But though he is far away the man of Ticino does not forget his old home, or his poorer brethren left there. From over the seas every year comes the emigrant’s gold for the village poor, and for the Church, and for every good object that can be thought of.
The finest peal of bells in Ticino is the gift of a man of the valley of Maggia, who is far away in California. On one of the bells is this inscription:
‘Anche attraverso sterminati mari,
Degli Svizzeri il cor vola a’suoi cari,’
which, being translated, reads:
‘Though doomed beyond the boundless seas to roam,
The Switzer ne’er forgets his childhood’s home.’
The fortune of the Ticinese emigrants now settled in California alone is estimated at nearly two millions, and from one valley in Ticino, the Vallemaggia, there are forty men who went out from a little cottage such as I have described, and who could now any one of them buy up almost the entire district. Splendid emigrants are these brave, determined fellows—emigrants who benefit not only themselves, but the lands to which they go, and who never, as they climb the rungs of Fortune’s ladder, and build up new homes and new associations in the land of their adoption, forget the dear old home, or those less fortunate companions who still remain there.
I have interrupted my walk to say something about Swiss emigration, but it is a subject that must force itself upon you in whichever way you turn in this portion of Switzerland. Emigration is writ large in every valley. It accounts for much that you see which otherwise would be inexplicable. The subject was forced upon me when I came to Contra and saw the empty village homes of the rich men far away.
I don’t mind confessing to you that after leaving Contra I grew a little nervous. Blondin used to get £100 a time for walking on the tight-rope. I got nothing for walking from Contra to Mergoscia, but there were times when I should have preferred Mr. Blondin’s job, even if in addition to performing gratis I had had to pay for the rope and the pole out of my own pocket. Just after leaving Contra the road crosses a most fearful abyss. Down thousands of feet below you dashes a mad, roaring torrent. You clutch the side of the frail mountain bridge, and you peer over into the yawning jaws of death below. I have seen some grand sights, but never before have I seen anything so sublime in its grandeur as that wild rocky scene, the far-stretching vale, the roaring torrent in the gorge below.
We crept over that bridge on tiptoe. We neither of us spoke a word. The scene was too grand for words. We were both awestruck, and both just a little nervous, for after crossing the bridge the road became more awful still.
It certainly was a terrible feat we were about to attempt, but I had set out to go to Mergoscia, and I didn’t want to be beaten. We had been told that, owing to a portion of the path having been carried down into the abyss by a landslip, the road was not very good, but we had never imagined it was so awful as it now appeared to us. The road absolutely led across the face of a perpendicular rock! To look down below was to turn sick, and there wasn’t even the pretence of a wall on the outside edge of the path! It was barely wide enough to creep over, walking one foot in front of the other, and the rock above jutted out at places so that you were forced nearer the edge.