PERSAL.

As the sun rose, the globes of Brigg appeared again at our feet. The valley of the Rhone, the Aletsch glacier, and the lofty pyramids of the Breitshorn and Finster-aarhorn, and all our well known mountains, were about us.

The winding road is sufficiently broad for three carriages to drive abreast. The ascent is first through a larch grove; a deep ravine occasions the first gallery, and the Kander torrent the first bridge beyond the Saltine. At a height of eighty feet above the fall, you now sweep round a vast concavity in the side of the mountain; beiteath your eye are the rugged effects of the raging waters of winter, bordered by the rich foliage of summer: to a certain height every slope is covered with rich beech and fir, and smoke here and there, from the chalets in the dale, still speaking of the residence and comforts of man.

We stopped for a quarter of an hour at Persal, one of the refuges built by Buonaparte for his soldiers, when they were forming the road. We had a basin of milk, and a long chat with our hostess. A mixture of Swiss frankness, French shrewdness, and Italian feeling, made her very entertaining, as she poured forth, with great fluency, her French, Italian, and German, to try which we might best comprehend.

When I asked her if she remembered the French troops, she said, "Ah oui!" with much sentimentality; but she had outlived their departure, and appeared to be dwelling very happily with her cows, which, indeed, are a gift peculiarly bounteous to this spot. We continued our suspension-drive over the brink of precipices, winding in long sinuosities as far as the bridge of the torrents of Oesbach. Here the mountains seemed crumbling over our heads; the danger of the Lavanges was very great; vast masses of

rock, in loose earth, are suspended above, waiting but the breath of Eolus, or the slightest shock, to overwhelm the traveller in an instant. We crossed the second gallery, and saw on our left the glaciers of Kaltwasser, from whence descend four cascades, the waters of which are carried beneath the road by the most ingenious masonry.

The sun now broke forth powerfully; no pen can describe the sublimity of that scene. We were skirting a vast hollow of an Alpine height; the Jungfrau rose in solitary grandeur, with her never-changing snows. Beside her was reared the enormous granitic pyramid of the Finster-aarhorn, rising thirteen thousand feet, with regions of ice and snow stretching out to the utmost limit of vision, dazzling in brightness, and their divisions only perceptible by the vast and lofty precipices, dark in their own shadows. At this moment, in the lowest deep of the abyss beneath, we could just discern our poor peasant attending her cows. Whilst gazing with intense interest, the post-boys quickened their horses to a gallop, and drove us through a long gallery roofed by a glacier: the darkness, the trampling of the horses on the hollow rock, the rush of water from above, made the whole rather terrific, and we drew a long breath on emerging, whilst our post-boys looked back with an air of triumph at having so speedily brought us through this dangerous spot; where, indeed, if one large stone were shaken out, it would, in an instant, close in death those eyes so lately employed in delight amidst this wondrous. scene. We had long been above the line of vegetation, and we now turned upon a region all rock and barrenness, and snow and ice. It was exceedingly cold, and just when we had thought, here man cannot dwell, we came upon the ruins of an ancient convent and its campanile, and a second

was actually commenced by order of Buonaparte; the stones ready for building lay scattered in every direction. On the western side of us rose the Eritzhorn, and, on the south, the vast glacier of the Fletchhorn. We had now reached the highest point of our road; the mountain is six thousand five hundred and ninety-seven feet above the level of the sea, and we slowly commenced our descent. On our left, in the distance, were prodigious points of dark slaty looking mountain-tops, mixed with snows, and on our right à circus forming the crown of the Simplon, magnificent with rugged peaks: the immediate part we were passing was a sort of mountain marsh, and having reached the bridge of Sinkalbech, or Amsenk, we soon arrived at the little village of Simplon. We were glad to warm our hands at a huge stove, but had not the pleasure of seeing a fire. Epicures speak highly of this inn: we soon wandered forth, and sat beside a little mountain-torrent rushing down from a Simplon glacier, and which appeared to be one of the sources of the Vedro. Another roared on the left, and, in a deep ravine on a level with the stream, I observed a little glacier, so completely did the high cliffs keep off the sun's rays.

Once more en route, we passed the bridge of Lowiback and Kronback, and reached Gsteig, where the Kronback and the Quirna joining their mountain streams, as they descend from the glacier of Lavin, along a straight cut in the rocks, form the Vedro or Diverio, whose roaring waters now kept thundering by our side. The road now turns upon itself, and the Vedro, traversing a thousand rocky fragments, rolls into the valley with a tremendous noise, and the mountains approach so close, the rocks are so awfully suspended, and so loose, that the danger after rain must be imminent. We crossed a fourth gallery, and our

attention was suddenly arrested by the beautiful cascade of the Frissinone. Its rush, its rage, the abyss into which it falls, its rising vapour, its rainbow, its dark rocks, make a noble combination. Leaving it with regret, we turned into the gallery of Gondo, said to be cut out of solid granite, six hundred feet long; two large openings in its roof admit the light of day. Emerging from this gallery, the sound again stuns your ear, and, on your right, the Diverio tumbles over immense blocks of stone, and boils into the gulf below; whilst, on your left, the white foam of the rushing waters from the strait of Zwischberghen attracts your eye. Here nature has combined great magnificence and beauty in the rocks and waters; and the bright beam of the sun—now cut by the dark shadow of a high cliff-now dancing in the watery spray-gave life to the whole.

For miles, the Chaussée continued on the side of a vast cliff, broken into prodigious masses, separated from its opposing mountain only by the bed of the roaring waters of the Diverio, but varied by every glowing tint and whimsical shape that stone can assume. At Gondo there is an old tower, seven stories high: it has the appearance of a prison, and its grated windows suit well with the dreary grandeur of the scene. Beyond, on a lofty pyramid, is a chapel, surmounted by a cross; and, on a fine grotesque mass of rock, a pillar. The first Italian village is named St. Marco. Between this place and Isella, we observed a Corinthian column on the ground; and mosses and ferns were beginning to throw their graceful draperies over its fluted. sides. It is said to be the column destined by Buonaparte to support his statue at the end of the Simplon road. At Isella, the Italian Dogani commenced their operation. A very beautiful female stood with them. After a silvery

salutation, we entered the fine defile of Yéselles, and passed through a narrow and wild valley over two bridges into the sixth and last gallery. In this region most of the rocks are split, and the blocks on the sides and summit hang suspended: the wind, the rain, or a sound, precipitates them on the helpless traveller. Turning round a fine height, the debris of a whole mountain lay in wild confusion before us: the road had been cleared, but the Diverio was nearly, choked, and its impetuous waters struggled furiously through the wild fragments.

As we were emerging from the scene, we stood up and looked back. Salvator Rosa would have been baffled. The misty hue of evening spread upon the mountains, whilst long sunbeams shot between; and the glaciers and lofty pinnacles of snow reflected a rosy light, contrasting beauteously with the dim dark hue of the crossing forms of the distant ravines.

Reaching Crevola, and crossing the Veriola, we turned with a sharp angle to the right, quitting the Val Vedro for the wide, well-watered valley of the Toccia: the natural and artificial ornaments of the country are instantly changed.

The near mountains are covered with wood, and Italianlooking summer-houses crown their summits: five or six rivers haste over the long valley, winding in among the vineyards, which cover the whole space between the mountains, hanging their luxuriant fruit and foliage over granite pillars. Long mountain-valleys come sideways down into the plain, and now and then allow one to peep into the deep recesses that conduct to some hoary summit. We entered a largé inn at Domo d'Ossola, the deficiencies and ornaments of which were new to us, and told us