ennines. The fields on either side, as far as
eye can see, are beautiful indeed in May sunlight, painted here with
flax, like shallow sheets of water reflecting a pale sky, and there
with clover red as blood. Scarce unfolded leaves sparkle like
flamelets of bright green upon the knotted vines, and the young corn
is bending all one way beneath a western breeze. But not less
beautiful than this is the whole broad plain of Lombardy; nor are the
nightingales louder here than in the acacia trees around Pavia. As we
drive, the fields become less fertile, and the hills encroach upon the
level, sending down their spurs upon that waveless plain like blunt
rocks jutting out into a tranquil sea. When we reach the bed of the
Taro, these hills begin to narrow on either hand, and the road rises.
Soon they open out again with gradual curving lines, forming a kind of
amphitheatre filled up from flank to flank with the _ghiara_ or pebbly
bottom of the Taro. The Taro is not less wasteful than any other of
the brotherhood of streams that pour from Alp or Apennine to swell the
Po. It wanders, an impatient rivulet, through a wilderness of
boulders, uncertain of its aim, shifting its course with the season of
the year, unless the jaws of some deep-cloven gully hold it tight and
show how insignificant it is. As we advance, the hills approach again;
between their skirts there is nothing but the river-bed; and now on
rising ground above the stream, at the point of juncture between the
Ceno and the Taro, we find Fornovo. Beyond the village the valley
broadens out once more, disclosing Apennines capped with winter snow.
To the right descends the Ceno. To the left foams the Taro, following
whose rocky channel we should come at last to Pontremoli and the
Tyrrhenian sea beside Sarzana. On a May-day of sunshine like the
present, the Taro is a gentle stream. A waggon drawn by two white oxen
has just entered its channel, guided by a contadino with goat-skin
leggings, wielding a long goad. The patient creatures stem the water,
which rises to the peasant's thighs and ripples round the creaking
wheels. Swaying to and fro, as the shingles shift upon the river-bed,
they make their way across; and now they have emerged upon the stones;
and now we lose them in a flood of sunlight.

It was by this pass that Charles VIII. in 1495 returned from Tuscany,
when the army of the League was drawn up waiting to intercept and
crush him in the mousetrap of Fornovo. No ro