in the mere waste.  A moment’s examination, and I saw that it was no modern by-way.  The track was clean-cut in living rock, its smooth, hard surface lined with two parallel ruts nearly a foot deep; it extended for some twenty yards without a break, and further on I discovered less perfect bits.  Here, manifestly, was the seaside approach to Tarentum, to Taras, perhaps to the Phoenician city which came before them.  Ages must have passed since vehicles used this way; the modern high road is at some distance inland, and one sees at a glance that this witness of ancient traffic has remained by Time’s sufferance in a desert region.  Wonderful was the preservation of the surface:  the angles at the sides, where the road had been cut down a little below the rock-level, were sharp and clean as if carved yesterday, and the profound ruts, worn, perhaps, before Rome had come to her power, showed the grinding of wheels with strange distinctness.  From this point there is an admirable view of Taranto, the sea, and the mountains behind.

Of the ancient town there remains hardly anything worthy of being called a ruin.  Near the shore, however, one can see a few remnants of a theatre—­perhaps that theatre where the Tarentines were sitting when they saw Roman galleys, in scorn of treaty, sailing up the Gulf.

My last evenings were brightened by very beautiful sunsets; one in particular remains with me; I watched it for an hour or more from the terrace-road of the island town.  An exquisite after-glow seemed as if it would never pass away.  Above thin, grey clouds stretching along the horizon a purple flush melted insensibly into the dark blue of the zenith.  Eastward the sky was piled with lurid rack, sullen-tinted folds edged with the hue of sulphur.  The sea had a strange aspect, curved tracts of pale blue lying motionless upon a dark expanse rippled by the wind.  Below me, as I leaned on the sea-wall, a fisherman’s boat crept duskily along the rocks, a splash of oars soft-sounding in the stillness.  I looked to the far Calabrian hills, now scarce distinguishable from horizon cloud, and wondered what chances might await me in the unknown scenes of my further travel.

The long shore of the Ionian Sea suggested many a halting-place.  Best of all, I should have liked to swing a wallet on my shoulder and make the whole journey on foot; but this for many reasons was impossible.  I could only mark points of the railway where some sort of food or lodging might be hoped for, and the first of these stoppages was Metaponto.

Official time-bills of the month marked a train for Metaponto at 4.56 A.M., and this I decided to take, as it seemed probable that I might find a stay of some hours sufficient, and so be able to resume my journey before night.  I asked the waiter to call me at a quarter to four.  In the middle of the night (as it seemed to me) I was aroused by a knocking, and the waiter’s voice called to me that, if I wished to leave early for Metaponto, I had better