But no one asks after the many who die in these dungeons
frenzied, or from battering their heads against the wall; no one knows
their number save the doctor and the governor, whose lips are sealed.
. . .
I decided upon a rear attack of Aspromonte. I would go by rail as far as
Bagnara on the Tyrrhenian, the station beyond Scylla of old renown; and
thence afoot via Sant' Eufemia [Footnote: Not to be confounded with the
railway station on the gulf of that name, near Maida.] to Sinopoli,
pushing on, if day permitted, as far as Delianuova, at the foot of
the mountain. Early next morning I would climb the summit and descend to
the shores of the Ionian, to Bova. It seemed a reasonable programme.
All this Tyrrhenian coast-line is badly shattered; far more so than the
southern shore. But the scenery is finer. There is nothing on that side
to compare with the views from Nicastro, or Monte-leone, or Sant' Elia
near Palmi. It is also more smiling, more fertile, and far less
malarious. Not that cultivation of the land implies absence of
malaria - nothing is a commoner mistake! The Ionian shore is not
malarious because it is desert - it is desert because malarious. The
richest tracts in Greece are known to be very dangerous, and it is the
same in Italy. Malaria and intensive agriculture go uncommonly well
together. The miserable anopheles-mosquito loves the wells that are sunk
for the watering of the immense orange and lemon plantations in the
Reggio district; it displays a perverse predilection for the minute
puddles left by the artificial irrigation of the fields that are covered
with fruit and vegetables.
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