And even then, if he hails from Acri, they of San Demetrio will probably
work against the project, and vice versa. For no love is lost between
neighbouring communities--wonderful, with what venomous feudal animosity
they regard each other! United Italy means nothing to these people,
whose conceptions of national and public life are those of the cock on
his dung-hill. You will find in the smallest places intelligent and
broad-minded men, tradespeople or professionals or landed proprietors,
but they are seldom members of the _municipio;_ the municipal career is
also a money-making business, yes; but of another kind, and requiring
other qualifications.

Foot-passengers like myself suffer no inconvenience by being obliged to
follow the shorter and time-honoured mule-track that joins the two
places. It rises steeply at first, then begins to wind in and out among
shady vales of chestnut and oak, affording unexpected glimpses now
towards distant Tarsia and now, through a glade on the right, on to the
ancient citadel of Bisignano, perched on its rock.

I reached Acri after about two and a half hours' walking. It lies in a
theatrical situation and has a hotel; but the proprietor of that
establishment having been described to me as "the greatest brigand of
the Sila" I preferred to refresh myself at a small wineshop, whose
manageress cooked me an uncommonly good luncheon and served some of the
best wine I had tasted for long. Altogether, the better-class women here
are far more wideawake and civilized than those of the Neapolitan
province; a result of their stern patriarchal up-bringing and of their
possessing more or less sensible husbands.

Thus fortified, I strolled about the streets. One would like to spend a
week or two in a place like this, so little known even to Italians, but