[1] See next chapter.
We rested awhile, during these interminable meanderings, under the shadow of a group of pines.
“Do you see that square patch yonder?” said my man. “It is a cornfield. There Musolino shot one of his enemies, whom he suspected of giving information to the police. It was well done.”
“How many did he shoot, altogether?”
“Only eighteen. And three of them recovered, more or less; enough to limp about, at all events. Ah, if you could have seen him, sir! He was young, with curly fair hair, and a face like a rose. God alone can tell how many poor people he helped in their distress. And any young girl he met in the mountains he would help with her load and accompany as far as her home, right into her father’s house, which none of us would have risked, however much we might have liked it. But every one knew that he was pure as an angel.”
“And there was a young fellow here,” he went on, “who thought he could profit by pretending to be Musolino. So one day he challenged a proprietor with his gun, and took all his money. When it came to Musolino’s ears, he was furious—furious! He lay in wait for him, caught him, and said: “How dare you touch fathers of children? Where’s that money you took from Don Antonio?” Then the boy began to cry and tremble for his life. “Bring it,” said Musolino, “every penny, at midday next Monday, to such and such a spot, or else——” Of course he brought it. Then he marched him straight into the proprietor’s house. “Here’s this wretched boy, who robbed you in my name. And here’s the money: please count it. Now, what shall we do with him?” So Don Antonio counted the money. “It’s all there,” he said; “let him off this time.” Then Musolino turned to the lad: “You have behaved like a mannerless puppy,” he said, “without shame or knowledge of the world. Be reasonable in future, and understand clearly: I will have no brigandage in these mountains. Leave that to the syndics and judges in the towns.”
We did not traverse Musolino’s natal village, Santo Stefano; indeed, we passed through no villages at all. But after issuing from the labyrinth, we saw a few of them, perched in improbable situations—Roccaforte and Roghudi on our right; on the other side, Africo and Casalnuovo. Salis Marschlins says that the inhabitants of these regions are so wild and innocent that money is unknown; everything is done by barter. That comes of copying without discrimination. For this statement he utilized the report of a Government official, a certain Leoni, who was sent hither after the earthquake of 1783, and found the use of money not unknown, but forgotten, in consequence of this terrible catastrophe.
These vales of Aspromonte are one of the last refuges of living Byzantinism. Greek is still spoken in some places, such as Roccaforte and Roghudi. Earlier travellers confused the natives with the Albanians; Niehbuhr, who had an obsession on the subject of Hellenism, imagined they were relics of old Dorian and Achaean colonies. Scholars are apparently not yet quite decided upon certain smaller matters. So Lenormant (Vol. II, p. 433) thinks they came hither after the Turkish conquest, as did the Albanians; Batiffol argues that they were chased into Calabria from Sicily by the Arabs after the second half of the seventh century; Morosi, who treats mostly of their Apulian settlements, says that they came from the East between the sixth and tenth centuries. Many students, such as Morelli and Comparetti, have garnered their songs, language, customs and lore, and whoever wants a convenient résumé of these earlier researches will find it in Pellegrini’s book which was written in 1873 (printed 1880). He gives the number of Greek inhabitants of these places—Roghudi, for example, had 535 in his day; he has also noted down these villages, like Africo and Casalnuovo, in which the Byzantine speech has lately been lost. Bova and Condofuri are now the head-quarters of mediæval Greek in these parts.
From afar we had already descried a green range of hills that shut out the seaward view. This we now began to climb, in wearisome ascension; it is called Piè d’Impisa, because “your feet are all the time on a steep incline.” Telegraph wires here accompany the track, a survival of the war between the Italian Government and Musolino. On the summit lies a lonely Alp, Campo di Bova, where a herd of cattle were pasturing under the care of a golden-haired youth who lay supine on the grass, gazing at the clouds as they drifted in stately procession across the firmament. Save for a dusky charcoal-burner crouching in a cave, this boy was the only living person we encountered on our march—so deserted are these mountain tracks.
At Campo di Bova a path branches off to Staiti; the sea is visible once more, and there are fine glimpses, on the left, towards Staiti (or is it Ferruzzano?) and, down the right, into the destructive and dangerous torrent of Amendolea. Far beyond it, rises the mountain peak of Pentedattilo, a most singular landmark which looks exactly like a molar tooth turned upside down, with fangs in air. The road passes through a gateway in the rock whence, suddenly, a full view is disclosed of Bova on its hill-top, the houses nestling among huge blocks of stone that make one think of some cyclopean citadel of past ages. My guide stoutly denied that this was Bova; the town, he declared, lay in quite another direction. I imagine he had never been beyond the foot of the “Piè d’Impisa.”