ld. Few people passed, and never a vehicle; the shops were
all closed. I needed no invitation to sleep, but this shadowed
stillness, and the fresh mountain air, happily lulled my thoughts. Even
the subject of earthquakes proved soporific.

Impossible to find oneself at Catanzaro without thinking of
earthquakes; I wonder that the good people of Coltrone did not include
this among deterrents whereby they sought to prejudice me against the
mountain town. Over and over again Catanzaro has been shaken to its
foundations. The worst calamity recorded was towards the end of the
eighteenth century, when scarce a house remained standing, and many
thousands of the people perished. This explains a peculiarity in the
aspect of the place, noticeable as soon as one begins to walk about; it
is like a town either half built or half destroyed, one knows not
which; everywhere one comes upon ragged walls, tottering houses, yet
there is no appearance of antiquity. One ancient building, a castle
built by Robert Guiscard when he captured Catanzaro in the eleventh
century, remained until of late years, its Norman solidity defying
earthquakes; but this has been pulled down, deliberately got rid of for
the sake of widening a road. Lament over such a proceeding would be
idle enough; Catanzaro is the one progressive town of Calabria, and has
learnt too thoroughly the spirit of the time to suffer a blocking of
its highway by middle-age obstructions.

If a Hellenic or Roman city occupied this breezy summit, it has left no
name, and no relics of the old civilization have been discovered here.
Catanzaro was founded in the tenth century, at the same time that
Taranto was rebuilt after the Saracen destruction; an epoch of revival
for Southern Italy under the vigorous Byzantine rule of Nicephorus
Phocas. From my point of view, the interest of the place suffered
because I could attach to it no classic memory. Robert Guiscard, to be
sure, is a figure picturesque enough, and might give play to the
imagination, but I care little for him after all; he does not belong to
my world. I had to see Catanzaro merely as an Italian town amid
wonderful surroundings. The natural beauty of the spot amply sufficed
to me during the days I spent there, and gratitude for health recovered
gave me a kindly feeling to all its inhabitants.

Daylight brought no disillusion as regards natural features. I made the
circuit of the little town, and found that it everywhere overlooks