Italian Alps

We soon slid down again to the gap at the eastern base of the turret. A steep rock-wall cut us off from a snow-filled hollow. The difficulty, such as it was, was soon over, and the rest of the descent was only a trial for weak knees. A long hillside like that of the Monte Moro was below us; the whole drop from the pass to the valley must be over 4,000 feet, and the distance is very small. For some time we followed a stream, sometimes sliding down a snow-bed, sometimes stumbling over rocky slopes. On the pasturages we found a track leading eastwards and downwards. As we drew near the level of the valley the scenery became very picturesque. On our right the river of Val Vermolera fell over a rocky shelf in a fine fall. A few yards beyond a stone bridge over a charmingly-wooded ravine we found a shady nook, tempting to a long hour's siesta. It was very warm when we again set forward, but the path was excellent and the valley delightful. After a time, however, the woods came to an end, and we found ourselves amidst shadeless hay-meadows. The way now grew stonier and hotter, and the scenery somewhat monotonous. We were glad to reach a brow, whence we looked down on the Val Tellina. A steep paved zigzag led us through chestnut woods, past a dirty village, then through more chestnuts, fields of Indian corn and vines, all overshadowed by the stern ruins of a mediæval fortress. At last it fell into the straight, white Stelvio road, midway between two campaniles which closed either vista. A few minutes later we entered the shade of Grossotto, a little town gay with new paint and Italian red, white and green, and blessed, at least in our recollections, as the possessor of ripe fruit and Asti at a franc a bottle.

CHAPTER VI.

THE BERGAMASQUE MOUNTAINS

Up, where the lofty citadelO'erlooks the surging landscape's swell;Let not unto the stones the dayHer land and sea, her lily and rose display.Emerson.VAL D'ESINO – THE GRIGNA – INTROBBIO – FORCELLA DI CEDRINO – VAL TORTA – AN OLD TRAVELLER – VAL BREMBANA – BRANZI – PASSO DI GORNIGO – GROMO – VAL SERIANA – BONDIONE – MONTE GLENO – VAL BELVISO

The sharpest form of pain has in all ages been imagined under the figure of a man with the object of his most eager desire ever dangling before his eyes but out of reach. If – may the omen be void! – any of the Alpine Club should in another world ever realise the punishment of Tantalus or Dives, they will probably be placed opposite a peak cut off from them by some impassable gulf.

Such threatened to be our fate as, with the natural gloominess of three o'clock in the morning, we strapped up our humble bags in the marble halls of the Hotel Vittoria at Menaggio under the indignant and contemptuous survey of an awakened porter.

When we issued into the night the luminous Italian stars flamed out of a perfect vault, blotted only at the edges by the dim shapes of the mountains. The keen northern breeze which intruded on the languid scent-laden air of the lake was the best promise of a day of unclouded sunshine. Yet this breeze was the cause of all our fears; under its influence the lake was stirred into waves which broke noisily against the terraced shore. Our goal was the Grigna, and between us and Varenna lay three miles of dancing water. There was no steamer for hours; and it is no rare thing for the passage to be impossible for small boats. Doubtful and depressed, we hurried round to the little port.

It was a happy moment when a cry answered our shouts, and the boat, ordered overnight, shot up with its four rowers through the darkness. We were soon on board and out of sight of François, left to search for a missing portmanteau in the custom-house of Como.29

The shelter of the land was soon left, and our broad-bottomed boat, keeping her head to the wind, as if making for Colico, began to do battle with the waves, which knocked her from side to side like an unwieldy cork. We were anxious as to the behaviour of our rowers. The boatmen of the lake are not all to be trusted. The year before I had seen a Colico crew give way to the most abject terror at the mere approach of a storm-cloud which turned out to be quite empty of wind. For ten minutes before the rain burst on us they did nothing but alternately catch crabs, and curse and kick the crab-catcher. The Menaggio men showed themselves, however, of very different metal. They rowed hard and talked little, and the stern-oar, standing up to his work like the rest, gondolier-fashion, steered with so much skill in avoiding the wave-crests that, knocked about as we were, we only shipped one sea during the passage.

The mountain-forms were growing less ghostly, and the first pale gleams across the sky were reflected still more faintly on the surface of the lake as we ran ashore on the beach at Varenna. The little town was still asleep under its cypresses, but a light gleamed from the windows of a waterside inn, which soon furnished us with coffee and an omelette.

A few hundred yards north of Varenna the glen of Esino, through which lies the way to the Grigna, opens on the lake, The 'Alpine Guide' describes a path leading past the castle and along the (true) left bank of the stream. But the more frequented track, a steep pavé between vineyards and villages, starts from the bridge of the Stelvio road and mounts the further hillside.

In the old visitors' book at the Montanvert Inn was to be read a characteristic entry, 'found the path up, like that to heaven, steep and stony.' Mr. Spurgeon would find Esino much more difficult to get to than heaven. The path is laid with large smooth rounded stones, placed at such a high angle as to render back-sliding inevitable. Fortunately there was abundant consolation in the exquisite glimpses which met us at every corner, and boots and tempers held out pretty well, until both were rewarded by a smooth terrace-path circling round the hollows of the upper hills.

Where the deep ravine rose towards us, and two steeply-falling brooks united to form its torrent, the church of Esino stood forth, the ornament of a bold green spur projecting from a broad platform covered with fields and trees.

Half the village lies a few hundred yards higher on the hillside, and the only inn – a mere peasant's house of call – is the first house in the upper hamlet. The blacksmith appeared to be the official guide to the Grigna, but in his absence a substitute was provided in the master of the inn. His first act was to pack an enormous basket of bread and wine, of which he said we might consume as much as we liked and pay him accordingly, a primitive but not, as we afterwards found, particularly economical arrangement. His next proceeding was to offer a few coppers to a girl to carry the basket to the last shepherd's hut. In the Bergamasque country we soon became accustomed to our porters acting as contractors and subletting a portion of their contract to any chance passenger or herdsman they met on the way.

A charming path leads up from Esino to the Cainallo Pass, the direct way into Val Sassina. Large beeches grow in clusters amongst tufts of underwood, or overshadow shallow ponds, the frequent haunts of the herd. Below lies the long ribbon of the lake, its waves reduced to a ripple, which the sloping sunlight hardly makes visible. Away beyond the green gulf leading to Porlezza and the hills of Maggiore glows the supreme glory of the Alps, the snow-front of Monte Rosa. Right and left the faint and far forms of the Grand Paradis and Grivola and the Oberland peaks attend in the train of their queen.

Instead of crossing the pass the route to the Grigna turns southward along the ridge until some 500 feet higher it reaches the edge of a great horseshoe-shaped recess in the north-east flank of the mountain. The limestone here breaks below into many fantastic spires, the precipices opposite are abrupt, and the whole landscape has a severe and bold character unexpected in this region.

The circuit to the opposite side of the recess where the real climb begins is somewhat tedious. Beyond a cattle-alp, which affords milk, the mountain becomes a bare mass of limestone, the hollows in which are filled, first by grass, then by snow. The top lies still far back, and the ridge on the right which cuts off most of the view looks tempting. It is not comfortable ground, however, except for a tolerable cragsman. Keep below to the last, and when you clamber on to the highest crest your patience will be rewarded.

A moment before a rock was before your eyes, now there is nothing but the straight-drawn line of the Tuscan Apennine. The vast plain of Lombardy has, for the first time all day, burst into sight. Surely there are few sights which appeal at once to the senses and imagination with so much power. Possibly the Indian plains from some Himalayan spur may have richer colours, certainly the northern steppe from Elbruz has greater boundlessness. But they are not so much mixed up with associations. This is Italy; there are Milan, Monza, Bergamo, a hundred battle-fields from the Trebia to Magenta.

It is natural to compare the Grigna panorama with those from Monte Generoso and Monte San Primo. As a perfect view of the Lake of Como the Monte San Primo is unrivalled. The delicious dip from Monte Generoso on to Lugano perhaps surpasses in beauty the wilder plunge of the Grigna upon the Lago di Lecco. But for the plain and the great range I unhesitatingly give the palm to the higher mountain.

The last spurs of the Alps are here singularly picturesque. The bold forms of the Corno di Canzo and Monte Baro break down to display the shining pools of the Laghi di Pusiano and d' Annone, and the hills and towns of the Brianza, a fair garden country full of well-to-do towns and bright villas, the country seats of the Milanese. Hither Leonardo may have come, and looking across the narrow lake or from beside some smaller pool or stream at the stiff, upright rocks of the Grigna and the Resegone, have conceived the strange backgrounds with which we are all familiar.

From mountains of middle height the general aspect of the range is ordinarily one of wild disorder. It is but rarely any distant group is completely seen; only, wherever the nearer ridges subside, one or two peaks come into view disconnectedly and as it were by chance. From more commanding summits the contrary effect is produced; intervening and minor masses sink into their proper place; they no longer produce the impression of a hopeless labyrinth, but combine with the great peaks to form well-defined groups.

In most Alpine districts the Grigna (7,909 feet) would rank among minor heights; on the shores of Lago di Como and at the edge of the Lombard plain it is a giant. Its extra 2,000 feet enable it to look not only over neighbouring hills but into the hollows which separate them – hollows filled with an air like a melted jewel in its mingled depth and transparency of colour. The snowy Alps, raised now, not merely head, but head and shoulders above the crowd, range themselves before the eyes in well-ordered companies.

In one direction only – where the intricate Bergamasque mountains scarcely leave space for some disconnected glimpses of the Orteler snows or the bold front of the Carè Alto – is the panorama interfered with in the ordinary manner.

Perfect peace and radiance filled the heaven. The morning breeze had died away, no cloud had lifted itself from the valleys; all was calm and sunny, from the lake at our feet to the pale shadowy cone scarcely defined on the glowing horizon, which was Monte Viso. For hours we lay wrapt in the divine air, now watching Monte Rosa as it changed from a golden light to a shadow, now gazing over the plain as the slant sunbeams falling on white walls and towers gave detail and reality to the dreamlike vision of noon.

The two peaks of the Great and Little Grigna or Campione are cut off from the surrounding ranges by a deep semicircular trough extending from Lecco to Bellano. Near the centre of the bow stands Introbbio on the Bellano side of a low watershed. The easiest way down the back of the Grigna seems to be to follow its north-east ridge, and then descend a steep grassy hillside to some homesteads grouped about a pond.

The lower slopes are a charming surprise to eyes accustomed to the severer scenery of a Swiss alp. They share the beauties of the pasturages of Bern and add to them something of a softer grace. Although, owing to the porous nature of the limestone, water is scarce enough to make it worth while to collect it in circular ponds like those of our own South Downs, the ground, even in September, is covered with a close carpet of the greenest turf, broken, not by rocks, but copses of laburnum. In May it must be a garden of the exquisite wild flowers which climb, a fairy procession, in endless variety of form and colour and perfume, every southern hillside.30 In the place of brown châlets we have whitewashed cottages roofed with red tiles, which harmonise well with the general cheerful brightness of the landscape. A steep track through a thick chestnut wood leads down to Pasturo, a large village whence there is a good road to Introbbio.

Pasturo lies in a broad and smiling basin, the head of Val Sassina. But half a mile further on, the opposite ranges are almost joined by two huge masses of porphyry, between which the stream finds a way through a narrow and once fortified natural gate. Beyond the barrier lies Introbbio half hidden amongst its chestnuts, and looking across to the bold crags of the precipitous face of the Grigna.

There are few things less favourable to Stoicism than disappointed hopes in an inn. Where nothing is expected much can be borne. But of the 'Albergo delle Miniere' the guide-books encouraged the most rosy anticipations, and the appearance of the house bore out at first sight its good name. It stood, as all inns should, outside the town and the first house as we approached it; on the wall was written in bold letters 'Grand Hotel of the Mines.' The front door stood hospitably open, and closed shutters are too usual in sunny Italy to excite misgiving. But it was in vain we searched the empty passages, tried the locked doors, or sniffed for any possible odour of kitchen. In vain one of my friends, phrase-book in hand, shouted out every call for waiter in use between Turin and Palermo. There was not even a cat left in the house; the owner had become bankrupt, and no one had had the courage to take his place. So we retired disconsolate to an 'Osteria Antica' in the heart of the town, where we found François already arrived.

If we were discomfited, our host was little less so. The fall of its rival had brought no second youth to the 'Osteria Antica.' It was kept by a haughty and, except as regards payment, indifferent landlord, whose household consisted of a vague and dilatory wife, a loutish and generally-in-the-way son, and a good-natured wench whose carrying qualities were for the most part thrown away, owing to there never being anything ready for her to carry. For hours François sat by the kitchen fire, with a resignation only smokers can attain, answering all enquiries in the monotonous refrain, 'On prépare, messieurs – on prépare toujours.'

It was 9 P.M. before the serving-girl entered with a bowl of liquid sufficient, in quantity at least, to have fed a regiment, and the torpid son broke for a moment into a smile as he placed on the table a huge carafe of 'Vino Vecchio.' Its age may have been owing to its repellent effect on previous topers, and so far as we were concerned it was at liberty to grow older still. Half-an-hour later, with unsatisfied appetites and injured digestions, we retired to two dingy and dubious bedrooms. Next morning the bill which awaited us was a triumph of caligraphy, extending to at least a column and a half of items. In the country inns of this part of Italy it is the usual custom to charge each loaf and dish separately. But here the general taxes of great hotels formed a supplement to special charges for the very services in respect of which such taxes are generally supposed to be levied. Thus, after paying a sum for 'zucchero' and 'candele' which showed the high value set by the Introbbians on 'sweetness and light,' we were expected not only to make a further disbursement in consideration of boot-blacking and warm water, but also to remember the 'servizio' and 'portiere.' We were almost ashamed to disturb the result of so much labour and ingenuity by such a rough-and-ready proceeding as the tender of the lump sum which seemed to us more than adequate to the occasion.

Beyond Introbbio we plunged into the Bergamasque ranges, perhaps to Englishmen the least known fragment of the central Alps. Owing to the absence at their head of any peaks high or inaccessible enough to attract ardent climbers, the two great trenches which open on to the plain near Bergamo have not, like the valleys of Monte Rosa, come in the way of the Alpine Club. And it is to its members that we owe almost entirely our introduction to out-of-the-way corners. Yet an Italian valley, among mountains rising at its head to nearly 10,000 feet, is at least worth looking at. Val Brembana and Val Seriana might prove rivals to Val Mastalone and Val Sesia. At last, in 1874, I determined to carry out, at any rate in part, a long-formed intention, and see something of what lay within and behind the jagged line of peaks so long familiar to me from the high summits of the Engadine.

The Forcella di Cedrino, which forms the entrance from Introbbio to the upper branches of Val Brembana, is on the whole decidedly dull – a long steep ascent, a broad undulating top, only remarkable for its laburnum thickets, and a commonplace glen on the other side. Near the first hamlet, Val Torta, the scenery improves. The old frescoed church and white houses hang on the steep side of a green basin among woods and shapely hills.

Thenceforth the path is charming. Descending at once to the clear slender stream it threads a tortuous defile, where at every corner the landscape changes. On the right rise the spurs of the many-crested Monte Aralalta, clad almost to their tops in wood. Above the broken glens the limestone plays a hundred freaks, here cutting the sky with twisted spires and perforated towers, there throwing down a knife-edge buttress between the greenery. Opposite a broad opening on the left the stream is reinforced by three great fountains gushing directly out of the living rock.

A mile or two further, at Cassiglio, the glen opens and a carriage-road begins. Several of the old houses here are frescoed, one with a whimsical selection of old-world figures, another with a Dance of Death. In this 'Earthly Paradise,' as it appears to the northern wanderer, the mystery of death seems, as in Mr. Morris's poem, to be constantly present. The great reaper with his sickle is painted on the walls of dwelling-houses as well as churches. 'Morituro satis' writes the wealthy farmer over his threshold, the bones of his ancestors – nay, sometimes even their ghastly withered mummies – stare out at him through the iron grating of the deadhouse as he goes out to his work in the fields. And for the true son of the Church there is no such peace in prospect as for his foregoers, no 'Nox perpetua una dormienda,' or shadowy Hades. His future is put before him in the most positive manner, by the care of priests and painters, on every wayside chapel. Whatever his life, he must when he dies take his place amongst that wretched throng of sufferers packed as closely as cattle in a truck, and plunged to a point perhaps determined by prudery in tongues of flame. His deliverance from this hideous place will, he is told, depend in great part on the importunity with which his surviving relatives address the saints on his behalf, and the sums they can afford to pay for masses to the priest. Roman Christianity for the peasantry represents the rule of the universe as a malevolent despotism tempered by influence and bribery. Fortunately, whatever they may profess, men seldom at heart accept a creed which makes the universe subject to Beings or a Being of worse passions than themselves.

Cassiglio stands above a watersmeet where a new face of the beautiful Monte Aralalta shuts in a wooded glen, through which a tempting path leads to the hamlets of Taleggio. All the hill-country between Val Brembana and the Bergamo-Lecco railway gives promise of the richest and most romantic scenery, and I can imagine nothing more delightful than to wander through its recesses in the long May days. My fancy seems, however, to be singular, for, so far as I know, not one out of the number of our countrymen who haunt Lago di Como in spring has taken advantage of his opportunity.

Below Cassiglio, Val Torta for the first time expands into a wide basin full of maize and walnuts. Presently it contracts again into a narrow funnel, which on a dull day, when the higher crests are in cloud, might be fancied a Devonshire combe. At the junction of a considerable side-valley clusters of houses brighten the hillsides, and, where two roads meet, a clean country inn, with a terraced bowling-ground above the stream, invites to a halt.

The second road leads towards the Passo di San Marco, the lowest and easiest track from Bergamo to the Val Tellina.

Here, perhaps for the only time in these valleys, we come upon a track already described by an English traveller. The title of his volume at least is sufficiently attractive. I quote it in full: —

'Coryats Crudities Hastily gobbled up in five moneths travells in France Savoy Italy Rhetia commonly called the Grisions country Helvetia alias Switzerland some parts of High Germany and the Netherlands: Newly digested in the hungry aire of Odcombe in ye county of Somerset and now dispersed to the nourishment of the travelling members of this kingdom.' London, 1611.

Readers, sated for the moment with the solid information to be gathered from our modern books of travel, may spend a refreshing half-hour in the company of this old traveller, who assumed in his public the same taste he had so strongly in himself, and was content to display undisguised a boyish delight in novelties, wonders, and adventure. He has, moreover, a special title to the respect of the modern Alpine traveller, for 'footmanship' was his great boast, and he delighted to be celebrated by his familiars as the 'Odcombian Legge-stretcher.' I shall not apologise therefore for pausing for a moment —

– To catechise

My picked man of countries

of the days of King James I., and to learn what he may have to say —

– Of the Alps and Apennines,

The Pyrenean and the River Po.

In listening to Tom Coryat's gossip we realise as far as is now possible such an evening's entertainment as may have suggested these lines to Shakspeare. We can almost fancy ourselves seated in the Mermaid Tavern, while our traveller, swollen with his own importance, told his tales, and the wits laughed over some of the earliest 'Alpine shop.' The address of one of Coryat's letters 'to the Right Worshipfull Society of Sirenaical Gentlemen that meet the first Fridaie of every moneth at the signe of the Mermaide in Bread Street' shows him a frequent guest at the famous inn. His friends have drawn his character with force and perfect freedom. He was one of those wits who are more often laughed at than with. 'He is,' writes Ben Jonson, 'always Tongue-Major of the Company, and if ever perpetual motion be to be hoped it is from thence. He is frequent at all sorts of Free-Tables, where though he might sit as a guest he would rather be served in as a dish, and is loth to have anything of himself kept cold against the next day.' In conversation as well as writing he was an euphuist, 'a great carpenter of words.' Travel was so far his engrossing passion that he would give up any company to talk with even a carrier. 'The mere superscription of a letter from Zurich set him up like a top; Basel or Heidelberg made him spin.'

The prominent mention in the title of his book of Alpine regions naturally suggests that we may have here lit on an early appreciator of the Alps; and in the first few pages this hope receives some confirmation. Mr. Stephen has told us that the Gothic cathedral and the granite cliffs have many properties in common, and that 'one might venture to predict from a man's taste in human buildings whether he preferred the delicate grace of lowland scenery or the more startling effects only to be seen in the heart of the mountains.' Coryat's avowal therefore that Amiens Cathedral is 'the Queen of all the churches in France and the fairest that ever I saw till then,' seems to promise well for his taste in mountains.