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.

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