Re: Dying Light The Following Enhanced Edition-GOG Cheat Engine
Katerine Aldrige
For the convenience of avoiding explanations, I have treatedthe events of several summers as though they belonged to onlyone. This can be of no importance to the reader, but as thework is chronologically inexact, I had better perhaps say so.
The illustrations by Mr. H. F. Jones are on pages 95, 211,225, 238, 254, 260. The frontispiece and the illustrationson the title-page and on pages 261, 262 are by Mr. CharlesGogin. There are two drawings on pages 136, 137 by anItalian gentleman whose name I have unfortunately lost, and whosepermission to insert them I have, therefore, been unable toobtain, and one on page 138 by Signor Gaetano Meo. The restare mine, except that all the figures in my drawings are in everycase by Mr. Charles Gogin, unless when they are merely copiedfrom frescoes or other sources. The two larger views ofOropa are chiefly taken from photographs. The rest are allof them from studies taken upon the spot.
I must acknowledge the great obligations I am under to Mr. H.F. Jones as regards the letterpress no less than theillustrations; I might almost say that the book is nearly as muchhis as mine, while it is only through the care which he andanother friend have exercised in the revision of my pages that Iam able to let them appear with some approach to confidence.
While on the subject of Fleet Street, I would put in a word infavour of the much-abused griffin. The whole monument isone of the handsomest in London. As for its being anobstruction, I have discoursed with a large number of omnibusconductors on the subject, and am satisfied that the obstructionis imaginary.
Then as for the neighbourhood within, we will say, a radius ofthirty miles. It is one of the main businesses of my lifeto explore this district. I have walked several thousandsof miles in doing so, and I mark where I have been in red uponthe Ordnance map, so that I may see at a glance what parts I knowleast well, and direct my attention to them as soon aspossible. For ten months in the year I continue my walks inthe home counties, every week adding some new village orfarmhouse to my list of things worth seeing; and no matter whereelse I may have been, I find a charm in the villages of Kent,Surrey, and Sussex, which in its way I know not where torival.
I have ventured to say the above, because during the remainderof my book I shall be occupied almost exclusively with Italy, andwish to make it clear that my Italian rambles are taken notbecause I prefer Italy to England, but as by way ofparergon, or by-work, as every man should have both hisprofession and his hobby. I have chosen Italy as my secondcountry, and would dedicate this book to her as a thank-offeringfor the happiness she has afforded me.
True, by making use of the tunnel one will miss the St.Gothard scenery, but I would not, if I were the reader, lay thistoo much to heart. Mountain scenery, when one is stayingright in the middle of it, or when one is on foot, is one thing,and mountain scenery as seen from the top of a diligence verylikely smothered in dust is another. Besides I do not thinkhe will like the St. Gothard scenery very much.
Other attractions I do not know that the actual townpossesses, but the neighbourhood is rich. Years ago, intravelling by the St. Gothard road, I had noticed the many littlevillages perched high up on the sides of the mountain, from oneto two thousand feet above the river, and had wondered what sortof places they would be. I resolved, therefore, after atime to make a stay at Faido and go up to all of them. Icarried out my intention, and there is not a village nor fractionof a village in the Val Leventina from Airolo to Biasca which Ihave not p.28inspected. I never tire of them, and the onlyregret I feel concerning them is, that the greater number areinaccessible except on foot, so that I do not see how I shall beable to reach them if I live to be old. These are theplaces of which I do find myself continually thinking when I amaway from them. I may add that the Val Leventina is muchthe same as every other subalpine valley on the Italian side ofthe Alps that I have yet seen.
I had no particular aversion to German Switzerland before Iknew the Italian side of the Alps. On the contrary, I wasunder the impression that I liked German Switzerland almost asmuch as I liked Italy itself, but now I can look at GermanSwitzerland no longer. As soon as I see the water goingdown Rhinewards I hurry back to London. I was unwillinglycompelled to take pleasure in the first hour and a half of thedescent from the top of the Lukmanier towards Disentis, but thisis only a ripping over of the brimfulness of Italy on to theSwiss side.
There is a fine half-covered timber porch to the church. These porches are rare, the only others like it I know of beingat Prato, Rossura, and to some extent Cornone. In each ofthese cases the arrangement is different, the only agreementbeing in the having an outer sheltered place, from which thechurch is entered instead of opening directly on to thechurchyard. Mairengo is full of good bits, and nestlesamong magnificent chestnut-trees. From hence I went toOsco, about 3800 feet above the sea, and 1430 above Faido. It was here I first came to p. 29understand the purpose of certainhigh poles with cross bars to them which I had already seenelsewhere. They are for drying the barley on; as soon as itis cut it is hung up on the cross bars and secured in this wayfrom the rain, but it is obvious this can only be done whencultivation is on a small scale. These rascane, asthey are called, are a feature of the Val Leventina, and lookvery well when they are full of barley.
p. 38Aboutthree or four hundred feet above the river, under some pines, Isaw a string of ants crossing and recrossing the road; I havesince seen these ants every year in the same place. In onepart I almost think the stone is a little worn with the dailypassage and repassage of so many thousands of tiny feet, but forthe most part it certainly is not. Half-an-hour or so aftercrossing the string of ants, one passes from under the pine-treesinto a grassy meadow, which in spring is decked with all mannerof Alpine flowers; after crossing this, the old St. Gothard roadis reached, which passed by Prato and Dalpe, so as to avoid thegorge of the Monte Piottino. This road is of very greatantiquity, and has been long disused, except for local purposes;for even before the carriage road over the St. Gothard wasfinished in 1827, there was a horse track through the MontePiottino. In another twenty minutes or so, on coming outfrom a wood of willows and alders, Dalpe is seen close at handafter a walk of from an hour-and-a-half to two hours fromFaido.
Above Dalpe there is a path through the upper valley of thePiumogna, which leads to the glacier whence the rivercomes. The highest peak above this upper valley just turnsthe 10,000 feet, but I was never able to find out that it has aname, nor is there a name marked in the Ordnance map of theCanton Ticino. The valley promises well, but I have notbeen to its head, where at about 7400 feet there is a smalllake. Great quantities of crystals are found in themountains above Dalpe. Some people make a living bycollecting these from the higher parts of the ranges where nonebut born mountaineers and chamois can venture; many, again,emigrate to Paris, London, America, or elsewhere, and returneither for a month or two, or sometimes for a permanency, havingbecome rich. In Cornone there is one large white new housebelonging to a man who has made his fortune near Como, and in allthese villages there are similar houses. From the ValLeventina and the Val Blenio, but more especially from this last,very large numbers come to London, while p. 41hardly fewergo to America. Signor Gatti, the great ice merchant, camefrom the Val Blenio.
When we bear in mind the tendency of any language, if it onceattains a certain predominance, to supplant p. 42all others,and when we look at the map of the world and see the extent nowin the hands of the two English-speaking nations, I think it maybe prophesied that the language in which this book is writtenwill one day be almost as familiar to the greater number ofTicinesi as their own.
A good walk from Dalpe is to the Alpe di Campolungo and Fusio,but it is better taken from Fusio. A very favourite pathwith me is the one leading conjointly from Cornone and Dalpe toPrato. The view up the valley of the St. Gothard lookingdown on Prato is fine; I give a sketch of it taken five years agobefore the railway had been begun.
Mr. Locke has been greatly praised for his essay upon humanunderstanding. An essay on human misunderstanding should beno less interesting and important. Illusion to a smallextent is one of the main causes, if indeed it is not the maincause, of progress, but it must be upon a small scale. Allabortive speculation, whether commercial or philosophical, isbased upon it, and much as we may abuse such speculation, we are,all of us, its debtors.
The flowers on the slopes above Prato are wonderful, and thevillage is full of nice bits for sketching, but the best thing,to my fancy, is the church, and the way it stands, and the lovelycovered porch through which it is entered. This porch isnot striking from the outside, but I took two sketches of it fromwithin. There is, also, a fresco, half finished, of St.George and the Dragon, probably of the fifteenth century, and notwithout feeling. There is not much inside the church, whichis modernised and more recent than the tower. The tower isvery good, and only second, if second, in the upper Leventina tothat of Quinto, which, however, is not nearly so well placed.
More than once at Prato, and often elsewhere, people havewanted to buy my sketches: if I had not required them for my ownuse I might have sold a good many. I do not think mypatrons intended giving more than four or five francs a sketch,but a quick worker, who could cover his three or four Fortunypanels a day, might pay his expenses. It often happens thatpeople who are doing well in London or Paris are paying a visitto their native village, and like to take back something toremind them of it in the winter.
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