THE ALPS AND THE RHINE.

I.

PASS OF THE SIMPLON, GORGE OF GONDO.

COMING from the warm air of the South, the first sight of the Alps gave a spring to my blood it had not felt for years. Egypt and Palestine I had abandoned, and weary and depressed, I turned as a last resort to the Alps and their glorious scenery. As I came on to Lake Maggiore, I was, as we should say at home, "down sick." A severe cold accompanied with fever rendered me as indifferent to the scenery the evening I approached

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if I were on the confines of a desert. But the morning found me myself again, and the clear lake coming from under the feet of the everlasting Alps, and peeping out into the valley as if to see how the plains of Lombardy looked, was as welcome as the face of a friend. Born myself amid mountains, I had loved them from boyhood. I looked out from our carriage on the Borromean Isles, terraced up in the form of a pyramid from the water, with their dark fringe of cypresses, without one wish to visit them. did not care whether they were an espèce de création," or "a huge perigord pie stuck round with woodcocks and partridges." The soft air revived me, and the breeze that stooped down from the snow summits of the Alps, that glittered far up in the clear heavens before me, was like a new fountain of blood opened m my system. I left the carriage, and wandered off to the quarries of pink granite among the mountains. After listening awhile to the clink of the miner's hammer, far up on the breast of the rock, and gathering a few crystals, I returned to the lake, and passing directly underneath a mountain of stone, from whose summit

workmen were blasting rocks that fell with the noise of thunder into the road, sending their huge fragments over into the lake,rejoined the carriage at a dirty inn. The crystal-like clearness of the water, and the mountains around, reminded me of the wilder parts of the Delaware, where I had hooked many a trout, and thinking they ought to be found on such gravelly bottoms, I enquired of the landlord if I could have trout for dinner. He replied yes, and when the speckled fish was brought on the table, it was like the sight of an old friend. The flesh, however, did not have the freshness and flavour of those caught in our mountain streams. It may have been owing to the cooking, probably it was. After dinner we started up the narrow valley that leads to the foot of the Simplon. It was as lovely an afternoon as ever made the earth smile. Gray, barren pyramids of rock pierced the clear heavens on either side, while the deep quiet of the valley was broken only by the brawling streamlet that sparkled through it. Here and there was a small meadow spot from which the dwarfish peasantry were harvesting the hay. Women performed the office of team and cart. A huge basket that would hold nearly as much as an ordinary hay-cock, was filled, when a woman inserted herself into straps fastened to it, and taking it on her back; walked away with the load.

As it takes twelve good hours to cross the Simplon, travellers are compelled to stop over night at Domo D'Osola, the last village before the ascent commences. I will not describe the dirty town with its smell of garlic, nor the "red-capped," "mahogany-legged," lazy lazzaroni that lounged through the street. Only one thing interested me in it. There is a hill near by called Calvary, with small white buildings stationed at intervals from the bottom to the top. Each of these is occupied with terra-cotta (earthen) figures representing our Saviour in the different stages of his sufferings;—from the trial before Pilate, to the last agony on the cross. Through an iron grating I looked in upon the strange groups, amid which, on the earth-floor, were scattered cents and fifths of cents;-thrown there by the faithful. In one, the ceiling of the building was concave, and painted blue to represent heaven. On this, angels were painted large as life, and represented as hovering over the suffering Christ-while they had-babies and all-white

PASS OF THE SIMPLON, GORGE OF GONDO.

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handkerchiefs in their hands, which they held to their eyes quite à la mode. It did not strike me at first as so odd that they should use handkerchiefs in heaven, as that those beggarly-looking angels could afford such nice white ones.

But the Simplon. Nature, that wore the day before, her loveliest, had now put on her angriest aspect. A more glorious to-morrow was never promised to man, than the sun uttered as he went down at evening amid the Alps. There was not a cloud to dim his brightness, while the transparent atmosphere and the deep blue sky seemed dreaming of anything but clouds and mists. But who can foretell the whim of an Alpine sky! As we entered the mountains the day grew dark, and from the deep gorge that pierced their heart, the mist boiled out like the foam of a waterfall. Clouds veiled the giant peaks around, and the rain came down as if that were its sole business for the day. The torrent had carried away the road in some places, and we rolled slowly over the bed of the stream. At length we entered the gorge of Gondo, one of the most savage and awful in the Alps. This day it was rendered doubly so by the black Alpine storm that swept through it. The road was here squeezed into the narrowest space, while the perpendicular rocks rose out of sight into the rain-clouds on either side, and the fretting torrent struggled through its torn channel far below. The gallery of Gondo, cut 596 feet through the solid rock, opens like a cavern over this gulf. Stand here a minute and look down the gorge. Those perpendicular walls of nature pierce the heavens so high, that but a narrow strip of tossing clouds is visible, as the blast puffs away for a moment the mist that wrapped them in such close embrace. A waterfall is sounding in your ears, covering the breast of the hill with foam, and filling the cavern with the sullen sound of thunder. Torrents leaping from the mountain tops, vanish in spray before they strike the bottom. The clouds roll through the gorge, and knock against the walls that hem them in ; and then catching the down-sweeping gust, spring over their tops, revealing for a moment the head of a black crag far up where you thought the sky to be, and then dashing over its face wrap it again in deeper gloom. All around is horribly wild-the howl of the storm-the hissing of the blast around the cliffs-the roar of countless cataracts, and the hoarse voice of

the distracted waters that rush on, and the awful solitude and strength that hem you in—make the soul stagger and shrink back in unwonted fear and awe. Nature and God seem one-Power and Sublimity their only attributes, and these everlasting peaks their only dwelling-place. I would let the carriage, that looked like a mere toy among these giant forms of nature, disappear among the rolling mist, and then stand on a beetling crag and listen. It was the strangest, wildest music my soul ever bowed to, and the voices that spoke so loudly around me had such an accent and power that my heart stood still in my bosom. I grew nervous there alone, and felt as if I had not room to breathe. then, turning my eye up the gorge, the clouds parted over a smooth snow-field that lay, white and calm, leagues away against the heavens. Oh, it was a relief to know there was one calm thing amid that distracted scene-one bosom the tempest could not ruffle: it told of a Deity ruling serene and tranquil above his works and laws.

when he is in danger.

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As we approached the summit, the snow increased in depth. In one place the road passed directly through an old avalanche cut out like a tunnel. These avalanches have paths they travel regularly as deer. The shape of the mountains decides the direction they shall take, and hence enables the traveller to know They also always give premonitions of their fall. Before they start there is a low humming sound in the air, which the practised ear can detect in a moment. If you are in the path of avalanches when this mysterious warning is passing through the atmosphere, you cannot make too good use of your legs. A few days before we passed, the diligence was broken into fragments by one of these descending masses of snow. As it was struggling through the deep drifts right in front of one of those gorges where avalanches fall, the driver heard this low ringing sound in the hills above him. Springing from his seat, he threw open the door, crying, "Run for your life! an avalanche! an avalanche !" and drawing his knife he severed the traces of the horses, and bringing them a blow with his whip, sprang ahead. All this was the work of a single minute; the next minute the diligence was in fragments, crushed and buried by the headlong

mass.