Lotus eating was a rough nerve-jarring business in
comparison. They were like saints and evangelists by Filippo
Lippi. Again the rendering of Handel came into my mind, and I
thought of how the goodly fellowship of prophets praised God. {4}
[At this point in the book a music score is given]
And how again in some such another quiet ecstasy the muses sing
about Jove's altar in the "Allegro and Penseroso."
Here is a sketch of Primadengo Church - looking over it on to the
other side the Ticino, but I could not get the cherry-trees nor
cherry-eaters.
On leaving Primadengo I went on to Calpiognia, and there too I
found the children's faces all purple with cherry juice; thence I
ascended till I got to a monte, or collection of chalets, about
5680 feet above the sea. It was deserted at this season. I
mounted farther and reached an alpe, where a man and a boy were
tending a mob of calves. Going still higher, I at last came upon a
small lake close to the top of the range: I find this lake given
in the map as about 7400 feet above the sea. Here, being more than
5000 feet above Faido, I stopped and dined.
I have spoken of a monte and of an alpe. An alpe, or alp, is not,
as so many people in England think, a snowy mountain. Mont Blanc
and the Jungfrau, for example, are not alps. They are mountains
with alps upon them.
An alpe is a tract of the highest summer pasturage just below the
snow-line, and only capable of being grazed for two or three months
in every year. It is held as common land by one or more villages
in the immediate neighbourhood, and sometimes by a single
individual to whom the village has sold it. A few men and boys
attend the whole herd, whether of cattle or goats, and make the
cheese, which is apportioned out among the owners of the cattle
later on. The pigs go up to be fattened on whey. The cheese is
not commonly made at the alpe, but as soon as the curd has been
pressed clear of whey, it is sent down on men's backs to the
village to be made into cheese. Sometimes there will be a little
hay grown on an alpe, as at Gribbio and in Piora; in this case
there will be some chalets built, which will be inhabited for a few
weeks and left empty the rest of the year.
The monte is the pasture land immediately above the highest
enclosed meadows and below the alpe. The cattle are kept here in
spring and autumn before and after their visit to the alpe.
