s. All the summer long
these pastures nourish the sheep, poor enough beasts at the best. One
recalls that in the great days the Guild of Wool got its material from
Flanders and from England, because the Tuscan fleece was too hard and
poor. Through these lonely pastures you climb with your guide, through
forests of oak and chestnut, by many a winding path, not without
difficulty, to the steeper sides of the mountain covered with brushwood,
into the silence where there is no voice but the voice of the streams.
Here in a cleft, under the very summit of Falterona, Arno rises, gushing
endlessly from the rock in seven springs of water, that will presently
gather to themselves a thousand other streams and spread through
Casentino:

"Botoli trova poi, venendo giuso
Ringhiosi piu che non chiede lor possa
Ed, a lor, disdegnosa, torce il muso"

at the end of the valley.

Climbing above that sacred source to the summit of Falterona itself, you
may see, if the dawn be clear, the Tyrrhene sea and the Adriatic, the
one but a tremor of light far and far away, the other a sheet of silver
beyond the famous cities of Romagna. It is from this summit that your
way through Casentino should begin.

It was there I waited the dawn. For long in the soft darkness and
silence I had watched the mountains sleeping under the few summer stars.
Suddenly the earth seemed to stir in her sleep, in every valley the dew
was falling, in all forests there was a rumour, and among the rocks
where I lay I caught a flutter of wings. The east grew rosy; out of the
mysterious sea rose a golden ghost hidden in glory, till suddenly across
the world a sunbeam fell. It touched the mountains one by one; higher
and higher crept the tremulous joy of light, confident and ever more
confident, opening like a flower, filling the world with gladness and
light. It was the dawn: out of the east once more had crept the beauty
of the world.

Then in that clear and joyful hour God spread out all the breadth of
Italy before me: the plains, the valleys, and the mountains. Far and far
away, shining in the sun, Ravenna lay, and lean Rimini and bartered
Pesaro. There, the mountains rose over Siena, in that valley Gubbio
slept, on that hill stood S. Marino, and there, like a golden angel
bearing the Annunciation of Day, S. Leo folded her wings on her
mountain. Southward, Arezzo smiled like a flower, Monte Amiata was
already glorious; northward lay a sea of mountains, n