Finding Little Else Of Interest In Serra, And Hungering For The
Flesh-Pots Of Cotrone, I Descended By The Postal Diligence To Soverato,
Nearly A Day's Journey.
Old Soverato is in ruins, but the new town seems
to thrive in spite of being surrounded by deserts of malaria.
While
waiting for supper and the train to Cotrone, I strolled along the
beach, and soon found myself sitting beside the bleached anatomy of
some stranded leviathan, and gazing at the mountains of Squillace that
glowed in the soft lights of sunset. The shore was deserted save for
myself and a portly dogana-official who was playing with his little
son - trying to amuse him by elephantine gambols on the sand, regardless
of his uniform and manly dignity. Notwithstanding his rotundity, he was
an active and resourceful parent, and enjoyed himself vastly; the boy
pretending, as polite children sometimes do, to enter into the fun of
the game.
XXXVI
MEMORIES OF GISSING
Two new hotels have recently sprung up at Cotrone. With laudable
patriotism, they are called after its great local champions, athletic
and spiritual, in ancient days - Hotel Milo and Hotel Pythagoras. As
such, they might be expected to make a strong appeal to the muscles and
brains of their respective clients. I rather fancy that the chief
customers of both are commercial travellers who have as little of the
one as of the other, and to whom these fine names are Greek.
As for myself, I remain faithful to the "Concordia" which has twice
already sheltered me within its walls.
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