While the horses were resting, we amused ourselves with looking at two chamois, a male and a female, encaged in a small apartment. The former retains all his wildness, and cannot be domesticated; while the latter is mild and tractable, licking the hand of its keeper. It is a beautiful animal, light in its form, and made for fleetness and activity. Its head is perk, and its eye possesses great animation. The village has a little church, which we visited. It is a humble Gothic building, round which the alpine winds were whistling. The walls exhibit one painting of some merit, and many images of the Virgin, together with numerous votive tablets, dating as far back as 1732. All the houses bear the marks of great age, and of having been severely lashed by the

elements.

Another tedious ride of three hours, through a desolate region, exhibiting here and there a solitary hut, brought us to the very top of the Simplon, where we found ourselves in the midst of all the horrors of winter. For several miles the path was buried in snow, and large icicles were pendent from the rocks, without dripping at mid-day. The highest peaks were cloud-capt; and all our coats and cloaks were not proof against the searching air. Two English ladies attended only by a servant, were met upon the bleakest summit. Napoleon directed a large Hospice to be commenced upon the heights; but it has not yet been finished. It is built of stone, two stories high, with fourteen windows in front. The benevolent and indefatigable monks of St. Bernard are now engaged in completing it.

Our journey thus far from Domo d'Ossola had occupied ten hours; and as the summit was not reached till 3 o'clock P. M., we began to think it would be necessary to provide a refuge for the night, especially as the skies looked cheerless and stormy. But a brighter prospect soon opened before us, and the clouds were all left behind, in the rapidity of our descent. The sun emerged from the mists, which wreathed the gloomy peaks of the Simplon; and the glaciers of Switzerland beyond the Rhone, a region of eternal frost, burst upon our view with indescribable splendour. Nesthorn is the loftiest of this bleak range, extending in either direction, as far as the eye can reach, and lifting to heaven a load of snows, which were never printed by human footsteps. The solitary grandeur of the scene wholly surpasses the reach of imagination.

From the top of the Simplon, an abyss of immeasurable

depth, visible in its whole extent, opens into the vale of the Rhone. Its sides are precipitous, slightly clothed with fir, and torn into deep chasms by torrents, descending from the heights above, and forming the waters of the Ganter. At the outlet of the gorge, the large villages of Brigue and Naters, with their glittering spires and rural environs, relieve the eye, presenting a beautiful picture. Seen from such an elevation, and through a pure atmosphere, they appear within a few miles of the spectator, though the descent to the vale occupies three or four hours. The road winds round the head of the tremendous gulf of the Ganter, penetrating a long gallery of rocks, and pursuing the very brink of the frightful cliffs. It is guarded by a high wall, which renders it secure, except in winter, when accumulated masses of ice and snow rise to a level with the parapet.

The scenery upon the northern declivities of the mountain is less lonely, gloomy, and savage than that of the Italian side. A different geological formation gives it fewer asperities and less rudeness. The traveller does not feel himself so completely buried in alpine solitudes. His eye looks abroad upon a more varied prospect, and at intervals catches glimpses of the cultivated vale below. Forests of fir skirt the path, and the caverns of the Swiss peasantry are often seen cradled, like the nest of the eagle, among rocks and upon steeps, which appear wholly inaccessible. Indeed, the approach is often so precipitous and rugged, that it is necessary to use ladders in the ascent from cliff to cliff. On the right are seen the peaks of several glaciers, and the desolate tracks of avalanches, sterile and dreary as beds of lava.

The gorge of the Saltine opens from the east, at nearly right angles with the Ganter, and the chasm is scarcely less profound, though not so wild and terrific in its aspect. A large torrent is seen foaming and fretting among the rocks; but it is actually so far beneath the feet of the spectator, that its roar does not reach his ear. The road runs along the southern margin of this gulf, to a point near its head, crosses it on a noble bridge, and thence traverses the northern side to the vale of the Rhone. We did not reach Brigue till dark; and a ridethrough its narrow, ill-paved, gloomy streets was the roughest part of the passage. The Hotel was full to everflowing with English travellers, and much difficulty was experienced in finding lodgings for the night. After the fatigues of the day, mental as well as corporeal, almost any accommodations were acceptable.

LETTER XCIV.

DEPARTURE FROM BRIGUE-VALE OF THE RHONE-SKETCH OF ITS SCENERY-ALPS AND GLACIERS-FERTILITY-POPULATION-BUILDINGS--VILLAGES AND HAMLETS--VIEGE-TOUR

TEMAGNE

CASCADE-SION-MARTIGNY-ST.

MAURICE

FIRST VIEW OF THE LAKE OF GENEVA ST. GINGOUX-ROCKS OF MEILLERIE-SOUTHERN SHORE OF THE LAKE-EVIAN-THONON--DISTANT VIEW OF MONT BLANC--ARRIVAL AT GE

NEVA.

October, 1826.-At sunrise on the morning of the 12th, we resumed our journey, through the Haut-Valais. Brigue is about forty miles from the source of the Rhone, which rises among the glaciers, to the north of St. Gothard. The river is here comparatively small, bearing the character of a mountain torrent. Its water is very nearly of the same complexion as at Lyons. The vale through which it flows, even before reaching the Lake of Geneva, is one of the most extensive, as well as the deepest, in Europe. Its length, running in nearly a direct line from east to west, is something more than a hundred miles, and its breadth from four to six or seven. There is little variety in the great outlines of its formation and scenery. The Alps on the southern side, and the Helvetian mountains to the north, rise in continuous chains, to the height of seven, eight, and sometimes even ten thousand feet. They present bold, precipitous, and impassable barriers to the vale, except where torrents have burst through the ramparts, and swept the ruins into the Rhone. The river has been buffeted from side to side by the debris, brought down by these deluges from the mountains, the beds of which are often many rods in width, strewed with sand, rocks, and uprooted forests. One of the most hideous is denominated "the Devil's Garden;" but it looks more like the ruined fortresses of Milton's archangels, subverted and demolished by the arm of the Almighty. The Alps are less savage in aspect, than the glaciers upon the opposite bank of the Rhone. While the sides of the former are often clothed half way to their summits with

dwarfish fir, the latter exhibit only sterile masses of rock and snow, without a trace of vegetation. Enormous crags and needles, in the shape of pyramids, too pointed to afford lodgment to accumulated ice, pierce the crust and rise like grey battlements along the eternal ramparts. It is impossible to conceive an image of more desolate and gloomy grandeur, than this castellated region, this throne of perpetual winter, presents to the eye. The verdure of the Alps is the more remarkable, since their giant peaks throw their sides and bases, which here have a northern exposure, into the shade for a considerable part of the day. We rode in their deep and chill shadows, for the first three hours this morning, without seeing the sun, except as it shot a beam through the serrated summits; while the opposite glaciers were glittering with the most dazzling brightness. It is indeed a glorious prospect, to look back on St. Gothard, towering at the source of the Rhone, and forward, through the long vista of mountains, to the utmost limits of vision.

The fertility of the Valais furnishes an astonishing contrast to the desolate barriers of rock and ice, by which it is enclosed. Rich alluvial plains, shaded with trees of a large growth; fields neatly cultivated, teeming with corn, vineyards, fruits, and flowers; green pastures, filled with flocks and herds, frequently meet the eye of the traveller, where he would look only for frost and sterility. We saw the peasantry engaged in mowing a second crop of grass, gathering yellow tresses of maize, or busy with the vintage, while the labours of the harvest were liable to be interrupted by the descent of avalanches.

The population of the Vale appears to be sparse; and most of the agricultural labour is performed by females, whose husbands, fathers, and brothers perhaps are filling the Austrian or French regiments, or crowding to the shores of other countries as emigrants. Those who are left behind seem to be industrious, frugal, and temperate in their habits; simple and courteous in their manners. Every person who met us on the road, old and young, male and female, offered some kind of a salutation, by lifting the hat, bowing, or bidding a kind good-morrow. In features, the peasantry bear marks of severe toil and a rigorous climate. Their costumes are peculiarly fantastic. The women wear, in the house as well as abroad, a small straw hat, with a silk band, cut in scallops. The number of beggars indicates more po

verty, than we expected to find among the hardy Swiss, "pelted and starved as they are by the elements." A dozen of the descendants of Tell beset us for charity, in our first day's ride among their mountains. Most of the inhabitants in this Canton are Catholics; and the style of mendicity varies very little from that of Italy.

The villages, hamlets, farm-houses, and cottages of the Valais, however picturesque and romantic they may appear at a distance, seated as they often are upon the acclivities of the mountains, are comparatively rude in structure, and will not bear a very close examination, except in point of cleanliness, which is carried throughout every department of life. Even the smallest taverns are perfectly neat; and in several instances, females were seen sweeping out the stalls of their cows. Many of the buildings are of red cedar, the complexion of which gives them the appearance of having been painted. The barns are elevated upon piles, five or six feet from the ground, to prevent the approach of rats and mice. A ladder leads to the door, and the basement is used to shelter cattle from the weather. The cabins are often constructed of hewn logs; small, dark, and gloomy, with circular panes of glass for the windows. Huts upon the mountains are frequently inhabited only during the summer, by shepherds and herdsmen, who retreat to the vale before the storms, torrents, and avalanches of winter and spring.

vails.

Such are some of the physical and moral features of the Vale of the Rhone, which I have attempted to generalize, to save repetition, where so great a uniformity of scenery preOur journey of two or three days furnished few incidents, to swell the contents of this sketch. At Viege, seven or eight miles from Brigue, we paused a moment, and had a fine view of our old acquaintance, Monte Rosa. A deep ravine here opens in nearly a direct line to its base.

While dinner was preparing at Tourtemagne, a visit was paid to a cascade, back of the village. It spouts from the rocks of the Alps, and is twisted into a silver thread in its descent. The stream is small; or at least it appears so, in comparison with other natural objects around it.

We took lodgings for the night at Sion, which is the capital of the Haut-Valais, the old Sedunum of the Romans. Its ancient inhabitants opposed the march of Hannibal, upon the summit of the Alps: and their scarcely less warlike descendants kept the Bas-Valais tributary, for three hundred years.