Douglas William Freshfield

Vineyards and maize, that's pleasant for sore eyes.—Clough.

THE APRICA PASS—EDOLO—VAL CAMONICA—CEDEGOLO—VAL SAVIORE—LAGO D'ARNO—MONTE CASTELLO—VAL DI FUM—VAL DAONE—LAGO DI LEDRO—RIVA—THE GORGES OF THE SARCA—VAL RENDENA—THE PRA FIORI—VAL D'ALGONE—STENICO—THE HIGH ROAD TO TRENT.

Our acquaintances might, I sometimes fancy, be roughly divided into two classes. There are some who find sympathy in inanimate nature by itself; there are many to whom the universe speaks only through the person of their fellow creatures.

With the latter, human interests and emotions are always in the front, and the most glorious landscape or the most thrilling sunset makes only a background to the particular mites in whom they are for the moment interested. Nature is just thought worthy to play a humble accompaniment to the piece—to act the part of the two or three fiddlers who are left in the orchestra to give forth soft music when the heroine dreams, or a triumphant squeak at the approach of the hero. Such dispositions, and they are often those of most strength or genius, colour nature out of their own consciousness rather than accept impressions from without.

There is much to be said at the present day for this mood. The long line of evolution so slightly alluded to in the Book of Genesis between the mud and the man has been nearly made out. Why should we waste more time over the lower developments of matter than is necessary to ascertain our own family history? The human intelligence, philosophers tell us, is the crowning flower of the universe. Let us then no longer worship stocks and stones, or invisible and inconceivable abstractions, but reserve all our attention for the highest thing we know, and concentrate ourselves on our fellow creatures. Thus perhaps we shall best urge on that true golden age, when mankind, grown less material, will burn with a purer jet of intellect, when Mr. Wallace will talk with spirits who can talk sense and Mr. Galton and artificial selection will have replaced Cupid with his random darts.

Yet we can never wholly separate ourselves from the system of which we form a part. 'Homo sum nihil humani' requires such extension as will include the universe. Positivist congregations are, I believe, in the habit of expressing their grateful acknowledgments to interplanetary space. Even advanced thinkers therefore may pardon a sentiment for such much nearer relations as the crystalline rocks.

Those, however, who deliberately prefer at all times the study of human emotion to the inarticulate voice of nature must not—unless indeed they are prepared to live, as few travellers can, amongst the people of the country—come to the Lombard Alps. Their field of observation is on the terrace at St. Moritz or on the summit of Piz Languard; and they will do well to picnic in company amongst Swiss pines rather than to wander alone under Italian beeches.

The road which links the Adamello country to the Stelvio highway, and through it to the Bernina Pass and Upper Engadine, leaves the Val Tellina midway between Tirano and Sondrio, and only a few hours' drive from Le Prese. For many miles it climbs in one enormous zigzag through the chestnut forests, until from the last brow overlooking the Val Tellina it gains a view which, of its kind, has few rivals. I have seen it twice under very different circumstances.

First in early morning, half-an-hour after a June sunrise, the air ringing with the song of birds and bells, the high crest of the Disgrazia golden in light, the long shadows of the Bergamasque mountains falling across their lower slopes, the white villages caught here and there by sunbeams, the broad valley throwing off a light cover of soft mist. Beneath us Italy, around the Alps; and when these two meet lovingly, what can nature do more?

Again on a late autumn afternoon, in dumb sultry heat, the sunlight veiled for the most part in yellow mists, but breaking forth from time to time with vivid force, and answered by lightning from the thick impenetrable pall lying over the Disgrazia, and the masses of storm-cloud gathering on the lower ranges. The valley silent and mournful, all peace and harmony gone, the mountains glaring savagely from their obscurity, as if their wild nature had broken loose from the shrinking loveliness at its feet, and was preparing for it outrage and ruin.

From the inn known as 'The Belvedere' it is still half-an-hour's ascent to the smooth meadows which form the watershed between the Val Camonica and the Val Tellina, the well-named Aprica Pass.

The descent towards Edolo lies through the green and fertile Val Corteno. As the capital of the upper Val Camonica is approached lofty snow-capped crags tower opposite. These are not part of the main mass of the Adamello, but belong to the outlying group of Monte Aviolo.

Edolo lies on either side of a strong green torrent, fed by the eternal snows, which seems a river compared to the slender streams of the Bergamasque valleys. Across the bridge on a high platform stand a large white church and campanile, backed by rich foliage and a hillside, steep yet fertile, which rises straight into the clouds. The little mountain-town is mediÆval and Italian in character. The streets are narrow and shady; old coats-of-arms are carved on the walls, queer-headed monsters glower between the windows, arched loggias run round the interior courtyards. The place tells you it has a history, and one wonders for a moment what that history was. We know that German emperors came this way through the mountains, that Barbarossa confirmed the liberties of Val Camonica, and that Maximilian once halted within these walls. Further details must be sought in the works of local historians and in the libraries of Bergamo or Brescia.

Edolo has long been notorious for bad inns. Lately, however, the 'Leone d'Oro,' the house in the centre of the town, has come into the hands of a most well-meaning proprietor, who provides very fair food and lodging at reasonable prices. Unfortunately nothing seems to get rid of the extraordinarily pungent flavour of stables which has for years pervaded the premises. I can only compare it to that of an underground stall in Armenia, in which it was once my ill-fortune to spend the night. Such a smell convinces one that at least there can be no difficulty as to means of conveyance. Strangers are doubly annoyed when they discover that they are in one of the few towns in the Alps where it is often impossible at short notice to get horses or a carriage. If animals even cannot endure the atmosphere, it is surely high time to advertise 'Wanted a Hercules.'

On my last visit the demand for a carriage and pair was triumphantly met by the production of a diligence that had retired on account of old age and failing powers from public service, but was still ready to do a job for friends. Although built to contain some fifteen persons, it was so ingeniously arranged that, except from the box-seats, nothing could possibly be seen except the horses' tails and a few yards of highroad. We were compelled to cluster round the driver like a bunch of schoolboys, leaving the body of our machine to lumber along empty in the rear.

To drive down Val Camonica on a fresh summer's morning before the sunlight has lost its first grace and glitter, when, without a breath of wind, every particle in earth and air, and even our own dull frames, seem to vibrate with the joy of existence, is to have one of the most delicious sensations imaginable. The scenery rivals and equals that of the Val d'Aosta near Villeneuve. The valley curves gracefully, the hillsides are cut by ravines or open out into great bays rich with woods. Every bush stands clearly defined in the translucent air, every leaf reflects back from a lustrous surface, unclogged by damp and smuts, the welcome sunbeams with which the whole atmosphere is in a dance. Lower down the slopes sweep out in folds of chestnut forest. High overhead a company of granitic peaks stand up stiff and straight in their icy armour against an Italian sky.

Below the opening of Val di Malga there is a long straight reach of road; then Val Paisco, with a path leading to Val di Scalve, is passed on the right and a bridge crossed. Amidst broken ground and closing hillsides we approached Cedegolo, a considerable village, built between two torrents and under sheltering rocks, in a sunny romantic situation. As we drove up the street a quack doctor, taking advantage of the assembly drawn down to Sunday high mass, was haranguing a crowd of bright-kerchiefed girls and bronzed peasants from the hill villages. Women from the lower valley were offering for sale grapes, figs and peaches of the second crop, the latter red as roses and hard as bullets.

The inn here has been visited and commended by several travellers as clean and comfortable. Such praise it fully merits, but on other grounds we had much reason to complain of the Cedegolans.

The habit of asking a very great deal more than you expect to get, common in foreign, and particularly in Italian shops, is perhaps as often an amusement as a vexation. The practice is most likely a survival from the old system of barter, which must have necessarily been incompatible with fixed prices. It will always be routed when time becomes of more value to the purchaser than a possible diminution in price. Heavy denunciations of its immorality sound to me rather odd when they come from the mouths of those who themselves adopt in large affairs the very same practice they condemn in small. Why it should be dishonest to ask more than you will take for a ring or a piece of lace, but perfectly right and fair to do the same for a house or estate is a difficult question. The answer must be sought from our worthy countryman who discourses on the rascality of the Jew with whom he haggled six months for a cameo, and if he wants to get rid of a farm is ready to fight for the hundreds sterling as hardly as ever shopkeeper for the francs.

But the inconvenience of a system of bargain becomes, it must be allowed, intolerable, when it is adopted by innkeepers. Their charges differ from others in not being usually a subject of previous arrangement. From the beginning the relation is a friendly one; there is, or ought to be, a tacit understanding between host and guest that no undue advantage will be taken. An extortionate bill is felt by the traveller as a breach of good faith, and he resents it accordingly. Of course it is always open to him to settle the price of everything before he takes it. But fortunately this precaution is seldom necessary, and it is much too tiresome to be adopted generally on the chance.

However, I must, I fear, recommend this last resource to those who visit Cedegolo, or the more western Bergamasque valleys. If they do not adopt it they will often have to choose between paying five francs for a bed or having their parting delayed and embittered by a discussion, which, whatever its result weak concession or successful protest, leaves behind it nothing but unpleasant recollections.

In this respect the unfrequented German Alps are happier resorts for the wanderer. One could wish that these Italians had a little less vigour of imagination, and did not see in every foreigner a mine of unlimited wealth. If the story of the golden-egg-laying goose exists in their language, the nearest branch of the National Alpine Club would do well to distribute it as a tract throughout Cedegolo, and in one or two other villages which I should be happy to indicate.

Val Saviore, the valley which joins Val Camonica at Cedegolo, is a deep, short trough running west and east. The hillsides on the left bank of its stream are steep and uninhabited. High upon them a white spot is conspicuous against the green. It is an ice-cave, where the snow never melts from year's end to year's end. The opposite sunward-facing slopes are more gentle, and the principal villages lie high up on the mountain side. Behind them two torrents issue out of deep recesses, the Val di Salarno and Val d'Adame, the heads of which are closed by branches of the great Adamello ice-field.[37]

A short zigzag amongst the boles and roots of an old chestnut forest brought us to the level of the straight trench-like valley, from which no view is gained of the neighbouring snows. But the scenery had scarcely time to grow monotonous before we reached Fresine, a smutty charcoal-burners' hamlet on the banks of the Salarno torrent, and at the foot of the northern hillside.

A little further are the few houses of Isola, so called from their peninsular position between the torrent issuing from Val d'Adame and the smaller stream from Lago d'Arno. The hillside to be climbed before we could see this lake, shown on maps as one of the largest of high Alpine tarns, looked very long, steep and warm, and it proved considerably longer, steeper and warmer than it looked. It is one of the greatest climbs of its kind in the Alps. The Adamello valleys abound in steep steps or 'scalas,' but this surpasses all the others, near or far. From Isola to the water's edge the barometer showed a difference of level of over 4,000 feet. For two-thirds of the ascent the gradient and character of the path are the same as those of a turret staircase, and the only level places are old charcoal-burners' platforms. For the rest of the way the track, after having climbed the cliff-faces which enclose the lower falls, penetrates the mountain side by a cleft, through which the stream descends in a succession of cascades and rapids. Except for its ambition to do too many feet in the hour, the path could not be pleasanter. It winds through a shifting and picturesque foreground of wood, crag and water, behind which the far-off peaks of the Zupo, Bella Vista and Palu shine like snowy pavilions spread out against the evening sun.

It might be worth a geologist's or physical geographer's while to follow this track. On the vexed question of the share of work done by glaciers in excavating valleys and lake-basins I do not presume to offer an opinion. But I think a careful examination of the Adamello group could scarcely fail to repay the trouble and add some new materials for the discussion. In the numerous lakes scattered amongst the upper branches of Val Camonica the followers of Professor Ramsay may find support for their views. The believers in the potent action of glaciers in the excavation of valleys will see in the Val di Fum one of the few valleys in the Alps which answer to the picture fancy draws of what a nice-dug valley should be like. On the other hand they would be called on to explain how the majority of glaciers came to act in a manner so unlike planes, and left the Val di Genova, and nearly every other valley of the group, a mere flight of stairs. If the bed of the Lago d'Arno was once occupied by ice it must have presented an appearance not unlike the lowest plain of the Mandron Glacier, with a tongue curling over towards Val Saviore.

A warm glow still rested on the granite ridges and glaciers, but in the hollow all was already blue and grey, when the level of Lago d'Arno at last opened before our eyes. A long, still sheet of dark water wound away out of sight between bare hillsides, broken only here and there by a solitary pine. There was no sound but the gentle lapping of the waves or the continual murmur of a distant waterfall. The air seemed fraught with a solemn peacefulness, the strange mere to be a living thing asleep among the dead mountains. It was a scene to recall all old legends of enchanted pools, and a spectre bark or an arm 'robed in white samite' would in the falling gloom have seemed perfectly natural and in keeping.

The character of the landscape was in no respect Italian. It was scarcely Swiss, but rather, if I may judge of the unseen from painters, Norwegian. High Alpine tarns are for the most part circular or straight-sided; seldom, like Lago d'Arno, long, serpentine sheets of water. Moreover its great height above the sea, by giving sternness to the shores and bringing the snows down close upon them, naturally suggests a more northern latitude.

We hurried along the rough hillside in search of the fisherman's hut which was to be our night quarters. We found it among the boulders on the very brink of the water.

Previous experience of Adamello huts had inspired me with the deepest distrust of our prospects. But this time our shelter, if lowly in outward appearance, proved comfortable enough inside. At one end of the little cabin blazed a cheery fire, the smoke of which, for a wonder, found its way out without first making the round of the interior. At the other end was a hay-bed, arranged like a berth in two shelves, one above the other. The centre was occupied by a bench; and there were spoons and mugs stuck into odd holes and corners. Two worthy but fussy fowls cackled away under the roof, apparently embarrassed by the hospitable reflection that with their best endeavours they could hardly provide eggs for the whole party. The only other tenant in possession was a bright-eyed boy. A great many English boys would have seen in his tenement their ideal of a Robinson Crusoe home. Even to us disillusioned wanderers it looked fascinating, and had we been any of us fishermen we might have been induced to spend a day or two in paddling about in the triangular tub which was moored close by.

Daylight had barely lighted us to our goal, and now night added its mystery to this wild spot. Faint rays from a still unseen moon lit up the opposite peaks and snows, the great stars shone and were reflected in the dark depths of sky and lake which faced each other.

In the earliest dawn the fisherboy launched his craft, and soon returned with a fine pink-fleshed trout which we carried off with us. He then led us up the steep rocks behind his hut to regain the track we had left the night before.

The path from Isola is not the only route to the Passo di Monte Campo. We shortly joined a broader track, which makes a long circuit from the lower valley, and is said to be passable for horses, which the staircase we had climbed could scarcely be called, though cows were evidently in the habit of using it. When we left our boy it was quite a pleasure, after the impositions of the last few days, to see his simple delight over a piece of silver. The metal is rare in Italy in these days of paper currency.

The lake, seen from the high terraces which we were now traversing, appeared to be about three miles in length. It does not entirely fill the basin, at the upper end of which is an alp and a small pool. Higher up on the right lie the ice-fields and blunt summits of Monte Castello. The ridge to be crossed now comes into view—a long saw, the teeth of which, tolerably uniform in height, stretch from a rocky eminence (Monte Campo) on the north to the glaciers on the south. The path, running as a terrace along a steep hillside, gains, with little climbing, a broad grassy gap near the foot of Monte Campo. The ruined cabin on the crest may either be a douanier's outpost or a relic of the Garibaldian corps, which in 1866 bivouacked here with bold intentions but small result. This country has not been fortunate for the Italian Irregulars. A body who established themselves near Ponte di Legno, and talked largely about invading Val di Sole, were surprised one morning by the Austrians anticipating their visit. The unlucky volunteers were all at breakfast, scattered about the village, and before they could offer any effective resistance were crushed with great slaughter.

Beyond the level meadows of Val di Fum rose the massive peak of the CarÈ Alto, on this side an impossible precipice. But otherwise the view was limited, and we readily decided to add the Monte del Castello to our day's work. A most convenient goat-path, skirting the roots of the rock-teeth, brought us to the edge of the ice. The glacier was steep and slippery, and only just manageable without steps. The top proved a double-crested ridge of loose granite boulders. On the further and slightly lower point was a wooden cross, planted probably by some shepherd from the Val del Leno, the glen on the southern flank of the mountain. It would be easy to climb Monte del Castello from the level of Lago d'Arno and to descend by this valley to Boazze; and the route is recommended to mountaineers who already know Val di Fum. In itself, Monte Castello is, it must be confessed, a very inferior peak. It does not reach 10,000 feet, and it is out-topped by a southern outlier, probably Monte Frerone. But as a view-point it has merits. The long line of glaciers and peaks between the Adamello and the CarÈ Alto presents an imposing appearance. From the opposite horizons the Schreckhorn and Cimon della Pala, a worthy pair, exchange greetings. The Grand Paradis is also in sight; but too many famous and familiar forms are conspicuous by their absence, and one finds oneself longing for the extra 1,000 feet of height which would sink half the subordinate ridges and give true greatness its proper place.

We returned to the pass, whence a short zigzag leads down to the pasturage and brilliantly blue lakelet known as the Alpe and Lago di Caf. A broken hillside, on which scattered pines make foregrounds for a picturesque view of the CarÈ Alto, the prominent peak of all this country, slopes down upon the valley at the point where the torrent of Val di Fum first leaves the level and plunges into a narrow gorge.

Val di Fum is said to be a corruption of Val dei Fini, a name due to the ridge on its west being the limit between the territories of Trent and Brescia. It is a broad, level meadow some eight miles long, valuable as pasturage, and as such a subject of contention in former times. The highest alp is known as the Coel dei Vighi, from its former possessors, the commune of Vigo in Val Rendena, who drove their cows thither by a paved track leading over a pass from Val San Valentino. Over the door of the principal chÂlet of a lower alp is the inscription—

which is read '1656 addÌ 18 Luglio,' and records what a local writer with reason calls a 'fatto luttuosissimo.'

Then, as now, the commune of Daone were in possession of the pasturage. The Cedegolans, however, imagined themselves to have a better claim to it. With some brutality they proceeded to enforce their supposed rights by bursting in a body on the chÂlets, suffocating the seven shepherds in the large caldron, and cutting the legs of all the herd. After this story we no longer wondered at the greed and depravity of the modern villagers, the descendants of these ruffians. The claim so iniquitously enforced does not seem to have been practically known in recent times, but a strong tradition of it must have lingered to induce the Austrian Engineers to give the Val di Fum to Lombardy on their large map.

As usual in this part of the Alps we scarcely reach the valley before meeting a fine waterfall. At first the gorge descends in steps, separated by swampy platforms; lower down, its fall becomes more regular, gradually steepening as it approaches Boazze. The ground is broken and rugged, and the path until recent improvements must have been very bad. The Chiese is a noble torrent, green and clear despite its glacier birth, and a perpetual delight to the eyes, whether it leaps in white foam over some ash-hung crag or swirls in pure eddies in a bubbling caldron.

Boazze, a sawmill and a chÂlet, stands in a sharp angle under wooded cliffs. The houses are built, like villages in the Northern Caucasus, of huge, red, unsmoothed pine-trunks. The woodcutters have amused their leisure by painting imaginative titles over the various doors. Here we read 'CafÈ e Billiardo,' there 'Sala di Recreazione,' or 'Buvetta.' But the thirsty traveller must not be deluded thereby into expecting anything but a glass of the very roughest of country wine.

It is a long but very beautiful three hours' walk down Val Daone to the high-road at Pieve di Buono. The mountains are not so high as those which surround Val di Genova, but they are rich in colour and picturesque in form. There are steep steps, down which the river thunders in sheets of foam, level meadow expanses, tall cliffs fringed with graceful foliage. Side-glens break through the walls on either hand, and give glimpses into an upper land of lawns and pines, from which we are being rapidly carried away towards hillsides clothed with walnuts and chestnuts and all green Italian things. Some two hours from Boazze the Chiese is left to fight its own way out through a deep ravine, and the road takes an upward inclination. On a warm afternoon one is disposed to feel strongly the egotism of the Daonians in requiring everybody to pass through their high-perched village. Although they may own the whole valley, a short cut through the vineyards would have been, one fancies, a harmless concession to public convenience.

The village overlooks a wide basin, clothed in vineyards and studded with castles and churches. A long road circling from hamlet to hamlet plunges at last upon Pieve di Buono, a double row of houses lying in the bottom along either side of the high-road. A country inn offers rest and refreshment to those who are unwilling or unable to get a carriage and push on for Tione or Condino.

Here we enter fairly on the valleys of the Giudicaria, so called in witness of certain rights early granted to the inhabitants by the Bishops of Trent. This mountain region has little in common with the Swiss Alps. The low elevation of the valleys, their sunny exposure, and the gentle slope of their hillsides, give the scenery an air of richness rarely found at the very base of great snow-mountains. The frequent and gay-looking villages, the woods of chestnuts, the knots of walnut-trees, the great fields of yellow-podded maize, the luxuriant vines and orchards, have the charm which the spontaneous bounty and colour of southern nature always exercise on the native of the more reserved and sober North. No contrast could be at once more sudden and more welcome than that offered by these softer landscapes to the eye fresh from the rugged granite of the Adamello chain.

Life here, it is evident, is not the hard struggle with a stubborn and grudging nature of the peasant of Uri or the Upper Engadine. Corn and wine grow at every man's door, and the mountains offer abundant timber and pasturage.

There remains, it is true, sufficient call for energy: torrents to be embanked, hillsides to be terraced, gorges to be pierced by high-roads. But all this lies well within the powers of a population which unites in some degree German industry with Italian grace. Massive dykes stem the stream and protect the water-meadows of Pinzolo; one of the finest roads in Europe, built entirely at the cost of the neighbouring 'communes,' traverses the two great gorges of the Sarca. Here we see no squalor, none of that sufferance of decay and ruin in whatever is old which amongst southern Europeans as well as Orientals is often found united with lavish expenditure on what is new.

The exceptional wellbeing and intelligence of the people is no doubt to some extent referable to the physical features of their country. The Northern Alps seem to have been more or less laid out according to rule; valley is severed from valley by lofty and abrupt ridges; thus isolation and seclusion are enforced on the mountain communities. Here one can imagine that nature first planned a rolling hill-country and put in the mountains as an afterthought, planting them here and there at haphazard in isolated masses. Intercourse is thus rendered easy, for the heads of the valleys are often rolling pasturages. It is in fact rather the lower gorges than the crests of the hills which sever the different districts. Val Rendena can always go to Val di Sole or Val Buona; the defile of the Sarca has been but lately pierced.

Moreover, whatever may be the value of Mr. Ruskin's remarks on the moral influence of granite, there can be no doubt of its material advantages, and some of the orderly appearance of Val Rendena is certainly due to its geology. The clean grey stone of the Adamello is ever at hand in the form of erratic boulders, and is found useful for every purpose, from a bell-tower or a dyke to a curbstone or a vine-prop.

The road which runs through Pieve di Buono leads northwards over a low pass, protected by several forts, to Tione, southwards past the shores of Lago d'Idro to Salo or Brescia. But a more tempting branch turns suddenly east and mounts through the fine gorge of Val Ampola, the scene of Garibaldi's solitary success in 1866, to marshy uplands, whence it descends on the still basin of Lago di Ledro, a Cumberland tarn as far as hill-shapes go, but girt round with all the warmth and colour of Italy. The landscape is imbued with cheerful sweetness, but without any pretence to mountain sublimity. The little 'pension' lately opened at Pieve di Ledro may, however, well detain for a few days those who can dispense for a time with snow and wild crags and find satisfaction in more homely beauties.

It is a country for strolls, not for expeditions, for idle rambles over the forested hillsides among the tall alders and untamed hedgerows which fringe the lake, or along the banks of the delicious stream which flows from it, dancing down between the boles of chestnuts and vine-trellises until under a spreading fig-tree it makes a last, bold, green leap into the broad waters of the Lago di Garda.

The air at Ledro is already, after the mountains, soft and warm, and the 2,000 feet of descent to Riva are a surprise. The road runs near the torrent through a narrow glen, between vineyards, mulberries, fig-orchards, and villages, in September a very Alcinous' garden of ripeness.

Suddenly the verdure ceases on the brink of the great mural precipice which overhangs the upper end of Lago di Garda. After several zigzags the road boldly turns on to the face of the rock. The descent to Riva is henceforth a mere groove blasted out of a smooth perpendicular cliff. Deep below lie the dark waters, flecked by white birdlike sails flying southwards before the morning breeze; opposite is the broad crest of Monte Baldo rising above an olive-fringed shore. The horses trot swiftly in and out of the tunnels and round the slow bullock-waggons creaking heavily up to the hills. Riva bursts suddenly into view, a line of bright-coloured houses and mediÆval towers crowded in between the lake, red cactus-spotted cliffs, and a wealth of olive-gardens, orchards and cane-brakes—the most southern scene north of Naples.

But before the latter half of September Riva is too hot to linger in. Delicious as is an evening spent in the inn garden, where supper is served under a trellis overlooking the moonlit lake, it scarcely makes up the second time for a night spent in vain resistance to the assaults of mosquitoes. It is best to return to the mountains which are still so near at hand.

The river, which here enters the lake, will be our guide back to the snows. No stream in Europe can boast a more varied or splendid youth than the unknown Sarca, famous in its smooth-flowing old age, when it issues again from Lago di Garda, under the new name of Mincio. It is only necessary to look for a moment at the map to see what vicissitudes the Sarca encounters, and what struggles it has to go through. One is tempted to imagine that after Nature had once settled the Alpine streams of this region in their proper and comfortable beds she gave the whole country a rough squeeze, heaving up a hill here, making a huge split there, and turning everything topsy-turvy. The Adige has, I fancy, been cheated somehow out of the Lago di Garda. The Sarca clearly ought to have joined the Chiese, and flowed down into Lago d'Idro. There is something very unnatural about the eastward reach from Tione, even before one knows how prodigious a feat in hill-splitting it really is.[38]

Thanks, however, to its singular course, the scenery along the banks of the Sarca is extraordinarily varied. Roughly speaking, the river's progress may be divided into four great stages. The first, beginning from the lake, is the Val del Lago, the deep trench which forms the continuation of the Garda basin. Two or three miles through high-walled gardens and vineyards which recall the environs of an eastern city bring us to Arco, lying under a huge castled crag. After leaving behind the broad streets and cypress avenues of the hot-looking town, the drive grows monotonous. The road stretches on through the half-desolate, half-luxuriant valley, from time to time the wheels rattle over pavement, and we pass through the long, gloomy street of some roadside village. The trough is now a wilderness of fallen blocks, the road crosses a bridge, and winds along under great cliffs, which threaten further destruction. Alle Sarche, a wayside inn where the road from the Giudicaria joins that from Riva to Trent, is the end of the first stage in our journey.

The valley continues in a straight line, but our river suddenly bursts out of a deep narrow cleft in the wall of rock which has so long overhung us.

The road first climbs the cliff-face by two long zigzags, then a terrace cut in a bare bold wall of yellow rock pierces the jaws of the defile. High up on the opposite cliff runs the thin track from Molveno to Castel Toblino. The Sarca, victorious over all obstructions, glides along its narrow bed swiftly, yet smoothly, that Mr. Macgregor, or some one accustomed to those fearful feats in a 'caÑon' pictorially recorded in books of North American travel, might find it possible to shoot the defile. When the walls break back a rich valley opens round us. The red crags of the Brenta chain glow for a moment in the north, then the Baths of Comano, a health-resort of local celebrity, is passed, and Stenico and its castle are seen on the right, high-perched on a green brow, holding the keys of the upper valley. The road and the river force their way side by side through an extraordinary cleft, split or cut through the heart of a chain rising on either side 6,000 feet above the gulf. The gorge is greener and less savage than the last, yet on a still more magnificent scale. Slender streams fall in glittering showers from the shelves above, and are carried under or over the road by ingeniously-contrived shafts or galleries.

The rocks at length withdraw, the hills open, and while we ascend gently amongst orchards and rich fields of Indian corn, the CarÈ Alto suddenly raises his icy horn over the green lower range. We are close to Tione, and at another of the great turning-points in the Sarca valley.

Tione itself is a thoroughly Italian country town, with dark narrow streets crossed by archways, large houses built round courtyards, low-roofed cafÉs, and miscellaneous shops. A happy sign of the times may be seen in the conversion of the large barrack outside the town into an elementary school.

Here we are but a short distance from Pieve di Buono, and a two hours' drive would complete the circle. The valleys of the Sarca and Chiese are at this point separated only by a low grassy ridge over which runs a fine high-road, defended, like every road in this country, by a chain of forts, the scene of some of the desultory skirmishes of 1866.

Above Tione the broad open basin which divides the granite and the dolomite is known as Val Rendena. Owing to its peculiar situation between two mountain-chains unconnected at their head, but little is seen of the higher summits, and the landscape is rich and smiling. The road, winding at first high on a wooded hillside, commands a charming view of the upper valley as far as Pinzolo.

Orchards and cornfields separate the rapidly succeeding hamlets, each of which resembles its neighbour. The method of construction in this country is peculiar. The lower stories only, containing the living-rooms, are built of stone; from the top of their walls rise large upright beams supporting an immensely broad roof. The spaces between the beams are not filled up, and the whole edifice has the air of having been begun on too large a scale, and temporarily completed and roofed in. The great upstairs barn is used for the storage of wood, hay, corn, and all sorts of inflammable dry goods. The roof being also of wood, the lightning finds it easy enough to set the whole mass in a blaze, and fires arising from this cause are of common occurrence. Caresolo, the next village above Pinzolo, was almost completely destroyed in a night-storm during the autumn of 1873.

The openings of two lateral glens, Val di San Valentino and Val di Borzago, are passed in quick succession. Near the latter stands the oldest church in the valley, a square box covered with ruined frescoes, and said to mark the spot of the martyrdom of St. Vigilius, a great local evangeliser and patron saint. Heathenism lingered in this remote region until the eighth century, and two hundred years earlier the first unfortunate missionary was done to death by the inhabitants of Mortaso, who, according to the tradition, finding no stones handy, used their loaves as missiles. For this unlucky piece of barbarity the perpetual hardness of their bread, even at the present day, is said to be a punishment. It is difficult, however, to believe that loaves which could kill a saint can have been very soft to begin with.

To judge from their habits and from the size and number of their churches, the people are still as remarkable for devotion to their religion as they were in pagan days. The wayfarer passing along the valley in the early morning sees a crowd both of men and women streaming out from early mass. In most cases the church seems to have been rebuilt and enlarged in modern times, and a curious effect is often produced by the juxtaposition of the huge whitewashed building and the campanile of the older structure, a little stone tower with circular-headed apertures, which scarcely reaches to the upper windows of its overgrown companion.

The river is presently crossed, and as we approach the end of our long drive and of the third stage in the Sarca's progress the mouth of Val di Genova comes into sight on the left, and the snows of the Presanella shine for a moment above the lower ridges. We are now within half a mile of Pinzolo, the Grindelwald, or Cortina of this country. But in this chapter I propose to confine myself to the southern approaches to the two groups of the Adamello and the Brenta. The excursions round Pinzolo must be reserved for future pages.

For the moment I shall ask the reader to stop short at the neighbouring village of Giustino, and return with me thence to Trent by a byway which enables us to avoid retracing our steps through Tione.

The walk from Val Rendena to Stenico, through Val d'Algone, is dismissed in the guide-books with a few words of faint praise which raise no expectation of its varied beauty. We left Pinzolo one perfectly cloudless morning, to descend to the shores of Lago di Garda, having for our companion a peasant familiar as the man who, seven years before, had led me up to the Bocca dei Camozzi under pretence of its being the pass to Molveno. To-day he was only engaged as an attendant on the donkey which carried our traps; and it was chiefly to the quadruped's sagacity that we trusted not to be misled.

We soon quitted the high-road down the valley, and climbed a steep pavÉ past the stations leading to a whitewashed church perched on a knoll amongst the mossy chestnut-groves. A large village, with a trim granite-edged fountain and a tall campanile, was soon left below. The ascent then became hot and tiresome for a time, where the path perversely left the woods and chose for its zigzags a loose, dusty, shadeless slope. The summit of the Presanella was now in view. The ungainly hump here representing the mountain is the greatest possible contrast to the noble mass which, with its long escarped sides and icy pinnacles, towers above the Tonale road. The Grivola is the only other peak I know of which undergoes so complete a transformation. Above the bare ascent lies a sloping shelf of meadow, dotted with hay-chÂlets. The path then enters the forest, the thick stems of which shut out all distant view. Suddenly they open and leave room for a smooth level glade: shut round by a green wall of pines, it is a place where an altar to Pan may have risen out of the mossy sward, and shepherds have held their sylvan revelries. This 'leafy pleasantness' is the top of the ridge known by the poetical name of the Pra Fiori. Behind us the icy comb of the CarÈ Alto gleamed through the branches; in front the massive form of a dolomite peak towered over the tree-tops. Bearing to the left, and descending very slightly from the pass, we came in a few minutes to a grassy brow adorned with beech-trees. A more beautiful site is hardly to be found; and here, with one consent, we built our ideal Alpine chÂlet.

Below us lay the smooth level of the Val d'Algone; on one side rose the bare, torn, and fretted face of a great dolomite, surrounded by lower ridges scarcely less precipitous, but clothed in green wherever trees or herbage could take root. Towards the south the distant hills beyond the Sarca waved in gradations of purple and blue through the shimmer of the Italian sunshine.

A short zigzag through thick copses took us down to the meadows. The large solitary building in their midst is a glass manufactory. At this point a good car-road begins, which, branching lower down, leads either to Tione or Stenico.

The loftier dolomites were soon lost to view behind a bend in the valley, and the road plunged down a deep and narrow glen between banks of nodding cyclamens, bold crags, and the greenest of green hillsides. About two hours' walk from the glass manufactory the gorge of the Sarca opened in front, and the road to Stenico, leaving the stream to fall into it, wound at a level round the face of perpendicular cliffs. Tione and its village-dotted valley were seen for a few moments before our backs were turned to them, and we fairly entered the gorge of the Sarca. The high-road and river thread side by side the intricacies of the great cleft; our way lay along a shelf blasted out of the cliffs a thousand feet above them. The rays of a midday sun streamed full upon us from an unclouded heaven, and every rock reflected back the glow of light and heat. Notwithstanding, we walked briskly on, for the castle of Stenico was full in view and scarcely a mile distant. Before reaching it we had to make the circuit of a gorge. From the hot golden rocks overhead a great fountain burst forth and poured down in a cool cascade, the waters of which were soon captured in channels and spread amongst terraced orchards and fig gardens, green—not as we know greenness—but with the vivid colour of Broussa or Damascus. Under the shade of the picturesque old covered bridge which crosses the stream, we halted for a few minutes to admire a view almost unique in my Alpine experience. Close beside us stood the castle of Stenico, perched high on a crag, commanding on one side the entrance to the gorge, overlooking on the other a wide sunny basin, girt by verdant ridges compared to which the shores of Como are bare and brown. The hollows and lower slopes sparkle with villages, and teem with Indian corn and trailing vines. The hills do not, as in the Northern Alps, rise in continuous ridges, but are broken up into masses of the most romantically beautiful forms. Such may have been the scenery of the fairest portions of Asia Minor before the Mahometan conquest brought desolation upon the land.

A steep car-road connects Stenico with the high-road to Trent and Riva. At Alle Sarche we left the Sarca and our old tracks, and turned sharply to the north. The little pool of Lago Toblino is rendered picturesque by its castle, an old fortified dwelling standing on a peninsula, and defended landwards by crenellated battlements. Beyond the lake a long ascent leads first through luxuriant orchards to Padernione, then through tame scenery to Vezzano, a large country town lying in an upland plain. Another climb brought us to a higher basin, still rich in vines and fig-trees. At its further end we plunged into a ravine. An Austrian fort crowned the hill above us, another was built in the bottom, right across road and stream, a scowling black and yellow-striped dragon of the defile. Rattling over its drawbridges, we followed the water for some distance through a narrow cleft, until suddenly the wide valley of the Adige broke on our eyes, backed by rich mountain-slopes. In the centre of the landscape rose the many towers of Trent, a dark ancient city surrounded by a ring of bright modern villas scattered on the neighbouring hills.