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

waiter, to come down with me and secure my luggage. More trouble before

I could find a bedroom; hunting for keys, wandering up and down stone

stairs and along pitch-black corridors, sounds of voices in quarrel.

The room itself was utterly depressing—so bare, so grimy, so dark.

Quickly I examined the bed, and was rewarded. It is the good point of

Italian inns; be the house and the room howsoever sordid, the bed is

almost invariably clean and dry and comfortable.

I ate, not amiss; I drank copiously to the memory of Alaric, and felt

equal to any fortune. When night had fallen I walked a little about the

scarce-lighted streets and came to an open place, dark and solitary and

silent, where I could hear the voices of the two streams as they

mingled below the hill. Presently I passed an open office of some kind,

where a pleasant-looking man sat at a table writing; on an impulse I

entered, and made bold to ask whether Cosenza had no better inn than

the Due Lionetti. Great was this gentleman’s courtesy; he laid down

his pen, as if for ever, and gave himself wholly to my concerns. His

discourse delighted me, so flowing were the phrases, so rounded the

periods. Yes, there were other inns; one at the top of the town—the

Vetere—in a very good position; and they doubtless excelled my own

in modern comfort. As a matter of fact, it might be avowed that the

Lionetti, from the point of view of the great centres of

civilization, left something to be desired—something to be desired;

but it was a good old inn, a reputable old inn, and probably on further

acquaintance----

Further acquaintance did not increase my respect for the Lionetti; it

would not be easy to describe those features in which, most notably, it

fell short of all that might be desired. But I proposed no long stay at

Cosenza, where malarial fever is endemic, and it did not seem worth

while to change my quarters. I slept very well.

I had come here to think about Alaric, and with my own eyes to behold

the place of his burial. Ever since the first boyish reading of Gibbon,

my imagination has loved to play upon that scene of Alaric’s death.

Thinking to conquer Sicily, the Visigoth marched as far as to the

capital of the Bruttii, those mountain tribes which Rome herself never

really subdued; at Consentia he fell sick and died. How often had I

longed to see this river Busento, which the “labour of a captive

multitude” turned aside, that its flood might cover and conceal for all

time the tomb of the Conqueror! I saw it in the light of sunrise,

flowing amid low, brown, olive-planted hills; at this time of the year

it is a narrow, but rapid stream, running through a wide, waste bed of

yellow sand and stones. The Crati, which here has only just started

upon its long seaward way from some glen of Sila, presents much the

same appearance, the track which it has worn in flood being many times

as broad as the actual current. They flow, these historic waters, with

a pleasant sound, overborne at moments by the clapping noise of

Cosenza’s washerwomen, who cleanse their linen by beating it, then

leave it to dry on the river-bed. Along the banks stood tall poplars,

each a spire of burnished gold, blazing against the dark olive foliage

on the slopes behind them; plane trees, also, very rich of colour, and

fig trees shedding their latest leaves. Now, tradition has it that

Alaric was buried close to the confluence of the Busento and the Crati.

If so, he lay in full view of the town. But the Goths are said to have

slain all their prisoners who took part in the work, to ensure secrecy.

Are we to suppose that Consentia was depopulated? On any other

supposition the story must be incorrect, and Alaric’s tomb would have

to be sought at least half a mile away, where the Busento is hidden in

its deep valley.

Gibbon, by the way, calls it Busentinus; the true Latin was Buxentius.

To make sure of the present name, I questioned some half a dozen

peasants, who all named the river Basenzio or Basenz’; a countryman of

more intelligent appearance assured me that this was only a dialectical

form, the true one being Busento. At a bookseller’s shop (Cosenza had

one, a very little one) I found the same opinion to prevail.

It is difficult to walk much in this climate; lassitude and feverish

symptoms follow on the slightest exertion; but—if one can disregard

the evil smells which everywhere catch one’s breath—Cosenza has

wonders and delights which tempt to day-long rambling. To call the town

picturesque is to use an inadequate word; at every step, from the

opening of the main street at the hill-foot up to the stern mediaeval

castle crowning its height, one marvels and admires. So narrow are the

ways that a cart drives the pedestrian into shop or alley; two vehicles

(but perhaps the thing never happened) would with difficulty pass each

other. As in all towns of Southern Italy, the number of hair-dressers

is astonishing, and they hang out the barber’s basin—the very basin

(of shining brass and with a semicircle cut out of the rim) which the