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

of Sybaris, a palatable white wine called Muscato dei Saraceni.

Appropriate enough amid this vast silence to turn one’s thoughts to the

Saracens, who are so largely answerable for the ages of desolation that

have passed by the Ionian Sea.

Then on for Taranto, where we arrived in the afternoon. Meaning to stay

for a week or two I sought a pleasant room in a well-situated hotel,

and I found one with a good view of town and harbour. The Taranto of

old days, when it was called Taras, or later Tarentum, stood on a long

peninsula, which divides a little inland sea from the great sea

without. In the Middle Ages the town occupied only the point of this

neck of land, which, by the cutting of an artificial channel, had been

made into an island: now again it is spreading over the whole of the

ancient site; great buildings of yellowish-white stone, as ugly as

modern architect can make them, and plainly far in excess of the actual

demand for habitations, rise where Phoenicians and Greeks and Romans

built after the nobler fashion of their times. One of my windows looked

towards the old town, with its long sea-wall where fishermen’s nets

hung drying, the dome of its Cathedral, the high, squeezed houses,

often with gardens on the roofs, and the swing-bridge which links it to

the mainland; the other gave me a view across the Mare Piccolo, the

Little Sea (it is some twelve miles round about), dotted in many parts

with crossed stakes which mark the oyster-beds, and lined on this side

with a variety of shipping moored at quays. From some of these vessels,

early next morning, sounded suddenly a furious cannonade, which

threatened to shatter the windows of the hotel; I found it was in

honour of the Queen of Italy, whose festa fell on that day. This

barbarous uproar must have sounded even to the Calabrian heights; it

struck me as more meaningless in its deafening volley of noise than any

note of joy or triumph that could ever have been heard in old Tarentum.

I walked all round the island part of the town; lost myself amid its

maze of streets, or alleys rather, for in many places one could touch

both sides with outstretched arms, and rested in the Cathedral of S.

Cataldo, who, by the bye, was an Irishman. All is strange, but too

close-packed to be very striking or beautiful; I found it best to

linger on the sea-wall, looking at the two islands in the offing, and

over the great gulf with its mountain shore stretching beyond sight. On

the rocks below stood fishermen hauling in a great net, whilst a boy

splashed the water to drive the fish back until they were safely

enveloped in the last meshes; admirable figures, consummate in graceful

strength, their bare legs and arms the tone of terra cotta. What slight

clothing they wore became them perfectly, as is always the case with a

costume well adapted to the natural life of its wearers. Their slow,

patient effort speaks of immemorial usage, and it is in harmony with

time itself. These fishermen are the primitives of Taranto; who shall

say for how many centuries they have hauled their nets upon the rock?

When Plato visited the Schools of Taras, he saw the same brown-legged

figures, in much the same garb, gathering their sea-harvest. When

Hannibal, beset by the Romans, drew his ships across the peninsula and

so escaped from the inner sea, fishermen of Tarentum went forth as

ever, seeking their daily food. A thousand years passed, and the fury

of the Saracens, when it had laid the city low, spared some humble

Tarentine and the net by which he lived. To-day the fisher-folk form a

colony apart; they speak a dialect which retains many Greek words

unknown to the rest of the population. I could not gaze at them long

enough; their lithe limbs, their attitudes at work or in repose, their

wild, black hair, perpetually reminded me of shapes pictured on a

classic vase.

Later in the day I came upon a figure scarcely less impressive. Beyond

the new quarter of the town, on the ragged edge of its wide,

half-peopled streets, lies a tract of olive orchards and of seed-land;

there, alone amid great bare fields, a countryman was ploughing. The

wooden plough, as regards its form, might have been thousands of years

old; it was drawn by a little donkey, and traced in the soil—the

generous southern soil—the merest scratch of a furrow. I could not but

approach the man and exchange words with him; his rude but gentle face,

his gnarled hands, his rough and scanty vesture, moved me to a deep

respect, and when his speech fell upon my ear, it was as though I

listened to one of the ancestors of our kind. Stopping in his work, he

answered my inquiries with careful civility; certain phrases escaped

me, but on the whole he made himself quite intelligible, and was glad,

I could see, when my words proved that I understood him. I drew apart,

and watched him again. Never have I seen man so utterly patient, so

primaevally deliberate. The donkey’s method of ploughing was to pull

for one minute, and then rest for two; it excited in the ploughman not