He was a commercial traveller, representing a
firm of drug merchants in North Italy, and for his sins (as he put
it) had to make the southern journey every year; he invariably
suffered from fever, and at certain places--of course, the least
civilized--had attacks which delayed him from three days to a
week. He loathed the South, finding no compensation whatever for the
miseries of travel below Naples; the inhabitants he reviled with
exceeding animosity. Interested by the doleful predicament of this
vendor of drugs (who dosed himself very vigorously), I found him a
pleasant companion during the day; after our lunch he seemed to
shake off the last shivers of his malady, and was as sprightly an
Italian as one could wish to meet--young, sharp-witted,
well-mannered, and with a pleasing softness of character.
We lunched at Sybaris; that is to say, at the railway station now so
called, though till recently it bore the humbler name of Buffaloria.
The Italians are doing their best to revive the classical
place-names, where they have been lost, and occasionally the
incautious traveller is much misled.
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