No wonder. I have seen the condemned on their release from
these boxes of masonry at the island of Santo Stefano: dazed shadows,
tottering, with complexions the colour of parchment. These are the
survivors. But no one asks after the many who die in these dungeons
frenzied, or from battering their heads against the wall; no one knows
their number save the doctor and the governor, whose lips are sealed. . . .
I decided upon a rear attack of Aspromonte. I would go by rail as far as
Bagnara on the Tyrrhenian, the station beyond Scylla of old renown; and
thence afoot via Sant' Eufemia [Footnote: Not to be confounded with the
railway station on the gulf of that name, near Maida.] to Sinopoli,
pushing on, if day permitted, as far as Delianuova, at the foot of
the mountain. Early next morning I would climb the summit and descend to
the shores of the Ionian, to Bova. It seemed a reasonable programme.
All this Tyrrhenian coast-line is badly shattered; far more so than the
southern shore. But the scenery is finer. There is nothing on that side
to compare with the views from Nicastro, or Monte-leone, or Sant' Elia
near Palmi. It is also more smiling, more fertile, and far less
malarious. Not that cultivation of the land implies absence of
malaria - nothing is a commoner mistake! The Ionian shore is not
malarious because it is desert - it is desert because malarious. The
richest tracts in Greece are known to be very dangerous, and it is the
same in Italy. Malaria and intensive agriculture go uncommonly well
together. The miserable anopheles-mosquito loves the wells that are sunk
for the watering of the immense orange and lemon plantations in the
Reggio district; it displays a perverse predilection for the minute
puddles left by the artificial irrigation of the fields that are covered
with fruit and vegetables. This artificial watering, in fact, seems to
be partly responsible for the spread of the disease. It is doubtful
whether the custom goes back into remote antiquity, for the climate used
to be moister and could dispense with these practices. Certain products,
once grown in Calabria, no longer thrive there, on account of the
increased dryness and lack of rainfall.
But there are some deadly regions, even along this Tyrrhenian shore.
Such is the plain of Maida, for instance, where stood not long ago the
forest of Sant' Eufemia, safe retreat of Parafante and other brigand
heroes. The level lands of Rosarno and Gioia are equally ill-reputed. A
French battalion stationed here in the summer of 1807 lost over sixty
men in fourteen days, besides leaving two hundred invalids in the
hospital at Monteleone. Gioia is so malarious that in summer every one
of the inhabitants who can afford the price of a ticket goes by the
evening train to Palmato sleep there. You will do well, by the way, to
see something of the oil industry of Palmi, if time permits. In good
years, 200,000 quintals of olive oil are manufactured in the regions of
which it is the commercial centre. Not long ago, before modern methods
of refining were introduced, most of this oil was exported to Russia, to
be burned in holy lamps; nowadays it goes for the most part to Lucca, to
be adulterated for foreign markets (the celebrated Lucca oil, which the
simple Englishman regards as pure); only the finest quality is sent
elsewhere, to Nice. From Gioia there runs a postal diligence once a day
to Delianuova of which I might have availed myself, had I not preferred
to traverse the country on foot.
The journey from Reggio to Bagnara on this fair summer morning, along
the rippling Mediterranean, was short enough, but sufficiently long to
let me overhear the following conversation:
A. - What a lovely sea! It is good, after all, to take three or four
baths a year. What think you?
B. - I? No. For thirteen years I have taken no baths. But they are
considered good for children.
The calamities that Bagnara has suffered in the past have been so
numerous, so fierce and so varied that, properly speaking, the town has
no right to exist any longer. It has enjoyed more than its full share of
earthquakes, having been shaken to the ground over and over again. Sir
William Hamilton reports that 3017 persons were killed in that of 1783.
The horrors of war, too, have not spared it, and a certain modern
exploit of the British arms here strikes me as so instructive that I
would gladly extract it from Grant's "Adventures of an Aide-de-Camp,"
were it not too long to transcribe, and far too good to abbreviate.
A characteristic story, further, is told of the methods of General
Manhes at Bagnara. It may well be an exaggeration when they say that the
entire road from Reggio to Naples was lined with the heads of
decapitated brigands; be that as it may, it stands to reason that
Bagnara, as befits an important place, was to be provided with an
-appropriate display of these trophies. The heads were exhibited in
baskets, with strict injunctions to the authorities that they were not
to be touched, seeing that they served not only for decorative but also
moral purposes - as examples. Imagine, therefore, the General's feelings
on being told that one of these heads had been stolen; stolen, probably,
by some pious relative of the deceased rascal, who wished to give the
relic a decent Christian burial.
"That's rather awkward," he said, quietly musing. "But of course the
specimen must be replaced.
