style; and contains one or two gory figures of Christ, similar to those we had previously remarked.

By some means, the inhabitants of this neighborhood have not obtained the credit of being a very industrious community. Indeed the people of the Lower Valais, in general, are regarded as a distinct race from those of the Upper, or eastern part of the canton, near the source of the Rhone. The latter are probably of Teutonic extraction, and speak German: the inhabitants of the Lower Valais, or those who dwell westward of Siders, a place through which we passed between Leuk and Sion, are a mixed race,-supposed to have been originally Celts, Gauls, Burgundians, and Romans. Every one who has the least pretension to education, in this part of the Valais, speaks French; but the language of the inferior class is a compound of French and German, with a mixture of Latin and Italian words. The people are said to be in a state of great ignorance, in consequence of the want of schools; and are very much under the dominion of the Romish priesthood; nor do they by any means make the most of the land on the borders of the Rhone, for the purposes of agriculture, and pasturage. The population of the Upper Valais bear a character, among travellers, in some respects superior to that of their neighbors, for industry, and the love of freedom.

The country of the Valais itself, is remarkable for the diversity of its animal and vegetable productions, and for the variety of its climate: the harvest being earlier in some parts than in others, by three or four months. It is the paradise of botanists, as its Flora contains many rare species; and its valleys and mountains, are the nursery of plants that are seldom to be found, elsewhere, in the same country; and which exist, apart, in different regions of the earth. To the entomologist, the mineralogist, and the geologist, the Valais is scarcely less interesting.

In the fifteenth century, the people of the Upper Valais contended for superiority with those of the Lower, in a bloody war; which ended, after many battles, and much desolation, in the subjugation of the Lower Valaise, by their more powerful neighbors. The restoration of peace to Europe, in 1815, added the Valais, together with Geneva, and Neuchâtel, to the Swiss cantons.

It is remarkable, that while a Romance patois is spoken in the plains and valleys of the Lower Valais, the language of the mountaineers approximates nearer to the German. A similar diversity between the inhabitants of the valleys, and those of the mountains, exist in other Alpine regions.

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LETTER XIV.

Ascent of the Forclas. Trient. The Tete Noire. Savoy; the Valorsine. Romanism. Sight of Mount Blanc. Valley of Chamonix: Glaciers, de Tour, d'Argentière, and Des Bois. Chamonix. Moonlight. Sound of Avalanche. Mont Blanc. Ascents. Ascent of Montanvert. The Mer de Glace. Chamois-hunting. The Bouquetin.

MY DEAR FRIEND :-Before leaving Martigny, it was necessary to determine which of the two routes should be taken, over the mountains, into Savoy ;-that of the Col de Balme, or the Tête Noire. The former is regarded as the most desirable for the view it furnishes of Mount Blanc; while the latter was said to be in itself, by far the most picturesque and interesting course. The strength of our party, however, was to be considered; and as the road over the Col de Balme was pronounced by all the travellers, whose opinion we had opportunity of asking, to be the more steep and fatiguing, the Tête Noire was fixed on; and to cross this pass we started in good time in the morning, three being mounted on mules, each attended by a guide.

Not far from Martigny, is the cross at which the road turns off to the left, leading into Italy, over the great St. Bernard, This mountain is celebrated for the noble dogs which are there reared, for the purpose of extricating the lost traveller from the dangers of the snow. These dogs, which seem to be great favorites with everybody, are often seen, both in the valley of the Rhone, and in the canton of Bern.

We were now ascending the steep Forclas; which rises from the valley, to the height of nearly four thousand seven hundred feet above the sea. The finest chesnut, walnut, apple, and pear-trees, lined each side of the narrow road, which was also bordered with many cottages and gardens. The morning was very hot, and the dry weather had rendered the road dusty; the flies tormented the mules greatly; and they were glad to walk very fast up the steep ascent ;-which rendered the journey to a pedestrian very fatiguing.

The views of the Rhone-valley, from some parts of the ascent of the Forclas, were characterized by peculiar grandeur. Martigny lay stretched out below; and the silvery Khone appeared winding amidst an amphitheatre of mountains, with an empurpled back-ground of higher Alps, crested with the purest snow; among these was the Gemmi, towering proudly above the road we had traversed the day before, which now looked like a whitish line drawn along the valley; while the whole

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THE FORCLAS. TRIENT.

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scene possessed a vast and solitary magnificence. We reached the highest part of the passage, after travelling about three hours, and a cold blast from the glaciers of Savoy, produced a wintry chill that was perfectly contrasted with the dust, and the oppressive heat, of the sun-exposed ascent.

Another half-hour brought us to Trient, a hamlet situated in a deep gorge ;—and now some of the snows of Savoy greeted the eye. Not far from this little hamlet, a road leads off to the left, over the Col de Balme; but the path to the Tête Noire descends into a small valley, surrounded by mountains, with a hoary peak, the parent of the glaciers of Trient, part of an immense chain of ices, enthroned at the south-west end. At the cottage-inn a delicious repast was soon in readiness, consisting of bread, milk, honey, coffee, potatoes, butter, and, according to the ancestral custom, some old family cheese: two or three interesting little children, also, presented some of the flowers of their Alpine vale. The master of the house, on being asked the exact time of day, ran to a rising ground before his door, and said it was noon by the mountains,' whose shadows here answer as a natural dial.

The road now began to wind along the gloomy and romantic pass of the Tête Noire; which is truly grand, solemn, and imposing. A woody ledge, with an awful, dark, and precipitous ravine, on the right, in the depth of whose shades could be traced the busy mountain-stream, led into a labyrinth of rocks and wood. The precipices were sometimes frightful; and the torrent foamed along their bases, at the depth of five or six hundred feet but the worst places were guarded by a rude parapet of poles. Above-head were enormous masses of pinecrowned rocks, heaped one on another, as if by some tremendous convulsion, forming gloomy defiles, never irradiated by the sun-beams. The great quantity of wood gives to this pass a character decidedly dark and umbrageous; and the traveller is, sometimes, immediately under the roots of the loftiest pines; while, below his feet, lie shelving forests composed of trees of equal height.

The mules appeared quite at home in the most rugged and awkward parts of this extraordinary road; and the guides seemed to have a perfect mastery of their business, and were at leisure frequently to gather the wild strawberry, or the Alpine blossom.

At one spot, a gallery has been blown through the solid rock for a distance of many yards; and, at the approach to this archway, the crags impended fearfully over the path; while, on the right, was a yawning gulf of dark, perpendicular rocks, fenced with a frail, rustic railing: on the other side of the narrow, interposing valley, were enormous mountains. Further on, we passed the rock of Balmarussa, a huge detached frag

ment, which an English Countess bought of the government of the Valais, in 1821,—it is said, for three hundred francs, in order to have it marked with her name; which is accompanied with a very sentimental inscription, in such doggrel English, that it must certainly have been written by a foreigner.

The road was often so rocky, and so close to deep ravines, or so artificially patched by trunks of trees, somewhat loosely laid along, that it appeared dangerous to ride,—or rather to attempt to spring, and scramble along; and those of the party who were mounted, got off and walked; as the worst places seemed much less formidable on foot. It is no easy task to convey an accurate idea of the changing scenes of this remarkable pass;—but one uniform character pervades every part of it :—it is a mazy labyrinth, threaded by a circuitous winding path of many miles, traced as in mid-air, between heights and depths; among rocks, pine forests, and glacier streams; while the whole scene is so darkly shaded, as to have an aspect of impressive solemnity.

In the exit of the passage, and on the border of the Valorsine, you come to a spot marked by those convulsions, which so frequently happen in these elemental regions,-by means either of avalanches of snow, or of rocks, or the fury of those sudden torrents, which, at some seasons, sweep with irresistible violence down the mountains. Opposite to the path, many fine trees had been torn up by the roots, and scattered in every direction, on the mountain-slope, owing to the recent fall of an avalanche.

Having left the jungles and ledges, the shady glens, the dark deep abysses, and the over-hanging crags of the gloomy Tête Noire, the traveller enters a sylvan scene, exactly like an English copse, with a greensward path. The vale of Valorsine lies before him, and he passes the fall of the Eau Noire, a stream that flows from the broad and lofty mountain culled the Buet, on the other side of the valley. An arch thrown across the road, now announced our entrance into Savoy, part of the dominions of the King of Sardinia.

The wild and wintry valley of Valorsine is sometimes choked up with snow to a late period of the spring; and is singular, in a country where all is so remarkable, for its mixture of the picturesque and the wild,-the waterfall, and the frowning rock, and for the ravages of the avalanche,—which have sometimes threatened to bury the little church and village of Valorsine beneath the falling mountains of snow. This neighborhood, too, has been thought to exhibit one of the rare cases, among the Alps, of volcanic agency; but the appearances are considered by many to be equivocal.

Throughout the whole of this day's journey, might still be witnessed the sedulous care, with which the Catholic church

associates the rites and symbols of her worship with every variety of nature's scenes. All along the road over the Forclas, and through the valleys,-excepting the wildest parts of the Tête Noire, there were constantly, either crosses, or little chapels, containing a Christ, a Mary, or a saint; and in several of them it was inscribed, that the Bishop of Sion had granted thirty days' indulgence to all who should say five pater-nosters, and five ave-marias, at these sacred stations! This meritorious act, is supposed to diminish the number of days, during which purgatorial pains are to be endured, by those who do not die in mortal sin :-no wonder that so many devotees are seen counting their beads, and kneeling before these shrines! What other practical tendency can the doctrine of indulgences possess, than that of proving an opiate to the conscience, and a license to sin?

It is not surprising, that so impious an assumption of power as that which is exhibited by the church of Rome, in pretending to remit the punishment due to sin, should exemplify itself in flagrant violations of all the rules of morality :—it was this that was a main occasion of the Reformation by Luther.

Some parts of the Valorsine exhibit much cultivation, and there were considerable quantities of flax growing. Toward the south, on the approach to the termination of the valley, hardy-looking cattle were grazing on the rocky pastures, with bells on their neck. This appendage is commonly attached to cows, goats, and sheep, in these Alpine valleys, which are enlivened with this wild music; and the herdsman is led, by the sound, to the spot where the wanderer may have strayed, The scene here becomes strikingly wild and dreary; and the wind felt exceedingly cold, as it blew, in a westerly direction, from the ices of Chamonix. On this side of the Valorsine, rise the mountains of Buet, Loggia, and Bérard.

What was most interesting in the passage through this valley, and that which all had been anxiously looking forward to, was the announcement from one of our guides, when we were near Valorsine, Le Mont Blanc !' the singularly white summit of which now appeared on one side of the end of the valley, above the huge mountains that are piled around this King of all the Alps. Much as the traveller may dwell, for weeks, on the thought of seeing this mountain, a thrill of enthusiasm comes over him on first beholding it,-at the idea that he is gazing on the highest point of earth in all Europe.

The first sight of Mont Blanc,-from the Valorsine, at least, -scarcely equals the expectations that we are accustomed to associate with it. Excepting the extreme whiteness of its snows, its effect, from this point, is not remarkably striking; its head being rounded, and some of its satellite mountains appearing