Gone are those happy days of authorship, when the constructive
imagination was not yet blighted and withered. . . .

Marching comfortably, it will take you nearly twelve hours to go from
Morano to the village of Terranova di Pollino, which I selected as my
first night-quarter. This includes a scramble up the peak of Pollino,
locally termed "telegrafo," from a pile of stones--? an old
signal-station--erected on the summit. But since decent accommodation
can only be obtained at Castrovillari, a start should be made from
there, and this adds another hour to the trip. Moreover, as the peak of
Pollino lies below that of Dolcedorme, which shuts oil a good deal of
its view seaward, this second mountain ought rather to be ascended, and
that will probably add yet another hour--fourteen altogether. The
natives, ever ready to say what they think will please you, call it a
six hours' excursion. As a matter of fact, although I spoke to numbers
of the population of Morano, I only met two men who had ever been to
Terranova, one of them being my muleteer; the majority had not so much
as heard its name. They dislike mountains and torrents and forests, not
only as an offence to the eye, but as hindrances to agriculture and
enemies of man and his ordered ways. "La montagna" is considerably
abused, all over Italy.

It takes an hour to cross the valley and reach the slopes of the
opposite hills. Here, on the plain, lie the now faded blossoms of the
monstrous arum, the botanical glory of these regions. To see it in
flower, in early June, is alone almost worth the trouble of a journey to
Calabria.

On a shady eminence at the foot of these mountains, in a most