THE PELMO AND VAL DI ZOLDO.
Lacs de moire, coteaux bleus,
Ciel où le nuage passe,
Large espace,
Monts aux rochers anguleux.--THÉOPHILE GAUTIER.
THE VENETIAN TYROL--VAL DI ZOLDO--PASSO D'ALLEGHE--SAN NICOLÒ--CAMPO DI
RUTORTO--ON THE PELMO--A LADY'S ASCENT--THE PEOPLE OF VAL DI ZOLDO.
Even in the Venetian Tyrol the tendency of tourists to choose the
colder pine-clad north in place of the more tender and varied grace
of the south has become observable. Cortina, Caprile, and the Val
Fassa are even now on the, in everything but prices, downward path of
corruption. But away to the south and outside the 'regular round' there
are still many quiet nooks known as yet only to those who
---- Love to enter pleasure by a postern,
Not the broad populous gate which gulps the mob.
It is across the Italian frontier, and not amongst the stern peaks
and solemn pines of Cortina, or in the savage gorge of Landro, that
we find the nature which Titian so often sketched and painted. In the
foregrounds of the northern dolomite country there is a commonplace
stiffness and want of variety, which even the weird crags of the Drei
Zinnen or Coll' Agnello cannot render romantic; it lacks the noble
spaciousness, the soft and changeful beauties, of the southern region.
Its character is German in the place of Italian, it reminds us rather
of Dürer than of Titian. It excites and interests the appetite for the
wonderful rather than soothes and satisfies our longing for complete
and harmonious beauty.
Landscapes composed of blue surging waves of mountains, broken by sharp
fins and tusks of rock, of deep skies peopled with luminous masses of
white cloud, are familiar to the eyes of thousands who have never seen
Italy nor heard of a dolomite. Side by side with the wide sunny spaces,
the soft hills and unclouded heaven of the early schools of Perugia
and Tuscany, they remain to us as types of what Italian art found most
beautiful and sympathetic in nature. The hill-villages of Val di Zoldo
claim our interest as the frequent haunts of Titian. While wandering
between them, we are amongst the influences which impressed his boyhood
and were afterwards the sources of his inspiration. The Pelmo may on
good ground assert itself as Titian's own mountain. Mr. Gilbert, in his
'Cadore,' has shown it to us as it stands over against the painter's
native town; and it is impossible to turn over the facsimiles of the
master's drawings contained in that charming volume without being
persuaded that he drew the mountain from life more than once, and his
recollection of it very frequently.
Val di Zoldo resembles many of the Venetian valleys in being shaped
like a long-necked bottle. In its lower portion a narrow gorge hemmed
in by beetling crags, it expands at its head into what, seen from
any vantage-ground, shows as a broad sunny basin, divided by green
ridges into a labyrinth of fertile glens. The outlines of these
ridges are symmetrical in themselves, and they are grouped together
in a constantly shifting but harmonious complexity. Away to the south
the horizon is fringed by splintered edges of dolomite, black as the
receding night when cut clear against the first orange of dawn, or
pale gold in the palpable haze of an Italian noon, or crimson with
the reflected rays of sunset. As the paths cross the crests from glen
to glen, the snowy boss of the Antelao or the painted cliffs of the
Sorapis tower loftily over the low intervening ridge which divides
Zoppé from the Val d'Ampezzo. But (to accept the hypothesis of Von
Richthofen) the great glory of Val di Zoldo lies in the chance which
led the coral insects to select the broad downs lying behind the
hamlets of Pecol and Brusadaz for pedestals on which to plant their
two noblest efforts, the huge wall of the Civetta and the tower of the
Pelmo. Elsewhere in the dolomite country edifices may be seen covering
a wider space of ground, or decorated with more fantastic pinnacles,
the Westminster Palaces and Milan Cathedrals of their order. But these
two works belong to the best style or period of insect art; their
builders have shown that simplicity of intention and subordination of
detail to a central controlling purpose which mark the highest of the
comparatively puny efforts of their human competitors.
To travellers the Civetta is best known by its north-western face,
to which the little lake of Alleghe lends a picturesque charm sure
to catch the fancy of every passer-by. The structure of the mountain
as seen from Val di Zoldo appears less intricate; and if the cliffs
are not so perpendicular, the prevailing angle from base to cope is
steeper. Its crags, glittering with rain or sprinkled with recent snow,
shine out at an incredible height athwart the slant rays of a setting
sun; in the cloudless morning hours they become ordinary rocks up which
the experienced cragsman detects a path, safe enough when the spring is
over and the upper ledges have 'voided their rheum.'
To the mind of the climber who wanders beneath its cliffs I know not
what incongruous fancies the Pelmo may not suggest. From Val Fiorentina
and Santa Lucia its broad shoulders and massive head resemble an
Egyptian sphynx; as we move southwards one of the shoulders becomes
detached, and the mountain is transformed into a colossal antediluvian
cub crouching beside its parent. When clouds part to show the vast
glittering crest which overlooks Val di Zoldo we seem to realise 'the
great and high wall' of the city coming down from heaven of Apocalyptic
vision. If we ever have a 'Practical Tyrol,' the likeness of the solid
mass seen from the Ampezzo road to the Round Tower of Windsor will
probably be remarked on,--and there will be a certain amount of vulgar
truth in the observation.
One of the easiest paths to Val di Zoldo starts from Alleghe, and has
been described by Messrs. Gilbert and Churchill. From Caprile, the
more usual point of departure, there is a direct track which first
attacks the mountain with the headstrong energy of a novice, and then
takes a long breathing-space along the level. After passing several
bunches of farm-houses, clinging to the steep sides of Monte Fernazza
like flies to a window-pane, it again climbs up through woods to the
hamlet of Coi.[67] The needful height is then won, and a green terrace,
overhanging Alleghe and looking into the heart of the Civetta, leads to
the great rolling down which spreads out towards the Pelmo.
Heavy clouds, charged with electricity and rain, had swept about
from peak to peak during our walk from Caprile, and the greyness of
evening was deepened by heavy showers as we splashed down the wet
path from Pecol. Near the river, and nestling under a steep bank
crowned by a far-seen church and spire, we came upon the inn of San
Nicolò. It stands a little back from the path behind a courtyard, a
tall three-storied house, hanging out no vulgar sign of entertainment
for man and beast. At the top of the three stories are two bedrooms,
clean and spotless, hung with engravings, and furnished with the air
of conscious wealth of a farmhouse best-parlour. Their windows give
an exquisite glimpse down the deep glen which falls towards Forno di
Zoldo, and across to a high ridge capped by a most fantastic fence
of dolomite splinters. But if the upstairs rooms are bright and
comfortable, they have not the homely charm of the great ground-floor
kitchen. It is a wide room, ranged round with rows of lustrous brass
pans, alternating with generous, full-bodied, wide-mouthed jugs, which
could never give a drop less than the measure painted across them. At
one end is the fireplace, of the sort common in southern Tyrol, a deep
semicircular bow forming a projection in the outer wall of the house;
the floor is slightly raised, and a bench runs round it, leaving the
centre to be used for the hearth,--an arrangement which seems to solve
the problem of the greatest happiness of the greatest number better
even than our old English chimney-corners.
The structure which supports--not the fire, for that lies on the
hearthstone, but the pots and pans which may be cooking upon it--is
a piece of smith's work, enriched with wrought-out conventional
foliage, chains and two noble brass griffins. All the character of
the workman has been stamped into the metal, and comes out even in the
irregularities of detail which Birmingham might call defects,--a modern
and native product, however, as our host with pardonable pride assured
us, and the best that the neighbouring forges of Forno di Zoldo can
send out.
The master of the house proved to be a man of wealth and position
in his native valley. He knew Venice well, and something of the more
distant world. 'What can one do?' he said, in answer to our compliments
on his house; 'in the mountains there are no cafés, no theatres; one
must build a fine house, and get what novelty one can from strangers;
but,' he added with a sigh, 'there are not so many.'
In the gloom of a wet evening the conquest of the Pelmo on the morrow
seemed little more than a slender hope. Still, in the Alps successes
are chiefly won by being always prepared for the best, and we were
resolved not to lose a chance. In the matter of guides, however, we
found a difficulty. We were ourselves, owing to the causes mentioned
in the last chapter, but poorly provided. The Vezzana had not proved
beyond our unaided powers. But we had no ambition to dispense with
native assistance any further, or to go up the Pelmo by any but the
easiest route. The native of Caprile who had carried our wraps over the
Passo d'Alleghe was a pleasant fellow, but he had never been on the
Pelmo, where, if anywhere, local knowledge is indispensable. It was
with some dismay, therefore, that we first learnt that no hunter who
knew the mountain could be found nearer than Brusadaz, a hamlet an hour
off. However, Brusadaz turned out to be on the way to the Pelmo, and in
the early morning we could reckon on finding the inhabitants at home.
As at five A.M. we took the path which wound round the hill rising
above the church of San Nicolò, the saw-blade of Monte Piacedel cut a
clear sky to the southwards. Brusadaz was soon discovered lying in the
centre of a natural theatre, which opens into the main valley very near
its fork at Forno di Zoldo, and is directly overlooked on the north by
the Pelmo, a square block of smooth, solid and apparently inaccessible
precipice. The hunter Agosto di Marco, to whom we bore an introduction,
was quickly forthcoming, and, with unusual but welcome readiness,
in five minutes prepared to lead us to the mountain. Our luck seemed
altogether good, for the stonemen on the Pelmo were clear of mist, and
we promised ourselves a day of more than usual enjoyment.
A steep grassy bank severs the quiet hollow of Brusadaz from the Zoppé
branch of the valley. We reached the crest at some distance from the
base of the Pelmo, and had to follow an up-and-down track in order to
gain the lower end of the Campo di Rutorto, a broad level pasturage,
lying at the eastern foot of the mountain. The cliffs, up which a way
was to be made, were now before us; but we found, to our surprise, that
their appearance--partially veiled, it is true, by floating mists--was
almost as discouraging as that of the southern face.
There is scarcely any summit in the Alps which from every point of view
presents so formidable an appearance as the Pelmo. Time and the various
forces of nature, almost invariably create a breach in the defences of
great mountains. Here, however, their work has been left unfinished.
The upper cliffs are, it is true, broken on the east by a long slope,
where, after a fresh fall, snow lies in such quantities as to show
that it is easy of ascent. But this snow, when, as in spring, it has
accumulated to a sufficient mass, falls from the bottom of the slope
over a perpendicular cliff of at least 1,000 feet in height. It is only
at what may be called the northern cape of the bay formed by the whole
S.E. or Zoppé face of the mountain, that the ridge dividing the Campo
di Rutorto from Val Ruton runs up, buttress-like, against the cliffs to
a point not perhaps more than 400 or 500 feet lower than the bottom of
the upper breach, but fully half a mile distant from it; and the cliffs
along this half-mile are quite hopeless in appearance.
It was consequently with some surprise that we found ourselves climbing
the buttress in question, and, as far as we could see, about to run our
heads against the wall-like rocks on which it rested. Before setting
foot on the crags the rope was uncoiled and brought into use. We at
once found sufficient employment for our muscles in making long steps,
or rather lifts of the body, from ledge to ledge of a rock-face, the
angle of which (disregarding our footholds) appeared to approximate
very closely on 90. The transverse shelves, however, afforded excellent
support, and made our progress a matter of perfect security.
Above the first 150 feet a narrow gully disclosed itself, which led us
to higher and more broken rocks. Then, again, the wall looked perfectly
smooth, upright, and unassailable. On the last place where it could
have found room to rest was a low pile of stones. Standing beside it,
we began for the first time to comprehend the key to our dilemma; we
were now to turn altogether to the left, and to attempt the formidable
task of traversing the face of the Pelmo. Our pathway was before us,
a horizontal ledge or groove, at present a few feet broad, shortly
narrowing so as to afford only sufficient standing-ground, threatening
before long not to do even this. The cliffs around us bent into deep
recesses, and each time a projecting angle was reached, the side of the
bay seen opposite appeared wholly smooth and impassable.
This portion of the ascent of the Pelmo is, in my limited experience,
one of the most impressive, and at the same time enjoyable, positions
in which a climber can find himself. Even a sluggish imagination has
here enough to stimulate it. The mysterious pathway, unseen from a
short distance, seems to open for the mountaineer's passage, and to
close up again behind him as he advances. The stones he dislodges,
after two or three long bounds, disappear with a whirr into a sheer
depth of seething mist, of which the final far-off crash reveals
the immensity. The overhanging rocks above, the absence of any
resting-place even for the eye below, do not allow him for a moment
to forget that the crags to which he clings form part of one of the
wildest precipices in Europe.
[Illustration: ON THE PELMO.
D. W. F. delt.]
To walk for a mile or so along a ledge no broader than the sill which
runs underneath the top story windows of a London square, with, for
twice the height of St. Paul's cross above the pavement, no shelf below
wide enough to arrest your fall, must sound an alarming feat to anyone,
except perhaps a professional burglar. And yet to a head naturally
free from giddiness, and to nerves moderately hardened by mountain
experiences, the full sense of the majesty of the situation need not be
disturbed by physical fear. The animal 'homo scandens' is not in the
slightest danger. His pedestal may be scanty, but it is sufficient.
He can follow his chamois-hunter amongst the abysses with as much
confidence as Dante followed the elder poet amidst the boiling gulfs of
Tartarus.
As we went on, the height of the groove, and consequently the
head-room, became, for a time, inadequate to our requirements--a fact
which a moment's inattention seldom failed to impress forcibly on the
brain. Let the reader picture himself walking along the mantelpiece and
the cornice coming down on him so as to force him to stoop or lie flat.
'Va bene!' cheerily remarked the Brusadaz hunter, in reply to some
grumbles on this score, 'it is all as easy as this, except one place,
and that is of no consequence.' This place, the 'eccentric obstacle'
of the guidebook, arrived in due course, a projecting corner where the
ledge was not broken away but partially closed in by a roof of rock.
There was just room enough to allow a thin person to lie down and
worm himself round with due care and deliberation; a brilliant climber
could find some support for portions of his body on slight knobs below;
those who were neither thin nor brilliant had to trust to the rope and
their companions. For us, who followed an adroit and confident leader,
there was little difficulty in the feat; but the happy boldness of our
predecessor, who, when his companion's courage failed him, himself led
the way, did not the less impress us. Mr. Ball, we agreed, had here
proved himself in the body as well as in the spirit the true 'Alpine
Guide.'
Having all wound or scrambled past the corner as instinct led us,
we followed round yet another bay the faithful ledge. At last the
precipice above us broke back, and our guide announced that all
difficulty was at an end. And so it proved, at least as far as nerves
and gymnastics were concerned. But to keep up the pace he now set
us was no slight task. We raced upwards through the mists at true
chamois-hunter speed, over steep slopes, now of large broken crags,
now of smaller and less cohesive fragments, up low cliffs, then over
more slopes, until we began to think the mountain interminable. At
last, where a stream, the hidden roar of which was often heard, flashed
for a moment into light, I was glad to call a halt. Two buttresses of
rock, the ends of the topmost ridge of the Pelmo, loomed largely, and,
despite our exertions, still loftily overhead; a glimmer of ice shone
between them.
We soon came to the glacier, a sheet of uncrevassed ice, sloping
slightly from south to north, and filling the large but from below
unseen and unsuspected hollow which lies between the horseshoe-shaped
battlements of the mountain. 'If the water of the ocean,' writes
Professor Huxley, 'could be suddenly drained away we should see
the atolls rising from the sea-bed like vast truncated cones, and
resembling so many volcanic craters, except that their sides would be
steeper than those of an ordinary volcano.' The description exactly
fits our peak; and if, reversing the picture, we imagine the level
of the Adriatic raised a trifle of 10,000 feet, the glacier would
yield its place to a lagoon, and these ridges would exactly represent
an atoll of the southern ocean. Our leader at first swerved to the
left towards the lower crags which immediately overlooked his native
village; turned by our remonstrances, he led us to the highest rocks, a
broken crest perfectly easy of access.[68] The verge of the huge outer
cliffs, in some places level up to the extreme edge, and unencumbered
with loose stones so as to allow of the closest approach, was gained
within a few yards of the cairn which marks the summit.
Through a framework of mists we could see down from time to time
into Val Fiorentina and along the gorge of Sottoguda, but the upper
mass of the Marmolata and all the neighbouring peaks were wrapped
in dense folds of leaden-coloured cloud. Feeling that a distant view
was hopeless, we hastened to retrace our steps before any wandering
storm should burst on the mountain. During the descent the fog became
at times thick enough to suggest unpleasant fears of missing the
direction. No such calamity, however, occurred; and, gaining a slide
on every slope composed of fragments minute enough to allow it, we
found ourselves far sooner than we had expected on the brink of the
lower precipice. The spot was marked by a patch of dwarf Edelweiss,
which, in company with other bright but tiny flowering plants, grew
here and there upon the mountain. We made our way rapidly back along
the ledge; the confidence of experience more than compensating for the
inconvenience of the cliff, to which we had often to hold, being now on
the left instead of the right hand. Where the direct descent on to the
green buttress had to be made we, by keeping a few yards too much to
the left, nearly got into a scrape, which was only avoided by a timely
acknowledgment of the error. Strait and narrow as is the right path on
the Pelmo, all other ways lead to destruction far too palpably not to
induce one immediately to return to it.
On the top of the buttress we rejoined our provision-sack, and enjoyed
a long halt in full view of the Antelao, now towering above the clouds,
a gigantic vapour-wreathed pyramid. From this point it is, as we found
the next day, but a two hours' walk or ride amongst bilberry-bushes and
forests to San Vito on the Ampezzo road. To return to San Nicolò was,
however, our present object, and our hunter promised a new and easy
path. We rushed rapidly down a very steep funnel to the great patch of
avalanche-snow which lies against the base of the cliffs in the centre
of the Campo di Rutorto. In the sort of cave left between the crag
and snow a jet of water, spouting like a fountain of Moses from the
arid rocks, served to fill our cups. A little footpath mounts gently
the rhododendron-covered slope beyond, and winds as near as it can
creep to the huge mountain. The cliffs above are broken, and in this
part there was formerly a possibility of scrambling through them. Our
guide declared that owing to a fall of rock the passage had now become
extremely difficult; and his statement gains some confirmation from
the fact that two of my friends who attempted (with a San Vito man) an
escalade from this direction, were forced to retreat, one of them with
a broken head. While climbing in advance he dislodged with one hand
a boulder from a shelf above him, which made its first bound on his
skull, fortunately without loosening the firm grasp of his other arm or
inflicting any permanent injury. Unstable boulders are the great source
of danger in this part of the Alps, and even old climbers require to be
constantly reminded that on dolomite rocks they must test before they
trust every handhold.
At the south-eastern angle of the Pelmo the cliff rises sheer for some
distance and then a wedge of stone suddenly juts out, overhanging its
base to an extent which I fear to estimate in figures, and can only
describe as incredible. The under part has fallen and lies on the path,
but a huge block still hangs threateningly overhead, an appropriate
gargoyle for so Titanic an edifice.
The brow beneath it commanded a wide and splendid prospect. To the
north rose the red crags of the Sorapis and the more symmetrical
outlines of the Antelao. Turning eastwards, green pasturages and
gable-formed ridges filled the foreground. The blunt-headed crags
of the Sasso di Bosco Nero occupied the middle distance. Beyond the
gorge of the Piave we looked across to the least-known portion of the
dolomites, the blue mountains, crested with dark teeth and horns, which
encompass remote Cimolais.
A sturdy little goatherd, the first human being we had seen since
leaving Brusadaz, here came up to greet us. The boy did not depend on
his voice alone to summon his flock. Round his shoulders was slung a
trumpet, one blast from which sent flying a peal of wild echoes not to
be disregarded even by the deafest and most obstinate of goats.
The terrace path continued to skirt the base of the Pelmo, until it
reached a platform of pasturage, the Campo sô Pelmo, lying due south
of the mountain. From this pasturage a second way may be found to
the upper slopes of the Pelmo. It is curious that this line of attack
should have been adopted by the Cortina guides in preference to that by
the angle of the mountain facing San Vito, so far the nearest and most
natural route from Val d'Ampezzo.
The difference in difficulty is probably in favour of the southern
ascent, but it can scarcely be sufficient to account for good
rock-climbers making a circuit of several miles. Yet Santo Siorpaes in
1872 led Mr. Tuckett round the mountain.
The only English ascent by the southern route was made by Mr. and Mrs.
Packe in 1870. They camped out for the night at the southern foot of
the mountain. I am glad to be able to quote Mr. Packe's description of
the climb, both because his impressions confirm my own, and for the
sake of any ladies who may be thereby encouraged to venture on the
Pelmo.
'From our camp a gentle ascent of twenty minutes over undulating
ground brought us to a grassy mamélon, forming an outlying buttress
of the mountain. Here we left the heavier portion of our provisions,
and at once commenced to climb north-east up a very steep rocky gully
which separates the detached shoulder described by Mr. Freshfield as
"the antediluvian cub crouching beside its parent." In this part of
the ascent, partly over snow, partly over rocks, though the rope was
sometimes brought into use, there was nothing very formidable. When at
the foot of the ridge which unites the cub to its parent, we turned
to the right, traversing transversely a steep talus of schist, with
a precipice below, but at some mètres' distance. After passing this
we reached a corner, where the rock came down vertically from above,
falling in the same way below; and here the difficulty commenced. For
about an hour we were passing along a ledge, which wound round the
recesses of the mountain, in one place entirely riven away by a rent in
the face of the rock, across which we had to step, while the stones we
dislodged fell with a sheer descent to a depth which the eye dared not
fathom, but which might have been some six hundred mètres beneath our
feet.
'It is this system of ledges on the face of a perpendicular cliff,
which, moreover, is crumbling in its nature, that forms the difficulty
of the Pelmo; and these cannot be escaped, though they may be varied,
approach it from whatever side you will; but, that ours was not the
same ledge as that by which Mr. Freshfield mounted is, I think, at once
evident from the reasons I have alleged, that our left hand was always
to the mountain in ascending, and that there was no place where we were
compelled to crawl.
'On emerging from this ledge the precipice on our left hand broke back,
and I take it here we had reached the same spot as that attained by
Mr. Freshfield from the opposite side. At any rate, from this spot,
his description would exactly apply to our route till we reached the
summit, which was still about a thousand mètres above us. All serious
difficulty was at an end. Our course lay over steep rocks, laced with
streams descending from the glacier,[69] and the only vegetation which
attracted my notice was here and there the bright yellow flowers of
the Alpine poppy. Above these rocks comes the glacier basin, which we
crossed, like Mr. Freshfield avoiding the lower ridges on the left, and
keeping to the right close to the highest crags of the Pelmo, which we
at last reached after a rough and laborious escalade.
'We remained on the summit from 11.30 to 1 P.M., and then returned by
exactly the same route, traversing the same ledge, but this time, of
course, with our right shoulders to the rock. After a halt at our camp
of the preceding night, we made the best of our way down to San Vito,
which we reached at 7, and drove thence in our carriage to Cortina the
same evening. The mountain of course may be done quicker, but I give
the times, if any other lady should like to try the ascent.'
After crossing a gentle elevation, we found ourselves on the verge of
the hollow of Brusadaz, and turned along a sledge-track leading down
the crest between it and the western branch of Val di Zoldo, beyond
which the crest of the Civetta stood forth high above the belts of
vapour. The hamlet of Coi, seated as it were astride the narrow ridge,
looks down at once on Brusadaz and San Nicolò; a steep corkscrew path
led us in twenty minutes to the latter village, where we found our
return not even begun to be expected.[70]
The Pelmo and Civetta naturally engross the attention of the traveller
on his first visit to Val di Zoldo; but the splendid walls of dolomite
which fence in the valley on the south-east and south-west invite
a second visit and further exploration. Passes may be found through
the western range to Agordo; through the eastern, presided over by
the strange block of the Sasso di Bosco Nero, the 'unknown mountains'
of Miss Edwards, to the valley of the Piave. They have been already
traversed by Mr. M. Holzmann, one of the most indefatigable explorers
of this region.[71]
I cannot bring myself to conclude this imperfect notice without paying
a tribute to the Italians of the southern dolomites, rendered, as it
seems to me, the more due and necessary by the frequent praise which
the Bœotian simplicity of their German-speaking neighbours has
received from English writers. A mountaineer may well have a good
word for the population of Val di Zoldo. Where else in the Alps will
he find a valley the natives of which, alone and unincited by foreign
gold, have found their way to the tops of the highest peaks? And let
it not be thought that this success was an easy one. The Civetta, from
whatever side it is seen, is of formidable steepness, and, as I have
said before, the Pelmo is to the eye of a mountaineer one of the most
perplexing peaks in the Alps. Yet the men of Val di Zoldo, by following
their game day after day, and learning that the ledge which offered the
chamois a means of escape was also for the hunter a means of pursuit,
found out at last the secret of the circuitous access to the upper
rocks, which had been for centuries a true 'Gemsen-Freiheit.'
I do not doubt that Mr. Ball was the first man to stand on the highest
crest of the Pelmo. Its attainment was probably not an object of
sufficient value to the hunters to induce them to cross the upper
glacier and brave the peril of being swallowed up alive by some hidden
chasm, a risk which weighs heavily on the mind of the peasant who has
yet to learn the saving grace of a rope. But the real difficulty lies
below, and amateur climbers with foreign guides might have sought
long and vainly for the passage which the spirit of the neighbouring
villagers had found ready for them.
But it is not alone on the narrow ground of venturesomeness that the
people of Val di Zoldo recommend themselves to an English traveller.
They possess in a high degree the intelligence and quick courtesy we
are accustomed to meet with in Northern Italy. No peasant will pass
the stranger as he sits to rest or sketch beside the path without a
few bright words of greeting and enquiry, showing often a feeling for
natural beauty and a quickness of apprehension rare amongst a secluded
population. The slowness alike of mind and of action, the refusal to
grasp anything outside their own daily experiences, so common among
the peasantry of the Pusterthal, is here unknown. To quote a shrewd
observer, 'the men are such gentlemen and the women such ladies, that
every chance meeting becomes an interchange of courtesies;' and the
traveller, turning northwards, will often have occasion to join in
Dickens's regret for what he has left behind, 'the beautiful Italian
manners, the sweet language, the quick recognition of a pleasant look
or cheerful word, the captivating expression of a desire to oblige in
everything.'
FOOTNOTES:
[67] Not the hamlet of the same name subsequently mentioned.
[68] The assurance given by the San Vito landlord to Messrs.
Gilbert and Churchill, that 'only the final ice-portion was
difficult' (_The Dolomite Mountains_, p. 399), was, I need
scarcely say, wholly misleading and contrary to fact.
[69] Mr. Bryce tells me that among the upper rocks of the
Pelmo, above the ice and somewhat E. of the highest point he
found a strong iron spring.
[70] We had been absent 10½ hours. The ascent occupied five
hours of quick walking; the return, made on the whole much
more leisurely, about four; halts accounted for the remaining
hour and a half.
[71] See Appendix A.