The men who gave the French so much trouble were political brigands,
allies of Bourbonism. They were commanded by creatures like Mammone, an
anthropophagous monster whose boast it was that he had personally killed
455 persons with the greatest refinements of cruelty, and who wore at
his belt the skull of one of them, out of which he used to drink human
blood at mealtime; he drank his own blood as well; indeed, he "never
dined without having a bleeding human heart on the table." This was the
man whom King Ferdinand and his spouse loaded with gifts and
decorations, and addressed as "Our good Friend and General--the
faithful Support of the Throne." The numbers of these savages were
increased by shiploads of professional cut-throats sent over from Sicily
by the English to help their Bourbon friends. Some of these actually
wore the British uniform; one of the most ferocious was known as
"L'Inglese"--the Englishman.

One must go to the fountain-head, to the archives, in order to gain some
idea of the sanguinary anarchy that desolated South Italy in those days.
The horrors of feudalism, aided by the earthquake of 1784 and by the
effects of Cardinal Ruffo's Holy Crusade, had converted the country into
a pandemonium. In a single year (1809) thirty-three thousand crimes were
recorded against the brigands of the Kingdom of Naples; in a single
month they are said to have committed 1200 murders in Calabria alone.
These were the bands who were described by British officers as "our
chivalrous brigand-allies."

It is good to bear these facts in mind when judging of the present state
of this province, for the traces of such a reign of terror are not
easily expunged. Good, also, to remember that this was the period of the
highest spiritual eminence to which South Italy has ever attained. Its
population of four million inhabitants were then consoled by the