LAGO DI LUGANO.

About twelve o'clock we arrived at Porlezza, six miles from Menaggio, and immediately embarked on the Lago di Lugano. This lake is twenty-five miles in length, in breadth from three to six, and of immense depth, indeed, in some places, it is said to be almost unfathomable. Its former name was Ceresius Lacus; but whether known to the ancients, or produced, as some have imagined, by a sudden convulsion in the fifth or sixth century, has not yet been ascertained. The banks are formed by the sides of two mountains so steep as to afford little room for villages or even cottages, and so high as to cast a blackening shade over the surface of the waters. Their rocky bases are oftentimes so perpendicular, and descend so rapidly into the gulph below, without shelving or gradation, as not to allow shelter for a boat, or even footing for a human being. Hence, although covered with wood hanging in vast masses of verdure from the precipices, and although bold and magnificent in the highest degree from their bulk and elevation, yet they inspire sensations of awe rather than of pleasure. The traveller feels a sort of terror as he glides under them, and dreads lest the rocks should close over him, or some fragment descend from the cragg and bury him suddenly in the abyss.

To this general description there are several exceptions, and in particular with reference to that part, which expanding westward forms the bay of Lugano. The banks here slope off gently towards the south and west, presenting fine hills, fields, and villas, with the town itself in the centre, consisting in appearance of several noble

lines of buildings. On the craggy top of the promontory on one side of this bay stands a castle; the towering summit of the opposite cape opens into green downs striped with forests, bearing a strong resemblance in scenery and elevation to the heights of Vallombrosa. The snowy pinnacles and craggy masses of the neighbouring Alps rise behind the town, and form an immense semicircular boundary. The town is said to be pretty, and the climate is considered as extremely mild and genial.

Lugano formerly enjoyed prosperity and independence under the protection of the Swiss Cantons. In the late revolutionary war it was seized by the French, and annexed to the Cisalpine Republic. The change was not very popular, as may be imagined; however submission was unavoidable, till, impoverished by taxes, and teazed by swarms of blood-suckers under the titles of prefects, mayors, commissioners, &c. the inhabitants yielded to the impulse of courage, threw off the yoke, and expelled the Cisalpine officers. It was in actual rebellion when we passed, and it had our cordial but unavailing wishes. In front of the town we sailed under a lofty mountain covered with wood, and projecting into the lake. Its interior is hollowed into a variety of caverns (called by the people cantini), remarkable for coolness and dryness. Here the citizens of Lugano store up their wine and corn, and in the summer months they keep their meat here, which, even in the most sultry weather, remains untainted for a considerable time.

The bay of Lugano lies nearer the southern than the northern extremity of the lake, which, a few miles beyond it, again expands and forms three other branches. One of the branches,

bending northward, is of considerable extent, and discharges itself by the river Tresa into the Lago Maggiore. In turning from Lugano, the depth of the lake is, where narrowest, considerably diminished, a circumstance ascribed to the fall of a vast promontory. The same effect is supposed to have been produced by the same cause lower down, near a town called Melano. These tremendous falls are occasioned principally by the action of subterraneous waters that hollow the mountain into caverns, and sometimes force their way through its sides, tearing it asunder as they rush forth, and hurling its fragments into the lake below. Such an event happened in the year 1528, and nearly swept away a little town called Campione, almost opposite Lugano; and again in the year 1710 near the Tresa, (the emissary or outlet of the lake), and choked its channel with the ruins of a neighbouring mountain. Hence we may conclude, that those who ascribe the origin of the lake itself to an internal convulsion, derive some presumptive and plausible arguments to support their conjecture from the frequency of similar accidents.

As we advanced the boatmen pointed to some distant caverns on the bank, as having once been the receptacles of a troop of banditti, who infested the lake and its immediate neighbourhood for a considerable time, and by the secrecy and the extent of their subterraneous retreats, long eluded the pursuit of government. We glided over the latter part in the silence and obscurity of evening, and landed about half past seven at Porto. The carriages had here been appointed to meet us, and as accommodations are very indifferent, being only a village, we immediately set out for Varese. The distance is seven miles.

The country is said to be very beautiful, but the darkness of the night prevented us from observing the scenery.

At Bisuschio, the first village from Porto, there is a villa belonging to a family called the Cicogna, surrounded with a garden, veramente Inglese, for so they assured us. In a country like this, where there is so great a variety of ground, so much water, so much wood, and so much mountain, nothing is wanting to make a garden or park truly English but a little judgment, and some partiality for a rural life to bring it into action. It is to be regretted that this taste, so conformable to nature, and so favourable both to public and private felicity should be uncommon in a country pre-eminently adorned with all the charms calculated to inspire and nourish it.

Non ullus aratro

Dignus honos; squallent abductis arva colonis.

Georg. 1.

Varese is a small and cleanly town. It seems formed princi pally of the villas of some of the Milanese nobility: the Ionic front of the principal church was the only object that attracted my attention.

From Varese, having sent the carriages to Novara, we proceeded post in the vehicles of the country to Laveno. We set out about half past nine. The country which we traversed, when considered as bordering upon the Alps, may be called flat, but it is in reality varied with fine swells and undulations. Its principal ornament is the Lago di Varese, an expanse of water very noble in itself, though it loses much of its real magnitude

from the comparison which is perpetually made between this lake and the three inland seas in its immediate vicinity. It appears to be of an oval form, about twelve miles in length, and six in breadth. Its banks slope gently to the verge of the water, and they are covered with all the luxuriancy of vegetation. Fields of deep verdure bordered by lofty trees, hills covered with thickets, villas shaded with pines and poplars, villages encircled with vineyards, strike the traveller wherever he turns his eye, and amuse him as he wanders along the margin of the lake, with a continual picture of fertility and of happiness.