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

the Phoenician city which came before them. Ages must have passed since

vehicles used this way; the modern high road is at some distance

inland, and one sees at a glance that this witness of ancient traffic

has remained by Time’s sufferance in a desert region. Wonderful was the

preservation of the surface: the angles at the sides, where the road

had been cut down a little below the rock-level, were sharp and clean

as if carved yesterday, and the profound ruts, worn, perhaps, before

Rome had come to her power, showed the grinding of wheels with strange

distinctness. From this point there is an admirable view of Taranto,

the sea, and the mountains behind.

Of the ancient town there remains hardly anything worthy of being

called a ruin. Near the shore, however, one can see a few remnants of a

theatre—perhaps that theatre where the Tarentines were sitting when

they saw Roman galleys, in scorn of treaty, sailing up the Gulf.

My last evenings were brightened by very beautiful sunsets; one in

particular remains with me; I watched it for an hour or more from the

terrace-road of the island town. An exquisite after-glow seemed as if

it would never pass away. Above thin, grey clouds stretching along the

horizon a purple flush melted insensibly into the dark blue of the

zenith. Eastward the sky was piled with lurid rack, sullen-tinted folds

edged with the hue of sulphur. The sea had a strange aspect, curved

tracts of pale blue lying motionless upon a dark expanse rippled by the

wind. Below me, as I leaned on the sea-wall, a fisherman’s boat crept

duskily along the rocks, a splash of oars soft-sounding in the

stillness. I looked to the far Calabrian hills, now scarce

distinguishable from horizon cloud, and wondered what chances might

await me in the unknown scenes of my further travel.

The long shore of the Ionian Sea suggested many a halting-place. Best

of all, I should have liked to swing a wallet on my shoulder and make

the whole journey on foot; but this for many reasons was impossible. I

could only mark points of the railway where some sort of food or

lodging might be hoped for, and the first of these stoppages was

Metaponto.

Official time-bills of the month marked a train for Metaponto at 4.56

A.M., and this I decided to take, as it seemed probable that I might

find a stay of some hours sufficient, and so be able to resume my

journey before night. I asked the waiter to call me at a quarter to

four. In the middle of the night (as it seemed to me) I was aroused by

a knocking, and the waiter’s voice called to me that, if I wished to

leave early for Metaponto, I had better get up at once, as the

departure of the train had been changed to 4.15—it was now half-past

three. There ensued an argument, sustained, on my side, rather by the

desire to stay in bed this cold morning than by any faith in the

reasonableness of the railway company. There must be a mistake! The

orario for the month gave 4.56, and how could the time of a train be

changed without public notice? Changed it was, insisted the waiter; it

had happened a few days ago, and they had only heard of it at the hotel

this very morning. Angry and uncomfortable, I got my clothes on, and

drove to the station, where I found that a sudden change in the

time-table, without any regard for persons relying upon the official

guide, was taken as a matter of course. In chilly darkness I bade

farewell to Taranto.

At a little after six, when palest dawn was shimmering on the sea, I

found myself at Metaponto, with no possibility of doing anything for a

couple of hours. Metaponto is a railway station, that and nothing more,

and, as a station also calls itself a hotel, I straightway asked for a

room, and there dozed until sunshine improved my humour and stirred my

appetite. The guidebook had assured me of two things: that a vehicle

could be had here for surveying the district, and that, under cover

behind the station, one would find a little collection of antiquities

unearthed hereabout. On inquiry, I found that no vehicle, and no animal

capable of being ridden, existed at Metaponto; also that the little

museum had been transferred to Naples. It did not pay to keep the

horse, they told me; a stranger asked for it only “once in a hundred

years.” However, a lad was forthcoming who would guide me to the ruins.

I breakfasted (the only thing tolerable being the wine), and we set

forth.

It was a walk of some two or three miles, by a cart road, through

fields just being ploughed for grain. All about lay a level or slightly

rolling country, which in winter becomes a wilderness of mud; dry

traces of vast slough and occasional stagnant pools showed what the

state of things would be a couple of months hence. The properties were

divided by hedges of agave—huge growths, grandly curving their

sword-pointed leaves. Its companion, the spiny cactus, writhed here and

there among juniper bushes and tamarisks. Along the wayside rose tall,

dead thistles, white with age, their great cluster of seed-vessels

showing how fine the flower had been. Above our heads, peewits were