Coming home, we watched a boy crossing the Orbo torrent. It was here about a hundred yards wide, and rocky, although not so angry as in its narrower channels.
The bridge was primitive, and consisted merely of a long pine log, balanced across the river, and over which the boy went, frog fashion, fearing to be swept off by the stream.
Having paused to see this juvenile accomplish his awkward passage in safety, we returned to Ghisoni, where the rain forced us to bait, instead of eating our lunch halfway up the Sorba Mountain, as we had intended; and where we again had the privilege of M. le General's polite conversation and congratulations on our safe return from what he persisted in considering our dangerous expedition. For my own part, I must confess that I was a little disappointed in the Inzecca. They were exceedingly striking, and the gorge most beautiful; but I do not think they are to be compared with the Porto rocks for sublimity. Perhaps we had heard too much of their beauties beforehand.
It is said that there are some precipices in the valley of the Niolo steeper and higher, and in all respects grander, than the Inzecca; but we had not time to find out these, nor even to discover if there was any practicable route to them.
It rained more or less all the afternoon, as we wound slowly up from Ghisoni to the top of Sorba, and down again to Vivario; and yet, even in rain, the forest was magnificent.
The road now was covered with the caterpillars whose bags we had before seen hanging above us from the branches of every tree. It was now time for them to burst, and their living contents to fall upon the ground; and our carriage wheels unavoidably became a juggernaut to numbers of these hairy black creepers.
One bagful, passed by us, still lay, in a compact writhing ball, five or six inches high, upon the path. The inmates had evidently only just fallen, and not, as yet, had time to arrange their movements. But all others were slowly serpentining along the ground in single file, holding tight on to each other's tails, in one long black string.
It is a popular delusion to suppose that the sting of these little animals is injurious and even dangerous. I myself held one in my hand without harm; whilst our driver stirred them up carelessly with his finger as they lay upon the ground.
We reached Vivario about four o'clock, and found a bright sun ready to welcome us in the village, and a rainbow lying across the smoking hills.
The streets, as we picked our way through them, were thick with mud, and the numerous pigs looked even dirtier than usual, as we crossed the redolent stable-yard to the ladderlike, outside staircase leading to the comfortable little inn of Madame Dausoigne.