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Those reeds which rustle about the hidden source seem to me fit shelter of a Naiad; I am glad I could not see the water bubbling in its spring, for there remains a mystery. Whilst I live, the Galaesus purls and glistens in the light of that golden afternoon, and there beyond, across the blue still depths, glimmers a vision of Tarentum.
Around many a one lies dead, aged Galaesus among them, slain as he throws himself between them for a peacemaker, once incomparable in justice and wealth of Ausonian fields; for him five flocks bleated, a five-fold herd returned from pasture, and an hundred ploughs upturned the soil.
Crossing the Esaro, I lingered on the bridge to gaze at its green, muddy water, not visibly flowing at all. The high reeds which half concealed it carried my thoughts back to the Galaesus. But the comparison is all in favour of the Tarentine stream. Here one could feel nothing but a comfortless melancholy; the scene is too squalid, the degradation too complete.
If we follow Polybius, another brook at the further end of the inland sea has more valid claims to the title of Galaesus. "For me," says Gissing, "the Galaesus is the stream I found and tracked, whose waters I heard mingle with the little sea." There is something to be said for such an attitude, on the part of a dilettante traveller, towards these desperate antiquarian controversies.
A mile or so before reaching Tarante the railway crosses a stream that flows into the inland sea. One would be glad to believe those sages who hold it to be the far-famed Galaesus.
He, however, left them a small force, at once for their protection and to assist in building the wall. The general himself, setting out with the rest of his forces, pitched his camp at the river Galaesus, five miles from the city.
The shepherds pour in full tale from the battlefield into the town, bearing back their slain, the boy Almo and Galaesus' disfigured face, and cry on the gods and call on Latinus.
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.
It is little likely that my search will ever be renewed, and for me the Galaesus "dulce Galaesi flumen" is the stream I found and tracked, whose waters I heard mingle with the Little Sea. The memory has no sense of disappointment.
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? Disappointed, brooding, I followed the current seaward, and upon the shore, amid scents of mint and rosemary, sat down to rest.
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