There are torrents to be crossed; rocky ravines with splashing
waters where the sunshine pours down through a dense network of branches
upon a carpet of russet leaves and grey boulders - the envious beeches
allowing of no vegetation at their feet; occasional meadows, too, bright
with buttercups and orchids. No pines whatever grow in this forest. Yet
a few stunted ones are seen clinging to the precipices that descend into
the Coscile valley; their seeds may have been wafted across from the
Sila mountains.
In olden days all this country was full of game; bears, stags and
fallow-deer are mentioned. Only wolves and a few roe-deer are now left.
The forest is sombre, but not gloomy, and one would like to spend some
time in these wooded regions, so rare in Italy, and to study their life
and character - but how set about it? The distances are great; there are
no houses, not even a shepherd's hut or a cave; the cold at night is
severe, and even in the height of midsummer one must be prepared for
spells of mist and rain. I shall be tempted, on another occasion, to
provide myself with a tent such as is supplied to military officers.
They are light and handy, and perhaps camping out with a man-cook of the
kind that one finds in the Abruzzi provinces would be altogether the
best way of seeing the remoter parts of south and central Italy. For
decent food-supplies can generally be obtained in the smallest places;
the drawback is that nobody can cook them. Dirty food by day and dirty
beds by night will daunt the most enterprising natures in the long run.
These tracks are only traversed in summer. When I last walked through
this region - in the reverse direction, from Lagonegro over Latronico and
San Severino to Castrovillari - the ground was still covered with
stretches of snow, and many brooks were difficult to cross from the
swollen waters. This was in June. It was odd to see the beeches rising,
in full leaf, out of the deep snow.
During this afternoon ramble I often wondered what the burghers of
Taranto would think of these sylvan solitudes. Doubtless they would
share the opinion of a genteel photographer of Morano who showed me some
coloured pictures of local brides in their appropriate costumes, such as
are sent to relatives in America after weddings. He possessed a good
camera, and I asked whether he had never made any pictures of this fine
forest scenery. No, he said; he had only once been to the festival of
the Madonna di Pollino, but he went alone - his companion, an
avvocato, got frightened and failed to appear at the last moment.
"So I went alone," he said, "and those forests, it must be confessed,
are too savage to be photographed. Now, if my friend had come, he might
have posed for me, sitting comically at the foot of a tree, with crossed
legs, and smoking a cigar, like this. ... Or he might have pretended to
be a wood-cutter, bending forwards and felling a tree . . . tac, tac,
tac . . . without his jacket, of course. That would have made a picture.
But those woods and mountains, all by themselves - no! The camera
revolts. In photography, as in all good art, the human element must
predominate."
It is sad to think that in a few years' time nearly all these forests
will have ceased to exist; another generation will hardly recognize the
site of them. A society from Morbegno (Valtellina) has acquired rights
over the timber, and is hewing down as fast as it can. They import their
own workmen from north Italy, and have built at a cost of two million
francs (say the newspapers) a special funicular railway, 23 kilometres
long, to carry the trunks from the mountain to Francavilla at its foot,
where they are sawn up and conveyed to the railway station of Cerchiara,
near Sibari. This concession, I am told, extends to twenty-five
years - they have now been at work for two, and the results are already
apparent in some almost bare slopes once clothed with these huge
primeval trees.
There are inspectors, some of them conscientious, to see that a due
proportion of the timber is left standing; but we all know what the
average Italian official is, and must be, considering his salary. One
could hardly blame them greatly if, as I have been assured is the case,
they often sell the wood which they are paid to protect.
The same fate is about to overtake the extensive hill forests which lie
on the watershed between Morano and the Tyrrhenian. These, according to
a Castrovillari local paper, have lately been sold to a German firm for
exploitation.
It is useless to lament the inevitable - this modern obsession of
"industrialism" which has infected a country purely agricultural. Nor is
it any great compensation to observe that certain small tracts of
hill-side behind Morano are being carefully reafforested by the
Government at this moment. Whoever wishes to see these beautiful
stretches of woodland ere their disappearance from earth - let him hasten!
After leaving the forest region it is a downhill walk of nearly three
hours to reach Terranova di Pollino, which lies, only 910 metres above
sea-level, against the slope of a wide and golden amphitheatre of hills,
at whose entrance the river Sarmento has carved itself a prodigious
gateway through the rock. A dirty little place; the male inhabitants are
nearly all in America; the old women nearly all afflicted with goitre. I
was pleased to observe the Calabrian system of the house-doors, which
life in civilized places had made me forget. These doors are divided
into two portions, not vertically like ours, but horizontally. The upper
portion is generally open, in order that the housewife sitting within
may have light and air in her room, and an opportunity of gossiping with
her neighbours across the street; the lower part is closed, to prevent
the pigs in the daytime from entering the house (where they sleep at
night). The system testifies to social instincts and a certain sense of
refinement.
