Old Calabria | Page 9

upon for starting
next morning.
Sixty-five francs, he began by telling me, was the price paid by an
Englishman last year for a day's visit to the sacred mountain. It may
well be true--foreigners will do anything, in Italy. Or perhaps it was
only said to "encourage" me. But I am rather hard to encourage,
nowadays. I reminded the man that there was a diligence service there
and back for a franc and a half, and even that price seemed rather
extortionate. I had seen so many holy grottos in my life! And who, after
all, was this Saint Michael? The Eternal Father, perchance? Nothing of
the kind: just an ordinary angel! We had dozens of them, in England.
Fortunately, I added, I had already received an offer to join one of the

private parties who drive up, fourteen or fifteen persons behind one
diminutive pony--and that, as he well knew, would be a matter of only a
few pence. And even then, the threatening sky . . . Yes, on second
thoughts, it was perhaps wisest to postpone the excursion altogether.
Another day, if God wills! Would he accept this cigar as a recompense
for his trouble in coming?
In dizzy leaps and bounds his claims fell to eight francs. It was the
tobacco that worked the wonder; a gentleman who will give something
for nothing (such was his logic)--well, you never know what you may
not get out of him. Agree to his price, and chance it!
He consigned the cigar to his waistcoat pocket to smoke after dinner,
and departed--vanquished, but inwardly beaming with bright
anticipation.
A wretched morning was disclosed as I drew open the shutters--gusts of
rain and sleet beating against the window-panes. No matter: the
carriage stood below, and after that customary and hateful apology for
breakfast which suffices to turn the thoughts of the sanest man towards
themes of suicide and murder--when will southerners learn to eat a
proper breakfast at proper hours?--we started on our journey. The sun
came out in visions of tantalizing briefness, only to be swallowed up
again in driving murk, and of the route we traversed I noticed only the
old stony track that cuts across the twenty-one windings of the new
carriage-road here and there. I tried to picture to myself the Norman
princes, the emperors, popes, and other ten thousand pilgrims of
celebrity crawling up these rocky slopes--barefoot--on such a day as
this. It must have tried the patience even of Saint Francis of Assisi, who
pilgrimaged with the rest of them and, according to Pontanus,
performed a little miracle here en passant, as was his wont.
After about three hours' driving we reached the town of Sant' Angelo. It
was bitterly cold at this elevation of 800 metres. Acting on the advice of
the coachman, I at once descended into the sanctuary; it would be
warm down there, he thought. The great festival of 8 May was over, but
flocks of worshippers were still arriving, and picturesquely pagan they
looked in grimy, tattered garments--their staves tipped with

pine-branches and a scrip.
In the massive bronze doors of the chapel, that were made at
Constantinople in 1076 for a rich citizen of Amalfi, metal rings are
inserted; these, like a true pilgrim, you must clash furiously, to call the
attention of the Powers within to your visit; and on issuing, you must
once more knock as hard as you can, in order that the consummation of
your act of worship may be duly reported: judging by the noise made,
the deity must be very hard of hearing. Strangely deaf they are,
sometimes.
The twenty-four panels of these doors are naively encrusted with
representations, in enamel, of angel-apparitions of many kinds; some
of them are inscribed, and the following is worthy of note:
"I beg and implore the priests of Saint Michael to cleanse these gates
once a year as I have now shown them, in order that they may be
always bright and shining." The recommendation has plainly not been
carried out for a good many years past.
Having entered the portal, you climb down a long stairway amid
swarms of pious, foul clustering beggars to a vast cavern, the
archangel's abode. It is a natural recess in the rock, illuminated by
candles. Here divine service is proceeding to the accompaniment of
cheerful operatic airs from an asthmatic organ; the water drops
ceaselessly from the rocky vault on to the devout heads of kneeling
worshippers that cover the floor, lighted candle in hand, rocking
themselves ecstatically and droning and chanting. A weird scene, in
truth. And the coachman was quite right in his surmise as to the
difference in temperature. It is hot down here, damply hot, as in an
orchid-house. But the aroma cannot be described as