I pictured the
sort of retreat in which he had lain during those miserable hours.
My own chamber contained merely the barest necessaries, and, as the
gentleman of Cosenza would have said, "left something to be desired"
in point of cleanliness. Conceive the places into which Cotrone's
poorest have to crawl when they are stricken with disease. I admit,
however, that the thought was worse to me at that moment than it is
now. After all, the native of Cotrone has advantages over the native
of a city slum; and it is better to die in a hovel by the Ionian Sea
than in a cellar at Shoreditch.
The position of my room, which looked upon the piazza, enabled me to
hear a great deal of what went on in the town. The life of Cotrone
began about three in the morning; at that hour I heard the first
voices, upon which there soon followed the bleating of goats and the
tinkling of ox-bells. No doubt the greater part of the poor people
were in bed by eight o'clock every evening; only those who had
dealings in the outer world were stirring when the _diligenza_
arrived about ten, and I suspect that some of these snatched a nap
before that late hour.
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