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

lovely nooks, where one might lie down to rest and dream; there comes a

vision of soft turf under the golden-fruited boughs—”places of

nestling green for poets made.” Alas! the soil is bare and lumpy as a

ploughed field, and all the leafage that hangs low is thick with a

clayey dust. One cannot rest or loiter or drowse; no spot in all the

groves where by any possibility one could sit down. After rambling as

long as I chose, I found that a view of the orchard from outside was

more striking than the picture amid the trees themselves. _Senza nulla

toccare_, I went my way.

CHAPTER VIII

FACES BY THE WAY

The wind could not roar itself out. Through the night it kept awaking

me, and on the morrow I found a sea foamier than ever; impossible to

reach the Colonna by boat, and almost so, I was assured, to make the

journey by land in such weather as this. Perforce I waited.

A cloudless sky; broad sunshine, warm as in an English summer; but the

roaring tramontana was disagreeably chill. No weather could be more

perilous to health. The people of Cotrone, those few of them who did

not stay at home or shelter in the porticoes, went about heavily

cloaked, and I wondered at their ability to wear such garments under so

hot a sun. Theoretically aware of the danger I was running, but, in

fact, thinking little about it, I braved the wind and the sunshine all

day long; my sketch-book gained by it, and my store of memories. First

of all, I looked into the Cathedral, an ugly edifice, as uninteresting

within as without. Like all the churches in Calabria, it is

white-washed from door to altar, pillars no less than walls—a cold and

depressing interior. I could see no picture of the least merit; one, a

figure of Christ with hideous wounds, was well-nigh as repulsive as

painting could be. This vile realism seems to indicate Spanish

influence. There is a miniature copy in bronze of the statue of the

chief Apostle in St. Peter’s at Rome, and beneath it an inscription

making known to the faithful that, by order of Leo XIII. in 1896, an

Indulgence of three hundred days is granted to whosoever kisses the

bronze toe and says a prayer. Familiar enough this unpretentious

announcement, yet it never fails of its little shock to the heretic

mind. Whilst I was standing near, a peasant went through the mystic

rite; to judge from his poor malaria-stricken countenance, he prayed

very earnestly, and I hope his Indulgence benefited him. Probably he

repeated a mere formula learnt by heart. I wished he could have prayed

spontaneously for three hundred days of wholesome and sufficient food,

and for as many years of honest, capable government in his

heavy-burdened country.

When travelling, I always visit the burial-ground; I like to see how a

people commemorates its dead, for tombstones have much significance.

The cemetery of Cotrone lies by the sea-shore, at some distance beyond

the port, far away from habitations; a bare hillside looks down upon

its graves, and the road which goes by is that leading to Cape Colonna.

On the way I passed a little ruined church, shattered, I was told, by

an earthquake three years before; its lonely position made it

interesting, and the cupola of coloured tiles (like that of the

Cathedral at Amalfi) remained intact, a bright spot against the grey

hills behind. A high enclosing wall signalled the cemetery; I rang a

bell at the gate and was admitted by a man of behaviour and language

much more refined than is common among the people of this region; I

felt sorry, indeed, that I had not found him seated in the Sindaco’s

chair that morning. But as guide to the burial-ground he was

delightful. Nine years, he told me, he had held the post of custodian,

in which time, working with his own hands, and unaided, he had turned

the enclosure from a wretched wilderness into a beautiful garden.

Unaffectedly I admired the results of his labour, and my praise

rejoiced him greatly. He specially requested me to observe the

geraniums; there were ten species, many of them of extraordinary size

and with magnificent blossoms. Roses I saw, too, in great abundance;

and tall snapdragons, and bushes of rosemary, and many flowers unknown

to me. As our talk proceeded the gardener gave me a little light on his

own history; formerly he was valet to a gentleman of Cotrone, with whom

he had travelled far and wide over Europe; yes, even to London, of

which he spoke with expressively wide eyes, and equally expressive

shaking of the head. That any one should journey from Calabria to

England seemed to him intelligible enough; but he marvelled that I had

thought it worth while to come from England to Calabria. Very rarely

indeed could he show his garden to one from a far-off country; no, the

place was too poor, accommodation too rough; there needed a certain

courage, and he laughed, again shaking his head.

The ordinary graves were marked with a small wooden cross; where a

head-stone had been raised, it generally presented a skull and crossed

bones. Round the enclosure stood a number of mortuary chapels, gloomy