I joined the crowd, and presently we were met by a
small carriage whence there emerged a pallid and frail adolescent with
burning eyes, who was borne aloft in triumph and cheered with that
vociferous, masculine heartiness which we Englishmen reserve for our
popular prize-fighters. And this in the classic land of brigandage and
bloodshed!
The intellectual under-current. . . .
It was an apt commentary on my graffito. And another, more personally
poignant, not to say piquant, was soon to follow: the bed. But no. I
will say nothing about the bed, nothing whatever; nothing beyond this,
that it yielded an entomological harvest which surpassed my wildest
expectations.
XXVI
AMONG THE BRUTTIANS
Conspicuous among the wise men of Longobucco in olden days was the
physician Bruno, who "flourished" about the end of the thirteenth
century. He called himself Longoburgensis Calaber, and his great
treatise on anatomical dissection, embodying much Greek and Arabic lore,
was printed many years after his death. Another was Francesco Maria
Labonia; he wrote, in 1664, "De vera loci urbis Timesinae situatione,
etc.," to prove, presumably, that his birthplace occupied the site
whence the Homeric ore of Temese was derived. There are modern writers
who support this view.
The local silver mines were exploited in antiquity; first by Sybaris,
then by Croton. They are now abandoned, but a good deal has been written
about them.
