Perhaps They Were Not Within Fifty Miles
Of The Place.
Be that as it may, they were captured later on by their own compatriots,
after the French had waited a month at Longobucco.
Their heads were
brought in, still bleeding, and "l'identite ayant ete suffisamment
constatee, la mort des principaux acteurs a termine cette sanglante
tragedie, et nous sommes sortis de ces catacombes apennines pour revoir
le plus brillant soleil."
Wonderful tales are still told of the brigands in these forests. They
will show you notches on the trees, cut by such and such a brigand for
some particular purpose of communication with his friends; buried
treasure has been found, and even nowadays shepherds sometimes discover
rude shelters of bark and tree trunks built by them in the thickest part
of the woods. There are legends, too, of caverns wherein they hived
their booty - caverns with cleverly concealed entrances - caverns which
(many of them, at least) I regard as a pure invention modelled after the
authentic brigand caves of Salerno and Abruzzi, where the limestone rock
is of the kind to produce them. Bourbonism fostered the brood, and there
was a fierce recrudescence in the troubled sixties. They lived in bands,
squadrigli, burning and plundering with impunity. Whoever refused to
comply with their demands for food or money was sure to repent of it.
All this is over, for the time being; the brigands are extirpated, to
the intense relief of the country people, who were entirely at their
mercy, and whose boast it is that their district is now as safe as the
streets of Naples.
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