Edited by Charles Aldarondo (aldarondo@yahoo.com)

BY THE IONIAN SEA

NOTES OF A RAMBLE IN SOUTHERN ITALY

BY GEORGE GISSING





CHAPTER I

FROM NAPLES.





This is the third day of sirocco, heavy-clouded, sunless. All the
colour has gone out of Naples; the streets are dusty and stifling. I
long for the mountains and the sea.

To-morrow I shall leave by the Messina boat, which calls at Paola.
It is now more than a twelvemonth since I began to think of Paola,
and an image of the place has grown in my mind. I picture a little
_marina_; a yellowish little town just above; and behind, rising
grandly, the long range of mountains which guard the shore of
Calabria. Paola has no special interest that I know of, but it is