Page:Great Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857.djvu/67

Rh who should climb the rock. Seen from beneath, in the valley bottom, through the keen bright air, and relieved against the sky, these old towns seem as though we could reach their interior in half an hour's scramble; yet often three hours' painful toil upon our mule will but suffice to bring us—by long traverses over rough and rolling stones, and by an approach road that is often the bed of a torrent in time of rain—to the ancient gateway, or to the narrow and obstructed street entrance by which alone we can penetrate the interior. Everything about these places is characteristic of their origin, its remoteness, and of the savage manners and times in which they were founded.

The irregular and narrow streets, not more than from 5 to 12 or 15 feet wide, are steep as staircases, until we reach the very summit of the town, where the little "piazza" and the principal church, or some gloomy-looking monastic pile, mostly form its centre and heart. We pass along between houses of all heights and sizes, beetle browed, and with low arched "portone," and small, unglazed, and often sashless windows, few, and high up. The unpaved and unformed surface, often the bare rock worn into steps, of these wretched streets, is the common receptacle of the filth of every house; pigs at all times, and often goats at night, make them their common resting-ground. There is neither sewerage nor water supply, and in winter wet, we wade through ordure ankle deep. Castelluccio (see Photog. 13) is a good illustration of the site and exterior of many of these towns. They all still retain the impress, of the semi-oriental character of the early settlers of Magna Græcia, of the savage violence