"But Aren't You A Medical
Man?" Said She In An Alarmed Manner.
"Certainly not," replied I.
"Then why did you let me show you my leg?" said she indignantly,
and pulling her clothes down, the poor old woman began to hobble
off; presently two others joined her, and I heard hearty peals of
laughter as she recounted her story.
A stranger visiting these
out-of-the-way villages is almost certain to be mistaken for a
doctor. What business, they say to themselves, can any one else
have there, and who in his senses would dream of visiting them for
pleasure? This old lady had rushed to the usual conclusion, and
had been trying to get a little advice gratis.
Above Dalpe there is a path through the upper valley of the
Piumogna, which leads to the glacier whence the river comes. The
highest peak above this upper valley just turns the 10,000 feet,
but I was never able to find out that it has a name, nor is there a
name marked in the Ordnance map of the Canton Ticino. The valley
promises well, but I have not been to its head, where at about 7400
feet there is a small lake. Great quantities of crystals are found
in the mountains above Dalpe. Some people make a living by
collecting these from the higher parts of the ranges where none but
born mountaineers and chamois can venture; many, again, emigrate to
Paris, London, America, or elsewhere, and return either for a month
or two, or sometimes for a permanency, having become rich. In
Cornone there is one large white new house belonging to a man who
has made his fortune near Como, and in all these villages there are
similar houses. From the Val Leventina and the Val Blenio, but
more especially from this last, very large numbers come to London,
while hardly fewer go to America. Signor Gatti, the great ice
merchant, came from the Val Blenio.
I once found the words, "Tommy, make room for your uncle," on a
chapel outside the walls of one very quiet little upland hamlet.
The writing was in a child's scrawl, and in like fashion with all
else that was written on the same wall. I should have been much
surprised, if I had not already found out how many families return
to these parts with children to whom English is the native
language. Many as are the villages in the Canton Ticino in which I
have sat sketching for hours together, I have rarely done so
without being accosted sooner or later by some one who could speak
English, either with an American accent or without it. It is
curious at some out-of-the-way place high up among the mountains,
to see a lot of children at play, and to hear one of them shout
out, "Marietta, if you do that again, I'll go and tell mother."
One English word has become universally adopted by the Ticinesi
themselves. They say "waitee" just as we should say "wait," to
stop some one from going away. It is abhorrent to them to end a
word with a consonant, so they have added "ee," but there can be no
doubt about the origin of the word. {5}
When we bear in mind the tendency of any language, if it once
attains a certain predominance, to supplant all others, and when we
look at the map of the world and see the extent now in the hands of
the two English-speaking nations, I think it may be prophesied that
the language in which this book is written will one day be almost
as familiar to the greater number of Ticinesi as their own.
I may mention one other expression which, though not derived from
English, has a curious analogy to an English usage. When the
beautiful children with names like Handel's operas come round one
while one is sketching, some one of them will assuredly before long
be heard to whisper the words "Tira giu," or as children say when
they come round one in England, "He is drawing it down." The
fundamental idea is, of course, that the draughtsman drags the
object which he is drawing away from its position, and "transfers"
it, as we say by the same metaphor, to his paper, as St. Cecilia
"drew an angel down" in "Alexander's Feast."
A good walk from Dalpe is to the Alpe di Campolungo and Fusio, but
it is better taken from Fusio. A very favourite path with me is
the one leading conjointly from Cornone and Dalpe to Prato. The
view up the valley of the St. Gothard looking down on Prato is
fine; I give a sketch of it taken five years ago before the railway
had been begun.
The little objects looking like sentry boxes that go all round the
church contain rough modern frescoes, representing, if I remember
rightly, the events attendant upon the Crucifixion. These are on a
small scale what the chapels on the sacred mountain of Varallo are
on a large one. Small single oratories are scattered about all
over the Canton Ticino, and indeed everywhere in North Italy by the
roadside, at all halting-places, and especially at the crest of any
more marked ascent, where the tired wayfarer, probably heavy laden,
might be inclined to say a naughty word or two if not checked. The
people like them, and miss them when they come to England. They
sometimes do what the lower animals do in confinement when
precluded from habits they are accustomed to, and put up with
strange makeshifts by way of substitute. I once saw a poor
Ticinese woman kneeling in prayer before a dentist's show-case in
the Hampstead Road; she doubtless mistook the teeth for the relics
of some saint. I am afraid she was a little like a hen sitting
upon a chalk egg, but she seemed quite contented.
Which of us, indeed, does not sit contentedly enough upon chalk
eggs at times?
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