in my life had I suffered such a wretched sense of feebleness.  The pharmacist looked at me with gravely compassionate eyes; when I told him I was the Englishman who had been ill, and that I wanted to leave to-morrow for Catanzaro, his compassion indulged itself more freely, and I could see quite well that he thought my plan of travel visionary.  True, he said, the climate of Cotrone was trying to a stranger.  He understood my desire to get away; but—­Catanzaro!  Was I aware that at Catanzaro I should suddenly find myself in a season of most rigorous winter?  And the winds!  One needed to be very strong even to stand on one’s feet at Catanzaro.  For all this I returned thanks, and, having paid my bill, tottered back to the Concordia.  It seemed to me more than doubtful whether I should start on the morrow.

That evening I tried to dine.  Don Ferdinando entered as usual, and sat mute through his unchanging meal; the grumbler grumbled and ate, as perchance he does to this day.  I forced myself to believe that the food had a savour for me, and that the wine did not taste of drugs.  As I sat over my pretended meal, I heard the sirocco moaning without, and at times a splash of rain against the window.  Near me, two military men were exchanging severe comments on Calabria and its people. “Che paese!”—­“What a country!” exclaimed one of them finally in disgust.  Of course they came from the north, and I thought that their conversation was not likely to knit closer the bond between the extremes of Italy.

To my delight I looked forth next morning on a sunny and calm sky, such as I had not seen during all my stay at Cotrone.  I felt better, and decided to leave for Catanzaro by train in the early afternoon.  Shaking still, but heartened by the sunshine, I took a short walk, and looked for the last time at the Lacinian promontory.  On my way back I passed a little building from which sounded an astonishing noise, a confused babble of shrill voices, blending now and then with a deep stentorian shout.  It was the communal school—­not during playtime, or in a state of revolt, but evidently engaged as usual upon its studies.  The school-house was small, but the volume of clamour that issued from it would have done credit to two or three hundred children in unrestrained uproariousness.  Curiosity held me listening for ten minutes; the tumult underwent no change of character, nor suffered the least abatement; the mature voice occasionally heard above it struck a cheery note, by no means one of impatience or stern command.  Had I been physically capable of any effort, I should have tried to view that educational scene.  The incident did me good, and I went on in a happier humour.