From These Trees, Which In Former Times Must Have Covered The Sila Region, Was Made That Bruttian Pitch Mentioned By Strabo And Other Ancient Writers; From Them The Athenians, The Syracusans, Tarentines And Finally The Romans Built Their Fleets.

Their timber was used in the construction of Caserta palace.

A house stands here, inhabited by government officials the whole year round - one may well puzzle how they pass the long winter, when snow lies from October to May. So early did I arrive at this establishment that the more civilized of its inhabitants were still asleep; by waiting, I might have learnt something of the management of the estate, but gross material preoccupations - the prospect of a passable luncheon at San Giovanni after the "Hotel Vittoria" fare - tempted me to press forwards. A boorish and unreliable-looking individual volunteered three pieces of information - that the house was built thirty years ago, that a large nursery for plants lies about ten kilometres distant, and that this particular domain covers "two or four thousand hectares." A young plantation of larches and silver birches - aliens to this region - seemed to be doing well.

Not far from here, along my track, lies Santa Barbara, two or three huts, with corn still green - like Verace (above Acri) on the watershed between the Ionian and upper Grati. Then follows a steep climb up the slopes of Mount Pettinascura, whose summit lies 1708 metres above sea-level. This is the typical landscape of the Sila Grande. There is not a human habitation in sight; forests all around, with views down many-folded vales into the sea and towards the distant and fairy-like Apennines, a serrated edge, whose limestone precipices gleam like crystals of amethyst between the blue sky and the dusky woodlands of the foreground.

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