What inconceivable folly had ever involved me in such an adventure? How could I have been so weak as to accept such a mission? Here was I, more than a thousand miles away from home, alone, on foot in the midst of a mountain tract, the chosen resort of the worst assassins of Europe, and, as if to insure my ruin, with a large sum in gold on my person. What could my friend have meant by proposing the enterprise to me? Did he imagine the mountain-paths of the Basilicata were like Pall Mall? or did he,--and this seemed more likely,--did he deem that the man who had so little to live for must, necessarily, care less for life? If I must enter the public service, thought I, at the peril of my neck, better to turn to some other means of living. Then I grew sardonic and malicious, declaring to myself how like a rich man it was to offer such an employment to a poor man, as though, when existence had so little to charm, one could not hold to it with any eagerness. The people, muttered I, who throw these things to us so contemptuously are careful enough of themselves. You never find one of them risk his life, no, nor even peril his health, in any enterprise. As the sun shone out and lit up a magnificent landscape beneath me, where, in the midst of a wooded plain, a beautiful lake lay stretched out, dotted over with little islands, I grew in better humor with myself and with the world at large. It was certainly very lovely. The snow-peaks of the Abruzzi could be seen, here and there, topping the clouds, which floated lightly up from the low-lying lands of the valley. Often and often had I walked miles and miles to see a scene not fit to be compared with this. If I had only brought my colors with me, what a bit of landscape I might have carried away! The pencil could do nothing where so much depended on tint and glow. A thin line of blue smoke rose above the trees near the lake, and this I guessed to proceed from the village of Rocco d'Anco. I plucked up my courage at the sight, and again set forth, weary and footsore, it is true, but in a cheerier, heartier spirit than before.