CHAPTER IX.

THE ADAMELLO AND CARÈ ALTO.

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A TYROLESE PORTER—THE BEDOLE ALP—THE ADAMELLO—VAL MILLER—VAL DI MALGA—VAL DI BORZAGO—THE CARÈ ALTO—A HIGH-LEVEL ROUTE—PASSO DI MANDRON—VAL D'AVIO.

A year after the ascent of the Presanella I again found myself at the head of Val di Genova, one of a formidable party of seven, including two Swiss guides and a Tyrolese porter. Gutmann was something of a character. A native of Berchtesgaden, in the Bavarian Tyrol, he had been picked up there a year before by Mr. Tuckett, and carried on through the northern valleys of the Venetian Alps. He had then proved an amusing and good-tempered companion, and was in consequence engaged a second time to take the place of the chance peasant whom one picks up to carry a knapsack—an individual whose obstinate prejudice against ropes, and glaciers, and snow-work generally, is, or used to be, a source of difficulty in out-of-the-way parts of the Alps.

Gutmann was a well-grown, fine-looking young man of twenty-five, and became well his national costume, which he always wore. In his short coat and knee-breeches, with his half-bare legs and tall green hat and feather, he might have stepped at once on to any operatic stage. From his watch-chain hung a bundle of silver-mounted charms; true hunter's trophies—teeth of chamois and marmot, and claws of the 'lammergeier.' He was a great dandy, and amongst the other unexpected articles which tumbled out of the large blue bag slung across his back was a brush for his whiskers and a shaving-glass. Naturally the effect on his complexion of the first snow-day quite horrified our Adonis. On the next occasion he came down in the morning with his face completely plastered over with a mixture of soot and tallow, when his appearance, if no longer 'a thing of beauty,' became a 'joy for ever' to the guides, whose talent for small jokes found abundant scope for exercise at the porter's expense.

But in the evening and after a good wash in a wayside fountain, Gutmann had his revenge. Then he was to be seen in the Gaststube, the centre of an admiring crowd, fresh and blooming enough to win the heart of the coyest Phillis—a kind of conquest on which I fear he set far greater store than on the victories over snowy maidens won during the day. The tales of his prowess which at such moments he was heard to recount gave us frequent amusement. For though below the snow-line an active walker, above it Gutmann became a changed man. Once on ice, the quips and cranks with which he usually overflowed gave place to the most dismal of groans. He walked daintily, like a cat afraid of wetting its feet, at slippery corners detained us twice as long as anybody else, and when the top was gained habitually lay down at once and fell asleep.

At home our companion was by profession a poacher—a precarious means of livelihood in a district where the mountains are strictly preserved for Bavarian royalty, and the keepers fire on any man seen carrying a gun. A month before he joined us his brother had had a piece of one of his calves shot away, and he had himself been slightly wounded on more than one occasion. During the past winter he had found for a few months a less hazardous employment in cutting wood near one of the Bavarian lakes, but had gone back in spring to the old and irresistible pursuit, from which he was only called away by our summons. He did not, however, return to it—at any rate for long; before the next summer he had emigrated to America, probably with the money gained in our service, a larger sum than he had ever before had at his disposal.

The position of the Bedole Alp as it is seen in descending from the Presanella has been described in the last chapter. Beyond the final bend in Val di Genova lies a level plain enclosed by sheer granite cliffs. I know few spots so completely secluded from the outer world. Dreaming away the afternoon hours on a pine-clad knoll among the outskirts of the Venezia forest, which stretches[46] for a mile to the foot of the great glaciers, a wanderer easily fancies himself in one of the lost valleys of legend where the people live in a bygone age, where pastoral life is a reality, and the nineteenth century a yet undreamt dream.

The herdsmen were hospitably inclined, but the accommodation they had to offer was of the roughest. By means of a ladder we scaled our bedroom, a platform of hay so narrow that the slightest roll would have ended in a tumble on to the heap of pails twelve feet below. The time has scarcely yet come for a small mountain-inn on this spot to be rendered profitable, but it would be a step in the right direction and a great boon to travellers if the Trentine Alpine Club would incite or assist the herdsmen to build a 'spare' châlet and furnish it with beds and cooking materials. Romantic in its situation, the Bedole Alp is also the true centre of the district. From it active travellers might ascend in the day the Adamello, Presanella, or Carè Alto, or cross by glacier passes into Val di Fum or Val Saviore, to Edolo by the Val di Malga, to Ponte di Legno, or to the Val di Sole.

A perfect morning relieved our spirits from the otherwise depressing influence of climbing a rough track in the dark.

The head of Val di Genova is almost too perfect a 'cul de sac' for the mountaineer who wants to get higher. Some way up or by the side of the icefall of the Lobbia Glacier is yet to be found, but is probably possible. The upper regions of the Mandron Glacier, the Adamello, and all the passes to Val Camonica are, except in one place, completely cut off by the continuous cliffs which hem in the valley.

To reach the upper pasturages and the hut of Mandron, sometimes very needlessly used as night-quarters by foreign climbers, it is necessary to turn northwards and hit on a rough track which finds a way up the crags near a slender waterfall. A herdsman with a lantern guided us up the steepest part of the ascent, and was then sent back, leaving us and our Swiss guides to find our own way, a task to which we were all pretty well accustomed.

We now turned again sharply southwards, making for the side of the Mandron Glacier. A considerable extent of ground had to be traversed, rough and boulder-strewn, yet bright with flowers. Amongst them was a profusion of 'Edelweiss,' a plant which may doubtless be found in dangerous positions, but is quite as often plucked where cows might crop it. But ground safe for cows is not always safe for amateur botanists in high-heeled and nailless boots.

We climbed steadily the slopes of snow on the (true) left bank of the ice. From the top of the last we looked over a smooth expanse of gloriously bright snow-field, bounded on the west by a range of peaks, and on the east by a long white crest, terminating in the rock peak of La Lobbia, first ascended by Von Sonklar. The Presanella, on this side massive and less graceful than from the north, closed the backward view. The still frost-bound surface was crisp and crackling under our feet, and we made quick progress, passing the gap on our right through which eight years afterwards I crossed into Val d'Avio. A shapely snow-peak at the head of the glacier was at first sight assumed to be our mountain, but a reference to the map saved us from repeating Payer's mistake, and convinced us that this was the Corno Bianco, and that the Adamello must be further round to the right. Accordingly after reaching the slightly higher plain whence the ice falls also into the upper branches of Val Saviore, we rounded the snow-peak, and ascended slopes in its rear which brought us up to the highest reservoir of all, a snow-basin sloping downwards from the foot of a conical peak, a steeper but scarcely loftier Cima di Jazi, the Adamello itself. On gaining the ridge at its eastern base we looked down precipices on to the head of Val d'Avio and its lake. The side of the peak above us was steep, but thanks to some rocks and the splendid condition of the snow it took but twenty minutes to gain the summit, a snow-crest some fifty yards long rising at either extremity, the north-eastern point being the highest.

From its position as an outlier of the great chain, we had expected much from the Adamello, and now we were not disappointed. The morning had held good to its promise and brought forth one of those golden midsummer days which, as some think, are best spent on the tops of mountains.

Far away in the east we could trace the line of our wanderings from their very commencement. There were the dolomite peaks of Primiero, a little further the Marmolata, Pelmo, and the pyramidal Antelao; then the eye had only to leap the broad gap of the Pusterthal to run over the Tauern from the Ankogel (above Gastein) to the Brenner. The Glockner was as well defined as from Heiligen Blut, only that its snows were tinted an exquisite rose colour, as if they had made prisoner of a sunset. The Orteler and Bernina, from which we were nearly equidistant, made a fine show of snow and ice; still closer at hand we surveyed the great snow-fields of our own group, overlooked by our two rivals, the Presanella and Carè Alto. To the south lay a labyrinth of granite peaks and ridges, separating the many glens which ran up from Val Camonica. This great valley was visible for miles, and the eye rested with pleasure on its fields of Indian corn and chestnut woods, until led on by the white thread of road to the blue waters of Lago d'Iseo basking amidst bright green hills. When tired of this prospect we could take a bird's-eye view of the Val Tellina, a long deep trench of cultivation, heat, and fertility, closed at its lower end by the mountains round the head of Lago di Como. These were crowned by a coronet of snowy peaks, which, so clear was the air, almost seemed part of them, but were in reality the Pennine giants encircling Zermatt. Most notable of all was the splendid pyramid of the Matterhorn, seen in its sharpest aspect, towering immediately over the Weissthor. In another direction far away across the shoulders of lower hills the wide waters of Lago di Garda glowed like burnished metal beneath the cloudless sunshine, while further still the mounds of Solferino were faintly seen through a haze of heat.

The view was perhaps the most beautiful, though not the most extensive,[47] I have seen from a snowy Alp, and the pleasure of it even in memory must be my excuse for having to some extent recalled its details.

But it is impossible to infuse into a catalogue of names any trace of the colouring of the original. I can only hope to induce some reader sceptical of the beauties of the snow-world to climb one of these Italian Alps for himself. But he must remember that it is not, as some critics of the Alpine Club seem to think, enough to have scaled a peak once or twice under unfavourable conditions in order to be capable and entitled to express an authoritative opinion on the scenery of the upper Alps. Time as well as place is required. One of those days, not rare in a southern summer, must be chosen, when the mountains are at rest from their task of moisture condensers, and stand basking in the sunshine and well-earned idleness.

At such moments the climber's toil is richly paid. Over his head stretches the pure vault of the sky, below lies a vast expanse of earth; the mountain-top seems poised between the two, a point in the centre of a hollow globe. From the refulgent snows of the neighbouring peak, glittering with such excess of light as to be scarcely endurable, the eye turns for relief to gaze up into the intense colour of the zenith, or wanders over miles of green and countless changes of blue distances to the saffron of the extreme chain which forms the link between earth and heaven.

Surely no one who has enjoyed such a view would deny the beauty of the forms and colours gathered round him. To represent to others the glory of the mountain-tops requires, it is true, either a poet or one of the greatest and rarest landscape painters. But even if these fail, if the scenery of the highest Alps proves altogether unpaintable and indescribable, it may yet be in the highest sense beautiful. The skill of the interpreter cannot be accepted as the measure of that which is to be interpreted, nor can the noble and delightful in nature be made subject to the limitations of art.

But the vision of those hours[48] on a great peak stretches beyond what is actually before the eyes. At such moments even the dullest soul shares with inarticulate emotion the feelings which poets have put into words for all ages. Our pulses beat in tune with the great pulse of Life which is breathing round us. We lose ourselves and become part of the vast order into the visible presence of which we seem for a brief space to have been translated. On a lesser height, whence some town is seen like a great ant-heap with the black insects hurrying backwards and forwards across its lanes, the insignificance of the human race is often painfully prominent. But here, removed by leagues of snow and ice and a mile or two of sheer height from the rest of our race, no such thought oppresses us. Man is merged in nature, cities have become specks, provinces are spread out like fields, the eye ranges across a kingdom. Through the stillness which fills the upper air the ear seems to catch from time to time some faint echo of

On its lofty standpoint the mind feels in harmony with the soul of the universe, and almost fancies itself to gain a glimpse of its workings.

Seen from the valley the sublimity of the mountain precipice may be due to a sentiment at root akin to terror. Grandeur is there shown in its most overpowering—a Frenchman might say brutal—form by some giant peak towering defiantly skywards, 'remote, serene, and inaccessible,' a chill colossus alien to human life. But on the peak we are conquerors; its terrors are left below and behind us. In our new scale of vision the Titans gathered in silent session round us are brothers. The masses which appeared from below 'confusedly hurled' have become ordered. The valleys unfold their labyrinths. The rivers, cleansed from all stain of early turbulence in the calm of heaven-reflecting lakes, are seen to set forth, at first gently directed and compelled by the lower hills, for the great plain where each has its own mission of life and bounty to fulfil. We are no longer, like the old-world theologian, frightened into thinking our mountain a monument of man's wickedness and God's anger, or like the modern philosopher, oppressed by the bulk of the giant; we know him in his true character as a

The sense of the sublime excited in us is due not to mere 'extension of space,' but to admiration of the excellence revealed by our larger range of vision. The barren ice-field is seen to water a thousand meadows, the destructive torrent to fertilise a whole province. The evil of the world seems for once contained within the good.

Had Mr. Mill lived a generation later, and wandered upon Tyrolean snows as well as amongst the meadows at their feet,[49] he would probably have hesitated to state so broadly that 'what makes the greater natural phenomena so impressive is simply their vastness,' and that no 'admiration for excellence' enters into the feeling they inspire.

So far (except that we had not crossed over the top of the Corno Bianco) we had followed in the footsteps of Lieut. Payer, who had first conquered the Adamello in the previous year. Henceforth our course lay over unknown ground. The descent from the Adamello snow-fields into Val Camonica had never been attempted, and, from the configuration of the range, was likely to be a matter of difficulty. We had, however, a large space to search over and a choice of several glens to descend into, any one of which would bring us, with more or less circuit, to the great valley. We naturally determined to try first the nearest gap, looking down into the Val Miller and leading directly to Edolo; if that failed we were prepared to go further and force a passage down one of the glaciers falling towards Val Saviore.

Having returned in our old footsteps to the base of the peak, we traversed the snow out of which it rises to its further or south-western foot. On the rock-face overhead I noticed several small ranunculuses in flower at an elevation of 11,500 feet above the sea. A projecting crag on the right of the gap which we had selected as our first point of attack enabled us to reconnoitre what lay below us. We were in a position very much resembling that of the traveller from Zermatt, when he has reached the summit of the Weissthor and gazes down at Macugnaga, except that in our case the valley was not more than 3,500 feet below us. On the other hand, we were on unknown ground and had to trust entirely to our own judgment. That of the guides was prompt and favourable. A nasty tongue of glacier curled over the ridge, but soon broke short from the steepness of the cliff; so long as we gave a wide berth to the stones discharged by this ill-conditioned neighbour they foresaw no impossibilities or dangers ahead. The rocks proved worthy of our estimate. Although steep—quite as steep as those leading up to the Schreckhorn Sattel—they were thoroughly safe, and gave firm foothold on broad shelves and rough ridges. We went on without check, until within a hundred feet of their base we found ourselves apparently cut off from the snow-field below by a smooth cliff. We underwent a few minutes' grim suspense while Michel and François searched right and left for some ledge or crack. But soon the welcome shout of 'es geht' rose to our ears, and we found our escape. Swift glissades followed, and we shot quickly down the slopes of the little glacier which nestles beneath the crags. Nothing now remained but to scramble over the huge boulders to the stream below us and follow its waters until we struck a path. The Val Miller is a wild upland glen, hemmed in by cliffs, above which are seen the twin snow-crests of the Adamello. In an hour from the glacier we reached the only châlets in the upper valley, known as the Casetta di Miller.[50] The rock on which the hut was founded was highly 'moutonnée,' or polished by glacier action, as our scientific companion did not fail to point out. A few moments later he impressed the fact still more forcibly on our memories. A large bowl brimming with delicious milk had been brought out for our refreshment. Either in the excitement of draining it the drinker overbalanced himself, or a perverse barometer chose that moment to swing between his legs. Anyhow,

The consequences of the fall were serious: a thick coating of cream, quicksilver and châlet dirt, a bruised knee and—worst of all in the sufferer's mind—several broken instruments.

Opposite the huts we crossed to the left bank of the stream, and followed a cow-path which soon brought us to the verge of the long, abrupt descent separating Val Miller from its continuation the Val di Malga. The path corkscrewed through a gully in quaint little zigzags, built up toilsomely with stones, steep as an attic staircase and odious enough to wind down under a hot afternoon sun. The cows whom we had seen above can scarcely look upon the day of their move for the summer months with the same pleasure which their sisters throughout the Alps are said to exhibit. An English farmer would as soon think of driving his herd to the top of the Monument as up such a place.

We were now again amongst trees, which clothed either bank and added to the beauty of the scenery. The descent was continuous, until a cluster of houses was reached, prettily placed among meadows, in which all the inhabitants were at work, profiting by the fine weather to gather in their hay-harvest. The only creatures left at home were families of white rabbits, which seem to live here on the footing of domestic pets. The elders sat lazily sunning themselves, while the young ones played high jinks without showing the least fear at our presence. The track now became passable for carts, and fearfully stony. From this point to the high-road we met a specimen of every kind of pavement invented for human torture in Italian valleys. First there was the 'pavé au naturel,' formed of native rock and those wandering stones which seem to grow out of the ground everywhere; next came a steep pitch of the 'pavé aux Alpes,' in which the stones are fixed side by side in wild disorder; then, worse than all, a long spell of round pebbles, such as are found at a third-rate watering-place which cannot afford even one flag down the middle of the footpath. Even the natives seemed to revolt against this precious medley, and frequent short-cuts and side-tracks showed how they avoided the work of their own hands. Presently the road swerved round the hillside to the right, and a lovely reach of Val Camonica opened before our eyes. Immediately in front, surrounded by a wood of chestnuts, was Sonico, and in the distance, built up a slope above the junction of Val Corteno with Val Camonica, rose the towers of Edolo, about one hour's walk distant.

The great shining tableland, lifted above all the lofty Lombard ridges, had fascinated my imagination. When another opportunity offered, I laid my plans so as to combine an ascent of its second summit, the Carè Alto, with a passage across its greatest breadth. At first sight on the map this might seem a bold, even an impossible, attempt, for it involved the crossing of no less than five lofty ridges, varying between 9,800 and 10,000 feet in height. But a study of the levels showed that owing to the uniform upheaval of the mass there would be no descent of more than 200 or 300 feet in the ten miles between the first and last. Still we thought it well to sleep in the highest châlet on this side the snows.

On a glorious August afternoon we drove down the high-road from Pinzolo to Borzago, whence a mountain-path leads into the glen to which the village has given its name.

At the top of the first ascent a very happily-balanced view opens. The valley slopes are feathered with light foliage. High above them shine the white folds of glacier, while the Carè Alto, half rock half a glittering ice-comb, is the centre of the landscape. Deeper in the glen, beyond the pine trees and the hay barns, great birches hang over the path which splits into branches in the forest. Here we lost ourselves, and plunged for several minutes amidst broken rocks and dense underwood, tearing our hands and clothes, but filling our mouths with delicious raspberries. On a slope below the cliffs which close the valley stand two summer cottages where we had hoped to sleep. An old woman and her son were cooking their polenta, but no herds were in sight. The old woman seemed only anxious to be rid of the unexpected invaders—she had no milk, no hay to sleep on, absolutely 'niente.' The herd was higher on the mountain, but it was too late for us to reach them—we had better go back. An hour's daylight remained, and we bribed, not without difficulty, the boy to leave his porridge and lead us at once to the herds. We followed him at a swinging cowboy pace up steep hillsides, over rocks, and between waterfalls. But darkness fell and still no friendly tinkle reached our ears. Hurrying on over broken but more level ground, we saw at last something whiter than Adamello granite at our feet. We were among a flock of Bergamasque sheep. A minute later we plunged into unseen filth, and were brought up short before an enormous boulder. The boy's cheerful statement of 'Ecco la malga' was at first simply incredible. A rock, experience affirmed, could not be a 'malga.' But the boy was right. His shrill shout was sleepily answered from the bowels of the earth, and from a hole under the boulder human forms were dimly seen to issue. For the next few minutes a shower of patois filled the air, amidst which we penetrated a low door and found ourselves in a cave constructed by building a wall of stones against the lower side of the boulder where it overhung. A dying fire threw a feeble light over a crowd of pails and cheeses which filled every foot of available space. One of us sat down on a cheese, another found a cover which converted a milk-pail into a seat. The low slanting roof rendered the least movement difficult and perilous. In the furthest corner where the rock left no space except for a prostrate figure was a bed of hay and skins, fully filled by three shepherds and a girl.

The smallness of the accommodation was made more conspicuous by the disproportion between it and the voices which issued from the shepherds as they moved about to help us in our arrangements. Within a few inches of our ears they bellowed every remark in a Homeric roar, which might without exaggeration have been heard half a mile off. Long habit in shouting to their flocks on a distant hillside, or carrying on conversations across a valley, had so taken hold of them that they seemed quite incapable of reducing their voices to the ordinary pitch of regions where population is less thinly scattered.

Our night did not promise to be luxurious. After a frugal supper on bread and chocolate, we made our bed as well as we could. The shelter being far above the forest, logs were not easily procurable, and the shepherds had consequently collected as fuel a heap of slender brushwood. Having piled away some of the pails and cheeses we spread the green branches out on the floor as a mattress. A macintosh served for a sheet, and our entertainers supplied a rug for our feet. The couch was at least not painfully uncomfortable; and though each of us felt sure in the morning that he had not slept, no one had found the night interminable except poor François, who insisted on sitting and smoking over the fire, and was consequently only half awake all the next day.

At daybreak we issued into the open air. We found ourselves in the wild hollow at the eastern base of the Carè Alto, separated from the great Borzago Glacier by a rocky spur. Mounting first towards and then along this ridge, we quickly approached the mountain. Had we remained on the rocks, and then boldly struck up the eastern face, we should, I believe, quickly have settled with our peak. But François did not favour this plan; moreover, our further intentions gave a motive for carrying our baggage to the side of the peak to which it would be most convenient to descend.

We consequently slid down several hundred feet on to the great glacier, and made a flank march towards the much higher northern base of the Carè Alto. This operation caused some delay. The snow, where it curled over from the highest plain, broke into huge chasms. There was, it was true, always an easy way round each of them; but the ways round seldom coincided, and for some time our ascent was conducted in a very crab-like fashion.

Above these obstacles an easy slope led to the mountain, on this side a cocked-hat of ice sharply cut off from the snow-fields by a continuous moat, bridged only at one spot near the southern corner of the peak. Tracks across the snow-arch showed that feet guided by true mountaineering instinct had lately crossed. On approach they turned out to be a broad chamois-trail. The herd which had made them we saw later in the day.

A little step-cutting enabled us to follow our four-footed guides and reach the rocky ridge. As we gained it, our eyes, accustomed for the last hour or two to the white glare of sun-facing snows, suddenly fell on a wide basin of pure green, seemingly at our feet. We were looking on the pasturages of Val di Fum. Some such glimpse, aided by a few clouds to confuse topography, may well have given rise to the legend of the Lost Valley of Monte Rosa, or the Rose Garden of King Laurin.

The last scramble was easy except in one place, where the rocks failed to give foothold for a few yards, and steps had to be cut between them and the ice. An accident might easily happen here with careless guides; but, as one steady man can ensure the safety of a party, the spot can hardly be called dangerous.

The mountain culminates in a double peak; the furthest point is a broken tooth of bare granite. The gap between this and the snow-crest is narrow and not deep, and a convenient crack supplies a way to the highest crag. On it we found traces of a stoneman built probably by Messrs. S. Taylor and Montgomery who made the first ascent in 1865.

This peak, if less favourably placed than the Adamello, commands a noble view. In the east deep forested glens, fertile valleys and green ridges crowned by ruddy crags contrast with the eternal snow-fields which stretch away for miles towards the west. From the Carè Alto, as from an outpost, the genius of winter may look down on the country he has lost since the great ice-epoch, on the trenches through which his rivers flowed, on the hills they rounded, and see even, far off in the haze, the mounds which he erected as monuments of his widest power, the huge terminal moraines of Somma and Solferino. Behind him lies his last refuge, the great granite castle from whose summit his forces cannot be dislodged even by the summer sun of Lombardy.

Across this fastness we intended to make our way. For the next six hours we steadily pursued a westward course over the snow-fields. Now we wandered at the foot of Monte Folletto[51] amongst snow-caves huge enough to puzzle for a moment even the herd of chamois whose gambols we had interrupted. Then we passed through a narrow gap, the Passo di Cavento, on each side of which the grey and red pinnacles shot up in a fantastic fence, while at their base a great ditch waited the unwary mountaineer. Beyond it we found another snow-reservoir, almost as flat as a cricket-field, feeding the ice-streams of Val di Fum and the Lobbia Glacier. A broad gap, the Passo della Lobbia Alta, let us through to another basin, that of the Mandron Glacier, where we crossed the track to the Adamello. At its further extremity—it is about three miles broad—we saw before us the fifth ridge, the last which divided us from Val d'Avio.[52]

As we approached the pass a family group of three chamois were seen moving before us on the snow. Presently a gun was fired from among the rocks of the Corni del Confine, and a solitary hunter sprang forward. The shot had missed, and the chamois, whom we had been unconsciously driving, raced past us. One of them was quite young, and it was touching to see how the two parents not only would move no faster than the pace of their child, but placed themselves on either side of it, as if purposely sheltering it from danger. My condolences with the sportsman were not very heartfelt.

A steep gully, an easy glacier, a pathless hillside, helped us quickly down to the first châlet in Val d'Avio. A few yards beyond it the valley is broken by a lofty cliff. At the foot of a steep zigzag beside the thundering waters we entered one of the level platforms common in this group. Its smooth expanse of meadow was alive with cows and goats, now collected for the night round the herdsmen's huts. Two torrents—one the grey child of the glaciers, the other clear and spring-born—rushed down upon us in splendid cascades. In the background the Adamello raised its icy horn.

Immediately below the alp lies a large lake. The scene somewhat resembles the Lac de Gaube, but the features of the landscape are more savage, bolder, and on a larger scale. The lake itself, however, is unfortunately of the ordinary murky-grey colour of Swiss glacier water.

Beyond the platform of the lake the glen falls with extraordinary rapidity, and a very stony path, mainly on the left bank, leads down past a succession of waterfalls, any one of which in another country might become famous.

The lower level of the valley is devastated by the torrent. For Ponte di Legno it is best to cross its stony bed and follow a cart-track joining the Tonale road a little below Pontagna. When we entered the high-road night overtook us, and we walked the three uphill kilomètres to Ponte di Legno at our fastest pace, killing distance and fatigue with the present pleasure of rapid motion.

CHAPTER X.

PINZOLO AND CAMPIGLIO.

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PINZOLO—THE CHURCHES OF VAL RENDENA—HISTORY AND LEGENDS—VAL NAMBINO—THE BRENTA GROUP—LA MADONNA DI CAMPIGLIO—HOSPICE AND PENSION.

Pinzolo is conspicuous amongst the villages which cluster round the head of Val Rendena by its tall campanile of Adamello granite, a pretty feature of the landscape, but, as I shall afterwards show, an evil sign of the times. Its houses, gathered along two stone-paved streets and round a little open space—the piazza—stand close against the eastern hillside at the point where the mountain-ranges, bending towards one another and almost joining, enclose in their semicircular folds the lower valley. Great torrents rush out of two clefts in the hills, the openings of Val Nambino and Val di Genova, and but for human industry would devastate the low ground on their banks. But they are held fast in fetters of their own contriving. The huge granite boulders, which in former floods they have borne down from the heart of the Presanella or the Adamello, have been turned to account for the building of massive dykes through which so much water only is allowed to pass as will suffice to irrigate the plain and turn its alluvial soil into the richest of water-meadows.

The beauty of the situation does not, like that of Grindelwald or Chamonix, depend on mountain sublimity. On one side some shreds of snow and granite belonging to the Presanella come into view. On the other the southern crest of the Brenta group lies couched like a huge gold-red Egyptian sphinx on the green back of a lower hill. But these are mere glimpses of the upper world, valuable and suggestive glimpses it is true, but not sufficient to decide the character of the whole landscape. The hills which encircle the head of Val Rendena rise in steep but nowhere perpendicular banks, swathed in chestnut woods about their base, lying open higher up in sloping meadows fringed with mountain ash, birch and pine. The valley floor, a smooth, brilliantly green carpet, gives an impression of wealth and softness rendered more welcome by the knowledge of the rugged grandeur so close at hand.

It would be hard to find a more delightful spot in which to idle away a sunny day than the hillside immediately behind Pinzolo. It is only needful to climb a few hundred yards among the chestnut-boles to find platforms covered with a soft carpet of moss, ferns and delicate southern flowers. Here under the shade of dancing leaves, fanned by soft breezes and lulled by the cool tinkle of falling water and the murmur of innumerable living things which fills an Italian noon, the restless traveller may for once enjoy unmixed with other thoughts the sympathetic delight of coexistence with a world seemingly for the moment wholly given up to enjoyment.

In another mood he may climb higher and higher through the forest, gaining at each step new glimpses of the bright fields and villages of Val Rendena, and watching the icy horns of the Adamello group as they shoot out one by one against the sky. Then entering a hidden upland glen he will reach a gap where, in the opposite direction, the dolomite towers soar stark and red over the green slopes. Hence he may descend into Val Agola, and so to Campiglio, or, turning to the right, wander along shady forest paths to the ridge of the Pra Fiori. But left of the depression, and cut off by it from the other hills, rises a grassy down which must give one of the most perfect views of the surrounding ranges, raking as it does Val di Genova, Val Rendena, and Val Nambino. There is a châlet within five minutes of the meadow-top, but any lady who likes the walk may, so far as I know, boast herself afterwards of having made 'the first ascent by travellers' of the Dos di Sabione.

If the rain-clouds hang low on the hills and the woods are too wet for loitering in, the old churches of the valley may give employment. The mother-chapel near the mouth of Val di Borzago has been already referred to. The large modern church in the village, with its campanile built at the cost of the noble forests of Val di Genova, has no particular interest.[53] But five hundred yards north of Pinzolo stands San Vigilio, a plain building consisting of a nave and small chancel, with a belfry, probably of older date, at the western end. The southern face is decorated with a frescoed Dance of Death, dated 1539, a work of some spirit, and retaining traces of rich colouring. We may stroll further across the valley to the romantically situated chapel of San Stefano perched high among the woods on a granite bluff above the mouth of Val di Genova. The outside is covered with representations of the life of the saint, and another Triumph of Death, dated 1519; within is a very curious fresco of Charlemagne—I beg Mr. Freeman's pardon, the great Karl—engaged, in company with a Pope, in baptising the heathen. Close by, a long and most interesting inscription tells the history of the campaign, in the course of which the great emperor penetrated this remote region. The following is a very curtailed summary of the events there recorded.[54]

Lupus, Lord of Bergamo, was a pagan, and Charles strove with him to convert him. But Lupus took a certain Sandro and many others and cut off their heads; whereupon there appeared six burning torches, no one holding them; and by God's grace the bells rang without earthly aid. Seeing this miracle, Lupus with all his people was converted to the Catholic faith, and joined Charles. The host, numbering 4,000 spears, marched up Val Camonica, slaying heretics, such as Lord Hercules and King Comerus, destroying castles, and building churches. Then they crossed a mountain where there was a great fight between the Christians and pagans, at a place since known as 'Mortarolus.'

From the 'Mons Toni' (the Tonale) the army descended to Plezau (Pelizzano), where it made a great slaughter of the heathen, and so reached Val Rendena by the route of the Ginevrie Pass. 'And they came to the church of San Stefano and baptised a very great people. And the said Charles made an end of converting all the Jews and pagans at the church of San Stefano, and there he left a book in which were contained all the things he had done throughout the world.'

The chroniclers tell us little of all these matters.[55] The Alpine Passes of the Middle Ages is a chapter of history which, so far as I know, has not yet been satisfactorily written. Much material for it doubtless exists, although not in a form very easy of collection. It would be a work full of interest to trace how in succeeding centuries first one then another route rose into importance; and the present moment, when the Alps are for all practical and commercial purposes on the brink of annihilation, when mountain roads are about to yield to burrows, seems peculiarly well suited for a review of the whole subject.

Higher in the hills between Val di Genova and Val di Borzago, beside a little lake, lies the chapel of San Giuliano, a tempting object for an excursion, including a visit to the latter valley, and perhaps an ascent of the Corno Alto, one of the high points seen from Val Nambino against the Lares snows. The saint, according to local legend, seems to have been a somewhat testy old hermit. Having been refused milk by some shepherds, he at once turned them and their flocks into boulders, which may still be seen. I suspect San Giuliano was no saint at all, but some mountain spirit known to earlier times, who reappeared under this new disguise with the malicious intention of discrediting the new religion.

I can only indicate briefly the varied attractions of Pinzolo and its immediate neighbourhood, leaving to each visitor the pleasure of fresh discovery. But on looking back I find that I have left out what ought to have been the most prominent object in my picture. Most English travellers are disposed to agree with Dr. Johnson that the most beautiful landscape in the world would be improved by a good inn in the foreground. It is too late to put Signor Bonapace's in this position, but I will do my best to repair the slight by describing it at once, and with some minuteness.

The house remains up to the present time a good specimen of the country inn of Southern Tyrol. It is kept by well-to-do people, who drive an excellent trade with their own country-folk, and until the last year or two looked with some astonishment on the few pleasure-travellers whom each summer brought them. An arched doorway opens out of the paved street into a sort of barn, whence a steep stone staircase leads up into a dark, low-roofed hall or lobby, crowded with benches and tables. Out of it open two still gloomier inner chambers. In one a faint glimmer of bright copper, a sound of hissing, and a bustling of Marthas, reveal the kitchen; in the other, at the foot of an enormous family bed, leaning over a table, sits the master of the house, one eye intent on accounts, the other keeping a quiet watch over what goes on around. At his order a handmaiden will leave her labours in the kitchen and conduct you up another steep flight of stairs, and into a large dormitory containing five beds, three tables, and two washing-basins, which used to be considered to fulfil every possible requirement for night accommodation. Now, however, several smaller apartments have been furnished for guests, and a cheerful room in the next house, over the grocer's shop, is also put at the service of English prejudice. Meals cooked in the fashion of the country, but very plentiful, are served in a little room with a bed in the corner, which opens out of the lobby.

Both are generally filled of an evening with a crowd of customers of the peasant-farmer class, perfectly well conducted, but too talkative and fond of smoking to be altogether agreeable companions. Yet dark and dingy and crowded though it is, there is romance about this typical Italian mountain inn. Its discomforts are soon forgotten, and it lives in our memories by many cheerful sights and sounds: the splash of the fountain at the corner under the walnut-tree, where the women in their bright-coloured handkerchiefs wash their linen, and call out cheerily to the barefooted little Pietros and Marias playing in the sunshine; the sudden bustle and tinkle of the goats returning from the mountain as they troop off in little companies to their separate homes; the noise of the bowls and the laughter of the players, kept up till there is no longer light to pursue the game: last of all, as if in solemn contrast to the exuberant life of the day, the melancholy voice of the watchman ringing out through the silent night.

The larger of the two streams which meet at Pinzolo issues from Val di Genova; the second flows out of a gap in the hills continuing the line of depression of Val Rendena. Scarcely two miles higher, beyond the neighbouring village of Caresolo, this torrent again divides. On the left Val Nambrone leads up towards the flanks of the Presanella. A steep ascent is necessary to gain the highest stretch of Val Nambino, a wide, sunny vale, studded with cottages and surrounded by green slopes and forests.

The old cart-track, lately converted into a good carriage-road, skirts continuously the western hillside, leaving the stream far below in a narrow bed. Behind us the snows of the Carè Alto and its neighbours gradually rise into sight above a lower ridge graced with singularly symmetrical summits.

But our attention is soon riveted on the new mountain range which rises beyond the valley. High amongst the clouds soar its red towers and pinnacles; the bold ridges which support them sweep down upon us in majestic curves. Three glens, green with beech copses, push up boldly into the heart of the mountain. The one opposite is Val di Brenta, rising towards its Bocca, the gap on the north of the most stupendous castle; the furthest, the Vallesinella, leads by another strange gateway to Molveno, the nearest is Val Agola, also with passes for mountaineers or paths for ramblers.

We have already seen from a distance, or skirted the sides of, the Brenta group. From the crests of the Adamello chain or from the depths of Val di Genova a mysterious range utterly unlike anything in the central Alps[56] has been frequently before our eyes. At Pinzolo, or on the Pra Fiori, we have had glimpses of strange red peaks. But we seem now to have come for the first time into their immediate presence.

The spectator standing on the western slopes of Val Nambino sees high above everything else against the eastern sky two huge square fortresses built up of horizontal courses of masonry. The ground-colour of their walls is a yellowish grey, streaked with red and black, and broken here and there by lines of shining white, where a steep glacier-stair scales the precipice. The massiveness of these blocks adds by contrast to the effect of the surrounding pinnacles. Before the traveller's eyes rise towers, horns, cupolas, columns, spires, crowded together in endless variety. Here he fancies must be the workshop of Nature, and these are her store of models. Or he is reminded of some architectural drawing, a collection of the great buildings of the world, or the spires of Sir Christopher Wren.

These peaks are the advance-guard of the Tyrolese dolomites, boldly thrown across the valley of the Adige, as if to challenge on their own ground the snowy ranks of the Orteler and Adamello. They are separated from the granite by no wide depression such as divides the Venetian Alps and the Tauern, but only by a single valley. The boulder which rolls from the flanks of the Presanella will scarcely halt before it rests on dolomitic soil.

The Eastern Alps could scarcely have put forward a nobler champion than the range before us. Primiero and Auronzo may perhaps equal the marvellous skyline; but they offer nothing to rival the symmetry of the whole mass of the Brenta as it rises above Val Nambino. Consider the lower stories of the huge edifice. The slope is not monotonous in uniformity, yet the platforms which break it are too narrow to diminish by foreshortening the apparent height of the summits. From our feet rise powerful spurs, below dark with pines, above bare and white; their form is simple and severe, but every shifting light brings out fresh details in the fretwork which time has carved deeply into their sides. Like the flying buttresses of some vast cathedral they lead the eye up to the straight perpendicular lines of the crowning towers.

When we come to study the range more generally, what incomparable variety of beauty! On the west lies a green, open Alpine valley. The Lago di Molveno reflects in its blue mirror the eastern crags. The southern slopes are a rich tangle of vines and chestnuts; the beeches push up and dispute with the pines the inner glens; the cyclamens and gentians gird with successive belts of brightness the mountain form.

The traveller, when he penetrates this fantastic chain, finds himself at first in narrow glens watered by clear streams, now smooth-flowing over lawns of the softest turf, now dancing through beechwoods, now plunging deep into some miniature ravine hung with mosses and bright-berried ashes. He forgets, in the charm of what is near at hand, what he came to see. Then suddenly through the tree-tops an incredible yellow flame, set for ever between the green and blue, recalls the presence of the dolomites, and urges him to further exertion. He climbs a steep barrier, and the pinnacles range themselves as portions of a vast amphitheatre of rock. He advances a few hundred yards further along the level and the scene is changed. One solitary tower overclimbs the clouds and mixes with the sky. A second ascent brings another shift. Rocks, grey, gold, red, brown and black, cluster round his bewildered eyes, and he begins to doubt whether the scene is a solid reality or some Alastor-inspired Vision of Solitude.

Then, after wandering all the morning between red rocks and over two or three hours of ice, he may find himself in the evening amongst figs, olives and lemon-groves. For the Brenta group is planted not in the midst of a mountain maze, but on the edge of the deepest cleft in the Alps. From the white crown of the highest peak to Alle Sarche is a descent of 10,500 feet.

It is a disappointment to find that, for the moment, we must turn our backs on all this beauty, and that our resting-place lies out of sight of it, a mile further on.

The builders of the hospice of 'La Madonna di Campiglio' were more anxious for safety in winter than for a fair prospect in summer. They naturally preferred a meadow secure from avalanches, yet sufficiently protected from the north by low banks, to the steeper and more broken hillsides of the lower Val Nambino. After turning a corner beyond which the wooded spurs of Monte Spinale cut off the view of the Brenta chain, the road crosses the stream and enters a broad, smooth hay-field, surrounded by slopes the summits of which lie too far back to give dignity to the landscape. In the centre of this plain, far away from any village, stands the hospice and pilgrimage church of Campiglio.

The existence of so large a building on a route now so little frequented must strike everyone as curious and unexpected. But in fact these remote valleys were once the highways of traffic. Not only, as has been shown in an earlier chapter, did emperors lead their hosts through the recesses of the Lombard Alps, but the merchandise of Venice also sought these roundabout paths.

In olden times the gorge of the Adige was narrow and perilous for an invader, crowded with feudal castles, each claiming its toll from commerce. Princes and merchants seem to have frequently turned westwards from Botzen across the Tonale, or southwards through Pinzolo and Val Buona to Brescia. Then Campiglio was built, it is said by the Templars, to lodge the frequent passers-by and break the long stage between the inhabited valleys.

Similar hospices are found elsewhere in the Eastern Alps: at San Martino, Paneveggio, and Auf der Plecken. But Campiglio is the largest establishment of its kind. The buildings are ranged in the form of a quadrangle, of which the hospice occupies three sides. Long galleries lead from wing to wing and give access to the rooms, which all face outwards and are cheerful and well lighted. The church, at the building of which, according to local legend, angels assisted, occupies part of the fourth side of the quadrangle. It contains a fresco, not without merit, of the early part of the sixteenth century.

After some centuries traffic turned into other channels, and the monks who had hitherto fulfilled the duties of hospitality departed, leaving their place scantily filled by a peasant farmer, who kept one or two rooms ready for strangers. On my first visit the old hospice was in this phase of its existence. The fare was rough but good, and the milk, cream, and butter delicious. The cows indeed seemed the mistresses of the place, and all the other living creatures their attendants. For their accommodation a new and spacious stable had been lately raised. The front was decorated with carving; the interior formed a sort of hall of columns, each column an unsmoothed fir-trunk. Down the centre ran a spacious passage, on either side of which thirty-five cows were ranged before their mangers.

Lately, however, the herd has been disturbed in its sole possession, and Campiglio has started on a new path to fame. The farmer who owns all the surrounding alps and woods, and whose wealth is locally looked on as boundless, conceived an idea. Why should not the big house be made use of? Rabbi, across the Val di Sole, was crowded with the fashion of the Trentino. Campiglio also should become a 'Stabilimento Alpino,' a 'Kurort' for Brescia and Botzen. He secured a coadjutor in the owner of a large inn at Arco, a young man with international views and desirous for more than a local success. In a Florence newspaper, addressed to tourists of all nations, appeared, in the spring of 1874, a large announcement of the opening of a 'magnifico stabilimento,' with polyglot attendance, a resident physician, and the usual advantages.

Last year I explored this new magnificence. Externally it displayed itself in some additions and wooden galleries over the courtyard. Indoors many of the rooms had been prepared for occupation and a large bare salle-à-manger added. There was also a comfortable general sitting-room.

The splendour was still growing, for, as new guests arrived, a carpenter employed downstairs ran up fresh furniture for their use, some of the hundred bedrooms of the advertisement being still in a state of more than conventual simplicity. The 'service bon et exact' was represented by three Italian youths, pale, untidy and swift-footed, who fled with the greatest alacrity from any guest whose face gave tokens of an approaching want. Their goodwill, however, was on the whole so much in excess of their capacities that it was impossible to treat them seriously.[57] For instance, the head waiter, having been charged by an Englishman to wake him and get ready an early breakfast, was found in the morning fast asleep in a chair in which he had sat up all night with a fond intention of carrying out his instructions. It must in fairness be added that, if an early start was not better understood and provided for, it was chiefly the fault of the guests. With a few notable exceptions they were the least active and enterprising company I ever set eyes on. With exquisite scenes on every side of them within a short half-hour's distance, they were content to spend their days in the sleepy hollow, or, if they took a walk at all, strolled along the new road for three hundred yards, that is, nearly halfway to the corner of revelation where the great view bursts so splendidly into sight. Guide-books not having yet catalogued 'excursions from Campiglio,' it never seemed to enter their minds that there could be any; and they were content to loiter away their time among the glories of nature, having eyes and seeing nothing. If you asked your neighbour at the dinner-table which of the glens of the dolomites he had rambled into? he did not know there were any; if he had seen the Lares snow-fields flush at sunrise or swim in sunset haze? if he had stood on any crest or 'tower of observance' high enough to overlook the Trentino to where the peaks of Primiero and Cadore raise their ramparts against a golden sky?—he could only reply with a stare of dull incredulity.

But, once hardened to the contemplation of such misery in one's fellow-creatures, the state of the pension was not without its advantages. The gregarious British tourist was happily conspicuous by his absence; Germans were rare, and the few who passed did not care to linger where they were not allowed to smoke with their guides in a public room during other people's meals.

Consequently there were none of those absurd but most disagreeable differences over windows which arise whenever the haters of fresh air gather in any number. For even with the greatest respect for a nation and the strongest desire to fraternise with its members, it is hardly possible to get on well with people whose favourite atmosphere is to you as insupportable as Mars might be to the inhabitants of this earth. Extended travel must surely in time enable the North German mind to realise the existence, at least in others, of a horror of stuffiness. I am sure that when this fact is once grasped many worthy men will be saved from behaviour which if it did not arise from want of imagination would be intolerable bearishness.

But if we speak freely of the shortcomings of others we must not forget our own excesses. The appropriation, no matter for what purpose, of the public room of an inn by a section of the guests is a thoroughly selfish and unwarrantable proceeding. What should we think in Scotland if an American congregation were to take possession of the inn coffee-room every Sunday, and use it constantly on weekday evenings for practising hymns? Yet this is what on the Continent tourists of other nations have to submit to in all spots which have been discovered by either of our missionary societies. No one can reasonably object to English churches being built wherever the sick are sent, or even, as a luxury and by those who can afford it, at such places as Chamonix and Zermatt. But it is difficult to believe that our countrymen are so much creatures of habit that they cannot sometimes gratify their religious emotion in the Greek clearness of the mountain-top or under the Gothic shade of the neighbouring grove without intruding their devotions on their fellow-travellers of other creeds or countries.

At Campiglio, for the present at least, the Italian coming down on Sunday morning runs no risk of finding himself in the midst of a transformation scene; the tables chased, the chairs ranged in regimental ranks, his acquaintance in the grey suit of last night, black-coated and roped round his neck with a white tie, pinning up notices of hymns on the backs of 'menus,' and a much-embarrassed host endeavouring to explain to the non-British guests the cause of the general turmoil.

I must not dismiss the Stabilimento without a short mention of its two most important inmates at the time of my visit. The first was a young member of the local 'Societa Alpina,' whose adventures and heroism had made him a public character. Accompanied by the gardener and carpenter of the establishment, he had ventured to attack one of the limestone peaks east of Val Selva. The way proved longer and more arduous than had been expected, and night was falling as the party descended a narrow crest of the mountain. Suddenly they were made to pause by a terrific roar, and a few moments afterwards beheld, several hundred feet below, and on a spot they must pass, what they believed to be a large bear. The animal instead of walking off, as bears in every-day life are accustomed to do, behaved exactly like a bear in a story, or one of the animals which are the terror and delight of the modern nursery. Erect on his hind legs, he flashed fury from his eyes, opening his red mouth and snapping his jaws at intervals with ferocious significance. 'Si può immaginare nostra paura,' said the poor mountaineer. He and his companions prudently decided not to risk a nearer encounter with a monster who knew his part so perfectly. They stopped exactly where they were, and spent the night, haunted by deep breathings and strange sounds, which they attributed generally to wild animals, and more particularly to the bear, camozzi and contrabandisti.

The gardener who was a sharer in this adventure was, it appeared, permanently attached to the establishment. This gentleman spent many hours daily under the shelter of a vast felt wideawake, superintending the laying out of the surrounding grounds, which consisted of a flat square plot of meadow, perhaps thirty yards by twenty. But genius shows itself in small things as well as great. The variety of shape of which flower-beds are capable is endless; and with an underling provided with long strips of turf to mark the edges, our artist studied at leisure the most pleasing forms and combinations. The ground idea, one showing no slight originality, was taken from a plate of veal cutlets such as sometimes appeared at the midday meal. One cutlet a day was as much, however, as the creative mind could accomplish without risk of repetition; and this finished, the broad hat and its owner would after a few minutes of thankful contemplation retreat for rest to a neighbouring bench.

To sum up. Those who look for the charm of Campiglio in any view from the windows will be cruelly disappointed. Its attraction lies in the wonderful freshness and purity of the air, which rivals that of the Engadine, and in the variety and beauty of the excursions within reach.

For ladies, botanists, and quiet strollers there is an unusual abundance of easy walks, through shady glades full of rare and beautiful flowers and ferns, by the side of clear dove-coloured brooks glancing down over the limestone shelves, or up to secluded tarns and grassy ridges whence the great horns and teeth glow orange against the sky, or the Adamello snows glitter in the sunlight. Moreover, active climbers have within easy reach a variety of glacier-work which all but two or three of the greatest Swiss centres might envy, and rock scenery such as Switzerland can nowhere rival.