C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

A Sunday at Foria

By Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809–1847)

NEXT morning, Sunday, the weather was again fine. We went to Foria, and saw the people going to the cathedral in their holiday costumes. The women wore their well-known head-dress of folds of white muslin placed flat on the head; the men were standing in the square before the church in their bright red caps gossiping about politics, and we gradually wound our way through these festal villages up the hill. It is a huge rugged volcano, full of fissures, ravines, cavities, and steep precipices. The cavities being used for wine cellars, they are filled with large casks. Every declivity is clothed with vines and fig-trees, or mulberry-trees. Corn grows on the sides of the steep rocks, and yields more than one crop every year. The ravines are covered with ivy and innumerable bright-colored flowers and herbs; and wherever there is a vacant space young chestnut-trees shoot up, furnishing the most delightful shade. The last village, Fontana, lies in the midst of verdure and vegetation. As we climbed higher, the sky became overcast and gloomy; and by the time we reached the most elevated peaks of the rocks, a thick fog had come on. The vapors flitted about; and although the rugged outlines of the rocks and the telegraph and the cross stood forth strangely in the clouds, still we could not see even the smallest portion of the view. Soon afterwards rain commenced; and as it was impossible to remain and wait as you do on the Righi, we were obliged to take leave of Epomeo without having made his acquaintance. We ran down in the rain, one rushing after the other; and I do believe that we were scarcely an hour in returning.

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