After living amid a malaria-stricken population, I rejoiced in the healthy aspect of the mountain folk.  Even a deformed beggar, who dragged himself painfully along the pavement, had so ruddy a face that it was hard to feel compassion for him.  And the wayside children—­it was a pleasure to watch them at their games.  Such children in Italy do not, as a rule, seem happy; too often they look ill, cheerless, burdened before their time; at Catanzaro they are as robust and lively as heart could wish, and their voices ring delightfully upon the ear.  It is not only, I imagine, a result of the fine air they breathe; no doubt they are exceptional among the poor children of the south in getting enough to eat.  The town has certain industries, especially the manufacture of silk; one feels an atmosphere of well-being; mendicancy is a rare thing.

Fruits abounded, and were very cheap; if one purchased from a stall the difficulty was to carry away the abundance offered for one’s smallest coin.  Excellent oranges cost about a penny the half-dozen.  Any one who is fond of the prickly fig should go to Catanzaro.  I asked a man sitting with a basket of them at a street corner to give me the worth of a soldo (a half-penny); he began to fill my pocket, and when I cried that it was enough, that I could carry no more, he held up one particularly fine fruit, smiled as only an Italian can, and said, with admirable politeness, “Questo per complimento!” I ought to have shaken hands with him.

Even when I had grown accustomed to the place, its singular appearance of incompleteness kept exciting my attention.  I had never seen a town so ragged at the edges.  If there had recently been a great conflagration and almost all the whole city were being rebuilt, it would have looked much as it did at the time of my visit.  To enter the post-office one had to clamber over heaps of stone and plaster, to stride over tumbled beams and jump across great puddles, entering at last by shaky stairs a place which looked like the waiting-room of an unfinished railway station.  The style of building is peculiar, and looks so temporary as to keep one constantly in mind of the threatening earthquake.  Most of the edifices, large and small, public and private, are constructed of rubble set in cement, with an occasional big, rough-squared stone to give an appearance of solidity, and perhaps a few courses of bricks in the old Roman style.  If the building is of importance, this work is hidden beneath stucco; otherwise it remains like the mere shell of a house, and is disfigured over all its surface with great holes left by the scaffolding.  Religion supplies something of adornment; above many portals is a rudely painted Virgin and Child, often, plainly enough, the effort of a hand accustomed to any tool rather than that of the artist.  On the dwellings of the very poor a great Cross is scrawled in whitewash.  These rickety houses often exhibit another feature more picturesque and, to the earthly imagination, more consoling; on the balcony one sees a great gourd, some three feet long, so placed that its yellow plumpness may ripen in sun and air.  It is a sign of plenty:  the warm spot of colour against the rough masonry does good to eye and heart.