urrounded by the peaks of Cristallo,
Cadino, and the Drei Zinnen. It was a happiness to float on such
celestial waters and cast the hopeful fly. The trout were there; they
were large; I saw them; they also saw me; but, alas! I could not raise
them. Misurina is, in fact, what the Scotch call "a dour loch," one of
those places which are outwardly beautiful, but inwardly so demoralised
that the trout will not rise.

When we came ashore in the evening, the boatman consoled me with the
story of a French count who had spent two weeks there fishing, and only
caught one fish. I had some thoughts of staying thirteen days longer,
to rival the count, but concluded to go on the next morning, over Monte
Pian and the Cat's Ladder to Landro.

The view from Monte Pian is far less extensive than that from Nuvolau;
but it has the advantage of being very near the wild jumble of the
Sexten Dolomites. The Three Shoemakers and a lot more of sharp and
ragged fellows are close by, on the east; on the west, Cristallo shows
its fine little glacier, and Rothwand its crimson cliffs; and southward
Misurina gives to the view a glimpse of water, without which, indeed, no
view is complete. Moreover, the mountain has the merit of being, as its
name implies, quite gentle. I met the Deacon and the Deaconess at the
top, they having walked up from Landro. And so we crossed the boundary
line together again, seven thousand feet above the sea, from Italy into
Austria. There was no custom-house.

The way down, by the Cat's Ladder, I travelled alone. The path was very
steep and little worn, but even on the mountain-side there was no
danger of losing it, for it had been blazed here and there, on trees and
stones, with a dash of blue paint. This is the work of the invaluable
DOAV--which is, being interpreted, the German-Austrian Alpine Club. The
more one travels in the mountains, the more one learns to venerate this
beneficent society, for the shelter-huts and guide-posts it has erected,
and the paths it has made and marked distinctly with various colours.
The Germans have a genius for thoroughness. My little brown guide-book,
for example, not only informed me through whose back yard I must go to
get into a certain path, but it told me that in such and such a spot
I should find quite a good deal (ziemlichviel) of Edelweiss, and in
another a small echo; it advised me in one valley to take provisions and
dispense with a guide, and in another to take a guide and d