to confess myself beaten by an Italian inn. On the other hand, the look
of the people did not please me; they had surly, forbidding faces. I
glanced at the door--no lock. Fears, no doubt, were ridiculous; yet I
felt ill at ease. I would decide after seeing the sort of fare that was
set before me.

The meal came with no delay. First, a dish of great _peperoni_ cut up
in oil. This gorgeous fruit is never much to my taste, but I had as yet
eaten no such _peperoni_ as those of Squillace; an hour or two
afterwards my mouth was still burning from the heat of a few morsels to
which I was constrained by hunger. Next appeared a dish for which I had
covenanted--the only food, indeed, which the people had been able to
offer at short notice--a stew of pork and potatoes. Pork (_maiale_) is
the staple meat of all this region; viewing it as Homeric diet, I had
often battened upon such flesh with moderate satisfaction. But the pork
of Squillace defeated me; it smelt abominably, and it was tough as
leather. No eggs were to be had no macaroni; cheese, yes--the familiar
_cacci cavallo_ Bread appeared in the form of a fiat circular cake, a
foot in diameter, with a hole through the middle; its consistency
resembled that of cold pancake. And the drink! At least I might hope to
solace myself with an honest draught of red wine. I poured from the
thick decanter (dirtier vessel was never seen on table) and tasted. The
stuff was poison. Assuredly I am far from fastidious; this, I believe,
was the only occasion when wine has been offered me in Italy which I
could not drink. After desperately trying to persuade myself that the
liquor was merely "rough," that its nauseating flavour meant only a
certain coarse quality of the local grape, I began to suspect that it
was largely mixed with water--the water of Squillace! Notwithstanding a
severe thirst, I could not and durst not drink.

Very soon I made my way to the kitchen, where my driver, who had
stabled his horses, sat feeding heartily; he looked up with his merry
smile, surprised at the rapidity with which I had finished. How I
envied his sturdy stomach! With the remark that I was going to have a
stroll round the town and should be back to settle things in half an
hour, I hastened into the open.

CHAPTER XV

MISERIA

"What do people do here?" I once asked at a little town between Rome
and Naples; and the man with whom I talked, shrugging his shoulders,
answered curtly, "_C'e miseria