By the Ionian Sea | Page 7

and all I hoped to see.
Guide-books had informed me that the corriere (mail-diligence) from
Paola to Cosenza corresponded with the arrival of the Naples steamer,
and, after the combat on the beach, my first care was to inquire about
this. All and sundry made eager reply that the corriere had long since
gone; that it started, in fact, at 5 A.M., and that the only possible mode
of reaching Cosenza that day was to hire a vehicle. Experience of
Italian travel made me suspicious, but it afterwards appeared that I had
been told the truth. Clearly, if I wished to proceed at once, I must open
negotiations at my inn, and, after a leisurely meal, I did so. Very soon a
man presented himself who was willing to drive me over the
mountains--at a charge which I saw to be absurd; the twinkle in his eye
as he named the sum sufficiently enlightened me. By the book it was no
more than a journey of four hours; my driver declared that it would take
from seven to eight. After a little discussion he accepted half the
original demand, and went off very cheerfully to put in his horses.
For an hour I rambled about the town's one street, very picturesque and
rich in colour, with rushing fountains where women drew fair water in
jugs and jars of antique beauty. Whilst I was thus loitering in the
sunshine, two well-dressed men approached me, and with somewhat
excessive courtesy began conversation. They understood that I was
about to drive to Cosenza. A delightful day, and a magnificent country!
They too thought of journeying to Cosenza, and, in short, would I allow
them to share my carriage? Now this was annoying; I much preferred to

be alone with my thoughts; but it seemed ungracious to refuse. After a
glance at their smiling faces, I answered that whatever room remained
in the vehicle was at their service--on the natural understanding that
they shared the expense; and to this, with the best grace in the world,
they at once agreed. We took momentary leave of each other, with
much bowing and flourishing of hats, and the amusing thing was that I
never beheld those gentlemen again.
Fortunately--as the carriage proved to be a very small one, and the sun
was getting very hot; with two companions I should have had an
uncomfortable day. In front of the Leone a considerable number of
loafers had assembled to see me off, and of these some half-dozen were
persevering mendicants. It disappointed me that I saw no interesting
costume; all wore the common, colourless garb of our destroying age.
The only vivid memory of these people which remains with me is the
cadence of their speech. Whilst I was breakfasting, two women stood at
gossip on a near balcony, and their utterance was a curious
exaggeration of the Neapolitan accent; every sentence rose to a high
note, and fell away in a long curve of sound, sometimes a musical wail,
more often a mere whining. The protraction of the last word or two was
really astonishing; again and again I fancied that the speaker had
broken into song. I cannot say that the effect was altogether pleasant; in
the end such talk would tell severely on civilized nerves, but it
harmonized with the coloured houses, the luxuriant vegetation, the
strange odours, the romantic landscape.
In front of the vehicle were three little horses; behind it was hitched an
old shabby two-wheeled thing, which we were to leave somewhere for
repairs. With whip-cracking and vociferation, amid good-natured
farewells from the crowd, we started away. It was just ten o'clock.
At once the road began to climb, and nearly three hours were spent in
reaching the highest point of the mountain barrier. Incessantly winding,
often doubling upon itself, the road crept up the sides of profound
gorges, and skirted many a precipice; bridges innumerable spanned the
dry ravines which at another season are filled with furious torrents.
From the zone of orange and olive and cactus we passed that of beech
and oak, noble trees now shedding their rich-hued foliage on bracken
crisped and brown; here I noticed the feathery bowers of wild clematis
("old man's beard"), and many a spike of the great mullein, strange to

me because so familiar in English lanes. Through mists that floated far
below I looked over miles of shore, and outward to the ever-rising limit
of sea and sky. Very lovely were the effects of light, the gradations of
colour; from the blue-black abysses, where no shape could be
distinguished, to those violet hues upon the furrowed heights which had
a transparency, a softness, an indefiniteness, unlike anything to be seen
in northern landscape.
The driver was accompanied by a half-naked lad, who, at