CHAPTER XXI. VAL D'OSSOLA.-VAL DI VEDRO.-VAL ANTIGORIO.-VAL FORMAZZA. Domo d'Ossola - Calvary - Preglia and Crevola- Ascent of Simplon Prickly pear Marble quarries Aquamarine and garnets - Varzo Gallery of Gondo Douane Lost baggage-Start for the GriesBridge and battle of Crevola - Scenery of Val Antigorio — Ponte Maglio Baths of Crodo- Baceno - Premia-San Rocco - Granite mountains Gorge of Foppiano - Formazza Falls of Tosa-Gries glacier Snow-storm Farewell to Italian valleys. - -- -- DOMO D'OSSOLA, so called from its "duomo" or cathedral being the mother church of the district, is the capital of the Val d'Ossola and its tributary valleys, lying nearly in the centre of them. Local historians derive the name of Ossola from the Osci, a people asserted to be of Etrurian origin, who migrated here and founded the city of Oscela or Ossola. But though its situation is central, it is in other respects an unfortunate one; as the whole width of the valley is here subject to constant and furious inundations from the Bogna torrent, which have from time to time devastated the once fertile plains, overwhelming them with beds of boulders and drift. Its chief importance is derived from its being the common market where the Italians on one side, and the Swiss merchants from the other, meet to exchange their goods and transact business. The Val d'Ossola is divided into two parts, the upper and lower; through which as a main artery runs the river Tosa or Toce, the Athisone or Atosone of the ancients. In its course from the upper Val it is augmented by the Anza from the Val Anzasca; the Ovesca from the Val Antrona; the Bogna from the Val Bugnanco; the Doveria from the Val di Vedro; and the Devera from the Val Devera, all on the west and on the east by the Isorno passing Monte Crestese; and the Melezza from the Val Vigezzo. Swelled by these tributaries, the Tosa rolls through the plains of the lower Val; until, as we have seen, it discharges its waters, shortly after joining the Strona, into the Lago Maggiore, at the foot of Monte Orfano. In a scenic point of view the situation of Domo d'Ossola enchanted us, as we sat basking in the sun at the edge of a vineyard on the outskirts of the town, looking up the Val d'Ossola ; the swift rapids of the Tosa sparkling and glancing in the bright noonday light. At the endless rapids and pools of the river, fishermen were at work with their long two-handed bamboo rods, and capacious panniers on their backs, fishing for the large trout with which it abounds. Looking up the Val d'Ossola, a coronet of distant mountains beautifully enclosed its head, varied by all the rich autumn shades of purple, red, and yellow; with the deep blue haze peculiar to Italian scenery and surmounted by the snowy diadems of the Pizzo Parabianco over the Val Bugnanco; the Monte Leone or Monte Castello over the Val di Vedro ; and the Cima Rossa and Grieshorn in the Val Formazza; glittering like diamonds in the deep blue sky. On the hill of the Matterella, to the south-west of Domo d'Ossola, stands the Calvary, an imitation, as already observed, of the Sacro Monte of Varallo; founded in 1688 by the Capuchin monks, who had a convent here: representing in a number of chapels, by means of modelled figures, the chief events of the last days of our Saviour. It is a fact hardly known to any of the thousands of consumers of Eau de Cologne, that the first manufacturer of it, Paolo Feminis, came from Vigezzo, near Domo d'Ossola. Travelling through Germany as a hawker, with a pack on his back, he happened at Cologne to meet with an English Colonel, who, seeing bottles of perfume among his wares, instructed him in the virtues and preparation of "Goa water," which had been much used in India in the hospitals, especially in cases of dysentery. The perfume rapidly came into repute ; he established a large manufactory at Cologne, and was ultimately succeeded by the Farinas of universal fame. 66 While awaiting a reply from Arona as to the unlucky baggage, we determined to ascend the Simplon to Gondo, to which it had been addressed, and hear if any tidings could be gathered of it there. A carozza of most humble build and size, and which, as seemed the fashion at Domo d'Ossola, had evidently never been washed since it left the makers' hands, took us up the Val to Crevola. A slight morning frost had filled the Val d'Ossola with a thick autumn mist, and the changed aspect of the wide valley was marvellous. Nothing of the mountains was visible, but only desolate wastes of stones and gravel, brought down from the Val Bugnanco ; and joining to the equally sterile and nude flat of the Tosa, only relieved by dwarf alder beds of dreary uniformity. But at the foot of the mountain spur, on which Preglia and Crevola are situated, the scene changed like magic, the instant that we emerged from the fog which hung over the flat plain. The bright-looking Italian houses, standing in terraced vineyards, seemed of another land. Their galleried fronts were festooned with glowing sheets of golden orange maize heads; and the sunny balconies, protected by wide overhanging roofs, were alike picturesque and interesting, crowded with sundry products hùng up to dry. Some were filled with tobacco, either in long rows of stems hung up reversed, or the leaves only, neatly strung on lines; in others the heads of Indian corn, stripped of the husk, were methodically carried along the balustrades and balcony fronts, in glowing lines. Pumpkins of all sorts, sizes, and shapes, which form so important an article in their "cuisine," lay piled on the outside shelves; and, that no part of this muchesteemed vegetable should be lost, even the peelings were hung up to dry in long spiral strips. Apples and pears, cut into quarters, were threaded in long festoons; with raisins, figs, capsicums, and haricot pods; ropes of silvery-skinned garlic, and big onions; stores of sausage-skins, bundles of hemp and hemp-seed, and other heterogeneous matters; all speaking of the richness of this noble valley, where not exposed to the ravages of the torrents. At Crevola the Simplon route leaves the Val d'Ossola for the Val di Vedro, taking to the left bank of the Doveria torrent, just where it struggles through a deeply-rifted gorge, which forms a beautiful and romantic picture from the grand modern bridge of Crevola. Shortly after quitting the Val d'Ossola, the sunny ledges of rock on the right were covered with thick matted patches of prickly pear, Cactus Opuntia, which is here procumbent and dwarf, the lobes or pseudoleaves lying on the rocks, overlapping each other like the scales of a fish; assuming a totally different appearance from the noble trees, 10 or 12 feet high, which in South Italy or Sicily form so beautiful a feature in the foreground. The fruit, too, though ripe, was small and tasteless, instead of the large coral-coloured pears, which are so juicy and grateful an article of food. The scaly heart's-tongue fern and the maiden-hair grew plentifully. Along the route were several quarries of white statuary marble, and the rough-hewn bases of a number of columns, of immense size, were lying ready to be brought down. From here came the immense monolith columns, and the symbolical statues of the rivers of Italy, which adorn the "Arco della Pace" at the termination of the Simplon road at Milan. The fine-veined gneiss, of which, in different varieties, these mountains almost entirely consist, is also quarried in a number of places; and one kind, which is of a schistose character, is easily formed into tall narrow slabs, like posts; which in the Val d'Ossola are universally used to support the vine trellises, being so much more durable than the wooden poles. In the mountains near Crevola beautiful masses of aqua marine of large size are obtained, and one specimen was offered to me which must have weighed several pounds. In the micaceous and talcose schists of the Val d'Ossola garnets also occur plentifully, and in the form of beautifully regular dodecahedrons, from the size of a walnut downwards. Nearly up to Varzo the Simplon route is carried along the side of the rugged bed of the torrent, furrowed by the force of the impetuous floods, which constantly cause great injury and destruction to the road, notwithstanding the solid piers of stones built at different angles into the stream all the way up to Gondo. The white clustered houses and campaniles at Varzo, studding a fine open slope of trellised vines, patches of tobacco, and groves of walnut and chesnut, are quite a relief after this barren narrow glen. Above Varzo the gorge narrows, and up to Gondo increases continually in wildness and sublimity; the towering precipices completely shutting out the sunbeams, which, slanting overhead, left the valley in deep cool shade-here and there lighting up a clump of red and orange-leaved beech and silvery pine, perched aloft on some protruding crag, with a marvellously rich transparent colouring. After a short halt at the extremely nice little inn at Isella (close to the Sardinian "dogana"), we walked on to Gondo, on the Swiss frontier. Here the valley is surpassingly sublime and stern, from the immense height of the scathed and bare precipices which tower into the narrowed heavens, and shut in the sunless glen like gloomy prison walls of unattainable height. One side valley, opening out opposite the singular tower, built by the old Barons Stockalper, at Gondo, alone broke the savage gloom, and down it poured a glorious flood of light, resting on a forest of autumn-tinted beech. In the midst of it a few brown châlets were grouped on a lovely little green "alp," and the picture was completed by the successive leaps of a foaming stream, which rushed down through it into the main valley. It was most striking to look |