But the beautiful evening shadows already creeping over the view gave us cause for as much uneasiness as delight. We had started late from Agordo; time had flown by and it was within an hour of sunset, while we were yet far on the wrong side of the Pass. Not a moment was to be lost if we wished to sleep in the valley of Primiero. We wandered incessantly on over shoulders, down gullies, across wide basins of soft snow, until about sunset we stood at last on the edge of steep rocks falling away into a southern valley, the far-sought Val di Canale. A succession of snow-filled gullies rendered the descent easy, and enabled us to slide swiftly downwards for some 2,000 feet. When we reached the bottom of the glen daylight had already left us, and the young moon, which threw romantic lights upon the huge pinnacles of the Sasso di Campo and Sasso Ortiga, disdained the humbler office of serving as a lantern to our path.
It was now so dark that we had to keep close together to avoid losing ourselves. After reaching a brow we too hastily began to swing ourselves down steep slopes by the tough branches of the creeping pines. There was a cliff at the bottom, and it was necessary to remount. Anyone who knows the difference between working upwards and downwards through such a thicket, even when fresh and by daylight, will sympathise with our despair. Yet despite slips, tumbles into holes, slaps in the face from swinging branches, we scrambled somehow up again. At the next attempt we got down with less difficulty.
In time we came to the bed of a torrent, here dry, as the water preferred a subterranean course; for half-an-hour more we stumbled along amongst the white boulders, every minute adding to our bruises. Then we fancied we had found a path, and got into thick woods on the left side of the glen. Soon the track, if it was one, was lost sight of, and we wandered off into deeper darkness than ever. At last we were brought to a dead halt. A steep step broke the valley, and cliffs, from the base of which the river sent up far distant murmurs, barred our progress. Whilst we were all engaged in beating about for any traces of a path, a shout was raised. We eagerly enquired the cause. 'I have got a native here, but I can't make him understand,' was the reply. We rushed to our friend's assistance, and found his native to be our German guide, whom in the darkness he had taken for a shepherd, and was now cross-examining in his best Italian.
After this disappointment we resigned ourselves to the prospect of a night in the forest. A fire was soon lighted in the nearest sheltered hollow, and sufficient fir-branches cut down to form a bed. We should have been happy had any water been at hand, but two oranges divided between four were but poor relief to parched throats. As it was, we were disposed to reflect that the same moonlight which lit our sky was falling softly on the Piazza di San Marco, and to look back with fond regret on the ices and lemonade of Florian's. After a long absence François reappeared with the indiarubber bag, which usually held our wine, full of water. Then our cravings were satisfied, and we soon gave up watching the stars sparkling between the pine-branches and fell fast asleep.
Daylight, as usual, revealed an easy escape from the perplexities of the night, and we speedily found ourselves in the exquisite meadows surrounding Count Welsberg's shooting-box, and an hour later filed down the high street of La Fiera.
In 1864 'Alpinisti Inglesi' were unheard-of novelties at Primiero, and our procession filled every doorway with large wondering eyes, and roused conjectures wilder even than those of the Agordans. Some words of French spoken to François were caught by eager listeners, and it was currently reported in the little town that we were a party of French officers engaged in a surreptitious survey of the mountains. For the simple mountaineers could not believe that Napoleon's word would not yet be kept, and at least an effort made to complete the work of 1859 and free Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic.
No one, however, interfered with our siesta, or prevented us from leaving early in the afternoon for San Martino. Here, however, we found some officious person had given warning to the douaniers, and had not Tuckett's German been fluent and our passports in order, we should have no doubt had difficulty. As it was, we spent a very pleasant evening with the officials, who were glad enough of a little company, and invited us to join them in the circular chimney-corner which is the best, if not the only, invention which has come out of Tyrol.
The old hospice was as rough quarters as could well be found, and our beds did not interfere with early rising. Our object was to discover a pass leading directly to Gares and so to Cencenighe and Caprile. We had found it impossible to obtain any information overnight, but, as we were starting, a peasant on his way to Val Fassa offered to set us in the right path. We soon found, however, that he was leading us too far north, towards a far-away mule-track on the other side of Paneveggio. Much to our friend's surprise, therefore, we turned our backs on him and our faces towards the great wall of cliffs which rises immediately to the east of San Martino. A long climb through a fir-wood brought us to the bare crags. The only difficulty, if it can be called one, lies in hitting off the easiest point at which to pass a low cliff. Above this the way lies over steep slopes covered with loose rubbish. Three hours after leaving San Martino we stood on the crest close to the base of the Cima della Rosetta. The view to the west was very wide and beautiful. We looked over a foreground composed of mountains pasture-clothed to their summits, beyond which the snows of the Orteler and Œtzthaler groups, the towers of the Brenta, and the sharp peak of the Presanella shone in the distance. We were now on the further edge of the great waste we had wandered over two days previously, and in the centre of the rocky peaks which dominate it. Several of them appeared accessible. One, the Rosetta, is in fact only half-an-hour's easy scramble, and well rewards the trouble of an ascent by a delicious glimpse of the fertile fields of Primiero as well as a more extensive panorama.
