I do not know why a woman should exhibit an overgrown broomstick
when an Italian train passes a flag station, any more than I know
why, when a squad of Paris firemen march out of the engine house
for exercise, they should carry carbines and knapsacks. I only
know that these things are done.
In Tuscany the vineyards make a fine show, for the vines are trained
to grow up from the ground and then are bound into streamers and
draped from one fruit tree or one shade tree to another, until a
whole hillside becomes one long, confusing vista of leafy festoons.
The thrifty owner gets the benefit of his grapes and of his trees,
and of the earth below, too, for there he raises vegetables and
grains, and the like. Like everything else in this land, the
system is an old one. I judge it was old enough to be hackneyed
when Horace wrote of it:
Now each man, basking on his slopes,
Weds to his widowed tree the vine;
Then, as he gayly quaffs his wine,
Salutes thee god of all his hopes.
Classical quotations interspersed here and there are wonderful
helps to a guide book, don't you think?
In rural Italy there are two other scenic details that strike the
American as being most curious--one is the amazing prevalence of
family washing, and the other is the amazing scarcity of birdlife.
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