While On Our
Way To The Garden We Passed A Spot Where There Was An Alarming
Buzzing, And Found Ourselves
Surrounded by what appeared to be an
angry swarm of bees; closer inspection showed that the host was a
medley
One, composed of wasps, huge hornets, hive-bees, humble-
bees, flies, dragon-flies, butterflies, and all kinds of insects,
flying about a single patch of ivy in full blossom, which attracted
them so strongly that they neglected everything else. I think some
of them were intoxicated. If this was so, then perhaps Bacchus is
called "ivy-crowned" because ivy-blossoms intoxicate insects, but I
never remember to have before observed that ivy-blossoms had any
special attraction for insects.
I have forgotten to say anything about a beam of wood which may be
seen standing out at right angles from the tower to the right of
the main building. This I believe to have been the gallows.
Another like it may be seen at S. Giorio, but I have not got it in
my sketch of that place. The attendant who took us round S.
Michele denied that it was the gallows, but I think it must have
been. Also, the attendant showed us one place which is called Il
Salto della belle Alda. Alda was being pursued by a soldier; to
preserve her honour, she leaped from a window and fell over a
precipice some hundreds of feet below; by the intercession of the
Virgin she was saved, but became so much elated that she determined
to repeat the feat.
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