When a stern necessity forces one to leave Cortina, there are several
ways of departure. We selected the main highway for our trunks, but for
ourselves the Pass of the Three Crosses; the Deacon and the Deaconess
in a mountain waggon, and I on foot. It should be written as an axiom in
the philosophy of travel that the easiest way is best for your luggage,
and the hardest way is best for yourself.
All along the rough road up to the Pass, we had a glorious outlook
backward over the Val d' Ampezzo, and when we came to the top, we looked
deep down into the narrow Val Buona behind Sorapis. I do not know just
when we passed the Austrian border, but when we came to Lake Misurina
we found ourselves in Italy again. My friends went on down the valley to
Landro, but I in my weakness, having eaten of the trout of the lake for
dinner, could not resist the temptation of staying over-night to catch
one for breakfast.
It was a pleasant failure. The lake was beautiful, lying on top of the
mountain like a bit of blue sky, surrounded by the peaks of Cristallo,
Cadino, and the Drei Zinnen. It was a happiness to float on such
celestial waters and cast the hopeful fly. The trout were there; they
were large; I saw them; they also saw me; but, alas! I could not raise
them. Misurina is, in fact, what the Scotch call "a dour loch," one of
those places which are outwardly beautiful, but inwardly so demoralised
that the trout will not rise.
When we came ashore in the evening, the boatman consoled me with the
story of a French count who had spent two weeks there fishing, and only
caught one fish. I had some thoughts of staying thirteen days longer,
to rival the count, but concluded to go on the next morning, over Monte
Pian and the Cat's Ladder to Landro.
The view from Monte Pian is far less extensive than that from Nuvolau;
but it has the advantage of being very near the wild jumble of the
Sexten Dolomites. The Three Shoemakers and a lot more of sharp and
ragged fellows are close by, on the east; on the west, Cristallo shows
its fine little glacier, and Rothwand its crimson cliffs; and southward
Misurina gives to the view a glimpse of water, without which, indeed, no
view is complete. Moreover, the mountain has the merit of being, as its
name implies, quite gentle. I met the Deacon and the Deaconess at the
top, they having walked up from Landro. And so we crossed the boundary
line together again, seven thousand feet above the sea, from Italy into
Austria. There was no custom-house.
The way down, by the Cat's Ladder, I travelled alone. The path was very
steep and little worn, but even on the mountain-side there was no
danger of losing it, for it had been blazed here and there, on trees and
stones, with a dash of blue paint. This is the work of the invaluable
DOAV--which is, being interpreted, the German-Austrian Alpine Club. The
more one travels in the mountains, the more one learns to venerate this
beneficent society, for the shelter-huts and guide-posts it has erected,
and the paths it has made and marked distinctly with various colours.
The Germans have a genius for thoroughness. My little brown guide-book,
for example, not only informed me through whose back yard I must go to
get into a certain path, but it told me that in such and such a spot
I should find quite a good deal (ziemlichviel) of Edelweiss, and in
another a small echo; it advised me in one valley to take provisions and
dispense with a guide, and in another to take a guide and dispense with
provisions, adding varied information in regard to beer, which in my
case was useless, for I could not touch it. To go astray under such
auspices would be worse than inexcusable.
Landro we found a very different place from Cortina. Instead of having
a large church and a number of small hotels, it consists entirely of
one large hotel and a very tiny church. It does not lie in a broad, open
basin, but in a narrow valley, shut in closely by the mountains. The
hotel, in spite of its size, is excellent, and a few steps up the valley
is one of the finest views in the Dolomites. To the east opens a deep,
wild gorge, at the head of which the pinnacles of the Drei Zinnen are
seen; to the south the Durrensee fills the valley from edge to edge, and
reflects in its pale waters the huge bulk of Monte Cristallo. It is such
a complete picture, so finished, so compact, so balanced, that one
might think a painter had composed it in a moment of inspiration. But
no painter ever laid such colours on his canvas as those which are seen
here when the cool evening shadows have settled upon the valley, all
gray and green, while the mountains shine above in rosy Alpenglow, as if
transfigured with inward fire.
There is another lake, about three miles north of Landro, called the
Toblacher See, and there I repaired the defeat of Misurina. The trout at
the outlet, by the bridge, were very small, and while the old fisherman
was endeavouring to catch some of them in his new net, which would not
work, I pushed my boat up to the head of the lake, where the stream came
in. The green water was amazingly clear, but the current kept the fish
with their heads up stream; so that one could come up behind them near
enough for a long cast, without being seen. As my fly lighted above them
and came gently down with the ripple, I saw the first fish turn and rise
and take it. A motion of the wrist hooked him, and he played just as
gamely as a trout in my favourite Long Island pond. How different
the colour, though, as he came out of the water. This fellow was
all silvery, with light pink spots on his sides. I took seven of his
companions, in weight some four pounds, and then stopped because the
evening light was failing.
How pleasant it is to fish in such a place and at such an hour! The
novelty of the scene, the grandeur of the landscape, lend a strange
charm to the sport. But the sport itself is so familiar that one feels
at home--the motion of the rod, the feathery swish of the line,
the sight of the rising fish--it all brings back a hundred woodland
memories, and thoughts of good fishing comrades, some far away across
the sea, and, perhaps, even now sitting around the forest camp-fire in
Maine or Canada, and some with whom we shall keep company no more until
we cross the greater ocean into that happy country whither they have
preceded us.