broad sides washed by the Ionian Sea and an oyster-producing lagoon;
bridges connect it at one extremi-y with the arsenal or new town, and at
the other with the so-called commercial quarter. It is as if some
precious gem were set, in a ring, between two others of minor worth. Or,
to vary the simile, this acropolis, with its close-packed alleys, is the
throbbing heart of Taranto; the arsenal quarter--its head; and that
other one--well, its stomach; quite an insignificant stomach as compared
with the head and corroborative, in so far, of the views of
Metch-nikoff, who holds that this hitherto commendable organ ought now
to be reduced in size, if not abolished altogether. . . .

From out of this window I gaze upon the purple lagoon flecked with
warships and sailing-boats; and beyond it, upon the venerable land of
Japygia, the heel of Italy, that rises in heliotrope-tinted undulations
towards the Adriatic watershed. At night-time an exquisite perfume of
flowers and ripe corn comes wafted into my room over the still waters,
and when the sun rises, white settlements begin to sparkle among its
olives and vineyards. My eyes often rest upon one of them; it is
Grottaglie, distant a few miles from Taranto on the Brindisi line. I
must visit Grottaglie, for it was here that the flying monk received his
education.

The flying monk!

The theme is not inappropriate at this moment, when the newspapers are
ringing with the Paris-Rome aviation contest and the achievements of
Beaumont, Garros and their colleagues. I have purposely brought his
biography with me, to re-peruse on the spot. But let me first explain
how I became acquainted with this seventeenth-century pioneer of aviation.