Their serrated peaks are of a variety indescribable and have been compared with alligators’ teeth, while the huge isolated pinnacles or needles of rock, split off, have tempted climbers to vain feats.
KING LAURIN’S ROSE GARDEN, FROM THE SCHLERN
The first Englishmen to penetrate this region in a holiday spirit were Josiah Gilbert and G. C. Churchill, who wrote a book called The Dolomite Mountains. They went for the first time in 1856, returning again and again in subsequent years, long before holiday-makers or tourists had ever thought of so doing. These adventurous souls approached the region at first from the Danube by way of Carinthia and were accompanied by their no less adventurous wives, and, as they remark, “we were deprived of the abundant aids which surround the traveller in Switzerland, and other frequented routes, in the shape of guides, horses, side-saddles, etc., ... moreover our stock of German at that time was very limited.” Mules for the ladies, with springless carts as an alternative occasionally, were the means of conveyance; sometimes goats’ milk cheese and bread with coffee were the only food after a tremendous day’s climb; yet these things were taken lightly as all in the day’s work. And that the age had its compensations none can doubt, for when the party arrived in the Tyrol we read:
Tyrol is a pleasant country for its roadside inns; spacious, cool, and clean, they welcome the traveller with old-fashioned hospitality. On the large upper landing on which the bedrooms open they usually spread your table, if you are “quality.” Flowers in pots adorn the wooden balconies, and the landlord’s daughter will present you with pretty bouquets when you leave, a finishing touch to the little bill, which is hardly a bill at all in any sense; it is chalked on the table in items so small as to convince you these people possess every virtue under heaven; the best bedrooms even at unlikely places are as comfortable as need be—beautifully kept, and without any of that frowzy look so common in an English inn. The furniture is often walnut-wood; neatly-framed prints are on the walls, and crimson coverlets on the beds. But the Tyrolese country inn, in its charming and kindly simplicity, will probably not long survive.
A few of these inns do indeed still exist but they are far in the recesses of the country, and on the beaten track have been replaced by “hotels” of the usual type in every district.
On this the first journey the travellers did not really make acquaintance with the Dolomites, they only saw them from afar; the first group they saw in the distance, “needle-pointed, pale and altogether weird-looking, soaring into the evening sky,” bewitched the party, and they never rested till they came again and yet again at intervals of years and grew to know them familiarly.
Returning alone in 1860, Mr. Churchill was able to penetrate the very heart of the district, approaching from the Botzen side. He gives a word-picture of the famous Marmolata peak as he first saw it:
This mountain—which might be compared in general form to one of those mahogany cases for stationery which are to be found in most counting-houses of the present day—has its slope, a very steep one, to the north. To the south, east, and west it is perfectly precipitous and presents nothing but walls of bare rock. Glaciers cover the greater part of the slope, and their melting supplies the springs of the Avisio which takes its rise immediately below them; ... its height, variously estimated, but which may be taken at 11,200 feet, raises it far above its loftiest neighbours. It stands in a line of ridge that runs from north to south through the western Dolomite district and marks the point where the divergent valleys of the Avisio and Cordevole originate.
