nowadays, I need only cite the case of His Majesty the King, whose
august head, we all know, is clipped like that of a racehorse. Horrible
(as you call it) or not, the system has momentarily the approval of
royalty, and that alone should suffice for all loyal subjects to deem
it not unworthy of imitation. Next, there are what one might describe
as hygienic and climatic considerations. Summer is approaching, sir,
and apart from certain unpleasant risks which I need not specify, you
will surely agree with me that the solstitial heat is a needlessly
severe trial for a boy with long hair. My own children are all cropped
close, and I have reason to think they are grateful for it. Why not
yours? Boys may differ in strength or complexion, in moral character
and mental attainments, but they are remarkably unanimous as to what
constitutes personal comfort. And it is obviously the duty of parents
to consult the personal comfort of their offspring—within certain
reasonable limits, of course——”
“But——”
“Lastly, we come to the much-debated point: I mean the aesthetic side
of the matter. No doubt, to judge by some old pictures such as those of
the renowned Mantegna, there must have been a time when men thought
long hair in children rather beautiful than otherwise. And I am not so
rigorous as to deny a certain charm to these portraits—a charm which is
largely due I fancy, to the becoming costumes of the period. At the
same time——”
The stranger did not trust himself to listen any longer. He threw down
a coin and walked out of the shop with his son, muttering something not
very complimentary to the barber’s female relations.
But the other was quite unmoved. “And after all,” he continued,
addressing the half-opened door through which his visitor had fled,
“the true question is this: What is ‘too short’? Don’t cut it too
short, you said. _Che vuol dire?_ An ambiguous phrase!
“Too short for one man may be too long for another. Everything is
relative. Yes, gentlemen” (turning to myself and his shop-assistant),
“everything on this earth is relative.”
With this sole exception, I have hitherto garnered no Hellenic traits
in Taranto.
Visible even from Giadrezze, on the other side of the inland sea and
beyond the arsenal, there stands a tall, solitary palm. It is the last,
the very last, or almost the very last, of a race of giants that
adorned the gardens which have now been converted into the “New
Quarter.”I imagine it is the highest existing palm in Italy, and am
glad to have taken a likeness of it, ere it shall have been cut down
like the rest of its fellows. Taranto was once celebrated for these
queenly growths, which the Saracens brought over from their flaming
Africa.
The same fate has overtaken the trees of the Villa Beaumont, which used
to be a shady retreat, but was bought by the municipality and forthwith
“pulizzato”—i.e. cleaned. This is in accordance with that _mutilomania_
of the south: that love of torturing trees which causes them to prune
pines till they look like paint-brushes that had been out all night,
and which explains their infatuation for the much-enduring robinia that
allows itself to be teased into any pattern suggested by their
unhealthy phantasy. It is really as if there were something offensive
to the Latin mind in the sight of a well-grown tree, as if man alone
had the right of expanding normally. But I must not do the City Fathers
an injustice. They have planted two rows of cryptomerias. Will people
never learn that cryptomerias cannot flourish in south Italy? Instead
of this amateurish gardening, why not consult some competent
professional, who with bougain-villeas, hibiscus and fifty other such
plants would soon transform this favoured spot into a miniature
paradise?
The Villa Beaumont and the road along the Admiralty canal are now the
citizens’ chief places of disport. Before the year 1869 the Corso
Vittorio Emmanuele, that skirts the sea on the south side of the old
town, was their sole promenade. And even this street was built only a
short time ago. Vainly one conjectures where the medieval Tarentines
took the air. It must have been like Manfredonia at the present day.
This Corso, which has a most awkward pavement and is otherwise
disagreeable as looking due south, becomes interesting after sunset.
Here you may see the young bloods of Taranto leaning in rows against
the railing with their backs to the sea—they are
looking across the road whence, from balconies and windows, the fair
sex are displaying their charms. Never a word is spoken. They merely
gaze at each other like lovesick puppies; and after watching the
performance for several evenings, I decided in favour of robuster
methods—I decided that courtship, under conditions such as the Corso
supplies, can only be pursued by the very young or the hopelessly
infatuated. But in the south, this gazing is only part of a huge game.
They are not really in love at all, these excellent young men—not at
all, at all; they know better. They are only pretending, because it
looks manly.
We must revise our conceptions as to the love-passions of these
southerners; no people are more fundamentally sane in matters of the
heart; they have none of our obfuscated sentimentality; they are seldom
naively enamoured, save in early stages of life. It is then that small
girls of eight or ten may be seen furtively recording their feelings on
the white walls of their would-be lovers’ houses; these archaic scrawls
go straight to the point, and are models of what love-letters may
ultimately become, in the time-saving communities of the future. But
when the adolescent and perfumed-pink-paper stage is reached, the
missives relapse into barbarous ambiguity; they grow allegorical and
wilfully exuberant as a Persian carpet, the effigy of a pierced heart
at the end, with enormous blood-drops oozing from it, alone furnishing
a key to the document.
So far they are in earnest, and it is the girl who takes the lead; her
youthful _innamorato_ ties these letters into bundles and returns them
conscientiously, in due course, to their respective senders. Seldom
does a boy make overtures in love; he gets more of it than he knows
what to do with; he is still torpid, and slightly bored by all these
attentions.
But presently he wakes up to the fact that he is a man among men, and
the obsession of “looking manly” becomes a part of his future
artificial and rhetorical life-scheme. From henceforth he plays to the
gallery.
[Illustration: Taranto: the last palm]
Reading the city papers, one would think that south Italian youths are
the most broken-hearted creatures in the world; they are always trying
to poison themselves for love. Sometimes they succeed, of course; but
sometimes—dear me, no! Suicides look manly, that is all. They are part
of the game. The more sensible youngsters know exactly how much
corrosive sublimate to take without immediate fatal consequences,
allowing for time to reach the nearest hospital. There, the kindly
physician and his stomach-pump will perform their duty, and the patient
wears a
feather in his cap for the rest of his life. The majority of these
suicides are on a par with French duels—a harmless institution whereby
the protagonists honour themselves; they confer, as it were, a patent
of virility. The country people are as warmblooded as the citizens, but
they rarely indulge in suicides because—well, there are no hospitals
handy, and the doctor may be out on his rounds. It is too risky by
half.
And a good proportion of these suicides are only simulated. The wily
victim buys some innocuous preparation which sends him into convulsions
with ghastly symptoms of poisoning, and, after treatment, remains the
enviable hero of a mysterious masculine passion. Ask any town
apothecary. A doctor friend of mine lately analysed the results of his
benevolent exertions upon a young man who had been seen to drink some
dreadful liquid out of a bottle, and was carried to his surgery,
writhing in most artistic agonies. He found not only no poison, but not
the slightest trace of any irritant whatever.
The true courtship of these Don Giovannis of Taranto will be quite
another affair—a cash transaction, and no credit allowed. They will
select a life partner, upon the advice of _ma mère_ and a strong
committee of uncles and aunts, but not until the military service is
terminated. Everything in its proper time and place.
Meanwhile they gaze and perhaps even serenade. This looks as if they
were furiously in love, and has therefore been included among the rules
of the game. Youth must keep up the poetic tradition of “fiery.”
Besides, it is an inexpensive pastime—the cinematograph costs forty
centimes—and you really cannot sit in the barber’s all night long.
But catch them marrying the wrong girl!
POSTSCRIPT.—Here are two samples of youthful love-letters from my
collection.
1.—From a disappointed maiden, aged 13. Interesting, because
intermediate between the archaic and pink-paper stages:
“IDOL OF MY HEART,
“Do not the stars call you when you look to Heaven? Does not the moon
tell you, the black-cap on the willow when it says farewell to the sun?
The birds of nature, the dreary country sadly covered by a few flowers
that remain there? Once your look was passionate and pierced me like a
sunny ray, now it seems the flame of a day. Does nothing tell you of
imperishable love?” I love you and love you as (illegible) loves its
liberty, as the
corn in the fields loves the sun, as the sailor loves the sea tranquil
or stormy. To you I would give my felicity, my future; for one of your
words I would spill my blood drop by drop.
“Of all my lovers you are the only ideal consort _(consorto)_ to whom I
would give my love and all the expansion of my soul and youthful
enthusiasm _(intusiamo),_ the greatest enthusiasm _(co-tusiamo)_ my
heart has ever known. O cruel one who has deigned to put his sweet
poison in my heart to-day, while to-morrow you will pass me with
indifference. Cold, proud as ever, serious and disdainful—you
understand? However that may be, I send you the unrepenting cry of my
rebellious heart: I love you!
“It is late at night, and I am still awake, and at this hour my soul is
sadder than ever in its great isolation _(insolamende);_ I look on my
past love and your dear image. Too much I love you and (illegible)
without your affection.
“How sadly I remember your sweet words whispered on a pathetic evening
when everything around was fair and rosy. How happy I then was when
life seemed radiant with felicity and brightened by your love. And now
nothing more remains of it; everything is finished. How sad even to say
it. My heart is shipwrecked far, far away from that happiness which I
sought.”
(Three further pages of this.)
2.—From a boy of 14 who takes the initiative; such letters are rare.
Note the business-like brevity.
“DEAR Miss ANNE,
I write you these few lines to say that I have understood your
character _(carattolo)._ Therefore, if I may have the honour of being
your sweetheart, you will let me know the answer at your pleasure. I
salute you, and remain,
“Signing myself,” SALVATORE. “Prompt reply requested!”
XII
MOLLE TARENTUM
One looks into the faces of these Tarentines and listens to their
casual conversations, trying to unravel what manner of life is theirs.
But it is difficult to avoid reading into their characters what history
leads one to think should be there.
The upper classes, among whom I have some acquaintance, are mellow and
enlightened; it is really as if something of the honied spirit of those
old Greek sages still brooded over them. Their charm lies in the fact
that they are civilized without being commercialized. Their politeness
is unstrained, their suaveness congenital; they remind me of that New
England type which for Western self-assertion substitutes a yielding
graciousness of disposition. So it is with persistent gentle
upbringing, at Taranto and elsewhere. It tones the individual to
reposeful sweetness; one by one, his anfractuosities are worn off; he
becomes as a pebble tossed in the waters, smooth, burnished, and (to
outward appearances) indistinguishable from his fellows.
But I do not care about the ordinary city folk. They have an air of
elaborate superciliousness which testifies to ages of systematic
half-culture. They seem to utter that hopeless word, _connu!_ And what,
as a matter of fact, do they know? They are only dreaming in their
little backwater, like the oysters of the lagoon, distrustful of
extraneous matter and oblivious of the movement in a world of men
beyond their shell. You hear next to nothing of “America,” that
fruitful source of fresh notions; there is no emigration to speak of;
the population is not sufficiently energetic—they prefer to stay at
home. Nor do they care much about the politics of their own country:
one sees less newspapers here than in most Italian towns. “Our middle
classes,” said my friend the Italian deputy of whom I have already
spoken, “are like our mules: to be endurable, they must be worked
thirteen hours out of the twelve.” But these have no industries to keep
them awake, no sports, no ambitions; and this has gone on for long
centuries, In Taranto it is always afternoon. “The Tarentines,” says
Strabo, “have more holidays than workdays in the year.”
And never was city-population more completely cut off from the country;
never was wider gulf between peasant and townsman. There are charming
walks beyond the New Quarter—a level region, with olives and figs and
almonds and pomegranates standing knee-deep in ripe odorous wheat; but
the citizens might be living at Timbuctu for all they know of these
things. It rains little here; on the occasion of my last visit not a
drop had fallen _for fourteen months;_ and consequently the country
roads are generally smothered in dust. Now, dusty boots are a scandal
and an offence in the eyes of the gentle burghers, who accordingly
never issue out of their town walls. They have forgotten the use of
ordinary appliances of country life, such as thick boots and
walking-sticks; you will not see them hereabouts. Unaware of this
idiosyncrasy, I used to carry a stick on my way through the streets
into the surroundings, but left it at home on learning that I was
regarded as a kind of perambulating earthquake. The spectacle of a man
clattering through the streets on horseback, such as one often sees at
Venosa, would cause them to barricade their doors and prepare for the
last judgment.
Altogether, essentially nice creatures, lotus-eaters, fearful of fuss
or novelty, and drowsily satisfied with themselves and life in general.
The breezy healthfulness of travel, the teachings of art or science,
the joys of rivers and green lanes—all these things are a closed book
to them. Their interests are narrowed down to the purely human: a case
of partial atrophy. For the purely human needs a corrective; it is not
sufficiently humbling, and that is exactly what makes them so
supercilious. We must take a little account of the Cosmos nowadays—it
helps to rectify our bearings. They have their history, no doubt. But
save for that one gleam of Periclean sunshine the record, though long
and varied, is sufficiently inglorious and does not testify to undue
exertions.
A change is at hand.
Gregorovius lamented the filthy condition of the old town. It is now
spotless.
He deplored that Taranto possessed no museum. This again is changed,
and the provincial museum here is justly praised, though the traveller
may be annoyed at finding his favourite rooms temporarily closed (is
there any museum in Italy not “partially closed for alterations”?). New
accessions to its store are continually pouring in; so they lately
discovered, in a tomb, a Hellenistic statuette of Eros and Aphrodite,
30 centimetres high, terra-cotta work of the third century. The goddess
stands,
half-timidly, while Eros alights in airy fashion on her shoulders and
fans her with his wings—an exquisite little thing.
He was grieved, likewise, that no public collection of books existed
here. But the newly founded municipal library is all that can be
desired. The stranger is cordially welcomed within its walls and may
peruse, at his leisure, old Galateus, Giovan Giovene, and the rest of
them.
Wandering among those shelves, I hit upon a recent volume (1910) which
gave me more food for thought than any of these ancients. It is called
“Cose di Puglie,” and contains some dozen articles, all by writers of
this province of old Calabria,[1] on matters of exclusively local
interest—its history, meteorology, dialects, classical references to
the country, extracts from old economic documents, notes on the
development of Apulian printing, examples of modern local caricature,
descriptions of mediæval monuments; a kind of anthology, in short, of
provincial lore. The typography, paper and illustrations of this
remarkable volume are beyond all praise; they would do honour to the
best firm in London or Paris. What is this book? It is no commercial
speculation at all; it is a wedding present to a newly married couple—a
bouquet of flowers, of intellectual blossoms, culled from their native
Apulian meadows. One notes with pleasure that the happy pair are
neither dukes nor princes. There is no trace of snobbishness in the
offering, which is simply a spontaneous expression of good wishes on
the part of a few friends. But surely it testifies to most refined
feelings. How immeasurably does this permanent and yet immaterial feast
differ from our gross wedding banquets and ponderous gilt clocks and
tea services! Such persons cannot but have the highest reverence for
things of the mind; such a gift is the fairest efflorescence of
civilization. And this is only another aspect of that undercurrent of
spirituality in south Italy of whose existence the tourist, harassed by
sordid preoccupations, remains wholly unaware.
[1] It included the heel of Italy.
This book was printed at Bari. Bari, not long ago, consisted of a dark
and tortuous old town, exactly like the citadel of Taranto. It has now
its glaring New Quarter, not a whit less disagreeable than the one
here. Why should Taranto not follow suit in the matter of culture?
Heraclea, Sybaris and all the Greek settlements along this coast have
vanished from earth; only Taranto and Cotrone have survived to carry
on, if they can, the old traditions. They have survived, thanks to
peculiar physical conditions that have safeguarded them from invaders.
. . .
But these very conditions have entailed certain drawbacks—drawbacks
which Buckle would have lovingly enumerated to prove their influence
upon the habits and disposition of the Tarentines. That marine
situation . . . only think of three thousand years of scirocco, summer
and winter! It is alone enough to explain _molle Tarentum—_enough to
drain the energy out of a Newfoundland puppy! And then, the odious dust
of the country roadways—for it _is_ odious. Had the soil been granitic,
or even of the ordinary Apennine limestone, the population might have
remained in closer contact with wild things of nature, and retained a
perennial fountain of enjoyment and inspiration. A particular kind of
rock, therefore, has helped to make them sluggish and incurious. The
insularity of their citadel has worked in the same direction, by
focussing their interests upon the purely human. That inland sea,
again: were it not an ideal breeding-place for shell-fish, the
Tarentines would long ago have learnt to vary their diet. Thirty
centuries of mussel-eating cannot but impair the physical tone of a
people.
And had the inland sea not existed, the Government would not have been
tempted to establish that arsenal which has led to the erection of the
new town and consequent municipal exactions. “The arsenal,” said a
grumbling old boatman to me, “was the beginning of our purgatory.” A
milk diet would work wonders with the health and spirits of the
citizens. But since the building of the new quarter, such a diet has
become a luxury; cows and goats will soon be scarce as the megatherium.
There is a tax of a franc a day on every cow, and a herd of ten goats,
barely enough to keep a poor man alive, must pay annually 380 francs in
octroi. These and other legalized robberies, which among a more virile
populace would cause the mayor and town council to be forthwith
attached to the nearest lamp-post, are patiently borne. It is _imbelle
Tarentum—_a race without grit.
I would also recommend the burghers some vegetables, so desirable for
their sedentary habits, but there again! it seems to be a peculiarity
of the local soil to produce hardly a leaf of salad or cabbage.
Potatoes are plainly regarded as an exotic—they are the size of English
peas, and make me think of Ruskin’s letter to those old ladies
describing the asparagus somewhere in Tuscany. And all this to the
waiter’s undisguised astonishment.
“The gentleman is rich enough to pay for meat. Why trouble about this
kind of food?”...
And yet—a change is at hand. These southern regions are waking up from
their slumber of ages. Already some of Italy’s
acutest thinkers and most brilliant politicians are drawn from these
long-neglected shores. For we must rid ourselves of that incubus of
“immutable race characters”: think only of our Anglo-Saxon race! What
has the Englishman of to-day in common with that rather lovable fop,
drunkard and bully who would faint with ecstasy over Byron’s _Parisina_
after pistolling his best friend in a duel about a wench or a lap-dog?
Such differences as exist between races of men, exist only at a given
moment.
And what, I sometimes ask myself—what is now the distinguishing feature
between these southern men and ourselves? Briefly this, I think. In
mundane matters, where the personal equation dominates, their judgment
is apt to be turbid and perverse; but as one rises into questions of
pure intelligence, it becomes serenely impartial. We, on the other
hand, who are pre-eminently clear-sighted in worldly concerns of law
and government and in all subsidiary branches of mentality, cannot
bring ourselves to reason dispassionately on non-practical subjects.
“L’esprit aussi a sa pudeur,” says Remy de Gourmont. Well, this _pudeur
de l’esprit,_ discouraged among the highest classes in England, is the
hall-mark of respectability hereabouts. A very real difference, at this
particular moment. . . .
There is an end of philosophizing.
They have ousted me from my pleasant quarters, the landlady’s son and
daughter-in-law having returned unexpectedly and claiming their
apartments. I have taken refuge in a hotel. My peace is gone; my days
in Taranto are numbered.
Loath to depart, I linger by the beach of the Ionian Sea beyond the new
town. It is littered with shells and holothurians, with antique tesser»
of blue glass and marble fragments, with white mosaic pavements and
potteries of every age, from the glossy Greco-Roman ware whose
delicately embossed shell devices are emblematic of this sea-girt city,
down to the grosser products of yesterday. Of marbles I have found
_cipollino, pavonazzetto, giallo_ and _rosso antico,_ but no harder
materials such as porphyry or serpentine. This, and the fact that the
mosaics are pure white, suggests that the houses here must have dated,
at latest, from Augustan times.[2]
[2] Nor is there any of the fashionable _verde_ _antico,_ and this
points in the same direction. Corsi says nothing as to the date of its
introduction, and I have not read the treatise of Silenziario, but my
own observations lead me to think that the _lapis_ _atracius_ can
hardly have been known under Tiberius. Not so those hard ones: they
imported wholesale by his predecessor Augustus, who was anxious to be
known as a scorner of luxury (a favourite pose with monarchs), yet
spent incalculable sums on ornamental stones both for public and
private ends. One is struck by a certain waste of material; either the
expense was deliberately disregarded or finer methods of working the
stones were not yet in vogue. A revolution in the technique of
stone-cutting must have set in soon after his death, for thenceforward
we find the most intractable rocks cut into slices thin as card-board:
too thin for pavements, and presumably for encrusting walls and
colonnades. The Augustans, unable to produce these effects naturally,
attempted imitation-stones, and with wonderful success. I have a
fragment of their plaster postiche copying the close-grained Egyptian
granite; the oily lustre of the quartz is so fresh and the peculiar
structure of the rock, with its mica scintillations, so admirably
rendered as to deceive, after two thousand years, the eye of a trained
mineralogist.
Here I sit, on the tepid shingle, listening to the plash of the waves
and watching the sun as it sinks over the western mountains that are
veiled in mists during the full daylight, but loom up, at this sunset
hour, as from a fabulous world of gold. Yonder lies the Calabrian Sila
forest, the brigands’ country. I will attack it by way of Rossano, and
thence wander, past Longobucco, across the whole region. It may be
well, after all, to come again into contact with streams and woodlands,
after this drenching of classical associations and formal civic life!
Near me stands a shore-battery which used to be called “Batteria
Chianca.” It was here they found, some twenty years ago, a fine marble
head described as a Venus, and now preserved in the local museum. I
observe that this fort has lately been re-christened “Batteria
Archyta.” Can this be due to a burst of patriotism for the Greek
warrior-sage who ruled Taranto, or is it a subtle device to mislead the
foreign spy?
Here, too, are kilns where they burn the blue clay into tiles and
vases. I time a small boy at work shaping the former. His average
output is five tiles in four minutes, including the carrying to and fro
of the moist clay; his wages about a shilling a day. But if you wish to
see the manufacture of more complicated potteries, you must go to the
unclean quarter beyond the railway station. Once there, you will not
soon weary of that potter’s wheel and the fair shapes that blossom
forth under its enchanted touch. This ware of Taranto is sent by sea to
many parts of south Italy, and you may see picturesque groups of it,
here and there, at the street corners.
Hardly has the sun disappeared before the lighthouse in the east begins
to flash. The promontory on which it stands is called San Vito after
one of the musty saints, now almost forgotten, whose names survive
along these shores. Stoutly this venerable one defended his ancient
worship against the radiant and victorious Madonna; nor did she
dislodge him from a certain famous sanctuary save by the questionable
expedient of adopting his
name: she called herself S. M. “della Vita.” That settled it. He came
from Mazzara in Sicily, whither they still carry, to his lonely shrine,
epileptics and others distraught in mind. And were I in a discursive
mood, I would endeavour to trace some connection between his
establishment here and the tarantella—between St. Vitus’ dance and that
other one which cured, they say, the bite of the Tarentine spider.
But I am not inclined for such matters at present. The Cala-brian
uplands are still visible in the gathering twilight; they draw me
onwards, away from Taranto. It must be cool up there, among the firs
and beeches.
And a land, moreover, of multiple memories and interests—this Calabria.
A land of great men. In 1737 the learned Aceti was able to enumerate
over two thousand celebrated Calabrians—athletes, generals, musicians,
centenarians, inventors, martyrs, ten popes, ten kings, as well as some
sixty conspicuous women. A land of thinkers. Old Zavarroni, born in
1705, gives us a list of seven hundred Calabrian writers; and I, for
one, would not care to bring his catalogue up to date. The recently
acquired _Biblioteca Calabra_ at Naples alone contains God knows how
many items, nearly all modern!
And who shall recount its natural attractions? Says another old writer:
“Here is all sorts of Corn, sundry Wines, and in great abundance, all
kinds of Fruits, Oyle, Hony, Wax, Saffron, Bombace, Annis and Coriander
seeds. There groweth Gum, Pitch, Turpentine and liquid Storax. In
former times it was never without Mettals, but at this present it doth
much abound, having in most parts divers sorts of Mines, as Gold,
Silver, Iron, Marble, Alabaster, Cristal, Marchesite, three sorts of
white Chaulk, Virmilion, Alume, Brimstone, and the Adamant stone, which
being in the fifth degree, draweth not Iron, and is in colour black.
There groweth hemp and flax of two sorts, the one called the male, the
other the female: there falleth Manna from heaven, truly a thing very
rare; and although there is not gathered such abundance of Silk, yet I
dare say there is not had so much in all _Italy_ besides. There are
also bathes, both hot, luke-warm, and cold, to cure many diseases. Near
the Seaside, and likewise on the Mediterrane are goodly Gardens full of
Oringes, Citrons, and Lemons of divers sorts. It is watered with many
Rivers. There are on the hils of the Apennine, thick Woods of high
Firrs, Holms, Platanes, Oaks, where grows the white odoriferous
Mushrome which shineth in the night. Here is bred the soft stone
_Frigia,_ which every month
yields a delicate and wholesome Gum, and the stone _Aetites,_ by us
called the stone _Aquilina._ In this Province there is excellent
hunting of divers creatures, as wild Hoggs, Staggs, Goats, Hares,
Foxes, Porcupines, Marmosets. There are also ravenous beasts, as
Wolves, Bears, Luzards, which are quick-sighted, and have the hinder
parts spotted with divers colours. This kind of Beast was brought from
_France_ to _Rome_ in the sports of _Pompey_ the great, and Hunters
affirm this Beast to be of so frail a memory, that although he eateth
with hunger, if he chance to look back, remembreth no more his meat,
and departing searcheth for other.” Who would not visit Calabria, if
only on the chance of beholding the speckled posterior of the
absent-minded Luzard?
XIII
INTO THE JUNGLE
This short plunge into the jungle was a relief, after the all-too-human
experiences of Taranto. The forest of Policoro skirts the Ionian; the
railway line cleaves it into two unequal portions, the seaward tract
being the smaller. It is bounded on the west by the river Sinno, and I
imagine the place has not changed much since the days when Keppel
Craven explored its recesses.
Twilight reigns in this maze of tall deciduous trees. There is thick
undergrowth, too; and I measured an old lentiscus—a shrub, in
Italy—which was three metres in circumference. But the exotic feature
of the grove is its wealth of creeping vines that clamber up the
trunks, swinging from one tree-top to another, and allowing the merest
threads of sunlight to filter through their matted canopy. Policoro has
the tangled beauty of a tropical swamp. Rank odours arise from the
decaying leaves and moist earth; and once within that verdant
labyrinth, you might well fancy yourself in some primeval region of the
globe, where the foot of man has never penetrated.
Yet long ago it resounded with the din of battle and the trumpeting of
elephants—in that furious first battle between Pyrrhus and the Romans.
And here, under the very soil on which you stand, lies buried, they
say, the ancient city of Siris.
They have dug canals to drain off the moisture as much as possible, but
the ground is marshy in many places and often quite impassable,
especially in winter. None the less, winter is the time when a little
shooting is done here, chiefly wild boars and roe-deer. They are driven
down towards the sea, but only as far as the railway line. Those that
escape into the lower portions are safe for another year, as this is
never shot over but kept as a permanent preserve. I have been told that
red-deer were introduced, but that the experiment failed; probably the
country was too hot and damp. In his account of Calabria, Duret de
Tavel[1] sometimes speaks of killing the fallow-deer, an autochthonous
Tyrrhenian beast which is now extinct on the mainland in its wild
state. Nor can he be confounding it with the roe, since he mentions the
two together—for instance, in the following note from Corigliano
(February, 1809), which must make the modern Calabrian’s mouth water:
[1] An English translation of his book appeared in 1832.
“Game has multiplied to such an extent that the fields are ravaged, and
we are rendering a real service in destroying it. I question whether
there exists in Europe a country offering more varied species. . . . We
return home followed by carriages and mules loaded with wild boars,
roe-deer, fallow-deer, hares, pheasants, wild duck, wild geese—to say
nothing of foxes and wolves, of which we have already killed an immense
quantity.”
The pheasants seem to have likewise died out, save in royal preserves.
They were introduced into Calabria by that mighty hunter Frederick II.
The parcelling out of many of these big properties has been followed by
a destruction of woodland and complete disappearance of game. It is
hailed as the beginning of a new era of prosperity; and so it well may
be, from a commercial point of view. But the traveller and lover of
nature will be glad to leave some of these wild districts in the hands
of their rich owners, who have no great interests in cultivating every
inch of ground, levelling rocky spaces, draining the land and hewing
down every tree that fails to bear fruit. Split into peasant
proprietorships, this forest would soon become a scientifically
irrigated campagna for the cultivation of tomatoes or what not, like
the “Colonia Elena,” near the Pontine Marshes. The national exchequer
would profit, without a doubt. But I question whether we should all
take the economical point of view—whether it would be wise for humanity
to do so. There is a prosperity other than material. Some solitary
artist or poet, drawing inspiration from scenes like this, might have
contributed more to the happiness of mankind than a legion of
narrow-minded, grimy and litigious tomato-planters.
To all appearances, Italy is infected just now with a laudable mania
for the “exploitation of natural resources”—at the expense, of course,
of wealthy landowners, who are described as withholding from the people
their due. The programme sounds reasonable enough; but one must not
forget that what one reads on this subject in the daily papers is
largely the campaign of a class of irresponsible pressmen and
politicians, who exploit the ignorance of weak people to fill their own
pockets. How one learns to loathe, in Italy and in England, that lovely
word _socialism,_ when one knows a little of the inner workings of the
cause and a few—just a
few!—details of the private lives of these unsavoury saviours of their
country!
The lot of the southern serfs was bad enough before America was
“discovered”; and quite unendurable in earlier times. There is a
village not many hours from Naples where, in 1789, only the personal
attendants of the feudal lord lived in ordinary houses; the two
thousand inhabitants, the serfs, took refuge in caves and shelters of
straw. Conceive the conditions in remote Calabria! Such was the
anguished poverty of the country-folk that up to the eighties of last
century they used to sell their children by regular contracts, duly
attested before the local mayors. But nowadays I listen to their
complaints with comparative indifference.
“You are badly treated, my friend? I quite believe it; indeed, I can
see it. Well, go to Argentina and sell potatoes, or to the mines of
Pennsylvania. There you will grow rich, like the rest of your
compatriots. Then return and send your sons to the University; let them
become _avvocati_ and members of Parliament, who shall harass into
their graves these wicked owners of the soil.”
This, as a matter of fact, is the career of a considerable number of
them.
For the rest, the domain of Policoro—it is spelt _Pelicaro_ in older
maps like those of Magini and Rizzi-Zannone—seems to be well
administered, and would repay a careful study. I was not encouraged,
however, to undertake this study, the manager evidently suspecting some
ulterior motive to underlie my simple questions. He was not at all
responsive to friendly overtures. Restive at first, he soon waxed
ambiguous, and finally taciturn. Perhaps he thought I was a
tax-gatherer in disguise. A large structure combining the features of
palace, fortress and convent occupies an eminence, and is supposed by
some to stand on the site of old Heracleia; it was erected by the
Jesuits; the work-people live in humble dwellings that cluster around
it. Those that are now engaged in cutting the corn receive a daily wage
of two carlini (eightpence)—the Bourbon coinage still survives in name.
You walk to this building from the station along an avenue of eucalypti
planted some forty years ago. Detesting, as I do, the whole tribe of
gum trees, I never lose an opportunity of saying exactly what I think
about this particularly odious representative of the brood, this
eyesore, this grey-haired scarecrow, this reptile of a growth with
which a pack of misguided enthusiasts have
disfigured the entire Mediterranean basin. They have now realized that
it is useless as a protection against malaria. Soon enough they will
learn that instead of preventing the disease, it actually fosters it,
by harbouring clouds of mosquitoes under its scraggy so-called foliage.
These abominations may look better on their native heath: I sincerely
hope they do. Judging by the “Dead Heart of Australia”—a book which
gave me a nightmare from which I shall never recover—I should say that
a varnished hop-pole would be an artistic godsend out there.
But from here the intruder should be expelled without mercy. A single
eucalyptus will ruin the fairest landscape. No plant on earth rustles
in such a horribly metallic fashion when the wind blows through those
everlastingly withered branches; the noise chills one to the marrow; it
is like the sibilant chattering of ghosts. Its oil is called
“medicinal” only because it happens to smell rather nasty; it is
worthless as timber, objectionable in form and hue—objectionable, above
all things, in its perverse, anti-human habits. What other tree would
have the effrontery to turn the sharp edges of its leaves—as if these
were not narrow enough already!—towards the sun, so as to be sure of
giving at all hours of the day the minimum of shade and maximum of
discomfort to mankind?
But I confess that this avenue of Policoro almost reconciled me to the
existence of the anaemic Antipodeans. Almost; since for some reason or
other (perhaps on account of the insufferably foul nature of the soil)
their foliage is here thickly tufted; it glows like burnished bronze in
the sunshine, like enamelled scales of green and gold. These eucalypti
are unique in Italy. Gazing upon them, my heart softened and I almost
forgave the gums their manifold iniquities, their diabolical thirst,
their demoralizing aspect of precocious senility and vice, their
peeling bark suggestive of unmentionable skin diseases, and that system
of radication which is nothing short of a scandal on this side of the
globe. . . .
In the exuberance of his joy at the prospect of getting rid of me, the
manager of the estate lent me a dog-cart to convey me to the forest’s
edge, as well as a sleepy-looking boy for a guide, warning me, however,
not to put so much as the point of my nose inside the jungle, on
account of the malaria which has already begun to infect the district.
One sees all too many wan faces hereabouts. Visible from the
intervening plain is a large building on the summit of a hill; it is
called Acinapura, and this is the place I should have gone to, had time
permitted, for the sake of the fine view which it must afford over the
whole Policoro region.
Herds of buffaloes wallow in the mire. An old bull, reposing in
solitary grandeur, allowed me so near an approach that I was able to
see two or three frogs hopping about his back, and engaged in catching
the mosquitoes that troubled him. How useful, if something equally
efficient and inexpensive could be devised for humanity!
[Illustration: Buffalo at Policoro]
We entered the darksome forest. The boy, who had hitherto confined
himself to monosyllables, suddenly woke up under its mysterious
influence; he became alert and affable; he related thrilling tales of
the outlaws who used to haunt these thickets, lamenting that those
happy days were over. There were the makings of a first-class brigand
in Paolo. I stimulated his brave fancy; and it was finally proposed
that I should establish myself permanently with the manager of the
estate, so that on Sundays we could have some brigand-sport together,
on the sly.
Then out again—into the broad and sunlit bed of the Sinno. The water
now ripples in bland content down a waste of shining pebbles. But its
wintry convulsions are terrific, and higher up the stream, where the
banks are steep, many lives are lost in those angry floods that rush
down from the hill-sides, filling the riverbed with a turmoil of
crested waves. At such moments, these torrents put on new faces. From
placid waterways they are transformed into living monsters, Aegirs or
dragons, that roll themselves seaward, out of their dark caverns, in
tawny coils of destruction.
XIV
DRAGONS
And precisely this angry aspect of the waters has been acclaimed as one
of the origins of that river-dragon idea which used to be common in
south Italy, before the blight of Spaniardism fell upon the land and
withered up the pagan myth-making faculty. There are streams still
perpetuating this name—the rivulet Dragone, for instance, which falls
into the Ionian not far from Cape Colonne.
A non-angry aspect of them has also been suggested as the origin: the
tortuous wanderings of rivers in the plains, like the Meander, that
recall the convolutions of the serpent. For serpent and dragon are apt
to be synonymous with the ancients.
Both these explanations, I think, are late developments in the
evolution of the dragon-image. They leave one still puzzling as to what
may be the aboriginal conception underlying this legendary beast of
earth and clouds and waters. We must go further back.
What is a dragon? An animal, one might say, which looks or regards
(Greek _drakon);_ so called, presumably, from its terrible eyes. Homer
has passages which bear out this interpretation:
Σμερδαλέον δὲ δέδορκεν, etc.
Now the Greeks were certainly sensitive to the expression of animal
eyes—witness “cow-eyed” Hera, or the opprobrious epithet “dog-eyed”;
altogether, the more we study what is left of their zoological
researches, the more we realize what close observers they were in
natural history. Aristotle, for instance, points out sexual differences
in the feet of the crawfish which were overlooked up to a short time
ago. And Hesiod also insists upon the dragon’s eyes. Yet it is
significant that _ophis,_ the snake, is derived, like _drakon,_ from a
root meaning nothing more than to perceive or regard. There is no
connotation of ferocity in either of the words. Gesner long ago
suspected that the dragon was so called simply from its keen or rapid
perception.
One likes to search for some existing animal prototype of a
fabled creature like this, seeing that to invent such things out of
sheer nothing is a feat beyond human ingenuity—or, at least, beyond
what the history of others of their kind leads us to expect. It may
well be that the Homeric writer was acquainted with the Uromastix
lizard that occurs in Asia Minor, and whoever has watched this beast,
as I have done, cannot fail to have been impressed by its contemplative
gestures, as if it were gazing intently _(drakon)_ at something. It is,
moreover, a “dweller in rocky places,” and more than this, a
vegetarian—an “eater of poisonous herbs” as Homer somewhere calls his
dragon. So Aristotle says: “When the dragon has eaten much fruit, he
seeks the juice of the bitter lettuce; he has been seen to do this.”
Are we tracking the dragon to his lair? Is this the aboriginal beast?
Not at all, I should say. On the contrary, this is a mere side-issue,
to follow which would lead us astray. The reptile-dragon was invented
when men had begun to forget what the arch-dragon was; it is the
product of a later stage—the materializing stage; that stage when
humanity sought to explain, in naturalistic fashion, the obscure
traditions of the past. We must delve still deeper. . . .
My own dragon theory is far-fetched—perhaps necessarily so, dragons
being somewhat remote animals. The dragon, I hold, is the
personification of the life within the earth—of that life which, being
unknown and uncontrollable, is _eo ipso_ hostile to man. Let me explain
how this point is reached.
The animal which _looks or regards. . . ._ Why—why an animal? Why not
_drakon =_ that which looks?
Now, what looks?
The eye.
This is the key to the understanding of the problem, the key to the
subterranean dragon-world.
The conceit of fountains or sources of water being things that see
_(drakon)—_that is, eyes—or bearing some resemblance to eyes, is common
to many races. In Italy, for example, two springs in the inland sea
near Taranto are called “Occhi”—eyes; Arabs speak of a watery fountain
as an eye; the notion exists in England top—in the “Blentarn” of
Cumberland, the blind tarn (tarn = a trickling of tears), which is
“blind” because dry and waterless, and therefore lacking the bright
lustre of the open eye.
There is an eye, then, in the fountain: an eye which looks or regards.
And inasmuch as an eye presupposes a head, and a head without body is
hard to conceive, a material existence was presently
imputed to that which looked upwards out of the liquid depths. This, I
think, is the primordial dragon, the archetype. He is of animistic
descent and survives all over the earth; and it is precisely this
universality of the dragon-idea which induces me to discard all
theories of local origin and to seek for some common cause. Fountains
are ubiquitous, and so are dragons. There are fountain dragons in
Japan, in the superstitions of Keltic races, in the Mediterranean
basin. The dragon of Wantley lived in a well; the Lambton Worm began
life in fresh water, and only took to dry land later on. I have
elsewhere spoken of the Manfredonia legend of Saint Lorenzo and the
dragon, an indigenous fable connected, I suspect, with the fountain
near the harbour of that town, and quite independent of the
newly-imported legend of Saint Michael. Various springs in Greece and
Italy are called Dragoneria; there is a cave-fountain Dragonara on
Malta, and another of the same name near Cape Misenum—all are sources
of apposite lore. The water-drac. . . .
So the dragon has grown into a subterranean monster, who peers up from
his dark abode wherever he can—out of fountains or caverns whence
fountains issue. It stands to reason that he is sleepless; all dragons
are “sleepless”; their eyes are eternally open, for the luminous
sparkle of living waters never waxes dim. And bold adventurers may well
be devoured by dragons when they fall into these watery rents, never to
appear again.
Furthermore, since gold and other treasures dear to mankind lie hidden
in the stony bowels of the earth and are hard to attain, the jealous
dragon has been accredited with their guardianship—hence the plutonic
element in his nature. The dragon, whose “ever-open eye” protected the
garden of the Hesperides, was the _Son of Earth._ The earth or
cave-dragon. . . . Calabria has some of these dragons’ caves; you can
read about them in the _Campania. Sotteranea_ of G. Sanchez.
[Illustration: The Sinno River]
In volcanic regions there are fissures in the rocks exhaling
pestiferous emanations; these are the _spiracula,_ the breathing-holes,
of the dragon within. The dragon legends of Naples and Mondragone are
probably of this origin, and so is that of the Roman Campagna (1660)
where the dragon-killer died from the effects of this poisonous breath.
Sometimes the confined monster issues in a destructive
lava-torrent—Bellerophon and the Chimæra. The fire-dragon. ... Or
floods of water suddenly stream down from the hills and fountains are
released. It is the hungry dragon, rushing from his den in search of
prey; the river-dragon. . . . He rages among the mountains with such
swiftness and impetuosity
that wings must be his portion; yes, he can cleave the heavens in the
guise of lightning, or descend upon the fertile fields as a ruinous
thunderstorm; the cloud-dragon. . . . Or again, he remains permanently
overhead, a flaming meteor in the firmament; this is the _draco volans_
of the schoolmen.
In all his protean manifestations, he represents the envious and
devastating principle; the spleenful wrath of untamed (untamable)
telluric forces. Everything strong and spiteful has conspired to
fashion our conception of the dragon. No wonder mankind, impotent,
offers sacrifices to propitiate his rage. These tributary offerings are
the dragon’s due—the toll exacted from the weak by the strong in all
mundane affairs. They are paid until the dragon-killer appears, that
rare mortal who puts an end to his depredations. For the real dragon
must be exterminated; he cannot be mollified by kindness; nobody ever
heard of a domesticated dragon; compromise is out of the question. Only
the victim of Saint George allowed himself to be led like a “meke
beest” into the city. But that was the mediæval dragon, of whom
anything can be expected.
He ultimately received a concrete form from that innate craving on the
part of humanity to give a poetic or pictorial image to its hopes and
fears. This derivative (modern) dragon is winged or unwinged, fiery or
cold, crested or smooth, of manifold hue, four-footed, two-footed,
serpentine or vermiform. Such relative variety of structure is seen in
all imaginings that spring up independently in different regions of the
globe, and are yet due to a common belief or cause. Why has he
assimilated so much of the reptilian physiognomy and framework? Well,
seeing that he had to approximate his shape to some type of beast
familiar to mankind, what better general model could have been found?
The reptile’s glassy eye; its earthward-creeping and cleft-loving
habits; its blood that recalls that chill temperature of stones and
water; its hostile pose; its ferocious tenacity of life and scaly
covering, as of metals? Memories of extinct reptilian monsters may have
helped to colour the picture, as well as that hatred of the serpent
tribe which has haunted us ever since our own arboreal days.
A prehistoric idea like this, interpretive of such diverse natural
phenomena, cannot but absorb into itself all kinds of extraneous
material, ridiculous and sublime. Like some avalanche rolling downhill,
the dragon gathers momentum on his journey athwart the ages, and is
swollen in size both by kindred beliefs that have lain in his path, and
by quite incongruous accretions.
This is chiefly the poets’ work, though the theologians have added one
or two embellishing touches. But in whatever shape he appears, whether
his eyes have borrowed a more baleful fire from heathen basilisks, or
traits of moral evil are instilled into his pernicious physique by
amalgamation with the apocalyptic Beast, he remains the vindictive
enemy of man and his ordered ways. Of late—like the Saurian tribe in
general—he has somewhat degenerated. So in modern Greece, by that
process of stultified anthropomorphism which results from grafting
Christianity upon an alien mythopoesis, he dons human attributes,
talking and acting as a man (H. F. Tozer). And here, in Calabria, he
lingers in children’s fables, as “sdrago,” a mockery of his former
self.
To follow up his wondrous metamorphoses through mediævalism would be a
pastime worthy of some leisured dilettante. How many noble shapes
acquired a tinge of absurdity in the Middle Ages! Switzerland alone,
with its mystery of untrodden crevices, used to be crammed with
dragons—particularly the calcareous (cavernous) province of Rhaetia.
Secondary dragons; for the good monks saw to it that no reminiscences
of the autochthonous beast survived. Modern scholars have devoted much
learning to the local Tazzelwurm and Bergstutz. But dragons of our
familiar kind were already well known to the chroniclers from whom old
Cysat extracted his twenty-fifth chapter (wherein, by the way, you will
learn something of Calabrian dragons); then came J. J. Wagner (1680);
then Scheuchzer, prince of dragon-finders, who informs us that
_multorum draconum historia mendax._
But it is rather a far cry from Calabria to the asthmatic Scheuchzer,
wiping the perspiration off his brow as he clambers among the Alps to
record truthful dragon yarns and untruthful barometrical observations;
or to China, dragon-land _par excellence;_[1] or even to our own
Heralds’ College, where these and other beasts have sought a refuge
from prying professors under such queer disguises that their own
mothers would hardly recognize them.
[1] In Chinese mythology the telluric element has remained
untarnished. The dragon is an earth-god, who controls the rain and
thunder clouds.
XV
BYZANTINISM
Exhausted with the morning’s walk at Policoro, a railway journey and a
long drive up nearly a thousand feet to Rossano in the heat of midday,
I sought refuge, contrary to my usual custom, in the chief hotel,
intending to rest awhile and then seek other quarters. The
establishment was described as “ganz ordentlich” in Baedeker. But,
alas! I found little peace or content. The bed on which I had hoped to
repose was already occupied by several other inmates. Prompted by
curiosity, I counted up to fifty-two of them; after that, my interest
in the matter faded away. It became too monotonous. They were all
alike, save in point of size (some were giants). A Swammerdam would
have been grieved by their lack of variety.
And this, I said to myself, in a renowned city that has given birth to
poets and orators, to saints like the great Nilus, to two popes
and—last, but not least—one anti-pope! I will not particularize the
species beyond saying that they did not hop. Nor will I return to this
theme. Let the reader once and for all take _them_ for granted.[1] Let
him note that most of the inns of this region are quite uninhabitable,
for this and other reasons, unless he takes the most elaborate
precautions. . . .
[1] They have their uses, to be sure. Says Kircher: _Cunices
lectularii potens remedium contra quartanum est, si ab inscio aegro
cum vehiculo congruo potentur; mulierum morbis medentur et uterum
prolapsum solo odore in suum locum restituunt._
Where, then, do I generally go for accommodation?
Well, as a rule I begin by calling for advice at the chemist’s shop,
where a fixed number of the older and wiser citizens congregate for a
little talk. The cafés and barbers and wine-shops are also
meeting-places of men; but those who gather here are not of the right
type—they are the young, or empty-headed, or merely thirsty. The other
is the true centre of the leisured class, the philosophers’ rendezvous.
Your _speciale_ (apothecary) is himself an elderly and honoured man,
full of responsibility and local knowledge; he is altogether a superior
person, having been
trained in a University. You enter the shop, therefore, and purchase a
pennyworth of vaseline. This act entitles you to all the privileges of
the club. Then is the moment to take a seat, smiling affably at the
assembled company, but without proffering a syllable. If this etiquette
is strictly adhered to, it will not be long ere you are politely
questioned as to your plans, your present accommodation, and so forth;
and soon several members will be vying with each other to procure you a
clean and comfortable room at half the price charged in a hotel.
Even when this end is accomplished, my connection with the pharmacy
coterie is not severed. I go there from time to time, ostensibly to
talk, but in reality to listen. Here one can feel the true pulse of the
place. Local questions are dispassionately discussed, with ample forms
of courtesy and in a language worthy of Cicero. It is the club of the
_élite._
In olden days I used to visit south Italy armed with introductions to
merchants, noblemen and landed proprietors. I have quite abandoned that
system, as these people, bless their hearts, have such cordial notions
of hospitality that from morning to night the traveller has not a
moment he can call his own. Letters to persons in authority, such as
syndics or police officers, are useless and worse than useless. Like
Chinese mandarins, these officials are so puffed up with their own
importance that it is sheer waste of time to call upon them. If wanted,
they can always be found; if not, they are best left alone. For besides
being usually the least enlightened and least amiable of the populace,
they are inordinately suspicious of political or commercial designs on
the part of strangers—God knows what visions are fermenting in their
turbid brains—and seldom let you out of their sight, once they have
known you.
Excepting at Cosenza, Cotrone and Catanzaro, an average white man will
seldom find, in any Calabrian hostelry, what he is accustomed to
consider as ordinary necessities of life. The thing is easily
explicable. These men are not yet in the habit of “handling” civilized
travellers; they fail to realize that hotel-keeping is a business to be
learnt, like tailoring or politics. They are still in the patriarchal
stage, wealthy proprietors for the most part, and quite independent of
your custom. They have not learnt the trick of Swiss servility. You
must therefore be prepared to put up with what looks like very bad
treatment. On your entrance nobody moves a step to enquire after your
wants; you must begin by foraging for yourself, and thank God if any
notice is taken of what you say; it is as if your presence were barely
tolerated. But once the stranger has learnt to pocket his pride and
treat his hosts in the same offhand fashion, he will find among them an
unconventional courtesy of the best kind.
The establishment being run as a rule by the proprietor’s own family,
gratuities with a view to exceptional treatment are refused with quiet
dignity, and even when accepted will not further your interests in the
least; on the contrary, you are thenceforward regarded as tactless and
weak in the head. Discreet praise of their native town or village is
the best way to win the hearts of the younger generation; for the
parents a little knowledge of American conditions is desirable, to
prove that you are a man of the world and worthy, a priori, of some
respect. But if there exists a man-cook, he is generally an importation
and should be periodically and liberally bribed, without knowledge of
the family, from the earliest moment. Wonderful, what a cook can do!
It is customary here not to live _en pension_ or to pay a fixed price
for any meal, the smallest item, down to a piece of bread, being
conscientiously marked against you. My system, elaborated after
considerable experimentation, is to call for this bill every morning
and, for the first day or two after arrival, dispute in friendly
fashion every item, remorselessly cutting down some of them. Not that
they overcharge; their honesty is notorious, and no difference is made
in this respect between a foreigner and a native. It is a matter of
principle. By this system, which must not be overdone, your position in
the house gradually changes; from being a guest, you become a friend, a
brother. For it is your duty to show, above all things, that you are
not _scemo_—witless, soft-headed—the unforgivable sin in the south. You
may be a forger or cut-throat—why not? It is a vocation like any other,
a vocation for _men._ But whoever cannot take care of himself—i.e. of
his money—is not to be trusted, in any walk of life; he is of no
account; he is no man. I have become firm friends with some of these
proprietors by the simple expedient of striking a few francs off their
bills; and should I ever wish to marry one of their daughters, the
surest way to predispose the whole family in my favour would be this
method of amiable but unsmiling contestation.
Of course the inns are often dirty, and not only in their sleeping
accommodation. The reason is that, like Turks or Jews, their owners do
not see dirt (there is no word for dirt in the Hebrew language); they
think it odd when you draw their attention to it. I remember
complaining, in one of my fastidious moments,
of a napkin, plainly not my own, which had been laid at my seat. There
was literally not a clean spot left on its surface, and I insisted on a
new one. I got it; but not before hearing the proprietor mutter
something about “the caprices of pregnant women.” . . .
The view from these my new quarters at Rossano compensates for divers
other little drawbacks. Down a many-folded gorge of glowing red earth
decked with olives and cistus the eye wanders to the Ionian Sea shining
in deepest turquoise tints, and beautified by a glittering margin of
white sand. To my left, the water takes a noble sweep inland; there
lies the plain of Sybaris, traversed by the Crathis of old that has
thrust a long spit of sand into the waves. On this side the outlook is
bounded by the high range of Pollino and Dolcedorme, serrated peaks
that are even now (midsummer) displaying a few patches of snow.
Clear-cut in the morning light, these exquisite mountains evaporate,
towards sunset, in an amethystine haze. A restful prospect.
But great was my amazement, on looking out of the window during the
night after my arrival, to observe the Polar star placed directly over
the Ionian Sea—the south, as I surely deemed it. A week has passed
since then, and in spite of the map I have not quite familiarized
myself with this spectacle, nor yet with that other one of the sun
setting apparently due east, over Monte Pollino.
The glory of Rossano is the image of the Madonna Achiropita.
Bartholomaeus tells us, in his life of Saint Nilus, that in olden days
she was wont to appear, clothed in purple, and drive away with a divine
torch the Saracen invaders of this town. In more recent times, too, she
has often saved the citizens from locusts, cholera, and other
calamitous visitations. Unlike most of her kind, she was not painted by
Saint Luke. She is _acheiropœta_—not painted by any human hands
whatever, and in so far resembles a certain old image of the Magna
Mater, her prototype, which was also of divine origin. It is generally
supposed that this picture is painted on wood. Not so, says Diehl; it
is a fragment of a fresco on stone.
Hard by, in the clock-tower of the square, is a marble tablet erected
to the memory of the deputy Felice Cavalotti. We all remember
Cavalotti, the last—with Imbriani—of the republican giants, a
blustering rhetorician-journalist, annihilator of monarchs and popes; a
fire-eating duellist, who deserved his uncommon and unlovely fate. He
provoked a colleague to an encounter and, during a frenzied attack,
received into his open mouth the point
of his adversary’s sword, which sealed up for ever that fountain of
eloquence and vituperation.
Cavalotti and the Virgin Achiropita—the new and the old. Really, with
such extreme ideals before his eyes, the burghers of Rossano must
sometimes wonder where righteousness lies.
They call themselves Calabrians. _Noi siamo calabresi!_ they proudly
say, meaning that they are above suspicion of unfair dealing. As a
matter of fact, they are a muddled brood, and considerably given to
cheating when there is any prospect of success. You must watch the
peasants coming home at night from their field-work if you wish to see
the true Calabrian type—whiskered, short and wiry, and of dark
complexion. There is that indescribable mark of _race_ in these
countrymen; they are different in features and character from the
Italians; it is an ascetic, a Spanish type. Your Calabrian is strangely
scornful of luxury and even comfort; a creature of few but well-chosen
words, straightforward, indifferent to pain and suffering, and dwelling
by preference, when religiously minded, on the harsher aspects of his
faith. A note of unworldliness is discoverable in his outlook upon
life. Dealing with such men, one feels that they are well disposed not
from impulse, but from some dark sense of preordained obligation. Greek
and other strains have infused versatility and a more smiling exterior;
but the groundwork of the whole remains that old _homo ibericus_ of
austere gentlemanliness.
Rossano was built by the Romans, says Procopius, and during Byzantine
days became a fortress of primary importance. An older settlement
probably lay by the seashore, and its harbour is marked as “good” so
late as the days of Edrisius. Like many of these old Calabrian ports,
it is now invaded by silt and sand, though a few ships still call
there. Wishful to learn something of the past glories of the town, I
enquired at the municipality for the public library, but was informed
by the supercilious and not over-polite secretary that this proud city
possesses no such institution. A certain priest, he added, would give
me all the desired information.
Canonico Rizzo was a delightful old man, with snowy hair and candid
blue eyes. Nothing, it seemed, could have given him greater pleasure
than my appearance at that particular moment. He discoursed awhile, and
sagely, concerning England and English literature, and then we passed
on, _via_ Milton, to Calvin and the Puritan movement in Scotland; next,
_via_ Livingstone, to colonial enterprises in Africa; and finally,
_via_ Egypt, Abyssinia, and
Prester John, to the early history of the eastern churches.
Byzantinism—Saint Nilus; that gave me the desired opportunity, and I
mentioned the object of my visit.
“The history of Rossano? Well, well! The secretary of the municipality
does me too much honour. You must read the Book of Genesis and Hesiod
and Berosus and the rest of them. But stay! I have something of more
modern date, in which you will find these ancient authors conveniently
classified.”
From this book by de Rosis, printed in 1838, I gleaned two facts,
firstly, that the city of Rossano is now 3663 years old—quite a
respectable age, as towns go—and lastly, that in the year 1500 it had
its own academy of lettered men, who called themselves “I spensierati,”
with the motto _Non alunt curas_—an echo, no doubt, of the Neapolitan
renaissance under Alfonso the Magnificent. The popes Urban VIII and
Benedict XIII belonged to this association of “thoughtless ones.” The
work ends with a formidable list of local personages distinguished in
the past for their gentleness of birth and polite accomplishments. One
wonders how all these delicately nurtured creatures can have survived
at Rossano, if their sleeping accommodation——
You might live here some little time before realizing that this place,
which seems to slope gently downhill against a pleasing background of
wooded mountains, is capable of being strongly fortified. It lies, like
other inland Calabrian (and Etruscan) cities, on ground enclosed by
stream-beds, and one of these forms a deep gully above which Rossano
towers on a smooth and perpendicular precipice. The upper part of this
wall of rock is grey sandstone; the lower a bed of red granitic matter.
From this coloured stone, which crops up everywhere, the town may have
drawn its name of Rossano (rosso = red); not a very old settlement,
therefore; although certain patriotic philologers insist upon deriving
it from “rus sanum,” healthy country. Its older names were Roscia, and
Ruscianum; it is not marked in Peutinger. Countless jackdaws and
kestrels nestle in this cliff, as well as clouds of swifts, both Alpine
and common. These swifts are the ornithological phenomenon of Rossano,
and I think the citizens have cause to be thankful for their existence;
to them I attribute the fact that there are so few flies, mosquitoes,
and other aerial plagues here. If only the amiable birds could be
induced to extend their attentions to the bedrooms as well!
This shady glen at the back of the city, with its sparse tufts of
vegetation and monstrous blocks of deep red stone cloven into rifts and
ravines by the wild waters, has a charm of its own. There are
undeniable suggestions of Hell about the place. A pathway
runs adown this vale of Hinnom, and if you follow it upwards to the
junction of the streams you will reach a road that once more ascends to
the town, past the old church of Saint Mark, a most interesting
building. It has five little cupolas, but the interior, supported by
eight columns, has been whitewashed. The structure has now rightly been
declared a “national monument.” It dates from the ninth or tenth
century and, according to Bertaux, has the same plan and the same
dimensions as the famous “Cattolica” at Stilo, which the artistic Lear,
though he stayed some time at that picturesque place, does not so much
as mention. They say that this chapel of Saint Mark was built by
Euprassius, protos-padarius of Calabria, and that in the days of Nilus
it was dedicated to Saint Anastasius.