Be This, However, As It May, None Of
These Please Me So Much As The Passero Solitario.
The only mammals that I can call to mind at this moment as showing
any even apparent approach to an appreciation of the diatonic scale
are the elephant and the rhinoceros.
The braying (or whatever is
the technical term for it) of an elephant comprises a pretty
accurate third, and is of a rich mellow tone with a good deal of
brass in it. The rhinoceros grunts a good fourth, beginning, we
will say, on C, and dropping correctly on to the G below.
The Monte Generoso, then, is a good place to stay a few days at,
but one soon comes to an end of it. The top of a mountain is like
an island in the air, one is cooped up upon it unless one descends;
in the case of the Monte Generoso there is the view of the lake of
Lugano, the walk to the Colma, the walk along the crest of the hill
by the farm, and the view over Lombardy, and that is all. If one
goes far down one is haunted by the recollection that when one is
tired in the evening one will have all one's climbing to do, and,
beautiful as the upper parts of the Monte Generoso are, there is
little for a painter there except to study cattle, goats, and
clouds. I recommend a traveller, therefore, by all means to spend
a day or two at the hotel on the Monte Generoso, but to make his
longer sojourn down below at Mendrisio, the walks and excursions
from which are endless, and all of them beautiful.
Among the best of these is the ascent of the Monte Bisbino, which
can be easily made in a day from Mendrisio; I found no difficulty
in doing it on foot all the way there and back a few years ago, but
I now prefer to take a trap as far as Sagno, and do the rest of the
journey on foot, returning to the trap in the evening. Every one
who knows North Italy knows the Monte Bisbino. It is a high
pyramidal mountain with what seems a little white chapel on the top
that glistens like a star when the sun is full upon it. From Como
it is seen most plainly, but it is distinguishable over a very
large part of Lombardy when the sun is right; it is frequently
ascended from Como and Cernobbio, but I believe the easiest way of
getting up it is to start from Mendrisio with a trap as far as
Sagno.
A mile and a half or so after leaving Mendrisio there is a village
called Castello on the left. Here, a little off the road on the
right hand, there is the small church of S. Cristoforo, of great
antiquity, containing the remains of some early frescoes, I should
think of the thirteenth or early part of the fourteenth century.
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