I Strolled About In The Sunset Amid Tinkling Herds
Of Sheep And Goats That Were Presently Milked And Driven Into Their
Enclosure Of Thorns For The Night, Guarded By Four Or Five Of Those
Savage White Dogs Of The Campagna Breed.
Despite these protectors, the
wolf carried off two sheep yesterday, in broad daylight.
The flocks come
to these heights in the middle of June, and descend again in October.
The shepherds offered us the only fare they possessed - the much-belauded
Pollino cheeses, the same that were made, long ago, by Polyphemus
himself. You can get them down at a pinch, on the principle of the
German proverb, "When the devil is hungry, he eats flies." Fortunately
our bags still contained a varied assortment, though my man had
developed an appetite and a thirst that did credit to his Berserker
ancestry.
We retired early. But long after the rest of them were snoring hard I
continued awake, shivering under my blanket and choking with the acrid
smoke of a fire of green timber. The door had been left ajar to allow it
to escape, but the only result of this arrangement was that a glacial
blast of wind swept into the chamber from outside. The night was
bitterly cold, and the wooden floor on which I was reposing seemed to be
harder than the majority of its kind. I thought with regret of the tepid
nights of Taranto and Castrovillari, and cursed my folly for climbing
into these Arctic regions; wondering, as I have often done, what demon
of restlessness or perversity drives one to undertake such insane
excursions.
XX
A MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL
Leaving the hospitable shepherds in the morning, we arrived after
midday, by devious woodland paths, at the Madonna di Pollino. This
solitary fane is perched, like an eagle's nest, on the edge of a cliff
overhanging the Frida torrent. Owing to this fact, and to its great
elevation, the views inland are wonderful; especially towards evening,
when crude daylight tints fade away and range after range of mountains
reveal themselves, their crests outlined against each other in tender
gradations of mauve and grey. The prospect is closed, at last, by the
lofty groups of Sirino and Alburno, many long leagues away. On all other
sides are forests, interspersed with rock. But near at hand lies a
spacious green meadow, at the foot of a precipice. This is now covered
with encampments in anticipation of to-morrow's festival, and the
bacchanal is already in full swing.
Very few foreigners, they say, have attended this annual feast, which
takes place on the first Saturday and Sunday of July, and is worth
coming a long way to see. Here the old types, uncon-taminated by
modernism and emigration, are still gathered together. The whole
country-side is represented; the peasants have climbed up with their
entire households from thirty or forty villages of this thinly populated
land, some of them marching a two days' journey; the greater the
distance, the greater the "divozione" to the Mother of God.
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