Eastward,
Above The Slopes Of Sila, Stood A Moon Almost At Its Full, The
Yellow Of An Autumn Leaf, On A Sky Soft-Flushed With Rose.
In my geography it is written that between Catanzaro and the sea lie
the gardens of the Hesperides.
CHAPTER XII
CATANZARO
For half an hour the train slowly ascends. The carriages are of
special construction, light and many-windowed, so that one has good
views of the landscape. Very beautiful was this long, broad,
climbing valley, everywhere richly wooded; oranges and olives, carob
and lentisk and myrtle, interspersed with cactus (its fruit, the
prickly fig, all gathered) and with the sword-like agave. Glow of
sunset lingered upon the hills: in the green hollow a golden
twilight faded to dusk. The valley narrowed; it became a gorge
between dark slopes which closed together and seemed to bar advance.
Here the train stopped, and all the passengers (some half-dozen)
alighted.
The sky was still clear enough to show the broad features of the
scene before me. I looked up to a mountain side, so steep that
towards the summit it appeared precipitous, and there upon the
height, dimly illumined with a last reflex of after-glow, my eyes
distinguished something which might be the outline of walls and
houses. This, I knew, was the situation of Catanzaro, but one could
not easily imagine by what sort of approach the city would be
gained; in the thickening twilight, no trace of a road was
discernible, and the flanks of the mountain, a ravine yawning on
either hand, looked even more abrupt than the ascent immediately
before me.
There, however, stood the diligenza which was somehow to convey me
to Catanzaro; I watched its loading with luggage-merchandise and
mail-bags - whilst the exquisite evening melted into night. When I
had thus been occupied for a few minutes, my look once more turned
to the mountain, where a surprise awaited me: the summit was now
encircled with little points of radiance, as though a starry diadem
had fallen upon it from the sky. "Pronti!" cried our driver. I
climbed to my seat, and we began our journey towards the crowning
lights.
By help of long loops the road ascended at a tolerably easy angle;
the horse-bells tinkled, the driver shouted encouragement to his
beasts, and within the vehicle went on a lively gossiping, with much
laughter. Meanwhile the great moon had risen high enough to illumine
the valley below us; silvery grey and green, the lovely hollow
seemed of immeasurable length, and beyond it one imagined, rather
than discerned, a glimmer of the sea. By the wayside I now and then
caught sight of a huge cactus, trailing its heavy knotted length
upon the face of a rock; and at times we brushed beneath overhanging
branches of some tree that could not be distinguished. All the way
up we seemed to skirt a sheer precipice, which at moments was
alarming in its gloomy depth. Deeper and deeper below shone the
lights of the railway station and of the few houses about it; it
seemed as though a false step would drop us down into their midst.
The fatigue of the day's journey passed away during this ascent,
which lasted nearly an hour; when, after a drive through dark but
wide streets, I was set down before the hotel, I felt that I had
shaken off the last traces of my illness. A keen appetite sent me as
soon as possible in search of the dining-room, where I ate with
extreme gusto; everything seemed excellent after the sorry table of
the Concordia. I poured my wine with a free hand, rejoicing to
find it was wine once more, and not (at all events to my palate) a
concoction of drugs. The albergo was decent and well found; a
cheerful prosperity declared itself in all I had yet seen. After
dinner I stepped out on to the balcony of my room to view the city's
main street; but there was very scant illumination, and the
moonlight only showed me high houses of modern build. Few people
passed, and never a vehicle; the shops were all closed. I needed no
invitation to sleep, but this shadowed stillness, and the fresh
mountain air, happily lulled my thoughts. Even the subject of
earthquakes proved soporific.
Impossible to find oneself at Catanzaro without thinking of
earthquakes; I wonder that the good people of Coltrone did not
include this among deterrents whereby they sought to prejudice me
against the mountain town. Over and over again Catanzaro has been
shaken to its foundations. The worst calamity recorded was towards
the end of the eighteenth century, when scarce a house remained
standing, and many thousands of the people perished. This explains a
peculiarity in the aspect of the place, noticeable as soon as one
begins to walk about; it is like a town either half built or half
destroyed, one knows not which; everywhere one comes upon ragged
walls, tottering houses, yet there is no appearance of antiquity.
One ancient building, a castle built by Robert Guiscard when he
captured Catanzaro in the eleventh century, remained until of late
years, its Norman solidity defying earthquakes; but this has been
pulled down, deliberately got rid of for the sake of widening a
road. Lament over such a proceeding would be idle enough; Catanzaro
is the one progressive town of Calabria, and has learnt too
thoroughly the spirit of the time to suffer a blocking of its
highway by middle-age obstructions.
If a Hellenic or Roman city occupied this breezy summit, it has left
no name, and no relics of the old civilization have been discovered
here. Catanzaro was founded in the tenth century, at the same time
that Taranto was rebuilt after the Saracen destruction; an epoch of
revival for Southern Italy under the vigorous Byzantine rule of
Nicephorus Phocas. From my point of view, the interest of the place
suffered because I could attach to it no classic memory.
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