o one of unusual brilliancy. We
began to ascend by a path cut in the rock of the mountain, having on our
left an escarpment of limestone several hundred feet high, and on our
right a deep gorge, with a white foaming torrent at its bottom. The
frontier chain passed, we descended into a rich valley, with a fine
stream flowing through it, and the poor town of Les Echelles hiding from
view in one of its angles. These noble valleys are sadly blotted by
filth and disease. The contrast offered betwixt the noble features of
nature and the degraded form of man is painful and humiliating. Bowed
down by toil, stolid with ignorance, disfigured with the goitre, struck
with cretinism, the miserable beings around you do more to sadden you
than all that the bright air and glorious hills can do to exhilarate
you.

The valley where we now were was a complete _cul de sac_. It was walled
in all round by limestone hills of great height, and the eye sought in
vain for visible outlet. At length one could see a white line running
half-way up the mountain's face, and ending in an opening no bigger than
a pigeon-hole. We slowly climbed this road,--for road it was; and when
we came to the diminutive opening we had seen from the valley below, it
expanded into a tunnel,--one of the great works of Napoleon,--which ran
right through the mountain, and brought us out on the other side. We now
traversed a narrow and rocky ravine, which at length expanded into a
magnificent valley, rich in vines and fruit-trees of all kinds, and
overhung by lofty mountains. On this plain, surrounded by the living
grandeur of nature, and the faded renown of its monastic and
archiepiscopal glory, and half-buried amid foliage and ruins, sits
Chamberry, the capital of Savoy.

At Chamberry our route underwent a change. Beauty now gave place to
grandeur; but still a grandeur blended with scenes of exquisite
loveliness. These I cannot stay to describe at length. The whole day was
passed in winding and climbing among the hills. We toiled slowly to rise
above the plains we had left, and to approach the region where winter
spreads out her boundless sea of ice and snow. We followed the
magnificent road which we owe to the genius of Napoleon. The fruits of
Marengo are gone. Austerlitz is but a name. But the passes of the Alps
remain. "When will it be ready for the transport of the cannon?"
enquired Napoleon respecting the Simplon road. War is a rough pioneer;
but without such a pi