CHAPTER II.

Down the Alps.

Zigzags-Mountain Torrents-Summit of Pass-The Four Great Passes into Italy-St Gothard Pass-Grandeur of the PassTyrolese Alps--Helvetic Alps-Pennine Alps-Cottian AlpsMaritime Alps-True Taste for Scenery Rare-Grandeur of the Alps as seen from Lombardy.

BUT we forget ourselves. The day wears, and before the shadows fall, and the star of eve appears above yonder mountain-crest in the east, we must seek the hospice on the summit. Up then, and let us be going. We have yet an ascent of some hours before us. We are yet a long way from these white hills over-head. In fact, although we have been climbing all day, we seem scarce nearer to them than we did when we started in the morning. To stand on the white strand of the lake and look right up to the mountain's summit, the distance may not seem immense, but try to climb thither, and soon you begin to entertain a truer

notion of the way. You set out with the resolute purpose of not giving in till you have set foot on these gleaming snows. The morning is fresh-the mountain air exhilarates you the pulse beats full and strong-and the step is quick. You drink in ardour from the surpassingly glorious objects around you. You traverse league after league of the long, winding, and gently ascending paths at the bottom of the mountain. You look up. At an awful height above you are still the white summits. You exchange the green valleys-with their orchards and their crags, round which the mantling vine hangs its ripening clusters-for dark pine-forests and narrow thunder-rifted gorges. You press manfully forward and upward. You pass, in long and toilsome succession, ravine after ravine, over which black cliffs lean fearfully, and pine-forests project their solemn shadows, and the torrent makes re-echo with its roar. You wind and climb, expecting that the next turning, or the next reach of the ascent, will land you on the summit, or at least within easy distance of it. You escape, at last, from this labyrinth of rock and wood, and come out upon the grassy shoulders of the mountain, amid its breezes and

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wild flowers and herds. A feeling of despair seizes upon you, for still, hung at apparently the same immeasurable distance above you, are the snows towards which you have been all day climbing. The more you ascend, the higher the mountains seem to rise. You feel that you might as well attempt to scale heaven itself.

But our motto must be "Excelsior”—a right proper motto in all undertakings demanding steady purpose, unflagging perseverance, and heavenward aspirations; as what good and noble enterprise does not? We must pass the summit—we must see Italy. Well then, we begin to lay siege to the mountain, as it were. We now approach it by mighty zigzags, as if it were a fortress, and were to be taken only by stratagem. And a fortress it truly is, where old Winter lies encamped within lines of eternal congealation, and whence he sallies out at times, and makes war upon the nether world, with his squadrons of whirlwinds and snowdrifts, and his artillery of fiery bolts. But we mean not to disturb the old grim warrior, but to pass his territory in the quietest way possible, and no ways to provoke a battle with him.

We approach the summit by a magnificent

MOUNTAIN TORRENTS.

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flight of grand zigzags, each parallel lifting us higher above the mountain ridges, and chasmlike mouths of valleys below, and bringing us perceptibly nearer the great cone of the mountain. The air gets cooler-it grows at last to be like that of a day of fine clear frost in winter. The pastoral character of the uplands ceases, and black rocks take their place-here rising in castellated crags with a powdering of snow, and there leaning in precipices over the path. The stream which at our starting was a full river, thundering over rock or rolling still and slow through meadow, is here, near its source, dwindled to a tiny rivulet. It steals down from the ice above in a thread of silver, and, passing on its way in silence, joins itself to hundreds of rivulets as tiny as itself, as if it courted companions in these solitary wilds. Grown at length to be a torrent, it indulges in all sorts of freaks and sports-it begins to leap headlong over rocks and precipices, and getting into high excitement by its own noise, answers the echoes of its thunder among the hills with ceaseless shouting and never-ending uproar. But here, how soft its flow! You are aware of its presence only by its silvery gleam in the

ravine, as you wind your way beneath these dark cliffs.

"A few steps may bring us to the spot

Where, haply, crown'd with flow'rets and green herbs,

The mountain infant to the sun comes forth,

Like human life from darkness."

the

The silence, how deep! It is like that of night— of still, tomb-like night. In fact, the silence of the stillest night in the world below is nothing to it. There comes here no sound of convent bell, no note of bird, no lowing of herd, no chirp of grasshopper or insect even. It seems as if Egypt's angel had passed over the world, and left you only living man in it; or, rather, as if all earth's tribes were standing mute and silent, waiting, in fearful suspense, for the peal of the archangel's trumpet. A shadowy feeling of mingled solemnity and terror creeps over you. You hasten your steps. At last you are on the summit of the pass.

You are at once thankful and disappointed— thankful that the toil of the ascent is at last accomplished, and disappointed that your path does not lead you higher, and that, after all your climbing, you must rest satisfied with something a good way short of the supreme summit, and that, instead of treading with your foot these glorious