Walking onward in the same direction, one approaches a great wall, with gateway sentry-guarded; it is the new Arsenal, the pride of Taranto, and the source of its prosperity.  On special as well as on general grounds, I have a grudge against this mass of ugly masonry.  I had learnt from Lenormant that at a certain spot, Fontanella, by the shore of the Little Sea, were observable great ancient heaps of murex shells—­the murex precious for its purple, that of Tarentum yielding in glory only to the purple of Tyre.  I hoped to see these shells, perhaps to carry one away.  But Fontanella had vanished, swallowed up, with all remnants of antiquity, by the graceless Arsenal.  It matters to no one save the few fantastics who hold a memory of the ancient world dearer than any mechanic triumph of to-day.  If only one could believe that the Arsenal signified substantial good to Italy!  Too plainly it means nothing but the exhaustion of her people in the service of a base ideal.

The confines of this new town being so vague, much trouble is given to that noble institution, the dazio.  Scattered far and wide in a dusty wilderness, stand the little huts of the officers, vigilant on every road or by-way to wring the wretched soldi from toilsome hands.  As became their service, I found these gentry anything but amiable; they had commonly an air of ennui, and regarded a stranger with surly suspicion.

When I was back again among the high new houses, my eye, wandering in search of any smallest point of interest, fell on a fresh-painted inscription:—­

“ALLA MAGNA GRAECIA.  STABILIMENTO
IDROELETTROPATICO.”

was well meant.  At the sign of “Magna Graecia” one is willing to accept “hydroelectropathic” as a late echo of Hellenic speech.

CHAPTER V

DULCE GALAESI FLUMEN

Taranto has a very interesting Museum.  I went there with an introduction to the curator, who spared no trouble in pointing out to me all that was best worth seeing.  He and I were alone in the little galleries; at a second or third visit I had the Museum to myself, save for an attendant who seemed to regard a visitor as a pleasant novelty, and bestirred himself for my comfort when I wanted to make sketches.  Nothing is charged for admission, yet no one enters.  Presumably, all the Tarentines who care for archaeology have already been here, and strangers are few.

Upon the shelves are seen innumerable miniature busts, carved in some kind of stone; thought to be simply portraits of private persons.  One peers into the faces of men, women, and children, vaguely conjecturing their date, their circumstances; some of them may have dwelt in the old time on this very spot of ground now covered by the Museum.  Like other people who grow too rich and comfortable, the citizens of Tarentum loved mirth and mockery; their Greek theatre was remarkable for irreverent farce, for parodies of