Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/420

436 ; October 10th.—“Salut!”—“Bonjour!”—“Buon giorno!”—“Buon Viaggio!”—“Bon voyage!”—“Ceria!”—“Jagro!” were the salutations, which met me on all sides from the kindly people, as accompanied by Barba Legrain, I went to the hills of La Vacchiera, and Pra del Tor. They were addressed to me by people who came from the dwellings amongst the hills, with mules laden with sacks of chestnuts, apples, and such like, which they bartered for corn, and other articles, at the market of La Torre, which was not thronged with people. The third hay harvest was going forward in the valleys, and the people seemed cheerful; the day was sunny and warm.

I left the region of the chestnut groves and came to the birch woods, where also the beech and the hazel grow. By degrees, bushes took the place of trees; then bushes ceased, and on the heights of La Vacchiera, nothing grew but grass and ling. Arrived here, after four hours of gradual ascent, I obtained a full view of the wavy, gray, mountain chain's, which separate in long rays, the valleys Pragela, San Martino, Angrogna, Lucerna, and Rora, even from the Alps of Dauphine to the Piedrnontese plain. I saw in the north, the river Angrogna, which has its source in Mont Roux, and in the northwest the snow-covered heads of Monte Viso, and Pragela, rising above the gray mountain walls. On the south, lay the immense Piedmontese and Lombardic plains, cultivated like a garden,