I Was Once Addressed As "L'esimio Pittore." I
Think This Is One Degree Better Even Than "Egregio."
The damage which torrents can do must be seen to be believed.
There is not a streamlet, however innocent looking, which is not
liable occasionally to be turned into a furious destructive agent,
carrying ruin over the pastures which at ordinary times it
irrigates.
Perhaps in old times people deified and worshipped
streams because they were afraid of them. Every year each one of
the great Alpine roads will be interrupted at some point or another
by the tons of stones and gravel that are swept over it perhaps for
a hundred yards together. I have seen the St. Gothard road more
than once soon after these interruptions and could not have
believed such damage possible; in 1869 people would still shudder
when they spoke of the inundations of 1868. It is curious to note
how they will now say that rocks which have evidently been in their
present place for hundreds of years, were brought there in 1868; as
for the torrent that damaged S. Rocco when I was in the valley of
Mesocco, it shaved off the strong parapet of the bridge on either
side clean and sharp, but the arch was left standing, the flood
going right over the top. Many scars are visible on the mountain
tops which are clearly the work of similar water-spouts, and
altogether the amount of solid matter which gets taken down each
year into the valleys is much greater than we generally think.
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