I was vastly enjoying this promenade—the shady pines, whose fragrance mingled with that of a legion of tall aromatic plants in full blossom—the views upon the river, shining far below me like the thread of silver—when I observed with surprise that the whole mountain-side which the track must manifestly cross had lately slipped down into the abyss. A cloud-burst two or three days ago, as I afterwards learned, had done the mischief. On arrival at the spot, the path was seen to be interrupted—clean gone, in fact, and not a shred of earth or trees left; there confronted me a bare scar, a wall of naked rock which not even a chamois could negotiate. Here was a dilemma. I must either retrace my steps along the weary road to Verace and there seek a night’s shelter with the gentle hay-makers, or clamber down into the ravine, follow the river and—chance it! After anxious deliberation, the latter alternative was chosen.
But the Trionto was now grown into a formidable torrent of surging waves and eddies, with a perverse inclination to dash from one side to the other of its prison, so as to necessitate frequent fordings on my part. These watery passages, which I shall long remember, were not without a certain danger. The stream was still swollen with the recent rains, and its bed, invisible under the discoloured element, sufficiently deep to inspire respect and studded, furthermore, with slippery boulders of every size, concealing insidious gulfs. Having only a short walking-stick to support me through this raging flood, I could not but picture to myself the surprise of the village maidens of Cropolati, lower down, on returning to their laundry work by the river-side next morning and discovering the battered anatomy of an Englishman—a rare fish, in these waters—stranded upon their familiar beach. Murdered, of course. What a galaxy of brigand legends would have clustered round my memory!
The Trionto Valley
Evening was closing in, and I had traversed the stream so often and stumbled so long amid this chaos of roaring waters and weirdly-tinted rocks, that I began to wonder whether the existence of Longobucco was not a myth. But suddenly, at a bend of the river, the whole town, still distant, was revealed, upraised on high and framed in the yawning mouth of the valley. After the solitary ramble of that afternoon, my eyes familiarized to nothing save the wild things of nature, this unexpected glimpse of complicated, civilized structures had all the improbability of a mirage. Longobucco, at that moment, arose before me like those dream-cities in the Arabian tale, conjured by enchantment out of the desert waste.
The vision, though it swiftly vanished again, cheered me on till after a good deal more scrambling and wading, with boots torn to rags, lame, famished and drenched to the skin, I reached the bridge of the Rossano highway and limped upwards, in the twilight, to the far-famed “Hotel Vittoria.”
Soon enough, be sure, I was enquiring as to supper. But the manageress met my suggestions about eatables with a look of blank astonishment.
Was there nothing in the house, then? No cheese, or meat, or maccheroni, or eggs—no wine to drink?
“Nothing!” she replied. “Why should you eat things at this hour? You must find them yourself, if you really want them. I might perhaps procure you some bread.”