are wonderful, and the village is full of nice bits for sketching, but the best thing, to my fancy, is the church, and the way it stands, and the lovely covered porch through which it is entered. This porch is not striking from the outside, but I took two sketches of it from within. There is, also, a fresco, half finished, of St. George and the Dragon, probably of the fifteenth century, and not without feeling. There is not much inside the church, which is modernised and more recent than the tower. The tower is very good, and only second, if second, in the upper Leventina to that of Quinto, which, however, is not nearly so well placed.
The people of Prato are just as fond of cherries as those of Primadengo, but I did not see any men in the trees. The children in these parts are the most beautiful and most fascinating that I know anywhere; they have black mouths all through the month of July from the quantities of cherries that they devour. I can bear witness that they are irresistible, for one kind old gentleman, seeing me painting near his house, used to bring me daily a branch of a cherry-tree with all the cherries on it. “Son piccole,” he would say, “ma son gustose”—“They are small, but tasty,” which indeed they were. Seeing I ate all he gave me—for there was no stopping short as long as a single cherry was left—he, day by day, increased the size of the branch, but no matter how many he brought I was always even with him. I did my best to stop him from bringing them, or myself from eating all of them, but it was no use.
Here is the autograph of one of the little black-mouthed folk. I watch them growing up from year to year in many a village. I was sketching at Primadengo, and a little girl of about three years came up with her brother, a boy of perhaps eight. Before long the smaller child began to set her cap at me, smiling, ogling, and showing all her tricks like an accomplished little flirt. Her brother said, “She always goes on like that to strangers.” I said, “What’s her name?” “Forolinda.” The name being new to me, I made the boy write it, and here it is. He has forgotten to cross his F, but the writing is wonderfully good for a boy of his age. The child’s name, doubtless, is Florinda.
More than once at Prato, and often elsewhere, people have wanted to buy my sketches: if I had not required them for my own use I might have sold a good many. I do not think my patrons intended giving more than four or five francs a sketch, but a quick worker, who could cover his three or four Fortuny panels a day, might pay his expenses. It often happens that people who are doing well in London or Paris are paying a visit to their native village, and like to take back something to remind them of it in the winter.
From Prato, there are two ways to Faido, one past an old castle, built to defend the northern entrance of the Monte Piottino, and so over a small pass which will avoid the gorge; and the other, by Dazio and the Monte Piottino gorge. Both are good.
Chapter IV
Rossura, Calonico
The church has been a good deal restored during the last few years, and an interesting old chapel—with an altar in it—at which mass was said during a time of plague, while the people stood some way off in a meadow, has just been entirely renovated; but as with some English churches, the more closely a piece of old work is copied the more palpably does the modern spirit show through it, so here the opposite occurs, for the old-worldliness of the place has not been impaired by much renovation, though the intention has been to make everything as modern as possible.
I know few things more touching in their way than the porch of Rossura church. It is dated early in the last century, and is absolutely without ornament; the flight of steps inside it lead up to the level of the floor of the church. One lovely summer Sunday morning, passing the church betimes, I saw the people kneeling upon these steps, the church within being crammed. In the darker light of the porch, they told out against the sky that showed through the open arch beyond them; far away the eye rested on the mountains—deep blue save where the snow still lingered. I never saw anything more beautiful—and these forsooth are the people whom so many of us think to better by distributing tracts about Protestantism among them!
While I was looking, there came a sound of music through the open door—the people lifting up their voices and singing, as near as I can remember, something which on the piano would come thus:—
I liked the porch almost best under an aspect which it no longer presents. One summer an opening was made in the west wall, which was afterwards closed because the wind blew through it too much and made the church too cold. While it was open, one could sit on the church steps and look down through it on to the bottom of the Ticino valley; and through the windows one could see the slopes about Dalpe and Cornone. Between the two windows there is a picture of austere old S. Carlo Borromeo with his hands joined in prayer.
It was at Rossura that I made the acquaintance of a word which I have since found very largely used throughout North Italy. It is pronounced “chow” pure and simple, but is written, if written at all, “ciau,” or “ciao,” the “a” being kept very broad. I believe the word is derived from “schiavo,” a slave, which, became corrupted into “schiao,” and “ciao.” It is used with two meanings, both of which, however, are deducible from the word slave. In its first and more common use it is simply a salute, either on greeting or taking leave, and means, “I am your very obedient servant.” Thus, if one has been talking to a small child, its mother will tell it to say “chow” before it goes away, and will then nod her head and say “chow” herself. The other use is a kind of pious expletive, intending “I must endure it,” “I am the slave of a higher power.” It was in this sense I first heard it at Rossura. A woman was washing at a fountain while I was eating my lunch. She said she had lost her daughter in Paris a few weeks earlier. “She was a beautiful woman,” said the bereaved mother, “but—chow. She had great talents—chow. I had her educated by the nuns of Bellinzona—chow. Her knowledge of geography was consummate—chow, chow,” &c. Here “chow” means “pazienza,” “I have done and said all that I can, and must now bear it as best I may.”
I tried to comfort her, but could do nothing, till at last it occurred to me to say “chow” too. I did so, and was astonished at the soothing effect it had upon her. How subtle are the laws that govern consolation! I suppose they must ultimately be connected with reproduction—the consoling idea being a kind of small cross which re-generates or re-creates the sufferer. It is important, therefore, that the new ideas with which the old are to be crossed should
