I Walked Once On A Frosty Winter's Morning From
Airolo To Giornico, And Can Call To Mind Nothing In Its Way More
Beautiful:
Everything was locked in frost - there was not a
waterwheel but was sheeted and coated with ice:
The road was hard
as granite - all was quiet and seen as through a dark but incredibly
transparent medium. Near Piotta I met the whole village dragging a
large tree; there were many men and women dragging at it, but they
had to pull hard and they were silent; as I passed them I thought
what comely, well-begotten people they were. Then, looking up,
there was a sky, cloudless and of the deepest blue, against which
the snow-clad mountains stood out splendidly. No one will regret a
walk in these valleys during the depth of winter. But I should
have liked to have looked down from the sun into the sunlessness,
as the old Fate woman at Ronco can do when she sits in winter at
her window; or again, I should like to see how things would look
from this same window on a leaden morning in midwinter after snow
has fallen heavily and the sky is murky and much darker than the
earth. When the storm is at its height, the snow must search and
search and search even through the double windows with which the
houses are protected. It must rest upon the frames of the pictures
of saints, and of the sister's "grab," and of the last hours of
Count Ugolino, which adorn the walls of the parlour. No wonder
there is a S. Maria della Neve - a "St. Mary of the Snow"; but I do
wonder that she has not been painted.
From Ronco the path keeps level and then descends a little so as to
cross the stream that comes down from Piora. This is near the
village of Altanca, the church of which looks remarkably well from
here. Then there is an hour and a half's rapid ascent, and at last
all on a sudden one finds one's self on the Lago Ritom, close to
the hotel.
The lake is about a mile, or a mile and a half, long, and half a
mile broad. It is 6000 feet above the sea, very deep at the lower
end, and does not freeze where the stream issues from it, so that
the magnificent trout in the, lake can get air and live through the
winter. In many other lakes, as for example the Lago di Tremorgio,
they cannot do this, and hence perish, though the lakes have been
repeatedly stocked. The trout in the Lago Ritom are said to be the
finest in the world, and certainly I know none so fine myself.
They grow to be as large as moderate-sized salmon, and have a deep
red flesh, very firm and full of flavour. I had two cutlets off
one for breakfast and should have said they were salmon unless I
had known otherwise.
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