we feel the "iron which entered into their souls," the damps, the night air that stiffened their limbs, the ground worn by their footsteps, the pillars scratched with their names;—we see through the eyelets the self-same stars upon which they were wont to gaze; we hear the roar of the wild waters to which they listened; we endure for a moment the heart-ache, the anguished hopelessness, which they endured for years; and turn away -filled with pity, and with a lasting and salutary indignation.

The remainder of the Chateau is a labyrinth of staircases, halls, and galleries; the Chateau of Chillon is, to say the truth, a very stupid edifice, a jumble of unconnected portions, an abstract of every thing that is ugly and inconvenient; the outside vies with the inside in deformity, the eye is lost among angles and corners, "projections, projected from projections," loop-holes, crosslets, turrets, posterns, and spires, surmounted with balls and lances: the windows, also, affect variety; some are square, others have the squat gothic arch striding over them: others again are trefoil, quatrefoil, cinquefoil, &c. We had lingered here sketching and examining this old fortress until it was almost night; we at length left it and walked on to l'Abbaye, where we found clean beds, a cheerful fire, and a comfortable supper. In the morning, after about an hour's walk, we lost sight of the farfamed Leman Lake, and began to wind our way among the Alps: at a distance, these mountains seem covered with one wide sheet of snow; and, though tossed into fantastic 'shapes, have an appearance of singleness and solidity: but, as we approach, the mass breaks, hills jut out and are sawn by defiles, they grow shaggy with forests, and straggling paths are seen creeping up their sides. Villages appear in the green vallies and on the slopes nestling among the pines: the heights are crowned with castles, within whose walls violence had once a home and rapine a shelter; but which now, disarmed of their terrors, ruined, dismantled, and forsaken, only lend a charm to the landscape. “The age of chivalry," thank God! has passed away never to return, but we may

be allowed to remember, with a sentiment of poetical regret, its wild romantic manners and hardy virtues. The traveller, while resting a moment from his toil, and sitting down by a bubbling stream, glances his eye upon these mouldering ruins, and calls to mind the days gone by, when those deserted halls were crowded with human beings, when the banquet was spread, the feud nourished, and the grey battlements shaken alternately by revelry and strife.

As we proceeded towards the Canton de Valais, we reached a mountain stream, which is usually a mere thread of water over which a man may step with the utmost facility; but which was then swollen into formidable dimensions by the rain which had fallen for some weeks. After a grave deliberation, we were preparing to strip and cross it; but as we advanced for that purpose, we perceived on a sudden, three or four peasants, skreened beneath two masses of rocks which had at some time fallen together like a reversed

A.

Crouching round a miserable fire, and smoking short black pipes, they waited there for the chance of carrying passengers across on their backs; we availed ourselves of their assistance, and contenting them with a few sous, proceeded on our way to St. Maurice, where the road which we had taken joins the main road. A sort of fortress, or rather the remains of a gothic hold, is the first object which strikes the eye on en'tering the Canton de Valais; it stands on the verge of a gulph, at the bottom of which rolls a blue river. A small sum is paid for permission to cross the wooden bridge which conducts over it; we observed by some bills that were posted up about this bridge, that the Pays de Vaud and the Canton de Valais, were en differend about the passage of cattle, from the one state to the other; the Pays de Vaud accusing the cattle of the Valais of being infected with a contagious distemper; the Valaisans denying the accusation and ascribing it to the mercenary temper of the Pays de Vaud, and bravely determining upon an exchange of injuries. The voice of discord is heard wherever one wanders; in the city that loads the plain-in the ham

2

let, that speckles the waste or the mountain, men seem to have every where one vocation in common,that of banishing white-winged peace for ever from the earth.

The road from St. Maurice to Martigny, is a grand succession of magnificence and variety: mountains, some belted with black forests and crested with snow, others verdant to their summits; devious and picturesque glades adorned with flowers, herbs, copse, and vines, and bright and glancing streams: rocks of fantastic shape, blackened by time, and seeming, from the inclined position of their strata, ready to slide away from their firm bases, and to precipitate themselves in ruins from their giddy elevations; waters which descending from the higher hills are collected in their deep fissures, and poured thence in foaming sheets into the plain. The sun shot a few golden glimpses upon this various scene, lending, for a moment, smiles to the rock, and glory to the wave, but he was generally darkened by thick clouds which floated lazily across the sky, or hung over our heads, occasionally discharging great gushes of rain to our infinite discontent. About seven o'clock we arrived at Martigny, weary, dirty, and drenched with rain. The few things in our little bundles were so wet, that we could change nothing with advantage; however, by the help of a good fire, we contrived to dry our clothes "indifferently," and then turning our serious attention upon some hot wine and sugared toast, we soon forgot all trifling cares. A voiture, filled with some English travellers, who were proceeding to Rome, arrived at the Auberge, just as we were busily employed with our coats and stockings off, drying the various articles of our apparel, and discussing in a desultory and unmethodical manner the various and somewhat incongruous merits of flannel hose, roasted chesnuts, oil-skin hats, and swiss cheese, &c. &c.;-and enjoying in its first flush that glad and happy feeling which is bestowed by warmth, food, and shelter, when they have been earned by hardship and fatigue. We soon entered into conversation with our countrymen: they drew round the fire, and we had a gay gossip about the weather, the Queen, the

French, the manners and appearance of the Valaisans, the mountains, the Austrians, the robbers at Rome, and the revolution at Naples. Our friends were accompanied by an interesting looking young woman, who was going to Milan, to enter into the service of an English lady; she had missed the diligence at Geneva, and being, in consequence, detained longer than she had expected to be, had spent all her money, and would have been reduced to a very unpleasant situation, but that these Englishmen, having heard of the circumstance, had agreed to give her a seat in their carriage, and to pay her expences on the road. We had spent an agreeable hour in conversation, when the arrival of some other travellers interrupted our colloquy the table was spread, and we sat down to supper,-English, French, Italian, and the patois of the Valais, were heard mixing in Babylonish confusion, with the jingling of glasses, the clatter of plates, and the clapping of doors. At an early hour we retired to rest; and in the morning, before light, the rattling of wheels announced the departure of our coun trymen. We soon after got up, took breakfast, looked over the miscellaneous drolleries of the album, paid our hostess, and departed. We quitted the road for the sake of a short path which led us almost to the foot of a fine pine-clad hill, where we stopped to sketch, or to admire the landscape that was spread out before us: an old tower perched on a proud height, but ruined, abandoned, aud hastening to decay, seemed to look down from his aristocratical station with the remains of ancient disdain upon the smiling, but humble village of Martigny, which lay at his feet, peeping with gay face out of its green bower; and the mazy mountains, grey, green, black, white, and the wooded glens, some plunged in the deepest shade, and others decked in all the hues of the morning, formed a back ground that would have contented critics much more fastidious than ourselves. On passing the back of a farm-house, we observed one of those miserable creatures called Cretins, sitting alone on a wooden bench and basking idly in the sun; his body was bloated, and his limbs withercd; his face, blotted with unwashed

rheum, was a model of ugliness and idiotism. The dog happened to approach him, and immediately the poor wretch threw out his arms and legs, making the wildest and most extravagant gestures, and feeling in that moment the only passion he could feel, a ferocious, stupid, and imbecile anger: we passed on, he regained his composure, and sank again into that physical abstraction, in which his life wears to its close, and from which we had unwillingly and involuntarily disturbed him. The Cretin and Goitre are very common all through the Valais, and also on the Italian side of the mountains; the Goitre is indeed exceedingly frequent, it does not always hang down in "wallets of flesh," but it swells the throat to deformity. Rousseau mentions "l'enorme ampleur de leur gorge," but seems to think that "la blancheur," des Valaisanes, and, "le teint eblouissant de ces jeunes beautés timides, qu'un mot faisoit rougir," compensate for it; but blooming faces, and elastic motions, and figures "embarrassantes," are not always to be found: and indeed bashfulness and beauty, and hospitality too, seem to have pretty well disappeared from the Valais. The road from Martigny to Sion grows more beautiful at almost every step; ruins are seen more frequently upon the heights, the mountains become more lofty and more precipitous, seeming in many places to start sheer from the ground: the valley opens and shuts as we advance, and long green glades are seen on every hand. The road winds from side to side, skirts the forest, mounts, descends, and thus this "haunt of old romance" is seen from every point of view. About an hour before we reached the Capital of the Canton, we began to observe groups of men, women, and children, some on foot, others mounted on horses or mules, and leading or driving cows, goats, or asses, laden with the rural purchases which they had made at the fair at Sion, returning to their homes among the mountains: their straggling and picturesque appearance, their voices mixing in dispute, and their loud lungs which were heard" to crow like chanticleer," as the rustic joke was practised upon one or the other, gave the charm of life to the wild moun

tains, and finished the scene of enchantment.

Sion is situated in the gorge of a pass between two hills, which rise rapidly out of the valley; on the topmost peak of one of which is seated an armed and powerful fortress, and on that of the other is a large and mouldering castle: a village lies at their feet, and in the gap between them but far off, in the blue and distant sky, is seen the taper spire of a rustic church. I must not attempt any more description, lest I grow tedious; I shall only say, I think Sion is the most romantic spot in the whole valley, and I would send you my sketch of it, but that that were a present scarcely worth your acceptance. The town was full of the noise and bustle of the fair, which, making reasonable allowances, bore no small resemblance to an English festival of the same description. The Auberge where we lodged was filled with a mirthful and most uproarious company, one of whom observing we were travellers, was fain to drink some wine with us, and recount the wonders of his mountain home, a village up among the clouds: we repaid his tale in kind, taking good care to leave him considerably in debt on the score of the marvellous: the old man listened with intense delight; and, as we observed we rose in his estimation, in proportion as our tale became more and more extravagant, we were tempted to communicate a great many very curious particulars indeed: he was exceedingly obliged to us, and I have no doubt he had woven the singular, the very singular facts which we related to him, into a most unheard-of history before he reached his home. At this place, we noticed some pretty women, the only ones in the whole length of the Valais:-we supped in a solitary room, and then going to bed, were soon locked in sleep in spite of the shouts of expiring revelry, which rose in peals from below.

On resuming our journey the next morning, we observed nearly the same features that we had seen the day before, but merging into rudeness and solidity; the mountains grow wider at their bases, the valley narrows, and the whole plane of the earth seems lifted up to meet the weigh of the incumbent Alps. We

slept at Viege, at a rude Auberge, where no one spoke any intelligible language, and on setting out again, fell into company with a Pittore, whose appearance and equipments were yet more humble than our own: he had been employed at Vevai during the summer, and was now returning to the banks of the Lago Maggiore to pass the weary winter, and spend his little gains at home: a sort of migration, as you know, very common among the Italian Swiss. It agreed with our plan to keep up with our poor associate, and accordingly we bore him company to Brigue; where, during breakfast, we were joined by seven or eight Paysans, yet lower in condition than our friend the Pittore; and, like him, returning into Italy after their annual excursion.

A very grave and argute discussion soon arose among us; to wit, whether as there were so many in company, it would not be better to ascend the Simplon by the old road, instead of the new; the Strada Nova being indeed the safer, but the Strada Vecchia being somewhat the shorter of the two. An old man who knew the mountain well, and who proposed to be our guide, observed, that if any accident happened, if one chanced to fall into a gouffre, or happened to be buried in snow, our companions could soon get one out again: re-assured by this consolatory remark, we held ourselves neuter, and the Pittore was outvoted. We immediately left Brigue, and began to ascend, by a rude and scrambling path, this mighty rib of the earth: after some time, we turned to take a last view of Brigue, now dwindled to the dimensions of a toy; then, sweeping round a clump of pines, took a long leave of the Valais. In about an hour we reached the remains of the old road, and sat down breathless with exertion: this road, having been long neglected, has fallen into total decay; the part where we sat down to rest ourselves is cut out of the solid rock, and will endure probably as long as its mountain bed; but all that was built up by man, all that was trusted to feebler materials, has perished. On resuming our journey, we plunged into a dark forest of pines, and lost all sight of human track; we had nothing to trust to

but the local knowledge of the hardy senior who led our way: it would, perhaps, be difficult to imagine a scene more singular than this; the rocky and romantic path that wound through those gloomy old pines, the fantastic outline of some of the lower peaks of the mountain, seen at intervals through the matted foliage, the fitful blast rushing through the trees, the roar of a distant stream, and the loud laughs of our careless companions ringing throughout the wild solitude. We made a very free and frequent use of our own lungs in the same way; for, to say the truth, we had our full share of the gaiety which the cold thin air bestowed. We at length emerged from these solemn shades, just at the place where a huge pine which had been taken up and twisted by the blast, as it careened through the defiles of the hill, hung its decaying limbs over a precipice, at the bottom of which rolled a black stream, the same that we had heard in the forest. Whole rows of trees thrown down by the gale, and despoiled of their bark, lay in white clusters around us: the road at every advance became more savage, dangerous, and solitary; we crossed several chasms by means of rude bridges formed of pines, the upper surfaces of which were flattened by the axe, the sides were fenced by boards, and thus a sort of trough formed, through which we sidled with some difficulty: the sides were bound together at the top, by cross pieces which passed from one to the other; we straddled over them, gaily or gravely, according to our respective tempers; the poor Pittore however was in manifest confusion; and, indeed, no one said a single word in praise of the architect who constructed these, what Mr. Swould call gridirons. At one time we passed beneath a shattered rock, seemingly severed from the hill, and hanging in doubtful poise: if one fragment had broken loose from the mass, we should have been hurled in the "twinkling of an eye," into a dark, and deep, and nameless grave. We shall see these scenes no more; but they are in no danger of being forgotten. The path wound for about a mile on the brink of a precipice, or rather on the side of a steep in which had been cut or worn a sort of gut

ter; this in many places was filled with water, and as we were so wise as to prefer hazard to inconvenience, we often mounted on the thin ridge that overlooked the valley: at length we began to descend, and reached the remains of a bridge, which was destroyed many years ago by the French, in order to arrest the pursuit of the Piedmontese; its ruins are strewed in the gulph which it once aided the traveller to cross; a few arches, a few buttresses remain, they are rude and massive, but crushed by violence, and nodding to their fall they borrow beauty from destruction; and thus scathed, cracked, overgrown with weeds, and stooping in untimely decay, they are far more dear to the lover of picture than they were when unworn by time, and unbruised by accident.

A path has been explored by the mountaineers, which leads precipitously down into the valley, where there are a few houses grouped together, the picturesque home of peasants and shepherds. We ascended rapidly on the opposite side, and soon entered once more the silent shades of an Alpine forest; we were now higher than we had been before, and began to tread on the drifted snow, and to notice the immense icicles hanging from the boughs of the trees, and the edges of the rocks. The darker green of the firs became more frequent, and we heard the roar, and saw the rushing waters of a torrent-the course of which we tracked upon, and for about an hour, erossing it occasionally by miserable bridges half buried in snow,-sometimes leaving it for the forest, and sometimes scrambling along where ats waters washed our feet.

At length having, with our friend the Pittore, got somewhat in advance, we arrived at a spot where two paths held us in doubt, both seeming to be alike impassable; before us lay the stream, broad but not deep, plunging over a bed of black rocks. A bridge led over it, but no path appeared to succeed; a wall of snow and ice seeming to forbid .all egress: behind us frowned the dark forest, and before us, on the left, were masses of rock of giant dimensions, lying, perhaps, in the same rude confusion in which they had been strown by that violence

which heaved them from their first level. Our companions were yet at some distance behind, we, therefore, paused; the Pittore sat down on a great stone; his rueful countenance seemed to elongate, his lank jaws to sink in, and his complexion became perfect brimstone as he gazed around, confessing with a faltering voice that he did not know his way across the mountain.

The scene which surrounded us was savage in the highest degree; the wild torrent, fed by many tributary streams, ran on in violence and in foam through a descending gully in the hill; a mountain rose before us, sheathed in deep snow, the white surface of which was here and there broken through by great splinters of rock which were bearded by long icicles: vegetation seemed to expire on the very spot on which we stood; a few creeping shrubs, and a little brown moss, were all that we saw afterwards; and not a hut, and not a trace of human care was visible in all the wide waste.-After some time our companions appeared; they were chiefly youths, we saw them glancing through, or emerging from the trees, their faces all flushed with exertion, stumbling and straining up the ascent, under the load of their heavy knapsacks; and when they broke in upon this empire of barrenness and silence, a band of human beings, they completed a picture which I should in vain attempt to describe.

Our white haired guide took the lead, and we ascended by a zig-zag path, generally over our knees in snow, and falling now and then into holes up to our necks. Having, by the help of our youthful alacrity, got once more in advance, we were so fortunate as to bewilder the whole party, leading them to the base of a series of enormous slabs, which mocked all idea of further progress. When our worthy leader arrived at the spot, he expressed his disapprobation of our proceedings in a manner singularly clear, though rather coarse: he backed his reproof by observing that the tourmenta had begun: the tourmenta is a drift of snow blown by the wind from the highest peaks of the mountain; it is at all times extremely disagreeable, and it is sometimes the pre