The sun
rose; I saw the streets of Catanzaro brighten in its pale gleams,
and the rack above interspaced with blue.
Luckily my carriage-owner was a man of prudence; at the appointed
hour he sent a covered vehicle - not the open carozzella in which
I should have cheerfully set forth had it depended upon myself. Don
Pasquale, too, though unwilling to perturb me, could not altogether
disguise his misgivings. At my last sight of him, he stood on the
pavement before the hotel gazing anxiously upwards. But the sun
still shone, and as we began the descent of the mountain-side I felt
annoyed at having to view the landscape through loopholes.
Of a sudden - we were near the little station down in the valley -
there arose a mighty roaring, and all the trees of the wayside bent
as if they would break. The sky blackened, the wind howled, and
presently, as I peered through the window for some hope that this
would only be a passing storm, rain beat violently upon my face.
Then the carriage stopped, and my driver, a lad of about seventeen,
jumped down to put something right in the horses' harness.
"Is this going to last?" I shouted to him.
"No, no, signore" he answered gaily. "It will be over in a minute or
two. Ecco il sole!"
I beheld no sun, either then or at any moment during the rest of the
day, but the voice was so reassuring that I gladly gave ear to it.
On we drove, down the lovely vale of the Corace, through
orange-groves and pine-woods, laurels and myrtles, carobs and olive
trees, with the rain beating fiercely upon us, the wind swaying all
the leafage like billows on a stormy sea. At the Marina of Catanzaro
we turned southward on the coast road, pursued it for two or three
miles, then branched upon our inland way. The storm showed no sign
of coming to an end. Several times the carriage stopped, and the lad
got down to examine his horses - perhaps to sympathize with them;
he was such a drenched, battered, pitiable object that I reproached
myself for allowing him to pursue the journey.
"Brutto tempo!" he screamed above the uproar, when I again spoke
to him; but in such a cheery tone that I did not think it worth
while to make any further remark.
Through the driving rain, I studied as well as I could the features
of the country. On my left hand stretched a long fiat-topped
mountain, forming the southern slope of the valley we ascended;
steep, dark, and furrowed with innumerable torrent-beds, it frowned
upon a river that rushed along the ravine at its foot to pour into
the sea where the mountain broke as a rugged cliff.
