By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy

by George R. Gissing

  kind of stone; thought to be simply portraits of private persons. One

  peers into the faces of men, women, and children, vaguely conjecturing

  their date, their circumstances; some of them may have dwelt in the old

  time on this very spot of ground now covered by the Museum. Like other

  people who grow too rich and comfortable, the citizens of Tarentum

  loved mirth and mockery; their Greek theatre was remarkable for

  irreverent farce, for parodies of the great drama of Athens. And here

  is testimony to the fact: all manner of comic masks, of grotesque

  visages; mouths distorted into impossible grins, eyes leering and

  goggling, noses extravagant. I sketched a caricature of Medusa, the

  anguished features and snaky locks travestied with satiric grimness.

  You remember a story which illustrates this scoffing habit: how the

  Roman Ambassador, whose Greek left something to be desired, excited the

  uproarious derision of the assembled Tarentines—with results that were

  no laughing matter.

  I used the opportunity of my conversation with the Director of the

  Museum to ask his aid in discovering the river Galaesus. Who could find

  himself at Taranto without turning in thought to the Galaesus, and

  wishing to walk along its banks? Unhappily, one cannot be quite sure of

  its position. A stream there is, flowing into the Little Sea, which by

  some is called Galeso; but the country-folk commonly give it the name

  of Gialtrezze. Of course I turned my steps in that direction, to see

  and judge for myself.

  To skirt the western shore of the Mare Piccolo I had to pass the

  railway station, and there I made a few inquiries; the official with

  whom I spoke knew not the name Galeso, but informed me that the

  Gialtrezze entered the sea at a distance of some three kilometres. That

  I purposed walking such a distance to see an insignificant stream

  excited the surprise, even the friendly concern, of my interlocutor;

  again and again he assured me it was not worth while, repeating

  emphatically, “Non c’e novita.” But I went my foolish way. Of two or

  three peasants or fishermen on the road I asked the name of the little

  river I was approaching; they answered, “Gialtrezze.” Then came a man

  carrying a gun, whose smile and greeting invited question. “Can you

  tell me the name of the stream which flows into the sea just beyond

  here?” “Signore, it is the Galeso.”

  My pulse quickened with delight; all the more when I found that my

  informant had no tincture of the classics, and that he supported Galeso

  against Gialtrezze simply as a question of local interest. Joyously I

  took leave of him, and very soon I was in sight of the river itself.

  The river? It is barely half a mile long; it rises amid a bed of great

  reeds, which quite conceal the water, and flows with an average breadth

  of some ten feet down to the seashore, on either side of it bare, dusty

  fields, and a few hoary olives.

  The Galaesus?—the river beloved by Horace; its banks pasturing a

  famous breed of sheep, with fleece so precious that it was protected by

  a garment of skins? Certain it is that all the waters of Magna Graecia

  have much diminished since classic times, but (unless there have been

  great local changes, due, for example, to an earthquake) this brook had

  always the same length, and it is hard to think of the Galaesus as so

  insignificant. Disappointed, brooding, I followed the current seaward,

  and upon the shore, amid scents of mint and rosemary, sat down to rest.

  There was a good view of Taranto across the water; the old town on its

  little island, compact of white houses, contrasting with the yellowish

  tints of the great new buildings which spread over the peninsula. With

  half-closed eyes, one could imagine the true Tarentum. Wavelets lapped

  upon the sand before me, their music the same as two thousand years

  ago. A goatherd came along, his flock straggling behind him; man and

  goats were as much of the old world as of the new. Far away, the boats

  of fishermen floated silently. I heard a rustle as an old fig tree hard

  by dropped its latest leaves. On the sea-bank of yellow crumbling earth

  lizards flashed about me in the sunshine. After a dull morning, the day

  had passed into golden serenity; a stillness as of eternal peace held

  earth and sky.

  “Dearest of all to me is that nook of earth which yields not to

  Hymettus for its honey, nor for its olive to green Venafrum; where

  heaven grants a long springtime and warmth in winter, and in the sunny

  hollows Bacchus fosters a vintage noble as the Falernian----” The lines

  of Horace sang in my head; I thought, too, of the praise of Virgil,

  who, tradition has it, wrote his Eclogues hereabouts. Of course, the

  country has another aspect, in spring and early summer; I saw it at a

  sad moment; but, all allowance made for seasons, it is still with

  wonder that one recalls the rapture of the poets. A change beyond

  conception must have come upon these shores of the Ionian Sea. The

  scent of rosemary seemed to be wafted across the ages from a vanished

  world.

  After all, who knows whether I have seen the Galaesus? Perhaps, as some

  hold, it is quite another river, flowing far to the west of Taranto

  into the open gulf. Gialtrezze may have become Galeso merely because of

  the desire in scholars to believe that it was the classic stream; in

  other parts of Italy names have been so imposed. But I shall not give

  ear to such discouraging argument. It is little likely that my search

  will ever be renewed, and for me the Galaesus—”dulce Galaesi

  flumen”—is the stream I found and tracked, whose waters I heard mingle

  with the Little Sea. The memory has no sense of disappointment. Those

  reeds which rustle about the hidden source seem to me fit shelter of a

  Naiad; I am glad I could not see the water bubbling in its spring, for

  there remains a mystery. Whilst I live, the Galaesus purls and glistens

  in the light of that golden afternoon, and there beyond, across the

  blue still depths, glimmers a vision of Tarentum.

  Let Taranto try as it will to be modern and progressive, there is a

  retarding force which shows little sign of being overcome—the profound

  superstition of the people. A striking episode of street life reminded

  me how near akin were the southern Italians of to-day to their

  predecessors in what are called the dark ages; nay, to those more

  illustrious ancestors who were so ready to believe that an ox had

  uttered an oracle, or that a stone had shed blood. Somewhere near the

  swing-bridge, where undeniable steamships go and come between the inner

  and the outer sea, I saw a crowd gathered about a man who was

  exhibiting a picture and expounding its purport; every other minute the

  male listeners doffed their hats, and the females bowed and crossed

  themselves. When I had pressed near enough to hear the speaker, I found

  he was just finishing a wonderful story, in which he himself might or

  might not have faith, but which plainly commanded the credit of his

  auditors. Having closed his narrative, the fellow began to sell it in<
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  printed form—little pamphlets with a rude illustration on the cover. I

  bought the thing for a soldo, and read it as I walked away.

  A few days ago—thus, after a pious exordium, the relation began—in

  that part of Italy called Marca, there came into a railway station a

  Capuchin friar of grave, thoughtful, melancholy aspect, who besought

  the station-master to allow him to go without ticket by the train just

  starting, as he greatly desired to reach the Sanctuary of Loreto that

  day, and had no money to pay his fare The official gave a contemptuous

  refusal, and paid no heed to the entreaties of the friar, who urged all

  manner of religious motives for the granting of his request. The two

  engines on the train (which was a very long one) seemed about to steam

  away—but, behold, con grande stupore di tutti, the waggons moved not

  at all! Presently a third engine was put on, but still all efforts to

  start the train proved useless. Alone of the people who viewed this

  inexplicable event, the friar showed no astonishment; he remarked

  calmly, that so long as he was refused permission to travel by it, the

  train would not stir. At length un ricco signore found a way out of

  the difficulty by purchasing the friar a third-class ticket; with a

  grave reproof to the station-master, the friar took his seat, and the

  train went its way.

  But the matter, of course, did not end here. Indignant and amazed, and

  wishing to be revenged upon that frataccio, the station-master

  telegraphed to Loreto, that in a certain carriage of a certain train

  was travelling a friar, whom it behoved the authorities to arrest for

  having hindered the departure of the said train for fifteen minutes,

  and also for the offense of mendicancy within a railway station.

  Accordingly, the Loreto police sought the offender, but, in the

  compartment where he had travelled, found no person; there, however,

  lay a letter couched in these terms: “He who was in this waggon under

  the guise of a humble friar, has now ascended into the arms of his

  Santissima Madre Maria. He wished to make known to the world how easy

  it is for him to crush the pride of unbelievers, or to reward those who

  respect religion.”

  Nothing more was discoverable; wherefore the learned of the Church—_i

  dotti della chiesa_—came to the conclusion that under the guise of a

  friar there had actually appeared “N. S. G. C.” The Supreme Pontiff

  and his prelates had not yet delivered a judgment in the matter, but

  there could be no sort of doubt that they would pronounce the

  authenticity of the miracle. With a general assurance that the good

  Christian will be saved and the unrepentant will be damned, this

  remarkable little pamphlet came to an end. Much verbiage I have

  omitted, but the translation, as far as it goes, is literal. Doubtless

  many a humble Tarentine spelt it through that evening, with boundless

  wonder, and thought such an intervention of Providence worthy of being

  talked about, until the next stabbing case in his street provided a

  more interesting topic.

  Possibly some malevolent rationalist might note that the name of the

  railway station where this miracle befell was nowhere mentioned. Was it

  not open to him to go and make inquiries at Loreto?

  CHAPTER VI

  THE TABLE OF THE PALADINS

  For two or three days a roaring north wind whitened the sea with foam;

  it kept the sky clear, and from morning to night there was magnificent

  sunshine, but, none the less, one suffered a good deal from cold. The

  streets were barer than ever; only in the old town, where high, close

  walls afforded a good deal of shelter, was there a semblance of active

  life. But even here most of the shops seemed to have little, if any,

  business; frequently I saw the tradesman asleep in a chair, at any hour

  of daylight. Indeed, it must be very difficult to make the day pass at

  Taranto. I noticed that, as one goes southward in Italy, the later do

  ordinary people dine; appetite comes slowly in this climate. Between

  colazione at midday and pranzo at eight, or even half-past, what an

  abysm of time! Of course, the Tarantine never reads; the only bookshop

  I could discover made a poorer display than even that at Cosenza—it

  was not truly a bookseller’s at all, but a fancy stationer’s. How the

  women spend their lives one may vainly conjecture. Only on Sunday did I

  see a few of them about the street; they walked to and from Mass, with

  eyes on the ground, and all the better-dressed of them wore black.

  When the weather fell calm again, and there was pleasure in walking, I

  chanced upon a trace of the old civilization which interested me more

  than objects ranged in a museum. Rambling eastward along the outer

  shore, in the wilderness which begins as soon as the town has

  disappeared, I came to a spot as uninviting as could be imagined, great

  mounds of dry rubbish, evidently deposited here by the dust-carts of

  Taranto; luckily, I continued my walk beyond this obstacle, and after a

  while became aware that I had entered upon a road—a short piece of

  well-marked road, which began and ended in the mere waste. A moment’s

  examination, and I saw that it was no modern by-way. The track was

  clean-cut in living rock, its smooth, hard surface lined with two

  parallel ruts nearly a foot deep; it extended for some twenty yards

  without a break, and further on I discovered less perfect bits. Here,

  manifestly, was the seaside approach to Tarentum, to Taras, perhaps to

  the Phoenician city which came before them. Ages must have passed since

  vehicles used this way; the modern high road is at some distance

  inland, and one sees at a glance that this witness of ancient traffic

  has remained by Time’s sufferance in a desert region. Wonderful was the

  preservation of the surface: the angles at the sides, where the road

  had been cut down a little below the rock-level, were sharp and clean

  as if carved yesterday, and the profound ruts, worn, perhaps, before

  Rome had come to her power, showed the grinding of wheels with strange

  distinctness. From this point there is an admirable view of Taranto,

  the sea, and the mountains behind.

  Of the ancient town there remains hardly anything worthy of being

  called a ruin. Near the shore, however, one can see a few remnants of a

  theatre—perhaps that theatre where the Tarentines were sitting when

  they saw Roman galleys, in scorn of treaty, sailing up the Gulf.

  My last evenings were brightened by very beautiful sunsets; one in

  particular remains with me; I watched it for an hour or more from the

  terrace-road of the island town. An exquisite after-glow seemed as if

  it would never pass away. Above thin, grey clouds stretching along the

  horizon a purple flush melted insensibly into the dark blue of the

  zenith. Eastward the sky was piled with lurid rack, sullen-tinted folds

  edged with the hue of sulphur. The sea had a strange aspect, curved

  tracts of pale blue lying motionless upon a dark expanse rippled by the

  wind. Below me, as I leaned on the sea-wall, a fisherman’s boat crept

 
duskily along the rocks, a splash of oars soft-sounding in the

  stillness. I looked to the far Calabrian hills, now scarce

  distinguishable from horizon cloud, and wondered what chances might

  await me in the unknown scenes of my further travel.

  The long shore of the Ionian Sea suggested many a halting-place. Best

  of all, I should have liked to swing a wallet on my shoulder and make

  the whole journey on foot; but this for many reasons was impossible. I

  could only mark points of the railway where some sort of food or

  lodging might be hoped for, and the first of these stoppages was

  Metaponto.

  Official time-bills of the month marked a train for Metaponto at 4.56

  A.M., and this I decided to take, as it seemed probable that I might

  find a stay of some hours sufficient, and so be able to resume my

  journey before night. I asked the waiter to call me at a quarter to

  four. In the middle of the night (as it seemed to me) I was aroused by

  a knocking, and the waiter’s voice called to me that, if I wished to

  leave early for Metaponto, I had better get up at once, as the

  departure of the train had been changed to 4.15—it was now half-past

  three. There ensued an argument, sustained, on my side, rather by the

  desire to stay in bed this cold morning than by any faith in the

  reasonableness of the railway company. There must be a mistake! The

  orario for the month gave 4.56, and how could the time of a train be

  changed without public notice? Changed it was, insisted the waiter; it

  had happened a few days ago, and they had only heard of it at the hotel

  this very morning. Angry and uncomfortable, I got my clothes on, and

  drove to the station, where I found that a sudden change in the

  time-table, without any regard for persons relying upon the official

  guide, was taken as a matter of course. In chilly darkness I bade

  farewell to Taranto.

  At a little after six, when palest dawn was shimmering on the sea, I

  found myself at Metaponto, with no possibility of doing anything for a

  couple of hours. Metaponto is a railway station, that and nothing more,

  and, as a station also calls itself a hotel, I straightway asked for a

  room, and there dozed until sunshine improved my humour and stirred my

  appetite. The guidebook had assured me of two things: that a vehicle

  could be had here for surveying the district, and that, under cover