The donkey's method of ploughing was to pull for one
minute, and then rest for two; it excited in the ploughman not the
least surprise or resentment. Though he held a long stick in his
hand, he never made use of it; at each stoppage he contemplated the
ass, and then gave utterance to a long "Ah-h-h!" in a note of the
most affectionate remonstrance. They were not driver and beast, but
comrades in labour. It reposed the mind to look upon them.
Walking onward in the same direction, one approaches a great wall,
with gateway sentry-guarded; it is the new Arsenal, the pride of
Taranto, and the source of its prosperity. On special as well as on
general grounds, I have a grudge against this mass of ugly masonry.
I had learnt from Lenormant that at a certain spot, Fontanella, by
the shore of the Little Sea, were observable great ancient heaps of
murex shells--the murex precious for its purple, that of Tarentum
yielding in glory only to the purple of Tyre. I hoped to see these
shells, perhaps to carry one away. But Fontanella had vanished,
swallowed up, with all remnants of antiquity, by the graceless
Arsenal.
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