The snow-path ended at Poschiavo; and when, as usual, we started on
our journey next day at sunrise, it was in a carriage upon wheels.
Yet even here we were in full midwinter. Beyond Le Prese the lake
presented one sheet of smooth black ice, reflecting every peak and
chasm of the mountains, and showing the rocks and water-weeds in the
clear green depths below. The glittering floor stretched away for
acres of untenanted expanse, with not a skater to explore those dark
mysterious coves, or strike across the slanting sunlight poured
from clefts in the impendent hills. Inshore the substance of the
ice sparkled here and there with iridescence like the plumelets of
a butterfly's wing under the microscope, wherever light happened to
catch the jagged or oblique flaws that veined its solid crystal.
From the lake the road descends suddenly for a considerable distance
through a narrow gorge, following a torrent which rushes among granite
boulders. Chestnut trees begin to replace the pines. The sunnier
terraces are planted with tobacco, and at a lower level vines appear
at intervals in patches. One comes at length to a great red gate
across the road, which separates Switzerland from Italy, and where the
export dues on wine are paid. The Italian custom-house is
romantically perched above the torrent. Two courteous and elegant
_finanzieri_, mere boys, were sitting wrapped in their military
cloaks and reading novels in the sun as we drove up. Though they made
some pretence of examining the luggage, they excused themselves with
sweet smiles and apologetic eyes--it was a disagreeable duty!
A short time brought us to the first village in the Valtelline,
where the road bifurcates northward to Bormio and the Stelvio pass,
southward to Sondrio and Lombardy. It is a little hamlet, known by
the name of La Madonna di Tirano, having grown up round a pilgrimage
church of great beauty, with tall Lombard bell-tower, pierced with
many tiers of pilastered windows, ending in a whimsical spire, and
dominating a fantastic cupola building of the earlier Renaissance.
Taken altogether, this is a charming bit of architecture,
picturesquely set beneath the granite snow-peaks of the Valtelline.
The church, they say, was raised at Madonna's own command to stay the
tide of heresy descending from the Engadine; and in the year 1620, the
bronze statue of S. Michael, which still spreads wide its wings above
the cupola, looked down upon the massacre of six hundred Protestants
and foreigners, commanded by the patriot Jacopo Robustelli.
From Madonna the road leads up the valley through a narrow avenue of
poplar-trees to the town of Tirano. We were now in the district where
Forzato is made, and every vineyard had a name and history. In Tirano
we betook ourself to the house of an old acquaintance of the Buol
family, Bernardo da Campo, or, as the Graubündeners call him, Bernard
Campbèll. We found him at dinner with his son and grandchildren in a
vast, dark, bare Italian chamber. It would be difficult to find a more
typical old Scotchman of the Lowlands than he looked, with his clean
close-shaven face, bright brown eyes, and snow-white hair escaping
from a broad-brimmed hat. He might have sat to a painter for some
Covenanter's portrait, except that there was nothing dour about him,
or for an illustration to Burns's 'Cotter's Saturday Night.' The air
of probity and canniness combined with a twinkle of dry humour was
completely Scotch; and when he tapped his snuff-box, telling stories
of old days, I could not refrain from asking him about his pedigree.
It should be said that there is a considerable family of Campèlls or
Campbèlls in the Graubünden, who are fabled to deduce their stock from
a Scotch Protestant of Zwingli's time; and this made it irresistible
to imagine that in our friend Bernardo I had chanced upon a notable
specimen of atavism. All he knew, however, was, that his first
ancestor had been a foreigner, who came across the mountains to Tirano
two centuries ago.[3]
This old gentleman is a considerable wine-dealer. He sent us with his
son, Giacomo, on a long journey underground through his cellars, where
we tasted several sorts of Valtelline, especially the new Forzato,
made a few weeks since, which singularly combines sweetness with
strength, and both with a slight effervescence. It is certainly the
sort of wine wherewith to tempt a Polyphemus, and not unapt to turn a
giant's head.
Leaving Tirano, and once more passing through the poplars by Madonna,
we descended the valley all along the vineyards of Villa and the vast
district of Sassella. Here and there, at wayside inns, we stopped to
drink a glass of some particular vintage; and everywhere it seemed as
though god Bacchus were at home. The whole valley on the right side of
the Adda is one gigantic vineyard, climbing the hills in tiers and
terraces, which justify its Italian epithet of _Teatro di Bacco_. The
rock is a greyish granite, assuming sullen brown and orange tints
where exposed to sun and weather. The vines are grown on stakes, not
trellised over trees or carried across boulders, as is the fashion at
Chiavenna or Terlan. Yet every advantage of the mountain is adroitly
used; nooks and crannies being specially preferred, where the sun's
rays are deflected from hanging cliffs. The soil seems deep, and is of
a dull yellow tone. When the vines end, brushwood takes up the growth,
which expires at last in crag and snow. Some alps and chalets, dimly
traced against the sky, are evidences that a pastoral life prevails
above the vineyards. Pan there stretches the pine-thyrsus down to
vine-garlanded Dionysos.
The Adda flows majestically among willows in the midst, and the valley
is nearly straight. The prettiest spot, perhaps, is at Tresenda or
S. Giacomo, where a pass from Edolo and Brescia descends from the
southern hills. But the Valtelline has no great claim to beauty of
scenery. Its chief town, Sondrio, where we supped and drank some
special wine called _il vino de' Signori Grigioni_, has been
modernised in dull Italian fashion.
V
The hotel at Sondrio, La Maddalena, was in carnival uproar of
masquers, topers, and musicians all night through. It was as much as
we could do to rouse the sleepy servants and get a cup of coffee
ere we started in the frozen dawn. 'Verfluchte Maddalena!' grumbled
Christian as he shouldered our portmanteaus and bore them in hot haste
to the post. Long experience only confirms the first impression, that,
of all cold, the cold of an Italian winter is most penetrating. As
we lumbered out of Sondrio in a heavy diligence, I could have fancied
myself back once again at Radicofani or among the Ciminian hills. The
frost was penetrating. Fur-coats would not keep it out; and we longed
to be once more in open sledges on Bernina rather than enclosed in
that cold coupé. Now we passed Grumello, the second largest of the
renowned vine districts; and always keeping the white mass of Monte di
Disgrazia in sight, rolled at last into Morbegno. Here the Valtelline
vintage properly ends, though much of the ordinary wine is probably
supplied from the inferior produce of these fields. It was past
noon when we reached Colico, and saw the Lake of Como glittering in
sunlight, dazzling cloaks of snow on all the mountains, which look as
dry and brown as dead beech-leaves at this season. Our Bacchic journey
had reached its close; and it boots not here to tell in detail how we
made our way across the Splügen, piercing its avalanches by low-arched
galleries scooped from the solid snow, and careering in our sledges
down perpendicular snow-fields, which no one who has crossed that
pass from the Italian side in winter will forget. We left the refuge
station at the top together with a train of wine-sledges, and passed
them in the midst of the wild descent. Looking back, I saw two of
their horses stumble in the plunge and roll headlong over. Unluckily
in one of these somersaults a man was injured. Flung ahead into the
snow by the first lurch, the sledge and wine-cask crossed him like a
garden-roller. Had his bed not been of snow, he must have been crushed
to death; and as it was, he presented a woeful appearance when he
afterwards arrived at Splügen.