Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1886-07-30
lake COMO.
!. q Pretty Little Sheet OF water, ana
s# 5F That Ia All. E%s al

)
i Pretty Little sheet OF water, and s.,
4 # That Is All. b. s.,.
A few days after leaving Venice ]
3 found myself on the shores, or banks
r. hardly know which is the correct
tern-of Lake Como, writes. cores
pondent Of The San Francisco Chroai-
i c9e' 1t is very pretty sheet of water,
but there are many lakes in America
quite as beautiful if less historically in
teresting and less favored as to climate.
| Travellers stopping at Milan do not al
ways seem to be aware that they are
so near to Lake Como, and consequent
~ fail to visit it, which is an error. By
getting up at an unjournalistic hour in
the morning, and taking acircular tick
ct, one can go to Como, which occupies
about an hour. Here he takes steam
er-it is quite unnecessary to say lit
tie steamer, since big ones do not exist
in Europe-and is conveyed to Bellagio,
where he has two or three hours for OBJ
servation. Then he takes another
steamer equally small, and without go
| ing to Colico, at the further end,-a
name with acholeraic sound-he turns
down the other arm, and at Lecco
boards train which bring him back to
Milan by dinner-time. It is time
enough to see everything of special in
terest, unless he desires to take up his
abode in this quiet retreat, where he
can have an occasional Whit of the
mountain air, even in midsummer, and
a sight of the SHOWS that forever whit
en- the higher peaks of the Alps. 1t
may interest the classical scholar to be
reminded that tie Romans lived and
cultivated the soil about Lake Como,
and that a noble Roman of distinction,
who might have been Seneca if he was
not another, had villa on it's shores.
Villa is better term here than palace,
the grandiloquent word used by Bulwer
in his inflated play, 1.-The Lady of Ly-
ons."
Mlu9ch Of the lake is so narrow that,
as the steamer ripples in quiet waters,
you can almost throw stone on to
either bank, and the visitor who re-
members Claude and Pauline scans at
tentively the little valleys and the steep
hiLsides that seem to disappear in the
clouds, if perchance he may discover a
palace like that which the deceitful
lover described in such glowing terms
to his enraptured inamorata. He re-
marks nothing that corresponds to the
rhetorical architectural details of Bull
wer:
There are some very pretty residences
along the banks, nesting in valleys,
half hidden by foliage, but mono Tat
can be called, with any proprhety Of
speech palace. Towns and villages
abound along the entire length of the
lake, which is thirty-two miles, though
| it often seems hardly possible for them
to cling to the steep hillsides, and they
are all of the Italian type, with some
variations introduced by foreign resi-
dents. Como has $4,000 inhabitants,
Cernobbi 100, Be1lagio 2,745, Menaggie
1870, Colico 1929. Lecco 7,O40. The
other towns and villages are generally
smaller. The vine is cultivated on the
hillsides, and a very good wine is made
at Bellagio, whose reputation, however
hardly transcends the horizon of the
lake. The olive, which grows in
gnarled and contracted fashion, sine.
it finds the climate somewhat inhospit
able, brightens the steep slopes will
its bright green foliage. The lake ha!
a strange popularity. Having no sul
Gent outlet: it is subject to foundations
whenever unusual rains are precipitat
ed on it's capacious watershed and ru1
off quickly into it. One of these, abou
year ago, threatened to do seriou
damage to Como.
The poets have been really, or hav,
protested to be, singularly inspired b,
the marvellous beauties of Lake Como
I happened to remember some lines O
a pretty, but rather meaningless poem
whose burden was the followin.
couplet:
} \ met my love among the low
Rose gardens by Bellagio.
Of course the poet did nothing of IT,
SORT the pretended meeting being al
in his minds eye, but the lines perplex
ed me because could not really tel
whether the place where he had hi
. alleged felicity was Bellagio, or Menag
gio, there being SO many aggios an
eggios in Italy that the mind gets quit
perplexed in trying to disentangl
them. There was certainly nothing il
Bellagio that could be called ros
garden in the sense in which the PEI
sian poets used the term, nor even as
California reared in a land of roses
would understand it, and I could no
: conceive that Menaggio, which I coul
see mile or so off on the other side
had any more luxurious floral acces
Esories. Gardens there were, but the
were in no wise remarkable, and tt
roses or rose bushes in them were nc
abundant. It is thus that the poets be
guile the people with their vain imagir
ings! Bulwer had seen great man
palaces before he wrote, but it is vi
certain that. he had then seen LAX
Como, while the other rhymester ma
have seen the lake, but probably cam
from land where one rose made
summer, and few in its gardens SCENE
: | q profl,s:nn