An itinerant performer on the zampogna, or Italian bagpipe, was playing for the entertainment of the drowsy revellers, when a gigantic Scot in dark tartan, one of Macleod’s regimental pipers, passed by on his way to the Strada Larga, to play a rouse for the soldiers billeted there. Stopping before the cantina, the Scottish piper surveyed with surprise and curiosity the little chanter and inflated skin of the Calabrian’s primitive bagpipe; while at the music of this feeble reed, the face of the Highlander gradually contracted, from a ludicrous expression of wonder, to a formidable scowl of Gaelic contempt. He threw the three long drones of the great war-pipe over his left shoulder, and puffing up its mighty bag, in an instant poured forth the wild northern pibroch of the race of Seaforth. The strange variations and tremendous din of the Highland bagpipe astounded the poor little zampognatore, whose notes were lost amid the shrill and sonorous tempest which poured forth so volubly from the pipe of the Highlander; whom he regarded for a time with a droll look of silent wonder, and then slank away, retreating backwards, while his stalwart rival strode after him, taking step for step, and blowing fiercely, as he literally "walked into" the discomfited Italian. Discordant as the "war-note" of clan Kenneth must have been to the nice Italian ear of Castelermo, he would fain have stayed to listen; but his fiery Neapolitan horse had no such inclination: after snorting and prancing, it set off at a speed which soon left far behind the towers and ramparts of Crotona. During the cool morning our ride was a very pleasant one, as the road lay through a level part of the country, covered with rich crops and studded with little villages and olive groves, interspersed with lofty elms and clumps of pale green willow overhanging gurgling rivulets; but the scene changed as we penetrated among the mountains, where we rode on for miles without encountering a human being, save perhaps some smoke-begrimed charcoal-burner, or bandit-like peasant, in pursuit of the red deer which abound in those wild places. At times the road wound between the green and solitary hills, through gorges like the bed of a dried up river, where the rocks frowned grimly, rising up on each side like walls of basalt or iron: but they were not devoid of beauty, for in their clefts flourished the daphne and the rhododendron, blue monk’s-hood, pink fox-glove, and the whortle-berry; while the bronze masses of dark Italian pines shed their sombre influence over the scene from the summit of the cliffs above.