a square foot includes an incalculable multitude of such meshes.
Evidently this is the work of hot sun on moisture; but when was it
done? For they tell me that it rains very little at Cotrone, and only a
deluge could moisten this iron soil. Here and there I came upon yet
more striking evidence of waterpower; great holes on the hillside,
generally funnel-shaped, and often deep enough to be dangerous to the
careless walker. The hills are round-topped, and parted one from
another by gully or ravine, shaped, one cannot but think, by furious
torrents. A desolate landscape, and scarcely bettered when one turned
to look over the level which spreads north of the town; one discovers
patches of foliage, indeed, the dark perennial verdure of the south;
but no kindly herb clothes the soil. In springtime, it seems, there is
a growth of grass, very brief, but luxuriant. That can only be on the
lower ground; these furrowed heights declare a perpetual sterility.
What has become of the ruins of Croton? This squalid little town of
to-day has nothing left from antiquity. Yet a city bounded with a wall
of twelve miles circumference is not easily swept from the face of the
earth. Bishop Lucifer, wanting stones for his palace, had to go as far
as the Cape Colonna; then, as now, no block of Croton remained. Nearly
two hundred years before Christ the place was forsaken. Rome colonized
it anew, and it recovered an obscure life as a place of embarkation for
Greece, its houses occupying only the rock of the ancient citadel. Were
there at that date any remnants of the great Greek city?—still great
only two centuries before. Did all go to the building of Roman
dwellings and temples and walls, which since have crumbled or been
buried?
We are told that the river AEsarus flowed through the heart of the city
at its prime. I looked over the plain, and yonder, towards the distant
railway station, I descried a green track, the course of the all but
stagnant and wholly pestilential stream, still called Esaro. Near its
marshy mouth are wide orange orchards. Could one but see in vision the
harbour, the streets, the vast encompassing wall! From the eminence
where I stood, how many a friend and foe of Croton has looked down upon
its shining ways, peopled with strength and beauty and wisdom! Here
Pythagoras may have walked, glancing afar at the Lacinian sanctuary,
then new built.
Lenormant is eloquent on the orange groves of Cotrone. In order to
visit them, permission was necessary, and presently I made my way to
the town hall, to speak with the Sindaco (Mayor) and request his aid in
this matter. Without difficulty I was admitted. In a well-furnished
office sat two stout gentlemen, smoking cigars, very much at their
ease; the Sindaco bade me take a chair, and scrutinized me with
doubtful curiosity as I declared my business. Yes, to be sure he could
admit me to see his own orchard; but why did I wish to see it? My reply
that I had no interest save in the natural beauty of the place did not
convince him; he saw in me a speculator of some kind. That was natural
enough. In all the south of Italy, money is the one subject of men’s
thoughts; intellectual life does not exist; there is little even of
what we should call common education. Those who have wealth cling to it
fiercely; the majority have neither time nor inclination to occupy
