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?"