walked so lately for us on the long
ridge of the Jacobshorn above our pines, had now an ample space of sky
over Lombardy to light his lamp in. Why is it, we asked each other, as
we smoked our pipes and strolled, my friend and I;--why is it that
Italian beauty does not leave the spirit so untroubled as an Alpine
scene? Why do we here desire the flower of some emergent feeling to
grow from the air, or from the soil, or from humanity to greet us?
This sense of want evoked by Southern beauty is perhaps the antique
mythopoeic yearning. But in our perplexed life it takes another form,
and seems the longing for emotion, ever fleeting, ever new,
unrealised, unreal, insatiable.

II.--OVER THE APENNINES

At Parma we slept in the Albergo della Croce Bianca, which is more a
bric-a-brac shop than an inn; and slept but badly, for the good folk
of Parma twanged guitars and exercised their hoarse male voices all
night in the street below. We were glad when Christian called us, at 5
A.M., for an early start across the Apennines. This was the day of a
right Roman journey. In thirteen and a half hours, leaving Parma at 6,
and arriving in Sarzana at 7.30, we flung ourselves across the spine
of Italy, from the plains of Eridanus to the seashore of Etruscan
Luna. I had secured a carriage and extra post-horses the night before;
therefore we found no obstacles upon the road, but eager drivers,
quick relays, obsequious postmasters, change, speed, perpetual
movement. The road itself is a noble one, and nobly entertained in all
things but accommodation for travellers. At Berceto, near the summit
of the pass, we stopped just half an hour, to lunch off a mouldy hen
and six eggs; but that was all the halt we made.

As we drove out of Parma, striking across the plain to the _ghiara_ of
the Taro, the sun rose over the austere autumnal landscape, with its
withered vines and crimson haws. Christian, the mountaineer, who at
home had never seen the sun rise from a flat horizon, stooped from the
box to call attention to this daily recurring miracle, which on the
plain of Lombardy is no less wonderful than on a rolling sea. From the
village of Fornovo, where the Italian League was camped awaiting
Charles VIII. upon that memorable July morn in 1495, the road strikes
suddenly aside, gains a spur of the descending Apennines, and keeps
this vantage till the pass of La Cisa is reached. Many windings are
occasioned by thus adhering to aretes, but the tot