The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1891-10-02

LUCIANO, Swift, Aug. 16, 1891.
There was the Cathedral at Milan,
and the Campo Santo and the Brig
mole gallery at Genoa, and the leaning
Tower at Pisa, and ::Vesuvius and
Pompeii at Naples, and st. Peters
and the Colosseum and the Forum at
Rome, and the pictures and the great
Dome at Florence, and Venice at Ven.
ice!-so am not sorry that went to
Italy. But lam glad to get away,
and to be up here among these glori-
GUS Swiss nnountains again. Italy is
hot and smells badly and is full of
fieas. (Apropos of which last, could
not help wondering as I walked
through room full of old armor at
Florence, how any man ever managed
to wear such clothing lin Italy and
live. Imagine pair of cast iron trous-
ers between your finger nails and an
active and intelligent flea)! But up
here, among the lakes and mountains,
the air is cool and bracing, and there
is the sound of falling water and the
p erfume of flowers and new mown hay
and the flea has ceased from troubl-
ing. So the weary can be at rest.
Lake Como is long and narrow and
crooked and deep, winding in and out
about the feet of mighty mountains
which rise steeply from the waters
edge, green with fields or trees to the
very summit. There are sailboats
and rowboats and little steam launch
es and big excursion steamers, cross
ing and re-crossing it in every direc-
ton. Along its shores, wherever the
jealous mountains make room, there
are little villages and big hotels, and
the pretty villas of the rich. And up
on the face of the mountains where
stone walls must be built to hold the
soil from washing down, are the
matched cottages of the poor. And at
long intervals, on the very top of some
crag, are the broken and crumbling
walls OF some ancient castle. The
cares of the world weigh lightly when
one is sailing on such a lake, amid |
such scenes. Two hours of this and |
then the boat stops and there is rail-
road ride of one hour over the noun
tains-those Incompatible Swiss
mountains, with their little patches of
corn that you could all but cover with
a blanket, with their orchards and
and their perpendicular
meadows where the green is almost
hidden under the wealth of white and
pink and yellow and blue and purple
wild flowers, and their tinkling wa
terfalls-to Lake Lugano. Lake Luz
gano is Lake Como repeated with every
picturesque and pretty point accentua-
ted, and Lugano is a bigger, brighter
md better Como. My hotel is high
up on the hillside, and it is sufficient
entertainment for what is left of the
Jay to look out over the town and the
axe and the mountains,-to look and
iream.
ZURICH, Swift, Aug. Is, 1891.
LIN previous letter attempted to q
i've some idea of the magnificent q
cenery along the Gotthard route from
.ucerne down into Italy. After travel /
az a second time over the same d
Dad I realize how inadequate /
ny description must have been.
indeed, I doubt if it is with s
the power of mere words, how g
yer skilfully used, to give living d
ortrsit of so much grandeur and 1,
eauty. For these mountains are Q
9th grand and beautiful. Our Rocky $,
fountains are grand, grander than b
lese, perhaps; hut nobody every call s,