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VII.

(RUFINUS.)

Τοῦτο βίος, τοῦτ ̓ αὐτό-κ.τ.λ.

LIFE.

Oh! this is life and nought but this-to live in every pleasure;
Dull care begone, nor mortals rob of life's uncertain treasure.

Now wine is ours, the dance is ours, with wreaths around us gleaming
Of spring-enamoured flowers, while bliss from woman's eye is beaming.
Oh! every joy this moment brings without a shade of sorrow,
And wise is he who can declare what may betide to-morrow.

VIII.

(PARMENIO.)

Αρκεί μοι χλαίνης-κ.τ.λ.

LIFE.

Enough for me this cloak, though homely spun:
Fed on the flowers of song, your feasts I shun:
I hate your wealthy fool-the flatterer's God,
Nor hang I trembling on his awful nod:
Calm and contented I have learned to feel
The blessed freedom of a humble meal.

IX.

(ARCHIAS.)

Ο πρῖν ἀελλοπόδων λάμψας-κ.τ.λ.

ON AN OLD RACE-HORSE.

1.

Eagle-the pride of tempest-footed steeds,
Whose limbs rich ribbons often would adorn,
Crowned at prophetic Delphi for his deeds,
Swift as if rushing wings his feet had borne.

2.

Nemma's boast, that nurse of lions grim:

Of Pisa, Isthmus with its double shore,-
Eagle-the fleet of foot, the strong of limb,

Yields to the yoke that neck which trappings wore.

3.

Collared, not bitted now, with painful moil,

He turns the creaking mill-stone round and round,
Like Hercules, who, after all his toil,

A servile issue to his labours found.

x.

(JOANNES BARBUCALLUS.)

Ναυτίλε, μὴ στήσας δρόμον ὁλκάδος κ.τ.λ.

ON BERYTUS, DESTROYED BY AN EARTHQUAKE.

1.

Stop not thy vessel's course, for sake of me,
Thou sailor, nor unfurl thy bellying sails:
My port is blotted now from things that be,
And over one huge tomb past grandeur wails.

2.

Steer on thy gallant bark, with sounding oars,
To other lands where sorrows may not dwell:
Poseidon frowned; my gods have left these shores;
Ye travellers by land and sea-Farewell,

EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNALS OF AN ALPINE TRAVeller.

On our arrival at the Hotel Royal at Lanslebourg, where in my former journeys to the Mont Cenis I had always found excellent accommodation, our first enquiry was for a guide to accompany us over the Col du Lautaret, and by the valleys of Viu and Lanzo to the Canavais in Piedmont. It had been conjectured by Albanis Beaumont that Hannibal had crossed the Alps by the Lautaret into Italy. This and the interesting letters of the Comte de Mezzenile upon the valleys of Lanzo strongly induced us to attempt this pass, which few, if any, Englishmen had visited.

A guide soon presented himself. We were displeased with his servile manners, so contrary to the independent and usual bearing of a mountaineer; but he said that he knew the road well, having often been there, and that he had capital mules; and to complete his qualifica tions, he said that he was beau frère to Monsieur the Syndic of Bessans, a point upon which he appeared to rest his greatest hope of an engagement. After much hesitation, we decided upon availing ourselves of his services and those of his two mules, and engaged to meet him the next afternoon at Lanslebourg, on our return from the Mont Cenis, where we intended to spend the early part of the day. Our rambles there in examining the old road and the new, detained us until the day had nearly closed. When we reached Lanslebourg, we found our obsequious guide, Pierre Antoine Trag, in alarm, not for our safety, but lest we should have changed our minds and gone on to Susa. He had refused to name any sum for his services, he preferred leaving this to our sense of his merits at the end of the journey. Some time was lost in attaching our baggage, and I protested against the sort of saddle with which my mule was caparisoned. After an assurance that this should be changed at Lans-le-Villiard, by the owner of the mule, for he had borrowed that upon which I rode from a friend, who accompanied him, we started up the valley. It was dark before we reach ed the house of Bernard, the owner

of my mule, at Lans-le-Villiard, where the saddle was changed, and a stirrup cup of excellent wine drank amidst a crowd of villagers. The moon now rose and lit up with a singularly beautiful effect the tops of the mountains, which on our left bounded the valley of the Arc. The glaciers and snow shone brightly against the dark-blue sky, whilst the bases of the mountains upon which they rested were shadowed by those on the opposite side of the valley. Below us, in the depths of the ravines, and in utter darkness, the course of the torrent was heard in the silence of the night. All these impressed us so forcibly with emotions of beauty and sublimity, that the journey was silent, from the disposition to contemplate rather than talk-though irrepressible exclamations of pleasure often burst from us as new and striking effects of chiaroscuro were developed. The delight of our guide, Trag, was of a different character his having caught a couple of Messieurs les Anglais, was to him a triumph, upon which he chattered incessantly to Bernard, interlarding it with compliments to us as braves gens-and to himself as a relative to the chief magistrate of Bessans.

At length we reached the village, and after going up through a narrow street, stopped at folding doors, in a high wall, which apparently enclosed a farm-yard. We were late when we arrived-we knocked loudly, and were admitted by a decent-looking mountaineer, who was introduced to us as Monsieur le Syndic. Bernard and his mule went to find shelter elsewhere, whilst the Syndic beckoned to us to descend by some steps into a low passage. Trag, leaving his mule, led the way with a lamp, and we soon found ourselves in a stable-in which were a cow and a pet sheep-the latter immediately made our acquaintance. Trag put down the lamp on a table, upon which there was a very dirty coarse cloth-a proof to us that this was the salle à manger of such visitors as arrived at this mansion-house of the chief magistrate-the clucking of fowls betrayed, by the dim

light of the lamp, their roosts in one of two filthy sleeping cribs. My friend and I looked at each other oddly-but our surprise was increased when our mule also joined us in our chamber. There seemed to be no other place for the reception of the poor animal-the whole affair was too absurd to leave us serious, and after a hearty laugh, and some time had passed away without the reappearance of Trag or our host, we determined to explore our way to some more habitable part of the house. The lamp helped us to find a little room, which was in fact the kitchen; there we found the Syndic and his wife, Mister Trag's sister, in consultation about disposing of their distinguished guests. We put them at ease in a moment by making ourselves at home, and entreated that they would not feel uneasy about our accommodation. We found that they had a good stock of Grisane, the excellent pipe biscuit of Piedmont; eggs, butter, and cheese, were placed before us. Water was soon boiled, and my friend having found a saucepan, which he scrubbed out with a wisp of hay, threw into it a handful of tea (may his name be blessed, I wish I knew it, who first brought the beverage to Europe!) and in a few minutes we made a delicious infusion, which we would have defied any steeper of Souchong in the world to rival. Our chief difficulty was about cups from which we could drink it. Our host had been in Paris, and had brought with him one precious specimen of Sevres porcelain-kept for show, its use was offered to us-it was aided, however, by a vulgar earthenware pipkin, and from these we made a capital (tea) supper. As a delicacy, some marmot, salted last season, was added, and what could be picked from it we relished; in taste it resembled highly flavoured ham. Our host and his wife, finding us happy and contented, became themselves cheerful; he said that as he had travelled, he knew that our privations under his roof were great, though we submitted to them with good-humour-and he regretted that he could not provide for and accommodate us better.

We learnt from our host much about our intended journey across the Lautaret on the morrow. We found him an intelligent and well

informed man.

We had heard that

he was a famous chasseur, and his anecdotes of chamois hunts beguiled us of some time which our fatigue would have otherwise induced us to devote to sleep. He offered to accompany us to the mountains for two or three days' sport, if we could afford the time; but this tempting offer we were obliged to relinquish. He then advised us to retire, in order to start very early for a long and fatiguing day's journey, and conducted us to his own bedroom, an arrangement which he insisted upon our assenting to, whilst he and madame took possession of (we sup posed) the crib in the stable, to which we had been first introduced. In the room to which we shown three or four children were asleep; the youngest, an infant, was removed, to prevent its disturbing us. Our host then, promising to call us early, left us in possession of his dormitory.

were

My

At four o'clock the following morning, Jean Baptiste Ettienne Garinot "I like to give all the names," says the Vicar of Wakefield-called us as he had promised. friend and I had agreed to ask him to accompany us, for we had gathered enough in the evening's conversation to know that he would be an important acquisition to our party across the mountains. He readily agreed to accompany us, but we could not induce him to make any terms with us for his services. He said that he was not professionally a guide, but he would go with us for the pleasure of the journey and to assist us, and leave any remuneration to our own feelings. Trag adhered to the same resolution; but Bernard drove a bargain with us to receive a Napoleon for the mule and his own services, for he also chose to accompany us, but it was agreed to be only to the summit of the Col de Lautaret.

Master

Having taken tea for breakfast, packed up some Grisane cheese and wine, and settled with Madame Garinot her domestic account, we started at five o'clock, and soon after, leaving the village by the road which descends from the Mont Iseran, we crossed the valley towards Averole, whence the torrent which arises in the Lautaret rushes to its confluence with the Arc. The

morning was fresh and cold. We looked around upon the scenery of the valley of the Arc, which had appeared so mysterious and beautiful the night before, but the charm had vanished; the mountains which bounded the valley had lost their vastness; they were near and defined, and showed neither the characters of form nor magnitude which had presented themselves to our imaginations, by the light of the

moon.

We soon entered the valley of Averole, where snow, glaciers, and vast precipices, came suddenly in contrast with the quiet scenery of the valley of the Arc near Bessans. We crossed the torrent of the Averole, and, ascending its right bank, looked upon the enormous precipices on the opposite side with a feeling of awe. A steep talus, formed by the mouldering for ages of these precipices, had half filled the valley; while the glaciers which hung upon these mountains were seen, as if streaming down each opening or rift which served as a channel. The sterile appearance of the valley led us almost to doubt our finding a village amidst scenes so utterly destitute. A little barley was raised in a few miserable spots brought into cultivation, but so wretched was the situation of the inhabitants, that they had not even the means of dressing these little portions of their soil, for the dung of their cows and sheep was carefully collected to use as fuel. They had no other. The pine forests with which other cold and mountainous regions are favoured, were withheld from them. One formerly existed in the neighbourhood. It was burnt, and the inhabitants of Averole have no means in their dreary winters of obtaining warmth but by using so foul a substitute.

Garinot, who had given us this information, assured us that we should be sensible of our approach to the village, which we soon reached, by the offensive smell of the smoke, and we found in it, as he had described, a community living in a state of squalid misery, for which he had no expression to convey an idea of his horror or his pity. On our way through the narrow lane of the village, we saw many of the women engaged in their filthy

occupation of forming the ordure of their beasts into lumps like turf, and placing them out to dry for their winter store. The syndic advised us to hire here a man whose assistance might be useful in the passage of the glaciers of the Lautaret; but no one could be found, in spite of their misery, to accompany us upon the terms which we offered by the advice of Garinot. Trag winked knowingly, and said we had better be without their aid, which was not necessary. This contradiction puz◄ zled us, but we followed the advice of the latter.

From this valley there are three mountain passes into Piedmont-the Col de Colarin, the Col d'Arnas, and the Col de Lautaret. The first of these is attained by a path which enters a little valley immediately before arriving at the village of Averole, but its course is across very dangerous glaciers. The Col d'Arnas is the shortest, and an active mountaineer would reach Usseglio, the village in the Val de Viu, which was to be the end of our day's labour, in five hours less time than by the pass of the Lautaret, but it was, we were told, dangerous and fatiguing, and utterly impracticable for a mule. My object in passing the Lautaret was to examine it, with reference to Albanis Beaumont's conjectures upon the passage of Hannibal, and to visit the most picturesque of these passes.

Leaving the village of Averole, we descended by a steep path to the torrent, and crossing it began an ascent on the side of the opposite mountain, more steep than many places which I had been told were impracticable for mules. It was really terrific to ascend by a zig-zag path, so abrupt and narrow, that frequently turns were made within two mule lengths of each other, and in some places when not three feet removed from the perpendicular, one mule was thirty feet above the other. Sometimes the aid of the guides was necessary to support or drag up the mules, for it was often so steep that their fore feet were level with their cruppers, and this frightful path overhung precipices of which we could not see the bases, whilst on the opposite side of the ravine enormous glaciers swept down from the crest of the mountain to the depths

of the gorge below us. Across these glaciers, Garinot told us, lay the passage to the Col d'Arnas. He said it was the pass which he chose when going into Piedmont, and he always took advantage of a bright moonlight to travel by night, when the snows were frozen, and the footing firm. It is impossible to imagine a situation of such utter solitude as a traveller by night in those regions.

Having pushed and pulled our mules up the precipitous path, we attained a level terrace, where we rested for a few minutes, over a line of rocks which formed its boundary towards the ravine. The objects above, below, and around us, were in the highest degree impressive. The spot was one we desired to linger in, and would gladly have found an excuse for delay in hunger, but the syndic recommended our waiting until we came to a spot where the mules might feed also. We started, and at the end of an hour's march reached a beautiful mountain pasturage, directly opposite the great glacier de la Roussa. Here we sat on a delightful sward, turned our mules adrift after relieving them from the baggage, and amidst such a glorious Alpine scene ate, with our best appetite, our humble fare, and drank a bumper to those who were far distant, but who cared for, and perhaps thought of us. Whilst we rested, the syndic pointed out to us a flock of seven chamois crossing before us the glacier of the Roussa. These increased our excitement, and, aided by the beauty of the day, and the sublimity of the scene around the place of our repast, left our minds and feelings in a state of which language can convey no idea. Garinot did not allow us to lose time, as he said we had before us a long and fatiguing journey. When we were prepared to start, we found the ground below us so swampy as to be unsafe for the mules, and they were led down carefully by Trag and Bernard to the bed of the torrent, which they forded with difficulty, and then ascended the valley on the other side. We pursued another course, under the guidance of the syndic, and joined them at a ford higher up the valley, where the passage was also dangerous; but we had the help of a goat-herd, a lad of eighteen, and

Garinot now begged that we would secure his assistance, which might be had for half a franc, to the summit of the passage. His absence from his herd was not likely in these regions to be detected, and he assured us we should need his services. What we were to encounter I could not imagine; we were already five in number, but we attended to his wishes, and the lad readily joined

us.

We soon saw before us the moraines of the enormons glaciers which crown the summit of the great chain of the Alps. They formed a part of those awful solitudes which so forcibly impressed me with their grandeur, when I saw them from the Col d'Iseran in the year 1829. The valley now narrowed to a gorge, through which the torrent flowed, bounded by frightful precipices on the right, and on the left masses of rock and stones, which, upon the vast scale of every object around us, scarcely appeared to leave a path between their bases and the torrent. After a short pause, Garinot advised our climbing these rocks instead of going round their bases, but the effort failed. For the mules the difficulty was too great, and there was too much risk of their falling over, or breaking their legs between the stones. With great

care, therefore, they were led down, and here our goat-herd's services were already valuable. We left them to pursue the path by the torrent, whilst we continued our as

cent.

Be

On attaining the summit of the rocks, the scene was one of the most wild and desolate character that could be presented to us. low was the moraine of a boundless glacier, which evidently extended far beyond the bright line which cut against the sky. On our left lay the loose soil of the mountain side, up which we were to find a pathless route. On the right the vast precipices which bounded the ravine that we had left, and which flanked on that side the immense glacier before us. We soon saw our mules with the guides, Trag and Bernard, emerge from the ravine, and approach the moraine, up which, however difficult, the easiest acclivity for the mules presented itself to attain the Col. At this moment Garinot, with the eye of a chasseur, discovered

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