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

starting, as he greatly desired to reach the Sanctuary of Loreto that

day, and had no money to pay his fare The official gave a contemptuous

refusal, and paid no heed to the entreaties of the friar, who urged all

manner of religious motives for the granting of his request. The two

engines on the train (which was a very long one) seemed about to steam

away—but, behold, con grande stupore di tutti, the waggons moved not

at all! Presently a third engine was put on, but still all efforts to

start the train proved useless. Alone of the people who viewed this

inexplicable event, the friar showed no astonishment; he remarked

calmly, that so long as he was refused permission to travel by it, the

train would not stir. At length un ricco signore found a way out of

the difficulty by purchasing the friar a third-class ticket; with a

grave reproof to the station-master, the friar took his seat, and the

train went its way.

But the matter, of course, did not end here. Indignant and amazed, and

wishing to be revenged upon that frataccio, the station-master

telegraphed to Loreto, that in a certain carriage of a certain train

was travelling a friar, whom it behoved the authorities to arrest for

having hindered the departure of the said train for fifteen minutes,

and also for the offense of mendicancy within a railway station.

Accordingly, the Loreto police sought the offender, but, in the

compartment where he had travelled, found no person; there, however,

lay a letter couched in these terms: “He who was in this waggon under

the guise of a humble friar, has now ascended into the arms of his

Santissima Madre Maria. He wished to make known to the world how easy

it is for him to crush the pride of unbelievers, or to reward those who

respect religion.”

Nothing more was discoverable; wherefore the learned of the Church—_i

dotti della chiesa_—came to the conclusion that under the guise of a

friar there had actually appeared “N. S. G. C.” The Supreme Pontiff

and his prelates had not yet delivered a judgment in the matter, but

there could be no sort of doubt that they would pronounce the

authenticity of the miracle. With a general assurance that the good

Christian will be saved and the unrepentant will be damned, this

remarkable little pamphlet came to an end. Much verbiage I have

omitted, but the translation, as far as it goes, is literal. Doubtless

many a humble Tarentine spelt it through that evening, with boundless

wonder, and thought such an intervention of Providence worthy of being

talked about, until the next stabbing case in his street provided a

more interesting topic.

Possibly some malevolent rationalist might note that the name of the

railway station where this miracle befell was nowhere mentioned. Was it

not open to him to go and make inquiries at Loreto?

CHAPTER VI

THE TABLE OF THE PALADINS

For two or three days a roaring north wind whitened the sea with foam;

it kept the sky clear, and from morning to night there was magnificent

sunshine, but, none the less, one suffered a good deal from cold. The

streets were barer than ever; only in the old town, where high, close

walls afforded a good deal of shelter, was there a semblance of active

life. But even here most of the shops seemed to have little, if any,

business; frequently I saw the tradesman asleep in a chair, at any hour

of daylight. Indeed, it must be very difficult to make the day pass at

Taranto. I noticed that, as one goes southward in Italy, the later do

ordinary people dine; appetite comes slowly in this climate. Between

colazione at midday and pranzo at eight, or even half-past, what an

abysm of time! Of course, the Tarantine never reads; the only bookshop

I could discover made a poorer display than even that at Cosenza—it

was not truly a bookseller’s at all, but a fancy stationer’s. How the

women spend their lives one may vainly conjecture. Only on Sunday did I

see a few of them about the street; they walked to and from Mass, with

eyes on the ground, and all the better-dressed of them wore black.

When the weather fell calm again, and there was pleasure in walking, I

chanced upon a trace of the old civilization which interested me more

than objects ranged in a museum. Rambling eastward along the outer

shore, in the wilderness which begins as soon as the town has

disappeared, I came to a spot as uninviting as could be imagined, great

mounds of dry rubbish, evidently deposited here by the dust-carts of

Taranto; luckily, I continued my walk beyond this obstacle, and after a

while became aware that I had entered upon a road—a short piece of

well-marked road, which began and ended in the mere waste. A moment’s

examination, and I saw that it was no modern by-way. The track was

clean-cut in living rock, its smooth, hard surface lined with two

parallel ruts nearly a foot deep; it extended for some twenty yards

without a break, and further on I discovered less perfect bits. Here,

manifestly, was the seaside approach to Tarentum, to Taras, perhaps to