still seemed to be grovelling at the foot of these prodigious heights. Having however attained the most elevated point of the passage, we stopped awhile to survey the dreary waste to which it had brought us; and to contemplate the desolate sublimity of a trackless region,

"Stiff with eternal ice and hid in snow

"That fell a thousand centuries ago."

Yet it was under no inclement skies that we saw the glacier of Kaltwasser, and those also that hang from the Muderhorn and the Eritzhorn. But on the contrary they successively offered themselves to our view, at a moment when the solar rays beaming with excessive fierceness had already

“Unfix'd their frosts, and taught them how to run.”

With the advantage of a good glass, added to that of local proximity, we attentively noticed the effect of the sun's heat on the vast pyramids and fields of snow, portions of which, melting at mid-day, produce copious torrents:† these descending along the inclined planes of ice, which they furrow deeply with many a channel, arrive at edges over which they leap in cascades; the waters of some of these tremendous falls rushing onwards mingle with others of similar origin: thus reaching at length the level of a profound valley, and increasing

*The Glaciers are permanent masses of ice, lodged in sloping hollows of the Alps, and formed more generally in the vallies than on the summits. + Sometimes they flow from the tops of the Alps in such a deluge as to lay the whole country before them under water. When in this terrific state of excess, they are called Laranges.

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by new unions their breadth and volume, they form streams like the Liverio, then rivulets like the Saltine, and lastly rivers like the Rhone. As the sun declines, the cold atmosphere resumes its power of congelation, and fresh additions of snow supply all waste in the enormous accumulation of frozen masses, such as we saw impending over the verge of, or filling up the interstices between,

inaccessible cliffs.

Leaving this focus of momentary heat, destined in a few weeks to be again the more permanent court of boisterous storms and rattling tempests, we found ourselves on the reverse district of the mountain. The road, though in every other respect excellent, is in this part not too well protected on the side of the frightful precipices, close to whose very brink our vehicle was rapidly descending. A few inches separate the traveller from a fall of a thousand feet; yet our postillion proceeded at a fast trot. Our sabot broke in the middle of one of the slopes; on which occasion we experienced the security which light carriages on low wheels afford in traversing such countries as these. We were going at a rate that would have impelled the usual sort of post-chaise upon the horses with a violence which the rider could not have prevented from forcing them out of their path either against the rock on one side or over it on the other!

The High Alps now displayed themselves in all directions. Backed by the azure of the brightest sky, their robes of unblemished white were not however to be even glanced at with impunity by organs of sight so constantly tried as ours of late had been. And here again we were exposed to the optical illusions experienced by every

Alpine traveller. One of the frequent changes in our route had brought before our eyes the grand chain which separates the Valais from the canton of Berne. We seemed to have closely approached it; and yet the valley of the Rhone and the Loetsch Thal, a breadth of twenty or thirty miles, was intersposed between these magnificent boundaries and the position from which we beheld them. It is an universe of mountains! Forests of huge and lofty pines cover the sides of those through which we had to pursue an eccentric and fearful way: great numbers of those sombre trees, some rotten with age, others broken and uprooted by avalanches, were strewed above and below our path in most admired confusion. After passing through a fifth and last tunnel, fifty paces long, the road consists of a succession of declivities whose numerous turnings recurred, from the rapidity of our descent, with such unexpected quickness, that we felt at times as though we were incontinently going the way of total destruction.

At 20 minutes before one o'clock, we changed horses at the Maison de Refuge, No. 3, situated with some few other buildings, on a spot named Persal; where we supplied the loss of our iron sabot with one made of a log of fir-wood, the usual machine on these roads for blocking the wheels: the descent just wears it out.-From Persal we proceed by regular windings some times on a gently inclined plane,+ and at others in nearly a horizontal direction.

“ Avalanches are immense accumulations of ice and snow, balanced on the verge of the mountains in such subtle suspense, that, in the opinion of the natives the tread of the traveller may bring them down in destruction upon him."-Montgomery.

+ Ebel says "the slope of this road is not above 14 inch per toise (six feet) so that on whichever side of the Simplon waggons or other vehicles descend,

On the second landing below the station above-mentioned we cross, over a bridge* of wood supported by massive stone buttresses, a torrent called the Ganter, which we could plainly perceive taking its source from the snows of a neighbouring peak. Here the road has been wrought near the brink of profundities that absolutely scare one to look at them in the continuance of a downward career. And whether our regards be directed below or cast aloft a heartfelt acknowledgement forces itself to the lips, that the scenery of the Alps is beyond conception. Disengaged from the more or less strict blockade of enclosing summits, the prospects enlarge upon us as we reach the middle of the descent. Thence looking back on the distance already past from regions of perpetual winter, we mark the Simplon's

"Proud ascending rocks invade

"Heaven's upper realms, and cast a dreadful shade."

Viewed also from the same point, the tallest and stoutest pines, on the skirts of the deep mountain-girded level beneath, look no bigger than the smallest shrubs; the roofs of cottages resemble so many black pebbles; and villages occupy as insignificant a space in the natural picture as their miniature plans would do on a large map. It was from such a stupendous elevation that we first saw the town of Brieg: the roofs of its houses and the cupolas

the wheels need not be locked." Without calling in question this intelligent writer's accuracy respecting the number of inches inclination to every toise of road, or the practice of waggon drivers, it may nevertheless be affirmed, that the precaution of locking the wheels is almost invariably resorted to and with abundantly good reason by those who travel down it extra poste, * Eighty feet high.-Ebel.

of its churches, shining with remarkable lustre.* The current of the Saltine formed to the eye a silvery cord extending to the Rhone; whilst that river itself appeared a scarcely more commanding object as it flowed through the midst of the almost interminable valley. But our postillion, allowing no time for minute observations, whirled us round from one slope to another, over bridges and past aqueducts, with a rapidity that soon brought us within a short distance of the bottom. At two o'clock, being on the point of crossing the Saltine, and in sight of the little town of Glys, where the road actually ends, we turned off abruptly on the right to Brieg; thus finally quitting that superb work of genius and labour, the Route of the Simplon, in which grandeur of design and boldness of execution have so happily been united to utility of purpose.

If Buonaparte had conducted his Government on the same solid principles of wisdom and durability-with the same attention to human welfare and to human wants, as he displayed in the formation of these Alpine roads, a tribute of grateful respect would have been justly due to

"The houses are roofed with a kind of slate of silvery white, and several churches are decorated with what the inhabitants call giltstein.”—Ebel. +It was "in the year 1801 that Buonaparte directed it to be begun ; and it was completed in 1805. It was executed at the expense of the French Government and of the kingdom of Italy. The works on the side of the Valais were directed by French engineers, and those on the southern part by Italians, who had much greater difficulties to conquer, being obliged continually to work on the hardest rocks." Ebel.-" Monsieur Ceard was the man who suggested the project, and to whose talents we are indebted for its execution." Mallet.-" The side towards the Valais is very much composed of schist and slate in some parts in a state of decomposition. The old road, which, like other passages of the Alps is not passable for carriages is the shorter of the two. The new is reckoned 14 leagues in length."— Waring's Papers on Switzerland.