As I reached Medesano the sun rose, and in half-an-hour the air
was instinct with heat; within an hour it was blinding. An early Mass
in the church below the village prepared my day, but as I took coffee
afterwards in a little inn, and asked about crossing the Taro to
Fornovo - my first point - to my astonishment they shook their heads.
The Taro was impassable.
Why could it not be crossed? My very broken language made it difficult
for me to understand. They talked _oframi,_ which I thought meant
oars; but _rami,_ had I known it, meant the separate branches or
streams whereby these torrential rivers of Italy flow through their
arid beds.
I drew a boat and asked if one could not cross in that (for I was a
northerner, and my idea of a river was a river with banks and water in
between), but they laughed and said 'No.' Then I made the motion of
swimming. They said it was impossible, and one man hung his head to
indicate drowning. It was serious. They said to-morrow, or rather next
day, one might do it.
Finally, a boy that stood by said he remembered a man who knew the
river better than any one, and he, if any one could, would get me
across.
