I got into the valley of the Rhone (2), up out of it again over
the _Nufenen,_ then the moment I was down into the valley of the
_Ticino_ (F), up out of it again (3) over the Crystalline to the
valley of the _Maggia_ (E). Once in the Maggia valley (the top of it
is called the _Val Bavona),_ it is a straight path for the lakes and
Rome. There were also these advantages: that I should be in a place
very rarely visited--all the guide-books are doubtful on it; that I
should be going quite straight; that I should be accomplishing a feat,
viz. the crossing of those high passes one after the other (and you
must remember that over the Nufenen there is no road at all).

But every one I asked told me that thus early in the year (it was not
the middle of June) I could not hope to scramble over the Crystalline.
No one (they said) could do it and live. It was all ice and snow and
cold mist and verglas, and the precipices were smooth--a man would
never get across; so it was not worth while crossing the Nufenen Pass
if I was to be balked at the Crystal, and I determined on the Gries
Pass. I said to myself: 'I will go on over the Grimsel, and once in
the valley of the Rhone, I will walk a mile or two down to where the
Gries Pass opens, and I will go over it into Italy.' For the Gries
Pass, though not quite in the straight line, had this advantage, that
once over it you are really in Italy. In the Ticino valley or in the
Val Bavona, though the people are as Italian as Catullus, yet
politically they count as part of Switzerland; and therefore if you
enter Italy thereby, you are not suddenly introduced to that country,
but, as it were, inoculated, and led on by degrees, which is a pity.
For good things should come suddenly, like the demise of that wicked
man, Mr _(deleted by the censor),_ who had oppressed the poor for some
forty years, when he was shot dead from behind a hedge, and died in
about the time it takes to boil an egg, and there was an end of him.

Having made myself quite clear that I had a formed plan to go over the
Grimsel by the new road, then up over the Gries, where there is no
road at all, and so down into the vale of the Tosa, and having
calculated that on the morrow I should be in Italy, I started out from
Brienz after eating a great meal, it being then about midday, and I
having already, as you know, crossed the Brienzer Grat since dawn.

The task of that afternoon was more than I could properly undertake,
nor did I