emetery in the
Italian manner, with marble figures like common living men. The road
turned to the left, and I was fairly on the shoulder of the last
glacis. I stood on the Alps at their southern bank, and before me was
Lombardy.

Also in this ending of the Swiss canton one was more evidently in
Italy than ever. A village perched upon a rock, deep woods and a
ravine below it, its houses and its church, all betrayed the full
Italian spirit.

The frontier town was Chiasso. I hesitated with reverence before
touching the sacred soil which I had taken so long to reach, and I
longed to be able to drink its health; but though I had gone, I
suppose, ten miles, and though the heat was increasing, I would not
stop; for I remembered the two francs, and my former certitude of
reaching Milan was shaking and crumbling. The great heat of midday
would soon be on me, I had yet nearly thirty miles to go, and my bad
night began to oppress me.

I crossed the frontier, which is here an imaginary line. Two slovenly
customs-house men asked me if I had anything dutiable on me. I said
No, and it was evident enough, for in my little sack or pocket was
nothing but a piece of bread. If they had applied the American test,
and searched me for money, then indeed they could have turned me back,
and I should have been forced to go into the fields a quarter of a
mile or so and come into their country by a path instead of a
highroad.

This necessity was spared me. I climbed slowly up the long slope that
hides Como, then I came down upon that lovely city and saw its frame
of hills and its lake below me.

These things are not like things seen by the eyes. I say it again,
they are like what one feels when music is played.

I entered Como between ten and eleven faint for food, and then a new
interest came to fill my mind with memories of this great adventure.
The lake was in flood, and all the town was water.

Como dry must be interesting enough; Como flooded is a marvel. What
else is Venice? And here is a Venice at the foot of high mountains,
and _all_ in the water, no streets or squares; a fine even depth of
three feet and a half or so for navigators, much what you have in the
Spitway in London River at low spring tides.

There were a few boats about, but the traffic and pleasure of Como was
passing along planks laid on trestles over the water here and there
like bridges; and for those who were in haste, and could afford it
(such as take cabs in