The Nice People At Once Replied, "Siam Persuasi," And
So They Left Us.
It was like a fragment from one of Messrs.
Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas.
For the rest, Mesocco is beautifully situated and surrounded by
waterfalls. There is a man there who takes the cows and goats out
in the morning for their several owners in the village, and brings
them home in the evening. He announces his departure and his
return by blowing a twisted shell, like those that Tritons blow on
fountains or in pictures; it yields a softer sound than a horn;
when his shell is heard people go to the cow-house and let the cows
out; they need not drive them to join the others, they need only
open the door; and so in the evening, they only want the sound of
the shell to tell them that they must open the stable-door, for the
cows or goats when turned from the rest of the mob make straight to
their own abode.
There are two great avalanches which descend every spring; one of
them when I was there last was not quite gone until September;
these avalanches push the air before them and compress it, so that
a terrific wind descends to the bottom of the valley and mounts up
on to the village of Mesocco. One year this wind snapped a whole
grove of full-grown walnuts across the middle of their trunks, and
carried stones and bits of wood up against the houses at some
distance off; it tore off part of the covering from the cupola of
the church, and twisted the weathercock awry in the fashion in
which it may still be seen, unless it has been mended since I left.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 196 of 279
Words from 52323 to 52615
of 75076
