In chilly darkness I bade farewell to Taranto.
At a little after six, when palest dawn was shimmering on the sea, I
found myself at Metaponto, with no possibility of doing anything for
a couple of hours. Metaponto is a railway station, that and nothing
more, and, as a station also calls itself a hotel, I straightway
asked for a room, and there dozed until sunshine improved my humour
and stirred my appetite. The guidebook had assured me of two things:
that a vehicle could be had here for surveying the district, and
that, under cover behind the station, one would find a little
collection of antiquities unearthed hereabout. On inquiry, I found
that no vehicle, and no animal capable of being ridden, existed at
Metaponto; also that the little museum had been transferred to
Naples. It did not pay to keep the horse, they told me; a stranger
asked for it only "once in a hundred years." However, a lad was
forthcoming who would guide me to the ruins. I breakfasted (the only
thing tolerable being the wine), and we set forth.
It was a walk of some two or three miles, by a cart road, through
fields just being ploughed for grain.
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