We Passed Through A Level
Fertile Country, Formerly The Territory Of Venice, Watered By The Piave,
Which Ran Blood In One Of Bonaparte's Battles.
At evening we arrived at
Ceneda, where our Italian poet Da Ponte was born, situated just at the
base of the Alps, the rocky peaks and irregular spires of which,
beautifully green with the showery season, rose in the background.
Ceneda
seems to have something of German cleanliness about it, and the floors of
a very comfortable inn at which we stopped were of wood, the first we had
seen in Italy, though common throughout the Tyrol and the rest of Germany.
A troop of barelegged boys, just broke loose from school, whooping and
swinging their books and slates in the air, passed under my window. Such a
sight you will not see in southern Italy. The education of the people is
neglected, except in those provinces which are under the government of
Austria. It is a government severe and despotic enough in all conscience,
but by providing the means of education for all classes, it is doing more
than it is aware of to prepare them for the enjoyment of free
institutions. In the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, as it is called, there are
few children who do not attend the public schools.
On leaving Ceneda, we entered a pass in the mountains, the gorge of which
was occupied by the ancient town of Serravalle, resting on arcades, the
architecture of which denoted that it was built during the middle ages.
Near it I remarked an old castle, which formerly commanded the pass, one
of the finest ruins of the kind I had ever seen. It had a considerable
extent of battlemented wall in perfect preservation, and both that and its
circular tower were so luxuriantly loaded with ivy that they seemed almost
to have been cut out of the living verdure. As we proceeded we became
aware how worthy this region was to be the birthplace of a poet. A rapid
stream, a branch of the Piave, tinged of a light and somewhat turbid blue
by the soil of the mountains, came tumbling and roaring down the narrow
valley; perpendicular precipices rose on each side; and beyond, the
gigantic brotherhood of the Alps, in two long files of steep pointed
summits, divided by deep ravines, stretched away in the sunshine to the
northeast. In the face of one the precipices by the way-side, a marble
slab is fixed, informing the traveller that the road was opened by the
late Emperor of Germany in the year 1830. We followed this romantic valley
for a considerable distance, passing several little blue lakes lying in
their granite basins, one of which is called the _Lago morto_ or Dead
Lake, from having no outlet for its waters. At length we began to ascend,
by a winding road, the steep sides of the Alps - the prospect enlarging as
we went, the mountain summits rising to sight around us, one behind
another, some of them white with snow, over which the wind blew with a
wintery keenness - deep valleys opening below us, and gulfs yawning between
rocks over which old bridges were thrown - and solemn fir forests clothing
the broad declivities. The farm-houses placed on these heights, instead of
being of brick or stone, as in the plains and valleys below, were
principally built of wood; the second story, which served for a barn,
being encircled by a long gallery, and covered with a projecting roof of
plank held down with large stones. We stopped at Venas, a wretched place
with a wretched inn, the hostess of which showed us a chin swollen with
the _goitre_, and ushered us into dirty comfortless rooms where we passed
the night. When we awoke the rain was beating against the windows, and, on
looking out, the forest and sides of the neighboring mountains, at a
little height above us, appeared hoary with snow. We set out in the rain,
but had not proceeded far before we heard the sleet striking against the
windows of the carriage, and soon came to where the snow covered the
ground to the depth of one or two inches. Continuing to ascend, we passed
out of Italy and entered the Tyrol. The storm had ceased before we went
through the first Tyrolese village, and we could not help being struck
with the change in the appearance of the inhabitants - the different
costume, the less erect figures, the awkward gait, the lighter
complexions, the neatly-kept habitations, and the absence of beggars. As
we advanced, the clouds began to roll off from the landscape, disclosing
here and there, through openings in their broad skirts as they swept
along, glimpses of the profound valleys below us, and of the white sides
and summits of mountains in the mid-sky above. At length the sun appeared,
and revealed a prospect of such wildness, grandeur, and splendor as I had
never before seen. Lofty peaks of the most fantastic shapes, with deep
clefts between, sharp needles of rocks, and overhanging crags, infinite in
multitude, shot up everywhere around us, glistening in the new-fallen
snow, with thin wreaths of mist creeping along their sides. At intervals,
swollen torrents, looking at a distance like long trains of foam, came
thundering down the mountains, and crossing the road, plunged into the
verdant valleys which winded beneath. Beside the highway were fields of
young grain, pressed to the ground with the snow; and in the meadows,
ranunculuses of the size of roses, large yellow violets, and a thousand
other Alpine flowers of the most brilliant hues, were peeping through
their white covering. We stopped to breakfast at a place called Landro, a
solitary inn, in the midst of this grand scenery, with a little chapel
beside it. The water from the dissolving snow was dropping merrily from
the roof in a bright June sun. We needed not to be told that we were in
Germany, for we saw it plainly enough in the nicely-washed floor of the
apartment into which we were shown, in the neat cupboard with the old
prayer-book lying upon it, and in the general appearance of housewifery, a
quality unknown in Italy; to say nothing of the evidence we had in the
beer and tobacco-smoke of the travellers' room, and the guttural dialect
and quiet tones of the guests.
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