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You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** Title: Old Calabria Author: Norman Douglas Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7385] [This file was first posted on April 23, 2003] Edition: 10 Language: English Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1 *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, OLD CALABRIA *** Eric Eldred OLD CALABRIA BY NORMAN DOUGLAS CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents ....................................................................................................................... 3 I SARACEN LUCERA ...................................................................................................... 5 II MANFRED'S TOWN ................................................................................................. 13 III THE ANGEL OF MANFREDONIA .............................................................................. 19 IV CAVE-WORSHIP ..................................................................................................... 25 V LAND OF HORACE ................................................................................................... 32 VI AT VENOSA ............................................................................................................ 38 VII THE BANDUSIAN FOUNT ....................................................................................... 42 VIII TILLERS OF THE SOIL ............................................................................................. 47 IX MOVING SOUTHWARDS......................................................................................... 61 X THE FLYING MONK .................................................................................................. 70 XI BY THE INLAND SEA................................................................................................ 75 XII MOLLE TARENTUM ............................................................................................... 85 XIII INTO THE JUNGLE ................................................................................................. 92 XIV DRAGONS ............................................................................................................ 97 XV BYZANTINISM ..................................................................................................... 101 XVI REPOSING AT CASTROVILLARI ............................................................................ 112 XVII OLD MORANO................................................................................................... 123 XVIII AFRICAN INTRUDERS ....................................................................................... 129 XIX UPLANDS OF POLLINO........................................................................................ 136 XX A MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL....................................................................................... 144 XXI MILTON IN CALABRIA ......................................................................................... 153 XXII THE "GREEK" SILA ............................................................................................. 165 XXIII ALBANIANS AND THEIR COLLEGE ..................................................................... 174 XXIV AN ALBANIAN SEER ......................................................................................... 180 XXV SCRAMBLING TO LONGOBUCCO ....................................................................... 185 XXVI AMONG THE BRUTTIANS ................................................................................. 194 XXVII CALABRIAN BRIGANDAGE ............................................................................... 202 XXVIII THE GREATER SILA ......................................................................................... 207 XXIX CHAOS ............................................................................................................. 217 XXX THE SKIRTS OF MONTALTO ............................................................................... 229 XXXI SOUTHERN SAINTLINESS .................................................................................. 236 XXXII ASPROMONTE, THE CLOUD-GATHERER ........................................................... 256 XXXIII MUSOLINO AND THE LAW ............................................................................. 262 XXXIV MALARIA ....................................................................................................... 268 XXXV CAULONIA TO SERRA ...................................................................................... 275 XXXVI MEMORIES OF GISSING ................................................................................. 283 XXXVII COTRONE ...................................................................................................... 290 XXXVIII THE SAGE OF CROTON ................................................................................. 296 XXXIX MIDDAY AT PETELIA....................................................................................... 300 XL THE COLUMN....................................................................................................... 303 I SARACEN LUCERA I find it hard to sum up in one word the character of Lucera—the effect it produces on the mind; one sees so many towns that the freshness of their images becomes blurred. The houses are low but not undignified; the streets regular and clean; there is electric light and somewhat indifferent accommodation for travellers; an infinity of barbers and chemists. Nothing remarkable in all this. Yet the character is there, if one could but seize upon it, since every place has its genius. Perhaps it lies in a certain feeling of aloofness that never leaves one here. We are on a hill—a mere wave of ground; a kind of spur, rather, rising up from, the south—quite an absurd little hill, but sufficiently high to dominate the wide Apulian plain. And the nakedness of the land stimulates this aerial sense. There are some trees in the "Belvedere" or public garden that lies on the highest part of the spur and affords a fine view north and eastwards. But the greater part were only planted a few years ago, and those stretches of brown earth, those half- finished walks and straggling pigmy shrubs, give the place a crude and embryonic appearance. One thinks that the designers might have done more in the way of variety; there are no conifers excepting a few cryptomerias and yews which will all be dead in a couple of years, and as for those yuccas, beloved of Italian municipalities, they will have grown more dyspeptic-looking than ever. None the less, the garden will be a pleasant spot when the ilex shall have grown higher; even now it is the favourite evening walk of the citizens. Altogether, these public parks, which are now being planted all over south Italy, testify to renascent taste; they and the burial-places are often the only spots where the deafened and light-bedazzled stranger may find a little green content; the content, respectively, of L'Allegro and Il Penseroso. So the cemetery of Lucera, with its ordered walks drowned in the shade of cypress—roses and gleaming marble monuments in between—is a charming retreat, not only for the dead. The Belvedere, however, is not my promenade. My promenade lies yonder, on the other side of the valley, where the grave old Suabian castle sits on its emerald slope. It does not frown; it reposes firmly, with an air of tranquil and assured domination; "it has found its place," as an Italian observed to me. Long before Frederick Barbarossa made it the centre of his southern dominions, long before the Romans had their fortress on the site, this eminence must have been regarded as the key of Apulia. All round the outside of those turreted walls (they are nearly a mile in circumference; the enclosure, they say, held sixty thousand people) there runs a level space. This is my promenade, at all hours of the day. Falcons are fluttering with wild cries overhead; down below, a long unimpeded vista of velvety green, flecked by a few trees and sullen streamlets and white farmhouses—the whole vision framed in a ring of distant Apennines. The volcanic cone of Mount Vulture, land of Horace, can be detected on clear days; it tempts me to explore those regions. But eastward rises up the promontory of Mount Gargano, and on the summit of its nearest hill one perceives a cheerful building, some village or convent, that beckons imperiously across the intervening lowlands. Yonder lies the venerable shrine of the archangel Michael, and Manfred's town. This castle being a national monument, they have appointed a custodian to take charge of it; a worthless old fellow, full of