It Seemed Made Rather By Man Than By
Nature, So Square And Exact Was It And So Cut Off From The Other
Hills.
It was not till the later afternoon, when the air was already full of
the golden dust that comes before the fall of the evening, that I
stood above the Enza and saw it running thousands of feet below.
Here
I halted for a moment irresolute, and looked at the confusion of the
hills. It had been my intention to make a straight line for Collagna,
but I could not tell where Collagna lay save that it was somewhere
behind the high mountain that was now darkening against the sky.
Moreover, the Enza (as I could see down, down from where I stood) was
not fordable. It did not run in streams but in one full current, and
was a true river. All the scene was wild. I had come close to the
central ridge of the Apennines. It stood above me but five or six
clear miles away, and on its slopes there were patches and fields of
snow which were beginning to glimmer in the diminishing light.
Four peasants sat on the edge of the road. They were preparing to go
to their quiet homesteads, and they were gathering their scythes
together, for they had been mowing in a field. Coming up to these, I
asked them how I might reach Collagna. They told me that I could not
go straight, as I had wished, on account of the impassable river, but
that if I went down the steep directly below me I should find a
bridge; that thence a path went up the opposite ridge to where a
hamlet, called Ceregio (which they showed me beyond the valley), stood
in trees on the crest, and once there (they said) I could be further
directed.
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