The record-union., 1893-02-25
WAKEMAN'S HANDERINGS.
Odd Incidents of Foreign Travel
and 0bservatiOn--IX.
The Poet-Traveler Sends From Over
the Sea Some Graphic Notes on
Italy and It's Lowly-Among the Car
bonarI of Mount Pratomagno-Nea-
politan Contrasts-Saracenic CIods
and Their Floclss and Herds Painted
by Master Hand-SIcilfan Serfs.

and Their Floclls and Herds Painted
by Master Hand-SIciIian Serfs.
| Especial Correspondence of the RECORD
UNION. Copyright, 1881
LONDON, February 13, 1898.
One OF the most delightful experiences
of my wanderings i'll Italy was night
passed with the charcoal burners in the
mountains to the north of Florence. AT
the village of Tosi L looked up the mount
ain of Pratomagno and saw lines of blue
smoke in feathery pencilings against the
dark green of the massed mountain frs.
Those are the carbonari. They never
leave the mountain save on feast days"
said kindly carrettajo. ''When they
scome to Tosi for wine and oil they are
so black and dreadful our children run
and hide. But they do no harm" So
with vagarous impulse of adventure 1
turned aside from the pared mountain
way, and, with the cartman's son for a
guide. skirted the mountain, coming in a
| two-hours' tramp through dense forests
of beech, chestnut and pine, with here
and there blackened opening where the
trees had already been burned, or Il
sunny space, where sportsmeu and shep-
| herds snare the mountain birds, came
10 the charcoal-burners' camp, and was
hospitality received for the night.
These carl rbonari form distinct class in
the mountains of Italy. They generally
live i'll the villages, the wife and daugh-
ters engaging in the vineyards, gathering
olives or chestnuts, and often as shep-
| herdesses with small flocks. The fathers
ana sons go from one forest to another as
! the owners desire charcoal made. The
landlord secures the telling and cutting
of the trees, anG the carhonaro simply at
tends TO building the pyres and watching
day and night their smoldering pro-
gress. In this labor the sons share, and
regular watches are taken. The logs are
stood on end in round piles of perhaps
eighteen feet in diameter, covered and
chlnked with mosSY earth, and then fired
III d central hollow which has been filled
with chips of dry timber, fir cones, chips
from the logs, and dead leaves and grass.
Once well ablaZe, this flaming tunnel is
covered with moss and earth, and the pile
is left to smolder for five or six days.
When reduced to carbon or charcoal, the
carDonaro delivers it to the owner
packed in sacks, two sacks comprising a
donkey-load, for which he receives about
ten cents, or about 81 for each burning
yielding forty sacks. At this camp. an
unusually large one, a score or more car
bonari were at work; and, as the burning
was to be tor an extended period, some
six or eight of the carbonarI had built
temporary huts and removed their entire
families to the forest.
This gave life and picturesqueness to
the scene, especially at night. \ few iron
cressets had been fastened to the tree
trunks, and the crackle an1 flarings of
cones and knots lent weird colorings to
the motley groups of women with daz-
zing teeth and eyes, and men grimy and
swarth beyond all description. | could
not repress the feeling that l was at my
old wanderings with my gipsy friends
again; and as the night gathered over the
majestic forest trees above, and one by
one some strange instrument of music
was produced from the shadowy huts.
while melody and dancing added their
fascination to the wild, strange scene, a
thousand recollections of days with the
Romany swept back on Pratomagno's
darkened nights.
Deeper still grew this feeling as l was
| shown to a couch of fir branches for sleep.
1t came not for hours; for in the gentle
soughing of the frs, the calls of the
watchers to each other, and here and there
through the camp suppressed tones of
| melody, as those who watched grouped
together and reassuringly sang low and
soft the StorneL6 of Italy, l was with my
| vagabond friends by their witching camp
fires in my own loved land. When the
morning came, after a break fast of pan
unto, or bread fried in olive oil, and
many a kindly ''addiop' and "vale!'
found my own way back to the friendly
villagers of Tosi.
The traveller in Italy will remember of
Naples itself that it possesses no one
grand predominating place, thing or
| characteristic of surprising interest. This
| MIC Inf nprhanS ha modified IxrS +
| was city of wonderful contrasts-of the
| tremendously rich and wofully poor; of
the Oldest and best Italian nobility and
the most wretched of titled adventurers;
of dazzling beauty and most hideous hag-
| gishness in women; of most learned
savants and the most sodden ignorance;
OF the highest virtue and the most dis
gusting lewdness, so shamefaced that
even male devilS accost one everywhere
with printed tariffs for licentiousness; of
the latest modes in dress, and garb among
| the loWly as ancient as the time of Tibe-
| Fius; OF frightiul activity and tropical si-
esta; OF deatening din and solemn hush;
| OF the shrillest and most ceaseless shriek-
| ings day and night and meanwhile the
most sibilant and melodious of tender
voicings; of content and despair; cruelty
and kindheartedneSs; loyalty and treacn-
cry; and-just as all Italy physically
seems to be in a 1ower-emnowered
heaven Snlllng over threatening vol
came hell-of laughlng-eyed humans
with hearts III which the worst of human
passions forever brood, ready at an in
stant's kindling for sedition, rapine and
murder.
In every part of southern Italy you will
come upon broad, grass-grown high
way. 1t is called the "traturo." For
twenty centuries it has served the same
purpose. On this ''traturo'' occurs the
yearly spring exodus from the lower val
| leys and coastwise nioors and marshes to
the Apulian mountain summer pastures.
In the autumn hundreds of thousands
return along these ancient ways. During
the winter the herdsmen and shepherds
live in town novels, or in huts near the
towns and villages. The herds and tiocks
are then driven out to and returned from
daily grazing. But in the summer time
on the mountain-sides is the real outdoor
life of the guardian of the docks and
herds. Whether he be herdsman, goat
herd or shepherd, he is usually given
charge OF flock or herd of from 30 to 100
animals.
These folks rarely intermarry with
other classes. When they do, they in
stantly depart from the tiocks, are alb
sorbed in the lower orders of the cities.