In These Garden Walks I Met A Group Of Peasants, Evidently Strange
To Cosenza, And Wondering At All They Saw.
The women wore a very
striking costume:
A short petticoat of scarlet, much embroidered,
and over it a blue skirt, rolled up in front and gathered in a sort
of knot behind the waist; a bodice adorned with needlework and
metal; elaborate glistening head-gear, and bare feet. The town-folk
have no peculiarity of dress. I observed among them a grave,
intelligent type of countenance, handsome and full of character,
which may be that of their brave ancestors the Bruttii. With
pleasure I saw that they behaved gently to their beasts, the mules
being. very sleek and contented-looking. There is much difference
between these people and the Neapolitans; they seem to have no
liking for noise, talk with a certain repose, and allow the stranger
to go about among them unmolested, unimportuned. Women above the
poorest class are not seen in the streets; there prevails an
Oriental system of seclusion.
I was glad to come upon the pot market; in the south of Italy it is
always a beautiful and interesting sight. Pottery for commonest use
among Calabrian peasants has a grace of line, a charm of colour, far
beyond anything native to our most pretentious china-shops. Here
still lingers a trace of the old civilization. There must be a great
good in a people which has preserved this need of beauty through
ages of servitude and suffering.
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