Moreover, cactus and agave, frequent in the foreground, preserved
the southern character of the scene. The great plain between the
hills and the sea grows very impressive; so silent it is, so
mournfully desolate, so haunted with memories of vanished glory. I
looked at the Crathis--the Crati of Cosenza--here beginning to
spread into a sea-marsh; the waters which used to flow over golden
sands, which made white the oxen, and sunny-haired the children,
that bathed in them, are now lost amid a wilderness poisoned by
their own vapours.
The railway station, like all in this region, was set about with
eucalyptus. Great bushes of flowering rosemary scented the air, and
a fine cassia tree, from which I plucked blossoms, yielded a subtler
perfume. Our lunch was not luxurious; I remember only, as at all
worthy of Sybaris, a palatable white wine called Muscato dei
Saraceni. Appropriate enough amid this vast silence to turn one's
thoughts to the Saracens, who are so largely answerable for the ages
of desolation that have passed by the Ionian Sea.
Then on for Taranto, where we arrived in the afternoon.
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