It was Sunday, which at Reggio is a day or market.  Crowds of country-folk had come into the town with the produce of field and garden; all the open spaces were occupied with temporary stalls; at hand stood innumerable donkeys, tethered till business should be over.  The produce exhibited was of very fine quality, especially the vegetables; I noticed cauliflowers measuring more than a foot across the white.  Of costume there was little to be observed—­though the long soft cap worn by most of the men, hanging bag-like over one ear almost to the shoulder, is picturesque.  The female water-carriers, a long slim cask resting lengthwise upon their padded heads, hold attention as they go to and from the fountains.  Good-looking people, grave of manner, and doing their business without noise.  It was my last sight of the Calabrian hillsmen; to the end they held my interest and my respect.  When towns have sucked dry their population of strength and virtue, it is such folk as these, hardy from the free breath of heaven and the scent of earth, who will renew a flaccid race.

Walking beyond the town in the southern direction, where the shape of Etna shows more clearly amid the lower mountains, I found myself approaching what looked like a handsome public edifice, a museum or gallery of art.  It was a long building, graced with a portico, and coloured effectively in dull red; all about it stood lemon trees, and behind, overtopping the roof, several fine palms.  Moved by curiosity I quickened my steps, and as I drew nearer I felt sure that this must be some interesting institution of which I had not heard.  Presently I observed along the facade a row of heads of oxen carved in stone—­an ornament decidedly puzzling.  Last of all my eyes perceived, over the stately entrance, the word “Macello,” and with astonishment I became aware that this fine structure, so agreeably situated, was nothing else than the town slaughter-house.  Does the like exist elsewhere?  It was a singular bit of advanced civilization, curiously out of keeping with the thoughts which had occupied me on my walk.  Why, I wonder, has Reggio paid such exceptional attention to this department of its daily life?  One did not quite know whether to approve this frank exhibition of carnivorous zeal; obviously something can be said in its favour, yet, on the other hand, a man who troubles himself with finer scruples would perhaps choose not to be reminded of pole-axe and butcher’s knife, preferring that such things should shun the light of day.  It gave me, for the moment, an odd sense of having strayed into the world of those romancers who forecast the future; a slaughter-house of tasteful architecture, set in a grove of lemon trees and date palms, suggested the dreamy ideal of some reformer whose palate shrinks from vegetarianism.  To my mind this had no place amid the landscape which spread about me.  It checked my progress; I turned abruptly, to lose the impression as soon as possible.