The upper
portion is generally open, in order that the housewife sitting within
may have light and air in her room, and an opportunity of gossiping with
her neighbours across the street; the lower part is closed, to prevent
the pigs in the daytime from entering the house (where they sleep at
night). The system testifies to social instincts and a certain sense of
refinement.
The sights of Terranova are soon exhausted. They had spoken to me of a
house near the woods, about four hours distant, inhabited just now by
shepherds. Thither we started, next day, at about 3 p.m.
The road climbs upwards through bare country till it reaches a dusky
pinnacle of rock, a conspicuous landmark, which looks volcanic but is
nothing of the kind. It bears the name of Pietra-Sasso - the explanation
of this odd pleonasm being, I suppose, that here the whole mass of rock,
generally decked with grass or shrubs, is as bare as any single stone.
There followed a pleasant march through pastoral country of streamlets
and lush grass, with noble views downwards on our right, over
many-folded hills into the distant valley of the Sinno. To the left is
the forest region. But the fir trees are generally mutilated - their
lower branches lopped off; and the tree resents this treatment and often
dies, remaining a melancholy stump among the beeches. They take these
branches not for fuel, but as fodder for the cows. A curious kind of
fodder, one thinks; but Calabrian cows will eat anything, and their milk
tastes accordingly. No wonder the natives prefer even the greasy fluid
of their goats to that of cows.
"How?" they will ask, "You Englishmen, with all your money - you drink
the milk of cows?"
Goats are over-plentiful here, and the hollies, oaks and thorns along
the path have been gnawed by them into quaint patterns like the
topiarian work in old-fashioned gardens. If they find nothing to their
taste on the ground, they actually climb trees; I have seen them
browsing thus, at six feet above the ground. These miserable beasts are
the ruin of south Italy, as they are of the whole Mediterranean basin.
What malaria and the Barbary pirates have done to the sea-board, the
goats have accomplished for the regions further inland; and it is really
time that sterner legislation were introduced to limit their
grazing-places and incidentally reduce their numbers, as has been done
in parts of the Abruzzi, to the great credit of the authorities. But the
subject is a well-worn one.
The solitary little house which now appeared before us is called
"Vitiello," presumably from its owner or builder, a proprietor of the
village of Noepoli. It stands in a charming site, with a background of
woodland whence rivulets trickle down - the immediate surroundings are
covered with pasture and bracken and wild pear trees smothered in
flowering dog-roses.
