_scemo_--witless, soft-headed--the unforgivable sin in the south. You
may be a forger or cut-throat--why not? It is a vocation like any other,
a vocation for _men._ But whoever cannot take care of him-self--i.e. of
his money--is not to be trusted, in any walk of life; he is of no
account; he is no man. I have become firm friends with some of these
proprietors by the simple expedient of striking a few francs off their
bills; and should I ever wish to marry one or their daughters, the
surest way to predispose the whole family in my favour would be this
method of amiable but unsmiling contestation.

Of course the inns are often dirty, and not only in their sleeping
accommodation. The reason is that, like Turks or Jews, their owners do
not see dirt (there is no word for dirt in the Hebrew language); they
think it odd when you draw their attention to it. I remember
complaining, in one of my fastidious moments, of a napkin, plainly not
my own, which had been laid at my seat. There was literally not a clean
spot left on its surface, and I insisted on a new one. I got it; but not
before hearing the proprietor mutter something about "the caprices of
pregnant women." . . .

The view from these my new quarters at Rossano compensates for divers
other little drawbacks. Down a many-folded gorge of glowing red earth
decked with olives and cistus the eye wanders to the Ionian Sea shining
in deepest turquoise tints, and beautified by a glittering margin of
white sand. To my left, the water takes a noble sweep inland; there lies
the plain of Sybaris, traversed by the Crathis of old that has thrust a
long spit of fand into the waves. On this side the outlook is bounded by
the high range of Pollino and Dolcedorme, serrated peaks that are even
now (midsummer) displaying a few patches of snow. Clear-cut in the
morning light, these exquisite mountains evaporate, towards sunset, in