From Morbio Superiore the ascent is steep, and it will take half-an-hour or more to reach the level bit of road close to Sagno. This, again, commands the most exquisite views, especially over Como, through the trunks of the trees. Then comes Sagno itself, the last village of the Canton Ticino and close to the Italian frontier. There is no inn with sleeping accommodation here, but if there was, Sagno would be a very good place to stay at. They say that some of its inhabitants sometimes smuggle a pound or two of tobacco across the Italian frontier, hiding it in the fern close to the boundary, and whisking it over the line on a dark night, but I know not what truth there is in the allegation; the people struck me as being above the average in respect of good looks and good breeding—and the average in those parts is a very high one.
Immediately behind Sagno the old paved pilgrim’s road begins to ascend rapidly. We followed it, and in half-an-hour reached the stone marking the Italian boundary; then comes some level walking, and then on turning a corner the monastery at the top of the Monte Bisbino is caught sight of. It still looks small, but one can now see what an important building it really is, and how different from the mere chapel which it appears to be when seen from a distance. The sketch which I give is taken from about a mile further on than the place where the summit is first seen.
Here some men joined us who lived in a hut a few hundred feet from the top of the mountain and looked after the cattle there during the summer. It is at their alpe that the last water can be obtained, so we resolved to stay there and eat the provisions we had brought with us. For the benefit of travellers, I should say they will find the water by opening the door of a kind of outhouse; this covers the water and prevents the cows from dirtying it. There will be a wooden bowl floating on the top. The water outside is not drinkable, but that in the outhouse is excellent.
The men were very good to us; they knew me, having seen me pass and watched me sketching in other years. It had unfortunately now begun to rain, so we were glad of shelter: they threw faggots on the fire and soon kindled a blaze; when these died down and it was seen that the sparks clung to the kettle and smouldered on it, they said that it would rain much, and they were right. It poured during the hour we spent in dining, after which it only got a little better; we thanked them, and went up five or six hundred feet till the monastery at length loomed out suddenly upon us from the mist, when we were close to it but not before.
There is a restaurant at the top which is open for a few days before and after a festa, but generally closed; it was open now, so we went in to dry ourselves. We found rather a roughish lot assembled, and imagined the smuggling element to preponderate over the religious, but nothing could be better than the way in which they treated us. There was one gentleman, however, who was no smuggler, but who had lived many years in London and had now settled down at Rovenna, just below on the lake of Como. He had taken a room here and furnished it for the sake of the shooting. He spoke perfect English, and would have none but English things about him. He had Cockle’s antibilious pills, and the last numbers of the “Illustrated London News” and “Morning Chronicle;” his bath and bath-towels were English, and there was a box of Huntley & Palmer’s biscuits on his dressing-table. He was delighted to see some Englishmen, and showed us everything that was to be seen—among the rest the birds he kept in cages to lure those that he intended to shoot. He also took us behind the church, and there we found a very beautiful marble statue of the Madonna and child, an admirable work, with painted eyes and the dress gilded and figured. What an extraordinary number of fine or, at the least, interesting things one finds in Italy which no one knows anything about. In one day, poking about at random, we had seen some early frescoes at S. Cristoforo, an excellent work at Morbio, and here was another fine thing sprung upon us. It is not safe ever to pass a church in Italy without exploring it carefully. The church may be new and for the most part full of nothing but what is odious, but there is no knowing what fragment of earlier work one may not find preserved.
Above, the heavens were still black and lowering. Over against us was the Monte Generoso, very sombre, and scarred with snow-white torrents; below, the dull, sullen slopes of the Monte Bisbino, and the lake of Como; further on, the Mendrisiotto and the blue-black plains of Lombardy. I have been at the top of the Monte Bisbino several times, but never was more impressed with it. At all times, however, it is a marvellous place.