Perhaps the whole undertaking will be completed some day - speriamo! as
the natives say, when speaking of something rather beyond reasonable
expectation. But possibly not; and in that case - pazienza! meaning,
that all hope may now be abandoned. There is seldom any great hurry,
with non-governmental works of this kind.
It would be interesting if one could learn the inner history of these
abortive transactions. I have often tried, in vain. It is impossible for
an outsider to pierce the jungle of sordid mystery and intrigue which
surrounds them. So much I gathered: that the original contract was based
on the wages then current and that, the price of labour having more than
doubled in consequence of the "discovery" of America, no one will
undertake the job on the old terms. That is sufficiently intelligible.
But why operations proceeded so slowly at first, and why a new contract
cannot now be drawn up - who can tell! The persons interested blame the
contractor, who blames the engineer, who blames the dilatory and corrupt
administration of Cosenza. My private opinion is, that the last three
parties have agreed to share the swag between them. Meanwhile everybody
has just grounds of complaint against everybody else; the six or seven
inevitable lawsuits have sprung up and promise to last any length of
time, seeing that important documents have been lost or stolen and that
half the original contracting parties have died in the interval: nobody
knows what is going to happen in the end. It all depends upon whether
some patriotic person will step forward and grease the wheels in the
proper quarter.
And even then, if he hails from Acri, they of San Demetrio will probably
work against the project, and vice versa. For no love is lost between
neighbouring communities - wonderful, with what venomous feudal animosity
they regard each other! United Italy means nothing to these people,
whose conceptions of national and public life are those of the cock on
his dung-hill. You will find in the smallest places intelligent and
broad-minded men, tradespeople or professionals or landed proprietors,
but they are seldom members of the municipio; the municipal career is
also a money-making business, yes; but of another kind, and requiring
other qualifications.
Foot-passengers like myself suffer no inconvenience by being obliged to
follow the shorter and time-honoured mule-track that joins the two
places. It rises steeply at first, then begins to wind in and out among
shady vales of chestnut and oak, affording unexpected glimpses now
towards distant Tarsia and now, through a glade on the right, on to the
ancient citadel of Bisignano, perched on its rock.
I reached Acri after about two and a half hours' walking. It lies in a
theatrical situation and has a hotel; but the proprietor of that
establishment having been described to me as "the greatest brigand of
the Sila" I preferred to refresh myself at a small wineshop, whose
manageress cooked me an uncommonly good luncheon and served some of the
best wine I had tasted for long. Altogether, the better-class women here
are far more wideawake and civilized than those of the Neapolitan
province; a result of their stern patriarchal up-bringing and of their
possessing more or less sensible husbands.
Thus fortified, I strolled about the streets. One would like to spend a
week or two in a place like this, so little known even to Italians, but
the hot weather and bad feeding had begun to affect me disagreeably and
I determined to push on without delay into cooler regions. It would
never do to be laid up at Acri with heatstroke, and to have one's last
drops of life drained away by copious blood-lettings, relic of
Hispano-Arabic practices and the favourite remedy for every complaint.
Acri is a large place, and its air of prosperity contrasts with the
slumberous decay of San Demetrio; there is silk-rearing, and so much
emigration into America that nearly every man I addressed replied in
English. New houses are rising up in all directions, and the place is
celebrated for its rich citizens.
But these same wealthy men are in rather a dilemma. Some local
authority, I forget who, has deduced from the fact that there are so
many forges and smiths' shops here that this must be the spot to which
the over-sensitive inhabitants of Sybaris banished their workers in
metal and other noisy professions. Now the millionaires would like to be
thought Sybarites by descent, but it is hardly respectable to draw a
pedigree from these outcasts.
They need not alarm themselves. For Acri, as Forbiger has shown, is the
old Acherontia; the river Acheron, the Mocone or Mucone of to-day, flows
at its foot, and from one point of the town I had a fine view into its
raging torrent.
A wearisome climb of two hours brought me to the Croce Greca, the
Greek Cross, which stands 1185 metres above sea-level. How hot it was,
in that blazing sun! I should be sorry to repeat the trip, under the
same conditions. A structure of stone may have stood here in olden days;
at present it is a diminutive wooden crucifix by the roadside. It marks,
none the less, an important geographical point: the boundary between the
"Greek" Sila which I was now leaving and the Sila Grande, the central
and largest region. Beyond this last-named lies the lesser Sila, or
"Sila Piccola "; and if you draw a line from Rogliano (near Cosenza) to
Cotrone you will approximately strike the watershed which divides the
Sila Grande from this last and most westerly of the three Sila
divisions.
