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Modern scholars have devoted much learning to the local Tazzelwurm and Bergstutz. Exhausted with the morning's walk at Policoro, a railway journey and a long drive up nearly a thousand feet to Rossano in the heat of midday, I sought refuge, contrary to my usual custom, in the chief hotel, intending to rest awhile and then seek other quarters.
This short plunge into the jungle was a relief, after the all-too-human experiences of Taranto. The forest of Policoro skirts the Ionian; the railway line cleaves it into two unequal portions, the seaward tract being the smaller. It is bounded on the west by the river Sinnc, and I imagine the place has not changed much since the days when Keppel Craven explored its recesses.
For the rest, the domain of Policoro it is spelt Pelicaro in older maps like those of Magini and Rizzi-Zannone seems to be well administered, and would repay a careful study. I was not encouraged, however, to undertake this study, the manager evidently suspecting some ulterior motive to underlie my simple questions. He was not at all responsive to friendly overtures.
Policoro has the tangled beauty of a tropical swamp. Rank odours arise from the decaying leaves and moist earth; and once within that verdant labyrinth, you might well fancy yourself in some primeval region of the globe, where the foot of man has never penetrated.
Visible from the intervening plain is a large building on the summit of a hill; it is called Acinapura, and this is the place I should have gone to, had time permitted, for the sake of the fine view which it must afford over the whole Policoro region. Herds of buffaloes wallow in the mire.
What other tree would have the effrontery to turn the sharp edges of its leaves as if these were not narrow enough already! towards the sun, so as to be sure of giving at all hours of the day the minimum of shade and maximum of discomfort to mankind? But I confess that this avenue of Policoro almost reconciled me to the existence of the anaemic Antipodeans. These eucalypti are unique in Italy.
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