"Can You Tell Me The Name Of The Stream
Which Flows Into The Sea Just Beyond Here?" "Signore, It Is The
Galeso."
My pulse quickened with delight; all the more when I found that my
informant had no tincture of the classics, and that he supported
Galeso against Gialtrezze simply as a question of local interest.
Joyously I took leave of him, and very soon I was in sight of the
river itself.
The river? It is barely half a mile long; it rises
amid a bed of great reeds, which quite conceal the water, and flows
with an average breadth of some ten feet down to the seashore, on
either side of it bare, dusty fields, and a few hoary olives.
The Galaesus? - the river beloved by Horace; its banks pasturing a
famous breed of sheep, with fleece so precious that it was protected
by a garment of skins? Certain it is that all the waters of Magna
Graecia have much diminished since classic times, but (unless there
have been great local changes, due, for example, to an earthquake)
this brook had always the same length, and it is hard to think of
the Galaesus as so insignificant. Disappointed, brooding, I followed
the current seaward, and upon the shore, amid scents of mint and
rosemary, sat down to rest.
There was a good view of Taranto across the water; the old town on
its little island, compact of white houses, contrasting with the
yellowish tints of the great new buildings which spread over the
peninsula.
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