This way had Hannibal
come when he penetrated into Etruria some two thousand years ago. I
quitted the road and took to bridle-paths under the shoulder of the mighty
Mount Prinzera. Thus I pushed on and upward through grey-green of olive
and deep enamelled green of fig-trees, and came at last into a narrow gorge
between two great mountains, a place of ferns and moisture where all was
shadow and the air felt chill.
Above me the mountains towered to the blue heavens, their flanks of a green
that was in places turned to golden, where Autumn's fingers had already
touched those heights, in places gashed with grey and purple wounds, where
the bare rock thrust through.
I went on aimlessly, and came presently upon a little fir thicket, through
which I pushed towards a sound of tumbling waters. I stood at last upon
the rocks above a torrent that went thundering down the mighty gorge which
it had cloven itself between the hills. Thence I looked down a long,
wavering valley over which the rays of the evening sun were slanting, and
hazily in the distance I could see the russet city of Fornovo which I had
earlier passed that day. This torrent was the Bagnanza, and it effectively
barred all passage. So I went up, along its bed, scrambling over lichened
rocks or sinking my feet into carpets of soft, yielding moss.
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