After a couple of hours the houses became more rare; we got above the
sources of the chair-stream; bits of rough rock began to jut out from the
pasture; here and there the rhododendron began to shew itself by the
roadside; the chestnuts left off along a line as level as though cut with
a knife; stone-roofed _cascine_ began to abound, with goats and cattle
feeding near them; the booths of the religious trinket-mongers increased;
the blind, halt, and maimed became more importunate, and the
foot-passengers were more entirely composed of those whose object was, or
had been, a visit to the sanctuary itself. The numbers of these
pilgrims--generally in their Sunday's best, and often comprising the
greater part of a family--were so great, though there was no special
festa, as to testify to the popularity of the institution. They
generally walked barefoot, and carried their shoes and stockings; their
baggage consisted of a few spare clothes, a little food, and a pot or pan
or two to cook with. Many of them looked very tired, and had evidently
tramped from long distances--indeed, we saw costumes belonging to valleys
which could not be less than two or three days distant. They were almost
invariably quiet, respectable, and decently clad, sometimes a little
merry, but never noisy, and none of them tipsy. As we travelled along
the road, we must have fallen in with several hundreds of these pilgrims
coming and going; nor is this likely to be an extravagant estimate,
seeing that the hospice can make up more than five thousand beds.
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