The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1909-07-17
Special 10 The Union.
LETTER FROM ABROAD.
In an Italian Village-A Pretty Lake and
an Old Castle-On the Tramp-Dry
Dusty and Hot-Natives are
Kindly Disposed and
Hospitable, etc.

the same color as the little houses that nestle
round it for protection, and topped by crenel
lated battlements with turrets.
Before supper threaded my way by bride
path down to the shore of the lake and there sat
down in the black volcanic sand beneath syca-
more tree, listening to the water ripping at my
feet and looking up at the old castle, whose
square mass, now black against the sky appeared
to be rising out of field of rye planted almost
to the waters edge, and which, because was
seated on the ground, hid the hill on which the
castle stood. Iscraped up an acquaintance with
a boatman named Argent Paolo c'Silver Paul.
it would be in English). and he, his wife and
climbed back through the dusk to the village.
where they invited me into tavern to taste
famous red wine about which Paolo Dragged
prodigiously and which was really excellent.
The castle of Bracciano is bigger than all the
rest of the village together, and it looked still
bigger in the moonlight when, after supper,
entered the little public square beneath the
shadow of its huge walls where the villagers
were gathered listening to a story, partly sung
and partly recited to the accompaniment of an
ACCORDION, by a wandering trovatore. Listen
ing to his marvellous tale of knights and abbots
and captive damses, to catch every word of
which his peasant auditors leaned forward with
breathess attention, it was hard for me to real
ize that such scene could be taking place in
the twentieth century, only days walk from
modern Rome. 1t was easier to imagine the
castle made of painted canvas and the villagers
play
Last night slept badly In poorly kept hotel
and rose this morning at o'clock, paid dear and
had to leave without coffee. Then it was good
bye pretty lake. Tramp, tramp. tramp, up hill
and down dale, with few houses or even trees to
ILL n
reached Manziana, where got good cup of
cafe-au-lait, with bread, rested an hour, bought
provisions for the MONDAY meal and resumed
my journey feeling better. The weather is get
ting hot. The Campagna, except where its
monotony is broken by village, usually built
near little lake or stream, is here wearying.
desert-like sort of place. uninhabited except
bya few shepherds. uncultivated and without
vegetation of any kind except the short grass
upon which the sheep pasture. At this moment
it is dryer and dustier and barrener than ever,
because there has been no rain this spring
Bayard Taylor was right. The only way to cover
distance on foot regularly and with comfort is
to rise at dawn, tramp until $50 or 10 A. NJ. and
then pitch camp in the shade of tree near a
spring or brook, if possible, eating luncheon
smoking, reading, writing, DOING, loafing, until
4 or in the afternoon, and then tramping
steadily until nightfall, trusting to luck to find
a bed and making as many kilometres as posi-
BILE instead of aiming for given distance. l
am scribbling this at P. NJ. seated beneath
bush with green lizard for company, and now
1 am going to follow the lizards example and 60
to sleep.
In the Campagna. After sleeping soundly be-
meath my bush until 4.3O yesterday afternoon
and then walking for an hour through the hot,
barren, deserted Campagna Il repeat these adj
jectives because the Campagna has way of re-
peating itself mile after mile in the same mo-
notonous fashion, came to the village of Veja-
no, which is perched upon hill with its medise
val walls still standing, overlooking beautiful
little ravine-like valley where the cool groves
and damp meadows made veritable oasis in
the arid lanscape. After paying one soldo for
glass of goats milk mixed with water Gt is too
strong undiluted) set out again with the too
ambitious intention of spending the night at or
near Vetrella, fifteen miles away. 1 did not
realize how far l had already come that day,
how stiff / was in consequence, and had made
scarcely third of the distance to Vetrella when
dusk caught me at crossroads in the open
Campagna, out of sight of any habitation, too
tired, it seemed. to take another step. Fortu-
nately saw cantoniere Ia day laborer en-
plOycu ny buo CduUOu VI GUILTY W Keep buc pun
lie roads in repair) coming toward me with his
shovel on his shoulder, evidently going home
after his days work, and asked him if he knew
any place where 1 could find shelter for the
night. He proved to be another one of natures
own gentlemen tmost peasants are, I find, if they
are just approached in the right way) told me
he lived at the hamlet of Barbarano, a couple of
kilometres distant behind the hills, and that If
1 chose to go with him he would undertake to
find me a bed. Igladly accepted and he, lead
ing the way, we left the road to set off across
the fields. Almost at once we entered a little
valley, with orchards and meadows, a complete
change of landscape from the barren, rolling
waste that lay behind US. The cantoniere saw
that was tired and at the first farmhouse we
stopped mounted to the second story by the
stone staircase built against the outside of the
house, entered without knocking and found
handsome peasant woman whom my companion
called Lucia, with child clinging to her skirts
and two puppies frolicking around her. She set
bottle of wine before us and then took from
the table-drawer two eggs, which she laid for a
moment in the hot ashes of the fireplace and
then offered me, lust So" without salt or pep
per. cup or platter. Seeing was at loss she
showed me how to eat them by cracking tiny
hole in one end and larger one in the other.
and sucking them as If raw. AS a matter of
fact they were neither cooked nor raw, just
"betwixt and between" but they were piping
hot and deliciously fresh. When prepared to
pay the woman stopped me by exclaiming with
some spirit that she was my companions cousin
and that she wasn't running tavern.
At twilight we drew near Barbarano. What a
vision! had expected to see cluster of huts
in the hollow. Instead arose massive, square
black tower, surmounting walls and gate and
ramparts built upon the summit of a cliff at the
head of the valley. The only entrance to the
village was by the great main portal as of old,
and through it were returning the laborers from
the fields each carrying bundle of fageots or
driving a patient donkey loaded with brush
wood. The village which saw thus dated from
early feudal times, but before supper my COM
panion led me through its narrow, crooked
streets to the other face of the cliff and showed
me there a series of chambers. hewn out of the
solid rock in Etruscan times. Il don't know how
many centuries B. c. now used as stables and
pig-stys Here there was no town WALL no need
of it, for the cliff dropped sheer 500 feet to a
second hitherto unseen valley below, green
and laughing valley from which assembled the
sound of ripping brook, enclosed on all sides
apparently by cliffs as high as that on which we
stood.
The cantonere's name was Alfredo Serapiga.
He introduced me to number of his village
friends in the tavern where we went for supper,
where afterward we all drank bumper together
and smoked our pipes in the freight. At
o'clock the proprietor of the place, who had left
us for half hour or so, returned to say that he
had succeeded in finding me bed Strangers
never come to Barbarano and l think it must
have been difficult. 1t was, of course, in one of
the medieval houses. The front door had long
since rotted from it's hinges and on the door Of
my room there was neither bolt nor lock. These
men were peasants, the poorest of the poor, in
one of the most out of-the-way corners of all
Italy-and they knew had gold in my pocket
but knew instinctively that was safe and lay
down to dreamless sleep without even taking
the trouble to put chair against the door or
dig my revolver out from the bottom of my
knapsack.
At6o'clock this morning Alfredo came to wake
me. He said he had half hour to spare before
work and that if chose he would save me sew
eral miles by leading me down into the gorge be-
tween the cliffs behind the village and then up
to the highland on the other side from whence
could reach Vetrella by cutting through the
open country. The pass through which we
cended from the gorge was a monument of cy
clopean Etruscan engineering cut through the
old rock just wide enough for two men to pass,
with the walls on either side in places 20 or 20