A. - What a lovely sea! It is good, after all, to take three or four
baths a year. What think you?
B. - I? No. For thirteen years I have taken no baths. But they are
considered good for children.
The calamities that Bagnara has suffered in the past have been so
numerous, so fierce and so varied that, properly speaking, the town has
no right to exist any longer. It has enjoyed more than its full share of
earthquakes, having been shaken to the ground over and over again. Sir
William Hamilton reports that 3017 persons were killed in that of 1783.
The horrors of war, too, have not spared it, and a certain modern
exploit of the British arms here strikes me as so instructive that I
would gladly extract it from Grant's "Adventures of an Aide-de-Camp,"
were it not too long to transcribe, and far too good to abbreviate.
A characteristic story, further, is told of the methods of General
Manhes at Bagnara. It may well be an exaggeration when they say that the
entire road from Reggio to Naples was lined with the heads of
decapitated brigands; be that as it may, it stands to reason that
Bagnara, as befits an important place, was to be provided with an
-appropriate display of these trophies.
