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From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn
Towards the close of the day we descried in the distance a range of snowy summits, and were told that this was the chain that we were to cross on the morrow.
But all the experiences of those two days – in which we thought our superlatives were exhausted – were surpassed on the third as we crossed the Pass of the Stelvio. This is the highest pass in Europe, and on this day it seemed as if we were scaling heaven itself. Having a party of five, we procured a diligence to ourselves. We set out from Mals at six o'clock in the morning, and crossing the rushing, foaming Adige, began the ascent. Soon the mountains close in upon us, the Pass grows narrower and steeper; the horses have to pull harder; we get out and walk, partly to relieve the hard-breathing animals, but more to see at every turn the savage wildness of the scenery. How the road turns and twists in every way to get a foothold, doubling on itself a hundred times in its ascent of a few miles. And look, how the grandeur grows as we mount into this higher air! The snow-peaks are all around us, and the snow melting in the fiery sun, feeds many streams which pour down the rocky sides of the mountains to unite in the valley below, and which filled the solitudes with a perpetual roar.
After such steady climbing for seven hours, at one o'clock we reached a resting place for dinner (where we halted an hour), a shelf between the mountains, from which, as we were now above the line of trees, and no forests intercepted the view, we could see our way to the very summit. The road winds in a succession of zigzags up the side of the mountain. The distance in an air line is not perhaps more than two miles, though it is six and a half by the road, and it took us just two hours to reach the top. At length at four o'clock we reached the point, over nine thousand feet above the level of the sea, where a stone monument marks at once the summit of the Pass and the dividing line between the Tyrol and Lombardy. All leaped from the carriage in delight, to look around on the wilderness of mountains. To the left was the great range of the Ortler Alps, with the Ortler Spitze rising like a white dome above them all. At last we were among the snows. We were above the line of vegetation, where not a tree grows, nor a blade of grass – where all is barrenness and desolation.
The Stelvio is utterly impassable the greater part of the year. In a few weeks more the snows will fall. By the end of September it is considered unsafe, and the passage is attempted at one's peril, as the traveller may be caught in a storm, and lost on the mountain.
Perhaps some of my readers will ask, what we often asked, What is the use of building a road amid these frightful solitudes, when it cannot be travelled the greater part of the year? What is the use of carrying a highway up into the clouds? Why build such a Jacob's ladder into heaven itself, since after all this is not the way to get to heaven? It must have cost millions. But there is no population along the road to justify the expense. It could not be built for a few poor mountaineers. And yet it is constructed as solidly as if it were the Appian way leading out of Rome. It is an immense work of engineering. For leagues upon leagues it has to be supported by solid stone-work to prevent its being washed away by torrents. The answer is easy. It is a military road, built, if not for purposes of conquest, yet to hold one insecure dominion. Twenty years ago the upper part of Italy was a dependency of Austria, but an insecure one, always in a chronic state of discontent, always on the verge of rebellion. This road was built to enable the government at Vienna to move troops swiftly through the Tyrol over this pass, and pour them down upon the plains of Lombardy. Hannibal and Cæsar had crossed the Alps, but the achievement was the most daring in the annals of ancient warfare. Napoleon passed the Great St. Bernard, but he felt the need of an easier passage for his troops, and constructed the Simplon, not from a benevolent wish to benefit mankind, but simply to render more secure his hold upon Italy, as he showed by asking the engineers who came to report upon the progress of the work, "When will the road be ready to pass over the cannon?" Such was the design of Austria in building the road over the Stelvio. But man proposes and God disposes. It was built with the resources of an empire, and now that it is finished, Lombardy, by a succession of events not anticipated in the royal councils, falls to reunited Italy, and this road, the highest in Europe, remains, not a channel of conquest, but a highway of civilization.
But here we are on the top of the Pass, from which we can look into three countries – an empire, a kingdom, and a republic. Austria is behind us, and Italy is before us, and Switzerland, throned on the Alps, stands close beside us. After resting awhile, and feasting our eyes on the glorious sight, we prepare to descend.
We are not out of the Tyrol, even when we have crossed the frontier, for there is an Italian as well as an Austrian Tyrol, which has the same features, and may be said to extend to Lake Como.
The descent from the Stelvio is quite as wonderful as the ascent. Perhaps the impression is even greater, as the descent is more rapid, and one realizes more the awful height and depth, as he is whirled down the pass by a hundred zigzag turns, over bridges and through galleries of rock, till at last, at the close of a long summer's day, he reaches the Baths of Bormio, and plunging into one of the baths, for which the place is so famous, washes away the dust of the journey, and rests after the fatigue of a day never to be forgotten, in which he made the Pass of the Stelvio.
For one fond of mountain climbing, who wished to make foot excursions among the Alps, there are not many better points than this of the Baths of Bormio. It is under the shadow of the great mountains, yet is itself only about four thousand feet high, so that it is easily accessible from below, yet it is nearly half-way up to the heights above.
But we were on our way to Italy, and the next day continued our course down the valley of the Adda. Hour after hour we kept going down, down, till it seemed as if we must at last reach the very bottom of the mountains, where their granite foundations are embedded in the solid mass of the planet. But this descent gave us a succession of scenes of indescribable beauty. Slowly the valley widened before us. The mountains wore a rugged aspect. Instead of sterile masses of rock, mantled with snows, and piercing the clouds, they began to be covered with pines, which, like moss upon rocks, softened and beautified their rugged breasts. As we advanced still farther, the slopes were covered with vineyards; we were entering the land of the olive and the vine; terrace on terrace rose on the mountain side; every shelf of rock, or foot of ground, where a vine could grow, was covered. The rocky soil yields the most delicious grapes. Women brought us great clusters; a franc purchased enough for our whole party. The industry of the people seemed more like the habits of birds building their nests on every point of vantage, or of bees constructing their precious combs in the trunks of old trees or in the clefts of the rocks, than the industry of human creatures, which requires some little "verge and scope" for its manifestations. And now along the banks of the Adda are little plots of level ground, which admit of other cultivation. Olives trees are mingled with the vines. There are orchards too, which remind us of New England. Great numbers of mulberry trees are grown along the road, for the raising of silk is one of the industries of Lombardy, and there are thousands of willows by the water-courses, from which they are cutting the lithe and supple branches, to be woven into baskets. It is the glad summer time, and the land is rejoicing with the joy of harvest. "The valleys are covered over with corn; they shout for joy; they also sing." It was a warm afternoon, and the people were gathering in the hay; and a pretty sight it was to see men and women in the fields raking the rows, and very sweet to inhale the smell of the new-mown hay, as we whirled along the road.
These are pretty features of an Italian landscape; I wish that the impression was not marred by some which are less pleasant. But the comfort of the people does not seem to correspond to their industry. There is no economy in their labor, everything is done in the old-fashioned way, and in the most wasteful methods. I did not see a mowing or a reaping machine in the Tyrol, either on this or the other side of the mountains. They use wooden ploughs, drawn by cows as often as by oxen, and so little management have they, that one person is employed, generally a woman, to lead the miserable team, or rather pull them along. I have seen a whole family attached to a pair of sorry cattle – the man holding the plough, the woman pulling the rope ahead, and a poor little chap, who did his best, whipping behind. The crops are gathered in the same slipshod way. The hay is all carried in baskets on the backs of women. It was a pitiful sight to see them groaning under their loads, often stopping by the roadside to rest. I longed to see one of our Berkshire farmers enter the hay-field with a pair of lusty oxen and a huge cart, which would transport at a single load a weight, such as would break the backs of all the women in an Italian village.
Of course women subjected to this kind of work, are soon bent out of all appearance of beauty; and when to this is added the goitre, which prevails to a shocking extent in these mountain valleys, they are often but wretched hags in appearance.
And yet the Italians have a "gift of beauty," if it were only not marred by such untoward circumstances. Many a bright, Spanish-looking face looked out of windows, and peered from under the arches, as we rattled through the villages; and the children were almost always pretty, even though in rags. With their dark brown faces, curly hair, and large, beautiful eyes, they might have been the models of Murillo's beggars.
We dined at Tirano, in a hotel which once had been a monastery, and whose spacious rooms – very comfortable "cells" indeed – and ample cellars for their wines, and large open court, surrounded with covered arches, where the good fathers could rest in the heat of the day, showed that these old monks, though so intent on the joys of the next world, were not wholly indifferent to the "creature comforts" of this.
Night brought us to Sondrio, where in a spacious and comfortable inn, which we remember with much satisfaction after our long rides, we slept the sleep of innocence and peace.
And now we are fairly entered into Italy. The mountains are behind us, and the lakes are before us. Friday brought us to Lake Como, and we found the relief of exchanging our ride in a diligence along a hot and dusty road for a sail over this most enchanting of Italian, perhaps I might say of European, lakes; for after seeing many in different countries, it seems to me that this is "better than all the waters" of Scotland or Switzerland. It is a daughter of the Alps, lying at their feet, fed by their snows, and reflecting their giant forms in its placid bosom. And here on its shores we have pitched our tent to rest for ten days. For three months we have been travelling almost without stopping, sometimes, to avoid the heat, riding all night – as from Amsterdam to Hamburg, and from Prague to Vienna. The last week, though very delightful, has been one of great fatigue, as for four days in succession we rode twelve or thirteen hours a day in a carriage or diligence. After being thus jolted and knocked about, we are quite willing to rest. Nature is very well, but it is a pleasant change once in a while to return to civilization; to have the luxury of a bath, and to sleep quietly in our beds, like Christians, instead of racing up and down in the earth, as if haunted by an evil spirit. And so we have decided to "come apart and rest awhile," before starting on another campaign.
We are in the loveliest spot that ever a tired mortal chose to pillow his weary head. If any of my readers are coming abroad for a summer, and wish for a place of rest, let me recommend to them this quiet retreat. Cadenabbia! it hath a pleasant sound, and it is indeed an enchanting spot. The mountains are all around us, to shut out the world, and the gentle waters ripple at our feet. We do not spend the time in making excursions, for in this balmy air it is a sufficient luxury to exist. We are now writing at a table under an avenue of fine old trees, which stretch along the lake to the Villa Carlotta, a princely residence, which belongs to a niece of the Emperor of Germany, where oranges and lemons are growing in the open air, and hang in clusters over our heads, and where one may pick from the trees figs and pomegranates. Here we sit in a paradise of beauty, and send our loving thoughts to friends over the sea.
And then, if tired of the shore, we have but to step into a boat, and float "at our own sweet will." This is our unfailing resource when the day is over. Boats are lying in front of the hotel, and strong-armed rowers are ready to take us anywhere. Across the lake, which is here but two miles wide, is Bellaggio, with its great hotels along the water, and its numerous villas peering out from the dense foliage of trees. How they glow in the last rays of the sunset, and how brilliant the lights along the shore at evening. Sometimes we sail across to visit the villas, or to look among the hotels for friendly American names. But more commonly we sail up and down, only for the pleasure of the motion, now creeping along by the shore, under the shadow of the mountains, and now "launching out into the deep," and rest, like one becalmed, in the middle of the lake. We do not want to go anywhere, but only to float and dream. Row gently, boatman! Softly and slowly! Lentissimo! Hush, there is music on the shore. We stop and listen:
"My soul was an enchanted boat,That like a sleeping swan did float,Upon the waves of that sweet singing."But better than music or the waters is the heaven that is above the waters, and that is reflected in the tranquil bosom of the lake. Leaning back on the cushioned seat, we look up to the stars as old friends, as they are the only objects that we recognize in the heavens above or the earth beneath. How we come to love any object that is familiar. I confess it is with a tender feeling that I look up to constellations that have so often shined upon me in other lands, when other eyes looked up with mine. How sweet it is, wherever we go, to have at least one object that we have seen before; one face that is not strange to us, the same on land or sea, in Europe and America. Thus in our travels I have learned to look up to the stars as the most constant friends. They are the only things in nature that remain faithful. The mountains change as we move from country to country. The rivers know us not as they glide away swiftly to the sea. But the stars are always the same. The same constellations glow in the heavens to-night that shone on Julius Cæsar when he led his legions through these mountains to conquer the tribes of Germany. Cæsar is gone, and sixty generations since, but Orion and the Pleiades remain. The same stars are here that shone on Bethlehem when Christ was born; the same that now shine in distant lands on holy graves; and that will look down with pitying eyes on our graves when we are gone. Blessed lights in the heavens, to illumine the darkness of our earthly existence! Are they not the best witnesses for our Almighty Creator,
"Forever singing as they shineThe hand that made us is Divine?"He who hath set his bow in the cloud, hath set in the firmament that is above the clouds, these everlasting signs of His own faithfulness. Who that looks up at that midnight sky can ever again doubt His care and love, as he reads these unchanging memorials of an unchanging God?
CHAPTER XIX.
THE CITY IN THE SEA
Venice, Sept 18th.It was with real regret that we left Lake Como, where we had passed ten very quiet but very happy days. But all things pleasant must have an end, and so on Monday morning we departed. Steamers ply up and down the lake, but as none left at an hour early enough to connect with a train that reached Venice the same evening, we took a boat and were rowed to Lecco. It was a three hours' pull for two strong men; but as we left at half-past seven, the eastern mountains protected us from the heat of the sun, and we glided swiftly along in their cool shadows. Not a breath of air ruffled the bosom of the lake. Everything in this parting view conspired to make us regret a scene of which we were taking a long, perhaps a last, farewell.
At Lecco we came back to railroads, which we had not seen since the morning we left Munich for Ober-Ammergau, more than two weeks before, and were soon flying over a cultivated country, where orchards of mulberry trees (close-trimmed, so as to yield a second crop of leaves the same season) gave promise of the rich silks of Lombardy, and vines covered all the terraced slopes of the hills.
In the carriage with us was a good old priest, who was attached to St. Mark's in Venice, with whom we fell in conversation, and who gave us much information about the picturesque country through which we were passing. Here, where the land is smiling so peacefully, among these very hills, "rich with corn and wine," was fought the great battle in which Venice defeated Frederick Barbarossa, and thus saved the cause of Italian independence.
At Bergamo we struck the line from Milan to Venice, and while waiting an hour for the express train, sauntered off with the old priest into the town, which was just then alive with the excitement of its annual fair. The peasants had come in from all the country round – men and women, boys and girls – to enjoy a holiday, bringing whatever they had to sell, and seeking whatever they had to buy. One might imagine that he was in an old-fashioned "cattle show" at home. Farmers had brought young colts which they had raised for the market, and some of the brawny fellows, with broad-brimmed hats, answered to the drovers one may see in Kansas, who have driven the immense herds of cattle from Texas. In another part of the grounds were exposed for sale the delicate fabrics and rich colors which tempt the eye of woman: silks and scarfs and shawls, with many of the sex, young and old, looking on with eager eyes. And there were sports for the children. A merry-go-round picked up its load of little creatures, who, mounted on wooden horses, were whirled about to their infinite delight at a penny apiece – a great deal of happiness for a very little money. And there were all sorts of shows going on – little enclosures, where something wonderful was to be seen, the presence of which was announced by the beating of a drum; and a big tent with a circus, which from the English names of the performers may have been a strolling company from the British Islands, or possibly from America! It would be strange indeed, if a troupe of Yankee riders and jumpers had come all the way to Italy, to make the country folk stare at their surprising feats. And there was a menagerie, which one did not need to enter: for the wild beasts painted on the outside of the canvas, were no doubt much more ferocious and terrible to behold than the subdued and lamb-like creatures within. Is not a Country Fair the same thing all over the world?
At length the train came rushing up, and stopping but a moment for passengers, dashed off like a race-horse over the great plain of Lombardy. But we must not go so fast as to overlook this historic ground. Suddenly, like a sheet of silver, unrolls before us the broad surface of the Lago di Garda, the greatest of the Italian lakes, stretching far into the plain, but with its head resting against the background of the Tyrolean Alps. What memories gather about these places from the old Roman days! In yonder peninsula in the lake, Catullus wrote his poems; in Mantua, a few miles to the south, Virgil was born; while in Verona an amphitheatre remains in excellent preservation, which is second only to the Coliseum. In events of more recent date this region is full of interest. We are now in the heart of the famous Quadrilateral, the Four great Fortresses, built to overawe as well as defend Upper Italy. All this ground was fought over by the first Napoleon in his Italian campaigns; while near at hand is the field of Solferino, where under Napoleon III. a French army, with that of Victor Emmanuel, finally conquered the independence of Italy.
More peaceful memories linger about Padua, whose University, that is over six hundred years old, was long one of the chief seats of learning in Europe, within whose walls Galileo studied; and Tasso and Ariosto and Petrarch; and the reformer and martyr Savonarola.
But all these places sink in interest, as just at evening we reach the end of the main land, and passing over the long causeway which crosses the Lagune, find ourselves in Venice. It seems very prosaic to enter Venice by a railroad, but the prose ceases and the poetry begins the instant we emerge from the station, for the marble steps descend to the water, and instead of stepping into a carriage we step into a gondola; and as we move off we leave behind the firm ground of ordinary experience, and our imagination, like our persons, is afloat. Everything is strange and unreal. We are in a great city, and yet we cannot put our feet to the ground. There is no sound of carriages rattling over the stony streets, for there is not a horse in Venice. We cannot realize where and what we are. The impression is greatly heightened in arriving at night, for the canals are but dimly lighted, and darkness adds to the mystery of this city of silence. Now and then we see a light in a window, and somebody leans from a balcony; and we hear the plashing of oars as a gondola shoots by; but these occasional signs of life only deepen the impression of loneliness, till it seems as if we were in a world of ghosts – nay, to be ghosts ourselves – and to be gliding through misty shapes and shadows; as if we had touched the black waters of Death, and the silent Oarsman himself were guiding our boat to his gloomy realm. Thus sunk in reverie, we floated along the watery streets, past the Rialto, and under the Bridge of Sighs, to the Hotel Danieli on the Grand Canal, just behind the Palace of the Doges.
When the morning broke, and we could see things about us in plain daylight, we set ourselves, like dutiful travellers, to see the sights, and now in a busy week have come to know something of Venice; to feel that it is not familiar ground, but familiar water, familiar canals and bridges, and churches and palaces. We have been up on the Campanile, and looked down upon the city, as it lies spread out like a map under our eye, with all its islands and its waters; and we have sailed around it and through it, going down to the Lido, and looking off upon the Adriatic; and then coursing about the Lagune, and up and down the Grand Canal and the Giudecca, and through many of the smaller canals, which intersect the city in every direction. We have visited the church of St. Mark, rich with its colored marbles and mosaics, and richer still in its historic memories; and the Palace where the Doges reigned, and the church where they are buried, the Westminster Abbey of Venice, where the rulers of many generations lie together in their royal house of death; we have visited the Picture Galleries, and seen the paintings of Titian and the statues of Canova, and then looked on the marble tombs in the church of the Frati, where sleep these two masters of different centuries. Thus we have tried to weave together the artistic, the architectural, and the historical glories of this wonderful city.
There is no city in Europe about which there is so much of romance as Venice, and of real romance (if that be not a contradiction), that is, of romance founded on reality, for indeed the reality is stranger than fiction. Its very aspect dazzles the eye, as the traveller approaches from the east, and sees the morning sun reflected from its domes and towers. And how like an apparition it seems, when he reflects that all that glittering splendor rests on the unsubstantial sea. It is a jewel set in water, or rather it seems to rise, like a gigantic sea-flower, out of the waves, and to spread a kind of tropical bloom over the far-shining expanse around it.
And then its history is as strange and marvellous as any tale of the Arabian Nights. It is the wildest romance turned into reality. Venice is the oldest State in Europe. The proudest modern empires are but of yesterday compared with it. When Britain was a howling wilderness, when London and Paris were insignificant towns, the Queen of the Adriatic was in the height of its glory. Macaulay says the Republic of Venice came next in antiquity to the Church of Rome. Thus he places it before all the kingdoms of Europe, being antedated only by that hoary Ecclesiastical Dominion, which (as he writes so eloquently in his celebrated review of Ranke's History of the Popes) began to live before all the nations, and may endure till that famous New Zealander "shall take his stand, in the midst of a vast solitude, on a broken arch of London Bridge, to sketch the nuns of St. Paul's."