Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys by Amelia B. Edwards (1831-1892). London: Longman's, Green and Co., 1873.
[Page]
[Page]
[Page]
[Frontispiece]
THE SASSO BIANCO, FROM VAL CORDEVOLE.
[Title Page]
[Page]
HOTEL AT MONTE GENEROSO–WONDERFUL PANORAMA–DREAMS ABOUT DOLOMITES–DIFFICULTIES–THE REDOUBTABLE COURIER–THE REV. JOHN R.–CHOICE OF ROUTES–MENDRISIO TO COMO–COMO CATHEDRAL–FELLOW TRAVELLERS ON BOARD THE STEAMER–BELLAGIO–LECCO TO BERGAMO, POST-HASTE–PANORAMIC SCENERY BY RAIL–VENICE UNDER A NEW ASPECT–WE LAY IN STORE OF PROVISIONS FOR THE COMING JOURNEY–THE QUESTION OF SIDE-SADDLES–READY TO START
TOO LATE FOR THE TRAIN–VENICE TO CONEGLIANO–FAREWELL TO RAILWAYS AND CIVILISATION–WE TAKE TO THE ROAD–CENEDA–SERRAVILLE AND ITS GREAT TITIAN–THE GORGE AND LAKE OF SERRAVILLE–THE BOSCO DEL CONSIGLIO–THE LAGO MORTO–SANTA CROCE–FIRST GLIMPSES OF THE DOLOMITES–A PLAGUE OF FLIES–SKETCHING UNDER DIFFICULTIES–CAPO DI PONTE–THE ANCIENT BASIN OF THE PIAVE–VALLEY OF THE PIAVE–LONGARONE–AN INN FOR A GHOST-STORY.
THE PIC GALLERY–A COMMUNICATIVE PRIEST–THE TIMBER TRADE–THE SMALLEST CHURCH IN ITALY–CASTEL LAVAZZO–PERAROLO–A VISION OF THE ANTELAO–THE ZIGZAG OF MONTE ZUCCO–TAI CADORE–ONE OF THE FINEST DRIVES IN EUROPE–THE GLORIES OF THE AMPEZZO THAL–THE PELMO–THE ROCHETTA–THE LANDSLIP OF 1816–THE ANTELAO–THE CRODA MALCORA–SORAPIS–WE CROSS THE AUSTRIAN FRONTIER–THE BEC DI MEZZODI–THE TOFANA–MONTE CRISTALLO–CORTINA–ARRIVAL AT GHEDINA'S INN–"IL TUCKETT'S" NAME PROVES A WORD OF MIGHT–A THOROUGH TYROLEAN HOSTELRY–PREPARATIONS FOR THE SAGRO
CORTINA, ITS SITUATION, CLIMATE, AND TRADE–A MESSA CANTATA–THE VILLAGE CEMETERY–A FIRST ASCENT–THE GHEDINAS AND THEIR ART–AN UNKNOWN MOUNTAIN–AN AFTERNOON STROLL–THE ANTELAO–PLEASANT TYROLEAN WAYS–STROLLING ACROBATS–DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN OURSELVES AND THE COURIER–DIFFICULTIES ARISING THEREFROM–SANTO SIORPAES–THE SIDE-SADDLE QUESTION AGAIN–A TYROLEAN "CARETTA"–NEAR VIEW OF THE TOFANA–AMAZING COSTUMES–THE PEZZÉS–SUMMIT OF THE SASSI PASS–THE MARMOLATA–THE "SIGNORA CUCCA"
THE SAGRO OF CORTINA–A TYROLEAN SERMON–THE PEASANT MAIDEN OF LIVINALLUNGO–THE COURIER REPLACED–AN AMPEZZO WEDDING–THE TOFANA–PEUTELSTEIN–THE HÔLLENSTEIN THAL–THE CRODA ROSSA–LANDRO AND THE DÜRREN SEE–THE DREI ZINNEN–THE START FOR AURONZO–THE CHURCH OF THE CRUCIFIX–PIEVE DI CADORE–THE HOUSE IN WHICH TITIAN WAS BORN–THE CASA ZAMPIERI–AN INVASION–TITIAN'S FIRST FRESCO–THE ODIOUS LITTLE GIRL–THE DUOMO–DON ANTONIO DA VIA–THE CADORE TITIANS–THE FOUR TEMPERAS–A CURIOUS ANTIQUE PREDELLA
DOMEGGE AND LOZZO–THE LEGEND OF MONTE CORNON–TRE PONTI–THE ANTIQUITY OF THE PIAVE–THE VAL D'AURONZO–NATIVE POLITENESS–VILLA GRANDE AND VILLA PICCOLA–"L'ALTRO ALBERGO"–AN UNPREPOSSESSING POPULATION–THE MARMAROLE–A DESERTED SILVER MINE–THE NEW ROAD–DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME–VAL BUONA–THE "CIRQUE" OF THE CRODA MALCORA–BASTIAN THE SOLITARY–THE MISURINA ALP–A MOUNTAIN TARN–THE TRE CROCE PASS
IMPORTANCE OF CORTINA AS A DOLOMITE CENTRE–OUR DEPARTURE FOR CAPRILE–THE "SIGNORA CUOCA" AGAIN–CASTEL D'ANDRAZ–FINNAZZER'S INN–THE UPPER VALLEY OF THE CONDEVOLE–A SUCCESSION OF RAIN-STORMS–A CORDIAL WELCOME–CAPRILE–THE GAME OF PALLO–AUSTRIANS AND ITALIANS–THE CIVITA–THE LAKE OF ALLEGHE–THE GREAT BERGFALLS OF 1771–THE RAPE OF THE SIDE-SADDLE–THE COL DI SANTA LUCIA–TITIAN'S LOST FRESCO–SUNSET ON THE CIVITA
UNSETTLED WEATHER–PROCESSIONS AND BELLS–RESOURCES OF CAPRILE–HISTORY OF CAPRILE IN THE MIDDLE AGES–THE FREE STATE OF ROCCA–LOCAL NOTABILITIES–THE GORGE OF SOTTOGUDA–THE SASSO DI RONCH–CLEMENTI AND THE TWO NESSOLS–THE GOATHERD'S CROSS–THE KING AND QUEEN OF THE DOLOMITES–A MOUNTAIN IN RUINS–THE SASSO BIANCO–A TEMPTING PROPOSAL–LEGENDS OF THE SASSO DI RONCH
DIFFICULTY OF GETTING UNDER WAY–FISHING FOR TIMBER–CENCENIGHE–A VALLEY OF ROCKS–AGORDO AND ITS PIAZZA–THE MINES OF THE VAL IMPERINA–THE DINNER "DOLOROUS"–A SPLENDID STORM–VOLTAGO AND PRASSENE–AN "UNTRODDEN PEAK"–THE GOSALDA PASS–A LAND OF FAMINE–MONTE PRABELLO–THE CEREDA PASS–A JOURNEY WITHOUT AN END–CASTEL PIETRA–PRIMIERO AT LAST–ANCIENT LINEAGE OF THE TYROLEAN INNKEEPERS
PRIMIERO AND ITS HISTORY–THE EARLY SILVER-WORKERS AND THEIR OFFERING–TRANSACQUA AND ITS TITIAN–THE PRIMIERO DOLOMITES–THE VAL DI CANALI–MONTE PAVIONE AND THE VETTE DI FELTRE–MONTE ARZON–THE PONTE DELLO SCHIOS–A PRIMIERO PROGRESSIONIST–THE COMING TENOR–SIGNOR SARTORIS AND THE ART OF APICULTURE–THE UPPER VALLEY OF THE CISMONE–SAN MARTINO DI CASTROZZA–A SCENE FOR A GHOST-STORY–THE CIMON DELLA PALA–THE COSTONZELLA PASS–THE HOSPICE OF PANEVEGGIO–THE VAL TRAVIGNOLO–PREDAZZO
A VILLAGE IN A CRATER–PREDAZZO AND ITS COMMERCE–PROSPERITY VERSUS PICTURESQUENESS–FOOTSTEPS OF THE ETRUSCANS–THE VAL D'AVISIO–MOENA–THE PORPHYRY OF THE FASSA THAL–VIGO AND THE FAT MAIDEN–CAMPIDELLO–MONTE VERNALE–THE GORGE OF THE AVISIO–THE FEDAJA ALP AND THE FEDAJA LAKE–THE GORGE OF SOTTOGUDA AGAIN–HOME TO CAPRILE
OROGRAPHY OF THE SASSO BIANCO–ITS PANORAMIC POSITION–ITS SUPERFICIAL EXTENT–ITS GEOLOGY–ASCENT OF THE MOUNTAIN–AN EXQUISITE MORNING–ANOTHE SAGRO–THE CORN-ZONE–THE PEZZÉ PROPERTY–THE WILD-FLOWER ZONE–THE UPPER PASTURAGES–WAITING FOR THE MISTS–THE LAST SLOPE–THE SUMMIT–THE VIEW TO THE NORTH–THE ZILLERTHAL AND ANTHOLZER ALPS–THE GROSSE VENEDIGER–GLIMPSES ON THE SOUTH SIDE–ESTIMATED HEIGHT OF THE SASSO BIANCO–THE DESCENT–GRATIFICATION OF THE NATIVES
ON THE ROAD AGAIN–NEAR VIEW OF THE CIVITA–ADVENTURE WITH A SNAKE–MONTE FERNAZZA–MONTE COLDAI–THE MARMOLATA FROM THE PASS OF ALLEGHE–UNEXPECTED VIEW OF THE PELMO–THE MOUNTAINS OF VAL DI ZOLDO–THE HORRORS OF CERCENA'S INN–THE SCULPTOR OF BRAGAREZZA–ZOPPÉ; ITS PAROCCO, AND ITS TITIAN–LUNCHEON IN A TYROLEAN COUNTRY-HOUSE–BRUSETOLON AND HIS WORKS–SPECIMEN OF A NATIVE–VALLEY AND PASS OF PALLAFAVERA–IN THE SHADE OF THE PELMO–PESCUL–SELVA AND THE ABORIGINES–CAPRILE AGAIN
CHOICE OF ROUTES–GOODBYE TO CAPRILE–PIEVE D'ANDRAZ–THE UPPER VALLEY OF LIVINALLUNGO–LAST VIEW OF THE PELMO–THE CAMPOLUNGO PASS–CORFARA–A COMING PAINTER–A POPULATION OF ARTISTS–TICINI AND HIS WORKS AT CORFARA–A PHENOMENON–THE COLFOSCO PASS–THE GRÖDNER THAL–THE CAPITAL OF TOYLAND–THE TRADE OF ST. ULRICH–THE LADIN TONGUE–RELICS OF ETRURIA–THE PUFLER GORGE–THE SEISSER ALP–THE LANGKOFEL, THE PLATTKOGEL, AND THE SCHLERN–THE BATHS OF RATZES–DESCENT INTO THE VALLEY OF THE EISACK–BOTZEN–THE ROSENGARTEN ONCE MORE–FAREWELL
[Page]
[Page]
| AUTHOR'S ROUTE MAP |
THE district described in the following pages occupies that part of the South-eastern Tyrol which lies between Botzen, Bruneck, Innichen, and Belluno. Within the space thus roughly indicated are found those remarkable limestone mountains called the Dolomites.
Till within the last six or eight years–that is to say, till the publication of Ball's Guide to the Eastern Alps in 1868, and the appearance of Messrs. Gilbert and Churchill's joint volume in 1864,–the Dolomite district was scarcely known even by name to any but scientific travellers. A few geologists found their way now and then to Predazzo; a few artists, attracted in the first instance to Cadore, as the birthplace of Titian, carried their sketch-books up the Ampezzo Thal; but there it ended. Even now, the general public is so slightly informed upon the subject that it is by no means uncommon to find educated persons who have never heard of the Dolomites at all, or who take them for a religious sect, like the Mormons or the Druses.
Nor is this surprising when we consider the nature of the ground lying within the area just named; the absence of roads; the impossibility of traversing the heart of the country, except on foot or on mule-back; the tedious postal arrangements; the want of telegraphic communication; and the primitive quality of the accommodation provided for travellers. A good road is the widest avenue to knowledge; but there is at present only one good and complete road in the whole district–namely, the Strada Regia which, traversing the whole length of the Ampezzo Thal, connects the Venetian provinces with Lower Austria. Other fragments of roads there are; but then they are only fragments, leading sometimes from point to point within an amphitheatre of mountains traversed only by mule-tracks.
When, however, one has said that there are few roads–that letters, having sometimes to be carried by walking postmen over a succession of passes, travel slowly and are delivered irregularly–that the inns are not only few and far between, but often of the humblest kind–and that, except at Cortina, there is not a telegraph station in the whole country, one has said all there is to say in disparagement of the district. For the rest, it is difficult to speak of the people, of the climate, of the scenery, without risk of being thought too partial or too enthusiastic. To say that the arts of extortion are here unknown–that the old patriarchal notion of hospitality still survives, miraculously, in the minds of the inn-keepers–that it is as natural to the natives of these hills and valleys to be kind, and helpful, and disinterested, as it is natural to the Swiss to be rapacious–that here one escapes from hackneyed sights, from overcrowded hotels, from the dreary routine of table d'hôtes, from the flood of Cook's tourists,–is, after all, but to say that life in the South-eastern Tyrol is yet free from all the discomforts that have of late years made Switzerland unendurable; and that for those who love sketching and botany, mountain-climbing and mountain air, and who desire when they travel to leave London and Paris behind them, the Dolomites offer a "playground" far more attractive than the Alps.
That a certain amount of activity and some power to resist fatigue, are necessary to the proper enjoyment of this new playground, must be conceded from the beginning. The passes are too long and too fatiguing for ladies on foot, and should not be attempted by any who cannot endure eight and sometimes ten hours of mule-riding. The food and cooking, as will be seen in the course of the following narrative, are for the most part indifferent; and the albergos, as I have already said, are often of the humblest kind. The beds, however, in even "the worst inn's worst room" are generally irreproachable; and this alone covers a multitude of shortcomings. Anyone who visited Ober-Ammergau during the last performances of the Passion Play can form a tolerably exact idea of the sort of accommodation to be met with at Cortina, Caprile, Primiero, Predazzo, Paneveggio, Corfara, and St. Ulrich. A small store of tea, arrowroot, and Liebig's extract, a bottle or two of wine and brandy, a flask of spirits of wine and an Etna, are almost indispensable adjuncts to a lengthened tour in these mountains. The basket which contains them adds but little to the impedimenta, and immensely to the well-being of the traveller.
For ladies, side-saddles are absolutely necessary, there being only two in the whole country, and but one of these for hire. There is no need to take them out all the way from England. They can always be bought at the last large town through which travellers pass on their way to the Dolomites, and sold again at the first they come to on leaving the district.
Some knowledge of Italian and German is also indispensable. French here is of no use whatever; and Italian is almost universally spoken. It is only in the Grödner Thal, the Gader Thal, and the country north of the Ampezzo, that one comes upon a purely German population.
The Dolomite district is most easily approached from either Venice, Botzen, or Bruneck; the nearest railway stations being Toblach on the north, Atzwang on the west, and Conegliano on the south. All that is grandest, all that is most attractive to the artist, the geologist, and the Alpine climber, lies midway between these three points, and covers an area of about thirty-five miles by fifty. The scenes which the present writer has attempted to describe, all lie within that narrow radius.
A word ought, perhaps, to be said with regard to the Title of this book, which, at first hearing, may be taken to promise more than the author is prepared to fulfil. But it means simply that here in South Tyrol, within seventy-two hours of London, there may be found a large number of yet "untrodden peaks ", and a network of valleys so literally "unfrequented" that we journeyed sometimes for days together without meeting a single traveller either in the inns or on the roads, and encountered only three parties of English during the whole time between entering the country on the Conegliano side and leaving it at Botzen.
Of these unascended Dolomites, many exceeded 10,000 feet in height; and some–as the Cima di Fradusta, the Palle di San Martino and the Sass Maor–are so difficult, that the mountaineer who shall first set foot upon their summits will have achieved a feat in no way second to that of the first ascent of the Matterhorn.
Of the nature and origin of Dolomite much has been written and much conjectured by French and German geologists; but nothing as yet seems definitely proved. The Coral Reef theory of Baron Richthofen seems, however, to be gaining general acceptance, and to the unscientific reader sounds sufficiently conclusive. He grounds his theory upon certain facts, such as :–
1. The singular isolation of these mountains, many of which stand detached and alone, falling away deeply on all sides in a way that cannot be the result of any process of denudation.
2. The presence in their substance of such marine deposits as are found in the same position in the Coral Reefs now in progress of formation in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and on the Australian coast-line.
3. The absence of all deep-sea deposits.
4. The absence of all trace of volcanic origin.
5. The peculiarity of their forms, which reproduce in a remarkable manner the forms of the Coral Reef "Atolls" of the present day, being vertical, like huge walls, towards the wash of the tide, and supported on the lee side by sloping buttresses.
6. Their lines of curvature, and the kind of enclosures which they fence in; so again reproducing the construction of the Coral Reefs, which thus embay spaces of shallow water.
7. Finally the multiform evidences (too numerous to be dwelt upon here) of how the Dolomite must have been slowly and steadily superimposed during long ages upon lower original beds of other rock, and the difficulty of accounting for this process by any other hypothesis.
"The Schlern," says Richthofen, taking this for his representative mountain, "is a Coral Reef; and the entire formation of Schlern Dolomite has in like manner originated through animal activity." *
The Dolomite derives its name from that of Monsieur Dolomieu, an eminent French savant of the last century, who travelled in South Tyrol somewhere about the years 1789 and 1790, and first directed the attention of the scientific world towards the structural peculiarities of this kind of limestone.
In conclusion I can only add, that I have tried to give a faithful impression of the country and the people; and as, when on the spot, I endeavoured to sketch that which defied the pencil, so now I have striven in the following pages to describe that which equally defies the pen. No one knows better than myself how inadequately I have succeeded. Why had I not Mr. Ruskin's power to create landscapes with words? And why, my dear American friends to whom this volume is inscribed, had I not some of those gifts that make your paintings more eloquent than words? Could I have seized the weirdness and poetry of those scenes, VEDDER, as you would have seized them–could I have matched the relative tones of trees, and skies, and mountain-summits, CHARLES CARYLL COLEMAN, with your wonderful fidelity–could I have dipped my brush, TILTON, like you, in the rose and gold of Southern sunsets, what sketches mine would have been, and how nobly this book would have been illustrated!
AMELIA B. EDWARDS.
WESTBURY-ON-TRYM,
June 5, 1873.
* I am indebted to Mr. G. C. Churchill's admirable "Physical Description of the Dolomite District" for the particulars epitomized above.
AN autumn in North Italy, a winter in Rome, a spring-tide in Sorrento, brought summer round again–the rich Italian summer, with its wealth of fruits and flowers, its intolerable heat, and its blinding brightness. The barbarian tide had long ago set northwards and overflowed into Switzerland. Even those who had lingered longest were fain at last to turn their faces towards the hills, and so it happened that the writer and a friend who had joined her of late in Naples, found themselves, about the middle of June, 1872, breathing the cooler airs of Monte Generoso.
Here was a pleasant hotel, filled to overflowing, and numbering among its guests many Roman friends of the past season. Here, too, were green slopes, and shady woods, and meadows splendid with such wild flowers as none of us had ever seen elsewhere. The steaming lakes, from which we had just escaped–Como, Lugano and Maggiore–lay in still, shining sheets three thousand feet below. The vast Lombard flats on the one side simmered all day in burning mists to the farthest horizon. The great snow-ranges bounding Switzerland and Tyrol on the other, glowed with the rose of every dawn, and turned purple when the sun went down behind them in glory every evening.
Having this wondrous panorama constantly before our eyes, with its changing lights and shadows, and its magical effects of cloud-wreath and shower–catching now a sudden glimpse of the Finster Aär Horn and the Bernese range–now an apparitional vision of Monte Rosa, or the Matterhorn, or even (on a clear morning, from the summit behind the hotel) of the far-distant Ortler Spitze on the Tyrolese border–we began, somehow, to think and talk less of our proposed tour in the Engadine; to look more and more longingly towards the north-eastern horizon; and to dream in a vague way of those mystic mountains beyond Verona which we knew of, somewhat indefinitely, as the Dolomites.
The Dolomites! It was full fifteen years since I had first seen sketches of them by a great artist not long since passed away, and their strange outlines and still stranger colouring had haunted me ever since. I thought of them as every summer came around; I regretted them every autumn; I cherished dim hopes about them every spring. Sketching about Venice in a gondola a year before the time of which I write, I used to be ever looking towards the faint blue peaks beyond Murano.
In short, it was an old longing; and now, high up on the mountain side, with Zermatt and the Engadine close within reach, and the multitudinous Alps extending across half the horizon, it came back upon me in such force as to make all that these great mountains and passes had to show seem tame and undesirable.
Fortunately my friend (whom I will call L. for briefness) had also read and dreamed of Dolomites, and was as eager to know more of them as myself; so we soon reached that stage in the history of every expedition when vague possibilities merge into planned certainties, and the study of maps and routes becomes the absorbing occupation of every day.
There were, of course, some difficulties to be overcome; not only those difficulties of accommodation and transit which make the Dolomite district less accessible than many more distant places, but special difficulties arising out of our immediate surroundings. There was S––, for instance (L.'s maid), who, being delicate, was less able for mountain work than ourselves. And there was the supreme difficulty of the courier–a gentleman of refined and expensive tastes, who abhorred what is generally understood by "roughing it," despised primitive simplicity, and exacted that his employers should strictly limit their love of picturesque to districts abundantly intersected by railways and well furnished with first-class hotels.
That this illustrious man should look with favour on our new project was obviously hopeless; so we discussed it secretly "with bated breath," and the proceedings at once assumed the delightful character of a conspiracy. The Rev. John R., who had been acting for some weeks as English chaplain at Stresa, was in the plot from the beginning. He had himself walked through part of our Dolomite route a few years before, and so gave us just that sort of practical advice which is, of all help in travelling, the most valuable. For this; for his gallant indifference to the ultimate wrath of the courier; and for the energetic way in which (with a noble disregard of appearances, for which we can never be sufficiently grateful) he made appointments with us in secluded summer-houses, and attended stealthy indoor conferences at hours when the servants were supposed to be at meals, I here beg to offer him our sincere and hearty thanks.
All being at last fully planned, it became necessary to announce our change of route. The great man was accordingly summoned; the writer, never famous for moral courage, ignominiously retreated; and L., the dauntless, undertook the service of danger. Of that tremendous interview no details ever transpired. Enough that L. came out from it composed but victorious; and that the great man, greater than ever under defeat, comported himself thenceforth with such a nicely adjusted air of martyrdom and dignity as defies description.
Now there are three ways by which to enter the Dolomite district; namely, by Botzen, by Bruneck, or by Venice; and it fell in better with our after plans to begin from Venice. So on the morning of Thursday the 27th of June, we bade farewell to our friends on Monte Generoso, and went down in all the freshness and beauty of the early morning. It was a day that promised well for the beginning of such a journey. There had been a heavy thunderstorm the night before, and the last cumuli were yet rolling off in a long billowy rack upon the verge of land and sky. The plains of Lombardy glittered wide and far; Milan gleamed, a marble-speck, in the mid-distance; and farthest seen of all, a faint, pure obelisk of snow, traced as it were upon the transparent air, rose Monte Viso, a hundred and twenty miles away.
But soon the rapidly descending road and thickening woods shut out the view, and in less than two hours we were down again in Mendrisio, a clean little town containing an excellent hotel, where travellers bound for the mountain, and travellers coming down to the plains, are wont to rest. Here we parted from our heavy luggage, keeping only a few small bags for use during the tour. Here also we engaged a carriage to take us on to Como, where we arrived about midday, after a dull and dusty drive of some two hours more.
It was our intention to push on that afternoon as far as Bellaggio, and in the morning to take the early steamer to Lecco, where we hoped to catch the 9.25 train reaching Venice at 4.30. Tired as we now were, it was pleasant to learn that the steamer would not leave till three, and that we might put up for a couple of hours at the hotel Volta–not only the best in Como, but one of the best in Italy. Here we rested and took luncheon, and, despite the noontide blaze out of doors, contrived to get as far as that exquisite little miniature in marble, the Cathedral. Lingering there till the last moment, examining the cameo-like bas-reliefs of the façade, the strange beasts of unknown date that support the holy-water basins near the entrance, and the delicate Italian-Gothic of the nave and aisles, we only ran back just in time to see our effects being wheeled down the pier, and to find the steamer not only crowded with passengers, but the deck piled, funnel-high, with bales of raw silk, empty baskets, and market produce of every description.
We were the only English on board, as we had been the only English in the streets, in the hotel, and apparently in all the town of Como. Our fellow-passengers were of the bourgeois class–stout matrons with fat brown hands cased in netted mittens and loaded with rings; elderly péres de famille in straw hats; black-eyed young women in gay shawls and fawn-coloured kid boots; and a sprinkling of priests. It had probably been market-day in Como; for the fore-deck was crowded with chattering country folk, chiefly bronzed women in wooden clogs, some few of whom wore in their plaited hair that fan-shaped head-dress of silver pins, which, though chiefly characteristic of the Canton Tessin, just over the neighbouring Swiss border, is yet worn all about the neighbourhood of the lakes.
So the boat steamed out of the little port and along the glassy lake, landing many passengers at every stage; and the fat matrons drank iced Chiavenna beer; and the priests talked together in a little knot, and made merry among themselves. There were three of them–one rubicund, jovial, and somewhat threadbare; another very bent, and toothless, and humble, and desperately shabby; while the third, in shining broadcloth and a black satin waistcoat, carried himself like a gentleman and a man of the world, was liberal with the contents of his silver snuff-box, and had only to open his lips to evoke obsequious laughter. We landed the two first at small water-side hamlets by the way, and the last went ashore at Cadenabbia, in a smart boat with two rowers.
Wooded hills, vineyards, villages, terraced gardens, gleaming villas bowered in orange-groves, glided past meanwhile–a swift and beautiful panorama. The little voyage was soon over, and the sun was still high when we reached Bellaggio; a haven of delicious rest, if only for a few hours.
Next morning, however, by a quarter past seven, we were again on board and making, too slowly, for Lecco, where we arrived just in time to hear the parting whistle of the 9.25 train. Now as there were only two departures a day from this place and the next train would not start for seven hours, arriving in Venice close upon eleven at night, our case looked serious. We drove, however, to a hotel, apparently the best; and here the landlady, a bright energetic body, proposed that we should take a carriage across the country to Bergamo, and there catch up the 11.13 Express from Milan. Here was the carriage standing ready in the courtyard; here were the horses ready in the stables; here was her nephew ready to drive us–the lightest carriage, the best horses, the steadiest whip in Lecco!
Never was there so brisk a landlady. She allowed us no time for deliberation; she helped to put the horses in with her own hands; and she packed us off as eagerly as if the prosperity of her hotel depended on getting rid of her customers as quickly as possible. So away we went, counting the kilometers against time all the way, and triumphantly rattling up to Bergamo station just twenty minutes before the Express was due.
Then came that well-known route, so full of beauty, so rich in old romance, that the mere names of the stations along the line make Bradshaw read like a page of poetry–Brescia, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Venice. For the traveller who has gone over all this ground at his leisure and is familiar with each place of interest as it flits by, I know no greater enjoyment than to pass them thus in rapid review, taking the journey straight through from Milan to Venice on a brilliant summer's day. What a series of impressions! What a chain of memories! What a long bright vision of ancient cities with forked battlements; white convents perched on cypress-planted hills; rock-built citadels, and crumbling mediæval towns, bright rivers, and olive woods, and vineyards without end; and beyond all these a background of blue mountains ever varying in outline, ever changing in hue, as the clouds sail over them and the train flies on!
By five o'clock we were in Venice. I had not thought, when I turned southwards last autumn, that I should find myself threading its familiar water-ways so soon again. I could hardly believe that here was the Grand Canal, and yonder the Rialto, and that those white domes now coming into sight were the domes of Santa Maria della Salute. It all seemed like a dream.
And yet, somehow, it was less like a dream than a changed reality. It was Venice; but not quite the old Venice. It was a gayer, fuller, noisier Venice; a Venice empty of English and American tourists; full to overflowing of Italians in every variety of summer finery; crowded with artists of all nations sketching in boats, or surrounded by gaping crowds in shady corners and porticos; a Venice whose flashing waters were now cloven by thousands of light skiffs with smart striped awnings of many colours, but whence the hearse-like, tufted gondola, so full of mystery and poetry, had altogether vanished; a Venice whose every side-canal swarmed with little boys learning to dive, and with swimmers of all ages; where dozens of cheap steamers (compared with which the Hungerford penny boats would seem like floating palaces) were hurrying to and fro every quarter of an hour between the Riva dei Schiavone and the bathing-places on the Lido; a Venice in which every other house in every piazza had suddenly become a café; in which brass bands were playing, and caramels were being hawked, and iced drinks were continually being consumed from seven in the morning till any number of hours after midnight; a Venice, in short, which was sunning itself in the brief gaiety and prosperity of the bathing season, when all Italy north of the Tiber, and a large percentage of strangers from Vienna, St. Petersburgh, and the shores of the Baltic, throng thither to breathe the soft sea-breezes off the Adriatic.
We stayed three days at Danielli's, including Sunday; and, mindful that we were this time bound for a district where roads were few, villages far between, and inns scantily provided with the commonest necessaries, we took care to lay in good store of portable provision for the journey. Our Saturday and Monday were therefore spent chiefly in the mazes of the Merceria. Here we bought two convenient wicker-baskets, and wherewithal to stock them–tea, sugar, Reading biscuits in tins, chocolate in tablets, Liebig's Ramornie extract, two bottles of Cognac, four of Marsala, pepper, salt, arrowroot, a large metal flask of spirits of wine, and an Etna. Thus armed, we could at all events rely in case of need upon our own resources; and of milk, eggs, and bread we thought we might make certain everywhere. Time proved, however, that in the indulgence of even this modest hope we over-estimated the fatness of the land; for it repeatedly happened that (the cows being gone to upper pastures) we could get no milk; and on one memorable occasion, in a hamlet containing at least three or four hundred souls, that we could get no bread.
There was yet another point upon which we were severely "exercised," and that was the question of side-saddles. Mr. R., on Monte Generoso, had advised us to purchase them and take them with us, doubting whether we should find any between Cortina and Botzen. Another friend, however, had positively assured us of the existence of one at Caprile; and where there was one, we hoped there might be two more. Anyhow, we were unwilling to add the bulk and burden of three side-saddles to our luggage; so we decided to go on, and take our chance. I suspect, however, that we had no alternative, and that one might as well look for skates in Calcutta as for saddlery in Venice. As the event proved, we did ultimately succeed in capturing two side-saddles (the only two in the whole district), and in forcibly keeping them throughout the journey; but this was a triumph of audacity, never to be repeated. Another time, we should undoubtedly provide ourselves with side-saddles either at Padua or Vicenza on the one side, or at Botzen on the other.
By Monday evening the 1st of July, our preparations were completed; our provision baskets packed; our stores of sketching and writing materials duly laid in; and all was at length in readiness for an early start next morning.
HAVING risen at grey dawn, breakfasted at a little after 5 A.M., and pulled down to the station before half the world of Venice was awake, it was certainly trying to find that we had missed our train by about five minutes, and must wait four hours for the next. Nor was it much consolation, though perhaps some little relief, to upbraid the courier who had slept too late, and so caused our misfortune. Sulky and silent, he piled our bags in a corner and kept gloomily aloof; while we, cold, dreary, and discontented, sat shivering in a draughty passage close against the ticket office, counting the weary hours and excluded even from the waiting-rooms, which were locked up "per ordine superiore" till half an hour before the time at which we now could proceed upon our journey. The time, however, dragged by somehow, and when at ten o'clock we at last found ourselves moving slowly out of the station, it seemed already like the middle of the day.
And now again we traversed the great bridge and the long, still, glassy space of calm lagune, and left the lessening domes of Venice far behind. And now, Mestre station being passed and the firm earth reached again, we entered on a vast flat all green with blossoming Indian corn and intersected by a network of broad dykes populous with frogs. Heavens! how they croaked! Driving out from Ravenna to Dante's famous pine-forest the other day, we had been almost deafened by them; but the shrill chorus of those Ravenna frogs was as soft music compared with the unbridled revelry of their Venetian brethren. These drowned the very noise of the train, and reduced us to dumb show till we were out of their neighbourhood.
So we sped on, the grey-blue mountains, that we had been looking at so longingly from Venice these last three days, growing gradually nearer and more definite. Soon we begin to distinguish a foreground of lower hill-tops, some dark with woods, others cultivated from base to brow and dotted over with white villages. Then by-and-by comes a point, midway as it were between Venetia and Tyrol, whence, looking back towards Conegliano, we see the last tapering Venetian campanile outlined against the horizon on the one hand, and the first bulbous Tyrolean steeple, shaped like the morion of a mediæval man-at-arms, peeping above the roof of a little hill-side hamlet on the other.
The dykes and frogs are now left far behind; the line is bordered on both sides by feathery acacia hedges, and above the lower ranges of frontier mountains, certain strange jagged peaks, which, however, are not Dolomite, begin to disengage themselves from the cloudy background of the northern sky. No, they cannot be Dolomite, though they look so like it; for we have been told that we shall see no true Dolomite before to-morrow. It is possible, however, as we know, to see the Antelao from Venice on such a clear day as befalls about a dozen times in the course of a summer; but here, even if the sky were cloudless, we are too close under the lower spurs of the outlying hills to command a view of greater heights beyond.
Treviso comes next–apparently a considerable place. Here, according to Murray, is a fine Annunciation of Titian to be seen in the Duomo, but we, alas! have no time to stay for it. Here also, as our fellow-traveller, the priest in the corner, says unctuously, opening his lips for the first and last time during the journey, "they make good wine." ("Qui si fanno buon vino.")
At Treviso we drop a few third-class travellers, and (being now just eighteen miles from Venice, and exactly half-way to Conegliano) go on again through a fat, flat country; past endless fields of maize and flax; past trailing vines reared, as in the Tyrol, on low slanting trellises close against the ground; past rich midsummer meadows where sunburnt peasants wade knee-deep in wild-flowers, and their flocks of turkeys are guessed at rather than seen; past villages, and small stations, and rambling farmhouses, and on towards the hills that are our goal. By-and-by, some four or five miles before Conegliano, the fertile plain is scarred by a broad tract of stones and sand, in the midst of which the Piave, grey, shallow, and turbid, hurries towards the sea. Of this river we are destined to see and know more hereafter, among its native Dolomites.
And now we are at Conegliano, the last point to which the railway can take us, and which, in consequence of our four hours' delay this morning, we have now no time to see. And this is disappointing; for Conegliano must undoubtedly be worth a visit. We know of old Palazzos decorated with fast-fading frescoes by Pordenone; of a theatre built by Segusini; of an altar-piece in the Duomo by Cima of Conegliano, an exquisite early painter of this place, whose works are best represented in the Brera of Milan, and whose clear, dry, polished style holds somewhat of an intermediate place between that of Giovanni Bellini and Luca Signorelli.
But if we would reach Longarone–our first stopping place–to-night, we must go on; so all we carry away is the passing remembrance of a neat little station; a bright, modern-looking town about half a mile distant; a sprinkling of white villas dotted over the neighboring hill-sides; and a fine old castle glowering down from a warlike height beyond.
And now the guard's whistle shrills in our ears for the last time for many weeks, and the train, bound for Trieste, puffs out of the station, disappears round a curve, and leaves us on the platform with our pile of bags at our feet and all our adventures before us. We look in each other's faces. We feel for the moment as Martin Chuzzlewit may have felt when the steamer landed him at Eden and there left him. Nothing, in truth, can be more indefinite than our prospects, more vague than our plans. We have Mayr's maps, Ball's Guide to the Eastern Alps, Gilbert and Churchill's book, and all sorts of means and appliances; but we have not the slightest idea of where we are going, or of what we shall do when we get there.
There is, however, no time now for misgivings, and in a few minutes we are again under way. Some three or four dirty post-omnibuses and bilious-looking yellow diligences are waiting outside, bound for Belluno and Longarone; also one tolerable carriage with a pair of stout grey horses, which, after some bargaining, is engaged at the cost of a hundred lire.* For this sum the driver is to take us to-day to Longarone, and to-morrow to Cortina in the Ampezzo Valley–a distance, altogether, of something like seventy English miles. So the bags are stowed away, some inside, some outside; and presently, without entering the town at all, we drive through a dusty suburb and out again upon the open plain.
A straighter road across a flatter country it would be difficult to conceive. Bordered on each side by a row of thin poplars, and by interminable fields of Indian corn, it goes on for miles and miles, diminishing to a point in the far distance, like the well-known diagram of an avenue in perspective. And it is the peculiar attribute of this Point to recede steadily in advance of us, so that we are always going on, as in a dreadful dream, and never getting any nearer. As for incidents by the way, there are none. We pass one of the lumbering yellow diligences that were standing erewhile at Conegliano station; we see a few brown women hoeing in the Indian corn, and then for miles we neither pass a house nor meet a human being.
It appears to me that hours must have gone by thus when I suddenly wake up, baked by the sun and choked by the dust, to find the whole party asleep, driver included, and the long distant hills now rising close before us. Seeing a little town not a quarter of a mile ahead–a little town bright in sunshine against a background of dark woods, with a ruined castle on a height near by, I know at once that this must be Ceneda–the Ceneda that Titian loved–and that yonder woods and hills and ruined castle are the same he took for the landscape background to his St. Peter Martyr. Here he is said to have owned property in land; and at Manza, four miles off, he built himself a summer villa.
Now, moved by some mysterious instinct, the driver wakes up just in time to crack his whip, put his horses into a gallop, and clatter, as foreign vetturini love to clatter, through the one street which is the town. But in vain; for Ceneda–silent, solitary, basking in the sun, with every shutter closed and only a lean dog or two loitering aimlessly about the open space in front of the church–is apparently as sound asleep as an enchanted town in a fairy tale. Not a curtain is put aside, not a face peers out upon us as we rattle past. The very magpie in his wicker cage outside the barber's shop is dozing on his perch, and scarcely opens an eye, though we make noise enough to rouse the Seven Sleepers.
Once past the houses, we fall back, of course, into the old pace, the gracious hills drawing nearer and unfolding fresh details at every step. And now at last green slopes and purple crags close round our path; the road begins to rise; a steep and narrow gorge, apparently a mere cleft in the mountains like the gorge of Pfeffers, opens suddenly before us; and from the midst of a nest of vines, mulberry trees and chestnuts, the brown roofs and campaniles of Serravalle lift themselves into sight.
Serravalle, though it figures on the map in smaller type than Ceneda which is, or was, an Episcopal residence, is yet a much more considerable place, covering several acres, and straggling up into the mouth of the gorge through which the Meschio comes hurrying to the plain. Strictly speaking, perhaps, there is now no Ceneda and no Serravalle, the two townships having been united of late by the Italian Government under the name of Vittoria; but they lie a full mile apart, and no one seems as yet to take kindly to the new order of things.
Again our driver cracks his whip and urges his horses to a canter; and so, with due magnificence, we clatter into the town–a quaint, picturesque, crumbling, world-forgotten place, with old stone houses abutting on the torrent; and a Duomo that looks as if it had been left unfinished three hundred years ago; and gloomy arcades vaulting the footways on each side of the principal street, as in Strasburg and Berne. Dashing across the bridge and into the Piazza, we pull up before one of the two inns which there compete for possession of the infrequent traveller; for Serravalle boasts not only a Piazza and a Duomo, but two Alberghi, two shabby little cafés, a Regia Posta, and even a lottery office with "Qui si giuocono per Venezia" painted in red letters across the window.
Here, too, the inhabitants are awake and stirring. They play at dominos in their shirt-sleeves outside the cafés. They play at "morra" in the shade of doorways and arcades. They fill water-jars, wash lettuces, and gossip at the fountain. They even patronize the drama, as may be seen by the erection of a temporary puppet-theatre ("patronized by His Majesty the King of Italy and all the Sovereigns of Europe") on a slope of waste ground close against the church. Nor is wanting the usual score or two of idle men and boys who immediately start up from nowhere in particular, and swarm, open-mouthed, about the carriage, staring at its occupants as if they were members of a travelling menagerie.
But Serravalle has something better than puppets and an idle population to show. The Duomo contains a large painting of the Madonna and Child in glory, by Titian, executed to order some time between the years 1542 and 1547–a grand picture belonging to what may perhaps be called the second order of the master's greatest period, and of which it has lately been said by an eminent traveller and critic that "it would alone repay a visit to Serravalle, even from Venice." With respect to the treatment of this fine work, Mr. Gilbert, whose admirable book on Titian and Cadore leaves nothing for any subsequent writer to add on these subjects, says:–"It is one of the grandest specimens of the master, and in very fair preservation. It represents the Virgin and Child in glory surrounded by angels, who fade into the golden haze above. Heavy-volumed clouds support and separate from earth this celestial vision; and below, standing on each side, are the colossal and majestic figures of St. Andrew and St. Peter; the former supporting a massive cross, the latter holding aloft, as if challenging denial of his faithfulness, the awful keys. Between these two noble figures, under a low horizon line, is a dark lake amidst darker hills, where a distant sail recalls the fisherman and his craft. Composition, drawing, colour, are all dignified and worthy of the master." Cadore, p. 43.
And now, time pressing, the day advancing, and three fourths of the drive yet lying before us, we must push on, or Longarone will not be reached ere nightfall. So, having been sufficiently stared at–not only by the population generally, but by the landlord and landlady and everybody connected with the inn, as well as by the domino players, who leave their games to take part in the entertainment–we clatter off again and make straight for the rocky mouth of the gorge, now closing in upon, and apparently swallowing up, the long line of old stone houses creeping into the defile. Some of these, shattered and decaying as they are, show traces of Venetian-Gothic in pointed ogive window and delicate twisted column. They belonged, no doubt, to wealthy owners in the days when Titian used to ride over from Manza to visit his married daughter who lived at Serravalle.
Where the houses end, the precipices so close in that there is but just space for the road and the torrent. Then the gorge gradually widens through wooded slopes and hanging chestnut groves; farmhouses and châlets perched high on grassy plateaus begin to look more Swiss than Italian; mountains and forests all round shut in the view; and about two miles from Serravalle the Meschio expands into a tiny, green, transparent lake, tranquil as a cloudless evening sky, and fringed by a broad border of young flax. A single skiff, reflected upside down as in a mirror, floats idly in the middle of the lake. The fisherman in it seems to be asleep. Not a ripple, not a breath, disturbs the placid picture in the water. Every hill and tree is there, reversed; and every reed is doubled.
This delicious pool, generally omitted in the maps, is the Lago di Serravalle. Woods slope down to the brink on one side, and the road, skirting the débris of an old landslip, winds round the other. Two tiny white houses with green jalousies and open Italian balconies at the head of the lake, a toy church on a grassy knoll, and a square mediæval watchtower clinging to a ridge of rock above, make up the details of a picture so serene and perfect that even Turner at his sunniest period could scarcely have idealized it.
The gorge now goes on widening and becomes a valley, once the scene of a bergfall so gigantic that it is supposed to have turned the course of the Piave (flowing out till then by Serravalle) and to have sent it thenceforward and for ever through the Val di Mel. This catastrophe happened ages ago–most probably in pre-historic times; yet the great barrier, six hundred feet in height from this side, looks as if it might be less than a century old. Few shrubs have taken root in these vast hillocks of slaty débris, among and over which the road rises continually; few mosses have gathered in the crannies of these monster blocks which lie piled like fallen towers by the wayside. All is bare, ghastly, desolate.
As we mount higher, the outlying trees of a great beech-forest on the verge of a lofty plateau to the right, are pointed out by the driver as the famous Bosco del Consiglio–a name that dates back to old Venetian rule, when these woods furnished timber to the state. Hence came the wood of which the "Bucentaur" was built; and–who knows?–perhaps the merchant ships of Antonio and the war-galley in which "blind old Dandolo" put forth against the Turk.
Presently, being now about four miles from Serravalle, and the top of the great bergfall not yet reached, we come upon another little green, clear lake, about the size of the last–the Lago Morto. It lies down in a hollow below the road, close under a huge, sheer precipice blinding white in the sunshine, whence half the mountain side looks as if it had been sliced away at a blow. If it were not that the débris could hardly be piled up where and how it is, leaving that hollow in which the lake lies sleeping, one would suppose this to be the spot whence the rock-slip came what time it barred out the Piave from the gorge of Serravalle.
According to the local legend, no boat can live upon those tranquil waters, and no bather who plunges into them may ever swim back to shore. Both are, in some terrible way, drawn down and engulphed "deeper than did ever plummet sound." It is said, however, that the last Austrian Governor of Lombardo-Venetia, being anxious to put an end to this superstition, brought up a boat from the Santa Croce side, and, in the presence of a breathless crowd from all the neighbouring villages, himself rowed the pretty wife of the Fadalto postmaster across the lake, and landed her triumphantly upon the opposite shore. Your Tyrolean peasant, however, is not easily disabused of ancient errors, and the Lago Morto, I am told, notwithstanding that public rehabilitation, enjoys its evil reputation to this day.
At length, having the Bosco del Consiglio always to the right, and the Col Vicentino with its scattered snow drifts towering to the left, we gain the summit of the ridge and see the lake of Santa Croce, looking wonderfully like the lake of Albano, lying close beneath our feet. Great mountains, all grey and purple crags above, all green corn-fields and wooded slopes below, enclose it in a nest of verdure. The village and church of Santa Croce, perched on a little grassy bluff, almost overhang the water. Other villages and campaniles sparkle far off on shore and hillside; while yonder, through a gap in the mountains at the farther end of the lake, we are startled by a strange apparition of pale fantastic peaks lifted high against the northern horizon.
LAKE OF SANTA CROCE.
"Ecco!" says the driver, pointing towards them with his whip, and half turning round to watch the effect of his words, "Ecco i nostri Dolomiti!"
The announcement is so unexpected that for the first moment it almost takes one's breath away. Having been positively told that no Dolomites would come into sight before the second day's journey, we have neither been looking for them nor expecting them–and yet there they are, so unfamiliar, and yet so unmistakeable! One feels immediately that they are unlike all other mountains, and yet that they are exactly what one expected them to be.
"Che Dolomiti sono? Come si chiamano?" (What Dolomites are they? What are their names?) are the eager questions that follow.
But the bare geological fact is all our driver has to tell. They are Dolomites–Dolomites on the Italian side of the frontier. He knows no more; so we can only turn to our maps, and guess, by comparison of distances and positions, that those flustered aiguilles belong most probably to the range of Monte Sfornioi.
At Santa Croce we halt for half an hour before the door of an extremely dirty little Albergo, across the front of which is painted in conspicuous letters, "Qui si vende buon vino a chi vuole."
Leaving the driver and courier to test the truth of this legend, we order coffee and drink it in the open air. The horses are taken out and fed. The writer, grievously tormented by a plague of flies, makes a sketch under circumstances of untold difficulty, being presently surrounded by the whole population of the place, among whom are some three or four handsome young women with gay red and yellow handkerchiefs bound round their heads like turbans. These damsels are by no means shy. They crowd; they push; they chatter; they giggle. One invites me to take her portrait. Another wishes to know if I am married. A third discovers that I am like a certain Maria Rosa whom they all seem to know; whereupon every feature of my face is discussed separately, and for the most part to my disparagement.
At this trying juncture, L., in a moment of happy inspiration, offers to show them the chromo-lithographs in Gilbert and Churchill's book, and so creates a diversion in my favour. Meanwhile the flies settle upon me in clouds, walk over my sky, drown themselves in the water bottles, and leave their legs in the brown madder; despite all which impediments, however, I achieve my sketch, and by the time the horses are put to, am ready to go on again.
The road now skirts the lake of Santa Croce, at the head of which extends an emerald-green flat wooded with light, feathery, yellowish poplars–evidently at one time part of the bed of the lake, from which the waters have long since retreated. From this point, we follow the line of the valley, passing the smart new village of Cadola; and at Capo di Ponte, whence the valley of Serravalle and the Val di Mel diverge at right angles, come again upon the Piave, now winding in and out among stony hillocks, like the Rhone at Leuk, and milk-white from its glacier-source in the upper Dolomites. The old bridge at Capo di Ponte–the old bridge which dated from Venetian times–is now gone; and with it the buttresses adorned with the lion of St. Mark mentioned by Ball and alluded to in Mr. Gilbert's "Cadore." Fragments of the ancient piers may yet be traced; but a new and very slight-looking iron bridge now spans the stream some fifty yards higher up. At Capo di Ponte, the most unscientific observer cannot fail to see that the Piave must once upon a time (most probably when the great berg-fall drove its waters back from Serravalle) have here formed another lake, the great natural basin of which yet remains, with the river flowing through it in a low secondary channel.
And now the road enters another straight and narrow valley–the valley of the Piave–closed in far ahead by a rugged Dolomite, all teeth and needle-points. By this time the long day is drawing to a close. Cows after milking are being driven back to pasture; labourers are plodding homewards; and a party of country girls with red handkerchiefs upon their heads, wading knee-deep through the wild-flowers of a wayside meadow, look like a procession of animated poppies. Then the sun goes down; the sky and the mountains turn cold and grey; and just before the dusk sets in we arrive at Longarone.
A large rambling village with a showy renaissance church and a few shabby shops–a big desolate inn with stone staircases and stone floors–a sullen landlord–a frightened, bare-footed chambermaid who looks as if she had just been caught wild in the mountains–bedrooms like barns, floors without carpets, windows without curtains–such are our first comfortless impressions of Longarone. Nor are these impressions in any wise modified by more intimate acquaintance. We dine in a desert of sitting-room at an oasis of table, lighted by a single tallow candle. The food is indifferent and indifferently cooked. The wine is the worst we have had in Italy.
Meanwhile, a stern and ominous look of satisfaction settles on the countenance of the great man whom we have so ruthlessly torn from the sphere he habitually adorns. "I told you so" is written in every line of his face, and in the very bristle of his moustache. At last, being dismissed for the night and told at what hour to have the carriage round in the morning, he can keep silence no longer.
"We shall not meet with many inns so good as this, where we are going," he says, grimly triumphant. "Good night, ladies!"–and with this parting shot, retires.
My bedroom that night measures about thirty-five feet in length by twenty-five in breadth, and is enlivened by five windows and four doors. The windows look out variously upon street, courtyard, and stables. The doors lead to endless suites of empty, shut-up rooms, and all sorts of intricate passages. 'Tis as ghostly, echoing, suicidal a place to sleep in as ever I saw in my life!
* About four pounds English.
LONGARONE , seen at six o'clock on a grey, dull morning, looked no more attractive than at dusk the evening before. There had been thunder and heavy rain in the night, and now the road and footways were full of muddy pools. The writer, however, was up betimes, wandering alone through the wet streets; peeping into the tawdry churches; spelling over the framed and glazed announcements of births, deaths, and marriages at the Prefettura; sketching the Pic Gallina, a solitary conspicuous peak over against the mouth of the Val Vajont, on the opposite bank of the Piave; and seeking such scattered crumbs of information as might fall in her way.
To sketch, even so early as six A.M., without becoming the nucleus of a crowd, is, of course, impossible; and the crowd this time consisted of school children of all ages, quite as "untameable," and almost as numerous, as the flies of Santa Croce. Presently, however, came by a mild, plump priest in a rusty soutane, who chased the truants off to the parish school-house, and himself lingered for a little secular chat by the way.
PIC GALLINA.
He had not much to tell; yet he told the little that he knew pleasantly and readily. The parish, he said, numbered about three thousand souls–a pious, industrious folk mainly supported by the timber trade, which is the staple of these parts. This timber, being cut, sold, and branded in the Ampezzo Thal, is floated down the Boita to its point of confluence with the Piave at Perarolo, and thence, carried by the double current, comes along the valley of the Piave and the Val di Mel, to be claimed by its several purchasers along the banks, and caught as it passes by. Thus it is that every village by the way is skirted by saw-mills and timber-yards, and that almost every man is a carpenter. He then went on to tell me that my peak was called the Pic Gallina or Hen's beak; that there existed a practicable short cut for pedestrians by way of the Val Vajont to Udine and the Trieste railway; that the "gran' Tiziano" was born on the banks of the Piave higher up, at Pieve di Cadore; that the Dolomites were the highest mountains in the world (which I am afraid I pretended to believe); that the large church in the Piazza was the church of the Concezione; that the little church at the back, dedicated to San Liberale, was the smallest church in Italy (which no doubt was true, seeing that you might put it inside St. Lawrence, Undercliff, and yet leave a passage to walk round); and finally, that Castel Lavazzo, seen from a point about a quarter of a mile farther on, was the most picturesque view in the valley, and the best worth sketching. Having delivered himself of which information, apocryphal and otherwise, he lifted his shovel-hat with quite the air of a man of the world, and bade me good morning.
Of course I went at once in search of the view of Castel Lavazzo, and finding it really characteristic of the Val di Piave, succeeded in sketching it before it was time to return to breakfast.
CASTEL LAVAZZO.
By nine, we were on the road again, following the narrow gorge that was soon to lead us into the real world of Dolomite. The morning was now alternately bright and showery, and the dark, jagged peaks that closed in the distance were of just that rich, deep, incredible ultra-marine blue that Titian loved and painted so often in his landscape backgrounds.
At Termine, a little timber-working hamlet noisy with saw-mills, about a mile beyond Castel Lavazzo, the defile narrows so suddenly that one gigantic grey and golden crag seems to block the end of the village street. The women here are handsome, and wear folded cloths upon their heads as in the hills near Rome; and the men wear wooden clogs, as at Lugano. A slender waterfall wavers down the face of a cliff on the opposite side of the river. Primitive breakwaters, like huge baskets of rude wickerwork filled with stones, here stem the force of the torrent brawling through its narrow bed; and some of these have held their place so long that young trees have had time to take root and flourish in them. Next comes Ospitale, another little brown-roofed hamlet perched on a green rise like Castel Lavazzo, with the usual cluster of saw-mills and saw-pits down by the water's edge; and now, entering the commune of Perarolo in a smart shower, we rattle through a succession of tiny villages built in the Swiss way, with wooden balconies, outer staircases, and deep projecting eaves. In most of these places, it being now between ten and eleven o'clock A.M., the good people are sitting in their doorways dining primitively out of wooden bowls.
So we go on; and so the Piave, greenish grey in colour, interrupted by a thousand rapids, noisy, eager, headlong, comes ever rushing towards us, and past us, and away to the sea. So, too, the brown and golden pine-trunks come whirling down with the stream. It is curious to watch them in their course. Some come singly, some in crowds. Some blunder along sideways in a stupid, buffeted, bewildered way. Some plunge madly up and down. Some run races. Some get tired, rest awhile under shelter of the bank, and then, with a rouse and a shake, dash back again into the throng. Others creep into little stony shallows, and there go to sleep for days and weeks together; while others, again, push straight ahead, nose first, as if they knew what they were about, and were bent on getting to their journey's end as quickly as possible.
Nearing Perarolo, glimpses of the peaks, aiguilles and snow-fields of Monte Cridola (8,474 feet), the highest point of the Premaggiore range, are now and then seen to the right, through openings in the lower mountains. Monte Zucco abruptly blocks the end of the gorge. Country carts upon the road, women working in the fields, a party of children scrambling and shouting among the bushes by the wayside, now indicate that we are not far from a more thickly inhabited place than any of the preceding villages. Then the road takes a sudden turn, and Perarolo, with its handsome new church, new stone bridge, public fountain, extensive wood-yards, and general air of solid prosperity, comes into view
Yet a few yards farther, and a second bridge is crossed –a new valley rich in wood and water opens away to the left–and a wonderful majestic vision, draped in vapours and hooded in clouds, stands suddenly before us!
The coachman, preparing his accustomed coup de théâtre, is not allowed to speak. We know at once in what Presence we are. We know at once that yonder vague and shadowy mass which soars beyond our sight and seems to gather up the slopes of the valley as a robe, can be none other than the Antelao.
A grand, but a momentary sight! The coachman, with a jealous glance at the open maps and guide-books that have forestalled his information, whips on his horses, and in another moment valley and mountain are lost in the turn of the road, and we are fast climbing the hill leading to the great zigzag of Monte Zucco. Still we have seen, however imperfectly, the loftiest of all the giants of Cadore; we have seen the mouth of the famous Ampezzo Thal, and we begin to feel that it is not all a dream, but that we are among the Dolomites at last.
And now, for a weary while, partly on foot and partly in the carriage, we toil on and on, up the new road constructed of late years by the Emperor Ferdinand. The Piave, here quite choked by a huge, stationary mass of pine-trunks, winds unheard some hundreds of feet below. Perarolo, the great centre of all this timber trade, dwindles to a toy hamlet in the valley. New peaks rise on the horizon. New valleys glitter in the distance. Still the road climbs–winds among vast slopes of pine-forest–makes the entire circuit of Monte Zucco, and finally, with one long, last pull, reaches the level of the upper plateau.
Here, at Tai Cadore, a tiny village backed by cultivated slopes, we are to take our midday rest. Here, too, we catch our first glimpse of Titian's birthplace, Pieve di Cadore, a small white hamlet nestled in a fold of the hills close under a ruined castle on a wooded knoll, about a mile away. Now Pieve di Cadore was down in our route as a special excursion to be taken hereafter from Cortina in the Ampezzo valley; but our impatience was great., and the sun was shining brilliantly, and our first thought was to employ these two hours' rest in walking there and back, and just seeing (though it were only the outside of it) the house in which the great painter was born.
It was first necessary, however, to take luncheon at Tai; which we did, seated at a bare deal table in an upper room of the clean little inn, beside a window commanding a magnificent view of the Premaggiore range. Meanwhile the capricious sky clouded over again; and by the time we should have been ready to start, the rain was coming down so heavily that Pieve di Cadore was unavoidably left to be seen later on.
A little way beyond Tai Cadore begins one of the finest drives in Europe. The road enters the Ampezzo Thal at an elevation which can scarcely be less than 1250 feet above the foaming Boita; and a close, lofty, richly wooded valley, like a sublimer Val d'Anzasca, opens the way to more rugged scenery beyond. Vast precipices tower above; scattered villages cling to the green slopes half way down; and brilliant passages of light and shadow move rapidly over all. Now one peak is lighted up, and now another. Here a brown roof, wet from the last shower, glistens like silver in the sunshine; there a grassy slope fringed with noble chestnuts glows in a green and golden light; while on yonder opposite height, a dark fir-forest shows blue and purple in angry storm shadow.
At Venas, the overhanging eaves, outer staircases, and balustraded balconies, are wholly Swiss; while inscriptions such as "Qui si vende Vino d'Asti, Coloniale, ed altri generi," remind us that, although close upon the Austrian frontier, we are not yet out of Italy.
And now the valley widens. The Antelao, still obscured by floating mists, again comes into sight–a near mass of clustered pinnacles; then the Pelmo on the opposite side of the valley, uplifted in the likeness of a mighty throne canopied by clouds, and approached by a giant staircase, each step of which is a precipice laden with eternal snow and trodden only by the chamois hunter; next, on the same side as the Pelmo but farther up the valley, appears the Rochetta–a chain of wild confused crags, like a line of broken battlements, piled high on huge buttresses of sward and pine-forest.
Between the small wayside hamlets of Vodo and Borca, the road is cut through an enormous slope of stony débris, the scene of a bergfall which fell from the Antelao in 1816, and overwhelmed two villages on the opposite bank of the Boita. More sudden, and almost more cruel, than the lava from Vesuvius, it came down, as almost every bergfall comes down, at dead of night, crushing the sleepers in their beds and leaving not a moment for escape.
Two great mounds of shattered limestone, each at least 100 feet in height, mark the site of the lost villages; and, strange to tell, the torrent, instead of being dammed and driven back as at Serravalle, flows on its way unimpeded save by a few Titanic boulders. How so tremendous a fall could have crossed the stream in sufficient volume to bury every house, church and campanile on the other side, and yet have failed to fill up the bed of the intervening torrent, is infinitely mysterious. I inquired then and later whether the stream might not have been temporarily choked, and afterwards cleared by the labour of the other Ampezzan communities; but though all whom I asked seemed to think such a task impossible of fulfilment at any time, none could answer me.
"It happened, Signora, fifty-six years ago," was the invariable answer. "Chi lo sa?"
Was that so long a time? It seemed strange that, after the lapse of little more than half a century, every detail of so terrible a catastrophe should be forgotten in a place where events were necessarily few.
And now, following the great sweep of the road, we make at least one-third of the circuit of the Antelao, which becomes momentarily grander, and changes its aspect and outline with every turn. The snow on this side finds no resting place, save on a scant ledge here and there; and the mountain consists apparently of innumerable jagged buttresses, huge slopes of shaley débris, and an infinitely varied chain of pallid peaks and pinnacles. Some of these are almost white; some of a pale sulphurous yellow streaked with violet; some splashed with a vivid, rusty red, indicating the presence of iron. One keen, splintered aiguille, sharp as a lance and curved as a shark's tooth, looked like a scimitar freshly dipped in blood.
Now, at San Vito, the Antelao begins to be left behind, and the long ridge of the Croda Malcora, with its highest peak, Sorapis, standing boldly out against a background of storm-cloud, enters on the scene. A little farther yet, and the Austrian frontier is reached. A striped pole, alternately black and yellow, like a leg of one of the Pope's guard, bestrides the road in front of a dilapidated little customhouse. Here some three or four ragged-looking Austrian soldiers are playing at bowls, while a couple of officers lounging on a bench outside the door, smoke their cigarettes and watch the game. One of these, very tall, very shabby, very dirty, with a glass screwed into his eye and a moustache about eighteen inches in length, saunters up to the carriage door. Being assured, however, that we carry nothing contraband, he lifts his cap with an indescribable air of fashionable languor, and bids the coachman drive on.
From this point, the invisible political line being passed, one observes an immediate change not only in the costumes, but in the build and features of the people. They are a taller, fairer, finer race. The men wear rude capes of undressed skins. The women (no longer bare-legged, no longer coiffées with red and yellow handkerchiefs) wear a kind of Bernese dress consisting of a black petticoat, a black cloth bodice like a tightly fitting waistcoat, white linen undersleeves reaching to the elbow, a large blue apron, and a round felt hat, like a man's.
By this time the Pelmo is out of sight, the Rochetta is left behind, Sorapis is passed, and still new mountains rise against the horizon. To the left–a continuation, indeed, of the Rochetta–the Bec di Mezzodi and the ridge of Beccolungo, stand out like a row of jagged teeth. On a line with these, but at least a mile farther up the valley, the huge bulk of the Tofana looms up in sullen majesty, headed by a magnificent precipice, like a pyramid of red granite. While to the right, Monte Cristallo, a stupendous chevaux de frise of grey and orange pinnacles, forms a grand background to the clustered roofs, lofty campanile, and green pasturages of Cortina
For at last we are in sight of the place which is to be our head-quarters for the next week, and the wonderful drive is nearly at an end. Already, within the compass of some fifteen English miles (i. e., from Tai to Cortina), we have seen six of the most famous Dolomites, three on the right bank and three on the left of the Boita. Four out of the six exceed 10,500 feet in height; while the Antelao * is, I believe, distanced by only two of its rivals, namely, the Marmolata and the Cimon della Pala. The new and amazing forms of these colossal mountains; their strange colouring; the mystery of their formation; the singularity of their relative positions, each being so near its neighbour, yet in itself so distinct and isolated; the curious fact that they are all so nearly of one height; their very names, so unlike the names of all other mountains, high-sounding, majestic, like relics of a pre-historic tongue–all these sights and facts in sudden combination confuse the imagination, and leave one bewildered at first by the variety and rapidity with which impression after impression has been charged upon the memory. It was therefore almost with a sense of relief that, weary with wonder and admiration, we found ourselves approaching the end of the day's journey.
HIGH STREET, CORTINA.
And now the road, which has been gradually descending for many miles, enters Cortina at about a hundred feet above the level of the Boita. First comes a scattered house or two–then a glimpse of the old church, the cemetery, and the public shooting-ground, in a hollow down near the river–then a long irregular street of detached homesteads, hostelries, and humble shops–the new campanile, the pride of the village, 250 feet in height–the post-house at the corner of a little piazza containing a public fountain–and finally, being the last house in the place, the Aquila Nera, a big substantial albergo built in true Tyrolean fashion, like a colossal Noah's ark, with rows upon rows of square windows with bright green shutters, and a huge roof with jutting eaves that looks as if it ought to take off like a lid to let out the animals inside.
This, then, is our destination, and here we arrive towards close of day, rattling through the village and dashing up to the door with our driver's usual flourish, just as if the greys, instead of having done thirty-five miles to-day and thirty-four yesterday, were quite fresh, and only now out of the stable. The Ghedinas, a father and two sons, come out, not with much alacrity, to bid us welcome. The writer, however, mentions a name of might–the name of Francis Fox Tuckett; and behold! it acts upon the sullen trio like a talisman. Their goodwill breaks forth in a ludicrous medley of Italian and German. How! the Signora is a friend of "Il Tuckett"–of the "gran' brave Signore" whose achievements are famed throughout all these valleys? Gott in Himmel! shall not the whole house be at her disposal? Ecco! the Aquila Nera will justify the recommendation of "il brave Tuckett!"
Hereupon we alight. The old landlord puts out an enormous brown paw; we shake hands all round; the Kellnerin is summoned; the best rooms are assigned to us; the cooks (and there seem to be plenty of them in the huge gloomy kitchen) are set to work to prepare supper; a table is laid for us on the landing, which, as we find henceforth, is the place of honour in every inn throughout the Dolomite Tyrol; and all that the Aquila Nera contains is laid under contribution for our benefit.
It is a thorough Tyrolean hostelry, by no means scrupulously clean, yet better provided and more spacious than one would have expected to find even in this, the most important village of the district. The bedrooms are immense, though scantily furnished. A few small mats of wolf and chamois skins are laid about here and there; but there is not such a thing as a carpet in the house. At the Dépendance, however–a new building on the opposite side of the road, charmingly decorated with external frescoes by one of the younger Ghedinas who is an artist in Vienna–there are smaller rooms to be had, with good iron bedsteads and some few modern comforts. But we knew nothing of this till a day or two after, when we were glad to move into the more quiet house, though at the cost of having always to cross over for meals.
In the way of food, a kind of rough plenty reigns. Luxuries, of course, are out of the question; but of veal, sausage, eggs, cheese, and saur-kraut there is abundance. Drovers, guides, peasant-farmers and travellers of all grades are eating, drinking, smoking, all day long in the public rooms, of which there are at least four in the lower floors of the big house. The kitchen chimney is smoking, the cooks are cooking, the taps are running "from morn till dewy eve." We, arriving at dewy eve, come in for an all-pervading atmosphere of tobacco and garlic–the accumulated incense of the day's sacrifices.
With all this plenty, however, and all this custom, the wealthiest and most fastidious traveller must fare off the same meats and drinks as the poorest. The only foreign wine that Ghedina keeps in his cellar is a rough Piedmontese vintage called Vino Barbera, which costs about two francs the bottle. If you do not like that, you must drink beer; or thin country wine, either red or white; or an inexpressibly nauseous spirit distilled from the root of a small plant nearly resembling the ordinary Plantago major, or common English plantain. An inferior kind of Kirschwasser is, I believe, also to be had; but as for brandy, I doubt if there is one drop to be found in the whole country between Belluno and Bruneck.
For the rest, the inn is well enough, though one feels the want of a mistress in the establishment. Ghedina père is a wealthy widower, and his three stalwart sons, all unmarried, live at home and attend, in a grim unwilling way, to the housekeeping and stabling. Their horses, by the way, are first-rate–far too good for rough country work; while in the adjoining outbuildings are to be found a capital landau, a light chaise, some three or four carettini, and–a side saddle! How this article, in itself neither rare nor beautiful, came presently to occupy the foremost place in our affections and desires; how we fought for its possession against all comers; how we begged it, borrowed it, and finally stole it, will be seen hereafter.
Meanwhile, arriving late and tired, we were glad to accept the big rooms in the big house; to put up with the atmosphere; to sup on the larding; to hear the downstairs revellers going away long after we were in bed; and even to be waked by the wild cry of the village watchman at intervals all through the dark hours of the night. It was not, perhaps, quite so agreeable to be aroused next morning at earliest dawn by a legion of carpenters in the street below flinging down loads of heavy planks, driving in posts by the wayside, hammering, shouting, and making noise enough to wake not only the living but the dead. For this, however, as for every discomfort, there was compensation at hand; and our satisfaction was great on being told that the grand yearly Sagro, or church-festival, would be celebrated a few days hence, and that our noisy friends outside were already beginning to erect booths in preparation for the annual fair which is held at the same time. It is the most important fair in all this part of the Austrian and Italian Tyrol, and is attended by an average concourse of from twelve to fifteen hundred peasants from every hill and valley for nearly thirty miles round about Cortina.
* The relative altitudes of the Ampezzo Dolomites, as nearly as has yet been ascertained, are as follows:–Antelao, 10,838 feet; Sorapis, 10,798 feet; Tofana, 10,724 feet; Cristallo, 10,644 feet; Pelmo, 10,377 feet; and La Rochetta, 7,793 feet.
THE MONTE ANTELAO.
SITUATED on the left bank of the Boita which here runs nearly due north and south, with the Tre Croce Pass opening away behind the town to the east, and the Tre Sassi Pass widening before it to the west, Cortina lies in a comparatively open space between four great mountains, and is therefore less liable to danger from bergfalls than any other village not only in the Val d'Ampezzo but in the whole adjacent district. For the same reason it is cooler in summer than either Caprile, Agordo, Primiero, or Predazzo; all of which, though more central as stopping places and in many respects more convenient, are yet somewhat too closely hemmed in by surrounding heights.
The climate of Cortina is temperate throughout the year. Ball gives the village an elevation of 4048 feet above the level of the sea; and one of the parish priests–an intelligent old man who has devoted many years of his life to collecting the flora of the Ampezzo–assured me that he had never known the thermometer drop so low as fifteen degrees * of frost in even the coldest winters. The soil, for all this, has a bleak and barren look; the maize (here called grano Turco) grows thin and hungerly; and the vine is unknown. But then agriculture is not a speciality of the Ampezzo Thal, and the wealth of Cortina is derived essentially from its pasture-lands and forests. These last, in consequence of the increased and increasing value of timber, have been lavishly cut down of late years by the Commune–too probably at the expense of the future interests of Cortina. For the present, however, every inn, homestead, and public building bespeaks prosperity. The inhabitants are well-fed and well-dressed. Their fairs and festivals are the most considerable in all the South Eastern Tyrol; their principal church is the largest this side of St. Ulrich; and their new gothic Campanile, 250 feet high, might suitably adorn the piazza of such a city as Bergamo or Belluno. The village contains about 700 souls, but the population of the Commune numbers over 2500. Of these, the greater part, old and young, rich and poor, men, women and children, are engaged in the timber trade. Some cut the wood; some transport it. The wealthy convey it on trucks drawn by fine horses which, however, are cruelly overworked. The poor harness themselves six or eight in a team, men, women, and boys together, and so, under the burning summer sun, drag loads that look as if they might be too much for an elephant. Going out, as usual, before breakfast the morning of the day following our arrival at Cortina, the first sight that met my eyes was a very old woman, perhaps eighty years of age, and a sick little boy of about ten, roped to a kind of rough sledge piled up with at least half a ton weight of rough planks.
Eight o'clock mass is performed at each church alternately, every morning throughout the year. To-day it happened to be down at the old church, and thither, attracted by their quaint costumes, I followed a party of chattering peasant girls, some of whom had their milk cans and market baskets in their hands. These they carried into the church; taking off their hats at the door, like men, and remaining uncovered throughout the service. The congregation consisted of some three or four score of very old women with scant white polls; a sprinkling of square-headed robust-looking damsels with silver pins in their clubbed and plaited hair; and a few old men, so tanned and gnarled and bent that they looked as if carved out of rough brown wood. Then trooped noisily in some four hundred children of both sexes, and filled the benches next the altar; while the old bell-ringer, having rung his last peal, came hobbling up the aisle in heavy wooden clogs and baggy breeches, and lit the candles on the altar. Presently appeared a priest in black and gold vestments, attended by little red-headed acolyte, like one of John Bellini's angels; the organist (by no means a bad player) led off with "Ah che la Morte " on a tremolo stop; the congregation dropped on their knees; and the service began.
Musically speaking, it was one of those performances which one enjoys the more the less one hears of it. A showy operatic mass by some modern Italian composer, a reedy organ, and a choir that might have been better trained, made up an ensemble that soon sent the writer creeping towards the door.
It was delightful to get out again into the glorious morning. The sun was now shining deliciously; the air was heavy with the scent of new-mown hay; and the birds were singing their own little Hymn of Praise in a way that turned the Cortina choir to unmitigated discord. It was one of those mornings steeped in dewy freshness, when distant sounds and sights are brought supernaturally near, when lights are strangely bright, and shadows transparent, and the very mountains look more awake than usual. Even Tofana, rarely seen without a turban of storm-cloud, rose sharp and clear to-day against the sky.
Just opposite the old church lies the village cemetery. The gate stood ajar, and I went in–not certainly expecting to find the "God's Acre" of this wealthy commune a mere weedgrown wilderness. But so it was. Here a confusion of rough stone-heaps marking the graves of the poor– yonder a few marble tablets and iron crosses against the wall, recording the names of the better-class dead–everywhere coarse deep grass, thistles, nettles, loose stones, broken pottery and trampled clay. A couple of hand-biers, a pile of black tressels, a spade and a coil of rope, lay ready for use under a stone arcade at the farther end of the enclosure. Not a flower was there, not a touch of poetry or pathos in the place; nothing but indifference, irreverence, and neglect. This ugly sight, somehow, brought back the recollection of an alms-box that I had seen not long ago outside a pretty little cemetery near Luino, bearing the following inscription:–"Messe Funerale. Nel nome della Beata Maria, carità per noi." (Funeral Masses. We implore charity in the name of the Blessed Mary.) This appeal, coming like a voice from the dead, had struck me at the time as very awful but here it would have been still more awful, and more appropriate.
Going homewards, I found sheds and booths of all sizes springing up the whole length of the village street, and a great wooden enclosure like a circus being erected in the piazza opposite the albergo of the Stella d'Oro. A huge coloured poster, representing feats of the trapeze, clowns, human pyramids and the like, pasted on a space of blank wall close by, sufficiently accounted for the shape and size of this building.
"But what is the Sagro?" I asked of a young priest who was gravely watching the carpenters at their work. "Is it a fair?"
"It is a festival of the Church, Signora," he replied with an air of reproof, and walked away.
A Sagro, however, as I soon came to know, is both a fair and a religious festival, and takes place once a year in every village on the anniversary of the consecration of the church, or on the festa of the saint to whom the church is dedicated. And there are so many villages scattered about the country, that a Sagro is said to be going on somewhere every day in the year.
Hurrying back now to breakfast, I found the Ghedinas, our courier, and a group of guides and peasants assembled outside the door of the Aquila Nera, staring up at the rugged peak known as the Be di Mezzodi, on the opposite side of the valley. Telescopes were being passed from hand to hand amid exclamations of "Eccoli!" "Brave Signore!" "Brave Inglese!"–and old Ghedina, steadying his own glass for me against an angle of wall, bade me look "up yonder" for my countrymen.
Two English gentlemen then staying with their wives in the Dependance of the Aquila Nera had, it seemed, this morning achieved the first ascent of that singular peak so aptly described by Mr. Gilbert as a "carious tooth of Dolomite." The Bec itself looked neither very high nor very difficult, but I afterwards learned that it was peculiarly steep and fissured, and that they had hard work to conquer it. Ghedina's glass proved to be a good one, and I distinctly saw the figures of the climbers and their guides standing together on the topmost peak, relieved against the sky.
It being our intention to spend some little time at Cortina, thence making such excursions as lay within easy reach, we decided to devote this first day to getting ourselves acquainted with the general "lay" of the country. The most effectual way of achieving this end is, of course, to ascend some height; so, having consulted Ghedina's written list of excursions, we agreed to spend the morning in rambling about the village, and after luncheon to stroll up to the Crepa di Belvedere–a little summer house, or Jäger-lodge, lately erected at a point of view on the face of a cliff overlooking Cortina and the valley, about an hour and a half's easy walk from the village, and about twenty minutes to the left of the cross on the road to the Tre Sassi Pass. The Belvedere, a tiny white speck against a scar of red cliff in the midst of a long sweep of fir-forest, is seen from the windows of the inn and lies before the climber all the way.
Meanwhile, however, we breakfasted, wrote letters, examined the paintings and frescoes in and about the two houses, and made arrangements for shifting our quarters into the quieter and better furnished rooms over the way. Two of the younger Ghedinas, it seemed, were painters; a third carved cleverly in wood; and the fourth (a grave practical man devoted to the business, the stabling, and the wood trade) played a trombone in the village band.
Both houses are full of heads and studies in oil, designs for large pictures, and sketches of unequal merit. A head of a bearded man in one of the upper chambers of the Aquila Nera, and two half-lengths of his father and mother in the dining room, may be taken as fair specimens of the skill of the portrait-painting son; while the external frescoes of the Dependance, two in the new church, and all sorts of rough and ready designs, some military, some religious, some grotesque, flung here and there upon the walls of staircases, cart-sheds, neighbours' house-fronts and so forth, represent the superior gifts and culture of the brother who lives in Vienna. As for the decorations of the Dependance, they are full of power, and to the sound drawing and skilful designing of the Munich school, add a warmth and tenderness of colour almost Italian. Three large groups representing Sculpture and Architecture, Painting, and the Physical Sciences, and three medallions containing portraits of Raffaelle, Titian and Albert Dürer, cover all that is not window-space above the ground floor. The figure of Mercury in the first group and of Urania in the last, and the way in which such stubborn objects as the steam-engine, camera, and telegraphic apparatus have been pictorially treated, are deserving of particular notice. To Albert Dürer, like a true German, the artist gives the middle place among the medallions.
Very different, though almost as good in their way, are the mounted Cossacks, wild-horses, and mediæval men-at-arms that skirmish all over the whitewashed walls of the outhouses and stables of the Aquila Nera; to say nothing of the fantastic devil, all teeth and claws, that grins upon unsuspecting customers from outside the stove in the only chemist's shop in Cortina. We asked for the painter; but he was far away in Vienna, and his studio, they told us, was not only closed but empty.
To ascend the Campanile and get the near view over the village, was obviously one of the first duties of a visitor; so, finding the door open and the old bellringer inside, we mounted laboriously to the top–nearly a hundred feet higher than the leaning tower of Pisa. Standing here upon the outer gallery above the level of the great bells, we had the village and valley at our feet. The panorama, though it included little which we had not seen already, was fine all round, and served to impress the main landmarks upon our memory. The Ampezzo Thal opened away to North and South, and the twin passes of the Tre Croce and Tre Sassi intersected it to East and West. When we had fixed in our minds the fact that Landro and Bruneck lay out to the North, and Perarolo to the South; that Auronzo was to be found somewhere on the other side of the Tre Croce and that to arrive at Caprile it was necessary to go over the Tre Sassi, we had gained something in the way of definite topography. The Marmolata and Civita, as we knew by our maps, were on the side of Caprile; and the Marmarole on the side of Auronzo. The Pelmo, left behind yesterday, was peeping even now above the ridge of the Rochetta; and a group of fantastic rocks, so like the towers and bastions of a ruined castle that we took them at first sight for the remains of some mediæval stronghold, marked the summit of the Tre Sassi to the West.
"But what mountain is that far away to the South?" we asked, pointing in the direction of Perarolo.
"Which mountain, Signora?"
"That one yonder, like a cathedral front with two towers."
The old bellringer shaded his eyes with one trembling hand, and peered down the valley.
"Eh," he said, "it is some mountain on the Italian side" (E una montagna della parte d'Italia).
"But what is it called?"
"Eh," he repeated, with a puzzled look, "chi lo sa? I don't know that I never noticed it before."
Now it was a very singular mountain–one of the most singular and the most striking that we saw throughout the tour. It was exactly like the front of Notre Dame, with one slender aiguille, like a flagstaff, shooting up from the top of one of its battlemented towers. It was conspicuous from most points on the left bank of the Boita; but the best view, as I soon after discovered, was from the rising ground behind Cortina, going up through the fields in the direction of the Begontina torrent. From thence I made the accompanying sketch; and to this spot we returned again and again, fascinated as much, perhaps, by the mystery in which it was enveloped, as by the majestic outline of this unknown mountain, to which, for want of a better, we gave the name of Notre Dame.
UNKNOWN MOUNTAIN NEAR CORTINA.
What with the great heat of the afternoon, which made uphill work difficult and rapid walking impossible; what with the wonderful wild flowers that enticed us continually from the path; what with chatting to peasants by the way, stopping to study the landscape, sketching and so forth, we never reached the chalet of the Belvedere, after all. We came very near it, however, and gained a magnificent view over the valley, the Cristallo group, and the range of the Croda Malcora. Hence also, from a grassy knoll near the cross below the Crepa, the writer devoted a long hour to making a careful drawing of the Antelao which is here seen to its greatest advantage. From no other point, indeed, is it possible, so far as I am aware, to get so good a view of the great snow slope at the back of the summit in combination with the splintered buttresses that strike down towards Borco and Vodo in the front.
The first ascent of the highest peak of this mountain was achieved by that famous climber, Dr. Grohmann, in 1863; and the second in 1864 by Lord Francis Douglas of hapless memory, accompanied by Mr. F. L. Latham and by two guides named Matteo Ossi and Santo Siorpaes. The latter–a brave, hardy, faithful fellow, who travelled with us later in the autumn among the Italian Alps and through the Zermatt district–assured me that Lord Francis, though so young, was an excellent mountaineer, and described him as "buono, bello, e biondino" (good, handsome, and fair).
The ascent is taken from a pass called the Forcella Piccola which divides the mass of the Marmarole from that of the Antelao, and is most quickly reached from San Vito. Owing to the long snow-slope before mentioned, this mountain, up to a certain point, is considered to be easier than any other great Dolomite except the Marmolata; but the last pull up the actual pinnacle, which rises "with formidable steepness" to a height of some three hundred feet, and curves over like a horn, is said to be difficult. It was supposed to be inaccessible till Dr. Grohmann's time, when the fortunate discovery of a certain cleft by one of his Cortina guides, opened the way to the German cragsman and to all who should come after him. A good climber can ascend from, and return to San Vito in eleven hours, exclusive of halts.
The country folks were all coming up to their homes on the pasturages of Monte Averau, as we went down again in the cool of the early evening–some with empty milk-pails, having sold their milk in Cortina; others carrying home their store of bread and flour, just purchased. One or two begged somewhat abjectly for a soldo "per l'amor di Dio;" but for the most part they passed with a brisk step, a pleasant smile, and a cheerful "Guten Abend," or "buona sera." A civil, kindly people on the whole, as we soon came to know right well! A people ready with good wishes and little friendly salutations which, even if they have come to be spoken as mere matters of course, yet help to keep warm the spirit of good will. If they pass through the room where you are at meals, they wish you "good appetite;" of you are going out, "a pleasant walk;" if on your way to bed, "sound sleep and happy dreams." You yawn, and they wish you "felicità;" you sneeze, and they say "salute."
That evening, as we were sitting down to a meal which was dinner, or supper, or both, we were startled by a furious discord of drums and brass instruments in the street below. It was the company of strolling acrobats who had just arrived and were parading through the village, followed by all the boys and idlers in the place: a drummer on stilts; a buffoon in high collars and a tall hat, like Paul Pry; some half dozen athletic fellows in the traditional fillets and fleshings; and about as many hideous-looking, muscular women, tramping the dusty road in white shoes and the briefest conceivable skirts. The "theatre" it seemed was to open to-morrow, although the Sagro would not be held till Sunday.
It was on the morning of the third day after we had settled down at Cortina, that the storm which had so long been gathering, burst at last. Supported by the consciousness of his own merit, the courier had borne with us till he could bear with us no longer. Now, however, the near prospect of being dragged over passes and up mountains; of having to ride on a mule for days in succession; and of living for many weeks to come in Tyrolean albergos several degrees less comfortable than the Aquila Nera, was too much for the great man's philosophy. He understood, he said, that there were no carriage-roads to most of the places laid down in our maps, and "no suitable accommodation such as he was accustomed to when travelling with parties who placed confidence in his opinion;" he therefore begged leave to tender his resignation, and his accounts. Our vagabond tastes, in short, were too much for him; and he deserted us (if that could be called desertion which must in all likelihood have taken the form of dismissal ere long) just at the time when the protection of a trustworthy and respectable man had become an indispensable condition of our journey.
It is needless to add that the fortnight's notice which he offered was summarily rejected, and that he was then and there paid off and done with. As for L., by whom he had been retained for months before we joined forces in Naples, she transacted the whole affair with an amount of withering sang-froid that speedily reduced the offender to a condition of abject humility. He made an effort by and by to assert his indifference by playing at bowls in front of the albergo; but went away in the afternoon outside the Longarone Schnell-wagen, quite crestfallen.
And now what was to be done? Could we possibly go on with only guides, and no courier? Or must the tour through the wild heart of the country be given up, just as we had come within sight of our promised land? These were questions that must be solved before we could venture one day's journey beyond the post roads of Cortina.
As a matter of choice, we infinitely preferred the absence of our discontented friend. It was so delicious, indeed, to be without him, that L. said she felt as if a necklace of millstones had been taken from round her neck; but then, as a matter of expediency, his defection was undeniably inconvenient. Could he, however, be in any way replaced–not, of course by another courier, that kind of article being quite unknown in these primitive valleys; but by some reliable man, as, for instance, Santo Siorpaes, who had been especially recommended to us beforehand, and who was reputed to be the best head-guide in Cortina?
To send for him and offer him an engagement for the whole journey was the first step to be taken. He came:–a bright-eyed, black-haired mountaineer about forty; a mighty chamois hunter; an ex-soldier in the Austrian army, and now a custode of forests, and local inspector of roads; an active, eager fellow, brown as a berry, with honesty written in his face, and an open vivacious manner that won our liking at first sight.
Unfortunately, however, this jewel of a guide was pledged for the next six or eight weeks and could not by any means get free. Had he no friend, we asked, whom he could recommend to take his place? He pondered the question, and looked doubtful. There was old Lacedelli, he said, but he was too old; and there was young Lacedelli, but he was too young. Also there was a certain Angelo, but he was away, and would not be back for a month. Then, again, most of the men about Cortina were good enough at rough climbing, but not used to travelling with ladies. Well, he would think it over–he would think it over, and let the Signoras know. But when would he let us know? This evening? He shook his head. This evening he was engaged to start for some distant valley with a party of gentlemen who were to ascend a mountain to-morrow. No–he could not promise to see us again before Sunday; but he would then wait upon us after High Mass.
This was all we could obtain from him. It was not much; and we began to have dismal forebodings of the failure of our plans.
Meanwhile, however, it was of no use to despond. There was plenty to be done at Cortina, whatever happened. We could go to Pieve di Cadore, to Auronzo, to Landro, by good carriage roads. We could see about the side-saddles. We could even go in what our landlord called a "caretta" as far as Falzarego, the hospice on the summit of the Tre Sassi pass, and thence obtain a view of the Marmolata.
During the present uncertainty, it was some comfort first of all to agitate this question of the side-saddles. In the event of our being able to carry out the journey, they were of more real importance than a whole army of couriers. Without them, certainly, we could do nothing in the way of peaks or passes.
Now we knew from previous information that Madame Pezzé, landlady of the inn at Caprile, had a saddle which was, in fact, brought out from England and presented to her for her own use by F.F.T. A persuasive note couched in the writer's best Italian was therefore sent over by a special messenger, who had instructions to bring the precious object back, if possible, upon his shoulders.
Then old Ghedina also possessed one; but, divining perhaps that we should be over-long borrowers, was particularly reluctant to show it. It was not till the writer succeeded in following him one day into the stable, that this mysterious treasure was allowed to see the light. It proved to be a fairly good saddle; but then it was only one, and if we even obtained Madame Pezzé's we should still require a third.
"I am expecting a new sella di donna from Vienna," sputtered the old landlord, in his polyglot patois. "Ein, schöner Sattel! "
"When will it arrive?" I asked eagerly.
"Diavolo! I don't know. Perhaps to-night–perhaps next week. I have been expecting it every day for the last three months!"
I relapsed into hopelessness.
The old man grinned from ear to ear–he had a large, brown, flat face that looked as if it had been sat upon–and patted me on the shoulder with a paw like a Bengal tiger's.
"Tut! tut!" he said, "you are a brava Signora–you shall not be disappointed. We'll dress up a Basta for the cameriera,and all shall be well!"
This promise of the Basta was obscure but comforting. I had not the slightest idea of what a Basta, was, and Ghedina could only tell me what it was not. It was not a side-saddle. It was not a chair. It was not a railed seat with a foot-rest, like a child's donkey saddle. It had to be made when required, and should be forthcoming when wanted. Beyond this point we could not get; and there the matter had to rest, at all events for the present.
Next morning we ordered the caretta to take us to Falzarego. It would be difficult, perhaps, to say why, but we were longing to see the Marmolata, and could not rest till we had achieved, at least, a distant glimpse of him. In the first place, it is supposed to be the highest of all the Dolomites; in the second, its snowfields and glaciers are more extensive than those of any of its neighbours; and in the third place, it is so hemmed in on all sides by other mountains that it is very difficult to obtain a view of it at all. *
The morning was somewhat doubtful. The Tofana had on its helmet of cloud, and though the sun shone brilliantly at times, there was an unsettled, uncertain look about the rolling cumuli that kept us hesitating till nearly eleven A.M. Then old Ghedina pronounced in favour of the weather, and we resolved to venture.
I shall not soon forget our dismay at first sight of the caretta. It was simply a wooden trough on four wheels, some seven feet in length by three and a half in breadth, with a crosswise plank to sit upon. The horse–a magnificent light chesnut full seventeen hands high, with a huge leather collar like an Elizabethan ruff–towered above the vehicle; and a boy sat on the shafts to drive. Springs, of course, there were none; cushions there were none; but mats and rugs were piled in abundantly, and so we started.
Our way lay over the bridge and up past the cross where we had rested and sketched a day or two before. Again the great view over the valley became unrolled like a scroll beneath our feet. Again the Cristallo, the Croda Malcora, Sorapis and Antelao seemed to rise as we rose, and the Tofana loomed nearer and more threatening with every step of our progress. Now, mounting ever higher among green slopes gorgeous with wild flowers, and through pine-woods all abloom with strawberry blossoms, we left the Cortina view behind, and passed close under the southwest face of the Tofana–so close that we could distinctly see the mouth of a famous cavern which is said to penetrate for many hundred feet into the heart of the mountain. Seen from the Tre Sassi road, it looks perfectly inaccessible–a mere rabbit-hole in the face of a vertical and triangular precipice, like the entrance to the Great Pyramid. This cavern, however, is one of the sights of Cortina, and can be reached without difficulty when there is an accumulation of snow upon the slopes beneath.
And now, as we mount higher, rounding the last buttresses of the Tofana and coming in sight of the first outlying ridge of Monte Lagazuoi, we begin to meet frequent groups of peasants, some two and three, some twelve or fifteen strong; some carrying huge loads of home-spun frieze and linen on their backs; some laden with wooden ware; some with live poultry; all in their holiday clothes, and all bound for the great Sagro. They are of all ages, and apparently of all grades; old folks and young, farmers and farm-servants–a stumpy, sturdy, fresh-coloured, honest-looking race; the women with legs like pillars, and the men averaging from five foot five to five foot seven in height. The old men wear knee breeches and comical little frieze coats very short and full in the skirts, with two large buttons set high up in the middle of their backs, like a pair of eyes, The young fellows affect trousers and embroidered braces, and carry little bundles of coloured feathers and artificial flowers in their hats. The costumes of the girls, however, are quite overwhelming, and unlike anything that we have yet seen. They wear hats like the men, and adorned in the same manner; dark green, blue, or brown skirts laid in close folds like the plaiting of a kilt, and starting from just between the shoulders, like a sacque; bodices open in front and laced with purple braid; sleeves tight to the arm and wrist, but slashed at the top with a puffing of white linen; and round their necks bright scarlet and yellow handkerchiefs of printed cotton.
"What people are these?" we ask, as the first of many such apparitions appears before us at a turn of the road.
To which the boy on the shafts–a laughing, merry fellow named Giovanni–replies that these are contadine from Buchenstein, Luvinallungo, and Corfara.
"But Corfara is a long way off!" exclaims L., who is better up in her maps than myself, and knows something of the distances.
"Eh! some of them come forty, fifty, sixty miles over the mountains–some walk all night both coming and going. Ecco!" (with a critical glance at the pillars before-mentioned) "what are the miles to a donzella like that!"
Meanwhile we are suffering agonies of dislocation; for the road (which is only just wide enough for our wheels, and overhangs a precipice at the bottom of which foams a roaring torrent) is full of loose stones, over which the caretta jolts and blunders, creaks, leaps, and rolls in such a distracting manner that we are fain at last to get out and walk.
The glen now grows narrower, and the castellated rocks which we had already observed from Cortina are seen high above sloping woods on the opposite bank of the stream. Giovanni, who knows everything, informs us that they are here called the Torette, and form part of the crest of Monte Nuvulau; and that the torrent, which takes its rise somewhere among the fastnesses of Lagazuoi, is known as the Costeana.
More and more pedestrians, meanwhile, keep trooping past. The farther we go, the thicker they come. Where will they all sleep to-night? The Aquila Nera and the Stella d'Oro, were they each four times their present size, would not hold more than half of them; and yet this is only one road out of many. At this moment they are tramping into Cortina from Auronzo, from Pieve di Cadore, and from all the villages of the Ampezzo Thal. There will be fifteen hundred strangers, says our driver, in Cortina to-night.
And now, quite suddenly, we come upon a better-dressed group than any we have yet met–two tall, gentlemanly-looking young men and a lady, followed by a countryman with their luggage on his back. The lady is young and pretty, with a rose in her black hair, and no bonnet. The young men lift their hats as they pass. The countryman, plodding after them, looks up with a somewhat knowing expression and touches his cap. But what is he carrying on his back? Not their luggage, after all. A side-saddle! A large, new, London-made side-saddle, with a third pommel to screw, and a velvet-lined stirrup dangling down behind. It was our own messenger–it was Madame Pezzé's saddle!
Hearing a duet of joyful exclamations in the rear, the young lady turned round, smiling. The young men came forward, smiling also. They were Madame Pezzé's two sons, Lieutenant Cesare Pezzé, an ex-Garibaldian officer, and young Agostino Pezzé, who, with his mother, keeps the inn at Caprile. The damsel with the rose in her hair was Agostino's wife. They had come over the pass on foot, and were bound, like everyone else, for the Sagro at Cortina.
Concluding, of course, that we were on our way to Caprile, their surprise was great that we should have left Cortina without waiting for the festival; but they were still more astonished on finding that we had come up all this way only to peep at the Marmolata and go back again.
"Shall we get a good view?" I asked, somewhat anxiously; for the clouds had been gathering gloomily during the last half hour.
They shook their heads and looked doubtful. The mists were thickening fast, they said, on the other side. We must push on at once for the top, and delay for nothing at the Hospice. The mountain was quite clear half an hour ago–but soon there would be nothing of it visible.
This opinion brought our interview to an abrupt conclusion, and, with the promise of meeting again to-morrow, sent us hurrying away towards the Hospice–a small white cottage by the roadside, about a quarter of a mile ahead.
Here we left the caretta, bade Giovanni attend to the comforts of his horse, and hastened on alone towards the top. We had but to follow the road, which swept round and across a wild slope of barren moor bounded by the crags of Lagazuoi on the one hand, and by the low-lying ridge of Monte Nuvulau on the other. Tall posts, each the stem of a stout fir-tree, were here set at regular intervals along the side of the path, like telegraph posts, to mark the course of the road;–a necessary precaution at this height (7,073 feet) where the snow lies deep for eight months out of every twelve. Even now, on the sixth of July, every rift and hollow held its yet unmelted snowdrift.
And now a rough wayside cross comes into sight a few yards farther ahead–a swift runner overtakes us–and Giovanni, breathless and flushed, exclaims:– "Ecco, Signore! Ecco la croce! Di là vedremo la Marmolata." (See, Signore! Yonder is the cross! From there we shall see the Marmolata.")
And from there, by rare good fortune, we do see it–a huge, roof-shaped mass, sloping, and smooth, and snowy white against a leaden sky. For vastness of expression and extent of snow, as seen from this side, it recalls Mont Blanc. Distance, instead of diminishing its bulk, seems by contrast with surrounding heights, to enhance it. The two valleys of Andraz and Livinallungo, the Monte Padon and a whole sea of minor peaks occupy the intervening space; and yet the Marmolata seems to fill the scene.
But only for a few seconds! Even as we stand there, eagerly gazing at it, the summit becomes dimmed; the outline fades; a pale grey tint spreads over the snowfields; and there remains only a blurred, gigantic, indefinite Something, scarcely to be distinguished from the mists by which it is surrounded.
"Diavolo of a Marmolata!" exclaims Giovanni. "The Signoras were only just in time–but they have seen him pulito."
Now this word "pulito" (clean) in one sense or another, is always on the tip of Giovanni's tongue; and, as I soon afterwards find, is used indiscriminately for clear, brilliant, successful, intelligible, and a dozen other meanings, throughout this part of the Tyrol. Your mule goes "pulito." Your new boots fit you "pulito." Your field glass shows objects "pulito." You achieve a creditable bit of climbing, and are complimented on having done it "pulito." Your driver was drunk last evening, but you are assured that he is "pulito" (in the sense of sober) this morning. It is, in short, a word of most elastic capabilities; but somewhat puzzling to strangers for that reason.
The Marmolata having retired from the scene, we now turn back, taking a short cut across the dreary "Col" and finding by the way some exquisite specimens of wild Daphne (Daphne Cneorum ), abundance of the small mountain gentian (Gentiana verna ), and large clusters of a very lovely, tiny pink flower with wax-like petals, minute and close as a lichen, and unlike anything that either of us has ever seen before.
Arrived at the Hospice, and being, by this time very hungry, we go in, and are welcomed by a clean, smiling padrona who (because her one public room is full of peasants eating, drinking and smoking) invites us into the kitchen–a model kitchen, like a kitchen in a Dutch picture, with a floor of bright red bricks, and a roaring wood-fire and rows upon rows of brass and copper pans shining like mirrors. She proves to be richer, however, in cooking utensils than in provisions; for dry bread, eggs, butter, and a coarse, uneatable mountain cheese are all she has to offer.
Still, with eggs and butter one is not obliged to starve. The writer, in a moment of happy inspiration, undertakes the part of cook, and offers to concoct a certain dish known as "buttered eggs," or, more politely, as "hasty omelette." So an apron is borrowed and, to the unbounded entertainment of the landlady and her servant, the savoury mess is prepared in a few minutes. From that moment I am known at Falzarego as the "Signora Cuoca" (the Signora Cook); am greeted by that title the next time I appear at the Hospice; and am remembered by it, doubtless, to this day.
By the time we are again ready to start, the mists have rolled up to the top of the pass, and the sky all round looks black and threatening. Some peasants outside predict a storm, and counsel us to get down into the valley as quickly as may be; so the chesnut is hastily put to, and we rattle off just as the first heavy drops come splashing down to a low accompaniment of very distant thunder.
The storm, however, if there was a storm, remained locked in on the other side of the pass. We soon left it behind; and long before we reached the point leading to the Crepa di Belvedere, the sun was shining brilliantly.
*Reaumur.
*Except from some considerable height, such as the top of the Tre Sassi, the Col d'Alleghe, or the Col Fiorentino, I know no points from which it is even visible.
THE morning of the Sagro dawned to a prodigious ringing of church-bells and firing of musketry. There were masses going on in both churches from five A.M. till mid-day. The long street and the piazza by the post-office presented one uninterrupted line of booths. There were hundreds of strangers all over the town; hundreds in the churches. Every house seemed suddenly to have become an albergo. Every window, every balcony, every doorway was crowded. The acrobats paraded Cortina again this brilliant Sunday morning about nine o'clock, and the discord of their drums and trumpets went on all day long, to the accompaniment of the church-bells and the intermittent firing of the sharp-shooters down at the "Tir" by the river-side.
What a motley crowd! What a busy, cheerful scene! What a confusion of voices, languages, music, bells and gunpowder! Here are Austrian Tyrolese from Toblach, Innichen, and the Sexten Thal, who speak only German; Italian Tyrolese from the Longarone side, who speak only Italian; others from the border-villages who speak both, or a patois compounded of both, which is quite unintelligible. The costumes of these mountain-folk are still more various than their tongues. The women of San Vito wear breastplates of crimson or green satin banded with broad gold braid, and ornamented with spangles. The women of the Pusther Thal walk about in huge turbanlike head-dresses, as becoming, and quite as heavy, as the bearskins of the Grenadiers. The men of Flitsch are lost in their enormous black boots, modelled, apparently, on those of the French position of the last century. Here, too, are old women in home-made otter-skin hats, high in the crown and ornamented like a footman's with a broad gold band; and bold Jägers with wide leather belts, green braces, steeple-crowned hats, and guns slung across their shoulders, looking exactly like Caspar in "Der Freischütz." The wonderful damsels of Livinallungo whom we met yesterday on the pass, are also present in great force; but the prevailing costume is of course that of the Ampezzo. It consists of a black felt hat with a bunch of feathers at the side; a black cloth skirt and bodice trimmed with black velvet or black satin; loose white sleeves; a large
