They generally
walked barefoot, and carried their shoes and stockings; their
baggage consisted of a few spare clothes, a little food, and a pot
or pan or two to cook with. Many of them looked very tired, and
had evidently tramped from long distances--indeed, we saw costumes
belonging to valleys which could not be less than two or three days
distant. They were almost invariably quiet, respectable, and
decently clad, sometimes a little merry, but never noisy, and none
of them tipsy. As we travelled along the road, we must have fallen
in with several hundreds of these pilgrims coming and going; nor is
this likely to be an extravagant estimate, seeing that the hospice
can make up more than five thousand beds. By eleven we were at the
sanctuary itself.
Fancy a quiet upland valley, the floor of which is about the same
height as the top of Snowdon, shut in by lofty mountains upon three
sides, while on the fourth the eye wanders at will over the plains
below. Fancy finding a level space in such a valley watered by a
beautiful mountain stream, and nearly filled by a pile of
collegiate buildings, not less important than those, we will say,
of Trinity College, Cambridge. True, Oropa is not in the least
like Trinity, except that one of its courts is large, grassy, has a
chapel and a fountain in it, and rooms all round it; but I do not
know how better to give a rough description of Oropa than by
comparing it with one of our largest English colleges.
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