r, was there a semblance of active
life. But even here most of the shops seemed to have little, if any,
business; frequently I saw the tradesman asleep in a chair, at any hour
of daylight. Indeed, it must be very difficult to make the day pass at
Taranto. I noticed that, as one goes southward in Italy, the later do
ordinary people dine; appetite comes slowly in this climate. Between
_colazione_ at midday and _pranzo_ at eight, or even half-past, what an
abysm of time! Of course, the Tarantine never reads; the only bookshop
I could discover made a poorer display than even that at Cosenza--it
was not truly a bookseller's at all, but a fancy stationer's. How the
women spend their lives one may vainly conjecture. Only on Sunday did I
see a few of them about the street; they walked to and from Mass, with
eyes on the ground, and all the better-dressed of them wore black.

When the weather fell calm again, and there was pleasure in walking, I
chanced upon a trace of the old civilization which interested me more
than objects ranged in a museum. Rambling eastward along the outer
shore, in the wilderness which begins as soon as the town has
disappeared, I came to a spot as uninviting as could be imagined, great
mounds of dry rubbish, evidently deposited here by the dust-carts of
Taranto; luckily, I continued my walk beyond this obstacle, and after a
while became aware that I had entered upon a road--a short piece of
well-marked road, which began and ended in the mere waste. A moment's
examination, and I saw that it was no modern by-way. The track was
clean-cut in living rock, its smooth, hard surface lined with two
parallel ruts nearly a foot deep; it extended for some twenty yards
without a break, and further on I discovered less perfect bits. Here,
manifestly, was the seaside approach to Tarentum, to Taras, perhaps to
the Phoenician city which came before them. Ages must have passed since
vehicles used this way; the modern high road is at some distance
inland, and one sees at a glance that this witness of ancient traffic
has remained by Time's sufferance in a desert region. Wonderful was the
preservation of the surface: the angles at the sides, where the road
had been cut down a little below the rock-level, were sharp and clean
as if carved yesterday, and the profound ruts, worn, perhaps, before
Rome had come to her power, showed the grinding of wheels with strange
distinctness. From this point there is an admirable view of Tara