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
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
behind the station, one would find a little collection of antiquities
unearthed hereabout. On inquiry, I found that no vehicle, and no animal
capable of being ridden, existed at Metaponto; also that the little
museum had been transferred to Naples. It did not pay to keep the
horse, they told me; a stranger asked for it only “once in a hundred
years.” However, a lad was forthcoming who would guide me to the ruins.
I breakfasted (the only thing tolerable being the wine), and we set
forth.
It was a walk of some two or three miles, by a cart road, through
fields just being ploughed for grain. All about lay a level or slightly
rolling country, which in winter becomes a wilderness of mud; dry
traces of vast slough and occasional stagnant pools showed what the
state of things would be a couple of months hence. The properties were
divided by hedges of agave—huge growths, grandly curving their
sword-pointed leaves. Its companion, the spiny cactus, writhed here and
there among juniper bushes and tamarisks. Along the wayside rose tall,
dead thistles, white with age, their great cluster of seed-vessels
showing how fine the flower had been. Above our heads, peewits were
wheeling and crying, and lizards swarmed on the hard, cracked ground.
We passed a few ploughmen, with white oxen yoked to labour. Ploughing
