Old Calabria

and places--Matthew, Mark, Nikander, Onofrius, Pirgiano (Pyrgos) and so forth. Small wonder, for these easter

to appear to a Greek bishop of Sipontum, Laurentius by name; and ever since that time a certain cavern,

honourable cave"; on sunny days its houses are clearly visible from Manfredonia. They who wish to pay t

ned to have done with the trip, be the weather what it might. A coachma

ard 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

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he threatening sky . . . Yes, on second thoughts, it was perhaps wisest to postpone the excursion altog

ked the wonder; a gentleman who will give something for nothing (such was his logic)--

to smoke after dinner, and departed--vanquished

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 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 w

malfi, metal rings are inserted; these, like a true pilgrim, you must clash furiously, to call the attentio

of Manfr

reported: judging by the noise made, the deity must be

representations, in enamel, of angel-apparitions of many kinds;

ar as I have now shown them, in order that they may be always bright and shining

elessly 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

regard without a certain amount of disquietude such passionate pilgrims. Give them their new Messiah, and all our painfully accumulated art and knowledge, all that reconciles civilized man to earthly existence, is blown to the winds. So

profiting by a gleam of sunshine, climbed up to where, above t

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walls. These sovereigns were murdered in so many castles that one wonders how they ever found time to be alive at all. The structure is

feudal absurdity" bears a number like any i

omises to keep them amused for any length of time--in fact, until the next craze is invented. Meanwhile, so long as the fit lasts, half a million bright-eyed officials, burning with youthful ardour, are employed in affixing these numerals, briskly entering them into ten tim

tile, type; and lastly, by certain clean-shaven old men of the place. These venerable and decorative brigands--for such they would have been, a few years ago--now stood peacefully at their thresholds, wearing a most becoming cloak of thick brown wool, shaped like a burnous. The garment interested me; it may be a legacy from the Arabs who dominated this r

on clear days. Standing there, I looked i

of' Manf

stive of dewy glades; how remote they were, under such dispiriting clouds! I shall never see

ti Gargani laborent Et

all that region was enshrouded in a grey curtain of vapour; only the Stagno Salso--a salt mere whe

t he had been searching for me all over the town, fearing that some mischief might have happened to me. I was touched by these words; touched, that is, by his child-like simplicity in imagining that he could bring me to believe a sta

induce me to set down here, assailed my ears, coming up--apparently--out of the bowels of the earth. I stopped to listen, shocked to hear ribald language in a holy town like this; then, impelled by curiosity, descended a long flight of steps and found myself

olved; pilgrims who think no more of crossing to Pittsburg than of a drive to Manfredonia. But their ca

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; and I also heard several unorthodox allusions to the "angel-business," which was described as "played out," as well as a remark to the effect that "only damn-fools stay

was universally agreed that, whatever the other drawbacks of Sant' A

the tobacco-smoke. And here, leaning against the door-post, stood the coachman who had divined my whereabouts by some dark masonic intuition of sympathy. His face expanded into an inept smile, and I quickly saw tha

rent to our fates, we glided down, in a vertiginous but maste

sunshine greeted our

VE-WO

m," so they will tell you. It is more likely that he entered it as an extirpating warrior, to oust that heathen shape which Strabo describes as dwelling in its dank recesses, and to

h who gives us food and receives us after death. Grotto-apparitions, old and new, are but the popular explanations of this dim primordial craving, and hierophants of all ages have understood the commercial value of the holy shu

iterature and is bound up with the name of the poet Marino, it is still a passably virile figure. But those countless others, in churches or over house-doors--do they indeed portray the drag

sence of so many solemn deities has now, in extreme old ag

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ivinity and manly strength has been boiled out of him. So young and earthly fair, he looks, rather, like some pretty boy dressed u

ly if they are to retain the love of their worshippers. Granted. We do not need a scarred and hirsute ve

youth ended; by his side As in a glist'ring zodiac hung th

an archangel of

Satan, has suffered a similar transformation. He is shrunk int

are dragged down to the level of their lowest adorers, for the whole flock adapts its pace to that of the weakest lamb. No self-respecting deity will endure this treatment--to be popularized and made intelligible to a crowd. Divinity comprehended of the masses ceases to be efficacious; the Egyptians and

tately Minister of the Lord, girt with a sword of flame! We see it in the Italian Madonna of whom, whatever her mental acq

Wors

a doll. It was the same in days of old. Apollo (whom Saint Michael has supplanted), and Eros, and Aphrodite--they all go through a process of saccharine de

social security. Divinity reflects its human creators and their environment; grandiose or warlike gods become superfluous, and finally incomprehensible, in humdrum days of peace. In order to survive, our deities (like the rest of us) must have a certain plasticity. If recalcitrant, the

he Renaissance, when these winged messengers were amalgamated with pagan amoretti and began to flutter in foolish baroque fashion about the Queen of Heaven, after the pattern of the disreputable little genii attendant upon a Venus of a bad school. That same instinct which degraded a youthful Eros into the childish Cupid was the death-stroke to the pristine

stial Messenger, but it can hardly be supposed that the worshi

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elings in regard to this great c

purchased three of these modern tracts printed respectively at Bitonto, Molfet

vi dal!' inferno E a Regno S

ul; it ends with a goodly list, in twenty-five verses, of the miracles performed by the angel, such as helping women in childbirth, curing the blind, and other wonders that differ nothing from thos

CRED STONES OF THE G

they have been placed as relics of sepulchres and altars. Furthermore, it is known that during the plague which afflicted the kingdom of Naples in the year 1656, Monsignor G. A. Puccini, archbishop of

nd this may account for the rapid

etary of God, Liberator from Infernal Chains, Defender in the Hour of Death, Custodian of the Pope, Spirit of Light, Wise

Worsh

re? And yet, as if these complicated and responsible functions did not suffice for his energies, he has twenty others, among t

and dazed-looking girls; boys, too weak to handle a spade at home, pathetically uncouth, with mouths agape and eyes expressing every grade of uncontrolled emotion--from wildest joy to downright idiotcy. How one realizes, down in this cavern, the effect upon some cultured ancient like Rutilius Namatianus of th

hing is a greater mistake than to suppose that the crowds of old Rome and Athens were more refined than our own ("Demosthenes, sir, was talking to an assembly of brutes"). For thirty centuries then, let us say, a deity has attracted the faithful to his shrine--Sant' Angelo has become a vacuum,

ones of the earth; so much is certain. But the rays of light that strike the topmost branches have not

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eir children; they read no newspapers or books, and lack even the mild excitements of church versus chapel, or the vicar's daughter's love-affair, or the squire's latest row with his lady--nothing! Their existence is almost bestial in its blankness. I know them--I have lived among them. For four months in the year they are cooped up in damp dens, not to be

nually. It may well be the case; but I imagine that this is due not so much to increasing enlightenment as to the d

tickled by resplendent priests reciting full-mouthed Latin phrases, while the organ overhead plays wheezy extracts from "La Forza del Destino" or the Waltz o

ich is more than can be said of certain other varieties. But the archangel, as was inevitable, has suffered a sad change. His fairest attribute of Light-bringer, of Apollo, is no longer his own; it has been claimed

Worsh

wing his head in minished glory, and leading men's souls no longer aloft but downwards--down to the pale regions of things that have been? And will it be long ere he, too

erous mountain wine sped through my veins, warming my fancy. Then, at last, the sun came out in a sudden burst of light, op

ct cautiously, fearing that the coachman might demur at this extra work. Far from it. I had gained his affection, and he would conduct me whithersoever I liked. Only to Sipontum? Why not to Foggia, to Nap

cording to whom it was already a flourishing town when Shem, first son of Noah, became its king. He reigned about the year 1770 of the creation of the world. Two years after the deluge he was 100 years old, and at that ag

nth century; a far-famed church, in the Pisan style, with wrought marble columns reposing on lions,

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yzantine Madonna painted on wood by Saint Luke, brown-complexioned, long-nosed, with staring eyes, and holding the Infant on her lef

arger of cipollino, beautified by a patina of golden lichen; a marble well-head, worn half through with usage of ropes, may be found buried in the rank grass. The plain whereon stood the great city of Sipus is

enduring memories of that sanctuary--the travertine of its artfully carven fabric glowing or

tle place, when the south wind moan

Sip