THE OLIVE. 



361 



and travelling through them for such a length of 

 time, with scarcely any other object to relieve 

 the eye, is excessively monotonous and tedious. 

 Starting again from the city of Lecce to Otranto, 

 or to Brindisi, you have olive groves neai-ly the 

 whole of the way ; or going on from Lecce to 

 Bari, with short inteiTuptions at the mountains 

 of Ostuni and one or two other places, your road 

 lies through the same continuous plantation of 

 olives. The soil of these districts is very stony, 

 and waved into hills of slight elevation. It is 

 in no part remote from the sea, whose contiguity 

 is certainly favourable to the growth of this valu- 

 able tree. Though the long summer heats, and 

 the sirocco blowing from Africa, are most op- 

 pressive at morning, mid-day, and evening, the 

 narrow neck of land is generally refreshed by 

 breezes fi'om the open Mediterranean, or the 

 Adriatic, or the Gulf of Taranto. These im- 

 mense olive groves bear every year ; but it is a 

 well known fact here, as in the south of Spain, 

 Greece, and all the other oil countries I have 

 visited, that thoy never produce the same, or any 

 thing like the same, quantity of frait two years 

 following. They have what the people there 

 call a,' si c no,' or a 'hion'annaia' and a ' cattiva 

 annata' or a good year and a bad one, and this, 

 in ordinary cases, in regular alternation ; the 

 groves bearing a bad crop this year, bearing a 

 good one the next, and those highly productive 

 this j'ear being proportionably less productive 

 the next year. 



"I could not ascertain the precise time at 

 which they cease to bear; but I have seen abun- 

 dance of fine fruit taken from trees whose trunks 

 were sadly hollowed, and seemed altogether sap- 

 less, and which were known to have been planted 

 a century and a half before the time of my ob- 

 servation. I believe, however, that after a hun- 

 dred years the tree requires manure and more 

 attention, and gradually decreases in its power 

 of production. As the whole wealth of the 

 country consists in olives and oil, and as all 

 . hands are employed or interested in this branch 

 of agriculture, it is amusingly curious to observe 

 what frequent allusions are made to it in the 

 popular parlance. A man who is in a gay hu- 

 mour is said to be 'as merry as if he had la 

 buon' annata,' or the good year of olives, and so 

 on with the reverse, when a man is in a bad hu- 

 mour. An improvident person, who dies and 

 leaves his family badly provided for, is said to 

 have leit'un'ereditcL di oliveli antichi' (a fortune 

 of olive trees past bearing); or they Soay he has 

 consumed all the biume annate (good years), and 

 bequeathed the bad ones. 



"The oil throughout these two provinces, 

 where the soil and cultivation vary but very 

 little, is much the same at its production ; but 

 its quality is very considerably influenced by the 

 nature of the wells or cisterns where it may be 



preserved afterwards. It is carried to Trani, 

 Barletta, Bari, Molo di Bari, Molfetta, Giove- 

 nazza, Brindisi, Otranto, Taranto, and some 

 otlier sea-ports; but its great depot for some 

 ages has been the town of Gallipoli, which gives 

 its name to the oil imported in such great quan- 

 tities by the English, French, Americans, and 

 other nations, though, in fact, that oil is not pro- 

 duced exclusively in the country of Gallipoli, 

 but throughout the two provinces I have de- 

 scriljed. 



" Gallipoli owes this very advantageous pre- 

 ference not merely to its port, which, though 

 bad enough (as I have occasion to remember, 

 having once been nearly driven from my anchor- 

 age upon some saw-like rocks), is infinitely bet- 

 ter and more accessible than any of the others ; 

 but to the quality of the rock on which the 

 town is built. This rock is a small island, which 

 is united to the main land by a bridge, and en- 

 tirely covered by the city, whose walls follow 

 the shape of the low cliffs, and rise on all sides 

 perpendicular fi-om the sea. 



" This solid compact base is easily excavated ; 

 and in caverns thus constructed oil clarifies 

 sooner, and keeps without rancidity much longer, 

 than in any other place. Hence numerous oil- 

 houses are established at Gallipoli, and a very 

 considerable portion of the rock is cut into cis- 

 terns. A Gallipolitan oil-warehouse generally 

 occupies the ground -floor of a dwelling house, 

 and has a low arched roof. Some are more ex- 

 tensive ; but on an average they are about thirty 

 feet square. In the stone floor you see fuor, 

 six, or more holes, which are circular, about two 

 feet in diameter, and like the mouths of wells. 

 Each of these holes gives access to a separate cis- 

 terna beneath your feet; and when the oil is 

 poured into them, care is taken not to mix dif- 

 ferent qualities or oils at different stages in the 

 same reservoir. One cistern is set apart for 

 ' oglio mosto,' or oil that is not clarified, another 

 for pure oil of the season, another for old oil, &c. 

 I have seen oil that had thus been preserved for 

 seven years in a perfect state, or, as the Gallipoli 

 merchants' documents have it, ' cMaro, giallo, e 

 lampante,' words which I can never forget, for 

 during some months 1 must have heard them at 

 least a hundred times a day. I also many times 

 verified the fact, that the mosto, or oil, in its tur- 

 bid state, which arrived almost as black and 

 thick as pitch, soon became bright and yellow in 

 these excellent reservoirs without any help from 

 man. 



"All the oil, whatever may be its quality, is 

 brought to the magazine in sheep or goat skins, 

 which are generally carried on mules, there being 

 but few strode rotabile, or roads, fit for wheeled 

 carnages in these parts. In a good year, and at 

 the proper season, I have counted, in the course 

 of an afternoon's ride, as many as a hundred 

 2 z 



