From the Lakes of Killarney to the Golden Horn

by Henry M. Field

The Stelvio is utterly impassable the greater part of the year. In a few weeks more the snows will fall. By the end of September it is considered unsafe, and the passage is attempted at one's peril, as the traveller may be caught in a storm, and lost on the mountain.

Perhaps some of my readers will ask, what we often asked, What is the use of building a road amid these frightful solitudes, when it cannot be travelled the greater part of the year? What is the use of carrying a highway up into the clouds? Why build such a Jacob's ladder into heaven itself, since after all this is not the way to get to heaven? It must have cost millions. But there is no population along the road to justify the expense. It could not be built for a few poor mountaineers. And yet it is constructed as solidly as if it were the Appian way leading out of Rome. It is an immense work of engineering. For leagues upon leagues it has to be supported by solid stone-work to prevent its being washed away by torrents. The answer is easy. It is a military road, built, if not for purposes of conquest, yet to hold one insecure dominion. Twenty years ago the upper part of Italy was a dependency of Austria, but an insecure one, always in a chronic state of discontent, always on the verge of rebellion. This road was built to enable the government at Vienna to move troops swiftly through the Tyrol over this pass, and pour them down upon the plains of Lombardy. Hannibal and Cæsar had crossed the Alps, but the achievement was the most daring in the annals of ancient warfare. Napoleon passed the Great St. Bernard, but he felt the need of an easier passage for his troops, and constructed the Simplon, not from a benevolent wish to benefit mankind, but simply to render more secure his hold upon Italy, as he showed by asking the engineers who came to report upon the progress of the work, "When will the road be ready to pass over the cannon?" Such was the design of Austria in building the road over the Stelvio. But man proposes and God disposes. It was built with the resources of an empire, and now that it is finished, Lombardy, by a succession of events not anticipated in the royal councils, falls to reunited Italy, and this road, the highest in Europe, remains, not a channel of conquest, but a highway of civilization.

But here we are on the top of the Pass, from which we can look into three countries—an empire, a kingdom, and a republic. Austria is behind us, and Italy is before us, and Switzerland, throned on the Alps, stands close beside us. After resting awhile, and feasting our eyes on the glorious sight, we prepare to descend.

We are not out of the Tyrol, even when we have crossed the frontier, for there is an Italian as well as an Austrian Tyrol, which has the same features, and may be said to extend to Lake Como.

The descent from the Stelvio is quite as wonderful as the ascent. Perhaps the impression is even greater, as the descent is more rapid, and one realizes more the awful height and depth, as he is whirled down the pass by a hundred zigzag turns, over bridges and through galleries of rock, till at last, at the close of a long summer's day, he reaches the Baths of Bormio, and plunging into one of the baths, for which the place is so famous, washes away the dust of the journey, and rests after the fatigue of a day never to be forgotten, in which he made the Pass of the Stelvio.

For one fond of mountain climbing, who wished to make foot excursions among the Alps, there are not many better points than this of the Baths of Bormio. It is under the shadow of the great mountains, yet is itself only about four thousand feet high, so that it is easily accessible from below, yet it is nearly half-way up to the heights above.

But we were on our way to Italy, and the next day continued our course down the valley of the Adda. Hour after hour we kept going down, down, till it seemed as if we must at last reach the very bottom of the mountains, where their granite foundations are embedded in the solid mass of the planet. But this descent gave us a succession of scenes of indescribable beauty. Slowly the valley widened before us. The mountains wore a rugged aspect. Instead of sterile masses of rock, mantled with snows, and piercing the clouds, they began to be covered with pines, which, like moss upon rocks, softened and beautified their rugged breasts. As we advanced still farther, the slopes were covered with vineyards; we were entering the land of the olive and the vine; terrace on terrace rose on the mountain side; every shelf of rock, or foot of ground, where a vine could grow, was covered. The rocky soil yields the most delicious grapes. Women brought us great clusters; a franc purchased enough for our whole party. The industry of the people seemed more like the habits of birds building their nests on every point of vantage, or of bees constructing their precious combs in the trunks of old trees or in the clefts of the rocks, than the industry of human creatures, which requires some little "verge and scope" for its manifestations. And now along the banks of the Adda are little plots of level ground, which admit of other cultivation. Olives trees are mingled with the vines. There are orchards too, which remind us of New England. Great numbers of mulberry trees are grown along the road, for the raising of silk is one of the industries of Lombardy, and there are thousands of willows by the water-courses, from which they are cutting the lithe and supple branches, to be woven into baskets. It is the glad summer time, and the land is rejoicing with the joy of harvest. "The valleys are covered over with corn; they shout for joy; they also sing." It was a warm afternoon, and the people were gathering in the hay; and a pretty sight it was to see men and women in the fields raking the rows, and very sweet to inhale the smell of the new-mown hay, as we whirled along the road.

These are pretty features of an Italian landscape; I wish that the impression was not marred by some which are less pleasant. But the comfort of the people does not seem to correspond to their industry. There is no economy in their labor, everything is done in the old-fashioned way, and in the most wasteful methods. I did not see a mowing or a reaping machine in the Tyrol, either on this or the other side of the mountains. They use wooden ploughs, drawn by cows as often as by oxen, and so little management have they, that one person is employed, generally a woman, to lead the miserable team, or rather pull them along. I have seen a whole family attached to a pair of sorry cattle—the man holding the plough, the woman pulling the rope ahead, and a poor little chap, who did his best, whipping behind. The crops are gathered in the same slipshod way. The hay is all carried in baskets on the backs of women. It was a pitiful sight to see them groaning under their loads, often stopping by the roadside to rest. I longed to see one of our Berkshire farmers enter the hay-field with a pair of lusty oxen and a huge cart, which would transport at a single load a weight, such as would break the backs of all the women in an Italian village.

Of course women subjected to this kind of work, are soon bent out of all appearance of beauty; and when to this is added the goitre, which prevails to a shocking extent in these mountain valleys, they are often but wretched hags in appearance.

And yet the Italians have a "gift of beauty," if it were only not marred by such untoward circumstances. Many a bright, Spanish-looking face looked out of windows, and peered from under the arches, as we rattled through the villages; and the children were almost always pretty, even though in rags. With their dark brown faces, curly hair, and large, beautiful eyes, they might have been the models of Murillo's beggars.