Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-17
ITALY'S ODD N00KS
Leisurely Explored and Graphically
Described by Edgar L. Wakeman.
TRACES OF ANCIENT SPLENDOR.
The Fruitful Sunny Land in the Clutches
of Tyrannical Aristocracy.
PRETTY SPOTS MARRIED BY SADNESS

PRETTY SPOTS MARRIED By SADNESS
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DISPATCH
BRINDIsI, ITALY, April 21.-Partly OF
foot, partly by the antique cabriolet of pro
vincial Italy, partly by lettiga, the ancien
lectia or litter Of the Romans, and partly OF
the backs of tiny donkeys of wondrous shag
giness and marvellous power, have 1 come
during the nearly twp weeks since leaving
Naples, in zig-zag course of about 40C
miles, across the infrequently travelled, little
known. ever weird and lonely. vet always
transcendently beautiful peninsula OF South.
ern Italy.
This territory is that of olden Apulia.
Once it was a part of Gracia Magma. It's
great cities were Arpinum, Luceria, Arpi
and Canusium. In the little time 1 was
wandering through Apulia, counted up
wards of 800 castles, modern, medieval and
in ruins, strikingly recalling the splendor
and decay of Ireland; stood among the few
remaining relics of Canine, where the
Romans met their crushing defeat ofB. G. ZIG,
and where the historic city was finally de-
stroyed in 1888, by Robert Guiscard, one of
still famous, as in the time of Horace, for its
fish, and loitered in the ancient abbey and
church of S. Niccolo where are found the
paintings OF one of the earliest Italian mas
tiers, Vivarini, and where, in 1898, Pope Ur--
ban II. held the famous council which sous sht
to reconcile the church of Greece with that
of Rome; tramped with a genuine Italian
Iramp-the first and only one of the species
of which have ever had Neutrality-suspicious.
the Campi Veteres, where, a trifle of 2, ,150
years since proconsul Tiberius Sempronius
Gracious fell victim to his previous and
premature confidence in the willy Lucanian
Flavus, into Potenza, where an earthquake,
in 1857, in an instant manufactured
OVER 1000 FREAKS
and beggars from amputations consequent
upon wounds; passed through Melf, with
its glorious castle of the old Norman SOW
ereigns, to the extinct volcano, Monte Vul-
ture, the "Apulian Vultur" of Horace,
whose crater, overgrown with gigantic oaks
and beeches, now contains two lakes,
perched above one Of which is the most eerie
monastery of Europe, possibly excepting
Monserrat, in Spain, and from whose walls
could discern the blue waters of the Medi-
terranean on the west, and those OF the Adri-
attic on the east; thence came with several
hundred returning lowly pilgrims, camping
with them by the roadside at night, into Ia
ranto, the ancient Tarentum of the Greeks,
whose wondrous wealth gave it fatal luxury
and in time, horror, digrace and ruin, when,
in 209, the Romans plundered it and sold
10000 of its people into slavery; and, fin
ally, crossing the eastern mountain range
of Otranto on foot, had the pleasue of set
ting my substantial American sole leather
for hi larafinu of fan Tfali
miles upon the same Appian Way, leading
from Rome to Capua, and from Capus to
Brindisi, which stentorian-- valedictorians
have so many times vocierously trod, feel
Ing far more satisfied with my own day and
time than could have even so distinguished
a predecessor as Horace when, in the train
OF M9cenas he tagged along the same stony
road to secure q literary scoop" at the con-
clusion of certain famous alliance between
Augustus and Antony at Tarentum.
But one has opportunity In this sort of
lettering to see 1000 years this side of the
myths, heroes and savagery of a time our
classics have vemysticized, deifed and glorifed.
You feel like sitting with the carrettajo as
his cart and OK or mule are waiting by the
fountain; climbing to the shrines with the
dusty pilgrims; waiting by the montatojo or
mounting block with the beggars at wayside
the interior of cabins for draughts of acqua
di latte and nanfa, the buttermilk and orange
water, which you can always get in the
country for five soldi, or one American cent;
winding along the craggy way with the
pecore and his hocks. becoming the COM
panion of the vignajo or vine dresser at his
scorching toll in the sitting vineyards;
trudging at the side of the ploughman after
the odd procession in the fields; and close to
every manner Of laboring lowly, to get near
to the heart throbs of each and all of these
that you may know they are human like
your own.
CURSED BY ARIsTocRAcY.
That is the only way to know Italy or any
Those who only see America on
the New York avenues, London along Rot
ten Row, Milan at the Scala, Florence at
the Cascine, Rome in the Corso, and Naples
along the Chiaja, never see or know of the
bronzed and toiling hosts who produce the
magniicence of which they are part. But
even if it be vulgar and common, my heart
turns to these in every land; and confess
that contemplation of the dumbness,
patience and sunniness of the white slaves OF
Southern Italy, from which the entire Ital-
ian kingdom draws its greatest food as well
as military supply, fill me with q feeling of
So far as have been able to ascertain bv
the most painstaking inquiry, there are no
peasant-farmers in all Italy. 1 doubt if
there are 1000 small land holders in the en-
tire kingdom. 1 refer, of course, to land
titled as farms, olive and orange groves, and
vineyards. Whatever may be the fortune of
the ambitious lowly in the larger italian cit
les, the feudal aristocracy, feudal nob]emen,
the feudal ecclesIastic benefces, and the still
almost feudal government, own, and are de-
termined never to relinguish, every square
inch of Italian soil the sun of heaven shines
on, No land would be sold to the peasant
ry, on any terms. This is an unwritten out
inexorable law. Were it possible for any
single peasant, or any combination of peas
ants, to ever secure sufficient means to pur-
chase tract OF land,.a score of combina-
tions on the part of titled aristocratic or &C.
clesiastic landholders would be ready to pur-
chase at any price, to keep it out of the lowly
mans hand. Why, there is even no
equivalent in the Italian language for the
word farm. The dictionaries define farm as
"afitto," "ailogamento, villa" etc. The
very essence Of the first two of these words
is something fixed, fastened, retained, but
hired out A score of times have endeay-
ored to make Italian peasants understand
that there were portions OF Gods green earth
including America, where even such as they
could absolutely own, solely possess, irrevo-
cablv hold, the home above them and the
soil on which it stood. Their lips parted; a
drawn, sad smile came into their parchment
like faces; and their eyes rolled upward ex-
pressive OF the hopelessness of their effort at
The black men of the
South, 25 years before the war, were clearer
on sociology than these.
EVERLASTING POVERTY.
Again, were not these absolutely remorse-