an upward view, the idea occurred, that one of the smallest of these fragments falling upon us would, as the event of a moment, first crush and then impel our bodies to the bottom of a gorge, as precipitously deep as the cliffs were perpendicularly high. We asked the driver if accidents of that kind did not sometimes happen. He replied, that such falls of stone occurred very rarely; and never with the least injury to any one that he remembered.*

We proceeded by inclined planes of road cut in the rock, similar to the zig-zag work on the Piedmontese side of Mont Cenis; at every turn, indulged with a picture of Nature's finest horrors; yet amidst them are facilities and even conveniences offered by this great work of art, such as without seeing I could not have imagined, and having once witnessed, shall never forget. To enable us more fully to appreciate the advantages of the new road over the Simplon, our attention was directed across the tremendous gulph down which the truly grand cascade of Frissinone pours with deafening clamour, to the path on the opposite side, which

* M. Reichard's observation and advice, however, have too much of probability and good sense in them to be invalidated on a postillion's authority, or to be neglected by a prudent traveller. Speaking of this defile, he says, "when I traversed it, I beheld seven crosses, mournful monuments of the tragical end of so many travellers. Whenever a storm succeeds several rainy days, it is advisable to stop at Domo d'Ossola, to avoid the danger of being crushed to death by the stones that fall from the tops of the mountains. The valley is very narrow: most of the rocks are split, and the blocks on the summits, being rendered slippery by the rain, and loosened by the wind, fall along the flanks of the rocks as thick as a shower of hail. Both in spring and winter this road is extremely dangerous for whole weeks in consequence of the lavanges that frequently fall in those seasons."-Guide, vol. 3, p. 129.

was formerly the only route, and is still traversed by

mules.*

Arrived near the village of Gondo, we enter the finest gallery of the whole route, which has been perforated through the solid granite, to the length of 250 French feet. It is lighted at intervals by apertures cut in the southern side; and which, from the insufficiency of their size, produce little more effect on the pervading darkness than that of making it visible. On the wall opposite one of these lateral openings is the following brief inscription, allusive to the work and to the individual who caused it to be done. It is rudely engraved, and some of its characters are with difficulty to be traced:

ERE. ITALO. MDCCCV. NAP. IMP.

Proceeding through this gallery, we are assailed by the sound of mighty waters, that responds from without to the echoing tramp of our horses and the rumble of our wheels within. On arriving at the western extremity, we perceive the Liverio rushing to its chaotic bed, prepared below amongst huge and multitudinous pieces of granite, in a direct fall of more than a hundred feet. The coldness of the air, and the distinctness with which the icy tops of the Simplon now presented

"Before the establishment of the new road, merchandize of every description was transported on the backs of mules. At that period, whenever the weather came on to be stormy, travellers used to seek shelter at the inn of Gondo, where hundreds of beasts of burthen were sometimes necessitated to remain many days in succession."—Reichard-Guide, vol. 3, p. 128.

“The Gallery (says Mallet) is the result of eighteen months labour, uninterrupted either by day or night."

By this name at Gondo the same torrent is called, which has already been noticed by the title of the Veniola: it is also termed the Vedro.

themselves to our view, served to inform us that we had already attained a great elevation. The river still close to our left was increasing in turbulence as it diminished in breadth, thus indicating our approach to its snow-covered source. Yet the ascent continued to be so gradual, that we were led to form no adequate idea of the height attained; until, looking back towards the route through which we had passed, and along whose dreadful precipices and boiling torrents our devious way had just been pursued, we suddenly caught glimpses of ruined Nature below us-glimpses only rendered less hideous than were her forms and features nearer to us, by the attenuating effect of extreme distance. The interest of such a spectacle is always heightened under circumstances, in which the size of different objects can be compared with each other; and in our frequent retrospects, we were more than amused by observing a carriage full of travellers, answering in apparent diminutiveness to the description of Queen Mab's coach and its appointments, which, having issued from the tunnel that we had left far behind, was following our track round the sides of the mountain.

At Algaby, a sunless and dreary station, we pass through a fourth gallery excavated in the rock, 80 yards long. From thence we proceed to the equally sombre village of Gsteig: a little beyond which the road, after passing to the right bank of the glacier-stream abovementioned, takes a turn that brings the white head of the Fletsch-horn in imposing grandeur before us. From this point, we walked nearly the whole intervening space to the village of Simpeln, crossing two boldly constructed bridges, and glad of the opportunity of

warming ourselves by pedestrian exercise on so good and safe a road.*

Now that we have just stepped across a conventional boundary, and are in the canton of the Vallais, we find the people all speaking German. At Domo d' Ossola, and even up to Gondo, we have heard little besides the language of Italy. It is impossible to be otherwise than forcibly struck with so sudden a transition from one vernacular tongue to another so entirely different.

We reached the inn of Simpeln at nine o'clock, and breakfasted in the same room with half a dozen young French artists returning from an Italian tour. Afterwards we strolled through the village, in which, situated at the height of 4500 feet above the sea, we did not expect to find much comfort, and certainly experienced no disappointment. It stands on a most wild and barren spot, and its inhabitants, particularly the aged and the children, betray in their countenances the effects of the privations to which they are subjected during their eight months of winter. We entered one of their cabins, a dark unwholesome place, such as we should in England revolt at the idea of appropriating to the use of any human beings: yet it was a fair sample of the rest: an atmosphere of stinking smoke within, and the effluvia of a dunghill at each door. After this we looked at the church; which forms the usual contrast with the wretched poverty of neighbouring hovels. Pictures and images of the Virgin meet the eye on every side. A little crucifix is all the visible help that it

*It appears, from an official statement, that the road (which is not less than 25 feet wide the whole way) required on the Italian side alone, beginning from Milan, 302 aqueducts and 50 bridges of free-stone to be constructed, and four galleries to be excavated in the rock.

offers, amidst plenty of gew-gaw decoration, to recall to memory the Saviour's office and ministry. What are these poor ignorant people naturally to learn from this? Why, that the Mother of Jesus Christ is the more important personage of the two, to propitiate in heaven, as her altars and portraitures are made of far greater apparent consequence here on earth!

At eleven o'clock, having been on the further ascent for the preceding hour, we reached a point of the road opposite the Hospice. This monastic residence, instituted and occupied for the same hospitable and charitable purposes as the greater convent of St. Bernard, on which it is dependent, is a lofty, square, turret-formed building of several stories, situated in a sort of crater, or hollow basin, of the mountain. It appears, however, too much out of the line of the main road to be of that convenience to travellers in winter which is the obvious intention of such asylums. The three Religieux who inhabit it were gone out to superintend the construction of a new house, on a much larger scale, still higher up and closer to the road. We passed by it, having previously met one of the monks, a hale person of about forty, returning towards the old establishment. By noon-time we were arrived apparently within a quarter of an hour's walk of the nearest glacier, (about five thousand feet above the level of the sea.) I say apparently, because on inquiry we learnt how much the eye is deceived as to distances. The man and his wife at the barrier joined in assuring us that it would take an hour at least to reach the first mass of snow which lay before us, and three hours to gain the top. Indeed the peaks of the Simplon rear themselves so stupendously around, that after eight hours incessant climbing, we