his, and hence perish, though the lakes have been repeatedly stocked.
The trout in the _Lago Ritom_ are said to be the finest in the world, and
certainly I know none so fine myself. They grow to be as large as
moderate-sized salmon, and have a deep-red flesh, very firm and full of
flavour. I had two cutlets off one for breakfast, and should have said
they were salmon unless I had known otherwise. In winter, when the lake
is frozen over, the people bring their hay from the farther Lake of
Cadagna in sledges across the Lake Ritom. Here, again, winter must be
worth seeing, but on a rough snowy day Piora must be an awful place.
There are a few stunted pines near the hotel, but the hillsides are for
the most part bare and green. Piora in fact is a fine breezy open upland
valley of singular beauty, and with a sweet atmosphere of cow about it;
it is rich in rhododendrons and all manner of Alpine flowers, just a
trifle bleak, but as bracing as the Engadine itself.

The first night I was ever in Piora there was a brilliant moon, and the
unruffled surface of the lake took the reflection of the mountains. I
could see the cattle a mile off, and hear the tinkling of their bells
which danced multitudinously before the ear as fire-flies come and go
before the eyes; for all through a fine summer's night the cattle will
feed as though it were day. A little above the lake I came upon a man in
a cave before a furnace, burning lime, and he sat looking into the fire
with his back to the moonlight. He was a quiet moody man, and I am
afraid I bored him, for I could get hardly anything out of him but "Oh
altro"--polite but not communicative. So after a while I left him with
his face burnished as with gold from the fire, and his back silver with
the moonbeams; behind him were the pastures and the reflections in the
lake and the mountains and the distant ringing of the cowbells.

Then I wandered on till I came to the chapel of S. Carlo; and in a few
minutes found myself on the _Lugo di Cadagna_. Here I heard that there
were people, and the people were not so much asleep as the simple
peasantry of these upland valleys are expected to be by nine o'clock in
the evening. For now was the time when they had moved up from Ronco,
Altanca, and other villages in some numbers to cut the hay, and were
living for a fortnight or three weeks in the chalets upon the _Lago di
Cadagna_. As I have said, there is a chapel, but I doubt whether it is
atte