Part 20

So the dragon has grown into a subterranean monster, who peers up from his dark abode wherever he can—out of fountains or caverns whence fountains issue. It stands to reason that he is sleepless; all dragons are “sleepless”; their eyes are eternally open, for the luminous sparkle of living waters never waxes dim. And bold adventurers may well be devoured by dragons when they fall into these watery rents, never to appear again.

Furthermore, since gold and other treasures dear to mankind lie hidden in the stony bowels of the earth and are hard to attain, the jealous dragon has been accredited with their guardianship—hence the plutonic element in his nature. The dragon, whose “ever-open eye” protected the garden of the Hesperides, was the Son of Earth. The earth or cave-dragon. . . . Calabria has some of these dragons’ caves; you can read about them in the Campania. Sotteranea of G. Sanchez.

In volcanic regions there are fissures in the rocks exhaling pestiferous emanations; these are the spiracula, the breathing-holes, of the dragon within. The dragon legends of Naples and Mondragone are probably of this origin, and so is that of the Roman Campagna (1660) where the dragon-killer died from the effects of this poisonous breath. Sometimes the confined monster issues in a destructive lava-torrent—Bellerophon and the Chimæra. The fire-dragon. ... Or floods of water suddenly stream down from the hills and fountains are released. It is the hungry dragon, rushing from his den in search of prey; the river-dragon. . . . He rages among the mountains with such swiftness and impetuosity that wings must be his portion; yes, he can cleave the heavens in the guise of lightning, or descend upon the fertile fields as a ruinous thunderstorm; the cloud-dragon. . . . Or again, he remains permanently overhead, a flaming meteor in the firmament; this is the draco volans of the schoolmen.

In all his protean manifestations, he represents the envious and devastating principle; the spleenful wrath of untamed (untamable) telluric forces. Everything strong and spiteful has conspired to fashion our conception of the dragon. No wonder mankind, impotent, offers sacrifices to propitiate his rage. These tributary offerings are the dragon’s due—the toll exacted from the weak by the strong in all mundane affairs. They are paid until the dragon-killer appears, that rare mortal who puts an end to his depredations. For the real dragon must be exterminated; he cannot be mollified by kindness; nobody ever heard of a domesticated dragon; compromise is out of the question. Only the victim of Saint George allowed himself to be led like a “meke beest” into the city. But that was the mediæval dragon, of whom anything can be expected.

He ultimately received a concrete form from that innate craving on the part of humanity to give a poetic or pictorial image to its hopes and fears. This derivative (modern) dragon is winged or unwinged, fiery or cold, crested or smooth, of manifold hue, four-footed, two-footed, serpentine or vermiform. Such relative variety of structure is seen in all imaginings that spring up independently in different regions of the globe, and are yet due to a common belief or cause. Why has he assimilated so much of the reptilian physiognomy and framework? Well, seeing that he had to approximate his shape to some type of beast familiar to mankind, what better general model could have been found? The reptile’s glassy eye; its earthward-creeping and cleft-loving habits; its blood that recalls that chill temperature of stones and water; its hostile pose; its ferocious tenacity of life and scaly covering, as of metals? Memories of extinct reptilian monsters may have helped to colour the picture, as well as that hatred of the serpent tribe which has haunted us ever since our own arboreal days.

A prehistoric idea like this, interpretive of such diverse natural phenomena, cannot but absorb into itself all kinds of extraneous material, ridiculous and sublime. Like some avalanche rolling downhill, the dragon gathers momentum on his journey athwart the ages, and is swollen in size both by kindred beliefs that have lain in his path, and by quite incongruous accretions. This is chiefly the poets’ work, though the theologians have added one or two embellishing touches. But in whatever shape he appears, whether his eyes have borrowed a more baleful fire from heathen basilisks, or traits of moral evil are instilled into his pernicious physique by amalgamation with the apocalyptic Beast, he remains the vindictive enemy of man and his ordered ways. Of late—like the Saurian tribe in general—he has somewhat degenerated. So in modern Greece, by that process of stultified anthropomorphism which results from grafting Christianity upon an alien mythopoesis, he dons human attributes, talking and acting as a man (H. F. Tozer). And here, in Calabria, he lingers in children’s fables, as “sdrago,” a mockery of his former self.

To follow up his wondrous metamorphoses through mediævalism would be a pastime worthy of some leisured dilettante. How many noble shapes acquired a tinge of absurdity in the Middle Ages! Switzerland alone, with its mystery of untrodden crevices, used to be crammed with dragons—particularly the calcareous (cavernous) province of Rhaetia. Secondary dragons; for the good monks saw to it that no reminiscences of the autochthonous beast survived. Modern scholars have devoted much learning to the local Tazzelwurm and Bergstutz. But dragons of our familiar kind were already well known to the chroniclers from whom old Cysat extracted his twenty-fifth chapter (wherein, by the way, you will learn something of Calabrian dragons); then came J. J. Wagner (1680); then Scheuchzer, prince of dragon-finders, who informs us that multorum draconum historia mendax.

But it is rather a far cry from Calabria to the asthmatic Scheuchzer, wiping the perspiration off his brow as he clambers among the Alps to record truthful dragon yarns and untruthful barometrical observations; or to China, dragon-land par excellence; or even to our own Heralds’ College, where these and other beasts have sought a refuge from prying professors under such queer disguises that their own mothers would hardly recognize them.

In Chinese mythology the telluric element has remained untarnished. The dragon is an earth-god, who controls the rain and thunder clouds.

XV BYZANTINISM

Exhausted with the morning’s walk at Policoro, a railway journey and a long drive up nearly a thousand feet to Rossano in the heat of midday, I sought refuge, contrary to my usual custom, in the chief hotel, intending to rest awhile and then seek other quarters. The establishment was described as “ganz ordentlich” in Baedeker. But, alas! I found little peace or content. The bed on which I had hoped to repose was already occupied by several other inmates. Prompted by curiosity, I counted up to fifty-two of them; after that, my interest in the matter faded away. It became too monotonous. They were all alike, save in point of size (some were giants). A Swammerdam would have been grieved by their lack of variety.

And this, I said to myself, in a renowned city that has given birth to poets and orators, to saints like the great Nilus, to two popes and—last, but not least—one anti-pope! I will not particularize the species beyond saying that they did not hop. Nor will I return to this theme. Let the reader once and for all take them for granted. Let him note that most of the inns of this region are quite uninhabitable, for this and other reasons, unless he takes the most elaborate precautions. . . .

They have their uses, to be sure. Says Kircher: Cunices lectularii potens remedium contra quartanum est, si ab inscio aegro cum vehiculo congruo potentur; mulierum morbis medentur et uterum prolapsum solo odore in suum locum restituunt.

Where, then, do I generally go for accommodation?

Well, as a rule I begin by calling for advice at the chemist’s shop, where a fixed number of the older and wiser citizens congregate for a little talk. The cafés and barbers and wine-shops are also meeting-places of men; but those who gather here are not of the right type—they are the young, or empty-headed, or merely thirsty. The other is the true centre of the leisured class, the philosophers’ rendezvous. Your speciale (apothecary) is himself an elderly and honoured man, full of responsibility and local knowledge; he is altogether a superior person, having been trained in a University. You enter the shop, therefore, and purchase a pennyworth of vaseline. This act entitles you to all the privileges of the club. Then is the moment to take a seat, smiling affably at the assembled company, but without proffering a syllable. If this etiquette is strictly adhered to, it will not be long ere you are politely questioned as to your plans, your present accommodation, and so forth; and soon several members will be vying with each other to procure you a clean and comfortable room at half the price charged in a hotel.

Even when this end is accomplished, my connection with the pharmacy coterie is not severed. I go there from time to time, ostensibly to talk, but in reality to listen. Here one can feel the true pulse of the place. Local questions are dispassionately discussed, with ample forms of courtesy and in a language worthy of Cicero. It is the club of the élite.

In olden days I used to visit south Italy armed with introductions to merchants, noblemen and landed proprietors. I have quite abandoned that system, as these people, bless their hearts, have such cordial notions of hospitality that from morning to night the traveller has not a moment he can call his own. Letters to persons in authority, such as syndics or police officers, are useless and worse than useless. Like Chinese mandarins, these officials are so puffed up with their own importance that it is sheer waste of time to call upon them. If wanted, they can always be found; if not, they are best left alone. For besides being usually the least enlightened and least amiable of the populace, they are inordinately suspicious of political or commercial designs on the part of strangers—God knows what visions are fermenting in their turbid brains—and seldom let you out of their sight, once they have known you.

Excepting at Cosenza, Cotrone and Catanzaro, an average white man will seldom find, in any Calabrian hostelry, what he is accustomed to consider as ordinary necessities of life. The thing is easily explicable. These men are not yet in the habit of “handling” civilized travellers; they fail to realize that hotel-keeping is a business to be learnt, like tailoring or politics. They are still in the patriarchal stage, wealthy proprietors for the most part, and quite independent of your custom. They have not learnt the trick of Swiss servility. You must therefore be prepared to put up with what looks like very bad treatment. On your entrance nobody moves a step to enquire after your wants; you must begin by foraging for yourself, and thank God if any notice is taken of what you say; it is as if your presence were barely tolerated. But once the stranger has learnt to pocket his pride and treat his hosts in the same offhand fashion, he will find among them an unconventional courtesy of the best kind.

The establishment being run as a rule by the proprietor’s own family, gratuities with a view to exceptional treatment are refused with quiet dignity, and even when accepted will not further your interests in the least; on the contrary, you are thenceforward regarded as tactless and weak in the head. Discreet praise of their native town or village is the best way to win the hearts of the younger generation; for the parents a little knowledge of American conditions is desirable, to prove that you are a man of the world and worthy, a priori, of some respect. But if there exists a man-cook, he is generally an importation and should be periodically and liberally bribed, without knowledge of the family, from the earliest moment. Wonderful, what a cook can do!

It is customary here not to live en pension or to pay a fixed price for any meal, the smallest item, down to a piece of bread, being conscientiously marked against you. My system, elaborated after considerable experimentation, is to call for this bill every morning and, for the first day or two after arrival, dispute in friendly fashion every item, remorselessly cutting down some of them. Not that they overcharge; their honesty is notorious, and no difference is made in this respect between a foreigner and a native. It is a matter of principle. By this system, which must not be overdone, your position in the house gradually changes; from being a guest, you become a friend, a brother. For it is your duty to show, above all things, that you are not scemo—witless, soft-headed—the unforgivable sin in the south. You may be a forger or cut-throat—why not? It is a vocation like any other, a vocation for men. But whoever cannot take care of himself—i.e. of his money—is not to be trusted, in any walk of life; he is of no account; he is no man. I have become firm friends with some of these proprietors by the simple expedient of striking a few francs off their bills; and should I ever wish to marry one of their daughters, the surest way to predispose the whole family in my favour would be this method of amiable but unsmiling contestation.

Of course the inns are often dirty, and not only in their sleeping accommodation. The reason is that, like Turks or Jews, their owners do not see dirt (there is no word for dirt in the Hebrew language); they think it odd when you draw their attention to it. I remember complaining, in one of my fastidious moments, of a napkin, plainly not my own, which had been laid at my seat. There was literally not a clean spot left on its surface, and I insisted on a new one. I got it; but not before hearing the proprietor mutter something about “the caprices of pregnant women.” . . .

The view from these my new quarters at Rossano compensates for divers other little drawbacks. Down a many-folded gorge of glowing red earth decked with olives and cistus the eye wanders to the Ionian Sea shining in deepest turquoise tints, and beautified by a glittering margin of white sand. To my left, the water takes a noble sweep inland; there lies the plain of Sybaris, traversed by the Crathis of old that has thrust a long spit of sand into the waves. On this side the outlook is bounded by the high range of Pollino and Dolcedorme, serrated peaks that are even now (midsummer) displaying a few patches of snow. Clear-cut in the morning light, these exquisite mountains evaporate, towards sunset, in an amethystine haze. A restful prospect.

But great was my amazement, on looking out of the window during the night after my arrival, to observe the Polar star placed directly over the Ionian Sea—the south, as I surely deemed it. A week has passed since then, and in spite of the map I have not quite familiarized myself with this spectacle, nor yet with that other one of the sun setting apparently due east, over Monte Pollino.

The glory of Rossano is the image of the Madonna Achiropita. Bartholomaeus tells us, in his life of Saint Nilus, that in olden days she was wont to appear, clothed in purple, and drive away with a divine torch the Saracen invaders of this town. In more recent times, too, she has often saved the citizens from locusts, cholera, and other calamitous visitations. Unlike most of her kind, she was not painted by Saint Luke. She is acheiropœta—not painted by any human hands whatever, and in so far resembles a certain old image of the Magna Mater, her prototype, which was also of divine origin. It is generally supposed that this picture is painted on wood. Not so, says Diehl; it is a fragment of a fresco on stone.

Hard by, in the clock-tower of the square, is a marble tablet erected to the memory of the deputy Felice Cavalotti. We all remember Cavalotti, the last—with Imbriani—of the republican giants, a blustering rhetorician-journalist, annihilator of monarchs and popes; a fire-eating duellist, who deserved his uncommon and unlovely fate. He provoked a colleague to an encounter and, during a frenzied attack, received into his open mouth the point of his adversary’s sword, which sealed up for ever that fountain of eloquence and vituperation.

Cavalotti and the Virgin Achiropita—the new and the old. Really, with such extreme ideals before his eyes, the burghers of Rossano must sometimes wonder where righteousness lies.

They call themselves Calabrians. Noi siamo calabresi! they proudly say, meaning that they are above suspicion of unfair dealing. As a matter of fact, they are a muddled brood, and considerably given to cheating when there is any prospect of success. You must watch the peasants coming home at night from their field-work if you wish to see the true Calabrian type—whiskered, short and wiry, and of dark complexion. There is that indescribable mark of race in these countrymen; they are different in features and character from the Italians; it is an ascetic, a Spanish type. Your Calabrian is strangely scornful of luxury and even comfort; a creature of few but well-chosen words, straightforward, indifferent to pain and suffering, and dwelling by preference, when religiously minded, on the harsher aspects of his faith. A note of unworldliness is discoverable in his outlook upon life. Dealing with such men, one feels that they are well disposed not from impulse, but from some dark sense of preordained obligation. Greek and other strains have infused versatility and a more smiling exterior; but the groundwork of the whole remains that old homo ibericus of austere gentlemanliness.

Rossano was built by the Romans, says Procopius, and during Byzantine days became a fortress of primary importance. An older settlement probably lay by the seashore, and its harbour is marked as “good” so late as the days of Edrisius. Like many of these old Calabrian ports, it is now invaded by silt and sand, though a few ships still call there. Wishful to learn something of the past glories of the town, I enquired at the municipality for the public library, but was informed by the supercilious and not over-polite secretary that this proud city possesses no such institution. A certain priest, he added, would give me all the desired information.