Then Up Again, Through Dells And Over Uplands, Past Bubbling Streams,
Sometimes Across Sunlit Meadows, But Oftener In The Leafy Shelter Of
Maples And Pines - A Long But Delightful Track, Winding Always High Above
The Valleys Of The Neto And Lese.
At last, towards midday, I struck the
driving road that connects San Giovanni with Savelli, crossed a bridge
over the foaming Neto, and climbed into the populous and dirty streets
of the town - the "Siberia of Calabria," as it may well be, for seven
months of the year.
At this season, thanks to its elevation of 1050 metres, the temperature
is all that could be desired, and the hotel, such as it is, compares
favourably indeed with the den at Longobucco. Instantly I felt at home
among these good people, who recognized me, and welcomed me with the
cordiality of old friends.
"Well," they asked, "and have you found it at last?"
They remembered my looking for the double flute, the tibiae pares,
some years ago.
It will not take you long to discover that the chief objects of interest
in San Giovanni are the women. Many Calabrian villages still possess
their distinctive costumes - Marcellinara and Cimi-gliano are celebrated
in this respect - but it would be difficult to find anywhere an equal
number of handsome women on such a restricted space. In olden days it
was dangerous to approach these attractive and mirthful creatures; they
were jealously guarded by brothers and husbands. But the brothers and
husbands, thank God, are now in America, and you may be as friendly with
them as ever you please, provided you confine your serious attentions to
not more than two or three. Secrecy in such matters is out of the
question, as with the Arabs; there is too much gossip, and too little
coyness about what is natural; your friendships are openly recognized,
and tacitly approved. The priests do not interfere; their hands are full.
To see these women at their best one must choose a Sunday or a
feast-day; one must go, morever, to the favourite fountain of Santa
Lucia, which lies on the hill-side and irrigates some patches of corn
and vegetables. Their natural charms are enhanced by elaborate and
tasteful golden ornaments, and by a pretty mode of dressing the hair,
two curls of which are worn hanging down before their ears with an
irresistibly seductive air. Their features are regular; eyes black or
deep gentian blue; complexion pale; movements and attitudes impressed
with a stamp of rare distinction. Even the great-grandmothers have a
certain austere dignity - sinewy, indestructible old witches, with tawny
hide and eyes that glow like lamps.
And yet San Giovanni is as dirty as can well be; it has the accumulated
filth of an Eastern town, while lacking all its glowing tints or
harmonious outlines. We are disposed to associate squalor with certain
artistic effects, but it may be said of this and many other Calabrian
places that they have solved the problem how to be ineffably squalid
without becoming in the least picturesque. Much of this sordid look is
due to the smoke which issues out of all the windows and blackens the
house walls, inside and out - the Calabrians persisting in a prehistoric
fashion of cooking on the floor. The buildings themselves look crude and
gaunt from their lack of plaster and their eyeless windows; black pigs
wallowing at every doorstep contribute to this slovenly ensemble. The
City Fathers have turned their backs upon civilization; I dare say the
magnitude of the task before them has paralysed their initiative.
Nothing is done in the way of public hygiene, and one sees women washing
linen in water which is nothing more or less than an open drain. There
is no street-lighting whatever; a proposal on the part of a North
Italian firm to draw electric power from the Neto was scornfully
rejected; one single tawdry lamp, which was bought some years ago "as a
sample" in a moment of municipal recklessness, was lighted three times
in as many years, and on the very day when it was least necessary - to
wit, on midsummer eve, which happens to be the festival of their patron
saint (St. John). "It now hangs" - so I wrote some years ago - "at a
dangerous angle, and I doubt whether it will survive till its services
are requisitioned next June." Prophetic utterance! It was blown down
that same winter, and has not yet been replaced. This in a town of
20,000 (?) inhabitants - and in Italy, where the evening life of the
populace plays such an important role. No wonder North Italians, judging
by such external indications, regard all Calabrians as savages.
Some trees have been planted in the piazza since my last stay here; a
newspaper has also been started - it is called "Co-operation: Organ of
the Interests of San Giovanni in Fiore," and its first and possibly
unique number contains a striking article on the public health, as
revealed in the report of two doctors who had been despatched by the
provincial sanitary authorities to take note of local conditions of
hygiene. "The illustrious scientists" (thus it runs) "were horrified at
the filth, mud and garbage which encumbered, and still encumbers, our
streets, sending forth in the warm weather a pestilential odour. . . .
They were likewise amazed at the vigorously expressed protest of our
mayor, who said: 'My people cannot live' without their pigs wallowing
in the streets. San Giovanni in Fiore is exempt from earthquakes and
epidemics because it is under the protection of Saint John the Baptist,
and because its provincial councillor is a saintly man.'" Such
journalistic plain speaking, such lack of sweet reasonableness, cannot
expect to survive in a world governed by compromise, and if the gift of
prophecy has not deserted me, I should say that "Co-operation" has by
this time ended its useful mission upon earth.
This place is unhealthy; its water-supply is not what it should be, and
such commodities as eggs and milk are rather dear, because "the invalids
eat everything" of that kind.
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