Malaria and desolation reign supreme.
It is a profoundly melancholy spot. Yet I was glad of the brief vision.
I shall have fond and enduring memories of that sanctuary - the
travertine of its artfully carven fabric glowing orange-tawny in the
sunset; of the forsaken plain beyond, full of ghostly phantoms of the past.
As for Manfredonia - it is a sad little place, when the south wind moans
and mountains are veiled in mists.
V
LAND OF HORACE
Venosa, nowadays, lies off the beaten track. There are only three trains
a day from the little junction of Rocchetta, and they take over an hour
to traverse the thirty odd kilometres of sparsely inhabited land. It is
an uphill journey, for Venosa lies at a good elevation. They say that
German professors, bent on Horatian studies, occasionally descend from
those worn-out old railway carriages; but the ordinary travellers are
either peasant-folk or commercial gentlemen from north Italy. Worse than
malaria or brigandage, against both of which a man may protect himself,
there is no escaping from the companionship of these last-named - these
pathologically inquisitive, empty-headed, and altogether dreadful
people. They are the terror of the south. And it stands to reason that
only the most incapable and most disagreeable of their kind are sent to
out-of-the-way places like Venosa.
