Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/374

390 and towards midnight a little chamber also, in a house or magazine out of the hotel. It is true, the chamber is like a prison cell, with cobwebs in every corner and at all heights; iron bars before the dirty window, and so on; but it contains, nevertheless, a bed, a chair, and a table. A little active “Nina” assists me to prepare my bed, and then I rest deliciously, whilst I listen, at intervals, to the loud claps of thunder, and the torrents of rain which again pour down through the livelong night.

In the morning the sun shines, and the sky is bright to the south, over Lago Maggiore, but above the heights of Simplon and Monte Rosa it looks—as it must have looked at the time of the deluge. Violet-black cloud envelops the Alpine region. After breakfast I go out on the road by the lake, and am there witness to a great fishing for wood.

The lake is covered with drift-timber, which the rivers Tosa, Ticino, and others, swollen by the violent rains, have carried hither from the mountain valleys. There is timber of all sizes, large trees and small—mostly beech, as it seems to me—branches and twigs, portions of trees, planks innumerable; and boys and girls, old men and women, young men and women, are busy along the shores fishing up the timber and the branches that are borne thither by the force of the waves. The young ones leap exultingly with their bare legs into the water; the old people drag the more precious waifs and strays towards them with rakes. A great number of larger and smaller boats are out on the lake, which are catching the same kind of fish with hooks and lines.