A Midsummer Ramble 
 
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 THE LIBRARY 
 
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 A MIDSUMMER RAMBLE 
 IN THE DOLOMITES 
 
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 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 paths have been superseded by good roads ; some old 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 <S- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 And now a rough wayside cross comes into sight a 
 few yards- farther ahead — a swift runner overtakes us — 
 and Giovanni, breathless and flushed, exclaims: — 
 
 " Ecco, Signore ! Ecco la croce ! Di la vedremo la 
 Marmolata." (See, Signore ! Yonder is the cross ! 
 From there we shall see the Marmolata.") 
 
 And from there, by rare good fortune, we do see it — 
 a huge, roof-shaped mass, sloping, and smooth, and 
 snowy white against a leaden sky. For vastness of 
 expression and extent of snow, as seen from this side, 
 it recalls Mont Blanc. Distance, instead of diminishing 
 its bulk, seems by contrast with surrounding heights, to 
 enhance it. The two valleys of Andraz and Livinal- 
 lungo, the Monte Padon, and a whole sea of minor 
 peaks occupy the intervening space ; and yet the Mar- 
 molata seems to fill the scene. 
 
 But only for a few seconds ! Even as we stand there, 
 eagerly gazing at it, the summit becomes dimmed ; the 
 outline fades ; a pale grey tint spreads over the snow- 
 fields ; and there remains only a blurred, gigantic, in- 
 definite Something, scarcely to be distinguished from the 
 mists by which it is surrounded. 
 
 " Diavolo of a Marmolata ! " exclaims Giovanni. 
 " The Signoras were only just in time — but they have 
 seen him pulito.'" 
 
 Now this word " pulito " (clean) in one sense or 
 another, is always on the tip of Giovanni's tongue ; 
 and, as I soon afterwards find, is used indiscriminately 
 for clear, brilliant, successful, intelligible, and a dozen 
 other meanings, throughout this part of the Tyrol. 
 Your mule goes "pulito." Your new boots fit you
 
 AT CORTINA. 107 
 
 "pulito." Your field glass shows objects " pulito." 
 You achieve a creditable bit of climbing, and are com- 
 plimented on having done it " pulito." Your driver 
 was drunk lavSt evening, but you are assured that he is 
 "pulito" (in the sense of sober) this morning. It is, in 
 short, a word of most elastic capabilities ; but some- 
 what puzzling to strangers for that reason. 
 
 The Marmolata having retired from the scene, we 
 now turn back, taking a short cut across the dreary 
 " Col " and finding by the way some exquisite specimens 
 of wild Daphne {Daphne Cneoruiu), abundance of the 
 small mountain gentian {Gentiana verua), and large 
 clusters of a very lovely, tiny pink flower * with wax- 
 like petals, minute and close as a lichen, and unlike 
 anything that either of us has ever seen before. 
 
 Arrived at the Hospice, and being by this time very 
 hungry, we go in, and are welcomed by a clean, smiling 
 padrona who (because her one public room is full of 
 peasants eating, drinking and smoking) invites us into 
 the kitchen — a model kitchen, like a kitchen in a Dutch 
 picture, with a floor of bright red bricks, and a roaring 
 wood-fire, and rows upon rows of brass and copper pans 
 shining like mirrors. She proves to be richer, however, 
 in cooking utensils than in provisions ; for dry bread, 
 eggs, butter, and a coarse, uneatable mountain cheese 
 are all she has to offer. 
 
 Still, with eggs and butter one is not obliged to 
 starve. The writer, in a moment of happy inspiration, 
 undertakes the part of cook, and offers to concoct a 
 
 ■"■ Mr. Tuckctt suggests that this may have been the A iidrosace glacial is.
 
 io8 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 certain dish known as "buttered eggs," or, more 
 politely, as " hasty omelette." So an apron is borrowed, 
 and, to the unbounded entertainment of the landlady 
 and her servant, the savoury mess is prepared in a few 
 minutes. From that moment I am known at Falzarego 
 as the " Signora Cuoca " (the Signora-Cook) ; am 
 greeted by that title the next time I appear at the Hos- 
 pice ; and am remembered by it, doubtless, to this day. 
 
 By the time we are again ready to start, the mists 
 have rolled up to the top of the pass, and the sky all 
 round looks black and threatening. Some peasants 
 outside predict a storm, and counsel us to get down 
 into the valley as quickly as may be ; so the chesnut 
 is hastily put to, and we rattle off just as the first heavy 
 drops come splashing down to a low accompaniment of 
 very distant thunder. 
 
 The storm, however, if there was a storm, remained 
 locked in on the other side of the pass. We soon left 
 it behind ; and long before we reached the point lead- 
 ing to the Crepa di Belvedere, the sun was shining 
 brilliantly.
 
 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 HOLLENSTEIN THAL — 
 THE CRODA ROSSA — LANDRO AND THE DURREN SEE — THE DREI 
 ZINNEN — THE START FOR AURONZO — THE CHURCH OF THE CRUCIFIX 
 — PIEVE DI CADORE— THE HOUSE IN WHICH TITIAN WAS BORN — THE 
 CASA ZAMPIERI— AN INVASION — TITIAN'S FIRST FRESCO — THE ODIOUS 
 LITTLE GIRL — THE DUOMO — DON ANTONIO DA VIA — THE CADORE 
 TITIANS — THE FOUR TEMPERAS — A CURIOUS ANTIQUE PREDELLA. 
 
 C 2
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CORTINA TO PIEVE DI CADORE. 
 
 The morning of the Sagro dawned to a prodigious 
 ringing of church-bells and firing of musketry. There 
 were masses going on in both churches from five a.m. 
 till mid-day. The long street and the piazza by the 
 post-office presented one uninterrupted line of booths. 
 There were hundreds of strangers all over the town ; 
 hundreds in the churches. Every house seemed 
 suddenly to have become an albergo. Every window, 
 every balcony, every doorway was crowded. The 
 acrobats again paraded Cortina this brilliant Sundav 
 morning about nine o'clock, and the discord of their 
 drums and trumpets went on all day long, to the accom- 
 paniment of the church-bells and the intermittent firing 
 of the sharp-shooters down at the " Tir " by the river- 
 side. 
 
 What a motley crowd ! What a busy, cheerful 
 scene ! What a confusion of voices, languages, music, 
 bells and gunpowder ! Here are Austrian Tyrolese 
 from Toblach, Innichen, and the Sexten Thai, who 
 speak only German ; Italian Tyrolese from the Longa- 
 rone side, who speak only Italian ; others from the
 
 112 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 border-villages who speak both, or a patois compounded 
 of both, which is quite unintelligible. The costumes of 
 these mountain-folk are still more various than their 
 tongues. The women of San Vito wear breastplates of 
 crimson or green satin banded with broad gold braid, 
 and ornamented with spangles. The women of the 
 Puster Thai walk about in huge turban-like head- 
 dresses, as becoming, and quite as heavy, as the bear- 
 skins of the Grenadiers. The men of Flitsch are lost 
 in their enormous black boots, modelled, apparently, on 
 those of the French postillion of the last century. Here, 
 too, are old women in home-made otter-skin hats, high 
 in the crown and ornamented like a footman's with a 
 broad gold band ; and bold Jagers with wide leather 
 belts, green braces, steeple-crowned hats, and guns 
 slung across their shoulders, looking exactly like Caspar 
 in " Der Freischiitz." The wonderful damsels of Livi- 
 nallungo whom we met yesterday on the pass, are also 
 present in great force ; but the prevailing costume is of 
 course that of the Ampezzo. It consists of a black felt 
 hat with a bunch of feathers at the side ; a black cloth 
 skirt and bodice trimmed with black velvet or black 
 satin ; loose white sleeves ; a large blue apron that 
 almost meets behind ; and a little coloured handker- 
 chief round the neck. Simple, sober, and becoming, 
 this dress suits young and old alike ; and the round hat 
 sets off a pretty face very agreeably. 
 
 Learning that the musical mass was to begin at 
 eleven a.m., we took care, as we thought, to reach the 
 church in good time ; but at a quarter before the hour, 
 we found the steps crowded outside, and barely standing
 
 CORTINA TO PI EVE DI CAD ORE. 
 
 room within. The whole body of the church was one 
 mass of hfe, colour, bare heads and upturned faces. 
 Men and women alike held their hats in their hands. 
 Three priests at three different altars performed mass 
 simultaneously. The organist played his best, assisted 
 however, by the Cortina brass band with an effect that 
 was almost maddening. One trombone player in par- 
 ticular, an apoplectic red-faced man in grey flannel 
 shirtsleeves, blew as if bent on blowing his brains out. 
 Now and then, when the organist had an unac- 
 companied interlude, or the choir-master a few phrases 
 of solo, there came a lucid interval when one breathed 
 again. But these respites were few and brief; 
 and except during the sermon, the brass band that 
 morning had quite the best of it. 
 
 The old cure preached, attired in magnificent vest- 
 ments of white and gold brocade. His sermon turned 
 upon Faith, and he illustrated his text oddly enough by 
 references to all kinds of matters in which Faith is not 
 generally supposed to bear a leading part. The 
 soldier, the artist, the lawyer, the man of science, what 
 could they do, he asked, without Faith ? Take the 
 soldier, for instance : — what is it that inspires him with 
 courage to face the cannon's mouth ? Faith. Take 
 the painter — ^judge what must have inspired the frescoes 
 and paintings in this very church : — Faith. Think of 
 the patience and labour required in the cutting of the 
 Suez canal ! What supported those workmen through 
 their trying task ? Faith. Look again at the Mont 
 Cenis tunnel ! Think of how those engineers began at 
 opposite sides of that great mountain, and at length,
 
 114 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 after years of labour, met in the midst of it. To what 
 power must we attribute such perseverance crowned 
 with such success ? To the supreme and vivifying 
 power of Faith. 
 
 Of such quahty was the good man's discourse. He 
 preached in Itahan, and paused after every peroration 
 to mop his bald head with a blue cotton pocket-hand- 
 kerchief. It was a hot day, and his eloquence quite 
 exhausted him. 
 
 Coming out of the church, we take a turn round the 
 fair. Here are booths for the sale of everything 
 under the sun — hats ; umbrellas ; pipes ; spectacles ; 
 pots, pans, and kettles ; tanned leather ; untanned 
 leather ; baskets ; wooden ladles ; boots and shoes ; 
 blankets ; home-spun frieze and linen ; harness ; 
 scythes ; tin wares ; wooden wares ; nails, screws and 
 carpenters' tools ; knives, forks and spoons ; crockery ; 
 toys ; crucifixes and prayer-books ; braces, garters, 
 pocket-books, steel chains, sleeve-buttons and stationery; 
 live poultry ; fruit ; vegetables ; cheap jewellery ; 
 ribbons ; stuffs ; seeds ; bird-cages ; and cotton um- 
 brellas of many colours. Here, too, is a stall for the 
 exclusive sale of watches, from the massive silver turnip 
 to the flat little Geneva time-keeper of the size, and pro- 
 bably also of the value, of an English florin. Near the 
 church-door stands a somewhat superior booth stocked 
 with mediaeval brass work, altar-candlesticks, patinas, 
 chalices and the like ; while, next in rotation, a grave- 
 looking old peasant presides over a big barrel full of 
 straw and water, round the top of which, in symmetrical 
 array, repose whetstones of all sizes.
 
 CORTINA TO PI EVE DI C ADO RE. 
 
 It is remarkable that there are here no dancins: or 
 refreshment booths. The sober Tyrolese do not often 
 dance, unless at weddings ; and for meals, those who 
 have not brought food with them, crowd at midday into 
 the inns and private houses, and there eat with small 
 appearance of festivity. Even the acrobats do not seem 
 greatly to attract them. A large crowd gathers outside 
 the show and almost fills the piazza in the afternoon ; 
 but not many seem to be going in. They are content, 
 for the most part, to listen to the comic dialogue sus- 
 tained on the outer platform by the clown and Merry 
 Andrew, and prefer to keep their soldi warm in their 
 pockets. 
 
 Now the writer, knowing from previous experience the 
 unpopularity of the sketcher, steals into corners and 
 behind booths, in order to secure a few notes of costume 
 and character ; but, being speedily found out and sur- 
 rounded, is fain either to use her pencil openly or not 
 at all. The good people of Ampezzo, however, prove 
 to be less sensitive in this matter than the peasants of 
 Italy or Switzerland. They are delighted to be sketched, 
 and come round by dozens, begging to have their 
 portraits taken, and anxious that no detail of costume 
 should be omitted. One very handsome woman of 
 Livinallungo, tempted by the promise of a florin, came 
 home with me in order that I might make a careful 
 coloured study of her costume. She was tall, and so finely 
 formed that not even that hideous sacque and shapeless 
 bodice could disguise the perfection of her figure. As 
 I placed her, so she stood, silent, motionless, absorbed, 
 for more than half an hour. A more majestic face I
 
 Ii6 UNTRODDEN PEAKS 6r^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 never saw, nor one so full of a sweet, impenetrable 
 melancholy. Being questioned, she said she was twenty- 
 three years of age, and a farm-servant at Livinallungo. 
 
 " And you are not married ? " I asked. 
 
 ** No, Signora." 
 
 " Nor betrothed ?" 
 
 " No, Signora." 
 
 " But that must be your own fault," I said. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " Ah, no," she replied, with a slightly heightened 
 colour. " Our young men do not marry without money. 
 Who would think of me ? I am too poor." 
 
 I should have liked to know more of her history ; but 
 her natural dignity and reserve were such that I felt I 
 must not question her farther. 
 
 The sketch finished, she just glanced at it, put back 
 the proffered payment, and turned at once to go. The 
 Signora was very welcome, she said ; she did not wish 
 to be paid. Being pressed, however, to take the money, 
 she yielded, more, as it seemed, through good-breeding 
 than from inclination ; and so went away, taking the 
 downward path from the back of the house, and going 
 home over the mountain, alone. 
 
 That afternoon, Santo Siorpaes came again, bringing 
 with him a tall, brown, fair-haired young man of about 
 twenty-eight or thirty, whom he introduced as " Signore 
 Giuseppe Ghedina." This Giuseppe, he said, was a 
 farmer, lately married, well-to-do, and a nephew of our 
 landlord of the Aquila Nera. Not being a professional 
 guide, he would nevertheless be happy to travel with 
 the Signoras, and to be useful to the utmost of his
 
 CORTINA TO PI EVE DI CAD ORE. 117 
 
 power. He did not profess to know all the country 
 laid down in our scheme, but he would take Santo's 
 written instructions as to routes, inns, mules, guides 
 and so forth ; and he, Santo, did not doubt that we 
 should find Giuseppe in all respects as well fitted for 
 the work as himself. 
 
 Now Giuseppe's manner and appearance were par- 
 ticularly prepossessing. We liked his simple gravity, 
 the intelligence with which he asked and answered 
 questions, and the interest with which he examined our 
 maps and guide-books. Preliminaries, therefore, were 
 soon settled. He was to inform himself thoroughly 
 upon all matters connected with the route, and to hold 
 himself in readiness to join us in a day or two. Mean- 
 while it was agreed that we should pay him at the same 
 rate that we should have paid Santo Siorpaes : namely 
 two and a half florins a day for his wages, and one 
 florin and a half for his food — in all, about eight francs, 
 or six and eightpence English, per diem. If at any time 
 we were to travel by any public conveyance, we were of 
 course to pay his fare ; but all lodging and other 
 expenses en route were to be defrayed by himself. 
 
 It may here be observed, once and for always, 
 that a more fortunate choice could not have been 
 made. Faithful, honest, courteous, untiring, intelligent, 
 Giuseppe Ghedina, unused as he was to his new ofiice, 
 entered upon his duties as one to the manner born, and 
 left nothing to be desired. Always at hand, but never 
 obtrusive, as economical of our money as of his own, he 
 was always thinking for us and never for himself. And 
 so anxious was he that the Signoras should see all that
 
 ii8 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 <S- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 Marmarole, hitherto completely hidden behind the Croda 
 Malcora ; and the Mesurina Lake, famous for its otters 
 and its salmon-trout. We must go over the Tre Croci 
 pass, and up the Val d' Auronzo ; and above all we 
 must visit Titian's birthplace at Pieve di Cadore. Now 
 it seemed, so far as one could judge from maps, to be 
 quite possible to bring all these points into a single 
 excursion, taking each in its order, and passing a night 
 or two on the road. In order to do this, we must follow 
 the Ampezzo valley to Pieve di Cadore * ; then take the 
 valley of the Piave as far as its junction with the Anziei 
 at Tre Ponti ; thence branch off into the Val d' Auronzo; 
 and from Auronzo find our way back to Cortina by the 
 Val Buona and the pass of the Tre Croci. This route, 
 if practicable, would take us the complete circuit of the 
 Croda Malcora, Antelao, and Marmarole, and could 
 be done, apparently, nearly all the way by carriage road. 
 A consultation with old Ghedina proved that this plan 
 was feasible as far as a place called the Casa di San 
 Marco in the Val Buona, now accessible by means of 
 one of the new roads in process of construction by the 
 Italian Government. As to whether this road was or 
 was not actually completed as far as the Casa di San 
 Marco, he was not quite sure ; but he did not doubt 
 that the carriage could be got along "somehow." 
 Beyond that point, however, the new way had certainly 
 not yet been opened, and we, as certainly, could only 
 follow it as far as it went. He would therefore send 
 
 '*' There is now a post omnibus daily from Cortina to San Vito (Borca), 
 whence the Italian diligence can be taken to Pieve di Cadore. {A'ole to 
 Second Ediiion.)
 
 CORTINA TO PIEVE DI C ADO RE. 131 
 
 saddle-horses round by the Tre Croci pass to meet us at 
 the Casa di San Marco ; the carriage coming back by 
 way of a cart-track leading round by Landro. With 
 these saddle-horses we could then ride up to the 
 Mesurina Alp, and return by the Tre Croci to Cortina. 
 
 As regarded time, we could make our giro in either 
 three days or two ; sleeping in the one case both at 
 Pieve di Cadore and Auronzo, or, in the other, starting 
 early enough to spend the day at Pieve and reach 
 Auronzo in the evening. Having heard unfavourable 
 reports of the inn at Pieve, we decided on the latter 
 course.* 
 
 The day we started upon this, our first long expedi- 
 tion, was also the day that began Giuseppe's engage- 
 ment as our travelling attendant. We rose early, 
 having ordered the carriage for seven a.m. — a roomy, 
 well-appointed landau, drawn by a pair of capital horses, 
 and driven by a solemn shock-headed coachman of 
 imperturbable gravity and civility. The whole turn-out, 
 indeed, was surprisingly good and comfortable, and 
 would have done credit to any of the first-class hotels we 
 had lately left behind. 
 
 The Ghedinas assembled in a body to see us off. L.'s 
 maid, mournful enough at being left behind in a strange 
 land, watched us from the balcony. The postmaster, 
 the chemist, the grocer and the cure, stood together ni 
 a little knot at the corner of the piazza to see us go by. 
 
 * It would, of course, be easy to put up at Tai Cadore, where there is a 
 perfectly unobjectionable little hostelry, about one mile from Pievs di Cadore. 
 Persons intending to make a prolonged stay in the neighbourhood would 
 have to do this ; we, however, not liking the idea of turning back upon our 
 road, preferred pushing on to Auronzo.
 
 132 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS, 
 
 At last, bags, rugs, and umbrellas being all in, Giuseppe 
 jumped up to his seat on the box, the driver cracked his 
 whip, and away we went in the midst of a chorus of 
 '* buon viaggios " from the lookers-on. 
 
 The first twelve or fourteen miles of road, as far as 
 Tai Cadore, lay over the same ground which we had 
 already traversed the day of our arrival at Cortina. At 
 Tai, however, we turned aside, leaving the Monte Zucco 
 zigzag far below, and so went up the long white road 
 leading to the hamlet on the hill. 
 
 About halfway between the two valleys, we drew up 
 at a little wayside church, to see a certain miracle- 
 working crucifix said to have been found in the year 
 1540 in a field close by, where it was turned up 
 accidentally by the plough. Without being (as some 
 local antiquaries would have it believed) so ancient as 
 either the time of the invasion of the Visigoths in a.d. 
 410, or that of the Huns in a.d. 432, the crucifix is 
 undoubtedly curious, and may well have been buried for 
 security at the time of the German invasion under 
 Maximilian in a.d. 1508. Since that time, it is supposed 
 to have wrought a great number of miracles ; to have 
 sweated blood, and so stayed the pestilence of 1630 ; 
 and in various ways to have extended an extraordinary 
 degree of favour and protection towards the people of 
 Cadore. The little church, originally dedicated to 
 Saint Antonio, is now called the church of the Santissimo 
 Crocefisso, and enjoys a high reputation throughout this 
 part of Tyrol. The crucifix is carved in old brown 
 wood, and the sacred image is somewhat ludicrously 
 disfigured by a wig of real hair.
 
 CORTINA TO PI EVE DI CAD ORE. 
 
 We reached Pieve di Cadore about half-past eleven 
 A.M., delays included, and found the albergo quite as 
 indifferent as its reputation. It was very small, very 
 dirty, and crowded with peasants eating, drinking, and 
 smoking. Going upstairs in search of some corner 
 where we might leave our wraps and by-and-by take 
 luncheon apart, we found the bedrooms so objectionable 
 that we decided to occupy the landing. It was a com- 
 fortless place, crowded with lumber, and only a shade 
 more airy than the rest of the house. A space was 
 cleared, however ; a couple of seats were borrowed from 
 a neighbouring room ; and the top of a great carved 
 cassone, or linen-chest, was made to serve for a table. 
 Having ordered some food to be ready by one o'clock 
 (it being now nearly eleven) we then hastened out to 
 see the sights of the place. The landlady's youngest 
 daughter, an officious little girl of about twelve, volun- 
 teered as guide, and, being rejected, followed us per- 
 tinaciously from a distance. 
 
 The quaint old piazza with its gloomy arcades, its 
 antique houses with Venetian windows, its cafes, its 
 fountain, and its loungers, is just like the piazzas of 
 Serravalle, Longarone, and other provincial towns of 
 the same epoch. With its picturesque Prefettura and 
 belfry-tower one is already familiar in the pages of Gil- 
 bert's " Cadore." There, too, is the fine old double 
 flight of steps leading up to the principal entrance on 
 the first floor, as in the town-hall at Heilbronn — a fea- 
 ture by no means Italian ; and there, about midway up 
 the shaft of the cam])anile, is the great, gaudy, well- 
 remembered fresco, better meant than painted, wherein
 
 134 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 Titian, some twelve feet in height, robed and bearded, 
 stands out against an ultramarine background, looking 
 very like the portrait of a caravan giant at a fair. 
 
 This picture — a gift to the Commune of Cadore from 
 the artist who painted it — is now the only mural 
 fresco in the town. Some years ago, one of the old 
 houses in the piazza, now ruthlessly whitewashed, is 
 said to have borne distinct traces of external deco- 
 rations by Cesare Vecellio, the cousin and pupil of 
 Titian. 
 
 Turning aside from the glowing piazza and following 
 the downward slope of a hill to the left of the Prefet- 
 tura, we come, at the distance of only a few yards, 
 upon another open space, grassy and solitary, sur- 
 rounded on three sides by rambling, dilapidated-looking 
 houses, and opening on the fourth to a vista of woods 
 and mountains. 
 
 In the midst of this little piazza stands a massive 
 stone fountain, time-worn and water-worn, surmounted 
 by a statue of Saint Tiziano in the robes and square 
 cap of an ecclesiastic* The water, trickling through 
 two metal pipes in the pedestal beneath Saint Tiziano's 
 feet, makes a pleasant murmuring in the old stone 
 basin ; while, half hidden behind this fountain, and 
 leaning up as if for shelter against a larger house ad- 
 joining, stands a small whitewashed cottage upon the 
 
 * This picturesque little monument has now disappeared, having been 
 superseded in 1880 by a bronze statue of heroic size designed by a Venetian 
 artist named Del Zotto. It stands on a square pedestal, on one side of 
 which is inscribed " A Tiziano il Cadore," and upon the other sides are 
 enumerated the masterpieces of the great painter. {Note to Second Edition.)
 
 CORTINA TO PI EVE DI C ADO RE. 137 
 
 side-wall of which an incised tablet bears the followins^ 
 
 record : — * 
 
 Nel mcccclxxvii 
 Fra Queste Vmili Mura 
 
 TiZIANO VECELLIO 
 
 Vene A celebre Vita 
 
 DONDE VSCIVA GIA PRESSO A CENTO AnNI 
 
 In Venezia 
 
 ADDI XXVII Agosto 
 
 MDLXXVI. 
 
 A poor, mean-looking, low-roofed dwelling, disfigured 
 by external chimney-shafts and a built-out oven ; lit 
 with tiny, blinking, mediaeval windows ; altogether un- 
 lovely ; altogether unnoticeable ; but — the birthplace of 
 Titian ! 
 
 It looked different, no doubt, when he was a boy and 
 played outside here on the grass. It had probably a 
 high, steep roof, like the homesteads in his own land- 
 scape drawings ; but the present old brown tiles have 
 been over it long enough to get mottled with yellow 
 lichens. One would like to know if the fountain and 
 the statue were there in his time ; and if the water 
 trickled ever to the same low tune ; and if the women 
 came there to wash their linen and fill their brazen 
 water jars, as they do now. This lovely green hill, at 
 all events, sheltered the home from the east winds ; and 
 Monte Duranno lifted his strange crest yonder against 
 the southern horizon ; and the woods dipped down to 
 the valley, then as now, where the bridle-path slopes 
 away to join the road to Venice. 
 
 * In the (year) MCCCCLXXVII, within these humble walls Titian Vecellio 
 entered (upon) a celebrated life, whence he departed, at the end of nearly a 
 hundred years, in Venice, on the 27th day of August, MDLXXVI.
 
 138 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS, 
 
 We went up to the house, and knocked. The door 
 was opened by a sickly, hunchbacked lad who begged us 
 to walk in, and who seemed to be quite alone there. 
 The house was very dark, and looked much older in- 
 side than from without. A long, low, gloomy upstairs 
 chamber with a huge penthouse fire-place jutting into 
 the room, was evidently as old as the days of Titian's 
 grandfather, to whom the house originally belonged ; 
 while a very small and very dark adjoining closet, with 
 a porthole of window sunk in a slope of massive wall, 
 was pointed out as the room in which the great painter 
 was born. 
 
 " But how do you know that he was born here ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 The hunchback lifted his wasted hand with a depre- 
 cating gesture. 
 
 " They have always said so, Signora," he replied. 
 " They have said so for more than four hundred 
 years." 
 
 " They ? " I repeated, doubtfully. 
 
 "The Vecelli, Signora." 
 
 " I had understood that the Vecellio family was ex- 
 tinct." 
 
 " Scusate, Signora," said the hunchback. " The 
 last direct descendant of ' II Tiziano ' died not long ago 
 — a few years before I was born ; and the collateral 
 Vecelli are citizens of Cadore to this day. If the 
 Signora will be pleased to look for it, she will see the 
 name of Vecellio over a shop on the right-hand side, as 
 she returns to the Piazza." 
 
 I did look for it ; and there, sure enough, over a small
 
 CORTINA TO PI EVE DI C ADO RE. 139 
 
 shop-window I found it. It gave one an odd sort of 
 shock, as if time were for the moment annihilated ; and 
 I remembered how, with something of the same feehng, 
 I once saw the name of Rubens over a shop-front in the 
 market-place at Cologne. 
 
 I left the house less incredulous than I entered it. Of 
 the identity of the building there has never been any 
 kind of doubt ; and I am inclined to accept with the 
 house the identity of the room. Titian, it should be 
 remembered, lived long enough to become, long before 
 he died, the glory of his family. He became rich ; he 
 became noble ; his fame filled Italy. Hence the room 
 in which he was born may well have acquired, half a 
 century before his death, — perhaps even during the life- 
 time of his mother — that sort of sacredness which is 
 generally of post-mortem growth. The legend, handed 
 down from Vecellio to Vecellio in uninterrupted succes- 
 sion, lays claim, therefore, to a more reliable pedigree 
 than most traditions of a similar character 
 
 The large old house adjoining, known in Cadore as 
 the Casa Zampieri, was the next place to be visited. It 
 originally formed part of the Vecellio property, and 
 it contains an early fresco, once external, but now 
 brought inside by the enlargement of the house, and 
 supposed to have been painted by Titian in his 
 youth. 
 
 The hunchback offered to conduct us to this house, 
 and, having ushered us out into the little piazza, care- 
 fully locked his own door behind him. Here, lying in 
 wait for us, we found the officious small girl with some 
 three or four companions of her own age, who immc-
 
 I40 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 diately formed themselves into an uninvited body-guard, 
 and would not be shaken off. 
 
 The hunchback rang the Zampieri bell ; but no one 
 answered. He knocked ; but the echo of his knocking 
 died away, and nothing came of it. At length he tried 
 the door. It was only latched, and it opened instantly. 
 
 " Let us go upstairs," he said, and walked straight 
 in. 
 
 We followed, somewhat reluctantly. The body-guard 
 trooped in after us. 
 
 " This way," said the hunchback, already halfway up 
 the staircase. 
 
 *' But the mistress of the house," we urged, hesita- 
 tingly ; " where is she ? " 
 
 "Ah, chi lo sa ? Perhaps she is out — perhaps we 
 shall find her upstairs." 
 
 Again we followed. It was a large house, and had 
 once upon a time been handsomely decorated. The 
 landing was surrounded by doors and furnished with old 
 high-backed chairs, sculptured presses, and antique oak 
 chests big enough for two or three Ginevras to have 
 hidden in. Our guide opened one of the doors, led us 
 into a bare-looking kind of drawing-room, and did the 
 honours of the place as if it all belonged to him. 
 
 " Ecco il Tiziano ! " said he, pointing to a rough 
 fresco which, though executed on the wall of the room, 
 was set round with a common black and gold framing. 
 
 The subject, which is very simple, consists of only 
 three figures : — a long-haired boy kneeling on one knee, 
 and a seated Madonna, with the Child-Christ standing 
 in her lap. These are relieved against a somewhat
 
 CORTINA TO PIEVE DI C ADORE. 141 
 
 indefinite background of pillars and drapery. The 
 drawing" of this group is not particularly good ; the 
 colouring is thin and poor ; but there is much dignity 
 and sweetness both in the attitude and expression of the 
 Madonna. The drapery and background have, how- 
 ever, suffered injury at some time or other ; and, worse 
 still, restoration. A small picture which the lad 
 originally appeared to be presenting as a votive offer- 
 ing, has been altogether painted out ; but its former 
 position is clearly indicated by the attitude of the hands 
 of the two principal figures. 
 
 According to the same respectable chain of local 
 tradition, Titian painted this fresco at the age of eleven 
 years. Mr. Gilbert, who knows more, and has written 
 more, about Cadore than any of Titian's biographers, 
 suggests that the kneeling boy is a portrait of the young 
 painter by himself; and that he "commended himself 
 in this manner to the Divine care " before leaving 
 home in i486, to become a pupil of Zuccati at Venice. 
 
 The hunchback entertained us, meanwhile with the 
 history of the fresco ; the body-guard stood gaping by ; 
 and the odious small girl amused herself by peeping 
 into the photographic albums on the table. In the 
 midst of it all, a door was opened at the farther end of 
 the room, and a lady came in. 
 
 To our immense relief, she seemed to take the 
 invasion as a matter of course, and received us as 
 amiably as if we had presented ourselves under the 
 properest circumstances. It may be that she is in the 
 constant habit of finding stray foreign tourists in forcible 
 possession of her drawing-room; but she certainly
 
 142 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 betrayed no surprise at the sight of either ourselves or our 
 suite. She showed us some old maps and engravings 
 of Cadore, a lithographed head of Titian, and some other 
 worthless treasures ; and when we rose to take leave, 
 asked for our cards. 
 
 " I value them," she said, " as souvenirs of the 
 strangers who honour me by a visit." 
 
 The hunchback now went back to his own home, and 
 we bent our steps towards the Duomo, always persecuted 
 by the irrepressible little girl who, now that the hunch- 
 back had withdrawn, constituted herself our guide 
 whether we would or no, and had it all her own way. 
 She chattered ; she gesticulated ; she laid forcible 
 hands upon the sketching case ; she made plunges at 
 our parasols ; she skirmished round us, and before us, 
 and behind us ; and kept up a breathless rush of in- 
 sufferable babble. 
 
 " The Signoras were going to the Duomo? Ecco ! 
 They had but to follow her. She knew the way. She 
 had known it all her life. She was born here ! See, 
 that was the Prefettura. Would the Signoras like to go 
 over the Prefettura ? Many strangers did go over the 
 Prefettura. Yonder was the schoolhouse. She went to 
 school there. She was fond of going to school. Last 
 week she had a tooth out. It hurt dreadfully — oh ! 
 dreadfully. It was pulled out by the medico. He lived 
 in the piazza yonder, nearly opposite the post office. 
 This little house here was the house of the Paroco. She 
 had an uncle who was a Paroco ; — not here, however. 
 At Domegge, up the valley. And she had an aunt at 
 Cortina ; and brothers and sisters — lots of brothers and
 
 CORTINA TO PIEVE DI CAD ORE. 143 
 
 sisters, all older than herself. Her eldest sister had a 
 baby last week — oh ! such a little baby; no longer than 
 that ! Would the Signoras like to see the baby ? Ah, 
 well — here was the church. The Signoras must come 
 in by the side door. The great door is always locked, 
 except on Saints' days and Sundays. The side door is 
 always open. This way — this way ; and please to mind 
 the step ! " 
 
 It is a large church, quite as large as the Duomo of 
 Serravalle, unfinished externally, bare-looking, but well- 
 proportioned within. The chancel and transept are full 
 of pictures, some two or three of which are reputed 
 genuine Titians. None of these, however, though all in 
 the style and of the school of the great master, are so 
 strikingly fine as to declare their parentage at first 
 sight, like the great Titian of Serravalle. 
 
 It happened, fortunately for us, that the Paroco was 
 in the vestry. Hearing strange voices speaking a 
 strange tongue, he came out — a handsome, gentlemanly 
 little man of about forty-seven or fifty, with keen, well- 
 cut features, very bright eyes, a fresh colour, and silver- 
 grey hair. He at once entered into conversation, and 
 was evidently well pleased to show the treasures of his 
 church. His name and style are Don Antonio Da Via 
 (Don being probably a corruption of Domine, a parish 
 priest) ; and he has for fifteen years been paroco of this 
 his native town. In point of taste and education he is 
 superior to the general run of Tyrolean pastors. He 
 takes an eager interest in all that relates to Titian and 
 the Vecelli ; and he believes Cadore to be the axis on 
 which the world goes round.
 
 144 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 The Titians in the church are two in number :— 
 one a large, Hfe-size painting containing four full- 
 length figures ; the other an oblong, also a figure- 
 subject, half life size, and half length. 
 
 The first represents the Madonna and Child seated, 
 with S. Rocco standing on one side of the group 
 and S. Sebastiano on the other. S. Rocco points 
 as usual to the wound in his thigh. S. Sebastiano 
 stands in the traditional Peruginesque attitude, with 
 upturned face, hands bound behind his back, and his 
 body pierced with arrows. 
 
 The colouring has sadly faded ; the saints are not 
 very well-drawn ; the whole design is poor, the treat- 
 ment conventional, the quality of the work early ; 
 and yet no student of Titian could look at it for five 
 minutes and doubt its authenticity. It is the figure 
 of the seated Madonna that stamps the work with 
 Titian's sign-manual. Here is the somewhat broad, 
 calm face, the fresh complexion, the reddish golden 
 hair that he delighted to paint his whole life long. 
 It was his favourite type of female loveliness — that 
 type which he developed to its ultimate perfection 
 in the gorgeous " Sacred and Profane Love " of the 
 Borghese gallery. Even the draperies of the Cadore 
 Madonna, although the crimson jhas lost its fire and 
 the blue has gone cold and dim, yet recall those 
 other glowing voluminous folds, so impossible, so 
 magnificent, which mark the highest ideal flight ever 
 yet attained in mere pieghi. 
 
 The present picture was doubtless executed while 
 Titian was yet a mere lad ; but at the same time it
 
 CORTINA TO PIEVE DI CADORE. 145 
 
 bears internal evidence of having been painted after 
 he had seen Venice and studied the works of the 
 Venetian colourists. 
 
 Between this painting and the smaller one, there 
 reaches a great gulf of time — a gap of perhaps fifty 
 years. The first was the work of his boyhood ; the 
 second was the work of his age. He painted it, 
 most likely, and presented it to the church, during 
 one of his summer visits to his native hills. It 
 hangs in the Vecelli chapel — a chapel dedicated to 
 his own patron saint, S. Tiziano ; and in that chapel, 
 under that altar, it was his desire to have been finally 
 laid to rest. He died, however, as we all know, in 
 time of plague, at Venice ; and where he died, he was, of 
 necessity, buried. 
 
 This little picture, by which the Cadorini set 
 unbounded store, represents Saint Tiziano and Saint 
 Andrew adoring the Infant Christ, who lies in the 
 lap of the Virgin. S. Tiziano, supposed to be a 
 portrait of Titian's nephew, Marco Vecellio, kneels 
 to the left of the spectator, in rich episcopal robes 
 of white and gold brocade. Saint Andrew (a portrait 
 of Titian's brother Francesco) crouches reverently 
 on the right. Titian himself, bearing S. Tiziano's 
 crozier, appears in attendance upon the saint, in the 
 corner to the left ; while the Virgin mother, according 
 to popular belief, represents the wife of the painter. 
 
 The Madonna here is indifferently executed ; but 
 the Child is brought out into fine relief, and the 
 flesh is well modelled, warm, and solid. The great 
 feature of the picture, however, is Saint Tiziano, 
 
 I 2
 
 146 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &» UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 whose handsome, brown, uplifted face, Italian features^ 
 rich Southern complexion, and rapt, devotional 
 expression, are in the master's purest style. The 
 white and gold brocade of the Saint's Episcopal 
 vestments and the subdued gold of his mitre, remind 
 one, for their richness and solidity of texture, of the 
 handling of Paolo Veronese. The head of Titian by 
 himself in the left corner may be said to date the 
 picture, and represents a man of perhaps sixty yeans 
 of age. The execution of the whole is very unequal — 
 so unequal as to suggest the idea of its having been 
 partly executed by a scholar. In this case, however, 
 the figures of S. Tiziano and the Infant Christ must 
 be unhesitatingly ascribed to the hand of the master. 
 
 Besides these two pictures, the treasures of Cadore, 
 the church contains several paintings by the brothers 
 and nephews of Titian ; amongst others, a Last 
 Supper by Cesare Vecellio ; a Martyrdom of St. 
 Catherine by Orazio Vecellio ; and, foremost in merit 
 as well as in size, four large works in tempera 
 originally painted upon the doors of the organ by 
 Marco Vecellio, the nephew who sat for the S. Tiziano 
 in the altar-piece already described. 
 
 These four paintings, said the priest, had been 
 lying for years, neglected and forgotten, in a loft 
 to which they had been removed when taken down 
 from the front of the organ. It had long been his 
 desire to get them framed and hung in the church ; 
 and now, after years of waiting, he had only just been 
 able to carry out his design. 
 
 ** A Tyrolean pastor has not many lire to spend on
 
 CORTINA TO PI EVE DI C ADO RE. 147 
 
 the fine arts," he said smiling; ** but it is done at 
 last ; and the Signoras are the first strangers who 
 have seen them. They have not been up longer 
 than three or four days." 
 
 These four pictures measured some sixteen feet 
 in height by about eight in breadth, and were mounted 
 in plain wooden frames, painted black and varnished. 
 The outside cost of these frames, one would fancy, 
 could scarcely have exceeded twenty lire each, or a 
 little over three pounds English for the four. But 
 Don Antonio had cherished his project "for years" 
 before he was rich enough to realise it. 
 
 The temperas may be described* as four great 
 panels, each panel decorated with a single colossal 
 figure. Of these, Saint Matthew and Saint Mark 
 make one pair ; the Angel of the Annunciation and 
 the Virgin, the other. With the exception of the 
 Virgin, which is immeasurably inferior to the others, 
 these figures are, far and away, the finest things in 
 Cadore. For largeness of treatment, and freedom 
 of drawing, the writer knows nothing with which to 
 compare them, unless it be the Cartoons at South 
 Kensington. The Angel of the Annunciation — bold, 
 beautiful, buoyant as if just dropt down from heaven 
 — advances on half-bended knee, with an exquisite 
 air of mingled authority and reverence. His head 
 and flying curls are wholly Raffaellesque. So is the 
 grand head and upturned face of Saint Mark on one 
 of the other panels, though sadly injured and 
 
 * See Crowe and Cavalcaselle's "Life of Titian," Vol. II., p. 493, where 
 these panels are attributed to Cesare Veccllio.
 
 148 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 obliterated. The Angel and Virgin face each other 
 on either side of the transept, looking West ; while 
 Saint Matthew and Saint Mark occupy the same 
 relative positions just opposite. " The Angel," said 
 Don Antonio, " was too far separated from the 
 Virgin ; but that could not be helped, there being 
 no other place in the church where they could be 
 seen to so much advantage." 
 
 Having done the honours of the Sagrestia (which 
 contained several very indifferent old pictures, in- 
 cluding a doubtful Palma Vecchio) Don Antonio led 
 the way up a narrow stone staircase to the Vestiario, 
 and there, as an especial favour, permitted us to see 
 some antique embroidered vestments and procession- 
 banners that had been in use on great occasions from 
 immemorial time. Much more interesting than these, 
 however, and much more curious, was a very ancient 
 carved and gilded Predella, or shrine, in the florid 
 Gothic style, surmounted by a dry, Byzantine-looking 
 Christ, and constructed with folding doors below, like 
 a triptych. The panels of these doors were decorated 
 outside with four small full-length paintings of the 
 Evangelists, in a clear, brilliant, highly finished 
 manner, the heads and general treatment recalling the 
 style of Sandro Botticelli ; while inside, the shrine con- 
 tained four richly canopied niches each occupied by a 
 small carved and painted saint, very naive and medi- 
 asval, like little Cimabues done in wood. This Predella 
 belongs to a period long anterior to the Titian epoch, 
 and adorned the high altar up to the beginning of the 
 present century.
 
 CORTINA TO PI EVE DI CAD ORE. 149 
 
 It was already long past the hour at which we had 
 ordered luncheon when, having thanked Don Antonio 
 for his courtesy, we again came out into the blinding 
 sunshine. The insufferable little girl had now, happily, 
 vanished ; but she turned up again as soon as we re- 
 appeared at the Albergo, buzzed about us all the time 
 we were despatching our uncomfortable mid-day meal, 
 and was only driven off by help of Giuseppe when we 
 went out again presently to sketch and stroll about the 
 town and the castle hill for another couple of hours, 
 before pursuing our journey to Auronzo.
 
 AURONZO AND VAL BUONA. 
 
 DOMEGGE AND LOZZO — THE LEGEND OF MONTE CORNON — TRE PONTI 
 —THE ANTIQUITY OF THE PIAVE — THE VAL d'aURONZO— NATIVE 
 POLITENESS — VILLA GRANDE AND VILLA PICCOLA — " L'ALTRO 
 ALBERGO" — ^AN UNPREPOSSESSING POPULATION— THE MARMAROLE— 
 A DESERTED SILVER MINE — THE NEW ROAD — DIFFICULTIES OVER- 
 COME — VAL BUONA — THE " CIRQUE" OF THE CRODA MALCORA — 
 BASTIAN THE SOLITARY — THE MESURINA ALP — A MOUNTAIN TARN 
 — THE TRE CROCI PASS.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 AURONZO AND VAL BUONA.^" 
 
 The view of Cadore upon which one looks back from 
 the bend of the road half a mile out of the town on the 
 way to Calalzo, and again from the Ponte della Molina, 
 about another mile farther on, is one of the finest of its 
 kind in all this part of Tyrol. At the same time, it has 
 in it very little of the Tyrolean element. Pictorially 
 speaking, it is a purely Italian subject, majestic, har- 
 monious, classical ; with just sufficient sternness in the 
 mountain forms to give sublimity, but with no outlines 
 abrupt or fantastic enough to disturb the scenic repose 
 of the composition. In the foreground, we have the 
 ravine of the Molina spanned by a picturesque old 
 bridge, at the farther end of which a tiny chapel clings 
 to an overhanging ledge of cliff. In the middle dis- 
 tance, seen across an intervening chasm of misty valley, 
 the little far-away town of Cadore glistens on its 
 strange saddle-back ridge, watched over as of old by its 
 castle on the higher slope above. Farthest of all, 
 
 * There is now a good road from Pieve di Cadore by Domegge and the 
 Tre Ponti as far as Bastian's cottage, whence the traveller, following our 
 route, turns aside for the pass of the Tre Croci. The new road goes from 
 Belluno to Innichen. {^Note to Second Editroi.)
 
 154 UNTRODDEN PEAKS fir^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS, 
 
 rising magnificently against the clear afternoon sky, the 
 fine pyramidal mass of Monte Pera closes in the view. 
 For light and shadow, for composition, for all that 
 goes to make up a landscape in the grand style, the 
 picture is perfect. Nothing is wanting — not even the 
 foreground group to give it life ; for here come a 
 couple of bullock trucks across the bridge, as primitive 
 and picturesque as if they had driven straight out of 
 the fifteenth century. It is just vSuch a subject as 
 Poussin might have drawn, and Claude have coloured. 
 
 At Domegge, about three and a half miles from 
 Cadore, we come upon a village almost wholly des- 
 troyed a few months back by fire. It is now one mass 
 of black and shapeless ruin ; but it will not long re- 
 main so, for the whole population, men, women, and 
 little children, swarm like bees about a burnt hive, 
 casting away rubbish, carrying loads of stones, mixing 
 mortar, and helping to rebuild their lost homes. New 
 foundations and new walls are already springing up, 
 and by this present time, a second Domegge has doubt- 
 less risen on the ashes of the first. 
 
 Lozzo, the next village, about two miles farther up 
 the valley, was burnt down in just the same way a year 
 or two ago, and is now most unpicturesquely new, solid, 
 and comfortable. Perhaps to be burnt out is, on the 
 whole, the best fate that can befall the inhabitants of any 
 of these ancient timber-built hamlets ; for their dwell- 
 ings are then replaced by substantial stone-built houses. 
 As it is, what with danger from fire and danger 
 from bergfalls, the smaller Tyrolean " paesi " are by no 
 means safe or pleasant places to live in, and may stand
 
 AURONZO AND VAL BUONA. 155 
 
 comparison in point of Insecurity with Portici, Torre 
 del Greco, or any others of the Vesuvian villages. 
 
 Now the road, which has been very bad all the way 
 from Cadore, slopes gradually down towards the bed of 
 the torrent, passing within sight of Lorenzago to the 
 right, and under the impending precipices of Monte 
 Cornon to the left. Mountain and village has each its 
 legend. Lorenzago, picturesquely perched on one of 
 the lower slopes of Monte Cridola, claims to be the scene 
 of the martyrdom of Saint Florian, a popular Tyrolean 
 saint, whose intercession is supposed to be of especial 
 efficacy in cases of fire ; while Monte Cornon is said to 
 derive its name from an incident in the history of Cadore 
 thus related by Mr. Gilbert : — " Along the slopes above 
 this gorge, in the war of 1509, a division of Maximilian's 
 troops was cautiously advancing, when the notes of a 
 horn (corno) broke suddenly from the misty mountain 
 side. It was but a casual herdsman sounding, as is 
 still the custom there at certain seasons, to warn off 
 bears ; but supposing themselves to be attacked by the 
 Cadore people, panic seized the invaders, and they fled 
 the way they came, over the Santa Croce pass to 
 Sexten." — Cadore^ p. 92. 
 
 The same rustic horn, sounded for the same purpose, 
 may be heard here on quiet autumn evenings to this day, 
 what time the bears come prowling down to rob 
 orchards in the valley ; and it is remarkable that there 
 are more bears in the district about Monte Cornon, 
 Comelico, and the Gail Thai, than in any other part ot 
 the Alps. 
 
 A little way beyond the village of Lozzo, we cross the
 
 156 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 Piave and continue along the left bank as far as its 
 point of junction with the Anziei at Tre Ponti — a famous 
 triple bridge consisting of three bold arches, each ninety 
 feet in span, and all resting on a single central pier. To 
 the left, winding away between richly wooded heights, 
 lies the valley of Auronzo ; while to the right, the Upper 
 Piave, its grey waters shrunken to half their previous 
 volume, comes hurrying down a bare and stony channel 
 from its source in the Carnic Alps. 
 
 And now, having tracked it for many a mile of its 
 long course since first we saw it widening across the 
 plain near Conegliano, we are to bid a last farewell to 
 the Piave. It was then not very far from its grave in 
 the Adriatic ; it is now about as distant from its cradle 
 in the fastnesses of Monte Paralba. A curious old 
 historical writer, one Dottore Giorgio Piloni of Belluno, 
 who evolved a dull book in a dull style just one hundred 
 and eighty-two years ago, speaks of the Piave not only 
 as the largest and most important, but also as the "most 
 ancient " river of the province, and seeks to identify it 
 with the river Anassum* mentioned by Pliny in his 
 chapter on the Venetian territory. He urges in proof 
 of its antiquity, the depth of its bed and the height of 
 its banks, "whereby," says he, "it may plainly be 
 proved that this Piave cannot be a new river, as in other 
 instances one sees may happen by intervention of 
 earthquakes and other accidents." The good Doctor 
 
 * " Nasce la Piave nelle Alpi Taurisane sopra quel paese che per essere 
 montuoso con greco vocabulo Cadore si chiama : si come il flume ancora ha 
 preso da Greci il noma di Anaxo ; che vuole in quella lingua dire fiume che 
 per il corso suo veloce non pub esser all' indietro navigato." — Istoria di 
 Giorgio Piloni. Libra Secondo. Venezia, 1707.
 
 AURONZO AND VAL BUONA. 157 
 
 when he wrote this had evidently never visited the scene 
 of the great bergfall in the gorge of Serravalle, or seen 
 the basin of the Piave at Capo di Ponte. 
 
 Taking the right bank of the Anziei, we now enter 
 the Val d'Auronzo. The bad road which began at 
 Cadore ends at Tre Ponti, and once more the horses 
 have a fine, new, broad post-road beneath their feet. 
 The sun by this time is dropping westward ; the trees 
 fling long shadows aslant the sloping sward ; the gnats 
 come out in clouds ; and the air is full of evening scents 
 and sounds. It has been a long day, and nearly twelve 
 hours have gone by since we started from Cortina in the 
 morning. How much longer have we yet to be upon 
 the road before we reach Auronzo ? 
 
 Being asked this question, the driver, whose polite- 
 ness is such that it never permits him to give a direct 
 answer to anything, touches his hat with his whip- 
 handle, and replies that it is " as the Signora pleases." 
 (Come lei place, Signora.) 
 
 " But how many kilometres have we yet before us ? " 
 
 He coughs apologetically. " Kilometres ! Con 
 rispetta, it is by no means a question of kilometres. 
 With horses like these, kilometres go for nothing." 
 
 " Ebbene ! — as a question of time, then : — how soon 
 shall we be at Auronzo ? In an hour ? In an hour and 
 a half? Before dusk?" 
 
 The driver shrugs his shoulders ; looks round in a 
 helpless way, as if seeking some means of escape ; 
 touches his hat again, and stammers : — 
 
 '* Come lei place, Signora ! " 
 
 Come lei place ! It is the formula by which all his
 
 158 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &> UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS 
 
 ideas are bounded. He has no opinions of his own. 
 He would die rather than express himself with decision 
 about anything. Ask him what you will — the name of 
 a village, the hour of the day, the state of the weather, 
 his own name, age and birthplace, and he will inevitably 
 reply: " Come lei piace." It is his invariable answer, 
 and the effort to extract any other from him is sheer 
 waste of breath. 
 
 The distance, however, proves to be only four miles. 
 In about half an hour from the Tre Ponti, we come to a 
 bend in the road, and lo ! there lies a large, rambling 
 village straggling along the near bank of the Anziei ; a 
 big mosque-like church with a glittering white dome ; an 
 older looking campanile peering above the brown roofs 
 at the farther extremity of the place ; and beyond all 
 these, a vista of valley threaded by a deep, dark torrent 
 fringed with sullen pine-woods. It is not the village of 
 Auronzo, however, it is not the valley, nor the torrent, 
 nor the pine-woods that make the beauty and wonder of 
 the view : — it is the encircling array of mountain 
 summits standing up rank above rank, peak beyond 
 peak, against the clear, pale, evening sky. Farthest 
 and strangest, at the remote end of the valley, rise the 
 Drei Zinnen, now showing distinctly as three separate 
 obelisks. A soft haze through which the sun is shining, 
 hangs over the distance ; and the Drei Zinnen, belted 
 by luminous bands of filmy horizontal cloud, look like 
 icebergs afloat in a sea of golden mist. 
 
 It is one of those rare and radiant effects that one 
 may travel for a whole summer without seeing, and 
 which, when they do occur, last but a few moments.
 
 AURONZO AND VAL BUONA. 
 
 159 
 
 Before we had reached the first cottages, the golden 
 light was gone, and the vapours had turned grey and 
 ghostly. 
 
 Auronzo is divided into an upper and a lower village, 
 known respectively as the Villa Grande and the Villa 
 
 VALLEY OF AURONZO. 
 
 Piccola. Villa Piccola, which one reaches first on 
 entering fi'om the Tre Ponti side, is a modern suburb to 
 Villa Grande. The houses of this modern suburb are 
 large and substantial, reminding one of the houses at 
 Ober Ammergau ; and some are decorated in the same 
 way with rough religious frescoes. To Villa Piccola 
 belong both the large new church with the dome, and 
 the albergo — a clean-looking house lying a little way
 
 r6o UXTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 back from the road on the left hand, close against the 
 parsonage. 
 
 Driving up to this inn, we find some four or five 
 chaises and carettini drawn up in front of the house ; a 
 knot of men and women gathered round the door ; faces 
 of other men and women looking out from the upper 
 windows ; and an unwonted air of bustle and festivity 
 about the place. The landlady, a hard-featured dame 
 in rusty black, standing at the door with her arms 
 a-kimbo, shakes her head as we draw up, and does not 
 give Giuseppe time to speak. 
 
 She cannot take us in — not she ! Couldn't take in 
 the King of Italy, if he came this evening. Impossible. 
 She has a wedding party from Comelico, and her house 
 is quite full. Ecco ! There is another albergo higher 
 up, in Villa Grande. We shall probably find room 
 there. If not ? — well, she can't say ! She supposes we 
 must go back the way we have come. 
 
 Giuseppe and the driver look blank. They mutter 
 something in low voices about " I'altro albergo ; " and 
 my ear detects an ominous emphasis on the " altro." 
 The landlady purses up her mouth ; the travellers in 
 possession (all in their gayest holiday clothes) survey us 
 with an insolent air of triumph ; the coachman gathers 
 up his reins ; and we drive on, quite discomfited. 
 
 With the scattered homesteads of Villa Piccola the 
 good road ends abruptly, and becomes a mere stony 
 cart-track full of ruts and rubble. Then, all at once, 
 we find ourselves in the midst of a foul, closely-packed 
 labvrinth of old timber houses, ruinous, smoke- 
 blackened, dilapidated, compared with which the
 
 AURONZO AND VAL BUONA. i6i 
 
 meanest villages we have as yet passed through are 
 clean and promising. Here squalid children shout, 
 and sprawl, and beg ; slatternly women lean from 
 upper windows ; and sullen, fierce-looking men loung- 
 ing in filthy doorways stare in a grim unfiiendly way as 
 the carriage lurches past. This is Villa Grande. 
 
 Another moment, and, turning a sharp corner, we 
 draw up before a bare desolate-looking house standing a 
 little apart from the rest, with a walled-off bowling 
 ground on one side, in which some six or eight men are 
 playing at ball, and a score or two of others looking on. 
 This is our albergo. 
 
 We look at Giuseppe — at the house — at each other. 
 
 " Is there no other place to which we can go for the 
 night ? " we ask, aghast. 
 
 Giuseppe shakes his head. This and the inn at Villa 
 Piccola are the only two in the place.* If we do not 
 stay here, we have no resource but to go back to Tai 
 Cadore, a distance of at least fourteen, if not fifteen, 
 English miles. 
 
 At this crisis, out comes a tall, smiling, ungainly 
 woman, with an honest face and a mouth full of large, 
 shining teeth — an anxious, willing, cheerful body, eager 
 to bid us welcome ; eager to carry any number of bags 
 and rugs ; brimming over with good-will and civility. 
 She leads the way up an extremely dirty flight of stairs ; 
 across a still dirtier loft full of flour-sacks, cheeses, and 
 farming implements ; and thence up a kind of step- 
 ladder that leads to a landing furnished with the usual 
 
 * There arc now three inns at Auronzo ; namely, the Albergo Alle Alpi, the 
 AUe Grazie, and the Vittoria. {Note to Second Edition.') 
 
 K 2
 
 1 62 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 table and chairs, linen press and glass-cupboard. Open- 
 ing off this landing are some two or three very bare but 
 quite irreproachable bed-rooms with low whitewashed 
 walls, and ceilings about seven feet from the ground. 
 The floors, the bedding, the rush-bottomed chairs are 
 all as scrupulously clean as the lower part of the estab- 
 lishment is unscrupulously the reverse. Carpets and 
 curtains of course there are none. What is wanting 
 in personal comforts is made up for, however, in the 
 way of spiritual adornments. The walls are covered 
 with prints of saints and martyrs in little black frames ; 
 while over the head of each bed there hangs a coloured 
 lithograph of the Madonna displaying a plump pink 
 heart stuck full of daggers, and looking wonderfully 
 like a Valentine. 
 
 Here, then, we may take up our quarters and be at 
 peace ; and here, upon the landing, we are presently 
 served with hot cutlets, coffee, eggs, and salad, all of 
 very tolerable quality. While this meal is in prepara- 
 tion, we watch the players in the bowling ground. 
 Our driver, having attended to his horses, strips off his 
 coat and joins in the game. Giuseppe smokes his 
 cigar, and looks gravely on. By and by, the dusk closes 
 round ; the players disperse ; and we, who have to be 
 upon the road again by 8.30 a.m., are glad to go to rest, 
 watched over by our respective Madonnas. 
 
 Whether seen by evening grey or morning sunshine^ 
 the upper village of Auronzo is as unprepossessing, 
 disreputable-looking a place as one would care to 
 become acquainted with either at home or abroad. 
 Ram.bling about next morning before breakfast, I saw
 
 AURONZO AND VAL BUONA. 163 
 
 nothing but dirt and poverty under their least pic- 
 turesque aspect. The people looked sullen, scowling, 
 and dissolute; the houses overcrowded; the surrounding 
 country not half cultivated. I afterwards learned that 
 the commune was poor, in debt, and over-populated ; 
 and that the inhabitants bore an indifferent reputation. 
 
 It was pleasant enough, at all events, to drive off 
 again in the cool, bright morning, our horses' heads 
 turned once again towards the hills. 
 
 And now, Auronzo being left behind, the scenery be- 
 comes grander with each mile of the way. Every 
 opening gorge to right and left discloses fresh peaks 
 and glimpses of new horizons. The pine slopes, last 
 evening so gloomy, are outlined in sunshine this morn- 
 ing ; and the torrent ripples along its bed of glittering 
 white pebbles, like a blue ribbon with a silver border. 
 
 The valley from this point looks like a cul de sac. 
 The road runs up to the foot of a great barrier of stony 
 debris at the base of Monte Giralba on the one side, 
 and there, to all appearance, ends abruptly ; Monte 
 Rosiana (locally known as Monte Rugiana) puts forth a 
 gigantic buttress on the other ; while the Col Agnello, 
 a wild pile of peaks not far short of 10,000 feet in height, 
 rises, an impassable barricade, between the two. It is 
 not till one has driven quite up to this point that the 
 valley, instead of being hopelessly blocked, is found to 
 turn off sharply to the left, narrowing to a mere gorge, 
 and windins: round the western flank of Monte Rosiana. 
 
 Now, some little distance farther on, we pass the 
 desolate hamlet of Stabiziani, a cluster of half-ruined 
 cottages at the mouth of a wild glen leading to a
 
 i64 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 perilous and rarely-trodden pass behind the Col Agnello, 
 And now the road plunges all at once into a dense, fra- 
 grant tract of pine-forest, musical with the singing of 
 birds ; pierced here and there by shafts of quivering 
 sunlight ; and all alive with little brown squirrels dart- 
 ing to and fro among the pendant fir-cones. By-and- 
 by, a great cloven peak comes up above the tree-tops to 
 the left, shutting out half the sunshine ; and then a 
 broad glade opens suddenly in the wood, revealing what 
 looks at first sight like a range of new and colossal 
 mountains, the lower spurs of which are only separated 
 from us by the bed of the Anziei. 
 
 At this point the driver pulls up, and, turning half- 
 round upon his box, says with the exaggerated polite- 
 ness of a Master of the Ceremonies in a provincial 
 Assembly Room : — 
 
 " Con rispetto, Signora — il Alarmarole." 
 
 Being thus formally introduced to our new Dolomite, 
 we would fain achieve a better view of it than is possible 
 from this point. All we see of it, indeed, is a vast mass 
 towering up indefinitely beyond the pine-forest, and, 
 facing us, a huge slope of reddish brown earth piled 
 to a height of some five or seven hundred feet against 
 the mountain side. This slope of rubble, dotted over 
 here and there with wooden sheds, marks the site of an 
 extensive lead and silver mine, now abandoned ; and a 
 tiny hole in the face of the cliff above, no bigger ap- 
 parently than a keyhole, is pointed out as the entrance 
 to the principal shaft. 
 
 So we go on, always in the green shade of the forest, 
 till we come to a little group of cottages known collec-
 
 AUROXZO AND VAL BUONA. 165 
 
 tively as the Casa di San Marco ; a name recalling the 
 old days of Venetian sovereignty, and still marking the 
 frontier between Italy and Austria. Here, there being 
 no officials anywhere about, we pass unquestioned 
 under the black and yellow pole, and so arrive in a few 
 moments at the opening point of the new government- 
 road which old Ghedina had given us directions to 
 follow as far as it went. 
 
 This new government road, carried boldly up and 
 through a steep hill-side of pine-forest, is considered — 
 and no doubt with justice — to be an excellent piece of 
 work ; but old Holborn Hill with all the paving stones 
 up would have been easy driving compared with it. As 
 yet, indeed, it is not a road, but a rough clearing some 
 twenty feet in width, full of stones and rubble and slags 
 of knotted root, with the lately-felled pine-trunks lying 
 prostrate at each side, like the ranks of slain upon a 
 battle-field. No vehicle, it seems, has yet been brought 
 this way, and though we all alight instantly, it seems 
 doubtful whether the carriage can ever be got up. The 
 horses, half maddened by clouds of gad-flies, struggle 
 up the rugged slope, stopping every now and then tc 
 plunge and kick furiously. The landau rocks and rolls 
 like a ship at sea. Every moment the road becomes 
 worse, and the blaze of noonday heat more intolerable. 
 Presently we come upon a gang of road-makers some 
 two hundred in number, women and children as well as 
 men, swarming over the banks like ants, clearing, 
 levelling, and stone-breaking. They pause in theii 
 work, and stare at us as if we were creatures from 
 another world.
 
 1 66 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 "You are the first travellers who have come up this 
 way," says the overseer, as we pass by. " You must 
 be Inglese ! " 
 
 At length we reach a point where the road ceases 
 altogether ; its future course being marked off with 
 stakes across a broad plateau of smooth turf. This 
 plateau — a kind of natural arena in the midst of an 
 upper world of pine-forest — is hemmed closely in by 
 trees on three sides, but sinks away on the left into a 
 wooded dell down which a clear stream leaps and 
 sparkles. We look round, seeing no outlet, save by 
 the way we have come, and wondering w^iat next can 
 be done with the carriage. To our amazement, the 
 driver coolly takes the leader by the head and makes 
 straight for the steep pitch dipping down to the torrent. 
 
 " You will not attempt to take the carriage down into 
 that hole ! " exclaims the writer. 
 
 " Con rispetto, Signora, there is no other way," 
 replies the driver, deferentially. 
 
 " But the horses will break their legs, and the 
 carriage will be dashed to pieces ! " 
 
 " Come lei piace, Signora," says the driver, dimly 
 recognising the truth of this statement. 
 
 We are standing now on the brink of the hollow, the 
 broken bank shelving down to a depth of about thirty 
 feet ; the torrent tumbling and splashing at the bottom ; 
 and the opposite bank rising almost as abruptly beyond. 
 
 " Are we bound to get it across here ? " I asked. 
 
 " Con rispetto, yes, Signora. That is to say, it can 
 be sent back to Cortina all the way round by Auronzo 
 and Pieve di Cadore. It is as the Signora pleases."
 
 AURONZO AND VAL BUONA. 167 
 
 Now it pleases neither of the Signoras to send the 
 carriage back by a round of something Hke forty-five 
 miles ; so, after a hurried consultation, we decide to 
 have the horses taken out, and the carriage hauled 
 across by men. Giuseppe is thereupon despatched for 
 a reinforcement of navvies ; and thus, by the help of 
 some three or four stalwart fellows, the landau is lifted 
 bodily over ; the horses are led across and re-harnessed; 
 and, after a little more pushing and pulling, a rough 
 cart-track on the other side of this Rubicon is gained 
 in safety. 
 
 Yet a few yards farther, and we emerge upon another 
 space of grassy Alp — a green, smooth, sloping amphi- 
 theatre of perhaps some eighty acres in extent — to the 
 East all woods ; to the West all mountains with one 
 lonely little white house nestling against the verge of 
 the forest about a quarter of a mile away. This 
 amphitheatre is the Val Buona ; that little white house 
 is the cottage of Bastian the wood-ranger ; yonder pale 
 gigantic pinnacles towering in solitary splendour above 
 the tree-tops to the rear of the cottage, are the crests 
 of the Cristallo. But above all else, it is the view to 
 the Westward that we have come here to see — the 
 famous "cirque " of the Croda Malcora. And in truth, 
 although we have already beheld much that is wild 
 and wonderful in the world of Dolomite, we have as 
 yet seen nothing that may compare with this. 
 
 The green sward slopes away from before our feet 
 and vanishes in a chasm of wooded valley of unknown 
 depth and distance ; while beyond and above this 
 valley, reaching away far out of sight to right and left ;
 
 i68 UNTRODDEN PEAKS <S- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 piled up precipice above precipice, peak above peak ; 
 seamed with horizontal bars of snow-drift ; upholding 
 here a fold of glittering glacier ; dropping there a thread 
 of misty waterfall ; cutting the sky-line with all unimagi- 
 nable forms of jagged ridge and battlement, and reach- 
 ing as it seems midway from earth to heaven, runs a 
 vast unbroken chain of giant mountains. But what 
 mountains ? Familiar as we have become by this time 
 with the Ampezzo Dolomites, there is not here one 
 outline that either can recognise. Where, then, are 
 we ? And what should we see if we could climb yonder 
 mighty barrier ? 
 
 It takes some minutes' consideration and the help of 
 the map, to solve these questions. Then, suddenly, all 
 becomes clear. We are behind the Croda Malcora : 
 directly behind Sorapis ; and looking straight across 
 in the direction of the Pelmo, which, however, is hidden 
 by intervening mountains. The Antelao should be 
 visible to the left, but is blocked out by the long and 
 lofty range of the Marmarole, Somewhere away to 
 the right, in the gap that separates this great panorama 
 from the nearer masses of the Cristallo, lies the Tre 
 Croci pass leading to Cortina. The main feature of 
 the view, however, is the Croda Malcora ; and we are 
 looking at it from the back. Seen on this side, It 
 shows as a sheer wall of impending precipice, too steep 
 and straight to afford any resting places for the snow, 
 save here and there upon a narrow ledge or shelf, 
 scarce wide enough for a chamois. On the Ampezzo 
 side, however, it flings out huge piers of rock, so that 
 the Westward and Eastward faces of it are as unlike
 
 AURONZO AND VAL BUONA. 169 
 
 as though they belonged to two separate mountains. 
 This form, as I by and by discover, is of frequent 
 occurrence in Dolomite structure ; the Civetta affording, 
 perhaps, the most remarkable case in point. 
 
 Having looked awhile at this wonderful view, we are 
 glad once more to escape out of the blinding sunshine 
 into the shade of the pine-woods. Here, by the help 
 of rugs and cloaks, we make a tent in which to rest 
 for a couple of hours during the great heat of the day ; 
 and so, taking luncheon, studying our books and maps, 
 listening to the bees among the wild-flowers and to 
 the thrushes in the rustling boughs overhead, we fancy 
 ourselves in Arcadia, or the Forest of Arden. Mean- 
 while, the woodman's axe is busy among the firs on 
 the hillside, and now and then we hear the crash of a 
 falling tree. 
 
 The forester who lives in the white cottage yonder 
 comes by and by to pay his respects to the Signore. 
 His name is Bastian, and he turns out to be a brother 
 of Santo Siorpaes. He also has been a soldier, and is 
 glad now and then, when opportunity offers, to act as 
 gfuide. He lives in this lost corner of the world the 
 whole year round. It is " molto tristo," he says ; 
 especially in winter. When autumn wanes, he pro- 
 visions his little house as if for a long siege, laying in 
 store of flour, cheese, sausage, coffee and the like. 
 Then the snow comes, and for months no living soul 
 ventures up from the valleys. All is white and silent, 
 like death. The snow is as high as himself — some- 
 times higher ; and he has to dig a trench about the 
 house, that the light may not be blocked out of the
 
 I JO UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 lower windows. There was one winter, he says, not 
 many years ago, when the falls were so sudden and so 
 heavy, that he never went to bed at night without 
 wondering whether he should be buried alive in his 
 cottage before morning. 
 
 While he is yet speaking, a band of road-makers 
 comes trooping by, whistling, and laughing, and 
 humming scraps of songs. They are going back to 
 work, having just eaten their mid-day mess of polenta; 
 and their hearts are glad with wine — the rough red 
 wine that Bastian sells at the cottage for about three 
 kreutzers the litro, and which we at luncheon found 
 quite undrinkable. 
 
 " The place is full of life now, at all events," says L., 
 consolingly. 
 
 He looks after them, and shakes his head. 
 
 "Yes, Signora," he replies; "but their work here 
 will soon be done, and then it will seem more solitary 
 than ever." 
 
 The man is very like Santo, but has nothing of 
 Santo's animation. The lonely life seems to have 
 taken all that brightness out of him. His manner is 
 sad and subdued ; and when he is not speaking, he 
 has just that sort of lost look which one sees in the 
 faces of prisoners who have been a long time in con- 
 finement. 
 
 At two o'clock, we break up our camp and prepare 
 to start again. The polite driver, mindful of a possible 
 buono-mano, comes to take leave, and is succeeded by 
 the lad Giovanni, who has journeyed up from Cortina 
 to meet us with the promised saddle-horses. And now
 
 AURONZO AND VAL BUOAA. 171 
 
 our old friend the tall chesnut appears upon the scene 
 with the Pezze side-saddle on his back, followed by an 
 equally big black horse with the Ghedina saddle ; 
 whereupon, having Giuseppe and Giovanni in attend- 
 ance, we mount and ride away — not without certain 
 shrewd suspicions that our gallant steeds are carrying 
 ladies for the first time. Big as they are, they climb, 
 however, like cats, clambering in a wonderful way up 
 the steep and stony slope of fir-forest that rises behind 
 Bastian's cottage and leads to the Mesurina Alp beyond. 
 Three quarters of an hour of this rough work brings 
 us to a higher level than we have yet reached, and 
 lands us on an immense plateau of rich turf hemmed in 
 on both sides by an avenue- of rocky summits. Those 
 to the right are the Cime Cadino, or Cadine-spitzen. 
 Those on the left are the lower crags of the Cristallo 
 mass, above which, though unseen from here, towers 
 the gigantic Piz Popena. And this vast prairie-valley, 
 so high, so solitary, all greenest grass below, all bluest 
 sky above, undulating away into measureless distance, 
 is the Mesurina Alp.'" As much perhaps as a thousand 
 head of cattle are here feeding in the rich pastures. 
 Presently we pass the " Stabilimento," or VacJicrie as 
 it would be called in France ; — a cluster of sub- 
 stantial wooden buildings, where the herdsmen live 
 in summer, making and storing the cheeses which 
 form so important an item in the wealth of the district. 
 
 * The word Alp is used here and always in its local sense, as signifying a 
 mountain pasture. It may be as well to remark at the same time that the 
 word " Col" stands in these parts for a hill, and is derived from Collis ; while 
 a mountain pass (called in Switzerland a Col) is here called a Forcella.
 
 172 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &> UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 At length, when we have journeyed on and on, for 
 what seems an interminable distance, we come upon a 
 circular hollow in the midst of which nestles the Me- 
 surina lake — a green transparent, tranquil tarn, fed as 
 we are told by thirty springs, and rich in salmon trout 
 and otters. The place is inconceivably still, beautiful, 
 and solitary. Dark rushes fringe the borders of the 
 lake, and are doubled by reflection. Three cows stand 
 drowsing in the water, motionless. Not a ripple dis- 
 turbs its glassy surface. Not a sound stirs the air. 
 Yonder, where the vista opens Northwards, appear 
 the cloudy summits of the Drei Zinnen ; here, where 
 the grassy lawn slopes down to the water's edge, the 
 very sunshine seems asleep. The whole scene has a 
 breathless unreality about it, as if it were a mirage, or 
 a picture. 
 
 Having rested here awhile, we retrace our steps the 
 whole length of the plateau, and then, dismounting, 
 strike across on foot over a long slope of bog and rock, 
 till we gain the mule-track leading by the Tre Croci 
 pass to Cortina. An easy ascent winding up and round 
 the edge of a pine forest, now carries us over the 
 shoulder of the Cristallo, which here assumes quite a 
 new aspect, and instead of appearing as one united 
 mass, divides into three enormous blocks, each block in 
 itself a mountain. 
 
 For a long way, the Eastward view still commands 
 the ransre of the Marmarole and the Croda Malcora. 
 Then by degrees, as we work round towards the West, 
 the Marmarole is gradually lost to sight, and the Mal- 
 cora crags begin to show themselves in profile. At
 
 AURONZO AND VAL BUONA. 173 
 
 last the summit of the pass is gained, with its three 
 crosses ; and all the familiar peaks of the Ampezzo 
 side rise once more in magnificent array against the 
 sunset : — to the left, the Pelmo and Rochetta ; to the 
 right, a corner of Monte Lagazuoi and the three 
 summits of the Tofana ; straight ahead the Bee di 
 Mezzodi, Monte Nuvolau, and, beyond the gap of 
 the Tre Sassi pass, the far-off snow slope of the Mar- 
 molata. 
 
 The road from here to Cortina, though not steep, is 
 long and rough — so rough that we are glad to dis- 
 mount presently and finish the homeward journey on 
 foot. As we go down, a number of wayside crosses, 
 some rudely fashioned in wood, some of rusty iron, 
 attract our attention by their frequency on either 
 side of the path. They are monuments to the memory 
 of travellers lost in the sudden snow-storms which make 
 these passes so perilous in winter-time and spring.
 
 CAPRI LE. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF CORTINA AS A DOLOMITE CENTRE— OUR DEPARTURE 
 FOR CAPRILE — THE " SIGNORA CUOCA " AGAIN— CASTEL D'ANDRAZ — 
 FINNAZZER'S inn — THE UPPER VALLEY OF THE CORDEVOLE— A SUC- 
 CESSION OF RAIN-STORMS— A CORDIAL WELCOME — CAPRILE— THE 
 GA]ME OF PALLO — AUSTRIANS AND ITALIANS — THE CIVETTA — THE 
 LAKE OF ALLEGHE — THE GREAT BERG FALLS OF 1 77 1— THE RAPE OF 
 THE SIDE-SADDLE — THE COL DI SANTA LUCIA — TITIAN'S LOST 
 FRESCO— SUNSET ON THE CIVETTA.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CAPRILE. 
 
 The time at length came when we must bid goodbye 
 to Cortina. It w^as a place in which many more days 
 might have been spent with pleasure and profit. The 
 walks were endless ; the sketching was endless ; the 
 climate perfect. Still we had already overstayed the 
 time originally set apart in our programme for the 
 Ampezzo district ; we had made all the most accessible 
 excursions about the neighbourhood ; and with the 
 whole of that great Italian Dolomite centre that lies 
 beyond the Tre Sassi ridge yet unexplored, it was plain 
 that we could ill afford to linger longer on the Austrian 
 border. 
 
 At the same time, Cortina, just because it lies upon 
 the border, is in danger of being too hastily dismissed 
 by travellers coming in from the Conegliano side. IMar- 
 vellous as its surrounding mountains are, a stranger 
 is apt to conclude that they but open the way to 
 still greater marvels, and to regard the Ampezzo Thai 
 as only the threshold of Wonderland. Even Mr. 
 Gilbert, visiting Cortina for the first time in 1861, as 
 he himself tells, stayed only one night there, and never 
 
 L 2
 
 178 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 ceased to regret the omission till another Tyrolean 
 tour enabled him to repair it. For myself, looking 
 back in memory across that intervening sea of peaks 
 and passes which lies between Botzen and Cortina, I 
 am inclined to place the Ampezzo Dolomites in the 
 very first rank, both as regards position and structure. 
 The mountains of Primiero are more extravagantly 
 wild in outline ; the Marmolata carries more ice and 
 snow ; the Civetta is more beautiful ; the solitary giants 
 of the Seisser Alp are more imposing ; but, taken as a 
 group, I know nothing, whether for size, variety, or 
 picturesqueness, to equal that great circle which, within 
 a radius of less than twelve miles from the doors of the 
 Aquila Nera, includes the Pelmo, Antelao, Marmarole, 
 Croda Malcora, Cristallo and Tofana. 
 
 It was time, however, as I have said, for us to be 
 moving onward. A practised mountaineer would 
 doubtless find more than enough employment for a 
 whole season within this one area ; but we, who were 
 not mountaineers in any sense of the word, had now 
 done our duty very fairly by the place, and so (not 
 without reluctance) were bound to seek fresh woods and 
 pastures new. Nothing, in short, could have been 
 pleasanter than staying — except going. 
 
 Our next point being Caprile, it was arranged that 
 we should ride over the Tre Sassi pass and send the 
 luggage by caretta. Giuseppe, always economical, 
 proposed a second caretta for the Signoras, adding that 
 the char-road was " a little rough " on the side of 
 Caprile. We, however, had already found it more than 
 a little rough on the side of Cortina, and, being
 
 C AFFILE. 179 
 
 impressed with a lively recollection of the horrors of 
 that drive, declined to pursue the experiment any 
 farther. 
 
 Also, it was necessary to make sure of Ghedina's side- 
 saddle. By taking horses and riding over the pass, we 
 should at least get it as far as Caprile. Possession, so 
 far, would be something gained. I am bound to 
 confess that beyond that point our intentions, though 
 vague, were decidedly felonious. 
 
 The morning was exquisite when we started. The 
 caretta went first, driven by our polite friend of the other 
 day, and we followed about half an hour later. The 
 procession consisted of two riding-horses (Fuchs, the 
 chesnut, and Moro, the black), a mule for the maid, the 
 two elder Ghedinas, Giuseppe, and Giovanni. The 
 Ghedinas were there to lead the horses when necessary, 
 and to bring them home to-morrow ; while Giovanni — • 
 inasmuch as the mule's present rider had never before 
 mounted anything more spirited than a Sorrento 
 donkey — had strict orders to stay by that animal's head, 
 and never to leave his post for an instant. And indeed 
 a less inexperienced rider might well have been excused 
 a shade of nervousness, for the road was often steep, 
 and often skirted the brink of very unpleasant-looking 
 precipices ; while the promised "basta," destitute alike 
 of rail and pommel, proved to be neither more nor less 
 than a bundle of cushions and sheepskins strapped 
 upon a man's saddle, with no real support save a 
 stirrup. 
 
 In this order, then, we finally started, taking our 
 former route in the direction of Falzarego, and casting
 
 i8o UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 many a backward glance at the mountains we were 
 leaving behind us. 
 
 Arrived once more at the Httle Hospice, the " Signora 
 Cuoca" was welcomed with acclamations. Again, 
 leaving the public room for the use of the men, we took 
 possession of the padrona's bright little kitchen ; again 
 the eggs and butter, the glittering brass pan, the long 
 brass ladle and the big apron were produced ; and again 
 the author covered herself with glory. It may have 
 been the peculiar quality of the air on this particular 
 pass, or it may have been the result of an exaggerated 
 degree of self-approbation ; but those Falzarego eggs 
 did certainly seem, on both occasions, to transcend in 
 delicacy and richness of flavour all other eggs with 
 which the present writer ever had the pleasure of 
 becoming acquainted. 
 
 It was our destiny to be overtaken by rain and mist 
 on the Tre Sassi. Before we left the Hospice, a few 
 uncertain drops were already beginning to fall, and by 
 the time we reached the summit, the Marmolata was 
 gleaming in the same ghostly way as before, through 
 fast-gathering vapours. 
 
 From this point, all is new. Skirting first the base 
 of Monte Lagazuoi, then of the abrupt crag locally 
 known as the Sasso d'Istria, we pass close above some 
 large unmelted snow-drifts, and so down into a steep 
 romantic glen traversed by a clear torrent " musical 
 with many a fall " and crossed every here and there by 
 a narrow bridge of roughly hewn pine trunks. Some- 
 times, where there is no bridge, the water sparkles all 
 across the path, and those on foot have to spring from
 
 CAPRILE. i8i 
 
 stone to stone as best they may. Dark firs and larches, 
 growing thicker and closer as the dell dips deeper, 
 make a green gloom overhead. Ferns, mosses, and wild 
 flowers grow in lush luxuriance all over the steep banks, 
 and carpet every hollow. Gaunt peaks are seen now 
 and then through openings in the boughs, as if 
 suspended high up in the misty air. And ever the 
 descending path winds in and out among huge boulders 
 covered with bushes and many-coloured lichens. 
 
 And now, as we go on, the sky darkens more and 
 more. Then a light steady mist begins to fall ; the 
 mist turns to rain ; the rain becomes a storm ; and the 
 mountains echo back a long, low peal of distant 
 thunder. Meanwhile, the road has become very steep 
 and slippery, and the horses keep their feet with 
 difficulty. Then the glen turns and widens, and Castel 
 d'Andraz — a shattered, blank-eyed ruin perched high 
 upon a pedestal of crag — comes suddenly into sight. 
 Steep precipices skirt the ruin on one side, and upland 
 pastures on the other ; a green valley opens away 
 beyond ; and the grassy slope beside the bridle-path is 
 full of large wild orange lilies and crimson dog-roses that 
 flame like jewels in a ray of sunshine which breaks 
 at this moment through the clouds. Not even the 
 sheets of rain still pelting pitilessly down, can blot 
 out the wonderful beauty of the view, or reconcile 
 me, to the impossibility of stopping then and there to 
 sketch it. 
 
 We ride on, however, for fully three-quarters of an 
 hour more, stumbling over wet stones and sliding down 
 steps hewn in the solid rock, till at length the little
 
 1 82 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 hamlet of Andraz,* half hidden among trees and 
 precipices, and framed in overhead by a magnificent 
 fragment of rainbow, appears in welcome proximity 
 close beneath our feet. Another turn of the road, and 
 we are there. The men are wet through ; the horses 
 are streaming ; the rain runs in rivers off our waterproof 
 cloaks ; our umbrellas are portable gargoyles. In this 
 state we alight at the door of Finazzer's tiny hostelry and 
 " birraria " — a very small, clean, humble place ; where, 
 having taken off our wettest outer garments and dried 
 ourselves thoroughly at a blazing kitchen fire, we order 
 hot cofi"ee and prepare to make the best of our position 
 till the sky clears again. 
 
 Never was there such a toy parlour as that into 
 which we are ushered on coming out of the kitchen ! 
 It is all pine-wood — new, bright, fragrant, cinnamon- 
 coloured pine-wood, shining like gold. Walls, floor, 
 ceiling are all alike. And it is perfectly square, too, in 
 every way, like a beautiful little new box of Sorrento or 
 Tunbridge ware. You might have turned it up endwise, 
 or sidewise, or topsy-turvy, and but for the altered posi- 
 tion of the door, I would defy the most sagacious archi- 
 tect to find out the difference. Then the chairs, the 
 tables, the corner-cupboards, the clock-case, are all of the 
 same material : — everything in the room, in short, is pine- 
 wood, except the grate. There are certain toy-stalls in 
 the Soho Bazaar where, at the cost of a few shillings, 
 one may at any time buy just such wooden boxes full of 
 just such wooden furniture, in miniature. 
 
 * The castle and hamlet of Andraz are also known, and frequently called 
 by the name of Buchenstein.
 
 CAP RILE. 183 
 
 By and by the rain ceases ; the clouds part ; the sun 
 breaks out ; the horses are brought round ; and for the 
 third time that day, we again push on for Caprile, 
 
 And now, not far below this point, the valley of 
 Andraz debouches into the upper valley of the Cordevole 
 — the fairest and most sylvan we have yet seen ; a 
 valley less Italian in character than the Val d'Auronzo, 
 more Swiss than the Ampezzo Thai ; rich in corn, 
 maize, hemp, flax and pasture ; and bounded in the far 
 distance by great shadowy mountains patched and 
 streaked with snow, about whose flanks rent storm- 
 clouds drift and gather, like the waves of an angry sea. 
 That one of these is the Boe (which we come to know 
 hereafter as a bastion of the Sella plateau) and that 
 another is the Monte Padon, are facts to be taken for 
 the present upon trust. The Marmolata is also dimly 
 traceable now and then ; and presently a blurred, 
 gigantic mass so enveloped in mist as to show no 
 definite outline of any kind, is pointed out as the 
 Civetta. 
 
 Meanwhile, the bridle-path, carried at an immense 
 height along the shoulder of Monte Frisolet, follows 
 every curve of the mountain — now commanding the 
 valley of Livinallungo to the north-west — now coming 
 in sight of a corner of the blue lake beyond Caprile to 
 the south — now winding along the face of an almost 
 vertical precipice — now skirting the borders of a pine- 
 forest — now striking across a slope of greenest pasture ; 
 and at every turn disclosing some new vista more 
 beautiful than the last. Tiny villages, some a thou- 
 sand feet below, some a thousand feet above the
 
 i84 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEVS. 
 
 level of our path, are scattered far and wide, each with 
 its little white church and picturesque campanile. Some- 
 times one, sometimes another of these, stands out for a 
 few moments in brilliant sunshine ; then, as the clouds 
 drive by, sinks away again into shadow. These vivid 
 alternating passages of light and shade, followed by the 
 intense gloom of another gathering storm now coming 
 rapidly up from the valleys behind the Marmolata, 
 altogether defy description. 
 
 And now, anxious if possible to escape another 
 drenching, we hurry on, stared at by all who meet us, 
 as if no such cavalcade had ever before found its way 
 along this mountain track. Passing presently through 
 the little village of Collaz, we attract the whole po- 
 pulation to their doors and windows ; and two very 
 old priests, standing by the church door, pull off their 
 hats and bow to the ground as we ride by. 
 
 Then, as before, a light mist begins to fall, and turns 
 presently to a heavy rainstorm which becomes heavier 
 the longer it lasts. Then, too, the path gets steep 
 and stony, and the horses, which have for some time 
 been showing signs of fatigue, slip and stumble at every 
 step. As for the black, being frightened by a flash of 
 very vivid lightning, he becomes suddenly restive, and 
 all but carries the writer at a single bound into the 
 gulf below. Hereupon we dismount and, lettmg the 
 horses go down by the road, make our way in rain, 
 wind, thunder and lightning, down a narrow zigzag 
 path at the bottom of which, some 300 feet below, 
 appear the roofs and the church-spire of Caprile. 
 
 The Pezzes had given us up hours ago ; but seeing
 
 CAPRILE. 185 
 
 our wretched little party coming along the village 
 street, drenched, draggled, and miserable, rush down in 
 a body to meet and welcome us on the threshold — old 
 Signora Pezze, gentle and cordial ; young Signora 
 Pezze, still with a rose in her hair ; the two sons whom 
 we already know, and all the helps and hangers-on of 
 the establishment. The men and horses arrive close 
 upon our heels ; but the caretta, left behind long since 
 upon the road, never appears till some two hours later, 
 having turned quite over on the edge of a precipice and 
 deposited all our bags and rugs at the bottom of a steep 
 and muddy gulley, from which they were with difficulty 
 recovered. 
 
 Meanwhile a good fire is quickly lighted ; wet cloth- 
 ing is taken to the kitchen to be dried ; a hot supper is 
 put in preparation ; and all the discomforts of the 
 journey are forgotten. 
 
 The Pezze's is a large old rambling stone house, 
 and consists, in fact, of three houses thrown into one.'"" 
 The floors are some of stone and some of wood ; the 
 rooms are at all sorts of levels ; the windows are very 
 small, and full of flowers. An old metal sign — as old, 
 apparently, as the days of the Falieri — swings at the 
 corner outside ; and a balcony of antique Italian 
 wrought iron juts out over the doorway. The public 
 room on the first floor is pannelled with oak and 
 contains a fine carved ceiling ; while the landings, as 
 usual, are arranged as places to dine in. A set of 
 rooms, however, including the unwonted luxury of a 
 
 * This wcll-rcniembcred old house is now closed, and a new hotel, the 
 Albergo delle Alpi, has been erected at the S. end of the village.
 
 i86 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 comfortable private sitting-room, were assigned to us 
 on the second floor ; and these we retained during all 
 the time that w^e made Caprile our head-quarters. In 
 the sitting-room we had a sofa, a round table, a cheffo- 
 nier, and even a bookcase containing Guicciardini's 
 History of Italy, and a Teatro Francese in thirty 
 volumes. Here also were Ball's Guide-books, and 
 Gilbert's " Dolomite Mountains " presented to Signora 
 Pezze by the authors. On the walls, amid a variety of 
 little framed prints and photographs, we found portraits 
 of F. F. T., and his sisters; in the visitors' book, the 
 handwriting of J. A. S., of the N's, of the W's and of 
 other friends w^ho had passed by in foregoing years. 
 The place, in short, was warm with pleasant memories. 
 No wonder that it seemed like home from the first, and 
 was home, while it lasted. 
 
 At Caprile, the traveller finds himself again in Italy. 
 Coming down on foot in the pelting storm, we had 
 crossed the frontier, it seemed, a little way above the 
 zigzag. The village is but just over the border ; and 
 yet the houses and the people are as thoroughly Italian 
 as if buried alive in the heart of the Apennines. It lies 
 in a deep hollow at the foot of four mountains and at 
 the junction of four valleys. The four mountains are 
 the Monte Frisolet, the Monte Migion, the Monte 
 Pezza, and the Monte Fernazza, locally known as the 
 Monte Tos. The four valleys are the Val di Livinal- 
 lungo, the Val Fiorentino, the Val Pettorina, and the 
 Val d'Alleghe, or Cordevole. Each of the first three of 
 these valleys (to say nothing of a fourth and apparently 
 namelesiti tributary coming down a rocky glen behind
 
 CAPRILE. 
 
 1S7 
 
 the village) brings its torrent to swell the flood of the 
 Cordevole, which, a couple of miles lower down, flows 
 southward through the lake of AUeghe on its way to 
 join the Piave in the Val di Mel. 
 
 The village, murky and unprepossessing at first 
 
 VENETIAN I.ION AT CAPRILE. 
 
 sight, consists of one straggling street partly built upon 
 arches. The church (which is in nowise remarkable, 
 unless for the decorations of the organ-loft, on which is 
 profanely painted a medallion head of the Apollo Bel- 
 vedere surrounded by bouquets of flutes, fiddles and 
 tambourines) is situate on a rising ground near the 
 foot of the zigzag. At the farther end of the village on 
 the side of Alleghe stands the column of St. Mark,
 
 i88 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 commemorative of the old time when Caprile, like 
 Cadore, owned the sovereignty of the Doge and the 
 Council of Ten. The Venetian lion on the top — a 
 battered mediseval bronze — was robbed some years ago 
 of his wings, and the commune has talked of replacing 
 them ever since. A carved shield on the front of the 
 column is charged with the arms of Caprile, and beneath 
 it a square stone tablet bears the following inscription : — 
 
 SCIPIONI . BEXZOXO . PAT^ . YEN? . SEr! . SENATI . 
 VENE . COMISS . SUPER . FIXIBUS . BENEFICENTISS . 
 CAPRILEXSES . AERE . PVB. POS . ANNO . MDCIX. 
 
 The little piazza in which this roadside monument 
 stands is called the Contrada di San Marco. The 
 torrent runs close behind it on the one side ; the Inter- 
 national Dogana overlooks it on the other. In this 
 open space, the young men of the village play at Pallo 
 all day long. To a looker-on, this game which in 
 summer forms the absorbing occupation of half the 
 middle-class youth of Italy, would seem to be governed 
 by no laws whatever, but to consist simply in tossing 
 the ball from player to player. They use no bats ; they 
 mark off no boundaries ; they make no running. Their 
 interest in it, however, and their excitement, are un- 
 bounded. They begin immediately after breakfast and 
 go on till dusk ; and when they are not playing, they 
 are smoking cigarettes and looking on. 
 
 The Italians and Austrians profess now-a-days to be 
 the best friends in the world, especially at these little 
 frontier posts where they are brought into perpetual 
 contact ; but I observed that the young men of Caprile,
 
 CAP RILE. 189 
 
 although their favourite playing-ground lay just under 
 the windows of the Dogana, never invited the Austrian 
 soldiers to take part in the game. These latter, stand- 
 ing about with their hands in their pockets, or sitting 
 on the steps of the column, watched the players in a 
 
 'f*^' 
 
 
 MONTE CIVETTA. 
 
 melancholy way, and looked as if they found Hie dull at 
 Caprile. 
 
 The first sight that one goes out of doors to see is, 
 of course, the Civetta ; the first walk or drive one takes 
 is to the lake of Alleghe. As they both lie in the same 
 direction, and as the best view of the mountain is 
 gained from the road leading to the lake, if not from 
 the actual borders of the lake, most of the few travellers
 
 IQO UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 who come this way content themselves with despatching 
 both in a single morning, and then believe that they 
 have " done " Caprile. 
 
 The grand facade of the Civetta — a sheer, magnificent 
 wall of upright precipice, seamed from crown to foot 
 with thousands of vertical fissures, and rising in a 
 mighty arch towards the centre — faces to the north- 
 west, looking directly up the Cordevole towards Caprile, 
 and filling in the end of the valley as a great organ- 
 front fills in the end of a Cathedral aisle. Towards 
 evening, it takes all the glow of the sunset. In the 
 morning, while the sun is yet low in the east, it shows 
 through a veil of soft blue shade, vague and unreal as a 
 dream. It was thus that I first saw it. I had gone 
 rambling out through the village before breakfast, and 
 suddenly the Civetta rose up before me like a beautiful 
 ghost, draped in haze against a background of light. I 
 thought it then, for simple breadth and height, for sym- 
 metry of outline, for unity of efi"ect, the most ideal and 
 majestic-looking mountain I had ever seen ; and I think 
 so still. 
 
 The lake of Alleijhe lies about two miles S.S.E. of 
 Caprile, in a green amphitheatre at the foot of the 
 Civetta, the Monte Pezza, and the Monte Fernazza. 
 The way to it lies along the left bank of the Cordevole, 
 which here flows in a broad, strong current, and is 
 bordered on the side of the char-road by a barren, 
 pebbly tract sparsely overgrown with weeds and bushes. 
 
 The river is dark, and deep, and brown ; the lake, 
 which is but an expansion of the river, is of a wonderful 
 greenish blue — sapphire streaked with emerald. The
 
 CAPRILE. 
 
 191 
 
 river is always rushing on at a headlong, irresistible 
 pace ; the lake, except when the wind sweeps straight 
 up the valley, is as placid as a sheet of looking-glass. 
 The river — an aggregate of many tributaries — is as old, 
 probably, as the mountains whence its many sources 
 flow ; the lake is new — a thing of yesterday. For a 
 hundred years are as yesterday in the world's history, 
 and where the lake of Alleghe now mirrors the clouds 
 and the mountains, there were orchards and cornfields, 
 farms and villages, only one hundred and two years ago. 
 A great bergfall from the Monte Pezza — or rather two 
 successive bergfalls — caused all this ruin, and created 
 all this beauty. These terrible catastrophes, as all 
 travellers know, are common to mountain countries ; 
 but among the Dolomite valleys, the bergfalls seem to 
 have occurred, and seem still to occur, with greater 
 frequency and on a more tremendous scale than else- 
 where. You cannot walk or drive for ten miles in any 
 direction without coming upon some such scene of ruin. 
 It may have happened last year ; or ten, or fifty, or a 
 hundred years ago ; or it may have happened in pre- 
 historic ages. Your guide in general knows nothing 
 about it. You ask him when it happened. He shrugs 
 his shoulders, and answers "Chi lo sa?" But there, 
 at all events, lie the piled rocks with their buried secrets, 
 and often there is no outward difference to show which 
 fell within the memory of man, and which before the 
 date of man's creation. 
 
 The history of the lake of Alleghe has, however, been 
 handed down with unusual accuracy. The date of the 
 calamity, and the extent of the damage done, are re- 
 
 M
 
 1,92 UNTRODDEN PEAKS ^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS 
 
 gistered in certain parish books and municipal records; 
 and these again are supplemented by deeds and papers 
 preserved by private families in the villages round about. 
 Most of these families, and among them the Pezzes 
 of Caprile, can tell of ancestors whose houses and 
 lands were buried in the great fall of 177 1. 
 
 This was how it happened : — 
 
 The Monte Pezza, of which I shall have more to say 
 hereafter, lies to the West of the lake, being the largest 
 of the four mountains already mentioned as surround- 
 ing the hollow in which Caprile is built. Northwards, 
 it breaks away in abrupt precipices, culminating in a 
 fine rocky summit some 8,000 feet above the level of 
 the sea ; but on the side nearest the lake, it slopes down 
 in a succession of rich woods, pastures, and picturesque 
 ravines. Skirting the opposite shore, one sees a vast, 
 treacherous, smooth-looking slope of slatey rock, like 
 a huge bald patch, extending all along the crest of 
 the ridge on this side. It was from thence the fall 
 came ; it was this crest that slid away, slowly at 
 first, and then with terrible swiftness, down into the 
 valley. 
 
 The first disaster happened in the month of January, 
 1 77 1. A charcoal-burner, it is said, who had been at 
 work up in the woods, came down towards close of day, 
 white and breathless, calling on those in the plain to 
 save themselves, for the mountain was moving. A 
 swift runner with the fear of death behind him, he fled 
 from village to village, raising the cry as he went. But 
 no one believed him. There were four villages then 
 where now there is the lake. Incredulous of danger,
 
 CAP RILE. 193 
 
 the people of those four villages went to bed that 
 evening as usual, and in the dead of night, the whole 
 side of the mountain came down with a mighty rush 
 and overwhelmed the sleepers, not one of whom es- 
 caped. Two of the villages were buried, and two were 
 drowned ; for the waters of the Cordevole, driven sud- 
 denly back, spread out as in the case of the Piave, 
 and formed the lake as we now see it. The two buried 
 hamlets lay close under the foot of the mountain at the 
 Southern end of the basin, where the great masses of 
 debris now lie piled in huge confusion. AUeghe, the 
 chief place of the district, was situate somewhere 
 about the middle of the lake, and is wholly lost to 
 sight. The fourth village stood on a slope at the 
 North end, close against that point where the Cordevole 
 now flows into the lake. 
 
 Four more months went by ; and then, on the 21st of 
 May, there came a second downfall. This time the 
 waters of the lake were driven up the valley with 
 great violence, and destroyed even more property than 
 before. In the little village which is now called 
 Alleghe, and has been so called ever since the first 
 Alleghe was effaced, the whole East end and choir of 
 the present church were swept away, and the organ 
 was carried to a considerable distance up the glen. 
 At the same moment — for the whole lake seems to have 
 surged up suddenly, as one wave — a tree was hurled in 
 through the window of the room in which the cure 
 was sitting at dinner, and the servant waiting upon 
 him was killed on the spot. The choir has been re- 
 built since then ; and the organ, repaired and replaced, 
 
 M 2
 
 194 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 does duty to this day. No monument or tablet, so far 
 as I could learn, has ever been erected to the memory 
 of those who perished in these two great disasters ; but 
 a catafalque is dressed, and candles are lighted, and a 
 solemn commemorative mass for the souls of the lost 
 and dead is performed in the church at Alleghe on the 
 2 1st of May in every year. 
 
 We had been told that in winter, when the lake was 
 frozen and the ice not too thick, and in summer on very 
 calm days, the walls and roofs of one of the submerged 
 villages might yet be seen, like the traditional towers of 
 the drowned city of Lyonesse, far down below the sur- 
 face of the water. An oven and a flight of stone steps, 
 according to one of the young Pezzes, were distinctly 
 visible ; to say nothing of other less credible stories. 
 At length, one delicious, idle; sunny afternoon, having 
 nothing of importance to do elsewhere, we took a boat 
 and went out upon the lake, just to test the truth of 
 these traditions with our own eyes. Not a breath 
 stirred when we started from Caprile ; but by the time 
 the boat was found and we were embarked in it, a light 
 breeze had sprung up, and the whole surface of the 
 water was in motion. Every moment, the breeze 
 freshened and the ripple grew stronger. The withered 
 little old woman and the rosy-cheeked girl who were 
 rowing, bent to their oars and pulled with all their 
 might : but, having: crossed the debouchure of the 
 river, declared themselves unable to pull us round the 
 headland. The water by this time was quite rough, 
 and we landed at the nearest point with difficulty. 
 Scrambling up and along the bank for some distance,
 
 CAP RILE. 195 
 
 we came presently to a kind of little promontory from 
 whence, notwithstanding the roughness of the surface, 
 we could distinctly trace a long reach of wall and some 
 three or four square enclosures — evidently the substruc- 
 tures of several houses. 
 
 "If it had been smooth enough and we could have 
 rowed over yonder," said the old woman, pointing 
 towards a more distant reach, " the Signoras might 
 have seen houses with their roofs still on and their 
 chimneys standing. They are all there — deep, deep 
 down ! " 
 
 " Have you yourself seen them ? " I asked. 
 
 " Seen them ? Eh, signora, I have seen them with 
 these eyes, hundreds of times. Dio mio ! there are 
 those in Alleghe who have seen stranger sights than I. 
 There are those living who have seen the old parish 
 church with its belfry, all perfect, out yonder in the 
 middle of the lake, where it is deep water. There are 
 those living" (here her voice dropped to an awe-struck 
 whisper) " who have heard the bells tolling under the 
 water at midnight for the unburied dead ! " 
 
 I have told the story of this little expedition out of 
 its due place, in order to bring under one head all that 
 I succeeded in gleaning at various times about the 
 great bergfall of 1771. It certainly did not come off till 
 we had been established for some two or three weeks at 
 Caprile, and had once or twice been absent upon dis- 
 tant excursions. 
 
 Our first day at the Pezze's was spent in strolling 
 about the neighbourhood, and seeing after mules. Also 
 in getting rid of the two Ghedinas, who were returning
 
 196 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 to Cortina with their horses, but not, if we could help' 
 it, with their side-saddle. How this delicate and diffi- 
 cult matter was at last negotiated matters little now. 
 Enough that, being simple men with but few words at 
 command, they were ultimately talked out of their con- 
 victions, and so departed — leaving the precious object 
 behind them. We promised of course to pay for the 
 hire of it ; we promised to return it as soon as we 
 succeeded in getting another ; we promised everything 
 possible and impossible, and were crowned with that 
 success which is not always the reward of virtue. 
 
 " The Padre will be furious with us," said the 
 younger brother somewhat ruefully, as he pocketed his 
 buona-mano and turned to leave the room. 
 
 It occurred to me that this was highly probable, and 
 that Ghedina pere might not be altogether a pleasant 
 person to deal with under those circumstances. 
 
 The poor fellows went away with evident reluctance, 
 followed by Giovanni and the mule. We watched them 
 down the street, and only breathed freely when they 
 were fairly out of sight. 
 
 That same afternoon, having engaged the exclusive 
 services of a local guide and a couple of mules for as 
 long and as often as we might require them during our 
 sojourn in these parts, we walked to the Col di Santa 
 Lucia, a famous point of view in the neighbouring Val 
 Fiorentino. Our way thither lay up yesterday's zigzag 
 — a damp, muddy groove wriggling up the face of a 
 steep hillside, about as pleasant to walk in as a marrow- 
 spoon, and not much wider. Once arrived at the top, 
 we left the valley of Andraz upon the left, and turned
 
 CAPRILE.y ' '197 
 
 off towards the right — still, as yesterday, winding 
 along the great pine-slopes of Monte Frisolet, but 
 following the Eastward instead of the Westward face of 
 the mountain. 
 
 It was uphill nearly all the way. Giuseppe, however, 
 had provided two stout alpenstocks of his own cutting, 
 and with this good help we pushed forward rapidly. 
 The path lay half in shade and half in sunshine, com- 
 manding now a peep into the depths of the valley 
 below; now a view of the great "slide"* on the 
 opposite shoulder of Monte Fernazza ; and now a back- 
 ward glimpse of the Civetta seen above a crowd of 
 intervening hill-tops. Thus at the end of a long pull of 
 rather less than an hour and a half, we found ourselves 
 some 1,500 feet above the level from which we had 
 started, and close upon the Col di Santa Lucia — a 
 curious saddle-backed hill like a lion couchant, keeping 
 guard just at the curve of the Val Fiorentino. His 
 neck is crested with a straggling line of Swiss-looking 
 wooden houses, and his head is crowned by a picturesque 
 little white church. He looks straight down towards 
 the Pelmo, which closes the end of the valley magnifi- 
 cently, like a stupendous castle with twin-towers 
 reaching to the clouds. One would like to know what 
 demi-god piled those bastions ; and why the lion 
 crouched there, waiting for ever to spring upon him 
 
 * A mountain " slide " is sometimes (as in the case of the famous slide at 
 Alpnach) a scientifically constructed incline paved with pine-trunks, down 
 which the felled timber from the upper forests is shot into the valley without 
 the labour and expense of transport. The slide of Monte Fernazza, however, 
 is a mere forest-clearing about 40 feet in width and Soo or 900 in length, 
 carried down the face of an almost perpendicular hill-side.
 
 198 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS 
 
 when he should venture out from his stronghold ; and if 
 he is still imprisoned in the heart of the mountain. 
 But the answer to these questions would have to be 
 sought in the cloudland of uncreated myths. 
 
 Followed by all the children in the place, we made 
 our way into the churchyard, and there, at the extreme 
 end of the little promontory, sat upon the wall to enjoy 
 the view. A glance at the map showed that the 
 Ampezzo Thai lay just beyond the Pelmo, and that we 
 were now looking at the mountain from exactly the 
 reverse side. Seen from over yonder, it had resembled 
 a mighty throne ; from here, as I have said, it showed 
 as two enormous towers, tawny against the deep blue of 
 the sky. A little white cloud resting lightly against the 
 top of the farthest tower looked like a flag of truce 
 floating from the battlements. Farther to the left, the 
 curved beak of the Antelao, like the prow of a Roman 
 galley, peeped out, faint and distant, above a bank of 
 gathering cumulus. The Val Fiorentino, green and 
 sunny and sprinkled with white villages, opened up, like 
 a beautiful avenue, to the very foot of the Pelmo ; while 
 northward, the valley of Codalunga met the descending 
 slopes of Monte Gusella, and showed a streak of 
 winding path leading down from the pass. Travellers 
 who come that way from Cortina instead of by the Tre 
 Sassi, have a rugged and somewhat uninteresting road 
 to climb, and, for the sake of this one view which can 
 afterwards be so easily reached from Caprile, lose the 
 scenery of the exquisite upper Val Cordevole — perhaps 
 the loveliest of all the Dolomite valleys. 
 
 Turning away at last from the view, we went in
 
 CAPRILE. 199 
 
 search of the house of the Cure of Santa Lucia, upon 
 the outer walls of which, as the story goes, there once 
 existed a fresco by Titian — painted, it was said, in 
 return for the hospitality with which he was entertained 
 there when weatherbound in winter on his way to 
 Venice. Schaubach tells how it represented " Death 
 with his scythe, surrounded by symbols of earthly 
 vanity"; and he furthermore adds that, having been 
 barbarously whitewashed by some Paroco of the last 
 century, it was with difficulty recovered. Where, how- 
 ever, Mr. Ball and Mr. Gilbert had, as they tell us, 
 both failed, the present writer could scarcely hope for 
 success. A carved " stemma," or coat of arms, over a 
 side-door was all that the parsonage had to show, and 
 no trace of the fresco was anywhere discernible. 
 
 I shall not soon forget that evening walk back to 
 Caprile ; the golden splendour of the sky, the sweet 
 scent of the nevv-mown hay. Neither shall I forget the 
 two tired pedestrians, ail knapsacks, beards and knicker- 
 bockers, making for Caprile ; nor the shy little maid in 
 the iron-spiked shoes, timid and silent, keeping goats 
 by the pathside ; nor the goats themselves, who had no 
 mauvaise home, and were almost too friendly ; nor, 
 above all, that wonderful rose-coloured vision that 
 broke upon us as we turned down again into the valley 
 — that vision of the Civetta, looking more than ever like 
 a mighty organ, with its million pipes all gilded in the 
 light of the sunset. The sky above was all light ; the 
 wooded hills below were all shade. Monte Pezza, 
 soaring out from a mist of purple haze, caught the rich 
 glow upon its rocky summit. Caprile nestled snugly
 
 <2oo UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 down in the hollow. The little village of Rocca, high 
 on a green plateau, lifted its slender campanile against 
 the horizon ; while yet farther away, a couple of tender 
 grey peaks, like hooded nuns, looked up to the Eastern 
 sky, as if waiting for the evening star to rise. Then 
 the rose-colour paled upon the lower crags ; and the 
 radiant cloud-wreath hovering midway across the face of 
 the Civetta like an amber and golden scarf, turned grey 
 and ghostlike. A few moments more, and the last flush 
 faded. The sky turned a tender, greenish grey, flecked 
 with golden films. The birds became silent in their 
 nests. The grasshoppers burst into a shrill chorus. 
 The torrent — steel-coloured now, with here and there a 
 gleam of silver — rushed on, singing a wild song, and 
 eager for the sea. Presently a feeble old peasant came 
 across the pine-trunk bridge, staggering under a load of 
 hay that left only his legs visible ; and was followed by 
 his wife, a brisk old woman with five hats piled upon 
 her head, one on the top of another, and a sheaf of 
 rakes and scythes under her arm. 
 
 So we lingered, spell-bound, till at last the gloaming 
 came and drove us homeward. Some hours later, the 
 clouds that we had seen gathering about the Antelao 
 came up, bringing with them rain and heavy thunder ; 
 whereupon the ringers got up and rang the church bells 
 all night long while the storm lasted.
 
 AT CAPRI LE. 
 
 UNSETTLED WEATHER — PROCESSIONS AND BELLS — RESOURCES OF 
 CAPRILE — HISTORY OF CAPRILE IN THE MIDDLE AGES — THE FREE 
 STATE OF ROCCA — LOCAL NOTABILITIES — THE GORGE OF SOTTOGUDA 
 — THE SASSO DI RONCH— CLEMENTI AND THE TWO NESSOLS — THE 
 GOATHERD'S CROSS — THE KING AND QUEEN OF THE DOLOMITES — A 
 MOUNTAIN IN RUINS— THE SASSO BIANCO— A TEMPTING PROPOSAL- 
 LEGENDS OF THE SASSO DI RONCH.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AT CAPRILE. 
 
 The good people of Caprile were difficult to please 
 in the matter of weather. The bells having: rune all 
 night, the population turned out next morning in 
 solemn procession at five a.m. to implore the Virgin's 
 protection against storms. The clouds cleared off 
 accordingly, and a magnificent morning followed the 
 tempest. At midday, how^ever, the procession formed 
 again, and with more ceremony than before — a tall 
 barefooted contadino in a tumbled surplice coming 
 first, with a huge wooden crucifix ; then a shabby 
 priest with his hat on, intoning a litany ; then two 
 very small and very dirty boys in red capes, carrying 
 unlighted lanthorns on poles ; lastly, a long file of 
 country folks marching two and two, the men first, 
 the women next, the children last, all with their hats 
 in their hands and all chanting. In this order they 
 wound slowly round the village, beginning at the 
 Contrada di San ]\Iarco. 
 
 " What is the procession for now ? " I asked, 
 turning to a respectable-looking peasant who was 
 washing down a cart under an archway.
 
 204 UNTRODDEN PEAKS <S- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS 
 
 " They are going up to the church to pray for 
 rain, Signora," he repHed, pulHng off his hat as the 
 procession went by. 
 
 " But it rained last night," said I, "and this morn- 
 ing you were all praying for fine weather." 
 
 " Nay, Signora ; we prayed this morning against 
 the thunder and lightning — not against the rain," 
 said my peasant gravely. 
 
 " Oh, I see — you want the rain, but you prefer it 
 without the thunder." 
 
 " Yes, Signora. We want the rain badly. We 
 have been praying against the drought these ten 
 days past." 
 
 "But it seems to me," said I, "that you would 
 waste less time if, instead of praying against the 
 thunder, and the lightning, and the drought, you just 
 asked the Madonna to put the wind round to the 
 South-west and send forty-eight hours of steady rain 
 immediately. 
 
 The man looked puzzled. 
 
 " It may be so, Signora," he said apologetically. 
 " The Paroco settles all that for us — he knows best." 
 
 The poor fellow looked so humble and so serious 
 that I turned away, quite ashamed of my own levity. 
 
 After this, we had unsettled weather for several 
 days, during which it was invariably fine in the 
 mornings and tempestuous towards night. This 
 being the case, the procession came round quite 
 regularly twice a day, to protest against the storm 
 or the sunshine, according as the skies were foul 
 or fair.
 
 AT CAPRTLE. 
 
 Meanwhile the bell-ringers must have had a hard 
 time of it, for — much to our discomfort, though 
 greatly to the satisfaction of the people of Caprile — 
 the bells were going almost every night. The poor, 
 I found, believed that this pious exercise dispersed the 
 evil spirits of the storm ; while the better sort con- 
 ceived that it occasioned some kind of undulation in 
 the air, and so broke the continuity of the electric 
 fluid. Who would have expected to find these ex- 
 ploded superstitions * yet in force in any corner of 
 Europe ? It was like being transported back into the 
 middle ages. 
 
 To be condemned to a few days of uncertain 
 weather at Caprile is by no means the worst fate 
 that may befall a traveller in these parts. The place 
 is full of delightful walks, all near enough to be 
 enjoyed between the last shower and the next ; of 
 woods, and glens, and pastures rich in wild flowers ; 
 of easy hills for those who love climbing ; of shade 
 for the student ; of trout for the angler ; of ferns for 
 the botanist. In a lovely little ravine among over- 
 hanging firs and mossy nooks of rock, not a quarter 
 of a mile from the village, L. found specimens of 
 
 • " It is sayd the evil spirytes that ben in the regyon of thayre double 
 moche whan they here the belles rongen : and this is the cause why the 
 belles ben rongen whan it thondreth, and whan grete tempeste and outrages 
 of wether happen, to the cnde that the feinds and wycked spirytes sholde be 
 abashed and flee, and cease of the movynge of tempeste." — Wynken DE 
 WORDE : T/ie Coidcn Legend. 
 
 See also the old Monkish rhyme inscribed on most mediaeval bells : — 
 
 Funera plango — Fulgura frango — Sabbato pango. 
 Excito Icntos — Dissipo vcntos — Pace cruentos.
 
 2o6 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS 
 
 the Cystopteris fragilis, Cy stopfer is alpina, Asplenium 
 septentrionale, and several varieties of maiden hair. 
 And for the matter of sketching, a subject starts up 
 before one at every turn of the path. 
 
 Nor does one, as in too many Dolomite villages 
 and valleys, pay the penalty of starvation in exchange 
 for all these pleasures. The food is very fairly good, 
 and Madame Pezze's cooking is unexceptionable. Beef, 
 even though disguised in cinnamon, is welcome after 
 a long and fatiguing course of veal-cutlet ; the salmon- 
 trout of AUeghe are excellent ; the bread, the wild 
 strawberries, the rich mountain cream are all quite 
 delicious ; and even vegetables are not wholly un- 
 known. 
 
 Then, besides the walks and the ferns and the 
 sketching, Caprile — like almost every Italian place — 
 has its special characteristics ; its local curiosities ; 
 its own little root of mediaeval history ; and these are 
 things that do not come out unless one happens to 
 be idling about for a few days, talking to the people, 
 making friends with the Paroco, and borrowing all 
 the dusty old vellum-bound books in the place. In 
 this way, we light upon a few odd scraps of fact, 
 more interesting to pick up, perhaps, than to relate. 
 
 Thus we learn that there were great iron-mines once 
 at the Col di Santa Lucia ; that both Alleghe and 
 Caprile were famous for their skilled ironsmiths and 
 armourers ; and that they used to supply knives and 
 swords to Venice. That exquisite old bronze door-handle 
 wrought in the form of a mermaid, and that twisted 
 hammer beaten out of one solid piece which I admired
 
 AT CAP RILE. ' 207 
 
 SO much yesterday on the door of yonder dilapidated 
 stone house at the farther end of the village, came pro- 
 bably from some anvil now buried at the bottom of the 
 lake. There were forty mines once, they say, in the pro- 
 vince of Belluno, where now only four are in operation. 
 The old name of Caprile was Pagus Gabrielis. I could 
 not learn that any inscriptions, urns, or mosaics had ever 
 been found here, as at Longarone and Castel Lavazzo ; 
 so that the ancient Latin name seems to be the only 
 Roman relic left. Towards the middle of the XV. 
 century, the men of Caprile and Cadore united their 
 political fortunes, and placed themselves under the pro- 
 tection of Venice ; whereupon the Republic appointed 
 them a governor with the title of Captain General. It 
 was one of these Captains who erected the column of 
 St. Mark yonder, at the extreme end of the village. At 
 this time Caprile was a flourishing commercial centre, 
 and the chief commune in these valleys. 
 
 Among the natural curiosities of the place, they 
 point you out a small hole in the face of a neighbouring 
 rock, and tell you it is the mouth of a spring inpreg- 
 nated with sulphuretted hydrogen, once worked to some 
 profit, but now abandoned. We also heard of the 
 recent discovery of a vein of fine alabaster at a place 
 called Digonera, a little farther up the valley, said to 
 equal in quality the best alabaster of Tuscany. 
 
 Then, too, there is the dialect, unaccountably smack- 
 ing of French in a country locked in between Venetia 
 and Austria. Almost every l-ittle separate " paese " in 
 these parts has its own vocabulary ; and an enthusiast 
 like Professor Max Miiller might doubtless, by means 
 
 N
 
 2o8 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 of a comparative analysis of these hundred-and-one 
 dialectic varieties, extract all kinds of interesting phi- 
 lological flies in amber. 
 
 More curious, however, than any fact having to do 
 with Caprile is the history of Rocca — a small village 
 perched upon a hill just against the mouth of the Val 
 Pettorina and fronting the precipitous northern face of 
 Monte Pezza.* This tiny place, known in the middle 
 ages as Rocca di Pietore, or Roccabruna, if never in the 
 strict sense of the word a Republic, was at all events 
 self-governed ; owing only a nominal allegiance to the 
 Archdeacon of Capo d'Istria, and enjoying a special 
 immunity from tax, impost, or personal service (" im- 
 posta o colta o fazioni personali"). This interesting 
 little community, consisting of forty-five families, the 
 men of which were nearly all armourers, was con- 
 strained in A.D. 1389 to acknowledge the suzerainty of 
 the Visconti, who placed it under the jurisdiction of the 
 Bellunese. Not even so, however, would Rocca resign 
 its cherished liberties, but stipulated that all the articles 
 of its ancient statute should be observed inviolate. The 
 MS. original of this remarkable document, drawn out in 
 sixty-six clauses and registered at Belluno in the year 
 1418, is now in the possession of Signora Pezze of 
 Caprile. When by and by the Visconti attempted to 
 levy a tax upon their steel-work, the men of Rocca 
 rebelled ; and later still, in a.d. 1659, being then subject 
 to the Venetians and jealous as ever of their privileges, 
 they despatched an ambassador to the Senate, remind- 
 ing that august body how, " being situated on the fron- 
 
 * See Frontispiece.
 
 AT CAP RILE. 209 
 
 tier and exposed to the attacks of enemies beyond the 
 border, the people of Rocca had at all times testified 
 to their patriotism with their blood, and preserved 
 intact those privileges which were dearer to them than 
 the pupils of their eyes." ^'" 
 
 In all but name a republic, this little free state, 
 smaller than either Marino or Andorre, finally lost its 
 independence when ceded to the Austrians with the rest 
 of Lombardo-Venetia in 1814. It now ranks as an 
 ordinary parish in the district of Belluno ; its castle has 
 disappeared ; and only four roofless walls of rough 
 masonry in a green meadow at the foot of the hill on 
 the side next Caprile, remain to mark the site of its 
 former Municipal Palace. It is an ugly, gable-ended 
 ruin, and looks like the shell of a small church. 
 
 In the way of local notabilities, Rocca has its painter, 
 one Domenico de Biasio, whose works are supposed to 
 have merit ; while Caprile rejoices in a certain Padre 
 Barnabas of the Capuchin order, famous for the 
 eloquence of his sermons, which have been published in 
 Belluno. Having neither seen the paintings nor read 
 the sermons, I am unable to pronounce upon the ex- 
 cellence of either. 
 
 * This spirited address, a copy of which is preserved in the archives of 
 I3elluno, begins thus : — " Screnissinio Principe. La Rocca di Pietore, situata 
 nd monti piu aspri e confinante con paesi esteri, in tutti i tempi esposta all' 
 invasione dei nemici, con caratteri di Sangue ha dati segni infaUibile della 
 sua fede, e dimostrato che gli abitanti di quella, quanto piu semplice e poveri 
 di beni di fortuna, tanto piii sono dotati di ardenza e prontezza a sagrificare 
 s6 stessi in servigio del principe loro ; da che c sortito che sempre dalla 
 Serenita Vostra sono stati con clementissimo occhio riguardati conservan- 
 doli in tutti i tempi illcsi ed intalli quci privilegi che gli sono piu dclle pupille 
 degli occhi cari," &c., &c. 
 
 N 2
 
 2IO UNTRODDEN PEAKS £- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 The two really remarkable natural curiosities of the 
 place, however, are the gorge of Sottoguda and the 
 Sasso di Ronch. Every visitor to Caprile is shown the 
 first : we, I believe, were the first travellers who ever 
 took the trouble to go up in search of the second. 
 
 The gorge of Sottoguda — a deep, narrow cleft 
 between overhanging cliffs, distant about four-and-a-half, 
 or five miles from Caprile — is in fact the upper end of 
 the Val Pettorina, which here creeps between the lower 
 spurs of Monte Guda and the Monte Foy. It is neither 
 so narrow, nor so dark, nor so deep down as Pfeffers or 
 Trient ; but it reminds one of both, and, though on a 
 smaller scale, is very fine and curious in its way. That 
 the whole gorge is a mere crack in the rocks produced 
 by some pre-historic natural convulsion, is evident at 
 first sight. I even fancied that I could see how in 
 certain places the rent cliffs might have been fitted 
 together again, like the pieces of a child's puzzle. 
 
 The length of the gorge, which wriggles in and out 
 like a serpent, is rather more than half-a-mile, windings 
 included. Within this short distance, the torrent that 
 flows through it is crossed by seventeen bridges of rough 
 pine trunks. So abrupt are the turns and sinuosities, 
 that never more than two of these bridges are visible at 
 the same time, and sometimes the traveller who is only 
 one bridge in advance is entirely lost sight of by his 
 companions. The torrent roars along in great force, 
 and is echoed and re-echoed in a deafening way from 
 the cliffs on either side. The gorge is in many places 
 not more than twelve feet wide. The precipices, at a 
 rough guess, rise to a height of about six or seven
 
 AT CAP RILE. 
 
 hundred feet. The scale, after all, is not gigantic ; but 
 the light and shadow come in grandly at certain hours, 
 throwing one side of the defile into brilliant sunshine 
 and the other into profoundest gloom, with an effect 
 never to be obtained in either Pfeffers or Trient. 
 
 We first saw Sottoguda on a showery afternoon when 
 the lights were unusually shifting and beautiful, and all 
 the trees and bushes overhead, and all the rich red and 
 brown and golden mosses on the rocks and boulders 
 down below, were sparkling with rain drops. A woman 
 standing on a slender bridge formed of a single pine- 
 trunk thrown across a rift of rock some three hundred 
 feet above our heads, looked down, knitting, as we 
 wound in and out among the bridges and rapids. She 
 smiled and spoke ; but the roar of the water was such 
 that we could not hear her. We saw the motion of her 
 lips, and that was all. Presently a little white goat 
 came and thrust its head forward from behind her 
 skirts, and also peered down upon the wayfarers 
 below. The blue sky and the green bushes framed 
 them round, and made a picture not soon to be 
 forgotten. 
 
 Most travellers see Sottoguda from Caprile ; but it is 
 approached to more advantage from the side of the 
 Fedaya pass, and should, if possible, be first taken from 
 that direction. Those, however, who are not equal to 
 the fatigue of crossing the pass, may go to Sottoguda 
 and back from Caprile in about three hours with mules, 
 or in four hours on foot. 
 
 To go to the Sasso di Ronch, however, takes quite 
 half a day. It is a very curious spot, and one of which
 
 212 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 the writer may claim to be in a very small way the 
 discoverer. 
 
 Wandering about as usual before breakfast the first 
 morning after our arrival in Caprile, and taking the road 
 towards Alleghe, I observed a strange, solitary chimney 
 of rock standing out against the sky, high upon the 
 sloping shoulder of Monte Migion, about two thousand 
 feet above the level of the valley. Seen from below, it 
 had apparently no thickness proportionate to its height 
 and breadth, and looked like a gigantic paper-knife 
 stuck upright in a bed of green sward. A few trees and 
 a couple of chalets nestled at the foot of this eccentric 
 object ; and, scaling it by these, I concluded that it 
 could not measure less than 250 feet from base to 
 summit. I had come out that morning to see the 
 Civetta ; but, having taken a long look at that Queen of 
 Dolomites, I nevertheless sat down there and then 
 upon a big boulder in a flood of burning sunshine, and,, 
 with the help of an opera-glass, sketched the Sasso 
 di Ronch. 
 
 From that moment, I was tormented by the desire to 
 see it more nearly. There were houses up there, so it 
 was fair to conclude there must also be a path ; and of 
 the view it must command in at least two directions, 
 there could be no doubt. Giuseppe, however, knew 
 nothing about it ; and none of the Pezzes had ever 
 taken the trouble to go higher than Rocca, or Laste, or 
 the cross on the brink of the cliff about halfway between 
 the two, where strangers are taken to see the view over 
 the Civetta. 
 
 *' There is nothing up yonder," said young Signora
 
 AT CAP RILE. 
 
 Pezze, contemptuously ; " nothing but an old stone and 
 a couple of poor cottages ! " 
 
 But the old stone had fascinated our imaginations ; 
 
 SASSO DI RONCH, 
 
 so one fine morning we sent for Clementi and the mules, 
 and started upon our voyage of discovery. 
 
 Clementi must be introduced — Clementi and the 
 mules. Clementi is our Caprile guide. He either
 
 214 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 belongs to the mules or the mules belong to him ; it is 
 impossible to say which. One mule is black, the other 
 white, and both are named Nessol ; which is perplexing. 
 Fair Nessol is L.'s mule — a gentle beast, weak but 
 willing ; given to stopping and staring at the landscape 
 in a meditative way ; but liable to odd and sometimes 
 inconvenient prejudices. Yesterday he objected to 
 bridges, which in the gorge of Sottoguda was particu- 
 larly awkward. To-day he suddenly abhors everything 
 black, and kicks up his heels at the cure before we are 
 out of the village. Dark Nessol, being bigger and 
 stronger, is assigned to me. He is a self-sufficient 
 brute ; one who, in the matter of roads and turnings, 
 invariably prefers his own opinion to that of his rider. 
 His appetite is boundless, omnivorous, insatiable. He 
 not only steals the young corn by the road-side and the 
 flowers inside garden fences, but he eats poison-berries, 
 chicken-bones, bark, egg-shells and potato-parings. He 
 would eat the Encyclopaedia Britannica, if it came in 
 his way. L. and her mule are the best friends in the 
 world. She feeds him perpetually with sugar, and he 
 follows her about like a dog. My mule and I, on the 
 contrary, never arrive at terms of intimacy. Perhaps 
 he knows that I am the heavier weight, and resents me 
 accordingly ; perhaps he dislikes the society of ladies, 
 and prefers carrying half-ton loads of hay and charcoal, 
 which is the sort of thing he has been brought up to do. 
 At all events, he refuses from the first to make himself 
 agreeable. Both mules, however, do their work wonder- 
 fully, and climb like cats upon occasion. 
 
 Clementi is a native of Caprile, and lodges with his
 
 AT CAPRILE. 
 
 old mother on the ground-floor of a big stone house in 
 the middle of the village. He is a short, active, sturdy, 
 black-eyed little fellow ; hot tempered, ready-witted, 
 merry, untiring, full of animation and gesture ; with an 
 honest bull-dog face, and an eye that is always laugh- 
 ing. He wears his trowsers tucked up round the ancles ; 
 a bunch of cock's feathers in his hat ; and a bottle slung 
 over his shoulder. It is impossible to look at him 
 without being reminded of the clown in a Christmas 
 pantomime. Such is Clementi ; the very antipodes of 
 Giuseppe, whom I described long since. With these 
 two men and these two mules, we travelled henceforth 
 as long as we remained among the Dolomites. 
 
 Setting off that bright July morning for the Sasso di 
 Ronch, our way lies at first in the direction of Rocca. 
 The path, however, turns aside at the ruins of the old 
 Municipal Palace and bears away to the right, striking 
 up at once through the fir-woods which on this side 
 clothe the lower slopes of Monte Migion. Thus, in 
 alternate shade and sunshine, it winds and mounts as 
 far as the cross — a point of view on the giddy edge of 
 an abrupt precipice facing to the South. The cliff here 
 goes sheer down to the valley, a thousand feet or more ; 
 and Clementi tells how the cross was put there, not to 
 mark the point of view for " Messieurs les Etrangers ; " 
 but to commemorate the death of a poor little goat-herd 
 only eleven years of age, who, going in search of a stray 
 kid, fell over, and was dashed to pieces before he reached 
 the bottom. 
 
 The view from here is fine, considering at what a 
 moderate elevation we stand. The Civetta rises before
 
 2i6 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 US, grandly displayed ; five valleys open away beneath 
 our feet ; and the slated roofs of Caprile and Rocca 
 glisten in the morning sunshine hundreds of feet below. 
 A greenish-blue corner of the lake gleams just beyond 
 the last curve of the Val d'AUeghe ; while between that 
 point and this, there extend, distance beyond distance, 
 the fir-woods, the pastures, and the young corn-slopes 
 of Monte Pezza. 
 
 From hence, a better path winds round towards the 
 North-east in the direction of Laste — a small white 
 village on a mountain ledge high above the valley, look- 
 ing straight over towards Buchenstein. From here the 
 grey old c&stle on its pedestal of crag, the green valley 
 of Andraz, and the mountains of the Tre Sassi Pass 
 are all visible ; but the main feature of the view on this 
 side is the Pelmo — just as the main feature of the view 
 on the other side is the Civetta. Seen through a gap 
 in the mountains, it rises magnificently against the 
 horizon, looking more than ever like a gigantic fortress. 
 I have called the Civetta, Queen of the Dolomites ; and 
 so, in Hke manner, I, would call the Pelmo, King. The 
 one is all grace and symmetry ; the other all massive- 
 ness and strength. It is possible to associate the idea 
 of fragility with the Civetta — it is possible to conceive 
 how that exquisite perpendicular screen with its 
 thousands of slender pilasters and pinnacles, might be 
 shivered by any great convulsion of Nature ; but the 
 Pelmo looks as if rooted in the heart of ''the great 
 globe itself," immoveable, till the day of the last 
 disruption. 
 
 For a distant view, this of the Pelmo from near Laste
 
 AT CAP RILE. 217 
 
 on Monte Migion, is the grandest with which I am 
 acquainted. 
 
 From this point we next struck up across a green 
 slope wooded hke an English park, and so came out 
 upon another path, steep and stony and glaring, which 
 led to the cottages that I had seen from the valley. 
 
 A woman scouring a brass pan at the spring, and 
 two others turning the yellow flax upon the hillside, 
 stopped in their work to stare in speechless wonder. 
 The children shouted and ran indoors, as if we were^ 
 goblins. 
 
 We stayed a moment at the spring to fill our water 
 flasks and let the mules drink. 
 
 " Have you never seen any ladies up here before ? " 
 laughed Clementi. 
 
 '' Never! " said one of the women, throwing up her 
 hands emphatically. " Never ! What have they come 
 for ? " 
 
 We explained that our object was to see and sketch 
 the Sasso up yonder. 
 
 "II Sasso!" she repeated, half incredulously ; ''il 
 Sasso ! " 
 
 She evidently thought us quite demented. 
 
 Another bit of rough path, another turn, and the 
 great paper-knife rock, like a huge, solitary Menhir, is. 
 nodding over our heads. 
 
 It looks even bigger than I had expected — bigger and' 
 thinner ; but also more shapeless and less interesting. 
 It is a marvel that the first high wind should not blow 
 it down instantly ; but then it had this effect from 
 below.
 
 2i8 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 " Don't you think we have taken a great deal of 
 trouble for nothing ? " says L., in a tone of dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 I would not acknowledge it for worlds, but I have 
 been thinking so myself for some minutes. I push on, 
 however, turn another corner, and arriving at the top 
 of the Col, come suddenly upon a most unexpected and 
 fantastic scene — a scene as of a mountain in ruins. 
 
 For not only is the whole appearance of the Sasso 
 changed in the strangest way by being seen in profile, 
 but behind the ridge on which the Sasso stands there is 
 revealed a vast circular amphitheatre, like the crater of 
 an extinct volcano, strewn with rent crags, precipices 
 riven from top to bottom, and enormous fragments of 
 rock, many of which are at least as big as the clock- 
 tower at Westminster. All these are piled one upon 
 another in the wildest confusion ; all are prostrate, save 
 one gigantic needle which stands upright in the midst 
 of the circle, like an iceberg turned to stone. 
 
 What was the nature of this great catastrophe, and 
 when did it happen ? It could not have been a berg- 
 fall ; for the mountain slopes above are all grassy Alp, 
 and the very summit of Monte Migion is a space of 
 level pasture. It could not have been an eruption ; 
 for these fragments are pure Dolomite limestone, and 
 Dolomite, it is now agreed, is not volcanic. Unable 
 even to form a guess as to the cause of this great ruin, 
 I can only say that, to my unscientific eyes, it looks 
 exactly as if a volcano had burst up beneath a Dolomite 
 summit and blown it into a thousand fragments, like a 
 mine.
 
 THE SASSO DI RONCH, 
 
 [P. 221.
 
 AT CAPRILE. 
 
 Meanwhile here, on the ridge, apart and alone, like 
 a solitary remnant of outer battlement left standing 
 beside a razed fortress, rises to a height of at least 
 250 feet above the grass at its base, the Sasso di Ronch. 
 Seen thus in profile, it is difficult to believe that it is the 
 same Sasso di Ronch which one has been looking at 
 from below. It looks like a mere aiguille, or spire, dis- 
 proportionately slender for its height, and curved at the 
 top, as if just ready to pitch over. Someone has com- 
 pared the Matterhorn to the head and neck of a war- 
 horse rearing up behind the valley of Zermatt ; so 
 might the Sasso di Ronch from this point be compared 
 to the head and neck of a giraffe. Standing upon its 
 knife-edge of ridge — all precipice below, all sky above, 
 the horizon one long sweep of jagged peaks — it makes 
 as wild and weird a subject as ever I sat down to sketch 
 before or since ! 
 
 Thus the morning passes. At noon, we rest in the 
 shade of the Sasso to eat our frucfal luncheon of bread 
 and hard-boiled eggs ; then, being refreshed, pack up 
 the sketching traps and prepare to go home. It is 
 not long, however, before we call another halt — this 
 time in the midst of a beautiful open glade a little way 
 below the cottages. Here — framed in by a foreground 
 of velvet turf, a chalet and a group of larches, and only 
 divided from us by the misty abyss of the Val Pettorina 
 — rise the vertical cliffs and craggy summits of Monte 
 Pezza. It is a ready-made sketch, and must be seized 
 on the spot. 
 
 *' There ought to be a fine view from that point yon- 
 der," I remark, mixing a pale little pool of cobalt, like a
 
 222 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 solution of turquoises, and addressing myself to no one 
 in particular. 
 
 Hereupon Clementi, apropos, as it would seem, of 
 nothing, says briskly : — 
 
 " Would the Signoras like to make a first ascent ? " 
 
 " A first ascent," I repeat vaguely, adding a soften- 
 ing drop of brown madder, and so turning the whole 
 pool into a tender pearly grey. " What do you 
 mean ? " . 
 
 " I mean, would the Signoras like to be the first to 
 mount to the top of the Sasso Bianco ? " 
 
 "The Sasso Bianco!" says L., beginning to be 
 interested in the conversation. "Where is the Sasso 
 Bianco ? " 
 
 Clementi points to my sketch, and then to the moun- 
 tain opposite. 
 
 " But that is the Monte Pezza ! " I exclaim. 
 
 " Scusate, Signora — the Sasso Bianco is the summit 
 of the Monte Pezza. No traveller has ever been up 
 there. It is new — new — new ! " 
 
 " How can it be new? " I ask, incredulously. " It is 
 not a very high mountain." 
 
 " Scusate ancora, Signora — it is not a mountain of 
 the first class ; but it is high, very high, for a mountain 
 of the second class. It is higher than either the Friso- 
 let, the Fernazza, or the Migion." 
 
 " Still it is much less difficult than the Civetta, and 
 the Civetta has been ascended several times. How 
 then should the Sasso Bianco have escaped till now ? " 
 
 Because, Signora, the Sasso Bianco is too difficult 
 for ordinary travellers, and not difficult enough for
 
 AT CAP RILE. 
 
 223 
 
 the Club Alpino," replies Clementi, oracularly. " H 
 Ball, il Tuckett, il Whitwell care nothing for a moun- 
 tain which they can swallow at one mouthful." 
 
 This sounds logical. I begin to look at my moun- 
 tain with more respect, and to take extra pains with 
 
 
 SASSO BIANCO. 
 
 my sketch. At the same time, I venture to remind 
 Clementi that L. and I are only " ordinary travellers " 
 and, as such, might find the Sasso Bianco too tough 
 to be swallowed in even many mouthfuls. But he 
 will not listen to this view of the question for a mo- 
 ment. If we choose to do it, we have but to say 
 so. He will undertake that the Signoras shall go up 
 "pulito."
 
 224 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 The sketch being by this time finished, we go down, 
 talking ahvays of the Sasso Bianco. Clementi is eager 
 for us to achieve the honour of a " prima ascenzione," 
 and advocates it with all his eloquence. Giuseppe, 
 anxious that we should attempt nothing in excess of our 
 strength, listens gravely ; puts in a question here and 
 there ; and reserves his opinion. According to Clem- 
 enti, nothing can be finer than the view or easier than 
 the ascent ; but then he admits that he himself has 
 never been higher than the upper pastures, and has 
 never seen the view he praises so highly. Still he has 
 gone far enough to survey the ground ; he knows that 
 we can certainly ride as far as the last group of chalets; 
 and he is confident that the walk to the summit cannot 
 be difficult. 
 
 On the whole, the thing sounds tempting. Our 
 plans, however, are already laid out for a long excur- 
 sion to be begun, weather permitting, to-morrow. So 
 the subject of the Sasso Bianco, having been discussed, 
 is for the present dismissed. Dismissed, but not for- 
 gotten. Those words "prima ascenzione " are Caba- 
 listic, and haunt the memory strangely. They invest 
 the Monte Pezza with a special and peculiar interest ; 
 so that it is no longer as other mountains are, but 
 seems henceforth to have a halo round its summit. 
 
 But I must not forget the old peasant whom we met 
 a little way below the goatherd's cross, as we went 
 down that afternoon. He was a fine old man, still 
 handsome, dressed in a new suit of homespun frieze 
 and evidently well-to-do. He was sitting by the path- 
 side. A basket and a long stick lay beside him. As
 
 AT CAP RILE. 
 
 we drew near, he rose and bowed ; so being on foot 
 (the men and mules following at a distance) we stopped 
 to speak to him. He, of course, immediately asked 
 where we had been, and where we were going. These 
 are the invariable questions. I said that we had been 
 up to the Sasso di Ronch. 
 
 "To the Sasso!" he repeated. "Ah, ^-ou have 
 been up to the Sasso ! Did you see the ruins of the 
 Castle ? " 
 
 I replied that, not knowing there were ruins, we had 
 looked for nothing of the kind. 
 
 " Aye," he said, shaking his head, " and unless you 
 knew where to find them, you would never notice 
 them. But they are there. I have seen them myself 
 manv a time, when I was vouns:;er and could climb like 
 you." 
 
 " Do you know to whom the Castle belonged ? " 
 
 " Si, si, si — lo penso bene ! Will the Signoras be 
 pleased to sit, while I tell them all about it ? " 
 
 With this he resumed his seat on the grassy bank, 
 wiped his brow with his handkerchief, and talked 
 away with the air of one who was accustomed to be 
 listened to. 
 
 The Castle, he said, was built by the Visconti — the 
 cruel Visconti of Alilan. They erected it towards the 
 close of the Fourteenth century, to overawe the " Re- 
 publica " of Rocca, over which they then exercised a 
 nominal sovereignty. But when the rule of the Vis- 
 conti came to an end, the " brava " commune, fearine 
 lest the nobles of Belluno should seize and occupy this 
 stronghold to the ruin of the people, pulled it down, 
 
 o
 
 226 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 leaving scarce one stone standing upon another. That 
 was between four and five centuries ao:o. Then the 
 nobles of Belluno, finding they could obtain no footing 
 on the mountain, went and built the Castle of Andraz 
 up yonder in the valley of Buchenstein, and there made 
 themselves a terror to all the country. Had the Sig- 
 noras seen the Castle of Andraz ? Ah, well, that too 
 was now a ruin — pulled down by the French in i856, 
 according to international treaty. As for the antico 
 castello up by the Sasso, it was like an old tree of 
 which the trunk was cut down, and only the roots left. 
 Nothing remained of it but the foundations. Being 
 built of the rock, they looked so like the rock that you 
 might pass them a hundred times without observing 
 them. There were not many people now living, he 
 said, who knew where to look for them. When he was 
 a young man, the contadini used to go up and dig there 
 for hidden treasure ; but they had always been fright- 
 ened away by the demons. The ruins were full of 
 demons underground, in the subterraneous dungeons, 
 the entrances to which were now lost. They were 
 wont to appear in the form of snakes, and they raised 
 terrible storms of wind and thunder to drive away those 
 who sought to discover the secrets of the ruin. Had 
 he ever seen the demons himself? Why, no — he could 
 not say that he had ; for he had never cared to tempt 
 the Devil by going to dig for treasure ; but he had seen 
 and heard the tempest raging up there about the top of 
 the mountain, many and many a time, when it was 
 fair weather down in the valley. And he had once 
 known a man who went up at midnight on the eve of
 
 AT CAPRI LE. 227 
 
 Santo Giovanni, to dig in a certain spot where he had 
 dreamed he should find buried gold. When he had 
 dug a deep hole, Ecco ! his spade struck against an 
 earthen pot, and he thought his fortune was made ; but 
 when he took the lid off the pot, there came out only 
 five small black snakes, no bigger than your finger. 
 At this sight, being both alarmed and disappointed, he 
 up with his spade and cut one of these little snakes in 
 twain ; and lo ! in one instant, the hole that he had 
 dug was full of snakes — big, black, venomous, twisted, 
 hissing snakes, thousands and thousands of them, all 
 pouring out upon him in a hideous throng, so that 
 he had to fly for his life, and only escaped death by a 
 miracle ! 
 
 " But has nothing ever been found in the ruins ? " I 
 asked, when at the end of this story the old man 
 paused to take breath. 
 
 " Nothing but rubbish, Signora," he replied. " A 
 few small coins — a rusty casque or two — some frag- 
 ments of armour — niente piu ! " 
 
 He would have talked on for an hour, if we could 
 have stayed to listen to him ; but we were in haste, and 
 now wished him good-day. So he rose again, took off 
 his hat, and in quaint, set terms wished us " good 
 health, a pleasant journey, a safe return, and the bless- 
 ing of God." 
 
 The rest of that afternoon was spent in laying out 
 our route by the map ; unpacking and selecting stores ; 
 and endeavouring to solve the oft-propounded problem 
 of how to get the contents of a large portmanteau into 
 a small black bag. For the days of caretti, landaus, 
 
 o 2
 
 228 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 and carriage-roads were over. Henceforth our ways 
 would lie among mountain paths and unfrequented 
 mule-tracks, and to-morrow we must start upon an 
 expedition of at least ten days with only as much 
 luggage as each could carr}' packed behind her own 
 saddle. Giuseppe, it was arranged, should carry the 
 sketching traps, and Clementi the provision basket. In 
 this order we were to take a lonsf round beGrinninfr with 
 Cencenighe and Agordo, going thence to Primiero, 
 Paneveggio and Predazzo, and coming home by Cam- 
 pidello and the Fedaja pass. In the meanwhile L.'s 
 maid was to be left in charge of the rooms, and under 
 the kindly care of the Pezzes.
 
 TO AGORDO AND PRIMIERO. 
 
 DIFFICULTY OF GETTING UNDER WAY— FISHING FOR TIMBER— CEN- 
 CENIGHE— 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 ^VITHOUT AN END— CASTEL PIETRA 
 — PRIMIERO AT LAST— ANCIENT LINEAGE OF THE TYROLEAN INN- 
 KEEPERS.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TO AGORDO AND PRIMIERO. 
 
 Having risen literally with the dawn, we are on the 
 road next morning before six, bound for Agordo. The 
 Pezzes gather about the house-door to see us off. The 
 Austrian officer who lodges over the way and soothes 
 his Customs-laden soul by perpetually torturing a 
 cracked zitter, leans out in his shirt sleeves from a 
 second-floor window, to see us mount. He is already 
 smoking his second, if not his third meerschaum ; and 
 only pauses now and then to twirl his moustache with 
 that air of serene contempt for everyone but himself 
 which so eminently distinguishes him. 
 
 It takes some little time to strap on the bags, to say 
 good-bye, and to induce dark Nessol to receive me upon 
 any terms. He has a hypocritical way of standing 
 quite still till the very moment Giuseppe is about to put 
 me up, and then suddenly ducks away, to my immense 
 discomfiture and the undisguised entertainment of 
 the neighbourhood. When this performance has been 
 repeated some six or seven times, he is hustled into a 
 corner and pinned against the wall by main force, while 
 I mount ignominiously at last by the help of a chair.
 
 232 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 The road to Cencenighe lies by way of Alleghe, so 
 that for the first five miles or more it is all familiar 
 ground. The air is fresh, but the sky is already one 
 blaze of cloudless sunlight. The Civetta rises before us 
 in shadowy splendour. The larks are singing as I had 
 thought they never sang anywhere save on the Cam- 
 pagna between Rome and Tivoli. 
 
 Between forty and fifty bronzed and bare-legged 
 peasants are collecting floating timber this morning at 
 the head of the lake. Some wade ; some pilot rough 
 rafts of tree-trunks loosely lashed together ; some stand 
 on the banks and draw the logs to shore by means of 
 long boat-hooks. One active fellow sits his pine-trunk 
 as if it were a horse, and paddles it to shore with un- 
 common dexterity. The whole scene is highly pic- 
 turesque and amusing ; and the men, with their shirt- 
 sleeves rolled above their elbows, and their trowsers 
 above their knees, look just like Neapolitan fishermen. 
 Every now and then they all join in a shrill, prolonged 
 cry, which adds greatly to the wildness of the effect. 
 
 Skirting the borders of the lake, we draw nearer every 
 moment to the lower cliffs of the Civetta, and arrive at 
 the scene of the great bergfall of 1771 ;— a wilderness 
 of fallen rocks, like the battle-ground of the Titans. 
 Somewhere beneath these mountains of debris lie the 
 two buried villages. No one any longer remembers 
 exactly where they stood, nor even which of the four* 
 they were. That Alleghe lay near the middle of the 
 present water, seems to be the only fact about which 
 every one is confident. A solitary white house, half 
 
 * Alleghe ; Riete ; Marin ; fucine.
 
 TO AGORDO AND PRIMIERO. 
 
 podere, half albergo, stands on a hill just above the 
 point where the Cordevole, swelled by all the torrents of 
 the Civetta, rushes out at the lower end of the lake and 
 pours impetuously down the steep and narrow gorge 
 leadino; to Cencenio;he. 
 
 Here the path, after being carried for a long way 
 high on the mountain side, gradually descends to the 
 level of the river, crossing and re-crossing it continually 
 by means of picturesque wooden bridges. Here, too, 
 an adder, sunning itself on a heap of stones by the 
 wayside, wriggles away at our approach, and is speedily 
 killed by Clementi, who skips about and flourishes his 
 stick like a maniac. Meanwhile, a tremendous South- 
 West wind blows up the gorge like a hurricane, without 
 in any way mitigating the pitiless blaze of the sun over- 
 head, or the glare which is flung up at a white heat 
 from the road underfoot. 
 
 At length, about 10.30 a.m. we arrive in sight of 
 Cencenighe, a small village in the open flat just between 
 the Val Cordevole and the Val di Canale. The Monte 
 Pelsa, which is, in fact, a long, wild buttress of the 
 Civetta ; the Cima di Pape, a volcanic peak 8,239 f^^^ 
 in height ; and the southward ridge of Monte Pezza, 
 enclose it in a natural amphitheatre, the central area of 
 which is all fertile meadow-land traversed by long lines 
 of feathery poplars. Putting up here for a couple of 
 hours at a poor little inn in the n:iidst of the village, we 
 are glad to take refuge from wind and sun in a stuffv 
 upstairs room, while the men dine, and the mules feed, 
 and where we take luncheon. One soon learns not 
 rashly to venture on strange meats and drinks in these
 
 234 UNTRODDEN PEAKS fir- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 remote villages. Before starting in the morning, we 
 now habitually provide ourselves with fresh bread and 
 hard-boiled eggs ; and so, on arriving at a new place 
 ask only for cheese, wine, and a fresh lettuce from the 
 garden. The cheese is not often very palatable, and we 
 generally give the wine to the men ; but as something 
 must be ordered and paid for, the purpose is answered. 
 When we are unusually tired, or minded to indulge in 
 luxuries, we light the Etna, and treat ourselves to 
 Liebig soup, or tea. 
 
 Beyond Cencenighe, the character of the scenery 
 changes suddenly. It is still the Val Cordevole, but is 
 wholly unlike its former pastoral self either above or 
 below Caprile. Barren precipices scarred by innumer- 
 able bergfalls close in the narrow way ; fallen boulders 
 of enormous bulk lie piled everywhere in grand and 
 terrible confusion ; while the road is again and again 
 cut through huge barricades of solid debris. Frequent 
 wayside crosses repeat the old tragic story of sudden 
 death. The torrent, chafed and tormented by a thou- 
 sand obstacles, rages below. Wild Dolomitic peaks 
 start up here and there, are seen for a moment, and 
 then vanish. A blind beggar-woman curled up with 
 her crutches in the recess of a painted shrine by the 
 roadside, uplifts a wailing voice at our approach. All 
 is mournful ; all is desolate. 
 
 By and by, the gorge widens ; the great twin-towers of 
 Monte Lucano and the splintered peaks of Monte Pizz 
 come into sight ; and, like a rapid change of scene upon 
 a mighty stage, a sunny Italian valley rich in vines and 
 chesnuts and fields of Indian corn opens out before us.
 
 TO ACORDO AND PRIMIERO. 235 
 
 From thence the road, winding now in shade, now in 
 sunshine, traverses a country which would be as 
 thoroughly Southern as the inland parts about Naples, 
 were it not that the houses in every little village are 
 decorated in the Tyrolean way with half-obliterated 
 frescoes of Madonnas and Saints. Large rambling 
 farm-houses built over gloomy arches peopled by pigs, 
 poultry, and children, enliven the landscape with an air 
 of slovenly prosperity quite Campanian. A wayside 
 osteria hangs out the traditional withered bough, and 
 announces in letters afoot long: — '"Buon Acqua gratis, 
 e Vendita di Buon Vino " (Good Water for nothing and 
 Good Wine for sale) . By and by, a scattered town and 
 an important new-looking church with a dome and two 
 small cupolas come into sight at the far end of the 
 valley. This is Agordo, an archdeaconry, and the 
 Capoluogo, or chief place, of the district. 
 
 Two long, last sultry miles of dusty flat, and we are 
 there. A large albergo at the upper end of a piazza 
 as big at least as Trafalgar Square, receives us on 
 arrival — a pretentious, comfortless place, with an 
 arcade and a cafe on the ground floor, and no end of 
 half-furnished upper rooms. Being ushered upstairs 
 by a languid damsel with an enormous chignon (for 
 there seems to be neither master, mistress, nor waiter 
 about the place) we take possession of a whole empty 
 floor looking to the front, and ask, of course, the tired 
 travellers' first question, " What can we have for 
 dinner ? " 
 
 The answer to this enquiry comes in the astounding 
 form of a regular bill of fare. We can have anythin.'^
 
 236 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS- 
 
 from soup to ices, if we choose ; so, in an evil hour, we 
 order a " real " dinner, to consist of several courses, 
 including trout and a boiled chicken. We even talk 
 vaguely of spending a day or two in Agordo, for the 
 longer enjoyment of such luxurious quarters. 
 
 In the meantime, having rested, we stroll out to see 
 the town. 
 
 Strange to say, there is no town ; there is only the 
 piazza. Houses enough there may possibly be to make 
 a town, if one could only bring them together, and 
 arrange them within reasonable limits ; but here they 
 show as a mere brick-and-mortar fringe, thinly furnish- 
 ine" three sides of a f^i'eat desolate enclosure where all 
 the children, and all the stray dogs, and all the Pallo 
 players most do congregate. Three sides only ; for 
 the fourth is wholly occupied by Count Manzoni's 
 dilapidated villa, with its unpainted shutters, its 
 curtainless windows, and its outside multitude of 
 tenth-rate gods and goddesses, which crowd the sky 
 line of the fa9ade like an army of acrobats and ballet- 
 girls in stone. 
 
 The church, a modern work in the Renaissance style 
 designed by Segusini, stands near the hotel at the 
 upper, or East end of the Piazza. The door being 
 open, we lift the heavy leathern curtain, and walk in; 
 but it is like walking into "Chaos and old night." 
 Every blind is down ; every avenue is closed against 
 the already fading dayhght. A Capuchin monk and 
 some three or four women kneel here and there, more 
 shadowy than the shadows. A lamp burns dimly before 
 the high altar — a few tapers flare before the shrine of
 
 TO AGORDO AND PRIMIERO. 237 
 
 the Madonna — faint gleams of gilding, outlines of 
 frescoes, of altar-pieces, of statues, are indistinctly visi- 
 ble. To gain any idea of the decorations, or even of 
 the proportions of the church, is so impossible that we 
 defer it altogether till to-morrow, and make, instead, the 
 tour of the piazza. 
 
 Having done this, and having peeped into a very 
 narrow, dirty back street running up the hill behind the 
 town, we come home (home being the albergo of the 
 " Miniere ") to dinner. 
 
 And here I should observe that the house is so called 
 after the copper, lead, and zinc mines which form the 
 commercial treasure of the district. These mines, 
 lying at the mouth of the Val Imperina, about two 
 miles from Agordo, belonged formerly to the Republic 
 of Venice, and are now government property. Of 
 the wealth of their resources there seems to be but 
 one opinion ; yet the works are carried on so parsi- 
 moniously that the nett profit seldom exceeds 50,000 
 lire, or about ^^2,000 English, per annum. A quick- 
 silver mine near Gosalda, about six miles off in another 
 direction, worked by a private company, is reported to 
 pay better. 
 
 Did I say that we came home to dinner? Ah, well ! 
 it was a sultry, languid evening ; there was thunder in 
 the air ; and, happily, we were not very hungry. I will 
 not dwell upon the melancholy details. Enough if I 
 observe that the boiled chicken not only came to table 
 in its head-dress of feathers like an African chief en 
 grande tenue, but also with its internal economy quite 
 undisturbed. The rest of the dishes were conceived and
 
 238 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 carried out in the same spirit : — " Non ragionam di lor," 
 &c., &c. For my own part, I believe to this day that the 
 cook was a raving maniac. 
 
 That dream of spending a day or two at Agordo 
 vanished in the course of dinner. We resolved to push 
 on as quickly as possible for Primiero ; and so, as soon 
 as the cloth was removed, sent for Giuseppe and ordered 
 the mules to be at the door by half-past six next 
 morning. 
 
 That night there came a tremendous storm ; the 
 heaviest we had yet had. It began suddenly, with a peal 
 of thunder, just over the roof of the hotel, and then con- 
 tinued to lighten and thunder incessantly for more than 
 half an hour before any rain fell. The lightning seemed 
 to run slantwise along the clouds in jagged streams, and 
 to end each time with a plunge straight down into the 
 earth. These streams of electric fluid were in them- 
 selves blinding white, but the light they flashed over 
 the landscape was of a brilliant violet, as rich in colour 
 as a burst of Bengal light. I never saw anything to 
 equal the vividness of that violet light, or the way in 
 which it not only stripped the darkness from the great 
 mountains on the opposite side of the valley, but 
 brought out with intense distinctness every separate 
 leaf upon the trees, every tile upon the farthest house- 
 tops, and every blade of grass in the piazza below. 
 These flashes, for the first ten minutes, followed each 
 other at intervals of not longer than fifteen seconds, and 
 sometimes of intervals of five ; so that it almost seemed 
 as if there were flashes of darkness as well as flashes of 
 light. The church-bells, as usual, were rung as long as
 
 TO AGORDO AND PRIMIERO. 239 
 
 the storm lasted ; but the thunder-peals overlapped 
 each other so continually, and were echoed and re- 
 echoed in such a grand way from the amphitheatre of 
 mountains round about, that one only heard them now 
 and then for a moment. By and by — at the end of 
 perhaps forty minutes — there came a deafening final 
 explosion, as if a mountain had blown up ; and after 
 that, heavy rain, and only rain, till about two 
 o'clock A.M. 
 
 At half-past six, however, when we rode out of 
 Agordo, the weather was as brilliant as ever. Long 
 fleets of white clouds were sailing overhead before 
 the wind. The air had that delicious freshness which 
 follows a thunderstorm in summer. The trees, the 
 grass, the wild-flowers, even the mountains, looked 
 as if their colours had just been dashed in with a 
 wet brush, and so left for the sun to dry them. 
 
 Our way lay across the Cordevole bridge and then up 
 a steep path, very narrow, partly paved, and shaded on 
 both sides by barberry bushes, wild briars all in blos- 
 som, and nut trees already thick with clusters of new 
 fruit. Monte Lucano, in form like a younger brother 
 of the Pelmo, towered high into the morning mist on the 
 one hand, and the wild peaks of Monte Pizz and Monte 
 Agnara peered out fitfully now and then upon the other. 
 Thus we reached and passed Voltago — a picturesque 
 village surrounded by green firwoods and slopes of 
 Indian corn. In the valley below gleamed Agordo, 
 with its white dome ; and against the Eastern horizon 
 rose the pinky peaks of Monte Lasteie, the shadowy 
 ridge of Monte Pramper, and the strange, solitary
 
 240 UXTRODDEX PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 needle called the Gusella di Vescova, like a warning 
 finger pointing to the sky. 
 
 Next came a cherry country, thick with orchards full 
 of scarlet fruit — then a romantic ravine called the Val 
 Molina — then the scattered village of Frassene, with its 
 little church in the midst of a mountain prairie, sur- 
 rounded by firwoods. Who would dream of finding a 
 pianoforte manufactory in such a lost corner of the hills, 
 or a maker of violins and contrabassi a little way lower 
 down at Voltago ? Yet at Frassene, one Giuseppe 
 Dalla Lucia turns out pianos of respectable repute, and 
 the fiddles, little and big, of Valentino Conedera of 
 Voltagfo are said to be of unusual excellence. 
 
 And now, as we ride across this space of pleasant 
 meadowland, the mists part suddenly overhead, and 
 reveal a startling glimpse of three enormous pallid 
 obelisks, apparently miles high against the blue. These 
 are the peaks of the Sasso di Campo, one of the Primi- 
 ero giants, as yet unascended, and estimated by Ball at 
 something little short of 10,000 feet above the level of 
 the sea. The mists part and close again ; the peaks 
 stand out for one moment in brilliant sunshine, and then 
 melt like things of air ! It is our first and last sight of 
 the Sasso di Campo. 
 
 The path, always rising, now winds through a 
 wooded district, stony but shady, the haunt of gorgeous 
 butterflies. Higher still, it becomes a tunnel of green- 
 ery, only just wide and high enough for man and mule. 
 The larches meet and rustle overhead ; tiny falls trickle 
 deliciously from rock to rock, and gush every now and 
 then across the path ; while the banks on each side are
 
 TO AGORDO AND PRIMIERO. 241 
 
 tapestried all over with rich mosses, wild strawberries, 
 and pendent festoons of Osmunda, oak, and beech ferns. 
 If the footway were not so steep and slippery, and the 
 work so heavy for the mules, no place could be imagined 
 more delicious on a day like this ; for it grows hotter 
 every hour, as the sun climbs and the vapours roll away. 
 But the pull is too long and too difficult ; and the path 
 in many places resolves itself into a mere broken stair- 
 case of wet rock up which the two Xessols, though 
 riderless, clamber and struggle with the utmost diffi- 
 culty. 
 
 At length one last great step is surmounted, and an 
 immense park-like plateau scattered over with clumps 
 of larches and firs, threaded by numberless tiny tor- 
 rents, and radiant with wild-flowers, opens away for 
 miles before our eyes, like a rolling sea of rich green 
 sward. This is the summit ot the Gosalda pass. The 
 village of Gosalda, a rambling hamlet lying high on the 
 mountain-side, facing Monte Pizzon, Monte Prabello 
 and the valley of the Mis, is reached about two miles 
 farther on. Here we put up for the regular midday 
 rest at a very humble little albergo ; where, however, 
 we are well content to take possession of a clean land- 
 ing, a deal table, a couple of wooden chairs, and an 
 open window commanding a magnificent view over the 
 valley and the mountains beyond. We ask, as usual, 
 lor bread, cheese, and wine ; explaining that the wine 
 is for the men, and that we require tea-cups and spoons 
 for ourselves ; but the landlady, a stupid, civil body with 
 a goitre, shakes her head and stands bewildered. 
 
 *' Tazze ? " she repeats, wonderingly. *' Tazze ? " 
 
 p
 
 242 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 Finding it impossible to make her understand what 
 tazze are, I sketch a cup and spoon upon the white- 
 washed wall ; whereupon she triumphantly supplies us 
 with two pudding basins and two metal gravy spoons 
 of enormous size, so that we look like comic characters 
 taking tea in a pantomime. 
 
 " Ecco ! you carry fire about with you ! " exclaims 
 this child of nature, staring at the blazing Etna with 
 the open-mouthed astonishment of a savage. 
 
 Not caring to enter into an explanation of the nature 
 and uses of spirits of wine, I venture to remind her of 
 the bread, and enquire if she has yet served the men 
 with their wine. 
 
 She nods and then shakes her head again, with a 
 pause between. 
 
 " Vino, si," she replies, oracularly. " Pane, no.'' 
 (Wine, yes ; bread, no.) 
 
 It seems only reasonable to suggest that, having no 
 bread in the house, she should send out for some imme- 
 diately. But no. She wags not her head this time, 
 but her fore-finger — a gesture purely Italian. It is of 
 no use to send out for bread. There is none to be had. 
 There is none in the "paese." No one has any — no 
 one in Gosalda. Not even the paroco. It all comes 
 up from the valley — when they have any. It ought to 
 come up twice a week ; but the baker is not always 
 punctual. It is now five days since he came last, and 
 there is not a crust left in the village. 
 
 " But why do you not make your own bread up here 
 in Gosalda ? " I asked, when she came to the end of 
 this astounding statement.
 
 ' TO AGORDO AND PRIMIERO. 243 
 
 " Eh, Signora, we have no baker." 
 
 " And what do you eat when the baker does not 
 come . 
 
 " Eh, Signora — we eat polenta." 
 
 Happily, we had a little bread in the luncheon basket; 
 but less than usual, having given some to the mules 
 after their hard scramble up the pass. We were better 
 off, however, than Giuseppe and Clementi, who got 
 nothing: — not even a dish of polenta. And this in a 
 village numbering at least some four or five hundred 
 souls. 
 
 The peasants of the mountain district between 
 Agordo and Primiero seemed, so far as one could judge 
 in a single day's journey, altogether poorer, dirtier, and 
 more ignorant than elsewhere. Most of those whom 
 we passed on the road, or saw at work in the fields, had 
 goitres ; and few understood anything but their own 
 barbarous patois. Even the landlady of the Gosalda 
 albergo, though she was no doubt superior to many of 
 her neighbours, spoke very little intelligible Italian, 
 and had no kind of local information to give. Being 
 asked the name of the noble mountain that formed 
 the main feature of the view before her windows, she 
 replied first that it was the Monte Cereda ; then that 
 it was the Sasso di Mis ; and finallv admitted that 
 she did not know for certain whether it had a name 
 at all. Yet this was a question which she must have 
 been continually called upon to answer. The moun- 
 tain, however, as set down in Ball's map, proved to be 
 the Monte Prabello, the highest point of which (called 
 sometimes II Pizz, and sometimes II Pizzocco) rises, 
 
 p 2
 
 2 14 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 according to Mayr, to a height of 6733 feet above the 
 sea-level. 
 
 A second pass — the Passo della Cereda — yet lies be- 
 tween us and Primiero. The distance is reported to 
 be about two hours and a half from Gosalda, and a 
 good mule-track all the way. The path begins pretty 
 well, being steep but shady, and winding up between 
 rocky banks, high hedges, and overarching trees. 
 This, however, is too pleasant to last ; and soon it 
 begins to exhibit in an exaggerated degree all the 
 worst features of the worst parts of the Gosalda pass. 
 The Gosalda pass was steep ; but the Cereda pass 
 is infinitely steeper. The Gosalda pass was wet 
 underfoot ; but the Cereda pass is for miles neither 
 more nor less than the bed of a small torrent. Nor 
 are other and larger torrents wanting ; for twice we 
 have to dismount and make our way on foot from 
 stone to stone across rushing streams some thirty feet 
 in width. 
 
 The wonder is that anyone should be found to live in 
 a place so difficult of access ; yet we continually pass 
 cottages, and clusters of cottages by the wayside ; and 
 the great valley down below is quite thickly populated. 
 One woman standing at her garden gate nursing a 
 wizened baby of about six months old, enquires eagerly 
 where we come from, and if we do not find it a " brutto 
 paese ? " 
 
 Being assured, however, that the Signoras consider 
 it not " brutto " but " bellissimo," she is struck quite 
 dumb with amazement. 
 
 "And where — oh! where are you going?" is her
 
 TO A GORDO AND PRIMIERO. 245 
 
 next question, asked with a frenzied kind of eagerness, 
 as if her Ufe depended on the answer. 
 
 I reply that we are going to Primiero, Predazzo, Vigo, 
 and other places. 
 
 " To Primiero ! " she repeats, breathlessly. " To 
 Predazzo ! Jesu Maria ! What a number of bad roads 
 you have before you ! " 
 
 So saying, she leans out over the gate, and watches us 
 with unfeigned compassion and wonder as long as we 
 remain in sight. 
 
 Now the valley sinks lower, and the mountains rise 
 higher with every step of the way. The road achieves 
 an impossible degree of steepness. The mules, left to 
 themselves, climb in the cleverest way, and act as 
 pioneers to those on foot. At last comes a place which 
 can no longer be described as a road but a barrier ; 
 being in truth the last rock-wall below the plateau to 
 which we have all this time been mounting:. Here even 
 the mules have to be helped ; and, partly by pushing, 
 partly by pulling, reach the top at last. 
 
 And now another great prairie, somewhat like the 
 Gosalda summit, only more wild and barren, opens 
 away in the same manner and in the same direction, 
 like the enchanted meadow in the fairy-tale that 
 stretched on for ever and had no ending. A little 
 lonely osteria in the midst of this wilderness is joyfully 
 hailed by our famishing guides, \\\\o find here not only 
 good wine but good white bread, and plenty of it. 
 
 It has to be a short rest, however, for the day is 
 advancing and we have already been nine hours on the 
 road, including halts.
 
 246 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &' UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 " How long is it now to Primiero ? " asks Giuseppe, 
 as we are moving off again. 
 
 To which the good woman rephes in the self-same 
 words as she of Gosalda : — • 
 
 " Two hours and a half!" 
 
 As a rule, the finest wild flowers throughout these 
 mountain districts love exposed situations, and flourish 
 most luxuriantly on heights not far below the limit of 
 vegetation. On the Cereda, instead of growing in rich 
 confusion as at other places, they separate into distinct 
 masses ; showing here as a hillside of fire-coloured 
 lilies ; yonder as a pinky dell of ragged robin ; farther 
 on still, as a long blue tract of wild vetch interspersed 
 with slender spires of Canterbury bells. No painter 
 would dare faithfully to represent these incredible slopes 
 of alternate rose and gold and blue. 
 
 At last the path begins to dip, and our hopes to rise. 
 Every moment we expect to see the opening of some 
 green vista with Primiero at the end of it. Meeting a 
 decently dressed peasant of the farmer class, however, 
 and putting the same question to him in the same words 
 as before, we are confounded to receive precisely the 
 same answer : — 
 
 " Circa due ore e mezza, Signore." (About two hours 
 and a half, ladies.) 
 
 Profoundly discouraged, we ride on after this in 
 mournful silence. It is now more than three hours 
 since we left Gosalda, and yet we seem to be as far as 
 ever from Primiero. If we were not tired, if we were 
 not hungry, if the mules were not beginning to stumble 
 at every step, the thing would be almost comic ; but as
 
 TO AGORDO AND PRIM IE RO. 247 
 
 it is, we go on funereally, following always the course of 
 a small torrent, and skirting long pasture tracts dotted 
 over with brown chalets. 
 
 By and by, having made another two or three miles 
 of way, we come upon a gang of country folk at work 
 in the new-mown hay. This time Giuseppe raises his 
 voice, and shouts the stereotyped enquiry. The answer 
 comes back with crushing distinctness : — 
 
 " About three hours." 
 
 I begin to think we are under the dominion of some 
 dreadful spell. I have visions of jogging on for ever, 
 like a party of Wandering Jews, till all four have become 
 old, grey, and decrepit. Suddenly Clementi turns round 
 with an eye bright with smothered glee, and says : — 
 
 " Don't you think, Signora, we should get there 
 quicker if we turned back ? " 
 
 It is a small joke ; but it serves to make us merry 
 over our misfortunes. After this, we put the same 
 question to everyone we meet — to a group of women 
 carrying faggots ; to an old man driving a pig ; to a 
 plump priest riding " sonsily " on an ass, like Sancho 
 Panza ; to a woodcutter going home with his axe over 
 his shoulder, like a headsman out of livery. Each, of 
 course, gives a different answer. One says two hours ; 
 another two hours-and-a-half ; a third three hours ; and 
 so on. And then all at once, when we are not in the 
 least expecting it, we come upon a grand opening and 
 see Castel Pietra on its inaccessible peak of cloven rock 
 standing up straight before us. Another moment, and 
 the valley opens out at an untold depth below —a 
 glittering vision pf chesaut-woods, villages, vineyards,.
 
 248 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREOUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 and purple mountains about whose summits the storm- 
 clouds are fast gathering. 
 
 " Ecco Primiero ! " says Clementi, pointing to a 
 
 CASTEL riE'IRA. 
 
 many-steepled town at the end of a long white road, 
 still miles and miles away. 
 
 This Castel Pietra — the chromo-lithograph of which, 
 as seen from the valley, is already familiar to most
 
 TO AGORDO AND PRIM IE RO. 249 
 
 readers in Gilbert and Churcliill's book — is the property 
 of a certain Count Welsperg, by whose ancestors it was 
 built in the old feudal times, and who still lives in 
 Primiero. The solitary tooth of rock on v\'hich it stands 
 has split from top to bottom some time within the last 
 century ; since when it is quite inaccessible. The pre- 
 sent owner, when a young man, succeeded once, and 
 once only, by the help of ropes, ladders, and workmen 
 from Primiero, in climbing with some friends to the 
 height of those deserted towers ; but that was many a 
 year ago, and since then the owls and bats have garri- 
 soned them undisturbed. The castle stands, a lonely 
 sentinel, at the opening of the great Dolomite Cul de 
 Sac, known as the Val di Canali, and is a conspicuous 
 object from the valley of Primiero. 
 
 The final dip down from the Cereda pass is 
 achieved by means of a stony aud almost perpendicular 
 road, compared with which the descent from the 
 Ghemmi on the Leuk side is level and agreeable 
 walking. Loose stones that roll from beneath the foot, 
 and abrupt slopes of slippery rock, make it difficult 
 for even pedestrians with alpenstocks ; but it is worse 
 still for the mules, which slide and struggle, and scram- 
 ble in a pitiful way, being helped up behind by the ends 
 of their tails, ignominiously. 
 
 At last we reach the level ; hurry along the dusty 
 road ; pass through the ruinous-looking village of 
 Tonadigo, and just as the church clocks are striking 
 seven p.m., ride into Primiero. Here at the ''Aquila 
 Nera," kept by Signora Bonetti, wt find rest, good 
 food, a friendly welcome, and better rooms than the
 
 250 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &' UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 outside of the house, and above all, the entrance, 
 would lead one to expect. That entrance is dreadful — 
 a mere dark arch leading to a goat-stable ; but then 
 the kitchen and public rooms are on the first floor, and 
 the visitors' rooms on the second ; so that the house 
 may be said only to begin one remove above the level 
 of the street. 
 
 It is curious how soon one learns to be content with 
 these humble Tyrolean albergos, and to regard as 
 friends, and almost as equals, the kindly folk that keep 
 them. Nor, indeed, without reason ; for setting aside 
 that perfume of antique Republicanism which seems yet 
 to linger in the air of all that was once Venice, the 
 Tyrolean innkeepers are, for the most part, people of 
 ancient family who have owned lands and filled respon- 
 sible offices in connection with their native communes 
 ever since the middle ages. Thus we hear of a Ghe- 
 dina of the Ampezzo holding an important military 
 command at the beginning of the XVth century. The 
 Giacomellis who now Keep the "Nave d'Oro" at 
 Predazzo were nobles some few hundred years ago. 
 The Pezzes date back as far as Caprile has records to 
 show, and take their name from the Monte Pezza, on 
 the lower slopes of which they yet hold the remnant of 
 their ancient estates. And the Cercenas of Forno di 
 Zoldo, of whose inn I shall have more to say hereafter, 
 are mentioned, as we find by Mr. Gilbert's book on 
 Cadore, in documents more than five hundred years old. 
 I do not know whether the Bonettis of Primiero claim 
 either a long bourgeois pedigree or a past nobility ; but 
 they are particularly courteous and hospitable, and I
 
 TO AGORDO AND PRIM IE RO. 251 
 
 see no reason for supposing them to be in any respect 
 less well-born than the others. 
 
 It is only right that persons travelling, or intending 
 to travel, in these valleys should be acquainted with the 
 foregoing facts. And it would be well if they remem- 
 bered they are not dealing here with innkeepers of the 
 ordinary continental stamp ; but with persons who are 
 for the most part quite independent of the albergo as a 
 source of profit, and ready to receive strangers with a 
 friendliness that does not appear as an item in the bill. 
 If the accommodation is primitive, it is at all events the 
 best they have to offer ; and it is immensely cheap. If 
 the attendance is not first-rate, there is a pleasant 
 homeliness about the domestic arrangements which more 
 than makes up for any little shortcomings in other 
 ways. The mother of the family generally cooks for 
 her guests ; the father looks after the stabling ; the 
 sons and daughters wait at table. All take a personal 
 interest in one's comfort. All are anxious to oblige. 
 To treat them with hauteur, or with suspicion, or to 
 give unnecessary trouble, is both unjust and impolitic. 
 I have seen old Signora Pezze wounded almost to tears 
 by the way in which a certain English party secured 
 all their possessions under lock and key every time 
 they ventured outside the doors. The same people, on 
 going away, disputed every item of their moderate bill, 
 as if, no matter how little they were charged, it was to 
 be taken for granted that they were being imposed upon 
 somehow. 
 
 The ultimate result of such conduct on the part of 
 our dear country-people is sufficiently obvious. The
 
 252 UNTRODDEN PEAKS fs- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 old innkeeping families will ere long close their houses 
 against us in disgust ; a class of extortionate specu- 
 lators, probably Swiss, will step in and occupy the 
 ground ; newer and smarter, but far less comfortable 
 hotels will spring up like mushrooms in these quiet 
 valleys ; all direct communication between the native 
 townsfolk and the travelling stranger will be inter- 
 cepted ; and the simplicity, the poetry, the homely 
 charm of the Dolomite district will be gone for ever.
 
 PRIMIERO TO PREDAZZO. 
 
 PRIMIERO AND ITS HISTORY — THE EARLY SILVER-WORKERS AND 
 THEIR OFFERING — TRANSACQUA AND ITS TITIAN — THE PRnUERO 
 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 PANE- 
 VEGGIO — THE VAL TRAVIGNOLO— PREDAZZO.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PRIMIERO TO PREDAZZO. 
 
 The town of Primiero lies partly in the plain, and 
 partly climbs the hill upon which the church is built. 
 The houses in the flat have a semi-Venetian character, 
 like the houses at Ceneda and Longarone. The 
 houses on the hill are of the quaintest German Gothic, 
 and remind one of the steep-roofed, many-turreted medi- 
 aeval buildings in Albert Durer's backgrounds. This 
 curious juxtaposition of dissimilar architectural styles is 
 accounted for by the fact that Primiero, in itself more 
 purely Italian than either Caprile or Agordo, was 
 transferred to Austria and partly colonized by German 
 operatives about the latter end of the 14th Century. 
 The Tedeschi, drafted hither for the working of a 
 famous silver mine, took root, acquired wealth, built 
 the church, and left their impress on the place, just as 
 the Romans left theirs in Gaul, and the Greeks in 
 Sicily. 
 
 The early history of Primiero — how it became subject 
 first to the Goths ; then to the Lombardr, ; next (a.d. 
 1027) to the Bishops of Trent; next again (a.d. 1300) 
 to the Scaligeri of Verona ; then (a.d. 1315) to Prince
 
 256 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 Charles of Luxembourg ; and finally to an Archduke of 
 the house of Hapsburg — is but a repetition of the his- 
 tory of most places along the line of the Bellunese 
 frontier. That the valley was at least twice or thrice 
 invaded, and Castel Pietra as often besieged, by the 
 Venetians is also matter of history. It does not appear, 
 however, that Primiero ever became an actual appanage 
 of the great Republic, although the neighbouring village 
 of Transacqua (which is indeed almost a suburb of 
 Primiero, and is only separated from the town by the 
 Cismone and a meadow or two) was ceded to, and held 
 by, Venice in undisputed right for a length of time both 
 before and after the date when the rest of the valley 
 passed into the strong grasp of Austria — a grasp un- 
 loosened to this day. 
 
 For Primiero--so Italian in its scenery, its climate, 
 its language, its national type — is Austrian still. We 
 passed the frontier somewhere about half-way between 
 the village of Gosalda and the osteria on the Cereda 
 pass ; but there was no black and yellow pole to mark 
 the boundary, and we re-entered the dominions of the 
 Emperor Francis Joseph without knowing it. 
 
 So lately as the month of July, 1872, Primiero 
 was as inaccessible for wheeled vehicles as Venice. 
 Whatever there may be now, there was then no line 
 of unbroken carriage road leading to or from the 
 valley in any direction. Be your destination what 
 it might, you could drive but a few miles this way, or a 
 few miles that ; and then must take to either the alpen- 
 stock or the saddle. In short, every avenue to the outer 
 world was barred by a circle of passes, all of which
 
 PRIMIERO TO PREDAZZO. 257 
 
 were practicable to mules, but not one practicable 
 throughout for even carettini. A fine military road is, 
 however, now in course of construction between Pri- 
 miero and Predazzo, so that a direct communication 
 for vehicles will soon be established with Neumarkt on 
 the Botzen and Brenner line. This road was already 
 open last summer as far as the Hospice of San Martino, 
 and was in progress for some miles farther. Perhaps 
 by now it may reach as far as the Val Travignolo.* 
 
 Another excellent road runs southward from Primiero 
 to Pontetto, the limit of the Austrian frontier ; but 
 there, unfortunately, it is joined on the Italian side by a 
 steep and very rough mule-track which continues as far 
 as Fonzaso. From Fonzaso, however, another carriage- 
 road leads to Feltre, and at Feltre one is in the centre 
 of network of fine highways radiating to Belluno, 
 Treviso, Bassano and Trient. 
 
 Less than ten years ago, Primiero was even more 
 primitive than now. The daily posts, we are told, came 
 in and went out on mule-back. No rattle of wheels 
 disturbed the silent streets ; no wheel-tracks scarred the 
 pavement. At night, the good townsfolk went about 
 with little twinkling lanthorns, and hung an oil-lamp 
 here and there outside their doors. Things are not quite 
 so Arcadian now. The letter-bags are carried for at least 
 a few miles down the valley in a light caretta ; the 
 
 * This road has long been completed. It is traversed by a daily diligence 
 which goes in 1 1 hours from Predazzo to Primiero, returning from Primiero 
 at 5 "30 P.M., and stopping for the night at San Martino di Castrozza. An 
 omnibus also plies, twice daily (in 8 hours), between Primiero and Feltre ; 
 but this last runs only in summer. (^Nole to Second Edition.) 
 
 Q
 
 258 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 rattling of wheels has ceased to be regarded as a phe- 
 nomenon ; a gasometer has been erected near (too near) 
 the entrance to the town ; and the inhabitants are doing 
 all they can to get a telegraphic wire in connection with 
 Felt re. 
 
 The town is very clean, cheerful and picturesque. In 
 the piazza on the flat, and in some of the side-streets 
 (for there are side-streets in Primiero), one sees many 
 large and really good houses. They call them Palazzos. 
 Some of these are built over great cavernous arched 
 entrances, and lighted by Venetian twin-windows 
 with ogive arched tops and twisted pillars. Some are 
 enriched with elegant balconies of wrought iron ; and 
 on one door I observed an elaborate knocker and two 
 handles in the form of half-length female figures of ex- 
 quisite workmanship. 
 
 The German houses going up the hill — the foot- 
 pavement of which, by the way, consists of squares of 
 wood — are quite different. They have tiny windows 
 filled with circular glass panes about three inches in 
 diameter, and high steep roofs pierced by rows of 
 dormers and surmounted by fantastic weather-cocks. 
 The ancient Fiirst Amt, with its quaint oriel turrets, 
 loop-holed walls, mediaeval windows, and rows of 
 frescoed shields charged with faded armorial bearings, 
 would be quite in its proper place if transported to 
 Wiirtzburg or Ulm. This curious building, which 
 stands at the top of the hill just over against the church, 
 was erected by the early silver-workers, probably as a 
 kind of fortified guard-house, and as a place of deposit 
 or their store of precious metal.
 
 
 
 My, 
 
 ^^\A**i|^i*!;. 
 
 mm:f 
 
 PRIMIKKO. 
 
 [P. 258.
 
 PRIMIERO TO PREDAZZO. 261 
 
 Many houses, both on the hill and down in the flat, 
 are decorated externally with friezes and arabesques of 
 a simple character ; while over almost every house-door 
 is painted up this pious phrase : — " Christus Nobiscum 
 Stat." 
 
 Our first day in Primiero befell upon a Sunday. The 
 church-bells began ringing merrily before five a.m., and 
 went on till ten. The streets were thronged with pea- 
 sants in their holiday clothes ; and in the piazza sat a 
 group of country-women with baskets of crimson 
 cherries, little golden pears, and green lettuces for sale. 
 It was a gay and animated scene. The men, with their 
 knee-breeches, white stockings, conical felt hats, and 
 jackets loosely thrown across one shoulder like a cloak, 
 looked as if they had just stepped out of one of Pinelli's 
 etchings. Some wore a crimson sash about the waist, 
 and some a bunch of flowers and feathers in the hat. 
 The women wore white cloths upon their heads tied 
 corner-wise, and had the hair cut across the forehead in 
 a Sevigne fringe. Their voices were curiously alike — 
 soft, deep, and guttural. Looking in at the church-door 
 while mass was being performed, I saw the whole nave 
 as one sea of white head-dresses, and for the moment 
 fancied myself peeping once more into the chapel of the 
 Beguinage at Bruges. 
 
 It is a gloomy church ; externally more Tyrolean than 
 German, with an unusually high steep roof and lofty 
 spire ; internally, of a severe, well-proportioned, thir- 
 teenth-century Gothic. Two recessed and canopied 
 state-pews of old carved oak stand on either side of 
 the principal entrance, facing the East window and 
 
 Q 2
 
 262 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 the altar ; and the armorial bearings of the silver- 
 workers are emblazoned again on the walls of the 
 chancel. 
 
 Having heard much of a certain antique silver 
 Mostranz (or portable shrine for the exhibition of the 
 Host) made of the pure silver of the Primiero mines 
 and presented to the church by these same silver- 
 workers some six hundred years ago, we waited till 
 the congregation had dispersed, and then asked to be 
 permitted to see it. A grave and gentlemanly young 
 priest received us in the sacristy, and the Mostranz 
 was taken out of a greak oak press, as old apparently 
 as the church itself. This curious historical relic, 
 preserved uninjured throughout all the vicissitudes of 
 the middle ages, stands about two feet high — a light 
 Gothic spire, in form somewhat like the spire of Milan 
 Cathedral ; surmounted by a gilt cross ; and wrought 
 into a multitude of delicate little pinnacles enclosing 
 tiny niches peopled with figures of Evangelists and 
 Saints. 
 
 Our curiosity gratified, we thanked the young 
 Paroco and took our leave ; whereupon, drawing him- 
 self up in a stately fashion, he wished us " Viaggio 
 sano, buon divertimento, e salute " : — a kind of limited 
 benediction fitted for the dismissal of well-dressed 
 heretics. 
 
 It was impossible not to be continually startled that 
 Sunday morning by the repeated discharges of 
 musketry and small cannon which kept waking the 
 mountain echoes round about, especially just before 
 and after high mass. These came from the little
 
 PRIMIERO TO PREDAZZO. 263 
 
 hamlet of Transacqua on the other side of the Cismone, 
 where the villagers were making high festa in honour 
 of the arrival of a new Paroco. Walking that way 
 towards evening, we found a green triumphal arch 
 erected at the opening of the Transacqua road on the 
 farther end of the bridge, and another at the entrance 
 to the village. The porch was also festooned with gar- 
 lands and devices. 
 
 All was now still. The Paroco had gone to his new 
 home, and the villagers to their cottages. We strolled 
 into the empty church, and saw by a little written notice 
 wafered against the door that it was dedicated to St. 
 Mark — as might be expected in a parish that had once 
 been a dependency of Venice. 
 
 " The Signoras have come to see our Titian," said a 
 croaking voice at my elbow; "but it is too dark — too 
 dark ! It should be seen at midday, when the light 
 comes in through the side-window." 
 
 I turned, and saw a shrivelled, slipshod sexton, all 
 in black, with a big key in his hand. He had 
 come to lock the church up, and found the forestieri 
 inside. 
 
 Every insignificant little town, every obscure village 
 that has ever belonged to Venice has its pretended 
 Titian to show. Setting aside the Titians of Pieve di 
 Cadore, which are unquestionably genuine, and one at 
 Zoppe of which I shall have to tell by-and-by, there 
 are dozens of others scattered through the country 
 which it would be flattery to describe as ev'en copies. 
 There was one to be seen the other day, for instance, 
 at Cencenighe ; but having heard that it was more
 
 264 UNTRODDEN PEAKS £- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 than doubtful, we preferred resting in the shelter of the 
 albergo to toiling up to the church in the broiling sun- 
 shine. 
 
 The altar-piece at Transacqua is an ideal portrait of 
 St. Mark, only the head and hands of which, however, 
 are claimed as the work of Titian. It is said to have 
 been presented to the church by one of the Doges of 
 Venice. It looks a poor thing, seen thus in the 
 gathering dusk ; but the light is so bad that one 
 may as well give its authenticity the benefit of the 
 doubt. 
 
 The view from the bridge at evening, looking over 
 towards Castel Pietra and the mountains at the head of 
 the Primiero valley, is singularly wild and beautiful. 
 The Cima Cimeda, bristling all over with peaks and 
 pinnacles, like a porcupine ; the Sass Maor, a mighty 
 double-headed monster, compared by Mr. Leslie 
 Stephen to the upraised finger and thumb of a gigantic 
 hand; the Cima di Ball, so called after the dauntless 
 author of the "Alpine Guide;" and a long array of 
 other summits, many of which are nameless to this day, 
 here climb against the sky in strangest outline, and 
 take the last glow of the Western sun. 
 
 I name them here from after knowledge ; but, so 
 many and so bewildering are these Primiero Dolomites, 
 that it is not till one has been a day or two in the 
 place, and has seen them again and again from various 
 points of view, that one comes to identify them with 
 anything like certaint3\ The Sass Maor — a corruption 
 of Sasso Maggiore, or Great Rock — must, however, 
 be excepted from this general assertion. It is a moun-
 
 PRIMIERO TO PREDAZZO. 265 
 
 tain which, once seen, can never be mistaken for any 
 other ; but which at the same time, is only to be 
 viewed under its most extraordinary aspect from either 
 the Val Pravitale or the Val di CanaU— two 
 diverging forks of the great upper valley behind 
 Castel Pietra. 
 
 This use of the word " Canali," as applied to streams 
 and torrents flowing in their own natural beds, affords a 
 curious instance, among many others, of how the im- 
 press of Venetian thought yet lingers throughout these 
 parts of Southern Tyrol. To the citizen of Venice, 
 every river and rivulet was a canal ; and where Venice 
 gave her laws, she gave her phraseology also. But this 
 by the way. 
 
 We devoted the Monday following our arrival to the 
 Val di Canali, which is undoubtedly the great sight 
 of Primiero. The way thither lies through Tonadigo, 
 along the road by which we came down that weary 
 Saturday evening, and up the stony steep crowned by 
 Castel Pietra. Once at the top, we bear away almost 
 due north, leaving to the right the path leading to the 
 Cereda pass, and striking up behind the castle along 
 the left bank of a rapid torrent rushing down toward 
 the valley. 
 
 Having followed this track for about three-quarters 
 of an hour, we emerge upon an open space of grassy 
 lawn about a mile in breadth by perhaps a mile and 
 a-half in length, at the upper end of which stands a 
 modest white house surrounded by sheds and farm- 
 buildincfs. This little summer residence has been 
 built of late years by Count Welsperg, who also owns a
 
 266 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 " palazzo " in Primiero, and whose ancestors (once 
 seigneurs of all the valley, with power of life and death 
 over their vassals) erected yonder castle which, perched 
 on its inaccessible rock like St. Simeon Stylites on his 
 solitary pillar, yet keeps watch and ward at the mouth 
 of the valley. Dark fir-slopes enclose this pleasant 
 prairie round about ; the torrent brawls unseen in a 
 bushy hollow to the left ; cows and goats browse here 
 and there on the green turf ; while the whole pastoral 
 scene is " set," as it were in a cirque of Dolomite peaks 
 of the first magnitude — a cirque with which the Circa 
 Malcora, grand as it is, will not bear a moment's com- 
 parison. For the mountains surrounding the Val 
 Buona lie out in a wide amphitheatre ; but here the 
 shattered walls of Dolomite, all grey and sulphur- 
 streaked, and touched with rusty red, close in upon the 
 valley in two long serried ranks, not more than a 
 mile and a-half apart at their widest point, and nar- 
 rowing till they meet in the form of an acute angle at 
 the head of the glen. 
 
 Here, where the sward is smooth and the space yet 
 broad between, two converging lines of peaks are 
 already arrayed before our eyes — one extending nearly 
 due East and West ; the other running up from the 
 South-East to meet it. The first is far the grandest. 
 Beginning with the Cima Cimeda — from behind which 
 the Sass Maor shoots out its extraordinary impending 
 thumb, more off the perpendicular than the leaning 
 tower of Pisa — the chain leads on in one unbroken 
 sweep, giving first a more distant glimpse of the Pala 
 di San Martino ; coming next upon the magnificent
 
 PRIMIERO TO PREDAZZO. 267 
 
 Cima di Fradusta ; next after that upon two nameless 
 lower peaks broken up into sheafs of splintered arrow- 
 heads ; lastly upon the Cima di Canali, apparently 
 loftiest of all the range as seen from this point.* 
 
 '■• The loftiest of all the Primiero peaks (and indeed of all known Dolo- 
 mites, except the Marmolata, which is supposed to exceed it by about 50 or 
 60 feet) is the Cimon della Pala, rising 11,000 feet above the level of the sea. 
 But the Cimon della Pala is not seen from the Val di Canali, but lies up 
 north of the Pala di San Martino in the upper valley of the Cismone. The 
 relative heights of those peaks visible from the Val di Canali, as far as at 
 present ascertained, are as follows : — Sass Maor about 10,000 feet ; Pala di 
 San Martino, 10,643 feet; Cima di Fradusta, something over 10,500 feet; 
 Cima di Canali, about the height of the last named, but probably a few feet 
 loftier. The height of the Sasso di Campo, which closes the head of the 
 valley, is estimated at about 9,900 feet. Of these, so far as I have been able 
 to gather from Alpine-Club authorities, the Sass Maor, Pala di San Martino, 
 and Sasso di Campo have certainly not yet been ascended. In the last 
 published edition of Ball's Guide to the Eastern Alps, 1870, p. 454, the Val 
 di Canali is thus described : — " The main branch of the Cismone descending 
 from nearly due N., receives a torrent from the N.E., issuing from Val di 
 Canali. In the fork between these two bi-anches rise the wonderful group of 
 Dolomite peaks which must ever make this one of the most extraordinary of 
 mountain valleys. Whatever fantastic forms that rock may assume else- 
 where, they are here surpassed in boldness and strangeness. Of the five or 
 six highest, all much exceeding 10,000 feet in height, there is but one that 
 seems accessible. The others are mere towers or obelisks of rock, with 
 sheer vertical faces, or else, as the highest peak, fashioned like a ruinous 
 wall, abruptly broken away at one end, and cleft at frequent intervals along 
 the ridge by chasms that appear perfectly impassable. In rock-climbing it 
 is never safe to declare any place impracticable without actual trial. Narrow 
 ledges and clefts give footing to a bold climber on many a seemingly im- 
 practicable declivity ; but the writer's impression as to the Primiero peaks 
 is confirmed by two of the most experienced mountaineers, Mr. F. F- 
 Tuckett and Melchior Andcregg." 
 
 This reference to Mr. Tuckett's verdict is also alluded to in Mr. Leslie 
 Stephen's article on " The Peaks of Primiero " in the Alpine Journal for 
 February, 1870. The same story was repeated to myself by a Primiero guide, 
 with the further addition that " il Tuckett " had said the Sass Maor could 
 never be climbed " till a bridge was thrown across the chasm that divides 
 the lower from the higher peak." All these tales, however, Mr. Tuckett, in 
 reply to my own direct enquiry, emphatically refutes ; adding that he never
 
 268 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 No glaciers'" find a resting place among these per- 
 pendicular precipices. Only a narrow ledge outlined 
 in white, or a tiny intermediate plateau sheeted with 
 dazzline snow, serves here and there to mark the line 
 of eternal frost. 
 
 Two small but very curious features in the scene 
 deserve mention : these are two circular holes, one just 
 piercing the top of a solitary sabre-blade splinter jutting 
 out from a buttress of the anonymous peak next before 
 the Cima di Canali on the left of the valley ; and 
 another precisely similar peep-hole piercing a precisely 
 similar sabre-blade jutting out from a spur of the Sasso 
 Ortiga on the right of the valley, precisely opposite. 
 
 critically examined the Primiero peaks except the Pala di San Martino, the 
 Cimon della Pala, and the Cima di Fradusta, which last he ascended alone. 
 —A. B. E. 
 
 Note to Second Editio7i :— The following are the latest and most accu- 
 rate determinations of the Primiero peaks by the new Austrian survey : — 
 Cima di Vezzana .... 3191 metres. 
 
 Cimon della Pala 
 Pala di San Martino 
 Cima di Fradusta 
 Rosetta . . . . 
 Cima di Ball 
 Cima Cimeda 
 Sass Maor . 
 
 Passo della Val di Roda 
 Figlio di Rosetta 
 Passo Venezia 
 
 3186 „ 
 
 2997 „ 
 
 2930 to 2937 metres. 
 
 2740 metres. 
 
 2693 » 
 
 2499 » 
 
 2816 „ 
 
 2568 „ 
 
 2469 „ 
 
 22q8 
 
 According to Baedekers "Guide to The Eastern Alps" (1888), most of 
 these mountains have been ascended since the first edition of this book was 
 published. The Pala di San Martino was first ascended in 1878 by Herr 
 Meurer and the Marchese Pallavicini. — A. B. E. 
 
 * Mr. F. F. Tuckett has pointed out to me that a small, and apparently a 
 permanent, accumulation of ice, scarcely to be dignified by the name of a 
 glacier, is to be found near the Pala di San Martino. {Note io Second 
 Edition.)
 
 270 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 What may be the actual diameter of these strange 
 holes, I am unable to guess ; but they look as clean cut, 
 and about as large, as a shot-hole made by a large 
 cannon-ball. Anyone who has ever visited the valley 
 of Grindelwald will remember a similar orifice, locally 
 known as Martinsloch, in the crest of the Higher. 
 
 Waiting here only long enough to get the accom- 
 panying outline of the range as seen from Count 
 Welsperg's meadow, we again push on ; for clouds are 
 already beginning to gather about the summit of the 
 Cima di Canali, and we are still far from the head of 
 the valley. Hence the path lies for a long way in the 
 shade of the fir-woods ; then by the side of the torrent 
 bed — here very wide, and bordered by a broad tract of 
 glaring white stones ; then through more woods, with 
 openings here and there through which the great moun- 
 tains are seen to be ever closing in, nearer and loftier. 
 For the farther one penetrates up this wonderful glen 
 the more overwhelming is the effect, till the whole cul- 
 minates at last in a scene of savage grandeur unsur- 
 passed, if I may venture to say so, by even the great 
 imiiasse at Macus^nana. 
 
 By the time we reach this ultimate point, however, 
 the rapid mists have already gathered in a way which, 
 though it enhances the mystery and sublimity of the 
 view, is yet sufficiently disappointing at the end of more 
 than three hours' journey. The Sasso di Campo, 
 which we are destined never to see clearly, is so 
 shrouded in dense vapours that only the lower tlanks of 
 it are seen reaching up into the gloom. The huge 
 Cima di Canali, visible less than an hour ago, towers
 
 PRIMIERO TO PREDAZZO. 271 
 
 overhead, already half lost in a heavy grey cloud. A 
 long serrated line of stony Col uniting these two great 
 masses, shows all striated and ribbed by the action of 
 pre-historic glaciers. Green pastures, and above these, 
 dark fir-woods, climb to about one third of the height of 
 the Cima di Canali ; while innumerable threads of white 
 waterfall are seen leaping from ledge to ledge and 
 wavering down the cliffs in every direction. These 
 waters, gathered into three roaring torrents, hence rush 
 down from three different points, and unite somewhat 
 lower in one broad impetuous stream. The sound of 
 them fills the air like the roaring of the sea upon an 
 ironbound coast. The fir-trees shiver, as if a storm 
 were at hand. I doubt if a more lonely, desolate, and 
 tremendous scene is to be found this side of the Andes. 
 So many interesting excursions may be made from 
 Primiero, that the traveller who has only two or three 
 days to dispose of cannot hope to achieve even the half 
 of them. The place, indeed, is one to be chosen for a 
 lengthened sojourn, and treated as headquarters till the 
 neighbourhood is exhausted. We regretted at the time 
 that it was not in our power to do so. The ascent of 
 Monte Pavione (an uncommon looking mountain, in 
 shape like a stunted pyramid, lying away to the S. of 
 Primiero, and forming the highest point of the range 
 known as the Vette di Feltre) is said not to be difficult. 
 The view from the summit commands the whole sweep 
 of the Adriatic coast from the mouth of the Isonzo at 
 the head of the Gulf of Trieste on the one side, to 
 Chioggia, twenty miles south of Venice on the other. 
 Many rarest plants are also to be found on the mountain,
 
 272 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 amongst which the following are enumerated by Ball : — 
 Anemone baldensis, Anemone narcissiflora, Ranunculus 
 Seguieri and Ranimculus Thora, Delphinium montanum, 
 Papaver pyrenaicumy Arabis pumila, Alyssmn Wulfenia- 
 num, Cochlearia brevicaulis, Alsine lanceolata, Alsine 
 graminifolia, Cerastium tomentosum, Phaca frigida, Poten- 
 tilla nitida, Saxifraga petrcea, Valeriana elongata, Ptar- 
 mica oxyloba, Scorzonera purpurea, Pcederota Ageria, 
 PcBderota Bonarota, Pedicularis rosea, Primula Facchinii, 
 Cortusa Matthioli, A vena Hostii, and A splenium Seelosii. 
 This excursion involves a night, and a hay-bed in a 
 chalet on the Agnerola Alp at the foot of the Pavione 
 rocks ; but this is a difficulty that would not have 
 deterred us, had we been travelling in a larger party. 
 
 The ascent of Monte Arzon, a mountain rising about 
 8,700 feet, and situated in a fine central position about 
 three miles N.W. of Primiero, is also strongly recom- 
 mended by the local guides. 
 
 A very interesting excursion, however, and one which 
 can be accomplished all the way on mules, is to the 
 Ponte dello Schios on Monte Vederne, a small wooded 
 mountain bordering the west bank of the Cismone, 
 about three miles below Primiero. The way thither 
 lies along the main road as far as the villages of 
 Mezzano and Imer ; thence over the Cismone bridge, 
 and up a rough caretta track all black underfoot from 
 charcoal droppings, which skirts the pine-slopes over- 
 hanging the gorge of the Noana. The path rises and 
 winds continuously. The Primiero valley is left behind 
 and soon lost to sight. The torrent down below 
 becomes inaudible. We meet a train of mules laden
 
 PRIMIERO TO PREDAZZO. 273 
 
 with huge black sacks of charcoal, and have to back up 
 against the rock to let them pass. They, however, 
 according to the nature of mules, prefer the brink of the 
 precipice, and pick their way past with half their bulky 
 burdens overhanging the abyss. 
 
 At length, when we have mounted to the height of 
 perhaps fifteen hundred feet above the valley, we pass 
 under an impending roof of rock, and find ourselves at 
 the mouth of a gigantic cavern which looks as if it 
 might have been scooped out by some mighty water- 
 power ages ago, when the world was yet unfinished. 
 Beyond this cavern there rises a semi-circular wall of 
 vertical precipice, at the end of which a small cascade 
 leaps out over the ledge and is dispersed in mist before 
 it reaches the brown pool below. Our path turns 
 abruptly into and round the inside of the cavern, and then 
 along a giddy wooden shelf supported on pine-trunks 
 driven into the face of the rock-wall opposite. This is 
 the Ponte dello Schios. The shelf looks horribly unsafe, 
 but is extremely picturesque ; and the whole scene, 
 though on a grander scale, reminds one of the cavern 
 and wooden gallery at Tivoli. A little carved and 
 painted Christ under a pent-house roof is fixed against 
 the rock, just at the beginning of the bridge ; and an 
 old white-haired man coming down that way, pulls off 
 his hat and stays to mutter an Ave as we pass. 
 
 From this point, a short ascent of about another 
 thousand feet would bring us out, we are told, upon the 
 Agnerola Alp ; but we dare go no farther, for the sun is 
 already near setting, and we fear to be overtaken by the 
 dusk. Still it is none the less tantalising to find that
 
 274 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &> UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 we have made nearly one third of uie ascent to Monte 
 Pavione without knowing it. 
 
 Leaving Primiero for Predazzo .... but stay ; how 
 can I leave Primiero without one word of Signor 
 Prospero ? — Signor Prospero, genial, fussy, courteous, 
 enthusiastic, indefatigable, voluble ; Signor Prospero, 
 whose glory it is to be a member of the Italian Club 
 Alpino ; who believes the British nation to be the most 
 enlightened that the sun shines upon ; who so worships 
 the very name of Ball and Leslie Stephen that he all 
 but takes his hat off when he mentions them, as if they 
 were his patron saints ; who vaguely imagines that 
 every English tourist must be in some way or other 
 illustrious ; that all our autographs are worth having ; 
 and that the universal family of Smith represents the 
 flower of the human race ! 
 
 Shall I ever forget that blazing afternoon when, 
 gaitered, white-hatted, his garments buttoned all awry, 
 • and a striped silk umbrella under his arm, he escorted 
 me to Signor Sartoris's museum and apiary ? — or that 
 evening when he came to call, and we entertained him 
 on the landing, and he talked for two hours without 
 stopping about State Education, the Darwin theory, 
 the Calculating Machine, Capital punishment. Pre- 
 historic Man, the Atlantic cable, Universal Suffrage, 
 Positivism, the Solar Spectrum, the Alabama claims, 
 the sources of the Nile, the Prussian military system, 
 Liberty of the Press, the Armstrong gun, the Suez 
 canal, the Eruption of Vesuvius, and the Rights of 
 Women ! A kindly, benevolent, public-spirited old 
 man, eager to promote something like culture and
 
 PRIMIERO TO PREDAZZO. 275 
 
 progress in his native town, and interested in all that 
 stirs the great outer world beyond his ken ! To 
 establish a more rapid system of postal communication, 
 to get the wire brought over from Feltre, to improve 
 the teaching in the Primiero schools, and to found a 
 local newspaper — these are among the dreams that he 
 is striving to realise. The little Teatro Sociale (for 
 Primiero has its tiny amateur theatre and corps drama- 
 tique) is of his creation, and under his management. 
 The new road to Predazzo would not have been put in 
 hand, probably, for the next ten years, but for the 
 energy with which he was continually agitating the 
 question in Primiero. 
 
 " Ecco, Signora," he said, unconsciously quoting the 
 dying words of Goethe, " what we want in our little 
 valley is more light. Our people are not poor, but they 
 dwell in the darkness of ignorance. We have schools 
 for the children, it is true ; but then what is to be done 
 with their parents who regard geography as an inven- 
 tion of — con rispetta — the Devil ! " 
 
 I think it was that same evening, when all the lamps 
 were out and the little world of Primiero had well-nigh 
 dropped into its first sound sleep, that we heard a 
 delicious tenor, rich and sweet and powerful, ring out 
 suddenly through the silence of the night. It began at a 
 little distance off — died away — came back again — then 
 ceased close under our windows. The air was Verdi's, 
 hackneyed and commonplace enough ; but the voice 
 was fresh and faultless, and belonged, as we learnt next 
 day. to young Bonetti, the second son of our landlady. 
 He told us that his name was already entered on the 
 
 R
 
 276 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &' UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 books of the Conservatoire of Milan, and that he was 
 to begin his vocal studies in November. It is said that 
 so fine a voice has not been heard within the walls of 
 the Academy for more than a quarter of a century. 
 
 With regard to Signor Sartoris, just named, he seems 
 to have raised Apiculture to the dignity of a science. 
 Self-taught, he has discovered how to regulate the pro- 
 ductiveness of the race, and is said to be able, unhurt 
 and unstung, to take in his hand and transfer from hive 
 to hive the Queen-bee and her court. How far this may 
 be true I cannot say ; but I saw his museum and his 
 apiary — the former a collection of all the bees, beetles, 
 butterflies, woods, minerals, and chemical products of 
 the district — the other a Ghetto of hives, one hundred 
 and fifty in number, containing a population of several 
 millions of bees, the whole packed into a tiny back- 
 garden less than an eighth of an acre in extent. His 
 father and sister show these things with pardonable 
 pride ; but Signor Sartoris no longer lives in Primiero. 
 Though not yet thirty years of age, he has been ap- 
 pointed Director of a Government apiary at Milan, and 
 is there developing his system with extraordinary 
 success. 
 
 And now we must say farewell to Primiero and all its 
 notabilities ; we must say farewell and be going again, 
 for there are yet many places to be seen and many miles 
 to be traversed, and the pleasantest tours and the 
 brightest summers cannot last for ever. So away we 
 ride again, one bright early morning, overwhelmed 
 with good wishes and kind offices, and presented by 
 Signora Bonetti with a parting testimonial in the form
 
 PRIMIERO TO PREDAZZO. 277 
 
 of a big cake — so big that it can hardly be got into the 
 basket. 
 
 Our way hes by the new miUtary road as far as it is 
 yet completed,'" and along the Val Cismone — that great 
 valley which descends from the north-west, running 
 parallel with the Val Pravitale, and divided from it by 
 the range that ends with the Cima Cimeda. Following 
 almost the same course at first as the old road, and 
 crossing the stream near Siror, (where may yet be seen 
 the entrance to the ancient silver-mine) the new 
 " strada " then strikes up in a series of bold zigzags, 
 and is carried at a great height along the precipitous 
 slopes bordering the west bank of the torrent. Up here, 
 all is silent, all is solitary. A couple of Austrian gen- 
 darmes — a little group of cantonniers at work upon the 
 road — a tiny donkey staggering under a gigantic load 
 of hay ; these are all the living things we meet for 
 hours. But the great mountains on the opposite side 
 of the valley keep us solemn company during many a 
 mile — a wonderful chain of Dolomite peaks, less incre- 
 dible in outline, perhaps, than those of the Val di 
 Canali,t but rising to a more uniformly lofty elevation. 
 
 One by one, we pass them in review. First comes 
 the Cima Cimeda, called by Mr. Gilbert the Procession 
 
 * Now completed. See foot-note, p. 257. 
 
 t The relative position of these mountain ranges can only be understoo.l 
 "by reference to the map, where it will be seen that the line of peaks which 
 ends with the Cima Cimedo on the S., and leads up to the Cimon della Pala 
 on the N., does not, in point of fact, form any part of the boundaries of the 
 Val di Canali, but, on the contrary, walls in the W. side of the Val Pravitale. 
 This range is very imperfectly seen from Primiero, and still more imperfectly 
 from the Val di Canali, the perspective in both instances being so abrupt as 
 ■only to show the peaks in line, one behind the other. 
 
 R 2
 
 278 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 Mountain, but, to my thinking, more like some strange 
 petrified sea-monster bristling all over with gigantic 
 feelers ; next come the mighty leaning towers of the 
 Sass Maor ; then the Cima Cimerla (so called from the 
 Cimerla woods below), the Cima Pravitale, and the Cima 
 di Ball, three names as yet not entered in the maps ; 
 lastly the vast perpendicular wall of the Pala di San 
 Martino, which rises grander and steeper with every 
 foot of the road, and seems to fill the scene. At length, 
 however, we turn away from this great panorama, 
 through a pine-wood and across a green undulating 
 Alp all ablaze with gorgeous golden lilies ; and so 
 arrive at the tiny church and rambling Hospice of San 
 Martino.* 
 
 Arriving here after four hours of easy riding, we 
 pause to take half-an-hour's rest before attacking the 
 Costonzella pass. It is a large, dirty, ruinous place — 
 once a monastery ; then a feudal residence ; now an inn 
 and farm-house combined. It was built somewhere 
 about the middle of the eleventh century, while Edward 
 the Confessor was yet reigning here in England, and 
 when the Bishops of Trent were lords of Primiero. It 
 was these spiritual rulers who erected the church, the 
 monastery, and the Hospice, and dedicated them to 
 San Martino. 
 
 Having ordered coffee, we are shown up into a big 
 upper room at the end of a wilderness of passages. It 
 has been a grand room once upon a time — perhaps the 
 
 * A new hotel has now been added to the Hospice building, and is much 
 frequented during the summer. San Martino is finely situate and stands at 
 a much greater altitude than Cortina, {Note to Seco7id Edition)
 
 PRIMIERO TO PREDAZZO. 279 
 
 prior's own snuggery ; perhaps a guest-chamber for 
 travellers of distinction. The walls and ceiling are all 
 of oak, panelled in sunk squares ornamented with bosses 
 and richly carved. A carved shield charged with the 
 Welsperg arms in faded gold and colours commemorates 
 the time when the building had ceased to be a monas- 
 tery and became a baronial residence. Old family 
 portraits of dead-and-gone Welspergs hang all awry 
 upon the walls and stand piled in corners, draped in 
 cobwebs and loaded with the dust of years — courtiers 
 in flowing wigs, prelates in lace, doughty commanders in 
 shining cuirasses. A certain '' Princess Canonicus " in 
 a religious dress, with long white hands that Vandyke 
 might almost have painted, must have been pretty in 
 her day, if the old limner did not flatter her. These by- 
 gone lords and ladies, together with a curious old por- 
 celain stove in blue and white Delft, two squalid beds, 
 a deal table, and four straw-bottomed chairs, are all the 
 furniture the room contains. It ought to be a haunted 
 chamber, and is the very place in which to lay the 
 scene of a ghost story. The whole house, indeed, has 
 a fine murderous look about it, and is as solitary, for- 
 lorn, and mediaeval a place as any sensation novelist 
 could desire for a mise en scene. 
 
 The good road ends at San Martino ; that is to say, 
 it extends in an unfinished, impassable state for another 
 two or three miles ; but we strike straight up the Col by 
 a bridle-path * leading up a wild glen and over a grassy 
 
 * This old bridle-path is still to be preferred by pedestrians to the long 
 zi;^-zags and windings of the new road, now completed. See foot-note, p. 257 
 {Note to Second Edition.)
 
 28o UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 slope thick with crimson Alp-roses, till all at once we 
 find ourselves on the summit of the pass, standing just 
 below the base of the Cimon della Pala. The air up 
 here is cold and rare. The pass rises to a height of 
 6,657 feet ; the stupendous Dolomite wall above our 
 heads towers up to 11,000 feet, of which more than 
 3,000 feet are sheer, overhanging precipice. In form it 
 is like a gigantic headstone, with a pyramidal coping- 
 stone on the top. Terrific vertical fissures which look 
 as if ready to gape and fall apart at any moment, give 
 a frightful appearance of insecurity to the whole mass. 
 Not the Matterhorn itself, for all its cruel look and 
 tragic story, impresses one with such a sense of danger, 
 and such a feeling of one's own smallness and helpless- 
 ness, as the Cimon della Pala. 
 
 Looking back from this elevation in the direction of 
 Primiero, we get a wonderful view of the Pala di San 
 Martino, the Sass Maor, and the summits of the Val di 
 Canali ; beyond these, the Pavione and the Vette di 
 Feltre ; and beyond these again, a vast troubled sea of 
 pale blue and violet peaks, some of which encompass 
 the lake of Garda, while some watch over the towers of 
 Verona. 
 
 And now the clouds, which for the last hour or two 
 have been gathering at our heels, begin driving up the 
 pass and scudding across the face of the great Dolomites. 
 Soon all the lower summits are obscured ; the vapours 
 roll up in angry masses ; and the huge peaks now 
 vanish, now look out fitfully, in gloom and storm- 
 cloud. 
 
 Passing an unfinished building (presumably a new
 
 PRIMIERO TO PREDAZZO. 281 
 
 Hospice) on the top of the pass, we emerge upon the 
 Costonzella Alp. Here an entirely new panorama is 
 unfolded before our eyes. The great prairie undulates 
 away to a vast distance underfoot ; to the North opens 
 another sea of peaks terminating with the summits be- 
 yond Innsbruck ; to the East lie wooded hills and rich 
 pasturages ; to the West a steep descent of apparently 
 interminable pine-forest bounded by a new range of 
 dark, low, purple peaks streaked here and there with 
 snow. The loftiest and nearest of these is the Monte 
 Colbricon. It needs no geological knowledge to see at 
 once that these new mountains are not Dolomite ; or 
 that we are, in fact, entering upon the first outlying 
 porphyries of Predazzo. 
 
 The path now turns abruptly to the left, and plunges 
 down through the steep pine forest. Somewhere among 
 those green abysses, half-way between here and Pre- 
 dazzo, lies the Hospice of Paneveggio, where we are to 
 dine and take our mid-day rest. On the verge of the 
 dip we dismount, promising ourselves to walk so far, 
 and leaving the men and mules to follow. It is a grand 
 forest. The primeval pines up here are of gigantic size, 
 rising from eighty to over a hundred feet, enormous in 
 girth, and garlanded with hoary grey-green moss, the 
 growth of centuries. Except only the pines close under 
 the summit of the Wengern Alp on the Grindelwald 
 side, I have never seen any so ancient and so majestic. 
 As we descend they become smaller, and after the first 
 five or six hundred feet, they dwindle to the average size. 
 
 A fairly good path, cool and shady, carried down for 
 a distance of more than 1500 feet in a series of bold
 
 282 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 zigzags,* and commanding here and there grand 
 sweeping views of forest slope and valley, brings us at 
 the end of two hours' rapid walking to an open space of 
 green pasture, in the midst of which are clustered a wee 
 church, a pretty white hostelry, and a group of pictu- 
 resque farm-buildings. Steep hillsides of pine-woods 
 enclose this little nest on every side. There is a 
 pleasant sound of running water, and a tinkling of cow- 
 bells, on the air. The hay-makers on the grassy slope 
 behind the house are singing at their work — singing 
 what sounds like an old German chorale, in four parts. 
 It is a delicious place ; so peaceful, so pastoral, so 
 clean, that we are almost tempted to change our plans, 
 and stay here till to-morrow. 
 
 By and by, however, when the two hours have expired 
 and the mules are brought round, we go on again, 
 though regretfully. At this point, we enter the Val 
 Travignolo ; here only a deep torrent-gorge between 
 steep woods, but broadening out by and by into corn- 
 fields and pasture meadows rich in all kinds of wild 
 lilies, orange, and silver-white, and pinky turkscaps 
 speckled with dull crimson. Thus, always descending, 
 and overtaken every now and then by light showers 
 followed by bursts of fleeting sunshine, we arrive, at the 
 end of nearly three more hours, in sight of Predazzo, a 
 widely scattered village in a green basin at the end of 
 the valley. It looks like a prosperous place. The 
 houses are large and substantial, with jutting Tyrolean 
 eaves. Two church spires rise high above the clustered 
 roofs. Farm-buildings and Swiss-looking brown chalets 
 
 * Pedestrians may avoid the zig-zags by following the telegraph poles.
 
 PRIMIERO TO PREDAZZO. 283 
 
 are scattered over the green slopes that circle round 
 the town ; and as we draw nearer, we find ourselves 
 traversing an extensive suburb of saw-mills and timber 
 yards, which here skirt both banks of the torrent. 
 
 And now — following at the tail of a long procession of 
 grave, cream-coloured cows, all shod like horses with 
 iron shoes, and carrying enormous bells about their necks 
 — we make our entry into the town. The children run 
 out into the road and shout at our approach. The elder 
 folks come to their house-doors and stare in silence. 
 The Austrian gendarme at the door of the guard-house 
 lifts two fingers to the side of his cap in military fashion 
 as we pass. Then, emerging upon an open space of 
 scattered houses surrounding the two churches, we find 
 ourselves at the door of a large, old-fashioned, many- 
 windowed inn, the very counterpart of the ancient 
 " Stern " at Innsbruck, over the arched entrance to 
 which swings a gilded ship — the sign of the Nave 
 d'Oro.
 
 THE FASSA THAL AND THE 
 FEDAJA PASS. 
 
 A VILLAGE IN A CRATER — PREDAZZO AND ITS COMMERCE — PROSPERITV 
 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.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE FASSA THAL AND THE FEDAJA PASS. 
 
 The most unscientific observer sees at a first glance 
 that the lakes of Albano and Nemi occupy the craters 
 of extinct volcanoes. The craters are there, cup-like, 
 distinct, and tell their own storv. You must climb a 
 mountain-side to get to the level of them. You stand 
 on the rim of one ; you look down into it ; you walk all 
 round it ; or you may descend to the water-level at the 
 bottom. Nothing can be clearer, or more satisfactory. 
 But it is startling to be told that Predazzo occupies just 
 such an extinct crater, and that the mountains which 
 hem it in on all sides — the Monte Mulat, the Monte 
 Viesena, the Weisshorn and others — consist of igneous 
 rock thrown up, lava-like, from that ancient centre at 
 some incalculably remote period of geologic history. 
 For here is neither cone, nor mountain, nor amphi- 
 theatre of convergent slopes ; nothing, in short, in the 
 appearance of either the alluvial flat or the surrounding 
 heights which may at all correspond to one's precon- 
 ceived ideas of volcanic scenery. 
 
 Yet here, as we are told by Richthofen and others,
 
 288 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 there must once have been a great eruptive centre, 
 breaking out again and again, and each time throwing 
 up a different kind of rock : — first Syenite ; then Tour- 
 mahne granite ; then Urahte porphyry ; then melaphyr ; 
 then, last of all, porphyrite, and the unique Syenite 
 porphyry, famous for its crystals, and unknown else- 
 where/" 
 
 It is this great variety in the material of the Predazzo 
 rocks, and the immense mineralogical wealth consequent 
 upon this variety, that have for more than a century 
 attracted hither so many men of science from all parts 
 of Europe. 
 
 The town — now quiet enough, except as regards its 
 commercial activity — is said to occupy the centre of the 
 ancient crater. It stands, at all events, midway 
 between Cavalese and Moena, just at the junction of the 
 Fiemme or Fleims valley with the Val Travignolo. It 
 is a very prosperous place. The people, though an 
 Italian-speaking race, are wholly Austrian in their 
 sympathies, and are supposed to come chiefly of a 
 Teutonic stock. They are particularly intelligent, 
 industrious, and energetic. They have a fertile valley 
 which they know how to cultivate, and mountains rich 
 in mineral products which they are rapidly and success- 
 fully developing. As iron-masters, as hay-merchants, 
 as wood-contractors, they carry on an extensive Northern 
 trade, and travel annually for purposes of commerce in 
 
 * For a brief and intelligible account of the geology of the Fiemme, Fassa, 
 Ampezzo, and other S. Tyrolean valleys, I cannot do better than refer the 
 reader to Mr. G. C. Churchill's "Physical Description of the Dolomite 
 Regions,'" which forms the concludingchapter of "The Dolomite Mountaizis."
 
 THE PASS A THAL AND THE FEDAJA PASS. 289 
 
 Germany, Hungary, Transylvania, and Switzerland. 
 Large iron-foundries and long lines of busy saw-mills 
 give an unwonted air of activity to the place. New 
 works, new yards, new and substantial dwelling-houses, 
 are rapidly springing up in every direction. A new 
 Gothic church with a smart roof of gaily coloured 
 tiles, red, green, and yellow, has lately been erected 
 on the South side of the village and there become 
 the centre of an increasing suburb. The schools 
 are said to be excellent ; and a well-informed priest 
 from whom I learned most of the foregoing par- 
 ticulars, said the children were full of spirit and 
 intelligence. He also told me that there were now 
 no noble families in Predazzo ; but only a wealthy 
 territorial and commercial middle class. He estimated 
 the gross population of the Commune at something 
 over 3000 souls.'" 
 
 Prosperity and picturesqueness, however, are not 
 wont to travel hand in hand ; and it must be admitted 
 that these foundries and timber-yards by no means add 
 to the pastoral beauty of the valley. They spoil it for the 
 artist, just as the mills and factories of the last twenty 
 years have spoiled the once romantic valley of Glarus 
 in Switzerland. Still, down among the wooden houses 
 in the old part of the village, where the women wash 
 their vegetables and fill their pitchers at the stone 
 fountain in the middle of the street, some quaint 
 Prout-like subjects may yet be found. The old 
 
 * In 1888 Baedeker gives the population of Predazzo as only 3335, thus 
 showing that the place has grown but little since the above was written. 
 {Note to Second Edition.)
 
 290 UNTRODDEN PEAKS 
 
 UNFREQ VENTED VALLE YS. 
 
 church, with its characteristic Tyrolese belfry and 
 steep gable-roof, is charmingly mediaeval ; and the 
 view from the meadows at the back of the Nave 
 d'Oro, bringing in the two churches and looking 
 straight up the Val Travignolo to where the Cimon 
 della Pala and the Cima della Vezzana tower up 
 
 PREDAZZO. 
 
 against the distant horizon, seemed to me quite worth 
 a careful sketch. 
 
 While I was making the sketch — sitting in the shade 
 of a little shrine among the field-paths — two Austrian 
 soldiers came by, and stayed to look on. They were 
 simple, friendly fellows, natives of Trient, and quartered, 
 they said, with three others of their regiment, in Pre- 
 dazzo. Not knowing that they acted in the double
 
 THE FASSA THAL AND THE FEDAJA PASS. C^i 
 
 capacity of local police and military patrol, I asked what 
 they could find to do in so peaceful a place. 
 
 " Nay, Signora," said the one who talked most, '' we 
 have the work often men upon our hands. Xight and 
 day alike, we patrol the woods, roads, and passes for 
 twelve miles in every direction. Our rounds are long 
 and fatiguing — our intervals of rest, very brief. We get 
 but one day's rest in every seven, and one night in 
 every four or five." 
 
 I afterwards learned that there were five other soldiers 
 quartered at Cavalese, as many more at Moena, and so 
 on throughout every petty commune ; and that, accord- 
 ing to the general impression, the men were greatly 
 overworked. 
 
 The Nave d'Oro (without disparagement of the inns 
 at either Caprile or Primiero) was undoubtedly the 
 best albergo we came upon during the whole tour. 
 The house is large, clean, and well-furnished ; the 
 food excellent ; and the accommodation in every way 
 of a superior character. The landlord — Francesco 
 Giacomelli by name — is a sedate, well-informed man, 
 a fair mineralogist and geologist, and proud to tell 
 of the illustrious savants who have from time to 
 time put up at his house and explored the neighbour- 
 hood under his guidance. He keeps collections of 
 local minerals for sale, among which the orthoclase 
 crystals struck us as being extraordinarily large and 
 beautiful. 
 
 Lying among these crystals, in one of Signer Giaco- 
 melli's specimen-cases, the writer observed a small 
 penannular bronze bracelet of Etruscan pattern and 
 
 s
 
 292 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 very delicate workmanship, coated with the fine green 
 rust of antiquity; and learned on enquiry that it had 
 been discovered with other similar objects in the 
 cutting of a new road near the neighbouring village of 
 Ziano. 
 
 The "find" consisted of a sword, a torque, some 
 fibulae, a number of bronze pins, and several bracelets ; 
 all of which, with this one exception, were immediately 
 purchased by a Viennese gentleman who chanced to be 
 staying in Predazzo at the time. It is singular that no 
 vases seem to have been found, and no masonry to 
 indicate that the road-makers had broken into a tomb. 
 It seemed rather as if some warrior had been hastily 
 laid in earth, just as he fell. On the other hand, how- 
 ever, this little bracelet (which, being accidentally mis- 
 laid, had escaped the Viennese collector, and so came 
 to be bought for a few francs by myself) was evidently 
 a woman's ornament. 
 
 It is interestinsf to know that like traces of the North- 
 ward migration of the Etruscan races when driven by 
 the Gauls from their settlements on the Po, have been 
 found at Matrey, Sonnenburg, and other places of S. 
 Tyrol : — one notable instance being the discovery of an 
 inscribed bronze bucket near the mouth of the Val Di 
 Cembra (which is, in fact, a Westward prolongation of 
 the Fiemme Valley) in 1828. I myself saw, in the little 
 museum of Signor Sartoris at Primiero, a small ary- 
 ballos-shaped vase of yellow clay with red ornamenta- 
 tion, which I should undoubtedly take to be of 
 Etruscan workmanship, and which they told me had 
 been found by himself in a field not far from the town.
 
 THE FASSA THAL AND THE FEDAJA PASS. 293 
 
 Of the remarkable sepulchral discoveries made at St. 
 Ulrich in the Grodner-Thal, a.d. 1848, and of Herr 
 Piirger's interesting Etruscan objects found in those 
 graves, I shall have to tell farther on. 
 
 The Nave d'Oro at Predazzo is a curious old house, 
 and it has belonged to the Giacomelli family for many 
 centuries. The Giacomellis, as I have said elsewhere, 
 were once noble, and their armorial bearings still 
 decorate many of the old carved doorways, ceilings 
 and chimney-pieces of their ancestral home ; but that 
 was long ago, and they have been innkeepers now for 
 more than a century. Their visitor's book is quite a 
 venerable volume, and contains, among the usual 
 irrelevant rubbish of such collections, the handwriting 
 of Humboldt, Fuchs, Richthofen, Sir Roderick Mur- 
 chison, the Elie de Beaumonts, and other European 
 celebrities. But some nefarious autograph-hunter has 
 abstracted one of the greatest treasures the book con- 
 tained — the signature of the discoverer of the Georgium 
 Sidus. 
 
 Here too, among the latest entries, a certain Dr. 
 Reinhart of Munich had exercised his Latinity in the 
 following pithy sentence : — 
 
 " Viator I Cave Tabernum Bernhart in Campidello ! " 
 
 This ominous caution — so much the more impressive 
 for beinsf so vacfue — had the effect of decidinsf us 
 against putting up for a night, or even a midday rest, 
 at the albergo in question. How many travellers since 
 then, I wonder, have like us accepted the good Doctor's 
 salutary warning ? And what would have happened to, 
 
 us if wc had neglected it ? 
 
 s 2
 
 294 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 The Val Fiemme, or Fleims Thai (about the middle 
 of which Fredsizzo is situate), is but one portion of an 
 immensely long tortuous valley called in part the Val 
 Fassa, in part the Val Fiemme, in part the Val Cembra, 
 which bee:ins with the source of the x^visio in that 
 depression between the Marmolata and the Monte 
 Padon which is known as the Fedaja pass, and ends 
 where the torrent debouches into the Eisack at Lavis, 
 seven miles north of Trient. The collective name for 
 this chain of valleys is the Val d'Avisio ; and, except 
 at quite the upper end of the Fassa division, it is 
 the least picturesque of any that came within the 
 compass of our journey. 
 
 Leaving Predazzo after one day of rest — for, however 
 attractive to geologists and mineralogists, it has no 
 excursions to repay the unscientific visitor — we next 
 pursued our course up the valley purposing to put up 
 for a couple of nights at Vigo in the Fassa Thai, and 
 thence to explore the cirque of the Rosengarten, and 
 ascend the Sasso dei Mugoni.* 
 
 It is a dull day when we start, having a somewhat 
 dull journey before us. Our way lies at first between 
 a double range of low hills partly clothed with pine- 
 forest, and partly with scrub. These hills, which are of 
 the dark igneous rock thrown up from the Predazzo 
 crater, hide the loftier peaks and are not picturesque at 
 all. By and by comes a long straight road, terminated 
 miles away by the village of Moena. Going along this 
 road, a few unmistakably Dolomitic summits begin to 
 
 * There is now daily communication by omnibus between Predazzo and 
 Vigo by the road from Cavalese to Vigo. {A^o/e to Secoiid Edilion)
 
 THE PASS A THAL AND THE FED A/ A PASS. 295 
 
 peer up here and there above the barren hills to the left; 
 and straight ahead, far beyond Moena, rises the Monte 
 Boe, looking like an immense fort on a grand pedestal 
 of rock, its battlements lost in the clouds. This Monte 
 Boe, the southernmost bastion of the huge Sella Massif, 
 is also known as the Monte Pordoi. It has been 
 ascended by Dr. Grohmann, who calculates its height 
 at 10,341 feet. 
 
 Passing through Moena — a large, straggling, wood- 
 cutting village — and crossing a couple of bridges, we 
 leave the high road and strike up a steep mule-path 
 on the opposite bank of the torrent. It is the same 
 valley, and the same water ; but here above Moena, it 
 is called the Fassa Thai. Looking back from this 
 higher ground, we get a fine view over the Monte 
 Latemar (8,983 feet) and its far-reaching fir-forests ; 
 while the wild peaks of the Rosengarten- and Lang 
 Kofel came into sight above the lower slopes of Costa- 
 lunga. 
 
 And now, in rich contrast to the pallid Dolomites 
 soaring high in the distance, the famous porphyry of the 
 Fassa Thai begins to break out in crimson patches 
 among the lower hills, and to appear in the cliff-walls 
 that border the Avisio far below. Yonder, where the 
 stream takes a sudden bend, two isolated porphyry 
 pillars jut out on either side, forming a natural portal 
 through which the narrowed waters rush impetuously. 
 A little farther still, and a whole mountain side of the 
 precious marble, quarried terrace above terrace, and 
 apparently of inexhaustible richness, is laid bare to view. 
 Now we recross the stream, and pass through the
 
 296 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 village of Soraga. Here, everything except the grass 
 and the trees, is crimson. The ploughed fields are 
 crimson ; the mud underfoot is crimson ; the little 
 torrent hurrying down the ravine by the roadside is 
 crimson ; the very puddles are crimson also. Even the 
 roads are mended with porphyry, and great blocks of it 
 lie piled by the wayside, waiting for the hammer of the 
 stonebreaker. 
 
 The sky, which has all day been murky, now seems 
 to be coming down lower and lower, like a heavy grey 
 curtain. The air grows chill. A cold leaden tint 
 spreads over the landscape ; and the long dull road 
 seems to grow longer and duller the farther we follow 
 it. At length we come in sight of Vigo, a village 
 clustered high upon a hill-side to the left, backed by 
 lofty slopes of fir-forest, down which the gathering 
 mists are creeping fast. A steep path leads up to the 
 village, whence, looking over to the north-east where 
 the horizon is still clear, we catch a momentary end- 
 wise glimpse of the Marmolata. 
 
 And now we are overtaken by a smiling lad with a 
 bunch of wild strawberries in his hat, who turns out to 
 be young Rizzi, son of old Rizzi who keeps the albergo 
 up here at Vigo — a large, dark, dreary house, the 
 entrance to which lies through a filthy cart-shed and up 
 a staircase that looks as if it had not been scrubbed for 
 the last half century. Here we are received by the land- 
 lord's daughter, a fat, bouncing, rosy-cheeked damsel of 
 inexhaustible activity and good humour, who does her 
 best to make us welcome. The inn, however, proves 
 to be quite full, with the exception of one big, treble-
 
 THE FASSA THAL AND THE FEDAJA PASS. 297 
 
 bedded room with windows looking to east and north, 
 and a ceiHng about seven feet from the floor. And we 
 are fortunate to secure even this ; for before we have 
 been half an hour in possession of it, there arrives a 
 party of Germans — hungry, noisy mountaineers, regu- 
 larly got up for work, with ropes, ice-hatchets, and hob- 
 nailed boots — for whom beds have to be made on the 
 landing. 
 
 A chill, drizzly evening, a supper irregularly served, 
 and boisterous neighbours in the adjoining rooms, 
 caused us, perhaps unjustly, to take a dislike to Vigo. 
 The house, too, was full of foul smells ; and a manure- 
 heap in the cow-yard under one of our windows did not 
 help to improve the atmosphere. So when morning 
 came, bringing a sea of white mist that extinguished all 
 the mountain-tops, we decided to start for home as 
 quickly as possible. In vain the fat maiden represented 
 that to-day it would surely rain, and that if we only de- 
 layed till to-morrow we should be certain of magnificent 
 views and splendid weather. In vain she exhausted 
 her eloquence to prove the absurdity of our attacking 
 the Fedaja pass in mist and rain. We did not believe 
 that it was going to be wet ; we knew we could take 
 the Fedaja again from Cap rile any day we chose ; and 
 we were determined to go home. 
 
 So by half-past six a.m., behold us on the road again, 
 delighted to get away from Vigo, and hoping for a 
 tolerable day. 
 
 It is a sweet, fresh morning. The vapours are 
 rolling and rising, the clouds parting, and stray 
 gleams of sunshine gliding now and then across the
 
 298 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &y- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 hill-sides. But the mountain-tops continue to be 
 veiled in masses of soft, white haze, and only thrust a 
 tusk out here and there. Confident, however, of fine 
 weather, we laugh the fat maiden to scorn, and ride on 
 our way exulting. 
 
 The valley now grows in beauty at every turn. At 
 Mazin, we come upon a picturesque hamlet with a back- 
 ground of ravine and waterfall, and approaching Cam- 
 pidello, we look out anxiously for the strange Dolomite 
 peaks that overhang the village. The mist is thick ; 
 but there they are, gleaming grey and ghostlike. Here, 
 too, is the little albergo against which we have been 
 warned by Dr. Reinhart of Munich. It looks rather 
 pretty ; but the sight of two extremely dirty and ill- 
 favoured dwarfs — a man and a woman — who come out 
 upon the balcony to stare at the travellers, quite con- 
 firms us in the satisfaction with which we ride past the 
 house. 
 
 A little higher up the valley, we reach the villages of 
 Gries and Canazei ; and, stopping for only a few 
 minutes at Canazei to feed and water the mules, push 
 on rapidly for the Fedaja. Still the scenery con- 
 tinues to increase in beauty. On the hillsides are corn- 
 slopes, woods, and pastures ; in the valley, a rushing 
 stream babbles among tamarisk trees and pines. Soon, 
 a fine pyramidal mountain, black and precipitous on 
 the one side, sheeted with snow on the other, comes 
 into sight at the head of an opening valley to the right. 
 We take it at first for the Marmolata ; but it proves 
 to be the Monte Vernale, a less lofty but far more 
 difficult mountain, calculated at 9,845 feet in height.
 
 THE FASSA THAL AND THE FEDAJA PASS. 299 
 
 Now the path turns off to the left, threading the two 
 miserable hamlets of Alba and Penia, and rising rapidly 
 through a grand rocky gorge which gets finer and more 
 savage the higher it climbs. Steep precipices shut it 
 in on the one hand, and barren slopes battlemented 
 with jagged rocks upon the other. The Avisio, here a 
 mere thread of torrent, foams from rock to rock in 
 innumerable tiny cascades. Wide-spreading firs and 
 larches make a green roof overhead, and the path is 
 carpeted with fragrant spines upon which the mules 
 tread noiselessly. Presently we come in sight of a fine 
 waterfall which issues from a fissure in the face of the 
 great cliff to the right, descends in two bold leaps, and 
 vanishes amid the depths of the fir forest below. 
 
 The gorge now closes in nearer and steeper, our 
 upward path being indicated by the giddy windings of 
 a little hand-rail which scales the face of a huge rock 
 straight ahead. It is here too steep and slippery for 
 riding, so we dismount and walk. 
 
 Alas ! the fat maiden was right, after all. The mist 
 which has been lightly drifting in our faces for the last 
 half hour, now sets in with a will, and becomes a steady 
 pour. Drenched and silent, we toil up the stony path 
 and wish ourselves back at Vigo. An hour hence, says 
 Clementi, we shall come to some chalets and cattle- 
 sheds ; but there is no Hospice to look forward to here, 
 as on most other passes. By and by, however, where 
 the climb attains its worst pitch of steepness and 
 slipperiness, we pass a succession of little carved and 
 coloured " Stazione " nailed at short intervals aerainst 
 the rock, for the benefit of such pious souls as may care
 
 300 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 to say a few Aves by the way ; and these lead to a tiny 
 chapel not much bigger than a sentry-box, into which 
 we are thankful to creep for temporary shelter. A 
 wretched crucifixion by some village artist, a few faded 
 wild flowers in a broken mug, and a multitude of votive 
 hearts, arms, legs, eyes and so forth, in tinsel and 
 coloured wax, decorate the little altar ; while securely 
 embedded in a niche in the wall, chained, padlocked, 
 and iron-bound, there stands a small coffer with a slit 
 in the lid, for the reception of stray soldi. 
 
 Here, glad of even a few minutes' respite from the 
 pitiless deluge without, we wring the rain from our 
 dripping garments, and divide with the men what we 
 have left of bread and wine ; not forgetting the wet and 
 melancholy mules, who receive a lump of bread apiece, 
 and are comforted by L. with bits of sugar. 
 
 It is still pouring when we go on again, and it con- 
 tinues to pour steadily. For full another hour we keep 
 on under these pleasant circumstances, always on foot ; 
 and then, quite suddenly, we find ourselves close under 
 the western end of the Marmolata. Invisible till this 
 moment, it now looms out all at once in startling prox- 
 imity. A great blue wrinkled glacier, reaching down 
 out of the mist like a terrible Hand, grasps the grey 
 rock overhead ; while beyond and above it, a vast field 
 of stainless snow slopes up into the clouds, without sign 
 of end or limit. 
 
 Turning from this grand spectacle to the rocky shelf 
 we have just reached, we find ourselves in a garden of 
 wild flowers. There were none in the gorge below ; 
 none by the path-side coming up ; but here they are
 
 THE FASSA THAL AND THE FEDAJA PASS. 301 
 
 beautiful and abundant, as if fair Earine had lately 
 passed this way, the flowers following in her track : — 
 
 " As she had sow'd them with her odorous foot ! " 
 
 Wetter than wet through one can hardly be ; so we 
 despatch Clementi up the rock to fetch some bunches 
 of the rare, white, velvety Edelweiss, while we quickly 
 gather such lower plants as grow within easy reach. 
 Thus in the pelting rain we secure some specimens of 
 the Orobiis luteus, Dryas odopetala, Primula farinosa, 
 Pinguicula grandijiora, Cynanclmm Vincetoxicum, Orchis 
 nigra, &c., &c. ; besides several varieties of cyclamen, 
 gentians, and ferns. 
 
 Again a little higher, and we reach the summit of the 
 pass — a lonely upper world of rich sward, bounded on 
 the left by the splintered peaks of Monte Padon, and on 
 the right by the lower slopes of the Marmolata, which 
 rises direct from the grassy level on which we stand. 
 This is the Plana Fedaja, or Fedaja Alp. A dozen or 
 so of rough wooden chalets are here clustered together ; 
 mere cattle-refuges and hay-sheds, one of which, being 
 a trifle more air-tight than the rest, is decorated with a 
 coloured Christus over the doorway, and serves as a 
 sleeping place for travellers who are about to make the 
 ascent of the mountain. 
 
 The rain now abates somewhat of its violence, and, 
 the way being once more level, riding again becomes 
 practicable. Thus we go on ; a second and a third 
 great glacier creeping into sight as the first is left 
 behind. These each show a brown margin of moraine ; 
 the last glacier being of immense extent, as large appa-
 
 302 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 rently as the lower glacier of Grindelwald. While we 
 are yet looking at them, however, a tall, strange, ghost- 
 like mist stalks swiftly across the snow, and veils all 
 but the brown rocks abutting on the pass. In a 
 moment the great mountain has melted away, and we 
 see it no more.'" 
 
 The Fedaja Alp is just the width of the Marmolata, 
 and no more. It begins with the Western, and ends 
 with the Eastern extremity of the mountain. Here, at 
 the foot of the huge dark rock known as the Piz 
 Seranta, lies an exquisite little dark green tarn sur- 
 rounded by slopes of crimson Alp-roses. The rain 
 having now ceased for a moment, its waters, ruffled 
 only by the flight of a small brown moor-hen, are as 
 placid as a sheet of green glass. 
 
 Another yard or two of rocky path, and we come to 
 an upright, mossy stone bearing an illegible inscription. 
 This is the ancient boundary-stone between Italy and 
 Austria — one of the few divisions left unchanged at the 
 last readjustment of the frontier-line. Half of the 
 Marmolata belongs to the House of Hapsburg, and 
 half to the kingdom of Italy. The line of demarcation 
 
 * The height of the Marmolata, though proved to exceed that of the Cimon 
 della Pala, is not yet thought to be satisfactorily ascertained. The Austrian 
 " Kataster " measurement gives 1 1,466 feet ; while Dr. Grohmann gives a 
 barometrical elevation of only 11,045 feet. Mr. Ball arrived within a few 
 feet of the summit of the second peak of the Marmolata in i860 ; Dr. Groh- 
 mann ascended it unsuccessfully in 1862, and made the first ascent of the 
 highest summit in 1864. Mr. Tuckett made the second ascent in 1865, by a 
 new and more direct course, and repeated the achievement in 1869. 
 
 Note to Second Edition. — The height of the Marmolata, as given by 
 the latest Austrian survey, is now fixed at 3,359 metres, or 11,020 English 
 feet.
 
 THE FASSA THAL AND THE FEDAJA PASS. 303 
 
 is ingeniously carried along the topmost ridge of ice 
 and glacier, so that, unless by members of the different 
 European Alpine clubs, it is not very likely to become a 
 disputed territory. 
 
 From this point, all is descent. Our way lies along 
 a vast green slope, following the course of the Candiarei 
 torrent, but running for a long distance upon the brink 
 of a ruinous gully partly choked with yet unmelted snow. 
 For the path on the Candiarei side has been lately 
 swept away by a torrent of snow and water from the 
 Marmolata, and the whole mountain slope is here one 
 mass of soft red mud, more slippery than ice, full of 
 pits and fissures, and very difficult. Lower down still, 
 the track lies through rich park-like pastures deep in 
 wild-flowers, so bringing us at last to the upper end of 
 the Sottoguda gorge. 
 
 No sooner have we entered the defile than the clouds 
 clear off as if by magic. The sun then bursts out in 
 splendour, lighting up the rocks first on one side and 
 then on the other, according as the ravine winds its 
 narrow way. Our wet garments steam as if hung 
 before a blazing fire. The men take off their coats, 
 and carry them on their alpenstocks to dry. The mules 
 prick up their ears and rub their noses together, as if 
 whispering to each other that there is a scent of home 
 upon the air, and that the old familiar stable cannot 
 surely be far distant. 
 
 Nor is it ; for already we have emerged into the Val 
 Pettorina. Those green slopes to the left are the 
 slopes of Monte Migion ; these fir-woods to the right 
 are the woods of Monte Pezza. Presently come the
 
 304 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 dilapidated hamlets of Sottoguda and Sorara ; then 
 Rocca on its hillside ; then the familiar path down by 
 the torrent-side and across the wooden bridge ; then at 
 last Caprile, where a warm welcome awaits us, a heap 
 of English letters, and rest.
 
 THE SASSO BIANCO. 
 
 OROGRAPHY OF THE SASSO BIANCO — ITS PANORAMIC POSITION — ITS 
 SUPERFICIAL EXTENT — ITS GEOLOGY — ASCENT OF THE MOUNTAIN — AN 
 EXQUISITE MORNING — ANOTHER SAGRO — THE CORN - ZONE — THE 
 PEZZE PROPERTY — THE WILD-FLOWER ZONE — THE UPPER PASTUR- 
 AGES — 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.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE SASSO BIANCO. 
 
 '* An ill-favoured thing, sir," says Touchstone ; " but 
 mine own." 
 
 Now I will not say that the Sasso Bianco is an ill- 
 favoured mountain — Heaven forbid ! Nor that it is an 
 unimportant mountain ; nor even that it is a small 
 mountain. I will not depreciate it at the beginning, in 
 order to rehabilitate it by a coup de theatre in the end. 
 Neither will I affect to undervalue it for the sake of 
 establishing an ingenious parallel between myself and 
 the Fool. 
 
 At the same time, I am anxious not to exaggerate its 
 peculiar qualifications and virtues. For it is with 
 mountain-tops as with other playthings : — having sought 
 to achieve them in the first instance because we value 
 them, we go on valuing them because we have achieved 
 them. We may even admit their ill-favouredness, as 
 Touchstone admits the ill-favouredness of Audrey ; but 
 we are apt all the time to over-estimate them in secret 
 — simply because they are our own. I premise there- 
 fore that I am not blindly in love with the Sasso 
 Bianco,* and that the following portrait is not flattered. 
 
 * Strictly speaking, as I have said elsewhere, the name of Sasso Bianco 
 applies only to the rocky summit of the Monte Pczza. 
 
 T
 
 3o8 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 I cannot better describe the Sasso Bianco than by 
 adopting the words of Clementi. It is not a mountain 
 of the first class ; but it is high for a mountain of the 
 second class. It is, for instance, 2000 feet, if not 2200 
 feet, higher than the Rigi, and about 240 feet higher 
 than the Niesen. Its summit stands about 200 feet 
 higher above the lake of Alleghe than the summit of 
 Monte Generoso above the lake of Lugano. It rises 
 considerably above the tree- line, and just falls short of 
 the snow-level. That is to say, we found one unmelted 
 snow-drift about 100 feet below the summit, and there 
 may have been others which we did not see, lurking in 
 inaccessible fissures and crevices. The snow was firm 
 and pure, but the quantity insignificant. 
 
 As regards position, I know of no minor Swiss 
 mountain to which I can accurately compare the Sasso 
 Bianco. The Rigi is a mere outlying sentinel, and the 
 view it commands is too distant to be very striking. 
 The same may be said of Monte Generoso, despite its 
 unparalleled panoramic range. The ^gischhorn view 
 is all on one side. The Gorner Grat, unrivalled as a 
 near view over snow and ice, is too circumscribed. But 
 the Sasso Bianco stands in the very centre of the 
 Dolomites, like the middle ball upon a Solitaire board, 
 surrounded on all sides by the giants of the district. If 
 one could imagine a fine, detached mountain, clear on 
 all sides, occupying, say, the position of the village of 
 Leuk in the valley of the Rhone, and high enough 
 to command the whole circuit of the Oberland, 
 Monte Rosa, and Mont Blanc ranges, that moun- 
 tain would fairly represent the kind of position
 
 THE SASSO BIANCO. 309 
 
 which the Sasso Bianco holds in reference to the 
 scenery by which it is encompassed. I am not 
 acquainted with the view from the Bella Tola in the 
 Valley of the Rhone ; but, judging from its situation 
 on the map, it seems just possible that it may supply 
 exactly the parallel of which I am in search. 
 
 The mass of Monte Pezza is of considerable extent. 
 Counting from the points locally known as Monte Alto 
 on the West, and Monte Forca on the East, and from 
 the Val Pettorina on the North to the valley of the 
 Biois on the South, it must cover a space of nearly three 
 and a half miles in length by two and a half in breadth. 
 These, of course, are only rough measurements derived 
 partly from personal observation, and partly based upon 
 the Austrian Ordnance Map. In superficial extent as 
 well as in height, the Sasso Bianco (or, more properly, 
 the Monte Pezza) much exceeds the Monte Migion, the 
 Monte Frisolet, and the Monte Fernazza.* 
 
 Of the geology of the mountain I am not competent 
 to form an opinion ; but according to Ball's geological 
 map, it is composed in part of Porphyry, and in part of 
 Triassic. The light-coloured cliffs of the summit, 
 facing North, (being the part especially designated as 
 the Sasso Bianco) are probably Dolomite. Both in 
 colour and texture the rock appears, at all events, to be 
 of one piece with that of which the great Primiero and 
 Ampezzo peaks are composed. 
 
 * It is curious that the Monte Fernazza (also known as the Monte Tos) 
 should have been ascended the previous summer by both Mr. F. F. Tuckett 
 and Mr. Gilbert; and that the Sasso Bianco, notwithstanding the much liner 
 view it necessarily commands, should still have escaped. 
 
 T 2
 
 3IO UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 Of course we decided upon making the ascent almost 
 as soon as we found ourselves back at Caprile. The 
 way up, though long, seemed to be sufficiently easy. 
 There were many paths and char tracks leading from 
 the valley of Alleghe to the farmlands and hamlets 
 scattered along the eastern side of the mountain ; but 
 Clementi recommended a path starting from the Val 
 Pettorina, along which we might ride, he said, as far as 
 the highest pastures, and to within about an hour of the 
 summit. As regarded time, he calculated that from 
 four to five hours, including the last hour on foot, would 
 take us from Caprile to the summit. 
 
 All this sounded pleasant enough ; so it was arranged 
 that Giuseppe should watch the weather, and rouse the 
 household at 3 a.m. whenever a favourable morning 
 should offer. At length, on the morning of the fourth 
 day after our return, the weather being apparently 
 favourable, Giuseppe gave the signal a little before 
 dawn, and by 5 a.m. we were upon our way. 
 
 A more lovely morning we have never yet had. The 
 grass, the wild-flowers, the trees, are all drenched with 
 dew and sparkling in the sun. The birds seem wild 
 with delight, and are singing rapturously among the wet 
 green leaves. Crossing the wooden bridge and taking 
 the familiar road up the little Val Pettorina, as if 
 going to Sottoguda, we hear the bells of Rocca ring- 
 ing high up in the still air, and pass group after 
 group of peasants in their holiday clothes, making for 
 the hill. For it is a festa this bright morning, and 
 the annual Sagro is held at Rocca to-day. Men and 
 women alike pull off their hats as we ride by. All
 
 THE SASSO BIANCO. 
 
 wish US good morning, and none fail to ask where we 
 are going. 
 
 Turning away presently from the beaten path, we 
 then strike down to the water's edge, the mules picking 
 their way along the loose stones bordering the bed of 
 the Pettorina torrent. Skirting thus the base of the 
 hill on which Rocca is built, we cross a higher bridge 
 and plunge at once into the shade of the firwoods at the 
 northward base of Monte Pezza. The path, which is 
 steep and stony, then winds round to the east, and 
 brings us out upon a space of cultivated farm-lands just 
 overhanging the Cordevole. 
 
 Here dark firwoods slope in shade down to the valley 
 below, and higher firwoods climb the mountain-side 
 above ; while, between both, a belt of green corn-fields, 
 lighted here and there by fiery sparks of scarlet poppies, 
 ripples in the breeze and the sunshine. Peeping up 
 yonder, just beyond the brink of the woods, rises the 
 spire of Caprile, while, farther still, a faint ghost of 
 white vapour soars lazily up from the direction of 
 Alleghe. Presently a lark springs out, full-voiced, from 
 his nest in the barley ; and a troop of children, their 
 little brown hands full of poppies and corn-flowers, 
 come chasing each other down the mountain-side. 
 Such indeed is the idyllic beauty of the whole scene 
 that even L. (who, with a culpable indifference to glory 
 which it grieves me to record, was more than hali' 
 inclined to stay at home) is moved to admiration, and 
 admits that, were it to see no more than this, she is 
 glad to have come. 
 
 Meanwhile, we follow a series of narrow footways
 
 312 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 winding among fields of young wheat, barley, flax and 
 hemp. Dark Nessol — a confirmed kleptomaniac — 
 grabs huge mouthfuls to right and left, and leaves a trail 
 of devastation behind him. Fair Nessol, on the 
 contrary, looks and longs ; but obeying the light hand 
 on his bridle, abstains regretfully. 
 
 Presently we leave the fields behind, and mount 
 again into the shade of the forest. Here and there, 
 where the path is very steep, we dismount and walk. 
 Still higher, we emerge upon a zone of rich grass-land 
 full of busy haymakers, and learn that all this part 
 belongs to Signora Pezze. Twenty-four such pas- 
 turages are yet hers ; but half the mountain-side be- 
 longed to the family in the old times past away. 
 
 From this point, and for a long way up, the pasture- 
 land is like a lovely park, rich in grass and interspersed 
 with clumps of firs and larches. As the path rises, 
 however, the trees diminish and the wild-flowers be- 
 come more abundant. Soon we are in the midst of a 
 terraced garden thick with white and yellow violets, 
 forget-me-nots, great orange and Turkscap lilies, wild 
 sweet-peas, wild sweet-William, and purple Canterbury 
 bells. Here, too, we make acquaintance for the first 
 time with a grotesque, ugly flower bearing a kind of 
 fibrous crest, like a top-knot of spiders' legs. They 
 call it " Capelli di Dio," or God's-Hair. The forget- 
 me-not is here called Fior di Santa Lucia, or Saint 
 Lucy's flower ; and the white clover, known only as a 
 wild-flower in South Tyrol, is the Fior di San Giovanni, 
 or Flower of Saint John. 
 
 Looking back now towards Monte Migion, I see that
 
 THE SASSO BIANCO. 
 
 Z^l 
 
 we have long ago overtopped the Sasso di Ronch, 
 which from here looks no bigger than a milestone ; and 
 that we are already higher than the highest ridge of 
 Monte Frisolet. Meanwhile, however, the morning 
 dews keep rising in white vaporous masses from the 
 depths of the valley below, threatening before long to 
 intercept the view. If they should rise to our own level 
 when once we are on the top, as they seem only too 
 likely to do, it is plain that our chances of a panoramic 
 view are lost beyond redemption. 
 
 And now the wild-flower zone is left below, and the 
 path, which here circles round a vast amphitheatre 
 in the mountain-side, gets very steep, and strikes up 
 towards the last pasturages. Steep as it is, however, 
 and hewn in places out of the slippery rock, the farmers 
 have for centuries contrived to drag their rough 
 carettini up and down, when the highest hay is 
 gathered. The rock is even worn into deep ruts, just 
 as the pavement of the Via Triumphalis is channelled 
 by Roman chariot-wheels, where it climbs the steep 
 verge of Monte Cavo. 
 
 Here the mules scramble on first, and, reaching the 
 green level above, set off on their own account. In 
 vain Clementi runs and shouts after them. They 
 trot resolutely on, till, reaching a little hollow among 
 bushes and deep grass, they bury their noses in a cool 
 rill which they had scented from afar off. 
 
 Clementi, coming up red and breathless, wrenches 
 their heads out of the water, and overwhelms them 
 with reproaches. " Holy Mother! what do they mean 
 by not minding when they are spoken to ? Holy
 
 314 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 Mother ! what do they mean by drinking cold water 
 when they are as hot as two hot cakes in an oven ? 
 Sacramento ! Do they want to fall ill and die, out of 
 mere spite towards a master who loves them ? Eh, 
 Long-ears! are they deaf? Eh, monsters of mules! 
 do they not understand Italian ? " 
 
 It is a long, grassy, trough-shaped plateau, with a 
 few gnarled, bloodless old pines scattered about, and 
 two or three tumble-down chalets. Here the char 
 track ends ; but we take the mules on a good way 
 farther still, up a steep pitch at the far end of the 
 pasture Alp, and out at last upon a broad ridge ter- 
 minated towards the North-East by a long slope and 
 m upright wall of rock, like a line of fortification. To 
 right and left, this ridge dips away into unfathomable 
 chasms of misty valley ; to the South-West, it runs 
 down to join the great woods which clothe all the 
 Western mass of Monte Pezza. There is nothing, in 
 short, above the point we have now reached, save the 
 slope leading to the summit. 
 
 But where is the summit ? Seeing us look eagerly 
 towards the rock wall up above, Clementi laughs and 
 shakes his head. 
 
 "Ah, no, Signoras," he says. " Non ancora. We 
 must leave the mules here ; but from this point we have 
 an hour's walking before us. The Cima is yonder — 
 yonder ; seven or eight hundred feet higher ! " 
 
 It proves, however, to be over a thousand. 
 
 The mists, alas ! are now swirling up on this side 
 with frightful rapidity. The Val Pettorina and all the 
 Sottoguda side are hidden by the slope above ; but the
 
 THE SASSO BIANCO. 315 
 
 Val d'Alleghe, the Civetta, and all the peaks lying to 
 the South-West of our position are now visible only 
 in snatches, as the vapours drift and part. The Val 
 Biois, looking over towards Cencenighe and the Cima 
 di Pape, is like a huge caldron sending up volumes of 
 swift steam. 
 
 To go on at present is obviously useless ; so we 
 make arm-chairs of the saddles and rest awhile upon 
 the grass, while the mules graze, and the men, who 
 have had more than four hours' climbing, light their 
 cigars and lie down in the shade of a big boulder. 
 
 Up here, we are already above the tree-level. Glow- 
 ing Alp-roses and dark blue gentians abound ; but the 
 grass all about grows thin and hungerly. According 
 to the aneroid, and without allowing anything for 
 corrections, we have already left Caprile more than 
 3,500 feet below. That is to say, we have attained an 
 elevation 200 feet higher than the Fedaja pass, 
 and between 20 and 30 feet higher than the Tre Sassi 
 pass, where it will be remembered we reached the 
 snow-level. 
 
 Half an hour is consumed thus, in calculating 
 heights, examining maps, and watching the progress 
 of the mists. Sometimes the sun breaks through, and 
 then they part for a moment and drive off in rolling 
 masses. Sometimes they rush up, as if chased before 
 the wind, sweeping all across the ridge, blinding us in 
 white fog, and leaving a clinging damp behind them. 
 At length we decide to push on for the summit, de- 
 menti, who knows the climate, thinks it may clear off 
 at midday, and that we may as well be upon the spot
 
 3i6 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 to take advantage of any sudden change for the better. 
 It is now I0.20 A.M., and we have an hour's cUmbing 
 before us. 
 
 Meanwhile, a little lad who has been picked up on 
 the way is left in charge of the mules, with strict in- 
 junctions not to let them stray near the edge of the 
 precipice on either side ; — a duty which he fulfils by 
 immediately lying down upon his face in the damp 
 grass, and falling sound asleep. 
 
 So we go on again, slowly but steadily, up the long 
 slope and on to the foot of the rock-wall aforesaid. 
 Here are no steps ready hewn. We have to get up as 
 best we can, and the getting up is not easy. The 
 little crevices and inequalities which serve as foot-holes 
 are in places so far apart that it is like going up the 
 steps of the Great Pyramid ; and but for Giuseppe, 
 who goes first in order to do duty as a kind of windlass, 
 the writer, for one, would certainly never have sur- 
 mounted the barrier. 
 
 This stiff little bit over, we expect to see some sign 
 of the summit ; but on the contrary find ourselves, 
 apparently, as far from it as ever. A second and a 
 third slope still rise up ahead, as barren and unpro- 
 mising as the last. 
 
 And now even the Alp-rose has disappeared, and not 
 a bush of any kind breaks the monotony of the surface. 
 But the gentians make a blue carpet underfoot ; and 
 the Edelweiss, so rare elsewhere, so highly prized, 
 flourishes in lavish luxuriance, like a mere weed. 
 Presently we pass an unmelted snowdrift in a hollow 
 some little way below the summit. Then, quite sud-
 
 THE SASSO BIANCO. 317 
 
 denly, a whole army of distant peaks begins to start into 
 sight ; and so, after six hours, we all at once find our- 
 selves upon the top ! 
 
 We might, of course, have had a better day ; but it is 
 some reward after long toil to find the view to North 
 and West quite free from mist. The vapours are still 
 boiling up in the South and South-East, but not 
 perhaps quite so persistently as an hour ago. At all 
 events they part from time to time, so that in the end, 
 by dint of patient watching, we see all the near peaks 
 in those quarters. 
 
 It is now nearly half-past eleven o'clock, and, having 
 eaten nothing^ since five, we are all as huni^rv as 
 people have a right to be at an altitude of between four 
 and five thousand feet above the breakfast table. So 
 before attempting to verify peaks, or heights, or relative 
 distances of any kind, we call for the luncheon-basket 
 and turn wath undiminished gusto to the familiar meal 
 of hard-boiled eggs and bread. The w-ater in the 
 flask being flat, Clementi fetches up a great lump of 
 snow, and this, melted in the sun and mixed with 
 a little brandy, makes a delicious draught as cold as 
 ice itself. 
 
 In the midst of this frugal festivity, Giuseppe, with 
 the keen eye of a chamois-hunter, recognises L.'s maid 
 (whom he calls the " Signora Cameriera ") on the 
 Cordevole bridge just outside the village. We see only 
 a tiny black speck, no bigger than a pin's head ; but 
 Clementi goes so far as to depose to her parasol. In a 
 moment both the men are up, tying a pocket-handkerchief 
 to a white umbrella, and lashing the umbrella upon an
 
 3iS UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 Alpenstock, which they erect for a signal ; and the 
 excitement caused by this incident does not subside till 
 the black speck, after remaining stationary upon the 
 bridge for about a quarter of an hour, creeps slowly 
 away and is lost to sight in the direction of Caprile. 
 
 Luncheon over, we set to work with maps and field- 
 glasses, to identify all that is visible of the panorama. 
 
 We are sitting now on the brink of the great 
 yellowish cliffs which the writer sketched a little while 
 ago from below the Sasso di Ronch.* All the heights 
 and valleys on this side lie spread out before us, like the 
 surface of a relief-map. We look down upon Monte 
 Migion and Monte Frisolet — both green to the top, and 
 scattered over with hamlets, farms, cultivated fields, and 
 fir-forests. Monte Migion, estimated by Trinker at 
 7,838 feet, lies full 400 feet below ; and Monte Frisolet 
 considerably lower still. The Val Pettorina opens just 
 under our feet, and one could almost drop a stone down 
 into the little piazza of Rocca, where the Sagro is 
 going on merrily. We can see the peasants moving to 
 and fro between the church and a great white booth on 
 the top of which a red flag is flying. Now and then, 
 when the wind comes up this way, it brings faint echoes 
 of the bells, and of the braying of a brass band. As for 
 the holiday-folk, they look exactly like a swarm of very 
 small black insects, all in motion. Monte Fernazza, 
 farther to the right, appears to be considerably lower 
 than Monte Migion, but not so low as Monte Frisolet. 
 Except for a blackish ridge of igneous rock cropping 
 out on the side of the pass of Alleghe, this mountain is 
 
 * See woodcut, p. 223 — "The Sasso Bianco."
 
 THE SASSO BIANCO. 319 
 
 green and cultivated like the others, and is apparently 
 about 6,500 feet in height. So much for the minor 
 mountains in our immediate neighbourhood. 
 
 Of the larger, the two nearest (each being distant 
 about two miles in a direct line) are the Marmolata and 
 the Civetta. The last fills all the South-Eastern 
 division of the horizon. Large masses of vapour flit 
 from time to time across the face of that vast, fretted 
 screen ; but they flit, and pass away, and it lifts its 
 noble head continually into the clear blue depths of the 
 upper sky. The Marmolata stands up in bold profile, 
 undimmed by even a thread of vapour. Mr. Gilbert, 
 seeing this mountain from the Sasso di Dam and 
 getting it also in profile, though from the Western end, 
 compared it to a huge stationery case, its vertical side 
 to the South, and its long snow-slope to the North. 
 But taken here from the East end,* whence one more 
 clearly sees the sharp depression, or couloir, that divides 
 the peaks, it absurdly resembles the familiar cocked hat 
 worn by the first Napoleon, the precipitous side being 
 of course the front of the hat, and the snow-slope 
 corresponding to the back, A great stream of snow 
 lies in the cleft of the couloir, and all the northward 
 slope is outlined, as it seems, in frosted silver ; but the 
 great glaciers and snow-fields that lie towards the 
 Fedaja are from here invisible. 
 
 The green threshold of the Fedaja pass, and the low 
 
 * The author's sketch of the Marmolata from the Pass of Alleghe (p. 333), 
 though taken from a point about two miles to the S.E. of the Sasso Bianco, 
 shows something of this form, althoiiL;h the mountain from that point was 
 much less foreshortened, which diminished the resemblance.
 
 320 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 jagged ridge of Monte Padon, rise just North of the 
 extreme Eastern end of the Marmolata, which is 
 buttressed on this side by the black precipices of 
 Seranta. Monte Vernale, repeating from here as from 
 Canazei its curious resemblance to the Marmolata, lurks 
 close under the Southward wall of its huge neighbour, 
 being divided from it by only a little green slope 
 considerably higher than the Fedaja pass, which 
 Clementi points out as the Forcella di Contrin (9,052 
 feet) , and which is also known as the Forcella di Val 
 Ombretta, and as the Passo di Val Fredda. Still lower 
 down towards the South-West lies the Sasso di Val 
 Fredda, still unascended ; a little beyond it comes the 
 Monte Ricobetta, locally known as the Monzon, 8,634 
 feet in height ; and on the same parallel, but still 
 farther West, Monte Latemar, on whose summit the 
 vapours rest all day. 
 
 North-West of the Marmolata, about nine miles 
 distant as the crow flies, rise the snow-streaked bastions 
 of the Sella Massif, of which, however, only two great 
 towers— the Boe and the Campolungo Spitz — are seen 
 from this side ; while in an opening between the Boe 
 and the Marmolata rises a noble, solitary rock which 
 proves to be the Lang Kofel, 10,392 feet in height, and 
 distant about thirteen English miles. A tiny glimpse 
 of the Rosengarten is also seen in the gap above the 
 Forcella di Contrin. 
 
 Returning now to the point from which we started, 
 and looking due North straight over the top of Monte 
 Migion, the pinky snow-streaked line of the Sett Sass, 
 divided from Monte Lagazuoi by the Valparola pass,
 
 THE SASSO BIANCO. 321 
 
 comes into view. The Sasso d'lstria, which looked so 
 imposing from near by, here shows as a small pyramidal 
 rock of no importance ; the castellated crest of Monte 
 Nuvolau dwindles to a tiny ridge on a long green 
 slope ; the caretta track of the Tre Sassi pass winds 
 between both like a white thread ; and Monte Tofana, 
 sulky and cloud-capped, as usual, shows its pyramidal 
 front only once, when the mists roll apart for a few 
 moments. 
 
 Following the parallel of the Tofana, we get misty 
 glimpses of the Cristallino peaks, of the Cristallo, of the 
 Drei Zinnen, the Sorapis, and the Croda Malcora. The 
 Rochetta, and the fantastic ridge of the Bee di Mezzodi 
 divide them off like a fence ; while straight away to the 
 East, the Pelmo shows every now and then, quite clear 
 from base to summit. Between the Pelmo and the 
 Croda Malcora, part of the range of the Marmarole, and 
 the curved prow of the Antelao, peep out through 
 window-like openings in the clouds. 
 
 Finally, above and beyond all these, ranging from 
 North-West to North-East, in the only direction where 
 the horizon is permanently clear, we look over towards 
 a sea of very distant peaks reaching far away into the 
 heart of Northern Tyrol. To the N.N.W., a little 
 above and to the left of the Sett Sass ridge, we 
 recognise by help of the map the highest summits of the 
 Zillerthal Alps: — the Fuss Stein near the Brenner pass, 
 11,451 feet in height; the five peaks of the Hornspitzen, 
 ranging from 10,333 feet to 10,842 feet ; and the 
 Hochfeiler, 11,535 feet. A little East of North, exactly 
 above the Sett Sass, a long snow range glowing in the
 
 322 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 mid-day sun identifies itself with the Antholzer Alps 
 beyond Bruneck, the highest points of which are the 
 Wildgall (10,785 feet), the Schneebige Nock (11,068 
 feet) and the Hochgall, still, I believe, unascended, and 
 rising to 11,284 feet. Beyond these again, to the 
 N.N.W., Clementi believes that he recognises the 
 Drei Herrn Spitze (11,492 feet) and the Gross Venediger 
 (12,053 feet) ; these last being full forty-five miles 
 distant as the crow flies. 
 
 Turning now from the Northern half of the horizon 
 where all is so clear, it is doubly disappointing to face 
 the mists which still keep pouring up from the South. 
 Parting here and there at times, as if rent suddenly by 
 gusts of wind from the South-West, they show now the 
 tremendous wall of the Cimon della Pala ; now the 
 Castelazzo over against the Costonzella pass, and 
 behind the Castelazzo, the Cima d'Asti ; and now all 
 the great Primiero peaks in detached glimpses, from 
 the Pala di San Martino to the Sasso di Campo. The 
 Pala di San Lucano, which rises due South of our 
 position, also gleams out now and then, as also does 
 the volcanic cone of Cima di Pape. What might be 
 visible on this side under more favourable circum- 
 stances, it is, of course, impossible to say; but I am in- 
 clined to think the Southward view, including as it does 
 the Primiero group, would be finer than that from 
 Monte Pavione, which is some 200 feet lower than the 
 Sasso Bianco. As it is, even with one half of the 
 horizon continually obscured, we succeed in identifying 
 over fifty great summits, including all the Dolomite 
 giants. I should be afraid to conjecture how many
 
 THE SASSO BIANCO. 323 
 
 peaks which could not be verified with certainty must 
 have been in sight. 
 
 It was at the time, and is still, a matter of regret to 
 the writer not to have been able to make some kind of 
 panoramic outline, however rough, of the view from the 
 summit. But it would have been useless to make the 
 attempt under such heavy disadvantages, not more than 
 forty-five degrees of horizon being absolutely clear at 
 any time. 
 
 As regards the height of the Sasso Bianco, there can, 
 I think, be no doubt that it rather exceeds than falls 
 below 8,000 feet. A traveller more experienced in the 
 use of the aneroid would doubtless be able to determine 
 the matter to within a few feet ; but I should, myself, 
 be very diffident of giving a decided measurement. We 
 observed the aneroid closely all the way from Caprile to 
 the summit, and found that it showed a fall equivalent 
 to a rise in elevation of 4,500 English feet. This 
 (without any correction for the mean temperature of the 
 column of air between the upper and lower stations) if 
 added to the height at which Caprile stands above the 
 sea-level, — namely, 3,376 feet — would give an eleva- 
 tion of 8,776 feet. The temperature, however, varied 
 greatly, the heat being intense as we wound round the 
 mountain from East to South, and the change to cold 
 and damp being very sudden when we came into the 
 mists a thousand feet below the summit. These 
 mists never rose to the height of the actual summit 
 during the whole two hours that we remained upon the 
 top. On the contrary, the sun shone uninterruptedly, 
 and the temperature must have stood at from 70° to 75".
 
 ^24 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 Not venturing to deduce results from these imper- 
 fect observations, I have submitted my notes to an 
 eminent mountaineer, whose opinion I prefer to give in 
 his own words : — " Assuming the temperature to be 
 respectively 50° and 70', we should have a correction of 
 280 feet,* which must be added to your 4,500. The 
 height would then come out 3,376 + 4,500 + 280 = 8,156 
 feet ; so that I think you may safely put it at over 
 8,000 feet. In your letter, you spoke of your peak being 
 400 to 600 feet higher than Monte Migion. Now 
 Trinker gives the latter as 7,838 feet, which would 
 bring the Sasso Bianco up to 8,238 or 8,438 feet ; so 
 that in this way too you get the estimate of over 8,000 
 feet confirmed." F.F.T. 
 
 For the present, then, and until some more com- 
 petent traveller shall determine this point with accuracy, 
 the height of the Sasso Bianco maybe allowed to stand 
 at something over 8,000 feet. 
 
 Having spent two hours on the top, and seeing no 
 hope of any change for the better on the Southern side, 
 we reluctantly packed up and came down. By the time 
 we reached Signora Pezze's pasturages, the Sagro was 
 breaking up in Rocca, and the contadini who lived in 
 the scattered farms and cottages of Monte Pezza were 
 coming up homewards. All asked if we had had a good 
 view ; if we were very tired ; if we had found it difficult ; 
 and how long it had taken us to get to the top. 
 
 " Brava ! brava! " said one old man. " So, Signoras, 
 
 * The temperature was certainly higher than this at times by five, if 
 not ten degrees, which would bring the number of feet up to 50 or 100 
 more.
 
 THE SASSO BIANCO. 
 
 you have been up our mountain ? Ebbene ! E una 
 bella montagna ! . . . but you are the first forestieri who 
 have cared to find it out." 
 
 It was amusing to see how pleased, and even flattered, 
 they all seemed ; as if, being born and bred upon the 
 mountain, they took the expedition as an indirect com- 
 pliment paid to themselves. 
 
 When at length we reached Caprile, it was just half- 
 past five o'clock. We had been gone precisely twelve 
 hours and a half : — that is to say, we had been six hours 
 getting to the top, including stoppages ; two hours on 
 the top ; and four hours and a half, including another 
 stoppage, coming down. 
 
 We might, as I have already said, have had a 
 better day. We might, as I fully believe (there 
 being an almost continuous line of valleys, and no 
 mountain range of any importance between), have seen 
 straight down to Venice and the Adriatic on the South ; 
 to the lake of Garda on the South-West ; and perhaps, 
 if the Marmolata is not in the way, to the Ortler Spitze 
 on the West. In any case, the view to the North and 
 North-West was extremely fine ; and the near view over 
 the whole surrounding group of Dolomites (which is of 
 more importance than any distant view of peaks which 
 are continually seen from other heights) is of the 
 greatest interest. I doubt, indeed, if there be any other 
 point from which all the giants of the district can be 
 .seen at once, and to so much advantage.
 
 FORNO DI ZOLDO AND ZOPPE. 
 
 ON THE ROAD AGAIN— NEAR VIEW OF THE CIVETTA — ADVENTURE 
 WITH A SNAKE— MONTE FERNAZZA — MONTE COLDAI — THE MARMO- 
 LATA 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 ERAGAREZZA — ZOPPE ; ITS PAROCO, AND ITS 
 TITIAN— LUNCHEON IN A TYROLEAN COUNTRY-HOUSE — BRUSETOLON 
 AND HIS WORKS— SPECIMEN OF A NATIVE — VALLEY AND PASS OF 
 PALLAFAVERA — IN THE SHADE OF THE PELMO — PESCUL— SELVA AND 
 THE ABORIGINES— CAPRILE AGAIN.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FORNO DI ZOLDO AND ZOPPE. 
 
 There remained yet another important excursion to 
 be taken from Caprile, before we could finally break up 
 our camp and depart. We must go over the Pass of 
 Alleghe ; visit the Va di Zoldo ; '" make a pilgrimage 
 to a certain village called Zoppe, where a Titian was to 
 be seen, and come home by way of the Val Fiorentino. 
 Now the main attractions of this expedition did not 
 appear upon the surface. We had been over a good 
 many passes already, and through a good many valleys, 
 and had been plentifully pelted with Titians of all 
 degrees of genuineness ; but what we really wa.ited was 
 to see the back of the Civetta, and to get a near view of 
 the Pelmo. As both of these ends would be answered 
 by following the route thus laid down, and as the ex- 
 pedition was guaranteed not to exceed three days, we 
 once more packed our black bags, stocked the luncheon- 
 basket, rose at daybreak one line morning, and de- 
 parted. This time, young Cesare Pezze, the ex-Gari- 
 baldian, having a married sister at Pieve di Zoldo 
 
 * Travellers starting from Longarone can now visit the Val di Zoldo and 
 Forno di Zoldo by diligence. {^NotJ to Second Edition.)
 
 330 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 whom he wished to see, volunteered to walk with us — - 
 a soldierly, upright, picturesque fellow, with his coat 
 flung loosely across one shoulder, a yellow silk hand- 
 kerchief tied cornerwise round his throat, a bunch of 
 carnations in his hat, and an alpenstock in his hand. 
 
 This time, as last time, our way lies at first beside 
 the lake ; but strikes away presently behind the village 
 of Alleghe, and up a delicious little valley thick with 
 walnuts and limes, and threaded by a bright torrent 
 that fills many a moss-grown water-trough and turns 
 many an old brown wheel. The path, rising and wind- 
 ing continually, passes farm-lands and farm-houses ; 
 barns, orchards, gardens ; green slopes striped with 
 rows of yellow flax laid down to bleach in the sun ; and 
 terraces after terraces of wheat, barley, flax, hemp, 
 potatoes, and glossy-leafed, tassel-blossomed Indian 
 corn. 
 
 And as the path rises, so also rises the Civetta, its 
 lower precipices detaching themselves in grand propor- 
 tions from the main mass, while every riven pinnacle, 
 spire, obelisk and needle-point, stands out sharply 
 against the deep blue sky. Thus the mountain grows 
 in grandeur with every upward foot of the way. White 
 patches that looked like snow-drifts from the valley, 
 now show as glaciers coated with snow, through which 
 the blue ice glitters ; and by-and-by, as we draw still 
 nearer, another of those strange circular holes, or 
 ** occhi " as they are here called, stares down at us 
 from near the top of a small peak, like a hole drilled in 
 a dagger-blade. So, with exquisite glimpses over the 
 bluish-green lake, we emerge at length from the gorge,
 
 FORNO DI ZOLDO AND ZOPPfl. 331 
 
 and climb a steep, stony lane with never a tree on either 
 side to screen off the burning sun. 
 
 Suddenly a long steel-blue snake specked with white, 
 darts out from under the very feet of white Nessol ! 
 Clementi utters a wild war-whoop — L. a scream — the 
 mule a snort of terror ! Giuseppe and young Pezze 
 leap forward with their sticks, and in a second the poor 
 reptile (which is as thick as one's wTist and about four 
 feet in length, but I believe quite harmless) lies dead by 
 the wayside. 
 
 The stony path now leads out upon a wild and deso- 
 late mule-track skirting the grim flanks of Monte 
 Fernazza — a gruesome mountain whose low black pre- 
 cipices have crashed down before now in many a berg- 
 fall, covering the barren slopes with shattered debris 
 and huge purply blocks all blistered over with poisonous- 
 looking lichens. Winding now round the head of the 
 glen by which we have come up from Alleghe, we 
 arrive at last upon a grassy plateau at the foot of an 
 overhanging cliff which, though locally called the Monte 
 Coldai, is in truth the huge north-eastern shoulder of 
 the Civetta. Above here, in a hollow among the rocks, 
 nestles a small tarn called the Lago Coldai, said to 
 command a fine view, but we had not time to go so 
 far out of our way. 
 
 Beyond Monte Coldai, the way lies up a fine rock- 
 strewn gorge, just like the gorge of the Avisio where it 
 leads up to the Fedaja Alp. Gradually we lose sight of 
 the long, fretted fa9ade of the Civetta, which retires 
 behind the Coldai rocks, and, looking back, find that 
 the lake has sunk quite out of sight. The Sasso Bianco,
 
 332 UNTRODDEN PEAKS <S- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS 
 
 which till now had been standing out against the sky, 
 has all at once dropped below the horizon, and is im- 
 measurably overtopped by the towering altitudes of the 
 Marmolata. The Boe, the Cima di Pape, the Monte 
 Vernale, the Sasso di Val Fredda, and many another 
 now-familiar peak, have also risen into view. But it is 
 the Marmolata that claims all one's attention, and 
 seems to fill the scene. Presently, an obstinate cloud 
 that has been clinging to the highest point of the sum- 
 mit clears off little by little, and leaves the whole noble 
 mass distinctly relieved against the western sky. 
 
 " Guardate ! " says young Pezze, seeing a sketch in 
 preparation. " La Marmolata has thrown her veil aside 
 to have her portrait taken." 
 
 It is a grand view of the mountain, even though its 
 snows and glaciers are all out of sight. From here, as 
 from the Sasso Bianco, one sees its true form and its 
 actual summit ; while of the one no idea can be formed, 
 and of the other no vestige is visible, from either the 
 Tre Sassi or the Fedaja. Clementi can even identify 
 the tiny top-most patch of snow on which F. F. T. 
 placed his barometer when he reached the summit. 
 
 And now a grassy Col, about a quarter of an hour 
 ahead, is pointed out as the summit of the pass. 
 There we shall see the mountains of Val di Zoldo, and 
 take our midday rest in whatever shady spot we can 
 find. There too, as young Pezze pleasantly pro- 
 phecies, we shall be within reach of a chalet where milk, 
 and even cream, may be purchased. So we press on 
 eagerly, but, stopping suddenly a little below the top, 
 are amazed to see the Pelmo — snow-ridged, battle-
 
 FORXO DI ZOLDO AND ZOPPE. 
 
 1^3 
 
 merited, stupendous — shoot up all at once, as it seems, 
 from behind the slopes and fir-woods to the left 
 of the pass, as near us as the Civetta ! Large masses 
 of vapour are rising and falling round those mighty 
 towers, never leaving them wholly uncovered for an 
 
 THE MARMOLATA FROM THE PASS OK ALLEGHE. 
 
 instant ; but they look all the mightier for that touch 
 of mystery. 
 
 And now a few yards higher, and the Marmolata, 
 the Sasso Bianco, the Boe, and all the rest, disap- 
 pear together, and a lovely grassy plain dotted over 
 with strewn rocks and clumps of firs, and bounded by 
 a line of mountain peaks as wild and fantastic as 
 anything we have yet seen, lies spread out in sun- 
 shine before us. This, according to the map, must be
 
 334 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 the grand chain of which Monte Pramper and Monte 
 Piacedel (both as yet unascended) are the dominating 
 summits. 
 
 Up here we encamp for an hour and a-half, Sub 
 Jove ; and the mules graze while we take luncheon. 
 Clementi vanishes up the hill-side, and returns by and 
 by with a bowl of cream in each hand, which, beaten 
 up with wine and sugar, and eaten in the midst of such 
 a scene, is at least as delicious as the " dulcet creams " 
 prepared by Eve for the Angel's entertainment. Mean- 
 while the cow-herd comes down from the chalet to 
 stare at the forestieri, and is so overpaid with half a 
 lire that I begin to fear we must have given him a piece 
 of gold by mistake. 
 
 A deep, narrow gorge now leads down from a little 
 below the summit of the pass, to a point whence the 
 Val di Zoldo — sunny, cultivated, sparkling with vil- 
 lages and spires — opens out far and wide beneath our 
 feet. 
 
 And now, at last, we see the back of the Civetta. 
 Accustomed as one has become to the strangely 
 different aspects under which a Dolomite is capable of 
 presenting itself from opposite points of the compass, 
 here is a metamorphosis which the most erratic 
 imagination could never have foreseen. To say that 
 the Civetta is unrecognisable from the Zoldo side is to 
 say nothing ; for the mountain is so strangely unlike 
 itself that, although one has, so to say, but just turned 
 the corner of it, the discrepancy in form, in character, 
 and apparently also in extent, is almost past accept- 
 ance. Calm, perpendicular, majestic on the side of
 
 FORNO DI ZOLDO AND ZOPPE. 
 
 Alleghe, here it is wild, tossed, tormented, and irregu- 
 lar. From Alleghe, it appears as a vast, upright, 
 symmetrical screen — here it consists of a long suc- 
 cession of huge, straggling buttresses divided by wild 
 glens, the birthplaces of mists and torrents. If from 
 Caprile the mountain looks, as I have said more than 
 once, like a mighty organ, from here it seems as if each 
 vertical pipe in that organ-front were but the narrow 
 end of rock in which each of these buttresses ter- 
 minates. Looking at them thus in lateral perspective, 
 I can compare them, wild and savage as they are, 
 to nothing save that vista of exquisitely carved and 
 decorated flying buttresses just below the roof of 
 Milan Cathedral, which is known as the Giardino 
 Botanico. 
 
 The Civetta was first ascended by Mr. F. F. Tuckett, 
 who gives the height at about 10,440 feet. The sum- 
 mit, snow-crowned and lonely, is plainly seen from this 
 side, and looks as if it might be reached without 
 serious difficulty. 
 
 The Valley of Zoldo is richly cultivated ; the farm- 
 houses are solidly built ; and the whole district wears a 
 face of smiling prosperity. The usual little dusty ham- 
 lets with the usual religious fres9oes on the principal 
 house-fronts, the usual little white church, and the 
 usual village fountain, follow one another rather more 
 thickly than in most other valleys. At San Nicolo, 
 where the valley narrows and the rocks close in upon 
 the rushing Mae far below, we enter upon an excellent 
 carriage-road which goes from this point, by an im- 
 mense detour, to Longarone. At a certain village
 
 336 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 called Dont, some way below San Nicolo, we had pro- 
 posed to pass the night ; but being daunted by the dirt 
 and general disorder of the inn, push on for Forno di 
 Zoldo where Ball's Guide reports "comfortable quarters 
 at Cercena's inn," 
 
 Here we arrive at the end of another three-quarters 
 of an hour, and alight at the door of a very large, very 
 old, and very dirty-looking house up a small steep 
 street in the heart of the village. Passing through a 
 S^loomv stone kitchen where some fifteen or twentv 
 harvesters are eating polenta out of wooden platters, 
 we are shown up a dark staircase and into a large 
 room, the floor of which is encrusted with the filth of 
 centuries. The sofa, the chairs, the window-curtains 
 look as if dropping to pieces with age and only held 
 together by cobwebs. The windows open on a steep 
 side-lane where all the children in the place presently 
 congregate, for no other purpose than to flatten their 
 noses against the panes and stare at us, till candles arc 
 brought, and curtains can be drawn to exclude them. 
 As for the landing, which in most Tyrolean inns is the 
 cleanest and smartest place in the house, it is the 
 dreariest wilderness of old furniture, old presses, old 
 saddles and harness, sacks, undressed skins, and dusty 
 lumber of all kinds, that was ever seen or heard of out- 
 side the land of the Don. 
 
 Yet the Cercenas themselves are well-mannered 
 superior people, and their forefathers have owned 
 estates in Val di Zoldo for over five hundred years. 
 The daughter-in-law of the house, a pretty, refined- 
 looking young woman, waits upon us, and is made
 
 FORXO DI ZOLDO AND ZOPPE. 337 
 
 quite wretched by our few and modest requirements. 
 We are not, I think, unreasonable travellers ; but we 
 have been riding and walking for nearly twelve hours, 
 and wish, not unnaturally, for water, towels, food, and 
 coffee. For all these things we have to wait inter- 
 minably. That we should require a table-cloth is a 
 serious affliction, and that we cannot sup, like the hay- 
 makers, off polenta, is almost more than young Sig- 
 nora Cercena knows how to bear. A few small lumps 
 of smoke-blackened meat, a dish of unwashed salad, 
 and some greasy fritters are at length brought ; and 
 this young lady, while professing, I imagine, to wait 
 at table, walks over quite coolly to a looking-glass at 
 the farther end of the room, and there deliberately tries 
 on L.'s hat and all my rings and bracelets. 
 
 It is a dreadful supper, and is followed by a dreadful 
 night — hot, and close, and wakeful, and enlivened in a 
 way that has associated Forno di Zoldo, for ever in 
 my mind with that Arab proverb which describes 
 Malaga as a city "where the fieas are always dancing 
 to the tunes played by the mosquitoes." 
 
 The mules are brought round early next morning, for 
 we have a long day before us. Zoppe, distant rather 
 more than three hours from Forno di Zoldo, has to be 
 visited in the morning ; and at two p.m., on our wav 
 back, we have promised, in compliance with Signora 
 Pezze's particular request, to call upon her married 
 daughter who lives at Pieve di Zoldo, about a quarter 
 of an hour above Forno. While we are at breakfast, 
 it being a little after live a.m., the church-bells 
 ring out a merry peal. Concluding that it is either a
 
 338 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 Saint's-Day or a wedding, I enquire what the joyful 
 occasion may be, and learn, not without surprise, that 
 an old and highly respected inhabitant has just given 
 up the ghost. 
 
 The Val di Zoppe, sometimes called the Val di 
 Rutorto, branches away from the Val di Zoldo at an 
 acute angle from a point a little below Forno, and runs 
 off northward towards the Pelmo. Our way thither 
 lies at first through a chain of villages — Campo, Pieve, 
 Dozza, Pra, and Bragarezza. Passing Pieve, we are 
 met by Cesare Pezze who is to take us to the studio of 
 a certain self-taught wood-sculptor named Valentino 
 Gamba. He lives at Bragarezza — a miserable tumble- 
 down hamlet on a steep hill-side a mile or two farther 
 on, where we first catch sight of him sitting in a 
 desponding attitude on the doorstep of a small cot- 
 tage. 
 
 Being addressed by young Pezze and invited to show 
 his studio, he jumps up in red confusion, and leads the 
 way into a little back room where stands an enormous 
 oval frame of carved pine-wood destined for the Vienna 
 Exhibition of the present year (1873). It is an un- 
 wieldy, overdone thing, loaded with Arabesques, fruits, 
 flowers, musical instruments, Cupids, and the like ; too 
 big ; too heavy ; fit neither for a mirror nor a picture ; 
 but quite wonderful as an effort of untaught genius. 
 An ideal bust of Italia, also in wood, is full of sweet 
 and subtle expression, and pleases me better than the 
 frame. 
 
 What possesses me, that I should enquire the price 
 of that bust? It is life-size, and weighs — heaven only
 
 FORNO DI ZOLDO AND ZOPPE, 339 
 
 knows how much it weighs, but certainly as much as all 
 our scanty baggage put together ! I have no sooner 
 asked the unlucky question than, seeing the flash of 
 hope in the poor fellow's face, I reproach myself for 
 having done so. He asks only two hundred lire for it 
 — less than eight pounds — but I could no more be 
 burthened with it on such a journey than with the 
 church steeple. So I ask for his card, and, promising 
 to bid my English friends look out for his frame next 
 summer in Vienna, take my leave with the awkward 
 consciousness of having said more than I intended. 
 
 From Bragarezza, the way lies between forest-clad 
 hills up a constantly rising valley. The farther we go 
 the steeper and rougher the path becomes ; the more 
 desolate the valley ; the more noisy the torrent. Then 
 at last we have to dismount and let the mules scramble 
 on alone. Now the Pelmo, as yesterday, comes 
 suddenly into sight ; its huge, tawny, snow-ridged * 
 battlements rising close behind a near hill-side — so 
 close that it seems towering above our heads. And 
 presently — for we are only just in time to see it clearly 
 for a few minutes — a great white cloud sails slowly up 
 from somewhere behmd, wrapping the mountain round 
 as with a mantle, so that we only catch flitting, 
 fragmentary glimpses of it now and then, through 
 openings in the mist. 
 
 Finally Zoppe, a tiny brown village and white church 
 perched high on a green mountain side, looks down 
 
 * These snow-ridges, which I have likened elsewhere to the steps of a 
 gigantic throne, are chiefly remarkable on the sides facing Zoppd and the 
 V'al d'Ampezzo. From the Val Fiorentino they are much less observable. 
 
 X
 
 C140 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS, 
 
 upon us from the top of a steep path full 400 feet above 
 the valley. 
 
 That little white church contains the Titian which is 
 the glory of all this country-side. A long pull up the 
 hill in broiling sunshine brings us at last to the houses 
 and the church. The door stands open, and, followed 
 by all the men out of a neighbouring wood-yard, we 
 pass into the cool shade within. There, over the high 
 altar, hangs the Titian, uncurtained, dusty, dulled by 
 the taper-smoke of centuries of masses. It is a small 
 picture measuring about four feet by three, and 
 represents the Virgin and Child enthroned, supported 
 by San Marco and San Girolamo, with Santa Anna 
 sitting on the steps of the throne. It is, on the whole^ 
 a perplexing picture. The Madonna and child, painted 
 in the dry, hard style of the early German school, look 
 as if they could not possibly have come from Titian's 
 brush ; the San Girolamo and Santa Anna scarcely rise 
 above mediocrity ; but the head and hands of San 
 Marco are really fine, and go far to redeem the rest 
 of the picture. The colour, too, is rich and solid 
 throughout. 
 
 This altar piece, painted, it is said, by order of one of 
 the Palatini in 1526, is classed by Mr. Gilbert among 
 the "very few indubitable Titians " yet preserved 
 among the painter's native mountains ; but notwith- 
 standing its reputation, I find it difficult to believe that 
 the great master painted much more than the head and 
 hands of San Marco. 
 
 The Paroco, hearing that there were strangers in 
 the church, came presently to do the honours of his
 
 FOK.\0 DI ZOLDO AND ZOPPE. 
 
 341 
 
 Titian. He was a fat, rosy, pleasant little priest, 
 redolent of garlic, and attired in light-blue shorts, a 
 light-blue waistcoat, grey worsted stockings, and a lono- 
 black clerical coat, worn bottle-green with age. He 
 chattered away quite volubly, telling how Titian had 
 once upon a time come up to Zoppe for villeggiatura in 
 time of plague ; and how he had then and there painted 
 the picture by order of the aforesaid noble, who desired 
 to place it in the church as a thank-offering ; also how 
 it had hung there venerated and undisturbed for 
 centuries, till the French came this way in the time of 
 the First Napoleon, and threatened to rob the Commune 
 of their treasure, whereupon the men of Zoppe made a 
 wooden cylinder, and rolled the picture on it, and 
 buried it in a box at the foot of a certain tree up in the 
 forest. 
 
 "And look!" said the Paroco, ''you may see the 
 marks of the cylinder upon the canvas to this day. 
 And we have the cylinder still, Signora — we have the 
 cylinder still ! " 
 
 I said something, I no longer remember what, to the 
 effect that a genuine Titian was worth taking care of, 
 and that the Commune could not value it too highly. 
 
 " Value it !" he repeated, bristling up rather unneces- 
 sarily. "Value it, Signora! Of course we value it. 
 Many governments have offered to buy it. We could 
 sell it for three thousand gold ducats to-morrow, if we 
 chose. Ebbene ! we are only six hundred souls up here 
 in the Paese. Our men are poor — all poor — contadini 
 in summer, legnatori in winter ; but no price will 
 purchase our Titian ! " 
 
 X 2
 
 342 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS, 
 
 We afterwards learned that this public-spirited little 
 Paroco had been a mighty chamois-hunter in his 
 youth, and one of the first to scale the fastnesses of 
 the Pelmo. 
 
 Now we leave Zoppe on its hill-side and come down 
 again into the valley, catching by the way some 
 wonderful glimpses of strange peaks peeping out 
 through mist and cloud in the direction of Monte 
 Sfornioi and the Premaggiore range. And now, after a 
 brief halt in the shade of a clump of trees beside a 
 spring, we go on again, descending all the way, till we 
 find ourselves back at Pieve di Zoldo and alighting at 
 the gate of a large white house, where we are welcomed 
 by young Pezze's sister, Signora Pellegrini. Now 
 Signora Pellegrini has married a man both wealthy and 
 well descended, and lives in a large, plentiful, patri- 
 archal way, much as our English gentry lived in the 
 time of the Tudors. She carries her keys at her girdle, 
 and herself superintends her dairy, her cows, her pigs, 
 her poultry, and her kitchen. Being ushered up a 
 spacious staircase, and across a landing hung with 
 family portraits of Pellegrinis who were once upon a 
 time Bishops, Priors, Captains, and powdered Seigneurs 
 in ruffles and laced coats, we are shown into a recep- 
 tion room where a table is laid for luncheon. 
 
 The master of the house is unavoidably absent, being 
 gone to a cattle-fair at Longarone ; but Cesare Pezze 
 takes his place at table, where everything is fresh, 
 abundant, home-made, and delicious. 
 
 After luncheon, we go to see the church — a large 
 structure with a fine Gothic nave,, containing two or
 
 FORNO DI ZOLDO AND ZOPPE. 345 
 
 three curious early Italian pictures, and an Important 
 carved altar-piece by Andrea Brusetolon, the Grinling- 
 Gibbons of South Tyrol, born in this valley of Zoldo in 
 the year 1662. It is a quaint, strange subject, admirably 
 executed, but not pleasant to look upon. They call it 
 the Altare degli AnImI, or Altar of the Souls. Two 
 figures intended to represent Human Suffering and 
 Human Sorrow, each attended by a warning skeleton, 
 support the entablature on each side. Two angels and 
 a Pieta crown it on the top. The execution is ex- 
 cellent, but the impression produced by the w^ork is 
 mfinitely painful. 
 
 That evening we wander about the fields and lanes 
 beyond the village, and the writer sketches some wild 
 peaks (called by some the Monte Serrata, and by others 
 the Monte Rochetta) which are seen from every point of 
 view about the place. There is, of course, the custom- 
 ary difficulty of keeping intruders at bay. One old 
 woman in wooden clogs, having looked on for a long 
 time from her cottage-door, comes hobbling out, and 
 surveys the sketch with a ludicrous expression of 
 bewilderment. 
 
 " Why do you do that ? " she asks, pointing with one 
 skinny finger, and peering up sidewise Into my face like 
 a raven. 
 
 I answer that it is in order to remember the mountain 
 when I shall be far away. 
 
 "And will that make you remember It ? " says she, 
 incredulously. 
 
 To this I reply that it will not only answer that pur- 
 pose, but even serve to make it known to many of my
 
 344 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &= UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 friends who have never been here. This, however, is 
 evidently more than she can beheve. 
 
 " And where do you come from ? " she asks next — 
 after a long pause. 
 
 \ i^ 
 
 MONTE SERRATA. 
 
 " From a country you have no doubt heard of many 
 a time," I reply. " From England." 
 
 *' From England ! Jesu Maria ! From England ! 
 And where is England ? Is it near Milan ? " 
 
 Being told that it is much more distant than Milan 
 and in quite the opposite direction, she is so confounded
 
 FOR^^O DI ZOLDO AND ZOPPE. 345 
 
 that she can only shake her head in silence, and hobble 
 back again. When she is half-way across the road, 
 however, she stops short, pauses a moment to consider, 
 and then comes back, armed with one last question. 
 
 " Ecco ! " she says. " Tell me this — tell me the 
 truth — why do you come here at all ? Why do you 
 travel?" 
 
 To this I reply, of course, that we travel to see the 
 country. 
 
 "To see the country!" she repeats, clasping her 
 withered hands. "Gran' Dio ! Have you then no 
 mountains and no trees in England ? " 
 
 That evening when we are at supper, Giuseppe comes 
 up to say that the young sculptor is below, having 
 brought the bust over from Bragarezza, to know if I 
 will make him an offer for it. Having brought the bust 
 over! I picture him toiling with it along the dusty 
 road — I see him as I saw him this morning, pale, 
 anxious-looking, out-at-elbows ; and for the moment I 
 feel as if it were my fate to yield, and buy. Seeing me 
 waver, L. pronounces me a dangerous lunatic, and even 
 Giuseppe ventures respectfully to represent that if the 
 Signora were really to purchase the " testa di legno " 
 we should in future require an extra mule to carry it. 
 So — not daring to see him, lest I should commit the 
 foolish deed — I send down a polite refusal, and hear of 
 the poor fellow no more. 
 
 We are off again next morning by half-past five, 
 thankful to see the last of Forno di Zoldo, with its filthy 
 inn, its forges, and its noisy iron-trade. Far down by the 
 torrent-side in the steep hollow below the village, there
 
 346 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &> UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 may be seen long rows of workshops whence the smoke 
 of many fires is always rising. Here the men of Zoldo, 
 who are for the most part blacksmiths, have made nails 
 from time immemorial, sending their goods down on 
 mule-back to Longarone, and getting up in the same 
 way stores of old iron from Ceneda, Conegliano, and 
 even Venice. 
 
 We are returning to-day to Caprile by a pass leading 
 from the head of the Val di Zoldo into the head of the 
 Val Fiorentino, winding round the foot of the Pelmo 
 between that mountain and the Monte Crot. For the 
 first four hours of the journey, we are simply retracing 
 our route of the day before yesterday. A little beyond 
 Dont (whence there is an easy and interesting way to 
 Agordo by the Val Duram) the Pelmo rises up, pale, 
 and shadowy, and most " majestical " ; while at San 
 Nicolo the Civetta comes into sight again, half-hidden 
 in rolling, silvery mists. Beyond Marezon, about half 
 way between that village and Pecol, the roads divide, 
 and we turn off from the Val di Zoldo up a long, 
 grassy, undulating valley lying between the Pelmo, 
 the Monte Crot, and the back of the Monte Fernazza. 
 This valley, known as the valley of Pallafavera, is the 
 common property of the Communes of Marezon and 
 Pecol, who divide the pastures equally. 
 
 Between the Monte Crot — a small but finely-shaped 
 pyramidal mountain — and the Pelmo, which from here 
 looks like a cloudy Tower of Babel, there rises a long 
 green slope leading to the top of the pass. Here, in the 
 shade of a big tree, on a grassy knoll, we call our first 
 halt. The saddles are taken off, and serve for chairs ;
 
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 FORNO Dl ZOLDO AND ZOPPE. 349 
 
 a running spring close by among the bushes suppHes us 
 with clear water ; and Clementi again fetches cream 
 from a milk-farm a little farther on. So, sitting in the 
 open air, under the bluest of blue skies, eating cream 
 with wooden spoons out of a wooden bowl, we take our 
 rest in as purely pastoral a fashion as the heart of even 
 the fair Scudery could have desired. 
 
 The journey to-day is a long one, and it will be neces- 
 sary to let the mules rest again by and by ; so we 
 presently go on again, and at about midday reach the 
 top of the pass, which is called by some the Passo di 
 Pallafavera, and by others the Forcella Staulanza. 
 Hence the path winds down among scattered pines and 
 larches to the very base of the Pelmo. At first the great 
 Dolomite shows as only one stupendous tower ; then 
 the second tower, till now hidden behind the first, comes 
 gradually into sight ; lastly, they divide, showing a dip 
 of blue sky between. Every turn of the path now brings 
 us nearer, so that the huge mass, rising ledge above 
 ledge, steep above steep, seems to hang above our heads 
 and shut out half the sky. 
 
 And now, being within two hundred feet of the base 
 of the mountain, we realise, as nearly as it is possible 
 to do so without attempting any part of the ascent, its 
 amazing size, steepness, and difiiculty. We are so 
 near that a chamois hunter could hardly creep unseen 
 along one of those narrow ridges three or four 
 thousand feet above ; and yet the extent of the whole is 
 so enormous that a woman following a path leading 
 across yonder slope of debris, looks a mere speck 
 a^rainst the rock. 
 
 o
 
 3 so UNTRODDEN PEAKS <S- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 The Pelmo blocks the whole end of the Val Fioren- 
 tino. The path leading over the low ridge just opposite 
 is the Forcella Forada (6,8g6 feet) leading direct to San 
 Vito at the foot of the Antelao in the Val d'Ampezzo. 
 It corresponds in position to the Forcella Staulanza 
 over which we have just come from the foot of the 
 Civetta in Val di Zoldo. The height of the Pelmo, so 
 far as has yet been ascertained, appears to be 10,377 
 feet ; that is to say, it is within a few feet the same as 
 that of the Civetta, and scarcely 200 feet below the 
 summit of the Antelao. The mountain has been 
 repeatedly ascended by the daring chamois hunters of 
 Val di Zoldo, who have discovered four separate ways 
 by which to reach the plateau on the top. It has also 
 been ascended by Fuchs, and by the author of the 
 " Guide to the Eastern Alps," who took it from the 
 Borca side, above the Val Najarone. The two best routes, 
 however, are supposed to be the one from Zoppe, and 
 the one from just above San Nicolo in the Val di 
 Zoldo. Mr. Ball describes the Pelmo as '' a gigantic 
 fortress of the most massive architecture, defended by 
 huge bastioned outworks whose walls in many places 
 fall in sheer precipices for more than 2000 feet." He 
 furthermore says, '' the likeness to masonry is much 
 increased by the fact that in great part the strata lie 
 in nearly horizontal courses, whence it happens that 
 many of the steepest parts of the mountain are traversed 
 by ledges wide enough to give passage to chamois 
 and their pursuers," 
 
 From the Forcella Staulanza, the Monte Rochetta of 
 Val d'Ampezzo and the jagged ridge of the Bee di
 
 FORNO Dl ZOLDO AND ZOPPE. 351 
 
 Mezzodi, are visible above the slopes of the Forcella 
 Forada. The topmost peak of the Civetta also peers 
 out above the fir-woods bordering the eastern face of 
 Monte Crot ; and far away, beyond the sunny vista of 
 the Val Fiorentino, the faint blue peak of the Marmolata 
 is seen against the horizon, its snow-slope outlined in 
 frosted silver. 
 
 And now, following the course of the infant Fioretino 
 torrent, we begfin to leave the Pelmo behind at everv 
 step. One by one, the villages of Pescul and Selva, the 
 Col di Santa Lucia, the Monte Frisolet, the Sasso 
 Bianco, come into view. Stopping for a few moments 
 at Pescul, we go into the little church to see a carved 
 tabernacle by Brusetolon — a tiny, toy-like thing, 
 evidentlv a recollection of the Baldacchino at St. 
 Peter's, supported upon flowery twisted columns, 
 crowned by an elaborate canopy, and enclosing a 
 crucifixion group with figures about three inches in 
 height. Some of the little angels and cherubs clustered 
 outside the canopy are so tenderly conceived and 
 executed as to remind one of the designs of Luca della 
 Robbia. The people of Pescul prize their little shrine, 
 just as the people of Zoppe prize their Titian, and 
 have refused large prices for it. 
 
 It is now one o'clock, and we have been upon the 
 road since half-past five a.m. The mules are tired 
 out, and stumble at every step. The Val Fiorentino 
 stretches on interminably, and the village of Selva, 
 where we are to rest for a good two hours, seems never 
 to draw nearer. We get there at last, however, and 
 put up at a small road-side albergo as rough as any we
 
 352 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 have yet met with, but very clean and airy. Here the 
 tired mules get each a hearty feed of Indian corn ; the 
 men, bread and wine ; and we, being shown into a 
 whitewashed upstairs room, proceed to light the Etna 
 and brew a dish of Liebig. 
 
 The women of the house — and there are four of them 
 • — pursue us to this retreat as soon as they have served 
 out the corn and wine below, and stand, wide-eyed and 
 open-mouthed, in a fever of curiosity, watching all we 
 do, as a party of children might watch the movements 
 of a couple of wild beasts in a cage. They examine our 
 hats, our umbrellas, our cloaks, and every individual 
 article that we have laid aside. The Etna stupilies 
 them with amazement. As for L.'s field-glass lying in 
 the window, they eye it askance, taking it evidently for 
 some kind of infernal machine that may be expected to 
 go off suddenly and blow up the whole establishment. 
 They are, in truth, mere savages — rosy, hearty, good- 
 natured ; but as ignorant and uncivilised as aboriginal 
 Australians. 
 
 The biggest and rosiest of the four — apparently the 
 mistress of the house — emerging presently from the first 
 dumbness of her astonishment, pours forth a volley of 
 questions, repeating my answers with a triumphant air, 
 as if interpreting them to the rest, and cross-examining 
 me as eagerly and unsparingly as an Old Bailey counsel. 
 Where did we come from? From Forno di Zoldo! Si, 
 si — she knew that — the men down stairs had told her so 
 much. But before Forno di Zoldo. Where did we come 
 from before Forno di Zoldo ? From Caprile ! Che ! 
 che ! she knows that also. But before Caprile ? Surely
 
 FORNO DI ZOLDO AND ZOPPt, -^^^ 
 
 we came from far away — from lontana? Per esempio! 
 — where were we born ! In Inghilterra ! Madonna ! 
 In Inghilterra ! 
 
 Here she throws up her hands, and the other three 
 do the same. 
 
 " But have you come hke this all the way from 
 Inghilterra ? " 
 
 What she means by *' like this," it is impossible to 
 say. She probably supposes we have ridden the two 
 Nessols the whole distance by land and sea, with one 
 small black bag each by way of luggage ; but the easiest 
 answer is a nod of the head. 
 
 *' Santo Spirito ! And alone ? — all alone ? " 
 
 Again, to save explanations, a nod. 
 
 " Eh ! poverine ! poverine ! (poor little things ! poor 
 little things !) Are you sisters ? " 
 
 A shake of the head this time, instead of a nod. 
 
 " Are you married ? " 
 
 Another negative, whereat her surprise amounts 
 almost to consternation. 
 
 " Come ! Not married ? Neither ot you ? " 
 
 *' Neither of us," I reply, laughing. 
 
 " Gran' Dio ! Alone, and not married ! Poverine ! 
 poverine ! " 
 
 Hereupon they all cry *' poverine " in chorus, with an 
 air of such genuine concern and compassion that we 
 are almost ashamed of the irrepressible laughter with 
 which we cannot help receiving their condolences. 
 
 Being really tired and in want of rest, I am obliged 
 at last to dismiss both Coryphaeus and Chorus, and when 
 they are fairly gone, to lock them out. So at last we
 
 354 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 eat our Liebig in peace, and, being only two hours from 
 home, with plenty of daylight still at our disposal, the 
 writer succeeds in getting a sketch of the Pelmo as it 
 appears through the open window, down at the far end 
 of the valley. 
 
 The rest of the journey lies chiefly along the rising 
 verge of Monte Frisolet, passing over the Col di Santa 
 Lucia. A little beyond Selva, we enter upon Austrian 
 territory, leaving it again on the hill-side above Caprile, 
 and reaching home by way of the old familiar zig-zag 
 a little after six p.m.
 
 CAPRI LE TO BOTZEN. 
 
 CHOICE OF ROUTES — GOODBYE TO CAPRILE— PIEVE D'aNDRAZ— THE 
 UPPER VALLEY OF LIVINALLUNGO— LAST SIGHT OF THE PELMO — 
 THE SELLA MASSIVE — THE CAMPOLUNGO PASS— CORFARA — A COMING 
 PAINTER — A POPULATION OF ARTISTS — TICINI AND HIS WORKS AT 
 CORFARA — A PHENOMENON — THE COLFOSCO PASS — THE GRODNER 
 THAL — THE CAPITAL OF TOVLAND — 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— COTZEN— THE ROSENGARTEN ONCE MORE— FAREWELL
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 CAPRILE TO BOTZEN. 
 
 The time at length came for leaving Caprile — for 
 leaving Caprile, and the Dolomites, and the pleasant 
 untrodden ways of South Eastern Tyrol, and for drift- 
 ing back again into the overcrowded highways of Italy 
 and Switzerland. 
 
 We were to re-enter the world at Botzen. All roads, 
 perhaps, led to Rome, when the Golden Milestone stood 
 "in the centre of the known universe. So, too, all these 
 central Dolomite valleys and passes may be said to lead, 
 somehow or another, to Botzen. We had plenty of 
 routes to choose, from. There was the comparatively 
 new char-road between Alonte Latemar and the Rosen- 
 -garten, known as the Caressa pass. There was the 
 way by Livinallungo and the Gader Thai to Bruneck, 
 -and the rail, from Bruneck to Botzen. Again, we 
 might follow the long line of the Avisio through the 
 Fassa, Fiemme and Cembra valleys, to Lavis, where 
 the torrent meets the Eisack and the road meets the 
 railway, not far from Trent. Or we might make for the 
 Grodner Thai and the Seisser Alp, and strike the 
 Brenner line at Atzwang, a little above Botzen. 
 
 y
 
 36o UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 We decided upon the last. It had many advantages 
 over the other routes. It would take us first along the 
 whole valley of Livinallungo ; show us the Sella 
 Massive from three sides of its vast circumference ; 
 carry us to St. Ulrich, which is to South Tyrol in 
 respect of the wood-carving trade what Interlaken and 
 Brienz are to Switzerland ; carry us over the Seisser 
 Alp close under the shadow of the Lang Kofel, the Piatt 
 Kofel, and the Schlern ; give us an opportunity of 
 visiting the Baths of Ratzes ; and finally land us at 
 Botzen in about a week, or even less, from the time of 
 starting. 
 
 We parted from friends when we parted from the 
 hospitable Pezzes, and went away promising ourselves 
 and them soon to return again to Caprile. The 
 morning at five a.m. was cool and bright ; but we had 
 already been waiting some days for more favourable 
 weather, and the sky was still unsettled. The church- 
 bells were ringing as we rode out of the village, and the 
 usual procession of remonstrance was winding up 
 towards the church. This time, they were going to 
 pray for dry weather. 
 
 " Che ! che ! " said Clementi, contemptuously, "that 
 is the way they do, Signora ! The Paroco watches 
 his barometer ; and when the rain is near falling, he 
 calls the people together to pray for it. Perhaps it 
 comes down in the middle of the mass. Then he cries 
 ' Ecco il miracolo ! ' — and, poor devils ! they believe 
 it." 
 
 As far as Finazzer's little inn at Andraz, our road 
 lay over ground already traversed. Then we crossed
 
 CAPRILE TO BOTZEN. 361 
 
 the torrent, left the valley of Buchenstein opening away 
 to the right, and, skirting now the rising slopes of the 
 Col di Lana, continued our course up the main valley 
 of Livinallungo. At the large village known indiffer- 
 ently as Livinallungo and Pieve d'Andraz, we paused 
 for an hour to feed the mules, and were served with ex- 
 cellent coffee in the cleanest of wooden rooms by the 
 fattest of cheerful landladies. These people also are 
 Finazzers, and their opposite neighbours, who likewise 
 keep an inn, are Finazzers ; which is the more per- 
 plexing as the one albergo is really comfortable, and 
 the other of doubtful report. The good one, however, 
 lies to the Eastward ; that is to say, to the right of a 
 traveller coming up from Caprile. The village, which 
 is the Capoluogo and post-town of the district, hangs 
 on the verge of a steep precipice, and stands nearly 
 1,500 feet higher than Caprile. The view from the 
 church-terrace is quite magnificent, and not only com- 
 mands the deep-cut course of the Cordevole from its 
 source at the head of the valley down as far as Caprile, 
 but brings in the Civetta, the Marmolata, the Monte 
 Padon (or Mesola), the Sella Massif, and a host of 
 inferior peaks. 
 
 From Pieve d'Andraz as far as Araba — a dismal 
 looking wooden hamlet at the foot of the slopes below 
 the south-eastern precipices of the Sella — the valley 
 rises slowly and vSteadily. As it rises, it becomes 
 barren and uninteresting. The jagged peaks of Monte 
 Padon, emerging gradually from their hood of sullen 
 clouds, show purply-black against the sky. By and 
 by, the winding way having brought us, somehow,
 
 362 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &' UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 in a line with the Val Fiorentino and higher than the 
 intervening slopes of Monte Frisolet, we are greeted 
 with an unexpected view of the Pelmo. Shadowy^ 
 stately, very distant, it closes the end of an immensely 
 long and glittering vista. We see it for a few moments 
 only, and for the last time. As the path trends inward^ 
 it vanishes — as the Civetta and the Marmolata have by 
 this time also vanished. We shall see them no more in 
 the course of the present journey ; and who can tell 
 when, if ever, we shall see them again ? 
 
 And now the huge Sella takes all the horizon — a pile 
 of thickset, tawny towers, like half a dozen stumpy 
 Pelmos clustered together. The mass seems naturally 
 to divide itself into the five blocks respectively entitled 
 the Boe, or Pordoi Spitze, closing the head of the Fassa 
 Thai ; the Sella Spitze, looking up the Grodner Thai ; 
 the Pissadu Spitze overhanging the Colfosco pass ;: 
 the Masor Spitze facing Corfara and the Gader Thai ; 
 and the Campolungo Spitze, dominating the Campo- 
 lungo pass, which we are now approaching. As we 
 stfike northwards up the bare Col to the right, leaving' 
 Araba and the Vale of Livinallungo far below, we have 
 these huge, impending bastions always upon the left. 
 
 The trees up here are few and stunted. The Alpi-ne 
 roses are over, and only the bare bushes remain. 
 The golden lilies, the gentians, the rich wild flowers 
 that made most of the other passes beautiful, are all 
 missing ; and only a few scant blooms of Edelweiss 
 hide themselves here and there among the moss-grown 
 boulders. The mowers are at work, however, on 
 the slopes, getting in the meagre hay-harvest, and sing-
 
 CAPRILE TO BOTZEN.- 363 
 
 ing at their work. First one voice, then another, takes 
 up the Jodel. It is echoed and flung back from side to 
 side of the valley, now dying away, now breaking out 
 again, sweet, and liquid, and w41d as the notes of a bird 
 — of which, no doubt, all these Swiss and Tyrolean 
 melodies were originally imitations. 
 
 Now, as we near the top of the Col, new mountains 
 come rising on the northern horizon ; — the Santa 
 Croce, .or Heiligen Kreutz, a long mountain terminated, 
 towards the west with a couple of twin peaks, like a 
 Cathedral with two short spires ; the dome-shaped 
 Verella Berg ; and the Sass Ungar, or Sassander 
 Kofel, which is in reality an outpost of the Guerde- 
 nazza Massif. 
 
 Just as we have reached the top of the pass and 
 begun to descend, a long, rumbling peal of distant 
 thunder rolls up from the Livinallungo side, and, look- 
 ing back, we see the clouds gathering fast at our heels. 
 Down below, in a green, lonely hollow, lies Corfara ; 
 consisting of about a dozen houses and a tiny church. 
 The way is steep, and soft, and slippery — the mules 
 can hardly keep their feet — the storm is coming up. 
 So we hurry, and slide, and stumble on as quickly as 
 we can, and arrive presently in the midst of thunder 
 and lightning at the door of Rottenara's albergo. 
 
 The little hostelry consists of two houses, an old and 
 a new. The new house is reserved for travellers of the 
 better class, and contains neither public room nor 
 kitchen. The family occupy the old house, cook in it, 
 and there entertain the guides and peasant-travellers. 
 The new house is made of sweet, fresh, bright pine-
 
 364 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS, 
 
 .vood. The upstairs rooms are all wood — floors, walls,. 
 and ceilings alike. The ground floor rooms are plas- 
 tered and whitewashed. 
 
 Who would have dreamed of finding Art in such a 
 place ? Who would have dreamed that the grave old 
 peasant covered with flour-dust who just now led the 
 mules to the stable, was the father of a young painter 
 of unusual promise ? Yet it is so. Franz Rottenara^ 
 the son of our host, is an art-student at Vienna. The 
 house is full of his sketches. The first thing one sees 
 on going upstairs is a full-length figure of Hofer on the 
 landing, done on the wall in colours, life-size, admirably 
 drawn, with a banner in his right hand, and his rifle 
 slung to his shoulder. In the largest bedroom, one 
 end of which serves for a dining-room, hang some 
 capital oil studies of still-life, and several clever heads 
 in crayons. And down below, in a sort of lumber room 
 where the wet cloaks are hung to dry, every inch of 
 whitewashed wall is covered with graffiti — heads, 
 arms, hands, caricatures, full-lengths, half-lengths, 
 Frederic the Great, Goethe, Schiller, Mignon, Mephis- 
 tophiles, Hamlet, the Torso of the Belvedere, the 
 Fighting Gladiator, the Wild Huntsman, and many 
 more than I can remember or enumerate. The pretty 
 little madchen who serves our dinner is never tired of 
 answering questions about " mein Bruder zu Wien." 
 He painted those two still-life pictures when he was 
 here last summer, and the Hofer fresco four years ago. 
 He was always drawing, from earliest boyhood, and he 
 studied at Munich before he went to Vienna. He is at 
 home now — came home last night to serve his annual
 
 CAP RILE TO EOTZEN. 565 
 
 month with the Corfara rifle-corps — and has just gone 
 over the hill to see friends at some neighbouring 
 village. 
 
 Later in the day, when he returns from " over the 
 hill," the young artist, at my request, pays us a visit. 
 He is not yet five-and-twenty, and is as shy as a girl. 
 We talk a little about art ; but as Herr Franz is not 
 very strong in Italian, and as the writer's German is 
 limited, our aesthetic conversation is necessarily some- 
 what dislocated. I gather enough, however, to see 
 that he has all the steady industry, the patient am- 
 bition, and the deep inward enthusiasm of a German 
 art-student ; and I believe that he is destined to make 
 his mark by and by. 
 
 Corfara is, of course, over the Austrian border, and 
 its people are as thoroughly Austrian as if Campidello 
 and Caprile were not each within a few hours' journey. 
 Herr Franz is the only member of his family who 
 speaks Italian. Neither old Rottenara, nor his 
 daughter, nor any soul about the village, except the 
 priest, understands a syllable of any language but their 
 own. 
 
 The great surprise of Corfara, however, is its church. 
 It is not wonderful, after all, to find a solitary genius 
 springing up here and there, in even the wildest soil. 
 Not many miles from Titian's birthplace we found the 
 Ghedinas. In the valley where Brusetolon was born, 
 we came upon the young wood-sculptor of Bragarezza. 
 It is not therefore so surprising that Corfara should 
 produce its painter. But it is certainly somewhat 
 startling, when — having strolled out by and by after the
 
 '366 UNTRODDEN PEAKS ^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 storm has tailed off into a dull drizzle — we peep in at 
 yonder tiny humble-looking church, and find ourselves 
 in the midst of the most lavish decorations. Here, 
 where one would have expected to find only whitewash, 
 are walls covered with intricate mediaeval diapering ; 
 shrines, altars and triptychs loaded with carved and 
 painted saints, and gorgeous with profuse gilding ; 
 stalls, organ-loft, and seats elaborately sculptured-^ all 
 in the most ornate style of early German Gothic ; all 
 apparently new ; all blazing with burnished gold and 
 glowing with colour. . ; 
 
 The sight of this splendour is so amazing t|i at; fi^f 
 the first few minutes one can only wonder in silence-,; 
 and that wonder is increased when, -happening presently 
 to meet the priest, we learn from him .that all these 
 adornments are the work of the peasant population of 
 the place — of those very haymakers whom we heard 
 singing this morning in the hay-^designed by them, 
 carved by^ them, painted by them, gilded by them ; an4 
 the pious free-will offering of their hands. It is a small 
 place, and the inhabitants do not number mare than 
 260 or 270 souls, children included; "but," says the 
 priest, smihng, "they are all artists." 
 
 He is a gentlemanly priest, and expresses himself in 
 "very choice Italian." He speaks of Corfara in a 
 smiling, well-bred, deprecating way, as " a lost out-of- 
 the-world spot," and of the church, though one wQuld 
 ■think he must feel proud of it, as " pretty for; so poor ^ 
 place." When I praise the decorations, he shrugs hi^ 
 shoulders, as implying that better might have be-en 
 done with larger.means.-. ...;■. ^ / .['.L-L^i-jp,
 
 .■;:•- CAPRILE TO BOTZEN. , 367 
 
 "One good thing we have, though," he says, "which 
 the Signoras have not seen; but which I shall be 
 pleased to show, if they do not mind the trouble of 
 returning." 't -,. .j <• . ■, 
 
 So we turn back— this interview having taken place 
 just outside- the churchyard gate— and, re-entering the 
 church, -follow him to the back of the altar, where are 
 a pair of pa^inted doors now folded back out of sight, 
 but brought round to the front, he says, in Lent, and 
 Cli)se4 oyer the face of the altar. These paintings repre^. 
 sent; the decollation of Saint Catherine, to whom the 
 church is dedicated ; and, according to the Paroco, 
 -wer-e-axecuted in the XIV. or XV. Century by an Italian 
 artist named Ticinij who, as the stpry goes., (and it is 
 al'^ays the same story with thesp village treasures). 
 |)§ing djstained at Corfara by stress of weather, painted 
 these pictures and presented them to the church, in 
 ^return- for, the hospitality of the priest. Beyond this, 
 pur 'Paroco- has nothing to tell. He knows no more 
 than I, who this Ticini w^as ; when or where he lived ; 
 or whence- he carne. No mention of him occurs in the 
 comprehensive volumes of Ci^w;« and Cavalcaselle on 
 " Painting in North Italy ; " and his w^orks at Corfara 
 .ott^ia rirOt aline of notice in th^ pages of Ball's Guide, 
 or of .Messrs, Gilbert and Churchill's "^ Dolomite 
 -Mountains." I, who never even heard of him before, 
 can only judge from the style of his work that he was 
 a North Italian oi' the Bellinesque schoql. The paint- 
 ings, which are oi course on panel, ^re executed in a 
 brilliant, crystalline, early style, and recall the work of 
 Memlino; even morp than .the work of the Friulian
 
 368 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &> UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 painters. The Saint Catherine, slender, round-faced, 
 and fair, is quite of the German type ; while the ex- 
 quisite finish of the costumes, the delicate use of the 
 gilding, and the elaborate treatment of patterns and 
 textures, remind one of Carlo Crivelli. 
 
 Four other paintings, also on panel, representing 
 Saint Catherine and other saints, adorn the front of the 
 altar. These works, deeper in tone, but evidently be- 
 longing to the same period, are supposed by the priest 
 to be by some other hand. At all events they are all 
 interesting ; while the larger paintings at the back are 
 unquestionably of rare beauty and value. 
 
 As we leave the church, two little girls come running 
 after the priest, to kiss his hand ; an act of homage 
 which he excuses to us in his apologetic, smiling way, 
 saying that it is the custom here, and that the children 
 are " simple, and mean well." 
 
 Being now come to where the paths diverge, he wishes 
 us a pleasant journey, lifts his little skull-cap with a 
 courtly air, and turns away to his own home — a 
 cheerful-looking white house with smart blinds and 
 pots of flowers in the windows, and a fat poodle sitting 
 at the gate. 
 
 Returning presently to the inn, just as the drizzle 
 thickens and the light begins to fail, we encounter a 
 Phenomenon. It stands in the little yard between the 
 Albergo and the Dependance, discoursing and gesticu- 
 lating in the midst of a group composed of the 
 Rottenaras, our guides, and a few miscellaneous men 
 and stable-boys. It wears highlows, a battered straw 
 hat, and a brown garment which may be described
 
 CAP RILE TO BOTZEX. 369 
 
 either as a long kilt or the briefest of petticoats. Its 
 hair is sandy ; its complexion crimson ; its age any- 
 thing between forty-five and sixty. It carries a knap- 
 sack on its back, and an alpenstock in its hand. The 
 voice is the voice of a man ; the face, tanned and 
 travel-stained as it is, is the face of a woman. She is 
 gabbling German — apparently describing her day's 
 tramp across the mountains — and seems highly gratified 
 by the peals of laughter which occasionally interrupt 
 her narrative. 
 
 " A guide? " she exclaims, replying to an observation 
 of some by-stander. " Not I ! What do I want with 
 a guide ? I have carried my own knapsack and found 
 my own way through France, through England, through 
 Italy, through Palestine. I have never taken a guide, 
 and I have never wanted one. You are all lazy fellows, 
 and I will have nothing to do with you. Fatigue is 
 nothing to me — distance is nothing to me — danger is 
 nothing to me. I have been taken by brigands before 
 now. What of that ? If I had had a guide with me, 
 would he have fought them ? Not a bit of it ! He 
 would have run away. Well, I neither fought nor ran 
 away. I made friends of my brigands — I painted all 
 their portraits — I spent a month with them ; and we 
 parted, the best comrades in the world. Ugh ! guides, 
 indeed! All very well for incapables, but not for me. 
 I am afraid of nothing — neither of the Pope nor the 
 Devil ! " 
 
 Somewhat startled by this tremendous peroration, we 
 go in, and leave her discoursing ; and I don't know 
 that I have ever experienced a more lively sense of
 
 37a UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 gratification and relief than when I presently learn 
 that^ this lady is a German. She is no strang-er, it 
 seems, at Corfara, but appears every now and then 
 in this, mad fashion, sometimes' putting up at the 
 Rottehara's, f9r several weeks together. She paints^ s"he 
 botanises., and Ithiftk they sa:id,;$he' writes. Giuseppe,'- 
 who describes her as a Signora " molto brutta e molto 
 allegra," tells next dayrhow she supped that night at 
 the guides' table, .-aad) entei't^ined them hqgely. 3 ' 
 
 The way from Corfara to St. Ulrich lips alang- the 
 Ga'der Thai,' through tbeviHagfe^of ColfOsco, and up a 
 high and lonelyjvalley between' >th^Guerdenazza and 
 Sella Massifs.* Thjei;^- wasr-ri-otr: a living >oul- in, 
 Colfosco/as we rode .through — nothing but a ghastly,, 
 attenuated Christ agajfj^s^t; a. ho.use-side, nearly as large 
 g.s life, and spla;sbed hoYi'ibly,-as;if- with blood,' fronihfe9.;dj 
 to foot. The, whole village was out on the hills,—;; "^ -: : 
 
 ' '"The oldest and youngest ^ ' *■ •' .■' ' -'-' 
 
 f:- \i\ At work with th,e^strpjigestj^ / ■ , ■- • -'"'-r]- 
 
 getting in, the hay. ' ■■■ ■'^ ''"'"[ ' 
 
 From above Corfara,_ahd as far "as the top of the 
 pass/dur path lay close under tlie tremendous precipices 
 of that part of the SelM known as the Pissa'dii Spitze? 
 
 The mountain on this side, assumes magnificent pr6- 
 
 - ; : ■• , ' "' ':. ':'> r''\ ' ' ' ::\-:'.'r.^ ;■ . ' ■ ■] ,^■ J" ;'[ 
 
 ,* The entire area ^ of the Guerdqnazzg. Massif- is- estimated |at about; 
 twenty-two square miles, a,r}d its level at som-ething over 9000 feet above 
 the level of the sea. ' The^S^ella MaSsif cannot Cov^r ail af-ea of less thaii 
 fourteen square miles. The principal summit of this latter, i.e., the Bod^6? 
 Pordoi. Spitz, ascended, by Ar^-Grjohman,is, by him given at ^0,341 feet. I 
 am not avyare.that any of the other four, summits have been scaled. In 
 superficial extent, ■ the- Guerdenazza and Sella Massifs -exceed all other 
 
 DQlomite blocks. •- , r-r-r-x •■ N r>- --^ '-- - -.. . r -■_ r
 
 ^ CAPRILE Ta ROTZEN. . _ ^371 
 
 portions, preserving, always its characteristic likeness to 
 a Titanic fortress, and showing now and then, through 
 clefts in those giant ramparts, glimpses of a great^snowy 
 plateau within, witli here. and there a blue fold of down- 
 ward-creeping glacier, or a fall of misty cascade. As 
 we mount higher, the iast patches, of corn and flax give 
 .place .'to a broad, desolate space of boggy turf inter- 
 sected by a network of irregular cattle-tracks, and 
 scattered over with scores of wooden crosses.. These 
 mark where travellers have been found dead. They say 
 at Corfara that this Colfosco Col is the most dangerous 
 of all the Dolomite, passes^ and that the wind in winter 
 rages, upherewithi.smeh fury that it drives the snow and 
 sleet in great cIqucIs whichrbury and suffocate men and 
 cattle in their' progress.. .There is also no defined 
 path, and the- bog Js everywhere treacherous. 
 _ ...And now, the summit reached and passed, the Lang 
 -Kofel rises on the: left above woods and hill tops — a 
 vast, solitary to.wer with < many pinnacles. A sheltered 
 gorge thinly wooded with fir-trees opens before us ; the 
 long-impending._rain.hegins/again, hard and fast ; and 
 the path becoming soon ±00 steep for riding, we have to 
 dismount and waUv in a- pelting storm down a steep 
 jnountain-side to Sarita- M.aria Gardena, which is the 
 first hamlet at the head ofthe Grodner Thai. Here we 
 put up at a tiny.osteria till the sk}' clears again, and 
 then push on for St. Ulrich. 
 
 Our way now lies along the Grodner Thai, green and 
 wooded and spai-kling with villages. The Sella is 
 gradually left behind. The Lang Kofel becomes more 
 lofty and imposing. The Piatt Kofel, like a half-dome,
 
 372 UNTRODDEN PEAKS (S- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 rises into view. The wooded slopes of the Seisser Alp 
 close in the valley on the left ; and the Schlern, seen 
 for the first time through a vista of ravine, shows like a 
 steep, black wall of rock, flecked here and there with 
 snow. 
 
 Every last trace of Italy has now vanished. The 
 landscape, the houseS; the people, the names and signs 
 above the doors, are all German. The peasants we 
 meet on the road are square-set, fair, blue-eyed, and 
 boorish. The men carry wooden krazen on their backs, 
 as in Switzerland. Unmistakeable signs and tokens 
 now begin to tell of the approach to St. Ulrich. The 
 v^ayside crucifixes are larger, better carved, better 
 painted, and some are picked out with gold. By and 
 by we pass a cottage outside the door of which stands a 
 crate piled high with little wooden horses. In the 
 doorway of another house, a workman is polishing an 
 elaborately carved chair. And presently we pass a cart 
 full of nothing but — dolls' legs ; every leg painted with 
 a smart white stocking and an emerald-green slipper ! 
 
 And now the capital of Toy-land comes in sight — an 
 extensive, substantial-looking hamlet scattered far and 
 wide along the slopes on the right bank of the torrent. 
 The houses are real German Tyrolean homesteads, 
 spacious, many-windowed, with broad eaves, and bright 
 green shutters, and front gardens full of flowers. There 
 are two churches — a little old lower church, and a large, 
 smart upper church, with a bulbous belfry tower painted 
 red. And there are at least half a dozen inns, all of 
 which look clean and promising. The whole place, in 
 short, has a bright, prosperous, commercial air about
 
 CAPRILE TO BOTZEN. 373 
 
 it, like a Swiss manufacturing town. Here, at the 
 Gasthaus of the White Horse, we are cordially received 
 by a group of smiling girls, all sisters, who show us 
 into excellent rooms, give us roast-beef and prunes for 
 supper, and entertain us with part-songs and zitter- 
 playing in the evening. 
 
 That night there came another thunderstorm followed 
 by three days of bad weather, during which we had more 
 time than enough for enquiring into the curious trade of 
 the place, and seeing the people at their work. 
 
 For here, as I have said, is the capital of Toy-land. 
 We had never even heard of St. Ulrich till a few weeks 
 ago, and then but vaguely, as a village where wooden 
 toys and wayside Christs were made ; and now we find 
 that we have, so to say, been on intimate terms with 
 the place from earliest infancy. That remarkable 
 animal on a little wheeled platform which we fondly 
 took to represent a horse — black, with an eruption of 
 scarlet discs upon his body, and a mane and tail derived 
 from snippings of ancient fur-tippet — he is of the purest 
 Grodner Thai breed. Those wooden-jointed dolls of all 
 sizes, from babies half an inch in length to mothers of 
 families two feet high, whose complexions always came 
 off when we washed their faces — they are the Aborigines 
 of the soil. Those delightful little organs with red pipes 
 and spiky barrels, turned by the hardest-working doll 
 we ever knew ; those boxes of landscape scenery whose 
 frizzly cone-shaped trees and red-roofed houses stood 
 for faithful representations of " Tempe and the vales of 
 Arcady " ; that Noah's ark (a Tyrolean homestead in a 
 boat) in which the animals were truer to nature than
 
 '374 UNTRODDEN. PEAKS, ^s- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 their live originals in the Zoological Gardens ; that 
 monkey, ^o evidently in the transition stage between 
 man and ape, who spends his life toppling over the 
 "end of a stick ; those rocking-horses with an arm-chair 
 fore and aft ; that dray with immovable barrels ; those 
 wooden soldiers with supernaturally small waists and 
 triangular noses— all these- — all the cheap, familjar, 
 absurd treasures of your earliest childhood and of mine--^ 
 they all came, Reader, from St. Ulrich ! And they are 
 coming from St. Ulrich to this day — they wilL keep 
 coming, when you and I are forgotten. :. For we are 
 mere mortals; but those wooden warriors and those 
 jointed dolls bear charmed lives, and renew for ever their 
 indestructible youthi ". ^ . -.ci 
 
 The two largest 'wholesale warehouses in the village 
 are those X)f Herr Purger, ;and of Messrs. Insam an.d 
 Prinoth. ■ They sh'ow their establishments with readi- 
 ness and civility ; and I do-not know when I have se,Q.9 
 any sight so odd and so entertaining. At Insam and 
 -Prindth'-s alone,' we were taken through more; than 
 thirty large store-rooms, and tw.elve of these w^erefuU_of 
 dolls— millions of them, large and small, painted, ajrld 
 \i-np^inted, in bins, in cases, on shelves, in parcels ready 
 packigd' for exportation. In one room especially 
 devoted tO^^ Lilliputians an inch and a half .in length, 
 they wete' piled up in a disorderly heap literally, from 
 floor to.ceiling, and. looked as if they had been shot out 
 tipon the floor by cartloads. Another room contained 
 only horses ; two others' were devoted to carts ; one 
 long corridor was stocl^ed with nothing but wooden 
 platforms to be fitted with horses by and by. Another
 
 CAP RILE TO BOTZEN. 375 
 
 room contained dolls' heads. The great, dusk attic 
 at the top of the house was entirely fitted up with 
 enormous bins, like a wine-cellar, each bin heaped high 
 with a separate kind of toy, all in plain wood, waiting 
 for the painter. The cellars were stocked with the 
 same goods, painted and ready for sale. 
 
 Now, the whole population of the place, men and 
 women alike, being with few exceptions brought up 
 to some branch of the trade, and beginning from the 
 age of six or seven years, the work is always going on, 
 and the dealers are always buying. It is calculated 
 that out of a population which, at the time of the 
 last census, numbered only 3493 souls, there are 
 two thousand carvers — to say nothing of painters and 
 gilders.* Some of these carvers and painters are 
 artists, in the genuine sense of the word ; others are 
 mere human machines who make toys, as other human 
 machines make match-boxes and matches. A "smart" 
 doll-maker will turn out twenty dozen small jointed dolls 
 one inch and a half in length, per diem ; and of this 
 sized doll alone Messrs. Insam and Prinoth buy 30,000 
 a week, the whole year round. t The regular system is 
 for the wholesale dealers to buy the goods direct from 
 the carvers ; to store them till they are wanted ; and 
 only to give them out for painting as the orders come 
 in from London or elsewhere. Thus the carver's 
 work is regular and unfailing ; but the painter's, 
 
 * Baedeker for 1S88 gives the population as still only 3S45. — Note to 
 Second Edition. 
 
 t This means a doll turned out every three minutes in a working day of 
 twelve hours, which seems almost incredible ; yet I but faithfully repeat 
 what was told me on the spot. 
 
 z
 
 376 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 being dependent on demands from without, is more 
 precarious. 
 
 The warehouses of Herr Purger, though amply 
 suppHed with dolls and other toys, contain for the most 
 part goods of a more artistic and valuable kind than 
 those dealt in by Messrs. Insam and Prinoth. All 
 die studios in Europe are furnished with lay-figures 
 large and small from Herr Purger's stores, and even 
 with model horses of elaborate construction. Here 
 also, ranged solemnly all the length of dimly lighted 
 passages, stand rows of beautiful Saints, large as life^ 
 exquisitely coloured, in robes richly patterned and 
 relieved with gold : — Saint Cecilias with little model 
 organs; knightly Saint Theodores in glittering armour* 
 grave, lovely St. Christophers with infant Christs upon 
 their shoulders ; Saint Florians with their buckets ; 
 Madonnas crowned with stars ; nun-like Mater Dolo- 
 rosas; the Evangelists with their emblems; Saint Peter 
 with his keys ; and a host of other Saints, Angels, and 
 Martyrs, In other corridors we find the same goodly 
 company reproduced in all degrees of smallness. In 
 other rooms we have Christs of all sizes and for all 
 purposes, coloured and uncoloured; in ivory; in ebony; 
 in wood ; for the benitier ; for the oratory ; for the 
 church-altar ; for the wayside shrine. Some of these 
 are perfect as works of art, faultlessly modelled, and in 
 many instances only too well painted. One life-size 
 recumbent Figure for a Pieta was rendered with an 
 elaborate truth, not to life, but to death, that was 
 positively startling. I should be afraid to say how many 
 rooms full of smaller Christs we passed through, in
 
 CAP RILE TO BOTZEN. 377 
 
 going over the upper storeys of Herr Purger's enormous 
 house. They were there, at all events, by hundreds of 
 thousands, of all sizes, of all prices, of all degrees of 
 finish. In the attics we saw bin after bin of crowns 
 of thorns only. 
 
 One day was devoted to going from house to house, 
 and seeing the people at their work. As hundreds do 
 precisely the same things, and have been doing them all 
 their lives, with no ideas beyond their own immediate 
 branch, there was an inevitable sameness about this 
 part of the pilgrimage which it would be tedious to 
 reproduce. I will, however, give one or two instances. 
 
 In one house we found an old, old woman at work, 
 Magdalena Paldauf by name. She carved cats, doo-s, 
 wolves, sheep, goats, and elephants. She has made 
 these six animals her whole life long, and has no idea 
 of how to cut anything else. She makes them in two 
 sizes ; and she turns out as nearly as possible a 
 thousand of them every year. She has no model or 
 drawing of any kind to work by ; but goes on steadily, 
 unerringly, using gouges of different sizes, and shaping 
 out her cats, dogs, wolves, sheep, goats and elephants 
 with an ease and an amount of truth to nature that 
 would be clever if it were not so utterly mechanical. 
 Magdalena Paldauf learned from her mother how to 
 carve these six animals, and her mother had learned, in 
 like manner, from the grandmother. Magdalena has 
 now taught the art to her own grand-daughter ; and so 
 it will go on being transmitted for generations. 
 
 In the adjoining house, Alois Senoner, a fine, stalwart, 
 brown man in a blue blouse, carves large Christs for 
 
 z 2
 
 378 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS 
 
 churches. We found him at work upon one of three- 
 quarters hfe-size. The whole figure, except the arms, 
 was in one soHd block, fixed upon a kind of spit between 
 two upright posts, so that he could turn it at his 
 pleasure. It was yet all in the rough, half tree-trunk, 
 half Deity, with a strange, pathetic beauty already 
 dawning out of the undeveloped features. It is a sight 
 to see Herr Senoner at work. He also has no model. 
 His block is not even pointed, as it would be if he cut 
 in marble. He has nothing to guide him, save his 
 consummate knowledge ; but he dashes at his work in 
 a wonderful way, scooping out the wood in long flakes 
 at every rapid stroke, and sending the fragments flying 
 in every direction. But then Alois Senoner is an 
 artist. It takes him ten days to cut a figure of three- 
 quarters life-size, and fifteen to execute one as large as 
 life. For this last, the wood costs fifteen florins, and 
 his price for the complete figure is forty-five florins ; 
 about four pounds ten shillings English. 
 
 In another house we found a whole family carving 
 skulls and cross-bones, for fixing at the bases of 
 crucifixes — not a cheerful branch of the profession ; in 
 other houses, families that carved rocking-horses, 
 dolls, and all the toys previously named ; in others, 
 families of painters. The ordinary toys are chiefly 
 painted by women. In one house, we found about a 
 dozen girls painting grey horses with black points. In 
 another house, they painted only red horses with white 
 points. It is a separate branch of the trade to paint 
 the saddles and head-gear. A good hand will paint 
 twelve dozen horses a day, each horse being about one
 
 CAPRILE TO BOTZEN. 
 
 579 
 
 foot in length ; and for these she is paid fifty-five soldi, 
 or about two shillings and threepence English. 
 
 I have dwelt at some length on the details of this 
 curious trade, for the reason that, although it is prac- 
 tised in so remote a place and in so traditional a way, 
 it yet supplies a large slice of the world with the 
 products of its industry. The art is said to have been 
 introduced into the vallev at the besfinnine: of the 
 
 - do 
 
 last century ; no doubt, on account of the inexhaus- 
 tible supply of arollas, or Piiius Ccuibra, yielded by 
 the forests of the Grodner Thai, the wood of which 
 is peculiarly adapted for cheap carving, being very 
 white, fine-grained, and firm, yet soft and easy to work. 
 
 The people of St. Ulrich have lately restored and 
 decorated their principal church, which is now the 
 handsomest in South Tyrol. The stone carvings and 
 external decorations have been restored by Herr Plase 
 Ventura of Brixen, and the painted windows are by 
 Naicaisser of Innsbruck. The polychrome decorations 
 are by Herr Part of St. Ulrich ; the large wooden 
 statues are by Herr Mochneght, also of St. Ulrich ; 
 and the smaller figures on the altars and pulpit, as well 
 as the wood -sculpture generally, are all by local artists. 
 Colour and gilding have of course been lavishly 
 bestowed on every part o the inte.ior ; but the general 
 effect is rich and harmonious, and not in the least 
 overcharged. Above the high altar hangs an ex- 
 cellent copy of the famous Florentine Madonna of 
 Cimabue. 
 
 The dialect of the Grodner Thai, called the Ladin 
 tongue, is supposed to be directly derived from the
 
 3So UNTRODDEN PEAKS &^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 original Latin at some date contemporary with the 
 period of Roman rule. It differs widely from all ex- 
 isting dialects of the modern Italian, and though in some 
 points closely resembling the Rhaeto Romansch of the 
 Grisons, and the Lower Romanese of the Engadine, it 
 is yet, we are told, so distinctly separated from both by 
 ''well-marked differences both grammatical and lexi- 
 cographical," as to indicate " kinship rather than 
 identity of stock." Those, however, who admit with 
 Steub the unity of the Rhsetian and Etruscan lan- 
 guages, and who agree with Niebuhr in believing the 
 Rhastians of these Alps to have been the original 
 Etruscan stock, will assign a still remoter origin to 
 this singular fragment of an ancient tongue. It cer- 
 tainly seems more reasonable to suppose that the tide 
 of emigration flowed down originally from the moun- 
 tains to the plains, rather than that the aboriginal 
 dwellers in the fertile flats of Lombardy should have 
 colonised these comparatively barren Alpine fastnesses. 
 This view, the writer ventures to think, receives strong 
 confirmation from the fact that a large number of 
 sepulchral bronzes, distinctly Etruscan in character, 
 have been discovered at various times within the last 
 twenty-five years in the immediate neighbourhood of 
 St. Ulrich. These objects, collected and intelligently 
 arranged by Herr Purger, may be seen in his shov/- 
 room. They fill two cabinets, and comprise the usual 
 articles discovered in graves of a very early date, such 
 as bracelets, rings, fibulae, torques, ear-rings, weapons, 
 &c., &c. Philologists may be interested in knowing 
 that there exists a curious book on the Grodner Thai
 
 CAP RILE TO BOTZEN. 381 
 
 and its language, with a grammar and vocabulary of 
 the same, by Don Josef Wian, a native of the Fassa 
 Thai, and present Paroco of St. Ulrich. 
 
 From St. Ulrich to the Seisser Alp, the way leads up 
 through a wooded ravine known as the Pufler gorge. 
 Weary of waiting longer for the weather, we start at 
 last on a somewhat doubtful morning, and find the 
 paths wet and slippery, and the mountain streams all 
 turbid from the rain of the last three days. Neat 
 homesteads decorated with frescoed Saints and Ma- 
 donnas, and surrounded like English cottages with 
 gardens full of bee-hives and flowers, are thickly scat- 
 tered over the lower slopes towards St. Ulrich. These 
 gradually diminish in number as we ascend the gorge, 
 and after the little lonely church and hamlet of San 
 Pietro, cease altogether. 
 
 Hence, a long and steep pull of about a couple of 
 hours brings us out at last upon the level of that vast 
 and fertile plateau known as the Seisser Alp — the 
 largest, and certainly the most beautiful, of all these 
 upper Tyrolean pasture-mountains. Scattered over 
 with clumps of dark fir-trees, with little brown chalets, 
 with herds of peaceful cattle, with groups of hay- 
 makers, and watched over by a semicircle of solemn, 
 gigantic mountains, it undulates away, slope beyond 
 slope, all greenest grass, all richest wild-flowers, for 
 miles and miles around. Yonder, to the South-West, 
 the great plateau rolls on and on to the very foot of the 
 Schlern, which on this side looms up grandly through 
 flitting clouds of mists. A low ridge of black and shat- 
 tered rocks, called the Ross-ziihne, or Horse-teeth,
 
 3S2 UNTRODDEN PEAKS 6- UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 from its resemblance to a row of broken teeth in a jaw- 
 bone of rock, connects the Schlern with the North end 
 of the Rosengarten range, as well as with the South- 
 ern extremity of the Seisser Alp, and with the ridge 
 out of which rise the Piatt Kofel and Lang Kofel. 
 But the Rosengarten is quite hidden in the mists 
 that keep flying up with the wind from the side of 
 Botzen. 
 
 The Lang Kofel, however, stern and solitary, with a 
 sculptured festoon of glacier suspended above a deep 
 cleft in the midst of its bristling pinnacles ; and the 
 Piatt Kofel,'" crouching like an enormous toad, with 
 its back towards the Schlern, show constantly, some- 
 times singly, sometimes both together, sometimes in 
 sunshine, sometimes in shadow, as the vapours roll and 
 part. 
 
 A vast panorama which should comprehend the Alar- 
 molata and Tofana, and many a famous peak beside, 
 ought to be visible from here ; but all that side is wrapt 
 in clouds to-day, and only the Sella and Guerdenazza 
 Massifs stand free from vapour. Now and then the 
 curtain is lifted for a moment towards the West, re- 
 vealing brief glimpses of wooded hills and gleaming 
 valleys bounded by far mountain-ranges, blue, tender, 
 and dream-like, as if outlined upon the sunny air. 
 
 * Ball gives the Lang Kofel a height of 10,392 feet, and the Piatt Kofel, 
 9,702 feet. The latter he reports as "easily accessible from Seiss, or more 
 conveniently from Santa Christina in the Grodner Thai." The Lang Kofel 
 was ascended for the first time by Dr. Grohmann in 1S69 ; partly ascended 
 by Mr. Whitwell in 1870; and again ascended to the highest summit on 
 the nth of July, 1872, by Mr. U. Kelso, accompanied by Santo Siorpaes of 
 Cortina.
 
 CAP RILE TO BOTZEN. 383 
 
 But (apart from the view it commands of its three 
 nearest neighbours, the Lang Kofel, Piatt Kofel, and 
 Schlern) the great sight of the Seisser Alp is — the 
 Seisser Alp. Imagine an American prairie lifted up 
 bodily upon a plateau from 5,500 to 6,000 feet in height 
 — imagine a waving sea of deep grass taking the broad 
 flood of the summer sunshine and the floating shadows 
 of the clouds — realise how this upper world of pasture 
 feeds from thirteen to fifteen hundred head of horned 
 cattle ; contains three hundred herdsmen's huts and 
 four hundred hay-chalets ; supports a large summer- 
 population of hay-makers and cow-herds; and measures 
 no less than thirty-six English miles in circumference — 
 and then, after all, I doubt if 3'ou will have conceived 
 any kind of mental picture that does justice to the 
 original. The air up here is indescribably pure, invigo- 
 rating, and delicious. Given a good road leading up 
 from Seiss or Castelruth and a fairly good Hotel on the 
 top, the Seisser Alp, as a mountain resort, would beat 
 Monte Generoso, Albisbrunn, Seelisburg, and every 
 " Sommerfrisch " on this side of Italy out of the field. 
 
 The peasants of these parts preserve vague traditions 
 of a pre-historic lake said once upon a time to have 
 occupied the centre of this Alpine plateau ; a legend 
 which gains some colour from the fact that were it not 
 for the gap of the Pufler gorge, down which the drainage 
 flows to the Grodner Thai, there would at this present 
 time be a lake in the depression on the summit. 
 
 Having wandered and lingered up here for nearly a 
 couple of hours, we at length begin descending by the 
 course of the Tschippitbach, a torrent flowing down the
 
 384 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &' UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS- 
 
 deep cleft which separates the Seisser Alp from the 
 North West face of the Schlern,* Coming presently to a 
 cheese-maker's hut a few hundred feet below the eds:e 
 of the plateau, we call our midday halt. A bench and 
 table are accordingly brought out and set in the shade ; 
 the good woman supplies us with wooden bowls of rich 
 golden coloured cream ; the mules graze ; the guides 
 go indoors and drink a jug of red wine with the herds- 
 man and his sons ; the mists roll away, and the huge 
 aiguilles of the Schlern start out grandly from above 
 the woods behind the chalet — as if on purpose to be 
 sketched. 
 
 From this point down to the Bath-House at Ratzes, 
 the way winds ever through fir-forests which exclude 
 alike the near mountains and the distant view. About 
 half-way down, we pass within sight of the ruined shell 
 of Schloss Hauenstein, once the home of Oswald of 
 Wolkenstein, a renowned knight, traveller, and Minne- 
 singer, who was born in the year 1367 ; fought against 
 the Turks at Nicopolis in 1396 ; was present at the 
 storming of Ceuta in 1415 ; encountered innumerable 
 perils by land and sea in the Crimea, in Armenia, 
 Persia, Asia Minor, Italy, Spain, England, Portugal, 
 
 * The height of the Schlern is only 8,405 feet ; but it stands up in such a 
 grand solitary way, and its precipices are so bare and vertical, that it looks 
 higher than many a more lofty Dolomite. The easiest ascent is from Vols, 
 and the view from the top, though said not to be so complete as that from the 
 Ritterhorn nearer Botzen, is extremely fine, and comprises the Adamello, 
 Ortler, Oetzthal, and Antholzer Alps. The South Eastern horizon, however, 
 and consequently all the Primiero Dolomites, are concealed by the near mass 
 of the Rosengarten. "No mountain in the Alps has acquired so great a 
 reputation among botanists for the richness of its flora, and the number of 
 rare plants it produces, as the Schlern." — Ball's Eastern Alps, p. 484.
 
 CAP RILE TO BOTZEN. 
 
 and the Holy Land ; and died here in the castle of 
 Hauenstein in the year 1445. He was buried in the 
 church of the famous Abbey of Neustift near Brixen, 
 where his tomb may be seen to this day. His love- 
 
 <v& 
 
 THE AIGUILLES OF THE SCHLERN. 
 
 songs, hymns, and historical ballads, are published at 
 Innsbruck, collated from the only three ancient MS. 
 copies extant, one of which belongs to the present 
 Count Wolkenstein, one to the Imperial Library at 
 Vienna, and one to the Ferdinandeum at Innsbruck.
 
 386 UNTRODDEN PEAKS e^ UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 A more rough and primitive place than the little 
 Bath-House of Ratzes it would be difficult to conceive. 
 It lies at the foot of those tremendous aiguilles which 
 we saw just now from the herdsman's chalet ; but we 
 have come down some 1800 feet since then, and now 
 find ourselves at the doors of a building that can only 
 be described as two large wooden chalets united by a 
 covered gallery. The bath-rooms occupy the ground- 
 floor, and the bedrooms the two upper storeys. A tiny 
 chapel ; a small bowling-ground ; one large general 
 Speise-Saal, where eating, smoking and card-playing 
 are going on all day long; and a tumble-down Depend- 
 ance about three hundred yards off for the reception of 
 the humbler class of patients, complete the catalogue of 
 the attractions and resources of Ratzes. What the 
 accommodation in that Dependance may be like it is 
 impossible to conjecture ; for here in the " Establish- 
 ment," a small bedroom measuring ten feet by eight, 
 containing a straw-stuffed bed, a wooden tub, a chair, 
 a table, a looking-glass the size of a small octavo 
 volume, and no scrap of carpet or curtain of any kind, 
 is the best lodging they have to offer. 
 
 The mistress of Ratzes — a lively, clear-headed, 
 business-like widow, with nine children — makes up 
 seventy beds in the Bath-House, and could find occu- 
 pants for seventy more if she had more space. Her 
 customers are for the most part small tradesmen and 
 their families from Botzen, and peasant-farmers from 
 the neighbouring villages. Two springs, one impreg- 
 nated with iron and the other with sulphur, supply these 
 visitors with baths and medicine. There is a priest in
 
 CAPRI LE TO BOTZEN. 3S7 
 
 daily attendince, but no doctor ; and the patients 
 appear to choose their springs at hap-hazard. The 
 baths are of the simplest kind — mere pine-wood boxes 
 coffin-shaped, with wooden lids just reaching to the 
 chin of the occupant, and a wooden shelf inside to 
 support the back of his head. These boxes, ranged 
 side by side in rows of eight or ten, fill a succession of 
 gloomy, low-roofed basement chambers, and look ex- 
 actly like rows of coffins in a series of dismal vaults. 
 This impression is heightened very horribly when the 
 unwary stranger, peeping timidly in, as I did, through 
 a wide open-door, sees a head solemnly peering up from 
 a coffin-lid in a dark corner, and hears a guttural voice 
 saying in sepulchral accents : — " Guten Abend." 
 
 One night at Ratzes is enough, and more than 
 enough, to satisfy the most curious traveller. Of its 
 clatter, its tobacco-smoke, its over-crowded discomfort, 
 its rough accommodation, one has in truth no right to 
 complain. The place, such as it is, suits those by 
 whom it is frequented. We who go there neither for 
 sulphur, nor iron, nor to escape from the overpowering 
 heat of Botzen, are, after all, intruders, and must take 
 things as we find them. 
 
 We leave Ratzes the next morning at half-past nine, 
 having to be down at Atzwang by two p.m. to catch the 
 train for Botzen. The morning is magnificent ; but we 
 are all sad to-day, for it is our last journey with the two 
 Nessols. The path winds at first among fir-forests, 
 rounding the base of the great Aiguilles, and passing a 
 ghastly cleft of ravine down which a huge limb of 
 the Schlern crashed headlong, only twelve years
 
 388 UNTRODDEN PEAKS &' UNFREQUENTED VALLEYS. 
 
 back, strewing the gorge, the pastures, and all the 
 mountain slope with masses of gigantic debris. 
 
 Now, still and always descending, we pass farms, 
 hamlets and churches; pear and cherry orchards; belts 
 of reddening wheat and bearded barley ; and come at 
 last to an opening whence there is a famous view. 
 From here we look over three great vistas of valley — 
 Northward up the Kunters Weg as far as Brixen and 
 the Brenner ; Southward towards Trient and the Val di 
 Non ; North-Westward along the wide path of the 
 upper Etsch in the direction of Meran. At the bottom 
 of a deep trench between tremendous walls of cliff, 
 close down beneath our feet as it seems, flows wide 
 and fast the great tide of the Eisack. The high-road 
 that leads straight to Verona shows like a broad 
 white line on this side of the river ; the railway, a 
 narrow black line burrowing here and there through 
 tiny rabbit-holes of tunnel, runs along the other. A 
 whole upper-world of green hills, pasture alps, villages, 
 churches, corn-lands and pine-forests, lies spread out 
 like a map along the plateaux out of which those three 
 valleys are hewn ; and beyond this upper world rises 
 vet a higher — all mountain-summits, faint and far- 
 distant. 
 
 From this point the path becomes a steep and 
 sudden zigzag. It is all down — down — down. Pre- 
 sently we come upon the first vineyard, and hear the 
 shrill cry of the first cicala. And now the rushing 
 sound of the Eisack comes up through the trees ; and 
 now we are down in the valley — crossing the covered 
 bridge- -dismounting at the station. Here is Atzwang;
 
 CAP RILE TO BOTZEN. 3S9 
 
 here is the raihvay ; here is the hot, dusty, busy, dead- 
 level World of Commonplace again ! 
 
 At Atzwang we part from Clementi and the mules, 
 Giuseppe going on with us to Botzen. Clementi is 
 very loth to say goodbye; and L. " albeit unused to the 
 melting mood," exchanges quite affecting adieux with 
 fair Nessol. As for dark Nessol, callous to the last, he 
 shakes his ears and trots off quite gaily, evidently aware 
 that he has finally got rid of me, and rejoicing in the 
 knowledge. 
 
 And now, arriving at Botzen, we arrive also at the 
 end of our midsummer ramble. For a week we linger 
 on in this quaint old mediaeval town — for a week the 
 pinnacles of the Schlern and the grand facade of the 
 Rosengarten yet look down upon us from the heights 
 beyond the Eisack. As long as we can stroll out every 
 evening to the old bridge down behind the Cathedral, 
 and see the sunset crimsoning those mighty precipices,, 
 we feel that we have not yet parted from them wholly. 
 They are our last Dolomites ; and from that bridge we 
 bid them farewell. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 BRADBLRV, AC.NEW, & CO , PRINTERS, WHITEFRIAKS.
 
 A 000 644 033 3