The confines of this new town being so vague, much trouble is given
to that noble institution, the dazio. Scattered far and wide in a
dusty wilderness, stand the little huts of the officers, vigilant on
every road or by-way to wring the wretched soldi from toilsome
hands. As became their service, I found these gentry anything but
amiable; they had commonly an air of ennui, and regarded a
stranger with surly suspicion.
When I was back again among the high new houses, my eye, wandering
in search of any smallest point of interest, fell on a fresh-painted
inscription: -
"ALLA MAGNA GRAECIA. STABILIMENTO
IDROELETTROPATICO."
was well meant. At the sign of "Magna Graecia" one is willing to
accept "hydroelectropathic" as a late echo of Hellenic speech.
CHAPTER V
DULCE GALAESI FLUMEN
Taranto has a very interesting Museum. I went there with an
introduction to the curator, who spared no trouble in pointing out
to me all that was best worth seeing. He and I were alone in the
little galleries; at a second or third visit I had the Museum to
myself, save for an attendant who seemed to regard a visitor as a
pleasant novelty, and bestirred himself for my comfort when I wanted
to make sketches. Nothing is charged for admission, yet no one
enters. Presumably, all the Tarentines who care for archaeology have
already been here, and strangers are few.
Upon the shelves are seen innumerable miniature busts, carved in
some kind of stone; thought to be simply portraits of private
persons. One peers into the faces of men, women, and children,
vaguely conjecturing their date, their circumstances; some of them
may have dwelt in the old time on this very spot of ground now
covered by the Museum. Like other people who grow too rich and
comfortable, the citizens of Tarentum loved mirth and mockery; their
Greek theatre was remarkable for irreverent farce, for parodies of
the great drama of Athens. And here is testimony to the fact: all
manner of comic masks, of grotesque visages; mouths distorted into
impossible grins, eyes leering and goggling, noses extravagant. I
sketched a caricature of Medusa, the anguished features and snaky
locks travestied with satiric grimness. You remember a story which
illustrates this scoffing habit: how the Roman Ambassador, whose
Greek left something to be desired, excited the uproarious derision
of the assembled Tarentines - with results that were no laughing
matter.
I used the opportunity of my conversation with the Director of the
Museum to ask his aid in discovering the river Galaesus. Who could
find himself at Taranto without turning in thought to the Galaesus,
and wishing to walk along its banks? Unhappily, one cannot be quite
sure of its position. A stream there is, flowing into the Little
Sea, which by some is called Galeso; but the country-folk commonly
give it the name of Gialtrezze. Of course I turned my steps in that
direction, to see and judge for myself.
To skirt the western shore of the Mare Piccolo I had to pass the
railway station, and there I made a few inquiries; the official with
whom I spoke knew not the name Galeso, but informed me that the
Gialtrezze entered the sea at a distance of some three kilometres.
That I purposed walking such a distance to see an insignificant
stream excited the surprise, even the friendly concern, of my
interlocutor; again and again he assured me it was not worth while,
repeating emphatically, "Non c'e novita." But I went my foolish
way. Of two or three peasants or fishermen on the road I asked the
name of the little river I was approaching; they answered,
"Gialtrezze." Then came a man carrying a gun, whose smile and
greeting invited question. "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. With half-closed eyes, one could imagine the true
Tarentum. Wavelets lapped upon the sand before me, their music the
same as two thousand years ago. A goatherd came along, his flock
straggling behind him; man and goats were as much of the old world
as of the new. Far away, the boats of fishermen floated silently. I
heard a rustle as an old fig tree hard by dropped its latest leaves.
On the sea-bank of yellow crumbling earth lizards flashed about me
in the sunshine.
