Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys. ... Second edition

Front matter

UNTRODDEN PEAKS AND UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME, A THOUSAND MILES UP THE NILE. With upwards of Seventy Illustrations, engraved on Wood by G. Pearson, after Finished Drawings executed on the spot by the Author. A New Edition, Revised. THE SASSO BIANCO FROM VAL CORDEVOLE. {Frontispiece. UNTRODDEN PEAKS AND UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS % Htxbsummcr gamble in fyt Qalam'ihs By AMELIA B. EDWARDS author of **a thousand miles up the nile," '* lord bracken bury,' "debenham's vow," "Barbara's history," &c, &c. SECOND EDITION PEASANT WOMAN OF L1VINALLUNG0 LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL GLASGOW, MANCHESTER, AND NEW YORK LONDON : BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRI ARS. The right of Translation is reserved.] THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS BOOK WAS DEDICATED TO MY AMERICAN FRIENDS IN ROME. I DESIRE TO DEDICATE THIS SECOND EDITION -j" MY AMERICAN FRIENDS IN ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD

Preface

TO THE SECOND EDITION. In preparing this Second Edition of a book which has long been out of print, I have been careful to add such information as may render it more useful to tra vellers in the Dolomite country. Some rough bridle paths have been superseded by good roads ; some old hostelries have been closed ; some new inns have been opened ; and the approach to Cortina has been much facilitated by the extension of the Conegliano line to Vittorio, and by the network of new branch lines con necting Belluno, Feltre, and Bassano with the main lines from Venice and Verona. Beyond these improve ments, little is changed since " L. and the Writer" made their pleasant pilgrimage. The people are almost as unsophisticated, and quite as friendly, as ever ; and if there should now be found less margin for

PREFACE.

TO THE SECOND EDITION. adventure of the mild kind described in the following pages, there is, by way of compensation, the certainty of better food and better accommodation than always fell to the lot of those who played the part of pioneers sixteen years ago. I have thought it best to leave the original narrative unaltered, adding only a few foot-notes as to routes, inns, &c, where necessary. The new roads and lines of railway will be found duly entered in the map. AMELIA B. EDWARDS. Westbury-on-Trym, May, 1S89. (1873). The district described in the following pages oc cupies that part of the South-Eastern Tyrol which lies between Botzen, Brunecken, Innichen, and Belluno. Within the space thus roughly indicated are found those remarkable limestone mountains called the Dolomites. Till the publication of Ball's Guide to the Eastern Alps in 1868, and the appearance of Messrs. Gilbert and Churchill's joint volume in 1864, — the Dolomite district was scarcely known even by name to any but scientific travellers.

A few geologists found their way now and then to Predazzo ; a few artists, attracted in the first instance to Cadore as the birthplace of Titian, carried their sketch-books up the Ampezzo Thai ; but there it ended. Even now, the general public is so slightly informed upon the subject that it is by no X means uncommon to find educated persons who have never heard of the Dolomites at all, or who take them for a religious sect, like the Mormons or the Druses. Nor is this surprising when we consider the nature of the ground lying within the area just named ; the absence of roads ; the impossibility of traversing the heart of the country, except on foot or on mule-back ; the tedious postal arrangements ; the want of tele graphic communication ; and the primitive quality of the accommodation provided for travellers.

A good road is the widest avenue to knowledge ; but there is at present only one good and complete road in the whole district — namely, the strada regia which, traversing the whole length of the Ampezzo Thai, connects the Venetian provinces with Lower Austria. Other fragments of roads there are ; but then they are only fragments, leading sometimes from point to point within an amphitheatre of mountains traversed only by mule-tracks. When, however, one has said that there are few roads — that letters, having sometimes to be carried by walking postmen over a succession of passes, travel slowly and are delivered irregularly — that the inns are not only few and far between, but often of the humblest kind — and that, except at Cortina, there is not a tele graph station in the whole country, one has said all that can be said in disparagement of the district.

For the rest, it is difficult to speak of the people, of the climate, of the scenery, without risk of being thought too partial or too enthusiastic. To say that the arts of extortion are here unknown — that the old patriarchal notion of hospitality still survives, miraculously, in the minds of the inn-keepers — that it is as natural to the natives of these hills and valleys to be kind, and helpful, and disinterested, as it is natural to the Swiss to be rapacious — that here one escapes from hackneyed sights, from overcrowded hotels, from the dreary routine of table d'hotes, from the flood of tourists, — is, after all, but to say that life in the South-Eastern Tyrol is yet free from all the discomforts which have of late years made Switzerland unendurable ; and that for those who love sketching and botany, mountain-climbing and mountain air, and who desire when they travel to leave London and Paris behind them, the Dolomites offer a " play ground " far more attractive than the Alps.

That a certain amount of activity and some power to resist fatigue, are necessary to the proper enjoyment of this new playground, must be conceded from the beginning. The passes are too long and too fatiguing for ladies on foot, and should not be attempted by any who cannot endure eight and sometimes ten hours of mule-riding. The food and cooking, as will be seen in the course of the following narrative, are for the most part indifferent ; and the albergos, as I have already said, are often of the humblest kind. The beds, how ever, in even "the worst inn's worst room " are generally irreproachable ; and this alone covers a multitude of shortcomings. Anyone who has visited Ober-Ammergau during the performances of the Passion Play can form a tolerably exact idea of the sort of accommodation to be met with at Cortina, Caprile, Primiero, Predazzo, Paneveggio, Corfara, and St. Ulrich.

A small store of tea, arrowroot, and Liebig's extract, a bottle or two of wine and brandy, a flask of spirits of wine and an Etna, are almost indispensable adjuncts to a lengthened tour in these mountains. The basket which contains them adds but little to the impedimenta, and immensely to the well-being of the traveller. For ladies, side-saddles are absolutely necessary, there being only two in the whole country, and but one of these for hire. There is no need to take them out from England. They can always be bought at the last large town through which travellers pass on their way to the Dolomites, and sold again at the first they come to on leaving the district. Some knowledge of Italian and German is also indis pensable. French here is of no use whatever; and Italian is almost universally spoken.

It is only in the Grodner Thai, the Gader Thai, and the country north of the Ampezzo, that one comes upon a purely German population. The Dolomite district is most easily approached from either Venice, Botzen, or Brunecken. All that is grandest, all that is most attractive to the artist, the geologist, and the Alpine climber, lies midway between these three points, and covers an area of about thirty five miles by fifty. The scenes which the present writer has attempted to describe, all lie within that narrow radius. A word ought, perhaps, to be said with regard to the title of this book, which, at first hearing, may be taken to promise more than the author is prepared to fulfil. But it means simply that here in South Tyrol, within seventy-two hours of London, there may be found a large number of yet "untrodden peaks," and a. network of valleys so literally "unfrequented" that .we journeyed sometimes for days together without meeting a single traveller either in the inns or on the roads, and encoun tered only three parties of English during the whole time between entering the country on the Conegliano side and leaving it at Botzen.

Of these unascended Dolomites, many exceed 10,000 feet in height; and some — as the Cima di Fradusta, the Pala di San Martino and the Sass Maor- — are so difficult, that the mountaineer who shall first set foot upon their summits will have achieved a feat in no way second to that ofthe first ascent ofthe Matterhorn. Ofthe nature and origin of Dolomite much has been written and much conjectured by French and German geologists ; but nothing as yet seems definitely proved. The Coral Reef theory of Baron Richthofen seems, however, to be gaining general acceptance, and to the unscientific reader it sounds sufficiently conclusive. He grounds his theory upon certain facts, such as : — 1. The singular isolation of these mountains, many of which stand detached and alone, falling away steeply on all sides in a way that cannot be the result of any process of denudation. 2.

The presence in their substance of such marine deposits as are found in the same position in the Coral Reefs now in progress of formation in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and on the Australian coast-line. 3. The absence of all deep-sea deposits. 4. The absence of all trace of volcanic origin. 5. The peculiarity of their forms, which reproduce in a remarkable manner the forms of the Coral Reef "Atolls" of the present day, being vertical, like huge walls, towards the wash of the tide, and supported on the lee side by sloping buttresses. 6. Their lines of curvature, and the kind of enclosures which they fence in ; so again reproducing the construction of the Coral Reefs, which thus embay spaces of shallow water. 7. Finally, the multiform evidences (too numerous to be dwelt upon here) of how the Dolomite must have been slowly and steadily superimposed during long ages upon lower original beds of other rock, and the difficulty of accounting for this process by any other hypothesis.

" The Schlern," says Richthofen, taking this for his representative mountain, " is a Coral Reef; and the entire formation of Schlern Dolomite has in like manner originated through animal activity."""' * I am indebted to Mr. G. C. Churchill's admirable " Physical Description ofthe Dolomite District," for the particulars epitomized above. The Dolomite derives its name from that of Monsieur Dolomieu, an eminent French savant of the last century, who travelled in South Tyrol somewhere about the years 1789 and 1790, and first directed the attention of the scientific world towards the structural peculiarities of this kind of limestone. In conclusion, I can only add that I have tried to give a faithful impression ofthe country and the people; but that, having endeavoured when on the spot to sketch that which defied the pencil, so I fear that in the following pages I have striven to describe that which equally defies the pen. AMELIA B. EDWARDS. Westbury-on-Trym, June 5, 1873. PAGE 41 CONTENTS.

Chapter I. Monte Generoso To Venice

HOTEL AT MONTE GENEROSO — WONDERFUL PANORAMA — DREAMS ABOUT DOLOMITES — DIFFICULTIES — THE REDOUBTABLE COURIER — THE REV. JOHN R. — CHOICE OF ROUTES — MENDRISIO TO COMO — COMO CATHEDRAL— FELLOW TRAVELLERS ON BOARD THE STEAMER — BELLAGGIO — LECCO TO BERGAMO, POST-HASTE — PANORAMIC SCENERY BY RAIL— VENICE UNDER A NEW ASPECT —WE LAY IN STORE OF PROVISIONS FOR THE COMING JOURNEY — THE QUESTION OF SIDE-SADDLES — READY TO START . . 27

Chapter II. Venice To Longarone

TOO LATE FOR THE TRAIN — VENICE TO CONLGLIANO — FAREWELL TO RAILWAYS AND CIVILISATION — WE TAKE TO THE ROAD — CENEDA — SERRAVALLE AND ITS GREAT TITIAN — THE GORGE AND LAKE OF SERRAVALLE — THE BOSCO DEL CONSIGLIO— THE LAGO MORTO — SANTA CROCE — FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE DOLO- MITES — A PLAGUE OF FLIES— SKETCHING UNDER DIFFICULTIES — CAPO DI PONTE — THE ANCIENT BASIN OF THE PIAVE — VALLEY OF THE PIAVE— LONGARONE— AN INN FOR A GHOST- STORY b CONTENTS. PAGE

Chapter III. Longarone To Cortina

THE PIC GALLINA— A COMMUNICATIVE PRIEST— THE TIMEER TRADE —THE SMALLEST CHURCH IN ITALY— CASTEL LAVAZZO— PERA- ROLO— A VISION OF THE ANTELAO— THE ZIGZAG OF MONTE ZUCCO— TAI CADORE— ONE OF THE FINEST DRIVES IN EUROPE — THE GLORIES OF THE AMPEZZO THAL— THE PELMO — THE ROCHETTA — THE LANDSLIP OF 1816 — THE ANTELAO — THE CRODA MALCORA— SORAPIS— WE CROSS THE AUSTRIAN FRONTIER— THE BEC DI MEZZODI — THE TOFANA — MONTE CRISTALLO — CORTINA — ARRIVAL AT GHEDINA'S INN — "IL TUCKETT'S " NAME PROVES A WORD OF MIGHT — A THOROUGH TYROLEAN HOSTELRY— PRE- PARATIONS FOR THE SAGRO 6 1

Chapter IV. At Cortina

CORTINA, ITS SITUATION, CLIMATE, AND TRADE — A MESSA CANTATA — THE VILLAGE CEMETERY— A FIRST ASCENT— THE GHEDINAS AND THEIR ART— AN UNKNOWN MOUNTAIN— AN AFTERNOON STROLL — THE ANTELAO — PLEASANT TYROLEAN WAYS— STROL- LING ACROBATS — DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN OURSELVES AND THE COURIER— DIFFICULTIES ARISING THERE- FROM — SANTO SIORPAES — THE SIDE-SADDLE QUESTION AGAIN — A TYROLEAN " CARETTA" — NEAR VIEW OF THE TOFANA — AMAZING COSTUMES — THE PEZZES — SUMMIT OF THE TRE SASSI PASS — THE MARMOI.ATA — THE " SIGNORA CUOCA " Sl

Chapter V. Cortina To Pieve DI Cadore

THE SAGRO OF CORTINA — A TYROLEAN SERMON — THE PEASANT- MAIDEN OF LIVINALLUNGO — THE COURIER REPLACED — AN AMPEZZO WEDDING— THE TOFANA — PEUTELSTEIN — THE CONTENTS. XIX PAGE I 1 I '53 HOLLENSTEIN THAL — THE CRODA ROSSA — LANDRO AND THE DURREN SEE— THE DREI ZINNEN— THE START FOR AURONZO — THE CHURCH OF THE CRUCIFIX — PIEVE DI CADORE — THE HOUSE IN WHICH TITIAN WAS BORN— THE CASA ZAMPIERI— AN INVASION — TITIAN'S FIRST FRESCO— THE ODIOUS LITTLE GIRL — THE DUOMO — DON ANTONIO DA VIA— THE CADORE TITIANS — THE FOUR TEMPERAS — A CURIOUS ANTIQUE PRE DELLA

Chapter VI. Auronzo And Val Buona

DOMEGGE AND LOZZO — THE LEGEND OF MONTE CORNON — TRE PONTI — THE ANTIQUITY OF THE PIAVE — THE VAL D'AURONZO — NATIVE POLITENESS — VILLA GRANDE AND VILLA PICCOLA — " I.'ALTRO ALBERGO" — AN UNPREPOSSESSING POPULATION — THE MARMAROLE — A DESERTED SILVER MINE— THE NEW ROAD- DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME — VAL BUONA — THE " CIRQUE " OF THE CRODA MALCORA — BASTIAN THE SOLITARY— THE MESU- RINA ALP--A MOUNTAIN TARN — THE TRE CROCI PASS

Chapter VII. Caprile

IMPORTANCE OF CORTINA AS A DOLOMITE CENTRE — OUR DE- PARTURE FOR CAPRILE— THE "SIGNORA CUOCA " AGAIN— CASTEL D'ANDRAZ— FINNAZZER'S INN — THE UPPER VALLEY OF THE CORDEVOLE — A SUCCESSION OF RAIN-STORMS — A CORDIAL WELCOME— CAPRILE — THE GAME OF PALLO — AUSTRIANS AND ITALIANS— THE CIVETTA — THE LAKE OF ALLEGHE — THE GREAT BERGFALLS OF 1771 — THE RAPE OF THE SIDE-SADDLE— THE COL DI SANTA LUCIA — TITIAN'S LOST FRESCO— SUNSET ON THE CIVETTA CONTENTS. XX PAGE 203

Chapter VIII. At Caprile

UNSETTLED WEATHER— PROCESSIONS AND BELLS— RESOURCES OF CAPRILE— HISTORY OF CAPRILE IN THE MIDDLE AGES— THE FREE STATE OF ROCCA— LOCAL NOTABILITIES— THE GORGE OF SOTTOGUDA— THE SASSO DI RONCH— CLEMENTI AND THE TWO NESSOLS— THE GOATHERD'S CROSS — THE KING AND QUEEN OF THE DOLOMITES— A MOUNTAIN IN RUINS — THE SASSO BIANCO —A TEMPTING PROPOSAL— LEGENDS OF THE SASSO DI RONCH .

Chapter IX. To Agordo And Primiero

DIFFICULTY OF GETTING UNDER WAY — FISHING FOR TIMBER — CENCENIGHE— A VALLEY OF ROCKS — AGORDO AND ITS PIAZZA — THE MINES OF THE VAL IMPERINA — THE DINNER "DOLOROUS" — A SPLENDID STORM— VOLTAGO AND FRASSENE — AN " UNTRODDEN PEAK " — THE GOSALDA PASS — A LAND OF FAMINE — MONTE PRABELLO — THE CEREDA PASS — A JOURNEY WITHOUT AN END — CASTEL PIETRA — PRIMIERO AT LAST — ANCIENT LINEAGE OF THE TYROLEAN INNKEEPERS . , . 23 J

Chapter X. Primiero To Predazzo

PRIMIERO AND ITS HISTORY— THE EARLY SILVER-WORKERS AND THEIR OFFERING — TRANSACQUA AND ITS TITIAN — THE PRIMIERO DOLOMITES — THE VAL DI CANALI — MONTE PAVIONE AND THE VETTE DI FELTRE — MONTE ARZON — THE PONTE DELLO SCHIOS— A PRIMIERO PROGRESSIONIST— THE COMING TENOR — SIGNOR SARTORIS AND THE ART OF APICULTURE — THE UPPER VALLEY OF THE CISMONE — SAN MARTINO DI CASTROZZA— A SCENE FOR A GHOST-STORY — THE CIMON DELLA PALA — THE COSTONZELLA PASS — THE HOSPICE OF PANEVEGGIO —THE VAL TRAVIGNOLO— PREDAZZO CONTENTS. XXI PAGE

Chapter XI. The Fassa Thal And The Fedaja Pass

A VILLAGE IN A CRATER— PREDAZZO AND ITS COMMERCE— PRO- SPERITY VERSUS PICTURESQUENESS — FOOTSTEPS OF THE ETRUSCANS — THE VAL D'AVISIO— MOENA — THE PORPHYRY OF THE FASSA THAL— VIGO AND THE FAT MAIDEN— CAMPIDELLO — MONTE VERNALE — THE GORGE OF THE AV1SIO — THE FEDAJA ALP AND THE FEDAJA LAKE — THE GORGE OF SOTTOGUDA AGAIN— HOME TO CAPRILE 287

Chapter XII. The Sasso Bianco

OROGRAPHY OF THE SASSO BIANCO — ITS PANORAMIC POSITION- ITS SUPERFICIAL EXTENT — ITS GEOLOGY — ASCENT OF THE MOUNTAIN— AN EXQUISITE MORNING— ANOTHER SAGRO— THE CORN-ZONE — THE PEZZE PROPERTY — THE WILD-FLOWER ZONE — THE UPPER PASTURAGES— WAITING FOR THE MISTS— THE LAST SLOPE — THE SUMMIT— THE VIEW TO THE NORTH — THE ZILLERTHAL AND ANTHOLZER ALPS — THE GROSS VENEDIGER — GLIMPSES ON THE SOUTH SIDE — ESTIMATED HEIGHT OF THE SASSO BIANCO — THE DESCENT — GRATIFICATION OF THE NATIVES 307

Chapter XIII. Forno DI Zoldo And Zoppe On The Road Again

— NEAR VIEW OF THE CIVETTA — ADVENTURE WITH A SNAKE — MONTE FERNAZZA — MONTE COLDAI — THE MARMOLATA FROM THE PASS OF ALLEGHE — UNEXPECTED VIEW OF THE PELMO — THE MOUNTAINS OF VAL DI ZOLDO — THE BACK OF THE CIVETTA — THE VALLEY OF ZOLDO — THE HORRORS OF CERCENA'S INN — THE SCULPTOR OF BRAGAREZZA — ZOPPE ; ITS PAROCO, AND ITS TITIAN - LUNCHEON IN A TYROLEAN COUNTRY-HOUSE — BRUSETOLON AND HIS WORKS — SPECIMEN OF A NATIVE — VALLEY AND PASS OF PALLAFAVERA — IN THE SHADE OF THE PELMO — PESCUL — SELVA AND THE ABORIGINES— CAPRILE AGAIN .... CONTENTS. PAGE 359

Chapter XIV. Caprile To Botzen

CHOICE OF ROUTES — GOODBYE TO CAPRILE — PIEVE D'ANDRAZ — THE UPPER VALLEY OF LIVINALLUNGO — LAST VIEW OF THE PELMO — THE CAMPOLUNGO PASS— CORFARA —A COMING PAINTER — A POPULATION OF ARTISTS — TICINI AND HIS WORKS AT CORFARA — A PHENOMENON — THE COLFOSCO PASS — THE GROD- NER THAL— THE CAPITAL OF TOYLAND— THE TRADE OF ST. ULRICH — THE LADIN TONGUE — RELICS OF ETRURIA — THE PUFLER GORGE— THE SEISSER ALP — THE LANG KOFEL, THE PLATT KOFEL, AND THE SCHLERN — THE BATHS OF RATZES — DESCENT INTO THE VALLEY OF THE EISACK — BOTZEN — THE ROSENGARTEN ONCE MORE — FAREWELI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. MAP. TAGE AUTHOR'S ROUTE MAP 25 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. THE SASSO BIANCO FROM VAL CORDEVOLE .... Frontispiece. MONTE ANTELAO To/ace 93 MONTE CRISTALLO AND PIC POPENA „ 125 TITIAN'S BIRTHPLACE , 134 THE SASSO DI RONCH ,,221 PRIMIERO ,,258 PANORAMIC VIEW OF VAL DI CANALI 268 MONTE PELMO To fate 349 THE ROSENGARTEN, FROM BOTZEN „ 359 WOOD ENGRAVINGS IN THE TEXT.

PEASANT WOMAN OF LIVINALLUNGO Vignette. LAKE OF SANTA CROCE 53 THE PIC GALLINA 62 CASTEL LAVAZZO LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XXIV PAGE HIGH STREET, CORTINA 73 UNKNOWN MOUNTAINS NEAR CORTINA 89 THE DREI ZINNEN 126 NEAR CORTINA I29 VALLEY OF AURONZO 1 59 VENETIAN LION AT CAPRILE 1 87 MONTE CIVETTA 189 THE SASSO DI RONCH 213 THE SASSO BIANCO 223 CASTEL PIETRA 248 PREDAZZO 290 MONTE MARMOLATA, FROM THE PASS OF ALLEGHE .... 333 MONTE SERRATA 344 THE AIGUILLES OF THE SCHLERN .385 MONTE GENEROSO TO VENICE. HOTEL AT MONTE GENEROSO — WONDERFUL PANORAMA — DREAMS ABOUT DOLOMITES — DIFFICULTIES— THE REDOUTABLE COURIER — THE REV. JOHN R. — CHOICE OF ROUTES — MENDRISIO TO COMO — COMO CATHEDRAL — FELLOW TRAVELLERS ON BOARD THE STEAMER — BELLAGGIO — LECCO TO BERGAMO, POST-HASTE — PANORAMIC SCENERY BY RAIL — VENICE UNDER A NEW ASPECT — WE LAY IN STORE OF PROVISIONS FOR THE COMING JOURNEY — THE QUESTION OF SIDE-SADDLES — READY TO START. I! AND UNFREOUENTED VALLEYS.

Chapter I. Monte Generoso To Venice

An autumn in North Italy, a winter in Rome, a springtide in Sorrento, brought summer round again — the rich Italian summer, with its wealth of fruits and flowers, its intolerable heat, and its blinding brightness. The barbarian tide had long ago set northwards and overflowed into Switzerland. Even those who had lingered longest were fain at last to turn their faces towards the hills ; and so it happened that the writer and a friend who had joined her of late in Naples, found themselves, about the middle of June, 1872, breathing the cooler airs of Monte Generoso. Here was a pleasant hotel, filled to overflowing, and numbering among its guests many Roman friends ofthe past season. Here, too, were green slopes, and shady woods, and meadows splendid with such wild flowers as none of us had ever seen elsewhere.

The steaming lakes, B from which we had just escaped — Como, Lugano and Maggiore — lay in still, shining sheets three thousand feet below. The vast Lombard flats on the one side simmered all day in burning mists to the farthest horizon. The great snow-ranges bounding Switzerland and Tyrol on the other, glowed with the rose of every dawn, and turned purple when the sun went down behind them in glory every evening. Having this wondrous panorama constantly before our eyes, with its changing lights and shadows, and its magical effects of cloud-wreath and shower — catching now a sudden glimpse of the Finsteraarhorn and the Bernese range — now an apparitional vision of Monte Rosa, or the Matterhorn, or even (on a clear morning, from the summit behind the hotel) of the far-distant Ortler Spitze on the Tyrolese border — we began, some how, to think and talk less of our proposed tour in the Engadine ; to look more and more longingly towards the north-eastern horizon; and to dream in a vague way of those mystic mountains beyond Verona which we knew of, somewhat indefinitely, as the Dolomites.

The Dolomites ! It was full fifteen years since I had first seen sketches of them by a great artist not long since passed away, and their strange outlines and still stranger colouring had haunted me ever since. I thought of them as every summer came round ; I regretted them every autumn ; I cherished dim hopes about them every spring. Sketching about Venice in a gondola a year before the time of which I write, I used to be ever looking towards the faint blue peaks beyond Murano. In short, it was an old longing ; and now, high up on the mountain side, with Zermatt and the Engadine close within reach, and the multitudinous Alps extending across half the horizon, it came back upon me in such force as to make all that these great mountains and passes had to show seem tame and undesirable. Fortunately, my friend (whom I will call L. for bre vity) had also read and dreamed of Dolomites, and was as eager to know more of them as myself; so we soon reached that stage in the history of every expedition when vague possibilities merge into planned certain ties, and the study of maps and routes becomes the absorbing occupation of every day.

There were, of course, some difficulties to be overcome ; not only those difficulties of accommodation and transit which make the Dolomite district less accessible than many more distant places, but special difficulties arising out of our immediate surroundings. There was Sophia, for instance (L.'s maid), who, being delicate, was less able for mountain work than ourselves. And there was the supreme difficulty of the courier — a gentleman of refined and expensive tastes, who abhorred what is generally understood by " roughing it," despised primitive simplicity, and exacted that his employers should strictly limit their love of the picturesque to districts abundantly intersected by railways and well furnished with first-class hotels. That this illustrious man should look with favour on our new project was obviously hopeless ; so we discussed it secretly " with bated breath," and the proceedings at once assumed the delightful character of a conspiracy.

The Rev. John R., who had been acting for some weeks as English chaplain at Stresa, was in the plot from the beginning. He had himself walked through part of our Dolomite route a few years before, and so gave us just that sort of practical advice which is, of all help in travelling, the most valuable. For this ; for his gallant in difference to the ultimate wrath of the courier ; and for the energetic way in which (with a noble disregard of appearances, for which we can never be sufficiently grate ful) he made appointments with us in secluded summer houses, and attended stealthy indoor conferences at hours when the servants were supposed to be at meals, I here beg to offer him our sincere and hearty thanks. All being at last fully planned, it became necessary to announce our change of route.

The great man was ac cordingly summoned ; the writer, never famous for moral courage, ignominiously retreated ; and L., the dauntless, undertook the service of danger. Of that tremendous interview no details ever transpired. Enough that L. came out from it composed but victorious ; and that the great man, greater than ever under defeat, comported himself thenceforth with such a nicely adjusted air of martyrdom and dignity as defies description. Now, there are three ways by which to enter the Dolomite district ; namely 5 by Botzen, by Brunecken, or by Venice ; and it fell in better with our after plans to begin from Venice. So on Thursday the 27th of June, we bade farewell to our friends on Monte Generoso, and went down in all the freshness and beauty of the early morning. It was a day that promised well for the beginning of such a journey.

There had been a heavy thunderstorm the night before, and the last cumuli were yet rolling off in a long billowy rack upon the verge of land and sky. The plains of Lombardy glittered wide and far ; Milan gleamed, a marble-speck, in the mid-distance ; and farthest seen of all, a faint, pure obelisk of snow, traced as it were upon the transparent air, rose Monte Viso, a hundred and twenty miles away. But soon the rapidly descending road and thickening woods shut out the view, and in less than two hours we were down again in Mendrisio, a clean little town con taining an excellent hotel, where travellers bound for the mountain, and travellers coming down to the plains, are wont to rest. Here we parted from our heavy luggage, keeping only a few small bags for use during the tour. Here also we engaged a carriage to take us on to Como, where we arrived about midday, after a dull and dusty drive of some two hours more.

It was our intention to push on that afternoon as far as Bellaggio, and in the morning to take the earlv steamer to Lecco, where we hoped to catch the g.25 train reaching Venice at 4.30. Tired as we now were, it was pleasant to learn that the steamer would not leave till three, and that we might put up for a couple of hours at the Hotel Volta — not only the best in Como, but one of the best in Italy. Here we rested and took luncheon, and, despite the noontide blaze out of doors, contrived to get as far as that exquisite little miniature in marble, the Cathedral. Lingering there till the last moment, examining the cameo-like bas-reliefs of the facade, the strange beasts of unknown date that support the holv-water basins near the entrance, and the delicate Italian-Gothic of the nave and aisles, we ran back just in time to see our effects being wheeled down to the pier, and to find the steamer not only crowded with passengers, but the deck piled, funnel-high, with bales of raw silk, empty baskets, and market produce of every description.

We were the only English on board, as we had been the only English in the streets, in the hotel, and appa rently in all the town of Como. Our fellow-passengers were of the bourgeois class — -stout matrons with fat brown hands cased in netted mittens and loaded with rings ; elderly peres de familie in straw hats ; black-eyed young women in gay shawls and fawn-coloured kid boots ; and a sprinkling of priests. It had probably been market-day in Como ; for the fore-deck was crowded with chattering country folk, chiefly bronzed women in wooden clogs, some few of whom wore in their plaited hair that fan-shaped head-dress of silver pins, which, though chiefly characteristic of the Canton Tessin, just over the neighbouring Swiss border, is yet worn all about the neighbourhood of the lakes. So the boat steamed out ofthe little port and along the glassy lake, landing many passengers at every stage ; and the fat matrons drank iced Chiavenna beer ; and the priests talked together in a little knot, and made merry among themselves.

There were three of them — one rubicund, jovial, and somewhat threadbare ; another very bent, and toothless, and humble, and desperately shabby ; while the third, in shining broadcloth and a black satin waistcoat, carried himself like a gentleman and a man ofthe world, was liberal with the contents of his silver snuff-box, and had only to open his lips to evoke obsequious laughter. We landed the two first at small water-side hamlets by the way, and the last went ashore at Cadenabbia, in a smart boat with two rowers. Wooded hills, vineyards, villages, terraced gardens, gleaming villas bowered in orange groves, glided past meanwhile — a swift and beautiful panorama. The little voyage was soon over, and the sun was still high when we reached Bellaggio ; a haven of delicious rest, if onlv for a few hours.