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

here?” “Signore, it is the Galeso.”

My pulse quickened with delight; all the more when I found that my

informant had no tincture of the classics, and that he supported Galeso

against Gialtrezze simply as a question of local interest. Joyously I

took leave of him, and very soon I was in sight of the river itself.

The river? It is barely half a mile long; it rises amid a bed of great

reeds, which quite conceal the water, and flows with an average breadth

of some ten feet down to the seashore, on either side of it bare, dusty

fields, and a few hoary olives.

The Galaesus?—the river beloved by Horace; its banks pasturing a

famous breed of sheep, with fleece so precious that it was protected by

a garment of skins? Certain it is that all the waters of Magna Graecia

have much diminished since classic times, but (unless there have been

great local changes, due, for example, to an earthquake) this brook had

always the same length, and it is hard to think of the Galaesus as so

insignificant. Disappointed, brooding, I followed the current seaward,

and upon the shore, amid scents of mint and rosemary, sat down to rest.

There was a good view of Taranto across the water; the old town on its

little island, compact of white houses, contrasting with the yellowish

tints of the great new buildings which spread over the peninsula. With

half-closed eyes, one could imagine the true Tarentum. Wavelets lapped

upon the sand before me, their music the same as two thousand years

ago. A goatherd came along, his flock straggling behind him; man and

goats were as much of the old world as of the new. Far away, the boats

of fishermen floated silently. I heard a rustle as an old fig tree hard

by dropped its latest leaves. On the sea-bank of yellow crumbling earth

lizards flashed about me in the sunshine. After a dull morning, the day

had passed into golden serenity; a stillness as of eternal peace held

earth and sky.

“Dearest of all to me is that nook of earth which yields not to

Hymettus for its honey, nor for its olive to green Venafrum; where

heaven grants a long springtime and warmth in winter, and in the sunny

hollows Bacchus fosters a vintage noble as the Falernian----” The lines

of Horace sang in my head; I thought, too, of the praise of Virgil,

who, tradition has it, wrote his Eclogues hereabouts. Of course, the

country has another aspect, in spring and early summer; I saw it at a

sad moment; but, all allowance made for seasons, it is still with

wonder that one recalls the rapture of the poets. A change beyond

conception must have come upon these shores of the Ionian Sea. The

scent of rosemary seemed to be wafted across the ages from a vanished

world.

After all, who knows whether I have seen the Galaesus? Perhaps, as some

hold, it is quite another river, flowing far to the west of Taranto

into the open gulf. Gialtrezze may have become Galeso merely because of

the desire in scholars to believe that it was the classic stream; in

other parts of Italy names have been so imposed. But I shall not give

ear to such discouraging argument. It is little likely that my search

will ever be renewed, and for me the Galaesus—”dulce Galaesi

flumen”—is the stream I found and tracked, whose waters I heard mingle

with the Little Sea. The memory has no sense of disappointment. Those

reeds which rustle about the hidden source seem to me fit shelter of a

Naiad; I am glad I could not see the water bubbling in its spring, for

there remains a mystery. Whilst I live, the Galaesus purls and glistens

in the light of that golden afternoon, and there beyond, across the

blue still depths, glimmers a vision of Tarentum.

Let Taranto try as it will to be modern and progressive, there is a

retarding force which shows little sign of being overcome—the profound

superstition of the people. A striking episode of street life reminded

me how near akin were the southern Italians of to-day to their

predecessors in what are called the dark ages; nay, to those more

illustrious ancestors who were so ready to believe that an ox had

uttered an oracle, or that a stone had shed blood. Somewhere near the

swing-bridge, where undeniable steamships go and come between the inner

and the outer sea, I saw a crowd gathered about a man who was

exhibiting a picture and expounding its purport; every other minute the

male listeners doffed their hats, and the females bowed and crossed

themselves. When I had pressed near enough to hear the speaker, I found

he was just finishing a wonderful story, in which he himself might or

might not have faith, but which plainly commanded the credit of his

auditors. Having closed his narrative, the fellow began to sell it in

printed form—little pamphlets with a rude illustration on the cover. I

bought the thing for a soldo, and read it as I walked away.

A few days ago—thus, after a pious exordium, the relation began—in

that part of Italy called Marca, there came into a railway station a

Capuchin friar of grave, thoughtful, melancholy aspect, who besought

the station-master to allow him to go without ticket by the train just