Doera overlooks the castle, the original
hexagonal form of which can be made out from this point. It must
have been much of the same plan as the castle at Eynsford in Kent -
of which, by the way, I was once assured that the oldest inhabitant
could not say "what it come from." While I was copying the fresco
outside the chapel at Doera, some charming people came round me. I
said the fresco was very beautiful. "Son persuaso," said the
spokesman solemnly. Then he said there were some more pictures
inside and we had better see them; so the keys were brought. We
said that they too were very beautiful. "Siam persuasi," was the
reply in chorus. Then they said that perhaps we should like to buy
them and take them away with us. This was a more serious matter,
so we explained that they were very beautiful, but that these
things had a charm upon the spot which they would lose if removed
elsewhere. 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.
The judges at Mesocco get four francs a day when they are wanted,
but unless actually sitting they get nothing. No wonder the people
are so nice to one another and quarrel so seldom.
The walk from Mesocco to S. Bernardino is delightful; it should
take about three hours. For grassy slopes and flowers I do not
know a better, more especially from S. Giacomo onward. In the
woods above S. Giacomo there are some bears, or were last year.
Five were known - a father, mother, and three young ones - but two
were killed. They do a good deal of damage, and the Canton offers
a reward for their destruction. The Grisons is the only Swiss
Canton in which there are bears still remaining.
San Bernardino, 5500 feet above the sea, pleased me less than
Mesocco, but there are some nice bits in it. The Hotel Brocco is
the best to go to. The village is about two hours below the top of
the pass; the walk to this is a pleasant one. The old Roman road
can still be seen in many places, and is in parts in an excellent
state even now. San Bernardino is a fashionable watering-place and
has a chalybeate spring. In the summer it often has as many as two
or three thousand visitors, chiefly from the neighbourhood of the
Lago Maggiore and even from Milan. It is not so good a sketching
ground - at least so I thought - as some others of a similar
character that I have seen. It is not comparable, for example, to
Fusio. It is little visited by the English.
On our way down to Bellinzona again we determined to take S. Maria
in Calanca, and accordingly were dropped by the diligence near
Gabbiolo, whence there is a path across the meadows and under the
chestnuts which leads to Verdabbio. There are some good bits near
the church of this village, and some quaint modern frescoes on a
public-house a little off the main footpath, but there is no
accommodation. From this village the path ascends rapidly for an
hour or more, till just as one has made almost sure that one must
have gone wrong and have got too high, or be on the track to an
alpe only, one finds one's self on a wide beaten path with walls on
either side. We are now on a level with S. Maria itself, and
turning sharply to the left come in a few minutes right upon the
massive keep and the campanile, which are so striking when seen
from down below. They are much more striking when seen from close
at hand. The sketch I give does not convey the notion - as what
sketch can convey it? - that one is at a great elevation, and it is
this which gives its especial charm to S. Maria in Calanca.
The approach to the church is beautiful, and the church itself full
of interest. The village was evidently at one time a place of some
importance, though it is not easy to understand how it came to be
built in such a situation.
