By the Ionian Sea | Page 4

at Paola. It is
now more than a twelvemonth since I began to think of Paola, and an
image of the place has grown in my mind. I picture a little _marina_; a
yellowish little town just above; and behind, rising grandly, the long
range of mountains which guard the shore of Calabria. Paola has no

special interest that I know of, but it is the nearest point on the coast to
Cosenza, which has interest in abundance; by landing here I make a
modestly adventurous beginning of my ramble in the South. At Paola
foreigners are rare; one may count upon new impressions, and the
journey over the hills will be delightful.
Were I to lend ear to the people with whom I am staying, here in the
Chiatamone, I should either abandon my project altogether or set forth
with dire misgivings. They are Neapolitans of the better class; that is to
say, they have known losses, and talk of their former happiness, when
they lived on the Chiaia and had everything handsome about them. The
head of the family strikes me as a typical figure; he is an elderly man,
with a fine head, a dignified presence, and a coldly courteous
demeanour. By preference he speaks French, and his favourite subject
is Paris. One observes in him something like disdain for his own
country, which in his mind is associated only with falling fortunes and
loss of self-respect. The cordial Italian note never sounds in his talk.
The signora (also a little ashamed of her own language) excites herself
about taxation --as well she may--and dwells with doleful vivacity on
family troubles. Both are astonished at my eccentricity and hardiness in
undertaking a solitary journey through the wild South. Their
geographical notions are vague; they have barely heard of Cosenza or
of Cotrone, and of Paola not at all; it would as soon occur to them to set
out for Morocco as for Calabria. How shall I get along with people
whose language is a barbarous dialect? Am I aware that the country is
in great part pestilential?--la febbre! Has no one informed me that in
autumn snows descend, and bury everything for months? It is useless to
explain that I only intend to visit places easily accessible, that I shall
travel mostly by railway, and that if disagreeable weather sets in I shall
quickly return northwards. They look at me dubiously, and ask
themselves (I am sure) whether I have not some more tangible motive
than a lover of classical antiquity. It ends with a compliment to the
enterprising spirit of the English race.
I have purchases to make, business to settle, and I must go hither and
thither about the town. Sirocco, of course, dusks everything to
cheerless grey, but under any sky it is dispiriting to note the changes in
Naples. Lo sventramento (the disembowelling) goes on, and regions are
transformed. It is a good thing, I suppose, that the broad Corso

Umberto I. should cut a way through the old Pendino; but what a
contrast between that native picturesqueness and the cosmopolitan
vulgarity which has usurped its place! "Napoli se ne va!" I pass the
Santa Lucia with downcast eyes, my memories of ten years ago striving
against the dulness of to-day. The harbour, whence one used to start for
Capri, is filled up; the sea has been driven to a hopeless distance
beyond a wilderness of dust-heaps. They are going to make a long,
straight embankment from the Castel dell'Ovo to the Great Port, and
before long the Santa Lucia will be an ordinary street, shut in among
huge houses, with no view at all. Ah, the nights that one lingered here,
watching the crimson glow upon Vesuvius, tracing the dark line of the
Sorrento promontory, or waiting for moonlight to cast its magic upon
floating Capri! The odours remain; the stalls of sea-fruit are as yet
undisturbed, and the jars of the water-sellers; women still comb and
bind each other's hair by the wayside, and meals are cooked and eaten
al fresco as of old. But one can see these things elsewhere, and Santa
Lucia was unique. It has become squalid. In the grey light of this sad
billowy sky, only its ancient foulness is manifest; there needs the
golden sunlight to bring out a suggestion of its ancient charm.
Has Naples grown less noisy, or does it only seem so to me? The men
with bullock carts are strangely quiet; their shouts have nothing like the
frequency and spirit of former days. In the narrow and thronged Strada
di Chiaia I find little tumult; it used to be deafening. Ten years ago a
foreigner could not walk here without being assailed by the clamour of
_cocchieri_; nay, he was pursued from street to