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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



hind — a tiny strip of gleaming beach, and 

 gaily painted fishing boats beside the 

 dazzling emerald sea — that is Furore ! 

 Almost before the details can be grasped 

 one is swallowed up by another inky 

 little tunnel. 



Picturesque watch - towers stud the 

 shore, ancient defenses against the Bar- 

 bary corsairs. And then presently Amalfi, 

 once the brave little maritime republic 

 that maintained its independence so long 

 in defiance of princes and emperors. In 

 a low cleft of the hills the houses fairly 

 pile upon one another, as though there 

 were not room for them all on the hill- 

 side. Back on the mist-veiled crags loom 

 other towns, and all day long, down the 

 road that winds dizzily among the peaks, 

 come old women and young girls, stag- 

 gering under heavy loads of fagots gath- 

 ered in the woods above the clouds. And 

 when they are not carrying fagots they 

 are always knitting — even when there is 

 no war ! — on the streets, in shops, gar- 

 dens, fishing boats on the beach, gossip- 

 ing by the fountain before the long stair 

 that leads to the stately black and white 

 and mosaic Cathedral of St. Andrew. 



DESERTED HARBOR OF MIGHTIER DAYS 



On the road goes, through Atrani of 

 the gloomy arches over the sea beach, 

 past Minore (the Little), where bare- 

 legged fishwives in bright, tucked-up 

 skirts help their men to haul home the 

 nets ; around the brilliant lemon gardens 

 of Maiore (the Big) ; to and through the 

 towns of Raito and Vietri, before reach- 

 ing Salerno, where, clinging stubbornly 

 to the hillsides like limpets, the houses 

 rise from the rock between sea and sky, 

 some of them standing half upon the hill 

 and half upon tall buttresses that reach 

 down to the harbor sands. 



It was Salerno, the deserted harbor 

 of mightier days, that forty Norman 

 gentles, returning from the Holy Sepul- 

 cher in Jerusalem, "simply for the love 

 of God" delivered from its Saracen be- 

 siegers. Later these gentlemen adventur- 

 ers came back, simply for the love of the 

 beautiful country, and with naught but 

 their keen two-handed swords and their 

 manhood hewed out a brilliant kingdom 

 for themselves. One of them, Robert the 



Shrewd, built the gaunt eleventh century 

 cathedral, whose two magnificent am- 

 bones, or reading desks, of snowy marble, 

 richly embellished with Cosmato mosaics, 

 stand forth like jewels in the barrenness 

 of the badly restored, whitewashed, rail- 

 road-station-like interior. 



OTHER GEMS OE SOUTHERN ITAEY 



Reggio the lovely, overlooking the 

 Straits of Messina, thrown into a heap of 

 ruins by the earthquake of 1908;' Palmi 

 of the superb old olive groV-es and or- 

 angeries, with its feet on the slopes of 

 Monte Elia and its sunny face' looking 

 away over the sparkling Tyrrhenian Sea 

 toward peevish Stromboli ; Catanzaro, 

 fat and rich and important, given to 

 displaying its beautiful Calabrian cos- 

 tumes of a pleasant Sunday for all the 

 world to admire ; Taranto, a carnelian 

 gem set between the two blue seas — the 

 gulf on the west and its own magnificent 

 naval harbor, the Little Sea, on the east— 

 a quaint, out-of-time town, whose nar- 

 row, swarming streets of insignificant 

 little houses clamber up the splendid 

 rocky islet, once the citadel of ancient 

 Tarentum ; Brindisi, Tarentum's colony, 

 famous from antiquity to the days when 

 the Crusaders' fleets lay in its harbor, and 

 today a quiet, orderly, busy railway and 

 steamship terminal, and Bari, with a 

 picturesque castle and park and its 

 rugged little peninsula, all neatly car- 

 pentered into prosaic regularity down 

 one side — these and scores of others are 

 but some of the facets of the exquisite 

 jewel of southern Italy, which glows and 

 flashes with a different luster for every 

 one. 



CENTRAL ITALY AND ROME 



Yet with all its charm and beauty and 

 romance, southern Italy has never forced 

 ahead the progress of the world. Central 

 Italy has. That whole vast historic re- 

 gion has taken a part in world history 

 that achievements of the future can nei- 

 ther dim nor lessen. In some definite and 

 lasting way practically every phase of the 

 life of central Italy has influenced the 

 world for progress — religious, political, 

 scientific, intellectual, humanitarian. The 

 most vital forces that actuate our twen- 



