Читать книгу Europe from a Motor Car - Russell Richardson - Страница 6

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It was before seven that we started on the long climb. An early start is important when the main care is to keep the engine cool. Cloudless skies favored our attempt. Across the gorge we saw the towering Weiskugel, its snows turned to radiant silver while the valley was still in shadow. The Ortler was transfigured, the Madatsch dazzling—almost blinding until our eyes had grown wonted to the brilliant spectacle. Slowly the long grades sank behind us. It seemed better to set a steady, even though slow pace, and maintain it until the summit was reached. So we were forced to use second speed. The sides of the engine bonnet had been tied back to give the engine every possible bit of cool air. From "hairpin" to "hairpin" we went, these curves so sharp that at first it seemed impossible to make them without backing. How they twisted above us like the loops of a gigantic lasso flung far up the mountain, into the region of eternal snow! Imagine it! Forty-six of them! Only on one turn were we forced to back, but with a large, powerful car this record would have been impossible. Any car that cannot turn easily in a fifty-foot circle would better find some other way of reaching Italy. It is not pleasant to back up when the edge of the precipice is a matter of inches.

When the Austrians built this road, a century ago, they were not thinking about motor cars. This masterpiece of road construction was intended for armies, not for automobiles. The makers of those curves, cut through heights of solid rock, never anticipated the luxurious modes of modern travel. If then they had only foreseen the coming of motor warfare, how much inconvenience would have been spared the impetuous motorist who to-day attempts to climb the Stelvio in a long, powerful car which cannot quite make the turns without backing. Surely, a few feet would have been added to those tantalizing, agonizing curves. How little the Austrians realized that their military invasion would be followed by the more peaceful motor invasion of our day.

With every turn, our admiration for this perfect road increased. One marvels at such matchless feats of engineering, at such gigantic obstacles so completely overcome. Here, high retaining walls have been built to keep the road from crumbling away; there, mountain torrents that would have washed it away have been diverted. Turn after turn, and still higher to go! Pine woods gave way to stunted shrubbery, and then vegetation ceased altogether. We were above the clouds. Nothing but the sun above us. Snow banks appeared on either side; we could put out our hands and touch them. Then through Franzenshöhe, formerly the seat of the Austrian customhouse, to Ferdinandshöhe and the summit of Stelvio, 9,041 feet above the sea, the highest point of motor or carriage travel in Europe.

It is impossible to describe the thrill, the intoxication, of the moment as we stood there watching the ice fields roll away in great waves, as if the ocean, in a moment of wild upheaval, had been frozen. Leaving the car near the little Ferdinandshöhe hotel, we climbed an elevation of one hundred and fifty feet to the Hotel Dreisprachenspitze, where one stands at the apex of three countries. We could look down into Italy. The ice floods of Switzerland swept to the horizon; a hundred snow peaks flashed in the morning sun. In the other direction yawned the mighty gorge of the Stelvio, where it had taken us two hours and seven minutes to make eight miles. The wind was of razor keenness.

On descending to arrange customhouse details with the Austrian officials, we found the car frozen in the ice. The hot steel-studded tires had melted a deep groove, and were now held fast in the prison of their own making. Even on the Stelvio we had not expected to be frozen fast on the first of August. In vain we opened wide the throttle. The wheels turned furiously without gaining an inch. Austrian soldiers came to our rescue. Half a dozen of us pushed from behind. Two American tourists who had just climbed the Stelvio from the Italian side in a Cadillac, also gave generous aid. With the additional help of pickaxes and quantities of sawdust, the car finally shook off its icy fetters.

Meanwhile we had succeeded in snapping some kodak pictures without attracting the notice of the Austrian officers. The Stelvio is a military road, various forts are in the neighborhood, and the government regulations forbid the taking of photographs. In securing these pictures we ran the risk of heavier penalties than the confiscation of the camera and films.

Fortune did not smile so cheerfully at the Italian dogana, two miles farther down. Hardly had we touched the kodak when Italian soldiers and customhouse officers rushed toward us. We were not sure whether we would be shot on the spot or simply left to languish in an Italian prison. One of the officers seized the camera, tied a red string around it, and sealed it. Observing that our ignorance of military regulations was fully equal to our ignorance of Italian, he instructed us in French not to open the camera until we were beyond Tirano, seventy miles away, the frontier town of the military zone.

During the ascent the engine bore the chief strain. It had worked heroically without once faltering. Now, upon the long down grades of the Italian slope, we were forced to rely upon the brakes. The road descended with a continuous and fairly steep gradient for almost fourteen miles. It was dangerous, difficult work. We not only had to make the turns, which were just as sharp as on the Austrian side, but it was necessary to watch the straining brakes, releasing them when the grade permitted and alternating the emergency brake with compression. This was a feat demanding all the qualities of motormanship. Coolness and good judgment were indispensable at every curve of the descent. The road turned icy corners and edged along precipitous cliffs. If the brakes had refused to work, it would have been fatal; the downward plunge of the car would have been beyond control in a few seconds. But at that moment we were not thinking of danger. The thrill of the descent, the feeling of flying down from a great height, the ice peaks that rose higher above us, the stupendous chasm that at every curve opened newer and more savage depths—these were all a part of our exhilarating experience.

We were coasting much of the time; gasoline and ignition had been cut off. Rocky walls hurled back the blast of our motor horn as we entered the slippery winter galleries of the Diroccamento defile. According to law, no vehicle may enter a tunnel if it is occupied. Farther down, the road looped like the coils of a great serpent, twisting, disappearing, only to reappear farther down as a faint streak of shimmering roadway. It was curious, that sensation of falling, always sinking lower and yet never reaching the bottom. One more sweep through the Braulio Valley, and we stopped for lunch before the luxurious hotel Bagni-Nuovi, that popular watering place for the leisure rich of Italy.

Our first repast upon Italian soil very fittingly included macaroni and a generous bottiglia di vino italiano. After lunch we went into the terraced garden, fragrant with orange trees, overlooking dreamy Bormio, the gateway of Italy. The warm sunshine was delightful after having so recently faced the icy winds of the Stelvio.

Here we joined an American party from Detroit, Mr. and Mrs. ——, who were chaperoning two attractive American girls on a motor trip through Italy and the Tyrol. They had rented an Italian car in Rome, but had not found the investment altogether satisfactory, the usual story of rented cars in Europe. These chance meetings with other Americans en route were among the pleasantest features of our trip. We would gladly have prolonged the visit, had it not been necessary to leave early in the afternoon if we were to reach Menaggio on Lake Como before dark.

After descending into Bormio, one motors for some distance between high, vine-clad slopes, and then passes through two or three villages, typically Italian with their dilapidated churches and narrow, cobbled streets swarming with dirty children, many of whom took a special delight in darting across our track just as we were passing.

Northern Italy is wonderfully picturesque. The long defile of S. Antonio Morignone, the antiquated towns, the slender campaniles standing out so clearly in the misty, dreamy landscape, the plains of Lombardy with their scenes of peasant life,—these were all interesting details to be duly jotted down in the notebook of memory.

It was haying time. The farming methods seemed so primitive; everything was hand work. We did not see a single labor-saving machine. The International Harvester Company would not have done a profitable business here. The hayricks were very small, and even these were often lacking, for barefooted women staggered under large bundles of hay. Yet these backward farmers make stalwart soldiers. Sturdy and frugal, they are, as in France, the backbone and hope of the nation. Europe recognizes the fine horsemanship of the Italian cavalry. The "Corazzieri," or royal bodyguard, is a magnificent corps. It is difficult to believe that most of these men are peasants.

There was no need of a compass to learn that we were going west, for the afternoon sun shone full in our faces. This steady glare, and the dazzling reflection from the white, dusty road, became almost unbearable. It was constantly necessary to shield the eyes. There was no winding or turning. Often we overtook a hayrick occupying most of the highway. The driver was usually invisible in the soft depths of the hay, and so drowsy from the sun or liberal drafts of chianti that persistent blasts of the motor horn were necessary to attract his attention. Tresenda was passed, and then Sondrio, the capital of the fertile Val Tellina, noted for its wines.