In the Abruzzi (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from In the AbruzziA wild land - The Abruzzi as playground and as romantic background - Earlier travellers' books - Struggle 'twixt old and new - The reception of the wandering stranger - A note on topography - The shepherds of the Abruzzi - The peasants - The Americani - Women in the Abruzzi - The future.Looking out from Rome due eastward, beyond the nearer heights that bound the Campagna, vague shapes rise in the blue of the distance, cloudlike, part of the atmosphere that encircles the City that is a world, or, if the day so decree, clear and defined, like frontier sentinels on the watch. These masses and peaks are the rough edges of a wall that shuts in a land, strange, uncouth, primitive, little distant from Rome in mileage, incalculably distant in everything else. To cross its rugged frontier is to find yourself at but the first of its many defences against the life of to-day - the life of the plain. Penetrate but a little way, and from the higher slopes of triple-peaked Monte Velino you will descry the wonder and the terror of this land - the range upon range, the barrier on barrier, shutting off one high-pitched plain from another, making the folk of the narrow valleys and the lofty townships strangers each to each.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com