in dim majesty before you. Is it light or darkness that fills these ravines? It is not light; for a confused and broken image of various objects-woods, crags, knolls, houses-presents itself to the eye. It is not darkness; for these ridges of rock that run down into the ravine are tipped with silver, and the dells that nestle in them are verdant and shining as spring itself.

Approaching Bobbio, two noble trees, one on each side of the road, rise to a great height, and uniting their tops, form a magnificent arch. It is the only gate the little town has. This arch is so lofty as to admit a view of the Barion from top to bottom, hanging, as it were, before you in the arch, like a vast painting set in a frame of foliage. Passing through the arch, you find yourself beneath a covered way of trellised vines. The roof is a rich arabesque of Nature's making, formed of the vineleaf and pendulous clusters of black and white grapes, as fine as I have seen anywhere. Emerging from this open alcove, you are in Bobbio. It runs out in a humble street of white-walled houses, with a few lanes as offshoots, and nearly gains the point where the valley contracts into the savage defiles of Mirabouc.

In this unrivalled amphitheatre sits Bobbio, with its great mountains leaning over it—in summer-time buried in blossoms and fruit, and the goodly shade of the vine, the chestnut, the apple, the cherry, and walnut tree; and in winter, gilded this hour with the dazzling icy gleam of snows, and wrapped the next in the gloom of mist and cloud, through which the voice of warring winds and of thundering torrents may be heard sounding grandly. Turning up a narrow lane, to where a white two-storey house gleamed out from amidst the branches of a mantling vine, Dr Revel and myself entered the manse of Pastor Davyt. We were welcomed by a hearty greeting, and led up stairs into a neat apartment, redolent of the fresh breezes of the Col Julien. In a few minutes a cloth, white as snow on Alp, covered the table, and thereon were set bread, butter, and cheese—the produce of the mountain dairies-and from the orchards and vineyards of Bobbio, a bottle of cherry-water, and one of wine.

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CHAPTER XVI.

Passage of the Col Julien.

Rock and Oath of Sibaud-Chestnut Groves and Farm-Houses-A Look Behind-Lizards and Wild Flowers-Helplessness on Col Julien without a Guide-Illustrative Anecdote-A Traveller in a Fix-A Dinner-The Cathedral Font and the Mountain Runnel -Alpine Herdsmen-View from Summit of Col Julien-Effect of the Mountain Mist-Hill-top Musings-The Pass-DescentValley of Prali-Evening and Rest.

THE day of my first walk to Bobbio was that on which I crossed the Col Julien. Resting an hour in the presbytère, I started at noon. Betwixt La Torre and Villaro we had come up with a countryman of Bobbio. He was a member of the Vaudois Church there; and, of course, well known to Dr Revel, his former pastor. After a few minutes' conversation with him, Dr Revel turned to me and said, "This is your guide." Dr Revel had arranged terms and all with the young man. He had an

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honest face and athletic limbs, and glad was I to have such a conductor across the mountain. He hurried on before us, to be ready against our arrival at Bobbio to start with me for the Col.

The ascent begins a few paces behind Bobbio. You pass the church, with its white gable and square tower; you traverse the gardens of the little hamlet, and then you find yourself beneath the famous rock of Sibaud. We shall have occasion to notice this historic site again. It figures in the story of the Glorious Return; for here the eight hundred encamped after their famous march across the Alps through myriads of foes; and here, with uplifted hands, they swore to abide steadfast in the profession of their faith-to take no spoil for their own private use-to be true to one another-and to establish themselves in their native Valleys, or die in the attempt. This was a transaction precisely similar in its spirit, as in its form, to the "Solemn League and Covenant" which our Puritan and Covenanting forefathers had entered into, a few years before, in Britain, when something like the same perfidious game was being attempted to be played against them which the House of Savoy was now playing against the Vaudois. This was

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called the "Oath of Sibaud ;" and the spot where it was sworn is a ledge of rock, rising a hundred feet or so over the level of the valley, and looking out from amidst the chestnut woods that clothe the lower slopes of the Col Julien.

The day was cloudless, the heat in the valley was great; but the branching arms of the great chestnut trees, amid which our path at the outset lay, sheltered us from the sun. The path, a mere mule-track, ploughed by torrents in winter, and covered mostly with debris, runs in zigzags up the hill, which rises above us in mighty ridges and bold precipitous headlands, crowned with châlets and clumps of great trees. Occasionally we emerge on fields of fine clover. For the woods are not continuous, but alternate with fields of maize and wheat, potatoes, pasturages, and all the various productions which the rich mould on the hill-side, and the abundant water and sun, enable the Vaudois peasant to cultivate in great luxuriance. The farm-houses are frequent, and the path, for hours, winds from one to another, and leads you sometimes past their very thresholds. No one till he ascends these mountains can form an idea how populous they are, and how great