On the road from Naples east towards Otranto, an excursion is taken off the main track to the Lake of Amsanctus, the only place known, Murray says, besides that of the Valley of Death in Java, ‘where life is endangered in the open air by the evolution of noxious gases’. He quotes a Dr Daubeny, who visited the spot in 1834: ‘The quantity of mephitic vapour which proceeded from the lake was such as to oblige us (the wind being in the north) to take a circuit towards the east, in order not to meet the noxious blast; instances not unfrequently occurring of animals and even men, who have imprudently ascended the ravine, being suffocated by a sudden gust of air wafted from the lake.’ Baedeker says that the vapours are only deadly to small animals. Virgil described it as ‘the grinning jaws of Hell’, but Hare comes closest to reality when he tells us that a friend ‘was able to take his morning bath from a boat in it, and although the curious onlookers veritably believed the audacious one would never come up when he took a header, he did so, enjoyed his swim, and was heartily congratulated on it’.
Murray points out that the beauty of the women of Ariano ‘is the theme of every traveller’, but Hare gives the palm to Tiriolo whose ‘women are particularly striking for their Amazonian figures. Their dress adds to their masculine appearance. I met several who were carrying water on their heads, and I could not but admire the magnificence of their forms. They had their gown tucked up so completely behind them that it could scarcely be observed, while a piece of red cloth, employed as a petticoat, was carelessly wrapped around them, and as it opened displayed a snow-white chemise reaching to their knees. They wore neither shoes nor stockings.’
Social conditions improve, according to Murray, when the traveller reaches the Adriatic coast. ‘The road along the Marina between Barletta and Bari is one of the most pleasing on the east coast of Italy, and is famous even in this country of fine scenery; but its attractions are due more to the general air of civilization and the high cultivation of the country than to any remarkable features of natural beauty.’
Confirmation of this is evident when we come to Giovenazzo, which is ‘remarkable for its admirable poor-house, capable of containing 2000 persons. At present upwards of 500 children are there maintained and instructed in useful arts. In a separate part of the establishment, children and youths condemned to imprisonment by the laws are similarly instructed with a view to reclaim them from their evil habits.’
Bari, with its tolerably good inn, ‘is an active but somewhat gloomy place, and … has several good streets, and a convenient port formed by two moles.’ Hare, sixty years later, condemns the city out of hand, as having ‘all the characteristics of the meanest part of Naples — flat roofs, dilapidated, whitewashed houses, and a swarming, noisy, dirty, begging, brutalised population’.
He gives a similar bill of wretchedness to Taranto, ‘with its narrow streets, high white houses, and flat roofs, and its miserable, filthy scrofulous population’. He goes on to tell us of the method of farming mussels, which has been in existence for centuries. ‘Ropes are plunged into the water, and, when festooned with shells, are drawn up, and carried to the market, where the purchaser choose his mussels himself, makes his bargain, and then has them detached.’
Baedeker of the same year warns us that oysters are dangerous, ‘cases of typhus have been traced to the consumption of oysters from Santa Lucia, where the water in which the shellfish are kept often leaves something to be desired in point of cleanliness’.
Regarding the prevalence of Tarantella dancing, which takes place in the neighbourhood of every town, Murray quotes a medical man as saying that the spider does not produce any injurious effects whatsoever, though he adds: ‘The cure [for the supposed bite of a tarantula, or ‘female’ madness] is a general signal for a musical holiday throughout the village in which it occurs; feasting and dancing are always added, and the process of cure is consequently so expensive, that refractory husbands, it is said, have in late years refused to sanction it’, such occasions being thought of by most writers ‘as the remains of the orgies observed in the celebration of the worship of Bacchus’.
The woman so stricken continues dancing, ‘as long as her breath and strength allow, occasionally selecting one of the bystanders as her partner, and sprinkling her face with cold water, a large vessel of which is always placed near at hand. While she rests at times, the guests are invited to relieve her by dancing by turns after the fashion of the country; and when, overcome by restless lassitude and faintness, she determines to give over for the day, she takes the pail or jar of water, and pours its contents entirely over her person, from her head downwards. This is the signal for her friends to undress and convey her to bed; after which the rest of the company endeavour to further her recovery by devouring a substantial repast, which is always prepared on the occasion.’
Instead of a page or so, Baedeker gives only a few sceptical lines, saying that the bite of the spider was ‘formerly believed to be venomous and is still said by the natives to cause convulsions and even madness, for which music and dancing are supposed to be effectual remedies’.
After commenting on the remarkable beauty of the women of Martano, Murray brings us to Otranto, ‘rendered familiar to the English visitor by the romance of Horace Walpole. The realities of it, however, will by no means be commensurate with the notions inspired by that well-known fiction.’ In 1480 the Turks captured the town and butchered 12,000 of its 20,000 inhabitants, and many parts of the town and neighbourhood were said to retain marks of the bombardment sustained during its recapture.
Instead of the overland journey one can go from Naples to Otranto by sea. The vessel is a light sailing boat but ‘as its arrival and departure are uncertain, passengers are sometimes obliged to wait a week or a fortnight, and the length of passage is of course doubtful, sometimes occupying many days, at others only 12 hours. The fare is 5 dollars, half of which goes to the government, and half to the captain. Passengers provide themselves with everything, and the captain expects to be invited to breakfast and dinner.’
The assumption was that those who travelled to the southern part of Italy would sooner or later continue to Sicily, the nearest port to the island being Reggio di Calabria — an unfortunate town if ever there was one. At the time of Murray, 1853, the place had a very good inn, and was agreeably situated ‘in the midst of natural beauties which are not surpassed by any other part of Europe’, being ‘a handsome and well-built town, with spacious streets, rising from the broad and very noble Marina towards the richly cultivated slopes of the hills behind it, among which are scattered numerous beautiful villas of the wealthy residents … It is difficult to imagine anything more delightful than a lounge in the colonnade of the fountain in a cool summer’s evening when the magnificent mountains behind Messina are thrown into relief by the setting sun … With these advantages, added to its agreeable and refined society, the hospitality of its inhabitants, and the amusements of a good theatre, Reggio cannot fail to offer a pleasant sojourn.’
All this changed in 1908, when an earthquake killed five thousand of the town’s 35,000 inhabitants. ‘Not a building escaped without injury,’ Baedeker says, ‘and those that remained standing had to be pulled down. But it has already been resolved to rebuild the town on its old site …’
Messina, across the straits in Sicily, had an even more calamitous history, for in 1740 a plague ‘carried off’ 40,000 people, and in 1854 cholera claimed 16,000 victims; but an account of the earthquake in 1783, given in Pictures From Sicily, 1864, by W. H. Bartlett, is worth recounting: