Typhoid patients
and, above all, malarious subjects who descend to the plains as
agricultural labourers and return infected to the hills, where they
become partially cured, only to repeat the folly next year.
It is the
same at Longobucco and other Sila towns. Altogether, San Giovanni has
grave drawbacks. The streets are too steep for comfort, and despite its
height, the prospect towards the Ionian is intercepted by a ridge; in
point of situation it cannot compare with Savelli or the neighbouring
Casino, which have impressive views both inland, and southward down
undulating slopes that descend in a stately procession of four thousand
feet to the sea, where sparkles the gleaming horn of Cotrone. And the
surroundings of the place are nowise representative of the Sila in a
good sense. The land has been so ruthlessly deforested that it has
become a desert of naked granite rocks; even now, in midsummer, the
citizens are already collecting fuel for their long winter from enormous
distances. As one crawls and skips among these unsavoury tenements, one
cannot help regretting that Saint John the Baptist, or the piety of a
provincial councillor, should have hindered the earthquakes from doing
their obvious duty.
Were I sultan of San Giovanni, I would certainly begin by a general
bombardment. Little in the town is worth preserving from a cataclysm
save the women, and perhaps the old convent on the summit of the hill
where the French lodged during their brigand-wars, and that other one,
famous in the ecclesiastical annals of Calabria - the monastery of
Floriacense, founded at the end of the twelfth century, round which the
town gradually grew up. Its ponderous portal is much injured, having
been burnt, I was told, by the brigands in 1860. But the notary, who
kindly looked up the archives for me, has come to the conclusion that
the French are responsible for the damage. It contains, or contained, a
fabulous collection of pious lumber - teeth and thigh-bones and other
relics, the catalogue of which is one of my favourite sections of Father
Fiore's work. I would make an exception, also, in favour of the doorway
of the church, a finely proportioned structure of the Renaissance in
black stone, which looks ill at ease among its ignoble environment. A
priest, to whom I applied for information as to its history, told me
with the usual Calabrian frankness that he never bothered his head about
such things.
San Giovanni was practically unknown to the outside world up to a few
years ago. I question whether Lenormant or any of them came here.
Pacicchelli did, however, in the seventeenth century, though he has left
us no description of the place. He crossed the whole Sila from the
Ionian to the other sea. I like this amiable and loquacious creature,
restlessly gadding about Europe, gloriously complacent, hopelessly,
absorbed in trivialities, and credulous beyond belief. In fact (as the
reader may have observed), I like all these old travellers, not so much
for what they actually say, as for their implicit outlook upon life.
This Pacicchelli was a fellow of our Royal Society, and his accounts of
England are worth reading; here, in Calabria (being a non-southerner)
his "Familiar Letters" and "Memoirs of Travel" act as a wholesome
corrective. Which of the local historians would have dared to speak of
Cosenza as "citta aperta, scomposta, e disordinata di fabbriche"?
That these inhabitants of the Sila are Bruttians may be inferred from
the superior position occupied by their women-folk, who are quite
differently treated to those of the lowlands. There - all along the
coasts of South Italy - the cow-woman is still found, unkempt and
uncivilized; there, the male is the exclusive bearer of culture. Such
things are not seen among the Bruttians of the Sila, any more than among
the grave Latins or Samnites. These non-Hellenic races are, generally
speaking, honest, dignified and incurious; they are bigoted, not to say
fanatical; and their women are not exclusively beasts of burden, being
better dressed, better looking, and often as intelligent as the men.
They are the fruits of a female selection.
But wherever the mocking Ionic spirit has penetrated - and the Ionian
women occupied even a lower position than those of the Dorians and
Aeolians - it has resulted in a glorification of masculinity. Hand in
hand with this depreciation of the female sex go other characteristics
which point to Hellenic influences: lack of commercial morality, of
veracity, of seriousness in religious matters; a persistent,
light-hearted inquisitiveness; a levity (or sprightliness, if you prefer
it) of mind. The people are fetichistic, amulet-loving, rather than
devout. We may certainly suspect Greek or Saracen strains wherever women
are held in low estimation; wherever, as the god Apollo himself said,
"the mother is but the nurse." In the uplands of Calabria the mother is
a good deal more than the nurse.
For the rest, it stands to reason that in proportion as the agricultural
stage supplants that of pasturage, the superior strength and utility of
boys over girls should become more apparent, and this in South Italy is
universally proclaimed by the fact that everything large and fine is
laughingly described as "maschio" (male), and by some odd superstitions
in disparagement of the female sex, such as these: that in giving
presents to women, uneven numbers should be selected, lest even ones "do
them more good than they deserve"; that to touch the hump of a female
hunchback brings no luck whatever; that if a woman be the first to drink
out of a new earthenware pitcher, the vessel may as well be thrown away
at once - it is tainted for ever. [Footnote: In Japan, says Hearn, the
first bucketful of water to be drawn out of a cleaned well must be drawn
by a man; for if a womsn first draw water, the well will always
hereafter remain muddy. Some of these prejudices seem to be based on
primordial misreadmgs of physiology.
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