It all depends, they say, upon the wind.
Day after day - a dead calm.
"Two hours - three hours - four hours - according!" And they point to the
sky. A little breeze, they add, sometimes makes itself felt in the early
mornings; one might fix up a sail.
"And for returning at midday?"
"Three hours - four hours - five hours - according!"
The prospect of rocking about for half a day in a small boat under a
blazing sky is not my ideal of enjoyment, the novelty of such an
experience having worn off a good many years ago. I decide to wait; to
make an attack, meanwhile, upon old Petelia - the "Stromboli" of my
lady-friend at the Catanzaro Museum....
It is an easy day's excursion from Cotrone to Strongoli, which is
supposed to lie on the site of that ancient, much-besieged town. It sits
upon a hill-top, and the diligence which awaits the traveller at the
little railway-station takes about two hours to reach the place,
climbing up the olive-covered slopes in ample loops and windings.
Of Strangoli my memories, even at this short distance of time, are
confused and blurred. The drive up under the glowing beams of morning,
the great heat of the last few days, and two or three nights'
sleeplessness at Cotrone had considerably blunted my appetite for new
things. I remember seeing some Roman marbles in the church, and being
thence conducted into a castle.
