While thus placed between these two kindhearted people, both strange to the world, alone, as it were, in the deep solitude of the earth, I felt, in the most lively manner, as I reflected on the day's adventure, what a whimsical being Man is--how the very thing, which in company he might enjoy with ease and security, is often rendered troublesome and dangerous, from his notion, that he can appropriate to himself the world and its contents after his own peculiar fashion.
Towards midnight my host accompanied me to the barque, carrying the basket of fruit with which Gregorio had presented me, and thus, with a favorable wind, I left the shore, which had promised to become a Læstrygonicum shore to me.
[Footnote 2: The fiftieth anniversary of a wedding-day is so called in Germany. Trans.]
And now for my expedition on the lake. It ended happily, after the noble aspect of the water, and of the adjacent shore of Brescia had refreshed my very heart. On the western side, where the mountains cease to be perpendicular, and near the lake, the land becomes more flat, Garignano, Bojaco, Cecina, Toscolan, Maderno, Verdom, and Salo, stand all in a row, and occupy a reach of about a league and a half; most of them being built in long streets. No words can express the beauty of this richly inhabited spot. At 10 o'clock in the morning I landed at Bartolino, placed my luggage on one mule and myself on another. The road went now over a ridge, which separates the valley of the Etsch from the hollow of the lake. The primæval waters seem to have driven against each other from both sides, in immense currents, and to have raised this colossal dam of gravel. A fertile soil was deposited upon the gravel at a quieter period, but the labourer is constantly annoyed by the appearance of the stones on the surface. Every effort is made to get rid of them, they are piled in rows and layers one on another, and thus a sort of thick wall is formed along the path. The mulberry-trees, from a want of moisture, have a dismal appearance at this elevation. Springs there are none. From time to time puddles of collected rain-water may be found, with which the mules and even their drivers quench their thirst. Some wheels are placed on the river beneath, to water, at pleasure, those plantations that have a lower situation.