So I went to bed. The hotel was on the edge of a steep declivity. I
wondered why the whole hills did not slide down, in some great natural
catastrophe.
In the morning I walked along the side of the Lake of Lugano, to where I
could take a steamer to ferry me down to the end. The lake is not
beautiful, only picturesque. I liked most to think of the Romans
coming to it.
So I steamed down to the lower end of the water. When I landed and went
along by a sort of railway I saw a group of men. Suddenly they began to
whoop and shout. They were hanging on to an immense pale bullock, which
was slung up to be shod; and it was lunging and kicking with terrible
energy. It was strange to see that mass of pale, soft-looking flesh
working with such violent frenzy, convulsed with violent, active frenzy,
whilst men and women hung on to it with ropes, hung on and weighed it
down. But again it scattered some of them in its terrible convulsion.
Human beings scattered into the road, the whole place was covered with
hot dung. And when the bullock began to lunge again, the men set up a
howl, half of triumph, half of derision.
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