Adige River

“ The great defensive strength of this plateau had from the first attracted his attention. There the Adige in a sharp bend westward approaches within six miles of Lake Garda. There, too, the mountains, which hem in the gorge of the river on its right bank, bend away towards the lake and leave a vast natural amphitheatre, near the centre of which rises the irregular plateau that commands the exit from Tyrol. Over this plateau towers on the north Monte Baldo, which, near the river gorge, sends out southward a sloping ridge, known as San Marco, connecting it with the plateau. ”

“ ADIGE (Ger. Etsch, anc. Athesis) , a considerable river in North Italy. The true source of the Adige is in some small lakes on the summit of the Reschen Scheideck Pass (4902 ft.) , and it is swollen by several other streams, near Glurns, where the roads over the Ofen and the Stelvio Passes fall in. It thence flows east to Meran, and then south-east to Botzen, where it receives the Eisak (6 ft.) , and becomes navigable. It then turns south-west, and, after receiving the Noce (right) and the Avisio (left) , leaves Tirol, and enters Lombardy, 13 m. ”

“ The next river to the E. is the Adige, which, after pursuing a parallel course with the Po for a considerable distance, enters the Adriatic by a separate mouth. Farther to the N. and N.E. the various rivers of Venetia fall directly into the Gulf of Venice.
There is no other instance in Europe of a basin of similar extent equally clearly characterized—the perfectly level character of the plain being as striking as the boldness with which the lower slopes of the mountain ranges begin to rise on each side of it. ”

“ The common people, however, had the game well in hand. They headed her off the narrow streets, where safety might have been, and kept her to the Lung' Adige. Round the great S the river makes she battled her blind way, trying for nothing, with wits for nothing, without hope, or understanding, or thought. ”

“ In North Italy on the other hand, the Adige, Brenta, and Po are frequently mentioned; the Po, indeed, from Turin must have been as constantly in use as any river in Europe in proportion to its length. From Mantua to Ferrara in 1574 [37] a boat sailed every night as a [86] matter of course; between Mantua and Venice communication by water was regular in 1591, and even from Milan to Venice it was quite an ordinary thing to travel by the Po, finishing the journey along the Adige to Chioggia by means of a canal which linked up the two rivers. ”

“ These small towns, scattered along the banks of the river which brought life to the region, are peopled mainly by farmers. The valley in which they are found has played an important part in Italian history. In ancient times barbarian invaders marched to the conquest of the peninsula through its conveniently situated gap. During three centuries the armor-clad troops sent by German emperors to crush revolts in Cisalpine cities crossed the Alps at the Brenner Pass and followed the channel of the Adige as it broadened towards the south. ”

“ The River Eisach joins the Rienz south of the Brenner, and afterwards meets the Adige at Botzen, whence it is known by the last name for the rest of its course to the Adriatic. Botzen, Meran, and Brixen are the most important places in this central zone. On the heights of the Brenner pass little produce can be grown, but in descending one comes again on fruitful fields of Indian corn, walnut trees growing luxuriantly, fruit trees of every kind, especially cherries, and lastly, vineyards plentiful and promising as we get on to the lowlands near the Lago di Garda. ”

“ For, unless there be other reasons to prevent, rivers always force their way where [152] there is the least resistance to overcome. In stratified rocks, where the tilt is so great as to make the strata vertical, the river beds usually run parallel with the lines of stratification. Instances are found among the Alpine rocks, in Valais along the Rhone, in Tyrol along the Inn and Adige, in Grisons, and among the Jura along the Rhine. Where the lines of stratification are horizontal, rivers usually take their course through the most marked ravines and fissures. ”

“ Hawkwood, on reaching the range of low land which is known as the Veronese valley, found the Adige, the Po, and the Polesino before him on the north, the south, and the west, and Jacopo del Verme hanging on his rear; and in this situation the enemy suddenly cut the dykes of the Adige, and let the river loose from its bed upon him. The lower ground about the Florentine camp was at once inundated. As far as the eye could stretch, the country, in every direction but one, was converted into a vast lake of hourly increasing depth; the waters even menaced the rising spot on which the army lay ”

“ The sun appeared,—and Italy.
It had rained. A bland air fluttered from the cypress hills through the valley, and through the vine-festoons of the mulberry-trees, and had forced its way along between blossoms and the fruits of the Seville oranges. The Adige seemed to rest, like a curling giant-snake, upon the motley-colored landscape of country-houses and olive-groves, and to set rainbows upon one another. Life played in the ether; only summer birds floated in the light blue; only the Venus-chariot of pleasure rolled over the soft hills. ”

“ A brawling little mountain stream, the Passer, rushes headlong from the glaciers of the Otzthaler Alps through a wild upland glen, to join in due time the broader stream of the Adige, which threads the bleak Vintschgau on its precipitous course from the lofty snow-fields of the Ortler and the Wild-Spitze. ”

“ Think, I repeat, what that south slope of the Alps might be: one paradise of lovely pasture and avenued forest of chestnut and blossomed trees, with cascades docile and innocent as infants, laughing all summer long from crag to crag and pool to pool, and the Adige and the Po, the Dora and the Ticino, no more defiled, no more alternating between fierce flood and venomous languor, but in calm clear currents bearing ships to every city and health to every field of all that azure plain of Lombard Italy.... ”

“ This is the highest pass in Europe, and on this day it seemed as if we were scaling heaven itself. Having a party of five, we procured a diligence to ourselves. We set out from Mals at six o'clock in the morning, and crossing the rushing, foaming Adige, began the ascent. Soon the mountains close in upon us, the Pass grows narrower and steeper; the horses have to pull harder; we get out and walk, partly to relieve the hard-breathing animals, but more to see at every turn the savage wildness of the scenery. ”

“ The depth of the annual deposit is stated at eighteen centimetres, or rather more than seven inches, and it would cover an area of not much less than ninety square miles with a layer of that thickness. The Adige, also, brings every year to the Adriatic many million cubic yards of Alpine detritus, and the contributions of the Brenta from the same source are far from inconsiderable. The Adriatic, however, receives but a small proportion of the soil and rock washed away from the Italian slope of the Alps and the northern declivity of the Apennines by torrents. ”

“ The coast, with the exception of the spot on which the town stands, is iron-bound; dark precipices rise abruptly from the water; a bend in the coast limits the view of the lake to a mile or two merely: behind is the chasm of the Adige, beside which Monte Baldo rises, lofty and dark—and mountains somewhat lower—but even they, sublime in altitude, darken the prospect immediately behind Riva. The town is mean and dirty; the inn—not bad to look at, is dirty and uncomfortable. It is kept by a large family ”

“ A little beyond it you come to a scene which has a curious effect. You are turning round the foot of the mountain on your left; but if you will look up the valley of the Adige beyond Glurns, you will see a perfectly smooth, broad grass expanse, descending gradually towards you. It may be somewhat less than a mile wide, and two miles or more long. It is impossible for you to see it without thinking of a glacier; indeed it is very like the one we saw yesterday, flowing down from Monte Cristallo towards the summit of the Stelvio. ”

“ 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, extending to the Apennines which bounded the horizon. ”

“ We had now to look out for a conveyance to Riva, the town at the head of the Lago di Garda, where we are to find the steam-boat, which is to convey us to its southern shores. We engaged a calèche and a caratella for twenty-two Austrian florins, and were soon on our way. We were in high spirits on having parted with our Germans, and on finding ourselves on the very verge of Italy. I do not pretend to say that this is a correct feeling; but it was natural, considering our ignorance of German. The valley of the Adige is very grand ”

“ To my mind, no city has a fairer place than she that sits beside the eager Adige, and breathes the keen air of mountains white with snows in winter, green and purple with vineyards in summer, and forever rich with marble. Around Verona stretch those gardened plains of Lombardy, on which Nature, who dotes on Italy, and seems but a step-mother to all transalpine lands, has lavished every gift of beauty and fertility. ”

“ Adige curves deeply inward, forming the city's western boundary, and then, doubling on itself, flows through the heart and south-eastward to the Adriatic. The surrounding hills are seamed and crested with fortifications of every age, beginning with those of the Romans of the Later Empire, followed by those of Theodoric the Goth, of Charlemagne the Frank, of the mediæval Scaligeri, lords of Verona, of the Venetians in the sixteenth century, and of the Austrians of our own day, when Verona was a point of the once famous Quadrilateral. ”

“ But the whole Italian slope is free at all times from the alleged defects of Swiss scenery. Further east lies the Trentino, where the mountains stand apart and the valleys spread out to an ampler width, where nature is rich and open-handed, and the landscapes unite 340 Alpine nobility of form to the sunny spaciousness and deep colour of Italy. And close at hand, beyond the Adige, is the country of Titian, where the new school may find a precedent and an example in the great painter of Cadore. ”

“ For the valley of the Ticino is made up of distinct levels, each of which might have held a lake once for the way it is enclosed: and each level ends in high rocks with a gorge between them. Down this gorge the river tumbles in falls and rapids and the road picks its way down steeply, all banked and cut, and sometimes has to cross from side to side by a bridge, while the railway above one overcomes the sharp descent by running round into the heart of the hills through circular tunnels and coming out again far below the cavern where it plunged in. ”

“ Like the Adige, his tumultuous grief, having its source in the pure springs of childish love, must surge through the years of his manhood, until at last it might lose itself in the vast sea of his own annihilation. ”

“ The smaller part of the southern boundary that laps over the Italian valleys of the Alps includes the head of Lake Maggiore, in Switzerland, and the upper Ticino, which flows through it to the plain of Lombardy and the Adriatic. In the east the boundary embraces only one valley, which drains to the Danube, the Engadine, through which the Upper Inn flows northeastward.
From the elevation at which they rise, and their rapids, the rivers of Switzerland are of no value in navigation. The Rhine only begins to be freely navigable at Basel, where it leaves the country. ”

“ Italy has no lovelier valley than the one where flowed the river on which she looked, and in the gentler season there is no water-course more expressive of serene human character. But the river was tipsy to-day. The springtime sun, in its passages of splendour from Alp to Alp, had set free [Pg 2] the winter snows, and Old Adda, flushed by his many cups, frolicked ruthlessly to the sea.
Peasant folk in that part of the Brianza had smiled a few days earlier to see the great stream change its sombre green for an earthy hue, because it was a promise of the vernal awakening. ”

“ In the evening we arrived at Sabern after passing thro' Lavis. One description will serve for these towns and indeed for most of the towns in the Tyrol, viz., that of being neat, clean and solidly built. The inns are excellent and the inhabitants very civil. The Adige runs close to the road and parallel to it, nearly the whole way to Bolsano or Botzen, where Italian ceases to be spoken and German is the national tongue. Botzen is a large and flourishing place. ”

“ Chioggia, Lido and Tre Porti, with the force and swiftness of an impetuous river, and these four water-systems, in their meetings and retreats, fill the lagoon with incessant movement, with clashing, swirling, and sweeping currents. Then, the tide does not always keep at this low level. When the attractions of the sun and moon combine, it rises higher and floods and washes out the canals, and when the angry south, blowing fiercely up Adria, has piled up the waters at the head of the gulf, they block in the falling tide. ”