is cut with infinite labour and art. This gallery, as it may be termed, extends two miles, and here was the difficulty of constructing the road originally, as well as that of preserving it afterwards. If ever the Simplon becomes impassable, this will be one of the first places to give way. The whole side of the mountain is a series of loose or easily loosened masses of rock, of all sizes, interspersed thinly with pines. Every avalanche-almost every fall of rain, undermines or detaches some of these masses, which go down with thundering precipitation into the valley, tearing away, where they do not happen to leap over, the preservative terraces or even the road itself. A rock 50 tons in weight, had just rolled down the steeps before we crossed, and lodged on the road, rendering it extremely difficult for carriages to pass, there not being twelve inches to spare between the off wheels and the precipice! The rolling down of these rocks exemplifies, in a most striking manner, one of the sublimest descriptions in Homer. "As from some mountain's craggy forehead torn, A rock's round fragment flies, with fury borne, At every shock the echoing vale resounds ; 4 Still gathering force, it smokes, and urg'd amain, Leaps, whirls, and thunders down impetuous to the plain." It would be impossible for human language to convey a more accurate representation of what monthly, weekly, and sometimes daily happens, along the defiles of the Simplon, than the above passage.* After passing the bridge, where a wild and romantic view of the valley above, as well as of that below, is seen, we ascend in zig-zags up the opposite mountain, through forests of pine, larch, and other trees-along the edges of frightful precipices, and under magnificent grottos, hewn out of the solid rock-till we come to the open and barren part of the Simplon, in the immediate vicinity of the snow. * Most travellers laud the Italian at the expense of the French engineers, because the road on the south side of the Simplon is better constructed and more durable than on the Swiss side. But the comparison is not fair. The Italian engineers, it is true, had to work along and through the solid granite. The route was difficult to construct, but when once made was durable, and not liable to the avalanches of rock, which the other side of the Simplon is perpetually exposed to. It is not improbable that the expences of keeping the Simplon in repair, and the rivalry of other routes, especially by the Splugen and by Nice, Genoa, and Spezzia will, ere long, render this seventh wonder of the world once more a goatherd's track! Here a picture of desolation surrounds the traveller. The pine has no longer the scanty pittance of soil which it requires for nourishment-the hardy, but beautiful Alpine flower ceases to embellish the sterile solitude-and the eye wanders over snow and glacier-fractured rock and roaring cataract-relieved only by that stupendous monument of human labour, the ROAD ITSELF, winding along the edges of precipices, penetrating the primeval granite, striding over the furious torrent, and burrowing through dark, dreary, dismal, and dripping grottos, beneath accumulated masses of ice and snow. At length the summit of the Simplon is gained-a solitary human habitation is approached—and— "The shivering tenant of this frigid zone" presents himself, in the shape of a Piedmontaise soldier, who demands your passport and levies a contribution on your purse at the same moment. The contribution, however, is cheerfully paid, since it is expended on a spacious HOSPICE, (similar to that on the great St. Bernard, and now nearly finished) destined for the hospitable reception and protection of the way-worn and benighted traveller. Tourists, who make excursions into the regions of fancy, as well as into the regions of snow among the Alps, have treated their readers with magnificent views of the fertile plains of Italy, taken from the summit of the Simplon. But no such views are to be seen there. Like the Great St. Bernard, the route of the Simplon is encompassed with peaks of snow and ice, which preclude all distant prospect. They who can see the plains of Italy from either mountain must be endowed with a second sight, which penetrates through denser media than the mists of futurity. Mrs. Starke, I conceive, has drawn a little on her imagination in describing, from the Simplon, "the gigantic empress of the Alps (Mont Blanc) proudly towering above them all, and, in consequence of her immense height, appearing near, though really far off." The atmosphere was perfectly clear when I crossed the mountain, but no Mont Blanc was visible, nor do I think it physically possible that it could be so. The descent from the barrier to the village of the Simplon winds between wild, barren, and snow-clad heights—and the traveller is not sorry to ascend the dirty, cold, and stony stairs of the HOTEL DE LA POSTE into a dreary SALLE A MANGER," where a stinking German stove, with its murky and sudatory atmosphere, is a miserable substitute for the blazing faggots of France, or the powerful radiation of light and heat from an English fire-side! Invalids should not stop here; but those who are in tolerable health should take two days to the Simplon, sleeping in this eagle's nest, in order to feel the contrast between the mountain air of the Alps, and the mephitic atmosphere of the Vallais. In a small apartment, ten or twelve feet square, I was fortunate enough to find a chimney, and took good care to kindle a cheerful fire. I had walked almost the whole way up the Simplon-made a hearty dinner-and taken my bottle of mountain wine. The crackling of the pine faggots, the murmuring of the tapering flame, the genial warmth of the ungrated hearth, the circumscribed dimensions of my little chamber, the howling winds, descending in fitful blasts from the Schonhorn, the Fletschorn, and the hundred surrounding glaciers, shivering the broken panes and disjointed frames of my little window, disturbed not, but rather aided, an hour's rumination, with all its discursive ranges among the fields of fancy, memory, and imagination, till a sleep, too deep for dreams, and such as monarchs have vainly sighed for, with all the opiates of wealth, power, and pleasure, sealed my senses in seven sweet hours of heavenly and restorative oblivion !* Although the cheerful sun had long risen on the plains before us, we had advanced some miles on our tortuous way down the valley of the Simplon before he greeted us with his presence. This valley, contrary to the usual mode, contracts as it descends, and terminates in a frightful chasm between perpendicular precipices, fifteen hundred or two thousand feet high, formed by the rending asunder of granite mountains, during some earthquake or volcano long before the appearance of man. Through this abyss, or series of abysses, runs and roars the torrent of the Vedro, formed by the junction of the Kronback and Quirna. At the point where these two glacier streams, or rather cataracts, unite, the road, which had first accompanied the one and then the other, dives into the solid rock and disappears. On emerging from the gloomy grotto, the route follows the channel of the foaming Vedro, sometimes excavated out of the wall of granite on one side, sometimes striding across the boiling flood, and pursuing the same course on the other. In this way the astonished traveller proceeds for nine or ten miles through a succession of the most stupendous and desolate scenes which imagination can conceive. The rocks rise on each side to a frightful altitude, and, in many places, appear ready to precipitate themselves headlong on the traveller; while cascades, in all directions, come down in sheets of foam along their rugged and perpendicular sides. 6.6 * I am rather surprised to find my fair and talented countrywoman (Lady Morgan) describing our journeys among the Alps as a species of malady," and the peculiar weariness, physical and moral, "which hangs on the close of each day's progress" as a "periodical paroxysm of the disease." I appeal to travellers whether this be a true state of their feelings? For my own part, the act of travelling, whether actively or passively, has appeared to be the very reverse of a malady"—namely, the antidote to such a state! As to the fatigue which is necessarily induced by this kind of exercise, it is the prelude or preparative to repose, which sedentary habits can never hope to enjoy. "After passing through a very narrow ravine (says a fair and intelligent traveller) and crossing the river several times, the road is carried through a grotto eighty paces in length, beyond which is the magnificent cascade of Frissinone, whose waters precipitate themselves from a rock so lofty, that they seem lost in æther before they reach the foaming bed of the Vedro. The road then passes through another grotto, 202 paces long, cut through solid rocks of granite. On emerging from this grotto, a sudden turn of the road presents another magnificent cascade, formed by a torrent which issues from the gorge of Zwischbergen, falling perpendicularly, and with such clamorous violence, close to the traveller, that no person can witness this scene without feeling, for a moment, as if it would be impossible to proceed. After quitting the sombre hamlet of Gondo, the road enters the still more sombre gorge of Isella, empaled by perpendicular mountains, from whose summits fall cascades capable of deluging the road, were they not conveyed into the bed of the Vedro, which, swoln and agitated by these tributary streams, rushes furiously through enormous fragments of rocks-sometimes exhibiting all the colours of the rainbow-and at others foaming into gulphs, which can only be compared with the chaos of Milton and the inferno of Dante." Having slightly hinted that Mrs. Starke has been occasionally led into exaggerated descriptions of unimportant scenes, I have introduced the above passage which proves her power of painting, while I can bear testimony to the fidelity of the portrait. After traversing the "solitude of Gondo," and the somewhat less savage defiles of Isella, the scene gradually changes-the towering precipices begin to lose a little of their perpendicularity and recede backwards at their summits the abyss becomes less gloomy-solitary and stunted pines shew themselves on the ledges of rock-then clusters of pines-and at last, the gorge opening wider and wider, a fairy scene, the romantic valley of Fontana, bursts on the view! This, indeed, is Italy. The chilling humid vapours of the tremendous abyss, from which the traveller has emerged, vanish at oncethe balmy air is loaded with odoriferous perfumes-the sloping glades on the left are covered with vineyards, orchards, gardens, villages white as snow, and every kind of cultivation, contrasting with the still precipitous and gigantic cliffs on the right. After proceeding a few more miles close along the foaming Vedro, another and much more spacious valley opens out to view, at the village of Crevola, "one of the most delightful (to use the words of Eustace) that Alpine solitudes enclose, or the foot of the wanderer ever traversed." It is encompassed by mountains of a craggy and menacing aspect, but often softened by verdure, wood, and cultivation. The river Toccia traverses its centre, and is here joined by the Vedro, which loses its name and character by union with its more powerful neighbour. Whether it was owing to the physical qualities of the air-the sudden DESIGNS OF NAPOLEON. 65 transition from scenes of savage sublimity to romantic beauty—from sterility to fertility-from the awful work of earthquakes and cataracts to the peaceful labours of man-from solitude to society—or from all these combined, I know not; but the exhilaration produced on myself and a large party, by this first entrance into the glades of Italy, was indescribable. Imagination, early association of ideas, and reminiscences of classic tale and history, must have had considerable effect;-but the countenances of some, who knew no more of the territory on which we had just entered than they did of Terra del Fuego, evinced the operation of causes more purely material than intellectual. I have entered upon and sojourned in many different climates on the face of this globe, but never did I feel such elasticity of soul and body, as on the drive from Crevola to Domo Dossolo. A thousand times did I inspire, to the very utmost extent of my lungs, the balmy atmosphere of Italy, and still with increasing delight! After this confession, it will not be said that I descended to the velvet plains of Latium with a mind prejudiced against its climate. And now, having cleared this formidable pass over a magnificent road, whose gentle ascents up the face of a mighty Alp scarcely tire either horse or man—whose windings along the brinks of yawning precipices alarm not the eye-whose descents into the most frightful chasms and profound abysses scarcely require a drag on our carriage wheels, can we fail to extend our admiration of the route itself to the great man, whose comprehensive mind designed and executed a gigantic task Beyond all Greek, beyond all Roman fame. But men are not to be judged solely by their actions in this world, nor probably in the next. The act by which one man bereaves another of life, is construed into murder or homicide entirely by the design. If a peasant cut down a huge pine on the edge of a torrent, and projected it over the flood, with the design of levying predatory nocturnal contributions on his neighbour's farm-yard, it would not inake the act meritorious, even if the said pine-path afforded great facility of intercourse among the surrounding villagers. The pass of the Simplon might have remained a goat-herd's track till doomsday, had Napoleon not experienced the tremendous difficulties of leading an army over the Great St. Bernard. The accommodation of travellers, or the benefit of commerce, never once entered his mind, except as a veil to cover the ambition of military conquest. No, verily! Every parapet-stone, from Paris, to the triumphal arch at the Porta Semprone of Milan, bears unquestionable testimony that the thirst of empire-the usurpation of the IRON CROWN, constructed the great military road across the Alps, without the slightest reference to national or commercial intercourse. And in what, even now, consists the principal trade over the Simplon? The trunks and bandboxes of English families! K |