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

years ago a foreigner could not walk here without being assailed by the

clamour of cocchieri; nay, he was pursued from street to street,

until the driver had spent every phrase of importunate invitation; now,

one may saunter as one will, with little disturbance. Down on the

Piliero, whither I have been to take my passage for Paola, I catch but

an echo of the jubilant uproar which used to amaze me. Is Naples really

so much quieter? If I had time I would go out to Fuorigrotta, once, it

seemed to me, the noisiest village on earth, and see if there also I

observed a change. It would not be surprising if the modernization of

the city, together with the state of things throughout Italy, had a

subduing effect upon Neapolitan manners. In one respect the streets are

assuredly less gay. When I first knew Naples one was never, literally

never, out of hearing of a hand-organ; and these organs, which in

general had a peculiarly dulcet note, played the brightest of melodies;

trivial, vulgar if you will, but none the less melodious, and dear to

Naples. Now the sound of street music is rare, and I understand that

some police provision long since interfered with the soft-tongued

instruments. I miss them; for, in the matter of music, it is with me as

with Sir Thomas Browne. For Italy the change is significant enough; in

a few more years spontaneous melody will be as rare at Naples or Venice

as on the banks of the Thames.

Happily, the musicians errant still strum their mandoline as you dine.

The old trattoria in the Toledo is as good as ever, as bright, as

comfortable. I have found my old corner in one of the little rooms, and

something of the old gusto for zuppa di vongole. The homely wine of

Posillipo smacks as in days gone by, and is commended to one’s lips by

a song of the South. . . .

Last night the wind changed and the sky began to clear; this morning I

awoke in sunshine, and with a feeling of eagerness for my journey. I

shall look upon the Ionian Sea, not merely from a train or a steamboat

as before, but at long leisure: I shall see the shores where once were

Tarentum and Sybaris, Croton and Locri. Every man has his intellectual

desire; mine is to escape life as I know it and dream myself into that

old world which was the imaginative delight of my boyhood. The names of

Greece and Italy draw me as no others; they make me young again, and

restore the keen impressions of that time when every new page of Greek

or Latin was a new perception of things beautiful. The world of the

Greeks and Romans is my land of romance; a quotation in either language

thrills me strangely, and there are passages of Greek and Latin verse

which I cannot read without a dimming of the eyes, which I cannot

repeat aloud because my voice fails me. In Magna Graecia the waters of

two fountains mingle and flow together; how exquisite will be the

draught!

I drove with my luggage to the Immacolatella, and a boatman put me

aboard the steamer. Luggage, I say advisedly; it is a rather heavy

portmanteau, and I know it will be a nuisance. But the length of my

wanderings is so uncertain, its conditions are so vaguely anticipated.

I must have books if only for rainy days; I must have clothing against

a change of season. At one time I thought of taking a mere wallet, and