enough; their lithe limbs, their attitudes at work or in repose, their
wild, black hair, perpetually reminded me of shapes pictured on a
classic vase.
Later in the day I came upon a figure scarcely less impressive. Beyond
the new quarter of the town, on the ragged edge of its wide,
half-peopled streets, lies a tract of olive orchards and of seed-land;
there, alone amid great bare fields, a countryman was ploughing. The
wooden plough, as regards its form, might have been thousands of years
old; it was drawn by a little donkey, and traced in the soil—the
generous southern soil—the merest scratch of a furrow. I could not but
approach the man and exchange words with him; his rude but gentle face,
his gnarled hands, his rough and scanty vesture, moved me to a deep
respect, and when his speech fell upon my ear, it was as though I
listened to one of the ancestors of our kind. Stopping in his work, he
answered my inquiries with careful civility; certain phrases escaped
me, but on the whole he made himself quite intelligible, and was glad,
I could see, when my words proved that I understood him. I drew apart,
and watched him again. Never have I seen man so utterly patient, so
primaevally deliberate. The donkey’s method of ploughing was to pull
for one minute, and then rest for two; it excited in the ploughman not
the least surprise or resentment. Though he held a long stick in his
hand, he never made use of it; at each stoppage he contemplated the
ass, and then gave utterance to a long “Ah-h-h!” in a note of the most
affectionate remonstrance. They were not driver and beast, but comrades
in labour. It reposed the mind to look upon them.
Walking onward in the same direction, one approaches a great wall, with
gateway sentry-guarded; it is the new Arsenal, the pride of Taranto,
and the source of its prosperity. On special as well as on general
grounds, I have a grudge against this mass of ugly masonry. I had
learnt from Lenormant that at a certain spot, Fontanella, by the shore
of the Little Sea, were observable great ancient heaps of murex
shells—the murex precious for its purple, that of Tarentum yielding in
glory only to the purple of Tyre. I hoped to see these shells, perhaps
to carry one away. But Fontanella had vanished, swallowed up, with all
remnants of antiquity, by the graceless Arsenal. It matters to no one
save the few fantastics who hold a memory of the ancient world dearer
than any mechanic triumph of to-day. If only one could believe that the
Arsenal signified substantial good to Italy! Too plainly it means
nothing but the exhaustion of her people in the service of a base ideal.
The confines of this new town being so vague, much trouble is given to
that noble institution, the dazio. Scattered far and wide in a dusty
wilderness, stand the little huts of the officers, vigilant on every
road or by-way to wring the wretched soldi from toilsome hands. As
became their service, I found these gentry anything but amiable; they
had commonly an air of ennui, and regarded a stranger with surly
suspicion.
When I was back again among the high new houses, my eye, wandering in
search of any smallest point of interest, fell on a fresh-painted
inscription:—
“
ALLA
MAGNA
GRAECIA
.
STABILIMENTO
IDROELETTROPATICO
.”
was well meant. At the sign of “Magna Graecia” one is willing to accept
“hydroelectropathic” as a late echo of Hellenic speech.
CHAPTER V
DULCE GALAESI FLUMEN
Taranto has a very interesting Museum. I went there with an
introduction to the curator, who spared no trouble in pointing out to
me all that was best worth seeing. He and I were alone in 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 comfort when I wanted to make sketches.
Nothing is charged for admission, yet no one enters. Presumably, all
the Tarentines who care for archaeology have already been here, and
strangers are few.
Upon the shelves are seen innumerable miniature busts, carved in some
kind of stone; thought to be simply portraits of private persons. One
peers into the faces of men, women, and children, vaguely conjecturing
their date, their circumstances; some of them may have dwelt in the old
time on this very spot of ground now covered by the Museum. Like other
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 extravagant. I sketched a caricature of Medusa, the
anguished features and snaky locks travestied with satiric grimness.
You remember a story which illustrates this scoffing habit: how the
Roman Ambassador, whose Greek left something to be desired, excited the
uproarious derision of the assembled Tarentines—with results that were
no laughing matter.
I used the opportunity of my conversation with the Director of the
Museum to ask his aid in discovering the river Galaesus. Who could find
himself at Taranto without turning 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, which by
some is called Galeso; but the country-folk commonly give it the name
of Gialtrezze. Of course I turned my steps in that direction, to see
and judge for myself.
To skirt the western shore of the Mare Piccolo I had to pass the
railway station, and there I made a few inquiries; the official with
whom I spoke knew not the name Galeso, but informed me that the
Gialtrezze entered the sea at a distance of some three kilometres. That
I purposed walking 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 on the road I asked the name of the little
river I was approaching; they answered, “Gialtrezze.” Then came a man
carrying a gun, whose smile and greeting invited question. “Can you
tell me the name of the stream which flows into the sea just beyond
here?” “Signore, it is the Galeso.”
My pulse quickened with delight; all the more when I found that my
informant had no tincture of the classics, and that he supported Galeso
against Gialtrezze simply as a question 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
reeds, which quite conceal the water, and flows with an average breadth
of some ten feet down to the seashore, on either side of it bare, dusty
fields, and a few hoary olives.
The Galaesus?—the river beloved by Horace; its banks pasturing a
famous breed of sheep, with fleece so precious that it was protected by
a garment of skins? Certain it is that all the waters 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