II. THE BALEFUL WIND.

The July afternoon is sultry. An aspect of suspense and immobility is manifest in all nature, which is oppressive and menacing. The scent of oleander and jasmine, mingled with dusty honey-bloom, as of clover and cut grass, is heavy and languid. Clouds of a woolly opacity gather slowly about all the mountain peaks, and cling to the slopes in dense masses. The vapours move from the direction of the St. Gothard range, and an occasional hot puff of wind accompanies their advance. It is the breath of the scirocco damp, enervating, and storm-laden. The hills above Varenna gloom to awful grandeur of black and purple tints in the sullen waiting of the elements. The pilgrim observes these changes almost with bated breath, feeling like a fly at the base of a cliff about to be crushed by a cloudbolt or granite rock. If the upper world is clothed in majestic sublimity, how can mere language describe the water of the lake? Whence has it borrowed first the wealth of varying hues

outspread before the spectator, with the sombre hill sentinels rising above, and the angry swirl of mists obscuring the horizon? All the dying glories of day, quenched elsewhere, seem to linger on Como. The current is sapphire, merging to emerald, opal, gold in the richest blending of tones. The surface has a liquid sheen and lustre. The boats cross through a transparent medium of melting jewels. The sun-god still holds sway. When, indeed, the science of colourmusic shall be studied as the science of harmonious sound has been, we may hope to grasp the secret of such beauty.

Hark! Was that thunder? The pilgrim enveloped in waterproof habiliments, guide-book in hand, flees to Milan, or Turin, leaving the baleful wind in possession of the deserted Castle of Indolence, to wail in vestibule and salon, while torrents of rain invade garden paths and strip shrubbery, and scimitars of fire mark the passage of the boats on the pallid stretch of lake.

III. THE NIGHT WIND.

Oh, the cool night wind that sweeps down from the Alpine barrier on Como! It is the rival of the breva of caressing softness. Turn back from the lake shore in the gloaming, and receive the greeting of the mountain realm. Every cleft and ravine waft their aromatic odours of plant, vine, and blossom in the mingled spicy breath of juniper, thyme, and saxifrage. The face seems pressed against a rocky rampart and buried in ferns. Twilight is here, as in all Italy, Stendhal's hour of the Ave Maria, a moment of pensive meditation and melancholy souvenir. On the high ledges still gleam little hamlets, and a church tower that sends forth a liquid note of evening prayer to be carried far by the night wind. Midnight draws a veil of mystery over the shore, the lapsing waters, and the masses of verdure swathed in shadow. Dull oblivion of repose in closed chambers is sinful if only the Pilgrims, as children of a larger growth, can prop their eyelids open and keep awake to enjoy the miracles of

change of the Southern night. Oh, sweet and pure wind, where did you first spread your wings to start forth over glacier slope, through mossy dell, and down the giddy plunge of foaming cascades on your nocturnal rambles? Imagination runs riot in the darkness, full of fleeting shapes, taking form and vanishing amidst the swaying branches and foliage. If one could be metamorphosed by the witchery of night into one of the feline tribe, and prowl, sure-footed, along the crags overhanging precipices, with eyes of green fire capable of piercing obscurity to the depths, and a sense of hearing so fine and alert for sound of danger, or lurking foe, that the ears of mankind, in comparison, might be likened to the handles of coarse jugs, fashioned by Phoenician or Aztec potters! To feel the glory of strength, and suppleness of movement of the animal kingdom, and roam among the mountains is an instinct born of the night wind rustling the roses and laurel of the terrace, and sobbing insistently beneath the eaves of the Castle of Indolence. As the hours wear on if the stupid pilgrim must doze,