By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy Read online

  railway station, I descried a green track, the course of the all but

  stagnant and wholly pestilential stream, still called Esaro. Near its

  marshy mouth are wide orange orchards. Could one but see in vision the

  harbour, the streets, the vast encompassing wall! From the eminence

  where I stood, how many a friend and foe of Croton has looked down upon

  its shining ways, peopled with strength and beauty and wisdom! Here

  Pythagoras may have walked, glancing afar at the Lacinian sanctuary,

  then new built.

  Lenormant is eloquent on the orange groves of Cotrone. In order to

  visit them, permission was necessary, and presently I made my way to

  the town hall, to speak with the Sindaco (Mayor) and request his aid in

  this matter. Without difficulty I was admitted. In a well-furnished

  office sat two stout gentlemen, smoking cigars, very much at their

  ease; the Sindaco bade me take a chair, and scrutinized me with

  doubtful curiosity as I declared my business. Yes, to be sure he could

  admit me to see his own orchard; but why did I wish to see it? My reply

  that I had no interest save in the natural beauty of the place did not

  convince him; he saw in me a speculator of some kind. That was natural

  enough. In all the south of Italy, money is the one subject of men’s

  thoughts; intellectual life does not exist; there is little even of

  what we should call common education. Those who have wealth cling to it

  fiercely; the majority have neither time nor inclination to occupy

  themselves with anything but the earning of a livelihood which for

  multitudes signifies the bare appeasing of hunger.

  Seeing the Sindaco’s embarrassment, his portly friend began to question

  me; good-humouredly enough, but in such a fat bubbling voice (made more

  indistinct by the cigar he kept in his mouth) that with difficulty I

  understood him. What was I doing at Cotrone? I endeavoured to explain

  that Cotrone greatly interested me. Ha! Cotrone interested me? Really?

  Now what did I find interesting at Cotrone? I spoke of historic

  associations. The Sindaco and his friend exchanged glances, smiled in a

  puzzled, tolerant, half-pitying way, and decided that my request might

  be granted. In another minute I withdrew, carrying half a sheet of

  note-paper on which were scrawled in pencil a few words, followed by

  the proud signature “Berlinghieri.” When I had deciphered the scrawl, I

  found it was an injunction to allow me to view a certain estate “_senza

  nulla toccare_”—without touching anything. So a doubt still lingered

  in the dignitary’s mind.

  Cotrone has no vehicle plying for hire—save that in which I arrived at

  the hotel. I had to walk in search of the orange orchard, all along the

  straight dusty road leading to the station. For a considerable distance

  this road is bordered on both sides by warehouses of singular

  appearance. They have only a ground floor, and the front wall is not

  more than ten feet high, but their low roofs, sloping to the ridge at

  an angle of about thirty degrees, cover a great space. The windows are

  strongly barred, and the doors show immense padlocks of elaborate

  construction. The goods warehoused here are chiefly wine and oil,

  oranges and liquorice. (A great deal of liquorice grows around the

  southern gulf.) At certain moments, indicated by the markets at home or

  abroad, these stores are conveyed to the harbour, and shipped away. For

  the greater part of the year the houses stand as I saw them, locked,

  barred, and forsaken: a street where any sign of life is exceptional;

  an odd suggestion of the English Sunday in a land that knows not such

  observance.

  Crossing the Esaro, I lingered on the bridge to gaze at its green,

  muddy water, not visibly flowing at all. The high reeds which half

  concealed it carried my thoughts back to the Galaesus. But the

  comparison is all in favour of the Tarentine stream. Here one could

  feel nothing but a comfortless melancholy; the scene is too squalid,

  the degradation too complete.

  Of course, no one looked at the permesso with which I presented

  myself at the entrance to the orchard. From a tumbling house, which we

  should call the lodge, came forth (after much shouting on my part) an

  aged woman, who laughed at the idea that she should be asked to read

  anything, and bade me walk wherever I liked. I strayed at pleasure,

  meeting only a lean dog, which ran fearfully away. The plantation was

  very picturesque; orange trees by no means occupied all the ground, but

  mingled with pomegranates and tamarisks and many evergreen shrubs of

  which I knew not the name; whilst here and there soared a magnificent

  stone pine. The walks were bordered with giant cactus, now and again so

  fantastic in their growth that I stood to wonder; and in an open space

  upon the bank of the Esaro (which stagnates through the orchard) rose a

  majestic palm, its leaves stirring heavily in the wind which swept

  above. Picturesque, abundantly; but these beautiful tree-names, which

  waft a perfume of romance, are like to convey a false impression to

  readers who have never seen the far south; it is natural to think of

  lovely nooks, where one might lie down to rest and dream; there comes a

  vision of soft turf under the golden-fruited boughs—”places of

  nestling green for poets made.” Alas! the soil is bare and lumpy as a

  ploughed field, and all the leafage that hangs low is thick with a

  clayey dust. One cannot rest or loiter or drowse; no spot in all the

  groves where by any possibility one could sit down. After rambling as

  long as I chose, I found that a view of the orchard from outside was

  more striking than the picture amid the trees themselves. _Senza nulla

  toccare_, I went my way.

  CHAPTER VIII

  FACES BY THE WAY

  The wind could not roar itself out. Through the night it kept awaking

  me, and on the morrow I found a sea foamier than ever; impossible to

  reach the Colonna by boat, and almost so, I was assured, to make the

  journey by land in such weather as this. Perforce I waited.

  A cloudless sky; broad sunshine, warm as in an English summer; but the

  roaring tramontana was disagreeably chill. No weather could be more

  perilous to health. The people of Cotrone, those few of them who did

  not stay at home or shelter in the porticoes, went about heavily

  cloaked, and I wondered at their ability to wear such garments under so

  hot a sun. Theoretically aware of the danger I was running, but, in

  fact, thinking little about it, I braved the wind and the sunshine all

  day long; my sketch-book gained by it, and my store of memories. First

  of all, I looked into the Cathedral, an ugly edifice, as uninteresting

  within as without. Like all the churches in Calabria, it is

  white-washed from door to altar, pillars no less than walls—a cold and

  depressing interior. I could see no picture of the least merit; one, a

  figure of Christ with hideous wounds, was well-nigh as repulsive as

  painting could be. This vile realism seems to indicate Spanish

  influence. There is a miniature copy in bronze of the statue of the
r />   chief Apostle in St. Peter’s at Rome, and beneath it an inscription

  making known to the faithful that, by order of Leo XIII. in 1896, an

  Indulgence of three hundred days is granted to whosoever kisses the

  bronze toe and says a prayer. Familiar enough this unpretentious

  announcement, yet it never fails of its little shock to the heretic

  mind. Whilst I was standing near, a peasant went through the mystic

  rite; to judge from his poor malaria-stricken countenance, he prayed

  very earnestly, and I hope his Indulgence benefited him. Probably he

  repeated a mere formula learnt by heart. I wished he could have prayed

  spontaneously for three hundred days of wholesome and sufficient food,

  and for as many years of honest, capable government in his

  heavy-burdened country.

  When travelling, I always visit the burial-ground; I like to see how a

  people commemorates its dead, for tombstones have much significance.

  The cemetery of Cotrone lies by the sea-shore, at some distance beyond

  the port, far away from habitations; a bare hillside looks down upon

  its graves, and the road which goes by is that leading to Cape Colonna.

  On the way I passed a little ruined church, shattered, I was told, by

  an earthquake three years before; its lonely position made it

  interesting, and the cupola of coloured tiles (like that of the

  Cathedral at Amalfi) remained intact, a bright spot against the grey

  hills behind. A high enclosing wall signalled the cemetery; I rang a

  bell at the gate and was admitted by a man of behaviour and language

  much more refined than is common among the people of this region; I

  felt sorry, indeed, that I had not found him seated in the Sindaco’s

  chair that morning. But as guide to the burial-ground he was

  delightful. Nine years, he told me, he had held the post of custodian,

  in which time, working with his own hands, and unaided, he had turned

  the enclosure from a wretched wilderness into a beautiful garden.

  Unaffectedly I admired the results of his labour, and my praise

  rejoiced him greatly. He specially requested me to observe the

  geraniums; there were ten species, many of them of extraordinary size

  and with magnificent blossoms. Roses I saw, too, in great abundance;

  and tall snapdragons, and bushes of rosemary, and many flowers unknown

  to me. As our talk proceeded the gardener gave me a little light on his

  own history; formerly he was valet to a gentleman of Cotrone, with whom

  he had travelled far and wide over Europe; yes, even to London, of

  which he spoke with expressively wide eyes, and equally expressive

  shaking of the head. That any one should journey from Calabria to

  England seemed to him intelligible enough; but he marvelled that I had

  thought it worth while to come from England to Calabria. Very rarely

  indeed could he show his garden to one from a far-off country; no, the

  place was too poor, accommodation too rough; there needed a certain

  courage, and he laughed, again shaking his head.

  The ordinary graves were marked with a small wooden cross; where a

  head-stone had been raised, it generally presented a skull and crossed

  bones. Round the enclosure stood a number of mortuary chapels, gloomy

  and ugly. An exception to this dull magnificence in death was a marble

  slab, newly set against the wall, in memory of a Lucifero—one of that

  family, still eminent, to which belonged the sacrilegious bishop. The

  design was a good imitation of those noble sepulchral tablets which

  abound in the museum at Athens; a figure taking leave of others as if

  going on a journey. The Lucifers had shown good taste in their choice

  of the old Greek symbol; no better adornment of a tomb has ever been

  devised, nor one that is half so moving. At the foot of the slab was

  carved a little owl (civetta), a bird, my friend informed me, very

  common about here.

  When I took leave, the kindly fellow gave me a large bunch of flowers,

  carefully culled, with many regrets that the lateness of the season

  forbade his offering choicer blossoms. His simple good-nature and

  intelligence greatly won upon me. I like to think of him as still

  quietly happy amid his garden walls, tending flowers that grow over the

  dead at Cotrone.

  On my way back again to the town, I took a nearer view of the ruined

  little church, and, whilst I was so engaged, two lads driving a herd of

  goats stopped to look at me. As I came out into the road again, the

  younger of these modestly approached and begged me to give him a

  flower—by choice, a rose. I did so, much to his satisfaction and no

  less to mine; it was a pleasant thing to find a wayside lad asking for

  anything but soldi. The Calabrians, however, are distinguished by their

  self-respect; they contrast remarkedly with the natives of the

  Neapolitan district. Presently, I saw that the boy’s elder companion

  had appropriated the flower, which he kept at his nose as he plodded

  along; after useless remonstrance, the other drew near to me again,

  shamefaced; would I make him another present; not a rose this time, he

  would not venture to ask it, but “questo piccolo“; and he pointed to

  a sprig of geranium. There was a grace about the lad which led me to

  talk to him, though I found his dialect very difficult. Seeing us on

  good terms, the elder boy drew near, and at once asked a puzzling

  question: When was the ruined church on the hillside to be rebuilt? I

  answered, of course, that I knew nothing about it, but this reply was

  taken as merely evasive; in a minute or two the lad again questioned

  me. Was the rebuilding to be next year? Then I began to understand;

  having seen me examining the ruins, the boy took it for granted that I

  was an architect here on business, and I don’t think I succeeded in

  setting him right. When he had said good-bye he turned to look after me

  with a mischievous smile, as much as to say that I had naturally

  refused to talk to him about so important a matter as the building of a

  church, but he was not to be deceived.

  The common type of face at Cotrone is coarse and bumpkinish; ruder, it

  seemed to me, than faces seen at any point of my journey hitherto. A

  photographer had hung out a lot of portraits, and it was a hideous

  exhibition; some of the visages attained an incredible degree of vulgar

  ugliness. This in the town which still bears the name of Croton. The

  people are all more or less unhealthy; one meets peasants horribly

  disfigured with life-long malaria. There is an agreeable cordiality in

  the middle classes; business men from whom I sought casual information,

  even if we only exchanged a few words in the street, shook hands with

  me at parting. I found no one who had much good to say of his native

  place; every one complained of a lack of water. Indeed, Cotrone has as

  good as no water supply. One or two wells I saw, jealously guarded: the

  water they yield is not really fit for drinking, and people who can

  afford it purchase water which comes from a distance in earthenware

  jars. One of these jars I had found in my bedroom; its secure corking

  much puzzled me until I made inquiries.
The river Esaro is all but

  useless for any purpose, and as no other stream flows in the

  neighbourhood, Cotrone’s washerwomen take their work down to the beach;

  even during the gale I saw them washing there in pools which they had

  made to hold the sea water; now and then one of them ventured into the

  surf, wading with legs of limitless nudity and plunging linen as the

  waves broke about her.

  It was unfortunate that I brought no letter of introduction to Cotrone;

  I should much have liked to visit one of the better houses. Well-to-do

  people live here, and I was told that, in fine weather, “at least half

  a dozen” private carriages might be seen making the fashionable drive

  on the Strada Regina Margherita. But it is not easy to imagine luxury

  or refinement in these dreary, close-packed streets. Judging from our

  table at the Concordia, the town is miserably provisioned; the dishes

  were poor and monotonous and infamously cooked. Almost the only

  palatable thing offered was an enormous radish. Such radishes I never

  saw: they were from six to eight inches long, and more than an inch

  thick, at the same time thoroughly crisp and sweet. The wine of the

  country had nothing to recommend it. It was very heady, and smacked of

  drugs rather than of grape juice.

  But men must eat, and the Concordia, being the only restaurant, daily

  entertained several citizens, besides guests staying in the house. One

  of these visitants excited my curiosity; he was a middle-aged man of

  austere countenance; shabby in attire, but with the bearing of one

  accustomed to command. Arriving always at exactly the same moment, he

  seated himself in his accustomed place, drew his hat over his brows,

  and began to munch bread. No word did I hear him speak. As soon as he

  appeared in the doorway, the waiter called out, with respectful hurry,

  “Don Ferdinando!” and in a minute his first course was served. Bent

  like a hunchback over the table, his hat dropping ever lower, until it

  almost hid his eyes, the Don ate voraciously. His dishes seemed to be

  always the same, and as soon as he had finished the last mouthful, he

  rose and strode from the room.

  Don is a common title of respect in Southern Italy; it dates of course

  from the time of Spanish rule. At a favourable moment I ventured to

  inquire of the waiter who Don Ferdinando might be; the only answer,