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his wife. He then presented the note to the officers, who pledged their honour that it should reach its destination. He was then asked where he wished to die, being led into a small court-yard within the castle. He paced up and down for a few minutes, exclaiming, "Dove è il mio destino""Where is my fate ?" when suddenly stopping at a spot which was nearly a foot higher than the rest of the court-yard, and facing round, exclaimed," Ecco il mio destino"-" Behold the fated spot." He then addressed the officers to the following effect: "Officers, I have commanded in many battles; I should wish to give the word of command for the last time, if you can grant me that request." Permission having been given, he called out, in a clear and firm voice: "Soldiers, form line," when six drew themselves up about ten feet from him. "Prepare arms, present"—and having in his possession a gold repeater with his wife's miniature upon it, he drew it from his pocket, and as he raised it to his lips, called out-" Fire!" He fell back against a door, and as he appeared to struggle, three soldiers, who had been placed on a roof above, fired a volley at his head, which put him out of pain. Thus perished the brave Murat, whose fate we may indeed regret, but its justice we can scarcely deny. His body was placed in a common coffin, and conveyed without ceremony to the church by the clergy. He was buried in the vault set apart for the poor, which, however, has been closed since that period. I was shown the small room where the council was held, and two low-roofed dungeons in which Murat and his companions were imprisoned. The door against which he fell appears still stained with his blood. I then proceeded to the church where the bones of the hero were laid. It was small and neat, and on remarking that it seemed to be of late date, I was told that Murat himself had contributed funds for its erection. It appears that he had shown considerable favour to this village of Pizzo, and it was probably from a recollection of this that he selected Pizzo for his foolhardy attempt. In the middle of the church a small stone, with an iron ring by which it was raised, was shown as the entrance to the vault; and, suspended to the roof, the small banner which was to have led him to fortune waved mournfully over his tomb.

This was a painful story to listen to, and I could have wished to have been left to my own reflection, but the lieutenant stuck to me, wishing, no doubt, to obliterate any bad impressions he might have left on my mind. As he intended to proceed next morning to Catanzaro, he sent for a muleteer, with whom he tried to make a bargain; failing to make one to his own satisfaction, he threatened the poor man with castigation, and summoned the syndic to his presence. He employed the same haughty, overbearing manner with which he had begun to treat me, and I remarked in French that he was surely adopting a wrong method to gain his point. He assured me, however, that if he did not keep the whole district in awe of his authority, he might at once give up his command, as nothing but strong measures suited their wild and ferocious tempers. He maintained that they were all brigands, or connected intimately with them. He said that it was not unusual to hear the reproach addressed at other places to its natives on the slightest altercation: "Tu sei del Pizzo e questo basta”—“ Thou art a native of Pizzo and that is enough." He threatened to report the whole village to government, if the magistrate did not furnish him with a horse at his own

rating. The poor syndic showed evident symptoms of terror, and stated that his excellency should be obeyed. This title is always given when they wish to propitiate the favour of the individual whom they address, and sounds in my ears as if they were a down-trodden race. It is like "your honour" of the Irish. This lieutenant is a native of the Roman States, and had been long in the service of the Austrian government in the north of Italy. He came down with the army of occupation, and has been retained by the Neapolitan government. He is, I should suppose, a fair specimen of the Italian soldier of fortune of the present day, living at the expense of both king and people. This is the force which the government is anxious to augment, as it fears to put arms in the hands of its own subjects. There are now nearly four thousand Swiss troops in the vicinity of Naples, who are intended for the personal defence of the royal family; such a force, however, must be galling to the feelings of the natives, and, like all mercenary bodies of men, they treat the inhabitants in a rude, overbearing manner. At Naples, a few months ago, as I was returning alone at midnight from the opera, I was alarmed by hearing loud exclamations, and a carriage driving towards me at full speed. As it approached, I found two Swiss officers with drawn swords pursuing the coachman with bloody threats, evidently intending, in a most cowardly manner, to cut him down. No one could allow such odds to be used against an unarmed man, and I rushed forward to the rescue, though I possessed no weapons of offence. The officers, of course, ceased their pursuit, and turned upon me, demanding in an excited tone who I was, and why I interfered. I said at once that I was an Englishman, and that it was not the custom of my country to see such treatment of an unarmed man without interference. They said that the man had refused to be hired, and demanded if I wished to adopt the quarrel of the coachman. I said, my object was that the man should escape, and, as he had done so, it was for them to say whether they thought the matter should proceed further. If they did, my card was at their service; but they were now cooled, and probably ashamed of their conduct, as, had they pushed it, our cause of quarrel must have become known to their commanding officers and the whole of Naples. They ended by saying that the coachman was a "birbone"-" a scoundrel"-and did not deserve to be fought over. I said that I was satisfied that the matter should thus end; and, bowing to my opponents, passed on. This little adventure led me to make inquiry respecting the conduct of the Swiss officers, and I was told that the cab-drivers always avoided them when it was possible, as they either paid nothing, or much less than their fare. Here I found the same conduct being pursued by this lieutenant in Calabria.

I made inquiries for ancient remains, as some geographers place an ancient city, Napetia, at Pizzo, giving the name of Napetinus to the Gulf of Euphemia, known also as Terinæus. No one had ever heard of any antiquities having been found here. They pointed out a valley called Trentacappelli, where marble of various colours is dug up, white, black, and yellow; and one of the inhabitants, who seemed to know something of geology, said that fossil remains were very plentiful in this neighbourhood. The rocks are calcareous, and this may very well be the case. Pizzo is prettily situated, with a harbour of some size, though it is much exposed. A good deal of fishing goes on, particularly of the tunny, and

they spoke of a fish called "cicerelle," a small kind of fish of an exquisite flavour. Lampreys also are found, and they maintain that they are equal to those caught a little farther south in the sea round Reggio. I heard also of another fish like to the lamprey, but said to be of a more delicate flavour, called "allampate." It has a snout somewhat hairy, curdled in its meat like our salmon when it is good, oily, with sweet flavour.

I would have willingly remained at Pizzo for the night, but the company of the lieutenant became so thoroughly distasteful to me, and I could in no way shake him off except by positive rudeness, which I did not choose to use, that I preferred the fatigue of a walk of six miles, as far as Monteleone, rather than submit to the torment of his volubility, even at the risk of falling in with the brigands. The ascent from Pizzo to Monteleone is long and steep, with terraces rising above one another, which are cultivated in the form of gardens. There are many streams at present with little water, though sufficient to irrigate the ground and produce vegetables of all kinds. It was long after sunset when I presented myself at the palace of the Marquis Gagliardi, by whom I have been received with the utmost kindness. He is one of the most influential proprietors in this part of Italy, and prefers to spend his time in the improvement of his property to a useless life in the city of Naples. His manners are those of a polished gentleman, and the marchioness is a lady, who would be an acquisition to the most brilliant court circle.

Another day of great excitement has closed, and though I feel thoroughly worn out, I have been amply repaid for all the fatigue I have undergone.

XVII.

I DETERMINED to spend a day with my kind host at Monteleone, and examine the beauties of the surrounding district. The city is built upon a hill of considerable height, which commands a wide view of the country, extending from the bay of St. Euphemia, along the shore of which I have been passing for the last few days, to that of Gioia and the Apennines. A magnificent spectacle strikes the eye all around, and the view is crowned in the distance by the bluish smoke of Etna. A castle, surrounded by fine trees, gives it a commanding appearance; and at a short distance lofty mountains, covered with forests, secure it from the cold winds of the north. It is, indeed, a lovely spot; and so far as my slight intercourse can enable me to judge, the inhabitants seem distinguished from those of Hither Calabria, through which I have lately passed, for a higher degree of knowledge and civilisation. The country being by no means so mountainous, affords facility to communications; the sea-coast is more accessible, and being nearer to Sicily, causes a constant intercourse to be kept up with Palermo and Messina. Monteleone, containing about seven thousand inhabitants, was the capital of a province till within the last few years, when the district was divided. Reggio and Catanzaro are now the seats of government, and in consequence of this arrangement the streets of Monteleone have a more deserted and gloomy appearance than you are prepared to expect from the size and respectability of the houses.

It is the site of an ancient Greek city called Hippo, said to have been founded about B.C. 388, by a colony from Locri; however, as the position is eminently fitted by nature for such a purpose, we can scarcely imagine that it was left unoccupied till so late a period. It is more probable that the inhabitants of Locri may only have taken possession of it at that time, and raised it to an importance which it had not before enjoyed. A few years later we find it a bone of contention between Dionysius the elder of Syracuse and the Carthaginians, by the former of whom the inhabitants were transferred to Syracuse. Subsequently it fell, with all the other Greek cities, into the hands of the Bruttii, who were the native inhabitants of this part of Italy. After the conclusion of the second Punic war the Romans sent a colony, B.C. 194, and changed its name to Vibo Valentia, when it seems to have become a city of great importance, being called by Cicero, who resided here previous to his quitting Italy at the time of his exile, "an illustrious and noble municipal town." The beautiful gulf, on which I was looking, had also witnessed an engagement between the fleets of Pompey and Cæsar (Cæsar, Civ. Bell. iii. 101). Strabo (vi. 256) mentions a grove and meadow remarkable for its beauty in its vicinity; and there was a magnificent temple to the goddess Proserpine, in whose honour the women used at her festival to gather flowers and to twine garlands. I was, of course, anxious to find out if there were any remains of this temple; but they have a tradition that it was entirely obliterated by Roger, Count of Sicily, in the eleventh century, who, from the desire to enjoy the odour of sanctity, transferred all the marble pillars and hewn stones to the Cathedral Church of Mileto, twenty or thirty miles to the south of Monteleone. There also may be seen an inscription, which was to the following effect, when it was more perfect than it is now:

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REFICIUNDUM STATUENDUMQUE
ARASQUE REFICIENDAS EX S. C.
CURARUNT HSDCCLXX M XC FUERE

HELVIA Q. F. ORBIA M. FILIA.

The plains here are famed for the variety and beauty of the flowers with which they are covered; and hence the Greek colonists of Hipponium maintained it to be the place from which Proserpine was carried off. I find that the festival of the Madonna is now celebrated very much in the same way as we may suppose that of Proserpine was in ancient times. As her statue is conveyed through the streets, flowers are strewed before it by young virgins, and arches decorated with flowers are erected in various parts of the city through which she has to pass. There is more particularly a festa of St. Luke, in the middle of June, when they erect columns, round which they twine flowers. The remains of the ancient walls are still to be seen in the direction of the telegraph, of a construction similar to those I found at Pæstum, being immense square masses of stone placed on each other without mortar. In some stones are holes bored, into which strong bars of iron are supposed to have been introduced. An Italian geographer asserts that the circumference of the walls was eight miles; but though Hipponium was an important city,

this is, probably, an exaggerated statement. At the Porta di Piazza there are some sepulchral inscriptions in the Roman character, built into the wall of a house; and it is strange that no Greek inscriptions should have been preserved, except the epigraph of the medals and coins. At the church of St. Leoluca, the patron saint of Monteleone, there is a mosaic pavement in good preservation, though it is of coarse design; and at a spot where they have been lately levelling the ground for the passage of the post-road, they have exposed the remains of a brick building, the original use of which it is impossible to determine. The church of the Capuchins contains a tolerable painting of Salvator Rosa's brother; and in that dedicated to St. Leoluca there is a marble statue of the Madonna of considerable pretensions.

The Canonico Iorio, a gentleman of high literary acquirements, and well known to all English travellers who have visited Naples, was kind enough to furnish me with a letter of introduction to Signor Capialbi, one of the most intelligent and best educated gentlemen in the south of Italy, and whose family has been long distinguished for its love of literature. He possesses a museum of antiquities of considerable value, containing many rare coins, medals, and vases; but he had much cause to deplore the visit of the French, who deprived him of a great portion of his collection, and when they evacuated the country they were irrecoverably lost to him.

During the morning I paid a visit to the Collegio Vibonense, the exterior of which prepared me for a flourishing establishment. However, only the higher classes are able to send their children to this seminary, and out of a population of seven thousand only twenty-four pupils could be mustered. This is certainly an unfavourable sign, though we might, perhaps, form an erroneous estimate of the character of the people, if we were to judge merely from this circumstance. Still the love of literature must be at a low ebb, as the province is only able to support three booksellers' shops, if we can dignify with such an appellation those where you can only find prayer-books and a few religious works. Some of the inhabitants prefer to have a private tutor, as they are thus able to have some control over the political sentiments with which the minds of their children are imbued, and the learning of the professors is not of so high a character as to make their labours very strongly appreciated. Their general information is not very extensive, if we may form an opinion from the question put to me by their professor of poesy-whether Scotland was separated from England by sea, and how far distant it was. could see the confusion of my host when this question was put, though I showed no surprise, and simply gave the information he required.

I

I observe by the last census that there are 27,612 priests, 8455 monks, 8185 nuns, 20 archbishops, and 73 bishops. What could they have been before the French turned so many adrift! In 1807, about two hundred and fifty convents were dissolved; only a few hospices, and the monasteries of Monte Casino, La Cava, and Monte Vergine, were retained, though much diminished in numbers and yearly income. The mendicant monks, from whom the state could derive nothing, were suffered to remain, and therefore you hear of my meeting the Capuchins in various parts of the country. Of late years, however, many convents and religious foundations have been restored, and some of my liberal friends

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