taken to heart.

How a great man will leave his mark on minutiae!

I passed through the basin of this future lake when, in accordance with
my project, I left San Giovanni to cross the remaining Sila in the
direction of Catanzaro. This getting up at 3.30 a.m., by the way, rather
upsets one's daily routine; at breakfast time I already find myself
enquiring anxiously for dinner.

The Ampollina valley lies high; here, in the dewy grass, I enjoyed what
I well knew would be my last shiver for some time to come; then moved
for a few miles on the further bank of the rivulet along that driving
road which will soon be submerged under the waters of the lake, and
struck up a wooded glen called Barbarano. At its head lies the upland
Circilla.

There is no rock scenery worth mentioning in all this Sila country; no
waterfalls or other Alpine features. It is a venerable granitic
tableland, that has stood here while the proud Apennines were still
slumbering in the oozy bed of ocean--[Footnote: Nissen says that "no
landscape of Italy has lost so little of its original appearance in the
course of history as Calabria." This may apply to the mountains; but the
lowlands have suffered hideous changes.] a region of gentle undulations,
the hill-tops covered with forest-growth, the valleys partly arable and
partly pasture. Were it not for the absence of heather with its peculiar
mauve tints, the traveller might well imagine himself in Scotland. There
is the same smiling alternation of woodland and meadow, the same huge
boulders of gneiss and granite which give a distinctive tone to the
landscape, the same exuberance of living waters. Water, indeed, is one