By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy

the little galleries; at a second or third visit I had the Museum to myself, save for an attendant who seemed to regard a visitor as a pleasant novelty, and bestirred himself for my comfor

er people who grow too rich and comfortable, the citizens of Tarentum loved mirth and mockery; their Greek theatre was remarkable for irreverent farce, for parodies of the great drama of Athens. And here is testimony to the fact: all manner of comic masks, of grotesque visages; mouths distorted into impossible grins, eyes leering and goggling, noses

ning in thought to the Galaesus, and wishing to walk along its banks? Unhappily, one cannot be quite sure of its position. A stream there is, flowing into the Little Sea

lking such a distance to see an insignificant stream excited the surprise, even the friendly concern, of my interlocutor; again and again he assured me it was not worth while, repeating emphatically, "Non c'e novita." But I went my foolish way. Of two or three peasants or fishermen

tion of local interest. Joyously I took leave of him, and very soon I was in sight of the river itself. The river? It is barely half a mile long; it rises amid a bed of great

ers of Magna Graecia have much diminished since classic times, but (unless there have been great local changes, due, for example, to an earthquake) this brook had always the same length,

um. Wavelets lapped upon the sand before me, their music the same as two thousand years ago. A goatherd came along, his flock straggling behind him; man and goats were as much of the old world as of the new. Far away, the boats of fishermen floated silently. I hea

lernian--" The lines of Horace sang in my head; I thought, too, of the praise of Virgil, who, tradition has it, wrote his Eclogues hereabouts. Of course, the country has another aspect, in spring and early summer; I saw it at a sad moment; but, all al

so imposed. But I shall not give ear to such discouraging argument. It is little likely that my search will ever be renewed, and for me the Galaesus-"dulce Galaesi flumen"-is the stream I found and tracked, whose waters I heard mingle with the Little Sea. The memory has no sense of disappointment. Those reeds which r

eve that an ox had uttered an oracle, or that a stone had shed blood. Somewhere near the swing-bridge, where undeniable steamships go and come between the inner and the outer sea, I saw a crowd gathered about a man who was exhibiting a picture and expounding its purport; every other minute the male listeners doffed their hats, and the females bowed and crossed themselves. When I had

ve a contemptuous refusal, and paid no heed to the entreaties of the friar, who urged all manner of religious motives for the granting of his request. The two engines on the train (which was a very long one) seemed about to steam away-but, behold, con grande stupore di tutti, the waggons moved not at all! Presently a third engine was put on, but still all efforts to start the train proved useless

hindered the departure of the said train for fifteen minutes, and also for the offense of mendicancy within a railway station. Accordingly, the Loreto police sought the offender, but, in the compartment where he had travelled, found no person; there, however, lay a letter couch

e could be no sort of doubt that they would pronounce the authenticity of the miracle. With a general assurance that the good Christian will be saved and the unrepentant will be damned, this remarkable little pamphlet came to an end. Much verbiage I have omitted, but the transl

the railway station where this miracle befell was nowhere menti