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, where 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.
[Illustration: Morano]
The whole country is full of Saracen memories. The name of Morano, they
say, is derived from _moro_,[1] 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.[2]
[1] This is all wrong, of course. And equally wrong is the derivation
from _morus,_ 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.
[2] 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 Catanzaro!
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.
[Illustration: An old Shepherd]
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 mediæval 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 Calabriæ.” 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 Hepidanus, 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——[1]
[1] 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.
[Illustration: The “Saracenic” Type]
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 Moslemism; 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.[2] 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.
[2] 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 filched 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. . . .[3]
[3] 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 terrae 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,[4] 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.
[4] 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.
In Saracen times the Venetians actually sold Christian slaves to the
Turks. Parrino cites the severe enactments which were issued in the
sixteenth century against Christian sailors who decoyed children on
board their boats and sold them as slaves to the Moslem. I question
whether the Turks were ever guilty of a corresponding infamy.
This Parrino, by the way, is useful as showing the trouble to which the
Spanish viceroys were put by the perpetual inroads of these Oriental
pests. Local militia were organized, heavy contributions levied, towers
of refuge sprang up all along the coast—every respectable house had its
private tower as well (for the dates, see G. del Giudice, _Del Grande
Archivio di Napoli,_ 1871, p. 108). The daring of the pirates knew no
bounds; they actually landed a fleet at Naples itself, and carried off
a number of prisoners. The
entire kingdom, save the inland parts, was terrorized by their
lightning-like descents.
A particular literature grew up about this time—those “Lamenti” in
rime, which set forth the distress of the various places they
afflicted.
The saints had work to do. Each divine protector fought for his own
town or village, and sometimes we see the pleasing spectacle of two
patrons of different localities joining their forces to ward off a
piratical attack upon some threatened district by means of fiery hail,
tempests, apparitions and other celestial devices. A bellicose type of
Madonna emerges, such as S. M. della Libera and S. M. di
Constantinopoli, who distinguishes herself by a fierce martial courage
in the face of the enemy. There is no doubt that these inroads acted as
a stimulus to the Christian faith; that they helped to seat the
numberless patron saints of south Italy more firmly on their thrones.
The Saracens as saint-makers. . . .
But despite occasional successes, the marine population suffered
increasingly. Historians like Summonte have left us descriptions of the
prodigious exodus of the country people from Calabria and elsewhere
into the safer capital, and how the polished citizens detested these
new arrivals.
The ominous name “Torre di Guardia” (tower of outlook)—a cliff whence
the sea was scanned for the appearance of Turkish vessels—survives all
over the south. Barbarossa, too, has left his mark; many a hill,
fountain or castle has been named after him. In the two Barbarossas
were summed up the highest qualities of the pirates, and it is curious
to think that the names of those scourges of Christendom, Uruj and
Kheir-eddin, should have been contracted into the classical forms of
Horace and Ariadne. The picturesque Uruj was painted by Velasquez; the
other entertained a polite epistolatory correspondence with Aretino,
and died, to his regret, “like a coward” in bed. I never visit
Constantinople without paying my respects to that calm tomb at
Beshiktah, where, after life’s fitful fever, sleeps the _Chief of the
Sea._
And so things went on till recently. K. Ph. Moritz writes that King
Ferdinand of Naples, during his sporting excursions to the islands of
his dominions, was always accompanied by two cruisers, to forestall the
chance of his being carried off by these _Turchi._ But his loyal
subjects had no cruisers at their disposal; they lived _Turcarum
praedonibus semper obnoxii._ Who shall calculate the effects of this
long reign of terror on the national mind?
For a thousand years—from 830 to 1830—from the days when the Amalfitans
won the proud title of “Defenders of the Faith”
up to those of the sentimental poet Waiblinger (1826), these shores
were infested by Oriental ruffians, whose activities were an
unmitigated evil. It is all very well for Admiral de la Gravière to
speak of “Gallia Victrix “—the Americans, too, might have something to
say on that point. The fact is that neither European nor American arms
crushed the pest. But for the invention of steam, the Barbary corsairs
might still be with us.
XIX
UPLANDS OF POLLINO
It has a pleasant signification, that word “Dolcedorme”: it means
_Sweet slumber._ But no one could tell me how the mountain group came
by this name; they gave me a number of explanations, all fanciful and
unconvincing.
Pollino, we are told, is derived from Apollo, and authors of olden days
sometimes write of it as “Monte Apollino.” But Barrius suggests an
alternative etymology, equally absurd, and connected with the medicinal
herbs which are found there. _Pollino,_ he says, _a polleo dictus, quod
nobilibus herbis medelae commodis polleat. Provenit enim ibi, ut ab
herbariis accepi, tragium dictamnum Cretense, chamaeleon bigenum,
draucus, meum, nardus, celtica, anonides, anemone, peucedamum, turbit,
reubarbarum, pyrethrum, juniperus ubertim, stellaria, 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 off 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.[1]
[1] 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!
[Illustration: The Peak of Pollino in June]
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 mezereon 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 “Gemüt” (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.
[Illustration: Calabrian Cows]
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.[1]
[1] A good part of these, I dare say, are 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 Theodoret, who died in 427, says, “some
bring images of eyes, others of feet, others of hands; and sometimes
they are made of gold, sometimes of silver. These votive gifts testify
to cure of maladies.” Nowadays, when they become too numerous, they are
melted down for candles; so Pericles, in some speech, talks of selling
them for the benefit of the commonwealth.
One is struck with the feast of costumes here, by far the brightest
being those of the women who have come up from the seven or eight
Albanian villages that surround these hills. In their
variegated array of chocolate-brown and white, of emerald-green and
gold and flashing violet, these dames move about the sward like
animated tropical flowers. But the Albanian girls of Cività stand out
for aristocratic elegance—pleated black silk gowns, discreetly trimmed
with gold and white lace, and open at the breast. The women of Morano,
too, make a brave show.
Night brings no respite; on the contrary, the din grows livelier than
ever; fires gleam brightly on the meadow and under the trees; the
dancers are unwearied, the bagpipers with their brazen lungs show no
signs of exhaustion. And presently the municipal music of
Castrovillari, specially hired for the occasion, ascends an improvised
bandstand and pours brisk strains into the night. Then the fireworks
begin, sensational fireworks, that have cost a mint of money; flaring
wheels and fiery devices that send forth a pungent odour; rockets of
many hues, lighting up the leafy recesses, and scaring the owls and
wolves for miles around.
Certain persons have told me that if you are of a prying disposition,
now is the time to observe amorous couples walking hand in hand into
the gloom—passionate young lovers from different villages, who have
looked forward to this night of all the year on the chance of meeting,
at last, in a fervent embrace under the friendly beeches. These same
stern men (they are always men) declare that such nocturnal festivals
are a disgrace to civilization; that the Greek Comedy, long ago,
reprobated them as disastrous to the morals of females—that they were
condemned by the Council of Elvira, by Vigilantius of Marseilles and by
the great Saint Jerome, who wrote that on such occasions no virgin
should wander a hand’s-breadth from her mother. They wish you to
believe that on these warm summer nights, when the pulses of nature are
felt and senses stirred with music and wine and dance, the _Gran Madre
di Dio_ is adored in a manner less becoming Christian youths and
maidens, than heathens celebrating mad orgies to _Magna Mater_ in
Daphne, or the Babylonian groves (where she was not worshipped at
all—though she might have been).