In The Public Gardens Is A Little Museum, Noticeable Mostly For A
Fine Collection Of Ancient Coins.
There are Greek pots, too, and
weapons, found at Tiriolo, a village high up on the mountain above
Catanzaro.
As at Taranto, a stranger who cares for this kind of
thing can be sure of having the museum all to himself. On my first
visit Don Pasquale accompanied me, and through him I made the
acquaintance of the custodian. But I was not in the museum mood;
reviving health inclined me to the open air, and the life of to-day;
I saw these musty relics with only a vague eye.
After living amid a malaria-stricken population, I rejoiced in the
healthy aspect of the mountain folk. Even a deformed beggar, who
dragged himself painfully along the pavement, had so ruddy a face
that it was hard to feel compassion for him. And the wayside
children - it was a pleasure to watch them at their games. Such
children in Italy do not, as a rule, seem happy; too often they look
ill, cheerless, burdened before their time; at Catanzaro they are as
robust and lively as heart could wish, and their voices ring
delightfully upon the ear. It is not only, I imagine, a result of
the fine air they breathe; no doubt they are exceptional among the
poor children of the south in getting enough to eat. The town has
certain industries, especially the manufacture of silk; one feels an
atmosphere of well-being; mendicancy is a rare thing.
Fruits abounded, and were very cheap; if one purchased from a stall
the difficulty was to carry away the abundance offered for one's
smallest coin. Excellent oranges cost about a penny the half-dozen.
Any one who is fond of the prickly fig should go to Catanzaro. I
asked a man sitting with a basket of them at a street corner to give
me the worth of a soldo (a half-penny); he began to fill my pocket,
and when I cried that it was enough, that I could carry no more, he
held up one particularly fine fruit, smiled as only an Italian can,
and said, with admirable politeness, "Questo per complimento!" I
ought to have shaken hands with him.
Even when I had grown accustomed to the place, its singular
appearance of incompleteness kept exciting my attention. I had never
seen a town so ragged at the edges. If there had recently been a
great conflagration and almost all the whole city were being
rebuilt, it would have looked much as it did at the time of my
visit. To enter the post-office one had to clamber over heaps of
stone and plaster, to stride over tumbled beams and jump across
great puddles, entering at last by shaky stairs a place which looked
like the waiting-room of an unfinished railway station. The style of
building is peculiar, and looks so temporary as to keep one
constantly in mind of the threatening earthquake.
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