My newspaper boy came regularly for a few days, always complaining of feverish symptoms, then ceased to appear. I made inquiry: he was down with illness, and as no one took his place I suppose the regular distribution of newspapers in Cotrone was suspended. When the poor fellow again showed himself, he had a sorry visage; he sat down by my bedside (rain dripping from his hat, and mud, very thick, upon his boots) to give an account of his sufferings. I pictured the sort of retreat in which he had lain during those miserable hours. My own chamber contained merely the barest necessaries, and, as the gentleman of Cosenza would have said, "left something to be desired" in point of cleanliness. Conceive the places into which Cotrone's poorest have to crawl when they are stricken with disease. I admit, however, that the thought was worse to me at that moment than it is now. After all, the native of Cotrone has advantages over the native of a city slum; and it is better to die in a hovel by the Ionian Sea than in a cellar at Shoreditch.
The position of my room, which looked upon the piazza, enabled me to hear a great deal of what went on in the town. The life of Cotrone began about three in the morning; at that hour I heard the first voices, upon which there soon followed the bleating of goats and the tinkling of ox-bells. No doubt the greater part of the poor people were in bed by eight o'clock every evening; only those who had dealings in the outer world were stirring when the _diligenza_ arrived about ten, and I suspect that some of these snatched a nap before that late hour. Throughout the day there sounded from the piazza a ceaseless clamour of voices, such a noise as in England would only rise from some excited crowd on a rare occasion; it was increased by reverberations from the colonnade which runs all round in front of the shops. When the north-east gale had passed over, there ensued a few days of sullen calm, permitting the people to lead their ordinary life in open air. I grew to recognize certain voices, those of men who seemingly had nothing to do but to talk all day long. Only the sound reached me; I wish I could have gathered the sense of these interminable harangues and dialogues. In every country and every age those talk most who have least to say that is worth saying. These tonguesters of Cotrone had their predecessors in the public place of Croton, who began to gossip before dawn, and gabbled unceasingly till after nightfall; with their voices must often have mingled the bleating of goats or the lowing of oxen, just as I heard the sounds to-day.
One day came a street organ, accompanied by singing, and how glad I was! The first note of music, this, that I had heard at Cotrone. The instrument played only two or three airs, and one of them became a great favourite with the populace; very soon, numerous voices joined with that of the singer, and all this and the following day the melody sounded, near or far. It had the true characteristics of southern song; rising tremolos, and cadences that swept upon a wail of passion; high falsetto notes, and deep tum-tum of infinite melancholy. Scorned by the musician, yet how expressive of a people's temper, how suggestive of its history! At the moment when this strain broke upon my ear, I was thinking ill of Cotrone and its inhabitants; in the first pause of the music I reproached myself bitterly for narrowness and ingratitude. All the faults of the Italian people are whelmed in forgiveness as soon as their music sounds under the Italian sky. One remembers all they have suffered, all they have achieved in spite of wrong. Brute races have flung themselves, one after another, upon this sweet and glorious land; conquest and slavery, from age to age, have been the people's lot. Tread where one will, the soil has been drenched with blood. An immemorial woe sounds even through the lilting notes of Italian gaiety. It is a country wearied and regretful, looking ever backward to the things of old; trivial in its latter life, and unable to hope sincerely for the future. Moved by these voices singing over the dust of Croton, I asked pardon for all my foolish irritation, my impertinent fault-finding. Why had I come hither, if it was not that I loved land and people? And had I not richly known the recompense of my love?
Legitimately enough one may condemn the rulers of Italy, those who take upon themselves to shape her political life, and recklessly load her with burdens insupportable. But among the simple on Italian soil a wandering stranger has no right to nurse national superiorities, to indulge a contemptuous impatience. It is the touch of tourist vulgarity. Listen to a Calabrian peasant singing as he follows his oxen along the furrow, or as he shakes the branches of his olive tree. That wailing voice amid the ancient silence, that long lament solacing ill-rewarded toil, comes from the heart of Italy herself, and wakes the memory of mankind.
CHAPTER XI
THE MOUNT OF REFUGE
My thoughts turned continually to Catanzaro. It is a city set upon a hill, overlooking the Gulf of Squillace, and I felt that if I could but escape thither, I should regain health and strength. Here at Cotrone the air oppressed and enfeebled me; the neighbourhood of the sea brought no freshness. From time to time the fever seemed to be overcome, but it lingered still in my blood and made my nights restless. I must away to Catanzaro.
When first I spoke of this purpose to Dr. Sculco, he indulged my fancy, saying "Presently, presently!" A few days later, when I seriously asked him how soon I might with safety travel, his face expressed misgiving. Why go to Catanzaro? It was on the top of a mountain, and had a most severe climate; the winds at this season were terrible. In conscience he could not advise me to take such a step: the results might be very grave after my lung trouble. Far better wait at Cotrone for a week or two longer, and then go on to Reggio, crossing perhaps to Sicily to complete my cure. The more Dr. Sculco talked of windy altitudes, the stronger grew my desire for such a change of climate, and the more intolerable seemed my state of languishment. The weather was again stormy, but this time blew sirocco; I felt its evil breath waste my muscles, clog my veins, set all my nerves a-tremble. If I stayed here much longer, I should never get away at all. A superstitious fear crept upon me; I remembered that my last visit had been to the cemetery.
One thing was certain: I should never see the column of Hera's temple. I made my lament on this subject to Dr. Sculco, and he did his best to describe to me the scenery of the Cape. Certain white spots which I had discovered at the end of the promontory were little villas, occupied in summer by the well-to-do citizens of Cotrone; the Doctor himself owned one, which had belonged to his father before him. Some of the earliest memories of his boyhood were connected with the Cape: when he had lessons to learn by heart, he often used to recite them walking round and round the great column. In the garden of his villa he at times amused himself with digging, and a very few turns of the spade sufficed to throw out some relic of antiquity. Certain Americans, he said, obtained permission not long ago from the proprietor of the ground on which the temple stood to make serious excavations, but as soon as the Italians heard of it, they claimed the site as a national monument; the work was forbidden, and the soil had to be returned to its former state. Hard by the ancient sanctuary is a chapel, consecrated to the Madonna del Capo; thither the people of Cotrone make pilgrimages, and hold upon the Cape a rude festival, which often ends in orgiastic riot.
All the surface of the promontory is bare; not a tree, not a bush, save for a little wooded hollow called Fossa del Lupo--the wolf's den. There, says legend, armed folk of Cotrone used to lie in wait to attack the corsairs who occasionally landed for water.
When I led him to talk of Cotrone and its people, the Doctor could but confirm my observations. He contrasted the present with the past; this fever-stricken and waterless village with the great city which was called the healthiest in the world. In his opinion the physical change had resulted from the destruction of forests, which brought with it a diminution of the rainfall. "At Cotrone," he said, "we have practically no rain. A shower now and then, but never a wholesome downpour." He had no doubt that, in ancient times, all the hills of the coast were wooded, as Sila still is, and all the rivers abundantly supplied with water. To-day there was scarce a healthy man in Cotrone: no one had strength to resist a serious illness. This state of things he took very philosophically;