the port, far away from habitations; a bare hillside looks down upon
its graves, and the road which goes by is that leading to Cape Colonna.
On the way I passed a little ruined church, shattered, I was told, by
an earthquake three years before; its lonely position made it
interesting, and the cupola of coloured tiles (like that of the
Cathedral at Amalfi) remained intact, a bright spot against the grey
hills behind. A high enclosing wall signalled the cemetery; I rang a
bell at the gate and was admitted by a man of behaviour and language
much more refined than is common among the people of this region; I
felt sorry, indeed, that I had not found him seated in the Sindaco’s
chair that morning. But as guide to the burial-ground he was
delightful. Nine years, he told me, he had held the post of custodian,
in which time, working with his own hands, and unaided, he had turned
the enclosure from a wretched wilderness into a beautiful garden.
Unaffectedly I admired the results of his labour, and my praise
rejoiced him greatly. He specially requested me to observe the
geraniums; there were ten species, many of them of extraordinary size
and with magnificent blossoms. Roses I saw, too, in great abundance;
and tall snapdragons, and bushes of rosemary, and many flowers unknown
to me. As our talk proceeded the gardener gave me a little light on his
own history; formerly he was valet to a gentleman of Cotrone, with whom
he had travelled far and wide over Europe; yes, even to London, of
which he spoke with expressively wide eyes, and equally expressive
shaking of the head. That any one should journey from Calabria to
England seemed to him intelligible enough; but he marvelled that I had
thought it worth while to come from England to Calabria. Very rarely
indeed could he show his garden to one from a far-off country; no, the
place was too poor, accommodation too rough; there needed a certain
courage, and he laughed, again shaking his head.
The ordinary graves were marked with a small wooden cross; where a
head-stone had been raised, it generally presented a skull and crossed
bones. Round the enclosure stood a number of mortuary chapels, gloomy
and ugly. An exception to this dull magnificence in death was a marble
slab, newly set against the wall, in memory of a Lucifero—one of that
family, still eminent, to which belonged the sacrilegious bishop. The
design was a good imitation of those noble sepulchral tablets which
abound in the museum at Athens; a figure taking leave of others as if
going on a journey. The Lucifers had shown good taste in their choice
of the old Greek symbol; no better adornment of a tomb has ever been
devised, nor one that is half so moving. At the foot of the slab was
carved a little owl (civetta), a bird, my friend informed me, very
common about here.
When I took leave, the kindly fellow gave me a large bunch of flowers,
carefully culled, with many regrets that the lateness of the season
forbade his offering choicer blossoms. His simple good-nature and
intelligence greatly won upon me. I like to think of him as still
quietly happy amid his garden walls, tending flowers that grow over the
dead at Cotrone.
On my way back again to the town, I took a nearer view of the ruined
