemer, and the overthrow +of Sin and Death; he dwells upon the wonders of the Creation, the murder +of Abel by his brother Cain, and other human ills; the vices of the +Antediluvians, due to the fall of Adam; the infernal gift of war. The +same with Milton. + +Salandra describes the passion of Jesus Christ, and the comforts which +Adam and Eve receive from the angel who announces the coming of the +Messiah; lastly, their departure from the earthly paradise. The same +with Milton. + +So much for the general scheme of both poems. And now for a few +particular points of resemblance, verbal and otherwise. + +The character of Milton's Satan, with the various facets of pride, envy, +vindictiveness, despair, and impenitence which go to form that +harmonious whole, are already clearly mapped out in the Lucifero of +Salandra. For this statement, which I find correct, Zicari gives chapter +and verse, but it would take far too long to set forth the matter in +this place. The speeches of Lucifero, to be sure, read rather like a +caricature--it must not be forgotten that Salandra was writing for +lower-class theatrical spectators, and not for refined readers--but the +elements which Milton has utilized are already there. + +Here is a coincidence: + +Here we may reign secure . . . + +Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. + +MILTON (i, 258) + +. . . . Qui propria voglia, Son capo, son qui duce, son +lor Prence. + +SALANDRA (p. 49). + +And another: + +. . . Whom shall we find Sufficient? +. . . This enterprise None shall +partake with me. +--MILTON (ii, 403, 465). + +A chi basterà l' anima di voi? +. . . certo che quest' affare +A la mia man s' aspetta. +--SALANDRA (p. 64). + +Milton's Terror is partially taken from the Megera of the Italian poet. +The 'grisly Terror' threatens Satan (ii, 699), and the office of Megera, +in Salandra's drama, is exactly the same--that is, to threaten and +chastise the rebellious spirit, which she does very effectually (pages +123-131). The identical monsters--Cerberus, Hydras, and Chimseras--are +found in their respective abodes, but Salandra does not content himself +with these three; his list includes such a mixed assemblage of creatures +as owls, basilisks, dragons, tigers, bears, crocodiles, sphynxes, +harpies, and panthers. Terror moves with dread rapidity: + +. . . and from his seat +The monster moving onward came as fast +With horrid strides. +--MILTON (ii, 675). + +and so does Megera: + +In atterir, in spaventar son . . . +Rapido si ch' ogni ripar è vano. +--SALANDRA (p. 59). + +Both Milton and Salandra use the names of the gods of antiquity for +their demons, but the narrative epic of the English poet naturally +permitted of far greater prolixity and variety in this respect. A most +curious parallelism exists between Milton's Belial and that of Salandra. +Both are described as luxurious, timorous, slothful, and scoffing, and +there is not the slightest doubt that Milton has taken over these mixed +attributes from the Italian. [Footnote: This is one of the occasions in +which Zicari appears, at first sight, to have stretched a point in order +to improve his case, because, in the reference he gives, it is Behemoth, +and not Belial, who speaks of himielf as cowardly _(imbelle)._ But in +another place Lucifer applies this designation to Belial as well,] + +The words of Milton's Beelzebub (ii, 368): + + Seduce them to our party, that their god + May prove their foe . . . + +are copied from those of the Italian Lucifero (p. 52): + + . . . Facciam Acciò, che l' huom divenga + A Dio nemico . . . + +Regarding the creation of the world, Salandra asks (p. 11): + + Qual lingua può di Dio, + Benché da Dio formato + Lodar di Dio le meraviglie estreme? + +which is thus echoed by Milton (vii, 112): + + . . . to recount almighty works + What words or tongue of Seraph can suffice? + +There is a considerable resemblance between the two poets in their +descriptions of Paradise and of its joys. In both poems, too, Adam warns +his spouse of her frailty, and in the episode of Eve's meeting with the +serpent there are no less than four verbal coincidences. Thus Salandra +writes (p. 68): + + Ravviso gli animal, ch' a schiera a schiera + Già fanno humil e _reverente_ inclino . . . + Ravveggio il bel serpente _avvolto_ in giri; + O sei bello + Con tanta varietà che certo sembri + Altro stellato ciel, _smaltata_ terra. + O che sento, _tu parli?_ + +and Milton transcribes it as follows (ix, 517-554): + + . . . She minded not, as used + To such disport before her through the field + From every beast, more _duteous_ at her call . . . + Curled many a wanton _wreath_ in sight of Eve. + His turret crest and sleek _enamelled_ neck . . . + What may this mean? + Language of man _pronounced_ + By tongue of brute? + +Altogether, Zicari has observed that Rolli, although unacquainted with +the 'Adamo Caduto,' has sometimes inadvertently hit upon the same words +in his Italian translation of Milton which Salandra had used before him. + +Eve's altered complexion after the eating of the forbidden fruit is +noted by both poets: + +Torbata ne la faccia? Non sei quella + +Qual ti lasciai contenta . . .--SALANDRA (p. 89). + +Thus Eve with countenance blithe her story told; + +But in her cheek distemper flushing glowed. --MILTON (ix, 886). + +only with this difference, that the Italian Eve adds a half-lie by way +of explaining the change: + + . . . Forse cangiata (del che non mi avveggio) + Sono nel volto per la tua partenza.--(p. 89). + +In both poems Sin and Death reappear on the scene after the transgression. + +The flight of Innocence from earth; the distempered lust which dominates +over Adam and Eve after the Fall; the league of Sin and Death to rule +henceforward over the world; the pathetic lament of Adam regarding his +misfortune and the evils in store for his progeny; his noble sentiment, +that none can withdraw himself from the all-seeing eye of God--all these +are images which Milton has copied from Salandra. + +Adam's state of mind, after the fall, is compared by Salandra to a boat +tossed by impetuous winds (p. 228): + + Qual agitato legno d'Austro, e Noto, + Instabile incostante, non hai pace, + Tu vivi pur . . . + +which is thus paraphrased in Milton (ix, 1122): + + . . . High winds worse within + Began to rise . . . and shook sore + Their inward state of mind, calm region once + And full of peace, now tossed and turbulent. + +Here is a still more palpable adaptation: + + ... So God ordains: + God is thy law, thou mine. + --MILTON (iv, 636) + + . . . . Un voler sia d' entrambi, + E quel' uno di noi, di Dio sia tutto. + --SALANDRA (p. 42). + +After the Fall, according to Salandra, _vacillò la terra_ (i), _geme_ +(2), _e pianse_ (3), _rumoreggiano i tuoni_ (4), _accompagnati da +grandini_ (5), _e dense nevi_ (6), (pp. 138, 142, 218). Milton +translates this as follows: Earth trembled from her entrails (1), and +nature gave a second groan (2); sky loured and, muttering thunders (4), +some sad drops wept (3), the winds, armed with ice and snow (6) and hail +(5). ('Paradise Lost,' ix, 1000, x. 697). + +Here is another translation: + + . . . inclino il ciclo + Giù ne la terra, e questa al Ciel innalza. + --SALANDRA (p. 242). + + And Earth be changed to Heaven, and Heaven to Earth. + --MILTON (vii, 160). + +It is not to my purpose to do Zicari's work over again, as this would +entail a complete translation of his long article (it contains nearly +ten thousand words), to which, if the thing is to be done properly, must +be appended Salandra's 'Adamo,' in order that his quotations from it can +be tested. I will therefore refer to the originals those who wish to go +into the subject more fully, warning them, _en passant,_ that they may +find the task of verification more troublesome than it seems, owing to a +stupid mistake on Zicari's part. For in his references to Milton, he +claims (p. 252) to use an 1818 Venice translation of the 'Paradise Lost' +by Rolli. Now Rolli's 'Paradiso Perduto' is a well-known work which was +issued in many editions in London, Paris, and Italy throughout the +eighteenth century. But I cannot trace this particular one of Venice, +and application to many of the chief libraries of Italy has convinced me +that it does not exist, and that 1818 must be a misprint for some other +year. The error would be of no significance if Zicari had referred to +Rolli's 'Paradiso' by the usual system of cantos and lines, but he +refers to it by pages, and the pagination differs in every one of the +editions of Rolli which have passed through my hands. Despite every +effort, I have not been able to hit upon the precise one which Zicari +had in mind, and if future students are equally unfortunate, I wish them +joy of their labours. [Footnote: Let me take this opportunity of +expressing my best thanks to Baron E. Tortora Brayda, of the Naples +Biblioteca Nazionale, who has taken an infinity of trouble in this +matter.] + +These few extracts, however, will suffice to show that, without +Salandra's 'Adamo,' the 'Paradise Lost,' as we know it, would not be in +existence; and that Zicari's discovery is therefore one of primary +importance for English letters, although it would be easy to point out +divergencies between the two works--divergencies often due to the +varying tastes and feelings of a republican Englishman and an Italian +Catholic, and to the different conditions imposed by an epic and a +dramatic poem. Thus, in regard to this last point, Zicari has already +noted (p. 270) that Salandra's scenic acts were necessarily reproduced +in the form _of visions_ by Milton, who could not avail himself of the +mechanism of the drama for this purpose. Milton was a man of the world, +traveller, scholar, and politician; but it will not do for us to insist +too vehemently upon the probable mental inferiority of the Calabrian +monk, in view of the high opinion which Milton seems to have had of his +talents. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The 'Adamo +Caduto,' of course, is only one of a series of similar works concerning +which a large literature has now grown up, and it might not be difficult +to prove that Salandra was indebted to some previous writer for those +words and phrases which he passed on to the English poet. + +But where did Milton become acquainted with this tragedy? It was at +Naples, according to Cowper ('Milton,' vol. iii, p. 206), that the +English poet may first have entertained the idea of 'the loss of +paradise as a subject peculiarly fit for poetry.' He may well have +discussed sacred tragedies, like those of Andreini, with the Marquis +Manso. But Milton had returned to England long before Salandra's poem +was printed; nor can Manso have sent him a copy of it, for he died in +1645--two years before its publication--and Zicari is thus mistaken in +assuming (p. 245) that Milton became acquainted with it in the house of +the Neapolitan nobleman. Unless, therefore, we take for granted that +Manso was intimate with the author Salandra--he knew most of his +literary countrymen--and sent or gave to Milton a copy of the manuscript +of 'Adamo' before it was printed, or that Milton was personally +familiar with Salandra, we may conclude that the poem was forwarded to +him from Italy by some other friend, perhaps by some member of the +_Accademia, degli Oziosi_ which Manso had founded. + +A chance therefore seems to have decided Milton; Salandra's tragedy fell +into his hands, and was welded into the epic form which he had designed +for Arthur the Great, even as, in later years, a chance question on the +part of Elwood led to his writing 'Paradise Regained.' [Footnote: _Thou +hast said much of Paradise Lost, but what hast thou to say of Paradise +Found?_ He made no answer, but sat some time in a muse. . . .] + +For this poem there were not so many models handy as for the other, but +Milton has written too little to enable us to decide how far its +inferiority to the earlier epic is due to this fact, and how far to the +inherent inertia of its subject-matter. Little movement can be contrived +in a mere dialogue such as 'Paradise Regained '; it lacks the grandiose +_mise-en-scene_ and the shifting splendours of the greater epic; the +stupendous figure of the rebellious archangel, the true hero of +'Paradise Lost,' is here dwarfed into a puny, malignant sophist; nor is +the final issue in the later poem _even for a moment_ in doubt--a +serious defect from an artistic point of view. Jortin holds its peculiar +excellence to be 'artful sophistry, false reasoning, set off in the most +specious manner, and refuted by the Son of God with strong unaffected +eloquence'; merits for which Milton needed no original of any kind, as +his own lofty religious sentiments, his argumentative talents and long +experience of political pamphleteering, stood him in good stead. Most of +us must have wondered how it came about that Milton could not endure to +hear 'Paradise Lost' preferred to 'Paradise Regained,' in view of the +very apparent inferiority of the latter. If we had known what Milton +knew, namely, to how large an extent 'Paradise Lost' was not the child +of his own imagination, and therefore not so precious in his eyes as +'Paradise Regained,' we might have understood his prejudice. + +Certain parts of 'Paradise Lost' are drawn, as we all know, from other +Italian sources, from Sannazario, Ariosto, Guarini, Bojardo, and others. +Zicari who, it must be said, has made the best of his case, will have it +that the musterings and battles of the good and evil angels are copied +from the 'Angeleide' of Valvasone published at Milan in 1590. But G. +Polidori, who has reprinted the 'Angeleide' in his Italian version of +Milton (London, 1840), has gone into this matter and thinks otherwise. +These devil-and-angel combats were a popular theme at the time, and +there is no reason why the English poet should copy continental writers +in such descriptions, which necessarily have a common resemblance. The +Marquis Manso was very friendly with the poets Tasso and Marino, and it +is also to be remarked that entire passages in 'Paradise Lost' are +copied, _totidem verbis,_ from the writings of these two, Manso having +no doubt drawn Milton's attention to their beauties. In fact, I am +inclined to think that Manso's notorious enthusiasm for the _warlike_ +epic of Tasso may first of all have diverted Milton from purely pastoral +ideals and inflamed him with the desire of accomplishing a similar feat, +whence the well-known lines in Milton's Latin verses to this friend, +which contain the first indication of such a design on his part. Even +the familiar invocation, 'Hail, wedded Love,' is bodily drawn from one +of Tasso's letters (see Newton's 'Milton,' 1773, vol. i, pp. 312, 313). + +It has been customary to speak of these literary appropriations as +'imitations '; but whoever compares them with the originals will find +that many of them are more correctly termed translations. The case, from +a literary-moral point of view, is different as regards ancient writers, +and it is surely idle to accuse Milton, as has been done, of pilferings +from Aeschylus or Ovid. There is no such thing as robbing the classics. +They are our literary fathers, and what they have left behind them is +our common heritage; we may adapt, borrow, or steal from them as much as +will suit our purpose; to acknowledge such 'thefts' is sheer pedantry +and ostentation. But Salandra and the rest of them were Milton's +contemporaries. It is certainly an astonishing fact that no scholar of +the stamp of Thyer was acquainted with the 'Adamo Caduto'; and it says +much for the isolation of England that, at a period when poems on the +subject of paradise lost were being scattered broadcast in Italy and +elsewhere--when, in short, all Europe was ringing with the doleful +history of Adam and Eve--Milton could have ventured to speak of +his work as 'Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyma'--an amazing +verse which, by the way, is literally transcribed out of Ariosto +('Cosa, non detta in prosa mai, né in rima'). But even now the +acquaintance of the British public with the productions of continental +writers is superficial and spasmodic, and such was the ignorance of +English scholars of this earlier period, that Birch maintained that +Milton's drafts, to be referred to presently, indicated his intention of +writing an _opera_ (!); while as late as 1776 the poet Mickle, +notwithstanding Voltaire's authority, questioned the very existence of +Andreini, who has written thirty different pieces. + +Some idea of the time when Salandra's tragedy reached Milton might be +gained if we knew the date of his manuscript projects for 'Paradise +Lost' and other writings which are preserved at Cambridge. R. Garnett +('Life of Milton,' 1890, p. 129) supposes these drafts to date from +about 1640 to 1642, and I am not sufficiently learned in Miltonian lore +to controvert or corroborate in a general way this assertion. But the +date must presumably be pushed further forward in the case of the +skeletons for 'Paradise Lost,' which are modelled to a great extent upon +Salandra's 'Adamo' of 1647, though other compositions may also have been +present before Milton's mind, such as that mentioned on page 234 of the +second volume of Todd's 'Milton,' from which he seems to have drawn the +hint of a 'prologue spoken by Moses.' + +Without going into the matter exhaustively, I will only say that from +these pieces it is clear that Milton's primary idea was to write, like +Salandra, a sacred tragedy upon this theme, and not an epic. These +drafts also contain a chorus, such as Salandra has placed in his drama, +and a great number of mutes, who do not figure in the English epic, but +who reappear in the 'Adamo Caduto' and all similar works. Even Satan is +here designated as Lucifer, in accordance with the Italian Lucifero; and +at the end of one of Milton's drafts we read 'at last appears Mercy, +comforts him, promises the Messiah, etc.,' which is exactly what +Salandra's Misericordia (Mercy) does in the same place. + +Milton no doubt kept on hand many loose passages of poetry, both +original and borrowed, ready to be worked up into larger pieces; all +poets are smothered in odd scraps of verse and lore which they 'fit in' +as occasion requires; and it is therefore quite possible that some +fragments now included in 'Paradise Lost' may have been complete before +the 'Adamo Caduto' was printed. I am referring, more especially, to +Satan's address to the sun, which Philips says was written before the +commencement of the epic. + +Admitting Philips to be correct, I still question whether this +invocation was composed before Milton's visit to Naples; and if it was, +the poet may well have intended it for some other of the multitudinous +works which these drafts show him to have been revolving in his mind, or +for none of them in particular. + +De Quincey rightly says that Addison gave the initial bias in favour of +'Paradise Lost' to the English national mind, which has thenceforward +shrunk, as Addison himself did, from a dispassionate contemplation of +its defects; the idea being, I presume, that a 'divine poem' in a manner +disarmed rational criticism. And, strange to say, even the few faults +which earlier scholars did venture to point out in Milton's poem will be +found in that of Salandra. There is the same superabundance of allegory; +the same confusion of spirit and matter among the supernatural persons; +the same lengthy astronomical treatise; the same personification of Sin +and Death; the same medley of Christian and pagan mythology; the same +tedious historico-theological disquisition at the end of both poems. + +For the rest, it is to be hoped that we have outgrown our fastidiousness +on some of these points. Theological fervour has abated, and in a work +of the pure imagination, as 'Paradise Lost' is now--is it +not?--considered to be, there is nothing incongruous or offensive in an +amiable commingling of Semitic and Hellenic deities after the approved +Italian recipe; nor do a few long words about geography or science +disquiet us any more. Milton was not writing for an uncivilized mob, and +his occasional displays of erudition will represent to a cultured person +only those breathing spaces so refreshing in all epic poetry. That +Milton's language is saturated with Latinisms and Italianisms is +perfectly true. His English may not have been good enough for his +contemporaries. But it is quite good enough for us. That 'grand manner' +which Matthew Arnold claimed for Milton, that sustained pitch of kingly +elaboration and fullness, is not wholly an affair of high moral tone; it +results in part from the humbler ministrations of words happily +chosen--from a felicitous alloy of Mediterranean grace and Saxon mettle. +For, whether consciously or not, we cannot but be influenced by the +_colour-effects_ of mere words, that arouse in us definite but +indefinable moods of mind. To complain of the foreign phraseology and +turns of thought in 'Paradise Lost' would be the blackest ingratitude +nowadays, seeing that our language has become enriched by steady gleams +of pomp and splendour due, in large part, to the peculiar _lustre_ of +Milton's comely importations. + + + + +XXII + +THE "GREEK" SILA + + +It was to be the Sila in earnest, this time. I would traverse the whole +country, from the Coscile valley to Catanzaro, at the other end. +Arriving from Cosenza the train deposited me, once more, at the unlovely +station of Castrovillari. I looked around the dusty square, half-dazed +by the sunlight--it was a glittering noonday in July--but the postal +waggon to Spezzano Albanese, my first resting-point, had not yet +arrived. Then a withered old man, sitting on a vehicle behind the sorry +skeleton of a horse, volunteered to take me there at once; we quickly +came to terms; it was too hot, we both agreed, to waste breath in +bargaining. With the end of his whip he pointed out the church of +Spezzano on its hilltop; a proud structure it looked at this distance, +though nearer acquaintance reduced it to extremely humble proportions. + +The Albanian Spezzano (Spezzano Grande is another place) lies on the +main road from Castrovillari to Cosenza, on the summit of a +long-stretched tongue of limestone which separates the Crati river from +the Esaro; this latter, after flowing into the Coscile, joins its waters +with the Crati, and so closes the promontory. An odd geographical +feature, this low stretch, viewed from the greater heights of Sila or +Pollino; one feels inclined to take a broom and sweep it into the sea, +so that the waters may mingle sooner. + +Our road ascended the thousand feet in a sinuous ribbon of white dust, +and an eternity seemed to pass as we crawled drowsily upwards to the +music of the cicadas, under the simmering blue sky. There was not a soul +in sight; a hush had fallen upon all things; great Pan was brooding over +the earth. At last we entered the village, and here, once more, +deathlike stillness reigned; it was the hour of post-prandial slumber. + +At our knocking the proprietor of the inn, situated in a side-street, +descended. But he was in bad humour, and held out no hopes of +refreshment. Certain doctors and government officials, he said, were +gathered together in his house, telegraphically summoned to consult +about a local case of cholera. As to edibles, the gentlemen had lunched, +and nothing was left, absolutely nothing; it had been _uno +sterminio--_an extermination--of all he possessed. The prospect of +walking about the burning streets till evening did not appeal to me, and +as this was the only inn at Spezzano I insisted, first gently, then +forcibly--in vain. There was not so much as a chair to sit upon, he +avowed; and therewith retired into his cool twilight. + +Despairing, I entered a small shop wherein I had observed the only signs +of life so far--an Albanian woman spinning in patriarchal fashion. It +was a low-ceilinged room, stocked with candles, seeds, and other +commodities which a humble householder might desire to purchase, +including certain of those water-gugglets of Corigliano ware in whose +shapely contours something of the artistic dreamings of old Sybaris +still seems to linger. The proprietress, clothed in gaudily picturesque +costume, greeted me with a smile and the easy familiarity which I have +since discovered to be natural to all these women. She had a room, she +said, where I could rest; there was also food, such as it was, cheese, +and wine, and---- + +"Fruit?" I queried. + +"Ah, you like fruit? Well, we may not so much as speak about it just +now--the cholera, the doctors, the policeman, the prison! I was going to +say _salami."_ + +Salami? I thanked her. I know Calabrian pigs and what they feed on, +though it would be hard to describe in the language of polite society. + +Despite the heat and the swarms of flies in that chamber, I felt little +desire for repose after her simple repast; the dame was so affable and +entertaining that we soon became great friends. I caused her some +amusement by my efforts to understand and pronounce her language--these +folk speak Albanian and Italian with equal facility--which seemed to my +unpractised ears as hopeless as Finnish. Very patiently, she gave me a +long lesson during which I thought to pick up a few words and phrases, +but the upshot of it all was: + +"You'll never learn it. You have begun a hundred years too late." + +I tried her with modern Greek, but among such fragments as remained on +my tongue after a lapse of over twenty years, only hit upon one word +that she could understand. + +"Quite right!" she said encouragingly. "Why don't you always speak +properly? And now, let me hear a little of your own language." + +I gave utterance to a few verses of Shakespeare, which caused +considerable merriment. + +"Do you mean to tell me," she asked, "that people really talk like that?" + +"Of course they do." + +"And pretend to understand what it means?" + +"Why, naturally." + +"Maybe they do," she agreed. "But only when they want to be thought +funny by their friends." + +The afternoon drew on apace, and at last the pitiless sun sank to rest. +I perambulated Spezzano in the gathering twilight; it was now fairly +alive with people. An unclean place; an epidemic of cholera would work +wonders here. . . . + +At 9.30 p.m. the venerable coachman presented himself, by appointment; +he was to drive me slowly (out of respect for his horse) through the +cool hours of the night as far as Vaccarizza, on the slopes of the Greek +Sila, where he expected to arrive early in the morning. (And so he did; +at half-past five.) Not without more mirth was my leave-taking from the +good shopwoman; something, apparently, was hopelessly wrong with the +Albanian words of farewell which I had carefully memorized from our +preceding lesson. She then pressed a paper parcel into my hand. + +"For the love of God," she whispered, "silence! Or we shall all be in +jail to-morrow." + +It contained a dozen pears. + +Driving along, I tried to enter into conversation with the coachman who, +judging by his face, was a mine of local lore. But I had come too late; +the poor old man was so weakened by age and infirmities that he cared +little for talk, his thoughts dwelling, as I charitably imagined, on his +wife and children, all dead and buried (so he said) many long years ago. +He mentioned, however, the _diluvio,_ the deluge, which I have heard +spoken of by older people, among whom it is a fixed article of faith. +This deluge is supposed to have affected the whole Crati valley, +submerging towns and villages. In proof, they say that if you dig near +Tarsia below the present river-level, you will pass through beds of silt +and ooze to traces of old walls and cultivated land. Tarsia used to lie +by the river-side, and was a flourishing place, according to the +descriptions of Leandro Alberti and other early writers; floods and +malaria have now forced it to climb the hills. + +The current of the Crati is more spasmodic and destructive than in +classical times when the river was "navigable"; and to one of its +inundations may be due this legend of the deluge; to the same +one, maybe, that affected the courses of this river and the Coscile, +mingling their waters which used to flow separately into the Ionian. Or +it may be a hazy memory of the artificial changing of the riverbed when +the town of Sybaris, lying between these two rivers, was destroyed. Yet +the streams are depicted as entering the sea apart in old maps such as +those of Magini, Fiore, Coronelli, and Cluver; and the latter writes +that "near the mouth of the Crati there flows into the same sea a river +vulgarly called Cochile." [Footnote: In the earlier part of +Rathgeber's astonishing "Grossgriechenland und Pythagoras" (1866) will +be found a good list of old maps of the country.] + +This is important. It remains to be seen whether this statement is the +result of a personal visit, or whether he simply repeated the old +geography. His text in many places indicates a personal acquaintance +with southern Italy--_Italian_, says Heinsius, _non semel +peragravit--_ and he may well have been tempted to investigate a site +like that of Sybaris. If so, the change in the river courses and +possibly this "deluge" has taken place since his day. + +Deprived of converse, I relapsed into a doze, but soon woke up with a +start. The carriage had stopped; it was nearly midnight; we were at +Terranova di Sibari, whose houses were lit up by the silvery beams of +the moon. + +Thurii--death-place of Herodotus! How one would like to see this place +by daylight. On the ancient site, which lies at a considerable distance, +they have excavated antiquities, a large number of which are in the +possession of the Marchese Galli at Castrovillari. I endeavoured to see +his museum, but found it inaccessible for "family reasons." The same +answer was given me in regard to a valuable private library at Rossano, +and annoying as it may be, one cannot severely blame such local +gentlemen for keeping their collections to themselves. What have they to +gain from the visits of inquisitive travellers? + +During these meditations on my part, the old man hobbled busily to and +fro with a bucket, bearing water from a fountain near at hand wherewith +to splash the carriage-wheels. He persisted in this singular occupation +for an unreasonably long time. Water was good for the wheels, he +explained; it kept them cool. + +At last we started, and I began to slumber once more. The carriage +seemed to be going down a steep incline; endlessly it descended, with a +pleasant swaying motion. . . . Then an icy shiver roused me from my +dreams. It was the Crati whose rapid waves, fraught with unhealthy +chills, rippled brightly in the moonlight. We crossed the malarious +valley, and once more touched the hills. + +From those treeless slopes there streamed forth deliciously warm +emanations stored up during the scorching hours of noon; the short scrub +that clothed them was redolent of that peculiar Calabrian odour which +haunts one like a melody--an odour of dried cistus and other aromatic +plants, balsamic by day, almost overpowering at this hour. To aid and +diversify the symphony of perfume, I lit a cigar, and then gave myself +up to contemplation of the heavenly bodies. We passed a solitary man, +walking swiftly with bowed head. What was he doing there? + +"Lupomanaro," said the driver. + +A werewolf. . . . + +I had always hoped to meet with a werewolf on his nocturnal rambles, and +now my wish was gratified. But it was disappointing to see him in human +garb--even werewolves, it seems, must march with the times. This +enigmatical growth of the human mind flourishes in Calabria, but is not +popular as a subject of conversation. The more old-fashioned werewolves +cling to the true _versipellis_ habits, and in that case only the pigs, +the inane Calabrian pigs, are dowered with the faculty of distinguishing +them in daytime, when they look like any other "Christian." There is a +record, in Fiore's book, of an epidemic of lycanthropy that attacked the +boys of Cassano. (Why only the boys?) It began on 31 July, 1210; and the +season of the year strikes me as significant. + +After that I fell asleep in good earnest, nor did I wake up again till +the sun was peering over the eastern hills. We were climbing up a long +slope; the Albanian settlements of Vaccarizza and San Giorgio lay before +us and, looking back, I still saw Spezzano on its ridge; it seemed so +close that a gunshot could have reached it. + +These non-Italian villages date from the centuries that followed the +death of Scanderbeg, when the Grand Signior consolidated his power. The +refugees arrived in flocks from over the sea, and were granted tracts of +wild land whereon to settle--some of them on this incline of the Sila, +which was accordingly called "Greek" Sila, the native confusing these +foreigners with the Byzantines whose dwellings, as regards Calabria, are +now almost exclusively confined to the distant region of Aspromonte. +Colonies of Albanians are scattered all over South Italy, chiefly in +Apulia, Calabria, Basilicata, and Sicily; a few are in the north and +centre--there is one on the Po, for instance, now reduced to 200 +inhabitants; most of these latter have become absorbed into the +surrounding Italian element. Angelo Masci (reprinted 1846) says +there are 59 villages of them, containing altogether 83,000 +inhabitants--exclusive of Sicily; Morelli (1842) gives their total +population for Italy and Sicily as 103,466. If these figures are +correct, the race must have multiplied latterly, for I am told there are +now some 200,000 Albanians in the kingdom, living in about 80 villages. +This gives approximately 2500 for each settlement--a likely number, if +it includes those who are at present emigrants in America. There is a +voluminous literature on the subject of these strangers, the authors of +which are nearly all Albanians themselves. The fullest account of older +conditions may well be that contained in the third volume of Rodotà's +learned work (1758); the ponderous Francesco Tajani (1886) brings +affairs up to date, or nearly so. If only he had provided his book with +an index! + +There were troubles at first. Arriving, as they did, solely "with their +shirts and rhapsodies" (so one of them described it to me)--that is, +despoiled of everything, they indulged in robberies and depredations +somewhat too freely even for those free days, with the result that +ferocious edicts were issued against them, and whole clans wiped out. It +was a case of necessity knowing no law. But in proportion as the forests +were hewn down and crops sown, they became as respectable as their +hosts. They are bilingual from birth, one might almost say, and numbers +of the men also express themselves correctly in English, which they pick +up in the United States. + +These islands of alien culture have been hotbeds of Liberalism +throughout history. The Bourbons persecuted them savagely on that +account, exiling and hanging the people by scores. At this moment there +is a good deal of excitement going on in favour of the Albanian revolt +beyond the Adriatic, and it was proposed, among other things, to +organize a demonstration in Rome, where certain Roman ladies were to +dress themselves in Albanian costumes and thus work upon the sentiments +of the nation; but "the authorities" forbade this and every other +movement. None the less, there has been a good deal of clandestine +recruiting, and bitter recriminations against this turcophile attitude +on the part of Italy--this "reactionary rigorism against every +manifestation of sympathy for the Albanian cause." Patriotic +pamphleteers ask, rightly enough, why difficulties should be placed in +the way of recruiting for Albania, when, in the recent cases of Cuba and +Greece, the despatch of volunteers was actually encouraged by the +government? "Legality has ceased to exist here; we Albanians are watched +and suspected exactly as our compatriots now are by the Turks. . . . +They sequestrate our manifestos, they forbid meetings and conferences, +they pry into our postal correspondence. . . . Civil and military +authorities have conspired to prevent a single voice of help and comfort +reaching our brothers, who call to us from over the sea." A hard case, +indeed. But Vienna and Cettinje might be able to throw some light upon +it. [Footnote: This was written before the outbreak of the Balkan war.] + +The Albanian women, here as elsewhere, are the veriest beasts of burden; +unlike the Italians, they carry everything (babies, and wood, and water) +on their backs. Their crudely tinted costumes would be called more +strange than beautiful under any but a bright sunshiny sky. The fine +native dresses of the men have disappeared long ago; they even adopted, +in days past, the high-peaked Calabrian hat which is now only worn by +the older generation. Genuine Calabrians often settle in these foreign +villages, in order to profit by their anti-feudal institutions. For even +now the Italian cultivator is supposed to make, and actually does make, +"voluntary" presents to his landlord at certain seasons; gifts which are +always a source of irritation and, in bad years, a real hardship. The +Albanians opposed themselves from the very beginning against these +mediaeval practices. "They do not build houses," says an old writer, "so +as not to be subject to barons, dukes, princes, or other lords. And if +the owner of the land they inhabit ill-treats them, they set fire to +their huts and go elsewhere." An admirable system, even nowadays. + +One would like to be here at Easter time to see the _rusalet--_those +Pyrrhic dances where the young men group themselves in martial array, +and pass through the streets with song and chorus, since, soon enough, +America will have put an end to such customs. The old Albanian guitar of +nine strings has already died out, and the double tibia--_biforem dat +tibia cantum--_will presently follow suit. This instrument, familiar +from classical sculpture and lore, and still used in Sicily and +Sardinia, was once a favourite with the Sila shepherds, who called it +"fischietto a pariglia." But some years ago I vainly sought it in the +central Sila; the answer to my enquiries was everywhere the same: they +knew it quite well; so and so used to play it; certain persons in +certain villages still made it--they described it accurately enough, but +could not produce a specimen. Single pipes, yes; and bagpipes galore; +but the _tibia: pares_ were "out of fashion" wherever I asked for them. + +Here, in the Greek Sila, I was more fortunate. A boy at the village of +Macchia possessed a pair which he obligingly gave me, after first +playing a song--a farewell song--a plaintive ditty that required, none +the less, an excellent pair of lungs, on account of the two mouthpieces. +Melodies on this double flageolet are played principally at Christmas +time. The two reeds are about twenty-five centimetres in length, and +made of hollow cane; in my specimen, the left hand controls four, the +other six holes; the Albanian name of the instrument is "fiscarol." + +From a gentleman at Vaccarizza I received a still more valuable +present--two neolithic celts (aenolithic, I should be inclined to call +them) wrought in close-grained quartzite, and found not far from that +village. These implements must be rare in the uplands of Calabria, as I +have never come across them before, though they have been found, to my +knowledge, at Savelli in the central Sila. At Vaccarizza they call such +relics "pic"--they are supposed, as usual, to be thunderbolts, and I am +also told that a piece of string tied to one of them cannot be burnt in +fire. The experiment might be worth trying. + +Meanwhile, the day passed pleasantly at Vaccarizza. I became the guest +of a prosperous resident, and was treated to genuine Albanian +hospitality and excellent cheer. I only wish that all his compatriots +might enjoy one meal of this kind in their lifetime. For they are poor, +and their homes of miserable aspect. Like all too many villages in South +Italy, this one is depopulated of its male inhabitants, and otherwise +dirty and neglected. The impression one gains on first seeing one of +these places is more than that of Oriental decay; they are not merely +ragged at the edges. It is a deliberate and sinister chaos, a note of +downright anarchy--a contempt for those simple forms of refinement which +even the poorest can afford. Such persons, one thinks, cannot have much +sense of home and its hallowed associations; they seem to be +everlastingly ready to break with the existing state of things. How +different from England, where the humblest cottages, the roadways, the +very stones testify to immemorial love of order, to neighbourly feelings +and usages sanctioned by time! + +They lack the sense of home as a fixed and old-established topographical +point; as do the Arabs and Russians, neither of whom have a word +expressing our "home" or "Heimat." Here, the nearest equivalent is _la +famiglia._ We think of a particular house or village where we were born +and where we spent our impressionable days of childhood; these others +regard home not as a geographical but as a social centre, liable to +shift from place to place; they are at home everywhere, so long as their +clan is about them. That acquisitive sense which affectionately adorns +our meanest dwelling, slowly saturating it with memories, has been +crushed out of them--if it ever existed--by hard blows of fortune; it is +safer, they think, to transform the labour of their hands into gold, +which can be moved from place to place or hidden from the tyrant's eye. +They have none of our sentimentality in regard to inanimate objects. +Eliza Cook's feelings towards her "old arm-chair" would strike them as +savouring of childishness. Hence the unfinished look of their houses, +within and without. Why expend thought and wealth upon that which may be +abandoned to-morrow? + +The two churches of Vaccarizza, dark and unclean structures, stand side +by side, and I was shown through them by their respective priests, Greek +and Catholic, who walked arm in arm in friendly wise, and meekly smiled +at a running fire of sarcastic observations on the part of another +citizen directed against the "bottega" in general--the _shop,_ as the +church is sometimes irreverently called. The Greco-Catholic cult to +which these Albanians belong is a compromise between the Orthodox and +Roman; their priests may wear beards and marry wives, they use bread +instead of the wafer for sacramental purposes, and there are one or two +other little differences of grave import. + +Six Albanian settlements lie on these northern slopes of the Sila--San +Giorgio, Vaccarizza, San Cosimo, Macchia, San Demetrio Corone, and Santa +Sofia d' Epiro. San Demetrio is the largest of them, and thither, after +an undisturbed night's rest at the house of my kind host--the last, I +fear, for many days to come--I drove in the sunlit hours of next +morning. Along the road one can see how thoroughly the Albanians have +done their work; the land is all under cultivation, save for a dark belt +of trees overhead, to remind one of what once it was. Perhaps they have +eradicated the forest over-zealously, for I observe in San Demetrio that +the best drinking water has now to be fetched from a spring at a +considerable distance from the village; it is unlikely that this should +have been the original condition of affairs; deforestation has probably +diminished the water-supply. + +It was exhilarating to traverse these middle heights with their aerial +views over the Ionian and down olive-covered hill-sides towards the wide +valley of the Crati and the lofty Pollino range, now swimming in +midsummer haze. The road winds in and out of gullies where rivulets +descend from the mountains; they are clothed in cork-oak, ilex, and +other trees; golden orioles, jays, hoopoes and rollers flash among the +foliage. In winter these hills are swept by boreal blasts from the +Apennines, but at this season it is a delightful tract of land. + + + + +XXIII + +ALBANIANS AND THEIR COLLEGE + + +San Demetrio, famous for its Italo-Albanian College, lies on a fertile +incline sprinkled with olives and mulberries and chestnuts, fifteen +hundred feet above sea-level. They tell me that within the memory of +living man no Englishman has ever entered the town. This is quite +possible; I have not yet encountered a single English traveller, during +my frequent wanderings over South Italy. Gone are the days of Keppel +Craven and Swinburne, of Eustace and Brydone and Hoare! You will come +across sporadic Germans immersed in Hohenstaufen records, or searching +after Roman antiquities, butterflies, minerals, or landscapes to +paint--you will meet them in the most unexpected places; but never an +Englishman. The adventurous type of Anglo-Saxon probably thinks the +country too tame; scholars, too trite; ordinary tourists, too dirty. The +accommodation and food in San Demetrio leave much to be desired; its +streets are irregular lanes, ill-paved with cobbles of gneiss and +smothered under dust and refuse. None the less, what noble names have +been given to these alleys--names calculated to fire the ardent +imagination of young Albanian students, and prompt them to valorous and +patriotic deeds! Here are the streets of "Odysseus," of "Salamis" and +"Marathon" and "Thermopylae," telling of the glory that was Greece; "Via +Skanderbeg" and "Hypsilanti" awaken memories of more immediate renown; +"Corso Dante Alighieri" reminds them that their Italian hosts, too, have +done something in their day; the "Piazza Francesco Ferrer" causes their +ultra-liberal breasts to swell with mingled pride and indignation; while +the "Via dell' Industria" hints, not obscurely, at the great truth that +genius, without a capacity for taking pains, is an idle phrase. Such +appellations, without a doubt, are stimulating and glamorous. But if the +streets themselves have seen a scavenger's broom within the last +half-century, I am much mistaken. The goddess "Hygeia" dost not figure +among their names, nor yet that Byzantine Monarch whose infantile +exploit might be re-enacted in ripest maturity without attracting any +attention in San Demetrio. To the pure all things are pure. + +The town is exclusively Albanian; the Roman Catholic church has fallen +into disrepair, and is now used as a shed for timber. But at the door of +the Albanian sanctuary I was fortunate enough to intercept a native +wedding, just as the procession was about to enter the portal. Despite +the fact that the bride was considered the ugliest girl in the place, +she had been duly "robbed" by her bold or possibly blind lover--her +features were providentially veiled beneath her nuptial _flammèum,_ and +of her squat figure little could be discerned under the gorgeous +accoutrements of the occasion. She was ablaze with ornaments and +embroidery of gold, on neck and shoulders and wrist; a wide lace collar +fell over a bodice of purple silk; silken too, and of brightest green, +was her pleated skirt. The priest seemed ineffably bored with his task, +and mumbled through one or two pages of holy books in record time; there +were holdings of candles, interchange of rings, sacraments of bread and +wine and other solemn ceremonies--the most quaint being the +_stephanoma,_ or crowning, of the happy pair, and the moving of their +respective crowns from the head of one to that of the other. It ended +with a chanting perlustration of the church, led by the priest: this is +the so-called "pesatura." + +I endeavoured to attune my mind to the gravity of this marriage, to the +deep historico-ethnologico-poetical significance of its smallest detail. +Such rites, I said to myself, must be understood to be appreciated, and +had I not been reading certain native commentators on the subject that +very morning? Nevertheless, my attention was diverted from the main +issue--the bridegroom's face had fascinated me. The self-conscious male +is always at a disadvantage during grotesquely splendid buffooneries of +this kind; and never, in all my life, have I seen a man looking such a +sorry fool as this individual, never; especially during the +perambulation, when his absurd crown was supported on his head, from +behind, by the hand of his best man. + +Meanwhile a handful of boys, who seemed to share my private feelings in +regard to the performance, had entered the sacred precincts, their +pockets stuffed with living cicadas. These Albanian youngsters, like all +true connaisseurs, are aware of the idiosyncrasy of the classical insect +which, when pinched or tickled on a certain spot, emits its +characteristic and ear-piercing note--the "lily-soft voice" of the Greek +bard. The cicadas, therefore, were duly pinched and then let loose; like +squibs and rockets they careered among the congregation, dashing in our +faces and clinging to our garments; the church resounded like an +olive-copse at noon. A hot little hand conveyed one of these tremulously +throbbing creatures into my own, and obeying a whispered injunction of +"Let it fly, sir!" I had the joy of seeing the beast alight with a +violent buzz on the head of the bride--doubtless the happiest of +auguries. Such conduct, on the part of English boys, would be deemed +very naughty and almost irreverent; but here, one hopes, it may have its +origin in some obscure but pious credence such as that which prompts the +populace to liberate birds in churches, at Easter time. These escaping +cicadas, it may be, are symbolical of matrimony--the individual man and +woman freed, at last, from the dungeon-like horrors of celibate +existence; or, if that parallel be far-fetched, we may conjecture that +their liberation represents the afflatus of the human soul, aspiring +upwards to merge its essence into the Divine All. . . . + +The pride of San Demetrio is its college. You may read about it in +Professor Mazziotti's monograph; but whoever wishes to go to the +fountain-head must peruse the _Historia Erectionis Pontifici Collegi +Corsini Ullanensis, etc.,_ of old Zavarroni--an all-too-solid piece of +work. Founded under the auspices of Pope Clement XII in 1733 (or 1735) +at San Benedetto Ullano, it was moved hither in 1794, and between that +time and now has passed through fierce vicissitudes. Its president, +Bishop Bugliari, was murdered by the brigands in 1806; much of its lands +and revenues have been dissipated by maladministration; it was +persecuted for its Liberalism by the Bourbons, who called it a "workshop +of the devil." It distinguished itself during the anti-dynastic revolts +of 1799 and 1848 and, in 1860, was presented with twelve thousand ducats +by Garibaldi, "in consideration of the signal services rendered to the +national cause by the brave and generous Albanians." [Footnote: There +used to be regiments of these Albanians at Naples. In Filati de +Tassulo's sane study (1777) they are spoken of as highly prized.] Even +now the institution is honeycombed with Freemasonry--the surest path to +advancement in any career, in modern Italy. Times indeed have changed +since the "Inviolable Constitutions" laid it down that _nullus omnino +Alumnus in Collegio detineatur, cuius futura; Chris-tìanae pietatis +significatio non extet._ But only since 1900 has it been placed on a +really sound and prosperous footing. An agricultural school has lately +been added, under the supervision of a trained expert. They who are +qualified to judge speak of the college as a beacon of learning--an +institution whose aims and results are alike deserving of high respect. +And certainly it can boast of a fine list of prominent men who have +issued from its walls. + +This little island of stern mental culture contains, besides twenty-five +teachers and as many servants, some three hundred scholars preparing for +a variety of secular professions. About fifty of them are +Italo-Albanians, ten or thereabouts are genuine Albanians from over the +water, the rest Italians, among them two dozen of those unhappy orphans +from. Reggio and Messina who flooded the country after the earthquake, +and were "dumped down" in colleges and private houses all over Italy. +Some of the boys come of wealthy families in distant parts, their +parents surmising that San Demetrio offers no temptations to youthful +folly and extravagance. In this, so far as I can judge, they are +perfectly correct. + +The heat of summer and the fact that the boys were in the throes of +their examinations may have helped to make the majority of them seem +pale and thin; they certainly complained of their food, and the cook was +the only prosperous-looking person whom I could discover in the +establishment--his percentages, one suspects, being considerable. The +average yearly payment of each scholar for board and tuition is only +twenty pounds (it used to be twenty ducats); how shall superfluities be +included in the bill of fare for such a sum? + +The class-rooms are modernized; the dormitories neither clean nor very +dirty; there is a rather scanty gymnasium as well as a physical +laboratory and museum of natural history. Among the recent acquisitions +of the latter is a vulture _(Gyps fulvus)_ which was shot here in the +spring of this year. The bird, they told me, has never been seen in +these regions before; it may have come over from the east, or from +Sardinia, where it still breeds. I ventured to suggest that they should +lose no time in securing a native porcupine, an interesting beast +concerning which I never fail to enquire on my rambles. They used to be +encountered in the Crati valley; two were shot near Corigliano a few +years ago, and another not far from Cotronei on the Neto; they still +occur in the forests near the "Pagliarelle" above Petilia Policastro; +but, judging by all indications, I should say that this animal is +rapidly approaching extinction not only here, but all over Italy. +Another very rare creature, the otter, was killed lately at Vaccarizza, +but unfortunately not preserved. + +Fencing and music are taught, but those athletic exercises which led to +the victories of Marathon and Salamis are not much in vogue--_mens sana +in corpare sana_ is clearly not the ideal of the place; fighting among +the boys is reprobated as "savagery," and corporal punishment forbidden. +There is no playground or workshop, and their sole exercise consists in +dull promenades along the high road under the supervision of one or more +teachers, during which the youngsters indulge in attempts at games by +the wayside which are truly pathetic. So the old "Inviolable +Constitutions" ordain that "the scholars must not play outside the +college, and if they meet any one, they should lower their voices." A +rule of recent introduction is that in this warm weather they must all +lie down to sleep for two hours after the midday meal; it may suit the +managers, but the boys consider it a great hardship and would prefer +being allowed to play. Altogether, whatever the intellectual results may +be, the moral tendency of such an upbringing is damaging to the spirit +of youth and must make for precocious frivolity and brutality. But the +pedagogues of Italy are like her legislators: theorists. They close +their eyes to the cardinal principles of all education--that the waste +products and toxins of the imagination are best eliminated by motor +activities, and that the immature stage of human development, far from +being artificially shortened, should be prolonged by every possible +means. . If the internal arrangement of this institution is not all it +might be as regards the healthy development of youth, the situation of +the college resembles the venerable structures of Oxford in that it is +too good, far too good, for mere youngsters. This building, in its +seclusion from the world, its pastoral surroundings and soul-inspiring +panorama, is an abode not for boys but for philosophers; a place to fill +with a wave of deep content the sage who has outgrown earthly ambitions. +Your eye embraces the snow-clad heights of Dolcedorme and the Ionian +Sea, wandering over forests, and villages, and rivers, and long reaches +of fertile country; but it is not the variety of the scene, nor yet the +historical memories of old Sybaris which kindle the imagination so much +as the spacious amplitude of the whole prospect. In England we think +something of a view of ten miles. Conceive, here, a grandiose valley +wider than from Dover to Calais, filled with an atmosphere of such +impeccable clarity that there are moments when one thinks to see every +stone and every bush on the mountains yonder, thirty miles distant. And +the cloud-effects, towards sunset, are such as would inspire the brush +of Turner or Claude Lorraine. . . . + +For the college, as befits its grave academic character, stands by +itself among fruitful fields and backed by a chestnut wood, at ten +minutes' walk from the crowded streets. It is an imposing edifice--the +Basilean convent of St. Adrian, with copious modern additions; the +founders may well have selected this particular site on account of its +fountain of fresh water, which flows on as in days of yore. One thinks +of those communities of monks in the Middle Ages, scattered over this +wild region and holding rare converse with one another by gloomy forest +paths--how remote their life and ideals! In the days of Fiore (1691) the +inmates of this convent still practised their old rites. + +The nucleus of the building is the old chapel, containing a remarkable +font; two antique columns sawn up (apparently for purposes of +transportation from some pagan temple by the shore)--one of them being +of African marble and the other of grey granite; there is also a +tessellated pavement with beast-patterns of leopards and serpents akin +to those of Patir. Bertaux gives a reproduction of this serpent; he +assimilates it, as regards technique and age, to that which lies before +the altar of Monte Cassino and was wrought by Greek artisans of the +abbot Desiderius. The church itself is held to be two centuries older +than that of Patir. + +The library, once celebrated, contains musty folios of classics and +their commentators, but nothing of value. It has been ransacked of its +treasures like that of Patir, whose _disjecta membra_ have been tracked +down by the patience and acumen of Monsignor Batiffol. + +Batiffol, Bertaux--Charles Diehl, Jules Gay (who has also written on San +Demetrio)--Huillard-Bréholles--Luynes--Lenormant. . . here are a few +French scholars who have recently studied these regions and their +history. What have we English done in this direction? + +Nothing. Absolutely nothing. + +Such thoughts occur inevitably. + +It may be insinuated that researches of this kind are gleanings; that +our English genius lies rather in the spade-work of pioneers like Leake +or Layard. Granted. But a hard fact remains; the fact, namely, that +could any of our scholars have been capable of writing in the large and +profound manner of Bertaux or Gay, not one of our publishers would have +undertaken to print his work. Not one. They know their business; they +know that such a book would have been a dead loss. Therefore let us +frankly confess the truth: for things of the mind there is a smaller +market in England than in France. _How much smaller_ only they can tell, +who have familiarized themselves with other departments of French thought. + +Here, then, I have lived for the past few days, strolling among the +fields, and attempting to shape some picture of these Albanians from +their habits and such of their literature as has been placed at my +disposal. So far, my impression of them has not changed since the days +when I used to rest at their villages, in Greece. They remind me of the +Irish. Both races are scattered over the earth and seem to prosper best +outside their native country; they have the same songs and bards, the +same hero-chieftains, the same com-bativeness and frank hospitality; +both are sunk in bigotry and broils; they resemble one another in their +love of dirt, disorder and display, in their enthusiastic and +adventurous spirit, their versatile brilliance of mind, their incapacity +for self-government and general (Keltic) note of inspired inefficiency. +And both profess a frenzied allegiance to an obsolete tongue which, were +it really cultivated as they wish, would put a barrier of triple brass +between themselves and the rest of humanity. + +Even as the Irish despise the English as their worldly and effete +relatives, so the Albanians look down upon the Greeks--even those of +Pericles--with profoundest contempt. The Albanians, so says one of their +writers, are "the oldest people upon earth," and their language is the +"divine Pelasgic mother-tongue." I grew interested awhile in Stanislao +Marchiano's plausibly entrancing study on this language, as well as in a +pamphlet of de Rada's on the same subject; but my ardour has cooled +since learning, from another native grammarian, that these writers are +hopelessly in the wrong on nearly every point. So much is certain, that +the Albanian language already possesses more than _thirty different +alphabets_ (each of them with nearly fifty letters). Nevertheless they +have not yet, in these last four (or forty) thousand years, made up +their minds which of them to adopt, or whether it would not be wisest, +after all, to elaborate yet another one--a thirty-first. And so +difficult is their language with any of these alphabets that even after +a five days' residence on the spot I still find myself puzzled by such +simple passages as this: + + . . . Zilji, + mosse vet, ce asso mbremie + to ngcnrct me iljis, praa + gjith e miegculem, mhi siaarr + rriij i sgjuat. Nje voogh e keljbur + sorrevet te liosta + ndjej se i oxtenej + e pisseroghej. Zuu shiu + menes; ne mee se Ijinaar + chish Ijeen pa-shuatur + skiotta, e i ducheje per moon. + +I will only add that the translation of such a passage--it contains +twenty-eight accents which I have omitted--is mere child's play to its +pronunciation. + + + + +XXIV + +AN ALBANIAN SEER + + +Sometimes I find my way to the village of Macchia, distant about three +miles from San Demetrio. It is a dilapidated but picturesque cluster of +houses, situate on a projecting tongue of land which is terminated by a +little chapel to Saint Elias, the old sun-god Helios, lover of peaks and +promontories, whom in his Christian shape the rude Albanian colonists +brought hither from their fatherland, even as, centuries before, he had +accompanied the Byzantines on the same voyage and, fifteen centuries yet +earlier, the Greeks. + +At Macchia was born, in 1814, of an old and relatively wealthy family, +Girolamo de Rada, [Footnote: Thus his friend and compatriot, Dr. Michele +Marchiano, spells the name in a biography which I recommend to those who +think there is no intellectual movement in South Italy. But he himself, +at the very close of his life, in 1902, signs himself Ger. de Rhada. So +this village of Macchia is spelt indifferently by Albanians as Maki or +Makji. They have a fine Elizabethan contempt for orthography--as well +they may have, with their thirty alphabets.] a flame-like patriot in +whom the tempestuous aspirations of modern Albania took shape. The ideal +pursued during his long life was the regeneration of his country; and if +the attention of international congresses and linguists and folklorists +is now drawn to this little corner of the earth--if, in _1902,_ +twenty-one newspapers were devoted to the Albanian cause (eighteen in +Italy alone, and one even in London)--it was wholly his merit. + +He was the son of a Greco-Catholic priest. After a stern religious +upbringing under the paternal roof at Macchia and in the college of San +Demetrio, he was sent to Naples to complete his education. It is +characteristic of the man that even in the heyday of youth he cared +little for modern literature and speculations and all that makes for +exact knowledge, and that he fled from his Latin teacher, the celebrated +Puoti, on account of his somewhat exclusive love of grammatical rules. +None the less, though con-genitally averse to the materialistic and +subversive theories that were then seething in Naples, he became +entangled in the anti-Bourbon movements of the late thirties, and +narrowly avoided the death-penalty which struck down some of his +comrades. At other times his natural piety laid him open to the +accusation of reactionary monarchical leanings. + +He attributed his escape from this and every other peril to the hand of +God. Throughout life he was a zealous reader of the Bible, a firm and +even ascetic believer, forever preoccupied, in childlike simplicity of +soul, with first causes. His spirit moved majestically in a world of +fervent platitudes. The whole Cosmos lay serenely distended before his +mental vision; a benevolent God overhead, devising plans for the +prosperity of Albania; a malignant, ubiquitous and very real devil, +thwarting these His good intentions whenever possible; mankind on earth, +sowing and reaping in the sweat of their brow, as was ordained of old. +Like many poets, he never disabused his mind of this comfortable form of +anthropomorphism. He was a firm believer, too, in dreams. But his +guiding motive, his sun by day and star by night, was a belief in the +"mission" of the Pelasgian race now scattered about the shores of the +Inland Sea--in Italy, Sicily, Greece, Dalmatia, Roumania, Asia Minor, +Egypt--a belief as ardent and irresponsible as that which animates the +_Lost Tribe_ enthusiasts of England. He considered that the world hardly +realized how much it owed to his countryfolk; according to his views, +Achilles, Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great, Aristotle, Pyrrhus, +Diocletian, Julian the Apostate--they were all Albanians. Yet even +towards the end of his life he is obliged to confess:-- + +"But the evil demon who for over four thousand years has been hindering +the Pelasgian race from collecting itself into one state, is still +endeavouring by insidious means to thwart the work which would lead it +to that union." + +Disgusted with the clamorous and intriguing bustle of Naples, he +retired, at the early age of 34, to his natal village of Macchia, +throwing over one or two offers of lucrative worldly appointments. He +describes himself as wholly disenchanted with the "facile fatuity" of +Liberalism, the fact being, that he lacked what a French psychologist +has called the _function of the real;_ his temperament was not of the +kind to cope with actualities. This retirement is an epoch in his +life--it is the Grand Renunciation. Henceforward he loses personal touch +with thinking humanity. At Macchia he remained, brooding on Albanian +wrongs, devising remedies, corresponding with foreigners and +writing--ever writing; consuming his patrimony in the cause of Albania, +till the direst poverty dogged his footsteps. + +I have read some of his Italian works. They are curiously oracular, like +the whisperings of those fabled Dodonian oaks of his fatherland; they +heave with a darkly-virile mysticism. He shares Blake's ruggedness, his +torrential and confused utterance, his benevolence, his flashes of +luminous inspiration, his moral background. He resembles that visionary +in another aspect: he was a consistent and passionate adorer of the +_Ewig-weibliche._ Some of the female characters in his poems retain +their dewy freshness, their exquisite originality, even after passing +through the translator's crucible. + +At the age of 19 he wrote a poem on "Odysseus," which was published +under a pseudonym. Then, three years later, there appeared a collection +of rhapsodies entitled "Milosao," which he had garnered from the lips of +Albanian village maidens. It is his best-known work, and has been +translated into Italian more than once. After his return to Macchia +followed some years of apparent sterility, but later on, and especially +during the last twenty years of his life, his literary activity became +prodigious. Journalism, folklore, poetry, history, grammar, philology, +ethnology, aesthetics, politics, morals--nothing came amiss to his +gifted pen, and he was fruitful, say his admirers, even in his errors, +Like other men inflamed with one single idea, he boldly ventured into +domains of thought where specialists fear to tread. His biographer +enumerates forty-three different works from his pen. They all throb with +a resonant note of patriotism; they are "fragments of a heart," and +indeed, it has been said of him that he utilized even the grave science +of grammar as a battlefield whereon to defy the enemies of Albania. But +perhaps he worked most successfully as a journalist. His "Fiamuri +Arberit" (the Banner of Albania) became the rallying cry of his +countrymen in every corner of the earth. + +These multifarious writings--and doubtless the novelty of his central +theme--attracted the notice of German philologers and linguists, of all +lovers of freedom, folklore and verse. Leading Italian writers like +Cantùpraised him highly; Lamartine, in 1844, wrote to him: "Je suis +bien-heureux de ce signe de fraternité poétique et politique entre vous +et moi. La poesie est venue de vos rivages et doit y retourner. . . ." +Hermann Buchholtz discovers scenic changes worthy of Shakespeare, and +passages of Aeschylean grandeur, in his tragedy "Sofonisba." Carnet +compares him with Dante, and the omniscient Mr. Gladstone wrote in +1880--a post card, presumably--belauding his disinterested efforts on +behalf of his country. He was made the subject of many articles and +pamphlets, and with reason. Up to his time, Albania had been a myth. He +it was who divined the relationship between the Albanian and Pelasgian +tongues; who created the literary language of his country, and +formulated its political ambitions. + +Whereas the hazy "Autobiologia" records complicated political intrigues +at Naples that are not connected with his chief strivings, the little +"Testamento politico," printed towards the end of his life, is more +interesting. It enunciates his favourite and rather surprising theory +that the Albanians cannot look for help and sympathy save only to their +_brothers,_ the Turks. Unlike many Albanians on either side of the +Adriatic, he was a pronounced Turco-phile, detesting the "stolid +perfidy" and "arrogant disloyalty" of the Greeks. Of Austria, the most +insidious enemy of his country's freedom, he seems to have thought well. +A year before his death he wrote to an Italian translator of "Milosao" +(I will leave the passage in the original, to show his cloudy language): + +"Ed un tempo propizio la accompagna: la ricostituzione dell' Epiro nei +suoi quattro vilayet autonomi quale è nei propri consigli e nei propri +desideri; ricostituzione, che pel suo Giornale, quello dell' ottimo A. +Lorecchio--cui precede il principe Nazionale Kastriota, Chini--si +annuncia fatale, e quasi fulcro della stabilità dello impero Ottomano, a +della pace Europea; preludio di quella diffusione del regno di Dio sulla +terra, che sarà la Pace tra gli Uomini." + +Truly a remarkable utterance, and one that illustrates the disadvantages +of living at a distance from the centres of thought. Had he travelled +less with the spirit and more with the body, his opinions might have +been modified and corrected. But he did not even visit the Albanian +colonies in Italy and Sicily. Hence that vast confidence in his +mission--a confidence born of solitude, intellectual and geographical. +Hence that ultra-terrestrial yearning which tinges his apparently +practical aspirations. + +He remained at home, ever poor and industrious; wrapped in bland +exaltation and oblivious to contemporary movements of the human mind. +Not that his existence was without external activities. A chair of +Albanian literature at San Demetrio, instituted in 1849 but suppressed +after three years, was conferred on him in 1892 by the historian and +minister Pasquale Villari; for a considerable time, too, he was director +of the communal school at Corigliano, where, with characteristic energy, +he set up a printing press; violent journalistic campaigns succeeded one +another; in 1896 he arranged for the first congress of Albanian language +in that town, which brought together delegates from every part of Italy +and elicited a warm telegram of felicitation from the minister +Francesco Crispi, himself an Albanian. Again, in 1899, we find him +reading a paper before the twelfth international congress of +Orientalists at Rome. + +But best of all, he loved the seclusion of Macchia. + +Griefs clustered thickly about the closing years of this unworldly +dreamer. Blow succeeded blow. One by one, his friends dropped off; his +brothers, his beloved wife, his four sons--he survived them all; he +stood alone at last, a stricken figure, in tragic and sublime isolation. +Over eighty years old, he crawled thrice a week to deliver his lectures +at San Demetrio; he still cultivated a small patch of ground with +enfeebled arm, composing, for relaxation, poems and rhapsodies at the +patriarchal age of 88! They will show you the trees under which he was +wont to rest, the sunny views he loved, the very stones on which he sat; +they will tell you anecdotes of his poverty--of an indigence such as we +can scarcely credit. During the last months he was often thankful for a +crust of bread, in exchange for which he would bring a sack of acorns, +self-collected, to feed the giver's pigs. Destitution of this kind, +brought about by unswerving loyalty to an ideal, ceases to exist in its +sordid manifestations: it exalts the sufferer. And his life's work is +there. Hitherto there had been no "Albanian Question" to perplex the +chanceries of Europe. He applied the match to the tinder; he conjured up +that phantom which refuses to be laid. + +He died, in 1903, at San Demetrio; and there lies entombed in the +cemetery on the hill-side, among the oaks. + +But you will not easily find his grave. + +His biographer indulges a poetic fancy in sketching the fair monument +which a grateful country will presently rear to his memory on the snowy +Acroceraunian heights. It might be well, meanwhile, if some simple +commemorative stone were placed on the spot where he lies buried. Had he +succumbed at his natal Macchia, this would have been done; but death +overtook him in the alien parish of San Demetrio, and his remains were +mingled with those of its poorest citizens. A microcosmic illustration +of that clannish spirit of Albania which he had spent a lifetime in +endeavouring to direct to nobler ends! + +He was the Mazzini of his nation. + +A Garibaldi, when the crisis comes, may possibly emerge from that +tumultuous horde. + +Where is the Cavour? + + + + +XXV + +SCRAMBLING TO LONGOBUCCO + + +A driving road to connect San Demetrio with Acri whither I was now bound +was begun, they say, about twenty years ago; one can follow it for a +considerable distance beyond the Albanian College. Then, suddenly, it +ends. Walking to Acri, however, by the old track, one picks up, here and +there, conscientiously-engineered little stretches of it, already +overgrown with weeds; these, too, break off as abruptly as they began, +in the wild waste. For purposes of wheeled traffic these picturesque but +disconnected fragments are quite useless. + +Perhaps the whole undertaking will be completed some day--_speriamo!_ as +the natives say, when speaking of something rather beyond reasonable +expectation. But possibly not; and in that case--_pazienza!_ meaning, +that all hope may now be abandoned. There is seldom any great hurry, +with non-governmental works of this kind. + +It would be interesting if one could learn the inner history of these +abortive transactions. I have often tried, in vain. It is impossible for +an outsider to pierce the jungle of sordid mystery and intrigue which +surrounds them. So much I gathered: that the original contract was based +on the wages then current and that, the price of labour having more than +doubled in consequence of the "discovery" of America, no one will +undertake the job on the old terms. That is sufficiently intelligible. +But why operations proceeded so slowly at first, and why a new contract +cannot now be drawn up--who can tell! The persons interested blame the +contractor, who blames the engineer, who blames the dilatory and corrupt +administration of Cosenza. My private opinion is, that the last three +parties have agreed to share the swag between them. Meanwhile everybody +has just grounds of complaint against everybody else; the six or seven +inevitable lawsuits have sprung up and promise to last any length of +time, seeing that important documents have been lost or stolen and that +half the original contracting parties have died in the interval: nobody +knows what is going to happen in the end. It all depends upon whether +some patriotic person will step forward and grease the wheels in the +proper quarter. + +And even then, if he hails from Acri, they of San Demetrio will probably +work against the project, and vice versa. For no love is lost between +neighbouring communities--wonderful, with what venomous feudal animosity +they regard each other! United Italy means nothing to these people, +whose conceptions of national and public life are those of the cock on +his dung-hill. You will find in the smallest places intelligent and +broad-minded men, tradespeople or professionals or landed proprietors, +but they are seldom members of the _municipio;_ the municipal career is +also a money-making business, yes; but of another kind, and requiring +other qualifications. + +Foot-passengers like myself suffer no inconvenience by being obliged to +follow the shorter and time-honoured mule-track that joins the two +places. It rises steeply at first, then begins to wind in and out among +shady vales of chestnut and oak, affording unexpected glimpses now +towards distant Tarsia and now, through a glade on the right, on to the +ancient citadel of Bisignano, perched on its rock. + +I reached Acri after about two and a half hours' walking. It lies in a +theatrical situation and has a hotel; but the proprietor of that +establishment having been described to me as "the greatest brigand of +the Sila" I preferred to refresh myself at a small wineshop, whose +manageress cooked me an uncommonly good luncheon and served some of the +best wine I had tasted for long. Altogether, the better-class women here +are far more wideawake and civilized than those of the Neapolitan +province; a result of their stern patriarchal up-bringing and of their +possessing more or less sensible husbands. + +Thus fortified, I strolled about the streets. One would like to spend a +week or two in a place like this, so little known even to Italians, but +the hot weather and bad feeding had begun to affect me disagreeably and +I determined to push on without delay into cooler regions. It would +never do to be laid up at Acri with heatstroke, and to have one's last +drops of life drained away by copious blood-lettings, relic of +Hispano-Arabic practices and the favourite remedy for every complaint. +Acri is a large place, and its air of prosperity contrasts with the +slumberous decay of San Demetrio; there is silk-rearing, and so much +emigration into America that nearly every man I addressed replied in +English. New houses are rising up in all directions, and the place is +celebrated for its rich citizens. + +But these same wealthy men are in rather a dilemma. Some local +authority, I forget who, has deduced from the fact that there are so +many forges and smiths' shops here that this must be the spot to which +the over-sensitive inhabitants of Sybaris banished their workers in +metal and other noisy professions. Now the millionaires would like to be +thought Sybarites by descent, but it is hardly respectable to draw a +pedigree from these outcasts. + +They need not alarm themselves. For Acri, as Forbiger has shown, is the +old Acherontia; the river Acheron, the Mocone or Mucone of to-day, flows +at its foot, and from one point of the town I had a fine view into its +raging torrent. + +A wearisome climb of two hours brought me to the _Croce Greca,_ the +Greek Cross, which stands 1185 metres above sea-level. How hot it was, +in that blazing sun! I should be sorry to repeat the trip, under the +same conditions. A structure of stone may have stood here in olden days; +at present it is a diminutive wooden crucifix by the roadside. It marks, +none the less, an important geographical point: the boundary between the +"Greek" Sila which I was now leaving and the Sila Grande, the central +and largest region. Beyond this last-named lies the lesser Sila, or +"Sila Piccola "; and if you draw a line from Rogliano (near Cosenza) to +Cotrone you will approximately strike the watershed which divides the +Sila Grande from this last and most westerly of the three Sila +divisions. After that comes Catanzaro and the valley of the Corace, the +narrowest point of the Italian continent, and then the heights of Serra +and Aspromonte, the true "Italy" of old, that continue as far as Reggio. + +Though I passed through some noble groves of chestnut on the way up, the +country here was a treeless waste. Yet it must have been forest up to a +short time ago, for one could see the beautiful vegetable mould which +has not yet had time to be washed down the hill-sides. A driving road +passes the Croce Greca; it joins Acri with San Giovanni, the capital of +Sila Grande, and with Cosenza. + +It was another long hour's march, always uphill, before I reached a +spacious green meadow or upland with a few little buildings. The place +is called Verace and lies on the watershed between the upper Crati +valley and the Ionian; thenceforward my walk would be a descent along +the Trionto river, the Traeis of old, as far as Longo-bucco which +overlooks its flood. It was cool here at last, from the altitude and the +decline of day; and hay-making was going on, amid the pastoral din of +cow-bells and a good deal of blithe love-making and chattering. + +After some talk with these amiable folks, I passed on to where +the young Traeis bubbles up from the cavernous reservoirs of the earth. +Of those chill and roguish wavelets I took a draught, mindful of the day +when long ago, by these same waters, an irreparable catastrophe +overwhelmed our European civilization. For it was the Traeis near whose +estuary was fought the battle between 300,000 Sybarites (I refuse to +believe these figures) and the men of Croton conducted by their champion +Milo--a battle which led to the destruction of Sybaris and, +incidentally, of Hellenic culture throughout the mainland of Italy. This +was in the same fateful year 510 that witnessed the expulsion of the +Tarquins from Rome and the Pisistratidae from Athens. + +Pines, the characteristic tree of the Sila, now begin to appear. Passing +through Verace I had already observed, on the left, a high mountain +entirely decked with them. It is the ridge marked Pale-parto on the map; +the Trionto laves its foot. But the local pronunciation of this name is +Palépite, and I cannot help thinking that here we have a genuine old +Greek name perpetuated by the people and referring to this covering of +hoary pines--a name which the cartographers, arbitrary and ignorant as +they often are, have unconsciously disguised. (It occurs in some old +charts, however, as Paleparto.) An instructive map of Italy could be +drawn up, showing the sites and cities wrongly named from corrupt +etymology or falsified inscriptions, and those deliberately miscalled +out of principles of local patriotism. The whole country is full of +these inventions of _litterati_ which date, for the most part, from the +enthusiastic but undisciplined Cinque-Cento. + +The minute geographical triangle comprised between Cosenza, Longobucco +and San Demetrio which I was now traversing is one of the least known +corners of Italy, and full of dim Hellenic memories. The streamlet +"Calamo" flows through the valley I ascended from Acri, and at its side, +a little way out of the town, stands the fountain "Pompeio" where the +brigands, not long ago, used to lie in wait for women and children +coming to fetch water, and snatch them away for ransom. On the way up, I +had glimpses down a thousand feet or more into the Mucone or Acheron, +raging and foaming in its narrow valley. It rises among the mountains +called "Fallistro" and "Li Tartari"--unquestionably Greek names. + +On this river and somewhere above Acri stood, according to the scholarly +researches of Lenormant, the ancient city of Pandosia. I do not know if +its site has been determined since his day. It was "very strong" and +rich and at its highest prosperity in the fourth century B.C.; after the +fall of Sybaris it passed under the supremacy of Croton. The god Pan was +figured on some of its coins, and appropriately enough, considering its +sylvan surroundings; others bear the head of the nymph Pandosia with her +name and that of the river Crathis, under the guise of a young shepherd: +they who wish to learn his improper legend will find it in the pages of +Aelian, or in chapter xxxii of the twenty-fifth book of Rhodiginus, +beginning _Quae sit brutorum affectio,_ etc. [Footnote: _Brunii a +brutis moribus:_ so say certain spiteful writers, an accusation which +Strabo and Horace extend to all Calabrians. As to the site of Pandosia, +a good number of scholars, such as old Prosper Parisius and Luigi Maria +Greco, locate it at the village of Mendicino on the river Merenzata, +which was called Arconte (? Acheron) in the Middle Ages. So the Trionto +is not unquestionably the Traeis, and in Marincola Pistoia's good little +"Cose di Sibari" (1845) the distinction is claimed for one of four +rivers--the Lipuda, Colognati, Trionto, or Fiuminicà.] + +We have here not the Greece of mediaeval Byzantine times, much less that +of the Albanians, but the sunny Hellas of the days when the world was +young, when these ardent colonists sailed westwards to perpetuate their +names and legends in the alien soil of Italy. + +The Mucone has always been known as a ferocious and pitiless torrent, +and maintains to this day its Tartarean reputation. Twenty persons a +year, they tell me, are devoured by its angry waters: _mangia venti +cristiani all' anno!_ This is as bad as the Amendolea near Reggio. But +none of its victims have attained the celebrity of Alexander of +Molossus, King of Epirus, who perished under the walls of Pandosia in +326 B.C. during an excursion against the Lucanians. He had been warned +by the oracle of Dodona to avoid the waters of Acheron and the town of +Pandosia; once in Italy, however, he paid small heed to these words, +thinking they referred to the river and town of the same name in +Thesprotia. But the gods willed otherwise, and you may read of his death +in the waters, and the laceration of his body by the Lucanians, in +Livy's history. + +It is a strange caprice that we should now possess what is in every +probability the very breastplate worn by the heroic monarch on that +occasion. It was found in 1820, and thereafter sold--some fragments of +it, at least--to the British Museum, where under the name of "Bronze of +Siris" it may still be admired: a marvellous piece of repoussée work, in +the style of Lysippus, depicting the combat of Ajax and the Amazons. . . . + +The streamlet Trionto, my companion to Longobucco, glides along between +stretches of flowery meadow-land--fit emblem of placid rural +contentment. But soon this lyric mood is spent. It enters a winding +gorge that shuts out the sunlight and the landscape abruptly assumes an +epic note; the water tumbles wildly downward, hemmed in by mountains +whose slopes are shrouded in dusky pines wherever a particle of soil +affords them foothold. The scenery in this valley is as romantic as any +in the Sila. Affluents descend on either side, while the swollen rivulet +writhes and screeches in its narrow bed, churning the boulders with +hideous din. The track, meanwhile, continues to run beside the water +till the passage becomes too difficult; it must perforce attack the +hill-side. Up it climbs, therefore, in never-ending ascension, and then +meanders at a great height above the valley, in and out of its tributary +glens. + +I was vastly enjoying this promenade--the shady pines, whose fragrance +mingled with that of a legion of tall aromatic plants in full +blossom--the views upon the river, shining far below me like the thread +of silver--when I observed with surprise that the whole mountain-side +which the track must manifestly cross had lately slipped down into the +abyss. A cloud-burst two or three days ago, as I afterwards learned, had +done the mischief. On arrival at the spot, the path was seen to be +interrupted--clean gone, in fact, and not a shred of earth or trees +left; there confronted me a bare scar, a wall of naked rock which not +even a chamois could negotiate. Here was a dilemma. I must either +retrace my steps along the weary road to Verace and there seek a night's +shelter with the gentle hay-makers, or clamber down into the ravine, +follow the river and--chance it! After anxious deliberation, the latter +alternative was chosen. + +But the Trionto was now grown into a formidable torrent of surging waves +and eddies, with a perverse inclination to dash from one side to the +other of its prison, so as to necessitate frequent fordings on my part. +These watery passages, which I shall long remember, were not without a +certain danger. The stream was still swollen with the recent rains, and +its bed, invisible under the discoloured element, sufficiently deep to +inspire respect and studded, furthermore, with slippery boulders of +every size, concealing insidious gulfs. Having only a short +walking-stick to support me through this raging flood, I could not but +picture to myself the surprise of the village maidens of Crepolati, +lower down, on returning to their laundry work by the river-side next +morning and discovering the battered anatomy of an Englishman--a rare +fish, in these waters--stranded upon their familiar beach. Murdered, of +course. What a galaxy of brigand legends would have clustered round my +memory! + +Evening was closing in, and I had traversed the stream so often and +stumbled so long amid this chaos of roaring waters and weirdly-tinted +rocks, that I began to wonder whether the existence of Longobucco was +not a myth. But suddenly, at a bend of the river, the whole town, still +distant, was revealed, upraised on high and framed in the yawning mouth +of the valley. After the solitary ramble of that afternoon, my eyes +familiarized to nothing save the wild things of nature, this unexpected +glimpse of complicated, civilized structures had all the improbability +of a mirage. Longo-bucco, at that moment, arose before me like those +dream-cities in the Arabian tale, conjured by enchantment out of the +desert waste. + +The vision, though it swiftly vanished again, cheered me on till after a +good deal more scrambling and wading, with boots torn to rags, lame, +famished and drenched to the skin, I reached the bridge of the Rossano +highway and limped upwards, in the twilight, to the far-famed "Hotel +Vittoria." + +Soon enough, be sure, I was enquiring as to supper. But the manageress +met my suggestions about eatables with a look of blank astonishment. + +Was there nothing in the house, then? No cheese, or meat, or maccheroni, +or eggs--no wine to drink? + +"Nothing!" she replied. "Why should you eat things at this hour? You +must find them yourself, if you really want them. I might perhaps +procure you some bread." + +_Avis aux voyageurs,_ as the French say. + +Undaunted, I went forth and threw myself upon the mercy of a citizen of +promising exterior, who listened attentively to my case. Though far too +polite to contradict, I could see that nothing in the world would induce +him to credit the tale of my walking from San Demetrio that day--it was +tacitly relegated to the regions of fable. With considerable tact, so as +not to wound my feelings, he avoided expressing any opinion on so +frivolous a topic; nor did the reason of his reluctance to discuss my +exploit dawn upon me till I realized, later on, that like many of the +inhabitants he had never heard of the track over Acri, and consequently +disbelieved its existence. They reach San Demetrio by a two or even +three days' drive over Rossano, Corigliano, and Vaccarizza. He became +convinced, however, that for some reason or other I was hungry, and +thereupon good-naturedly conducted me to various places where wine and +other necessities of life were procured. + +The landlady watched me devouring this fare, more astonished than +ever--indeed, astonishment seemed to be her chronic condition so long as +I was under her roof. But the promised bread was not forthcoming, for +the simple reason that there was none in the house. She had said that +she could procure it for me, not that she possessed it; now, since I had +given no orders to that effect, she had not troubled about it. + +Nobody travels south of Rome. . . . + +Strengthened beyond expectation by this repast, I sallied into the night +once more, and first of all attended an excellent performance at the +local cinematograph. After that, I was invited to a cup of coffee by +certain burghers, and we strolled about the piazza awhile, taking our +pleasure in the cool air of evening (the town lies 794 metres above +sea-level). Its streets are orderly and clean; there are no Albanians, +and no costumes of any kind. Here, firm-planted on the square, and +jutting at an angle from the body of the church, stands a massive +bell-tower overgrown from head to foot with pendent weeds and grasses +whose roots have found a home in the interstices of its masonry; a +grimly venerable pile, full of character. + +Weary but not yet satiated, I took leave of the citizens and +perambulated the more ignoble quarters, all of which are decently +lighted with electricity. Everywhere in these stiller regions was the +sound of running waters, and I soon discerned that Longobucco is an +improvement on the usual site affected by Calabrian hill-towns--the +Y-shaped enclosure, namely, at the junction of two rivers--inasmuch as +it has contrived to perch itself on a lofty platform protected by no +less than three streams that rush impetuously under its walls: the +Trionto and two of its affluents. On the flank inclined towards the +Ionian there is a veritable chasm; the Trionto side is equally difficult +of approach--the rear, of course, inaccessible. No wonder the brigands +chose it for their chief citadel. + +I am always on the look-out for modern epigraphical curiosities; +regarding the subject as one of profound social significance (postage +stamps, indeed!) I have assiduously formed a collection, the envy of +connaisseurs, about one-third of whose material, they tell me, might +possibly be printed at Brussels or Geneva. Well, here is a mural +_graffito_ secured in the course of this evening's walk: + +_Abaso [sic] questo paese sporco incivile:_ down with this dirty savage +country! + +There is food for thought in this inscription. For if some bilious +hyper-civilized stranger were its author, the sentiments might pass. But +coming from a native, to what depths of morbid discontent do they +testify! Considering the recent progress of these regions that has led +to a security and prosperity formerly undreamed of, one is driven to the +conjecture that these words can only have been penned by some +cantankerous churl of an emigrant returning to his native land after an +easeful life in New York and compelled--"for his sins," as he would put +it--to reside at the "Hotel Vittoria." + +Towards that delectable hostelry I now turned, somewhat regretfully, to +face a bedroom whose appearance had already inspired me with anything +but confidence. But hardly were the preliminary investigations begun, +when a furious noise in the street below drew me to the window once +more. Half the town was passing underneath in thronged procession, with +lighted torches and flags, headed by the municipal band discoursing +martial strains of music. + +Whither wending, at this midnight hour? + +To honour a young student, native of the place, now returning up the +Rossano road from Naples, where he had distinguished himself prominently +in some examination. I joined the crowd, and presently we were met by a +small carriage whence there emerged a pallid and frail adolescent with +burning eyes, who was borne aloft in triumph and cheered with that +vociferous, masculine heartiness which we Englishmen reserve for our +popular prize-fighters. And this in the classic land of brigandage and +bloodshed! + +The intellectual under-current. . . . + +It was an apt commentary on my _graffito._ And another, more personally +poignant, not to say piquant, was soon to follow: the bed. But no. I +will say nothing about the bed, nothing whatever; nothing beyond this, +that it yielded an entomological harvest which surpassed my wildest +expectations. + + + + +XXVI + +AMONG THE BRUTTIANS + + +Conspicuous among the wise men of Longobucco in olden days was the +physician Bruno, who "flourished" about the end of the thirteenth +century. He called himself _Longoburgensis Calaber,_ and his great +treatise on anatomical dissection, embodying much Greek and Arabic lore, +was printed many years after his death. Another was Francesco Maria +Labonia; he wrote, in 1664, "De vera loci urbis Timesinae situatione, +etc.," to prove, presumably, that his birthplace occupied the site +whence the Homeric ore of Temese was derived. There are modern writers +who support this view. + +The local silver mines were exploited in antiquity; first by Sybaris, +then by Croton. They are now abandoned, but a good deal has been written +about them. In the year 1200 a thousand miners were employed, and the +Anjous extracted a great deal of precious metal thence; the goldsmiths +of Longobucco were celebrated throughout Italy during the Middle Ages. +The industrious H. W. Schulz has unearthed a Royal rescript of 1274 +charging a certain goldsmith Johannes of Longobucco with researches into +the metal and salt resources of the whole kingdom of Naples. + +Writing from Longobucco in 1808 during a brigand-hunt, Duret de Tavel says: + +"The high wooded mountains which surround this horrible place spread +over it a sombre and savage tint which saddens the imagination. This +borough contains a hideous population of three thousand souls, composed +of nail-makers, of blacksmiths and charcoal-burners. The former +government employed them in working the silver mines situated in the +neighbourhood which are now abandoned." + +He tells a good deal about the brigandage that was then rife here, and +the atrocities which the repression of this pest entailed. Soon after +his arrival, for instance, four hundred soldiers were sent to a village +where the chiefs of the brigand "insurrection" were supposed to be +sheltered. The soldiers, he says, "poured into the streets like a +torrent in flood, and there began a horrible massacre, rendered +inevitable by the obstinacy of the insurgents, who fired from all the +houses. This unhappy village was sacked and burnt, suffering all the +horrors inseparable from a capture by assault." Two hundred dead were +found in the streets. But the brigand chiefs, the sole pretext of this +bloodshed, managed to escape. Perhaps they were not within fifty miles +of the place. + +Be that as it may, they were captured later on by their own compatriots, +after the French had waited a month at Longobucco. Their heads were +brought in, still bleeding, and "l'identite ayant été suffisamment +constatée, la mort des principaux acteurs a termine cette sanglante +tragèdie, et nous sommes sortis de ces catacombes apénnines pour revoir +le plus brillant soleil." + +Wonderful tales are still told of the brigands in these forests. They +will show you notches on the trees, cut by such and such a brigand for +some particular purpose of communication with his friends; buried +treasure has been found, and even nowadays shepherds sometimes discover +rude shelters of bark and tree trunks built by them in the thickest part +of the woods. There are legends, too, of caverns wherein they hived +their booty--caverns with cleverly concealed entrances--caverns which +(many of them, at least) I regard as a pure invention modelled after the +authentic brigand caves of Salerno and Abruzzi, where the limestone rock +is of the kind to produce them. Bourbonism fostered the brood, and there +was a fierce recrudescence in the troubled sixties. They lived in bands, +_ squadrigli,_ burning and plundering with impunity. Whoever refused to +comply with their demands for food or money was sure to repent of it. +All this is over, for the time being; the brigands are extirpated, to +the intense relief of the country people, who were entirely at their +mercy, and whose boast it is that their district is now as safe as the +streets of Naples. Qualified praise, this. . . . [Footnote: See next +chapter.] + +It is an easy march of eight hours or less, through pleasing scenery and +by a good track, from Longobucco to San Giovanni in Fiore, the capital +of the Sila. The path leaves Longobucco at the rear of the town and, +climbing upward, enters a valley which it follows to its head. The +peasants have cultivated patches of ground along the stream; the slopes +are covered, first with chestnuts and then with hoary firs--a rare +growth, in these parts--from whose branches hangs the golden bough of +the mistletoe. And now the stream is ended and a dark ridge blocks the +way; it is overgrown with beeches, under whose shade you ascend in steep +curves. At the summit the vegetation changes once more, and you find +yourself among magnificent stretches of pines that continue as far as +the governmental domain of Galoppano, a forestal station, two hours' +walk from Longobucco. + +This pine is a particular variety _(Pinus lancio,_ var. _Calabra),_ +known as the "Pino della Sila"--it is found over this whole country, +and grows to a height of forty metres with a silvery-grey trunk, +exhaling a delicious aromatic fragrance. In youth, especially where the +soil is deep, it shoots up prim and demure as a Nuremberg toy; but in +old age grows monstrous. High-perched upon some lonely granite boulder, +with roots writhing over the bare stone like the arms of an octopus, it +sits firm and unmoved, deriding the tempest and flinging fantastic limbs +into the air--emblem of tenacity in desolation. From these trees, which +in former times must have covered the Sila region, was made that +Bruttian pitch mentioned by Strabo and other ancient writers; from them +the Athenians, the Syracusans, Tarentines and finally the Romans built +their fleets. Their timber was used in the construction of Caserta palace. + +A house stands here, inhabited by government officials the whole year +round--one may well puzzle how they pass the long winter, when snow lies +from October to May. So early did I arrive at this establishment that +the more civilized of its inhabitants were still asleep; by waiting, I +might have learnt something of the management of the estate, but gross +material preoccupations--the prospect of a passable luncheon at San +Giovanni after the "Hotel Vittoria" fare--tempted me to press forwards. +A boorish and unreliable-looking individual volunteered three pieces of +information--that the house was built thirty years ago, that a large +nursery for plants lies about ten kilometres distant, and that this +particular domain covers "two or four thousand hectares." A young +plantation of larches and silver birches--aliens to this region--seemed +to be doing well. + +Not far from here, along my track, lies Santa Barbara, two or three +huts, with corn still green--like Verace (above Acri) on the watershed +between the Ionian and upper Grati. Then follows a steep climb up the +slopes of Mount Pettinascura, whose summit lies 1708 metres above +sea-level. This is the typical landscape of the Sila Grande. There is +not a human habitation in sight; forests all around, with views down +many-folded vales into the sea and towards the distant and fairy-like +Apennines, a serrated edge, whose limestone precipices gleam like +crystals of amethyst between the blue sky and the dusky woodlands of the +foreground. + +Here I reposed awhile, watching the crossbills, wondrously tame, at work +among the branches overhead, and the emerald lizard peering out of the +bracken at my side. This _lucertone,_ as they call it, is a local beast, +very abundant in some spots (at Venosa and Patirion, for example); it is +elsewhere conspicuous by its absence. The natives are rather afraid of +it, and still more so of the harmless gecko, the "salamide," which is +reputed highly poisonous. + +Then up again, through dells and over uplands, past bubbling streams, +sometimes across sunlit meadows, but oftener in the leafy shelter of +maples and pines--a long but delightful track, winding always high above +the valleys of the Neto and Lese. At last, towards midday, I struck the +driving road that connects San Giovanni with Savelli, crossed a bridge +over the foaming Neto, and climbed into the populous and dirty streets +of the town--the "Siberia of Calabria," as it may well be, for seven +months of the year. + +At this season, thanks to its elevation of 1050 metres, the temperature +is all that could be desired, and the hotel, such as it is, compares +favourably indeed with the den at Longobucco. Instantly I felt at home +among these good people, who recognized me, and welcomed me with the +cordiality of old friends. + +"Well," they asked, "and have you found it at last?" + +They remembered my looking for the double flute, the _tibiae pares,_ +some years ago. + +It will not take you long to discover that the chief objects of interest +in San Giovanni are the women. Many Calabrian villages still possess +their distinctive costumes--Marcellinara and Cimi-gliano are celebrated +in this respect--but it would be difficult to find anywhere an equal +number of handsome women on such a restricted space. In olden days it +was dangerous to approach these attractive and mirthful creatures; they +were jealously guarded by brothers and husbands. But the brothers and +husbands, thank God, are now in America, and you may be as friendly with +them as ever you please, provided you confine your serious attentions to +not more than two or three. Secrecy in such matters is out of the +question, as with the Arabs; there is too much gossip, and too little +coyness about what is natural; your friendships are openly recognized, +and tacitly approved. The priests do not interfere; their hands are full. + +To see these women at their best one must choose a Sunday or a +feast-day; one must go, morever, to the favourite fountain of Santa +Lucia, which lies on the hill-side and irrigates some patches of corn +and vegetables. Their natural charms are enhanced by elaborate and +tasteful golden ornaments, and by a pretty mode of dressing the hair, +two curls of which are worn hanging down before their ears with an +irresistibly seductive air. Their features are regular; eyes black or +deep gentian blue; complexion pale; movements and attitudes impressed +with a stamp of rare distinction. Even the great-grandmothers have a +certain austere dignity--sinewy, indestructible old witches, with tawny +hide and eyes that glow like lamps. + +And yet San Giovanni is as dirty as can well be; it has the accumulated +filth of an Eastern town, while lacking all its glowing tints or +harmonious outlines. We are disposed to associate squalor with certain +artistic effects, but it may be said of this and many other Calabrian +places that they have solved the problem how to be ineffably squalid +without becoming in the least picturesque. Much of this sordid look is +due to the smoke which issues out of all the windows and blackens the +house walls, inside and out--the Calabrians persisting in a prehistoric +fashion of cooking on the floor. The buildings themselves look crude and +gaunt from their lack of plaster and their eyeless windows; black pigs +wallowing at every doorstep contribute to this slovenly _ensemble._ The +City Fathers have turned their backs upon civilization; I dare say the +magnitude of the task before them has paralysed their initiative. + +Nothing is done in the way of public hygiene, and one sees women washing +linen in water which is nothing more or less than an open drain. There +is no street-lighting whatever; a proposal on the part of a North +Italian firm to draw electric power from the Neto was scornfully +rejected; one single tawdry lamp, which was bought some years ago "as a +sample" in a moment of municipal recklessness, was lighted three times +in as many years, and on the very day when it was least necessary--to +wit, on midsummer eve, which happens to be the festival of their patron +saint (St. John). "It now hangs"--so I wrote some years ago--"at a +dangerous angle, and I doubt whether it will survive till its services +are requisitioned next June." Prophetic utterance! It was blown down +that same winter, and has not yet been replaced. This in a town of +20,000 (?) inhabitants--and in Italy, where the evening life of the +populace plays such an important role. No wonder North Italians, judging +by such external indications, regard all Calabrians as savages. + +Some trees have been planted in the piazza since my last stay here; a +newspaper has also been started--it is called "Co-operation: Organ of +the Interests of San Giovanni in Fiore," and its first and possibly +unique number contains a striking article on the public health, as +revealed in the report of two doctors who had been despatched by the +provincial sanitary authorities to take note of local conditions of +hygiene. "The illustrious scientists" (thus it runs) "were horrified at +the filth, mud and garbage which encumbered, and still encumbers, our +streets, sending forth in the warm weather a pestilential odour. . . . +They were likewise amazed at the vigorously expressed protest of our +mayor, who said: '_My people cannot live' without their pigs wallowing +in the streets. San Giovanni in Fiore is exempt from earthquakes and +epidemics because it is under the protection of Saint John the Baptist, +and because its provincial councillor is a saintly man.'_" Such +journalistic plain speaking, such lack of sweet reasonableness, cannot +expect to survive in a world governed by compromise, and if the gift of +prophecy has not deserted me, I should say that "Co-operation" has by +this time ended its useful mission upon earth. + +This place is unhealthy; its water-supply is not what it should be, and +such commodities as eggs and milk are rather dear, because "the invalids +eat everything" of that kind. Who are the invalids? Typhoid patients +and, above all, malarious subjects who descend to the plains as +agricultural labourers and return infected to the hills, where they +become partially cured, only to repeat the folly next year. It is the +same at Longobucco and other Sila towns. Altogether, San Giovanni has +grave drawbacks. The streets are too steep for comfort, and despite its +height, the prospect towards the Ionian is intercepted by a ridge; in +point of situation it cannot compare with Savelli or the neighbouring +Casino, which have impressive views both inland, and southward down +undulating slopes that descend in a stately procession of four thousand +feet to the sea, where sparkles the gleaming horn of Cotrone. And the +surroundings of the place are nowise representative of the Sila in a +good sense. The land has been so ruthlessly deforested that it has +become a desert of naked granite rocks; even now, in midsummer, the +citizens are already collecting fuel for their long winter from enormous +distances. As one crawls and skips among these unsavoury tenements, one +cannot help regretting that Saint John the Baptist, or the piety of a +provincial councillor, should have hindered the earthquakes from doing +their obvious duty. + +Were I sultan of San Giovanni, I would certainly begin by a general +bombardment. Little in the town is worth preserving from a cataclysm +save the women, and perhaps the old convent on the summit of the hill +where the French lodged during their brigand-wars, and that other one, +famous in the ecclesiastical annals of Calabria--the monastery of +Floriacense, founded at the end of the twelfth century, round which the +town gradually grew up. Its ponderous portal is much injured, having +been burnt, I was told, by the brigands in 1860. But the notary, who +kindly looked up the archives for me, has come to the conclusion that +the French are responsible for the damage. It contains, or contained, a +fabulous collection of pious lumber--teeth and thigh-bones and other +relics, the catalogue of which is one of my favourite sections of Father +Fiore's work. I would make an exception, also, in favour of the doorway +of the church, a finely proportioned structure of the Renaissance in +black stone, which looks ill at ease among its ignoble environment. A +priest, to whom I applied for information as to its history, told me +with the usual Calabrian frankness that he never bothered his head about +such things. + +San Giovanni was practically unknown to the outside world up to a few +years ago. I question whether Lenormant or any of them came here. +Pacicchelli did, however, in the seventeenth century, though he has left +us no description of the place. He crossed the whole Sila from the +Ionian to the other sea. I like this amiable and loquacious creature, +restlessly gadding about Europe, gloriously complacent, hopelessly, +absorbed in trivialities, and credulous beyond belief. In fact (as the +reader may have observed), I like all these old travellers, not so much +for what they actually say, as for their implicit outlook upon life. +This Pacicchelli was a fellow of our Royal Society, and his accounts of +England are worth reading; here, in Calabria (being a non-southerner) +his "Familiar Letters" and "Memoirs of Travel" act as a wholesome +corrective. Which of the local historians would have dared to speak of +Cosenza as "città aperta, scomposta, e disordinata di fabbriche"? + +That these inhabitants of the Sila are Bruttians may be inferred from +the superior position occupied by their women-folk, who are quite +differently treated to those of the lowlands. There--all along the +coasts of South Italy--the _cow-woman_ is still found, unkempt and +uncivilized; there, the male is the exclusive bearer of culture. Such +things are not seen among the Bruttians of the Sila, any more than among +the grave Latins or Samnites. These non-Hellenic races are, generally +speaking, honest, dignified and incurious; they are bigoted, not to say +fanatical; and their women are not exclusively beasts of burden, being +better dressed, better looking, and often as intelligent as the men. +They are the fruits of a female selection. + +But wherever the mocking Ionic spirit has penetrated--and the Ionian +women occupied even a lower position than those of the Dorians and +Aeolians--it has resulted in a glorification of masculinity. Hand in +hand with this depreciation of the female sex go other characteristics +which point to Hellenic influences: lack of commercial morality, of +veracity, of seriousness in religious matters; a persistent, +light-hearted inquisitiveness; a levity (or sprightliness, if you prefer +it) of mind. The people are fetichistic, amulet-loving, rather than +devout. We may certainly suspect Greek or Saracen strains wherever women +are held in low estimation; wherever, as the god Apollo himself said, +"the mother is but the nurse." In the uplands of Calabria the mother is +a good deal more than the nurse. + +For the rest, it stands to reason that in proportion as the agricultural +stage supplants that of pasturage, the superior strength and utility of +boys over girls should become more apparent, and this in South Italy is +universally proclaimed by the fact that everything large and fine is +laughingly described as "maschio" (male), and by some odd superstitions +in disparagement of the female sex, such as these: that in giving +presents to women, uneven numbers should be selected, lest even ones "do +them more good than they deserve"; that to touch the hump of a female +hunchback brings no luck whatever; that if a woman be the first to drink +out of a new earthenware pitcher, the vessel may as well be thrown away +at once--it is tainted for ever. [Footnote: In Japan, says Hearn, the +first bucketful of water to be drawn out of a cleaned well must be drawn +by a man; for if a womsn first draw water, the well will always +hereafter remain muddy. Some of these prejudices seem to be based on +primordial misreadmgs of physiology. There is also a strong feeling in +favour of dark hair. No mother would entrust her infant to a fair +wet-nurse; the milk even of white cows is considered "lymphatic" and not +strengthening; perhaps the eggs of white hens are equally devoid of the +fortifying principle. There is something to be said for this since, in +proportion as we go south, the risk of irritation, photophobia, and +other com-plaints incidental to the xanthous complexion becomes +greater.] Yet the birth of a daughter is no Chinese calamity; even girls +are "Christians" and welcomed as such, the populace having never sunk +to the level of our theologians, who were wont to discuss _an faemina +sint monstra._ + +All over the Sila there is a large preponderance of women over men, +nearly the whole male section of the community, save the quite young and +the decrepit, being in America. This emigration brings much money into +the country and many new ideas; but the inhabitants have yet to learn +the proper use of their wealth, and to acquire a modern standard of +comfort. Together with the Sardinians, these Calabrians are the hardiest +of native races, and this is what makes them prefer the strenuous but +lucrative life in North American mines to the easier career in +Argentina, which Neapolitans favour. There they learn English. They +remember their families and the village that gave them birth, but their +patriotism towards Casa Savoia is of the slenderest. How could it be +otherwise? I have spoken to numbers of them, and this is what they say: + +"This country has done nothing for us; why should we fight its battles? +Not long ago we were almost devouring each other in our hunger; what did +they do to help us? If we have emerged from misery, it is due to our own +initiative and the work of our own hands; if we have decent clothes and +decent houses, it is because they drove us from our old homes with their +infamous misgovern-ment to seek work abroad." + +Perfectly true! They have redeemed themselves, though the new regime has +hardly had a fair trial. And the drawbacks of emigration (such as a +slight increase of tuberculosis and alcoholism) are nothing compared +with the unprecedented material prosperity and enlightenment. There has +also been--in these parts, at all events--a marked diminution of crime. +No wonder, seeing that three-quarters of the most energetic and +turbulent elements are at present in America, where they recruit the +Black Hand. That the Bruttian is not yet ripe for town life, that his +virtues are pastoral rather than civic, might have been expected; but +the Arab domination of much of his territory, one suspects, may have +infused fiercer strains into his character and helped to deserve for him +that epithet of _sanguinario_ by which he is proud to be known. + + + + +XXVII + +CALABRIAN BRIGANDAGE + + +The last genuine bandit of the Sila was Gaetano Ricca. On account of +some trivial misunderstanding with the authorities, this man was +compelled in the early eighties to take to the woods, where he lived a +wild life _(alla campagna; alla macchia)_ for some three years. A price +was set on his head, but his daring and knowledge of the country +intimidated every one. I should be sorry to believe in the number of +carbineers he is supposed to have killed during that period; no doubt +the truth came out during his subsequent trial. On one occasion he was +surrounded, and while the officer in command of his pursuers, who had +taken refuge behind a tree, ordered him to yield, Ricca waited patiently +till the point of his enemy's foot became visible, when he pierced his +ankle-bone with his last bullet and escaped. He afterwards surrendered +and was imprisoned for twenty years or so; then returned to the Sila, +where up to a short time ago he was enjoying a green old age in his home +at Parenti--Parenti, already celebrated in the annals of brigandage by +the exploit of the perfidious Francatripa (Giacomo Pisani), who, under +pretence of hospitality, enticed a French company into his clutches and +murdered its three officers and all the men, save seven. The memoirs of +such men might be as interesting as those of the Sardinian Giovanni Tolù +which have been printed. I would certainly have paid my respects to +Ricca had I been aware of his existence when, some years back, I passed +through Parenti on my way--a long day's march!--from Rogliano to San +Giovanni. He has died in the interval. + +But the case of Ricca is a sporadic one, such as may crop up anywhere +and at any time. It is like that of Musolino--the case of an isolated +outlaw, who finds the perplexed geographical configuration of the +country convenient for offensive and defensive purposes. Calabrian +brigandage, as a whole, has always worn a political character. + +The men who gave the French so much trouble were political brigands, +allies of Bourbonism. They were commanded by creatures like Mammone, an +anthropophagous monster whose boast it was that he had personally killed +455 persons with the greatest refinements of cruelty, and who wore at +his belt the skull of one of them, out of which he used to drink human +blood at mealtime; he drank his own blood as well; indeed, he "never +dined without having a bleeding human heart on the table." This was the +man whom King Ferdinand and his spouse loaded with gifts and +decorations, and addressed as "Our good Friend and General--the +faithful Support of the Throne." The numbers of these savages were +increased by shiploads of professional cut-throats sent over from Sicily +by the English to help their Bourbon friends. Some of these actually +wore the British uniform; one of the most ferocious was known as +"L'Inglese"--the Englishman. + +One must go to the fountain-head, to the archives, in order to gain some +idea of the sanguinary anarchy that desolated South Italy in those days. +The horrors of feudalism, aided by the earthquake of 1784 and by the +effects of Cardinal Ruffo's Holy Crusade, had converted the country into +a pandemonium. In a single year (1809) thirty-three thousand crimes were +recorded against the brigands of the Kingdom of Naples; in a single +month they are said to have committed 1200 murders in Calabria alone. +These were the bands who were described by British officers as "our +chivalrous brigand-allies." + +It is good to bear these facts in mind when judging of the present state +of this province, for the traces of such a reign of terror are not +easily expunged. Good, also, to remember that this was the period of the +highest spiritual eminence to which South Italy has ever attained. Its +population of four million inhabitants were then consoled by the +presence of no less than 120,000 holy persons--to wit, 22 archbishops, +116 bishops, 65,500 ordained priests, 31,800 monks, and 23,600 nuns. +Some of these ecclesiastics, like the Bishop of Capaccio, were notable +brigand-chiefs. + +It must be confessed that the French were sufficiently coldblooded in +their reprisals. Colletta himself saw, at Lagonegro, a man impaled by +order of a French colonel; and some account of their excesses may be +gleaned from Duret de Tavel, from Rivarol (rather a disappointing +author), and from the flamboyant epistles of P. L. Courier, a +soldier-scribe of rare charm, who lost everything in this campaign. +"J'ai perdu huit chevaux, mes habits, mon linge, mon manteau, mes +pistolets, mon argent (12,247 francs). . . . Je ne regrette que mon +Homère (a gift from the Abbé Barthélemy), et pour le ravoir, je +donnerais la seule chemise qui me reste." + +But even that did not destroy the plague. The situation called for a +genial and ruthless annihilator, a man like Sixtus V, who asked for +brigands' heads and got them so plentifully that they lay "thick as +melons in the market" under the walls of Rome, while the Castel Sant' +Angelo was tricked out like a Christmas tree with quartered corpses--a +man who told the authorities, when they complained of the insufferable +stench of the dead, that the smell of living iniquity was far worse. +Such a man was wanted. Therefore, in 1810, Murat gave _carte blanche_ +to General Manhes, the greatest brigand-catcher of modern times, to +extirpate the ruffians, root and branch. He had just distinguished +himself during a similar errand in the Abruzzi and, on arriving in +Calabria, issued proclamations of such inhuman severity that the +inhabitants looked upon them as a joke. They were quickly undeceived. +The general seems to have considered that the end justified the means, +and that the peace and happiness of a province was not to be disturbed +year after year by the malignity of a few thousand rascals; his threats +were carried out to the letter, and, whatever may be said against his +methods, he certainly succeeded. At the end of a few months' campaign, +every single brigand, and all their friends and relations, were wiped +off the face of the earth--together with a very considerable number of +innocent persons. The high roads were lined with decapitated bandits, +the town walls decked with their heads; some villages had to be +abandoned, on account of the stench; the Crati river was swollen with +corpses, and its banks whitened with bones. God alone knows the +cruelties which were enacted; Colletta confesses that he "lacks courage +to relate them." Here is his account of the fate of the brigand chief +Benincasa: + +"Betrayed and bound by his followers as he slept in the forest of +Cassano, Benincasa was brought to Cosenza, and General Manhes ordered +that both his hands be lopped off and that he be led, thus mutilated, to +his home in San Giovanni, and there hanged; a cruel sentence, which the +wretch received with a bitter smile. His right hand was first cut off +and the stump bound, not out of compassion or regard for his life, but +in order that all his blood might not flow out of the opened veins, +seeing that he was reserved for a more miserable death. Not a cry +escaped him, and when he saw that the first operation was over, he +voluntarily laid his left hand upon the block and coldly watched the +second mutilation, and saw his two amputated hands lying on the ground, +which were then tied together by the thumbs and hung round his neck; an +awful and piteous spectacle. This happened at Cosenza. On the same day +he began his march to San Giovanni in Fiore, the escort resting at +intervals; one of them offered the man food, which he accepted; +he ate and drank what was placed in his mouth, and not so much in order +to sustain life, as with real pleasure. He arrived at his home, and +slept through the following night; on the next day, as the hour of +execution approached, he refused the comforts of religion, ascended the +gallows neither swiftly nor slowly, and died admired for his brutal +intrepidity." [Footnote: This particular incident was flatly denied by +Manhes in a letter dated 1835, which is __quoted in the "Notizia storica +del Conte C. A. Manhes" (Naples, 1846)--one of a considerable number of +pro-Bourbon books that cropped up about this time. One is apt to have +quite a wrong impression of Manhes, that inexorable but incorruptible +scourge of evildoers. One pictures him a grey-haired veteran, scarred +and gloomy; and learns, on the contrary, that he was only thirty-two +years old at this time, gracious in manner and of surprising personal +beauty.] + +For the first time since long Calabria was purged. Ever since the +Bruttians, irreclaimable plunderers, had established themselves at +Cosenza, disquieting their old Hellenic neighbours, the recesses of this +country had been a favourite retreat of political malcontents. Here +Spartacus drew recruits for his band of rebels; here "King Marcene" +defied the oppressive Spanish Viceroys, and I blame neither him nor his +imitators, since the career of bandit was one of the very few that still +commended itself to decent folks, under that regime. + +During the interregnum of Bourbonism between Murat and Garibaldi the +mischief revived--again in a political form. Brigands drew pensions from +kings and popes, and the system gave rise to the most comical incidents; +the story of the pensioned malefactors living together at Monticello +reads like an extravaganza. It was the spirit of Offenbach, brooding +over Europe. One of the funniest episodes was a visit paid in 1865 by +the disconsolate Mrs. Moens to the ex-brigand Talarico, who was then +living in grand style on a government pension. Her husband had been +captured by the band of Manzi (another brigand), and expected to be +murdered every day, and the lady succeeded in procuring from the +chivalrous monster--"an extremely handsome man, very tall, with the +smallest and most delicate hands"--an exquisite letter to his colleague, +recommending him to be merciful to the Englishman and to emulate his own +conduct in that respect. The letter had no effect, apparently; but Moens +escaped at last, and wrote his memoirs, while Manzi was caught and +executed in 1868 after a trial occupying nearly a month, during which +the jury had to answer 311 questions. + +His villainies were manifold. But they were put in the shade by those of +others of his calling--of Caruso, for example, who was known to have +massacred in one month (September, 1863) two hundred persons with his +own hands. Then, as formerly, the Church favoured the malefactors, and I +am personally acquainted with priests who fought on the side of the +brigands. Francis II endeavoured to retrieve his kingdom by the help of +an army of scoundrels like those of Ruffo, but the troops shot them +down. Brigandage, as a governmental institution, came to an end. +Unquestionably the noblest figure in this reactionary movement was that +of José Borjès, a brave man engaged in an unworthy cause. You can read +his tragic journal in the pages of M. Monnier or Maffei. It has been +calculated that during these last years of Bourbonism the brigands +committed seven thousand homicides a year in the kingdom of Naples. + +Schools and emigration have now brought sounder ideas among the people, +and the secularization of convents with the abolition of ecclesiastical +right of asylum (Sixtus V had wisely done away with it) has broken up +the prosperous old bond between monks and malefactors. What the +government has done towards establishing decent communications in this +once lawless and pathless country ranks, in its small way, beside the +achievement of the French who, in Algeria, have built nearly ten +thousand miles of road. But it is well to note that even as the +mechanical appliance of steam destroyed the corsairs, the external +plague, so this hoary form of internal disorder could have been +permanently eradicated neither by humanity nor by severity. A scientific +invention, the electric telegraph, is the guarantee of peace against the +rascals. + +These brigand chiefs were often loaded with gold. On killing them, the +first thing the French used to do was to strip them. "On le dépouilla." +Francatripa, for instance, possessed "a plume of white ostrich feathers, +clasped by a golden band and diamond Madonna" (a gift from Queen +Caroline)--Cerino and Manzi had "bunches of gold chains as thick as an +arm suspended across the breasts of their waistcoats, with gorgeous +brooches at each fastening." Some of their wealth now survives in +certain families who gave them shelter in the towns in winter time, or +when they were hard pressed. These _favoreggiatori_ or _manutengoli_ +(the terms are interconvertible, but the first is the legal one) were +sometimes benevolently inclined. But occasionally they conceived the +happy idea of being paid for their silence and services. The brigand, +then, was hoist with his own petard and forced to disgorge his +ill-gotten summer gains to these blood-suckers, who extorted heavy +blackmail under menaces of disclosure to the police, thriving on their +double infamy to such an extent that they acquired immense riches. One +of the wealthiest men in Italy descends from this class; his two hundred +million (?) francs are invested, mostly, in England; every one knows his +name, but the origin of his fortune is no longer mentioned, since +(thanks to this money) the family has been able to acquire not only +respectability but distinction. + + + + +XXVIII + +THE GREATER SILA + + +A great project is afoot. As I understand it, a reservoir is being +created by damming up the valley of the Ampollina; the artificial lake +thus formed will be enlarged by the additional waters of the Arvo, which +are to be led into it by means of a tunnel, about three miles long, +passing underneath Monte Nero. The basin, they tell me, will be some ten +kilometres in length; the work will cost forty million francs, and will +be completed in a couple of years; it will supply the Ionian lowlands +with pure water and with power for electric and other industries. + +And more than that. The lake is to revolutionize the Sila; to convert +these wildernesses into a fashionable watering-place. Enthusiasts +already see towns growing upon its shores--there are visions of gorgeous +hotels and flocks of summer visitors in elegant toilettes, +villa-residences, funicular railways up all the mountains, sailing +regattas, and motor-boat services. In the place of the desert there will +arise a "Lucerna di Calabria." + +A Calabrian Lucerne. H'm. ... + +It remains to be seen whether, by the time the lake is completed, there +will be any water left to flow into it. For the catchment basins are +being so conscientiously cleared of their timber that the two rivers +cannot but suffer a great diminution in volume. By 1896 already, says +Marincola San Fioro, the destruction of woodlands in the Sila had +resulted in a notable lack of moisture. Ever since then the vandalism +has been pursued with a zeal worthy of a better cause. One trembles to +think what these regions will be like in fifty years; a treeless and +waterless tableland--worse than the glaring limestone deserts of the +Apennines in so far as they, at least, are diversified in contour. + +So the healthfulness, beauty, and exchequer value of enormous tracts in +this country are being systematically impaired, day by day. Italy is +ready, said D'Azeglio, but where are the Italians? + +Let us give the government credit for any number of good ideas. It +actually plants bare spaces; it has instituted a "Festa degli alberi" +akin to the American Arbour Day, whereby it is hoped, though scarcely +believed, that the whole of Italy will ultimately be replenished with +trees; it encourages schools of forestry, supplies plants free of cost +to all who ask for them, despatches commissions and prints reports. +Above all, it talks prodigiously and very much to the purpose. + +But it omits to administer its own laws with becoming severity. A few +exemplary fines and imprisonments would have a more salutary effect than +the commissioning of a thousand inspectors whom nobody takes seriously, +and the printing of ten thousand reports which nobody reads. + +With a single stroke of the pen the municipalities could put an end to +the worst form of forest extirpation--that on the hill-sides--by +forbidding access to such tracts and placing them under the "vincolo +forestale." To denude slopes in the moist climate and deep soil of +England entails no risk; in this country it is the beginning of the end. +And herein lies the ineptitude of the Italian regulations, which entrust +the collective wisdom of rapacious farmers with measures of this kind, +taking no account of the destructively utilitarian character of the +native mind, of that canni-ness which overlooks a distant profit in its +eagerness to grasp the present--that beast avarice which Horace +recognized as the root of all evil. As if provisions like this of the +"vincolo forestale" were ever carried out! Peasants naturally prefer to +burn the wood in their own chimneys or to sell it; and if a landslide +then crashes down, wrecking houses and vineyards--let the government +compensate the victims! + +An ounce of fact-- + +In one year alone (1903), and in the sole province of Cosenza wherein +San Giovanni lies, there were 156 landslides; they destroyed 1940 +hectares of land, and their damage amounted to 432,738 francs. The two +other Calabrian provinces--Reggio and Catanzaro--doubtless also had +their full quota of these catastrophes, all due to mischievous +deforestation. So the bare rock is exposed, and every hope of planting +at an end. + +_Vox clamantis!_ The Normans, Anjou and Aragonese concerned themselves +with the proper administration of woodlands. Even the Spanish Viceroys, +that ineffable brood, issued rigorous enactments on the subject; while +the Bourbons (to give the devil his due) actually distinguished +themselves as conservators of forests. As to Napoleon--he was busy +enough, one would think, on this side of the Alps. Yet he found time to +frame wise regulations concerning trees which the present patriotic +parliament, during half a century of frenzied confabulation, has not yet +taken to heart. + +How a great man will leave his mark on minutiae! + +I passed through the basin of this future lake when, in accordance with +my project, I left San Giovanni to cross the remaining Sila in the +direction of Catanzaro. This getting up at 3.30 a.m., by the way, rather +upsets one's daily routine; at breakfast time I already find myself +enquiring anxiously for dinner. + +The Ampollina valley lies high; here, in the dewy grass, I enjoyed what +I well knew would be my last shiver for some time to come; then moved +for a few miles on the further bank of the rivulet along that driving +road which will soon be submerged under the waters of the lake, and +struck up a wooded glen called Barbarano. At its head lies the upland +Circilla. + +There is no rock scenery worth mentioning in all this Sila country; no +waterfalls or other Alpine features. It is a venerable granitic +tableland, that has stood here while the proud Apennines were still +slumbering in the oozy bed of ocean--[Footnote: Nissen says that "no +landscape of Italy has lost so little of its original appearance in the +course of history as Calabria." This may apply to the mountains; but the +lowlands have suffered hideous changes.] a region of gentle undulations, +the hill-tops covered with forest-growth, the valleys partly arable and +partly pasture. Were it not for the absence of heather with its peculiar +mauve tints, the traveller might well imagine himself in Scotland. There +is the same smiling alternation of woodland and meadow, the same huge +boulders of gneiss and granite which give a distinctive tone to the +landscape, the same exuberance of living waters. Water, indeed, is one +of the glories of the Sila--everywhere it bubbles forth in chill +rivulets among the stones and trickles down the hill-sides to join the +larger streams that wend their way to the forlorn and fever-stricken +coastlands of Magna Graecia. Often, as I refreshed myself at these icy +fountains, did I thank Providence for making the Sila of primitive rock, +and not of the thirsty Apennine limestone. + +"Much water in the Sila," an old shepherd once observed to me, "much +water! And little tobacco." + +One of the largest of these rivers is the Neto, the classic Neaithos +sung by Theocritus, which falls into the sea north of Cotrone; San +Giovanni overlooks its raging flood, and, with the help of a little +imagination here and there, its whole course can be traced from +eminences like that of Pettinascura. The very name of these +streams--Neto, Arvo, Lese, Ampollina--are redolent of pastoral life. All +of them are stocked with trout; they meander in their upper reaches +through valleys grazed by far-tinkling flocks of sheep and goats and +grey cattle--the experiment of acclimatizing Swiss cattle has proved a +failure, I know not why--and their banks are brilliant with blossoms. +Later on, in the autumn, the thistles begin to predominate--the finest +of them being a noble ground thistle of pale gold, of which they eat the +unopened bud; it is the counterpart of the silvery one of the Alps. The +air in these upper regions is keen. I remember, some years ago, that +during the last week of August a lump of snow, which a goat-boy produced +as his contribution to our luncheon, did not melt in the bright sunshine +on the summit of Monte Nero. + +From whichever side one climbs out of the surrounding lowlands into the +Sila plateau, the same succession of trees is encountered. To the +warmest zone of olives, lemons and carobs succeeds that of the +chestnuts, some of them of gigantic dimensions and yielding a sure +though moderate return in fruit, others cut down periodically as coppice +for vine-props and scaffoldings. Large tracts of these old chestnut +groves are now doomed; a French society in Cosenza, so they tell me, is +buying them up for the extraction out of their bark of some chemical or +medicine. The vine still flourishes at this height, though dwarfed in +size; soon the oaks begin to dominate, and after that we enter into the +third and highest region cf the pines and beeches. Those accustomed to +the stony deserts of nearly all South European mountain districts will +find these woodlands intensely refreshing. Their inaccessibility has +proved their salvation--up to a short time ago. + +Nearly all the cattle on the Sila, like the land itself, belongs to +large proprietors. These gentlemen are for the most part invisible; they +inhabit their palaces in the cities, and the very name of the Sila sends +a cold shudder through their bones; their revenues are collected from +the shepherds by agents who seem to do their work very conscientiously. +I once observed, in a hut, a small fragment of the skin of a newly +killed kid; the wolf had devoured the beast, and the shepherd was +keeping this _corpus delicti_ to prove to his superior, the agent, that +he was innocent of the murder. There was something naive in his +honesty--as if a shepherd could not eat a kid as well as any wolf, and +keep a portion of its skin! The agent, no doubt, would hand it on to his +lord, by way of _confirmation and verification._ Another time I saw the +debris of a goat hanging from a tree; it was the wolf again; the boy had +attached these remains to the tree in order that all who passed that way +might be his witnesses, if necessary, that the animal had not been sold +underhand. + +You may still find the legendary shepherds here--curly-haired +striplings, reclining _sub tegmine fagi_ in the best Theocritean style, +and piping wondrous melodies to their flocks. These have generally come +up for the summer season from the Ionian lowlands. Or you may encounter +yet more primitive creatures, forest boys, clad in leather, with wild +eyes and matted locks, that take an elvish delight in misdirecting you. +These are the Lucanians of old. "They bring them up from childhood in +the woods among the shepherds," says Justinus, "without servants, and +even without any clothes to cover them, or to lie upon, that from their +early years they may become inured to hardiness and frugality, and have +no intercourse with the city. They live upon game, and drink nothing but +water or milk." But the majority of modern Sila shepherds are shrewd +fellows of middle age (many of them have been to America), who keep +strict business accounts for their masters of every ounce of cheese and +butter produced. The local cheese, which Cassiodorus praises in one of +his letters, is the _cacciacavallo_ common all over South Italy; the +butter is of the kind which has been humorously, but quite wrongly, +described by various travellers. + +Although the old wolves are shot and killed by spring guns and dynamite +while the young ones are caught alive in steel traps and other +appliances, their numbers are still formidable enough to perturb the +pastoral folks. One is therefore surprised to see what a poor breed of +dogs they keep; scraggy mongrels that run for their lives at the mere +sight of a wolf who can, and often does, bite them into two pieces with +one snap of his jaws. They tell me that there is a government reward for +every wolf killed, but it is seldom paid; whoever has the good fortune +to slay one of these beasts, carries the skin as proof of his prowess +from door to door, and receives a small present everywhere--half a +franc, or a cheese, or a glass of wine. + +The goats show fight, and therefore the wolf prefers sheep. Shepherds +have told me that he comes up to them _delicatamente,_ and then, fixing +his teeth in the wool of their necks, pulls them onward, caressing their +sides with his tail. The sheep are fascinated with his gentle manners, +and generally allow themselves to be led up to the spot he has selected +for their execution; the truth being that he is too lazy to carry them, +if he can possibly avoid it. + +He will promptly kill his quarry and carry its carcase downhill on the +rare occasions when the flocks are grazing above his haunt; but if it is +an uphill walk, they must be good enough to use their own legs. +Incredible stories of his destructiveness are related. + +Fortunately, human beings are seldom attacked, a dog or a pig being +generally forthcoming when the usual prey is not to be found. Yet not +long ago a sad affair occurred; a she-wolf attacked a small boy before +the eyes of his parents, who pursued him, powerless to help--the head +and arms had already been torn off before a shot from a neighbour +despatched the monster. Truly, "a great family displeasure," as my +informant styled it. Milo of Croton, the famous athlete, is the most +renowned victim of these Sila wolves. Tradition has it that, relying on +his great strength, he tried to rend asunder a mighty log of wood which +closed, however, and caught his arms in its grip; thus helpless, he was +devoured alive by them. + +By keeping to the left of Circilla, I might have skirted the forest of +Gariglione. This tract lies at about four and a half hours' distance +from San Giovanni; I found it, some years ago, to be a region of real +"Urwald" or primary jungle; there was nothing like it, to my knowledge, +on this side of the Alps, nor yet in the Alps themselves; nothing of the +kind nearer than Russia. But the Russian jungles, apart from their +monotony of timber, foster feelings of sadness and gloom, whereas these +southern ones, as Hehn has well observed, are full of a luminous +beauty--their darkest recesses being enlivened by a sense of benignant +mystery. Gariglione was at that time a virgin forest, untouched by the +hand of man; a dusky ridge, visible from afar; an impenetrable tangle of +forest trees, chiefest among them being the "garigli" _(Quercus cerris)_ +whence it derives its name, as well as thousands of pines and bearded +firs and all that hoary indigenous vegetation struggling out of the +moist soil wherein their progenitors had lain decaying time out of mind. +In these solitudes, if anywhere, one might still have found the +absent-minded luzard (lynx) of the veracious historian; or that squirrel +whose "calabrere" fur, I strongly suspect, came from Russia; or, at any +rate, the Mushroom-stone _which shineth in the night_. [Footnote: As a +matter of fact, the mushroom-stone is a well-known commodity, being +still collected and eaten, for example, at Santo Stefano in Aspramente. +Older travellers tell us that it used to be exported to Naples and kept +in the cellars of the best houses for the enjoyment of its +fruit--sometimes in lumps measuring two feet in diameter which, being +soaked in water, produced these edible fungi. A stone yielding food--a +miracle! It is a porous tufa adapted, presumably, for sheltering and +fecundating vegetable spores. A little pamphlet by Professor A. Trotter +("Flora Montana della Calabria") gives some idea of the local plants and +contains a useful bibliography. A curious feature is the relative +abundance of boreal and Balkan-Oriental forms; another, the rapid spread +of _Genista anglica,_ which is probably an importation.] + +Well, I am glad my path to-day did not lead me to Gariglione, and so +destroy old memories of the place. For the domain, they tell me, has +been sold for 350,000 francs to a German company; its primeval silence +is now invaded by an army of 260 workmen, who have been cutting down the +timber as fast as they can. So vanishes another fair spot from earth! +And what is left of the Sila, once these forests are gone? Not even the +charm, such as it is, of Caithness. . . . + +After Circilla comes the watershed that separates the Sila Grande from +the westerly regions of Sila Piccola. Thenceforward it was downhill +walking, at first through forest lands, then across verdant stretches, +bereft of timber and simmering in the sunshine. The peculiar character +of this country is soon revealed--ferociously cloven ravines, utterly +different from the Sila Grande. + +With the improvidence of the true traveller I had consumed my stock of +provisions ere reaching the town of Taverna after a march of nine hours +or thereabouts. A place of this size and renown, I had argued, would +surely be able to provide a meal. But Taverna belies its name. The only +tavern discoverable was a composite hovel, half wine-shop, half +hen-house, whose proprietor, disturbed in his noonday nap, stoutly +refused to produce anything eatable. And there I stood in the blazing +sunshine, famished and un-befriended. Forthwith the strength melted out +of my bones; the prospect of walking to Catanzaro, so alluring with a +full stomach, faded out of the realm of possibility; and it seemed a +special dispensation of Providence when, at my lowest ebb of vitality, a +small carriage suddenly hove in sight. + +"How much to Catanzaro?" + +The owner eyed me critically, and then replied in English: + +"You can pay twenty dollars." + +Twenty dollars--a hundred francs! But it is useless trying to bargain +with an _americano_ (their time is too valuable). + +"A dollar a mile?" I protested. + +"That's so." + +"You be damned." + +"Same to you, mister." And he drove off. + +Such bold defiance of fate never goes unrewarded. A two-wheeled cart +conveying some timber overtook me shortly afterwards on my way from the +inhospitable Taverna. For a small consideration I was enabled to pass +the burning hours of the afternoon in an improvised couch among its load +of boards, admiring the scenery and the engineering feats that have +carried a road through such difficult country, and thinking out some +further polite remarks to be addressed to my twenty-dollar friend, in +the event of our meeting at Catanzaro. . . . + +One must have traversed the Sila in order to appreciate the manifold +charms of the mountain town--I have revelled in them since my arrival. +But it has one irremediable drawback: the sea lies at an inconvenient +distance. It takes forty-five minutes to reach the shore by means of two +railways in whose carriages the citizens descend after wild scrambles +for places, packed tight as sardines in the sweltering heat. Only a +genuine enthusiast will undertake the trip more than once. For the +Marina itself--at this season, at least--is an unappetizing spot; a +sordid agglomeration of houses, a few dirty fruit-stalls, ankle-deep +dust, swarms of flies. I prefer to sleep through the warm hours of the +day, and then take the air in that delightful public garden which, by +the way, has already become too small for the increasing population. + +At its entrance stands the civic museum, entrusted, just now, to the +care of a quite remarkably ignorant and slatternly woman. It contains +two rooms, whose exhibits are smothered in dust and cobwebs; as +neglected, in short, as her own brats that sprawl about its floor. I +enquired whether she possessed no catalogue to show where the objects, +bearing no labels, had been found. A catalogue was unnecessary, she +said; she knew everything--everything! + +And everything, apparently, hailed from "Stromboli." The Tiriolo helmet, +the Greek vases, all the rest of the real and sham treasures of this +establishment: they were all discovered at Stromboli. + +"Those coins--whence?" + +"Stromboli!" + +Noticing some neolithic celts similar to those I obtained at Vaccarizza, +I would gladly have learnt their place of origin. Promptly came the answer: + +"Stromboli!" + +"Nonsense, my good woman. I've been three times to Stromboli; it is an +island of black stones where the devil has a house, and such things are +not found there." (Of course she meant Strangoli, the ancient Petelia.) + +This vigorous assertion made her more circumspect. Thenceforward +everything was declared to come from the province--_dalla provincia;_ it +was safer. + +"That bad picture--whence?" + +"Dalla provincia!" + +"Have you really no catalogue?" + +"I know everything." + +"And this broken statue--whence?" + +"Dalla provincia!" + +"But the province is large," I objected. + +"So it is. Large, and old." + +I have also revisited Tiriolo, once celebrated for the "Sepulchres of +the Giants" (Greek tombs) that were unearthed here, and latterly for a +certain more valuable antiquarian discovery. Not long ago it was a +considerable undertaking to reach this little place, but nowadays a +public motor-car whirls you up and down the ravines at an alarming pace +and will deposit you, within a few hours, at remote Cosenza, once an +enormous drive. It is the same all over modern Calabria. The diligence +service, for instance, that used to take fourteen hours from San +Giovanni to Cosenza has been replaced by motors that cover the distance +in four or five. One is glad to save time, but this new element of +mechanical hurry has produced a corresponding kind of traveller--a +machine-made creature, devoid of the humanity of the old; it has done +away with the personal note of conviviality that reigned in the +post-carriages. What jocund friendships were made, what songs and tales +applauded, during those interminable hours in the lumbering chaise! + +You must choose Sunday for Tiriolo, on account of the girls, whose +pretty faces and costumes are worth coming any distance to see. A good +proportion of them have the fair hair which seems to have been +eliminated, in other parts of the country, through the action of malaria. + +Viewed from Catanzaro, one of the hills of Tiriolo looks like a broken +volcanic crater. It is a limestone ridge, decked with those +characteristic flowers like _Campanula fragilis_ which you will vainly +seek on the Sila. Out of the ruins of some massive old building they +have constructed, on the summit, a lonely weather-beaten fabric that +would touch the heart of Maeterlinck. They call it a seismological +station. I pity the people that have to depend for their warnings of +earthquakes upon the outfit of a place like this. I could see no signs +of life here; the windows were broken, the shutters decaying, an old +lightning-rod dangled disconsolately from the roof; it looked as +abandoned as any old tower in a tale. There is a noble view from this +point over both seas and into the riven complexities of Aspromonte, when +the peak is not veiled in mists, as it frequently is. For Tiriolo lies +on the watershed; there (to quote from a "Person of Quality ") "where +the Apennine is drawn into so narrow a point, that the rain-water which +descendeth from the ridge of some one house, falleth on the left in the +Terrene Sea, and on the right into the Adriatick. . . ." + +My visits to the provincial museum have become scandalously frequent +during the last few days. I cannot keep away from the place. I go there +not to study the specimens but to converse with their keeper, the woman +who, in her quiet way, has cast a sort of charm over me. Our relations +are the whispered talk of the town; I am suspected of matrimonial +designs upon a poor widow with the ulterior object of appropriating the +cream of the relics under her care. Regardless of the perils of the +situation, I persevere; for the sake of her company I forswear the +manifold seductions of Catan-zaro. She is a noteworthy person, neither +vicious nor vulgar, but simply the _dernier mot_ of incompetence. Her +dress, her looks, her children, her manners--they are all on an even +plane with her spiritual accomplishments; at no point does she sink, or +rise, beyond that level. They are not as common as they seem to be, +these harmoniously inefficient females. + +Why has she got this job in a progressive town containing so many folks +who could do it creditably? Oh, that is simple enough! She needs it. On +the platform of the Reggio station (long before the earthquake) I once +counted five station-masters and forty-eight other railway officials, +swaggering about with a magnificent air of incapacity. What were they +doing? Nothing whatever. They were like this woman: they needed a job. + +We are in a patriarchal country; work is pooled; it is given not to +those who can do it best, but to those who need it most--given, too, on +pretexts which sometimes strike one as inadequate, not to say recondite. +So the street-scavengering in a certain village has been entrusted to a +one-armed cripple, utterly unfit for the business--why? Because his +maternal grand-uncle is serving a long sentence in gaol. The poor family +must be helped! A brawny young fellow will be removed from a +landing-stage boat, and his place taken by some tottering old peasant +who has never handled an oar--why? The old man's nephew has married +again; the family must be helped. A secretarial appointment was +specially created for an acquaintance of mine who could barely sign his +own name, for the obvious reason that his cousin's sister was rheumatic. +One must help that family. + +A postman whom I knew delivered the letters only once every three days, +alleging, as unanswerable argument in his defence, that his brother's +wife had fifteen children. + +One must help that family! + +Somebody seems to have thought so, at all events. + + + + +XXIX + +CHAOS + + +I have never beheld the enchantment of the Straits of Messina, that Fata +Morgana, when, under certain conditions of weather, phantasmagoric +palaces of wondrous shape are cast upon the waters--not mirrored, but +standing upright; tangible, as it were; yet diaphanous as a veil of gauze. + +A Dominican monk and correspondent of the Naples Academy, Minasi by +name, friend of Sir W. Hamilton, wrote a dissertation upon this +atmospheric mockery. Many have seen and described it, among them Filati +de Tassulo; Nicola Leoni reproduces the narrative of an eye-witness +of 1643; another account appears in the book of A. Fortis +("Mineralogische Reisen, 1788"). The apparition is coy. Yet there are +pictures of it--in an article in "La Lettura" by Dr. Vittorio Boccara, +who therein refers to a scientific treatise by himself on the subject, +as well as in the little volume "Da Reggio a Metaponto" by Lupi-Crisafi, +which was printed at Gerace some years ago. I mention these writers for +the sake of any one who, luckier than myself, may be able to observe +this phenomenon and become interested in its history and origin. . . . + +The chronicles of Messina record the scarcely human feats of the diver +Cola Pesce (Nicholas the Fish). The dim submarine landscapes of the +Straits with their caves and tangled forests held no secrets from him; +his eyes were as familiar with sea-mysteries as those of any fish. Some +think that the legend dates from Frederick II, to whom he brought up +from the foaming gulf that golden goblet which has been immortalized in +Schiller's ballad. But Schneegans says there are Norman documents that +speak of him. And that other tale, according to which he took to his +watery life in pursuit of some beloved maiden who had been swallowed by +the waves, makes one think of old Glaucus as his prototype. + +Many are the fables connected with his name, but the most portentous is +this: One day, during his subaqueous wanderings, he discovered the +foundations of Messina. They were insecure! The city rested upon three +columns, one of them intact, another quite decayed away, the third +partially corroded and soon to crumble into ruin. He peered up from, his +blue depths, and in a fateful couplet of verses warned the townsmen of +their impending doom. In this prophetic utterance ascribed to the +fabulous Cola Pesce is echoed a popular apprehension that was only too +justified. + +F. Muenter--one of a band of travellers who explored these regions after +the earthquake of 1783--also gave voice to his fears that Messina had +not yet experienced the full measure of her calamities. . . . + +I remember a night in September of 1908, a Sunday night, fragrant with +the odours of withered rosemary and cistus and fennel that streamed in +aromatic showers from the scorched heights overhead--a starlit night, +tranquil and calm. Never had Messina appeared so attractive to me. +Arriving there generally in the daytime and from larger and sprightlier +centres of civilization, one is prone to notice only its defects. But +night, especially a southern night, has a wizard touch. It transforms +into objects of mysterious beauty all unsightly things, or hides them +clean away; while the nobler works of man, those facades and cornices +and full-bellied balconies of cunningly wrought iron rise up, under its +enchantment, ethereal as the palace of fairies. And coming, as I then +did, from the sun-baked river-beds of Calabria, this place, with its +broad and well-paved streets, its glittering cafés and demure throng of +evening idlers, seemed a veritable metropolis, a world-city. + +With deliberate slowness, _ritardando con molto sentimento,_ I worked my +way to the familiar restaurant. + +At last! At last, after an interminable diet of hard bread, onions and +goat's cheese, I was to enjoy the complicated menu mapped out weeks +beforehand, after elaborate consideration and balancing of merits; so +complicated, that its details have long ago lapsed from my memory. I +recollect only the sword-fish, a local speciality, and (as crowning +glory) the _cassata alla siciliana,_ a glacial symphony, a multicoloured +ice of commingling flavours, which requires far more time to describe +than to devour. Under the influence of this Sybaritic fare, helped down +with a crusted bottle of Calabrian wine--your Sicilian stuff is too +strong for me, too straightforward, uncompromising; I prefer to be +wheedled out of my faculties by inches, like a gentleman--under this +genial stimulus my extenuated frame was definitely restored; I became +mellow and companionable; the traveller's lot, I finally concluded, is +not the worst on earth. Everything was as it should be. As for +Messina--Messina was unquestionably a pleasant city. But why were all +the shops shut so early in the evening? + +"These Sicilians," said the waiter, an old Neapolitan acquaintance, in +reply to my enquiries, "are always playing some game. They are +pretending to be Englishmen at this moment; they have the Sunday-closing +obsession on the brain. Their attacks generally last a fortnight; it's +like the measles. Poor people." + +Playing at being Englishmen! + +They have invented a new game now, those that are left of them. They are +living in dolls' houses, and the fit is likely to last for some little +time. + +An engineer remarked to me, not long ago, among the ruins: + +"This _baracca,_ this wooden shelter, has an interior surface area of +less than thirty square metres. Thirty-three persons--men, women, and +children--have been living and sleeping in it for the last five months." + +"A little overcrowded?" I suggested. + +"Yes. Some of them are beginning to talk of overcrowding. It was all +very well in the winter months, but when August comes. . . . Well, we +shall see." + +No prophetic visions of the Messina of to-day, with its minute sheds +perched among a wilderness of ruins and haunted by scared shadows in +sable vestments of mourning, arose in my mind that evening as I sat at +the little marble table, sipping my coffee--overroasted, like all +Italian coffee, by exactly two minutes--and puffing contentedly at my +cigar, while the sober crowd floated hither and thither before my eyes. +Yes, everything was as it should be. And yet, what a chance! + +What a chance for some God, in this age of unbelief, to establish his +rule over mankind on the firm foundations of faith! We are always +complaining, nowadays, of an abatement of religious feeling. How easy +for such a one to send down an Isaiah to foretell the hour of the coming +catastrophe, and thus save those of its victims who were disposed to +hearken to the warning voice; to reanimate the flagging zeal of +worshippers, to straighten doubts and segregate the sheep from the +goats! Truly, He moves in a mysterious way, for no divine message came; +the just were entombed with the unjust amid a considerable deal of +telegraphing and heart-breaking. + +A few days after the disaster the Catholic papers explained matters by +saying that the people of Messina had not loved their Madonna +sufficiently well. But she loved them none the less, and sent the +earthquake as an admonishment. Rather a robust method of conciliating +their affection; not exactly the _suaviter in modo. . . ._ + +But if genuine prophets can only flourish among the malarious willow +swamps of old Babylon and such-like improbable spots, we might at least +have expected better things of our modern spiritualists. Why should +their apparitions content themselves with announcing the decease, at the +Antipodes, of profoundly uninteresting relatives? Alas! I begin to +perceive that spirits of the right kind, of the useful kind, have yet to +be discovered. Our present-day ghosts are like seismographs; they +chronicle the event after it has happened. Now, what we want is---- + +"The Signore smokes, and smokes, and smokes. Why not take the tram and +listen to the municipal music in the gardens?" + +"Music? Gardens? An excellent suggestion, Gennarino." + +Even as a small Italian town would be incomplete without its piazza +where streets converge and commercial pulses beat their liveliest +measure, so every larger one contrives to possess a public garden for +the evening disport of its citizens; night-life being the true life of +the south. Charming they are, most of them; none more delectable than +that of old Messina--a spacious pleasaunce, decked out with trim palms +and flower-beds and labyrinthine walks freshly watered, and cooled, that +evening, by stealthy breezes from the sea. The grounds were festively +illuminated, and as I sat down near the bandstand and watched the folk +meandering to and fro, I calculated that no fewer than thirty thousand +persons were abroad, taking their pleasure under the trees, in the bland +air of evening. An orderly, well-dressed crowd. We may smile when they +tell us that these people will stint themselves of the necessities of +life in order to wear fine clothes, but the effect, for an outsider, is +all that it should be. For the rest, the very urchins, gambolling about, +had an air of happy prosperity, different from the squalor of the north +with its pinched white faces, its over-breeding and under-feeding. + +And how well the sensuous Italian strains accord with such an hour and +scene! They were playing, if I remember rightly, the ever-popular Aida; +other items followed later--more ambitious ones; a Hungarian rhapsody, +Berlioz, a selection from Wagner. + +"_Musica filosofica"_ said my neighbour, alluding to the German +composer. He was a spare man of about sixty; a sunburnt, military +countenance, seamed by lines of suffering. "_Non va in Sicilia--_it +won't do in this country. Not that we fail to appreciate your great +thinkers," he added. "We read and admire your Schopenhauer, your +Spencer. They give passable representations of Wagner in Naples. But----" + +"The climate?" + +"Precisely. I have travelled, sir; and knowing your Berlin, and London, +and Boston, have been able to observe how ill our Italian architecture +looks under your grey skies, how ill our music sounds among the complex +appliances of your artificial life. It has made you earnest, this +climate of yours, and prone to take earnestly your very pastimes. +Music, for us, has remained what it was in the Golden Age--an +unburdening of the soul on a summer's night. They play well, these +fellows. Palermo, too, has a respectable band--Oh! a little too fast, +that _recitativo!"_ + +"The Signore is a musician?" + +"A _proprietario._ But I delight in music, and I beguiled myself with +the fiddle as a youngster. Nowadays--look here!" And he extended his +hand; it was crippled. "Rheumatism. I have it here, and here"--pointing +to various regions of his body--"_and_ here! Ah, these doctors! The +baths I have taken! The medicines--the ointments--the embrocations: a +perfect pharmacopceia! I can hardly crawl now, and without the help of +these two devoted boys even this harmless little diversion would have +been denied me. My nephews--orphans," he added, observing the direction +of my glance. + +They sat on his other side, handsome lads, who spoke neither too much +nor too little. Every now and then they rose with one accord and +strolled among the surging crowd to stretch their legs, returning after +five minutes to their uncle's side. His eyes always followed their +movements. + +"My young brother, had he lived, would have made men of them," he once +observed. + +The images revive, curiously pertinacious, with dim lapses and gulfs. I +can see them still, the two boys, their grave demeanour belied by mobile +lips and mischievous fair curls of Northern ancestry; the other, leaning +forward intent upon the music, and caressing his moustache with bent +fingers upon which glittered a jewel set in massive gold--some scarab or +intaglio, the spoil of old Magna Graecia. His conversation, during the +intervals, moved among the accepted formulas of cosmopolitanism with +easy flow, quickened at times by the individual emphasis of a man who +can forsake conventional tracks and think for himself. Among other +things, he had contrived an original project for reviving the lemon +industry of his country, which, though it involved a few tariff +modifications--"a mere detail"--struck me as amazingly effective and +ingenious. The local deputy, it seems, shared my view, for he had +undertaken to bring it before the notice of Parliament. + +What was it? + +I have forgotten! + +So we discussed the world, while the music played under the starlit +southern night. + +It must have been midnight ere a final frenzied galop on the part of the +indefatigable band announced the close of the entertainment. I walked a +few paces beside the lame "proprietor" who, supported on the arms of his +nephews, made his way to the spot where the cabs were waiting--his +rheumatism, he explained, obliging him to drive. How he had enjoyed +walking as a youth, and what pleasure it would now have given him to +protract, during a promenade to my hotel, our delightful conversation! +But infirmities teach us to curtail our pleasures, and many things that +seem natural to man's bodily configuration are found to be unattainable. +He seldom left his rooms; the stairs--the diabolical stairs! Would I at +least accept his card and rest assured how gladly he would receive me +and do all in his power to make my stay agreeable? + +That card has gone the way of numberless others which the traveller in +Southern Europe gathers about him. I have also forgotten the old man's +name. But the _palazzo_ in which he lived bore a certain historical +title which happened to be very familiar to me. I remember wondering how +it came to reach Messina. + +In the olden days, of course, the days of splendour. + +Will they ever return? + +It struck me that the sufferings of the survivors would be alleviated if +all the sheds in which they are living could be painted white or +pearl-grey in order to protect them, as far as possible, from the +burning rays of the sun. I mentioned the idea to an overseer. + +"We are painting as fast as we can," he replied. "An expensive matter, +however. The Villagio Elena alone has cost us, in this respect, twenty +thousand francs--with the greatest economy." + +This will give some notion of the scale on which things have to be done. +The settlement in question contains some two hundred sheds--two hundred +out of over ten thousand. + +But I was alluding not to these groups of hygienic bungalows erected by +public munificence and supplied with schools, laboratories, orphanages, +hospitals, and all that can make life endurable, but to the +others--those which the refugees built for themselves--ill-contrived +hovels, patched together with ropes, potato-sacks, petroleum cans and +miscellaneous odds and ends. A coat of whitewash, at least, inside and +out. ... I was thinking, too, of those still stranger dwellings, the +disused railway trucks which the government has placed at the disposal +of homeless families. At many Stations along the line may be seen +strings of these picturesque wigwams crowded with poor folk who have +installed themselves within, apparently for ever. They are cultivating +their favourite flowers and herbs in gaudy rows along the wooden +platforms of the carriages; the little children, all dressed in black, +play about in the shade underneath. The people will suffer in these +narrow tenements under the fierce southern sun, after their cool +courtyards and high-vaulted chambers! There will be diseases, too; +typhoids from the disturbed drainage and insufficient water-supply; eye +troubles, caused by the swarms of flies and tons of accumulated dust. +The ruins are also overrun with hordes of mangy cats and dogs which +ought to be exterminated without delay. + +If, as seems likely, those rudely improvised sheds are to be inhabited +indefinitely, we may look forward to an interesting phenomenon, a +reversion to a corresponding type of man. The lack of the most ordinary +appliances of civilization, such as linen, washing-basins and cooking +utensils, will reduce them to the condition of savages who view these +things with indifference or simple curiosity; they will forget that they +ever had any use for them. And life in these huts where human beings are +herded together after the manner of beasts--one might almost say _fitted +in,_ like the fragments of a mosaic pavement--cannot but be harmful to +the development of growing children. + +The Calabrians, I was told, distinguished themselves by unearthly +ferocity; Reggio was given over to a legion of fiends that descended +from the heights during the week of confusion. "They tore the rings and +brooches off the dead," said a young officiai to me. "They strangled the +wounded and dying, in order to despoil them more comfortably. Here, and +at Messina, the mutilated corpses were past computation; but the +Calabrians were the worst." + +Vampires, offspring of Night and Chaos. + +So Dolomieu, speaking of the _depravation incroyable des moeurs_ which +accompanied the earthquake of 1783, recounts the case of a householder +of Polistena who was pinned down under some masonry, his legs emerging +out of the ruins; his servant came and took the silver buckles off his +shoes and then fled, without attempting to free him. We have seen +something of this kind more recently at San Francisco. + +"After despoiling the corpses, they ransacked the dwellings. Five +thousand beds, sir, were carried up from Reggio into the mountains." + +"Five thousand beds! _Per Dìo!_ It seems a considerable number." + +A young fellow, one of the survivors, attached himself to me in the +capacity of guide through the ruins of Reggio. He wore the +characteristic earthquake look, a dazed and bewildered expression of +countenance; he spoke in a singularly deliberate manner. Knowing the +country, I was soon bending my steps in the direction of the cemetery, +chiefly for the sake of the exquisite view from those windswept heights, +and to breathe more freely after the dust and desolation of the lower +parts. This burial-ground is in the same state as that of Messina, once +the pride of its citizens; the insane frolic of nature has not respected +the slumber of the dead or their commemorative shrines; it has made a +mockery of the place, twisting the solemn monuments into repulsive and +irreverential shapes. + +But who can recount the freaks of stone and iron during those +moments--the hair-breadth escapes? My companion's case was miraculous +enough. Awakened from sleep with the first shock, he saw, by the dim +light of the lamp which burns in all their bedrooms, the wall at his +bedside weirdly gaping asunder. He darted to reach the opening, but it +closed again and caught his arm in a stony grip. Hours seemed to +pass--the pain was past enduring; then the kindly cleft yawned once +more, allowing him to jump into the garden below. Simultaneously he +heard a crash as the inner rooms of the house fell; then climbed aloft, +and for four days wandered among the bleak, wet hills. Thousands were in +the same plight. + +I asked what he found to eat. + +"_Erba, Signore._ We all did. You could not touch property; a single +orange, and they would have killed you." + +Grass! + +He bore a name renowned in the past, but his home being turned into a +dust-heap under which his money, papers and furniture, his two parents +and brothers, are still lying, he now gains a livelihood by carrying +vegetables and fruit from the harbour to the collection of sheds +honoured by the name of market. Later in the day we happened to walk +past the very mansion, which lies near the quay. "Here is my house and +my family," he remarked, indicating, with a gesture of antique +resignation, a pile of wreckage. + +Hard by, among the ruins, there sat a young woman with dishevelled hair, +singing rapturously. "Her husband was crushed to death," he said, "and +it unhinged her wits. Strange, is it not, sir? They used to fight like +fiends, and now--she sings to him night and day to come back." + +Love--so the Greeks fabled--was the child of Chaos. + +In this part of the town stands the civic museum, which all readers of +Gissing's "Ionian Sea" will remember as the closing note of those +harmonious pages. It is shattered, like everything else that he visited +in Reggio; like the hotel where he lodged; like the cathedral whose +proud superscription _Circumlegentes devenimus Rhegium_ impressed him so +deeply; like that "singular bit of advanced civilization, which gave me +an odd sense of having strayed into the world of those romancers who +forecast the future--a public slaughter-house of tasteful architecture, +set in a grove of lemon trees and palms, suggesting the dreamy ideal of +some reformer whose palate shrinks from vegetarianism." We went the +round of all these places, not forgetting the house which bears the +tablet commemorating the death of a young soldier who fell fighting +against the Bourbons. From its contorted iron balcony there hangs a rope +by which the inmates may have tried to let themselves down. + +A friend of mine, Baron C---- of Stilo, is a member of that same +patriotic family, and gave me the following strange account. He was +absent from Reggio at the time of the catastrophe, but three others of +them were staying there. On the first shock they rushed together, +panic-stricken, into one room; the floor gave way, and they suddenly +found themselves sitting in their motor-car which happened to be placed +exactly below them. They escaped with a few cuts and bruises. + +An inscription on a neighbouring ruin runs to the effect that the +_mansion having been severely damaged in the earthquake of_ 1783, _its +owner had rebuilt it on lines calculated to defy future shattering!_ +Whether he would rebuild it yet again? + +Nevertheless, there seems to be some chance for the revival of Reggio; +its prognosis is not utterly hopeless. + +But Messina is in desperate case. + +That haughty sea-front, with its long line of imposing edifices--imagine +a painted theatre decoration of cardboard through which some sportive +behemoth has been jumping with frantic glee; there you have it. And +within, all is desolation; the wreckage reaches to the windows; you must +clamber over it as best you can. What an all-absorbing post-tertiary +deposit for future generations, for the crafty antiquarian who deciphers +the history of mankind out of kitchen-middens and deformed heaps of +forgotten trash! The whole social life of the citizens, their arts, +domestic economy, and pastimes, lies embedded in that rubbish. "A +musical race," he will conclude, observing the number of decayed +pianofortes, guitars, and mandolines. The climate of Messina, he will +further arene, must have been a wet one, inasmuch as there are umbrellas +everywhere, standing upright among the debris, leaning all forlorn +against the ruins, or peering dismally from under them. It rained much +during those awful days, and umbrellas were at a premium. Yet fifty of +them would not have purchased a loaf of bread. + +It was Goethe who, speaking of Pompeii, said that of the many +catastrophes which have afflicted mankind few have given greater +pleasure to posterity. The same will never be said of Messina, whose +relics, for the most part, are squalid and mean. The German poet, by the +way, visited this town shortly after the disaster of 1783, and describes +its _zackige Ruinenwueste_--words whose very sound is suggestive of +shatterings and dislocations. Nevertheless, the place revived again. + +But what was 1783? + +A mere rehearsal, an amateur performance. + +Wandering about in this world of ghosts, I passed the old restaurant +where the sword-fish had once tasted so good--an accumulation of stones +and mortar--and reached the cathedral. It is laid low, all save the +Gargantuan mosaic figures that stare down from behind the altar in +futile benediction of Chaos; inane, terrific. This, then, is the house +of that feudal lady of the _fortiter in re,_ who sent an earthquake and +called it love. Womanlike, she doted on gold and precious stones, and +they recovered her fabulous hoard, together with a copy of a Latin +letter she sent to the Christians of Messina by the hand of Saint Paul. + +And not long afterwards--how came it to pass?--my steps were guided amid +that wilderness towards a narrow street containing the ruins of a +_palazzo_ that bore, on a tablet over the ample doorway, an inscription +which arrested my attention. It was an historical title familiar to me; +and forthwith a train of memories, slumbering in the caverns of my mind, +was ignited. Yes; there was no doubt about it: the old "proprietor" and +his nephews, he of the municipal gardens. . . . + +I wondered how they had met their fate, on the chill wintry morning. For +assuredly, in that restricted space, not a soul can have escaped alive; +the wreckage, hitherto undisturbed, still covered their remains. + +And, remembering the old man and his humane converse that evening under +the trees, the true meaning of the catastrophe began to disentangle +itself from accidental and superficial aspects. For I confess that the +massacre of a myriad Chinamen leaves me cool and self-possessed; between +such creatures and ourselves there is hardly more than the frail bond of +a common descent from the ape; they are altogether too remote for our +narrow world-sympathies. I would as soon shed tears over the lost +Pleiad. But these others are our spiritual cousins; we have deep roots +in this warm soil of Italy, which brought forth a goodly tithe of what +is best in our own lives, in our arts and aspirations. + +And I thought of the two nephews, their decent limbs all distorted and +mangled under a heap of foul rubbish, waiting for a brutal disinterment +and a nameless grave. This is no legitimate death, this murderous +violation of life. How inconceivably hateful is such a leave-taking, and +all that follows after! To picture a fair young body, that divine +instrument of joy, crushed into an unsightly heap; once loved, now +loathed of all men, and thrust at last, with abhorrence, into some +common festering pit of abominations. . . . The Northern type--a mighty +bond, again; a tie of blood, this time, between our race and those +rulers of the South, whose exploits in this land of orange and myrtle +surpassed the dreamings of romance. + +Strange to reflect that, without the ephemeral friendship of that +evening, Messina of to-day might have represented to my mind a mere +spectacle, the hecatomb of its inhabitants extorting little more than a +conventional sigh. So it is. The human heart has been constructed on +somewhat ungenerous lines. Moralists, if any still exist on earth, may +generalize with eloquence from the masses, but our poets have long ago +succumbed to the pathos of single happenings; the very angels of Heaven, +they say, take more joy in one sinner that repenteth than in a hundred +righteous, which, duly apprehended, is only an application of the same +illiberal principle. + +A rope of bed-sheets knotted together dangled from one of the upper +windows, its end swaying in mid-air at the height of the second floor. +Many of them do, at Messina: a desperate expedient of escape. Some pots +of geranium and cactus, sadly flowering, adorned the other windows, +whose glass panes were unbroken. But for the ominous sunlight pouring +through them from _within,_ the building looked fairly intact on this +outer side. Its ponderous gateway, however, through which I had hoped to +enter, was choked up by internal debris, and I was obliged to climb, +with some little trouble, to the rear of the house. + +If a titanic blade had sheared through the _palazzo_ lengthwise, the +thing could not have been done more neatly. The whole interior had gone +down, save a portion of the rooms abutting on the street-front; these +were literally cut in half, so as to display an ideal section of +domestic architecture. The house with its inmates and all it contained +was lying among the high-piled wreckage within, under my feet; masonry +mostly--entire fragments of wall interspersed with crumbling mortar and +convulsed iron girders that writhed over the surface or plunged sullenly +into the depths; fetid rents and gullies in between, their flanks +affording glimpses of broken vases, candelabras, hats, bottles, +birdcages, writing-books, brass pipes, sofas, picture-frames, +tablecloths, and all the paltry paraphernalia of everyday life. No +attempt at stratification, horizontal, vertical, or inclined; it was as +if the objects had been thrown up by some playful volcano and allowed to +settle where they pleased. Two immense chiselled blocks of stone--one +lying prone at the bottom of a miniature ravine, the other proudly +erect, like a Druidical monument, in the upper regions--reminded me of +the existence of a staircase, a _diabolical_ staircase. + +Looking upwards, I endeavoured to reconstruct the habits of the inmates, +but found it impossible, the section that remained being too shallow. +Sky-blue seems to have been their favourite colour. The kitchen was +easily discernible, the hearth with its store of charcoal underneath, +copper vessels hanging in a neat row overhead, and an open cupboard full +of household goods; a neighbouring room (the communicating doors were +all gone), with lace window-curtains, a table, lamp, and book, and a +bedstead toppling over the abyss; another one, carpeted and hung with +pictures and a large faded mirror, below which ran a row of shelves that +groaned under a multitudinous collection of phials and bottles. + +The old man's embrocations. . . . + + + + +XXX + +THE SKIRTS OF MONTALTO + + +After such sights of suffering humanity--back to the fields and +mountains! Aspromonte, the wild region behind Reggio, was famous, not +long ago, for Garibaldi's battle. But the exploits of this warrior have +lately been eclipsed by those of the brigand Musolino, who infested the +country up to a few years ago, defying the soldiery and police of all +Italy. He would still be safe and unharmed had he remained in these +fastnesses. But he wandered away, wishful to leave Italy for good and +all, and was captured far from his home by some policemen who were +looking for another man, and who nearly fainted when he pronounced his +name. After a sensational trial, they sentenced him to thirty odd years' +imprisonment; he is now languishing in the fortress of Porto Longone on +Elba. Whoever has looked into this Spanish citadel will not envy him. Of +the lovely little bay, of the loadstone mountain, of the romantic +pathway to the hermitage of Monserrato or the glittering beach at +Rio--of all the charms of Porto Longone he knows nothing, despite a +lengthy residence on the spot. + +They say he has grown consumptive and witless during the long solitary +confinement which preceded his present punishment--an eternal night in a +narrow cell. No wonder. I have seen the condemned on their release from +these boxes of masonry at the island of Santo Stefano: dazed shadows, +tottering, with complexions the colour of parchment. These are the +survivors. But no one asks after the many who die in these dungeons +frenzied, or from battering their heads against the wall; no one knows +their number save the doctor and the governor, whose lips are sealed. . . . + +I decided upon a rear attack of Aspromonte. I would go by rail as far as +Bagnara on the Tyrrhenian, the station beyond Scylla of old renown; and +thence afoot via Sant' Eufemia [Footnote: Not to be confounded with the +railway station on the gulf of that name, near Maida.] to Sinopoli, +pushing on, if day permitted, as far as Delianuova, at the foot of +the mountain. Early next morning I would climb the summit and descend to +the shores of the Ionian, to Bova. It seemed a reasonable programme. + +All this Tyrrhenian coast-line is badly shattered; far more so than the +southern shore. But the scenery is finer. There is nothing on that side +to compare with the views from Nicastro, or Monte-leone, or Sant' Elia +near Palmi. It is also more smiling, more fertile, and far less +malarious. Not that cultivation of the land implies absence of +malaria--nothing is a commoner mistake! The Ionian shore is not +malarious because it is desert--it is desert because malarious. The +richest tracts in Greece are known to be very dangerous, and it is the +same in Italy. Malaria and intensive agriculture go uncommonly well +together. The miserable anopheles-mosquito loves the wells that are sunk +for the watering of the immense orange and lemon plantations in the +Reggio district; it displays a perverse predilection for the minute +puddles left by the artificial irrigation of the fields that are covered +with fruit and vegetables. This artificial watering, in fact, seems to +be partly responsible for the spread of the disease. It is doubtful +whether the custom goes back into remote antiquity, for the climate used +to be moister and could dispense with these practices. Certain products, +once grown in Calabria, no longer thrive there, on account of the +increased dryness and lack of rainfall. + +But there are some deadly regions, even along this Tyrrhenian shore. +Such is the plain of Maida, for instance, where stood not long ago the +forest of Sant' Eufemia, safe retreat of Parafante and other brigand +heroes. The level lands of Rosarno and Gioia are equally ill-reputed. A +French battalion stationed here in the summer of 1807 lost over sixty +men in fourteen days, besides leaving two hundred invalids in the +hospital at Monteleone. Gioia is so malarious that in summer every one +of the inhabitants who can afford the price of a ticket goes by the +evening train to Palmato sleep there. You will do well, by the way, to +see something of the oil industry of Palmi, if time permits. In good +years, 200,000 quintals of olive oil are manufactured in the regions of +which it is the commercial centre. Not long ago, before modern methods +of refining were introduced, most of this oil was exported to Russia, to +be burned in holy lamps; nowadays it goes for the most part to Lucca, to +be adulterated for foreign markets (the celebrated Lucca oil, which the +simple Englishman regards as pure); only the finest quality is sent +elsewhere, to Nice. From Gioia there runs a postal diligence once a day +to Delianuova of which I might have availed myself, had I not preferred +to traverse the country on foot. + +The journey from Reggio to Bagnara on this fair summer morning, along +the rippling Mediterranean, was short enough, but sufficiently long to +let me overhear the following conversation: + +A.--What a lovely sea! It is good, after all, to take three or four +baths a year. What think you? + +B.--I? No. For thirteen years I have taken no baths. But they are +considered good for children. + +The calamities that Bagnara has suffered in the past have been so +numerous, so fierce and so varied that, properly speaking, the town has +no right to exist any longer. It has enjoyed more than its full share of +earthquakes, having been shaken to the ground over and over again. Sir +William Hamilton reports that 3017 persons were killed in that of 1783. +The horrors of war, too, have not spared it, and a certain modern +exploit of the British arms here strikes me as so instructive that I +would gladly extract it from Grant's "Adventures of an Aide-de-Camp," +were it not too long to transcribe, and far too good to abbreviate. + +A characteristic story, further, is told of the methods of General +Manhes at Bagnara. It may well be an exaggeration when they say that the +entire road from Reggio to Naples was lined with the heads of +decapitated brigands; be that as it may, it stands to reason that +Bagnara, as befits an important place, was to be provided with an +-appropriate display of these trophies. The heads were exhibited in +baskets, with strict injunctions to the authorities that they were not +to be touched, seeing that they served not only for decorative but also +moral purposes--as examples. Imagine, therefore, the General's feelings +on being told that one of these heads had been stolen; stolen, probably, +by some pious relative of the deceased rascal, who wished to give the +relic a decent Christian burial. + +"That's rather awkward," he said, quietly musing. "But of course the +specimen must be replaced. Let me see. . . . Suppose we put the head of +the mayor of Bagnara into the vacant basket? Shall we? Yes, we'll have +the mayor. It will make him more careful in future." And within half an +hour the basket was filled once more. + +There was a little hitch in starting from Bagnara. From the windings of +the carriage-road as portrayed by the map, I guessed that there must be +a number of short cuts into the uplands at the back of the town, +undiscoverable to myself, which would greatly shorten the journey. +Besides, there was my small bag to be carried. A porter familiar with +the tracks was plainly required, and soon enough I found a number of +lusty youths leaning against a wall and doing nothing in particular. +Yes, they would accompany me, they said, the whole lot of them, just for +the fun of the thing. + +"And my bag?" I asked. + +"A bag to be carried? Then we must get a woman." + +They unearthed a nondescript female who undertook to bear the burden as +far as Sinopoli for a reasonable consideration. So far good. But as we +proceeded, the boys began to drop off, till only a single one was left. +And then the woman suddenly vanished down a side street, declaring that +she must change her clothes. We waited for three-quarters of an hour, in +the glaring dust of the turnpike; she never emerged again, and the +remaining boy stoutly refused to handle her load. + +"No," he declared. "She must carry the bag. And I will keep you company." + +The precious morning hours were wearing away, and here we stood idly by +the side of the road. It never struck me that the time might have been +profitably employed in paying a flying visit to one of the most sacred +objects in Calabria and possibly in the whole world, one which Signor N. +Marcene describes as reposing at Bagnara in a rich reliquary--the +authentic Hat of the Mother of God. A lady tourist would not have missed +this chance of studying the fashions of those days. [Footnote: See next +chapter.] + +Finally, in desperation, I snatched up the wretched luggage and poured +my griefs with unwonted eloquence into the ears of a man driving a +bullock-cart down the road. So much was he moved, that he peremptorily +ordered his son to conduct me then and there to Sinopoli, to carry the +bag, and claim one franc by way of payment. The little man tumbled off +the cart, rather reluctantly. + +"Away with you!" cried the stern parent, and we began the long march, +climbing uphill in the blazing sunshine; winding, later on, through +shady chestnut woods and across broad tracts of cultivated land. It was +plain that the task was beyond his powers, and when we had reached a +spot where the strange-looking new village of Sant' Eufemia was +visible--it is built entirely of wooden shelters; the stone town was +greatly shaken in the late earthquake--he was obliged to halt, and +thenceforward stumbled slowly into the place. There he deposited the bag +on the ground, and faced me squarely. + +"No more of this!" he said, concentrating every ounce of his virility +into a look of uncompromising defiance. + +"Then I shall not pay you a single farthing, my son. And, moreover, I +will tell your father. You know what he commanded: to Sinopoli. This is +only Sant' Eufemia. Unless----" + +"You will tell my father? Unless----?" + +"Unless you discover some one who will carry the bag not only to +Sinopoli, but as far as Delianuova." I was not in the mood for repeating +the experiences of the morning. + +"It is difficult. But we will try." + +He went in search, and returned anon with a slender lad of unusual +comeliness--an earthquake orphan. "This big one," he explained, "walks +wherever you please and carries whatever you give him. And you will pay +him nothing at all, unless he deserves it. Such is the arrangement. Are +you content?" + +"You have acted like a man." + +The earthquake survivor set off at a swinging pace, and we soon reached +Sinopoli--new Sinopoli; the older settlement lies at a considerable +distance. Midday was past, and the long main street of the town--a +former fief of the terrible Ruffo family--stood deserted in the +trembling heat. None the less there was sufficient liveliness within the +houses; the whole place seemed in a state of jollification. It was +Sunday, the orphan explained; the country was duller than usual, +however, because of the high price of wine. There had been no murders to +speak of--no, not for a long time past. But the vintage of this year, he +added, promises well, and life will soon become normal again. + +The mule track from here to Delianuova traverses some pretty scenery, +both wild and pastoral. But the personal graces of my companion made me +take small heed of the landscape. He was aglow with animal spirits, and +his conversation naively brilliant and of uncommon import. Understanding +at a glance that he belonged to a type which is rather rare in Calabria, +that he was a classic (of a kind), I made every effort to be pleasant to +him; and I must have succeeded, for he was soon relating anecdotes which +would have been neither instructive, nor even intelligible, to the +_jeune fille;_ all this, with angelic serenity of conscience. + +This radiantly-vicious child was the embodiment of the joy of life, the +perfect immoralist. There was no cynicism in his nature, no cruelty, no +obliquity, no remorse; nothing but sunshine with a few clouds sailing +across the fathomless blue spaces--the sky of Hellas. _Nihil humani +alienum;_ and as I listened to those glad tales, I marvelled at the +many-tinted experiences that could be crammed into seventeen short +years; what a document the ad-verttures of such a frolicsome demon would +be, what a feast for the initiated, could some one be induced to make +them known! But such things are hopelessly out of the question. And that +is why so many of our wise people go into their graves without ever +learning what happens in this world. + +Among minor matters, he mentioned that he had already been three times +to prison for "certain little affairs of blood," while defending +"certain friends." Was it not dull, I asked, in prison? "The time passes +pleasantly anywhere," he answered, "when you are young. I always make +friends, even in prison." I could well believe it. His affinities were +with the blithe crew of the Liber Stratonis. He had a roving eye and the +mouth of Antinous; and his morals were those of a condescending tiger-cub. + +Arriving at Delianuova after sunset, he conceived the project of +accompanying me next morning up Montalto. I hesitated. In the first +place, I was going not only up that mountain, but to Bova on the distant +Ionian littoral---- + +"For my part," he broke in, "_ho pigliato confidenza._ If you mistrust +me, here! take my knife," an ugly blade, pointed, and two inches in +excess of the police regulation length. This act of quasi-filial +submission touched me; but it was not his knife I feared so much as that +of "certain friends." Some little difference of opinion might arise, +some question of money or other argument, and lo! the friends would be +at hand (they always are), and one more stranger might disappear among +the clefts and gullies of Montalto. Aspromonte, the roughest corner of +Italy, is no place for misunderstandings; the knife decides promptly who +is right or wrong, and only two weeks ago I was warned not to cross the +district without a carbineer on either side of me. + +But to have clothed my thoughts in words during his gracious mood would +have been supremely unethical. I contented myself with the trite but +pregnant remark that things sometimes looked different in the morning, +which provoked a pagan fit of laughter; farewelled him "with the +Madonna!" and watched as he withdrew under the trees, lithe and buoyant, +like a flame that is swallowed up in the night. + +Only then did the real business begin. I should be sorry to say into how +many houses and wine-shops the obliging owner of the local inn conducted +me, in search of a guide. We traversed all the lanes of this straggling +and fairly prosperous place, and even those of its suburb Paracorio, +evidently of Byzantine origin; the answer was everywhere the same: To +Montalto, yes; to Bova, no! Night drew on apace and, as a last resource, +he led the way to the dwelling of a gentleman of the old school--a +retired brigand, to wit, who, as I afterwards learned, had some ten or +twelve homicides to his account. Delianuova, and indeed the whole of +Aspromonte, has a bad reputation for crime. + +It was our last remaining chance. + +We found the patriarch sitting in a simple but tidy chamber, smoking his +pipe and playing with a baby; his daughter-in-law rose as we entered, +and discreetly moved into an adjoining room. The cheery cut-throat put +the baby down to crawl on the floor, and his eyes sparkled when he heard +of Bova. + +"Ah, one speaks of Bova!" he said. "A fine walk over the mountain!" He +much regretted that he was too old for the trip, but so-and-so, he +thought, might know something of the country. It pained him, too, that +he could not offer me a glass of wine. There was none in the house. In +his day, he added, it was not thought right to drink in the modern +fashion; this wine-bibbing was responsible for considerable mischief; it +troubled the brain, driving men to do things they afterwards repented. +He drank only milk, having become accustomed to it during a long life +among the hills. Milk cools the blood, he said, and steadies the hand, +and keeps a man's judgment undisturbed. + +The person he had named was found after some further search. He was a +bronzed, clean-shaven type of about fifty, who began by refusing his +services point-blank, but soon relented, on hearing the ex-brigand's +recommendation of his qualities. + + + + +XXXI + +SOUTHERN SAINTLINESS + + +Southern saints, like their worshippers, put on new faces and vestments +in the course of ages. Old ones die away; new ones take their place. +Several hundred of the older class of saint have clean faded from the +popular memory, and are now so forgotten that the wisest priest can tell +you nothing about them save, perhaps, that "he's in the +church"--meaning, that some fragment of his holy anatomy survives as a +relic amid a collection of similar antiques. But you can find their +histories in early literature, and their names linger on old maps where +they are given to promontories and other natural features which are +gradually being re-christened. + +Such saints were chiefly non-Italian: Byzantines or Africans who, by +miraculous intervention, protected the village or district of which they +were patrons from the manifold scourges of medi-aevalism; they took the +place of the classic tutelar deities. They were men; they could fight; +and in those troublous times that is exactly what saints were made for. + +With the softening of manners a new element appears. Male saints lost +their chief _raison d'etre,_ and these virile creatures were superseded +by pacific women. So, to give only one instance, Saint Rosalia in +Palermo displaced the former protector Saint Mark. Her sacred bones were +miraculously discovered in a cave; and have since been identified as +those of a goat. But it was not till the twelfth century that the cult +of female saints began to assume imposing dimensions. + +Of the Madonna no mention occurs in the songs of Bishop Paulinus (fourth +century); no monument exists in the Neapolitan catacombs. Thereafter her +cult begins to dominate. + +She supplied the natives with what orthodox Christianity did not give +them, but what they had possessed from early times--a female element in +religion. Those Greek settlers had their nymphs, their Venus, and so +forth; the Mother of God absorbed and continued their functions. There +is indeed only one of these female pagan divinities whose role she has +not endeavoured to usurp--Athene. Herein she reflects the minds of her +creators, the priests and common people, whose ideal woman contents +herself with the duties of motherhood. I doubt whether an +Athene-Madonna, an intellectual goddess, could ever have been evolved; +their attitude towards gods in general is too childlike and positive. + +South Italians, famous for abstractions in philosophy, cannot endure +them in religion. Unlike ourselves, they do not desire to learn anything +from their deities or to argue about them. They only wish to love and be +loved in return, reserving to themselves the right to punish them, when +they deserve it. Countless cases are on record where (pictures or +statues of) Madonnas and saints have been thrown into a ditch for not +doing what they were told, or for not keeping their share of a bargain. +During the Vesuvius eruption of 1906 a good number were subjected to +this "punishment," because they neglected to protect their worshippers +from the calamity according to contract (so many candles and festivals = +so much protection). + +For the same reason the adult Jesus--the teacher, the God--is +practically unknown. He is too remote from themselves and the ordinary +activities of their daily lives; he is not married, like his mother; he +has no trade, like his father (Mark calls him a carpenter); moreover, +the maxims of the Sermon on the Mount are so repugnant to the South +Italian as to be almost incomprehensible. In effigy, this period of +Christ's life is portrayed most frequently in the primitive monuments of +the catacombs, erected when tradition was purer. + +Three tangibly-human aspects of Christ's life figure here: the +_bambino-cult,_ which not only appeals to the people's love of babyhood +but also carries on the old traditions of the Lar Familiaris and of +Horus; next, the youthful Jesus, beloved of local female mystics; and +lastly the Crucified--that grim and gloomy image of suffering which was +imported, or at least furiously fostered, by the Spaniards. + +The engulfing of the saints by the Mother of God is due also to +political reasons. The Vatican, once centralized in its policy, began to +be disquieted by the persistent survival of Byzantinism (Greek cults and +language lingered up to the twelfth century); with the Tacitean _odium +fratrum_ she exercised more severity towards the sister-faith than +towards actual paganism. [Footnote: Greek and Egyptian anchorites were +established in south Italy by the fourth century. But paganism was still +flourishing, locally, in the sixth. There is some evidence that +Christians used to take part in pagan festivals.] + +The Madonna was a fit instrument for sweeping away the particularist +tendencies of the past; she attacked relic-worship and other outworn +superstitions; like a benignant whirlwind she careered over the land, +and these now enigmatical shapes and customs fell faster than leaves of +Vallombrosa. No sanctuary or cave so remote that she did not endeavour +to expel its male saint--its old presiding genius, whether Byzantine or +Roman. But saints have tough lives, and do not yield without a struggle; +they fought for their time-honoured privileges like the "daemons" they +were, and sometimes came off victorious. Those sanctuaries that proved +too strong to be taken by storm were sapped by an artful and determined +siege. The combat goes on to this day. This is what is happening to the +thrice-deposed and still triumphant Saint Januarius, who is hard pressed +by sheer force of numbers. Like those phagocytes which congregate from +all sides to assail some weakened cell in the body physical, even so +Madonna-cults--in frenzied competition with each other--cluster thickest +round some imperilled venerable of ancient lineage, bent on his +destruction. The Madonna dell' Arco, del Soccorso, and at least fifty +others (not forgetting the newly-invented Madonna di Pompei)--they have +all established themselves in the particular domain of St. Januarius; +they are all undermining his reputation, and claiming to possess his +special gifts. [Footnote: He is known to have quelled an outbreak of +Vesuvius in the fifth century, though his earliest church, I believe, +only dates from the ninth. His blood, famous for liquefaction, is not +mentioned till 1337.] + +Early monastic movements of the Roman Church also played their part in +obliterating old religious landmarks. Settling down in some remote place +with the Madonna as their leader or as their "second Mother," these +companies of holy men soon acquired such temporal and spiritual +influence as enabled them successfully to oppose their divinity to the +local saint, whose once bright glories began to pale before her +effulgence. Their labours in favour of the Mother of God were part of +that work of consolidating Papal power which was afterwards carried on +by the Jesuits. + +Perhaps what chiefly accounts for the spread of Madonna-worship is the +human craving for novelty. You can invent most easily where no fixed +legends are established. Now the saints have fixed legendary attributes +and histories, and as culture advances it becomes increasingly difficult +to manufacture new saints with fresh and original characters and yet +passable pedigrees (the experiment is tried, now and again); while the +old saints have been exploited and are now inefficient--worn out, like +old toys. Madonna, on the other hand, can subdivide with the ease of an +amoeba, and yet never lose her identity or credibility; moreover, thanks +to her divine character, anything can be accredited to her--anything +good, however wonderful; lastly, the traditions concerning her are so +conveniently vague that they actually foster the mythopoetic faculty. +Hence her success. Again: the man-saints were separatists; they fought +for their own towns against African intruders, and in those frequent and +bloody inter-communal battles which are a feature of Italian +medievalism. Nowadays it is hardly proper that neighbouring townsmen, +aided and abetted by their respective saints, should sally forth to cut +each others' throats. The Madonna, as cosmopolitan Nike, is a fitter +patroness for settled society. + +She also found a ready welcome in consequence of the pastoral +institutions of the country in which the mother plays such a conspicuous +role. So deeply are they ingrained here that if the Mother of God had +not existed, the group would have been deemed incomplete; a family +without a mother is to them like a tree without roots--a thing which +cannot be. This accounts for the fact that their Trinity is not ours; it +consists of the Mother, the Father (Saint Joseph), and the Child--with +Saint Anne looming in the background (the grandmother is an important +personage in the patriarchal family). The Creator of all things and the +Holy Ghost have evaporated; they are too intangible and non-human. + +But She never became a true cosmopolitan Nike, save in literature. The +decentralizing spirit of South Italy was too strong for her. She had to +conform to the old custom of geographical specialization. In all save in +name she doffed her essential character of Mother of God, and became a +local demi-god; an accessible wonder-worker attached to some particular +district. An inhabitant of village A would stand a poor chance of his +prayers being heard by the Madonna of village B; if you have a headache, +it is no use applying to the _Madonna of the Hens,_ who deals with +diseases of women; you will find yourself in a pretty fix if you expect +financial assistance from the Madonna of village C: she is a +weather-specialist. In short, these hundreds of Madonnas have taken up +the qualities of the saints they supplanted. + +They can often outdo them; and this is yet another reason for their +success. It is a well-ascertained fact, for example, that many holy men +have been nourished by the Milk of the Mother of God, "not," as a +Catholic writer says, "in a mystic or spiritual sense, but with their +actual lips"; Saint Bernard "among a hundred, a thousand, others." Nor +is this all, for in the year 1690, a painted image of the Madonna, not +far from the city of Carinola, was observed to "diffuse abundant milk" +for the edification of a great concourse of spectators--a miracle which +was recognized as such by the bishop of that diocese, Monsignor Paolo +Ayrola, who wrote a report on the subject. Some more of this authentic +milk is kept in a bottle in the convent of Mater Domini on Vesuvius, and +the chronicle of that establishment, printed in 1834, says: + +"Since Mary is the Mother and Co-redeemer of the Church, may she not +have left some drops of her precious milk as a gift to this Church, even +as we still possess some of the blood of Christ? In various churches +there exists some of this milk, by means of which many graces and +benefits are obtained. We find such relics, for example, in the church +of Saint Luigi in Naples, namely, two bottles full of the milk of the +Blessed Virgin; and this milk becomes fluid on feast-days of the +Madonna, as everybody can see. Also in this convent of Mater Domini the +milk sometimes liquefies." During eruptions of Vesuvius this bottle is +carried abroad in procession, and always dispels the danger. Saint +Januarius must indeed look to his laurels! Meanwhile it is interesting +to observe that the Mother of God has condescended to employ the method +of holy relics which she once combated so strenuously, her milk +competing with the blood of Saint John, the fat of Saint Laurence, and +those other physiological curios which are still preserved for the +edification of believers. + +All of which would pass if a subtle poison had not been creeping in to +taint religious institutions. Taken by themselves, these infantile +observances do not necessarily harm family life, the support of the +state; for a man can believe a considerable deal of nonsense, and yet go +about his daily work in a natural and cheerful manner. But when the body +is despised and tormented the mind loses its equilibrium, and when that +happens nonsense may assume a sinister shape. We have seen it in +England, where, during the ascetic movement of Puritanism, more witches +were burnt than in the whole period before and after. + +The virus of asceticism entered South Italy from three principal +sources. From early ages the country had stood in commercial relations +with the valley of the Nile; and even as its black magic is largely +tinged with Egyptian practices, so its magic of the white kind--its +saintly legends--bear the impress of the self-macerations and perverted +life-theories of those desert-lunatics who called themselves Christians. +[Footnote: These ascetics were here before Christianity (see Philo +Judaeus); in fact, there is not a single element in the new faith which +had not been independently developed by the pagans, many of whom, like +Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, were ripe for the most abject +self-abasement.] But this Orientalism fell at first upon unfruitful +soil; the Vatican was yet wavering, and Hellenic notions of +conduct still survived. It received a further rebuff at the hands of men +like Benedict, who set up sounder ideals of holiness, introducing a +gleam of sanity even in that insanest of institutions--the herding +together of idle men to the glory of God. + +But things became more centralized as the Papacy gainedground. The +strong Christian, the independent ruler or warrior or builder saint, was +tolerated only if he conformed to its precepts; and the inauspicious +rise of subservient ascetic orders like the Franciscans and Dominicans, +who quickly invaded the fair regions of the south, gave an evil tone to +their Christianity. + +There has always been a contrary tendency at work: the Ionic spirit, +heritage of the past. Monkish ideals of chastity and poverty have never +appealed to the hearts of people, priests or prelates of the south; they +will endure much fondness in their religion, but not those phenomena of +cruelty and pruriency which are inseparably connected with asceticism; +their notions have ever been akin to those of the sage Xenocrates, who +held that "happiness consists not only in the possession of human +virtues, but _in the accomplishment of natural acts."_ Among the latter +they include the acquisition of wealth and the satisfaction of carnal +needs. At this time, too, the old Hellenic curiosity was not wholly +dimmed; they took an intelligent interest in imported creeds like that +of Luther, which, if not convincing, at least satisfied their desire for +novelty. Theirs was exactly the attitude of the Athenians towards Paul's +"New God"; and Protestantism might have spread far in the south, had it +not been ferociously repressed. + +But after the brilliant humanistic period of the Aragons there followed +the third and fiercest reaction--that of the Spanish viceroys, whose +misrule struck at every one of the roots of national prosperity. It is +that "seicentismo" which a modern writer (A. Niceforo, "L'Italia +barbara," 1898) has recognized as the blight, the evil genius, of south +Italy. The Ionic spirit did not help the people much at this time. The +greatest of these viceroys, Don Pietro di Toledo, hanged 18,000 of them +in eight years, and then confessed, with a sigh, that "he did not know +what more he could do." What more _could_ he do? As a pious Spaniard he +was incapable of understanding that quarterings and breakings on the +rack were of less avail than the education of the populace in certain +secular notions of good conduct--notions which it was the business of +his Church not to teach. Reading through the legislation of the +viceregal period, one is astonished to find how little was done for the +common people, who lived like the veriest beasts of earth. + +Their civil rulers--scholars and gentlemen, most of them--really +believed that the example of half a million illiterate and vicious monks +was all the education they needed. And yet one notes with surprise that +the Government was perpetually at loggerheads with the ecclesiastical +authorities. True; but it is wonderful with what intuitive alacrity they +joined forces when it was a question of repelling their common +antagonist, enlightenment. + +From this rank soil there sprang up an exotic efflorescence of holiness. +If south Italy swarmed with sinners, as the experiences of Don Pietro +seemed to show, it also swarmed with saints. And hardly one of them +escaped the influence of the period, the love of futile ornamentation. +Their piety is overloaded with embellishing touches and needless +excrescences of virtue. It was the baroque period of saintliness, as of +architecture. + +I have already given some account of one of them, the Flying Monk +(Chapter X), and have perused the biographies of at least fifty others. +One cannot help observing a great uniformity in their lives--a kind of +family resemblance. This parallelism is due to the simple reason that +there is only one right for a thousand wrongs. One may well look in +vain, here, for those many-tinted perversions and aberrations which +disfigure the histories of average mankind. These saints are all +alike--monotonously alike, if one cares to say so--in their chastity and +other official virtues. But a little acquaintance with the subject will +soon show you that, so far as the range of their particular Christianity +allowed of it, there is a praiseworthy and even astonishing diversity +among them. Nearly all of them could fly, more or less; nearly all of +them could cure diseases and cause the clouds to rain; nearly all of +them were illiterate; and every one of them died in the odour of +sanctity--with roseate complexion, sweetly smelling corpse, and flexible +limbs. Yet each one has his particular gifts, his strong point. Joseph +of Copertino specialized in flying; others were conspicuous for their +heroism in sitting in hot baths, devouring ordure, tormenting themselves +with pins, and so forth. + +Here, for instance, is a good representative biography--the Life of +Saint Giangiuseppe della Croce (born 1654), reprinted for the occasion +of his solemn sanctification. [Footnote: "Vita di S. Giangiuseppe della +Croce . . . Scritta dal P. Fr. Diodato dell' Assunta per la +Beatificazione ed ora ristampata dal postulatore della causa P. Fr. +Giuseppe Rostoll in occasione della solenne Santificazione." Roma, +1839.] + +He resembled other saints in many points. He never allowed the "vermin +which generated in his bed" to be disturbed; he wore the same clothes +for sixty-four years on end; with women his behaviour was that of an +"animated statue," and during his long life he never looked any one in +the face (even his brother-monks were known to him only by their +voices); he could raise the dead, relieve a duchess of a devil in the +shape of a black dog, change chestnuts into apricots, and bad wine into +good; his flesh was encrusted with sores, the result of his fierce +scarifications; he was always half starved, and when delicate viands +were brought to him, he used to say to his body: "Have you seen them? +Have you smelt them? Then let that suffice for you." + +He, too, could fly a little. So once, when he was nowhere to be found, +the monks of the convent at last discovered him in the church, "raised +so high above the ground that his head touched the ceiling." This is not +a bad performance for a mere lad, as he then was. And how useful this +gift became in old age was seen when, being almost incapable of moving +his legs, and with body half paralysed, he was nevertheless enabled to +accompany a procession for the length of two miles on foot, walking, to +the stupefaction of thousands of spectators, at about a cubit's height +above the street, on air; after the fashion of those Hindu gods whose +feet--so the pagans fable--are too pure to touch mortal earth. + +His love of poverty, moreover, was so intense that even after his death +a picture of him, which his relatives had tried to attach to the wall in +loving remembrance, repeatedly fell down again, although nailed very +securely; nor did it remain fixed until they realized that its costly +gilt frame was objectionable to the saint in heaven, and accordingly +removed it. No wonder the infant Jesus was pleased to descend from the +breast of Mary and take rest for several hours in the arms of Saint +Giangiuseppe, who, on being disturbed by some priestly visitor, +exclaimed, "O how I have enjoyed holding the Holy Babe in my arms!" This +is an old and favourite motif; it occurs, for example, in the Fioretti +of Saint Francis; there are precedents, in fact, for all these divine +favours. + +But his distinguishing feature, his "dominating gift," was that of +prophecy, especially in foretelling the deaths of children, "which he +almost always accompanied with jocular words _(scherzi)_ on his lips." +He would enter a house and genially remark: "O, what an odour of +Paradise "; sooner or later one or more of the children of the family +would perish. To a boy of twelve he said, "Be good, Natale, for the +angels are coming to take you." These playful words seem to have weighed +considerably on the boy's mind and, sure enough, after a few years he +died. But even more charming--_più grazioso,_ the biographer calls +it--was the incident when he once asked a father whether he would give +his son to Saint Pasquale. The fond parent agreed, thinking that the +words referred to the boy's future career in the Church. But the saint +meant something quite different--he meant a career in heaven! And in +less than a month the child died. To a little girl who was crying in the +street he said: "I don't want to hear you any more. Go and sing in +Paradise." And meeting her a short time after, he said, "What, are you +still here?" In a few days she was dead. + +The biography gives many instances of this pretty gift which would +hardly have contributed to the saint's popularity in England or any +other country save this, where--although the surviving youngsters are +described as "struck with terror at the mere name of the Servant of +God"--the parents were naturally glad to have one or two angels in the +family, to act as _avvocati_ (pleaders) for those that remained on earth. + +And the mention of the legal profession brings me to one really +instructive miracle. It is usually to be observed, after a saint has +been canonized, that heaven, by some further sign or signs, signifies +approval of this solemn act of the Vicar of God; indeed, to judge by +these biographies, such a course is not only customary but, to use a +worldly expression, _de rigueur._ And so it happened after the decree +relative to Saint Giangiuseppe had been pronounced in the Vatican +basilica by His Holiness Pius VI, in the presence of the assembled +cardinals. Innumerable celestial portents (their enumeration fills +eleven pages of the "Life") confirmed and ratified the great event, and +among them this: the notary, who had drawn up both the ordinary and the +apostolic _processi,_ was cured of a grievous apoplexy, survived for +four years, and finally died on the very anniversary of the death of the +saint. Involuntarily one contrasts this heavenly largesse with the +sordid guineas which would have contented an English lawyer. . . . + +Or glance into the biography of the Venerable Sister Orsola Benincasa. +She, too, could fly a little and raise men from the dead. She cured +diseases, foretold her own death and that of others, lived for a month +on the sole nourishment of a consecrated wafer; she could speak Latin +and Polish, although she had been taught nothing at all; wrought +miracles after death, and possessed to a heroic degree the virtues of +patience, humility, temperance, justice, etc. etc. So inflamed was she +with divine love, that almost every day thick steam issued out of her +mouth, which was observed to be destructive to articles of clothing; her +heated body, when ice was applied, used to hiss like a red-hot iron +under similar conditions. + +As a child, she already cried for other people's sins; she was always +hunting for her own and would gladly, at the end of her long and +blameless career, have exchanged her sins for those of the youthful +Duchess of Aquaro. An interesting phenomenon, by the way, the theory of +sinfulness which crops up at this particular period of history. For our +conception of sin is alien to the Latin mind. There is no "sin" in Italy +(and this is not the least of her many attractions); it is an article +manufactured exclusively for export. [Footnote: "Vita della Venerabile +Serva di Dio Suor Orsola Benincasa, Scritta da un cherico regolare," +Rome, 1796. There are, of course, much earlier biographies of all these +saints; concerning Sister Orsola we possess, for instance, the +remarkable pamphlet by Cesare d'Eboli ("Caesaris Aevoli Neapolitan! +Apologia pro Ursula Neapolitana quas ad urbem accessit MDLXXXIII," +Venice, 1589), which achieves the distinction of never mentioning Orsola +by name: she is only once referred to as "mulier de qua agitur." But I +prefer to quote from the more recent ones because they are +authoritative, in so far as they have been written on the basis of +miracles attested by eye-witnesses and accepted as veracious by the +Vatican tribunal. Sister Orsola, though born in 154.7, was only declared +Venerable by Pontifical decree of 1793. Biographies prior to that date +are therefore ex-parte statements and might conceivably contain errors +of fact. This is out of the question here, as is clearly shown by the +author on p. 178.] + +Orsola's speciality, however, were those frequent trance-like conditions +by reason of which, during her lifetime, she was created "Protectress of +the City of Naples." I cannot tell whether she was the first woman-saint +to obtain this honour. Certainly the "Seven Holy Protectors" concerning +whom Paolo Regio writes were all musty old males. . . . + +And here is quite another biography, that of Alfonso di Liguori (born +1696), the founder of the Redemptorist order and a canonized saint. He, +too, could fly a little and raise the dead to life; he suffered +devil-temptations, caused the clouds to rain, calmed an eruption of +Vesuvius, multiplied food, and so forth. Such was his bashfulness, that +even as an aged bishop he refused to be unrobed by his attendants; such +his instinct for moral cleanliness that once, when a messenger had +alighted at his convent accompanied by a soldier, he instantly detected, +under the military disguise, the lineaments of a young woman-friend. +Despite these divine gifts, he always needed a confessor. An enormous +batch of miracles accompanied his sanctification. + +But he only employed these divine graces by the way; he was by +profession not a _taumaturgo,_ but a clerical instructor, organizer, +and writer. The Vatican has conferred on him the rare title of "Doctor +Ecclesia," which he shares with Saint Augustine and some others. + +The biography from which I have drawn these details was printed in Rome +in 1839. It is valuable because it is modern and so far authentic; and +for two other reasons. In the first place, curiously enough, it barely +mentions the saint's life-work--his writings. Secondly, it is a good +example of what I call the pious palimpsest. It is over-scored with +contradictory matter. The author, for example, while accidentally +informing us that Alfonso kept a carriage, imputes to him a degrading, +Oriental love of dirt and tattered garments, in order (I presume) to +make his character conform to the grosser ideals of the mendicant +friars. I do not believe in these traits--in his hatred of soap and +clean apparel. From his works I deduce a different original. He was +refined and urbane; of a casuistical and prying disposition; like many +sensitive men, unduly preoccupied with the sexual life of youth; like a +true feudal aristocrat, ever ready to apply force where verbal +admonition proved unavailing. . . . + +In wonder-working capacities these saints were all put in the shade by +the Calabrian Francesco di Paola, who raised fifteen persons from the +dead in his boyhood. He used to perform a hundred miracles a day, and +"it was a miracle, when a day passed without a miracle." The index alone +of any one of his numerous biographies is enough to make one's head swim. + +The vast majority of saints of this period do not belong to that third +sex after which, according to some, the human race has ever striven--the +constructive and purposeful third sex. They are wholly sexless, unsocial +and futile beings, the negation of every masculine or feminine virtue. +Their independence fettered by the iron rules of the Vatican and of +their particular order, these creatures had _nothing to do;_ and like +the rest of us under such conditions, became vacuously introspective. +Those honourable saintly combats of the past with external enemies and +plagues and stormy seasons were transplanted from without into the +microcosm within, taking the shape of hallucinations and +demon-temptations. They were no longer actors, but sufferers; automata, +who attained a degree of inanity which would have made their old +Byzantine prototypes burst with envy. + +Yet they vary in their gifts; each one, as I have said, has his or her +strong point. Why? The reason of this diversity lies in the furious +competition between the various monastic orders of the time--in those +unedifying squabbles which led to never-ending litigation and complaints +to head-quarters in Rome. Every one of these saints, from the first +dawning of his divine talents, was surrounded by an atmosphere of +jealous hatred on the part of his co-religionists. If one order came out +with a flying wonder, another, in frantic emulation, would introduce +some new speciality to eclipse his fame--something in the fasting line, +it may be; or a female mystic whose palpitating letters to Jesus Christ +would melt all readers to pity. The Franciscans, for instance, dissected +the body of a certain holy Margaret and discovered in her heart the +symbols of the Trinity and of the Passion. This bold and original idea +would have gained them much credit, but for the rival Dominicans, who +promptly discovered, and dissected, another saintly Margaret, whose +heart contained three stones on which were engraven portraits of the +Virgin Mary. [Footnote: These and other details will be found in the +four volumes "Das Heidentum in der romischen Kirche" (Gotha, 1889-91), +by Theodor Trede, a late Protestant parson in Naples, strongly tinged +with anti-Catholicism, but whose facts may be relied upon. Indeed, he +gives chapter and verse for them.] So they ceaselessly unearthed fresh +saints with a view to disparaging each other--all of them waiting for a +favourable moment when the Vatican could be successfully approached to +consider their particular claims. For it stands to reason that a +Carmelite Pope would prefer a Carmelite saint to one of the Jesuits, and +so forth. + +And over all throned the Inquisition in Rome, alert, ever-suspicious; +testing the "irregularities" of the various orders and harassing their +respective saints with Olympic impartiality. + +I know that mystics such as Orsola Benincasa are supposed to have +another side to their character, an eminently practical side. It is +perfectly true--and we need not go out of England to learn it--that +piety is not necessarily inconsistent with nimbleness in worldly +affairs. But the mundane achievements, the monasteries and churches, of +nine-tenths of these southern ecstatics are the work of the confessor +and not of the saint. Trainers of performing animals are aware how these +differ in plasticity of disposition and amenability to discipline; the +spiritual adviser, who knows his business, must be quick to detect these +various qualities in the minds of his penitents and to utilize them to +the best advantage. It is inconceivable, for instance, that the +convent-foundress Orsola was other than a neuropathic nonentity--a blind +instrument in the hands of what we should call her backers, chiefest of +whom (in Naples) were two Spanish priests, Borii and Navarro, whose +local efforts were supported, at head-quarters, by the saintly Filippo +Neri and the learned Cardinal Baronius. + +This is noticeable. The earlier of these godly biographies are written +in Latin, and these are more restrained in their language; they were +composed, one imagines, for the priests and educated classes who could +dispense to a certain degree with prodigies. But the later ones, from +the viceregal period onwards, are in the vernacular and display a marked +deterioration; one must suppose that they were printed for such of the +common people as could still read (up to a few years ago, sixty-five per +cent of the populace were analphabetic). They are pervaded by the +characteristic of all contemporary literature and art: that deliberate +intention to _astound_ which originated with the poet Marino, who +declared such to have been his object and ideal. The miracles certainly +do astound; they are as _strepitosi_ (clamour-arousing) as the writers +claim them to be; how they ever came to occur must be left to the +consciences of those who swore on oath to the truth of them. + +During this period the Mother of God as a local saint increased in +popularity. There was a ceaseless flow of monographs dealing with +particular Madonnas, as well as a small library on what the Germans +would doubtless call the "Madonna as a Whole." Here is Serafino +Montorio's "Zodiaco di Maria," printed in 1715 on the lines of that +monster of a book by Gumppenberg. It treats of over two hundred +subspecies of Madonna worshipped in different parts of south Italy which +is divided, for these celestial purposes, into twelve regions, according +to the signs of the Zodiac. The book is dedicated by the author to his +"Sovereign Lady the _Gran Madre di Dio"_ and might, in truth, have been +written to the glory of that protean old Magna Mater by one of Juvenal's +"tonsured herd" possessed of much industry but little discrimination. +[Footnote: The Mater Dei was officially installed in the place of Magna +Mater at the Synod of Ephesus in 431.] Such as it is, it reflects the +crude mental status of the Dominican order to which the author belonged. +I warmly recommend this book to all Englishmen desirous of understanding +the south. It is pure, undiluted paganism--paganism of a bad school; one +would think it marked the lowest possible ebb of Christian spirituality. +But this is by no means the case, as I shall presently show. + +How different, from such straightforward unreason, are the etherealized, +saccharine effusions of the "Glories of Mary," by Alfonso di Liguori! +They represent the other pole of Mariolatry--the gentlemanly pole. And +under the influence of Mary-worship a new kind of saintly physiognomy +was elaborated, as we can see from contemporary prints and pictures. The +bearded men-saints were extinct; in the place of them this mawkish, +sub-sexual love for the Virgin developed a corresponding type of +adorer--clean-shaven, emasculate youths, posing in ecstatic attitudes +with a nauseous feminine smirk. Rather an unpleasant sort of saint. + +The unwholesome chastity-ideal, without which no holy man of the period +was "complete," naturally left its mark upon literature, notably on that +of certain Spanish theologians. But good specimens of what I mean may +also be found in the Theologia Moralis of Liguori; the kind of stuff, +that is, which would be classed as "curious" in catalogues and kept in a +locked cupboard by the most broad-minded paterfamilias. Reading these +elucubrations of Alfonso's, one feels that the saint has pondered long +and lovingly upon themes like _an et quando peccata sint oscula_ or _de +tactu et adspectu corporis;_ he writes with all the authority of an +expert whose richly-varied experiences in the confessional have been +amplified and irradiated by divine inspiration. I hesitate what to call +this literature, seeing that it was obviously written to the glory of +God and His Virgin Mother. The congregation of the Index, which was +severe in the matter of indecent publications and prohibited Boccaccio's +Decameron on these grounds, hailed with approval the appearance of such +treatises composed, as they were, for the guidance of young priests. + +Cruelty (in the shape of the Inquisition) and lasciviousness (as +exemplified by such pious filth)--these are the prime fruits of that +cult of asceticism which for centuries the Government strove to impose +upon south Italy. If the people were saved, it was due to that +substratum of sanity, of Greek _sophrosyne,_ which resisted the one and +derided the other. Whoever has saturated himself with the records will +marvel not so much that the inhabitants preserved some shreds of common +sense and decent feeling, as that they survived at all--he will marvel +that the once fair kingdom was not converted into a wilderness, saintly +but uninhabited, like Spain itself. + +For the movement continued in a vertiginous crescendo. Spaniardism +culminated in Bourbonism, and this, again, reached its climax in the +closing years of the eighteenth century, when the conditions of south +Italy baffled description. I have already (p. 212) given the formidable +number of its ecclesiastics; the number of saints was commensurate, +but--as often happens when the quantity is excessive--the quality +declined. This lazzaroni-period was the debacle of holiness. So true it +is that our gods reflect the hearts that make them. + +The Venerable Fra Egidio, a native of Taranto, is a good example of +contemporary godliness. My biography of him was printed in Naples in +1876, [Footnote: "Vita del Venerabile servo di Dio Fra Egidio da S. +Giuseppe laico professo alcantarino," Napoli, 1876.] and contains a +dedicatory epistle addressed to the Blessed Virgin by her "servant, +subject, and most loving son Rosario Frungillo"--a canon of the church +and the author of the book. + +This "taumaturgo" could perform all the ordinary feats; I will not +linger over them. What has made him popular to this day are those +wonders which appealed to the taste of the poorer people, such as, for +example, that miracle of the eels. A fisherman had brought fourteen +hundredweight of these for sale in the market. Judge of his +disappointment when he discovered that they had all died during the +journey (southerners will not pay for dead eels). Fortunately, he saw +the saint arriving in a little boat, who informed him that the eels were +"not dead, but only asleep," and who woke them up again by means of a +relic of Saint Pasquale which he always carried about with him, after a +quarter of an hour's devout praying, during which the perspiration oozed +from his forehead. The eels, says the writer, had been dead and slimy, +but now turned their bellies downwards once more and twisted about in +their usual spirals; there began a general weeping among the onlookers, +and the fame of the miracle immediately spread abroad. He could do the +same with lobsters, cows, and human beings. + +Thus a cow belonging to Fra Egidio's monastery was once stolen by an +impious butcher, and cut up into the usual joints with a view to a +clandestine sale of the meat. The saint discovered the beast's remains, +ordered that they should be laid together on the floor in the shape of a +living cow, with the entrails, head and so forth in their natural +positions; then, having made the sign of the cross with his cord upon +the slaughtered beast, and rousing up all his faith, he said: "In the +name of God and of Saint Pasquale, arise, Catherine!" (Catherine was the +cow's name.) "At these words the animal lowed, shook itself, and stood +up on its feet alive, whole and strong, even as it had been before it +was killed." + +In the case of one of the dead men whom he brought to life, the +undertakers were already about their sad task; but Fra Egidio, viewing +the corpse, remarked in his usual manner that the man was "not dead, but +only asleep," and after a few saintly manipulations, roused him from his +slumber. The most portentous of his wonders, however, are those which he +wrought _after his own death_ by means of his relics and otherwise; they +have been sworn to by many persons. Nor did his hand lose its old +cunning, in these posthumous manifestations, with the finny tribe. A +certain woman, Maria Scuotto, was enabled to resuscitate a number of +dead eels by means of an image of the deceased saint which she cast +among them. + +Every one of the statements in this biography is drawn from the +_processi_ to which I will presently refer; there were 202 witnesses who +deposed "under the rigour and sanctity of oath" to the truth of these +miracles; and among those who were personally convinced of the +Venerable's rare gifts was the Royal Family of Naples, the archbishop of +that town, as well as innumerable dukes and princes. An embittered +rationalist would note that the reading of Voltaire, at this period, was +punished with three years' galley-slavery and that several thousand +citizens were hanged for expressing liberal opinions; he will suggest +that belief in the supernatural, rejected by the thinking classes, finds +an abiding shelter among royalty and the proletariat. + +It occurs to me, a propos of Fra Egidio, to make the obvious statement +that an account of an occurrence is not necessarily true, because it +happened long ago. Credibility does not improve, like violins and port +wine, with lapse of years. This being the case, it will not be +considered objectionable to say that there are certain deeds attributed +to holy men of olden days which, to speak frankly, are open to doubt; or +at least not susceptible of proof. Who were these men, if they ever +existed? and who vouches for their prodigies? This makes me think that +Pope Gelasius showed no small penetration in excluding, as early as the +fifth century, some few _acta sanctorum_ from the use of the churches; +another step in the same direction was taken in the twelfth century when +the power of canonizing saints, which had hitherto been claimed by all +bishops, became vested in the Pope alone; and yet another, when Urban +VIII forbade the nomination of local patron saints by popular vote. +Pious legends are supposed to have their uses as an educative agency. So +be it. But such relations of imperfectly ascertained and therefore +questionable wonders suffer from one grave drawback: they tend to shake +our faith in the evidence of well-authenticated ones. Thus Saint Patrick +is also reported to have raised a cow from the dead--five cows, to be +quite accurate; but who will come forward and vouch for the fact? No +one. That is because Saint Patrick belongs to the legendary stage; he +died, it is presumed, about 490. + +Here, with Saint Egidio, we are on other ground; on the ground of bald +actuality. He expired in 1812, and the contemporaries who have attested +his miraculous deeds are not misty phantoms of the Thebais; they were +creatures of flesh and blood, human, historical personages, who were +dressed and nourished and educated after the fashion of our own +grandfathers. Yet it was meet and proper that the documentary evidence +as to his divine graces should be conscientiously examined. And only in +1888 was the crowning work accomplished. In that year His Holiness Leo +XIII and the Sacred Congregation of Cardinals solemnly approved the +evidence and inscribed the name of Egidio in the book of the Blessed. + +To touch upon a few minor matters--I observe that Fra Egidio, like the +Flying Monk, was "illiterate," and similarly preserved up to a decrepit +age "the odorous lily of purity, which made him appear in words and +deeds as a most innocent child." He was accustomed to worship before a +favourite picture of the Mother of God which he kept adorned with +candles; and whenever the supply of these ran out, he was wont to +address Her with infantile simplicity of heart and in the local dialect: +"Now there's no wax for You; so think about it Yourself; if not, You'll +have to go without." The playful-saintly note. . . . + +But there is this difference between him and earlier saints that whereas +they, all too often, suffered in solitude, misunderstood and rejected of +men, he enjoyed the highest popularity during his whole long life. +Wherever he went, his footsteps were pursued by crowds of admirers, +eager to touch his wonder-working body or to cut off shreds of his +clothing as amulets; hardly a day passed that he did not return home +with garments so lacerated that only half of them was left; every +evening they had to be patched up anew, although they were purposely +stitched full of wires and small chains of iron as a protection. The +same passionate sympathy continued after death, for while his body was +lying in state a certain Luigi Ascione, a surgeon, pushed through the +crowd and endeavoured to cut off one of his toe-nails with the flesh +attached to it; he admitted being driven to this act of pious +depredation by the pleading request of the Spanish Ambassador and a +Neapolitan princess, who held Fra Egidio in great veneration. + +This is not an isolated instance. Southerners love their saints, and do +not content themselves with chill verbal expressions of esteem. So the +biographer of Saint Giangiuseppe records that "one of the deceased +saint's toes was bitten off with most regret-able devotion by the teeth +of a man in the crowd, who wished to preserve it as a relic. And the +blood from the wound flowed so copiously and so freely that many pieces +of cloth were saturated with it; nor did it cease to flow till the +precious corpse was interred." It is hard to picture such proofs of +fervid popularity falling to the lot of English deans and bishops. + +He was modern, too, in this sense, that he did not torment himself with +penitences (decay of Spanish austerity); on the contrary, he even kept +chocolate, honey and suchlike delicacies in his cell. In short, he was +an up-to-date saint, who despised mediaeval practices and lived in a +manner befitting the age which gave him birth. In this respect he +resembles our English men of holiness, who exercise a laudable +self-denial in resisting the seductions of the ascetic life. + +Meanwhile, the cult of the Mother of God continued to wax in favour, and +those who are interested in its development should read the really +remarkable book by Antonio Cuomó, "Saggio apologetico della belezza +celeste e divina di Maria S.S. Madre di Dio" (Castellamare, 1863). It is +a diatribe against modernism by a champion of lost causes, an +exacerbated lover of the "Singular Virgin and fecund Mother of the +Verb." His argument, as I understand it, is the _consensus gentium_ +theory applied to the Virgin Mary. In defence of this thesis, the book +has been made to bristle with quotations; they stand out like quills +upon the porcupine, ready to impale the adventurous sceptic. Pliny and +Virgil and the Druids and Balaam's Ass are invoked as foretelling Her +birth; the Old Testament--that venerable sufferer, as Huxley called +it--is twisted into dire convulsions for the same purpose; much evidence +is also drawn from Hebrew observances and from the Church Fathers. But +the New Testamentary record is seldom invoked; the Saviour, on the rare +occasions when He is mentioned, being dismissed as "G. C." The volume +ends with a pyrotechnical display of invective against non-Catholic +heretics; a medley of threats and abuse worthy of those breezy days of +Erasmus, when theologians really said what they thought of each other. +The frank polytheism of Montorio is more to my taste. This outpouring of +papistical rhetoric gives me unwarrantable sensations--it makes me feel +positively Protestant. + +Another sign of increasing popularity is that the sacred bacchanals +connected with the "crowning" of various Madonnas were twice as +numerous, in Naples, in the nineteenth as in the eighteenth century. Why +an image of the Mother of God should be decked with this worldly symbol, +as a reward for services rendered, will be obscure only to those who +fail to appreciate the earthly-tangible complexion of southern religion. +Puerility is its key-note. The Italian is either puerile or adult; the +Englishman remains everlastingly adolescent. . . . + +Now of course it is open to any one to say that the pious records from +which I have quoted are a desolation of the spirit; that they possess +all the improbability of the "Arabian Nights," and none of their charm; +that all the distempered dreamings to which our poor humanity is subject +have given themselves a rendezvous in their pages. I am not for +disputing the point, and I can understand how one man may be saddened by +their perusal, while another extracts therefrom some gleams of mirth. +For my part, I merely verify this fact: the native has been fed with +this stuff for centuries, and if we desire to enter into his feelings, +we must feed ourselves likewise--up to a point. The past is the key to +the present. That is why I have dwelt at such length on the subject--in +the hope of clearing up the enigma in the national character: the +unpassable gulf, I mean, between the believing and the unbelieving +sections of the community. + +An Anglo-Saxon arriving at Bagnara and witnessing a procession in honour +of that Sacred Hat of the Mother of God which has led me into this +disquisition, would be shocked at the degree of bigotry implied. "The +Hat of the Virgin Mary," he would say--"what next?" Then, accosting some +ordinary citizen not in the procession--any butcher or baker--he would +receive a shock of another kind; he would be appalled at the man's +language of contemptuous derision towards everything which he, the +Anglo-Saxon, holds sacred in biblical tradition. There is no attempt, +here, at "reconciliation." The classes calling themselves enlightened +are making a clean sweep of the old gods in a fashion that bewilders us +who have accustomed ourselves to see a providential design in everything +that exists (possibly because our acquaintance with a providentially- +designed Holy Office is limited to an obsolete statute, the genial +_de haeretico comburendo)._ The others, the fetishists, have remained +on the spiritual level of their own saints. And there we stand +today. That section so numerous in England, the pseudo-pagans, +crypto-Christians, or whatever obscurantists like Messrs. A. J. Balfour +and Mallock like to call themselves (the men who, with disastrous +effects, transport into realms of pure intelligence the spirit of +compromise which should be restricted to practical concerns)--that +section has no representatives hereabouts. + +Fully to appreciate their attitude as opposed to ours, we must also +remember that the south Italian does not trouble himself about the +objective truth of any miracle whatever; his senses may be perverted, +but his intelligence remains outside the sphere of infection. This is +his saving grace. To the people here, the affair of Moses and the +Burning Bush, the raising of Lazarus, and Egidio's cow-revival, are on +the identical plane of authenticity; the Bible is one of a thousand +saints' books; its stories may be as true as theirs, or just as untrue; +in any case, what has that to do with his own worldly conduct? But the +Englishman with ingenuous ardour thinks to believe in the Burning Bush +wonder, and in so far his intelligence is infected; with equal ardour he +excludes the cow-performance from the range of possibility; and to him +it matters considerably which of the miracles are true and which are +false, seeing that his conduct is supposed to take colour from such +supernatural events. Ultra-credulous as to one set of narratives, he has +no credulity left for other sets; he concentrates his believing energies +upon a small space, whereas the Italian's are diffused, thinly, over a +wide area. It is the old story: Gothic intensity and Latin spaciousness. +So the Gothic believer takes his big dose of irrationalism on one fixed +day; the Latin, by attending Mass every morning, spreads it over the +whole week. And the sombre strenuousness of our northern character +expects a remuneration for this outlay of faith, while the other +contents himself with such sensuous enjoyment as he can momentarily +extract from his ceremonials. That is why our English religion has a +_democratic_ tinge distasteful to the Latin who, at bottom, is always a +philosopher; democratic because it relies for its success, like +democratic politicians, upon promises--promises that may or may not be +kept--promises that form no part (they are only an official appendage) +of the childlike paganism of the south. . . . + +Fifteen francs will buy you a reliable witness for a south Italian +lawsuit; you must pay a good deal more in England. Thence one might +argue that the cult of credulity implied by these saintly biographies is +responsible for this laxness, for the general disregard of veracity. I +doubt it. I am not inclined to blame the monkish saint-makers for this +particular trait; I suspect that for fifteen francs you could have +bought a first-class witness under Pericles. Southerners are not yet +pressed for time; and when people are not pressed for time, they do not +learn the time-saving value of honesty. Our respect for truth and fair +dealing, such as it is, derives from modern commerce; in the Middle Ages +nobody was concerned about honesty save a few trading companies like the +Hanseatic League, and the poor mediaeval devil (the only gentleman of +his age) who was generally pressed for time and could be relied upon to +keep his word. Even God, of whom they talked so much, was systematically +swindled. Where time counts for nothing, expeditious practices between +man and man are a drug in the market. Besides, it must be noted that +this churchly misteaching was only a fraction of that general shattering +which has disintegrated all the finer fibres of public life. It stands +to reason that the fragile tissues of culture are dislocated, and its +delicate edges defaced, by such persistive governmental brutalization as +the inhabitants have undergone. None but the grossest elements in a +people can withstand enduring misrule; none but a mendacious and servile +nature will survive its wear and tear. So it comes about that up to a +few years ago the nobler qualities which we associate with those old +Hellenic colonists--their intellectual curiosity, their candid outlook +upon life, their passionate sense of beauty, their love of nature--all +these things had been abraded, leaving, as residue, nothing save what +the Greeks shared with ruder races. There are indications that this +state of affairs is now ending. + +The position is this. The records show that the common people never took +their saints to heart in the northern fashion--as moral exemplars; from +beginning to end, they have only utilized them as a pretext for fun and +festivals, a means of brightening the cata-combic, the essentially +sunless, character of Christianity. So much for the popular saints, the +patrons and heroes. The others, the ecclesiastical ones, are an +artificial product of monkish institutions. These monkeries were +established in the land by virtue of civil authority. Their continued +existence, however, was contingent upon the goodwill of the Vatican. One +of the surest and cheapest methods of obtaining this goodwill was to +produce a satisfactory crop of saints whose beatification swelled the +Vatican treasury with the millions collected from a deluded populace for +that end. The monks paid nothing; they only furnished the saint and, in +due course, the people's money. Can we wonder that they discovered +saints galore? Can we wonder that the Popes were gratified by their +pious zeal? + +So things went on till yesterday. But now a large proportion of the ten +thousand (?) churches and monasteries of Naples are closed or actually +in ruins; wayside sanctuaries crumble to dust in picturesque fashion; +the price of holy books has fallen to zero, and the godly brethren have +emigrated to establish their saint-manufactories elsewhere. Not without +hope of success; for they will find purchasers of their wares wherever +mankind can be interested in that queer disrespect of the body which is +taught by the metaphysical ascetics of the East. + +It was Lewes, I believe, who compared metaphysics to ghosts by saying +that there was no killing either of them; one could only dissipate them +by throwing light into the dark places they love to inhabit--to show +that nothing is there. Spectres, likewise, are these saintly caricatures +of humanity, perambulating metaphysics, the application _in corpore +vili_ of Oriental fakirism. Nightmare-literature is the crazy recital of +their deeds and sufferings. Pathological phantoms! The state of mind +which engenders and cherishes such illusions is a disease, and it has +been well said that "you cannot refute a disease." You cannot nail +ghosts to the counter. + +But a ray of light . . . + + + + +XXXII + +ASPROMONTE, THE CLOUD-GATHERER + + +Day was barely dawning when we left Delianuova and began the long and +weary climb up Montalto. Chestnuts gave way to beeches, but the summit +receded ever further from us. And even before reaching the uplands, the +so-called Piano di Carmelia, we encountered a bank of bad weather. A +glance at the map will show that Montalto must be a cloud-gatherer, +drawing to its flanks every wreath of vapour that rises from Ionian and +Tyrrhenian; a west wind was blowing that morning, and thick fogs clung +to the skirts of the peak. We reached the summit (1956 metres) at last, +drenched in an icy bath of rain and sleet, and with fingers so numbed +that we could hardly hold our sticks. + +Of the superb view--for such it must be--nothing whatever was to be +seen; we were wrapped in a glacial mist. On the highest point stands a +figure of the Redeemer. It was dragged up in pieces from Delianuova some +seven years ago, but soon injured by frosts; it has lately been +refashioned. The original structure may be due to the same pious +stimulus as that which placed the crosses on Monte Vulture and other +peaks throughout the country--a counterblast to the rationalistic +congress at Rome in 1904, when Giordano Bruno became, for a while, the +hero of the country. This statue does not lack dignity. The Saviour's +regard turns towards Reggio, the capital of the province; and one hand +is upraised in calm and godlike benediction. + +Passing through magnificent groves of fir, we descended rapidly into +anothsr climate, into realms of golden sunshine. Among these trees I +espied what has become quite a rare bird in Italy--the common +wood-pigeon. The few that remain have been driven into the most secluded +recesses of the mountains; it was different in the days of Theocritus, +who sang of this amiable fowl when the climate was colder and the +woodlands reached as far as the now barren seashore. To the firs +succeeded long stretches of odorous pines interspersed with +Mediterranean heath (brayère), which here grows to a height of twelve +feet; one thinks of the number of briar pipes that could be cut out of +its knotty roots. A British Vice-Consul at Reggio, Mr. Kerrich, started +this industry about the year 1899; he collected the roots, which were +sawn into blocks and then sent to France and America to be made into +pipes. This Calabrian briar was considered superior to the French kind, +and Mr. Kerrich had large sales on both sides of the Atlantic; his chief +difficulty was want of labour owing to emigration. + +We passed, by the wayside, several rude crosses marking the site of +accidents or murders, as well as a large heap of stones, where-under lie +the bones of a man who attempted to traverse these mountains in +winter-time and was frozen to death. + +"They found him," the guide told me, "in spring, when the snow melted +from off his body. There he lay, all fresh and comely! It looked as if +he would presently wake up and continue his march; but he neither spoke +nor stirred. Then they knew he was dead. And they piled all these stones +over him, to prevent the wolves, you understand----" + +Aspromonte deserves its name. It is an incredibly harsh agglomeration of +hill and dale, and the geology of the district, as I learned long ago +from my friend Professor Cortese, reveals a perfect chaos of rocks of +every age, torn into gullies by earthquakes and other cataclysms of the +past--at one place, near Scido, is an old stream of lava. Once the +higher ground, the nucleus of the group, is left behind, the wanderer +finds himself lost in a maze of contorted ravines, winding about without +any apparent system of watershed. Does the liquid flow north or south? +Who can tell! The track crawls in and out of valleys, mounts upwards to +heights of sun-scorched bracken and cistus, descends once more into dewy +glades hemmed in by precipices and overhung by drooping fernery. It +crosses streams of crystal clearness, rises afresh in endless gyrations +under the pines only to vanish, yet again, into the twilight of deeper +abysses, where it skirts the rivulet along precarious ledges, until some +new obstruction blocks the way--so it writhes about for long, long +hours. . . . + +Here, on the spot, one can understand how an outlaw like Musolino was +enabled to defy justice, helped, as he was, by the fact that the vast +majority of the inhabitants were favourable to him, and that the officer +in charge of his pursuers was paid a fixed sum for every day he spent in +the chase and presumably found it convenient not to discover his +whereabouts. [Footnote: See next chapter.] + +We rested awhile, during these interminable meanderings, under the +shadow of a group of pines. + +"Do you see that square patch yonder?" said my man. "It is a cornfield. +There Musolino shot one of his enemies, whom he suspected of giving +information to the police. It was well done." + +"How many did he shoot, altogether?" + +"Only eighteen. And three of them recovered, more or less; enough to +limp about, at all events. Ah, if you could have seen him, sir! He was +young, with curly fair hair, and a face like a rose. God alone can tell +how many poor people he helped in their distress. And any young girl he +met in the mountains he would help with her load and accompany as far as +her home, right into her father's house, which none of us would have +risked, however much we might have liked it. But every one knew that he +was pure as an angel." + +"And there was a young fellow here," he went on, "who thought he could +profit by pretending to be Musolino. So one day he challenged a +proprietor with his gun, and took all his money. When it came to +Musolino's ears, he was furious--furious! He lay in wait for him, caught +him, and said: 'How dare you touch fathers of children? Where's that +money you took from Don Antonio?' Then the boy began to cry and tremble +for his life. 'Bring it,' said Musolino, 'every penny, at midday next +Monday, to such and such a spot, or else----' Of course he brought it. +Then he marched him straight into the proprietor's house. 'Here's this +wretched boy, who robbed you in my name. And here's the money: please +count it. Now, what shall we do with him?' So Don Antonio counted the +money. 'It's all there,' he said; 'let him off this time.' Then Musolino +turned to the lad: 'You have behaved like a mannerless puppy,' he said, +'without shame or knowledge of the world. Be reasonable in future, and +understand clearly: I will have no brigandage in these mountains. Leave +that to the syndics and judges in the towns.'" + +We did not traverse Musolino's natal village, Santo Stefano; indeed, we +passed through no villages at all. But after issuing from the labyrinth, +we saw a few of them, perched in improbable situations--Roccaforte and +Roghudi on our right; on the other side, Africo and Casalnuovo. Salis +Marschlins says that the inhabitants of these regions are so wild and +innocent that money is unknown; everything is done by barter. That comes +of copying without discrimination. For this statement he utilized the +report of a Government official, a certain Leoni, who was sent hither +after the earthquake of 1783, and found the use of money not unknown, +but forgotten, in consequence of this terrible catastrophe. + +These vales of Aspromonte are one of the last refuges of living +Byzantinism. Greek is still spoken in some places, such as Rocca-forte +and Roghudi. Earlier travellers confused the natives with the Albanians; +Niehbuhr, who had an obsession on the subject of Hellenism, imagined +they were relics of old Dorian and Achaean colonies. Scholars are +apparently not yet quite decided upon certain smaller matters. So +Lenormant (Vol. II, p. 433) thinks they came hither after the Turkish +conquest, as did the Albanians; Batiffol argues that they were chased +into Calabria from Sicily by the Arabs after the second half of the +seventh century; Morosi, who treats mostly of their Apulian settlements, +says that they came from the East between the sixth and tenth centuries. +Many students, such as Morelli and Comparetti, have garnered their +songs, language, customs and lore, and whoever wants a convenient résumé +of these earlier researches will find it in Pellegrini's book which was +written in 1873 (printed 1880). He gives the number of Greek inhabitants +of these places--Roghudi, for example, had 535 in his day; he has also +noted down these villages, like Africo and Casalnuovo, in which the +Byzantine speech has lately been lost. Bova and Condofuri are now the +head-quarters of mediaeval Greek in these parts. + +From afar we had already descried a green range of hills that shut out +the seaward view. This we now began to climb, in wearisome ascension; it +is called _Pie d'lmpisa,_ because "your feet are all the time on a steep +incline." Telegraph wires here accompany the track, a survival of the +war between the Italian Government and Musolino. On the summit lies a +lonely Alp, Campo di Bova, where a herd of cattle were pasturing under +the care of a golden-haired youth who lay supine on the grass, gazing at +the clouds as they drifted in stately procession across the firmament. +Save for a dusky charcoal-burner crouching in a cave, this boy was the +only living person we encountered on our march--so deserted are these +mountain tracks. + +At Campo di Bova a path branches off to Staiti; the sea is visible once +more, and there are fine glimpses, on the left, towards Staiti (or is it +Ferruzzano?) and, down the right, into the destructive and dangerous +torrent of Amendolea. Far beyond it, rises the mountain peak of +Pentedattilo, a most singular landmark which looks exactly like a molar +tooth turned upside down, with fangs in air. The road passes through a +gateway in the rock whence, suddenly, a full view is disclosed of Bova +on its hill-top, the houses nestling among huge blocks of stone that +make one think of some cyclopean citadel of past ages. My guide stoutly +denied that this was Bova; the town, he declared, lay in quite another +direction. I imagine he had never been beyond the foot of the "Pie +d'Impisa." + +Here, once more, the late earthquake has done some damage, and there is +a row of trim wooden shelters near the entrance of the town. I may add, +as a picturesque detail, that about one-third of them have never been +inhabited, and are never likely to be. They were erected in the heat of +enthusiasm, and there they will stay, empty and abandoned, until some +energetic mayor shall pull them down and cook his maccheroni with their +timber. + +Evening was drawing on apace, and whether it was due to the joy of +having accomplished an arduous journey, or to inconsiderate potations of +the Bacchus of Bova, one of the most remarkable wines in Italy, I very +soon found myself on excellent terms with the chief citizens of this +rather sordid-looking little place. A good deal has been written +concerning Bova and its inhabitants, but I should say there is still a +mine of information to be exploited on the spot. They are bilingual, but +while clinging stubbornly to their old speech, they have now embraced +Catholicism. The town kept its Greek religious rites till the latter +half of the sixteenth century; and Rodota has described the "vigorous +resistance" that was made to the introduction of Romanism, and the +ceremonies which finally accompanied that event. + +Mine hostess obligingly sang me two or three songs in her native +language; the priest furnished me with curious statistics of folklore +and criminology; and the notary, with whom I conversed awhile on the +tiny piazza that overlooks the coastlands and distant Ionian, was a most +affable gentleman. Seeing that the Christian names of the populace are +purely Italian, I enquired as to their surnames, and learned what I +expected, namely, that a good many Greek family names survive among the +people. His own name, he said, was unquestionably Greek: _Condemi;_ if I +liked, he would go through the local archives and prepare me a list of +all such surnames as appeared to him to be non-Italian; we could thus +obtain some idea of the percentage of Greek families still living here. +My best thanks to the good Signor! + +After some further liquid refreshment, a youthful native volunteered to +guide me by short cuts to the remote railway station. We stepped +blithely into the twilight, and during the long descent I discoursed +with him, in fluent Byzantine Greek, of the affairs of his village. + +It is my theory that among a populace of this kind the words relative to +agricultural pursuits will be those which are least likely to suffer +change with lapse of years, or to be replaced by others. + +Acting on this principle, I put him through a catechism on the subject +as soon as we reached our destination, and was surprised at the relative +scarcity of Italian terms--barely 25 per cent I should say. Needless to +add, I omitted to note them down. Such as it is, be that my contribution +to the literature of these sporadic islets of mediaeval Hellenism, whose +outstanding features are being gnawed away by the waves of military +conscription, governmental schooling, and emigration. + +Caulonia, my next halting-place, lay far off the line. I had therefore +the choice of spending the night at Gerace (old Locri) or Rocella +Ionica--intermediate stations. Both of them, to my knowledge, possessing +indifferent accommodation, I chose the former as being the nearest, and +slept there, not amiss; far better than on a previous occasion, when +certain things occurred which need not be set down here. + +The trip from Delianuova over the summit of Montalto to Bova railway +station is by no means to be recommended to young boys or persons in +delicate health. Allowing for only forty-five minutes' rest, it took me +fourteen hours to walk to the town of Bova, and the railway station lies +nearly three hours apart from that place. There is hardly a level yard +of ground along the whole route, and though my "guide" twice took the +wrong track and thereby probably lost me some little time, I question +whether the best walker, provided (as I was) with the best maps, will be +able to traverse the distance in less than fifteen hours. + +Whoever he is, I wish him joy of his journey. Pleasant to recall, +assuredly; the scenery and the mountain flowers are wondrously +beautiful; but I have fully realized what the men of Delianuova meant, +when they said: + +"To Montalto, Yes; to Bova, No." + + + + +XXXIII + +MUSOLINO AND THE LAW + + +Musolino will remain a hero for many long years to come. "He did his +duty ": such is the popular verdict on his career. He was not a brigand, +but an unfortunate--a martyr, a victim of the law. So he is described +not only by his country-people, but by the writers of many hundred +serious pamphlets in every province of Italy. + +At any bookstall you may buy cheap illustrated tracts and poems setting +forth his achievements. In Cosenza I saw a play of which he was the +leading figure, depicted as a pale, long-suffering gentleman of the +"misunderstood" type--friend of the fatherless, champion of widows and +orphans, rectifier of all wrongs; in fact, as the embodiment of those +virtues which we are apt to associate with Prometheus or the founder of +Christianity. + +Only to those who know nothing of local conditions will it seem strange +to say that Italian law is one of the factors that contribute to the +disintegration of family life throughout the country, and to the +production of creatures like Musolino. There are few villages which do +not contain some notorious assassins who have escaped punishment under +sentimental pleas, and now terrorize the neighbourhood. This is one of +the evils which derange patriarchalism; the decent-minded living in fear +of their lives, the others with a conspicuous example before their eyes +of the advantages of evil-doing. And another is that the innocent often +suffer, country-bred lads being locked up for months and years in prison +on the flimsiest pretexts--often on the mere word of some malevolent +local policeman--among hardened habitual offenders. If they survive the +treatment, which is not always the case, they return home completely +demoralized and a source of infection to others. + +It is hardly surprising if, under such conditions, rich and poor alike +are ready to hide a picturesque fugitive from justice. A sad state of +affairs, but--as an unsavoury Italian proverb correctly says--_il pesce +puzza dal capo._ + +For the fault lies not only in the fundamental perversity of all Roman +Law. It lies also in the local administration of that law, which is +inefficient and marked by that elaborate brutality characteristic of all +"philosophic" and tender-hearted nations. One thinks of the Byzantines. +. . . That justices should be well-salaried gentlemen, cognizant of +their duties to society; that carbineers and other police-functionaries +should be civilly responsible for outrages upon the public; that a +so-called "habeas-corpus" Act might be as useful here as among certain +savages of the north; that the Baghdad system of delays leads to +corruption of underpaid officials and witnesses alike (not to speak of +judges)--in a word, that the method pursued hereabouts is calculated to +create rather than to repress crime: these are truths of too elementary +a nature to find their way into the brains of the megalomaniac +rhetoricians who control their country's fate. They will never endorse +that saying of Stendhal's: "In Italy, with the exception of Milan, the +death-penalty is the preface of all civilization." (To this day, the +proportion of murders is still 13 per cent higher in Palermo than in +Milan.) + +Speak to the wisest judges of the horrors of cellular confinement such +as Musolino was enduring up to a short time ago, as opposed to capital +punishment, and you will learn that they invoke the humanitarian +Beccaria in justification of it. Theorists! + +For less formidable criminals there exists that wondrous institution of +_domicilio coatto,_ which I have studied in the islands of Lipari and +Ponza. These evil-doers seldom try to escape; life is far too +comfortable, and the wine good and cheap; often, on completing their +sentences, they get themselves condemned anew, in order to return. The +hard-working man may well envy their lot, for they recuve free lodging +from the Government, a daily allowance of money, and two new suits of +clothes a year--they are not asked to do a stroke of work in return, but +may lie in bed all day long, if so disposed. The law-abiding citizen, +meanwhile, pays for the upkeep of this horde of malefactors, as well as +for the army of officials who are deputed to attend to their wants. This +institution of _domicilio coatto_ is one of those things which would be +incredible, were it not actually in existence. It is a school, a +State-fostered school, for the promotion of criminality. + +But what shall be expected? Where judges sob like children, and jurors +swoon away with emotionalism; where floods of bombast--go to the courts, +and listen!--take the place of cross-examination and duly-sworn +affidavits; where perjury is a humanly venial and almost praiseworthy +failing--how shall the code, defective as it is, be administered? +Rhetoric, and rhetoric alone, sways the decision of the courts. Scholars +are only now beginning to realize to what an extent the ancient sense of +veracity was tainted with this vice--how deeply all classical history is +permeated with elegant partisan non-truth. And this evil legacy from +Greco-Roman days has been augmented by the more recent teachings of +Jesuitry and the Catholic theory of "peccato veniale." Rhetoric alone +counts; rhetoric alone is "art." The rest is mere facts; and your +"penalista" has a constitutional horror of a bald fact, because _there +it is,_ and there is nothing to be done with it. It is too crude a thing +for cultured men to handle. If a local barrister were forced to state in +court a plain fact, without varnish, he would die of cerebral +congestion; the judge, of boredom. + +In early times, these provinces had a rough-and-ready cowboy justice +which answered simple needs, and when, in Bourbon days, things became +more centralized, there was still a never-failing expedient: each judge +having a fixed and publicly acknowledged tariff, the village elders, in +deserving cases, subscribed the requisite sum and released their +prisoner. But Italy is now paying the penalty of ambition. With one foot +in the ferocity of her past, and the other on a quicksand of +dream-nurtured idealism, she contrives to combine the disadvantages of +both. She, who was the light o' love of all Europe for long ages, and in +her poverty denied nothing to her clientèle, has now laid aside a little +money, repenting of her frivolous and mercenary deeds (they sometimes +do), and becoming puritanically zealous of good works in her old +age--all this, however, as might have been expected from her antecedent +career, without much discrimination. + +It is certainly remarkable that a race of men who have been such ardent +opponents of many forms of tyranny in the past, should still endure a +system of criminal procedure worthy of Torquemada. High and low cry out +against it, but--_pazienza!_ Where shall grievances be ventilated? In +Parliament? A good joke, that! In the press? Better still! Italian +newspapers nowise reflect the opinions of civilized Italy; they are mere +cheese-wrappers; in the whole kingdom there are only three +self-respecting dailies. The people have learnt to despair of their +rulers--to regard them with cynical suspicion. Public opinion has been +crushed out of the country. What goes by that name is the gossip of the +town-concierge, or obscure village cabals and schemings. + +I am quite aware that the law-abiding spirit is the slow growth of ages, +and that a serious mischief like this cannot be repaired in a short +generation. I know that even now the Italian code of criminal procedure, +that tragic farce, is under revision. I know, moreover, that there are +stipendiary magistrates in south Italy whose discernment and integrity +would do honour to our British courts. But--take the case out of their +hands into a higher tribunal, and you may put your trust in God, or in +your purse. Justice hereabouts is in the same condition as it was in +Egypt at the time of Lord Dufferin's report: a mockery. + +It may be said that it does not concern aliens to make such criticism. A +fatuous observation! Everything concerns everybody. The foreigner in +Italy, if he is wise, will familiarize himself not only with the +cathedrals to be visited, but also, and primarily, with the technique of +legal bribery and subterfuge--with the methods locally employed for +escaping out of the meshes of the law. Otherwise he may find unpleasant +surprises in store for him. Had Mr. Mercer made it his business to +acquire some rudiments of this useful knowledge, he would never have +undergone that outrageous official ill-treatment which has become a +byword in the annals of international amenities. And if these strictures +be considered too severe, let us see what Italians themselves have to +say. In 1900 was published a book called "La Quistione Meridionale" +(What's Wrong with the South), that throws a flood of light upon local +conditions. It contains the views of twenty-seven of the most prominent +men in the country as to how south Italian problems should be faced and +solved. Nearly all of them deplore the lack of justice. Says Professor +Colajanni: "To heal the south, we require an honest, intelligent and +sagacious government, _which we have not got."_ And Lombroso: "In the +south it is necessary to introduce justice, _which does not exist, save +in favour of certain classes."_ + +I am tempted to linger on this subject, not without reason. These people +and their attitude towards life will remain an enigma to the traveller, +until he has acquainted himself with the law of the land and seen with +his own eyes something of the atrocious misery which its administration +involves. A murderer like Musolino, crowned with an aureole of +saintliness, would be an anomaly in England. We should think it rather +paradoxical to hear a respectable old farmer recommending his boys to +shoot a policeman, whenever they safely can. On the spot, things begin +to wear a different aspect. Musolino is no more to be blamed than a +child who has been systematically misguided by his parents; and if these +people, much as they love their homes and families, are all potential +Musolinos, they have good reasons for it--excellent reasons. + +No south Italian living at this present moment, be he of what social +class you please--be he of the gentlest blood or most refined +culture--is _a priori_ on the side of the policeman. No; not _a +priori._ The abuses of the executive are too terrific to warrant such an +attitude. Has not the entire police force of Naples, up to its very +head, been lately proved to be in the pay of the camorra; to say nothing +of its connection with what Messrs. King and Okey euphemistically call +"the unseen hand at Rome"--a hand which is held out for blackmail, and +not vainly, from the highest ministerial benches? Under such conditions, +the populace becomes profoundly distrustful of the powers that be, and +such distrust breeds bad citizens. But so things will remain, until the +bag-and-baggage policy is applied to the whole code of criminal +procedure, and to a good half of its present administrators. + +The best of law-systems, no doubt, is but a compromise. Science being +one thing, and public order another, the most enlightened of legislators +may well tremble to engraft the fruits of modern psychological research +upon the tree of law, lest the scion prove too vigorous for the aged +vegetable. But some compromises are better than others; and the Italian +code, which reads like a fairy tale and works like a Fury, is as bad a +one as human ingenuity can devise. If a prisoner escape punishment, it +is due not so much to his innocence as to some access of sanity or +benevolence on the part of the judge, who courageously twists the law in +his favour. Fortunately, such humane exponents of the code are common +enough; were it otherwise, the prisons, extensive as they are, would +have to be considerably enlarged. But that ideal judge who shall be paid +as befits his grave calling, who shall combine the honesty and common +sense of the north with the analytical acumen of the south, has yet to +be evolved. What interests the student of history is that things +hereabouts have not changed by a hair since the days of Demosthenes and +those preposterous old Hellenic tribunals. Not by a single hair! On the +one hand, we have a deluge of subtle disquisitions on "jurisprudence," +"personal responsibility" and so forth; on the other, the sinister +tomfoolery known as _law--_ that is, babble, corruption, palaeolithic +ideas of what constitutes evidence, and a court-procedure that reminds +one of Gilbert and Sullivan at their best. + +There was a report in the papers not long ago of the trial of an old +married couple, on the charge of murdering a young girl. The bench +dismissed the case, remarking that there was not a particle of evidence +against them; they had plainly been exemplary citizens all their long +lives. They had spent five years in prison awaiting trial. Five years, +and innocent! It stands to reason that such abuses disorganize the +family, especially in Italy, where the "family" means much more than it +does in England; the land lies barren, and savings are wasted in paying +lawyers and bribing greedy court officials. What are this worthy couple +to think of _Avanti, Savoia!_ once they have issued from their dungeon? + +I read, in yesterday's Parliamentary Proceedings, of an honourable +member (Aprile) rising to ask the Minister of Justice (Gallini) whether +the time has not come to proceed with the trial of "Signori Camerano and +their co-accused," who have been in prison for six years, charged with +voluntary homicide. Whereto His Excellency sagely replies that "la +magistratura ha avuto i suoi motivi"--the magistrates have had their +reasons. Six years in confinement, and perhaps innocent! Can one wonder, +under such circumstances, at the anarchist schools of Prato and +elsewhere? Can one wonder if even a vindictive and corrupt rag like the +socialistic "Avanti" occasionally prints frantic protests of +quasi-righteous indignation? And not a hundredth part of such accused +persons can cause a Minister of the Crown to be interpellated on their +behalf. The others suffer silently and often die, forgotten, in their +cells. + +And yet--how seriously we take this nation! Almost as seriously as we +take ourselves. The reason is that most of us come to Italy too +undiscerning, too reverent; in the pre-critical and pre-humorous stages. +We arrive here, stuffed with Renaissance ideals or classical lore, and +viewing the present through coloured spectacles. We arrive here, above +all things, too young; for youth loves to lean on tradition and to draw +inspiration from what has gone before; youth finds nothing more +difficult than to follow Goethe's advice about grasping that living life +which shifts and fluctuates about us. Few writers are sufficiently +detached to laugh at these people as they, together with ourselves, so +often and so richly deserve. I spoke of the buffoonery of Italian law; I +might have called it a burlesque. The trial of the ex-minister Nasi: +here was a _cause célèbre_ conducted by the highest tribunal of the +land; and if it was not a burlesque--why, we must coin a new word for +what is. + + + + +XXXIV + +MALARIA + + +A black snake of alarming dimensions, one of the monsters that still +infest the Calabrian lowlands, glided across the roadway while I was +waiting for the post carriage to drive me to Caulonia from its +railway-station. Auspicious omen! It carried my thoughts from old +Aesculapius to his modern representatives--to that school of wise and +disinterested healers who are ridding these regions of their curse, and +with whom I was soon to have some nearer acquaintance. We started at +last, in the hot hours of the morning, and the road at first skirts the +banks of the Alaro, the Sagra of old, on whose banks was fought the +fabled battle between the men of Croton and Locri. Then it begins to +climb upwards. My companion was a poor peasant woman, nearly blind (from +malaria, possibly). Full of my impressions of yesterday, I promptly led +the conversation towards the subject of Musolino. She had never spoken +to him, she said, or even seen him. But she got ten francs from him, all +the same. In dire distress, some years ago, she had asked a friend in +the mountains to approach the brigand on her behalf. The money was long +in coming, she added, but of course it came in the end. He always helped +poor people, even those outside his own country. The site of the +original Caulonia is quite uncertain. Excavations now going on at +Monasterace, some ten miles further on, may decide that the town lay +there. Some are in favour of the miserable village of Foca, near at +hand; or of other sites. The name of Foca seems to point, rather, to a +settlement of the regenerator Nicephorus Phocas. Be that as it may, the +present town of Caulonia used to be called Castelvetere, and it +appropriated the Greek name in accordance with a custom which has been +largely followed hereabouts. [Footnote: It is represented with two +towers in Peutinger's Tables. But these, says an editor, should have +been given to the neighbouring Scilatio, for Caulon was in ruins at the +time of Pliny, and is not even mentioned by Ptolemy. Servius makes +another mistake; he confuses the Calabrian Caulon with a locality of the +same name near Capua.] It contains some ten thousand inhabitants, +amiable, intelligent and distinguished by a _philoxenia_ befitting the +traditions of men who sheltered Pythagoras in his hour of need. As at +Rossano, Catanzaro and many other Calabrian towns, there used to be a +ghetto of Jews here; the district is still called "La Giudeca"; their +synagogue was duly changed into a church of the Madonna. + +So much I learn from Montorio, who further informs me that the +ubiquitous Saint Peter preached here on his way to Rome, and converted +the people to Christianity; and that the town can boast of three +authentic portraits of the Mother of God painted by Saint Luke ("Lukas +me pinxit"). One is rather bewildered by the number of these +masterpieces in Italy, until one realizes, as an old ecclesiastical +writer has pointed out, that "the Saint, being excellent in his art, +could make several of them in a few days, to correspond to the great +devotion of those early Christians, fervent in their love to the Great +Mother of God. Whence we may believe that to satisfy their ardent +desires he was continually applying himself to this task of so much +glory to Mary and her blessed Son." But the sacristan of the church at +Caulonia, to whom I applied for information regarding these local +treasures, knew nothing about them, and his comments gave me the +impression that he has relapsed into a somewhat pagan way of regarding +such matters. + +You may obtain a fairly good view of Caulonia from the southeast; or +again, from the neighbouring hillock of San Vito. The town lies some 300 +metres above sea-level on a platform commanding the valleys of the Amusa +and Alaro. This position, which was clearly chosen for its strategic +value, unfortunately does not allow it to expand, and so the inhabitants +are deprived of that public garden which they amply deserve. At the +highest point lies a celebrated old castle wherein, according to +tradition, Campanella was imprisoned for a while. In the days of +Pacicchelli, it was a fine place--"magnifico nelle regole di Fortezza, +con cinque baloardi provveduti di cannoni di bronzo, ed una riccha +Armeria, degna habitazione di don Carlo Maria Carrafa, Prencipe della +Roccella, che se ne intitola Marchese." Mingled with the stones of its +old walls they have recently found skeletons--victims, possibly, of the +same macabre superstition to which the blood-drenched masonry of the +Tower of London bears witness. Here, too, have been unearthed +terra-cotta lamps and other antiquities. What are we to surmise from +this? That it was a Roman foundation? Or that the malaria in older times +forced Caulonia to wander towards healthier inland heights after the +example of Sybaris-Terranova, and that the Romans continued to occupy +this same site? Or, assuming Castelvetere to date only from mediaeval +times, that these ancient relics found their way into it accidentally? +The low-lying district of Foca, at this day, is certainly very +malarious, whereas the death-rate up here is only about 12 per 1000. + +Dr. Francesco Genovese of Caulonia, to whom I am indebted for much +kindness and who is himself a distinguished worker in the humanitarian +mission of combating malaria, has published, among other interesting +pamphlets, one which deals with this village of Foca, a small place of +about 200 inhabitants, surrounded by fertile orange and vine plantations +near the mouth of the Alaro. His researches into its vital statistics +for the half-century ending 1902 reveal an appalling state of affairs. +Briefly summarized, they amount to this, that during this period there +were 391 births and 516 deaths. In other words, the village, which in +1902 ought to have contained between 600 and 800 inhabitants, not only +failed to progress, but devoured its original population of 200; and not +only them, but also 125 fresh immigrants who had entered the region from +the healthy uplands, lured by the hope of gaining a little money during +the vintage season. + +A veritable Moloch! + +Had the old city of Caulonia, numbering perhaps 20,000 inhabitants, +stood here under such conditions of hygiene, it would have been expunged +off the face of the earth in fifty years. + +Yet--speaking of malaria in general--a good deal of evidence has been +brought together to show that the disease has been endemic in Magna +Grsecia for two thousand years, and the customs of the Sybarites seem to +prove that they had some acquaintance with marsh fever, and tried to +guard against it. "Whoever would live long," so ran their proverb, "must +see neither the rising nor the setting sun." A queer piece of advice, +intelligible only if the land was infested with malaria. Many of their +luxurious habits assume another import, on this hypothesis. Like the +inhabitants of the malarious Etruscan region, they were adepts at +draining, and their river is described, in one of the minor works +attributed to Galen, as "rendering men infertile"--a characteristic +result of malaria. What is still more significant is that their new town +Thurii, built on the heights, was soon infected, and though twice +repeopled, decayed away. And that they had chosen the heights for their +relative healthfulness we can infer from Strabo, who says that Paestum, +a colony from Sybaris, was removed further inland from the shore, on +account of the pestilential climate of the lowlands. + +But the Ionian shores cannot have been as deadly as they now are. We +calculate, for example, that the town walls of Croton measured eighteen +kilometres in circumference, a figure which the modern visitor to +Cotrone only brings himself to believe when he remembers what can be +actually proved of other Hellenic colonies, such as Syracuse. Well, the +populace of so large a city requires a surrounding district to supply it +with agricultural produce. The Marchesato, the vast tract bordering on +Cotrone, is now practically uninhabitable; the population (including the +town) has sunk to 45 to the square kilometre. That is malaria. + +Or rather, only one side of the evil. For these coastlands attract rural +labourers who descend from the mountains during the season of hay-making +or fruit-harvest, and then return infected to their homes. One single +malarious patient may inoculate an entire village, hitherto immune, +granted the anophelines are there to propagate the mischief. By means of +these annual migrations the scourge has spread, in the past. And so it +spreads to-day, whenever possible. Of forty labourers that left Caulonia +for Cotrone in 1908 all returned infected save two, who had made liberal +use of quinine as a prophylactic. Fortunately, there are no anophelines +at Caulonia. + +Greatly, indeed, must this country have changed since olden days; and +gleaning here and there among the ancients, Dr. Genovese has garnered +some interesting facts on this head. The coast-line, now unbroken sand, +is called _rocky,_ in several regions, by Strabo, Virgil and Persius +Flaccus; of the two harbours, of Locri, of that of Metapontum, Caulonia +and other cities, nothing remains; the promontory of Cocynthum +(Stilo)--described as the longest promontory in Italy--together with +other capes, has been washed away by the waves or submerged under silt +carried down from the hills; islands, like that of Calypso which is +described in Vincenzo Pascale's book (1796), and mentioned by G. +Castaidi (1842), have clean vanished from the map. + +The woodlands have retired far inland; yet here at Caulonia, says +Thucydides, was prepared the timber for the fleets of Athens. The +rivers, irregular and spasmodic torrents, must have flowed with more +equal and deeper current, since Pliny mentions five of them as +navigable; snow, very likely, covered the mountain tops; the rainfall +was clearly more abundant--one of the sights of Locri was its daily +rainbow; the cicadas of the territory of Reggio are said to have been +"dumb," on account of the dampness of the climate. They are anything but +dumb nowadays. + +Earth-movements, too, have tilted the coast-line up and down, and there +is evidence to show that while the Tyrrhenian shore has been raised by +these oscillations, the Ionian has sunk. Not long ago four columns were +found in the sea at Cotrone two hundred yards from the beach; old +sailors remember another group of columns visible at low tide near +Caulonia. It is quite possible that the Ionian used to be as rocky as +the other shore, and this gradual sinking of the coast must have +retarded the rapid outflow of the rivers, as it has done in the plain of +Paestum and in the Pontine marshes, favouring malarious conditions. +Earthquakes have helped in the work; that of 1908 lowered certain parts +of the Calabrian shore opposite Messina by about one metre. Indeed, +though earthquakes have been known to raise the soil and thereby improve +it, the Calabrian ones have generally had a contrary effect. The +terrific upheavals of 1783-1787 produced two hundred and fifteen lakes +in the country; they were drained away in a style most creditable to the +Bourbons, but there followed an epidemic of malaria which carried off +18,800 people! + +These Calabrian conditions are only part of a general change of climate +which seems to have taken place all over Italy; a change to which +Columella refers when, quoting Saserna, he says that formerly the vine +and olive could not prosper "by reason of the severe winter" in certain +places where they have since become abundant, "thanks to a milder +temperature." We never hear of the frozen Tiber nowadays, and many +remarks of the ancients as to the moist and cold climate seem strange to +us. Pliny praises the chestnuts of Tarentum; I question whether the tree +could survive the hot climate of to-day. Nobody could induce "splendid +beeches" to grow in the _lowlands_ of Latium, yet Theophrastus, a +botanist, says that they were drawn from this region for shipbuilding +purposes. This gradual desiccation has probably gone on for long ages; +so Signor Cavara has discovered old trunks of white fir in districts of +the Apennines where such a plant could not possibly grow to-day. + +A change to a dry and warm atmosphere is naturally propitious to +malaria, granted sufficient water remains to propagate the mosquito. And +the mosquito contents itself with very little--the merest teacup fui. + +Returning to old Calabria, we find the woods of Locri praised by +Proclus--woods that must have been of coniferous timber, since Virgil +lauds their resinous pitch. Now the Aleppo pine produces pitch, and +would still flourish there, as it does in the lowlands between Taranto +and Metaponto; the classical Sila pitch-trees, however, could not grow +at this level any more. Corroborative evidence can be drawn from +Theocritus, who mentions heath and arbutus as thriving in the marine +thickets near Cotrone--mountain shrubs, nowadays, that have taken refuge +in cooler uplands, together with the wood-pigeon which haunted the same +jungles. It is true that he hints at marshes near Cotrone, and, indeed, +large tracts of south Italy are described as marshy by the ancients; +they may well have harboured the anopheles mosquito from time +immemorial, but it does not follow that they were malarious. + +Much of the healthy physical conditions may have remained into the +Middle Ages or even later; it is strange to read, for example, in +Edrisius, of the pitch and tar that were exported to all parts from the +Bradano river, or of the torrential Sinno that "ships enter this +river--it offers excellent anchorage"; odd, too, to hear of coral +fisheries as late as the seventeenth century at Rocella Ionica, where +the waves now slumber on an even and sandy beach. + +But malaria had made insidious strides, meanwhile. Dr. Genovese thinks +that by the year 1691 the entire coast was malarious and abandoned like +now, though only within the last two centuries has man actively +co-operated in its dissemination. So long as the woodlands on the plains +are cut down or grazed by goats, relatively little damage is done; but +it spells ruin to denude, in a country like this, the steep slopes of +their timber. Whoever wishes to know what mischief the goats, those +picturesque but pernicious quadrupeds, can do to a mountainous country, +should study the history of St. Helena. [Footnote: By J. C. Melliss +(London, 1875).] Thanks to the goats, Maltese fever has lately been +introduced into Calabria. Man, with his charcoal-burning, has completed +the disaster. What happens? The friable rock, no longer sustained by +plant-life, crashes down with each thunderstorm, blocks up the valleys, +devastating large tracts of fertile land; it creates swamps in the +lowlands, and impedes the outflow of water to the sea. These ravenous +_fiumare_ have become a feature in Calabrian scenery; underneath one of +the most terrible of them lies the birthplace of Praxiteles. Dry or +half-dry during the warm months, and of formidable breadth, such +torrent-beds--the stagnant water at their skirts--are ideal +breeding-places for the anophelines from their mouth up to a height of +250 metres. So it comes about that, within recent times, rivers have +grown to be the main arteries of malaria. And there are rivers galore in +Calabria. The patriotic Barrius enumerates no of them--Father Fiore, +less learned, or more prudent, not quite so many. Deforestation and +malaria have gone hand in hand here, as in Greece, Asia Minor, North +Africa, and other countries. + +Thus year after year, from one cause or another, the conditions have +become more favourable for the disease to do its fatal work. + +That much of this harm has been done quite lately can often be +proved. At Caulonia, for instance, the woodlands are known to have +reached the shore a hundred years ago, and there are bare tracts of land +still bearing the name of "foresta." In a single summer (1807) a French +regiment stationed at Cosenza lost 800 men from fever, and when Rath +visited the town in 1871 it was described to him as a "vast hospital" +during the hot months; nevertheless, says he, the disease has only been +so destructive during the last two centuries, for up to that time the +forests touched the outskirts of the town and regulated the Crati-bed, +preventing the formation of marshes. The literary record of Cosenza is +one of exceptional brilliance; for acute and original thought this town +can hardly be surpassed by any other of its size on earth. Were +statistics available, I have not the slightest doubt that fever could be +shown to be largely responsible for the withering of its spiritual life. + +The same fate--the same relapse from prosperity to decay--and for the +same reasons, has overtaken many other riverside villages, among them +that of Tarsia, the Caprasia of the An tonine Itinerary. "It was +described to us," says Rath, "as the most miserable and dirty village in +Calabria; but we found it worse." It remains, to-day, a highly infected +and altogether pitiable place, concerning which I have made certain +modest researches that would require, none the less, a chapter to +themselves. . . . + +Perhaps I have already said over-much on the subject. An Englishman +unacquainted with malaria might think so, oblivious of the fact that Sir +Ronald Ross has called it "perhaps the most important of human +diseases." But let him go to a malarious country and see with his own +eyes something of the degradation it involves; how it stamps its +accursed imprimatur upon man and nature alike! It is the blight of +youth--the desert-maker. A well-known Italian senator has declared that +the story of south Italy is, was, and will be the story of malaria; and +the greater part of Calabria will certainly remain an enigma to the +traveller who ignores what is meant by this plague. + +Malaria is the key to a correct understanding of the landscape; it +explains the inhabitants, their mode of life, their habits, their history. + + + + +XXXV + +CAULONIA TO SERRA + + +"How do you treat your malaria patients?" I once enquired of a doctor in +India. A few good stiff doses, he said, when the attack is on; that +generally settles them. If not, they can begin again. To take quinine as +a prophylactic, he considered folly. It might grow into a habit; you +never know. . . . + +It is to be hoped that such types are extinct, out there. They are +extinct hereabouts. None but an ignorant person would now traverse +malarious tracts in summer without previous quininiza-tion; or, if +infected, deal with the disease otherwise than by an amply protracted +treatment of cure. Yet it is only quite lately that we have gained our +knowledge of a proper use of the drug; and this accounts for the great +mortality long after its specific effects had been recognized by the +profession. It was given both inefficiently and insufficiently. It was +sold at a prohibitive price. The country people were distrustful; +so-and-so had taken it for three or four days; he had improved, yes; but +the fever was on him once more. Why waste money on such experiments? + +I remember accosting a lad, anemic, shivering with the tertian, and +marked by that untimely senility which is the sign-manual of malaria. I +suggested quinine. + +"I don't take doctors' stuff," he said. "Even if I wanted to, my father +would not let me. And if he did, there's no money to pay for it. And if +there were, it would do no good. He's tried it himself." + +"Well, but how are you feeling?" + +"Oh, all right. There's nothing much the matter with me. Just the bad air." + +Such types, too, are practically extinct nowadays; the people are being +educated to recognize their peril and how to avoid it; they begin to +follow Professor Celli's advice in the matter of regarding quinine as +their "daily bread." For since the discovery of the anophelic origin of +malaria many devices have been put into execution to combat the disease, +not the least of them being a popularized teaching of its causes and +consequences by means of pamphlets, lectures to school-children, and so +forth. + +Now, you may either fight the anopheles--the vehicle, or the disease +itself. The first entails putting the country into such a state that the +mosquito finds it unpleasant to live there, a labour of Hercules. Yet +large sums are being expended in draining marshy tracts, regulating +river-beds and afforesting bare spaces; and if you are interested in +such works, you will do well to see what is going on at Metaponto at +this moment. (A considerable portion of the Government grant for these +purposes has lately been deflected for use in the Tripolitan war.) +Exemplary fines are also imposed for illicit timber-cutting and +grazing,--in those towns, at least, where the magistrate has sufficient +sense to perceive the ulterior benefits to be derived from what +certainly entails a good deal of temporary hardship on poor people. +Certain economic changes are helping in this work; so the wealth +imported from America helps to break up the big properties, those +latifundia which, says an Italian authority, "are synonymous with +malaria." The ideal condition--the extirpation of anophelines--will +never be attained; nor is it of vital importance that it should be. + +Far more pressing is the protection of man against their attacks. +Wonderful success has crowned the wire-netting of the windows--an +outcome of the classical experiments of 1899, in the Roman Campagna. + +But chiefest and most urgent of all is the cure of the infected +population. In this direction, results astonishing--results well-nigh +incredible--have attended the recently introduced governmental sale of +quinine. In the year 1895 there were 16,464 deaths from malaria +throughout Italy. By 1908 the number had sunk to 3463. Eloquent figures, +that require no comment! And, despite the fact that the drug is now sold +at a merely nominal rate or freely given away to the needy--nay, thrust +down the very throats of the afflicted peasantry by devoted gentlemen +who scour the plains with ambulances during the deadly season--despite +this, the yearly profits from its sale are amounting to about +three-quarters of a million francs. + +So these forlorn regions are at last beginning to revive. + +And returning to Foca, of whose dreadful condition up to 1902 (year of +the introduction of Government quinine) I have just spoken, we find that +a revolution has taken place. Between that year and 1908 the birth-rate +more than doubled the death-rate. In 1908 some two hundred poor folks +frequented the ambulance, nearly six kilogrammes of quinine being +gratuitously distributed; not one of the natives of the place was +attacked by the disease; and there was a single death--an old woman of +eighty, who succumbed to senile decay. [Footnote: Doctor Genovese's +statistical investigations have brought an interesting little fact to +light. In the debilitating pre-quinine period there was a surplus of +female births; now, with increased healthfulness, those of the males +preponderate.] + +This is an example of what the new quinine-policy has done for Italy, in +briefest space of time. Well may the nation be proud of the men who +conceived this genial and beneficial measure and carried it through +Parliament, and of those local doctors without whose enlightened zeal +such a triumph could not have been achieved. . . . + +Sir Ronald Ross's discovery, by the way, has been fruitful not only in +practical humanitarian results. For instance, it has reduced North's +laborious "Roman Fever" to something little better than a curiosity. And +here, on these deserted shores that were once resplendent with a great +civilization--here is the place to peruse Mr. W. M. Jones's studies on +this subject. I will not give even the shortest precis of his +conscientious researches nor attempt to picture their effect upon a mind +trained in the old school of thought; suffice to say, that the author +would persuade us that malaria is implicated, to an hitherto unsuspected +extent, in the decline of ancient Greece and Rome. And he succeeds. Yes; +a man accustomed to weigh evidence will admit, I think, that he has made +out a suggestively strong case. + +How puzzled we were to explain why the brilliant life of Magna Graecia +was snuffed out suddenly, like a candle, without any appreciably +efficient cause--how we listened to our preachers cackling about the +inevitable consequences of Sybaritic luxury, and to the warnings of sage +politicians concerning the dangers of mere town-patriotism as opposed to +worthier systems of confederation! How we drank it all in! And how it +warmed the cockles of our hearts to think that we were not vicious, +narrow-minded heathens, such as these! + +And now a vulgar gnat is declared to be at the bottom of the whole mystery. + +Crudely disconcerting, these scientific discoveries. Or is it not rather +hard to be dragged to earth in this callous fashion, while soaring +heavenward on the wings of our edifying reflections? For the rest--the +old, old story; a simple, physical explanation of what used to be an +enigma brimful of moral significance. + +That Mr. Jones's facts and arguments will be found applicable to +other decayed races in the old and new worlds is highly probable. +Meanwhile, it takes one's breath away quite sufficiently to realize that +they apply to Hellas and her old colonies on these shores. + +"'AUTOS. Strange! My interest waxes. Tell me then, what affliction, God +or Devil, wiped away the fair life upon the globe, the beasts, the +birds, the delectable plantations, and all the blithe millions of the +human race? What calamity fell upon them?' + +"'ESCHATA. A gnat.' + +"'AUTOS. A gnat?' + +"'ESCHATA. Even so.'" + +Thus I wrote, while yet unaware that such pests as anophelines existed +upon earth. . . . + +At the same time, I think we must be cautious in following certain +deductions of our author; that theory of brutality, for example, as +resulting from malaria. Speaking of Calabria, I would almost undertake +to prove, from the archives of law-courts, that certain of the most +malarial tracts are precisely those in which there is least brutality of +any kind. Cotrone, for instance. . . . The _delegato_ (head of the +police) of that town is so young--a mere boy--that I marvelled how he +could possibly have obtained a position which is usually filled by +seasoned and experienced officers. He was a "son of the white hen," they +told me; that is, a socially favoured individual, who was given this job +for the simple reason that there was hardly any serious work for him to +do. Cosenza, on the other hand, has a very different reputation +nowadays. And it is perfectly easy to explain how malaria might have +contributed to this end. For the disease--and herein lies its +curse--lowers both the physical and social standard of a people; it +breeds misery, poverty and ignorance--fit soil for callous rapacity. + +But how about his theory of "pessimism" infecting the outlook of +generations of malaria-weakened sages? I find no trace of pessimism +here, not even in its mild Buddhistic form. The most salient mental +trait of cultured Calabrians is a subtle detachment and contempt of +illusions--whence their time-honoured renown as abstract thinkers and +speculators. This derives from a philosophic view of life and entails, +naturally enough, the outward semblance of gravity--a Spanish gravity, +due not so much to a strong graft of Spanish blood and customs during +the viceregal period, as to actual affinities with the race of Spain. +But this gravity has nothing in common with pessimism, antagonistic +though it be to those outbursts of irresponsible optimism engendered +under northern skies by copious food, or beer. + +To reach the uplands of Fabbrizia and Serra, whither I was now bound, I +might have utilized the driving road from Gioioso, on the Reggio side of +Caulonia. But that was everybody's route. Or I might have gone _via_ +Stilo, on the other side. But Stilo with its memories of Campanella--a +Spanish type, this!--and of Otho II, its winding track into the +beech-clad heights of Ferdinandea, was already familiar to me. I elected +to penetrate straight inland by the shortest way; a capable muleteer at +once presented himself. + +We passed through one single village, Ragona; leaving those of S. Nicola +and Nardo di Pace on the right. The first of them is celebrated for its +annual miracle of the burning olive, when, armed to the teeth (for some +ancient reason), the populace repairs to the walls of a certain convent +out of which there grows an olive tree: at its foot is kindled a fire +whose flames are sufficient to scorch all the leaves, but behold! next +day the foliage is seen to glow more bravely green than ever. Perhaps +the roots of the tree are near some cistern. These mountain villages, +hidden under oaks and vines, with waters trickling through their lanes, +a fine climate and a soil that bears everything needful for life, must +be ideal habitations for simple folks. In some of them, the death-rate +is as low as 7: 1000. Malaria is unknown here: they seem to fulfil all +the conditions of a terrestrial paradise. + +There is a note of joyous vigour in this landscape. The mule-track winds +in and out among the heights, through flowery meadows grazed by cattle +and full of buzzing insects and butterflies, and along hill-sides +cunningly irrigated; it climbs up to heathery summits and down again +through glades of chestnut and ilex with mossy trunks, whose shadow +fosters strange sensations of chill and gloom. Then out again, into the +sunshine of waving corn and poppies. + +For a short while we stumbled along a torrent-bed, and I grew rather sad +to think that it might be the last I should see for some time to come, +my days in this country being now numbered. This one was narrow. But +there are others, interminable in length and breadth. Interminable! No +breeze stirs in those deep depressions through which the merest thread +of milky water trickles disconsolately. The sun blazes overhead and +hours pass, while you trudge through the fiery inferno; scintillations +of heat rise from the stones and still you crawl onwards, breathless and +footsore, till eyes are dazed and senses reel. One may well say bad +things of these torrid deserts of pebbles which, up till lately, were +the only highways from the lowlands into the mountainous parts. But they +are sweet in memory. One calls to mind the wild savours that hang in +the stagnant air; the cloven hill-sides, seamed with gorgeous patches of +russet and purple and green; the spectral tamarisks, and the glory of +coral-tinted oleanders rising in solitary tufts of beauty, or flaming +congregations, out of the pallid waste of boulders. + +After exactly six hours Fabbrizia was reached--a large place whose name, +like that of Borgia, Savelli, Carafa and other villages on these +southern hills, calls up associations utterly non-Calabrian; Fabbrizia, +with pretentious new church and fantastically dirty side-streets. It +lies at the respectable elevation of 900 metres, on the summit of a +monstrous landslide which has disfigured the country. + +While ascending along the flank of this deformity I was able to see how +the authorities have attempted to cope with the mischief and arrest +further collapses. This is what they have done. The minute channels of +water, that might contribute to the disintegration of the soil by +running into this gaping wound from the sides or above, have been +artfully diverted from their natural courses; trees and shrubs are +planted at its outskirts in order to uphold the earth at these spots by +their roots--they have been protected by barbed wire from the grazing of +cattle; furthermore, a multitude of wickerwork dykes are thrown across +the accessible portions of the scar, to collect the downward-rushing +material and tempt winged plant-seeds to establish themselves on the +ledges thus formed. To bridle this runaway mountain is no mean task, for +such _frane_ are like rodent ulcers, ever enlarging at the edges. With +the heat, with every shower of rain, with every breath of wind, the +earth crumbles away; there is an eternal trickling, day and night, until +some huge boulder is exposed which crashes down, loosening everything in +its wild career; a single tempest may disrupture what the patience and +ingenuity of years have contrived. + +Three more hours or thereabouts will take you to Serra San Bruno along +the backbone of southern Italy, through cultivated lands and pasture and +lonely stretches of bracken, once covered by woodlands. + +It may well be that the townlet has grown up around, or rather near, the +far-famed Carthusian monastery. I know nothing of its history save that +it has the reputation of being one of the most bigoted places in +Calabria--a fact of which the sagacious General Manhes availed himself +when he devised his original and effective plan of chastising the +inhabitants for a piece of atrocious conduct on their part. He caused +all the local priests to be arrested and imprisoned; the churches were +closed, and the town placed under what might be called an interdict. The +natives took it quietly at first, but soon the terror of the situation +dawned upon them. No religious marriages, no baptisms, no funerals--the +comforts of heaven refused to living and dead alike. . . . The strain +grew intolerable and, in a panic of remorse, the populace hunted down +their own brigand-relations and handed them over to Manhes, who duly +executed them, one and all. Then the interdict was taken off and the +priests set at liberty; and a certain writer tells us that the people +were so charmed with the General's humane and businesslike methods that +they forthwith christened him "Saint Manhes," a name which, he avers, +has clung to him ever since. + +The monastery lies about a mile distant; near at hand is a little +artificial lake and the renowned chapel of Santa Maria. There was a time +when I would have dilated lovingly upon this structure--a time when I +probably knew as much about Carthusian convents as is needful for any of +their inmates; when I studied Tromby's ponderous work and God knows how +many more--ay, and spent two precious weeks of my life in deciphering +certain crabbed MSS. of Tutini in the Brancacciana library--ay, and +tested the spleenful Perrey's "Ragioni del Regio Fisco, etc.," as to the +alleged land-grabbing propensities of this order--ay, and even +pilgrimaged to Rome to consult the present general of the Carthusians +(his predecessor, more likely) as to some administrative detail, +all-important, which has wholly escaped my memory. Gone are those days +of studious gropings into blind alleys! The current of zeal has slowed +down or turned aside, maybe, into other channels. They who wish, will +find a description of the pristine splendour of this monastery in +various books by Pacicchelli; the catastrophe of 1783 was described by +Keppel Craven and reported upon, with illustrations, by the Commission +of the Naples Academy; and if you are of a romantic turn of mind, you +will find a good story of the place, as it looked duringthe ruinous days +of desolation, in Misasi's "Calabrian Tales." + +It is now rebuilt on modern lines and not much of the original structure +remains upright. I wandered about the precincts in the company of two +white-robed French monks, endeavouring to reconstruct not the convent as +it was in its younger days, but _them._ That older one, especially--he +had known the world. . . . + +Meat being forbidden, the godly brethren have a contract for fish to be +brought up every day by the post-carriage from the distant Soverato. And +what happens, I asked, when none are caught? + +"Eh bien, nous mangeons des macaroni!" + +Such a diet would never suit me. Let me retire to a monkery where +carnivorous leanings may be indulged. Methinks I could pray more +cheerfully with the prospect of a rational _dejeuner a la fourchette_ +looming ahead. + +At the back of the monastery lies a majestic forest of white +firs--nothing but firs; a unique region, so far as south and central +Italy are concerned. I was there in the golden hour after sunset, and +yet again in the twilight of dew-drenched morning; and it seemed to me +that in this temple not made by hands there dwelt an enchantment more +elemental, and more holy, than in the cloistered aisles hard by. This +assemblage of solemn trees has survived, thanks to rare conditions of +soil and climate. The land lies high; the ground is perennially moist +and intersected by a horde of rills that join their waters to form the +river Ancinale; frequent showers descend from above. Serra San Bruno has +an uncommonly heavy rainfall. It lies in a vale occupying the site of a +pleistocene lake, and the forest, now restricted to one side of the +basin, encircled it entirely in olden days. At its margin they have +established a manufactory which converts the wood into paper--blissful +sight for the utilitarian. + +Finding little else of interest in Serra, and hungering for the +flesh-pots of Cotrone, I descended by the postal diligence to Soverato, +nearly a day's journey. Old Soverato is in ruins, but the new town seems +to thrive in spite of being surrounded by deserts of malaria. While +waiting for supper and the train to Cotrone, I strolled along the +beach, and soon found myself sitting beside the bleached anatomy of +some stranded leviathan, and gazing at the mountains of Squillace that +glowed in the soft lights of sunset. The shore was deserted save for +myself and a portly dogana-official who was playing with his little +son--trying to amuse him by elephantine gambols on the sand, regardless +of his uniform and manly dignity. Notwithstanding his rotundity, he was +an active and resourceful parent, and enjoyed himself vastly; the boy +pretending, as polite children sometimes do, to enter into the fun of +the game. + + + + +XXXVI + +MEMORIES OF GISSING + + +Two new hotels have recently sprung up at Cotrone. With laudable +patriotism, they are called after its great local champions, athletic +and spiritual, in ancient days--Hotel Milo and Hotel Pythagoras. As +such, they might be expected to make a strong appeal to the muscles and +brains of their respective clients. I rather fancy that the chief +customers of both are commercial travellers who have as little of the +one as of the other, and to whom these fine names are Greek. + +As for myself, I remain faithful to the "Concordia" which has twice +already sheltered me within its walls. + +The shade of George Gissing haunts these chambers and passages. It was +in 1897 that he lodged here with that worthy trio: Gibbon, Lenormant and +Cassiodorus. The chapters devoted to Cotrone are the most lively and +characteristic in his "Ionian Sea." Strangely does the description of +his arrival in the town, and his reception in the "Concordia," resemble +that in Bourget's "Sensations." + +The establishment has vastly improved since those days. The food is good +and varied, the charges moderate; the place is spotlessly clean in every +part--I could only wish that the hotels in some of our English country +towns were up to the standard of the "Concordia" in this respect. "One +cannot live without cleanliness," as the housemaid, assiduously +scrubbing, remarked to me. It is also enlarged; the old dining-room, +whose guests are so humorously described by him, is now my favourite +bedroom, while those wretched oil-lamps sputtering on the wall have been +replaced by a lavish use of electricity. One is hardly safe, however, in +praising these inns over-much; they are so apt to change hands. So long +as competition with the two others continues, the "Concordia" will +presumably keep to its present level. + +Of freaks in the dining-room, I have so far only observed one whom +Gissing might have added to his collection. He is a _director_ of some +kind, and his method of devouring maccheroni I unreservedly admire--it +displays that lack of all effort which distinguishes true art from +false. He does not eat them with deliberate mastication; he does not +even--like your ordinary amateur--drink them in separate gulps; but he +contrives, by some swiftly-adroit process of levitation, that the whole +plateful shall rise in a noiseless and unbroken flood from the table to +his mouth, whence it glides down his gullet with the relentless ease of +a river pouring into a cavern. Altogether, a series of films depicting +him at work upon a meal would make the fortune of a picture-show +company--in England. Not here, however; such types are too common to be +remarked, the reason being that boys are seldom sent to boarding schools +where stereotyped conventions of "good form" are held up for their +imitation, but brought up at home by adoring mothers who care little for +such externals or, if they do, have no great authority to enforce their +views. On entering the world, these eccentricities in manner are proudly +clung to, as a sign of manly independence. + +Death has made hideous gaps in the short interval. The kindly +Vice-Consul at Catanzaro is no more; the mayor of Cotrone, whose permit +enabled Gissing to visit that orchard by the riverside, has likewise +joined the majority; the housemaid of the "Concordia," the domestic serf +with dark and fiercely flashing eyes--dead! And dead is mine hostess, +"the stout, slatternly, sleepy woman, who seemed surprised at my demand +for food, but at length complied with it." + +But the little waiter is alive and now married; and Doctor Sculco still +resides in his aristocratic _palazzo_ up that winding way in the old +town, with the escutcheon of a scorpion--portentous emblem for a +doctor--over its entrance. He is a little greyer, no doubt; but the same +genial and alert personage as in those days. + +I called on this gentleman, hoping to obtain from him some reminiscences +of Gissing, whom he attended during a serious illness. + +"Yes," he replied, to my enquiries, "I remember him quite well; the +young English poet who was ill here. I prescribed for him. Yes--yes! He +wore his hair long." + +And that was all I could draw from him. I have noticed more than once +that Italian physicians have a stern conception of the Hippocratic oath: +the affairs of their patients, dead or alive, are a sacred trust in +perpetuity. + +The town, furthermore, has undergone manifold improvements in those few +years. Trees are being planted by the roadsides; electric light is +everywhere and, best of all, an excellent water-supply has been led down +from the cool heights of the Sila, bringing cleanliness, health and +prosperity in its train. And a stately cement-bridge is being built over +the Esaro, that "all but stagnant and wholly pestilential stream." The +Esaro _glides pleasantly,_ says the chronicler Noia Molisi. Perhaps it +really glided, in his day. + +One might do worse than spend a quiet month or two at Cotrone in the +spring, for the place grows upon one: it is so reposeful and orderly. +But not in winter. Gissing committed the common error of visiting south +Italy at that season when, even if the weather will pass, the country +and its inhabitants are not true to themselves. You must not come to +these parts in winter time. + +Nor yet in the autumn, for the surrounding district is highly malarious. +Thucydides already speaks of these coastlands as depopulated (relatively +speaking, I suppose), and under the Romans they recovered but little; +they have only begun to revive quite lately. [Footnote: Between +1815--1843, and in this single province of Catanzaro, there was an +actual decline in the population of thirty-six towns and villages. +Malaria!] Yet this town must have looked well enough in the twelfth +century, since it is described by Edrisius as "a very old city, +primitive and beautiful, prosperous and populated, in a smiling +position, with walls of defence and an ample port for anchorage." I +suspect that the history of Cotrone will be found to bear out Professor +Celli's theory of the periodical recrudescences and abatements of +malaria. However that may be, the place used to be in a deplorable +state. Riedesel (1771) calls it "la ville la plus affreuse de l'Italie, +et peut-ètre du monde entier"; twenty years later, it is described as +"sehr ungesund ... so aermlich als moeglich"; in 1808 it was "réduite a +une population de trois mille habitants rongés par la misere, et les +maladies qu'occasionne la stagnation des eaux qui autrefois +fertilisaient ces belles campagnes." In 1828, says Vespoli, it contained +only 3932 souls. + +I rejoice to cite such figures. They show how vastly Cotrone, together +with the rest of Calabria, has improved since the Bourbons were ousted. +The sack of the town by their hero Cardinal Ruffo, described by Pepe and +others, must have left long traces. "Horrible was the carnage +perpetrated by these ferocious bands. Neither age nor sex nor condition +was spared. . . . After two days of pillage accompanied by a multitude +of excesses and cruelties, they erected, on the third day, a magnificent +altar in the middle of a large square"--and here the Cardinal, clothed +in his sacred purple, praised the good deeds of the past two days and +then, raising his arms, displayed a crucifix, absolving his crew from +the faults committed during the ardour of the sack, and blessed them. + +I shall be sorry to leave these regions for the north, as leave them I +must, in shortest time. The bathing alone would tempt me to prolong my +stay, were it possible. Whereas Taranto, despite its situation, +possesses no convenient beach, there are here, on either side of the +town, leagues of shimmering sand lapped by tepid and caressing waves; it +is a sunlit solitude; the land is your own, the sea your own, as far as +eye can reach. One may well become an amphibian, at Cotrone. + +The inhabitants of this town are well-mannered and devoid of the +"ineffable" air of the Tarentines. But they are not a handsome race. +Gissing says, a propos of the products of a local photographer, that it +was "a hideous exhibition; some of the visages attained an incredible +degree of vulgar ugliness." That is quite true. Old authors praise the +beauty of the women of Cotrone, Bagnara, and other southern towns; for +my part, I have seldom found good-looking women in the coastlands of +Calabria; the matrons, especially, seem to favour that ideal of the +Hottentot Venus which you may study in the Jardin des Plantes; they are +decidedly centripetal. Of the girls and boys one notices only those who +possess a peculiar trait: the eyebrows pencilled in a dead straight +line, which gives them an almost hieratic aspect. I cannot guess from +what race is derived this marked feature which fades away with age as +the brows wax thicker and irregular in contour. We may call it Hellenic +on the old-fashioned principle that everything attractive comes from the +Greeks, while its opposite is ascribed to those unfortunate "Arabs" who, +as a matter of fact, are a sufficiently fine-looking breed. + +And there must be very little Greek blood left here. The town--among +many similar vicissitudes--was peopled largely by Bruttians, after +Hannibal had established himself here. In the Viceregal period, again, +there was a great infusion of Spanish elements. A number of Spanish +surnames still linger on the spot. + +And what of Gissing's other friend, the amiable guardian of the +cemetery? "His simple good nature and intelligence greatly won upon me. +I like to think of him as still quietly happy amid his garden walls, +tending flowers that grow over the dead at Cotrone." + +Dead, like those whose graves he tended; like Gissing himself. He +expired in February 1901--the year of the publication of the "Ionian +Sea," and they showed me his tomb near the right side of the entrance; +_a._ poor little grave, with a wooden cross bearing a number, which will +soon be removed to make room for another one. + +This cemetery by the sea is a fair green spot, enclosed in a high wall +and set with flowering plants and comely cypresses that look well +against their background of barren clay-hills. Wandering here, I called +to mind the decent cemetery of Lucera, and that of Manfredonia, built in +a sleepy hollow at the back of the town which the monks in olden days +had utilized as their kitchen garden (it is one of the few localities +where deep soil can be found on that thirsty limestone plain); I +remembered the Venosa burial-ground near the site of the Roman +amphitheatre, among the tombs of which I had vainly endeavoured to find +proofs that the name of Horace is as common here as that of Manfred in +those other two towns; the Taranto cemetery, beyond the railway quarter, +somewhat overloaded with pretentious ornaments; I thought of many cities +of the dead, in places recently explored--that of Rossano, ill-kept +within, but splendidly situated on a projecting spur that dominates the +Ionian; of Caulonia, secluded among ravines at the back of the +town. . . . + +They are all full of character; a note in the landscape, with their +cypresses darkly towering amid the pale and lowly olives; one would +think the populace had thrown its whole poetic feeling into the choice +of these sites and their embellishments. But this is not the case; they +are chosen merely for convenience--not too far from habitations, and yet +on ground that is comparatively cheap. Nor are they truly venerable, +like ours. They date, for the most part, from the timewhen the +Government abolished the oldsystem of inhumation in churches--a system +which, for the rest, still survives; there are over six hundred of these +_fosse carnarie_ in use at this moment, most of them in churches. + +And a sad thought obtrudes itself in these oases of peace and verdure. +The Italian law requires that the body shall be buried within +twenty-four hours after decease (the French consider forty-eight hours +too short a term, and are thinking of modifying their regulations in +this respect): a doctor's certificate of death is necessary but often +impossible to procure, since some five hundred Italian communities +possess no medical man whatever. Add to this, the superstitions of +ignorant country people towards the dead, testified to by extraordinary +beliefs and customs which you will find in Pitré and other collectors of +native lore--their mingled fear and hatred of a corpse, which prompts +them to thrust it underground at the earliest possible opportunity. +. . . Premature burial must be all too frequent here. I will not +enlarge upon the theme of horror by relating what gravediggers +have seen with their own eyes on disturbing old coffins; if only half +what they tell me is true, it reveals a state of affairs not to be +contemplated without shuddering pity, and one that calls for prompt +legislation. Only last year a frightful case came to light in Sicily. +_Videant Consules._ + +Here, at the cemetery, the driving road abruptly ends; thenceforward +there is merely a track along the sea that leads, ultimately, to Capo +Nau, where stands a solitary column, last relic of the great temple of +Hera. I sometimes follow it as far as certain wells that are sunk, +Arab-fashion, into the sand, and dedicated to Saint Anne. Goats and cows +recline here after their meagre repast of scorched grasses, and the +shepherds in charge have voices so soft, and manners so gentle, as to +call up suggestions of the Golden Age. These pastoral folk are the +primitives of Cotrone. From father to son, for untold ages before +Theocritus hymned them, they have kept up their peculiar habits and +traditions; between them and the agricultural classes is a gulf as deep +as between these and the citizens. Conversing with them, one marvels how +the same occupation can produce creatures so unlike as these and the +goat-boys of Naples, the most desperate _camorristi._ + +The cows may well be descendants of the sacred cattle of Hera that +browsed under the pines which are known to have clothed the bleak +promontory. You may encounter them every day, wandering on the way to +the town which they supply with milk; to avoid the dusty road, they +march sedately through the soft wet sand at the water's edge, their +silvery bodies outlined against a cserulean flood of sky and sea. + +On this promenade I yesterday observed, slow-pacing beside the waves, a +meditative priest, who gave me some details regarding the ruined church +of which Gissing speaks. It lies in the direction of the cemetery, +outside the town; "its lonely position," he says, "made it interesting, +and the cupola of coloured tiles (like that of the cathedral of Amalfi) +remained intact, a bright spot against the grey hills behind." This +cupola has recently been removed, but part of the old walls serve as +foundation for a new sanctuary, a sordid-looking structure with +red-tiled roof: I am glad to have taken a view of it, some years ago, +ere its transformation. Its patroness is the Madonna del Carmine--the +same whose church in Naples is frequented by thieves and cut-throats, +who make a special cult of this Virgin Motherand invoke Her blessing on +their nefarious undertakings. + +The old church, he told me, was built in the middle of the seventeenth +century; this new one, he agreed, might have been constructed on more +ambitious lines, "but nowadays----" and he broke off, with eloquent +aposiopesis. + +It was the same, he went on, with the road to the cemetery; why should +it not be continued right up to the cape of the Column as in olden days, +over ground _dove ogni passo è una memoria:_ where every footstep is a +memory? + +"Rich Italians," he said, "sometimes give away money to benefit the +public. But the very rich--never! And at Cotrone, you must remember, +every one belongs to the latter class." + +We spoke of the Sila, which he had occasionally visited. + +"What?" he asked incredulously, "you have crossed the whole of that +country, where there is nothing to eat--nothing in the purest and most +literal sense of that word? My dear sir! You must feel like Hannibal, +after his passage of the Alps." + +Those barren clay-hills on our right of which Gissing speaks (they are +like the _baize_ of the Apennines) annoyed him considerably; they were +the malediction of the town, he declared. At the same time, they +supplied him with the groundwork of a theory for which there is a good +deal to be said. The old Greek city, he conjectured, must have been +largely built of bricks made from their clay, which is once more being +utilized for this purpose. How else account for its utter disappearance? +Much of the finer buildings were doubtless of stone, and these have been +worked into the fort, the harbour and _palazzi_ of new Cotrone; but this +would never account for the vanishing of a town nearly twelve miles in +circumference. Bricks, he said, would explain the mystery; they had +crumbled into dust ere yet the Romans rebuilt, with old Greek stones, +the city on the promontory now occupied by the new settlement. + +The modern palaces on the rising ground of the citadel are worthy of a +visit; they are inhabited by some half-dozen "millionaires" who have +given Cotrone the reputation of being the richest town of its size in +Italy. So far as I can judge, the histories of some of these wealthy +families would be curious reading. + +"Gentlemen," said the Shepherd, "if you have designs of Trading, you +must go another way; but if you're of the admired sort of Men, that have +the thriving qualifications of Lying and Cheating, you're in the direct +Path to Business; for in this City no Learning flourisheth; Eloquence +finds no room here; nor can Temperance, Good Manners, or any Vertue meet +with a Reward; assure yourselves of finding but two sorts of Men, and +those are the Cheated, and those that Cheat." + +If gossip at Naples and elsewhere is to be trusted, old Petronius seems +to have had a prophetic glimpse of the _dessus du panier_ of modern +Cotrone. + + + + +XXXVII + +COTRONE + + +The sun has entered the Lion. But the temperature at Cotrone is not +excessive--five degrees lower than Taranto or Milan or London. One grows +weary, none the less, of the deluge of implacable light that descends, +day after day, from the aether. The glistering streets are all but +deserted after the early hours of the morning. A few busy folks move +about till midday on the pavements; and so do I--in the water. But the +long hours following luncheon are consecrated to meditation and repose. + +A bundle of Italian newspapers has preceded me hither; upon these I +browse dispersedly, while awaiting the soft call to slumber. Here are +some provincial sheets--the "Movement" of Castro-villari--the "New +Rossano"--the "Bruttian" of Corigliano, with strong literary flavour. +Astonishing how decentralized Italy still is, how brimful of purely +local patriotism: what conception have these men of Rome as their +capital? These articles often reflect a lively turmoil of ideas, +well-expressed. Who pays for such journalistic ventures? Typography is +cheap, and contributors naturally content themselves with the ample +remuneration of appearing in print before their fellow-citizens; a +considerable number of copies are exported to America. Yet I question +whether the circulation of the "New Rossano," a fortnightly in its sixth +year, can exceed five hundred copies. + +But these venial and vapid Neapolitan dailies are my pet aversion. We +know them, _nous autres,_ with their odious personalities and playful +blackmailing tactics; many "distinguished foreigners," myself included, +could tell a tale anent that subject. Instead of descending to such +matters, let me copy--it is too good to translate--a thrilling item of +news from the chiefest of them, the _Mattino,_ which touches, +furthermore, upon the all-important subject of Calabrian progress. + +"CETRARO. Per le continuate premure ed insistenze di questo egregio +uffiziale postale Signor Rocca Francesco--che nulla lascia +pel bene avviamento del nostro uffizio--presso 1' on. Dirczione delle +poste di Cosenza, si è ottenuta una cassetta postale, che affissa lungo +il Corso Carlo Pancaso, ci da la bella commodità di imbucare le nostre +corrispondenze per essere rilevate tre volte al giorno non solo, quanto +ci evita persino la dolorosa e lunga via crucis che dovevamo percorrere +qualvolta si era costretti d' imbuccare una lettera, essendo il nostro +uffizio situato ali' estremità del paese. + +"Tributiamo perciò sincera lode al nostro caro uffiziale postale Sig. +Rocca, e ci auguriamo che egli continui ancora al miglioramento deli' +uffizio istesso, e mercé 1' opera sua costante ed indefessa siamo sicuri +che 1' uffizio postale di Cetraro assurgerà fra non molto ad un' +importanza maggiore di quella che attualmente." + +The erection of a letter-box in the Street of a small place of which 80 +per cent of the readers have never so much as heard. ... I begin to +understand why the cultured Tarentines do not read these journals. + +By far the best part of all such papers is the richly-tinted personal +column, wherein lovers communicate with each other, or endeavour to do +so. I read it conscientiously from beginning to end, admiring, in my +physical capacity, the throbbing passion that prompts such public +outbursts of confidence and, from a literary point of view, their +lapidary style, model of condensation, impossible to render in English +and conditioned by the hard fact that every word costs two sous. Under +this painful material stress, indeed, the messages are sometimes crushed +into a conciseness which the females concerned must have some difficulty +in unperplexing: what on earth does the parsimonious _Flower_ mean by +his Delphic fourpenny worth, thus punctuated-- + +"(You have) not received. How. Safety." + +One cannot help smiling at this circuitous and unromantic method of +touching the hearts of ladies who take one's fancy; at the same time, it +testifies to a resourceful vitality, striving to break through the +barriers of Hispano-Arabic convention which surround the fair sex in +this country. They are nothing if not poetic, these love-sick swains. +_Arrow_ murmurs: "My soul lies on your pillow, caressing you softly"; +_Strawberry_ laments that "as bird outside nest, I am alone and lost. +What sadness," and _Star_ finds the "Days eternal, till Thursday." And +yet they often choose rather prosaic pseudonyms. Here is _Sahara_ who +"suffers from your silence," while _Asthma_ is "anticipating one endless +kiss," and _Old England_ observing, more ir sorrow than in anger, that +he "waited vainly one whole hour." + +But the sagacious _Cooked Lobster_ desires, before commiting himself +further, "a personal interview." He has perhaps been cooked once before. + +Letters and numbers are best, after all. So thinks F. N. 13, who is +utterly disgusted with his flame-- + +"Your silence speaks. Useless saying anything. Ca ira." And likewise +7776--B, a designing rogue and plainly a spendthrift, who wastes +ninepence in making it clear that he "wishes to marry rich young lady, +forgiving youthful errors." If I were the girl, I would prefer to take +my chances with "Cooked Lobster." + +_"Will much-admired young-lady cherries-in-black-hat indicate method +possible correspondence_ 10211, _Post-Office?"_ + +How many of these arrows, I wonder, reach their mark? + +Ah, here are politics and News of the World, at last. A promising +article on the "Direttissimo Roma-Napoli"--the railway line that is to +connect the two towns by way of the Pontine Marshes. . . . Dear me! This +reads very familiarly. . . . Why, to be sure, it is the identical +dissertation, with a few changes by the office-boy, that has cropped up +periodically in these pages for the last half-century, or whenever the +railway was first projected. The line, as usual, is being projected more +strenuously than before, and certain members of the government have +goneso far as to declare. . .. H'm! Let me try something else: "The +Feminist Movement in England" by Our London Correspondent (who lives in +a little side street off the Toledo); that sounds stimulating. . . . The +advanced English Feminists--so it runs--are taking the lead in +encouraging their torpid sisters on the Continent. . . . Hardly a day +passes, that some new manifestation of the Feminist Movement ... in +fact, it may be avowed that the Feminist Movement in England. . . . + +The air is cooler, as I awake, and looking out of the window I perceive +from the mellow light-effects that day is declining. + +Towards this sunset hour the unbroken dome of the sky often undergoes a +brief transformation. High-piled masses of cloud may then be seen +accumulating over the Sila heights and gathering auxiliaries from every +quarter; lightning is soon playing about the livid and murky +vapours--you can hear the thunders muttering, up yonder, to some +drenching downpour. But on the plain the sun continues to shine in +vacuously benevolent fashion; nothing is felt of the tempest save +unquiet breaths of wind that raise dust-eddies from the country roads +and lash the sea into a mock frenzy of crisp little waves. It is the +merest interlude. Soon the blue-black drifts have fled away from the +mountains that stand out, clear and refreshed, in the twilight. The wind +has died down, the storm is over and Cotrone thirsts, as ever, for rain +that never comes. Yet they have a Madonna-picture here--a celebrated +_black_ Madonna, painted by Saint Luke--who "always procures rain, when +prayed to." + +Once indeed the tail of a shower must have passed overhead, for there +fell a few sad drops. I hurried abroad, together with some other +citizens, to observe the phenomenon. There was no doubt about the +matter; it was genuine rain; the drops lay, at respectable intervals, on +the white dust of the station turnpike. A boy, who happened to be +passing in a cart, remarked that if the shower could have been collected +into a saucer or some other small receptacle, it might have sufficed to +quench the thirst of a puppy-dog. + +I usually take a final dip in the sea, at this time of the evening. +After that, it is advisable to absorb an ice or two--they are excellent, +at Cotrone--and a glass of Strega liqueur, to ward off the effects of +over-work. Next, a brief promenade through the clean, well-lighted +streets and now populous streets, or along the boulevard Margherita to +view the rank and fashion taking the air by the murmuring waves, under +the cliff-like battlements of Charles the Fifth's castle; and so to dinner. + +This meal marks the termination of my daily tasks; nothing serious is +allowed to engage my attention, once that repast is ended; I call for a +chair and sit down at one of the small marble-topped tables in the open +street and watch the crowd as it floats around me, smoking a Neapolitan +cigar and imbibing, alternately, ices and black coffee until, towards +midnight, a final bottle of _vino di Ciro_ is uncorked--fit seal for the +labours of the day. + +One might say much in praise of Calabrian wine. The land is full of +pleasant surprises for the cenophilist, and one of these days I hope to +embody my experiences in the publication of a wine-chart of the province +with descriptive text running alongside--the purchasers of which, if +few, will certainly be of the right kind. The good Dr. Barth--all praise +to him!--has already done something of the kind for certain parts of +Italy, but does not so much as mention Calabria. And yet here nearly +every village has its own type of wine and every self-respecting family +its own peculiar method of preparation, little known though they be +outside the place of production, on account of the octroi laws which +strangle internal trade and remove all stimulus to manufacture a good +article for export. This wine of Ciro, for instance, is purest nectar, +and so is that which grows still nearer at hand in the classical vale of +the Neto and was praised, long ago, by old Pliny; and so are at least +two dozen more. For even as Gregorovius says that the smallest Italian +community possesses its duly informed antiquarian, if you can but put +your hand upon him, so, I may be allowed to add, every little place +hereabouts can boast of at least one individual who will give you good +wine, provided--provided you go properly to work to find him. + +Now although, when young, the Calabrian Bacchus has a wild-eyed _beaute +du diable_ which appeals to one's expansive moods, he already begins to +totter, at seven years of age, in sour, decrepit eld. To pounce upon him +at the psychological moment, to discover in whose cool and cobwebby +cellar he is dreaming out his golden summer of manhood--that is what a +foreigner can never, never hope to achieve, without competent local aid. + +To this end, I generally apply to the priests; not because they are the +greatest drunkards (far from it; they are mildly epicurean, or even +abstemious) but by reason of their unrivalled knowledge of +personalities. They know exactly who has been able to keep his liquor of +such and such a year, and who has been obliged to sell or partially +adulterate it; they know, from the confessional of the wives, the why +and wherefore of all such private family affairs and share, with the +chemist, the gift of seeing furthest into the tangled web of home life. +They are "gialosi," however, of these acquirements, and must be +approached in the right spirit--a spirit of humility. But if you +tactfully lead up to the subject by telling of the manifold hardships of +travel in foreign lands, the discomfort of life in hostelries, the food +that leaves so much to be desired and, above all, the coarse wine that +is already beginning, you greatly fear, to injure your sensitive spleen +(an important organ, in Calabria), inducing a hypochondriacal tendency +to see all the beauties of this fair land in an odious and sombre +light--turning your day into night, as it were--it must be an odd +priest, indeed, who is not compassionately moved to impart the desired +information regarding the whereabouts of the best _vino di famiglia_ at +that moment obtainable. After all, it costs him nothing to do a double +favour--one to yourself and another to the proprietor of the wine, +doubtless an old friend of his, who will be able to sell his stuff to a +foreigner 20 per cent dearer than to a native. + +And failing the priests, I go to an elderly individual of that tribe of +red-nosed connaisseurs, the coachmen, ever thirsty and mercenary souls, +who for a small consideration may be able to disclose not only this +secret, but others far more mysterious. + +As to your host at the inn--he raises not the least objection to +your importing alien liquor into his house. His own wine, he tells you, +is last year's vintage and somewhat harsh (slightly watered, he might +add)--and why not? The ordinary customers are gentlemen of commerce who +don't care a fig what they eat and drink, so long as there is enough of +it. No horrible suggestions are proffered concerning corkage; on the +contrary, he tests your wine, smacks his lips, and thanks you for +communicating a valuable discovery. He thinks he will buy a bottle or +two for the use of himself and a few particular friends. . . . + +Midnight has come and gone. The street is emptying; the footsteps of +passengers begin to ring hollow. I arise, for my customary stroll in the +direction of the cemetery, to attune myself to repose by shaking off +those restlessly trivial images of humanity which might otherwise haunt +my slumbers. + +Town visions are soon left behind; it is very quiet here under the hot, +starlit heavens; nothing speaks of man save the lighthouse flashing in +ghostly activity--no, it is a fixed light--on the distant Cape of the +Column. And nothing breaks the stillness save the rhythmic breathing of +the waves, and a solitary cricket that has yet to finish his daily task +of instrumental music, far away, in some warm crevice of the hills. + +A suave odour rises up from the narrow patch of olives, and figs loaded +with fruit, and ripening vines, that skirts the path by the beach. _The +fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender +grape give a good smell._ + +And so I plough my way through the sand, in the darkness, encompassed by +tepid exhalations of earth and sea. Another spirit has fallen upon me--a +spirit of biblical calm. Here, then, stood _the rejoicing city that +dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none beside +me: how is she become a desolation!_ It is indeed hard to realize that a +town thronged with citizens covered all this area. Yet so it is. Every +footstep is a memory. Along this very track walked the sumptuous ladies +of Croton on their way to deposit their vain jewels before the goddess +Hera, at the bidding of Pythagoras. On this spot, maybe, stood that +public hall which was specially built for the delivery of his lectures. + +No doubt the townsfolk had been sunk in apathetic luxury; the time was +ripe for a Messiah. + +And lo! he appeared. + + + + +XXXVIII + +THE SAGE OF CROTON + + +The popularity of this sage at Croton offers no problem: the inhabitants +had become sufficiently civilized to appreciate the charm of being +regenerated. We all do. Renunciation has always exercised an +irresistible attraction for good society; it makes us feel so +comfortable, to be told we are going to hell--and Pythagoras was very +eloquent on the subject of Tartarus as a punishment. The Crotoniates +discovered in repentance of sins a new and subtle form of pleasure; +exactly as did the Florentines, when Savonarola appeared on the scene. + +Next: his doctrines found a ready soil in Magna Graecia which was +already impregnated with certain vague notions akin to those he +introduced. And then--he permitted and even encouraged the emotional sex +to participate in the mysteries; the same tactics that later on +materially helped the triumph of Christianity over the more exclusive +and rational cult of Mithra. Lastly, he came with a "message," like the +Apostle of the Gentiles; and in those times a preaching reformer was a +novelty. That added a zest. We know them a little better, nowadays. + +He enjoyed the specious and short-lived success that has attended, +elsewhere, such efforts to cultivate the _ego_ at the expense of its +environment. "A type of aspiring humanity," says Gissing, echoing the +sentiments of many of us, "a sweet and noble figure, moving as a dim +radiance through legendary Hellas." I fancy that the mist of centuries +of undiscriminating admiration has magnified this figure out of all +proportion and contrived, furthermore, to fix an iridescent nimbus of +sanctity about its head. Such things have been known to happen, in foggy +weather. + +Was Greece so very legendary, in those times? Why, on the contrary, it +was full of real personages, of true sages to whom it seemed as if no +secrets of heaven or earth were past fathoming; far from being +legendary, the countryhad never attained a higher plane of intellectual +curiosity than when Pythagoras made his appearance. And it cannot be +gainsaid that he and his disciples gave the impetus away from these wise +and beneficial researches into the arid regions of metaphysics. It is so +much more gentlemanly (and so much easier) to talk bland balderdash +about soul-migrations than to calculate an eclipse of the moon or bother +about the circulation of the blood. + +That a man of his speculative vigour, knowing so many extra-Hellenic +races, should have hit upon one or two good things adventitiously is +only to be expected. But they were mere by-products. One might as well +praise John Knox for creating the commons of Scotland with a view to the +future prosperity of that country--a consummation which his black +fanaticism assuredly never foresaw. + +The chief practical doctrine of Pythagoras, that mankind are to be +governed on the principle of a community of eastern monks, makes for the +disintegration of rational civic life. + +And his chief theoretical doctrines, of metempsychosis and the reduction +of everything to a system of numbers [Footnote: Vincenzo Dorsa, an +Albanian, has written two pamphlets on the survival of Greco-Roman +traditions in Calabria. They are difficult to procure, but whoever is +lucky enough to find them will be much helped in his understanding of +the common people. In one place, he speaks of the charm-formula of +_Otto-Nave!_ (Eight-Nine) It is considered meet and proper, in the +presence of a suckling infant, to spit thrice and then call out, three +times, Otto-Nove! This brings luck; and the practice, he thinks, is an +echo of the number-system of Pythagoras.]--these are sheer lunacy. + +Was it not something of a relapse, after the rigorous mental discipline +of old, to have a man gravely assuring his fellows that he is the son of +Hermes and the divinely appointed messenger of Apollo; treating +diseases, like an Eskimo Angekok, by incantation; recording veracious +incidents of his experiences during a previous life in Hell, which he +seems to have explored almost as thoroughly as Swedenborg; dabbling in +magic, and consulting dreams, birds and the smoke of incense as oracles? +And in the exotic conglomerate of his teachings are to be found the +_prima stamina_ of much that is worse: the theory of the pious fraud +which has infected Latin countries to this day; the Jesuitical maxim of +the end justifying the means; the insanity of preferring deductions to +facts which has degraded philosophy up to the days of Kant; mysticism, +demon-worship and much else of pernicious mettle--they are all there, +embryonically embedded in Pythagoras. + +We are told much of his charity; indeed, an English author has written a +learned work to prove that Pythagoreanism has close affinities with +Christianity. Charity has now been tried on an ample scale, and has +proved a dismal failure. To give, they say, is more blessed than to +receive. It is certainly far easier, for the most part, to give than to +refrain from giving. We are at last shaking off the form, of +self-indulgence called charity; we realize that if mankind is to profit, +sterner conceptions must prevail. The apotheosis of the god-favoured +loafer is drawing to a close. + +For the rest, there was the inevitable admixture of quackery about our +reforming sage; his warmest admirers cannot but admit that he savours +somewhat strongly of the holy impostor. Those charms and amulets, those +dark gnomic aphorisms which constitute the stock-in-trade of all +religious cheap-jacks, the bribe of future life, the sacerdotal tinge +with its complement of mendacity, the secrecy of doctrine, the +pretentiously-mysterious self-retirement, the "sacred quaternion," the +bean-humbug . . . + +He had the true maraboutic note. + +And for me, this regenerator crowned with a saintly aureole remains a +glorified marabout--an intellectual dissolvent; the importer of that +oriental introspectiveness which culminated in the idly-splendid +yearnings of Plato, paved the way for the quaint Alexandrian +_tutti-frutti_ known as Christianity, and tainted the well-springs of +honest research for two thousand years. By their works ye shall known +them. It was the Pythagoreans who, not content with a just victory over +the Sybarites, annihilated their city amid anathemas worthy of those old +Chaldeans (past masters in the art of pious cursings); a crime against +their common traditions and common interests; a piece of savagery which +wrecked Hellenic civilization in Italy. It is ever thus, when the soul +is appointed arbiter over reason. It is ever thus, when gentle, +god-fearing dreamers meddle with worldly affairs. Beware of the wrath of +the lamb! + +So rapidly did the virus act, that soon we find Plato declaring that all +the useful arts are _degrading;_ that "so long as a man tries to study +any sensible object, he can never be said to be learning anything"; in +other words, that the kind of person to whom one looks for common sense +should be excluded from the management of his most refined republic. It +needed courage of a rather droll kind to make such propositions in +Greece, under the shadow of the Parthenon. And hand in hand with this +feudalism in philosophy there began that unhealthy preoccupation with +the morals of our fellow-creatures, that miasma of puritanism, which has +infected life and literature up to this moment. + +The Renaissance brought many fine things to England. But the wicked +fairy was there with her gift: Pythagoras and Plato. We were not like +the Italians who, after the first rapture of discovery was over, soon +outgrew these distracted dialectics; we stuck fast in them. Hence our +Platonic touch: our _demi-vierge_ attitude in matters of the mind, our +academic horror of clean thinking. How Plato hated a fact! He could +find no place for it in his twilight world of abstractions. Was it not +he who wished to burn the works of Democritus of Abdera, most exact and +reasonable of old sages? + +They are all alike, these humanitarian lovers of first causes. Always +ready to burn something, or somebody; always ready with their cheerful +Hell-fire and gnashing of teeth. + +_Know thyself:_ to what depths of vain, egocentric brooding has that +dictum led! But we are discarding, now, such a mischievously narrow view +of the Cosmos, though our upbringing is still too rhetorical and +mediaeval to appraise its authors at their true worth. Youth is prone to +judge with the heart rather than the head; youth thrives on vaporous +ideas, and there was a time when I would have yielded to none in my +enthusiasm for these mellifluous babblers; one had a blind, sentimental +regard for their great names. It seems to me, now, that we take them +somewhat too seriously; that a healthy adult has nothing to learn from +their teachings, save by way of warning example. Plato is food for +adolescents. And a comfort, possibly, in old age, when the judicial +faculties of the mind are breaking up and primitive man, the visionary, +reasserts his ancient rights. For questioning moods grow burdensome with +years; after a strain of virile doubt we are glad to acquiesce once +more--to relapse into Platonic animism, the logic of valetudinarians. +The dog to his vomit. + +And after Plato--the deluge. Neo-platonism. . . . + +Yet it was quite good sport, while it lasted. To "make men better" by +choice dissertations about Utopias, to sit in marble halls and have a +fair and fondly ardent _jeunesse dorée_ reclining about your knees while +you discourse, in rounded periods, concerning the salvation of their +souls by means of transcendental Love--it would suit me well enough, at +this present moment; far better than croaking, forlorn as the +night-raven, among the ruins of their radiant lives. + +Meanwhile, and despite our Universities, new conceptions are prevailing, +Aristotle is winning the day. A fresh kind of thinker has arisen, whose +chief idea of "virtue" is to investigate patiently the facts of life; +men of the type of Lister, any one of whom have done more to regenerate +mankind, and to increase the sum of human happiness, than a wilderness +of the amiably-hazy old doctrinaires who professed the same object. I +call to mind those physicians engaged in their malaria-campaign, and +wonder what Plato would have thought of them. Would he have recognized the +significance of their researches which, while allaying pain and misery, +are furthering the prosperity of the country, causing waters to flow in +dry places and villages to spring up in deserts--strengthening its +political resources, improving its very appearance? Not likely. Plato's +opinion of doctors was on a par with the rest of his mentality. Yet +these are the men who are taking up the thread where it was dropped, +perforce, by those veritable Greek sages, whelmed under turbid floods of +Pythagorean irrationalism. And are such things purely utilitarian? Are +they so grossly mundane? Is there really no "philosophy" in the choice +of such a healing career, no romance in its studious self-denial, no +beauty in its results? If so, we must revise that classic adage which +connects vigour with beauty--not to speak of several others. + + + + +XXXIX + +MIDDAY AT PETELIA + + +Day after day, I look across the six miles of sea to the Lacinian +promontory and its column. How reach it? The boatmen are eager for the +voyage: it all depends, they say, upon the wind. + +Day after day--a dead calm. + +"Two hours--three hours--four hours--according!" And they point to the +sky. A little breeze, they add, sometimes makes itself felt in the early +mornings; one might fix up a sail. + +"And for returning at midday?" + +"Three hours--four hours--five hours--according!" + +The prospect of rocking about for half a day in a small boat under a +blazing sky is not my ideal of enjoyment, the novelty of such an +experience having worn off a good many years ago. I decide to wait; to +make an attack, meanwhile, upon old Petelia--the "Stromboli" of my +lady-friend at the Catanzaro Museum.... + +It is an easy day's excursion from Cotrone to Strongoli, which is +supposed to lie on the site of that ancient, much-besieged town. It sits +upon a hill-top, and the diligence which awaits the traveller at the +little railway-station takes about two hours to reach the place, +climbing up the olive-covered slopes in ample loops and windings. + +Of Strangoli my memories, even at this short distance of time, are +confused and blurred. The drive up under the glowing beams of morning, +the great heat of the last few days, and two or three nights' +sleeplessness at Cotrone had considerably blunted my appetite for new +things. I remember seeing some Roman marbles in the church, and being +thence conducted into a castle. + +Afterwards I reposed awhile in the upper regions, under an olive, and +looked down towards the valley of the Neto, which flows not far from +here into the Ionian. I thought upon Theocritus, trying to picture this +vale of Neaithos as it appeared to him and his shepherds. The woodlands +are gone, and the rains of winter, streaming down the earthen slopes, +have remodelled the whole face of the country. + +Yet, be nature what it may, men will always turn to one who sings so +melodiously of eternal verities--of those human tasks and needs which no +lapse of years can change. How modern he reads to us, who have been +brought into contact with the true spirit by men like Johnson-Cory and +Lefroy! And how unbelievably remote is that Bartolozzi-Hellenism which +went before! What, for example--what of the renowned pseudo-Theocritus, +Salamon Gessner, who sang of this same vale of Neto in his "Daphnis"? +Alas, the good Salamon has gone the way of all derivative bores; he is +dead--deader than King Psammeticus; he is now moralizing in some +decorous Paradise amid flocks of Dresden-China sheep and sugar-watery +youths and maidens. Who can read his much-translated masterpiece without +unpleasant twinges? Dead as a doornail! + +So far as I can recollect, there is an infinity of kissing in "Daphnis." +It was an age of sentimentality, and the Greek pastoral ideal, +transfused into a Swiss environment of 1810, could not but end in +slobber and _Gefuehlsduselei._ True it is that shepherds have ample +opportunities of sporting with Amaryllis in the shade; opportunities +which, to my certain knowledge, they do not neglect. Theocritus knew it +well enough. But, in a general way, he is niggardly with the precious +commodity of kisses; he seems to have thought that in literature, if not +in real life, one can have too much of a good thing. Also, being a +southerner, he could not have trusted his young folks to remain +eternally at the kissing-stage, after the pattern of our fish-like +English lovers. Such behaviour would have struck him as improbable; +possibly immoral. . . . + +From where I sat one may trace a road that winds upwards into the Sila, +past Pallagorio. Along its sides are certain mounded heaps and the smoke +of refining works. These are mines of that dusky sulphur which I had +observed being drawn in carts through the streets of Cotrone. There are +some eight or ten of them, they tell me, discovered about thirty years +ago--this is all wrong: they are mentioned in 1571--and employing +several hundred workmen. It had been my intention to visit these +excavations. But now, in the heat of day, I wavered; the distance, even +to the nearest of them, seemed inordinately great; and just as I had +decided to look for a carnage with a view of being driven there (that +curse of conscientiousness!) an amiable citizen snatched me up as his +guest for luncheon. He led me, weakly resisting, to a vaulted chamber +where, amid a repast of rural delicacies and the converse of his spouse, +all such fond projects were straightway forgotten. Instead of +sulphur-statistics, I learnt a little piece of local history. + +"You were speaking about the emptiness of our streets of Strangoli," my +host said. "And yet, up to a short time ago, there was no emigration +from this place. Then a change came about: I'll tell you how it was. +There was a _guardia di finanze_ here--a miserable octroi official. To +keep up the name of his family, he married an heiress; not for the sake +of having progeny, but--well! He began buying up all the land round +about--slowly, systematically, cautiously--till, by dint of threats and +intrigues, he absorbed nearly all the surrounding country. Inch by inch, +he ate it up; with his wife's money. That was his idea of perpetuating +his memory. All the small proprietors were driven from their domains and +fled to America to escape starvation; immense tracts of well-cultivated +land are now almost desert. Look at the country! But some day he will +get his reward; under the ribs, you know." + +By this purposeful re-creation of those feudal conditions of olden, +days, this man has become the best-hated person in the district. + +Soon it was time to leave the friendly shelter and inspect in the +glaring sunshine the remaining antiquities of Petelia. Never have I felt +less inclined for such antiquarian exploits. How much better the hours +would have passed in some cool tavern! I went forth, none the less; and +was delighted to discover that there are practically no antiquities +left--nothing save a few walls standing near a now ruined convent, which +is largely built of Roman stone-blocks and bricks. Up to a few years +ago, the municipality carried on excavations here and unearthed a few +relics which were promptly dispersed. Perhaps some of these are what one +sees in the Catanzaro Museum. The paternal government, hearing of this +enterprise, claimed the site and sat down upon it; the exposed remains +were once more covered up with soil. + +A goat-boy, a sad little fellow, sprang out of the earth as I dutifully +wandered about here. He volunteered to show me not only Strongoli, but +all Calabria; in fact, his heart's desire was soon manifest: to escape +from home and find his way to America under my passport and protection. +Here was his chance--a foreigner (American) returning sooner or later to +his own country! He pressed the matter with naif forcefulness. Vainly I +told him that there were other lands on earth; that I was not going to +America. He shook his head and sagely remarked: + +"I have understood. You think my journey would cost too much. But you, +also, must understand. Once I get work there, I will repay you every +farthing." + +As a consolation, I offered him some cigarettes. He accepted one; +pensive, unresigned. + +The goat-herds had no such cravings--in the days of Theocritus. + + + + +XL + +THE COLUMN + + +"Two hours--three hours--four hours: according!" + +The boatmen are still eager for the voyage. It all depends, as before, +upon the wind. + +And day __after day __the Ionian lies before us--immaculate, immutable. + +I determined to approach the column by land. A mule was discovered, and +starting from the "Concordia" rather late in the morning, reached the +temple-ruin in two hours to the minute. I might have been tempted to +linger by the way but for the intense sunshine and for the fact that the +muleteer was an exceptionally dull dog--a dusky youth of the taciturn +and wooden-faced Spanish variety, whose anti-Hellenic profile irked me, +in that landscape. The driving road ends at the cemetery. Thence onward +a pathway skirts the sea at the foot of the clay-hills; passes the +sunken wells; climbs up and down steepish gradients and so attains the +plateau at whose extremity stands the lighthouse, the column, and a few +white bungalows--summer-residences of Cotrone citizens. + +A day of shimmering heat. . . . + +The ground is parched. Altogether, it is a poor and thinly peopled +stretch of land between Cotrone and Capo Rizzuto. No wonder the wolves +are famished. Nine days ago one of them actually ventured upon the road +near the cemetery, in daylight. + +Yet there is some plant-life, and I was pleased to see, emerging from +the bleak sand-dunes, the tufts of the well-known and conspicuous sea +lily in full flower. Wishful to obtain a few blossoms, I asked the boy +to descend from his mule, but he objected. + +"Non si toccano questi fiori," he said. These flowers are not to be +touched. + +Their odour displeased him. Like the Arab, the uncultivated Italian is +insensitive to certain smells that revolt us; while he cannot endure, on +the other hand, the scent of some flowers. I have seen a man professing +to feel faint at the odour of crushed geranium leaves. They are _fiori +di morti,_ he says: planted (sometimes) in graveyards. + +The last remarkable antiquity found at this site, to my knowledge, is a +stone vase, fished up some years ago out of the sea, into which it may +have fallen while being carried off by pious marauders for the purpose +of figuring as font in some church (unless, indeed, the land has sunk at +this point, as there is some evidence to show). I saw it, shortly after +its return to dry land, in a shed near the harbour of Cotrone; the +Taranto museum has now claimed it. It is a basin of purple-veined +pavonazzetto marble. Originally a monolith, it now consists of two +fragments; the third and smallest is still missing. This noble relic +stands about 85 centimetres in height and measures some 215 centimetres +in circumference; it was never completed, as can be seen by the rim, +which is still partially in the rough. A similar vessel is figured, I +believe, in Tischbein. + +The small villa-settlement on this promontory is deserted owing to lack +of water, every drop of which has to be brought hither by sea from +Cotrone. One wonders why they have not thought of building a cistern to +catch the winter rains, if there are any; for a respectable stone crops +up at this end of the peninsula. + +One often wonders at things. . . . + +The column has been underpinned and strengthened by a foundation of +cement; rains of centuries had begun to threaten its base, and there was +some risk of a catastrophe. Near at hand are a few ancient walls of +reticulated masonry in strangely leaning attitudes, peopled by black +goats; on the ground I picked up some chips of amphorse and vases, as +well as a fragment of the limb of a marble statue. The site of this +pillar, fronting the waves, is impressively forlorn. And it was rather +thoughtful, after all, of the despoiling Bishop Lucifero to leave two of +the forty-eight columns standing upright on the spot, as a sample of the +local Doric style. One has fallen to earth since his day. Nobody would +have complained at the time, if he had stolen all of them, instead of +only forty-six. I took a picture of the survivor; then wandered a little +apart, in the direction of the shore, and soon found myself in a +solitude of burning stones, a miniature Sahara. + +The temple has vanished, together with the sacred grove that once +embowered it; the island of Calypso, where Swinburne took his ease (if +such it was), has sunk into the purple realms of Glaucus; the corals and +sea-beasts that writhed among its crevices are en-gulphed under mounds +of submarine sand. There was life, once, at this promontory. Argosies +touched here, leaving priceless gifts; fountains flowed, and cornfields +waved in the genial sunshine. Doubtless there will be life again; earth +and sea are only waiting for the enchanter's wand. + +All now lies bare, swooning in summer stagnation. + +Calabria is not a land to traverse alone. It is too wistful and +stricken; too deficient in those externals that conduce to comfort. Its +charms do not appeal to the eye of romance, and the man who would +perambulate Magna Graecia as he does the Alps would soon regret his +choice. One needs something of that "human element" which delighted the +genteel photographer of Morano--comrades, in short; if only those sages, +like old Noia Molisi, who have fallen under the spell of its ancient +glories. The joys of Calabria are not to be bought, like those of +Switzerland, for gold. + +_Sir Giovati Battista di Noia Molisi, the last of his family and name, +having no sons and being come to old age without further hope of +offspring, has desired in the place of children to leave of himself an +eternal memory to mankind--_ to wit, this Chronicle of the most Ancient, +Magnificent, and Faithful City of Cotrone. A worthier effort at +self-perpetuation than that of Strangoli. . . . + +A sturgeon, he notes, was caught in 1593 by the Spanish Castellan of the +town. This nobleman, puzzling whom he could best honour with so rare a +dainty, despatched it by means of a man on horseback to the Duke of +Nocera. The Duke was no less surprised than pleased; he thought mighty +well of the sturgeon and of the respectful consideration which prompted +the gift; and then, by another horseman, sent it to Noia Molisi's own +uncle, accompanied, we may conjecture, by some ceremonious compliment +befitting the occasion. + +A man of parts, therefore, our author's uncle, to whom his Lordship of +Nocera sends table-delicacies by mounted messenger; and himself a mellow +comrade whom I am loath to leave; his pages are distinguished by a +pleasing absence of those saintly paraphernalia which hang like a fog +athwart the fair sky of the south. + +Yet to him and to all of them I must bid good-bye, here and now. At this +hour to-morrow I shall be far from Cotrone. + +Farewell to Capialbi, inspired bookworm! And to Lenormant. + +On a day like this, the scholar sailed at Bivona over a sea so unruffled +that the barque seemed to be suspended in air. The water's surface, he +tells us, is "unie comme une glace." He sees the vitreous depths invaded +by piercing sunbeams that light up its mysterious forests of algae, its +rock-headlands and silvery stretches of sand; he peers down into these +"prairies pélagiennes" and beholds all their wondrous fauna--the +urchins, the crabs, the floating fishes and translucent medusae +"semblables a des clochettes d'opale." Then, realizing how this +"population pullulante des petits animaux marins" must have impressed +the observing ancients, he goes on to touch--ever so lightly!--upon +those old local arts of ornamentation whereby sea-beasts and molluscs +and aquatic plants were reverently copied by master-hand, not from dead +specimens, but "pris sur le vif et observes au milieu des eaux"; he +explains how an entire school grew up, which drew its inspiration from +the dainty ... apes and movements of these frail creatures. This is _àu +meilleur Lenormant._ His was a full-blooded yet discriminating zest of +knowledge. One wonders what more was fermenting in that restlessly +curious brain, when a miserable accident ended his short life, after 120 +days of suffering. + +So Italy proved fatal to him, as Greece to his father. But one of his +happiest moments must have been spent on the sea at Bivona, on that +clear summer day--a day such as this, when every nerve tingles with joy +of life. + +Meanwhile it is good to rest here, immovable but alert, in the +breathless hush of noon. Showers of benevolent heat stream down upon +this desolation; not the faintest wisp of vapour floats upon the +horizon; not a sail, not a ripple, disquiets the waters. The silence can +be felt. Slumber is brooding over the things of earth: + +Asleep are the peaks of the hills, and the vales, + +The promontories, the clefts, + +And all the creatures that move upon the black earth. . . . + +Such torrid splendour, drenching a land of austerut simplicity, +decomposes the mind into corresponding states of primal contentment and +resilience. There arises before our phantasy a new perspective of human +affairs; a suggestion of well-being wherein the futile complexities and +disharmonies of our age shall have no place. To discard these wrappings, +to claim kinship with some elemental and robust archetype, lover of +earth and sun---- + +How fair they are, these moments of golden equipoise! + +Yes; it is good to be merged awhile into these harshly-vibrant +surroundings, into the meridian glow of all things. This noontide is the +"heavy" hour of the Greeks, when temples are untrodden by priest or +worshipper. _Controra_ they now call it--the ominous hour. Man and +beast are fettered in sleep, while spirits walk abroad, as at midnight. +_Non timebis a timore noctuno: a sagitta volante in àie: a negotio +perambulante in tenebris: ab incursu et demonio meridiano._ The midday +demon--that southern Haunter of calm blue spaces. . . . + +So may some enchantment of kindlier intent have crept over Phaedrus and +his friend, at converse in the noontide under the whispering plane-tree. +And the genius dwelling about this old headland of the Column is candid +and benign. + +This corner of Magna Graecia is a severely parsimonious manifestation of +nature. Rocks and waters! But these rocks and waters are actualities; +the stuff whereof man is made. A landscape so luminous, so resolutely +scornful of accessories, hints at brave and simple forms of expression; +it brings us to the ground, where we belong; it medicines to the disease +of introspection and stimulates a capacity which we are in danger of +unlearning amid our morbid hyperborean gloom--the capacity for honest +contempt: contempt of that scarecrow of a theory which would have us +neglect what is earthly, tangible. What is life well lived but a blithe +discarding of primordial husks, of those comfortable intangibilities +that lurk about us, waiting for our weak moments? + +The sage, that perfect savage, will be the last to withdraw himself from +the influence of these radiant realities. He will strive to knit closer +the bond, and to devise a more durable and affectionate relationship +between himself and them. Let him open his eyes. For a reasonable +adjustment lies at his feet. From these brown stones that seam the +tranquil Ionian, from this gracious solitude, he can carve out, and bear +away into the cheerful din of cities, the rudiments of something clean +and veracious and wholly terrestrial--some tonic philosophy that shall +foster sunny mischiefs and farewell regret. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, OLD CALABRIA *** + +This file should be named 8ocal10.txt or 8ocal10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8ocal11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8ocal10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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