rowan
and autumnal underwood. Ever as we sank, the mountains rose--those
sharp embattled precipices, toppling spires, impendent chasms blurred
with mist, that make the entrance into Italy sublime. Nowhere do the
Alps exhibit their full stature, their commanding puissance, with such
majesty as in the gates of Italy; and of all those gates I think there
is none to compare with Maloja, none certainly to rival it in
abruptness of initiation into the Italian secret. Below Vico Soprano
we pass already into the violets and blues of Titian's landscape. Then
come the purple boulders among chestnut trees; then the double
dolomite-like peak of Pitz Badin and Promontogno.

It is sad that words can do even less than painting could to bring
this window-scene at Promontogno before another eye. The casement just
frames it. In the foreground are meadow slopes, thinly, capriciously
planted with chestnut trees and walnuts, each standing with its shadow
cast upon the sward. A little farther falls the torrent, foaming down
between black jaws of rain-stained granite, with the wooden buildings
of a rustic mill set on a ledge of rock. Suddenly above this landscape
soars the valley, clothing its steep sides on either hand with pines;
and there are emerald isles of pasture on the wooded flanks; and then
cliffs, where the red-stemmed larches glow; and at the summit,
shooting into ether with a swathe of mist around their basement, soar
the double peaks, the one a pyramid, the other a bold broken crystal
not unlike the Finsteraarhorn seen from Furka. These are connected by
a snowy saddle, and snow is lying on their inaccessible crags in
powdery drifts. Sunlight pours between them into the ravine. The green
and golden forests now join from either side, and now recede,
according as the sinuous valley brings their lines together or
disparts them. There is a sound of cow-bells on the meadows; and the
roar of the stream is dulled or quickened as the gusts of this October
wind sweep by or slacken. _Italiam petimus!_

_Tangimus Italiam!_ Chiavenna is a worthy key to this great gate
Italian. We walked at night in the open galleries of the cathedral
cloister--white, smoothly curving, well-proportioned loggie, enclosing
a green space, whence soars the campanile to the stars. The moon had
sunk, but her light still silvered the mountains that stand at watch
round Chiavenna; and the castle rock was flat and black against that
dreamy background. Jupiter, who