travellers taking that popular route. The moraines also which stretch along this singular glacier are of unusual magnitude, and the whole is described as being well worthy of attention. Its most remarkable peculiarity, he tells us, is the unique circumstance of its being entirely composed of a compact field of bluish-green ice, which gives it the appearance of a solid mass of crystal, quite different from that of any other glacier in the Alps.

CHAPTER VIII.

AOSTA AND THE GREAT ST. BERNARD.

As nothing is further from my present intention than writing a road-book, I shall skip lightly over the Alps, after traversing the Allée Blanche, and returning from Savoy into Switzerland by Aosta, and the pass of the Great St. Bernard. I am the more disposed to do this, as I had an opportunity of visiting both these places, on a subsequent occasion, under circumstances of more variety. The classical interest of Aosta is derived chiefly from the ruins of an amphitheatre and of a triumphal arch of Augustus. The name of the town, the etymologists tell us, has evidently been corrupted from the Roman title Augusta Prætoria; and though, of course, on going to Italy I met with a thousand ancient buildings more worthy of attention than those at Aosta, I shall never forget them, from their being the first of their kind with which I fell in, early in life too, when the young fancy was fully awake to their interest.

Long afterwards, when my curiosity had been fully saturated with such things, I came back to this humble spot with somewhat of the feeling with which we prepare to meet an old friend from whom we have been separated many years. I do not know how it is with others, but certainly it has been my good fortune to find that time, instead of deteriorating, generally improves both things and people in the interval. At all events, such was the effect of experience on the ruins of Aosta, of which there are two specimens, and I recommend no one to pass them by without examination. One is a bit of a huge wall built of those enormous stones so characteristic of the days in which every architectural work seems to have been constructed as if intended to last for ever. The other is a triumphal arch, with sundry traces of very pretty work about it, especially in the mouldings; the whole having about it a genuine air. Both these remains have existed since the time of Augustus Cæsar almost uninjured by anything except the scythe of Time, which has picked a few holes in them.

It is to be presumed, I think, whenever we see a monument which has been preserved for a long course of centuries, that the materials are of no earthly use to any one, otherwise they would have been carried off long ago by the inhabitants, who care for these things only so far as their destruction

may yield them materials for the advancement of their own selfish objects. On this account, if it were wished to erect a monument to endure through all ages, it should be made-not of brass or marble, nor even of freestone-but of the most shapeless stones we could pick up, broken bricks, old bottles, in short, of all sorts of despised rubbish we could lay our hands upon. We should, of course, endeavour, either by the grandeur of the dimensions, or by the beauty of the form, to give it that dignity which is generally sought for through the agency of the valuable materials of which it is made, but which, unfortunately for their durability, bear upon them, in their very nature, as legibly as if the words were carved upon them, "Come and steal me!"

A small incidental circumstance occurred at Aosta, which is so far interesting as it shows the working of natural feelings, as well as natural causes, in places where we are apt at times to fancy such things do not exist, especially when we are provoked. Owing to some blunder on the part of our guides, or more probably on ours, though we threw it on them, we had left the Swiss territory, and entered that of Piedmont, without having duly provided ourselves with passports, and in consequence we had been detained most inconveniently at the frontier. After much delay and trouble, and some ex

pense, we received a provisional permission, as it was called, to proceed as far as Aosta, where, if the commanding-officer of the troops thought fit, after examining us, to let us proceed, well and good; otherwise we were to be sent back into Switzerland, and our tour of Mont Blanc cut short.

Having been stopped at a very incommodious inn, near the bottom of the Italian side of the pass of the Great St. Bernard, we were glad to move away from it at four o'clock, in the most unpropitious of mornings, with all the mountain-tops wrapped in clouds, and the mist flying about amongst the lower hills and valleys in the wildest whirls, cutting against our faces at the corners, and though no rain fell, the dreary dampness rendered our progress anything but agreeable. After descending the mountain, for about five or six hundred perpendicular feet, we gradually emerged from the thick part of the clouds, and got sight of the rich and beautiful valley of Aosta at our feet, matted thickly with vines, and decked here and there with numerous old castles standing out from among grand walnut and other forest trees. While breakfast was getting ready, I stepped to the general's office, where I learned nothing satisfactory, being merely informed that not only I but all my family party must present themselves-an