_Friday, August 24th._--_Airola_ (3800 feet above the sea).--I walked out; but neglected to enter the church, and missed a pleasure which W. has often spoken of. He found a congregation of Rustics chanting the service--the men and women alternately--unaccompanied by a priest.... Cascades of pure unsullied water, tumble down the hills in every conceivable variety of form and motion--and never, I think, distant from each other a quarter of a mile in the whole of our course from Airola. Sometimes, those cascades are seen to fall in one snow-white line from the highest ridge of the steep; or, sometimes, gleaming through the woods (no traceable bed above them) they seem to start out at once from beneath the trees, as from their source, leaping over the rocks. One full cataract rose up like a geyser of Iceland, a silvery pillar that glittered, as it seemed, among lightly-tossing snow. Without remembering that the Tessino (of monotonous and muddy line) was seldom out of sight, it is not possible to have even a faint notion of the pleasure with which we looked at those bright rejoicing rivulets. The morning was sunny; but we felt no oppression from heat, walking leisurely, and resting long, especially at first, when expecting W. and R., who at length overtook us, bringing a comfort that would have cheered a _dreary_ road--letters from England. _Sunday, August 26th._--_Locarno._--We had resolved to ascend St. Salvador before sunrise; and, a contrary wind having sprung up, the boatmen wished to persuade us to stay all night at a town upon a low point of land pushed far into the Lake, which conceals from our view that portion of it, where, at the head of a large basin or bay, stands the town of Lugano. They told us we might thence ascend the mountain with more ease than from Lugano, a wile to induce us to stay; but we called upon them to push on. Having weathered this point, and left it some way behind, the place of our destination appears in view--(like Locarno and Luvino) within the semicircle of a bay--a wide basin of waters spread before it; and the reach of the lake towards Porlezza winding away to our right. That reach appeared to be of more grave and solemn character than any we had passed through--grey steeps enclosing it on each side. We now coasted beneath bare precipices at the foot of St. Salvador--shouted to the echoes--and were answered by travellers from the road far above our heads. Thence tended towards the middle of the basin; and the town of Lugano appeared in front of us, low green woody hills rising above it. Mild lightning fluttered like the northern lights over the steeps of St. Salvador, yet without threatening clouds; the wind had fallen; and no apprehensions of a storm disturbed our pleasures. It was 8 o'clock when we reached the Inn, where all things were on a large scale--splendid yet shabby. The landlord quite a fine gentleman. His brother gone to England as a witness on the Queen's trial.