A
small river should go babbling through it with occasional smooth
parts, so as to take the reflections of the surrounding mountains.
It should have three or four fine larches or pines scattered about
it here and there, but not more. It should be completely land-
locked, and there should be nothing in the way of human handiwork
save a few chalets, or a small chapel and a bridge, but no tilled
land whatever. Here oven in summer the evening air will be crisp,
and the dew will form as soon as the sun goes off; but the
mountains at one end of it will keep the last rays of the sun. It
is then the valley is at its best, especially if the goats and
cattle are coming together to be milked.
The valley of Sambucco has all this and a great deal more, to say
nothing of the fact that there are excellent trout in it. I have
shown it to friends at different times, and they have all agreed
with me that for a valley neither too high nor too low, nor too big
nor too little, the valley of Sambucco is one of the best that any
of us know of--I mean to look at and enjoy, for I suppose as
regards painting it is hopeless. I think it can be well rendered
by the following piece of music as by anything else:- {33}
[At this point in the book a music score is given]
One day Signor Dazio brought us in a chamois foot. He explained to
us that chamois were now in season, but that even when they were
not, they were sometimes to be had, inasmuch as they occasionally
fell from the rocks and got killed.
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