from the mountains to the Rhone, which runs through its centre. Were this valley beneath a tropical sun, it would be the seat of pestilence and death. As it is, the air must necessarily be bad; for the high ridges of mountains, which rise like walls on the north and south sides, prevent a free ventilation, while, in Summer, a powerful sun beats down into the valley, rendering it a complete focus of heat, and extricating from vegetation and humidity a prodigious quantity of malaria. In Winter, the high southern ridge shuts out the rays of a feeble sun, except for a few hours in the middle of the day-so that the atmosphere is not sufficiently agitated at any season of the year. To this must be added, the badness of the waters which, along the banks of the upper Rhone, are superlatively disgusting. As the Vallais is the land of cretinism, so is SION the capital of that humiliating picture of humanity! There are but few travellers who take the trouble to examine SION philosophically, and make themselves acquainted with the state of its wretched inhabitants. I explored this town with great attention, traversing its streets in every direction; and I can safely aver that, in no part of the world, not even excepting the Jews' quarter in Rome, or the polluted back lanes of ITRI and FONDI, in the kingdom of Naples, have I seen such intense filth! With the exception of two or three streets, the others present nothing on their surface but a nameless mass of vegeto-animal corruption, which, in all well-regulated towns, is consigned to pits, or carried away by scavengers. The alleys are narrow; and the houses are constructed as if they were designed for the dungeons of malefactors, rather than the abodes of men at liberty. Goitre, on such a scale as we see it in the Vallais, is bad enough; but CRETINISM is a cure for the pride of man, and may here be studied by the philosopher and physician on a large scale, and in its most frightful colours. This dreadful deformity of body and mind is not confined to the Alps. It is seen among the Pyrennees-the valleys of the Tyrol-and the mountains of China and Tartary. Nearly 200 years have elapsed since it was noticed by Plater, in the spot where I am now viewing it; but Saussure was the first who accurately described this terrible degeneracy of the human species. From common bronchocele, and a state of body and mind bordering on health, down to a complete destitution of intelligence and sensibility-in short, to an existence purely vegetative, cretins present an infinite variety of intermediate grades, filling up these wide extremes. In general, but not invariably, goitre is an attendant on cretinism. The stature is seldom more than from four to five feet, often much less-the head is deformed in shape, and too large in proportion to the body—the skin is yellow, cadaverous, or of a mahogany colour, wrinkled, sometimes of an unearthly pallor, with unsightly eruptions -the flesh is soft and flabby-the tongue is large, and often hanging out of the mouth-the eyelids thick-the eyes red, prominent, watery, and frequently squinting-the countenance void of all expression, except that of idiotism or lasciviousness-the nose flat-the mouth large, gaping, slavering -the lower jaw elongated-the belly pendulous-the limbs crooked, short, and so distorted as to prevent any thing but a waddling progression-the external senses often imperfect, and the cretin deaf and dumb the tout ensemble of this hideous abortion of Nature presenting the traits of premature old age! Such is the disgusting physical exterior of the apparently wretched, but perhaps comparatively happy, cretin ! If we look to the moral man (if man he can be called) the picture is still more humiliating. The intellectual functions being, as it were, nul, certain of the lower animal functions are in a state of increased activity. The cretins are voracious and addicted to low propensities which cannot be named. To eat and to sleep form their chief pleasures. Hence we see them, between meals, basking in nonchalance on the sunny sides of the houses, insensible to every stimulus that agitates their more intelligent fellow-creatures—frequently insensible to every call of Nature itself! But I shall pass on from this melancholy example of the effects of climate, or at all events of physical agencies, on the moral and corporeal constitution of man, to the causes which are supposed to produce them. This is not an uninteresting inquiry, and it is intimately connected with a principal object of this volume, as will be seen in the sequel. causes. In the first place, it is remarked that cretinism is bounded to certain altitudes above the level of the sea. The Vallais itself, and the ravines or gorges of the mountains by which it is enclosed, are the chief seats of this deformity. All, or almost all, those who inhabit the higher ranges of the mountains overlooking the valleys are exempt from the malady. This single fact proves that cretinism is owing to a physical rather than a moral cause, or series of There can be no material difference in the moral habits of peasants residing at the base and on the brow of the same mountain. If the former be more subject to goitre and cretinism than the latter, it must be owing to something in the air they breathe, the water they drink, or the emanations from the soil on which they reside. Saussure, Ferrus, Georget, and all those who have personal knowledge of the subject, acknowledge that, at a certain height (five or six hundred toises) among the Alps, goitre and cretinism disappear. In the year 1813, M. Rambuteau, then Prefect of the department .of the Simplon, addressed a memoir to the Minister of the Interior of France, on this subject, in which, after describing very accurately the medical topography of the Vallais, with its malarious exhalations, stagnant atmosphere, and alternate exposure to the rays of a burning sun, and piercing icy winds, as the causes of cretinism, goes on to add, "the use of waters, which, in descending from the mountains by long and circuitous routes, become impreguated with calcareous salts." "A ces causes il croit devoir adjuter l'usage des eaux, qui, en descendant des montagnes et parcourant de longues distances, se chargent de sels calcaires.* As moral auxiliaries, the Prefect enumerates "the indolence of the inhabitants, their want of education, the dirtiness of the houses, the badness of the provisions-their drunkenness and debauchery." M. Rambuteau mentions some curious particulars respecting this dreadful deterioration of human nature. He affirms that those Valaisans who intermarry with the Savoyards from the Italian side of the Alps, give birth to more cretins than those who form matrimonial connexions with the inhabitants of their native valley. The females of the latter place, who marry men born on the higher regions of the Alps, and who are accustomed to live in the open air, with much bodily exercise, hardly ever bring forth cretinous children. The same intelligent observer remarks that—" Wherever cretinism is seen, goitre is also prevalent-but the latter is found in places where the former does not exist." Hence he is led to the conclusion, that -"the nature of the two maladies is the same, (le principe des deux maladies est le même) but the cause is more active where cretinism and goitre both prevail-more feeble where goitre only obtains." In short, we find in the Vallais, and in the lower gorges or ravines that open on its sides, both cretinism and bronchocele in the most intense degrees—as we ascend the neighbouring mountains, cretinism disappears and goitre only is observed—and when we get to a certain altitude both maladies vanish, and the Alpine peasant or shepherd once more assumes the "image of his Creator!" It is said and believed by travellers, that cretinism is decreasing in the Vallais. The diminution is, I fear, more apparent than real. The "march of intellect" and the intercourse with strangers have taught the parents and friends of these wretched creatures to doubt that the cretin is the favourite of Heaven, as is thought of idiots in Turkey. They, therefore conceal, rather than expose, their offspring so afflicted. I saw them driving them in from the back streets of Sion on my approach. It is probable, however, that there is a diminution in the number of cretins in the Vallais. Many of the auxiliary * Dr. Bally, a native of a goitrous district in Switzerland, states the following very important fact. "Bronchocele appears to me to be produced by certain waters which issue from the hollows of rocks-trickle along the cliffs of mountains-or spring from the bowels of the earth. That this is the case, I may instance some fountains in my own country, (Departement du Leman, au Hameau de Thuet) the use of whose waters will, in eight or ten days, produce or augment goitrous swellings. Such of the inhabitants of the above village as avoid those waters are free from goitre and cretinism."* * Dict. des Sciences Medicales, T. VII. causes are on the decline. The people are becoming more sober, more industrious, more cleanly. Those who can afford the expense also, send their children up into the mountains to check the tendency to cretinism. Enough has been said, and a great deal more will be shewn hereafter, to prove the influence of climate and locality on the corporeal and intellectual constitution of man. And I hope to convince John Bull, in the course of our wanderings together, on this little tour, that all the moral and physical evils of the world are not included in fogs and taxes, against which he so bitterly complains in his own country. THE SIMPLON. The traveller is not sorry to leave the Vallais, where he feels its Boeotian atmosphere, even in his transitory passage between its cloud-capt boundaries. We slept one night at Tourtemagne, which is a very small hamlet, in a comparatively open space; but the atmosphere in the night was singularly oppressive, not from heat so much as impregnation with the exhalations from the soil. The sight of a pass from this "valley of the shadow of death" into the plains of Latium is most exhilarating-more especially when that pass is the Simplon. An accurate survey of this "seventh wonder" of the world did not disappoint me, though I had strong presentiments that it would do so, from woful experience. Travellers have so exaggerated every thing in their descriptions, and landscape-painters have so cordially co-operated with them, that it is difficult to recognize the reality when we see it, and mortifying to think that, even in tangible things like these-in such plain matters of fact-pleasure is all in anticipation! Present to grasp yet future still to find. In respect to the Simplon, the most professed scene-painting travellers, not always excepting our good and useful friend Mrs. Starke, have rather magnified unimportant views, and fallen short in their descriptions, not in their perceptions, of magnificent scenes; thus, the tourist who goes over this celebrated mountain pass, with book in hand, is sometimes agreeablysometimes disagreeably surprised. No one can be blamed for inability to convey adequate ideas of scenes that are, in truth, indescribable; but there can be no necessity, unless on the stage or in Paternoster-row, for exaggerating the beauty or sublimity of mediocrity or insignificance. I feel considerable qualms, doubts, and fears, in venturing to give even a very concise sketch of what has been so often described by those who have infinitely greater command of language and fertility of imagination than myself. More than once have I run my pen through some hasty notes of fresh impressions, committed to paper at the dreary Hotel de la PosTE, in the village of the Simplon, where I slept one night; and on the balcony of the inn at Domo Dossolo, where I halted the next day. The reader can turn over this sketch unread; but perhaps the traveller, while crossing the Simplon, may amuse himself by comparing it with the original, or with some of the copies that happen to be " compagnons de voyage." Crossing from Gliss to Brigg, the Simplon comes full in view through a gorge or narrow opening between two steep and piny mountains, the Gliss, horn and Klena Mountains. It is clothed with wood two-thirds up-then presents crags with straggling trees-and last of all, the snow-capt summit. The road first leads up the left hand mountain, (by Gantherhal) through a dense wood of pines, winding rather laboriously for nearly two hours—but still tending towards the gorge or narrow valley that separates it from the opposite mountain, and through which valley the SALTINE, a rapid torrent, is distinctly heard in its foaming and precipitous course towards the Rhone. At every turn of this long zig-zag ascent, the valley of the Rhone lengthens out, and the river is seen more clearly meandering through its plain. Brigg, Naters, Gliss, Viege, Tourtemagne, and many other towns and villages, come successively into view, and appear as distinct as if they were only a few miles from the observer-while the immense chain of Alps on the north side of the Vallais, with the GEMMI in their centre, are ranged along like fleecy clouds; but with all their angles and forms surprisingly well defined. The innumerable chalets, cottages, and hamlets, perched in all directions on the steeps rising from the north side of the Vallais, can be traced with the naked eye, while the telescope shews the men and cattle moving about. At length the road opens on the verge of the precipice formed by the Klena over the Saltine, and directly opposite to the Gliss-horn, which appears within musket-shot. Here the scene is sublime, and even fearful. It really requires some courage to look from the space between the first and second Refuge down into the yawning abyss, through which the torrent is dashing from crag to crag. The opposite steep seems so abrupt, that the pine-trees appear to grow along a surface as upright as themselves. Here, though not the last, yet the most extensive view of the Vallais, with all its snow-clad Alps, is taken, and the traveller, however excited by the anticipations of what is to come, lingers for a moment, in reflections on the wretched picture of human nature which the cretins of the Vallais have imprinted on the memory-then surveys, for the last time, the hoary-headed mountains of Switzerland and pursues his course towards the classic ground of Italy. The road, from the second Refuge to the bridge crossing the Kanter, assumes a perfectly horizontal line, under the stupendous brow of the Klena, and along the face of a craggy and precipitous steep, out of which the road |