EUROPE 305 
try, fifteen feet high perhaps and as many long, with 
the boatmen leaning against it below or standing on 
the top to steer with their long poles, without a new 
sense of pleasure. 
Our leave-taking was quite impressive — all the 
three gondoliers brought bouquets to each one of us, 
and as our padrona said, we had quite the air of 
a floral procession. 
The change from the sirocco of Venice to these 
mountain solitudes where the air is pure and fresh 
and full of vitality is wonderful. We are now at 
Perarolo, the sweetest little town with mountains 
on either side and a rushing river, where the women 
are washing their linen and the men are collect- 
ing the timbers brought down on the stream and 
putting them on rafts to transport them. 
Cortina, Val @ Ampezzo, August 2 
... My chief pleasure here (and it is a very great 
one), is in my morning tramps. I sometimes wonder 
whether [if] you were here, you would join me in my 
early cup of tea and be off by seven o’clock. As 
my companions are not given to this style of en- 
joyment, I go alone, and there is something rather 
fascinating in the solitude. Occasionally I meet — 
not exactly with adventures for they do not deserve 
so grand a name, — but with incidents which are 
sometimes interesting, and at least amusing. Yester- 
day morning at the end of my ascent (which was 
accompanied by magnificent views with endless 
changes of light and shade all the way) I stopped 
