eyes, we required no argument to convince us of the imminent deadly perils that await adventurers in their near approach to the object, which extreme curiosity, or daring ambition, prompts their attempt to reach.

At ten o'clock, we left the summit of the Col-de-Balme, and began to descend into the Valais; passing some deep hollows filled with snow, which we afterwards observed lying in patches close to our path. In half an hour we reached the Chalets of the Herbagères, two or three insulated cabins; one of which we entered, and there regaled ourselves on some of the richest and most delicious milk I ever tasted: nor should I have objected to add to this excellent beverage a slice of the mountaineers' bread, but that it was too black, heavy, and sour for me. The inhabitants of the chalet, four athletic herdsmen, of rather ferocious appearance, but by no means repulsive in behaviour, were occupied in making cheese. A large iron boiler over a fir-wood fire contained the produce of the preceding night's milking, which two of them were watching and stirring; whilst the others appeared equally busy with their press, viz. three or four large flat stones laid on the top of the cheese. They make a great deal of this article here from the middle of June to the end of September, when they generally remove with their cattle into the neighbouring vallies.

After a painful march through a continued forest of larches, driving our mules before us all the way (for the path is so dangerously steep as to render even the tiresomeness of walking preferable to such riding), we found ourselves once more in the village of Trient. The

*"A sort of wooden houses, where cheese and butter are made in the mountains."-Rousseau.

Hh

descent had occupied somewhat more than an hour and a half; and before we had reached the torrent that rushes so furiously along this deep and secluded valley, the extreme heat of the weather, added to the fatigue of stepping several thousand paces, from one huge stone to another, down a path which takes every direction but the straight one, had disposed us to put up very quietly with the place of entertainment for man and mule that first offered. Our guide, for reasons best known to himself, stopped at a cottage far less commodious and cleanly than the one at the Tête Noire extremity of the village: in spite of which I made as hearty a meal on the fare set before us, as persons under such circumstances generally do, when

"Good digestion waits on appetite, and health on both."

66

With Mr. H. however, it was otherwise. An invalid, he required rest more than refection. He had moreover been subjected to an annoyance, which as a merciful man," and consequently "merciful to his beast," went much more nearly to his heart than the fate of being served with an indifferent breakfast. The matter deserves explanation as a caution to travellers. Mr. H.'s mule, during our journey to Chamouny, had lost two of its shoes; and the fellow who attended us had taken no care whatever to replace them. The gross neglect was not discovered till this morning on our reaching Argentière, at which place search was made in vain for a shoeing smith. Our guide at once made his own case worse, and evaded our proposal to go back, by roundly asserting that there was not such an artificer in all Chamouny. It only remained for us therefore to proceed, as we did, in con

stantly excited but unavailing anger against this Martigny sot; to the unavoidable distress of the crippled animal; and with scarcely less of danger to the person of my esteemed companion, than of outrage to his characteristic humanity.

Pursuing our journey over the Forclas, from which, favoured by the transparency of the atmosphere, we enjoyed, if possible, a still more brilliant view of the surrounding Alps than on the former occasion, we reached Martigny at half-past two in the afternoon.

From this point we had contemplated making the usual visit to the celebrated Convent on Mount St. Bernard. But the exertion requisite in these excursions, had already proved unfavourable to the then indifferent state of my friend's health. And it is not to be termed a sacrifice which I made, but a satisfaction which I experienced, in relinquishing this object of curiosity, though now so completely within my reach, rather than absent myself, at such a moment, from one so richly entitled in every respect to my grateful and attentive consideration.

On our return from Mont Blanc we were accompanied by a young English Gentleman, whom it was fortunately in our power to accommodate with the use of our third mule. We met each other for the first time on the glaciers of Mont Blanc, and parted on the banks of the Rhoneperhaps I might not be warranted in saying, with mutual regret; yet unquestionably that feeling was, at our separation, strong in me, to whom his intelligent conversation, evincing a mind "much elder than his looks," his cheerfulness of spirits, bis courtesy of manners, and amiableness of

disposition, had rendered his society truly welcome and agreeable.

We stopped no longer at our resting-place than was necessary for the purposes of personal comfort and refreshment. Whilst at the dinner table of our inn, we were accosted by a middle-aged woman wearing a long gown of coarse dark cloth, and having a medal and small reliquary suspended from her neck, a scallop shell on her hat, and a staff in her hand. Thus dressed in a pilgrim's weeds, she asked alms of us, pour l'amour de Dieu. According to her own account, this poor creature had been trudging to the "Holy City," and got thus far on her way back again from Rome to her native Spain.It was one of the few circumstances that had happened to remind us of its being the Jubilee year of the "mother and mistress of all other Churches, out of which (says LEO) there is NO salvation!"

At half-past four we finally left Martigny, passing close to the commanding site of its ancient episcopal castle.The Dranse, which we pass immediately on quitting the town, washes the foot of the lofty precipice on which this

* "I do not know (says Lord Byron) how other men feel towards those they have met abroad; but to me there seems a kind of tie established between all who have met together in a foreign country, as if we had done so in a state of pre-existence, and were talking over a life that has ceased.” See original letter in Blackwood's Magazine for September, 1825.—In the kind and friendly spirit of this observation (which redounds so much the more to the credit of the departed Nobleman, as it emanated from his pen in the unostentatious openness of private correspondence), I would add, that should these pages, falling at any time under Mr. L. P.'s eye, remind him of this day's proceedings, he may peruse them with the assurance that one at least of his fellow-travellers over the Col de Balme, cherishes the hope of renewing in Old England the pleasant acquaintance formed at Chamouny.

decayed fortress stands, and rushes to its confluence with the Rhone, in a wide and roaring torrent. We soon after passed over the stream of our old friend with a new face, the Trient. Its waters here betray the dingy complexion of the soil, whence, through split rocks and gloomy dells, they descend to this lower valley, bearing a copious presentation of dark waves to the same great treasury, the Rhone.

Being, if the expression is allowable, a cascade-fancier, always ready to feast my eyes on the delightful varieties exhibited by those peculiar enrichments of mountain scenery, I had promised myself a great treat in seeing the fall of the Salanche, celebrated throughout Europe under the denomination of the Pisse-vache. But either all the pictures and prints of this cascade are rank flatterers, or we were not happy in our season of visiting it. The water issuing from a narrow chaunel which it has furrowed in the perpendicular rock, falls from a height of between two and three hundred feet. So says the Guide-aux-etrangers. Instead however, of that grand aquatic column which the remembrance of graphic illustrations had prepared us to look out for half a league at least before we reached the spot, we perceived a very scanty supply poured forth from a shrub-encompassed cleft; and this was spread by the effect of its deep vertical descent in a thin veil of spray over the rock. It was beautiful, but not so imposing as several others we had already seen. A view of the upper fall offered itself to us in passing the village of Mieville. But the cliffs, above that from which the first torrent is hurled, are so enormously high as to make the lower fall dwindle greatly in a comparison of relative heights. This part of the valley wears a pitiable aspect of sterility