Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 1.djvu/130

 comfortably at Lecco, and hired a calèche for Bergamo. It was a pleasant but warm drive. Oh, how loth will the Austrian ever be to loosen his gripe of this fair province, fertile and abounding in its produce,—its hills adorned with many villages, and sparkling with villas. These numerous country-houses are the peculiarity and beauty of the region: as is the neighbourhood of Florence, so are all these hills, which form steps between the Alps and the Plains of Lombardy, rendered gay by numerous villas, each surrounded by its grounds planted with trees, among which the spires of the cypress rise in dark majesty. The fields were in their best dress; the grapes ripening in the sun; the Indian corn—the second crop of this land of plenty—full-grown, but not quite ripe.

Variety of scene is so congenial, that the first effect of changing the mountain-surrounded, solitary lake for the view of plain and village, and widespread landscape, raised my spirits to a very spring-tide of enjoyment. We were very merry as we drove along.

There is a fair at Bergamo; it has lasted three weeks, and the great bustle is over. We had been told that the inns are bad; I do not know whether we have found admission into the best, but I know we could scarcely anywhere find a worse. The