Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1895 — ON THE SOUTH COAST. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ON THE SOUTH COAST.

A DISTRICT IN ITALY WHERE EARTHQUAKES COME OFTEN. A Country Where the People Are Always Ready to Jump and Run—A Region of Sand, Seismic Convulsions and Miasma. Between Two Volcanoes. The terrible earthquakes reported from the southern extremity of Italy are no novelty to the people of that portion of the peninsula. For over 1,000 years the southern coast of Italy has been subject to recurring seismic convulsions, and their frequency has been so great during the last three centuries that they have practically made a desert of the whole coast from Naples on to the south, following the toe of the giant foot round to the heel. For over a century a curious periodicity has been observed in the eruptions of Vesuvius and Etna. When one is active the other is quiescent, and vice versa. Between the two is Stromboli, that from the earliest times has never been quiet, and with Stromboli as the center of the volcanic disturbance the pendulum swings from Vesuvius on the Bay of Naples to Etna in Sicily, and back again. But there are times, not very frequent, when both are quiet, and then the trouble begins on the South Italian

coast, for as sure as Etna and Vesuvius calm down the earthquakes in Calabria begin. It is true there are earthquakes there at other times also; in fact, there is hardly a day in the year when an earthquake may not be looked for at some point along the coast, but when both great volcanoes are quiet earthquakes of unusual violence may be expected, and the expectation is rarely doomed to disappointment. The consequence is that the whole coast is almost desolate. The frequency of the shocks renders the construction of houses of any considerable size

very inadvisable; in fact, a large house is generally tumbled over before It Is fairly completed, and so the villages are of small one-story houses, from which the inhabitants are ready to flee into the open air at a moment’s notice. They are always expecting an earthquake, »are always prepared for one, and, never feel the slightest surprise whe- one comes. No matter what the villager of the Calabrian coast may be doing, he is never so engrossed in his job as not to quit it when he feels the first tremor of the earth beneath his ie*t, but drops everything and gets into the open air in as few jumps as possible, for he knows that there is danger, if not death, in delay. He thus lives in a constant state of nervousness, and even in sleep is ready to jump and run. A recent traveler, telling of his experience in a coast town, heard an unusual sound, qhich proved to be the village blacksmith striking a board with his heavy hammer. It was easily explained on investigation, and the entire population was investigating it in less than one minute, for nobody understood it, and every one suspected that it might be some new form of earthquake manifestation. But the earthquake is not the only drawback to fife on the Calabrian coast. One of the most singular changes of climate recorded in the annals of meterology is that which has come about in the last fifteen or eighteen centuries in certain parts of Italy. The Roman Campagna, for instance, in the days of the Empire, was a singularly pleasant, fertile and salubrious country. All over the’plain are to be found the ruins of the villas which once belonged to wealthy Roman gentlemen, who, during the heat of the Italian summer, left the city for the coolness of the plains outside. Now the Campagna Is deadly. Every part reeks with miasma, and the incautious traveler who passes a night, or sometimes even a day, in the vicinity ’of its sluggish streams and fetid marshes always pays the penalty by a long illness—sometimes with his life. The southern coast is, in this respect, like the Campagna. Some points are so unhealthy that men connot live in their vicinity; there are stations on the railroad that follows the coast so deadly that an appointment as stationmaster is considered equivalent to a sentence of death. For many miles at a stretch the coast is uninhabited even by the acclimated natives, who, when obliged to go thither, finish their business by daylight, and toward nightfall go,to the hills, where safety is to be found. This is one of the most remarkable things about the desolate coast, the fact that immunity from the miasma is to be found among the foothills of the range that makes the backbone of the peninsula. Thus, while the coast is deadly, the bills, two or three miles away, are as healthy as a tropical cllmate can he, and the population of the mountains, though not dense, is yet

large when the character of the country is taken into account Yet there is the best possible reason to believe that the entire coast was once healthy, and, in consequence, was also populous. Before the days of the Roman Empire the cities of the Greeks were scattered all along the coast, and so numerous and rich were they that the Italian colonies rivalled the home

country. Even during the Roman supremacy the southern end of the peninsula was noted for its wealth, and only after the eruptions of Vesuvius and Etna and the accompanying earthquakes became numerous and destructive did the coast fall into commercial decay. Not a few dozen villages and groups of ruins at every mile mark the coast that once sent fleets to every part of the Mediterranean and defied alike the power of Greece and Carthage.

Another reason quite as potent as the climate was formerly active in driving the population from the shore. For hundreds of years all South Italy was a scene of constant warfare. Saracens, Moors, Turks, pirates all, paraded up and down the peninsula in their ships, landing where they found an opportunity and plundering the hamlets that were nearest, then sailing away to repeat the operation elsewhere. In constant fear of the Invader, the people hid their villages in the most inaccessible parts of the mountains, where some are still to be found. There is Pentedatillo, not far from Reggio, a town so placed that, although it commands a view of the whole country for many miles, it is itself unseen. It is built on a cluster of crags that send giant spires into the air like a huge hand stretched out toward the sky. Over 2,000 feet above the sea is the top of the great rock on which the town is placed, and in the crannies of the summit, between the lofty fingers, the houses are wedged in as though by force. From the coast below the town Is invisible; even from the mountains on the land side it is not easy to make out the houses from the

masses of rock that overhang and shut them in from view. One of the; few exceptions to the dreariness of the southern coast is the city of Reggio, where recently such fearful destruction was wrought by the earthquake. The causes of the difference between the country about Reggio and the rest of the shore are as mysterious as the reasons for the prevalence of the miasma elsewhere, but certain it is, no part of Italy is fairer than the district that harvests all its lemons and oranges in Reggio. The neighborhood Is orte of singular beauty. Picturesque villages crown-every hilltop, while across the blue straits of Messina rises a vision of Sicily and the snowy heights of Etna. The country round Reggio Is one great orange plantation, and everywhere the perfume of the blossoms and the fragrance of the

fruit fill the air. Carts constantly pass through the streets bearing the golden crop to the warehouses, whence it is passed on to the sailing vessels that carry it to the nearest large port, where regular lines of steamers distribute it all over Europe. Formerly this region was as celebrated for its palms as now for its oranges; but that was during the Saracenic occupation, and after the Saracens were driven out the populace so hated anything that reminded them of the detested Moors that all the palms were cut down, and now they

are almost as much of a curiosity in Reggio as in Paris. But they are not needed to recall to the beholder the fact that he is In Italy. The marvelous beauty of the women is enough. Every one is a painter’s model; every one looks as though she had stepped out of an antique picture. There are hundreds in Reggio who could stand as models for Venus, or Diana,

or Juno, or any other of the goddesses that the Greeks loved to depict in stone. Greek faces they have, with the black hair and eyes and swarthy skins of the Latins, with lithe, graceful forms and hands and feet that an empress might envy. They are mere peasants; most of them gain their living by the hardest description of manual labor; yet neither ages of poverty and want nor the admixture of a dozen foreign races has been able to deprive them of that wonderful beauty which is their birthright The neighborhood of Reggio is classic ground, for it was there that Demosthenes last touched with the Athenian fleet when on the way to Sicily and defeat, and it was there that Cicero turned back to his death when about to leave Italy after the murder of Caesar. Not far away is the worldfamous Scylla, the rock that plays such a part in the story of Ulysses. A town now rises on the precipice, and the whirlpool Charybdis is no longer dangerous to navigators, but some idea of the terror formerly inspired by both may be gained from the words of Homer. A little more than 100 years ago Scylla was the scene of a disaster more deadly than any that could have happened in its earlier ages. A terrible earthquake came on February 5, 1783, and the entire population, deserting their houses at the first shock, gathered on the seashore. The evening came on with the terrified people still in groups on the sand; a renewal of the shocks, more severe than the first, took place. A great headland not far off was literally upset into the sea, a tidal wave swept along the coast, and 4,000 of rhe people of the town were carried away.

Such is the fate that the dwellers on the South Italian coast must contemplate as possible at any time. But w ith all their earthquakes and the constant state of alarm in which they live, they are a careless, happy lot. They work as little as possible, stay out of doors as much as they can, and pray for the time to come when a volcano shall break out in the mountain ranges Io

the north, for they have a pet theory that when there is such an outbreak a relief will be given to the forces of nature, and that by the new outlet between Vesuvius and Etna the fires and gases will pour out and earthquakes will cease. They may be right or they may be wrong, but they are certainly entitled to have a theory on the subject, and after all it is not improbable that they may know as much about the matter in question as the man who, 3,000 or 4,000 miles from the nearest volcano, and in a country that never had an earthquake, sits down at his desk and gravely discusses the causes of seismic convulsions.

A VILLAGE AND CASTLE IN CALABRIA.

SCYLLA.

SOLUNTO.

REGGIO AND THE SICILIAN COAST.

NINFA.

SALERNO AND THE SEA, FROM THE PRISON HILL.