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When our eyes had met twice or thrice, and an ingenuous smile rose to his handsome face, I opened conversation, and he told me that he came every day to school from a little place called San Sostene to Catanzaro, there being no nearer instruction above the elementary; a journey of some sixteen miles each way, and not to be reckoned by English standards, for it meant changing at the Marina for the valley train, and finally going up the mountain side by diligenza.
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.
In one year alone , and in the sole province of Cosenza wherein San Giovanni lies, there were 156 landslides; they destroyed 1940 hectares of land, and their damage amounted to 432,738 francs. The two other Calabrian provinces Reggio and Catanzaro doubtless also had their full quota of these catastrophes, all due to mischievous deforestation.
Each of the women had a baby hanging at her back, together with miscellaneous goods which she had purchased in the town: though so heavily burdened, they walked erect, and with the free step of mountaineers. I could not have had a better opportunity than was afforded me on this day of observing the peasantry of the Catanzaro district.
Was I aware that at Catanzaro I should suddenly find myself in a season of most rigorous winter? And the winds! One needed to be very strong even to stand on one's feet at Catanzaro. For all this I returned thanks, and, having paid my bill, tottered back to the Concordia. It seemed to me more than doubtful whether I should start on the morrow. That evening I tried to dine.
But these, says an editor, should have been given to the neighbouring Scilatio, for Caulon was in ruins at the time of Pliny, and is not even mentioned by Ptolemy. As at Rossano, Catanzaro and many other Calabrian towns, there used to be a ghetto of Jews here; the district is still called "La Giudeca"; their synagogue was duly changed into a church of the Madonna.
I would traverse the whole country, from the Coscile valley to Catanzaro, at the other end. Arriving from Cosenza the train deposited me, once more, at the unlovely station of Castrovillari. I looked around the dusty square, half-dazed by the sunlight it was a glittering noonday in July but the postal waggon to Spezzano Albanese, my first resting-point, had not yet arrived.
The wild weather emphasized a natural difference between this valley of Squillace and that which rises towards Catanzaro; here is but scanty vegetation, little more than thin orchards of olive, and the landscape has a bare, harsh character. Is it changed so greatly since the sixth century of our era?
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