Worn By Elemental Strife.

Worn By Elemental Strife.

Of all the mountains on our globe the Dolomites have probably suffered most from these attacks; but even the most enduring peaks have been thus greatly worn away. Each has its grinding glacier, wearing torrent, or at least its frequent avalanche of rocks; and sober scientists assure us that the amount of substance which the Alps have lost is almost as enormous as what now remains. For the great gravel beds of Switzerland, and much of the present soil of Italy, Germany, Belgium, France, and Holland, are made up of materials washed down from those Alpine summits in the course of ages, and spread out on the lowlands by the Rhine, Rhone, Inn, and other streams. Nor is this leveling process at an end. So active, for example, is the Rhone in making new land on the coast of France, that Aries is said to be nearly twice as far from the Mediterranean as it was in the period of the Romans. What the Adige and Po are doing on the eastern shore of Italy is evident from the fact that the old city of Ravenna, once a famous seaport, is separated now from the water by a stretch of sand and forest four miles wide; while Adria, the harbor of antiquity which gave its name to the Adriatic, lies now some sixteen miles away from its blue waves. Strange thought! that there will come a time when even the loftiest and hardest mountains that now pierce the empyrean shall have shrunk to molehills, covered by the sea. Ten million years may be required to accomplish this; but what is that in Nature's calendar ? Humanity will not live long enough to see that deluge of the continents; but some life even then may linger on our aged planet, and possibly amid a voiceless solitude the future monsters of the deep will watch the ultimate submergence of the last low remnant of the home of man.

Disintegrating Peaks, Or Earth Pyramids.

Disintegrating Peaks, OR " Earth Pyramids".

An Upland Wilderness.

An Upland Wilderness.

Cortina, With Mt. Tofana.

Cortina, With Mt. Tofana.

All these reflections did not come to me on the drive from Toblach to Cortina; but, starting then, they gradually impressed themselves upon my mind during my sojourn in that pretty village and during several excursions made in its vicinity. Cortina itself is one of the most popular places of resort in the Dolomites, and sixteen thousand tourists, on an average, come there annually. For, with an altitude of about four thousand feet above the sea, its summer climate is delightful; a crisp, dry air atoning for its lack of shade.

It is not often that one finds in a small mountain town of a thousand inhabitants anything architecturally worth examining. But every visitor to Cortina looks with admiration at the stately campanile of its parish church, which has a height of two hundred and fifty-six feet, and is constructed out of massive and, in portions of its surface, elegantly sculptured stone. The hotel Aquila Nera, also, is exceedingly attractive from the artistic frescos painted on its walls by the proprietor's brothers. These mural paintings are designed to symbolize the progress of a human life from happy childhood, with its sport of coasting on the snow, through the successive phases of young love and toilsome manhood, to the last sad picture of old age. Here also are some pretty allegorical scenes and portraits of a number of the great Italian masters, - Da Vinci, Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Titian.

The Campanile At Cortina.

The Campanile At Cortina.

Such tasteful decoration in a mountain village seems amazing, until we see how thoroughly artistic and ingenious the people of Cortina are. Here, for example, are two government industrial schools, where boys and girls are taught either a beautiful mosaic work in metal and in wood, or else a silver filigree work, for both of which the place is famous. Boys are admitted to these schools at the age of thirteen, and a four years' course is necessary to secure a graduate's diploma. The permanent exhibition of the articles made by the young scholars or by former pupils is a fascinating place to visit; and very self-denying must the tourist be who can resist an almost overpowering desire to purchase recklessly the lovely inlaid boxes, tables, cabinets, canes, and scores of other tempting objects here displayed. The industry of inlaid metal work was introduced here by an Englishman who had been familiar with it in India; and it has been so cordially adopted and so faithfully perfected by these peasants that now considerably more than twenty thousand dollars' worth of it is sold annually, together with about five thousand dollars' worth of silver filigree. Moreover, as we shall presently discover, the inhabitants of the neighboring Grödner Thal are fully as artistic in their wood-carving as are the people of the Ampezzo Thal in their specialties. Hence in the region of the Dolomites we have the pleasure of finding worthy of our admiration not alone the scenery of the mountains, but also the brave, clever people who dwell among them. We ought not to be surprised, however, to find facility and taste in art among these villagers; for it will ever be the crowning glory of this region that it produced one of the foremost painters that the world has ever seen, and certainly its greatest master in the art of coloring, - Titian. That this immortal artist was a native of the Dolomite country has been always known, and until recently the belief has been unquestioned that he first saw the light in the town of Pieve di Cadore, twenty miles distant from Cortina. Within the last few years, however, a German archaeologist claims to have discovered documentary proof that, although Titian certainly spent his early childhood at Pieve, his actual birthplace was a humble cottage in the little hamlet known as Campo di Sotto, reached from Cortina by an easy walk of half an hour. Nothing particular distinguishes this reputed birthplace of the master from other peasant houses near it, save a memorial tablet on the outer wall, containing the announcement that there, "according to the tradition of the country," Titian was born; but the mere possibility of the statement's being true invests the dwelling with a subtle charm, to which no other structure in or near Cortina can lay claim. It is at all events a pleasing thought that his young eyes may first have wandered over the cyclorama of resplendent battlements encircling this little village, and that his first acquaintance with the world of colors may have been made here, either through the almost supernatural pageant of the sunset glow upon the Dolomites, or through the countless blossoms which tint the surrounding fields so richly, that one is tempted to believe the pretty legend that Titian, as a child, used no prosaic chalk or charcoal for his sketches, but formed his colors from the juice of flowers. Certain it is that in the month of June I found the meadows which environ Campo di Sotto more gorgeous in their hues than even Monte Cristallo or the Croda Rossa. To the majority of Americans I think the flowers of these Alpine pastures would be a revelation, not only in their great profusion, but in their wonderful variety. Among them, for example, near this "birthplace of Titian," I noticed that the yellow pansies, which were cultivated as rare favorites in old-fashioned gardens round my childhood's home, were here spread through the fields so lavishly that they imparted to the rainbow masses of the higher flowers and the ripening grain an undertone of gold, as poppies light with scarlet flame the wheat-fields of the Isle of Wight. Fluttering over these meadows, too, and dancing gaily round our path were hundreds of blue butterflies, so tiny and ethereal that one might fancy them the souls of the blue harebells and forget-me-nots, on which they sometimes paused to rest. Just how such myriads of blossoms affect the quality of hay, only a scientific farmer could explain; but one would like to think that the sleek, well-kept cows that browse among them are better for a diet flavored with forget-me-nots and pansies, whose colors are to the passing pilgrim's eyes a joy and a refreshment. Let us hope, too, that their sweet presence here makes labor lighter for the patient men and women who often bear the harvest of these meadows on their shoulders up long and wearisome ascents to widely scattered barns.