CHAPTER VI.
ENTRANCE WITHIN THE MEIZOSEISMAL AREA—AULETTA—GREAT EARTH FISSURES.
I had no sooner passed into this hollow, than it became evident, that all at once, I had got within the radius of formidable earthquake violence: on every side ruined and prostrate buildings presented themselves. Descending towards Auletta, I can see Buccino greatly elevated, and some six miles to the north: many of the people here call it Bugille, pronounced like French, without the final vowel. This corrupt pronunciation of names is frequent, and renders recognition by maps often difficult; the same name is often pronounced half a dozen different ways by as many persons—an existing example of that jargon of living tongues, betwixt closely adjacent places, of which Sismondi gives so vivid a picture in those very regions, in his 'History of the Literature of the South of Europe in the Middle Ages.'
At half a mile in a right line from Auletta, I pass a ruined house, of one story, of about twelve feet in height, and about twenty feet square in clear of walls, which are two feet thick, pretty well built, and not above ten or fifteen years of age. This and a much larger building, a sort of farmstead, at the opposite side of the road, with
