To his native land after an
easeful life in New York and compelled - "for his sins," as he would put
it - to reside at the "Hotel Vittoria."
Towards that delectable hostelry I now turned, somewhat regretfully, to
face a bedroom whose appearance had already inspired me with anything
but confidence. But hardly were the preliminary investigations begun,
when a furious noise in the street below drew me to the window once
more. Half the town was passing underneath in thronged procession, with
lighted torches and flags, headed by the municipal band discoursing
martial strains of music.
Whither wending, at this midnight hour?
To honour a young student, native of the place, now returning up the
Rossano road from Naples, where he had distinguished himself prominently
in some examination. I joined the crowd, and presently we were met by a
small carriage whence there emerged a pallid and frail adolescent with
burning eyes, who was borne aloft in triumph and cheered with that
vociferous, masculine heartiness which we Englishmen reserve for our
popular prize-fighters. And this in the classic land of brigandage and
bloodshed!
The intellectual under-current. . . .
It was an apt commentary on my graffito. And another, more personally
poignant, not to say piquant, was soon to follow: the bed. But no. I
will say nothing about the bed, nothing whatever; nothing beyond this,
that it yielded an entomological harvest which surpassed my wildest
expectations.
XXVI
AMONG THE BRUTTIANS
Conspicuous among the wise men of Longobucco in olden days was the
physician Bruno, who "flourished" about the end of the thirteenth
century. He called himself Longoburgensis Calaber, and his great
treatise on anatomical dissection, embodying much Greek and Arabic lore,
was printed many years after his death. Another was Francesco Maria
Labonia; he wrote, in 1664, "De vera loci urbis Timesinae situatione,
etc.," to prove, presumably, that his birthplace occupied the site
whence the Homeric ore of Temese was derived. There are modern writers
who support this view.
The local silver mines were exploited in antiquity; first by Sybaris,
then by Croton. They are now abandoned, but a good deal has been written
about them. In the year 1200 a thousand miners were employed, and the
Anjous extracted a great deal of precious metal thence; the goldsmiths
of Longobucco were celebrated throughout Italy during the Middle Ages.
The industrious H. W. Schulz has unearthed a Royal rescript of 1274
charging a certain goldsmith Johannes of Longobucco with researches into
the metal and salt resources of the whole kingdom of Naples.
Writing from Longobucco in 1808 during a brigand-hunt, Duret de Tavel says:
"The high wooded mountains which surround this horrible place spread
over it a sombre and savage tint which saddens the imagination. This
borough contains a hideous population of three thousand souls, composed
of nail-makers, of blacksmiths and charcoal-burners.
