When Lord Odo-Russell
enquired of the Pope regarding the foundation of a society for the
prevention of cruelty to animals in Italy, the papal answer was: "Such
an association could not be sanctioned by the Holy See, being founded
on a theological error, to wit, that Christians owed any duties to
animals." This language has the inestimable and rather unusual merit of
being perspicuous. Nevertheless, Ouida's flaming letters to "The Times"
inaugurated an era of truer humanity. . . .
And the lateness of the dining-hour - another symptom of the south. It
was eleven o'clock when I sat down to dinner on the night of my arrival,
and habitues of the hotel, engineers and so forth, were still dropping
in for their evening meal. Appetite comes more slowly than ever, now
that the heats have begun.
They have begun in earnest. The swoon of summer is upon the land, the
grass is cut, cicadas are chirping overhead. Despite its height of a
thousand feet, Castrovillari must be blazing in August, surrounded as it
is by parched fields and an amphitheatre of bare limestone hills that
exhale the sunny beams. You may stroll about these fields observing the
construction of the line which is to pass through Cassano, a pretty
place, famous for its wine and mineral springs; or studying the habits
of the gigantic grasshoppers that hang in clusters to the dried thistles
and start off, when scared, with the noise of a covey of partridges; or
watching how the cows are shod, at this season, to thresh the corn.
![Old Calabria By Norman Douglas
- . . .]
Poor Saracens! They are a sort of whipping-boy, all over the country.
The chief sinner in this respect is - Page 178](../images/travel.jpg)
