Show WAKEMANS wanderings LONDON feb 18 1893 one of the most delightful experiences of my wanderings in italy was a night passed with the charcoal burners in the mountains to the north of florence at the village of tosi I 1 looked up the mountain of prato pratomagno magno a 0 and saw lines of blue smoke it in feathery Fen feathery thery pen penciling cilin against the dark green of the massens massed mountain firs those are the carbonari they never leave the mountain save on feast days said a kindly carret tajo when they come to tosi for wine and oil they are so black and dreadful our children run and hide but they do no harm so with a valarous arous impulse of adventure I 1 turned aside from the fhe paved mountain via way and with the cart mans son for a guide skirted the mountain coming in a two hours tramp through dense forests of beech chestnut and pine with here and there a blackened I 1 opening where the trees has already been burned or sunny space where sportsmen and reds snare the mountain birds I 1 came to the char coal burner scamp and was hospitably received for the night these car carbonari bonan form a distinct class in the mountains of italy the they generally ener live in the vil villages lagess the yn wife YA and daughters engaging in the vineyards gathering olives or chestnuts and often as shepherdesses desses with small A flocks th the a father and sons go from one forest to another as the owners desire charcoal made the landlord secures the felling and cutting of the trees and the carbonaro simply attends to building the pyres ayres and watching day and night th their air shouldering ing progress in this labor the sons share and regular watches are 1 taken the logs are am stood on end in round piles ot of perhaps eighteen feet in ili diameter covered and chinked with mossy carthand earth eart hand nd then fired inua nna central hollow which has been filled with chi chips s of dry timber fir cones chips from tae the logs and dead leaves and grass once well ablaze this flaming diaming funnel is covered with moss and earth and the pile is left to for five or six days when reduced to carbone or charcoal the carbonaro delivers it to the owner packed in sacks two sacks comprising a donkey load tor for which he receives about ten cents or about two dollars for each burning yielding forty sacks at this camp an unusually large one a score or more carbonari were at work and as the burning was to be for an extended period some six or eight of the carbonari had built temporary ants and removed their entire families to the forest this gave life and to the scene especially at night A few iron cres sets had been fastened to the tree trunks and the crackle and fla flannes rings of cones and knots lent weird colorings to the motley groups of women with dazzling teeth and eyes and men grimy and swarthy beyond all description I 1 could not repress the feeling that I 1 was at my old wanderings with my gypsy friends again and as the night gathered over the majestic forest trees above and one by one some strange instrument 0 or t music was produced from the shadowy huts while melody and dancing added their fascination to the wild strange scene a thousand recollections of days with the romany swept back on Prato magnos darkened heights deeper still grew this feeling ai as I 1 was shown to a couch of fir branches for sleep it came not for hours for in the gentle soughing of the firstie firs the calls of the watchers to each other and here and there through the camp suppressed tones of melody as those who watched grouped together and reassuringly sang low jow and soft the Sto melli of italy I 1 was with my vagabond friends by their witching ahen camp tires fires in my own loved land when the morn morning ing came after a breakfast of pan unto or bread bread fried in olive oil and many a kindly ad addio diol and vale I 1 fram my grimy hosts I 1 found my own way back to the frie friendly naly villagers of tosi the traveler in italy will remember of naples itself that it possesses no one grand predominating place thing or characteristic of surpassing interest this might perhaps be modified by saying in it was a city or of wonderful contrasts of the tremendously rich and woefully poor of the oldest and best italian no boor clity ability and the most wretched of titled adventurers of dazzling beauty and most hideous in in women of most learned savants savanis and the most sodden ignorance of of the h highest best virtue and t the h e most disgusting lowliness lew lewdness liness so shamefaced that even male devils accost one everywhere with printed tariffs for licentiousness of the latest modes in dress and garb among the lowly as ancient as the time of tiberius of fri frightful activity and tropical siesta of deafen ing din and solemn hush of the shrillest shrill est and most ceaseless shri ekings da day an and d night and meanwhile the most sili sibilant lant and melodious of tender joicin icings vo 0 of f content and despair cruelty and tind kindheartedness loyalty and treachery and 7 just as all italy physically seemed to be in a bower empowered embowered heaven s smiting ing over a threatening volcanic hell of laughing eyed humans with hearts in which the worst of human passions forever brood ready at an instants kindling for sedition rapine or murder in every part in southern italy you will come upon a broad grass gown highway it is called the tr aturo for twenty centuries it has served the same purpose on this tr aturo occurs the yearly spring exodus from the lower valleys and coastwise coast wise moors and marshes to the mountain summer pastures in the autumn hundreds of thousands return along the ancient ways during the winter the herdsmen and shepherds live in town hovels or in huts near the towns and villages the herds and flocks are then driven out to and returned from daily grazing but in the summertime summer time on the mountainsides is the real outdoor out door life of the guardian of the flocks and herds whether he be herdsman goatherd or shepherd she huerd he is usually given charge of a ock flock X or herd of from 50 50 to animals these folk rarely interman int intermarry ermar wl with th other classes when they do they tey instantly depart from the flocks are absorbed in in lower orders of the cities or become the most desperately hopeless of the human cattle that labor in the fields the pride of their own descent in the exclusiveness of their class in the long line of shepherd ancestry they can trace amounts almost to a passion it is practically aly the one pride they possess this isolation of blood and interests has preserved interesting traces in physiognomy they are wonderfully sar a benic in in their look the tall slender supple figure the oval face and shining skin the neck tiny at the throat spreading quickly and heavily in protuberant mussels mus cels like a broad butted tree to the shoulders the yellowish blue tinge of the white of the eye the distended nostrils and the dazzling teeth all pronounce the eastern origin and retained physiological affinities straight as an arrow this shepherd is clad from head to feet in undressed skins A bifurcated garment of hides bides fashioned after the pattern of that one so well known to american amen an dr ss reform ladies forms a sort of waistcoat and trousers combined the latter are opened at the sides below the knees often display displaying ipg gaudy buttons ornamenting mentin the sides of his half gaiter undressed dressed itskin skin boots over his waistcoat is a long loose armless jacket of hide provided with numberless pockets his rainproof storehouse of meager treasures A jaunty hat sets perkily upon his fine curly head and brings brings into striking relief his olive skin his large grave rave eyes and brinkl crinkly curly beard slung flung from his right aulder shoulder across his left hip by a broad band of hide with occasionally the priceless treasure of a polished brass or bronze buckle is the inseparably or shepherds pouch A rusty carbine which is never discharged or a stout staff as high as his breast but never the shepherds crook of olden tales and modern tableaux complete the picture and it is always a picture lor for this fellow with the face of an apostle and the eyes of a saint is so deliciously languid and inexpressibly lazy that his splendid form is forever in pose and repose nearly I 1 aly ever every y ghe shepherd h e rd of southern italy is married he e marries young he rears or rather there grows seem angly all unconscious to himself a large family the sons marry other shepherds daughters the daughters other shepherds sons himself perhaps born bom in the grass by the side of the tr aturo I 1 I 1 in a cleft of some rock in the edge of a torrents gravina or in some low hut on hill or moor he emerges from childhood to manhood a nomad is a nomad in youth and manhood he mates as a nomad and never ceases a nomadic life until the quicklime of some village campo anto banto consumes his bones so that to every flock belongs a family the tatterdemalion group possesses no home but that of the daily grazing land of the flock their sole possessions never equal five dollars in value their total earnings do not exceed eleven cents per day like Walla chian gipsies they squat anywhere for rest and sleep and eat anything that will sustain life it they possess a single as aspiration on earth it is that secret one afy of so many other italian field and moor laborers to the hills that is to become outright brigands brigande bri gands universal indolence and repugnance to effort are safeguards against this the shepherd himself is a picturesque fellow enough despite your consciousness of his vacuous ignorance his unvarying cruelty to his flocks and his utter sodden rather than active brutality to his wife and children who serve as his pack mules like the american squaws squads for transporting his slender belongings to the hills on the mountainsides mountain sides the life of this she shepherd h e adm fa family is a changeless one the w whole ho e su summer mer long unless the terrible hail storms of southern italy fall upon the mountains or the still more destructive truc tive wind storms that frequently fling both shepherds and flocks from the crags to death come whistling over peak or howling through gravina ravina then the human marmot awakens awakens from his lethargy lethard and accomplishes prodigious feats 01 of strength and wondrous acts of valor in rescuing endangered members of the flock or of his own terrified brood his food is polenta and chestnut flour bread he is the one italian who drinks water instead of wine his field lore though unconscious to himself is marvelous when spurred by extreme hunger all mountain moorland birds are loomed doomed where he sets his snare it is a wild strange melancholy land he looks down u upon n ia it he has the energy for looking MO his s wife and children around him are as voiceless as himself and his flocks the very melody of the sweep bells becomes a meaningless din one carries kway away from his environment and companionship with him only a pathetic sense of his hopelessness and degradation you can only remember him as another animal in hairy hide insensate to the truna trum peti betings rigs of eternal nature around him the sheep browsing at his side are his equals in intelligence his superiors in demonstrable forces and activities the lone hestral wheeling above this shepherd has a wider horizon of view those who care for the flocks of piedmont lombardy and radiant tuscany are a different folk of whom a sunnier picture can be drawn in the main they are the little children and youths and wives of all the peasantry in northern and alpine italy the beauty of the cities quaintness and peacefulness of the villages and hamlets the radiance of the valleys and the noble of the forests and mountains seem to have given a reflective peacefulness and even virility to the people the shepherd is always one of the villagers he or she shares their everyday life the feasts espousals marn marriages funerals all are theirs for enjoyment and contemplation nearly every family has its own little flock often several of these are merged into a larger flock and taken to the highest moun tain lands for the entire summer in such cases a shepherd and his family accompany them and they live much as accompany do 0 their kind in apulia in october the same flock will be driven to the moors and marshes of maremma Ma where the shepherd she herd and his family subsist almost entirely ent ir on snared wild wildfowl fowl which comes here in myriads to ta escape the winters of the british isles the baltic regions and the german forests but tens of thousands of little flocks led by tens of thousands of little shepherds and shepherdesses shepherd desses essis leave the village breggia or sheepfold sheep fold and home every morning for the higher glades sometimes a dog often a pig trained to herd the flock goes with them if a maiden has charge of the flock she will have her spindle or knitting and will work and sing and tend her flock the whole day long if a lad or stripling lead a flock he will let the pig or dog d 09 tend the sheep with an occasional moment of executive observation and the rest of the day he gathers mushrooms hunts the young of birds all of which are eagerly eaten save those of the swallow and hawk snares forest fowl or pipes on his flute in idle fantasy both must bring a backlond back load of ferns rass oak elm or vine leaves with the locis ks at night some of this is for temporary use but the winter store stor e is i thus chiefly gathered I 1 have counted more than of these little flocks descending sc from the mountains with the shepherds at eventide the valleys are with thousands of tinkling bells with the notes from hundreds of shepherds flutes with the of scores of shepherds songs then as the shadows fall softly upon the hamlets comes the housing bon ing of the sheep in the eggia breggia gr and the pastoral yields to the prosaic while ravella and cencia Nen cia gain new strength for the morrow from their bowl of steaming polenta or porridge of crushed white beans the fairest possession of all italy is sunny sicily yet sicily has no homes for the lowly of the country sides as we know and love even the lowliest home nearly all sicilians are serfs of the few doubtless souls out of Sic ilys entire population of inhabitants hold this i elation to the nobility governing classes and ecclesiastics an infinite compassion fires ones heart for the hopelessness of such a people and when interest in tremendous natural phenomena classic regions and dead age remains lessens the pathetic side of life begins to possess and hurt you any land boasting no progressive farming population masters of we the soil they jill or without a fairly contented peasantry possessing secure and well defined rights in their holdings is doomed to desertion and decay in the entire length and breadth of this island from the high highways boys not half a hundred farmhouses houses swill be seen these are not farmhouses farm form houses as we know them each is a desolate stone structure inhabited by the family of some or overseer where tools are stored and in the busiest seasons season of labor a gang abang of wolfish faced men and women are fed on slops and herded at night on stone benches for sleep the montanaro or mountaineer the acore or ploughman the peco pe corajo rejo or shepherd the or vine dresser the i atory or grape gatherer the or reaper and every manner of human animal that labors with flocks or in in vineyard or field is in fact a contadino or villager living in low and poisonous hovels in cities or hamlets from out of which hollow eyed crowds pour before daylight day light munching in their food as they drag dra themselves to their their flocks in the mountains or their toil in the vineyards and fields EDGAR L WAKEMAN |