While the morning was yet young, I came to the packed little
town of Bodio, and passed the eight franc limit by taking coffee,
brandy, and bread. There also were a gentleman and a lady in a
carriage who wondered where I was going, and I told them (in French)
'to Rome'. It was nine in the morning when I came to Biasca. The sun
was glorious, and not yet warm: it was too early for a meal. They gave
me a little cold meat and bread and wine, and seven francs stood out
dry above the falling tide of my money.
Here at Biasca the valley took on a different aspect. It became wider
and more of a countryside; the vast hills, receding, took on an
appearance of less familiar majesty, and because the trend of the
Ticino turned southerly some miles ahead the whole place seemed
enclosed from the world. One would have said that a high mountain
before me closed it in and rendered it unique and unknown, had not a
wide cleft in the east argued another pass over the hills, and
reminded me that there were various routes over the crest of the Alps.
Indeed, this hackneyed approach to Italy which I had dreaded and
despised and accepted only after a defeat was very marvellous, and
this valley of the Ticino ought to stand apart and be a commonwealth
of its own like Andorra or the Gresivaudan:
