discovered at the end of the promontory were little villas, occupied in
summer by the well-to-do citizens of Cotrone; the Doctor himself owned
one, which had belonged to his father before him. Some of the earliest
memories of his boyhood were connected with the Cape: when he had
lessons to learn by heart, he often used to recite them walking round
and round the great column. In the garden of his villa he at times
amused himself with digging, and a very few turns of the spade sufficed
to throw out some relic of antiquity. Certain Americans, he said,
obtained permission not long ago from the proprietor of the ground on
which the temple stood to make serious excavations, but as soon as the
Italians heard of it, they claimed the site as a national monument; the
work was forbidden, and the soil had to be returned to its former
state. Hard by the ancient sanctuary is a chapel, consecrated to the
Madonna del Capo; thither the people of Cotrone make pilgrimages, and
hold upon the Cape a rude festival, which often ends in orgiastic riot.
All the surface of the promontory is bare; not a tree, not a bush, save
for a little wooded hollow called Fossa del Lupo—the wolf’s den.
There, says legend, armed folk of Cotrone used to lie in wait to attack
the corsairs who occasionally landed for water.
When I led him to talk of Cotrone and its people, the Doctor could but
confirm my observations. He contrasted the present with the past; this
fever-stricken and waterless village with the great city which was
called the healthiest in the world. In his opinion the physical change
had resulted from the destruction of forests, which brought with it a
diminution of the rainfall. “At Cotrone,” he said, “we have practically
no rain. A shower now and then, but never a wholesome downpour.” He had
no doubt that, in ancient times, all the hills of the coast were
wooded, as Sila still is, and all the rivers abundantly supplied with
water. To-day there was scarce a healthy man in Cotrone: no one had
strength to resist a serious illness. This state of things he took very
philosophically; I noticed once more the frankly mediaeval spirit in
which he regarded the populace. Talking on, he interested me by
enlarging upon the difference between southern Italians and those of
the north. Beyond Rome a Calabrian never cared to go; he found himself
in a foreign country, where his tongue betrayed him, and where his
manners were too noticeably at variance with those prevailing. Italian
unity, I am sure, meant little to the good Doctor, and appealed but
coldly to his imagination.
I declared to him at length that I could endure no longer this dreary
life of the sick-room; I must get into the open air, and, if no harm
came of the experiment, I should leave for Catanzaro. “I cannot prevent
you,” was the Doctor’s reply, “but I am obliged to point out that you
act on your own responsibility. It is
won his permission to leave the house, and acted upon it that same
afternoon. Shaking and palpitating, I slowly descended the stairs to
the colonnade; then, with a step like that of an old, old man, tottered
across the piazza, my object being to reach the chemist’s shop, where I
wished to pay for the drugs that I had had and for the tea. When I
entered, sweat was streaming from my forehead; I dropped into a chair,
