what I saw here on a larger scale.  Moreover, all the face of the ground is minutely cracked and wrinkled; a square foot includes an incalculable multitude of such meshes.  Evidently this is the work of hot sun on moisture; but when was it done?  For they tell me that it rains very little at Cotrone, and only a deluge could moisten this iron soil.  Here and there I came upon yet more striking evidence of waterpower; great holes on the hillside, generally funnel-shaped, and often deep enough to be dangerous to the careless walker.  The hills are round-topped, and parted one from another by gully or ravine, shaped, one cannot but think, by furious torrents.  A desolate landscape, and scarcely bettered when one turned to look over the level which spreads north of the town; one discovers patches of foliage, indeed, the dark perennial verdure of the south; but no kindly herb clothes the soil.  In springtime, it seems, there is a growth of grass, very brief, but luxuriant.  That can only be on the lower ground; these furrowed heights declare a perpetual sterility.

What has become of the ruins of Croton?  This squalid little town of to-day has nothing left from antiquity.  Yet a city bounded with a wall of twelve miles circumference is not easily swept from the face of the earth.  Bishop Lucifer, wanting stones for his palace, had to go as far as the Cape Colonna; then, as now, no block of Croton remained.  Nearly two hundred years before Christ the place was forsaken.  Rome colonized it anew, and it recovered an obscure life as a place of embarkation for Greece, its houses occupying only the rock of the ancient citadel.  Were there at that date any remnants of the great Greek city?—­still great only two centuries before.  Did all go to the building of Roman dwellings and temples and walls, which since have crumbled or been buried?

We are told that the river AEsarus flowed through the heart of the city at its prime.  I looked over the plain, and yonder, towards the distant railway station, I descried a green track, the course of the all but stagnant and wholly pestilential stream, still called Esaro.  Near its marshy mouth are wide orange orchards.  Could one but see in vision the harbour, the streets, the vast encompassing wall!  From the eminence where I stood, how many a friend and foe of Croton has looked down upon its shining ways, peopled with strength and beauty and wisdom!  Here Pythagoras may have walked, glancing afar at the Lacinian sanctuary, then new built.

Lenormant is eloquent on the orange groves of Cotrone.  In order to visit them, permission was necessary, and presently I made my way to the town hall, to speak with the Sindaco (Mayor) and request his aid in this matter.  Without difficulty I was admitted.  In a well-furnished office sat two stout gentlemen, smoking cigars, very much at their ease; the Sindaco bade me take a chair, and scrutinized me with doubtful curiosity as I declared my business.  Yes, to