183 CHAPTER VIII. PASSAGE OF THE SIMPLON-Bridge of Crevola-Val di VedroMountain Wonders-Village of Vedro-Defile of the YèsellesSuperb ascent of the Road-Cascade of Frissinone-Gallery of Gondo Torrent of the Liverio-Algaby-Sempeln---Sudden change of Language-The Old and New Hospices-GlaciersThe Descent-View of the High Alps-Optical Illusions-Tremendous Travelling-Napoleon Buonaparte-Brieg-Valley of the Rhone-Visp-Mount Moro-Cascade of Turtmann—Leuck— Valaisan Honesty. JULY 27th. DOMO d'Ossola is a small town; but what it wants in extent seems attempted to be made up in the height of its houses. The Albergo della Posta, where we had taken up our quarters, exhibits the plan of an architect emulous of the aspiring example of the hills or at least of the churches around him: but staircases and balconies to the fourth and fifth story are no very pleasant things for wayworn pilgrims to encounter. We had arrived at ten o'clock the preceding night; and were this morning in our carriage again at a quarter before four. The sky was without a cloud. Our landlord congratulated us on the prospect of a fine passage of the Simplon: and aerial tints empurpling the mountains served as signals to warrant his favourable prognostication. The Val d'Oscella, well wooded and fertile, here expands to a fine breadth; and beyond its northern extremity, which we had now nearly reached, the alpine summits rise with unutterable majesty. At four o'clock our ascent commenced; and in a short time we crossed an impetuous stream, by a noble structure of stone and wood, thrown over its steep and rocky bed. This is the Bridge of Crevola,* and the river that flows through its bold and masterly achieved span, is called the Veniola. On our left we see houses on the brink of lofty precipices, with still loftier precipices immediately above themsituations the most frightful-habitations truly miserable! Beneath us to our right, a spacious track extends, which, watered by the Toccia, presents pasturages thickly planted with trees, and bordered with vines: nor is it much less plentifully sprinkled with villages, churches, and isolated dwellings of the peasantry. The road suddenly turns almost at right angles; and taking a westerly direction, we lose sight of the green valley of Antigorio. Proceeding down an easy declivity we enter a gallery,† which allows a passage through it with unslackened pace; and so excellent is the road that were it not for the immense masses before us, and the occasional openings to our left, revealing the scenery below, we might, as far as regards personal convenience, imagine ourselves travelling in an ordinary country. But the horrible chasms, that ever and anon discover themselves, as we look over the edge from which our wheels are separated by a protecting line of posts and rails, serve as counsellors that visually per A chef-d'œuvre of architecture, its length is sixty paces.-Reichard. This is the first gallery of the route from Domo d'Ossola, aud measures 80 paces in length.-Reichard."' suade us where we are. Even now while the peeping sun-beams paint with gold each peak and snow ridge, we are descending a ravine that opens into the Val-diVedro, and serves as the channel of the Veniola. The scene defies description. Language would be powerless : the pencil ineffective: it must be witnessed to be conceived, in its overpowering features of immensity; in its appalling character of desolation; in its yet redeeming accident of solar glory crowning terrestrial sublimity! Another ascent commenced: it was so gradual that our postillion set off at a trot. But where shall we find a way to get out? was the involuntary question, in surveying the rocks that environed us, and the abysses that appeared ready to intercept our path. This was sometimes solved by an unexpected change of direction in the road, which, instead of carrying us up, led us down-hill. Arrived at the bottom of a deep and narrow defile, along whose towering sides, impracticable and barren as we should judge them, the hardy peasant has built his cabin, and tilled his strip above strip of land, we instantly prepare again to ascend. The Veniola, rushing down close to our left hand, in a direction opposite to the course we are pursuing, roars tremendously as its foaming waters seek their passage sometimes over, sometimes under and between, the vast fragments of granite, that have fallen into its sinuous but broken channel: "And while the torrent thunders loud, Bb We now pass through a tunnel of about forty yards in length, bored through the solid rock. A stone bridge, of a light form, is thrown across the brook that flows past its entrance. A fine fresh air blew on us; and, as we in good earnest continued to climb, the terrific wildness of objects on all sides so unspeakably grand, so formidably stamped with the impress of devastation, kept our minds in a state of awful excitement. Some of the defiles are so straightened, and the road lies so directly under the double wall of perpendicular crags that we looked up with a shudder, lest the loose masses on the top should give way and roll destruction upon us. But the apprehension of danger soon subsided; and no longer hemmed in between impending cliffs, we found ourselves in a valley, cultivated and inhabited; whilst Mont de la Chene, one of the summits of the Simplon, dazzlingly bright in the sun's rays, formed the magnificent termination of an almost matchless vista. The village of Davedro, situated to the right of our road, contrasts in a very striking manner the verdant hue of its meadows, its vine-clothed dwellings and its chesnut foliage, with the savage aspect of surrounding rocks. Upon the edge of precipices we again see villages and churches. Trasqueras, also to our right, is the name of one of these airy hamlets. Another, now before us, is scarcely a hundred feet lower than the loftiest point of the mountain-ridge where it is placed : in other words it stands on ground at least 2000 feet above the level of the valley. The scenery of the pass becomes more and more astonishing at every stage of our progress. When we recognize the objects that successively present themselves, we can hardly believe our eyes such is the combination of dreadful wonders in the defile of the Yèselles; a region which, terrible as at the best it is, was in the year 1800 made the seat of war !* Our first change of horses was at the comfortable post-bouse of gloomy Isella. About a mile further on, our postillion, pointing to the promontory of a chain to his right, exclaimed, "Voila la frontiére, nous sommes en ́ Suisse." The people hereabouts are in the habit of applying the term Switzerland generally to the Alps beyond their own cantons. In reality we were arrived on the confines of the Vallais :† and frightfully enough does this part of the ancient Helvetia begin. Our course proceeds at the foot of a range of rocks, varying from 1000 to 1500 feet in perfectly vertical elevation.— We observed that the land at their base is covered with enormous blocks of stone; and the sensation was by no means pleasurable, when, throwing back our heads for * Ebel relates the following anecdote on the subject:-"In May, 1800, General Bethencourt was sent at the head of a column of 1000 men, French and Swiss, with orders to pass the Simplon, and defend the pass of the Yèselles against the Austrians. Falls of snow and rocks had carried away a bridge, and the road was interrupted by an abyss sixty feet wide. An intrepid volunteer offered to attempt an enterprise of the most hazardous nature. He stepped in the holes of the lateral wall, which before served to receive the timbers of the bridge, and passing thus from one hole to another, he happily arrived at the opposite brink: a cord which he had carried was fixed, breast high (from the holes) between the two edges of the chasm. General Bethencourt passed second, suspending himself by the cord stretched over the abyss, and endeavouring to place his feet in the holes of the wall. The thousand soldiers followed him loaded with their arms and baggage. To commemorate this bold action, the names of the officers have been cut in the rock." + The Vallais constituted no part of the Swiss Confederation till 1815, when it was formed into a Canton by virtue of a decree of the Congress of Vienna. |