Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . short course in the neighbouring sea;whilst in summer their wide beds are dry and dusty. The same blue heaven smiles hereas above the Campagna Felice, the laurel and myrtle bloom,—but the Calabrian landscapeis silent, almost sullen. Sullenly the poverty-stricken inhabitants gather the gifts whichthe sun and the rain and the dews bestow on them. These gifts are so numerous thatthey might fill the country with prosperity and riches and happiness; and yet throughoutCalabria poverty weeps in the valleys and on the hills, or else embarks in foreign shipsand depar
Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . short course in the neighbouring sea;whilst in summer their wide beds are dry and dusty. The same blue heaven smiles hereas above the Campagna Felice, the laurel and myrtle bloom,—but the Calabrian landscapeis silent, almost sullen. Sullenly the poverty-stricken inhabitants gather the gifts whichthe sun and the rain and the dews bestow on them. These gifts are so numerous thatthey might fill the country with prosperity and riches and happiness; and yet throughoutCalabria poverty weeps in the valleys and on the hills, or else embarks in foreign shipsand departs for America. The province is becoming depopulated ; and yet nowhere isthere more need for agricultural labour. LUCANIA, APULIA, AND CALABRIA. 437 These three districts, Lucania, Apulia, and Calabria, once belonged to the beautifuland much praised Graicia Magna, of which there remains scarce the shadow of a shade. Beauteous world, where art thou ? Where are the noble cities for whose favour an Alexander, a Hannibal, a Pyrrhus,. CATACOMBS OK SIPONTO NEAR MANFREDONIA. have striven in past times ?—cities which produced an Agathocles, a Zaleucos, aCharondes,—which heard the teaching of Pythagoras as he paced their marble streets,and were praised by Pindar and Demosthenes,—where are they ? Where, too, are thedays when Cicero landed on these shores to meet Brutus, the days of Alaric and his ironGoths, of Otto the Second, Frederick the Second, and all the great figures which oncetrod this wondrous stage ? They have passed like a dream. All is covered with the dust and decay ofcenturies, and only here and there some crumbling ruin, some tradition half transformedinto the semblance of a Christian legend, or some lonely column, speaks faintly to us ofthe glorious days of Graecia Magna. Much of what remained was destroyed later by the sword of the French. Whatthey had spared Avas devastated by nature herself in repeated earthquakes, which have 43S ITAL Y. their home beneath the
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