I poured from the thick decanter
(dirtier vessel was never seen on table) and tasted. The stuff was
poison. Assuredly I am far from fastidious; this, I believe, was the
only occasion when wine has been offered me in Italy which I could
not drink. After desperately trying to persuade myself that the
liquor was merely "rough," that its nauseating flavour meant only a
certain coarse quality of the local grape, I began to suspect that
it was largely mixed with water - the water of Squillace!
Notwithstanding a severe thirst, I could not and durst not drink.
Very soon I made my way to the kitchen, where my driver, who had
stabled his horses, sat feeding heartily; he looked up with his
merry smile, surprised at the rapidity with which I had finished.
How I envied his sturdy stomach! With the remark that I was going to
have a stroll round the town and should be back to settle things in
half an hour, I hastened into the open.
CHAPTER XV
MISERIA
"What do people do here?" I once asked at a little town between Rome
and Naples; and the man with whom I talked, shrugging his shoulders,
answered curtly, "C'e miseria" - there's nothing but poverty. The
same reply would be given in towns and villages without number
throughout the length of Italy. I had seen poverty enough, and
squalid conditions of life, but the most ugly and repulsive
collection of houses I ever came upon was the town of Squillace.
