, to an earthquake) this brook had
always the same length, and it is hard to think of the Galaesus as so
insignificant. Disappointed, brooding, I followed the current seaward,
and upon the shore, amid scents of mint and rosemary, sat down to rest.

There was a good view of Taranto across the water; the old town on its
little island, compact of white houses, contrasting with the yellowish
tints of the great new buildings which spread over the peninsula. With
half-closed eyes, one could imagine the true Tarentum. Wavelets lapped
upon the sand before me, their music the same as two thousand years
ago. A goatherd came along, his flock straggling behind him; man and
goats were as much of the old world as of the new. Far away, the boats
of fishermen floated silently. I heard a rustle as an old fig tree hard
by dropped its latest leaves. On the sea-bank of yellow crumbling earth
lizards flashed about me in the sunshine. After a dull morning, the day
had passed into golden serenity; a stillness as of eternal peace held
earth and sky.

"Dearest of all to me is that nook of earth which yields not to
Hymettus for its honey, nor for its olive to green Venafrum; where
heaven grants a long springtime and warmth in winter, and in the sunny
hollows Bacchus fosters a vintage noble as the Falernian----" The lines
of Horace sang in my head; I thought, too, of the praise of Virgil,
who, tradition has it, wrote his _Eclogues_ hereabouts. Of course, the
country has another aspect, in spring and early summer; I saw it at a
sad moment; but, all allowance made for seasons, it is still with
wonder that one recalls the rapture of the poets. A change beyond
conception must have come upon these shores of the Ionian Sea. The
scent of rosemary seemed to be wafted across the ages from a vanished
world.

After all, who knows whether I have seen the Galaesus? Perhaps, as some
hold, it is quite another river, flowing far to the west of Taranto
into the open gulf. Gialtrezze may have become Galeso merely because of
the desire in scholars to believe that it was the classic stream; in
other parts of Italy names have been so imposed. But I shall not give
ear to such discouraging argument. It is little likely that my search
will ever be renewed, and for me the Galaesus--"dulce Galaesi
flumen"--is the stream I found and tracked, whose waters I heard mingle
with the Little Sea. The memory has no sense of disappointment. Those
reeds which rustle about the hid