formerly
the territory of Venice, watered by the Piave, which ran blood in one of
Bonaparte's battles. At evening we arrived at Ceneda, where our Italian
poet Da Ponte[24] was born, situated just at the base of the Alps, the
rocky peaks and irregular spires of which, beautifully green with the
showery season, rose in the background. Ceneda seems to have something
of German cleanliness about it, and the floors of a very comfortable inn
at which we stopt were of wood, the first we had seen in Italy, tho'
common throughout Tyrol and the rest of Germany. A troop of barelegged
boys, just broke loose from school, whooping and swinging their books
and slates in the air, passed under my window.

On leaving Ceneda, we entered a pass in the mountains, the gorge of
which was occupied by the ancient town of Serravalle, resting on
arcades, the architecture of which denoted that it was built during the
Middle Ages. Near it I remarked an old castle, which formerly commanded
the pass, one of the finest ruins of the kind I had ever seen. It had a
considerable extent of battlemented wall in perfect preservation, and
both that and its circular tower were so luxuriantly loaded with ivy
that they seemed almost to have been cut out of the living verdure.
As we proceeded we became aware how worthy this region was to be the
birthplace of a poet.

A rapid stream, a branch of the Piave, tinged of a light and somewhat
turbid blue by the soil of the mountains, came tumbling and roaring
down the narrow valley; perpendicular precipices rose on each side; and
beyond, the gigantic brotherhood of the Alps, in two long files of steep
pointed summits, divided by deep ravines, stretched away in the sunshine
to the northeast. In the face of one of the precipices by the way-side,
a marble slab is fixt, informing the traveler that the road was opened
by the late Emperor of Germany in the year of 1830. We followed this
romantic valley for a considerable distance, passing several little blue
lakes lying in their granite basins, one of which is called the "Lago
Morto" or Dead Lake, from having no outlet for its waters.

At length we began to ascend, by a winding road, the steep sides of the
Alps--the prospect enlarging as we went, the mountain summits rising to
sight around us, one behind another, some of them white with snow, over
which the wind blew with a wintry keenness--deep valleys opening
below us, and gulfs yawning between rocks over which old bridges