It checked my progress; I turned abruptly, to lose the impression as soon as possible.
No such trouble has been taken to provide comely housing for the collection of antiquities which the town possesses.

The curator who led me through the museum (of course I was the sole visitor) lamented that it was only communal, the Italian Government not having yet cared to take it under control; he was an enthusiast, and spoke with feeling of the time and care he had spent upon these precious relics--_sedici anni di vita_--sixteen years of life, and, after all, who cared for them?
There was a little library of archaeological works, which contained two volumes only of the _Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum_; who, asked the curator sadly, would supply money to purchase the rest?
Place had been found on the walls for certain modern pictures of local interest.

One represented a pasture on the heights of Aspromonte, shepherds and their cattle amid rich herbage, under a summer sky, with purple summits enclosing them on every side; the other, also a Calabrian mountain scene, but sternly grand in the light of storm; a dark tarn, a rushing torrent, the lonely wilderness.

Naming the painter, my despondent companion shook his head, and sighed "_Morto! Morto!_" Ere I left, the visitors' book was opened for my signature.

Some twenty pages only had been covered since the founding of the museum, and most of the names were German.