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At night-time an exquisite perfume of flowers and ripe corn comes wafted into my room over the still waters, and when the sun rises, white settlements begin to sparkle among its olives and vineyards. My eyes often rest upon one of them; it is Grottaglie, distant a few miles from Taranto on the Brindisi line. I must visit Grottaglie, for it was here that the flying monk received his education.
Out upon the hills we went, not caring much what path we took; for everything was beautiful, and hill and vale were full of garden walks. Through lemon-groves, pale, golden-tender trees, and olives, stretching their grey boughs against the lonely cottage tiles, we climbed, until we reached the pines and heath above. Then I knew the meaning of Theocritus for the first time.
"I am going to spend the day with you, Granddad, and probably the night as well. You can give me a bed in a corner of this delightful sitting-room. Is that breakfast? I wish you would serve it up; I am starving." "It's a very good breakfast, little Nina. Fried rabbit, done after a new method. Bacon and eggs to follow, with a sauce of port wine. Olives and sour claret for dessert.
Soon after sunrise, he was carried forth to his place of observation, a portico in semicircle, the marble honey-toned by time, which afforded shelter from the eastern rays and commanded a view of vast extent. Below him lay the little town, built on the cliffs above its landing-place; the hillsides on either hand were clad with vineyards, splendid in the purple of autumn, and with olives.
"You don't want to knock into a child's head the names of the capes and bays of Africa or the population of Canada, but you want to give it some conception of the different countries on the face of God's earth. Instead of making it learn the exports of Italy, show it pictures of the orange groves and of gathering the olives, and it will name you the exports for itself.
The country-people are kind, letting us pass everywhere, so that we make our way along their aqueducts and through their gardens, under laden lemon-boughs, the pale fruit dangling at our ears, and swinging showers of scented dew upon us as we pass. Far better, however, than lemon or orange trees, are the olives.
That Rose-Pompon, with such an unaccountable savage choice of food, should retain a freshness of complexion worthy of her name, is one of those miracles, which reveal the mighty power of youth and health. When she had eaten her salad, Rose-Pompon was about to begin upon her olives, when a low knock was heard at the door, which was modestly bolted on the inside. "Who is there?" said Rose-Pompon.
The narcissus has found a rival along the terraces in the anemone, and already the wild tulip is preparing to dispute the palm of supremacy with both. It is the time for picnics, for excursions, for donkey-rides, for dreams beneath the clump of cypresses that shoot up black into the sky, for siestas beneath the olives.
Crossing bridges here and there we saw, rising above sapphire lake and silver belt of olives jewelled with rosy almond blossom, more than one miniature Carcassonne, or ruined castle small as if peeped at through a diminishing glass.
Richard dismounted to gather some roses and jessamine for the Princess, and to collect some of the curious fossil echini, which he believed to be olives turned to stone by the Prophet Elijah, as a punishment to a churlish peasant who refused him a meal. He thought that such treasures would be a welcome addition to the store he was accumulating for the good old Grand Prior.
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