get up at once, as the departure of the train had been changed to 4.15—­it was now half-past three.  There ensued an argument, sustained, on my side, rather by the desire to stay in bed this cold morning than by any faith in the reasonableness of the railway company.  There must be a mistake!  The orario for the month gave 4.56, and how could the time of a train be changed without public notice?  Changed it was, insisted the waiter; it had happened a few days ago, and they had only heard of it at the hotel this very morning.  Angry and uncomfortable, I got my clothes on, and drove to the station, where I found that a sudden change in the time-table, without any regard for persons relying upon the official guide, was taken as a matter of course.  In chilly darkness I bade farewell to Taranto.

At a little after six, when palest dawn was shimmering on the sea, I found myself at Metaponto, with no possibility of doing anything for a couple of hours.  Metaponto is a railway station, that and nothing more, and, as a station also calls itself a hotel, I straightway asked for a room, and there dozed until sunshine improved my humour and stirred my appetite.  The guidebook had assured me of two things:  that a vehicle could be had here for surveying the district, and that, under cover behind the station, one would find a little collection of antiquities unearthed hereabout.  On inquiry, I found that no vehicle, and no animal capable of being ridden, existed at Metaponto; also that the little museum had been transferred to Naples.  It did not pay to keep the horse, they told me; a stranger asked for it only “once in a hundred years.”  However, a lad was forthcoming who would guide me to the ruins.  I breakfasted (the only thing tolerable being the wine), and we set forth.

It was a walk of some two or three miles, by a cart road, through fields just being ploughed for grain.  All about lay a level or slightly rolling country, which in winter becomes a wilderness of mud; dry traces of vast slough and occasional stagnant pools showed what the state of things would be a couple of months hence.  The properties were divided by hedges of agave—­huge growths, grandly curving their sword-pointed leaves.  Its companion, the spiny cactus, writhed here and there among juniper bushes and tamarisks.  Along the wayside rose tall, dead thistles, white with age, their great cluster of seed-vessels showing how fine the flower had been.  Above our heads, peewits were wheeling and crying, and lizards swarmed on the hard, cracked ground.

We passed a few ploughmen, with white oxen yoked to labour.  Ploughing was a fit sight at Metapontum, famous of old for the richness of its soil; in token whereof the city dedicated at Delphi its famous Golden Sheaf.  It is all that remains of life on this part of the coast; the city had sunk into ruin before the Christian era, and was never rebuilt.  Later, the shore was too dangerous for habitation.  Of all the cities upon the Ionian Sea, only Tarentum and Croton continued to exist through the Middle Ages, for they alone occupied a position strong for defence against pirates and invaders.  A memory of the Saracen wars lingers in the name borne by the one important relic of Metapontum, the Tavola de’ Paladini; to this my guide was conducting me.