somewhat sad to leave Como after an all too rapid journey, it has been my happiness to revisit the quaint old town again and again since, and each time with increased pleasure. Italian scenery, Italian art, Italian travel, afford some of the happiest recollections of well-spent days of travel, which, if they have never been able to exceed in pleasure or to approach in profit the remembrances of travels in my own and other lands, undertaken for the same purpose, are nevertheless full to overflowing with lessons in art which no true architect could afford to despise or wish to forget.
CHAPTER XIII.
“And now farewell to Italy—perhaps
For ever! Yet, methinks, I could not go,
I could not leave it, were it mine to say
‘Farewell for ever!’”
Rogers.
Departure from Como—Varese—Lake of Varese—Italian Boatmen—Intra—Laveno—Lago Maggiore—Magadino—Road to Hospenthal—The Dazio Grande—Airolo—Hospenthal—Ascent of the Furca—Valley of the Reuss—Lake of Luzern—Luzern—The Unter Hauenstein—Strasburg.
THERE was great delay in leaving Como; the passport officer was asleep, and no one dared to awaken him for our convenience; at last we determined to start, and went off to the passport office, and, after waiting nearly half an hour, the dilatory clerk arrived, and our passport having been stamped with the “Buon per partire,” so uncivilly glad to get rid of you as it seems to be, I mounted the carriage, and we were soon on our way.
All Como was astir, and bedecking the houses and churches, and building triumphal arches across the roads, for some religious fête whose nature we did not discover; but we soon left its streets and hills behind, and began to look out anxiously for our first view of Monte Rosa and its attendant Alps; but, alas! the weather, instead of clearing, rapidly became more and more cloudy, and ere long we felt that we must give up all hope of getting even the most distant glimpse of the monarch of this portion of the Alpine chain.