Some Local
Authority, I Forget Who, Has Deduced From The Fact That There Are So
Many Forges And Smiths' Shops Here That This Must Be The Spot To Which
The Over-Sensitive Inhabitants Of Sybaris Banished Their Workers In
Metal And Other Noisy Professions.
Now the millionaires would like to be
thought Sybarites by descent, but it is hardly respectable to draw a
pedigree from these outcasts.
They need not alarm themselves. For Acri, as Forbiger has shown, is the
old Acherontia; the river Acheron, the Mocone or Mucone of to-day, flows
at its foot, and from one point of the town I had a fine view into its
raging torrent.
A wearisome climb of two hours brought me to the Croce Greca, the
Greek Cross, which stands 1185 metres above sea-level. How hot it was,
in that blazing sun! I should be sorry to repeat the trip, under the
same conditions. A structure of stone may have stood here in olden days;
at present it is a diminutive wooden crucifix by the roadside. It marks,
none the less, an important geographical point: the boundary between the
"Greek" Sila which I was now leaving and the Sila Grande, the central
and largest region. Beyond this last-named lies the lesser Sila, or
"Sila Piccola "; and if you draw a line from Rogliano (near Cosenza) to
Cotrone you will approximately strike the watershed which divides the
Sila Grande from this last and most westerly of the three Sila
divisions.
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