Catanzaro spoke with contempt of
Cotrone. Happily I made no medical acquaintance in the hill town;
but I should have liked to discuss with one of these gentlemen the
view of their climate held by Dr. Sculco.
In the ages that followed upon the fall of Rome, perpetual danger
drove the sea-coast population of Calabria inland and to the
heights. Our own day beholds a counter movement; the shore line of
railway will create new towns on the old deserted sites. Such a
settlement is the Marina of Catanzaro, a little port at the mouth of
a wide valley, along which runs a line to Catanzaro itself, or
rather to the foot of the great hill on which the town is situated.
The sun was setting when I alighted at the Marina, and as I waited
for the branch train my eyes feasted upon a glory of colour which
made me forget aching weariness. All around lay orchards of orange
trees, the finest I had ever seen, and over their solid masses of
dark foliage, thick hung with ripening fruit, poured the splendour
of the western sky. It was a picture unsurpassable in richness of
tone; the dense leafage of deepest, warmest green glowed and
flashed, its magnificence heightened by the blaze of the countless
golden spheres adorning it.
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