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

the Concordia before I quitted Cotrone.

Next morning the wind still blew, but the rain was over; I could begin

my rambles. Like the old town of Taranto, Cotrone occupies the site of

the ancient acropolis, a little headland jutting into the sea; above,

and in front of the town itself, stands the castle built by Charles V.,

with immense battlements looking over the harbour. From a road skirting

the shore around the base of the fortress one views a wide bay, bounded

to the north by the dark flanks of Sila (I was in sight of the Black

Mountain once more), and southwards by a long low promontory, its level

slowly declining to the far-off point where it ends amid the waves. On

this Cape I fixed my eyes, straining them until it seemed to me that I

distinguished something, a jutting speck against the sky, at its

farthest point. Then I used my field-glass, and at once the doubtful

speck became a clearly visible projection, much like a lighthouse. It

is a Doric column, some five-and-twenty feet high; the one pillar that

remains of the great temple of Hera, renowned through all the Hellenic

world, and sacred still when the goddess had for centuries borne a

Latin name. “Colonna” is the ordinary name of the Cape; but it is also

known as Capo di Nau, a name which preserves the Greek word naos

(temple).

I planned for the morrow a visit to this spot, which is best reached by

sea. To-day great breakers were rolling upon the strand, and all the

blue of the bay was dashed with white foam; another night would, I

hoped, bring calm, and then the voyage! Dis aliter visum.

A little fleet of sailing vessels and coasting steamers had taken

refuge within the harbour, which is protected by a great mole. A good

haven; the only one, indeed, between Taranto and Reggio, but it grieves

one to remember that the mighty blocks built into the sea-barrier came

from that fallen temple. We are told that as late as the sixteenth

century the building remained all but perfect, with eight-and-forty

pillars, rising there above the Ionian Sea; a guide to sailors, even as

when AEneas marked it on his storm-tossed galley. Then it was assailed,

cast down, ravaged by a Bishop of Cotrone, one Antonio Lucifero, to

build his episcopal palace. Nearly three hundred years later, after the

terrible earthquake of 1783, Cotrone strengthened her harbour with the

great stones of the temple basement. It was a more legitimate pillage.

Driven inland by the gale, I wandered among low hills which overlook

the town. Their aspect is very strange, for they consist entirely—on

the surface, at all events—of a yellowish-grey mud, dried hard, and as

bare as the high road. A few yellow hawkweeds, a few camomiles, grew in

hollows here and there; but of grass not a blade. It is easy to make a

model of these Crotonian hills. Shape a solid mound of hard-pressed

sand, and then, from the height of a foot or two, let water trickle

down upon it; the perpendicular ridges and furrows thus formed upon the

miniature hill represent exactly what I saw here on a larger scale.

Moreover, all the face of the ground is minutely cracked and wrinkled;

a square foot includes an incalculable multitude of such meshes.

Evidently this is the work of hot sun on moisture; but when was it

done? For they tell me that it rains very little at Cotrone, and only a

deluge could moisten this iron soil. Here and there I came upon yet

more striking evidence of waterpower; great holes on the hillside,

generally funnel-shaped, and often deep enough to be dangerous to the

careless walker. The hills are round-topped, and parted one from

another by gully or ravine, shaped, one cannot but think, by furious

torrents. A desolate landscape, and scarcely bettered when one turned

to look over the level which spreads north of the town; one discovers

patches of foliage, indeed, the dark perennial verdure of the south;

but no kindly herb clothes the soil. In springtime, it seems, there is

a growth of grass, very brief, but luxuriant. That can only be on the

lower ground; these furrowed heights declare a perpetual sterility.

What has become of the ruins of Croton? This squalid little town of

to-day has nothing left from antiquity. Yet a city bounded with a wall

of twelve miles circumference is not easily swept from the face of the

earth. Bishop Lucifer, wanting stones for his palace, had to go as far

as the Cape Colonna; then, as now, no block of Croton remained. Nearly

two hundred years before Christ the place was forsaken. Rome colonized

it anew, and it recovered an obscure life as a place of embarkation for

Greece, its houses occupying only the rock of the ancient citadel. Were

there at that date any remnants of the great Greek city?—still great

only two centuries before. Did all go to the building of Roman

dwellings and temples and walls, which since have crumbled or been

buried?

We are told that the river AEsarus flowed through the heart of the city

at its prime. I looked over the plain, and yonder, towards the distant