Garda

“ Garda rose to her knees. "Oh, don't call me Miss Thorne," she said, pleadingly, putting her arms round her companion. "I love you so much—please never say it again."
"Very well. I will call you Garda."
"I like it when you are cold like that—oh, I like it!" said Garda, with enthusiasm. "All you say when I tell you I adore you is, 'Very well; I will call you Garda;' you do not even say 'my dear.' That is beautiful, because you really mean it; you mean nothing more, and you say nothing more."
"Do you praise me simply because I speak the truth?" said Margaret.
"Yes; for nothing is more rare. ”

“ Riva, which is the Tyrolese port of charming Lake Garda, is one of the most delightful spots in all Tyrol. As one stands on the promenade, far towards the south stretches the beautiful lake, whose deep-blue waters and exquisite environment of mountains have been sung by poets and described by travellers in every language of Europe. ”

“ Certainly the lake of Garda displays a rare combination of the beautiful and sublime. The shores abound in the wild and majestic, in variety and beauty of local tints, and picturesque vicissitudes of light and shade; while the olive-crowned Sirmio, [Pg 54] like the island-realm of a Calypso, reposes in regal pride upon the waters, and seems to hold in vassalage the opposite shores and amphitheatre of mountains. ”

“ The first, beginning from the lake, is the Val del Lago, the deep trench which forms the continuation of the Garda basin. Two or three miles through high-walled gardens and vineyards which recall the environs of an eastern city bring us to Arco, lying under a huge castled crag. After leaving behind the broad streets and cypress avenues of the hot-looking town, the drive grows monotonous. The road stretches on through the half-desolate, half-luxuriant valley, from time to time the wheels rattle over pavement, and we pass through the long, gloomy street of some roadside village. ”

“ A railway platform like a terrace in a typical Italian garden, ornate with a row of carved stone vases of perfect form, and vines in festoons from vase to vase, and dark trees behind, and then a downward slope and little white houses asleep in the distance. This I think was close to Brescia. Then Desenzano, and what I took to be the distant glimmer of Lake Garda under the stars. Verona I passed in my sleep, having now crossed the boundary of Lombardy into Venetia, and Vicenza and Padua are nothing from the train. ”

“ The house of Torre Garda was not itself ancient though it undoubtedly stood on the site of some mediaeval watch-tower. It had been built in the days of Ferdinand VII at the period when French architecture was running rife over the world, and had the appearance of a Gascon chateau. It was a long low house of two stories. Every room on the ground floor opened with long French windows to a terrace built to the edge of the plateau, where a fountain splashed its clear spring water into a stone basin, where gray stone urns stood on lichen-covered pillars amid flower-beds. ”

“ Around the shores of other lakes—Maggiore, Lugano, Garda—blue mountains rise and the vineyards spread their green and dazzling terraces to the sun. Only Como can show in unmatched union a main composition, incomparably grand and harmonious, combined with every jeweled or glowing or exquisite detail. ”

“ They exchanged some remarks about Garda which contained rather more of animation.
Garda's last letter to Margaret had borne at the head of the page the magic word "Venice." Garda had appeared to think life there magical indeed. "She admires everything; she is delightfully happy," was Margaret's comment. ”

“ Gard (419) , a dep. in the S. of France, between the Cévennes and the Rhône; slopes to the Rhône and the sea, with a marshy coast; produces wine and olives, and is noted for its silkculture and breed of horses.
Garda, Lago di, the largest of the Italian lakes; stretches, amidst beautiful Alpine scenery, between Lombardy and Venetia. It is 35 m. long, and from 2 to 10 broad. Its water is remarkably clear, and has a depth of 967 ft. It is studded with many picturesque islands, and is traversed by steamers. ”

“ The first incident of this strange history, however, occurred while I was spending the early spring at Gardone. Possibly you, as an English reader, have [Pg 40] never heard of the place. If, however, you were Austrian, you would know it as one of the most popular resorts on the beautiful mountain-fringed Lake of Garda, that deep blue lake, half in Italian territory and half in Austrian, with the quaint little town of Desenzano at the Italian end, and Riva, with its square old church-tower and big white hotels, at the extreme north. ”

“ The most beautiful of his poems reflect the sweet pictures of the Lago di Garda, and hardly at this time could any man of the capital have written a poem like the deeply pathetic one on his brother's death, or the excellent genuinely homely festal hymn for the marriage of Manlius and Aurunculeia. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So that it is evident, from these figures, the Lago di Garda cannot afford to grow its lemons much longer. The gardens are already many of them in ruins, and still more 'Da Vendere'.
We went out of the shadow of the lemon-house on to the roof of the section below us. When we came to the brink of the roof I sat down. The padrone stood behind me, a shabby, shaky little figure on his roof in the sky, a little figure of dilapidation, dilapidated as the lemon-houses themselves.
We were always level with the mountain-snow opposite. A film of pure blue was on the hills to the right and the left. ”

“ A very little above its source, on the lake, stands the house of Cameron, belonging to Mr Smollett, so embosomed in an oak wood, that we did not see it till we were within fifty yards of the door. I have seen the Lago di Garda, Albano, De Vico, Bolsena, and Geneva, and, upon my honour, I prefer Lough-Lomond to them all, a preference which is certainly owing to the verdant islands that seem to float upon its surface, affording the most inchanting objects of repose to the excursive view. Nor are the banks destitute of beauties, which even partake of the sublime. ”

“ A desire to visit an Italian lake, as yet unknown, made us select the Brenner pass and the Lago di Garda for our entrance into the Peninsula. The extreme beauty of the country in which we are, makes us desire to see as much of it as possible ”

“ I learned that there are a few hardy old mountaineers fighting shoulder to shoulder with the youngsters up on the peaks; but these, of course, are exceptions such as one will find anywhere, for the capability of endurance is no longer the same as it was when on the right side of thirty, and the strain on the heart at these altitudes especially is enormously increased. But to revert to our excursion.
Our road for some distance skirted the shore of Lake Garda, which is intersected by the Austrian frontier at its northern end, where the important fortified town of Riva is situated. ”

“ It only remains now to speak of Sirmione, the most interesting perhaps after Soave, of the sites around Verona, and which the traveller should on no account omit to visit. The Peninsula of Sirmione on the Lake of Garda was famed in Roman times, and is a{295} spot whose praises have been sung by bards in all ages and tongues. Covered with olive and bay trees it would seem to invite poets to inhabit its groves, and to chant of the soft balmy air that floats round its shores. ”

“ The front line extends from Stelvio Pass in the Ortler Alps along the then Italian-Austrian boundary to Tonale Pass to Lake Garda, thence a little south of Altissimo, Asiago, to Mt. Grappa, Corduna and along the Piave to the sea. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Mistress Thorne having mentioned to me that you were making a little tour of the place with Miss Garda, I offered to bear you company during a portion, at least, of your progress, for Miss Garda, though possessing an intelligence delicately keen, may not (being feminine) remember to present you with the statistics, the—as I may say—historical items, which would naturally be interesting to a northerner of discrimination." The Doctor had a fine voice ”

“ At length he approached me, and, with [Pg 29] a look of intense interest, inquired how near my father’s villa was to Peschiera on the lake of Garda. “Within a league of it,” I replied. Again he paced the apartment in silent abstraction, when suddenly his eagle-eye was lighted up with more than its wonted fire, and he exclaimed with animation, “Agreed! I will accompany you to Lombardy, and should I prove acceptable to your mother as a guest, I will paint a Madonna for her chapel. ”

“ But the wide barren, growing rapidly dusky, remained empty and still; there was no moving thing in sight.
When he came back he found that Garda had put on her stockings and slippers again, wet as they were. She was trying to walk; but the soft sand of the track clung to each soaked shoe so that she lifted, as she said, a mountain every time she took a step. In spite of this, "I'm going on," she announced.
"You must, now that you have put on those wet things again; it's the only way to keep from taking cold." ”

“ There is at Verona some element in the Austrian councils of war which we don’t understand, but which gives to their operations in this present phase of the campaign just as uncertain and as vacillating a character as it possessed during the campaign of 1859. On Friday they are still beyond the Mincio, and on Saturday their small fleet on the Lake of Garda steams up to Desenzano, and opens fire against this defenceless city and her railway station, whilst two battalions of Tyrolese sharp-shooters occupy the building. ”

“ The men we already know through the wandering Tyrolese. In the country their appearance is less fresh than that of the women, perhaps because the latter have more bodily labour, and are more in motion, while the former sit at home as traders and workmen. By the Garda Lake I found the people very brown, without the slightest tinge of red in their cheeks; however they did not look unhealthy, but quite fresh and comfortable. Probably the burning sunbeams, to which they are exposed at the foot of their mountains, are the cause of their complexion.
FROM VERONA TO VENICE. Verona, Sept. ”

“ SOLFERINO, a village of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Mantua, 5 m. S.W. of San Martino della Battaglia (a railway station 72 m. E. of Milan on: the line to Verona) , situated 410 ft. above sea-level, on the south-west edge of the hills bordering the Lake of Garda on the south. Pop. ”

“ Nothing happens but the unexpected. Never for one moment did I obtain a glimpse, no, not half a glimpse, into the trouble in store for me, which was to arise, not from the loss of anything, but out of an acquisition.
From Trets I went on by train to Gardanne, watching the evening lights die upon the silver-grey precipices of Mont Victoire. At Gardanne I had to change, and kick my heels for two hours. Gardanne is a picturesque little town, built on a hill round a castle in ruins and a church very much restored. ”

“ The village itself is not pretty, but around it on the sea shore, with gardens sloping down into the very waves, and stone loggias and terraces whose feet stand in the water, above it on the hill-side, girt about with woods and vineyards, stand many a grand old palace or cool and pleasant villa. True, there are here, as everywhere else, in Northern Italy, queer examples of modern Italian architecture, in thin, tall houses, painted over with every crude tint of scarlet, orange, blue, and violet, bearing staring frescoes of horses and water-nymphs, and balconies out of perspective. ”

“ The “Pont du Gard,” which was one of Agrippa’s greatest engineering feats, remains the most colossal Roman monument in France. Remoulins, the little village that lies nearest to the bridge, is easily reached by train either from Nîmes or Avignon, and the road along the banks of the Gard is full of rural charm, for it passes vineyards, homesteads, ploughed fields, and green pastures. Great steep hills rising up on either side of the river enclose the valley, and when one suddenly catches sight of the towering masonry of the aqueduct that spans the river the sensations aroused are bewildering. ”

“ At Greve a carriage was waiting for those who wished to ride; others preferred the steep, breezy walk over the hills that separate Greve from Val di Pesa, from which we saw Florence in her Val d'Arno, twenty miles away. All along the road were ruins of ancient castles and piers of bridges, which once defined the marches between Siena and Florence, held only by constant war-fare; but now the crumbling towers keep watch and ward over peaceful olive groves and unmolested vineyards. ”