Leading the Blind

CHAPTER NINE SOUTHERN ITALY AND SICILY

If our traveller wants to visit the provinces south of Naples he will learn from his Murray of 1853 that the inns in the remoter districts are ‘as bad and comfortless as they were in the time of Montaigne, except that the wooden shutters which kept out the light as well as wind have mostly been replaced by glazed panels. The cookery in such places is on a par with the accommodation, and we may, from experience, congratulate every traveller in the mountain and inland districts who can make his own omelet, and instruct the padrona how to cook a dish of ham and eggs. These commodities are generally to be found in the highland villages, where even milk and butter are rarely to be met with, and they are real luxuries to an Englishman after the watery soup and cheese which constitute the chief contents of a country larder.’

Baedeker tells us that Italian customers ‘have no hesitation in ordering away ill-cooked or stale viands, and they often inspect the fish or meat before it is cooked and make a bargain as to the price’. He goes on to say: ‘Moderation in eating and drinking is, of course, imperative. The appetite gradually decreases under a southern sun … The traveller should be more than usually scrupulous in rejecting fish or eggs as to whose freshness there can be the slightest suspicion.’

Sixty years after Murray, Hare wrote: ‘The vastness and sometimes ugliness of the districts to be traversed, the barrenness and filth of the inns, the roughness of the natives, the torment of mosquitoes, the terror of earthquakes, the insecurity of the roads, and the far more serious risk of malaria or of typhoid from the bad water, are natural causes which have hitherto kept strangers away from the south. But every year these risks are being lessened, and some of the travellers along the southern railways to Sicily may well be induced to linger on the way, though, with the exception of the rebuilt hotel at Reggio, the inns of Calabria are still such as none but hardy tourists may care to encounter.’

With regard to public safety, he goes on: ‘… there is a general transmitted feeling of insecurity in the south, and it is still the custom in Calabria for lonely country houses to be prepared for a state of siege, while no Italian gentleman ventures to go out unarmed and unattended, and, on returning to his country villa, is always met at the railway station by armed servants, with horses which fail not to have pistols in their holsters. It is not a great many years since the cracking of whips was forbidden on the road from Rome to Naples, because it served as a call to brigands, and the Neapolitan peasantry still regard brigandage as by no means dishonourable: it was rather an attraction by which a young fellow secured the favour of his love, and brigands were always to be pitied and sympathised with. A pedestrian foreigner is still apt to feel, especially in Calabria, as if every man’s hand was against him, and, if he travels in desolate places, entertains (though needlessly) still as much dread of a stealthy pistol or stiletto, as of the fury of the sheep-dogs, from whom the fate of Actaeon seems constantly impending. It does do to run from these latter: the sight of a man picking up a stone is usually sufficient to keep them at bay.’

The habits of domestic life in the South are said to be very primitive. ‘It is a common thing for a Calabrian woman, far advanced in pregnancy, to go up to the forest for fuel, and to be there surprised by the pains of childbirth, perhaps hastened by toil. She is nowise dismayed at the solitude around her, or the distance from home, but, as in some of the Caucasian tribes, delivers herself of her infant, which she folds up in her apron, and, after a little rest, carries back to her cottage.’

In his 1853 edition Murray informs whoever is about to do the three hundred Italian miles to Reggio that no postroad in Italy is ‘so little frequented or abounds in such magnificent scenery as this high road into Calabria’. Highway robbery rarely happened, except on the byroads which ‘are still so much infested with robbers that no one should attempt to explore them without the advice of the local authorities’. On entering the province of Basilicata, we are told: ‘It is much to be regretted that the absence of good roads, and the danger of travelling by unfrequented paths in a country so often infested with brigands, renders a large number of interesting and picturesque towns almost inaccessible to the traveller.’

Alighting from the lumbering coach we find Atella to be ‘a miserable place, half dilapidated by the earthquake of 1851, with a population of 1200 souls, scarcely less wretched than their inhabitants’. The largest town in Basilicata, Rionero, with a population of ten thousand, contains ‘nothing to arrest attention, except the terrible traces which at least one half of it presents of the earthquake which spread so much terror and destruction throughout the whole district round Monte Volture on the 14th August 1851’. Hare describes the area as still ‘earthquake-stricken’ sixty years later.

Lagonegro, where Murray’s romantic prose cranks into top gear, is ‘picturesquely situated in a cold and gloomy position at the extremity of a narrow glen … At its southern entrance the road crosses two branches of the Trecchina by bridges thrown across the deep and narrow ravines in which they flow, and proceeds thence through a bleak and gloomy defile characterised by the picturesque wilderness for which the ravines of this province are remarkable.’

A battle fought here in 1806 between the Neapolitans and the French army of Joseph Buonaparte was ‘one of the few instances in which native forces showed a gallant spirit of resistance. During the second invasion towns on this route occupied by the French were the scenes of the most terrible executions. Colletta the historian affirms that he himself saw a person impaled “con barbarie Ottomana,” by order of a French colonel who had been a prisoner in the Levant. Many others, according to the same authority, were stoned to death, or subjected to the most terrible tortures.’

Guidebooks later in the century tend to play down accounts of such atrocities, but Hare tells us that one band of brigands in 1865 ‘captured seven men and fourteen women, whom they took away to a place called Maccolata. News of this enormity reaching the authorities, they sent a force to encounter the brigands. The latter, finding themselves in a difficult pass, cut off two heads of their victims and sent them to the officer in command, threatening to send the rest if the pursuit were continued. While this was going on, some of the brigands were dancing and drinking, and others were playing the guitar … and the authorities retired.’ In 1876 another gang boiled a herdsman alive in the forest of Silla, ‘and compelled his subordinates to eat him’.

For all their barbarity the bandits were said to be god-fearing and superstitious, as was revealed in the trial of one Musolino in 1902: ‘If he wishes his affair on hand to go well, he sends to the curé of his village a few soldi to say a mass to the Madonna for him. If it turns out well, he will perhaps send a rich necklace to the image of the Virgin in the church. To the Madonna he owes all, and would on no account offend her by eating meat on the day sacred to her.’

One band pillaged the carrier’s waggon plying between the provinces and the capital, though it was strongly escorted. On one occasion they seized a waggon loaded ‘with all the paraphernalia of a newly established court of justice, and, dressing up in the judge’s wig and robes, amused themselves by holding a mock court of justice on an unfortunate traveller they had captured and sentencing him to immediate execution’.

Methods of repression were on a level with the ferocity of the brigands themselves. A bandit, in the early nineteenth century, whose pleasure it was to roast his prisoners alive was, says Augustus J. C. Hare, ‘taken by the French troops and roasted by them between fires, blaspheming to the last’. In the days of Murat, those ‘who did not die fighting usually died under torture or at the stake, or succeeded in fleeing to Sicily. Benincasa, a leader betrayed by some of his followers, was tied, like Samson, while he slept in a wood near Cassano, and taken into Cosenza. There General Manhes ordered his hands to be struck off, and him to be taken mutilated round the town of S. Giovanni, his native place. First, they cut off his right hand and tied up the stump, so as to keep him alive. He did not utter a sound, but with terrific cynicism held out the other hand to the board. The two hands were then hung by strings upon his chest. The same day he was escorted from Cosenza to San Giovanni, in Fiore. One of the soldiers gave him some food and drink. The next evening he slept, but in the morning he refused the ministrations of the priest sent to him, and ascended the ladder to his death with sang-froid.’

Eventually, our coach brings us, unscathed we hope, to a place called Maida, ‘a small town of 2800 souls, the name of which has been made familiar to the English traveller by the victory gained by the British army under Sir John Stuart over the French army in 1806’ — and which, incidentally, gave the name to a familiar district of London, Maida Vale.

The French army occupied a strong, defensive position, from which it would have been hard for the British to dislodge them. Holding the smaller British army in contempt, the French advanced to what they thought would be complete victory. Against the 7000 French the British had 4800 men, and Murray quotes the despatch of Sir John Stuart: the two enemies, ‘at a distance of about 100 yards, fired reciprocally a few rounds, when, as if by mutual agreement, the firing was suspended, and in close compact order and awful silence they advanced towards each other until their bayonets began to cross. At this momentous crisis the enemy became appalled. They broke, and endeavoured to fly, but it was too late; they were overtaken with the most dreadful slaughter.’ It was the last time British troops fought in Italy until the First World War.

At the furthest point of Italy’s big toe we reach the Rock of Scylla. The rock, ‘whose dangers have been made so familiar to every reader by the Greek and Latin poets, have long ceased to be formidable, and the timid Neapolitan or Sicilian navigator sails by it without any apprehension. But although deprived of its terrors, the classical traveller will examine with lively interest this celebrated spot, immortalized by the greatest poets of ancient and modern times.’

On the road from Naples east towards Otranto, an excursion is taken off the main track to the Lake of Amsanctus, the only place known, Murray says, besides that of the Valley of Death in Java, ‘where life is endangered in the open air by the evolution of noxious gases’. He quotes a Dr Daubeny, who visited the spot in 1834: ‘The quantity of mephitic vapour which proceeded from the lake was such as to oblige us (the wind being in the north) to take a circuit towards the east, in order not to meet the noxious blast; instances not unfrequently occurring of animals and even men, who have imprudently ascended the ravine, being suffocated by a sudden gust of air wafted from the lake.’ Baedeker says that the vapours are only deadly to small animals. Virgil described it as ‘the grinning jaws of Hell’, but Hare comes closest to reality when he tells us that a friend ‘was able to take his morning bath from a boat in it, and although the curious onlookers veritably believed the audacious one would never come up when he took a header, he did so, enjoyed his swim, and was heartily congratulated on it’.

Murray points out that the beauty of the women of Ariano ‘is the theme of every traveller’, but Hare gives the palm to Tiriolo whose ‘women are particularly striking for their Amazonian figures. Their dress adds to their masculine appearance. I met several who were carrying water on their heads, and I could not but admire the magnificence of their forms. They had their gown tucked up so completely behind them that it could scarcely be observed, while a piece of red cloth, employed as a petticoat, was carelessly wrapped around them, and as it opened displayed a snow-white chemise reaching to their knees. They wore neither shoes nor stockings.’

Social conditions improve, according to Murray, when the traveller reaches the Adriatic coast. ‘The road along the Marina between Barletta and Bari is one of the most pleasing on the east coast of Italy, and is famous even in this country of fine scenery; but its attractions are due more to the general air of civilization and the high cultivation of the country than to any remarkable features of natural beauty.’

Confirmation of this is evident when we come to Giovenazzo, which is ‘remarkable for its admirable poor-house, capable of containing 2000 persons. At present upwards of 500 children are there maintained and instructed in useful arts. In a separate part of the establishment, children and youths condemned to imprisonment by the laws are similarly instructed with a view to reclaim them from their evil habits.’

Bari, with its tolerably good inn, ‘is an active but somewhat gloomy place, and … has several good streets, and a convenient port formed by two moles.’ Hare, sixty years later, condemns the city out of hand, as having ‘all the characteristics of the meanest part of Naples — flat roofs, dilapidated, whitewashed houses, and a swarming, noisy, dirty, begging, brutalised population’.

He gives a similar bill of wretchedness to Taranto, ‘with its narrow streets, high white houses, and flat roofs, and its miserable, filthy scrofulous population’. He goes on to tell us of the method of farming mussels, which has been in existence for centuries. ‘Ropes are plunged into the water, and, when festooned with shells, are drawn up, and carried to the market, where the purchaser choose his mussels himself, makes his bargain, and then has them detached.’

Baedeker of the same year warns us that oysters are dangerous, ‘cases of typhus have been traced to the consumption of oysters from Santa Lucia, where the water in which the shellfish are kept often leaves something to be desired in point of cleanliness’.

Regarding the prevalence of Tarantella dancing, which takes place in the neighbourhood of every town, Murray quotes a medical man as saying that the spider does not produce any injurious effects whatsoever, though he adds: ‘The cure [for the supposed bite of a tarantula, or ‘female’ madness] is a general signal for a musical holiday throughout the village in which it occurs; feasting and dancing are always added, and the process of cure is consequently so expensive, that refractory husbands, it is said, have in late years refused to sanction it’, such occasions being thought of by most writers ‘as the remains of the orgies observed in the celebration of the worship of Bacchus’.

The woman so stricken continues dancing, ‘as long as her breath and strength allow, occasionally selecting one of the bystanders as her partner, and sprinkling her face with cold water, a large vessel of which is always placed near at hand. While she rests at times, the guests are invited to relieve her by dancing by turns after the fashion of the country; and when, overcome by restless lassitude and faintness, she determines to give over for the day, she takes the pail or jar of water, and pours its contents entirely over her person, from her head downwards. This is the signal for her friends to undress and convey her to bed; after which the rest of the company endeavour to further her recovery by devouring a substantial repast, which is always prepared on the occasion.’

Instead of a page or so, Baedeker gives only a few sceptical lines, saying that the bite of the spider was ‘formerly believed to be venomous and is still said by the natives to cause convulsions and even madness, for which music and dancing are supposed to be effectual remedies’.

After commenting on the remarkable beauty of the women of Martano, Murray brings us to Otranto, ‘rendered familiar to the English visitor by the romance of Horace Walpole. The realities of it, however, will by no means be commensurate with the notions inspired by that well-known fiction.’ In 1480 the Turks captured the town and butchered 12,000 of its 20,000 inhabitants, and many parts of the town and neighbourhood were said to retain marks of the bombardment sustained during its recapture.

Instead of the overland journey one can go from Naples to Otranto by sea. The vessel is a light sailing boat but ‘as its arrival and departure are uncertain, passengers are sometimes obliged to wait a week or a fortnight, and the length of passage is of course doubtful, sometimes occupying many days, at others only 12 hours. The fare is 5 dollars, half of which goes to the government, and half to the captain. Passengers provide themselves with everything, and the captain expects to be invited to breakfast and dinner.’

The assumption was that those who travelled to the southern part of Italy would sooner or later continue to Sicily, the nearest port to the island being Reggio di Calabria — an unfortunate town if ever there was one. At the time of Murray, 1853, the place had a very good inn, and was agreeably situated ‘in the midst of natural beauties which are not surpassed by any other part of Europe’, being ‘a handsome and well-built town, with spacious streets, rising from the broad and very noble Marina towards the richly cultivated slopes of the hills behind it, among which are scattered numerous beautiful villas of the wealthy residents … It is difficult to imagine anything more delightful than a lounge in the colonnade of the fountain in a cool summer’s evening when the magnificent mountains behind Messina are thrown into relief by the setting sun … With these advantages, added to its agreeable and refined society, the hospitality of its inhabitants, and the amusements of a good theatre, Reggio cannot fail to offer a pleasant sojourn.’

All this changed in 1908, when an earthquake killed five thousand of the town’s 35,000 inhabitants. ‘Not a building escaped without injury,’ Baedeker says, ‘and those that remained standing had to be pulled down. But it has already been resolved to rebuild the town on its old site …’

Messina, across the straits in Sicily, had an even more calamitous history, for in 1740 a plague ‘carried off’ 40,000 people, and in 1854 cholera claimed 16,000 victims; but an account of the earthquake in 1783, given in Pictures From Sicily, 1864, by W. H. Bartlett, is worth recounting:

The cries of the dying; the shrieks of those who were half-buried under the ruins; the wild terror with which others, who were still able, attempted to make their escape; the despair of fathers, mothers, and husbands, bereft of those who were dearest to them, — these formed altogether a scene of horror such as can but seldom occur in the history of the calamities of the human race. Amid that fearful scene, instances of the most heroic courage and of the most generous affection were displayed. Mothers, regardless of their own safety, rushed into every danger to snatch their children from death. Conjugal and filial affection prompted deeds not less desperate and heroic. But no sooner did the earthquake cease than the poor wretches who had escaped began to feel the influence of very different passions. When they returned to visit the ruins, to seek out the situation of their fallen dwellings, to inquire into the fate of their families, to procure food and collect some remains of their former fortunes, such as found their circumstances the most wretched became suddenly animated with rage, which nothing but wild despair could inspire. The distinction of ranks and the order of society were disregarded, and property eagerly violated. Murder, rapine, and lawless robbery reigned among the smoking ruins …

In 1848, when the people of Messina rebelled against the king of Naples, the place was mercilessly bombarded, and the Neapolitan forces on entering the town burned whole streets, committing ‘the most unheard-of ravages. Some of the details of their cruelties are really too horrible to be cited.’ The carnage was only stopped when French and British warships standing off-shore — in spite of neutrality having been imposed on them by their governments — intervened in the name of humanity to stop the slaughter. And then in 1908 came the worst disaster of all, when the same earthquake which flattened Reggio killed 96,000 people.

On landing at Messina, Hare tells us that it is almost useless to ask one’s way. ‘One is sure to be answered by — “Who knows?” or with the assertion in reply to any remonstrance, that a housewife has no need to know the way anywhere but to her church or her fountain.’ Should you care to go along the coast to the lighthouse at Cape Pelorus, ‘travellers are beset by the rough, noisy inhabitants of the village, and a dirty begging crowd accompanies them to the lighthouse, and prevents their having any enjoyment’.

As for the travelling in the interior, Bartlett says, with echoes of Charlotte Eaton: ‘I shall spare the reader a detailed account of our progress from Syracuse to Girgenti, in which we made full proof of the deplorable filth and misery of the interior of the island. Suffice it to say that we passed the first night at Palazzolo, the second at Biscari, and the third at Terranova. The first was bad, the second worse, and the third so utterly unsupportable, that to escape the onslaught of the vermin I ordered the mules in the middle of the night and departed. No sooner on horseback, however, than the sense of fatigue returned with increased force, and one rides on half asleep, and at every moment, ready to drop, until the rising sun awakens a forced and feverish activity; and so one goes forward the whole day under the blazing heat.’

Thirty years later the hotels in the larger towns of the island were said by Hare to be excellent, but that if the traveller takes the train to Taormina he will suffer much at the hands of railway officials, ‘who by night thrust emigrants into first and second class carriages’. He also reports that the recent abolition of the rural police has brought insecurity, ‘causing an exaggerated report of brigandage, which has consequently fallen upon the less populated districts, and has deterred most Italian travellers from prolonging their rambles into a country which is nevertheless full of the elements of enjoyment’.

In a later edition he warns travellers, regarding the main cities, ‘not to take the same liberties in the suburbs that he may take with impunity at Florence or Rome: though, for that matter, the lonely or the rash visitor may find himself victimised unpleasantly in those of any large town.’

In climbing the volcanic Mount Etna: ‘The deepest ashes are very fatiguing, and most visitors are grievously overwhelmed by sickness, induced more by the terrible cold than the noxious gases, before reaching the top, where the guides will often cover them up in the warm ashes till they recover.’ At the summit: ‘The desolation is supreme — all vegetation has long ceased: there is no sound from beast, bird, or insect. In later times Etna has been supposed to be a place of torment for Anne Boleyn, perverter of the faith in the person of its “Defender”!’

Of all the perils, however, perhaps the greatest was that which at one time threatened in the catacombs of Syracuse. Hare quotes from Wanderungen in Sicilien by a German traveller, Gregorovius. ‘Twenty years ago a professor, with six pupils, to whom he wished to explain the wonders of the city of tombs, was lost there. They wandered long and despairingly through the horrible labyrinth in search of the entrance till they died of exhaustion, and they were found lying side by side, four miles distant from the gate. Since that time holes for light and air have been pierced in the galleries, through which the dubious daylight shimmers mysteriously into this fearful Hades.’