nestling near the seashore, and great, rugged, snow-capped mountains ("Acrocerauniæ horridos montes") rising into the sky, where their peaks were lost in banks of fleecy cloud. How we wished for Pyrrhus' bridge of boats, by which Pliny says he thought of connecting Hydruntum to Apollonia, to cross over the sixty miles into Greece! To the west rose the hill of Minerva, where eight hundred inhabitants of Otranto were decapitated by the Turks in 1480. Turning our backs on the radiant sea, we looked down on to the suburbs, Monte and Corpo Santo, where live six hundred labourers, who, till the fall of the Bourbons, were obliged to walk nearly two miles round the outside of the fortifications if they wanted to enter the town. Now a road has been broken through a colossal bastion, and they can enter Otranto within a few yards of their houses. A. Galateo, who saw the place before its capture in 1480, describes it as thriving and populous, though only occupying, like Taranto, the arx or citadel of the ancient city. In his time the circuit of the old walls still existed, fortified with towers, enclosing a space of about one and a-quarter square mile. They say that twelve out of the twenty thousand inhabitants TERRIBLE MALARIA. 257 were slain by the Turks, and many of the others carried off to slavery. No wonder the mothers sing to their naughty children: “Li Turchi se la puozzono pigliane, ("Let the Turks take her away; let them carry her to Turkey; let them change her from a Christian to a Turk.”) Every street in Otranto, and many doorsteps, are ornamented with stone cannon-balls, some of them enormous, and weighing two and a-half hundredweight. How the Turks fired such Brobdignag balls I know not an idea of their size is conveyed when I say that I had to get up to sit down on one of them, The terrible malaria is caused chiefly by the exhalations from Lake Alimine, not far from Otranto. It is thirteen miles in circumference, and five feet below the level of the sea at high tide, when the fishermen open a canal communicating with the sea; and they told me that such quantities of fish are carried by the strong current into the lake, that some are pushed on to the banks and taken by hand. Wherever this mixture of salt and fresh water takes place malarious fever is sure to prevail. On our journey back to Lecce a gentleman of Sternatia was in the carriage with us, and he told me that monument with an inscription existed in the church there to the memory of Giulio Antonio Acquaviva, the commander of the Neapolitan troops, who drove the Turks out of Otranto. He was killed in the fight, and his head struck off. The first news of the battle was known at Sternatia by the appearance of his horse, bearing the headless trunk back to the place which he had left that morning. King Ferdinand granted his descendants, the present Dukes of Atri, the privilege of assuming the arms and name of Aragon. In that part of the Terra D'Otranto called "Il Capo" the people still speak Greek (though not classical Greek); and the women of Kalimera and Martano are renowned for their beauty. They have a peculiar way of tying their bright-coloured handkerchiefs round their heads, which makes them look like animated statues. The following song was composed by a peasant of Martano, whose landlord, named Gatto, sold the crop of olives on the trees at a valuation. The peasant lost heavily by the transaction, and his "padrone his "padrone" refused to indemnify him, so he abused him, according to AN OLD CUSTOM. 259 old custom, in verse. Signor Vito Palumbo, of Kalimera, gave it to me. "Gattu, ca me brusciasti alle Carcare, Utta pu na su dochi is ti cardia Ca me brusciasti chiù' de centu stare, C'e Turchi na se paru' sti Turchia. E sta canzude te la spicciu crai Na min eftasi na se piai arte vrai." ("Gatto, who hast burned (ruined) me at Carcare, mayst thou be seized with apoplexy at thy heart; thou hast burned (ruined) me to the amount of more than a hundred staja.* I hope it (the money thou hast cheated me out of) may serve thee at the pharmacy! Mayst thou be forced to pull the oar (as a galley slave), and be carried by the Turks to Turkey (as a slave). This song I finish for thee to-day, mayst thou not see to-morrow's dawn. This song I will finish to-morrow, mayst thou not last until this evening.") * A staja is about a third of a sack. |