A Midsummer Ramble in the Dolomites i ^^^ ^ i". ^Sl ^Km mm ^» p7^ -r-f. ■ . ^\ %. til i THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN n j( -n/ (j;^ A MIDSUMMER RAMBLE IN THE DOLOMITES k lf\H^y l/vf" Bv AMELIA B. EDWARDS AUTHOR OF "a THOUSAND MILES UP THE NMLE," " HAI.F-A-MILLION OF MONEY,' "my brother's wife," "the ladder of life," ETC., ETC. FEASANT WOMAN OF LIVINALLUNGO LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, Limited I'.ROADWAV, Ll'DGATK IllI.I, THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS BOOK WAS DEDICATED MY AMERICAN FRIENDS IN ROME. I DESIRE TO DEDICATE THIS SECOND EDITION TO 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 Some rough bridle- paths have been superseded by good roads ; some old hostelries have been closed ; some new inns have been opened ; and the approach to Cortina has been much facilitated by the extension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 viii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. adventure of the mild kind described in the following pages, there is, by way of compensation, the certainty i)f 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 nar- rative 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. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION (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 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 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 frag- ments 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 onlv few and far between, but often of the humblest PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. ^'^ 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 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 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 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 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 knowledo;;e 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 journeved PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 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 of the first ascent of the Matterhorn. Of the nature and origin of Dolomite much has been written and much conjectured by French and German geologists ; but nothing as yet seems definitely proved. The Coral Reef theory of Baron Richthofen seems, however, to be gaining general acceptance, and to the unscientific reader 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 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. xv Reefs now in progress of formation in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and on the AustraHan coast-Hne. 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 construc- tion 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 of the Dolomite District,'' for the particulars epitomized above. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION The Dolomite derives its name from that of Monsieur Dolomieu, an eminent French savant of the last century, who travelled in South Tyrol somewhere about the years 1789 and 1790, and first directed the attention of the scientific world towards the structural peculiarities of this kind of limestone. In conclusion, I can only add that I have tried to give a faithful impression of the country and the people; 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. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. MONTE GENEROSO TO VENICE. PAGE HOTEL AT MONTE GENEROSO — WONDERFUL PANORAMA — DREAMS ABOUT DOLOMITES — DIFFICULTIES — THE REDOUBTABLE COURIER — THE REV. JOHN R.— CHOICE OF ROUTES — MENDRISIO TO COMO — COMO CATHEDRAL— FELLOW TRAVELLERS ON BOARD THE STEAMER — 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 n. VENICE TO LONGARONE. rOO LATE FOR THE TRAIN— VENICE TO CONEGLIANO— 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 .VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. LONGARONE TO CORTINA. PAGE :he pic gallina— a communicativf: priest— the timber 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 EEC 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 . . . . , , , . 61 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 MARMOLATA — THE "SIGNORA CUOCA" £l 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. HbLLENSTEIN 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 Ill CHAPTER VI. AURONZO AND VAL BUONA. DOMEGGE AND LOZZO — THE LEGEND OF MONTE CORNON — THE PONTI — THE ANTIQUITY OF THE PIAVE — THE VAL D'AURONZO — NATIVE POLITENESS — VILLA GRANDE AND VILLA PICCOLA — "l'aLTRO ALBERGO" — AN UNPREPOSSESSING POPULATION — THE MARMAROLE — A DESERTED SILVER MINE — THE NEW ROAD — DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME — VAL BUONA — THE " CIRQUE" OF THE CRODA MALCORA — BASTIAN THE SOLITARY — THE iMF.SU- RINA ALP — A MOUNTAIN TARN— THE TRE CROCI PASS . -153 CHAPTER Vn. CAPRI LE. 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 CIVF.TTA 177 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. AT CAPRILE. PAGE 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. 203 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 . . • 23I 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 . . . . . .255 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. THE FASSA THAL AND THE FEDAJA PASS. PAGE 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 AVISIO— THE FEDAJA ALP AND THE FEDAJA LAKE — THE GORGE OF SOTTOGUDA AGAIN— HOME TO CAPRILE 287 CHAPTER Xn. 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 PEZZ^ 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 XHI. FORNO DI ZOLDO AND ZOPPE. ON THE ROAD AGAIN — NEAR VIEW OF THE CIVETTA — ADVENTURE WITH A SNAKE — MONTE FERNAZZA — MONTE COLDAI — THE M.\RMOL.\TA 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 PALLAI'AVERA- IN THE SHADE OF THE PELMO — PESCUL — SELVA AND THE ABORIGINES— CAPRILE AGAIN . . . .329 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIV. CAPRILE TO BOTZEN. PAGE 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— FAREWELL 359 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. MAP. PACE 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/ace 349 THE ROSENGARTEN, FROM BOTZEN ,, 359 WOOD ENGRAVINGS IN THE TEXT. PEASANT WOMAN OF LIVINALLUNGO yi^-tu-tte. LAKE OF SANTA CROCE 53 THE PIC GALLINA 62 CASILL I.AVAZZO 64 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE HIGH STREET, CORTINA 1}, UNKNOWN MOUNTAINS NEAR CORTINA 89 THE DREI ZINNEN 1 26 NEAR CORTINA I29 VALLEY OF AURONZO 159 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 .. 4 .... 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. UNTRODDEN PEAKS AND UNFREQUENTED 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 Itahan summer, with its wealth of fruits and flowers, its intolerable heat, and its blinding brightness. The barbarian tide had long ago set northwards and overflowed into Switzerland. Even those who had lingered longest were fain at last to turn their faces towards the hills ; and so it happened that the writer and a friend who had joined her of late in Naples, found themselves, about the middle of June, 1872, breathing the cooler airs of Monte Generoso. Here was a pleasant hotel, filled to overflowing, and numbering among its guests many Roman friends of the past season. Here, too, were green slopes, and shady woods, and meadows splendid with such wild flowers as none of us had ever seen elsewhere. The steaming lakes, 28 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 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 MONTE GE NERO SO TO VENICE. 29 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 sfreat 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 30 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENJED VALLEYS. 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 travel- ling, 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 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, MONTE GE NERO SO TO VENICE. 31 and the last cumuli were yet rolling off in a long billowy rack upon the verge of land and sk}-. 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 early 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 fa9ade, the strange beasts of unknown date that support the holy-water basins near the entrance, and the delicate 32 UNTRODDEN PEAKS or' UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 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 plres de famille in straw hats ; black-eyed young women in gay shawls and fawn-coloured kid boots ; and a sprinkling of priests. It had probably been market-day in Como ; for the fore-deck was crowded with chattering country folk, chiefly bronzed women in wooden clogs, some few of whom wore in their plaited hair that fan-shaped head-dress of silver pins, which, though chiefly characteristic of the Canton Tessin, just over the neighbouring Swiss border, is yet worn all about the neighbourhood of the lakes. So the boat steamed out of the little port and along the glassy lake, landing many passengers at every stage ; and the fat matrons drank iced Chiavenna beer ; and the priests talked together in a little knot, and made merry among themselves. There were three of them^ — one rubicund, jovial, and somewhat threadbare ; another very bent, and toothless, and humble, and desperately shabby ; while the third, in shining broadcloth and a black satin waistcoat, carried himself like a gentleman and a man of the world, was liberal with the contents of MONTE CENEROSO TO VENICE. 33 his silver snuff-box, and had only to open his lips to evoke obsequious laughter. We landed the two first at small water-side hamlets by the way, and the last went ashore at Cadenabbia, in a smart boat with two rowers. Wooded hills, vineyards, villages, terraced gardens, gleaming villas bowered in orange groves, glided past meanwhile — a swift and beautiful panorama. The little voyage was soon over, and the sun was still high when we reached Bellaggio ; a haven of delicious rest, if only for a few hours. Next morning, however, by a quarter past seven, we were again on board and making, too slowly, for Lecco, where we arrived just in time to hear the parting whistle of the g.25 train. Now, as there were only two departures a day from this place and the next train would not start for seven hours, arriving in Venice close upon eleven at night, our case looked serious. We drove, however, to an hotel, apparently the best ; and here the landlady, a bright energetic body, proposed that we should take a carriage across the country to Bergamo, and there catch up the 1 1. 13 express from Milan. Here was the carriage standing ready in the courtyard ; here were the horses ready in the stables ; here was her nephew ready to drive us — the lightest carriage, the best horses, the steadiest whip in Lecco ! Never was there so brisk a little landlady. She al- lowed us no time for deliberation ; she helped to put the horses in with her own hands ; and she packed us off as eagerly as if the prosperity of her hotel depended on getting rid of her customers as quickly as possible. So away we went, counting the kilometres against time all 34 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. the way, and triumphantly ratthng up to Bergamo sta- tion just twenty minutes before the express was due. Then came that well-known route, so full of beauty, so rich in old romance, that the mere names of the stations along the line make Bradshaw read like a page of poetry — Brescia, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Venice. For the traveller who has gone over all this ground at his leisure and is familiar with each place of interest as it flits by, I know no greater enjoyment than to pass them thus in rapid review, taking the journey straight through from Milan to Venice on a brilliant summer's day. What a series of impressions ! What a chain of memories ! What a long bright vision of ancient cities with forked battlements ; white convents perched on cypress-planted hills ; clustered villages, each with its slender campanile ; rock-built citadels, and crumbling mediaeval towns ; bright rivers, and olive woods, and vineyards without end ; and beyond all these a back- ground of blue mountains ever varying in outline, ever changing in hue, as the clouds sail over them and the train flies on ! By five o'clock we were in Venice. I had not thought, when I turned southwards last autumn, that I should find myself threading its familiar water-ways so soon again. I could hardly believe that here was the Grand Canal, and yonder the Rialto, and that those white domes now coming into sight were the domes of Santa Maria della Salute. It all seemed like a dream. And yet, somehow, it was less like a dream than a changed reality. It was Venice ; but not quite the old Venice. It was a gayer, fuller, noisier Venice ; a MONTE GENEROSO TO VENICE. 35 Venice empty of English and American tourists ; full to overflowing of Italians in every variety of summer finery ; crowded with artists of all nations sketching in boats, or surrounded by gaping crowds in shady corners and porticos ; a Venice whose flashing waters were now cloven by thousands of light skiffs with smart striped awnings of many colours, but whence the hearse-like, tufted gondola, so full of mystery and poetry, had altogether vanished ; a Venice whose every side-canal swarmed with little boys learning to dive, and with swimmers of all ages ; where dozens of cheap steamers (compared with which the Hungerford penny boats would seem like floating palaces) were hurrying to and fro every quarter of an hour between the Riva dei Schiavone and the bathing-places on the Lido ; a Venice in which every other house in every piazza had suddenly become a cafe ; in which brass bands were playing, and caramels were being hawked, and iced drinks were continually being consumed from seven in the morning till any number of hours after midnight ; a Venice, in short, which was sunning itself in the brief gaiety and prosperity of the bathing season, when all Italy north of the Tiber, and a large percentage of strangers from Vienna, St. Petersburg, and the shores of the Baltic, throng thither to breathe the soft sea- breezes off the Adriatic. We stayed three days at Danieli's, including Sunday ; and, mindful that we were this time bound for a district where roads were few, villages far between, and inns scantily provided with the commonest necessaries, we took care to lay in good store of portable provision for 36 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. the journey. Our Saturday and Monday were therefore spent chiefly in the mazes of the Merceria. Here we bought two convenient wicker-baskets, and wherewithal to stock them — tea, sugar, Reading biscuits in tins, chocolate in tablets, Liebig's Ramornie extract, two bottles of Cognac, four of Marsala, pepper, salt, arrow- root, a large metal flask of spirits of wine, and an Etna. Thus armed, we could at all events rely in case of need upon our own resources ; and of milk, eggs, and bread we thought we might make certain everywhere. Time proved, however, that in the indulgence of even this modest hope we over-estimated the fatness of the land ; for it repeatedly happened that (the cows being gone to the upper pastures) we could get no milk ; and on one memorable occasion, in a hamlet containing at least three or four hundred souls, we could get no bread. There was yet another point upon which we were severely "exercised," and that was the question of side- saddles. Mr. R., on Monte Generoso, had advised us to purchase them and take them with us, doubting whether we should find any between Cortina and Botzen. Another friend, however, had positively assured us of the existence of one at Caprile ; and where there was one, we hoped there might be two more. Anyhow, we were unwilling to add the bulk and burden of three side- saddles to our luggage ; so we decided to go on, and take our chance. I suspect, however, that we had no alternative, and that one might as well look for skates in Calcutta as for saddlery in Venice. As the event proved, we did ultimately succeed in capturing two side- saddles (the only two in the whole district), and ia MONTE GENEROSO TO VENICE. 37 forcibly keeping them throughout the journey; but this was a triumph of audacity, never to be repeated. Another time, we should undoubtedly provide ourselves with side-saddles either at Padua or Vicenza on the one side, or at Botzen on the other. By Monday evening the ist of July, our preparations were completed ; our provision baskets packed ; our stores of sketching and writing materials duly laid in ; and all was at length in readiness for an early start next morning. VENICE TO LONGARONE. TOO LATE FOR THE TRAIN — VENICE TO CONEGLIANO — 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 DOLOMITES— A PLAGUE OF FLIES — SKETCHING UNDER DIFFICULTIES— CAPO DI PONTE — THE ANCIENT BASIN OF THE PIAVE — VALLEY OF THE PIAVE — LONGARONE — AN INN FOR A GHOST STORY. CHAPTER 11. VENICE TO LONGARONE. Having risen at grey dawn, breakfasted at a little after 5 a.m., and pulled down to the station before half the world of Venice was awake, it was certainly trying to find that we had missed our train by about five minutes, and must wait four hours for the next. Nor was it much consolation, though perhaps some little relief, to upbraid the courier who had slept too late, and so caused our misfortune. Sulky and silent, he piled our bags in a corner and kept gloomily aloof; while we, cold, dreary, and discontented, sat shivering in a ■draughty passage close against the ticket office, count- ing the weary hours and excluded even from the wait- ing-rooms, which were locked up " per ordine supe- riore " till half an hour before the time at which we now could proceed upon our journey. The time, how- ever, dragged by somehow, and when at ten o'clock we at last found ourselves moving slowly out of the station, it seemed already like the middle of the day. And now again we traversed the great bridge and the long, still, glassy space of calm lagune, and left the lessening domes of Venice far behind. And now, Mestre c 42 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. station being passed and the firm earth reached again, we entered on a vast flat all green with blossoming Indian corn, and intersected by a network of broad dykes populous with frogs. Heavens ! how they croaked ! Driving out from Ravenna to Dante's famous pine-forest the other day, we had been almost deafened by them ; but the shrill chorus of those Ravenna frogs was as soft music compared with the unbridled revelry of their Venetian brethren. These drowned the very noise of the train, and reduced us to dumb show till we were out of their neighbourhood. So we sped on, the grey-blue mountains that we had been looking at so longingly from Venice these last three days growing gradually nearer and more definite. Soon we begin to distinguish a foreground of lower hill- tops, some dark with woods, others cultivated from base to brow and dotted over with white villages. Then by- and-by comes a point, midway as it were between Venetia and Tyrol, whence we see the last tapering Venetian campanile outlined against the horizon on the one hand, and the first bulbous Tyrolean steeple, shaped like the morion of a mediaeval man-at-arms, peeping above the roof of a little hill-side hamlet on the other. The dykes and frogs are now left far behind ; the line is bordered on both sides by feathery acacia hedges ; and above the lower ranges of frontier mountains, certain strange jagged peaks, which, however, are not Dolomite, begin to disengage themselves from the cloudy back- ground of the northern sky. No, they cannot be Dolo- mite, though they look so like it ; for we have been told VENICE TO LONGARONE. 43 that we shall see no true Dolomite before to-morrow. It is possible, however, as we know, to see the Antelao from Venice on such a clear day as befalls about a dozen times in the course of a summer ; but here, even if the sky were cloudless, we are too close under the lower spurs of the outlying hills to command a view of greater heights beyond. Treviso comes next — apparently a considerable place. Here, according to Murray, is a fine Annunciation of Titian to be seen in the Duomo, but we, alas ! have no time to stay for it. Here also, as our fellow-traveller, the priest in the corner, says unctuously, opening his lips for the first and last time during the journey," they make good wine." (" Qui si fa buon vino.") At Treviso we drop a few third-class travellers, and (being now just eighteen miles from Venice, and exactly half-way to Conegliano) go on again through a fat, flat country, past endless fields of maize and flax ; past trailing vines reared, as in the Tyrol, on low slanting trellises close against the ground ; past rich midsummer meadows where sunburnt peasants wade knee-deep in wild-flowers, and their flocks of turkeys are guessed at rather than seen ; past villages, and small stations, and rambling farmhouses, and on towards the hills that are our goal. By-and-by, some four or five miles before Conegliano, the fertile plain is scarred by a broad tract of stones and sand, in the midst of which the Piave, grey, shallow, and turbid, hurries towards the sea. Of this river we are destined to see and know more here- after, among its native Dolomites. And now we are at Conegliano, the last point to c 2 44 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. which the raihvay can take us,''' and which, in conse- quence of our four hours' delay this morning, we have now no time to see. And this is disappointing ; for Coneghano must undoubtedly be worth a visit. We know of old Palazzos decorated with fast-fading frescoes by Pordenone ; of a theatre built by Segusini ; of an altar-piece in the Duomo by Cima of Conegliano, an exquisite early painter of this place, w^hose works are best represented in the Brera of Milan, and whose clear, dry, polished style holds somewhat of an inter- mediate place between that of Giovanni Bellini and Luca Signorelli. But if we would reach Longarone — our first stopping place — to-night, we must go on ; so all w^e carry away is the passing remembrance of a neat little station ; a bright, modern-looking town about half a mile distant ; a sprinkling of white villas dotted over the neighbouring hill-sides ; and a fine old castle glowering down from a warlike height beyond. And now the guard's whistle shrills in our ears for the last time for many weeks, and the train, bound for Trieste, puffs out of the station, disappears round a curve, and leaves us on the platform with our pile of baes at our feet and all our adventures before us. We look in each other's faces. We feel for the moment as * There is now a branch line from Conegliano to Vittorio (see p. 47), which considerably shortens the journey by road for those who desire to go by way of the Lago di S. Croce. There is, however, a yet quicker route from Venice by the new line from Treviso to Belluno, which makes it possible for the traveller to reach Cortina in one long day. From Belluno, a diligence runs twice a day to Longarone, whence a carriage can be taken to Cortina. {Note to Second Edition.) VENICE TO LONGARONE. 45 Martin Chuzzlewit may have felt when the steamer landed him at Eden, and there left him. Nothing, in truth, can be more indefinite than our prospects, more vague than our plans. We have Mayr's maps. Ball's Guide to the Eastern Alps, Gilbert and Churchill's book, and all sorts of means and appliances ; but we have not the slightest idea of where we are going, or of what we shall do when we get there. There is, however, no time now for misgivings, and in a few minutes we are again under way. Some three or four dirty post-omnibuses and bilious-looking yellow diligences are waiting outside, bound for Belluno and Longarone ; also one tolerable carriage with a pair of stout grey horses, which, after some bargaining, is engaged at the cost of a hundred lire.* For this sum the driver is to take us to-day to Longarone, and to- moiTOW to Cortina in the Ampezzo Valley — a distance, altogether, of something like seventy English miles. So the bags are stowed away, some inside, some out- side ; and presently, without entering the town at all, we drive through a dusty suburb and out again upon the open plain. A straighter road across a flatter country it would be difficult to conceive. Bordered on each side by a row of thin poplars, and by interminable fields of Indian corn, it goes on for miles and miles, diminishing to a point in the far distance, like the well-known diagram of an avenue in perspective. And it is the peculiar attribute of this point to recede steadily in advance of us, so that we are always going on, as in a dreadful * About four pounds English. 46 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. dream, and never getting any nearer. As for incidents by the way, there are none. We pass one of the lumbering yellow diligences that were standing erewhile at Conegliano station ; we see a few brown women hoeing in the Indian corn ; and then for miles we neither pass a house nor meet a human being. It appears to me that hours must have gone by thus when I suddenly wake up, baked by the sun and choked by the dust, to find the whole party asleep, driver included, and the long distant hills now rising close before us. Seeing a little town not a quarter of a mile ahead — a little town bright in sunshine against a back- ground of dark woods, with a ruined castle on a height near by, I know at once that this must be Ceneda — the Ceneda that Titian loved — and that yonder woods and hills and ruined castle are the same he took for the landscape background to his St. Peter Martyr. ' Here he is said to have owned property in land ; and at Manza, four miles off, he built himself a summer villa. Now, moved by some mysterious instinct, the driver wakes up just in time to crack his whip, put his horses into a gallop, and clatter, as foreign vetturini love to clatter, through the one street which is the town. But in vain ; for Ceneda — silent, solitary, basking in the sun, with every shutter closed and only a lean dog or two loitering aimlessly about the open space in front of the church — is apparently as sound asleep as an enchanted town in a fairy tale. Not a curtain is put aside, not a face peers out upon us as we rattle past. The very magpie in his wicker cage outside the barber's shop is dozing on his perch, VENICE TO LONGARONE. 47 and scarcely opens an eye, though we make noise enough to rouse the Seven Sleepers. Once past the houses, we fall back, of course, into the old pace, the gracious hills drawing nearer and unfolding fresh details at every step. And now, at last, green slopes and purple crags close round our path ; the road begins to rise ; a steep and narrow gorge, apparently a mere cleft in the mountains like the gorge of Pfeffers, opens suddenly before us ; and from the midst of a nest of vines, mulberry trees and chestnuts, the brown roofs and campaniles of Serravalle lift themselves into sight. Serravalle, though it figures on the map in smaller type than Ceneda, which is, or was, an Episcopal residence, is yet a much more considerable place, covering several acres, and straggling up into the mouth of the gorge through which the Meschio comes hurrying to the plain. Strictly speaking, perhaps, there is now no Ceneda and no Serravalle, the two townships having been united of late by the Italian Government under the name of Vittorio ; but they lie a full mile apart, and no one seems as yet to take kindly to the new order of things. Again our driver cracks his whip and urges his horses to a canter ; and so, with due magnificence, we clatter into the town — a quaint, picturesque, crumbling, world-forgotten place, with old stone houses abutting on the torrent ; and a Duomo that looks as if it had been left unfinished three hundred years ago ; and gloomy arcades vaulting the foot- ways on each side of the principal street, as in 48 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. Strasburg and Berne. Dashing across the bridge and into the Visizza., we pull up before one of the two inns which there compete for possession of the infrequent traveller ; for Serravalle boasts not only a Piazza and a Duomo, but two alberghi, two shabby little cafes, a Regia Posta, and even a lottery office with " Qui si giuoca per Venezia " painted in red letters across the window. Here, too, the inhabitants are awake and stirring. They play at dominos in their shirt-sleeves outside the cafes. They play at " morra " in the shade of doorways and arcades. They fill water-jars, wash lettuces, and gossip at the fountain. They even patronise the drama, as may be seen by the erection of a temporary puppet-theatre ('* patronised by His Majesty the King of Italy and all the Sovereigns of Europe ") on a slope of waste ground close against the church. Nor is wanting the usual score or two of idle men and boys who immediately start up from nowhere in particular, and swarm, open-mouthed, about the carriage, staring at its occupants as if they were members of a travelling menagerie. But Serravalle has something better than puppets and an idle population to show. The Duomo contains a large painting of the Madonna and Child in glory, by Titian, executed to order some time between the years 1542 and 1547 — a grand picture belonging to what may perhaps be called the second order of the master's greatest period, and of which it has lately been said by an eminent traveller and critic that "it would alone VENICE TO LONGARONE. 49 repay a visit to Serravalle, even from Venice." With respect to the treatment of this fine work, Mr. Gilbert, whose admirable book on Titian and Cadore leaves nothing for any subsequent writer to add on these subjects, says : — " It is one of the grandest specimens of the master, and in very fair preservation. It repre- sents the Virgin and Child in glory surrounded by angels, who fade into the golden haze above. Heavy- volumed clouds support and separate from earth this celestial vision ; and below, standing on each side, are the colossal and majestic figures of St. Andrew and St. Peter ; the former supporting a massive cross, the latter holding aloft, as if challenging denial of his faithfulness, the awful keys. Between these two noble figures, under a low horizon line, is a dark lake amidst darker hills, where a distant sail recalls the fisherman and his craft. Composition, drawing, colour, are all dignified and worthy of the master." Cadore^ p. 43. And now, time pressing, the day advancing, and three-fourths of the drive yet lying before us, we must push on, or Longarone will not be reached ere night- fall. So, having been sufficiently stared at — not only by the population generally, but by the landlord and landlady and everybody connected with the inn, as well as by the domino players, who leave their games to take part in the entertainment — we clatter off again and make straight for the rocky mouth of the gorge, now closing in upon, and apparently swallowing up, the long line of old stone houses creeping into the defile. Some of these, shattered and decaying as they are, show traces of Venetian-Gothic in pointed ogive so UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. window and delicate twisted column. They belonged, no doubt, to wealthy owners in the days when Titian used to ride over from Manza to visit his married daughter who lived at Serravalle. Where the houses end, the precipices so close in that there is but just space for the road and the torrent. Then the gorge gradually widens through wooded slopes and hanging chestnut groves ; farmhouses and chalets perched high on grassy plateaux begin to look more Swiss than Italian ; mountains and forests all round shut in the view ; and about two miles from Serravalle, the Meschio expands into a tiny, green, transparent lake, tranquil as a cloudless evening sky, and fringed by a broad border of young flax. A single skiff, reflected upside down as in a mirror, floats idly in the middle of the lake. The fisherman in it seems to be asleep. Not a ripple, not a breath, disturbs the placid picture in the water. Every hill and tree is there, reversed ; and every reed is doubled. This delicious pool, generally omitted in the maps, is the Lago di Serravalle. Woods slope down to the brink on one side, and the road, skirting the debris of an old landslip, winds round the other. Two tiny white houses with green jalousies and open Italian balconies at the head of the lake, a toy church on a grassy knoll, and a square mediaeval watchtower clinging to a ridge of rock above, make up the details of a picture so serene and perfect that even Turner at his sunniest period could scarcely have idealized it. The gorge now goes on widening and becomes a valley, once the scene of a bergfall so gigantic that it is VENICE TO LONGARONE. 51 supposed to have turned the course of the Piave (flowing out till then by Serravalle) and to have sent it thenceforward and for ever through the Val di Mel. This catastrophe happened ages ago — most probably in pre-historic times ; yet the great barrier, six hundred feet in height from this side, looks as if it might be less than a centurv old. Few shrubs have taken root in these vast hillocks of slaty debris, among and over which the road rises continually. Few mosses have gathered in the crannies of these monster blocks, which lie piled like fallen towers by the wayside. All is bare, ghastly, desolate. As we mount higher, the outlying trees of a great beech-forest on the verge of a lofty plateau to the right, are pointed out by the driver as the famous Bosco del Consiglio — a name that dates back to old Venetian rule, when these woods furnished timber to the state. Hence came the wood of which the *' Bucentaur " was built ; and — who knows ? — perhaps the merchant ships of Antonio, and the war-galley in which " blind old Dandolo " put forth against the Turk. Presently, being now about four miles from Serravalle, and the top of the great bergfall not yet reached, we come upon another little green, clear lake, about the size of the last — the Lago Morto. It lies down in a hollow below the road, close under a huge, sheer precipice blinding white in the sunshine, whence half the mountain side looks as if it had been sliced away at a blow. If it were not that the debris could hardly be piled up where and how it is, leaving that hollow in which the lake lies sleeping, one would 52 UNTRODDEN PEAKS S- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. suppose this to be the spot whence the rock-sHp came that time it barred out the Piave from the gorge of Serravalle. According to the local legend, no boat can live upon those tranquil waters, and no bather who plunges into them may ever swim back to shore. Both are, in some terrible way, drawn down and engulphed " deeper than did ever plummet sound." It is said, however, that the last Austrian Governor of Lombardo-Venetia, being anxious to put an end to this superstition, brought up a boat from the Santa Croce side, and, in the presence of a breathless crowd from all the neighbouring villages, himself rowed the pretty wife of the Fadalto postmaster across the lake, and landed her triumphantly upon the opposite shore. Your Tyrolean peasant, however, is not easily disabused of ancient errors, and the Lago Morto, I am told, notwithstanding that public rehabi- litation, enjoys its evil reputation to this day. At length, having the Bosco del Consiglio always to the right, and the Col Vicentino with its scattered snow drifts towering to the left, we gain the summit of the ridge and see the lake of Santa Croce, looking won- derfully like the lake of Albano, lying close beneath our feet. Great mountains, all grey and purple crags above, all green corn-fields and wooded slopes below, enclose it in a nest of verdure. The village and church of Santa Croce, perched on a little grassy bluff, almost overhang the water. Other villages and campaniles sparkle far off on shore and hillside ; while yonder, through a gap in the mountains at the farther end of the lake, we are startled by a strange apparition of VENICE TO LONGARONE. 53 pale fantastic peaks lifted high against the northern horizon. " Ecco ! " says the driver, pointing towards them with his whip, and half turning round to watch the effect of his words, " Ecco i nostri Dolomiti ! " LAKE OF SANTA CROCE. The announcement is so unexpected, thcit for the first moment it almost takes one's breath away. Having been positively told that no Dolomites would come into sight before the second day's journey, we have neither been looking for them nor expecting them — and yet there they are, so unfamiliar, and yet so unmistakeable ! One feels immediately that they are unlike all other mountains, and yet that they are exactly what one expected them to be. 54 UNTRODDEN PEAKS 5- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. *' Che Dolomiti sono ? Come si chiamano ? " (What Dolomites are they ? What are their names ?) are the eager questions that follow. But the bare geological fact is all our driver has to tell. They are Dolomites — Dolomites on the Italian side of the frontier. He knows no more ; so we can only turn to our maps, and guess, by comparison of dis- tances and positions, that those clustered aiguilles belong most probably to the range of Monte Sfornioi. At Santa Croce we halt for half an hour before the door of an extremely dirty little albergo, across the front of which is painted in conspicuous letters, " Qui si vende buon vino a chi vuole." Leaving the driver and courier to test the truth of this legend, we order coffee and drink it in the open air. The horses are taken out and fed. The writer, grie- vously tormented by a plague of flies, makes a sketch under circumstances of untold difficulty, being presently surrounded by the whole population of the place, among whom are some three or four handsome young women with gay red and yellow handkerchiefs bound round their heads like turbans. These damsels are by no means shy. They crowd ; they push ; they chatter ; they giggle. One invites me to take her portrait. Another wishes to know if I am married. A third discovers that I am like a certain Maria Rosa whom they all seem to know ; whereupon every feature of my face is discussed separately, and for the most part to my disparagement. At this trying juncture, L., in a moment of happy inspiration, offers to show them the chromo-lithographs VENICE TO LONGARONE. 55 in Gilbert and Churchill's book, and so creates a diversion in my favour. Meanwhile the flies settle upon me in clouds, walk over my sky, drown them- selves in the water bottles, and leave their legs in the brown madder ; despite all which impediments, however, I achieve my sketch, and by the time the horses are put to, am ready to go on again. The road now skirts the lake of Santa Croce, at the head of which extends an emerald-green flat wooded with light, feathery, yellowish poplars — evidently at one time part of the bed of the lake, from which the waters have long since retreated. From this point, we follow the line of the valley, passing the smart new village of Cadola ; and at Capo di Ponte, whence the valley of Serravalle and the Val di Mel diverge at right angles, come again upon the Piave, now winding in and out among stony hillocks, like the Rhone at Leuk, and milk-white from its glacier-source in the upper Dolo- mites. The old bridge at Capo di Ponte — the old bridge which dated from Venetian times — is now gone ; and with it the buttresses adorned with the lion of St. Mark mentioned by Ball and alluded to in Mr. Gilbert's " Cadore." Fragments of the ancient piers may yet be traced ; but a new and very slight-looking iron bridge now spans the stream some fifty yards higher up. At Capo di Ponte, the most unscientific observer cannot fail to see that the Piave must once upon a time (most probably when the great bergfall drove its waters back from Serravalle) have here formed another lake, the efreat natural basin of which vet remains, with the river flowing through it in a low secondary channel. 56 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. And now the road enters another straight and narrow valley — the valley of the Piave — closed in far ahead by a rugged Dolomite, all teeth and needle-points. By this time the long day is drawing to a close. Cows after milking are being driven back to pasture ; labourers are plodding homewards ; and a party of country girls with red handkerchiefs upon their heads, wading knee-deep through the wild-flowers of a wayside meadow, look like a procession of animated poppies. Then the sun goes down ; the sky and the mountains turn cold and grey ; and just before the dusk sets in, we arrive at Longarone. A large rambling village with a showy renaissance church and a few shabby shops — a big desolate inn with stone staircases and stone floors — a sullen landlord — a frightened, bare-footed chambermaid who looks as if she had just been caught wild in the mountains — bedrooms like barns, floors without carpets, windows without curtains — such are our first comfortless impressions of Longarone. Nor are these impressions in any wise modified by more intimate acquaintance. We dine in a desert of sitting-room at an oasis of table, lighted by a single tallow candle. The food is indifferent and in- differently cooked. The wine is the worst we have had in Italy. Meanwhile, a stern and ominous look of satisfaction settles on the countenance of the great man whom we have so ruthlessly torn from the sphere which he habitually adorns. " I told you so " is written in VENICE TO LONGARONE. 57 every line of his face, and in the very bristle of his moustache. At last, being dismissed for the night and told at what hour to have the carriage round in the morning, he can keep silence no longer. " We shall not meet with many inns so good as this, where we are going," he says, grimly triumphant. '' Good night, ladies ! "—and with this parting shot, retires. My bedroom that night measures about thirty-five feet in length by twenty-five in breadth, and is enlivened by five windows and four doors. The mndows look out variously upon street, courtyard, and stables. The doors lead to endless suites ol empty, shut-up rooms, and all sorts of intricate passages. 'Tis as ghostly, echoing, suicidal a place to sleep in as ever I saw in my life ! LONGARONE TO CORTINA. THE PIC GALLINA — A COMMUNICATIVE PRIEST — THE TIMBER TRADE— THE SMALLEST CHURCH IN ITALY— CASTEL LAVAZZO — PERAROLO — A VISION OF THE ANTELAO — THE ZIGZAG Of MONTE ZUCCO — TAl 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 TYRO- LEAN HOSTELRY — PREPARATIONS FOR THE SAGRO. D 2 CHAPTER III. LONGARONE TO CORTINA. LoNGARONE, Seen at six o'clock on a grey, dull morn- ing, looked no more attractive than at dusk the evening before. There had been thunder and heavy rain in the night, and now the road and footways were full of muddy pools. The writer, however, was up betimes, wandering alone through the wet streets ; peeping into the tawdry churches ; spelling over the framed and glazed announcements of births, deaths, and marriages at the Prefettura ; sketching the Pic Gallina, a solitary conspicuous peak over against the mouth of the Val Vajont, on the opposite bank of the Piave ; and seeking such scattered crumbs of information as might fall in her way. To sketch, even so early as six a.m., without becom- ing the nucleus of a crowd, is, of course, impossible ; and the crowd this time consisted of school children of all ages, quite as '* untameable," and almost as numer- ous, as the flies of Santa Croce. Presently, however, came by a mild, plump priest in a rusty soutane, who chased the truants off to the parish school-house, and himself lingered for a little secular chat by the way. 62 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. He had not much to tell ; yet he told the little that he knew pleasantly and readily. The parish, he said, numbered about three thousand souls — a pious, indus- trious folk mainly supported by the timber trade, which PIC GALLINA. is the staple of these parts. This timber, being cut, sold, and branded in the Ampezzo Thai, is floated down the Boita to its point of confluence with the Piave at Perarolo, and thence, carried by the double current, comes along the valley of the Piave and the LONGARONE TO CORTINA. 63 Val di Mel, to be claimed by its several purchasers along the banks, and caught as it passes by. Thus it is that every village by the way is skirted by saw-mills and timber-yards, and that almost every man is a car- penter. He then went on to tell me that my peak was called the Pic Gallina, or Hen's beak ; that there existed a practicable short cut for pedestrians by way of the Val Vajont to Udine and the Trieste railway; that the " gran' Tiziano " was born on the banks of the Piave higher up, at Pieve di Cadore ; that the Dolo- mites were the highest mountains in the world (which I am afraid I pretended to believe) ; that the large church in the Piazza was the church of the Concezione ; that the little church at the back, dedicated to San Liberale, was the smallest church in Italy (which no doubt was true, seeing that you might put it inside St. Lawrence, Undercliff, and yet leave a passage to walk round) ; and finally, that Castel Lavazzo, seen from a point about a quarter of a mile farther on, was the most picturesque view in the valley, and the best worth sketching. Having delivered himself of which information, apo- cryphal and otherwise, he lifted his shovel-hat with quite the air of a man of the world, and bade me good morning. Of course I went at once in search of the view of Castel Lavazzo, and finding it really characteristic of the Val di Piave, succeeded in sketching it before it was time to return to breakfast. By nine, we were on the road again, following the narrow gorge which was soon to lead us into the real world of Dolomite. The morning was now alternately 64 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. blight and showery, and the dark, jagged peaks that closed in the distance were of just that rich, deep, in- credible ultra-marine blue that Titian loved and painted so often in his landscape backgrounds. ■ -W'/i-*^^ CASTEL LAVAZZO. At Termine, a little timber-working hamlet noisy with saw-mills, about a mile beyond Castel Lavazzo, the defile narrows so suddenly that one gigantic grey and golden crag seems to block the end of the village street. The women here are handsome, and wear folded cloths upon their heads as in the hills near Rome ; and the men wear wooden clogs, as at Lugano. A slender LONG A RONE TO CORTINA. 65 waterfall wavers down the face of a cliff on the opposite side of the river. Primitive breakwaters, like huge baskets of rude wicker-work filled with stones, here stem the force of the torrent brawling through its narrow bed ; and some of these have held their place so long that young trees have had time to take root and flourish in them. Next comes Ospitale, another little brown- roofed hamlet perched on a green rise like Castel Lavazzo, with the usual cluster of saw-mills and saw- pits down by the water's edge ; and now, entering the commune of Perarolo in a smart shower, we rattle through a succession of tiny villages built in the Swiss way, with wooden balconies, outer staircases, and deep projecting eaves. In most of these places, it being now between ten and eleven o'clock a.m., the good people are sitting in their doorways dining primitively out of wooden bowls. So we go on ; and so the Piave, greenish grey in colour, interrupted by a thousand rapids, noisy, eager, headlong, comes ever rushing towards us, and past us, and away to the sea. So, too, the brown and golden pine-trunks come whirling down with the stream. It is curious to watch them in their course. Some come singly, some in crowds. Some blunder along sideways in a stupid, buffeted, bewildered way. Some plunge madly up and down. Some run races. Some get tired, rest awhile under shelter of the bank, and then, with a rouse and a shake, dash back again into the throng. Others creep into little stony shallows, and there go to sleep for days and weeks together ; while others, again, push straight ahead, nose first, as if they knew what 66 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. they were about, and were bent on getting to their journey's end as quickly as possible. Nearing Perarolo, glimpses of the peaks, aiguilles and snow-fields of Monte Cridola (8,474 feet), the highest point of the Premaggiore range, are now and then seen to the right, through openings in the lower mountains. Monte Zucco abruptly blocks the end of the gorge. Country carts upon the road, women working in the fields, a party of children scrambling and shouting among the bushes by the wayside, now indicate that we are not far from a more thickly inhabited place than any of the preceding villages. Then the road takes a sudden turn, and Perarolo, with its handsome new church, new stone bridge, public fountain, extensive wood-yards, and general air of solid prosperity, comes into view. Yet a few yards farther, and a second bridge is crossed— a new valley rich in wood and water opens away to the left — and a wonderful majestic vision, draped in vapours and hooded in clouds, stands sud- denly before us ! The coachman, preparing his accustomed coitp de theatre, is not allowed to speak. We know at once in what Presence we are. We know at once that yonder vague and shadowy mass which soars beyond our sight and seems to gather up the slopes of the valley as a robe, can be none other than the Antelao. A grand, but a momentary sight ! The coachman with a jealous glance at the open maps and guide- books that have forestalled his information, whips on LONGARONE TO CORTINA. 67 his horses, and in another moment valley and mountain are lost in the turn of the road, and we are fast climbing the hill leading to the great zigzag of Monte Zucco. Still we have seen, however imperfectly, the loftiest of all the giants of Cadore ; we have seen the mouth of the famous Ampezzo Thai, and we begin to feel that it is not all a dream, but that we are among the Dolomites at last. And now, for a weary while, partly on foot and partly in the carriage, we toil on and on, up the new road constructed of late years by the Emperor Ferdinand. The Piave, here quite choked by a huge, stationary mass of pine-trunks, winds unheard some hundreds of feet below. Perarolo, the great centre of all this timber trade, dwindles to a toy hamlet in the valley. New peaks rise on the horizon. New valleys glitter in the distance. Still the road climbs — winds among vast slopes of pine-forest — makes the entire circuit of Monte Zucco, and finally, with one long, last pull, reaches the level of the upper plateau. Here, at Tai Cadore, a tiny village backed by culti- vated slopes, we are to take our midday rest. Here, too, we catch our first glimpse of Titian's birthplace, Pieve di Cadore, a small white hamlet nestled in a fold of the hills close under a ruined castle on a wooded knoll, about a mile away. Now Pieve di Cadore was down in our route as a special excursion to be taken hereafter from Cortina in the Ampezzo valley ; but our impatience was great, and the sun was shining brilliantly, and our first thought was to employ these two hours' rest in walking there and back, and just 68 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. seeing (though it were only the outside of it) the house in which the great painter was born. It was first necessary, however, to take luncheon at Tai ; which we did, seated at a bare deal table in an upper room of the clean little inn, beside a window commanding a magnificent view of the Premaggiore range. Meanwhile the capricious sky clouded over again ; and by the time we should have been ready to start, the rain was coming down so heavily that Pieve di Cadore was unavoidably left to be seen later on. A little way beyond Tai Cadore begins one of the finest drives in Europe. The road enters the Ampezzo Thai at an elevation which can scarcely be less than 1,250 feet above the foaming Boita ; and a close, lofty, richly wooded valley, like a sublimer Val d'Anzasca, opens the way to more rugged scenery beyond. Vast precipices tower above ; scattered villages cling to the green slopes half way down ; and brilliant passages of light and shadow move rapidly over all. Now one peak is lighted up, and now another. Here a brown roof, wet from the last shower, glistens like silver in the sunshine ; there a grassy slope fringed with noble chestnuts glows in a green and golden light ; while on yonder opposite height, a dark fir-forest shows blue and purple in angry storm shadow. At Venas, the overhanging eaves, outer staircases, and balustraded balconies, are wholly Swiss ; while inscriptions such as " Qui si vende Vino d'Asti, Colo- niale, ed altri generi," remind us that, although close upon the Austrian frontier, we are not yet out of Italy. And now the valley widens. The Antelao, still LONGARONE TO CORTINA. 69 obscured by floating mists, again comes into sight — a near mass of clustered pinnacles ; then the Pelmo on the opposite side of the valley, uplifted in the likeness of a mighty throne canopied by clouds, and approached by a giant staircase, each step of which is a precipice laden with eternal snow and trodden only by the chamois hunter ; next, on the same side as the Pelmo but farther up the valley, appears the Rochetta — a chain of wild confused crags, like a line of broken battlements, piled high on huge buttresses of sward and pine-forest. Between the small wayside hamlets of Vodo and Borca, the road is cut through an enormous slope of stony debris, the scene of a bergfall which fell from the Antelao in 18 16, and overwhelmed two villages on the opposite bank of the Boita. More sudden, and almost more cruel than the lava from Vesuvius, it came down, as almost every bergfall comes down, at dead of night, crushing the sleepers in their beds and leaving not a moment for escape. Two great mounds of shattered limestone, each at least 100 feet in height, mark the site of the lost villages ; and, strange to tell, the torrent, instead of being dammed and driven back as at Serravalle, flows on its way unimpeded save by a few Titanic boulders. How so tremendous a fall could have crossed the stream in sufficient volume to bury every house, church and campanile on the other side, and yet have failed to fill up the bed of the intervening torrent, is infinitely mysterious. I inquired then and later whether the stream might not have been temporarily clicked, and yo UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. afterwards cleared by the labour of the other Ampezzan communities ; but though all whom I asked seemed to think such a task impossible of fulfilment at any time, none could answer me. " It happened, Signora, fifty-six years ago," was the invariable answer. " Chi lo sa ? " Was that so long a time ? It seemied strange that, after the lapse of little more than half a century, every detail of so terrible a catastrophe should be forgotten in a place where events were necessarily few. And now, following the great sweep of the road, we make at least one-third of the circuit of the Antelao, which becomes momentarily grander, and changes its aspect and outline with every turn. The snow on this side finds no resting place, save on a scant ledge here and there ; and the mountain consists apparently of innumerable jagged buttresses, huge slopes of shaley debris, and an infinitely varied chain of pallid peaks and pinnacles. Some of these are almost white ; some of a pale sulphurous yellow streaked with violet ; some splashed with a vivid, rusty red, indicating the presence of iron. One keen, splintered aiguille, sharp as a lance and curved as a shark's tooth, looked like a scimitar freshly dipped in blood. Now, at San Vito, the Antelao begins to be left be- hind, and the long ridge of the Croda Malcora, with its highest peak, Sorapis, standing boldly out against a background of storm-cloud, enters on the scene. A little farther yet, and the Austrian frontier is reached.'" * Chiapuzza is the last Italian hamlet, and Acquabuona is the first Austro- Tyrolean village. San Vito is also called Borea. {Note to Second Edition. LONGARONE TO CORTINA. 71 A striped pole, alternately black and yellow, like a leg of one of the Pope's guard, bestrides the road in front of a dilapidated little custom-house. Here some three or four ragged-looking Austrian soldiers are playing at bowls, while a couple of officers lounging on a bench outside the door, smoke their cigarettes and watch the game. One of these, very tall, very shabby, very dirty, with a glass screwed into his eye and a moustache about eighteen inches in length, saunters up to the carriage door. Being assured, however, that we carry nothing contraband, he lifts his cap with an indescri- bable air of fashionable languor, and bids the coach- man drive on. From this point, the invisible political line being passed, one observes an immediate change not only in the costumes, but in the build and features of the people. They are a taller, fairer, finer race. The men wear rude capes of undressed skins. The women (no longer bare-legged, no longer coiffces with red and yellow handkerchiefs) wear a kind of Bernese dress consisting of a black petticoat, a black cloth bodice like a tightly fitting waistcoat, white linen undersleeves reaching to the elbow, a large blue apron, and a round felt hat, like a man's. By this time the Pelmo is out of sight, the Rochetta is left behind, Sorapis is passed, and still new moun- tains rise against the horizon. To the left — a continua- tion, indeed, of the Rochetta — the Bee di Mezzodi and the ridge of Beccolungo stand out like a row of jagged teeth. On a line with these, but at least a mile farther up the valley, the huge bulk of the Tofana looms up in 72 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. sullen majesty, headed by a magnificent precipice, like a pyramid of red granite ; while to the right, Monte Cristallo, a stupendous chevaux de frise of grey and orange pinnacles, forms a grand background to the clustered roofs, lofty campanile, and green pasturages of Cortina. For at last we are in sight of the place which is to be our head-quarters for the next week, and the wonderful drive is nearly at an end. Already, within the compass of some fifteen English miles [i.e., from Tai to Cortina), we have seen six of the most famous Dolomites, three on the right bank and three on the left of the Boita. Four out of the six exceed 10,500 feet in height ; while the Antelao * is, I believe, dis- tanced by only two of its rivals, namely, the Marmolata and the Cimon della Pala. The new and amazing forms of these colossal mountains ; their strange colouring ; the mystery of their formation ; the singu- larity of their relative positions, each being so near its neighbour, yet in itself so distinct and isolated ; the curious fact that they are all so nearly of one height ; their very names, so unlike the names of all other mountains, high-sounding, majestic, like relics of a pre- historic tongue — all these sights and facts in sudden combination confuse the imagination, and leave one be- wildered at first by the variety and rapidity with which impression after impression has been charged upon the * The relative altitudes of the Ampezzo Dolomites, as nearly as has yet been ascertained, are as follows :— Antelao, 10,897 feet; Sorapis, 10,798 feet; Tofana, 10,724 feet; Cristallo, 10,644 feet; Pelmo, 10,377 feet; and La Rochetta, 7,793 feet. LONGARONE TO CORTINA. 11 memory. It was therefore almost with a sense of rehef that, weary with wonder and admiration, we found ourselves approaching the end of the day's journey. HIGH STREET, CORTINA. And now the road, which has been gradually descend- ing for many miles, enters Cortina at about a hundred feet above the level of the Boita. First comes a scattered house or two — then a glimpse of the old church, the cemetery, and the public shooting-ground, 74 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. in a hollow down near the river — then a long irregular street of detached homesteads, hostelries, and humble shops — the new campanile, the pride of the village, 250 feet in height — the post-house at the corner of a little piazza containing a public fountain — and finally, being the last house in the place, the Aquila Nera,* a big substantial albergo built in true Tyrolean fashion, like a colossal Noah's ark, with rows upon rows of square windows with bright green shutters, and a huge roof with jutting eaves that looks as if it ought to take off like a lid to let out the animals inside. This, then, is our destination, and here we arrive towards close of day, rattling through the village and dashing up to the door with our driver's usual flourish, just as if the greys, instead of having done thirty-five miles to-day and thirty-four yesterday, were quite fresh, and only now out of the stable. The Ghedinas, a father and two sons, come out, not with much alacrity, to bid us welcome. The writer, however, mentions a name of might — the name of Francis Fox Tuckett ; and behold ! it acts upon the sullen trio like a talisman. Their goodwill breaks forth in a ludicrous medley of Italian and German. How! the Signora is a friend of "II Tuckett" — ofthe "gran' brave Signore" whose achieve- ments are famed throughout all these valleys ? Gott in Himmel ! shall not the whole house be at her disposal ? * At the time when the First Edition of this bonk was issued, the Aquila Nera and the Stella d'Oro were the only hotels in Cortina ; these are now much enlarged, and at least two new ones — the Croce Bianca and the Ancora — have been opened. There is English Church service now at the Aquila Nera, and old Ghedina is dead. [^Noie to Second Edition^ LONGARONE TO CORTINA. 75 Ecco ! the Aquila Nera will justify the recommendation of **il brave Tuckett 1 " Hereupon we alight. The old landlord puts out an enormous brown paw ; we shake hands all round ; the Kellnerin is summoned ; the best rooms are assigned to us ; the cooks (and there seem to be plenty of them in the huge gloomy kitchen) are set to work to prepare supper ; a table is laid for us on the landing, which, as we find henceforth, is the place of honour in every inn throughout the Dolomite Tyrol ; and all that the Aquila Nera contains is laid under contribution for our benefit. It is a thorough Tyrolean hostelry, by no means scrupulously clean, yet better provided and more spacious than one would have expected to find even in this, the most important village of the district. The bedrooms are immense, though scantily furnished. A few small mats of wolf and chamois skins are laid about here and there ; but there is not such a thing as a carpet in the house. At the Dependance, however — a new building on the opposite side of the road, charmingly decorated with external frescoes by one of the younger Ghedinas, who is an artist in Venice — there are smaller rooms to be had, with good iron bedsteads and some few modern comforts. But we knew nothing of this till a day or two after, when we were glad to move into the more quiet house, though at the cost of having always to cross over for meals. In the way of food, a kind of rough plenty reigns. Luxuries, of course, are out of the question ; but of veal, sausage, eggs, cheese, and sauer-kraut there is abun- dance. Drovers, guides, peasant-farmers and travel- E 2 76 UNTRODDEN PEAKS <&- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. lers of all grades are eating, drinking, smoking, all day long in the public rooms, of which there are at least four in the lower floors of the big house. The kitchen chim- ney is smoking, the cooks are cooking, the taps are running " from morn till dewy eve." We, arriving at dewy eve, come in for an all-pervading atmosphere of tobacco and garlic — the accumulated incense of the day's sacrifices. With all this plenty, however, and all this custom, the wealthiest and most fastidious traveller must fare off the same meats and drinks as the poorest. The only foreign wine that Ghedina keeps in his cellar is a rough Piedmontese vintage called Vino Barbera, which costs about two francs the bottle. If you do not like that, you must drink beer ; or thin country wine, either red or white ; or an inexpressibly nauseous spirit distilled from the root of a small plant nearly resembling the ordinary Plantago major, or common English plantain. An infe- rior kind of Kirschwasser is, I believe, also to be had ; but as for brandy, I doubt if there is one drop to be found in the whole country between Belluno and Bruneck. For the rest, the inn is well enough, though one feels the want of a mistress in the establishment. Ghedina plre is a wealthy widower, and his three stalwart sons, all unmarried, live at home and attend, in a grim unwilling way, to the housekeeping and stabling. Their horses, by the way, are first-rate — far too good for rough country work; while in the adjoining outbuildings are to be found a capital landau, a light chaise, some three or four carettini, and a side saddle ! How this article, in itself neither rare nor beautiful, came pre- LONGARONE TO CORTINA. 77 sently to occupy the foremost place In our affections and desires ; how we fought for its possession against all comers ; how we begged it, borrowed it, and finally stole it, will be seen hereafter. Meanwhile, arriving late and tired, we were glad to accept the big rooms in the big house ; to put up with the atmosphere ; to sup on the landing ; to hear the downstairs revellers going away long after we were in bed ; and even to be waked by the wild cry of the village watchman at intervals all through the dark hours of the night. It was not, perhaps, quite so agreeable to be aroused next morning at earliest dawn by a legion of carpenters in the street below flinging down loads of heavy planks, driving in posts by the way- side, hammering, shouting, and making noise enough to wake not only the living but the dead. For this, however, as for every discomfort, there was compensa- tion at hand ; and our satisfaction was great on being told that the grand yearly Sagro, or church-festival, would be celebrated a few days hence, and that our noisy friends outside were already beginning to erect booths in preparation for the annual fair which is held at the same time. It is the most important fair in all this part of the Austrian and Italian Tyrol, and is attended by an average concourse of from twelve to fifteen hundred peasants from every hill and valley for nearly thirty miles round about Cortina. 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— STROLLING ACROBATS — DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN OURSELVES AND THE COURIER— DIFFICULTIES ARISING THEREFROM — SANTO SIORPAES — THE SIDE-SADDLE QUESTION AGAIN — A TYROLEAN " CAR ETTA " — NEAR VIEW OF THE TOFANA — AMAZING COSTUMES— THE PEZZ^S— SUMMIT OF THE TRE SASSI PASS— THE MARMOLATA— THE "SIGNORA CUOCA." CHAPTER IV. AT CORTINA. Situate on the left bank of the Boita which here runs nearly due north and south, with the Tre Croci pass opening away behind the town to the east, and the Tre Sassi Pass widening before it to the west, Cortina lies in a comparatively open space between four great mountains, and is therefore less liable to danger from bergfalls than any other village not only in the Val d'Ampezzo but in the whole adjacent district. For the same reason, it is cooler in summer than either Caprile, Agordo, Primiero, or Predazzo ; all of which, though more central as stopping places and in many respects more convenient, are yet somewhat too closely hemmed in by surrounding heights. The climate of Cortina is temperate throughout the year. Ball gives the village an elevation of 4048 feet above the level of the sea ; and one of the parish priests — an intelligent old man who has devoted many years of his life to collecting the flora of the Ampezzo — assured me that he had never known the thermometer drop so low as fifteen degrees * of frost * Reaumur. 82 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. in even the coldest winters. The soil, for all this, has a bleak and barren look ; the maize (here called grano Turco) is cultivated, but does not flourish ; and the vine is unknown. But then agriculture is not a speciality of the Ampezzo Thai, and the wealth of Cortina is derived essentially from its pasture-lands and forests. These last, in consequence of the increased and increasing value of timber, have been lavishly cut down of late years by the Commune — too probably at the expense of the future interests of Cortina. For the present, however, every inn, home- stead, and public building bespeaks prosperity. The inhabitants are well-fed and well-dressed. Their fairs and festivals are the most considerable in all the South Eastern Tyrol ; their principal church is the largest this side of St. Ulrich ; and their new gothic Campanile, 250 feet high, might suitably adorn the piazza of such cities as Bergamo or Belluno. The village contains about 700 souls, but the population of the Commune numbers over 2500. Of these, the greater part, old and young, rich and poor, men, women and children, are engaged in the timber trade. Some cut the wood ; some transport it. The wealthy convey it on trucks drawn by fine horses which, however, are cruelly overworked. The poor harness themselves six or eight in a team, men, women, and boys together, and so, under the burning summer sun, drag loads that look as if they might be too much for an elephant. Going out, as usual, before breakfast the morning of the day following our arrival at Cortina, the first sight that met my eyes was a AT CORTINA. 83 very old woman, perhaps eighty years of age, and a sickly little boy of about ten, roped to a kind of rough sledge piled up with at least half a ton weight of rough planks. Eight o'clock mass is performed at each church al- ternately, every morning throughout the year. To-day it happened to be down at the old church, and thither, attracted by their quaint costumes, I followed a party of chattering peasant girls, some of whom had their milk cans and market baskets in their hands. These they carried into the church, taking off their hats at the door, like men, and remaining uncovered through- out the service. The congregation consisted of some three or four score of very old women with scant white polls ; a sprinkling of square-headed robust-looking damsels with silver pins in their clubbed and plaited hair ; and a few old men, so tanned and gnarled and bent that they looked as if carved out of rough brown wood. Then trooped noisily in some four hundred children of both sexes, and filled the benches next the altar, while the old bell-ringer, having rung his last peal, came hobbling up the aisle in heavy wooden clogs and baggy breeches, and lit the candles on the altar. Presently appeared a priest in black and gold vestments, attended by a little red-headed acol3'te, like one of John Bellini's angels ; the organist (by no means a bad player) led off with "Ah che la Morte " on a tremolo stop ; the congregation dropped on their knees ; and the service began. Musically speaking, it was one of those performances which one enjoys the more the less one hears of it. A 84 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &' UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. showy operatic mass by some modern Italian composer, a reedy organ, and a choir which might have been better trained, made up an ensemble that soon sent the writer creeping towards the door. It was dehghtful to get out again into the glorious morning. The sun was now shining deliciously ; the air was heavy with the scent of new-mown hay ; and the birds were singing their own little Hymn of Praise in a way that turned the Cortina choir to unmitigated discord. It was one of those mornings steeped in dewy freshness, when distant sounds and sights are brought supernaturally near, when lights are strangely bright, and shadows transparent, and the very mountains look more awake than usual. Even Tofana, rarely seen without a turban of storm-cloud, rose sharp and clear to-day against the sky. Just opposite the old church lies the village cemetery. The gate stood ajar, and I went in — not certainly expecting to find the ''God's Acre" of this wealthy commune a mere weedgrown wilderness. But so it was. Here a confusion of rough stone-heaps marking the graves of the poor — yonder a few marble tablets and iron crosses against the wall, recording the names of the better-class dead — everywhere coarse deep grass, thistles, nettles, loose stones, broken pottery and trampled clay. A couple of hand-biers, a pile of black tressels, a spade and a coil of rope, lay ready for use under a stone arcade at the farther end of the en- closure. Not a flower was there, not a touch of poetry or pathos in the place ; nothing but indifference, irreve- rence, and neglect. This ugly sight, somehow, brought AT CORTINA. 85 back the recollection of an alms-box that I had seen not long ago outside a pretty little cemetery near Luino, bearing the following inscription: — " Messe Funerale. Nel nome della Beata Maria, carita per noi." (Funeral Masses. We implore charity in the name of the Blessed Mary.) This appeal, coming like a voice from the dead, had struck me at the time as very awful ; but here it would have been still more awful, and more appropriate. Going homewards, I found sheds and booths of all sizes springing up the whole length of the village street, and a great wooden enclosure like a circus being erected in the piazza opposite the albergo of the Stella d'Oro. A huge coloured poster, representing feats of the trapeze, clowns, human pyramids and the like, pasted on a space of blank wall close by, sufficiently accounted for the shape and size of this building. *' But what is the Sagro ?" I asked of a young priest who was gravely watching the carpenters at their work. *' Is it a fair ? " " It is a festival of the Church, Signora," he replied, with an air of reproof, and walked away. A Sagro, however, as I soon came to know, is both a fair and a religious festival ; and it takes place once a year in every village on the anniversary of the conse- cration of the church, or on the festa of the saint to whom the church is dedicated. And there are so many villages scattered about the country, that a Sagro is said to be going on somewhere every day in the year. Hurrying back now to breakfast, I found the Ghe- 86 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. dinas, our courier, and a group of guides and peasants assembled outside the door of the Aquila Nera, staring up at the rugged peak known as the Bee di Mezzodi, on the opposite side of the valley. Telescopes were being passed from hand to hand, amid exclamations of " Eccoli ! " " Brave Signore ! " " Brave Inglese ! " — and old Ghedina, steadying his own glass for me against an angle of wall, bade me look "up yonder" for my countrymen. Two English gentlemen then staying with their wives in the Dependance of the Aquila Nera had, it seemed, this morning achieved the first ascent of that singular peak so aptly described by Mr. Gilbert as a " carious tooth of Dolomite." The Bee itself looked neither very high nor very difficult, but I afterwards learned that it was peculiarly steep and fissured, and that they had hard work to conquer it. Ghedina's glass proved to be a good one, and I distinctly saw the figures of the climbers and their guides standing together on the top- most peak, relieved against the sky. It being our intention to spend some little time at Cortina, thence making such excursions as lay within easy reach, we decided to devote this first day to getting ourselves acquainted with the general "lay" of the country. The most effectual way of achieving this end is, of course, to ascend some height ; so, having consulted Ghedina's written list of excursions, we agreed to spend the morning in rambling about the village, and after luncheon to stroll up to the Crepa di Belvedere — a little summer house, or Jager-lodge, lately erected at a point of view on the face of a cliff AT CORTINA. S? overlooking Cortina and the valley, about an hour and a half's easy walk from the village, and about twenty minutes to the left of the cross on the road to the Tre Sassi Pass. The Belvedere, a tiny white speck against a scar of red cliff in the midst of a long sweep of fir- forest, is seen from the windows of the inn and lies before the climber all the way. Meanwhile, however, we breakfasted, wrote letters, examined the paintings and frescoes in and about the two houses, and made arrangements for shifting our quarters into the quieter and better furnished rooms over the way. Two of the younger Ghedinas, it seemed, were painters ; a third carved cleverly in wood ; and the fourth (a grave practical man devoted to the business, the stabling, and the wood trade) played a trombone in the village band. Both houses are full of heads and studies in oil, designs for large pictures, and sketches of unequal merit. A head of a bearded man in one of the upper chambers of the Aquila Nera, and two half-lengths of his father and mother in the dining room, may be taken as fair specimens of the skill of the portrait-painting son ; while the external frescoes of the Dependance, two in the new church, and all sorts of rough and ready designs, some military, some religious, some grotesque, flung here and there upon the walls of stair- cases, cart-sheds, neighbours' house-fronts and so forth, represent the superior gifts and culture of the brother who lives in Venice. As for the decorations of the Dependance, they are full of power, and to the sound drawing and skilful designing of the Munich school, 88 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. add a warmth and tenderness of colour almost Italian, Three large groups representing Sculpture and Architecture, Painting, and the Physical Sciences, and three medallions containing portraits of Raffaelle, Titian and Albert Diirer, cover all that is not window- space above the ground floor. The figure of Mercury in the first group and of Urania in the last, and the way in which such stubborn objects as the steam- engine, camera, and telegraphic apparatus have been pictorially treated, are deserving of particular notice. To Albert Diirer, like a true German, the artist gives the middle place among the medallions. Very different, though almost as good in their way, are the mounted Cossacks, wild horses, and mediaeval men-at-arms that skirmish all over the whitewashed walls of the outhouses and stables of the Aquila Nera ; to say nothing of the fantastic devil, all teeth and claws, that grins upon unsuspecting customers from outside the stove in the only chemist's shop in Cortina. We asked for the painter ; but he was far away in Venice, and his studio, they told us, was not only closed but empty. To ascend the Campanile and get the near view over the village, was obviously one of the first duties of a visitor ; so, finding the door open and the old bellringer inside, we mounted laboriously to the top — nearly a hundred feet higher than the leaning tower of Pisa. Standing here upon the outer gallery above the level of the great bells, we had the village and valley at our feet. The panorama, though it included little which we had not seen already, was fine all round, and served to AT CORTINA. impress the main landmarks upon our memory. The Ampezzo Thai opened away to North and South, and the twin passes of the Tre Croci and Tre Sassi inter- sected it to East and West. When we had fixed in our minds the fact that Landro and Bruneck lay out to the UNKNOWN MOUNTAINS NEAR CORTINA. North, and Perarolo to the South ; that Auronzo was to be found somewhere on the other side of the Tre Croci; and that to arrive at Caprile it was necessary to go over the Tre Sassi, we had gained something in the way of definite topography. The Marmolata and Civetta, as we knew by our maps, were on the side of Caprile ; and the Marmarole on the side of Auronzo. The Pelmo, left behind yesterday, was peeping even now above the 90 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &> UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. ridge of the Rochetta ; arxd a group of fantastic rocks, so like the towers and bastions of a ruined castle that we took them at first sight for the remains of some mediaeval stronghold, marked the summit of the Tre Sassi to the West. " But what mountain is that far away to the South?" we asked, pointing in the direction of Perarolo. " Which mountain, Signora ? " " That one yonder, like a cathedral front with two towers." The old bellringer shaded his eyes with one tremb- ling hand, and peered down the valley. " Eh," he said, " it is some mountain on the Italian side" (E una raontagna della parte d'ltalia). " But what is it called ? " *' Eh," he repeated, with a puzzled look, '' chi lo sa ? / donH know that I ever noticed it before.'''' Now it was a very singular mountain — one of the most singular and the most striking that we saw throughout the tour. It was exactly like the front of Notre Dame, with one slender aiguille, like a flagstaff, shooting up from the top of one of its battlemented towers. It was conspicuous from most points on the left bank of the Boita ; but the best view, as I soon after discovered, was from the rising ground behind Cortina, going up through the fields in the direction of the Begontina torrent. From thence I made the accompanying sketch ; and to this spot we returned again and again, fascinated as much, perhaps, by the mystery in which it was enveloped, as by the majestic outline of this unknown mountain, to which, for want of a better, we AT CORTINA. 93 gave the name of Notre Dame. For the old behringer was not alone in his ignorance. Ask whom we would, we invariably received the same vague reply — it was a mountain " della parte d'ltalia." They knew no more ; and some, like our friend of the Campanile, had evidently " not noticed it before." What with the great heat of the afternoon, which made uphill work difficult and rapid walking impossible ; what with the wonderful wild flowers that enticed us continually from the path ; what with chatting to peasants by the way, stopping to study the landscape, sketching, and so forth, we never reached the chalet of the Belvedere, after all. We came very near it, how- ever, and gained a magnificent view over the valley, the Cristallo group, and the range of the Croda Malcora. Hence also, from a grassy knoll near the cross below the Crepa, the writer devoted a long hour to making a careful drawing of the Antelao which is here seen to its greatest advantage. • From no other point, indeed, is it possible, so far as I am aware, to get so good a view of the great snow slope at the back of the summit in com- bination with the splintered buttresses that strike down towards Borca and Vodo in the front* The first ascent of the highest peak of this mountain was achieved by that famous climber. Dr. Grohmann, in 1863 ; and the second, in 1864, by Lord Francis Douglas of hapless memory, accompanied by Mr. F. L. Latham and by two guides named Matteo Ossi and Santo Siorpaes. The latter — a brave, hardy, faithful * The height of the Antelao, as determined by the last Austrian survey, is 3,320 metres, or 10,897 English feet. {^Note to Second Edition.) F 2 •94 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. fellow, who travelled with us later in the autumn among the Italian Alps and through the Zermatt district — assured me that Lord Francis, though so young, was an excellent mountaineer, and described him as " buono, bello, e biondino " (good, handsome, and fair). The ascent is taken from a pass called the Forcella Piccola which divides the mass of the Marmarole from that of the Antelao, and is most quickly reached from San Vito. Owing to the long snow-slope before men- tioned, this mountain, up to a certain point, is con- sidered to be easier than any other great Dolomite except the Marmolata ; but the last pull up the actual pinnacle, which rises "with formidable steepness" to a height of some three hundred feet, and curves over like a horn, is said to be difficult. It was supposed to be inaccessible till Dr. Grohmann's time, when the fortunate discovery of a certain cleft by one of his Cortina guides, opened the way to the German cragsman and to all who should come after him. A good climber can ascend from, and return to San Vito in eleven hours, exclusive of halts. The country folk were all coming up to their homes on the pasturages of Monte Averau, as we went down again in the cool of the early evening — some with empty milk-pails, having sold their milk in Cortina ; others carrying home their store of bread and flour, just pur- chased. One or two begged somewhat abjectly for a soldo " per I'amor di Dio ; " but for the most part they passed with a brisk step, a pleasant smile, and a cheer- ful " Guten Abend," or " buona sera." A civil, kindly AT CORTINA. 95 people on the whole, as we soon came to know right well ! A people ready with good wishes and little friendly salutations which, even if they have come to be spoken as mere matters of course, yet help to keep warm the spirit of good will. If they pass through the room where you are at meals, they wish you " good appetite ; " if you are going out, " a pleasant walk ; " if on your way to bed, " sound sleep and happy dreams." You yawn, and they wish you " felicita ; " you sneeze, and they say " salute." That evening, as we were sitting down to a meal which was dinner, or supper, or both, we were startled by a furious discord of drums and brass instruments in the street below. It was the company of strolling acrobats who had just arrived and were parading through the village, followed by all t'^e boys and idlers in the place : — a drummer on stilts ; a buffoon in high collars and a tall hat, like Paul Pry ; some half dozen athletic fellows in the traditional fillets and fleshings ; and about as many hideous-looking, muscular women, tramping the dusty road in white shoes and the briefest conceivable skirts. The " theatre " it seemed was to open to-morrow, although the Sagro would not be held till Sunday. It was on the morning of the third day after we had settled down at Cortina, that the storm which had so long been gathering, burst at last. Supported by the consciousness of his own merit, the courier had borne with us till he could bear with us no longer. Now, however, the near prospect of being dragged over passes and up mountains, of having to ride on a mule for days 96 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. in succession, and of living for many weeks to come in Tyrolean albergos several degrees less comfortable than the Aquila Nera, was too much for the great man's philosophy. He understood, he said, that there were no carriage-roads to most of the places laid down in our maps, and " no suitable accommodation such as he was accustomed to wdien travelling with parties who placed confidence in his opinion ; " he therefore begged leave to tender his resignation, and his accounts. Our vaga- bond tastes, in short, were too much for him ; and he deserted us (if that could be called desertion which must in all likelihood have taken the form of dismissal ere long) just at the time when the protection of a trust- worthy and respectable man had become an indispensa- ble condition of our journey. It is needless to add that the fortnight's notice which he offered was summarily rejected, and that he was then and there paid off and done with. As for L., by whom he had been retained for months before we joined forces in Naples, she transacted the whole affair with an amount of withering sang-froid which speedily reduced the offender to a condition of abject humility. He made an effort by-and-by to assert his indifference by playing at bowls in front of the albergo ; but went away in the afternoon outside the Longarone Stell-wagen, quite crestfallen. And now, what was to be done ? Could we possibly go on with only guides, and no courier ? Or must the tour through the wild heart of the country be given up, just as we had come within sight of our promised land ? These were questions that must be solved before we AT CORTINA. 97 could venture one day's journey beyond the post roads of Cortina. As a matter of choice, we injfinitely preferred the absence of our discontented friend. It was so dehcious, indeed, to be without him, that L. said she felt as if a necklace of millstones had been taken from round her neck ; but then, as a matter of expediency, his defection was undeniably inconvenient. Could he, however, be in any way replaced — not, of course by another courier, that kind of article being quite unknown in these primitive valleys ; but by some reliable man, as, for instance, Santo Siorpaes, who had been especially recommended to us beforehand, and who was reputed to be the best head-guide in Cortina ? To send for him and offer him an enofaeement for the whole journey was the first step to be taken. He came : — a bright-eyed, black-haired mountaineer about forty ; a mighty chamois hunter ; an ex-soldier in the Austrian army, and now a custode of forests, and local inspector of roads ; an active, eager fellow, brown as a berry, with honesty written in his face, and an open vivacious manner that won our likinor at first si";ht. Unfortunately, however, this jewel of a guide was pledged for the next six or eight weeks and could not bv any means get free. Had he no friend, we asked, whom he could recommend to take his place ? He pondered the question, and looked doubtful. There was old Lacedelli, he said, but he was too old ; and there was young Lacedelli, but he was too young. Also there was a certain Angelo, but he was away, and would not be back for a month. Then, again, most of ths 98^ UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. men about Cortina were good enough at rough cHmb- ing, but not used to travelling with ladies. Well, he would think it over — he would think it over, and let the Sisfnoras know. But when would he let us know ? This evening: ? He shook his head. This evenini^ he was engaged to start for some distant valley with a party of gentlemen who were to ascend a mountain to- morrow. No — he could not promise to see us again before Sunday ; but he would then wait upon us after High Mass. This was all we could obtain from him. It was not much ; and we began to have dismal forebodmgs of the failure of our plans. Meanwhile, however, it was of no use to despond. There was plenty to be done at Cortina, whatever happened. We could go to Pieve di Cadore, to Aur- onzo, to Landro, by good carriage roads. We could see about the side-saddles. We could even go in what our landlord called a "caretta" as far as Falzarego, the hospice on the summit of the Tre Sassi pass, and thence obtain a view of the Marmolata. During the present uncertainty, it was some comfort first of all to agitate this question of the side-saddles. In the event of our being able to carry out the journey, they were of more real importance than a whole army of couriers. Without them, certainly, we could do nothing in the way of peaks or passes. Now we knew from previous information that Madame Pezze, landlady of the inn at Caprile, had a saddle which was presented to her for the use of lady travellers by F. F. T. A persuasive note couched in the writer's AT CORTINA. \ 99 best Italian was therefore sent over by a special mes- senger, who had instructions to bring the precious object back, if possible, upon his shoulders. Then old Ghedina also possessed one ; but, divining perhaps that we should be over-long borrowers, was particularly reluctant to show it. It was not till the writer succeeded in following him one day into the stable, that this mysterious treasure was allowed to see the light. It proved to be a fairly good saddle ; but then it was only one, and if we even obtained Madame Pezze's, we should still require a third. " I am expecting a new sella di donna from Vienna," sputtered the old landlord, in his polyglot patois. " Ein schbner Sattcl T^ " When will it arrive ?" I asked eagerly. ^^ Diavolo ! I don't know. Perhaps to-night — perhaps next week. I have been expecting it every day for the last three months !" I relapsed into hopelessness. The old man grinned from ear to ear — he had a large, brown, flat face that looked as if it had been sat upon — and patted me on the shoulder with a paw like a Bengal tiger's. " Tut ! tut !" he said, " you are a brava Signora — you shall not be disappointed. We'll dress up a Basta for the canicrieva, and all shall be well!" This promise of the Basta was obscure, but comfort- ing. I had not the slightest idea of what a Basta was' and Ghedina could only tell me what it was not. It was not a side-saddle. It was not a chair. It was not a railed seat with a foot-rest, like a child's donkey saddle UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. It had to be made when required, and should be forth- coming when wanted. Beyond this point we could not o-et : and there the matter had to rest, at all events for the present. Next morning we ordered the caretta to take us to Falzarego. It would be difficult, perhaps, to say why, but we were longing to see the Marmolata, and could not rest till we had achieved, at least, a distant glimpse of him. In the first place, it is supposed to be the highest of all the Dolomites ; in the second, its snowfields and o-laciers are more extensive than those of any of its neighbours ; and in the third place, it is so hemmed in on all sides by other mountains that it is very difficult to obtain a view of it at all.* The morning was somewhat doubtful. The Tofana had on its helmet of cloud, and though the sun shone brilliantly at times, there was an unsettled, uncertain look about the rolling cumuli that kept us hesitating till nearly eleven a.m. Then old Ghedina pronounced in favour of the weather, and we resolved to venture. I shall not soon forget our dismay at first sight of the caretta. It was simply a wooden trough on four wheels, some seven feet in length by three and a half in breadth, with a cross-wise plank to sit upon. The horse — a magnificent light chesnut full seventeen hands high, with a huge leather collar like an Elizabethan ruff — ■ towered above the vehicle ; and a boy sat on the shafts to drive. Springs, of course, there were none ; cushions * Except from some considerable height, such as the top of the Tre Sassi the Col d'AUeghe, or the Col Fiorentino, I know few points from which it is even visible. AT CORTINA. there were none ; but mats and rugs were piled in abundantly, and so we started. Our way lay over the bridge and up past the cross where we had rested and sketched a day or two before. Again the great view over the valley became unrolled like a scroll beneath our feet. Again the Cristallo, the Croda Malcora, Sorapis and Antelao seemed to rise as we rose, and the Tofana loomed nearer and more threatening with every step of our progress. Now, mounting ever higher among green slopes gorgeous with wild flowers, and through pine-woods all abloom with strawberry blossoms, we left the Cortina view behind, and passed close under the south-west face of the Tofana — so close that we could distinctly see the mouth of a famous cavern which is said to penetrate for many hundred feet into the heart of the mountain. Seen from the Tre Sassi road, it looks perfectly in- accessible — a mere rabbit-hole in the face of a vertical and triangular precipice, like the entrance to the Great Pyramid. This cavern, however, is one of the sights of Cortina, and can be reached without difficulty when there is an accumulation of snow upon the slopes beneath. And now, as we mount higher, rounding the last buttresses of the Tofana and coming in sight of the hrst outlying ridge of IMonte Lagazuoi, we begin to meet frequent groups of peasants, some two and three, some twelve or fifteen strong ; some carrying huge loads of home-spun frieze and linen on their backs ; some laden with wooden ware ; some with live poultry ; all in their holiday clothes, and all I02 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. bound for the great Sagro. They are of all ages, and apparently of all grades ; old folks and young, farmers and farm-servants — a stumpy, sturdy, fresh- coloured, honest-looking race ; the women with legs like pillars, and the men averaging from five foot five to five foot seven in height. The old men wear knee breeches and comical little frieze coats very short and full in the skirts, with two large buttons set high up in the middle of their backs, like a pair of eyes. The young fellows affect trousers and embroidered braces, and carry little bunches of coloured feathers and artificial flowers in their hats. The costumes of the girls, however, are quite over- whelming, and unlike anything that we have yet seen. They wear hats like the men, and adorned in the same manner ; dark green, blue, or brown skirts laid in close folds like the plaiting of a kilt, and starting from just between the shoulders, like a sacque ; bodices open in front and laced with purple braid ; sleeves tight to the arm and wiist, but slashed at the top with a pufiing of white linen ; and round their necks bright scarlet and yellow handkerchiefs of printed cotton. " What people are these ? " we ask, as the first of many such apparitions appears before us at a turn of the road. To which the boy on the shafts — a laughing, merry fellow named Giovanni — replies that these are contadine from Buchenstein, Livinallungo, and Corfara. "But Corfara is a long way off!" exclaims L., AT CORTINA. ' 103 who is better up in her maps than myself, and knows somethinor of the distances. '' Eh ! some of them come fort}', fifty, sixty miles over the mountains — some walk all night both coming and going. Ecco ! " (with a critical glance at the pillars before-mentioned) "what are the miles to a donzella like that ! " Meanwhile, we are suffering agonies of dislocation ; for the road (which is only just wide enough for our wheels, and overhangs a precipice at the bottom of which foams a roaring torrent) is full of loose stones, over which the caretta jolts and blunders, creaks, leaps and rolls in such a distracting manner that we are fain at last to get out and walk. The glen now grows narrower, and the castellated rocks which we had already observed from Cortina are seen high above sloping woods on the opposite bank of the stream. Giovanni, who knows every- thing, informs us that they are here called the Torette, and form part of the crest of Monte Nuvolau ;* and that the torrent, which takes its rise somewhere among the fastnesses of Lagazuoi, is known as the Costeana. More and more pedestrians, meanwhile, keep troop- ing past. The farther we go, the thicker they come. Where will they all sleep to-night ? The Aquila Nera and the Stella d'Oro, were they each four times their present size, would not hold more than half * Giovanni can hardly have been right. The Nuvolau lies W.S.W. of Cortina, and would not have been visible in that direction. The "Torette" more probably belong to the Becca di Mczzodi or La Rochctta. I04 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS, of them ; and yet this is only one road out of many. At this moment they are tramping into Cortina from Auronzo, from Pieve di Cadore, and from all the villages of the Ampezzo Thai. There will be fifteen hundred strangers, says our driver, in Cortina to- night. And now, quite suddenly, we come upon a better- dressed group than any we have yet met — two tall, gentlemanly-looking young men and a lady, followed by a countryman with their luggage on his back. The lady is young and pretty, with a rose in her black hair, and no bonnet. The young men lift their hats as they pass. The countryman, plodding after them, looks up with a somewhat knowing expression, and touches his cap. But what is he carrying on his back ? Not their luggage, after all. A side-saddle ! A large, new side-saddle, with a third pommel to screw, and a velvet-lined stirrup dangling down behind. It w^as our own messenger — it was Madame Pezze's saddle ! Hearing a duet of joyful exclamations in the rear, the young lady turned round, smiling. The young men came forward, smiling also. They were Madame Pezze's two sons. Lieutenant Cesare Pezze, an ex- Garibaldian officer, and young Agostino Pezze, who, with his mother, keeps the inn at Caprile. The damsel with the rose in her hair was Agostino's wife. They had come over the pass on foot, and were bound, like everyone else, for the Sagro at Cortina. Concluding, of course, that we were on our way to AT CORTINA. Caprile, their surprise was great that we should have left Cortina without waiting for the festival ; but they were still more astonished on finding that we had come up all this way only to peep at the Marmolata and go back again. " Shall we get a good view ? " I asked, somewhat anxiously ; for the clouds had been gathering gloomily during the last half hour. They shook their heads and looked doubtful. The mists were thickening fast, they said, on the other side. We must push on at once for the top, and delay for nothing at the Hospice. The mountain was quite clear half an hour ago — but soon there would be nothing of it visible. This opinion brought our interview to an abrupt con- clusion, and, with the promise of meeting again to- morrow, sent us hurrying away towards the Hospice — a small white cottage by the roadside, about a quarter of a mile ahead. Here we left the caretta, bade Giovanni attend to the comforts of his horse, and hastened on alone towards the top. We had but to follow the road, which swept round and across a wild slope of barren moor bounded by the crags of Lagazuoi on the one hand, and by the low-lying ridge of Monte Nuvolau on the other. Tall posts, each the stem of a stout fir-tree, were here set at regular intervals along the side of the path, like tele- graph posts, to mark the course of the road ; — a neces- sary precaution at this height (7,073 feet) where the snow lies deep for eight months out of every twelve. Even now, on the sixth of July, every rift and hollow held its yet unmelted snowdrift. ■io6 UNTRODDEN PEAKS UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. was to be seen, that, when travelling through a district new to himself, he used to take pains each evening to enter in his pocket-book all such details as he could pick up in advance respecting every object of interest which might chance to lie in our way in the course of the next day's journey. He remained with us, as will be seen, throughout this Dolomite tour : and we parted with mutual regret when it ended. Numbers of those who had thronged the fair and the churches all this day, went home the same afternoon or evening. As long as daylight remained, they could be seen dotting every mountain path ; and for hours after all Cortina was in bed, their long wild Alpine cry rang from hillside to hillside, and broke the silence of the night. Next morning, however, there seemed to be as many as ever in the fair, which was kept up throughout the second day with undiminished spirit. This second morning began with a wedding. The order of the bridal procession was as follows. First came the indefatigable brass band, numbering some twenty performers ; then the bride and the best man ; then the bride's father and mother ; then the bride- groom walking alone ; and lastly some fourteen or fif- teen friends and relations of both sexes. In this order, they twice paraded the whole length of the town. The bride wore a black alpaca dress ; the usual black cloth bodice and white sleeves ; and a gorgeous apron of red and green silk fastened behind with a pair of quaint brass clasps. Neither she nor any of the other women on this occasion wore hats ; but only an abundance of silver pins in their neatly plaited hair. Having entered CORTINA TO PI EVE DI C ADO RE. 119 the church, they all took seats in the aisle about half- way down, and the band went into the organ-loft. Presently the bridegroom went up by himself to the altar, and kneeled down. When he had knelt there a few minutes, the mother of the bride led her daughter up, placed her at his left hand, and there left her. After they had both knelt there some five minutes longer, the priest came in, followed by the old bell- ringer, who acted as clerk. The bellringer then lighted a pair of long wax tapers and handed them to the priest, who blessed them, and gave one to the bride and the other to the bridegroom. This was the begin- ning of the ceremony. Then the priest read the marriage service in a low voice and very quickly, only pausing presently to ask for the rings, which were handed to him on a little glass dish by the bellringer. The priest, having blessed the rings, first gave one to the bridegroom to place upon the finger of the bride, and then gave the other to the bride, to place upon the finger of the bridegroom. During all this time they never parted from their tapers, but shifted them from one hand to the other, as occasion required. At this stage of the ceremony, the bride- groom produced some money, and gave it to the bride. They were then profusely sprinkled with holy water, and this concluded the marriage service. High mass was next performed, as yesterday, with the full band and organ ; the newly married couple remaining the whole time upon their knees before the altar, with their lighted tapers in their hands. At length, when all was over, and the congregation I20 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. was about to disperse, the bridegroom got up quite coolly and walked out of the church, leaving his bride still kneeling. Then her mother came up again, and led her away. The bridegroom, without so much as looking back to see what had become of her, went and played at bowls in the piazza ; the bride went home with her parents, took off her finery, and shortly reappeared in her shabby, everyday clothes. It is, perhaps, Tyrolean etiquette for newly married persons to avoid each other as much as possible. At all events, the bridegroom loafed about with the men, and the bride walked with her own people, and they were not once seen together all the rest of the day. One of the pleasantest excursions which we made at this time was to Landro in the Hollenstein Thai, about twelve miles from Cortina by the Austrian post-road.'" On this occasion, our landlord supplied a comfortable little chaise on good springs, with a seat in front for the driver ; and the chesnut appeared in smart harness, with red tassels on his head, and a necklace of little jingling bells. With Giovanni again to drive, we started early one lovely July morning, following the course of the Upper Ampezzo valley, skirting all the length of the Tofana, and seeing its three summits in succession. Being so long in the ridge, the great height and size of this mountain can only be appreciated by those who see it from at least two sides of its vast triangle — as from the * An open omnibus now leaves Cortina daily at 6*30 A.M. for Toblach, re- turning the same afternoon. There is also a post omnibus. {Note to Second Edition.) CORTINA TO PIEVE DI CADORE. Tre Sassi pass on the S.W., and from the high road on the East. Good walkers with time to spare may complete the tour of the mountain by ascending the Val Travernanzes, which divides the Tofana ridge from that of Monte Lagazuoi. The pyramidal peak on the side of the Tre Sassi has been repeatedly ascended by hunters from Cortina. The central peak was achieved by Dr. Grohmann in 1863 ; and the north peak was reached in 1867 by Mr. Bonney, who describes the view looking over in the direction of Bruneck and the Gross Venediger as one of the finest among the Eastern Alps^ The highest peak, according to the latest measure- ments, reaches as nearly as possible to 10,724 feet. From Cortina, the road runs for some distance at a level of about sixty feet above the bed of the Boita, and passes presently under the shadow of a kind of barber's pole painted with red and white stripes, which here juts across the road at an angle of forty-five degrees. As we prepare to drive under it, the door of a little hut adjoining, which we had taken till now for a good-sized kennel, flies suddenly open, and a small, withered, excited old man flinirs himself into the middle of the road, and demands forty-eight kreutzers for toll. Becoming learned in the ways of the place, we soon know that a white and red pole always stands for a toll- bar, while a black and yellow one indicates the boundary line between Austria and Italy. From here, the road now begins to ascend and the mountains to close in ; new peaks, snow streaked above and wooded below, come into view ; and the great crag of Peutelstein, once crowned by a famous mediaeval 122 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &-' UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. stronghold, shuts in the end of the valley. The old castle was levelled to the ground in 1867, and there is some talk of a modern fortress to be erected on its site. At this point, the road swings round abruptly to the right, winds up through pine-woods behind the plat- form on which the castle used to stand, leaves the noisy torrent far below, and, trending eastward at right angles to the Ampezzo valley, takes, in local parlance, the name of the Thai Tedesco — which, however, is not to be found in either Mayr's or Artaria's maps. Here, also, a board by the wayside informs us that we have entered the " Distretta " of Welsperg. And now the road leads through a succession of delicious grassy glades, among pine-woods loaded with crimson and violet cones, and festooned with the weird grey-beard moss of the Upper Alps. Wild campanulas and purple gentians, deep golden Arnica blossoms, pink Daphne, and a whole world of other wild flowers, some quite new to us, here bloom in such abundance that the space of green sward on either side of the carriage-way looks as if bordered by a strip of Persian carpet. Meanwhile, through openings in the wood, we catch occasional glimpses of great Dolomite peaks to right and left, and, emerging by and by upon an open space of meadow-land on the borders of which stands a tiny farmhouse, we see the fine pinnacles of the Cristallino (9,238 feet) rising in giant battlements beyond the sloping ground upon our right. And now the road crosses a rough torrent-bed, stony, and steep, and blinding white in the sunshine. Here we alight and CORTINA TO PIEVE DI CADORE. 125 make our way across from boulder to boulder, while Giovanni leads the chesnut in and out among the shallows. And now, as we emerge from the pine-wood, a new Dolomite — a huge, dark mournful-looking mountain ominously splashed with deep red stains — rises sud- denly into towering prominence upon our left, and seems almost to overhanc^ the road. What mountain is this ? For once, Giovanni is at fault. He thinks it must be the Croda Rossa, but he is not sure. Finding a mountain, however, here set down in Mayr's map as the Crepa Rossa, and in Artaria as the Rothwand, we are fain to conclude that it is in each case the same, with only a difference in the name. Unlike all other Dolomites that we have yet seen, the Croda Rossa, instead of being grey and pallid, is of a gloomy brownish and purplish hue, like the mountain known as " Black Stairs," near Enniscorthy, in Ireland. Going on in the direction of Schluderbach and looking back upon the Croda Rossa, it constantly assumes a more and more threatening aspect, rising cliff above cliff towards one vast domed summit, just under whicli is gathered a cluster of small peaks quite steeped in blood-colour. From these, great streaks and splashes of the same hue stream down the barren precipices below, as if some great slaughter had been done there, in the old days of the world. Passing Schluderbach, a clean-looking road-side inn, we come presently in sight of the Diirren See, a loveh' little emerald green lake streaked with violet shadows and measuring about three-quarters of a mile in length. u 126 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS Great mountains close it in on all sides, and the rich woods of the lower hills slope down to the water's edge. THE DREI ZINNEN The clustered peaks, the eternal snows and glaciers of Monte Cristallo ; the towering summit of the Piz Popena ; and the extraordinary towers of the Drei Zinnen come one after the other into view. As for the CORTINA TO PIEVE DI C ADORE. 127 Drei Zinnen, they surpass in boldness and weirdness all the Dolomites of the Ampezzo. Seen through an opening between two wooded hills, they rise abruptly from behind the intervening plateau of Monte Plana, as if thrust up from the centre of the earth, like a pair of tusks. No mere description can convey to even the most apprehensive reader any correct impression of their outline, their look of intense energy, of upward- ness, of bristhng, irresistible force. Two barren isolated obelisks of pale, sulphurous, orange-streaked lime- stone, all shivered into keen scimitar-blades and shark- like teeth towards the summit, they almost defy the pencil and quite defy the pen. For the annexed illus- tration, however, so far as mere truthfulness of actual form goes, the writer can vouch, having sketched it very carefully from the best point along the borders of the lake. At Landro,* a clean and comfortable inn standing alone at the head of the lake, we stayed to feed the horse and take luncheon. Here we were served with excellent cold salmon-trout from the Mesurina lake, and hot cutlets. Everything about the place looked pro- mising. The landlord and landlady and their son, a bright lad of about seventeen, spoke only an unin- telligible kind of German ; but were cheerfully disposed and most obliging. Thinking that it might be a pleasant place to put up at for a few days, we enquired about rooms ; but every inch of the house was occupied for the whole summer by a large party, chiefly English, * Landro is the Italian name for this place, which in German is called Hohlenstein. H 2 128 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. including a member of the Italian Club-Alpino. This gentleman, followed by a gigantic St. Bernard dog, came in while we were at luncheon, marvellously attired in a brilliant scarlet flannel blouse and high black riding boots ; in which costume, followed always by his dog, he had that morning been up a difficult ice-slope of Monte Cristallo. Luncheon over, we strolled and sketched awhile beside the fairy waters of the Diirren See — a lake mto which three torrents flow, and from which no stream issues. Why it never overflows its banks, and whither the surplus water vanishes, are mysteries for which no one has yet accounted. There has been talk of hidden clefts and natural emissaries in the bed of the lake ; but it is obviously unlikely, to say the least of it, that the supply and the drainage should be adjusted with such nicety. Why, therefore, the Diirren See is always full, and never too full, remains to be explained by men of science. Of the three great mountains seen from Landro, it may be as well to mention that the Drei Zinnen * (9,833 feet) has been lately ascended by various members of the Austrian or German Alpine Clubs ; that the Piz Popena (10,389 feet) was first achieved by Mr. E. R. Whitwell ; and that the highest peak of Monte Cristallo (10,644 fs^t) '^v^s gained by Dr. Grohmann in Sep- tember, 1865, from the Cristall pass, beginning on the side of the Tre Croci. Starting from the Diirren See, the road again turns ■ * Of the three peaks bearing this name, only two are well seen from Landro ; but as one goes up the Val d'Auronzo, all three are visible. CORTINA TO PI EVE DI CAD ORE. 139 northward, and so runs nearly straight all the way to Toblach, a distance of about ten more English miles. Looking up the vista of this narrow glen from Landro, one sees the snow-capped mountains of the Puster Thai closing in the view. Returning to Cortina in the pleasant afternoon, we NEAR CORTINA. left the carriage at a point not far from the toll-bar, and strolled homewards by a lower path leading through fields and meadows and past the ruins of a curious old turreted chateau, one tower of which now serves for the spire of a little church built with the stones of the former stronghold. Meanwhile there yet remained much to be seen and done before we could leave Cortina. We must see the I30 UNTRODDEN PEAKS