By Means Of
These Annual Migrations The Scourge Has Spread, In The Past.
And so it
spreads to-day, whenever possible.
Of forty labourers that left Caulonia
for Cotrone in 1908 all returned infected save two, who had made liberal
use of quinine as a prophylactic. Fortunately, there are no anophelines
at Caulonia.
Greatly, indeed, must this country have changed since olden days; and
gleaning here and there among the ancients, Dr. Genovese has garnered
some interesting facts on this head. The coast-line, now unbroken sand,
is called rocky, in several regions, by Strabo, Virgil and Persius
Flaccus; of the two harbours, of Locri, of that of Metapontum, Caulonia
and other cities, nothing remains; the promontory of Cocynthum
(Stilo) - described as the longest promontory in Italy - together with
other capes, has been washed away by the waves or submerged under silt
carried down from the hills; islands, like that of Calypso which is
described in Vincenzo Pascale's book (1796), and mentioned by G.
Castaidi (1842), have clean vanished from the map.
The woodlands have retired far inland; yet here at Caulonia, says
Thucydides, was prepared the timber for the fleets of Athens. The
rivers, irregular and spasmodic torrents, must have flowed with more
equal and deeper current, since Pliny mentions five of them as
navigable; snow, very likely, covered the mountain tops; the rainfall
was clearly more abundant - one of the sights of Locri was its daily
rainbow; the cicadas of the territory of Reggio are said to have been
"dumb," on account of the dampness of the climate.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 430 of 488
Words from 115538 to 115797
of 131203
