"I must perforce try him in Italian," said my uncle, with a shrug.
"Dove noi siamo?"
"Yes, tell me where we are?" I added impatiently and eagerly.
Again the boy remained silent.
"My fine fellow, do you or do you not mean to speak?" cried my uncle, who began to get angry. He shook him, and spoke another dialect of the Italian language.
"Come si noma questa isola?"—"What is the name of this island?"
"Stromboli," replied the rickety little shepherd, dashing away from Hans and disappearing in the olive groves.
We thought little enough about him.
Stromboli! What effect on the imagination did these few words produce! We were in the centre of the Mediterranean, amidst the eastern archipelago of mythological memory, in the ancient Strongylos, where AEolus kept the wind and the tempest chained up. And those blue mountains, which rose towards the rising sun, were the mountains of Calabria.
And that mighty volcano which rose on the southern horizon was Etna, the fierce and celebrated Etna!