[33] Unless indeed we take him to task for a passage found, of all odd places, in an answer to a Chancery Bill filed by a certain 'vilipendious linendraper,' to restrain him from common law proceedings for the recovery of a debt. His 'versute adversarie,' amongst other impertinent matters, seems to have inserted allegations as to the 'smallnesse and commonnesse' of Coryat's voyage. The enraged traveller retorts, with an eloquence seldom reached by modern pleaders, 'has he not walked above the clouds over hils that are at least 7 miles high? For indeed so high is the mountaine Cenys, the danger of which is such, that if in some places the traveller should but trip aside in certaine narrow wayes that are scarcely a yard broade, he is precipitated into a very Stygian barathrum, or Tartarean lake, six times deeper than Paul's tower is high.' Has he not 'continually stood in feare of the Alpine cut-throats called the Bandits?'
[34] Since writing the above, I have been favoured by Signor Curo, President of the Bergamasque Section of the Italian Alpine Club, with a list of some of the most remarkable works of art in this region. It is printed as [Appendix B].
[36] The height may be roughly estimated at 9,300 feet.
[37] See [Appendix A]. for mention of the passes they offer.
[38] The suggestions made here at haphazard are, I see, seriously supported by Dr. Julius Morstadt in a long article Ueber die Terraingestaltung in Südwestlichen Tirol in the last publication of the German Alpine Club, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Alpenvereins, Band V. Heft 1, 1874.
[39] A change seems, however, imminent. In 1873 some of the leading inhabitants of Trent and Arco formed themselves into an Alpine Society. Its object is at once to excite in the youth of the Trentino the taste for healthful exercise, and to increase the material prosperity of the mountain valleys by drawing to them some of the abundance of foreign gold which flows so freely into Eastern Switzerland. One of the first consequences of this step has been the establishment of Alpine Inns at Campiglio and San Martino di Castrozza.
[40] See [Appendix C] for two routes from Santa Catarina to Val di Sole.
[41] Vermiglio, like Primiero, is the name of a group of villages, of which the highest is Pizzano.
[42] From an article, Die grosseren Expeditionen in den Oesterreichischen Alpen aus dem Jahre 1864, von Dr. Anton von Ruthner, published in Petermann's Mittheilungen for 1865.
[43] This refers to eleven years ago. Proofs of nationality are no longer asked for anywhere in the Alps unless, perhaps, in France, where even a Republican Government finds itself forced to gratify the peculiar passion of the nation for restrictions on liberty of travel by retaining passports for Frenchmen only. So long as this distinction is maintained, members of other nations are liable to be occasionally required to prove their disqualification for the privilege of carrying about one of the minute descriptions of their own persons, which seem to give our neighbours so much pleasure.