Now, as I looked, a few thin
streams seemed to wind through it, and I could not understand the
danger.
After a mile or two we came to a spot in the road where a patch of
brushwood only separated us from the river-bed. Here the boy bade me
wait, and asked a group of peasants whether the guide was in; they
said they thought so, and some went up into the hillside with the boy
to fetch him, others remained with me, looking at the river-bed and at
Fornovo beyond, shaking their heads, and saying it had not been done
for days. But I did not understand whether the rain-freshet had passed
and was draining away, or whether it had not yet come down from
beyond, and I waited for the guide.
They brought him at last down from his hut among the hills. He came
with great strides, a kindly-looking man, extremely tall and thin, and
with very pale eyes. He smiled. They pointed me out to him, and we
struck the bargain by holding up three fingers each for three lira,
and nodding. Then he grasped his long staff and I mine, we bade
farewell to the party, and together we went in silence through thick
brushwood down towards the broad river-bed. The stones of it glared
like the sands of Africa; Fornovo baked under the sun all white and
black; between us was this broad plain of parched shingle and rocks
that could, in a night, become one enormous river, or dwindle to a
chain of stagnant ponds. To-day some seven narrow streams wandered in
the expanse, and again they seemed so easy to cross that again I
wondered at the need of a guide.
We came to the edge of the first, and I climbed on the guide's back.
He went bare-legged into the stream deeper and deeper till my feet,
though held up high, just touched the water; then laboriously he
climbed the further shore, and I got down upon dry land. It had been
but twenty yards or so, and he knew the place well. I had seen, as we
crossed, what a torrent this first little stream was, and I now knew
the difficulty and understood the warnings of the inn.
The second branch was impassable. We followed it up for nearly a mile
to where 'an island' (that is, a mass of high land that must have been
an island in flood-time, and that had on it an old brown village)
stood above the white bed of the river. Just at this 'island' my guide
found a ford. And the way he found it is worth telling. He taught me
the trick, and it is most useful to men who wander alone in mountains.
You take a heavy stone, how heavy you must learn to judge, for a more
rapid current needs a heavier stone; but say about ten pounds. This
you lob gently into mid-stream. _How,_ it is impossible to describe,
but when you do it it is quite easy to see that in about four feet of
water, or less, the stone splashes quite differently from the way it
does in five feet or more. It is a sure test, and one much easier to
acquire by practice than to write about. To teach myself this trick I
practised it throughout my journey in these wilds.
Having found a ford then, he again took me on his shoulders, but, in
mid-stream, the water being up to his breast, his foot slipped on a
stone (all the bed beneath was rolling and churning in the torrent),
and in a moment we had both fallen. He pulled me up straight by his
side, and then indeed, overwhelmed in the rush of water, it was easy
to understand how the Taro could drown men, and why the peasants
dreaded these little ribbons of water.
The current rushed and foamed past me, coming nearly to my neck; and
it was icy cold. One had to lean against it, and the water so took
away one's weight that at any moment one might have slipped and been
carried away. The guide, a much taller man (indeed he was six foot
three or so), supported me, holding my arm: and again in a moment we
reached dry land.
After that adventure there was no need for carrying. The third,
fourth, fifth, and sixth branches were easily fordable. The seventh
was broad and deep, and I found it a heavy matter; nor should I have
waded it but for my guide, for the water bore against me like a man
wrestling, and it was as cold as Acheron, the river of the dead. Then
on the further shore, and warning him (in Lingua Franca) of his peril,
I gave him his wage, and he smiled and thanked me, and went back,
choosing his plans at leisure.
Thus did I cross the river Taro; a danger for men.
Where I landed was a poor man sunning himself. He rose and walked with
me to Fornovo. He knew the guide.
'He is a good man,' he said to me of this friend. 'He is as good as a
little piece of bread.'
'E vero,' I answered; 'e San Cristophero.'
This pleased the peasant; and indeed it was true. For the guide's
business was exactly that of St Christopher, except that the Saint
took no money, and lived, I suppose, on air.
And so to Fornovo; and the heat blinded and confused, and the air was
alive with flies. But the sun dried me at once, and I pressed up the
road because I needed food. After I had eaten in this old town I was
preparing to make for Calestano and to cross the first high spur of
the Apennines that separated me from it, when I saw, as I left the
place, a very old church; and I stayed a moment and looked at carvings
which were in no order, but put in pell-mell, evidently chosen from
some older building.
