J. Gilbert delt.
SAN STEFANO AND THE CIMA DI NAFDISIO.
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.