Lenormant is eloquent on the orange groves of Cotrone. In order to
visit them, permission was necessary, and presently I made my way to
the town hall, to speak with the Sindaco (Mayor) and request his aid
in this matter. Without difficulty I was admitted. In a
well-furnished office sat two stout gentlemen, smoking cigars, very
much at their ease; the Sindaco bade me take a chair, and
scrutinized me with doubtful curiosity as I declared my business.
Yes, to be sure he could admit me to see his own orchard; but why
did I wish to see it? My reply that I had no interest save in the
natural beauty of the place did not convince him; he saw in me a
speculator of some kind. That was natural enough. In all the south
of Italy, money is the one subject of men's thoughts; intellectual
life does not exist; there is little even of what we should call
common education. Those who have wealth cling to it fiercely; the
majority have neither time nor inclination to occupy themselves with
anything but the earning of a livelihood which for multitudes
signifies the bare appeasing of hunger.
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