"Torquato Tasso of Sorrento."
"What! the author of——"
"Gierusalemme Liberata," said the prisoner, bowing profoundly. A shout of acclamation burst from the band, and the 'king of the open country' knelt on the sod, kissed the hand of the poet, and restoring to him his baggage, escorted him in person beyond the dangerous passes of the mountains.
"All this, and much more, I have heard in the nursery; but as neither of us happen to be a Tasso, and king Marco has long since gone to the shades, any adventure we may have with his successors and imitators will not terminate so pleasantly. Look there, signor, and behold a competition of minstrels! Hark! we shall hear music equalling the pipe of Hermes!"
Under the vine-covered verandah of a cantina, sat six or eight of the Chasseurs Britanniques, and Free Calabrians, who, by the red appearance of their eyes, had evidently been carousing all night, and were yet dreaming over their half-drained flagons; while the empty jars, cards and dice scattered on the board, informed us that they had enjoyed the night so merrily that they were not yet inclined to separate.
An itinerant performer on the zampogna, or Italian bagpipe, was playing for the entertainment of the drowsy revellers, when a gigantic Scot in dark tartan, one of Macleod's regimental pipers, passed by on his way to the Strada Larga, to play a rouse for the soldiers billeted there. Stopping before the cantina, the Scottish piper surveyed with surprise and curiosity the little chanter and inflated skin of the Calabrian's primitive bagpipe; while at the music of this feeble reed, the face of the Highlander gradually contracted, from a ludicrous expression of wonder, to a formidable scowl of Gaelic contempt. He threw the three long drones of the great war-pipe over his left shoulder, and puffing up its mighty bag, in an instant poured forth the wild northern pibroch of the race of Seaforth. The strange variations and tremendous din of the Highland bagpipe astounded the poor little zampognatore, whose notes were lost amid the shrill and sonorous tempest which poured forth so volubly from the pipe of the Highlander; whom he regarded for a time with a droll look of silent wonder, and then slank away, retreating backwards, while his stalwart rival strode after him, taking step for step, and blowing fiercely, as he literally "walked into" the discomfited Italian.
Discordant as the "war-note" of clan Kenneth must have been to the nice Italian ear of Castelermo, he would fain have stayed to listen; but his fiery Neapolitan horse had no such inclination: after snorting and prancing, it set off at a speed which soon left far behind the towers and ramparts of Crotona.
During the cool morning our ride was a very pleasant one, as the road lay through a level part of the country, covered with rich crops and studded with little villages and olive groves, interspersed with lofty elms and clumps of pale green willow overhanging gurgling rivulets; but the scene changed as we penetrated among the mountains, where we rode on for miles without encountering a human being, save perhaps some smoke-begrimed charcoal-burner, or bandit-like peasant, in pursuit of the red deer which abound in those wild places. At times the road wound between the green and solitary hills, through gorges like the bed of a dried up river, where the rocks frowned grimly, rising up on each side like walls of basalt or iron: but they were not devoid of beauty, for in their clefts flourished the daphne and the rhododendron, blue monk's-hood, pink fox-glove, and the whortle-berry; while the bronze masses of dark Italian pines shed their sombre influence over the scene from the summit of the cliffs above.
The scorching heat soon compelled us to take shelter in the hut of a shepherd during the sultry noon. We met him on the lonely mountains with his flock of goats, the tinkle of whose brass bells awoke the echoes of the hollow valley whence they were ascending. He walked lazily in front, playing drowsily on the zampogna, and the herded flock followed in close order behind, drawn after him either by the charms of his pipe, or by the dread of a sharp-nosed sheepdog with long white hair, who formed the rear guard, and watched his fleecy charge with red ferret-like eyes. His poor cabin could afford us nothing more than a morsel of coarse cake, a handful of olives, and the manna or congealed dew, which in the morning is gathered on the mulberry leaves in Calabria; in lieu of wine we had a draught of the limpid water that gurgled from a rustic fount, supplying the duct or hollowed tree that lay before the door, and was half buried in the turf for the convenience of his flock.
The shepherd was clad in a doublet and waistcoat of rough undressed skins with the wool outside, fastened by ties of thong or horn buttons, red cotton breeches, and a broad-leafed hat of plaited straw adorned with a clay image of the Madonna; long uncombed locks waved in sable masses on his brawny breast and muscular neck, which like his legs and feet were sunburnt and bare; a pouch and knife hung at his girdle, and his face, which perhaps had never been touched by a razor, was fringed by a short and thick black beard. In ideas and manners he was perhaps little different from the shepherds who inhabited these very mountains when the trumpets of Hannibal awoke their echoes; only he prayed not to "thundering Jove" but to Madonna, believed in the miracles of St. Hugh and the holy Eufemio instead of the amours and valorous deeds of Pan, and kept Lent in lieu of the Lupercalia of the Latins.