We spoke of the Sila, which he had occasionally visited.
“What?” he asked incredulously, “you have crossed the whole of that country, where there is nothing to eat—nothing in the purest and most literal sense of that word? My dear sir! You must feel like Hannibal, after his passage of the Alps.”
Those barren clay-hills on our right of which Gissing speaks (they are like the balze of the Apennines) annoyed him considerably; they were the malediction of the town, he declared. At the same time, they supplied him with the groundwork of a theory for which there is a good deal to be said. The old Greek city, he conjectured, must have been largely built of bricks made from their clay, which is once more being utilized for this purpose. How else account for its utter disappearance? Much of the finer buildings were doubtless of stone, and these have been worked into the fort, the harbour and palazzi of new Cotrone; but this would never account for the vanishing of a town nearly twelve miles in circumference. Bricks, he said, would explain the mystery; they had crumbled into dust ere yet the Romans rebuilt, with old Greek stones, the city on the promontory now occupied by the new settlement.
The modern palaces on the rising ground of the citadel are worthy of a visit; they are inhabited by some half-dozen “millionaires” who have given Cotrone the reputation of being the richest town of its size in Italy. So far as I can judge, the histories of some of these wealthy families would be curious reading.
“Gentlemen,” said the Shepherd, “if you have designs of Trading, you must go another way; but if you’re of the admired sort of Men, that have the thriving qualifications of Lying and Cheating, you’re in the direct Path to Business; for in this City no Learning flourisheth; Eloquence finds no room here; nor can Temperance, Good Manners, or any Vertue meet with a Reward; assure yourselves of finding but two sorts of Men, and those are the Cheated, and those that Cheat.”
If gossip at Naples and elsewhere is to be trusted, old Petronius seems to have had a prophetic glimpse of the dessus du panier of modern Cotrone.
XXXVII
COTRONE
The sun has entered the Lion. But the temperature at Cotrone is not excessive—five degrees lower than Taranto or Milan or London. One grows weary, none the less, of the deluge of implacable light that descends, day after day, from the aether. The glistering streets are all but deserted after the early hours of the morning. A few busy folks move about till midday on the pavements; and so do I—in the water. But the long hours following luncheon are consecrated to meditation and repose.
A bundle of Italian newspapers has preceded me hither; upon these I browse dispersedly, while awaiting the soft call to slumber. Here are some provincial sheets—the “Movement” of Castrovillari—the “New Rossano”—the “Bruttian” of Corigliano, with strong literary flavour. Astonishing how decentralized Italy still is, how brimful of purely local patriotism: what conception have these men of Rome as their capital? These articles often reflect a lively turmoil of ideas, well-expressed. Who pays for such journalistic ventures? Typography is cheap, and contributors naturally content themselves with the ample remuneration of appearing in print before their fellow-citizens; a considerable number of copies are exported to America. Yet I question whether the circulation of the “New Rossano,” a fortnightly in its sixth year, can exceed five hundred copies.
But these venial and vapid Neapolitan dailies are my pet aversion. We know them, nous autres, with their odious personalities and playful blackmailing tactics; many “distinguished foreigners,” myself included, could tell a tale anent that subject. Instead of descending to such matters, let me copy—it is too good to translate—a thrilling item of news from the chiefest of them, the Mattino, which touches, furthermore, upon the all-important subject of Calabrian progress.